Jake Turns 6 in a BIG Way

Well, we had a birthday in our house recently.  Jake turned 6! And true to form, we celebrated in a BIG way.

The first fantastic thing that happened was that Mimi & Bubba flew in for the momentous occasion.  They got into town in time to greet Jake after school.

There was a big surprise waiting for Jake after school.  While he was busy learning stuff, all the grown ups were busy giving his room a new Big Boy look.

Think he liked it?  Judging by that grin on his face, I'd say it was a successful redo.

Jake actually knew his room was getting painted.  He helped pick out the colors.  He wanted all the walls painted yellow - since that's his favorite color and all.  But, as our painter reminded us...a little yellow goes a long way.  It took a little convincing, but eventually Jake gave in to the idea of a nice sunshiney yellow behind his bed and a nice sky blue for the rest of the walls.

The walls were hung with art, shelves, & sports memorabilia of all kinds. No doubt about it, it's a boys room.

Of course, we had to include plenty of space for all of his trophies.

For his birthday dinner, Jake requested a "healthy meal" of tilapia and broccoli.  (Can I just say how proud I am of my  kid's fantastic relationship with healthy food?!)  This was followed by one of everybody's favorite desserts - Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie.  Mmmm, mmmm, GOOD!!  Actually, it's not one of Bubba's favorites, but he managed to choke down a piece anyway.  Thanks for making the sacrifice, Bubba.  I know it wasn't easy.

Then...finally...on to the moment he'd been waiting for all week.  The PRESENTS!!  Actually, he'd been patiently been waiting to open this particular gift for about a month.  The present in this picture is from Jake's best friend Lukas who lives in Germany.  His dad brought it over earlier in the month, and poor Jake had been staring at it for what I'm sure seemed like forever.

It's no surprise that it was the first one he went for.

Legos!!  A sure-fire hit!!

And a special surprise in the bottom of the bag...a new beer cap to add to his collection!

The rest of the presents from the family stuck to a familiar and favorite Jake theme...football.  A new University of Texas football jersey...

...a Jerome Bettis figure...

...and the piece de resistance...a Pittsburgh Steelers football field floor mat!  Oh!  Let me die and go to heaven right now!!  Could it possibly get any better than this?  Why yes it could, but you've got to come back tomorrow to see just how much better!

The Jake Games - or - What Were We Thinking?!

Just a quick post today.  We're in it up to our eyeballs over here at the Bond house.  Jake's birthday is this week and things have gotten...well...let's just say we have a lot to do.

We decided to do something we haven't done since Jake's 1st birthday -- we decided to throw a home party.  Jake wanted a pottery painting party.  You know what I'm talking about?  You go to a studio, paint clay bisque and they glaze & fire it for you.  About a week later, you return to the store to pick up the pot/plate/coffee cup/sad-eyed figurine you thought was going to be so cute and walk out with a hideous piece of OMG-what-was-I-thinking that will take up space you do not have in the back of some cupboard.  Yep, that's what Jake wanted to do for his birthday party this year.  Well, I wasn't totally convinced that this was enough fun for a group of 6 year old boys.  So, I found a pottery place that will let you do the painting at home.  GREAT!!  We can have a home party!  We can throw some raucous fun and games into the mix.  We don't have to worry about breaking anything in the shop.  PERFECT!!

We decided to host the party on a Friday night in lieu of the typical Saturday party.  It's fall sports season and let's face it, nobody needs to squeeze in a birthday party between soccer games.  At least we don't.  So we picked Friday.  Jake made the guest list.  He wanted 20 kids at his party. Sounded like a LOT of kids to me.  But it's a home party, so whatever, right?  It is kind of a weird time for Jake, friend-wise and we were having a tough time drawing a line.  He's got his Infinite Bounds friends, he's got his soccer friends, his baseball friends, his neighborhood friends, and his new Kindergarten friends.  So, we let Jake invite whomever he wanted.  Really, it's a home party, whatever.  The more the merrier...right?

