fourth of july week (the day of).

this is going to be all out of order because my posts are contingent upon my camera uploads (downloads?) and we all know how awesome i am at that. 

fourth of july week was one of the best weeks ever. the kids and i got home from houston on monday and went to meet justin at work. it was his end of quarter and Q2 is their biggest one, so he was going to have to work super late (he ended up getting home around 1am). we had dinner as a family near his office, then got to let the kids romp for a little while and meet lots of his coworkers. funny. 

at this point i'll skip to friday. there was a parade in our neighborhood (lots of the austin 'hoods do them, but we didn't know and had never participated in one) that started right around the corner and moseyed up to the elementary school. it was unbelievably cute. kids, dogs, adults, wagons, strollers - everyone and everything decked out in red white & blue. i'm not typically the most overtly patriotic person out there, but we got into and will go even more buckwild next year. super cute. 

my mom had gotten the kids cute july 4 outfits and they were excited to wear them and hop into their wagon. their wagon also happens to be red & blue, so it was perfectly designed for the occasion.

i had taken ek to the dollar store the day before to get some stuff to decorate their wagon with and they were completely sold out of all gear. crazy. we made do with a few super old decos i had lying around from previous fourths. it was not my finest crafting hour by a long shot, but hollis enjoyed eating the paper glitter star, and emme enjoyed bossing hollis around regarding the eating of said glitter stars.

once we at the school, there was ice cream and breakfast tacos and general fun. unfortunately, it was only one breakfast taco per family (totally understandable) and that just didn't cut it for this crew, so we headed out after about an hour of merriment.

hollis refused to even taste the ice cream, which was homemade and incredible. he not only refused, but cried weird kid.

one week in.

i'm trying hard to process through what is most important to me/our family when it comes to our kids. the easy answer is everything - i want everything for them. if i have to be away from them all day every day, i want them to be in an environment that nurtures them. i want them to have opportunities to learn at their own speed, in their own style. i want them to be inspired and filled with awe and wonder for learning and discovering. i want them to be with peers and caretakers who love and support them and make them feel free to be their authentic selves. it seems like a lot of that might be lofty or touchy-feely or whatever, but i think all of those things are important.

i also want them to learn practical life skills. it's one of the primary reasons we chose a montessori environment for them. i believe that my kids will learn to read, whether they're 4 or they're 7, but i think a foundation of grace and courtesy and independence are super important and need to be established really early on.

so. we're five days in to their new school, which is a "montessori" school, and the best way i can describe it is that it's not a montessori school, it's a daycare. and i don't mean that in a disparaging way, i'm just having a hard time.

there are a few tenets that we've established at our house that aren't overly rigid or crazy (i don't think), but that are pretty important to our family's values. we don't really watch tv during the week, as a general rule. emme didn't watch tv at all to speak of until she was two. it's harder with hollis, but there is very very limited screen time at our house. i just think my kids will eventually learn how to play on an ipad and they'll learn who elmo is and all of that regardless of anything else. so i don't make an active effort to expose them to those things; instead, we read lots of books, spend time outside, cook together, that sort of thing. as a working mom, i have a couple of hours with my kids on work days and that's IT. i don't want 30 minutes of it monopolized by dora the explorer. and again...i am not disparaging anyone whose kidlets watch tv nonstop. my working mom guilt is pretty intense and this is one way i assuage it.

another thing is a limit to treats. so, things like pizza, sweets, processed foods as much as possible, all of that...are limited at our house. there are still WAY more treats than i'd like to have in a perfect universe, but the point is that it's at my discretion.

anyway. a couple of things have gone down this week that have upset me and i'm just trying to keep a level head and not jump to any conclusions.

the first is that there's a tv in the classroom. in every classroom. including hollis's. this was something that wasn't indicated or mentioned during the school tour. i noticed emme's on day one and was told it was only used "10-15 minutes a day before nap while the area is being prepared for nap, and only educational programming". i bit my tongue even though i take issue with that on so many levels. on wednesday, i took hollis to his 18-month doctor's appointment. when i dropped him back off around 11:40, all the little 18-month to 2 year-olds were sitting on the floor staring up at a tv screen. um, what? even if i can bite my tongue about my 3.5 year old, the APA says no screens for kids under two, period. this should not be happening in a school or daycare environment, and especially not in a place touting a "montessori" title. i called the director and tried to nicely express my concern. i said i would much rather have my kids prepare the nap area (again with that whole practical life thing we're supposed to be jointly instilling) or be read to than have them stuck in front of a screen. the director said she would talk to the teachers, so i am just assuming nothing is happening.

the next thing is hollis. he's struggling SO much with this change. i honestly think he would be struggling with any change, but this is next level. i don't love his lead teacher - she is not warm or loving with him. the work in his classroom is crappy and not deliberate at all. another time i walked in, the teacher was sitting on a chair playing a CD for the kids. not singing or clapping or giving them instruments to work with or anything. just having them sit and be quiet and listen to a recorded song. she's made several unsavory comments about our cloth diapering and this morning she picked hollis (while he was crying) up by his forearms and moved his body. i don't love any of that.

there are some other minor things too that i won't get into right now because i have to stop overthinking everything. i don't know what i'm going to do, but i just wanted to record everything because that's what this whole blogging thing is for. sigh.

*i will say that emme is responding quite well, mainly because her class size is so much smaller. she was also in a situation at her old school where there was a lot of mean talk between the kids and she really internalized that stuff, so i think it's good for her to be away from that.

parenting is hard.

protective.

justin picked up the kids today.

