Today || Volume 6

Yesterday Bevin put Cole's sunglasses on, walked around the backyard, especially close to Cole and smiled so sweetly with her upper body slightly bent down and her head up (probably to keep the large sunglasses on her face). After she was done, she took the sunglasses off and tried to wipe them off with the bottom of her shirt. This is something I do all.the.time. It was so weird seeing my actions mimicked so closely by her. 

Today Bevin went on a buggy ride at her daycare and pet a neighborhood cat. She also pet the heck out of Hazel, the resident bunny at her daycare. Bevin is an animal lover through and through. Yesterday she wanted to kiss the web of a funnel web spider that has taken up residence in our compost bin. 

Today Bevin waited for me to follow her into the living room so we could say goodbye to daddy together. I didn't realize how important this ritual is to the kids until I didn't run to the window like I usually did. But it helps her because instead of yelling "dada!!" at the office door she points her head in the direction of our front door. 

Frog catchers

To try to avoid getting his feet wet I advised Cole to wear his rain boots. That just meant, though, that he could stick his foot in as far as he wanted. Wet squishy feet again!

Bevin was ready to kiss the algae, because, to her, everything looked like a frog. 

Today

Today Cole told me he can use his construction goggles as night vision goggles. But then when he tried to look for the missing cat toy under the couch using the goggles he came up looking seriously disappointed. "Mama it doesn't work. I think the batteries are dead."

On our way back from a hot- so therefore strenuous- hike at Poet's Walk in the blazing afternoon sun, Cole said "mama I don't have much gas left. I only have 5 gallons." A few minutes later he only had one gallon. Fortunately, we walked underneath some shade where he felt he could fuel up. 

Today Cole caught frog after frog after frog. Each time he caught one he proudly showed me and several times if I didn't take it to hold it or look at it, he would throw it back in the pond. During our hike he told me that he's more interested in frogs now and that he is pretty much over butterflies. 

Yesterday Bevin said turtle and kissed the fake but realistic turtle that we got from the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History. 

Today she practiced stepping off the little bridge that crosses over the pond at Willow Kiln park. She went off each end multiple times and each time she got better and better at keeping her balance as she made her "landing." After I clapped for her a few times she started clapping for herself. You could see the pride in her eyes. 

I went back to work after 2 months off and am still alive

After a beautiful summer off that was challenging in some ways and amazing in another ways, it was over with two snaps. I remember that one day it was August 1, and I was lamenting that my summer was half over and then bam it was September 1. Cole was getting a long overdue haircut and I was going back to work the next morning. That night he said to me between sniffles in a whimpering voice, "Mama," (sniffle/whimper) "I'm not going to be able to watch the swallowtails if you go back to work..."  Of course, I reassured him that we'd be able to look for butterflies after school. But we both knew it wouldn't be the same. And that's why it was so sad. But I didn't cry.

Fast forward to 5:30 a.m. the next morning. I start my car, plug my music into my car speaker wire and out of the speakers flows the voice of the lead singer of Passenger singing "Let her go," and I just lost it.

(Passenger - Let Her Go [Official Video] - YouTube).

I literally sobbed for a good five minutes. I had to talk myself into leaving. Really.  I was reminded of the challenging times I had during the summer when I was not appreciative of my circumstances. I felt a deep pang of regret for not loving every single minute, because it ends. It ends every single year and I know this, yet I still let things get to me. I still get annoyed and want time alone. But at 5:30 on that first morning back? I wished I could get out of that car, crawl back into bed and wake up with my babies.

I hadn't felt that emotional about returning to work since I put Cole in daycare for the first time. That was 4 years ago. Eventually, I convinced myself that I could do it. I could leave. I would get through this with a smile on my face. I learned an important lesson that morning and I hope it sticks with me for many summers to come.

And I know now that every summer is just going to get better and better and it's going to get harder and harder to say goodbye, throw my teacher bag over my shoulder and head to a high school of 2,200 students before dawn. But I will do it. I am lucky enough to be able to have a job that gives me 8 weeks off during the most beautiful season of the year. I will enjoy it.

It has been almost 3 weeks since I returned to work and I can now say that I finally feel things are shifting back to "normal" again. We are trying to soak up every nice day, so on days that I pick up Cole from after care at pre-school, I try to give us a little bit of alone time together - whether we're exploring the outside of his pre-school or trying to catch frogs at Willow Kiln Park, or making homemade pizza - so that he can get what he so longed for this summer. Keith and Cole also get a little bit of alone time before school and after Bevin is dropped off two days a week. Even though it sucks to be gone 10 hours a day, it is still nice to be in a routine again.

And did I mention Cole started our district's pre-school program on Sept. 3? He goes to a half day program 5 days a week now. He has an awesome classroom teacher and the class has a therapy dog named Sophie. He talks about this dog more than he talks about the letters they are studying. He seems to love the arts and crafts that are directly related to the letters they are studying. He even gets to do activities with a mobile smartboard that the entire school shares.

Following this are some pictures of the past few weeks that I took after school or that Keith has sent me while I am at work.

Cole's new haircut

Happy morning!

Thank you Elmo for giving Daddy a break

Stewart's breakfast before school

The chaos of weekday mornings 

All dressed up

Cole's preschool orientation 

Riding in the "car car"

Early wake up calls for daddy 

Naptime 

Mommy Bevin selfie 

Cape Cod: One month later

I have about a billion Cape Cod pictures on my iPhone. Some are gorgeous and some are hilarious. There are so many good ones that I'm afraid of unleashing my entire phone into this blog post. Even though I agree with the idea that less is more, it's still hard to put it into practice here on this blog. I really wish I had more time to write posts and share tidbits about the kids and snapshots of their everyday lives so that I wasn't bogging down post after post of this is all the stuff we did when we went camping. And these are all of the places we went hiking this year. And I hope one day that Bevin doesn't feel slighted that I didn't document her life on here as much as I did Cole's. Hopefully she will understand that I was too busy playing with she and Cole to write carefully thought out and planned blog posts. And if I wasn't playing with them, I was spending hours each night putting them to sleep. Hopefully those nights in the recliner nursing and singing and begging her to fall asleep just somehow seeps into her soul, so that even if she forgets the memory, the knowing is always there.

I think I already covered the "what we did when we went to Cape Cod" post back in August. So here is the "here are my gorgeous photos of my equally gorgeous family in our home away from home beach getaway" post.

Catching frogs

Now that the butterflies seem to have flown south for warmer weather, Cole's new favorite past time is catching frogs. Our friend Amy and her daughter Ellie taught Cole how a few weeks ago after a Sunday farmers market in Rosendale. I've been promising to take Cole back ever since but I wanted to go just he and I so that I could help him. After all, what fun would it be if I couldn't catch some frogs too?! This afternoon I picked him up from school and we zipped on over to Willow Kiln park where we spent an hour jumping and hopping and squealing and saying "over here!" "No! Over here!" Listening to the frogs plop on the water as they hopped as far from us as they could. Still we caught a few and we both got soaking wet feet as a result. Totally worth it though.