Wyatt swinging and cracking up!

We took the kids to Boston a few weeks ago. (Pictures to follow I hope)
My favorite moment of the whole trip, though, was this one. Wyatt using the indoor swing at the Boston Museum of Science. (Turn your volume on)

Connor on skateboard!

Enjoy this video I made for Connor's skateboarding lesson!

The slow ascent

Each moment in parenting is a moment leading our children toward their lives as adults. With each passing season I am remarking on how much older my children are getting, most notably Connor.

Connor had a friend over today. It's one of his closest friends, and it happens to be a girl. They've been in class together for two years, but are in different classes this year. Connor has been nervously chatting about this difference, worried about losing her friendship. Thankfully, she was able to come over today. I noticed that Connor was wearing some of his school clothes this morning, and asked him several times to change into play clothes. Finally, he told me that he looked "cool" in these clothes, and would not be changing them.

Finally it dawned on me, he was dressed to impress! Thankfully, most of his interactions with her during the day still involved playing nerf tag and racing around the yard. I think the ascent will be slow yet.

It's a diner!

We drove to the Montshire museum today. It's about a 2 hour drive. When we got off the interstate there was a building there. Connor asked if that was the Montshire. "No!" said Siobhan "It's a diner. A diner Connor".

baseball update and my big boy

Connor's team had an unscheduled practice tonight after the train wreck of a game yesterday. His storming around and temper tantrum before the practice clued me in to the fact that he was really nervous about heading out. We had a long conversation about it. He talked again about how he was the worst one out there. I didn't deny that (because it doesn't matter). But instead I asked him if his true friends were to walk past him on the field, would they laugh at him for being the worst? He reluctantly agreed they would not. Then Al piped up and mentioned about how the worst always has the most room to improve. How does one improve? By going to practice!

My heart was aching for my poor little guys. Baseball was so fun and easy in the spring, and now it's a whole new league. However, I was so so so proud of him for heading to practice tonight, and for being okay with it, even if he was the worst. He went to practice, and he had a good time. He even got to pitch twice!

And, he wasn't even the worst tonight, as he told me after the practice.

Connor, you made me extremely proud of you tonight. You faced a fear head on, and you did a great job. You were able to do something that was very difficult. Nice job. You are growing up to be a fantastic young man. (Now, if you could just make it through the day without pounding on your younger sister we'd be golden).

Baseball

Tonight Connor had his first game of summer baseball. The league started last week, but he was away at summer camp. So, he missed a game. There were a few other kids starting today too. The team has done a great job of stressing that it's all in fun.
I am not so sure that the other team got that same message. Summer baseball is a traveling league. We played against Williston tonight. I think their coaches probably agreed to give them all five bucks for each base they stole. It was insane. Unless our pitcher's foot was entirely on the pitcher's mound, the players were stealing. Connor has just finished his first year of farm league. What that means is that the kids were able to maybe sometimes squeak in a double. Once I saw a triple. Generally though, in farm league, the kids would wait at their base for the kids to finish making tons of errors throwing the ball to the pitcher. Not so in summer league. Those Williston boys scored seven runs each inning. (That's the rule, seven runs per inning then they call it). Once our team was up they pretty much struck out every kid. Thank God for the seven run rule. Four innings took two hours....
Connor did not really have a good time tonight, and that upset me. He was struggling and was really upset and hard on himself. He came to me, holding back tears, saying that he was the worst one on the team. That made me feel really bad for him. I hope that as the season goes on he feels better about the game.

At least he looked handsome:

more camp

Today was Aisling's first day of summer camp. She is riding a bus to Richmond to head to girl scout camp. I remember doing the same thing when I was younger!

She was so nervous this morning she hardly ate anything, but I know she will have a great time.

Thankfully she is going with a little girl from town. They are not super close, but they know one another from GS events and having older brothers! I am glad Aisling had someone to sit with. They are in the same group too, so that should help!
Looking forward to hearing how her day goes!!