Fun on the schedule

Spring is here- which means our weekends get a bit more exciting. This past weekend- we started with a house party at a fellow AYSO family's house. 

Nico ran around with his little rabble for the night- and had a great time. 

Sunday we headed out to Oak Prairie Park in NW Indiana. I wanted to try our hand at fishing- which was an abysmal fail at. Maybe because we were using those crappy rubber worms that came with the pole I got Nico. But it was fun. 

I got a chance to hike/walk along the trail at the park. The trail is in the book "60 Hiked within 60 Miles of Chicago", which Santa brought me a couple of Christmases ago. 

Monday I did "Murph" with my gym. It's a hero WOD so named for a Navy SEAL who died in 2005 in Afghanistan. I definitely had a bad attitude going into it- but am glad I did it. 

That is me on the far right. 

Tuesday we went to a birthday party after school. I'm not sure how I feel about birthday parties on school days. It's nice to not have to tie up a weekend day with it. But we didn't get to any homework on Tuesday. But we didn't do any on Wednesday or Thursday either. 

The place we went was awesome. They had inflatables and a rockwall. A rockwall. 

In other news, we bought a used patio set from someone in the neighborhood. We're also going to work on getting some paver stoned for the backyard. It's about to be an oasis up in here! 

This weekend we have more fun on the schedule. Pizza with my dear work friend's family tonight. Outdoor movie night+hawks game tomorrow night. Going to see a Fire game next weekend. Our summer is starting to get booked!!

I posted- I swear

So, I was publicly shamed.  Shame to my house!  Shame to my family!! Nicole called me out for not blogging recently.  Since it has been increasingly difficult for me to sit down and actually blog at my computer, I thought I would do more of it from my phone.  So I redownloaded the app.  I wrote some posts- posted them.  And walked away.  That is how busy I have been- I haven't even been able to read my own blog.  Yes, I do that.  And my own facebook.  And my own instagram.  And my own twitter.  I know.  I know.  But I am just so damn clever sometimes, I can't help it.

Regardless, Nicole called me out on facebook and told me to post- which I started to do tonight.  Then I saw what I did- so look at that- over a month with no posts and now three posts in one day.  In one day!!

Nico is hilarious lately.  He says some pretty funny things.  And he is starting understand the fine line between funny-cheeky sass and disrespectful back talk.  Which is awesome.  A favorite of late: "It's getting really boring listening to your annoying face."

The recently completed the standardized testing at his school.  He was ranked highest in his class- and in the 98th percentile- for math and reading.  It wasn't really surprising, since we see how easy the homework is for him.  But it was cool nonetheless.

But in case you were thinking that Nico was getting too smart and sophisticated.  Keep in mind that this week I cut the sleeves off of a camo t-shirt for Nico.  Like his mom- Nico is a touch fussy about his clothes going to school.  He obsesses (a tiny bit) when he gets toothpaste or a spot on his tshirt.  Wednesday we discovered paint on the sleeve of his camo tshirt and he was starting to get worked up about it.  So when I walked him into class, I borrowed a teacher's scissors and cut the sleeves off.  My son wore a sleeveless camo tshirt.  To school.  In Chicago.  :)

Redo

We did some spring cleaning this weekend and I came across this. It is from earlier in the year. And it makes me laugh- you can see how little Nico cared for this assignment

Redneck

Spring/Summer is here. After playing soccer at school yesterday Nico was hot so he took his shirt off. This might be the most redneck thing I've seen him do in a while. 

Fun and Reading

Not much new going on here.
I sent the boys to Miami to see Dave's parents this week.  I would have gone but it is apparently an arm and a leg to board two big dogs.  An arm and a leg.

They also had all the fun and I had none.  Okay, that is not true. I did have fun- I worked on sewing a couple of tops... but ran into a problem with pleats.  Looks like Imma have to wait till Mama B comes to visit some time.

Dave, Nico, Mike, and Gay had a little bit of an adventure; Mike stepped on the business end of a sting ray and ended up with a barb in his foot.  Apparently that hurts a lot.  Nico's comment was that he was glad that he didn't have a bad run in with nature.   He also made friends with the kids of Mike and Gay's friends.  Which is great, because its nice to have friends wherever you go.

