Spiky Hair

Eric is entering the phase where he wants his hair "spiky". This is a picture of him after his bath yesterday. I told him that I would put gel in his hair to spike it up. He liked the idea and asked if I could make it a "mohawk". The hair on the back of his head is too short to actually make a "mohawk", but I did what I could on the top of his head. Apparently he and a few of his friends at school like this hair style and have gotten in trouble for making a mess in the bathroom because of all the water they use to get their hair to stand up and be "spiky".

He got his hair cut today, so the "spikes" are a little shorter. I think he looks better with short "spikes" anyway, and his hair will stand up easier and for a longer period of time with shorter hair.

This makes me wish I had a picture of when Alex was in this phase around this age. He got in trouble at school too, except he and his friends used the hand soap to make their hair spiky instead of just water. Ah, memories.

Monthly Lunch Date

Eric's monthly art class is right after lunch, so we've developed this routine where I first get him lunch at Wendy's and bring it to him. He and Natalie both like the spicy chicken nuggets and Frosties there. Natalie gets the chocolate and Eric gets the vanilla. Eric isn't always a big eater, but he can usually finish off ten of those spicy chicken nuggets pretty quickly. Of course, he has to get every last drop of that Frosty.

The school enacted this policy last year where parents and kids eating lunch together have to sit in a separate area. That's actually fine with me because when I used to sit with their class, the other kids would want to talk to me too, and Eric and I wouldn't focus so much on each other. The drawback to sitting with just Eric is that he's eating and therefore not talking. He usually smiles at me a lot, as if to say, "I have nothing to say about my day, but thanks for bringing me lunch!" I try to get him to tell me about his day, but he has a hard time describing it.

Yesterday I decided that I would take a picture of us both trying to raise one eyebrow. It's sort of an inside joke in my family. Patrick can't raise only one eyebrow without using his hand to hold down the other one, but I can, so we joke about the look I give to him or the kids where I raise one eyebrow. Eric can also raise one eyebrow, but when he does it, he looks so serious that the sight of him doing it makes me laugh, so this was the only picture of the four pictures that I took where I look somewhat serious also. Of course I realized that it's easier to see the eyebrow raising in a video than to see that it's raised in a still picture. You can also see all my eye wrinkles too well in this photo. Oh well. We had fun trying to get this picture.

April Art a la Carte

Today, Eric had his monthly art class, called Art a la Carte. This month's theme was Mexican Folk Art. This is the bulletin board example of what the art they made in class.

They started with a purple-colored circular piece of construction paper and a flat styrofoam circle covered with aluminum foil. They first made a radial design in the aluminum foil circle to mimic designs in metal in some pieces of Mexican Folk Art. They then used two different sizes of paper plates to outline the concentric circles then they colored in patterns of their choosing with colors of their choosing.

Most of the kids chose very bright colors, some of them with contrasting colors and some with similar colors. One boy used mostly shades of blue, and it took the outlining in black to be able to see what the actual design was. Many of the girls chose pink as one of their colors. Another boy used similar shades of orange and red that almost looked like the same colors. As usual, most of the kids had strong feelings about what colors and patterns they wanted to use.

This is Eric with his artwork. I would have chosen much brighter colors, but he made his own choices and this piece is all his work. The kids spent a lot of time coloring in their designs, and some didn't actually finish. Eric, for example, was supposed to fill in all of the purple-colored paper background with oil pastel, but he didn't really have time to do the extra coloring before the teacher started picking up their artwork to put away. One of the boys seemed satisfied with drawing his design and didn't really feel like coloring more than half of his design in, despite repeatedly being told to keep coloring.

It's hard to appreciate in this photo, but Eric filled in his middle foil section with a heart with arrows coming out of it, and then a scalloped line around that--similar to what the teacher had used as an example during class.

As usual, I enjoyed helping out with the class almost as much as the kids enjoyed doing the art work. Only one more art class to go this school year. I'm so glad that Eric is still at an age and stage of life where he enjoys seeing me at his school, because I enjoy being there.

Soccer Saturday

Eric had a soccer game this past Saturday at 8am. Only two players from his team showed up (white team), but eight players showed up for the opposing team (red team), so the coaches took three of the players from the other team and put them on Eric's team. Because they were wearing the opposite color, the coaches put pennies on them.