We ended up with 23 on the guest list, which sounded  reasonable - on the big side, but not insane.  Well, then I accidentally invited a few more (long story).  Then invitees decided that the siblings would like to come too.  Actually, I'd already assumed/invited some siblings to join the fun.  However, I also assumed that there would be some kids who couldn't make it.  Well, I assumed incorrectly on that one.  There are still a few outstanding invitations, but the current number of confirmed guests stands at 31.  We've nixed the pottery painting idea because I only bought supplies for 25 kids.  (Hmmm...just what am I going to do with all this unpainted pottery?!)  Instead, we're hosting The Jake Games.  Our guests will be participating in a series of sporting contests in the front yard & driveway.  It's going to be crazy, but it's going to be fun. 

Oh!  And as if planning a party for +30 kids wasn't enough of a challenge already, we decided that Jake's room needed an updated look.  So, on top of working out the logistics of The Jake Games, we're also installing bookshelves, painting & primping Jake's big boy bedroom.  Oh yeah!  It's madness around here!  What were we thinking?!?!

Soccer Delila Style -or- The Deal

 

Last winter, all Delila could talk about was, "when I have MY t-ball...", and, "when I have MY soccer...".  T-ball went fine, and Lila did quite well.  Soccer...well, it's a bit of a different story.  When we were putting the team together, she was very excited about it, but now that the season's actually begun...well, she's singing a different tune.  In spite of the pink shoe laces...

  

and the well-coordinated, hoochy practice attire, our sporty little lady has put up all kinds of resistance to actually playing the game.  Practices have been an exercise in public child abuse avoidance for me.  Exasperation doesn't even begin to sum it up.  Game day was not much different.  Her game was at 9:00.  Her insistence that she wasn't playing began around 7:30.  And, for the first time in my parenting experience, I resorted to outright bribery to get her to play.  "Delila, if you stop screaming, put on these clothes, go out an play without tears & tantrums, I will...."  ~sigh~  It doesn't make me proud, but, with a few gentle reminders, our Deal did the trick.

 

She was all pregame smiles for Daddy...

 

 ...and tickled pink with the tastefully understated game day hair accessory provided by Ms. Lisa.

 

In spite of it all, she was still a little trepidatious about going out on the field.  (When I asked her why, she said she was afraid she wouldn't be any good.  Ahhh...our little perfectionist.  Wonder where she gets that from.)

One more reminder of our Deal and she was ready to take the field...

 

...and ready to score some goals!

 

Unfortunately for Delila, so was Calder - who's a little bigger, a little faster, and a little more competitive.

 

Our poor little Ladybug ended the game with a broken heart. (A game which we won 4 - 2, according to Big Brother, Jake)

 

The tears quickly subsided once the Deal was honored:  a "Hannah M'Tana" CD to call her very own.  It made her very happy, and crowned me "The best Mommy in the whole world"...for about 15 minutes.  Totally worth it! Next week's game's at 10:00.  I'm hoping it'll go a little better.  I'm hoping I wont have to make any more deals and that Delila scores a goal.  Keep your fingers crossed...for both of us.

Left Behind (or Project Princess)

There's a little girl in our house who is a bit confused these days.  You see, for as long as she can remember, she's gone almost everywhere with her brother.  She's gone to school with him, to the kids club at the gym with him, to soccer practice, t-ball practice, birthday parties, etc...all with him.  Sure, every now and then she's gone to the store with 'just Daddy' or 'just Mommy', but for the most part she's spent all her time with her brother.  Well, all that's changed.  Now that Jake's in Kindergarten, Delila is...well...on her own.  She doesn't understand it at all.  Everyday when we drop Jake off at school she asks why we aren't staying.  She goes on and on about kindergarten, and seems to be making a point of learning as many names as she can.  The names of Jake's teachers and classmates, the school songs and motto, she's committing them all to memory.  She'll be well-prepared two years from now when it's her turn.  But in the meantime, I can't help but think she's feeling a little not-so-special these days. 