Yesterday I picked up Nico's report card- all Ws ("well developed") except for a pesky inability to count and number to 100- which I think is strange, because the boy can do that.  So I gotta figure out a way to get into that.  Also, he is reading like a champ.  It's been fun reading books with him- taking turns reading different pages and sections.

We're really looking forward to spring soccer season starting tomorrow!!  Nico is looking forward to showing off some of his new moves.

Nico's Spring Break

CPS spring break started last week.  I took the day off so I could hang out with Nico and let Dave work.  We ended up at Lincoln Park Zoo- ostensibly to check out the new macaques.  We ended up not making it, since it was a bit chilly and I was optimistically dressed. 

We ended up seeing the black bear, some monkeys, the sea lions, tigers, and cervals.  The best part of the zoo is that it is completely free- so if our trip ends up getting cut short because Nico is too focused on checking out the gift shop or we underdressed, I don't feel bad leaving after only being there for 2 hours.

The mask makes me pretty happy.  

Basketball Season

Do I even keep this blog anymore?

I know.  I know.  I have no good excuses.  So I won't.  We have a lot of ground to cover, so Imma break these up into a couple of different posts.

Nico's basketball season ended.  He had so much fun with it.  About half-way through the season, one of his coaches (Ira- the one in the middle above) asked if Nico wanted to hang out and play in the session following ours.  Well- we're a coaching family.  We know what is up.  So, we did- and Nico loved it.



Nico is #7 in the grey above.  We're working on him not running away from the ball.  Turns out, this is the same in soccer as in basketball.

The best thing that Ira told us?  He told us not to focus on the baskets- at some point, all the kids' shooting abilities will likely even out- and average shooters are a dime a dozen.  Ball handlers?  Now, that is a different story.  A good ball handler?  In demand everywhere.  Which is great, because one doesn't have to be very big to be a good ball handler.

Nico Work

We had friends over for brunch this weekend.  Nico helped me clean the bathroom.  He has a new thing called "The Swiffer Dance."  I consider it my greatest disappointment that I didn't get it on video.  That would have been amazing.

I wouldn't say that he was really good at cleaning, unless you count overspraying cleaner on vertical surfaces good at cleaning.  But it was nice that he wanted to help.  

Last week his teacher complimented Dave in front of Nico about how good of a leader Nico is.  Apparently, they all have these little chores at school... from what I can gather, he seems to be something of a boss- prompting other kids to do their jobs and having the other kids report back.  So basically my kid is destined for civil service?  In any case, when he heard his teacher tell Dave how good he is at this job, Nico was BEAMING.  Which makes me happy.  

Tough and Strong

As friends and loved ones of me, you are, friends and loved ones of a CrossFitter.  Sorry, it is what it is.  For the next five weeks, all the CrossFitters will "compete" against each other all around the country in the same workouts.  The top finishers from each region get invited to Regionals and the winners from Regionals go to The Games.

I have been organizing these events for my gym, where one night a week, we have two athletes face off against each other.  We're trying to have a solid balance between the two that compete, so that someone isn't getting buried by their competitor.  This has made me think a lot more about how I stack up against the other female athletes.

There are a couple of things I can't do (pullups, ringdips, muscleups, and efficient Toes 2 Bar), but there are other things I am good at; heavyish deadlifts and cleans, shoulder to over head, double unders (depends on the day).  And then there are things that I am just terrible at burpees and pushups, but I can still do them.   I'm in this weird middle place, where I am not improving much compared to the people around me.  I'm better than a lot of the scaled women at most of the things they do.  But then So and So will get a pullup.  Someone else moves onto a double bodyweight squat.  And then I'm like:

A lot of days, it doesn't bother me.  I was in a bad place (physically) when I started CrossFit- and sometimes I am amazed at some of the things I can do.  Look me!  I have double unders.  And I can clean like a champ!

And then there are the rest of the days... Days when I remember, I am the fourth oldest woman at our place, and the only one that has had a kid, that was brought into this world with a long cut through the middle of my body.  And the only one that spent 7 years of their life sitting on their ass in grad school.  And it's impossible for me to spend as much time as I want in the gym.  If it were up to me, I would spend three hours in the gym every day.  As it is now, I'm lucky if I get 1.5-2 hours, which usually includes showering, and transporting to and from.

