We arrived in Austin from our New Mexico trip on a Friday afternoon, not long after Grammy and Grandpa had arrived in Austin after their drive from Missouri. The kids were so excited to have them visit. It’s all we heard about for most of our drive in from Lubbock.

Grandpa and Ian having a “sword” fight in the front yard

Normally, I try to have fixings for a decent meal and nice drinks on hand, but we were so worn out from the trip that we just ordered takeout for dinner. All of us spent the evening relaxing and playing around the house.

The next day, after Maya’s morning swim class, it was more of the same. As I recall, there were bubbles and pretend sword fights in the yard, art projects, and endless playing. I remember Maya wanting to show off her beginning reading skills and Grammy and Grandpa indulging her.

Playing at Jester King

That evening, we all drove out to Jester King to drink fancy beer, eat fancy wood-fired pizza, and let the kids play in the sand pit with the community toys to their hearts’ content. The weather was ever-so-slightly on the cold side, but otherwise that outing was just about perfect.

We had only Sunday morning before Grammy and Grandpa went back to Missouri. Maya and Ian sent them off with a whole grocery bag full of art they had made from them.

Soldiering on despite the sun and the bees.

After they left, we had sort of a whirlwind afternoon of hair-cutting and bluebonnet photos. Sean had discovered a couple weeks prior that our regular bluebonnet spot had been mowed down. I had asked around a bit about good places, but I get the impression Texans may guard their favorite locations for bluebonnet photos the way Missourians guard the best mushroom hunting spots. Luckily, they seemed to be flourishing on the opposite side of the road. This did mean, though, that the sun was not in our favor that afternoon. Despite squinty-eyed kids, unnecessary distress at our proximity to bees, and a couple of impromptu potty breaks, Sean managed to get some decent photos. And so did the kids! Our two little photographers each took turns arranging the other and capturing their images.

Central Texas puts on a gorgeous show in the spring. We spend most of the summer in oppressive heat with browned grass and leathery dark green tree leaves. These are tough, durable leaves. They’ve lived with limited water. They’ve withstood that punishing sun. These leaves have seen some shit. Not so in spring. Everything is tender, bright, almost glowing green. The wildflowers range from delicate whites and pinks to brilliant yellows and orangey reds, anchored by the cool purple-blue of those bluebonnets. I really do love it that we get those pretty spring photos with the kids every year.

Guh-lasses!

A few other small things… Back in December, we had taken the kids in for their annual medical exams. Ian had his 4-year-old eye test this year. We tried walking him through it several times. He would never admit that he couldn’t tell what the picture was, but curiously enough, he lost interest at the same point in the test every time. Once the dust settled from the holidays, we took him to see our eye doctor in January, and sure enough, the little dude needed glasses. We weren’t sure how he’d take to them, but he LOVES them. The prescription is small and they have sort of rubbery frames with a strap around the back of his head, so they’ve been pretty easy to deal with so far. He has completely embraced glasses as part of his identity, but he isn’t always good about remembering to put them on in the morning. Once, I had to drive them up to school, he was so distraught over not having them.

Maya has been a reading machine. We had tried to encourage her to read a few times before. She’s known her letter sounds for ages and would make words out of her plastic letter beads all the time. I think she could spell “octopus” before she could spell “Maya.” But she could never quite be bothered to read. And then her kindergarten teacher introduced the kids to book logs. Each log has space for 16 books, and when the kids complete one, they get to choose a prize from the treasure chest in their classroom. Maya is now well into her fourth book log. I guess it just took the right motivation.

We also used this as an excuse to get library cards. We now make regular visits to the local library to stock up on reading materials.

Spring 2019 school photos

Maya had her spring pictures at school taken already back in February. I had been holding out for Ian to have his spring photos as well, but we’ll just post those once they happen.

Maya also had a neat school project to do back in March/early April. It was meant to be sort of self-driven based on her interests. Surprising absolutely no one, she chose “octopuses” as her area of focus. During one of our library visits, she had picked up a longer book on octopuses for us to read to her. One day, we read to her about blue-ringed octopuses. But she kept interrupting. She kept shouting out facts about octopuses and explaining that the blue-ringed octopuses are “really poisonous” and that there’s another kind of octopus that glows in the dark and that they had nine brains and on and on and on. I talked to her about the research she was doing with this book and how she could use that research in developing her project. Sean told Maya about papier-mache and its application to a balloon and together they decided that would make a really good octopus mantle.

Maya was very proud of her project

Sean helped Ian papier-mache a balloon. I helped Maya. Otherwise though, this was mostly a Sean and Maya show. Sean gets to do very few projects with the kids, particularly Maya, and I think she really enjoyed it.

We still haven’t done anything with Ian’s papier mache balloon; I think he’s mostly forgotten about it at this point. I figure I’ll save it for a rainy day when he’s fussed about some project Maya is working on and doesn’t have one of his own to do. After all, far too often, he wants to do exactly whatever his big sister is doing.