A break from Spring Break

The boys are off school this week for their Spring Break and one of the moms who was at the rink yesterday for skating lessons and I were talking and she was the one who said she needed the break from Spring Break and I couldn't agree more. We've been busy off and on while the kids are out of school. I've tried to have some low-key time here at home playing "school" where Josh and I had "book bags" and pretended to be riding on the bus while Dima prepared his "classroom" and then Dima was the teacher and told us what to do and what it's like when he's in school - I noticed he kept getting things out to do even before we finished whatever he had going- and I wonder if it's just him and his perception of how it is there in class or do they really bombard them with assignments.

They've also gone skating and bowling this week. Josh went to a friend's bowling party last Saturday and had a great time. At first he bowled for a short time then asked if he could go do something else - there were arcade games that he was interested in - but since we were with the party I told him to stick with the bowling and he did and loved it. The place was crowded and trying to get a group of 4 and 5 year-olds to do anything in any order is exhausting so we - me and the few parents who stayed to help out - just kind of let them go in any order they wanted and they had frame thingys that the kids could roll the ball down bu Josh wanted to hold it with the holes and really roll it and sometimes it was painfully slow watching it go down the lane but he would stand or sometimes jump around while watching it and chewing on his fingers. With the help of the frame he did get a strike and then after that he thought most of them were strikes. While we were there for the party I signed him and Dima up for "bowling camp" on Tuesday. A good idea cause it gets people to come out during break and it was only $10 per kid for two hours of bowling, shoes and lunch of pizza and all the punch, water or soda they could drink. Josh was so excited about going that he kept asking if it was Tuesday yet. He does know his days of the week so I would tell him what day it was and he'd count down. Then on Tuesday morning he thought that the same kids who were there for the party would be there again. Once we got there the kids we were with were all older but they were patient about helping my kids and I had to stand by to remind Josh not to walk right into the other lanes while other people were getting ready to swing their balls around. Of course all the hubbub made Dima excited so I had him sit with me between balls and doing that tended to give him a chance to come down a bit. At one point while I was helping Josh I came back to the seat and I found Dima at the next lane goofing around with the buttons on the score - thing!! Josh of course making friends with the teenage girls around us and high-fiving everyone whether they rolled a good ball or not. A kid was driving one of the arcade cars when we were getting ready to leave so we stopped to watch and Josh now knows what a Nissan is cause that kid picked one for his car on the game.

This afternoon Josh and I are going to my Mom and Dad's for Easter weekend. I'm taking along his basket - not much candy but I did get him peeps so he'll know what they are and I got some Cadbury cream eggs for my sister and me cause we always seem to have them around this time of year. I also got him a calendar so we can hang it up and when it's time to count down to his birthday we can just show him. Since he was asking again and again how soon Easter was we made up a chain of construction paper and they took a link off each day so he'd have a visual of how long he had to wait. The calendar has Tony Stewart and the Home Depot car on it so he's gonna love it just for that. One afternoon while he was supposed to be napping he was trying to count down the months - I think to his birthday - and he was saying "March, April, MARY, ..." So well probably end up with the NASCAR calendar hung someplace down at his level in our kitchen so he can look at it every time he has a question about when something is going to happen. I'll also have to mark down things like the beginning of swim lessons cause a few times that it's been nice outside they've asked about getting out the pool or "swip and swide".

Dima has skating tomorrow morning so he's staying here and he and Chris will join us in for Sunday dinner. Dima's now in Saturday morning Learn to Play Hockey and he's involved in a team that practices on Monday nights and he gets free ice time while Josh is out for his lesson on Thursdays. We'll see how this goes cause he doesn't really seem interested in doing the hockey drills and stuff like that when he has the free ice time and some of those kids are quite a bit better than him since they're older and have been doing this longer than he has. He is a good skater and after the Thursday lessons are over one of the little kids just follows him around and he's pretty good at making the kid chase him.

As of Monday they'll be back in school and it's actually going to be nice to be back in a routine and for me to have kid-free time to do things like get the groceries and basic stuff like that.