It's bad enough that Lila's being left out of the whole school thing, but to make matters worse, two weekends ago Jake attended a birthday party to which Delila was not invited.  She was really upset about it.  Fortunately, the next day she received an invitation to a Princess Party from one of her gymnastics friends.  She was quite pleased to learn that Jake was not invited.  She was also pleased with the whole "princess" aspect of the party, and informed me that she would need to wear a princess dress.  Oh! and that she wanted a princess hat to go with it!  You know, the pointy kind!  I told her that I'd be happy to make her a pointy princess hat...and a dress, if she wanted one.  And Project Princess was born.

Delila and I went to the fabric store to pick out "princess fabric".  We came home with a small bag of really lovely and outrageously expensive snippets.  She was so excited about it, what was I supposed to do?  Say "Sorry, Ladybug" and head off to the Disney store?!  No way! 

Next up was the daunting task of getting our little girl with the kingdom-sized attitude to stand still long enough to get the critical measurements.  Since that wasn't going so well, I decided to make a mock-up out of muslin first. (There was no way I was coughing up more money on this crazy project because of miscalculations.)  Suffice to say, Her Little Royalness did not care for the ugly muslin "not a princess dress" at all!  But...

...once all the nipping and tucking were done and I started putting the real deal dress together, her attitude changed...just a bit...and only for a very little while.  (She really has a thing or two to learn if she's not going to be a 'ready-to-wear' kinda girl.) 

Yes, I had other things to do with my time and certainly more useful things to do with our money, but I'd say it was worth it.  After all, isn't it my job to make my little girl feel like a real-deal  Princess?  I'll admit that at times,  Project Princess left me feeling more minion than mommy, but that smile right there...well that makes me feel just a little like a real-deal Fairy Godmother.

Labor Day Hurricanes

It's Labor Day weekend and we've been working hard and playing hard.  I spent an entire day cleaning up the family room/kitchen - trying to get things under control.  Maintaining control of all the stuff that comes along with parenting is what I find to be the most challenging aspect of this job.  I can deal with the sibling spats and tantrums...as long as the house is in order.  I can deal with the rat race of getting kids dressed, fed and out the door to school/practices/parties...as long as the house is in order.  I can even deal with doing 7 loads of laundry every week...as long as the house is in order.   The problem is that as soon as I get one room tidied up...well, two little hurricanes are off in another room somewhere doing this!

I know, I know, at least they're not trying to kill each other...at the moment.  I should consider that a blessing.  But somehow at this moment, I'd rather have a clean house.

Well, I'd love to write more, but it looks like I have a little more cleaning up to do before the weekend's over.  Hmmm...do you think I could get some Federal Disaster Relief money?

Jake's 1st Week of School

The excitement actually started building around 4:00 PM the Friday before the official 1st day of school.  That was Meet The Teacher night.  Nervous kids & parents gathered outside locked doors at Anderson Elementary School.  They jockeyed for position in front of the library window, squinting at the 5 sheets of paper taped to it.  They were anxious to know which of the 5 kindergarten classes would be their child's class for the school year, and hoping there would be the name of at least one friend on that list as well.  But, nothing ever works smoothly for this family, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that Jake's name wasn't on any of the lists.  Yep, that's right.  We hit our first snag before they even opened the doors!  That did not make me happy, and it didn't do anything to calm Jake's nerves.  As  you can imagine, by the time the doors opened, I was in full Mama Bear mode.  I marched into the front office, discontent painted all over my face.  I waited patiently for my turn to share a piece of my mind with the office staff.  And when some other mother decided she didn't have to wait her turn, well, never to be concerned about making a good 1st impression, I not-so-calmly blurted out that there were other people in line and she'd have to wait.  Oh yes, I definitely brought my A-game to Meet The Teacher night.   After the scuffle ended and some not-so-heart-felt apologies were exchanged, I learned the mix-up probably had something to do with Jake's immunization records.  So, I was off to meet Cindy Snyder, the school nurse.  She & I also went toe-to-toe before getting things sorted out.  Grrrrr!  Don't these people know how hard it is to be a 1st time Kindergarten Mom?  In the end, it all worked out, records were updated, boxes were checked, and I learned that Jake would be in Ms. Lyttle's class.  Pretty Ms. Lyttle.  Jake says she has a funny name...because Ms. Lyttle is actually quite tall, which as Jake pointed out, is NOT little.

