Memorial Day and more

I seem to be playing catch up in many areas and the blog is no exception.  For Memorial Day I took the kids up to Pine Orchard, CT where they had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.  Despite staying in a 7 bedroom house, my kids decided we should all sleep in one bed.  Charlie slept on one side, Diego and Sofia in the middle and I slept on the other to keep Sofia from falling.  Carlos stayed home.  Surprisingly we all slept decently.  As usual, the kids enjoyed relocating the rocks and searching for shells.  They filled up bags of shells, sorted and priced them for their store.  Unfortunately their store stayed open about 20 minutes before they got bored with the low foot traffic and poor response. We had a good discussion about business models and they agreed that popsicles by the tennis courts might sell better than seashells by the beach.  We had nice walks on the beach, trips to the pool and tennis lessons.  Pretty nice!    

 The end of school means the end of soccer and little league.  Carlos was pretty happy to finish his coaching duties for Diego's team, but we were sad to see the end of Charlie's season.  Instead of having a parent coach his soccer on the hill team, his normal soccer instructor (during the week) was the coach and most of the kids were friends from Brent.  It was a fun group and Charlie really enjoyed himself.  Coach David is always so positive and encouraging and all the kids adore him.  I noticed that Charlie isn't very aggressive during practice. He usually does much better during games, but he doesn't have the tenacity that some of the other kids have nor does he have the fine ball skills. I'm really amazed by some of the 6-7 year olds playing soccer - their ball handling skills are really impressive.

 In baseball Charlie is one of the best fielders on his team, but not great at hitting the ball.  I find it a bit of mystery given how much baseball he plays.  When the weather is nice Carlos takes the boys to X park before school to hit balls and it is the highlight of their day.   Charlie has been disappointed in his hitting during games and it makes me so sad.  I don't care that he doesn't hit the ball, but I do care that he is disappointed!  Diego smacks the ball no problem during his games though he needs a bit more strength to turn the hits into home runs.  I lost his mitt so he played his last game with out one, but the rockstar that he is, he was playing first base and caught the ball bare-handed for a nice out.

Capitol Hill Classic

Last weekend was the Capitol Hill Classic which is always a fun, community event.  Carlos added a minute to his time and Charlie shaved off 10 seconds.  The kids loved cheering on the 10k runners and then Charlie was super excited for his 3k race.  He got to run with his friends which was fun to see.  In the end he was the fastest 6 year old running 9:46/mile but by age 7 kids are running 8 minute miles!! wow!  Diego didn't really like the fun run. It's too crowded so I don't really blame him.

Sofia is a force of nature.  I love to see how she bonds with her favorite 2 year olds: Quinn and Maeve.  It's hysterical to see them carry on quite a profound relationship with such limited vocabulary.  I don't however love her temper tantrums and the battle of wills we go through every evening. I stopped nursing her on Friday May 15th and two weeks later she is still looking to nurse - that's how determined she is!  I find that I often continue clearly unsustainable activities until one day I hit a breaking point and veer in a very different direction.  Friday May 15th was that breaking point for me and nursing.  I had thought I'd have this romantic nursing sendoff with a halo image of me with Sofia the last time I would nurse her.  Instead it ended with me so frustrated that I put her in her crib screaming while I made dinner. All those "no cry" weaning blogs make me feel that my weaning was like a failed "pintrest" birthday cake.  That particular Friday she was mad from school pick-up all the way through the Yards Park concert - a good 4 straight hours.  Finally I gave up and decided that was the end of nursing.  It hasn't solved much in terms of her attitude, but at least she is off breastmilk....

On a more positive note, we borrowed a bike seat from Cici's family and Sofia LOVES it.  I traumatized her at first because I wasn't used to the weight and when I first put her in the seat the bike nearly tipped over.  For the entire first ride she screamed "I fall, I fall, I fall."  But after a few rides she has come to love it.  Because of road closures I had to bike with all three kids to Anacostia for Charlie's soccer game at 8am and then bike over to Diego's baseball game on the other side of the Hill and then bike to a birthday party and back home.  After all that, Charlie was disappointed that we weren't biking back over to the other side of the Hill again for his baseball game.  I swear these kids must be in calorie deficit most days.

Mother's Day

For Mother's Day we tried to take a mini-hike on Roosevelt Island but it turned out everyone and their mother (literally) had the same idea. So we kept going to Turkey Run park, an exit off George Washington Parkway that I've passed for years and, to be honest, never even been curious about.  But we decided to give it a try and had an awesome hike.  Apparently no one else is curious about the exit either because we were the only people there.  The Potomac Heritage Trail guides you along the river with many places to stop and - if you are my children - find good rocks to throw in the water.  The trail isn't well traveled so it is narrow and overgrown at times, but the kids loved it and ran/walked the 3+ miles.  The part Sofia loved most was an old bridge which she must have crossed at least 24 times.  