The thing is: I used to think of myself as being strong and tough, which I will take.  At the very least, if I wasn't terribly mobile, or quick, or fast, at least I was strong and tough.  But maybe my conceptualization of strong and tough are different from everyone else's.  Like maybe I am not tough for dragging my ass into the gym when I've only had 4 hours of sleep, when stress is eating my will alive, and when it's really inconvenient to go.  Maybe tough is really only going unbroken in workout sets, or pushing yourself all the way through a workout (and not shifting into survival mode 10 minutes in).    

Big Feb

I know what you are thinking: how is it that someone who likes blogging as much as I do, can be so terribly bad at it?  My sister, who has four times as many kids as I do, manages to update her blog several times a week.  I don't know how she does it.  Really.  I'm just over here, trying to determine whether the "shower" I took at the gym yesterday indeed counts as a shower (the water was cold- so I didn't really get under it) and if I am gross for not having taken another shower.

We've had a fun February.  We managed to get to a DePaul women's basketball game.  Which was fun.  There were two late lead changes, which made the game very exciting.  I was worried that Nico wouldn't like the womens game because there is less dunking in womens basketball.  But he liked it just fine.

Speaking of basketball... I can only guess that the way that he is now is like how Dave was 40 years ago.  He gets very animated whenever the Cards are on.  He has opinions about players... like Owanakahu- who he thought should be kicked off the team (instead of Chris Jones).  But he can still recognized when a player like that makes a big play (like the other night, whoever they played against, Syracuse?)  He is just as serious about it as he is about the games he plays.

A couple of weeks ago- we went over to Jakey's house.  Jakey is one of Nico's classmates from Wonder.  Along with the little brother, the three of them played well with each other for 4-5 hours.  Even if some of that playing was wrestling fighting wrestling.

Valentine's Day coincided with the end of my Whole30 nutrition challenge at my gym (funny: growing up, I thought I would be peer pressured more into sex, drugs, and booze, and less with the "healthy eating").  I was really jonesing for a bacon cheeseburger and Dave humored me, so we had bacon cheeseburgers for dinner.  Nico had one and declared it to be his new favorite food.  Cue us making it for him 2 days later, and him not eating it.  Per usual.  

February 17th was Paczi day.  I dont like to make fun of other people's religions, but this sounds kind of made up.  But I'm not gonna throw a big fuss about it, because donuts!!  Right? 

The Great Blizzard of 2015

We had our first blizzard this weekend.  What is crazy about it, is that I knew we were in for 6-10 inches of snow, but I kinda shrugged it off, thinking it wasn't a big deal, since New York and the East Coast were supposed to get a blizzard last week and the actual amount of snow fall was in, many places, underwhelming.  So, when we got 10" of snow on Saturday night, I thought, "oh, well, that is nice."  But then Sunday, the snow kept falling.  And I made the classic new parent mistake of agreeing to take Nico to Target to spend some $$ that Aunt Rosie sent him for Christmas.  

Well, let's just say that there is a funny thing that happens to side streets in Chicago when there is a lot of snow.  If it is still snowing, they often don't get plowed.  So, that is what was happening Sunday afternoon when we were trying to make it back to the house.  Spaulding Ave. was a parking lot.  

At one point, I got out of my car to help dig out a car a couple of cars in front of us.  I was gone for a while, but by the time I got back, Nico was in tears.  Apparently, he couldnt see me, so he had gotten upset.  Man oh man.  Both of us were pretty upset at that point.  In any case, my car ended up getting stuck.  Around that time Dave had just gotten home with groceries and he suggested just parking it near where we were (side note: Dave had gotten stuck trying to leave to get groceries).  We ended up parking by a fire hydrant, and let me just say, I would have raised quite the commotion had I gotten a ticket.  Quite the commotion.  

All told, we ended up with 19" of snow-which isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  Nico had a snow day on Monday,which was great. It gave us a chance to do a little shoveling and time to get caught up on homework and reading and snuggles.  I even got a nap in. 

The good news is that, which this much snow, you know sledding is going to be off the hook.  Except that the last sledding outing resulted in Nico and Dave breaking the old sled.  So, now we gotta get a new one.  Imma try to get one of those big ones with a strap on it, so Dave and Nico can tote me around in the snow.  

