Spring Excitement and Nostalgia

Happy late Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.  It is my 6th Mother's Day.  I said I didn't want anything because I would rather just spend money buying stuff for the new house.  I have been so out of sorts and distracted and I can barely handle my kids in public so I didn't get anyone even a card!  It's a year for the books, that's for sure. Yesterday Tessa's preschool had a parent party and they made these very cute flowers for us. She had the biggest grin on her face when she gave it to me.  

It's actually a pen and the cap is embedded in the rocks.  This is one of the better kid crafts I've seen for that age group.  Ben brought home a painting of a vase of flowers with a letter on the back which said, to summarize, "thank you for making the best chicken nuggets and thank you for making my bed".  Hmmmm OK.  Yes, I do indeed make some good chicken nuggets.  I'm so good at setting the oven to 400 and slipping the pan in there. The bed thing though...I NEVER make anyone's bed in this house unless I'm changing the sheets or someone is coming over.  So I don't know where that came from.  

There was exciting news this weekend.  I tried to embed a video but I couldn't figure out how.  Ben started riding a bike without training wheels!  Now, I'm not bragging here.  I know many kids his age who have been doing this for at least a year and probably longer for some. We haven't really spent much time practicing because our street is at the top of a hill and it always worried me that he would go tumbling down it.  He learned at the farm by starting on a long expanse of grass and then moving to the gravel driveway.  It was crazy because I learned to ride a bike at the farm when my grandparents lived there!  I was a big older, between 1st and 2nd grade because we had been living overseas and I didn't have a bike there with me.  The old banana seater was waiting when I got back though!  I remember it took me weeks of falling in the grass in front of the house to get it.  It was a dry grasshopper summer and I'll never forget the first time I stayed up and rode in a straight line across the grass and grasshoppers were jumping away from me like the Red Sea parting.  Ben was on a roll after one push from my mom.    

When I was a kid, a bike helmet was a rare sight and the person who was wearing it was probably a big old nerd.  Actually, I can't even say that because I didn't know a single kid who wore a bike helmet in the 90's.  But, we know better now I guess.  Also, I had a friend in law school who had a serious head injury when she was 12 from a bike accident and that always stays with me.  We are the same age so kids in the 90's did indeed get hurt.  Yesterday morning I ventured out with Calvin and Milo aka Mr. I Want Everything I See in Stores and Don't Understand the Concept of Paying and Money and When My Mom Puts Food I Like in the Cart I Want to Rip It Open Immediately" to find some helmets.  Of course, every store was picked over by this point but I found what we needed.  I found the perfect style for Tessa. 

Ben's is black and red with a spike Mohawk and Milo's has Lightening McQueen.  

These weeks in May are always full of nostalgia for me.  May 10th kind of caught me off guard when I saw a friend from law school mention it was our 10 year graduation anniversary.  Then, a few days later was the college anniversary.  And today is the day I left for Norway 12 years ago in 2006.  The pictures always pop up on Facebook and remind me. 

Ahhh, the glow of a 22 year old. 

And, the joy of a person who is finally done with formal education.  Actually, I still fantasize about college academics sometimes.  If I didn't have any morals I would love to be a research paper writer.  Haha.  I'm sure I could still bang one of those out in no time especially if it was a liberal arts topic. 

The Norway pictures could be shared again but all a person has to do is to the link for May in any of the years along the side of the page and there will be some there because I love them so much I have shared them every year I think.