Two for One!

What's this?



Two lunches? Two snacks? What could be happening?



Two boys! Two boys heading to camp, eating two snacks and two lunches. Camp!

I was dropping Nate off at his daycamp last week and realized a lot of the kids looked really small. My brain finally caught up with my eyes and I realizd that the camp is for kids who are 3 1/2 to 6. Jack is...3 1/2! Called and signed him up that very day. Today was his first day, and drop-off went beautifully.



I walked him in since it was his first day and got him settled at his table. He's a Tiger, and very pleased about it. I told his counselor that he's never been in a full-day program before, that I had no idea how he was going to do, but that he was great at his morning program and shouldn't be too much trouble. Mostly that he needs a lot more direction than the big kids, and I wanted to make sure she remembered that. And not to lose him, because I really really like him. Jack was unphased, and got straight to coloring at his table. He waved bye-bye and pipsqueaked "Bye Mom! Have a great day!"



Now I'm home and all nervous. It's supposed to rain today and he gets super-scared of rain. What if he gets scared? Ugh. I hate this. But I know he's capable of more than I think he is, and Nate is there to comfort him if need be. I know that he'll be fine.

This is hard.

Road trip recap - Indy!

It's hard to know where to start on this post! What a whirlwind this past month has been, and settling back in at home has been the only hard part about it. But Nate heads off to camp tomorrow so life will calm down a bit. I'm just going to take this bit by bit (inch by inch, I tell the boys! Or bird by bird).

Here's the only pic I have of me with the girls...so sweet!



So then we moved out of the hotel into my friend Ashley's house for a few days. We met four years ago, right after I'd had Jack and she was pregnant with her first child. We got to chatting about baby gear in the aisle at Target, and somehow turned it into a real friendship! It was so great to get to spend some time with her and her kids. Unfortunately Jack came down with croup (which I was worried was strep since Nate had recently gotten it) and we spent a lot of time dealing with after-hours care. She even took Nate to a play area with both of her kids so I could stay home and nurse Jack on our second day there. It wasn't the visit I'd imagined, but it was a heck of a lot better than nothing. Somehow I ended up with ZERO photos of our time together. The most rewarding part was that little Bella, who'd always been so shy when they lived here in DC, finally took a liking to me. It felt wonderful.

While we were there, we took a morning to visit the Indy Children's Museum. It kills me that we don't have a Children's Museum here in DC; they're always filled with so much SCIENCE and my boy Nate loves him some SCIENCE, so whenever we're nearby one I make a pilgrimage. This one had us at "dino."



And "transformer."



This was the actual model they used for the actual movie. Of course Nate hasn't even since the actual preview to the actual movie, but he was still impressed by that fact.

Before we even got inside the main area, we found this amazing exhibit of art masterworks re-created in...Jelly Beans! (Jelly Bellies, I suspect). Neither kid was familiar with the original artworks, but they still got a kick out of them.





Nate absolutely ate up the science area, and we decided we're going to start building a few simple Rube Goldberg's here as a hobby (at least the "rolling ball" sculptures. Not sure they meet the criteria of a Rube Goldberg if they don't set out to accomplish a simple task!) Either way, we are both in love with them. Maybe me more than Nate. Just by a bit. Anyway, our house is gonna get it's science on!

We finished the museum trip with a lovely melt-down by Mr. River, and called it a day. Indy, you are lucky to have such a great museum!

Our last evening in Indy, we even got in a visit with the lovely Kara and her daughters Emma and Olivia. Emma and Nate took an immediate liking to each other, Emma is a total sweetheart. And Miss O is sassy, just like my little one. We headed out to their local pool and splashed around for a while; Kara packed us a great picnic dinner. Then Dairy Queen for dinner, and we drove back to Ashley's house sticky, and far too late.

Next up...Ohio!