Dave got a proof of the second edition of his book in the mail last week.  It's pretty cool- except that now he has written two books and me none (unless you'd count my dissertation- which I wouldn't- since I didnt get it bound up).   

Birthday Ski Trip

This weekend, we headed up to Wilmont (in Wisconsin) for skiing  (for Dave's birthday).  It was a great place to go, because overall, it was pretty mild.  Also, we didnt have to board the dogs anywhere, so that is a bonus.

Nico was pretty much a gem all day.  He listened to his instructors and tried hard.  After he realized that he didnt need to hit the deck all the time, he actually ended up being a not bad little skier.  

We let Nico do a kids' ski class, which put him on the right track to try the tow rope and the bunny hill.  He hit that hill a bunch of times, by the end, pretty much having the hang of skiing, which was cool. After, we hung out in the lodge with the ipad and let Dave ski some more.  He reported that the lines weren't that terrible for the 6-7 lifts that were running.  There were some steeper parts, but largely, it was a very comfortable experience for people who hadn't skied in 10 years.  

We had Cracker Barrel for dinner on the way home.  Even though it was his birthday, Dave humored me and let us have CB, which was okay.  Even though I didn't eat what I normally would (because I am doing this gym Whole30 challenge.  Funny, when they told me about peer pressure in high school, I just assumed that there would be more booze, sex, and drugs involved.  And less "healthy eating". )

Basketball Boy

Wow, we have been busy, so busy.

Nico is reading.  Really reading.  It's awesome.  He is still into just about every sport imaginable.   As I write this, he is running around the living room knocking a ball at a goal with a hockey stick narrating with a play by play "Henry runs the ball down, but he can't hold on to it.  Lauren is onto it now, she's hit a shot onto the back post, but now Nicholas brings it back..."

It's pretty great.  

We also started basketball.  

Dave has been hired by a company that staffs charter schools with subs.  During the interview, one of the interviewers picked up on his real mission (to get back into coaching) and called him on it (in a good way).  She suggested that he use this as a way of figuring out if there are any coaching gigs out there.  

Me- I am not teaching this quarter- but I am no less busy.  I have the incredible ability to jam pack my schedule with stuff.  A lot of it is stuff I like doing, so it's not too bad.  

The Long Overdue Christmas Post

Wow... what a crazy month.

First, it started with the FLU.  Yes, we got it.  The worst time to remember that you didnt get a flu shot is the second after your kid's pediatrician tells you that he tested positive for flu.  That was me.

But we recovered pretty fast.  Nico responded quickly to the Tamiflu and was back at school quickly. Just in time for his winter performance.  The performance we interesting.  I think it suffered a bit from "too much going on".  There was a re-enactment of scenes from Frozen, not to mention some actual music playing.  Frankly, I feel like it would have been better to just sing songs and do little dances, but I admit, I am a strange duck.

Nico's class was very well behaved.  No one lost their mind while having to sit through the entire performance, even though it was quite hot and they were all over dressed.  Look at him. Isn't he precious?

Nico played hookie on the last Friday before Winter break.  We rented a MINIVAN and packed the dogs and Christmas gifts and drove to Texas to see the Cousins and Aunt Nicole and Uncle Cody.  It was a long drive... one that was punctuated early on with the sounds of Gordon having diarrhea.  In the way back.  So, our progress was slowed by stopping every hour to walk them and avoid that happening.

We got to meet Jojo, who'd been in the states for less than a month.  It was really exciting, because she is adorable, but also because she is learning so many new things.  Nico, Maddox, and Em are finally at an age where they can play pretty well together unsupervised... so they were a little rabble running around the house playing together.  Beckett is pretty close to being able to join in.  But he mostly played with Jojo and hung out with us.  

One of my favorite things was telling Beckett that I was the boss of him.  And he telling me vice versa.  It was fantastic.  

We also did this:

Note to self: Don't do that again.  Ever.  I had never done one as a grown-up, so I was curious.  This was completely edible... and we definitely picked at it a little... but it occurred to me that this is a perfectly good waste of candy.  And besides... I don't even like most of that candy.  So in the future, just buy the "good" stuff and eat it.... no need to decorate a house with it.  