Monday, August 23, 6:45 AM.  Rise & shine!!  Get up, get dressed, get fed, get out!  This is the new routine in our house.  6:45 is pretty early, but if we want to make it to school by 7:45, that's the way things have to be.

We're very excited to be able to ride out bikes to school every morning.  We were hoping to have a posse of neighborhood kids to join us, but so far it's just the Bond gang.

We started training for the event a couple of weeks ago so we'd know just how long it would take us to get there.  Lila's been doing really well riding the "afterburner", but she's looking forward to the day she can ride her own bike.  (I shudder to think how early we'd have to get up for that ride!)  Our ride is 1 mile long and it took us about 18 minutes on the first day.

Nerves & getting used to the new bike accounted for a longer commute time on the first day.  By the end of the week, we'd cut our time down by about 5 minutes.  Not bad.

Lila was all ready to start school, and was actually quite pissed off once it finally sunk in that she wasn't starting Kindergarten.  Jake, on the other hand, would have preferred to go back to Infinite Bounds.  He'd been acting strangely in the weeks leading up to the big day.  Quiet, irritable, sassy, mean...things that Jake usually isn't.  I knew he was a little sad to be leaving his friends at IB, but it wasn't until he nearly lost his breakfast that I realized how nervous he actually was about the whole thing.

But he put on his best fake smile, and walked into the Kindergarten Pod.  "The Pod".  Who decided to call it "The Pod"?  Sending my boy into The Pod sounds just a little scary...like I'm sending him into a shuttle craft that's waiting to whisk my kid away to the mother ship where aliens will poke and prod him, suck his brains out, reprogram him and return him to me as some kind of inter-galactic weapon.  The Pod.  Couldn't they just call it The Hall or The Wing?  Seriously?  The Pod?

They put a big red K over the door.  I guess that's supposed to make us parents feel better about abandoning our kiddos at the doors to The Pod.  Parents aren't allowed in The Pod.  They say dropping your kids off at the doors promotes independence and a sense of empowerment, but I know they just don't want us to see all the extraterrestrial goings-on beyond those doors.

I did manage to sneak in and take a peek.  There was pretty, not-so-little Ms. Lyttle...and Jake, still looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

Then it was off to the cafeteria for Good Morning Anderson!  GMA takes place every Monday & Friday. 

The kids file in and find a place to sit on the floor.  They go over the school motto:  Believe, Achieve, Succeed!  They state their attendance goal:  On time, every day, every day, on time!  They pledge allegiance to the US Flag  - yes, we can still do that here in Lone Star State, and yes, the 'one nation under God' part is still in there.  Then they pledge allegiance to the Texas flag:  "I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible".  Those sneaky Texans - you might be able to get prayer out of the schools, but you ain't gonna get God outta Texas public schools! And speaking of prayer, since it's only acceptable to pray before rodeos & football games these days, GMA observes a moment of silence instead.

They also sing songs, recognize birthdays, celebrate the Firecrackers of the Week (more about that some other time.)  It really is quite a production, and pretty overwhelming at first.  When I spotted Jake, he looked pretty comfortable and relaxed.  Once it's over, everyone is dismissed to their classes and the day begins.