Notice Eric's stance in this first photo. He kept putting his hands behind his back. He can't run as well with his hands behind his back. He also did his usual routine of following behind everyone else running after the ball. I know that's what happens in this age group, but sometimes we get a little frustrated watching that as parents.

This is Eric doing a goal kick. I think this is hilarious. Alex tried to show him how to kick harder and farther a few weeks ago, but Eric wouldn't or couldn't do what Alex showed him. At least Eric seems to be enjoying himself and he's getting lots of exercise running back and forth across the field.

Patrick and I asked Eric what his favorite sport so far is. At first he said that he didn't really like any of them better than the rest. He then said swimming. He meant that he loved swimming when he gets to play, though, and not swim team swimming. Maybe we need to try some other sports, like gymnastics or hockey?

Party Party

We decided to go small for Eric's birthday party this year. Last year we invited his whole class and only two kids came. One of our neighbor friends also came, and only a couple of others even bothered to RSVP.

It all started when Eric mentioned that the movie Rio 2 was coming out on the weekend after his birthday. One of his classmates had a movie party a couple or so months ago, so I asked Eric if he wanted to do the same thing and invite his friends to see a movie. He liked the idea. Because Rio 2 didn't come out until yesterday and the show times weren't available until then, we couldn't plan the exact time, so we decided to have the kids meet at our house 1100 and we would take them to the movie. Although we could have taken two cars, it made sense to limit it to one carload of kids, since Eric's friends would want to ride with him and not in a second car.

Eric invited four of his classmates, and thankfully, all of them came. The first two arrived at the same time. Eric had the biggest smile on his face and he said, "This is the first time I've had friends over." I realized then that Eric has never had his school friends over to our house. He has had a couple of neighborhood friends over before. He also remarked that "all of the people I invited came to my party". I was so relieved, because last year was rather sad with only two classmates at his party.

The boys played for a bit upstairs in the game room. There was a lot of sword/lightsaber play as well as Nerf guns. There was also a lot of "pretend" this and that. Patrick went out and got some pizza, and the boys ate lunch. One of Eric's friends had a soccer game at 11am and didn't arrive until about noon. He ate when he got there then he also went upstairs to play. At 1pm, we left the house to go to the 1:30pm movie.

This first picture is a sort of bird's eye view of Eric with his snack pack at the movie theatre. It would have been cheaper to buy a large bucket of popcorn and then dole out the popcorn into smaller containers that they provide at the movie theatre. All the kids wanted drinks, however, so that wouldn't work. They all wanted blue Icees and it wouldn't have been right for them to have to share.

The boys were pretty loud in the theatre before the movie, but they did settle down for the most part. It was nice to hear them giggling and enjoying the movie. Of course they all had to drink their Icees until the very bottom and that slurping was a little loud.

After the movie I tried so hard to get a picture of all five of them holding hands as we left the theatre, but there was always one boy trailing behind everyone else. We went to Baskin-Robbins after the movie, and I tried to get a picture of them crowding around the ice cream case, but every time I was about to take a picture, one of them turned around to ask a question. Oh well. I did get a picture at home with swords, lightsabers, Nerf guns, and even a Thing fist. Most of the weapons are obstructing their faces, but it's pretty tough to get seven-year-old boys to stay still for very long. I'm only showing these photos because I didn't get this blog post okayed by all the parents first and these photos don't show any faces.

All the boys got The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ice cream except for Eric who opted for Daquiri Ice. They all remarked on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 poster advertising the ice cream and the movie coming out on May 2nd. They all said very loudly that they wanted to go see that movie. As soon as we got home at 4pm, the parents arrived to pick them up almost all at the same time. Eric had a lot of fun, and besides being loud, this party was tiring but doable again.

Some other observations are listed below:
--At this age, the kids still use booster seats (which we got from the parents when they were dropped off), and three booster seats side-by-side in the back row of the van is a tight fit.
--I never imagined that seven-year-old boys would be singing "Let It Go" from the movie Frozen, but they were, and it was very entertaining. They also sang the Olaf song from the same movie as well as a selection of other songs. Two of the boys were especially enjoying the singing.
--Eric is very compliant when I try to wipe stuff off his face, like ice cream. The other boys were not so cooperative, and since I'm not their mom, I didn't push the issue.
--Eric is noticeably shorter than the other boys. When we were in his class on Wednesday bringing doughnuts, he was noticeably shorter than most of the girls also.
--Five boys was enough--any more would have been hard to keep track of, especially at a movie theatre and in the parking lot.