We made it back to Chicago in time for Christmas eve.  We did some quick cleaning and shopping for groceries before I finished off the night with gift wrapping.  Even though I have been chipping away at it since Thanksgiving, it seemed like still so much to wrap.  

Nico made out like a bandit, per usual.  Some hits from this year: the food prep set and storm trooper set that Santa got him, the science fair kit from Dave and me, a Batman robot that Grandma and Grandpa got him, Legos from the cousins, and a compass and military book that Gran and Grampy got him.  

For dinner, we had a pork roast, green beans (with bacon), mashed potatoes, and chocolate pecan pie.  I did the roast and the green beans in crockpots, which was nice, since I didnt have to stand over the stove all day.  Grandma and Grandpa came to town and Dave picked them up at the airport.  We spent most of the break with them watching sport, playing sport, doing science experiments, and reading.  It was a pretty fantastic great holiday.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was uneventful.  We are driving to Texas for a few days before Christmas.  Then Mike and Gay are coming for Christmas and JJ is coming for New Years, so we decided to keep it loose at the house.  

Nico and I made a kick ass pecan pie.  The turkey was amazing.  We ended up going through the turkey by Monday.  Leftovers ended up going into a chili and in some turkey and spinach burgers (sssssssssh.... don't tell Dave that spinach was in them).  

Nico bought this dog with some "bobcat bucks" from his school store.  They earn bobcat bucks whenever they are good.  A bit like "10 points for Gryffindoor" type of thing. In any case, the dog is a SHE and Nico calls her PUP.  It is pretty adorable.

I don't know if it was the unually cold start to November, but we got the tree up SUPER early for us this year.  SUPER early.  Which is actually okay, because I could have white Christmas tree lights up all the time.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  

Santa Elves

We're working on a little Christmas project (psssssssst.  it's for Uncle JJ).  Don't tell him.

Nico wanted to be under the bike, like a car mechanic.  I tried to explain that it doesn't really work like that.

Pukey McPukersons

So, we had a bit of an adventure in epidemiology this past week.  So, how it is in the Bishop-Royse house is that we put Nico to bed in his bed.  At some point in the middle of the night, he wakes up and comes into our bed.  Also, apparently, there is usually some ruckus at some point over night, because all the boys in the family are awake... but I usually don't wake up.  The dogs usually have to go out at 1 am and start their dance (refer to JBR explanations no how they conditioned Dave to do this).  Dave heaves a few deep sighs before kicking the covers off to go let the dogs out.  Sometimes Nico stirs when this happens.  Usually, I am dead to the world at this point.  But on Wednesday night, I stirred a bit too... Nico was fussing around a lot.  I was starting to get a bit annoyed with this when I heard the sound of someone puking.

Its distinctive.  There is no other sound like it.  So I spring out of bed and snatch Nico out- but the damage has been done.  PUKE.  IN.  THE. BED.  Eh.  So we change him and strip the sheets.  We get him back to sleep.  But Thursday morning, he wasn't feeling so great, so he stayed home from school.

Fast forward to Friday, where I had an especially hard workout at the gym and didn't feel right for the rest of the day.  I got home and didn't eat much.  Around 9pm on a Friday night, I PUKED.  On the floor in the basement.  You know you are an adult when you have to clean up your own puke.  Saturday night it got Dave.  It got Dave. I can't even.

Yeah.  So that was our week/weekend.

Upside to having a naturally curious, but relentless 5 year old?  Now realizes that packages arriving at our house may be for him. And insists that we open.  Its not even Thanksgiving and I am tired of explaining why we cant just open presents now, even though he has presented compelling information.  He said that if he could open them now, he will act surprised when he opens them for real on Christmas.  He actually said that.  He clearly doesn't know who he is dealing with.

It's hard to see it, but he wrote that we should not open the package from Amazon until Christmas.

I'm just a little shy...

Nico got in a scotch of trouble at school last week.  Apparently he wouldn't stop talking during class.  And he did not feel the need to participate in school activities.  You know me, I was like:

Precisely.

So we had the conversation about it and I made him write an apology letter.  The next day when it was time to deliver it to her, he didn't want to (he IS terribly shy about approach ANYONE to ask them something or say something to them).  As we were walking into school he was trying to convince me to do the heavy lifting on this.  And I was like, "I wasn't the one disrupting class.  That was you.  You need to apologize and give her the note." And he said, plain as day, "Mom, remember, I'm just a little shy."

