Taste the Wind

Yesterday (Saturday) was another one of those divide and conquer days for our family. While Matt and Luke took Julia to horseback riding, Erica and I took Alex to his first session of swimming lessons. For the record, Alex is a Polliwog (Level 1), but we're hoping he starts cruising through some of these beginner levels...we'll see.

After swimming, we ran a few errands and brought home subs for lunch. We had the windows rolled down because it was a very warm day. Then, Alex tells Erica to open her mouth and taste the wind. I look back, and Erica has her eyes scrunched closed and her tongue hanging out with a huge smile on her face. Turns out that the wind tastes pretty good.

Dance

Luke and Erica love to dance. Luke's got a few moves, but mostly the two of them just spin in circles and call it dancing. This morning, Erica started spinning and said, "I'm going to dance and the whole house will dance with me." That's a pretty good explanantion for getting dizzy.

This reminds me of how much I used to love shrinkwrapping pallets for tradeshows because as you ran around the pallets with the roll of shrinkwrap, you could get a pretty good dizzy buzz. The nuts don't fall far from the tree.

Pork Tennis Loin and other kid-isms

Just for the record, Erica does not like Pork Tennis Loin. However, after taking a couple of bites of the pork tenderloin we had for dinner the other night, she announced that the 'chicken' was good.

I love the kids' mispronunciations! Even Alex still has one: am-bee-ance. As in if you're hurt, call 911 and they will send the am-bee-ance.

Luke goes to 'sfool', where he learns lots of things. Sfool is cool.

Boy vs. Bus

Julia's bus driver, Anna, is an absolute gem. She is so sweet to Julia, and the little kids both adore her. Many days, they slip on whatever shoes they can grab, throw on a coat and race outside in their jammies so they can say hi to Anna. Luke helps push the buttons to lower and raise the lift. Anna 'pays' him with high fives. Today after four high fives, Luke said, "I'm really makin' some cash!" Anna has also commented that Julia helps with her seat belt - Julia holds it each morning until Anna clicks the two pieces together. I love that she notices the little things that Julia does. She is also very careful to make sure little ones are out of the way before she leaves. So, after Julia is secured on the bus, I round up Luke and Erica on the front patio. As soon as the bus is clear of the driveway, Luke takes off like a shot to race the bus to the corner. Anna drives really slow, and Luke can run pretty darn fast, so Luke usually wins. A few days ago, Luke started the race on his scooter, but that wasn't fast enough. So, he abandoned the scooter and finished the race on foot. At the corner, Anna waves good-bye, toots the horn and sends him back home.

There's a lesson in all of this - it doesn't take much to really make someone's day a lot better. School mornings tend to make me tense. We're on a tight schedule to make sure Julia is dressed, medicated, fed and packed for school - not to mention that the little ones need help with dressing and breakfast. So, while Julia is usually ready to go on time, there's not a lot of time to spare. Some of Julia's other bus drivers would blow the horn if Julia wasn't outside the second they pulled in the driveway. Anna takes a different approach. She's so relaxed that it helps me to relax. These days, she's here really early because Caitlin hasn't been on the bus. Instead of making me feel rushed, she puts the lift down and sits on the edge with her feet dangling over. She said she doesn't want to drive around to just kill time, so she just takes a few minutes to chill in our driveway. Jacob and Sam, the brothers that ride the bus with Julia, chill out with her. No worries, no horn beeping, no crabbiness...just smiles and laughing. It's amazing how one person's attitude can really help me get my day off to a better start. I hope that I can pass it on.