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More photos from my volunteer day at Art’s school.

Smile. It was picture day. This is Art’s weird smile. I dig it. Although I actually wish though they wouldn’t ask kids to smile, but rather just sit there and be themselves. Smile or not, whatever. that would be more fun. And accurate historically. As it is the photos will represent a bunch of kids trying to please a strange photographer by smiling, even though they can’t really do that on command. Maybe if you say, “You have stinky green boogers on your butt!! AHHH AH HA HA!” But not by asking a kid to smile. That’s not funny or smile-worthy.

They had the opportunity to tweak their hair. Art loved his so much he didn’t make any adjustments.
Here’s Art running around the gym as his entire class watches. Each kid, on their first day of gym, learned some rules and then ran around the gym. Everyone clapped when they arrived back where they started.
A weird jumping game.
reading something.

I like this photo. During free time Art chose to play with these little plastic peg things and just sat all by his lonesome. I sorta felt proud of him sitting all alone. I takes a certain confidence I think.

A poem.

Have I mentioned that I now love Art's school?  I went to an informational meeting for parents last night called "Barton 101", a 90 minute program designed to help parents understand the philosophies and methods that drive Barton's progressive model.  Anyway, the kids just finished their apple unit and one of the many apple related things the kids did was write a poem.

Art had told me that they were writing poems and that the poems "did not have to rhyme" but that words just had to be beautiful.  He wrote his poem in big block letters but the sheet got crumpled, torn and stained a bit so I will not include a picture of his handwriting, but here are what the letters said:
Autumn
YELLOW
CRUNCH
LEAVES
(with some extra letters that he did not explain on the bottom – ears EL L CXS)
e.e. cummings, eat your heart out!

October birthday brunch, without Adria.

Last Sunday we had brunch at our house with all of Jessica’s family and my brother and his wife. It’s a big tasty potluck affair and has become a sort of tradition. It’s fun to make breakfast food en mass, and especially fun to fill up our house with people we love. We celebrated a number of October birthdays, especially the first birthdays of Netta and Bailey (Oct 8th) and their much older and wiser cousin Charlotte (Oct 5th). We got there free cakes at lunds by bringing in birth certificates (!).

I so wish Adria was still alive to have seen her trio of beautiful granddaughters turn one. It actually breaks my heart. I know it does Jessica’s. I have to admit, I’ve been in a conscious state of denial about her loss for quite a while. She was such a enormous part of our lives, it’s hard really to quantify. It’s no small thing, especially for Jessica, and it’s taking some time to process. I haven’t even really looked at photos of her since the first couple weeks after her death. Eventually I’ll post a collection of images and I (and perhaps Jessica) can be a bit more expressive about the sense of loss and also how we’ve managed without. She really was an extraordinary woman. Honest and cynical and smart and unflinching and loving and a great great friend to our whole family. And Jessica’s dear mother, her best and closest friend. I really miss her.

What the hell is that hand doing there?
This is a photo of some cousins, including the one still growing in Amy (left) tiny belly. She’s there to represent.
Photos like this are actually sorta gross but I’m posting anyway. AHH HA HA!
Careful Bailey…..she has pincers.
What did you expect?
Aerial photo.
Uncle Dick is a gifted musician. Truly. It was really fun to hear him play a bit on the porch with Art’s untunable $5 garage sale guitar. Untunable until Dick got it, he made it sound quite nice and even gave Arthur a pick which the boy has been using daily since.
A walk to the egret’s nest.
The wind whipped the willow tree around. fun stuff.

We all pogoed a bit as a cool down from the walk. Hannah was a natural.
A Zacharius.
Brian
And Mike. He later got the hang of it and pogoed like pro pogoer.

Art’s first gym glass ever.

Today I spent the entire three hours of Art’s half-day kindergarten as a classroom volunteer. Sorta helped out with this or that and (surprise!) took lots of photos. When I have time I’ll post some more. This one is from Art’s first gym glass ever. The kids ran laps and each one seemed pretty thrilled at actually being asked to run.

One of many harrowing moments in Jessica’s life.

Just got this heart-wrenching email from Jessica with a happy ending. Hard for a Papa to read, imagining his poor hungry kids unable to eat! It's actually probably a good experience for them, to be so thoroughly disappointed but realize life goes on. It's actually helpful for me, too..

From Jessica:

We had an interesting night.  Went to IKEA with the intention of getting some cheap and attractive paper plates/cups etc.  Small-land had a 40 minute wait so we played in the rugs for a bit before heading up for dinner.  Boys were great.  Waited patiently in a long cafeteria line diligently steering their own IKEA Tray-Mobiles until, loaded up and ready to pay, we discovered I HAD NO WALLET!!!  NO MONEY!!!  Oh, the horror for a Mom!  There they were with some of their favorite things to eat right in front of them!  And it was 5:30!!!!  Of course, they both cried.  I saw the joy about his dinner fall off of Art's face in real time when he realized we weren't staying to eat.  "But I was really looking forward to that!" he said of his plate of meatballs and potatoes. Lewis was so upset he tried to walk away with a chicken tender.  I felt horrible and offered to give them ice cream for dinner.  Whatever they wanted.  How cruel a moment it was!  

But we made it out of IKEA without too much of a scene and I only lost my cool when Art went boneless at the car.  That was a little much.  And only moments later he very articulately said, "Well, I guess you can't have everything that's fun."  We went home for the wallet and I got back into the car with two cold meat balls for each baby, some chips for the boys and and a mission to bring home some Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Back at home eating Art said, "This is the best dinner ever!"  Everybody fared incredibly well.  I told them several times how proud I was of them for taking a really bad moment and moving on so well.  They were just great.  

Sorry, Lewis.

I am responsible for Lewis’ not so good haircut he got recently. We wanted a trim, just a trim, but the woman asked if I’d like the hair in front shorter and I said yes, thinking that it would be out of his eyes for longer. But now it looks sorta weird. But he doesn’t give a sh#t which is the good part.