It basically made my day.

He's really amazing...

I know, right?  Do I even blog anymore?

It's the end of the quarter.  That is all I can say about that. I wish there were some better reasons why I find it so hard to keep up with the blog.  Nico continues to amaze us every day with the things that he does and the things that he says.

Last week we went to pick up his report card (CPS requires that you actually go and get it from school- it gives the teacher a chance to sit down with parents).  It was a really good experience... Nico is off the chart on a lot of things.  She mentioned that he gets off task some times- but not in a destructive way.  She will say something or they will do something in class and it will remind him of something he thought about last week... so he will tune out for a while.  She thinks that this is partly due to his experience with Montessori school, where that kind of thinking was encouraged and emphasized over the day to day "tasks" of completing work.  She said that this would probably be a struggle for us for a while- because he is so smart and he does have a really good memory... and that is the way learning should work- being able to follow thoughts and ideas to their natural logical conclusion.  Ultimately, this isn't a model that works well with public school where you often have 10 minutes for an assignment or an activity.

She is encouraging us to do even more activities with Nico at home- because she is afraid he isn't going to get anywhere even close to his potential only doing the work that they do in class.  The good news for us, is that he is starting to get curious about a broader range of subjects and topics.  He is passionately curious about nature and animals and geology.  Combined with his interest in military history and his now developing interest in reading and writing, and I am floored.  His writing needs work- and his drawing/coloring does too.  But he is actually trying to figure out how to spell things.

 
This is such a departure from before, where he wouldn't even try to write his own name because he didnt want to be wrong.

What is crazy is that the writing thing came on very fast.  For so long, he resisted sitting down to write and just wanted no part of it.  And now, whenever we are watching sport on TV, he's finding a notebook or a scratch piece of paper to write down the scores to the games.  He likes being the score keeper for games that we play at the house and even had a go adding items to my grocery list!!  Even better is that he is starting to be able to self-direct on homework.  So when he started school, one of us usually had to sit right next to him and encourage/goad/admonish him to do homework.  And now he knows what to do... so it just tears through it.  This morning, it was sitting on the table at breakfast and he picked it up and did a sheet of it without either of us even asking.  Even crazier is that we don't do homework in the morning.

I say this about all the ages, but this one is really fun.  I love that he is getting curious about the world around him.

The Photog Game

We are settling into the rhythm of Fall.  This week was the first week that Nico's soccer team was on "winter break", so we had LITERALLY nothing we had to do.  These kinds of weekends make me equal parts anxious and excited... anxious because I feel like there are things I am supposed to be doing.  Excited because I have so many things I am going to get done.

For example, this weekend, I made apple sauce from the apples we picked and blueberry muffins (from the blueberries we picked during the summer).  I also made Shepherd's pie for dinner tonight and a kick ass slow cooker shredded pork dish for dinner last night.  I made a serious dent in the laundry and caught a nap on both days.  Of course, there is all the teaching stuff that I had planned to do, but somehow didnt have the time for it.  :)

In other news,  I have been booked for two weddings.  As a photographer.  Wait, what?  What am I even talking about?  I have been trying to breathe life into JBR Photography, whenever I am not teaching and doing the 23498723498 things it seems like we have to do.  Back in the Spring and the Summer, I was bidding on smaller, one off jobs: someone needing photos for med school applications, someone needing photos of products for a website.

To be honest, I've been weary about shooting weddings.  Mostly because the stakes are so high and I get nervous.  An old friend from Tallahassee recently got engaged and was looking a photographer so I submitted a bid.  One of my gym girlfriends also got engaged over the summer and was interested in whether I would be interested in shooting her wedding- but that is not till 2016.  So I have time.

In an effort to take my photog game to the next level, I purchased a new Canon camera.

I thought about going with a Nikon- as it seems like a lot of the photographers that I know shoot with Nikons.  However, I wanted to be able to use my current lenses.  I'd been keeping my eye open for the Canon I got on eBay and Amazon.  It is the lower end of the professional grade cameras- but I love it so far.  I am definitely looking forward to shooting more when the quarter is over.