The day begins at 7:45, the day ends at 3:00.  A long day for a little kid if you ask me.  But Jake did just fine. School is dismissed in stages.  The first kids released are those going on to after-care programs.  Then the "car riders" are release.  Then the "walkers/bike riders" emerge from The Pod.  Jake was the doorman on the first day, and seemed pleased with that status.  The kids all line up and sit down on the grass just outside the pod doors.  When they see their parent/guardian, they raise their hand to let the teachers know, they they're released.  Fortunately, the process doesn't take too long.  It was 107 degrees at release time on the first day of school.  That's hot even for us Texans.  As soon as we were released, we headed to the pool with a bunch of friends for a little after-school swim party.  It was so hot, even the pool water wasn't all that refreshing. But it was fun hanging out with friends and rinsing off the stress of the first day.

The rest of the week went very smoothly.  We rode our bikes every day except Wednesday (it was raining).  Jake's learning the names of his classmates and making friends.  And if you ask him what the best part of the week was, he'd probably tell you playing on the playground and finding two silly bands on the floor in the hall.  Infinite Bounds is a tough act to follow, but I think he's settling in pretty well.

The Bond Family Cruise Part 2 - Oh Canada!

Thursday morning.  Once again, we woke at the crack of dawn - or we would have if it hadn't been raining in Saint John, New Brunswick.  Now don't go confusing this with St. John's Newfoundland.  That's not where we were.  How'd we know? 
 

Well, because we saw Saint John written on everything.  NOT St. John's.  Since the weather wasn't all that great and there were no tenders to catch, we took our time getting off the boat.  And, since it was raining, we decided to start our day with a taxi ride up to the Reversing Falls.  The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world.  When the tide comes in, it comes it with such force it causes the river to run backwards.  Yep.  UPstream.  I suppose this is an incredible thing to watch from the right area.  We, however, weren't in the right area to see it.  AND we were a little behind the tide.  So, what we got to see was a big wide river running left instead of right.  A little anticlimactic, thus, no pictures.  Our taxi driver assured us it was phenomenal.  We took his word for it and hopped back in the cab.

After an exhilarating ride chock full of valuable information and offers to tour us around the city all day, we let him drop us off at the Old Saint John Courthouse - home of the 'longest free-standing stone spiral staircase in the world'...according to our taxi driver.  It was a pretty amazing staircase, even if it was tucked into an unamazing corner of the courthouse.

The begonias in the park across the street from the courthouse were even more amazing.  They were so colorful in the rain, it looked as though someone had thrown buckets of paint all over the grass.

Things dried up after awhile, and we enjoyed just traipsing around town.  Saint John is a busy little place and there was lots of life on the streets, including some fun and accessible art.

Jake & Delila had fun crawling all over the statues.

And then we saw this guy walking down the street.  Of course, we had to follow him.  He led us directly to the Buskers on the Boardwalk festival.  It's been an ongoing event in Saint John for the last 20 years.  The official start was Friday, so we were a day early, but there was plenty to see and do while the Buskers (street performers) prepared for the festivities to begin.

We pulled up a table at a sidewalk cafe and got to watch street artist Rachel Peters get herself set up.  This is her artwork from last year's festival.  Unfortunately, I haven't found a picture of this year's finished work, but I'm going to keep looking.  The kids had so much fun talking with her and watching her get everything laid out.  This year's piece was to be about a lonely elephant, and looked like it was going to be really great.

After our lunch, we headed inside the shopping mall adjacent to the boardwalk, where we found another performer getting ready to start his act.  Wacky Chad.  Lila got in on the act...

...and so did I.  Yes, I got to take a turn on the super duper pogo stick.  I could hardly get it off the ground, but Wacky Chad made that thing soar sky high.  He did flips and all kinds of crazy tricks that I'm sure Jake will want to try as soon as it's cool enough to play outside again.  Oh boy!  I can't wait!

We had a lot of fun at the Buskers event...almost too much fun.  We really had to hustle back to the boat.  We got there just in time to hear the piper bidding us farewell.  He was really incredible, and only 14 years old.