Family Drinks

As I stated in my post yesterday, when Eric chose to go to Starbucks for his birthday breakfast, the whole family wanted to go too. The kids all wanted to go in my car. Patrick took a separate car because after breakfast, I was going to take Eric to school and then Natalie to school. Patrick took Alex home to finish getting ready for school, then he took Alex to school.

We all have our favorite drinks (and food) at Starbucks. Starting from the left hand side, Patrick likes the Mocha Frappucino with nonfat milk and no whipped cream. I like the Hazelnut Frappucino with nonfat mil and no whipped cream with drizzle all over. (A lot of people in my career field drink lots of coffee, but I always joke that I don't like coffee, but I like dessert. Those frappucinos are basically desserts, after all.) Natalie likes the Double Chocolatey Chip Frappucino with no whipped cream. Alex and Eric both like the Vanilla Bean Frappucino with caramel drizzle all over. I got them the Grande size since they were sharing, and Eric usually doesn't get whipped cream, but Alex likes the whipped cream. Eric used to like whipped cream when he used to get the Strawberries and Cream Frappucino, but Natalie convinced him that the whipped cream didn't taste good, so now he doesn't usually want it.

We all have our favorite food there, too. Patrick likes to get the Bacon Gouda Breakfast Sandwich, and so does Alex. I usually order that also, but I was going to go exercise after dropping the kiddos off at school, so I didn't have anything to eat. Natalie loves their Marble Loaf and Old-Fashioned Doughnut. Eric never goes to Starbucks unless he can have the Blueberry Scone. He also likes to take bites out of anyone's Bacon Gouda Breakfast Sandwich, if we let him, and he had pieces of Patrick's and Alex's sandwiches yesterday. Alex usually also likes to order a selection of their other pastries. Yesterday he got their new Ham and Cheese Savory Square.

At that time of the day (about 7am), when most people are running in and out of Starbucks on their way somewhere else, it was nice that the whole family was sitting around one table, having breakfast together. Even at home, because of the kids' different school start times (and therefore different wake-up times), we usually don't eat together for breakfast. It was really nice that we got to eat together for breakfast on Eric's birthday.

Happy 7th Birthday, Eric!

Today is Eric's 7th birthday. For those who are interested in the details of his birth, that can be found HERE. I took the day off originally because Eric was supposed to have his monthly art class today, but they changed that to next week. I went ahead and kept this day off so I could do some special things with Eric today.

I often try to do something special for all the kids for breakfast when I have the day off. Usually that involved my making something, but today, Eric chose to go to Starbucks for breakfast. When Natalie and Alex heard that, they said they wanted to go too. I'll describe that in more detail in a separate blog post tomorrow.

A couple of weeks or so ago, I asked Eric if he wanted me to bring cupcakes or cookies to school on his birthday so he could share them with his classmates. He said, "Well, what about donuts?" I laughed, because of the way he asked and because he obviously loves donuts.

I wanted something more special than bringing boxes of donuts to school, and I knew Krispy Kreme made "donut cakes", so when Eric and I were at Krispy Kreme this past Sunday, I looked at their book of donut cakes and Eric picked out this specific one just because he wanted the birthday hat. They even included an extra hat so he could wear it. It also has cars and noisemakers. Unfortunately, they didn't include enough of the cars or noisemakers for everyone in the class to get one, so we didn't give those out. We had plenty of kids asking about them, though.

Patrick and I took the donut cake to Eric's school at 2:15pm in the afternoon. His teacher wisely chose the end of the day so we could sugar up the kids and then send them home to their parents. Eric's favorite donuts are the chocolate iced ones, but he agreed to make the donut cake half glazed and half chocolate iced. The minimum amount of donuts was three dozen--plenty for his class, but not enough for more than one per child. There were also plenty of kids asking if they could have a second donut. We decided that the other parents would probably not appreciate their children having more than one donut, so we held it to one donut per child.

Eric's teacher also had him stand up on a chair so he could be higher than everyone else, and then all the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to him. He was so excited! After the donuts, they watched a short movie about animals and how they move around, then we took Eric home instead of having him take the bus (his choice).

Once all the kids got home, Eric opened his presents. We gave him a Lego Ninjago set and a book about the characters of The Lego Movie. We then went out to dinner at Chili's--Eric's choice. He had the Mac and Cheese kids' meal there like he has at pretty much every restaurant we go to nowadays, although Chili's does offer a mandarin orange side dish, and he really loves those, so that's probably why he chose Chili's.