"you have to hold hands in the parking lot little buggy".

such a sweet big sis.

roasted brussels sprouts with balsamic honey glaze.

omgoodness i made some delicious brussels sprouts last night. i love brussels. i know this is not the most common opinion, but if my three year-old will eat them, i think these are worth sharing. 

i wish i had taken a picture because they were pretty, too, but i'm an atrocious food photographer (which is depressing considering how much i love food), and i didn't want to post a picture that didn't do them justice. 

so, a recipe!

ingredients:

- 2 lbs brussels sprouts, washed and cut in half

- kosher salt

- 4-6 tbsp coconut oil

- 1-2 tbsp local honey

- 1-2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (i used this fig-infused vinegar we bought in florida and it was pretty legit)

preheat your oven to 400. throw your brussels in a bowl and salt them. in a separate small bowl whisk all the other ingredients together, then dump it all over your brussels. get your hands dirty and coat them all generously. add some more coconut oil or another small batch of the glaze if you think your veggies aren't coated liberally enough. you won't be sorry. 

lay those bad boys out levelly on a baking sheet. i like to use foil because i don't use cooking spray because i *may* be crazy. pop them in the oven for 18 minutes. toss them, then back in the oven for 8-12 more minutes, or to the desired magical golden brown-ness you seek. 

you're welcome.

houston!

the last weekend in june, i picked up the kids early from their last day of school and we hit the road to meet up with my parents in houston. justin had end of quarter stuff at work, and we had the following week off, so it seemed like a good time to have a mini-vacation. 

it was a fantastic weekend - definitely the best travel-with-kids experience i've had with the two of them. we got there friday afternoon and my parents were stuck in a flash flood in lake charles, so the littles and i took a run over to this giant waterfall thing by our hotel. loved that. then we hit up the lobby cocktail hour reception for "blubby" water and many, many snacks while waiting for kk and jj to arrive. we let ek stay up pretty late every night, but lil bro was done and went easily to bed on his nap mat on the floor each evening. 

saturday we headed to the houston zoo, which was fabulous. i love that zoo. we saw an albino alligator (hollis makes the chomping motion on his belly with his hand and says "chomp!" as his alligator sound. it's awesome.), tons of snakes, giraffes (one of which was super close and we got to see its purple tongue eating leaves - emme was SO excited), big cats, bears, apes, and elephants (including a baby elephant named duncan and a mama elephant getting a bath). emme got ice cream and hollis got french fries, so they were pretty much in heaven. naps that afternoon weren't great (and were non-existent for h after his 7 minute car nap), but they held it together during the evening and we played with zoo toys in the hotel and ate take-out. fun.

please note my dad's head peeking over the top. he's a goof.

my parents told ek she could pick a toy at the gift shop, so of course she selected a mermaid. initially she gathered three mermaids because she "needed to take them home to show daddy".

one of the kids' favorite things were the hotel swans. there were two in the fountains in the atrium area, and the hotel manager let the kids feed them lettuce. it was really sweet. hollis called them ducks and emme called them geese, but i figure it's all just nomenclature - haha.

of course emme's "cozy little nest" is portable - this was the pile she made in the hotel room.

on sunday, we headed out to the butterfly garden and it was SO cool. you walk through a museum area first where they have hundreds of butterflies and moths emerging from their cocoons/chrysalises and other insect and spider info. i particularly enjoyed the 6-inch giant hissing cockroach display. not.

once you're through the museum, you walk into this big atrium area with butterflies everywhere. it was really pretty and so neat to see them fluttering all over the place.

the last stop at the butterfly place is another little museum-like area. the kids loved chasing the butterfly shadows on the walls, as did kk.

after a swim then a nap on sunday, we headed to pearland to visit some friends. emme and amelia played really well together, especially when they discovered their mutual love of thumb-sucking and tinkerbell. patrick grilled burgers and dogs and it was just so nice to hang with great friends. i wish we all lived closer/saw each other more.

and that was it! we headed home monday after breakfast. we love our time with kk and jj and i'm so grateful the kids have such a wonderful relationship with them. i didn't really get any great pictures, but hollis and jj were like two little peas in a pod the whole weekend. hollis is still (a week and a half later) asking for jj frequently.

last day.

friday was the kids' last day at school before we move to the new school down the street. i tried to hold it together, but it hurt me. i think mostly because it's the only place they've ever known and it's where they go every day where i know they (mostly) have fun and feel safe, where i feel safe sending them. and now they're off to a new world, new place, new experience...which i know will ultimately be ok. and probably hopefully more than ok. but they are just so little and the world is so big and i'm sentimental.

anyway. i made mini fruit kabobs for ek to share during farewell circle and strawberries (hollis's favorite) for him to share. i picked them up at 11:30 so we could drive to houston to meet my parents for a long weekend, and they each did really well with the whole thing. honestly, even though we talked about it and i've explained it several times over the course of the last several days, i don't think either kidlet (even emme) actually gets it. because they have no context for any other school environment. which brings me back to why i was super emotional about the whole thing.

it turns out going to houston and having a week off with fun family time has been the best thing that could have happened to lead up to the change, but more about that later. for now, a little transcript of hollis's teacher's note to him, written on the turtle he painted during his farewell (turtles are his fave):

oh, hollis. it's been such a pleasure to spend time with you. we will miss you! you're a funny little fellow, with your old-man shuffle and set routines. you light up whenever we put new animals of any kind in our classroom, and you know all of their names. you can say a lot of words, even long words like 'nap mat' and 'lunchbox'. you like to be inside or outside, but you want to make sure there are always books available to read. and you are very literate - it's so cute to see your whole-body participation in circle time. we wish you the best, friend.

 we will miss our friends and teachers at hms.