The hike salvaged an otherwise comical mother's day which started with Carlos waking up late and saying "why don't I make some breakfast?....oh wait...we don't have ingredients to make the one thing I can make....how about some toast?"

We hosted Charlie's little league team recently which ended up being a lot of fun.  The kids made a clubhouse out of the 3rd floor.  They watched the Nats game while simultaneously playing their own baseball game with cushions as bases.  From the first floor we could hear the wild cheering as their favorite players got up to bat.  Overall little league has been a lot of fun for Charlie, but it has made me remember why I don't like baseball.  His games last two hours; I'm really just interested in seeing him play but he only touches the ball a few times (at best) an inning!  Maybe if we can get Diego and Charlie on the same team there would be enough density of action to hold my attention.

Sofia is a lovely terror :). Similar to the way Diego always has to go poo in the worst possible places, Sofia seems to sense the worst place to start screaming and let's me have it.   Swim class is my least favorite activity of the week - as in I really, really can't stand it - and of course she reserves her worst behavior for that time.  By the time I get home I want to crack a bottle of wine over my head.  On the other hand she is usually pretty sweet during tennis class, primarily because she has found some poor older girl who let's Sofia boss her around.  In the photo below she has stolen the girl's journal and is writing her own notes.  They have become strange friends and the girl keeps wanting Sofia to come over to her house for a playdate! Sofia's best friend is named Quinn and they are hysterical together. They can barely talk to each other but seem to communicate at a deep level....  Sofia calls her "Kinn" and calls her mom "mama."  In fact I seem to be the 3rd mom: Sandra is mom, Quinn's mom is mom and, lastly, I am mom.  If it weren't for the fact that I am STILL nursing, I think she'd consider me dispensable.

Spring time!

Now that the weather is nice we've been enjoying spending the days outside.  That has meant a lot of baseball before school, baseball after school and baseball during the weekends.  Carlos is coaching Diego's team and can't really stand it.  I don't think coaching other kids is Carlos' thing. I made him do it because Diego is technically too young for little league, but I couldn't make him do tee-ball again so I thought this would be a nice way for him to transition to little league.  Just putting him in the uniform makes the transition worth it!

Charlie is enjoying his team, though he also just likes to play catch and ball in the park with his friends. This past weekend he must have spent 5 hours at X park playing baseball with his friend Ian. They did take a 1 hour break to have lunch and watch part of the Nats game, but then it was back outside.

The other weekend we went to stay at Cici's family's house which is a super nice vineyard setting in Virginia. Given that life is a bit more relaxing without Sofia and because she wouldn't have any one her own age to beat up we decided to leave her with Sandra for the weekend. She loved it because all of Sandra's kids fought to take care of her and play with her. But I almost decided not to leave her because as I drove up to Sandra's house I noticed Charlie had his face in his hands and tears were rolling down his arms. "I don't want to leave Sofia. Please don't leave her. I promise to take care of her the whole weekend." I was so sad watching how sad he was that I almost kept driving.  Luckily I decided against the momentary weakness as we had a great and relaxing weekend. Because the kids all entertained each other I could actually finish sentences even during daytime hours!

Easter

We headed up to Philadelphia for Easter.  It was the first time that our kids got to meet the twins and they adored them.  They wanted to constantly caress the babies. The whole weekend was so fun. We spent time at my mom's store, running around the field house at GA and dying and then hunting for a lot of Easter eggs. Like last year, Soogy and I stayed up until 2 in the morning stuffing easter eggs with treats. We were trying to avoid that part of the weekend, but it seems inevitable and would have been okay except that there was an interlude to clean up Eli who threw up all over himself while asleep.  Amazing how kids can do that! Yet even a huge bag full of eggs didn't stand a chance against against 4.5 hunting kids (not surprisingly, Sofia was a feisty finder too).  The second part of the hunt was based on clues which as super fun and the kids were amazed that the Easter Bunny knew the intricacies of grandma's house.  One of the treats in their baskets was a huge chocolate gold coin that I got from Harrods while in London.  Charlie was convinced that the facade imprinted on the coin was that of the old Brooklyn Dodgers stadium.  I went with it as the Easter Bunny got way more credit for thinking of that than Harrods.....

GA was a lot of fun too due, in large part, to the fact that there was a pitching machine available for use. I even got to take some swings and have to say that hitting a baseball is incredibly satisfying!  We were all excited about the Nats opening day. Charlie set up a lemonade stand with Cici.  We didn't get to go so let the boys watch on TV. It was disappointing just like many other Nats games this April. That doesn't seem to dampen the boys enthusiasm. Carlos took them to a game during opening week and was able to sit right behind the Nats' dug out.  I watched the game from home and saw them on TV!