Interestingly, he chose Chili's for this birthday dinner last year also, and just like last year, he chose to go to Baskin-Robbins for dessert. He had the Rainbow Sherbet, and so did Natalie. He had a little time to play on the iPad at home before going to bed. We also got some birthday phone calls. I asked him when I was tucking him into bed if he felt any different being seven years old. He said yes but he couldn't explain it. After talking with him a bit, he said that he basically felt the same as when he was six except that he was seven. What?? I guess that's what a seven year old would answer to such a question.

Back to Natalie's Back

This is Patrick guest posting for Melanie again. Natalie's back has still been bothering her, it is now over 2 months. Last week I took her back to the sports medicine doctor and then to have an MRI on her back. The good news is that the damage is all to her muscles, there is no damage to her spine or to any of the discs in her back. The bad news is that it is going to take a while before that damage is repaired. The doctor ordered physical therapy twice a week for 6-7 weeks and will want to see her again next week. The doctor also warned me that sometimes this type of pain might require some additional medication.

Yesterday Natalie had her first visit to the physical therapist. After a lengthy discussion and examination of her movement the therapist "realigned" her hips and did a number of exercises with Natalie to help strengthen her core and, ideally, help her muscles recover. I think she was a bit shy and timid at the therapists, but I believe she will warm up to it. If nothing else it does give her some physical activity which she has been craving. She isn't thrilled about having daily "boring" exercises, but if it gets her swimming sooner, she will do them.

The long break from swimming clearly has her feeling down. She got to spend a lot of time with one of her best friends this past weekend and I think that helped cheer her up a bit. We are concerned by her mental state, the long break from being physically active is really wearing her down. We try to keep her focused on getting better and remind her that she has plenty of time to get back into swimming. She is still an active girl though. During a special field trip last Friday she spent time playing laser tag- "I didn't run Papa, I just stood still and shot at people." I keep reminding her to be careful and "stay smart" but it is very difficult for her to restrain herself sometimes. We will see what a few more trips to the physical therapist does for her.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Ice Cream

I took these photos last Friday, but I didn't feel like posting them until today. Patrick, Eric, and I went to Baskin-Robbins. We used to go every week but it's been a few weeks since we went. There was a poster advertising their April Flavor of the Month--The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ice cream, complete with a picture of the superhero. The description said, ""Get tangled up in red and blue vanilla flavored ice cream with a dark chocolate flavored web and popping candies that combine to make a superhero of a flavor!" Eric was instantly interested in having some. He didn't even look at his usual Rainbow Sherbet. He wanted The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ice cream.

He was so adorable that I had to take a couple of pictures of him. He is my only child that smiles sweetly for me whenever I want to take a picture. Sometimes the smile is a little cheesy, but I love this smile. You can even see some of the blue color on his lips and teeth already, even though he had just started eating it. Later, his lips and teeth were considerably more blue, or maybe it would be more accurate to call them purple. After all, red and blue mixed together make purple, which Eric stated as he was mixing the two colors together with his spoon before eating it.

We asked Natalie if she wanted to go to Baskin-Robbins also, but she just wanted to stay home. I told her, "What have you done to my daughter?!!" After all, Natalie LOVES ice cream, but she didn't feel like going to Baskin-Robbins? Patrick and I have been a little worried about her mental state with her extended recovery period. Patrick will post an update about her back tomorrow. She just went to the physical therapist today. We're crossing our fingers and saying some prayers.

Minion Madness

This is a picture of the Minion stickers that Alex had put on his high-top shoes. He used yellow shoelaces to match the Minions plus he wore a Minion T-shirt. He didn't want me to take a picture of the shoes, but he took a picture later and texted it to me.

I got Natalie another Minion T-shirt last weekend, including one of the same design (from Target) that I bought Eric when I bought him several Minion T-shirts a month or so ago.

This is one of several Minion shirts that Eric owns. He even has Minion pajamas (his favorite PJs) that my Mom had bought for him. By the way, in case you're wondering--Eric has his shirt on backwards. He purposely wore it that way "because he felt like it". This is at least the second time he's done this. He gets a little silly once in a while, very much like his siblings.

This is just a short little post since I don't have any great photos or stories to tell right now. I may have more to say tomorrow with an update about Natalie's back.