Friday morning found us in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  It was our last port of call.  Halifax is not a quaint little tourist town.  Rather, it's a bustling city with a busy port.  Our first stop was the fort at the highest point in the city - The Citadel.  This poor fellow was standing sentry.  I say poor, because it was a warm, cloudless day and he was standing in the blazing sun in a wool jacket, with a backpack and that crazy hat on.  He was sweatin' bullets!  But at lease his legs stayed nice and cool in his skirt...um, I mean a kilt.

The Citadel was really interesting.  It was a fairly typical fort, in my opinion, except that it had two tall masts at its highest ground.  We learned that these were signaling masts.  One mast was used to signal merchants, dockworkers, and the likes that ships were arriving so there was work to be done.  Specific flags would be run up the mast that would identify the shipping company, its cargo and where exactly the ship would be docked.  The other mast was used for military purposes.  At one time, there were many forts in the area and they communicated with each other by means of the flags that were flying.  Once a flag or pennant was sent up the mast, other forts were required to respond in kind within 30 minutes.  If no response was made, the offending soldier could face court martial.


Our arrival at The Citadel was timed perfectly - and serendipitously.  Every day at noon, a troupe of soldiers climbs to the top of the wall and fires the cannon.  And wow!  What a production.  Lots of marching and formations - all kinds of pomp & circumstance.

We hung out at The Citadel for quite a while.  This was our day with MaMa so we took our time and really soaked up the history.  Lila wasn't too fond of all the military action and the soldiers parading around beating their drums.  She especially wasn't thrilled with the guys in the big hats.  I suppose from her vantage point they looked awfully big.  In the end, she made friends with one, but it was a tenuous relationship.

After we'd thoroughly explored the fort and all it had to offer, we hopped on a "FRED" bus (Free Rides Everywhere Downtown) and headed to the Public Gardens.  They were really lovely and since it was such a beautiful day, we were very happy to stay for a while.

The guide on the FRED bus really talked the garden up, making it sound like a 'must do when in Halifax', so I was surprised at how small the grounds were.  The garden occupies a city block, which I suppose is a decent size for an inner city garden.  Unless, of course, you grow up with Washington, DC as your frame of reference, where there's green space every 2-3 blocks.  In spite of my surprise at the size, there was really quite a lot going on in the garden.  There were a couple of small ponds, streams and several fountains.  In the middle of the garden there was a Victorian looking structure which serves as a cafe.  They sold ice cream, which the kids would have loved.  MaMa too, for that matter.  But Duke had his sites set on a different lunchtime locale.

So, with rumbling tummies, we set off to find this place - The Henry House.  He thought it would be a short walk down a bustling city street.  Unfortunately, we didn't know the name of the place and the physical description Duke gave a local shop keeper led us on a bit of a wild goose chase.  We did eventually find it, and it was well worth the walk.  A walk that nearly killed MaMa, but all's well that ends well...right?  (She probably has a different opinion about that!)  The food was good, the beer was great and just look at how pretty the setting was - power lines excluded, of course.

Jake & Lila loved the place because the fries were good and because Jake got to engage in a foreign exchange:

One US dime for one Canadian dime...and a Canadian penny thrown in for good luck!  After lunch, MaMa dumped us.  She took the FRED back to the boat, which left us to finish our exploring by ourselves.  We walked around a bit more and then headed back to the boat.

Having already had such great success with the local brews at the Henry House, we decided to push our luck and stop at the Garrison brewery.  Conveniently located directly outside the entrance to the seaport, it was the perfect spot to end our day.

Delila found the root beer to be full bodied with just the right amount of bubbles and a sweet yet refreshing finish.

Jake gave it an enthusiastic Garrison canon style Thumbs Up!  The IPA was quite satisfying too, and we couldn't resist buying a bottle of the Jalapeno Ale to try at a later date.  Guaranteed to cool you down and warm you up all at the same time.  We'll see about that!


And so our day in Halifax and our Canadian adventure came to a close.  And yes, I think we did manage to make a little magic.