Summertime Fun

Last week was the first week that Bryn and Luke were in their new classrooms at the Bala Cynwyd School for Young Children. I partly dreaded Tuesday's drop-off because it would be Luke's first day in a new classroom, and yet I'm not convinced that he had completely adjusted to his previous classroom. What's more, we would be breaking routine by not dropping Bryn off first because with our new summer schedules, Bryn is home with me on Tuesdays. I was so surprised and delighted when Luke didn't get teary-eyed when I dropped him off on Tuesday or on the other two days that he attended school last week. He seems to be reveling in the fact that he's now a "big kid" who no longer goes to the baby building and who plays on the big-kid playground with Bryn. Friday's drop-off was an absolute dream as both Luke's class and Bryn's class happened to be on the playground at the same time. Before I could even say good-bye, Luke said to Bryn, "Let's run!" And off they went, running around the playground in a big loop, and they picked up one of Luke's friends, Ryan Conrad, along the way. Bryn, meanwhile, is now in the upstairs kindergarten room, and she loves the room and her new teachers, Miss Kristine and Miss Allison. On Friday the class hosted Dads for donuts at 3:30, and to Bryn's absolute delight, Ken was able to make it. She's beaming in the two pictures that were taken, but both shots are blurry, so I'm still waivering as to whether I post them here. Tomorrow is Wednesday, and both B&L are interested in seeing the beekeeper who will be paying a visit to their school.


Mondays both B&L are home, and yesterday we did something silly inspired by the following poem from one of Bryn's books:

Why?
by James Stevenson

Why is it...
While other people
Are thinking about all kinds of
Important things...
I am thinking about
What it would be like
To jump barefoot
Into an open box
Of jelly doughnuts?

So we went to Dunkin Donuts and bought a dozen jelly-filled doughnuts to jump in. The doughnuts didn't react as I had expected -- jelly didn't squirt out of them upon impact. Rather, they simply flattened like pancakes. Bryn bent down and started tearing one open to access the jelly, so I ended up slicing all of the doughnuts open toward this end.

I had filled a baking tin with warm water to rinse off sticky feet, but Luke sat in the pan. So he needed to take his wet underwear off. The next thing I knew, all clothes were off, and I had two streakers on my hands!

In this second clip, you'll see Luke bend over to overturn a rock in his never-ending quest for bug spotting, then realize shortly thereafter that he needs to pee!

As if that weren't excitement enough, last night was the first time that we set out to catch fireflies. Bryn was surprisingly skilled at catching them, and she insisted on catching them herself.
We could have stayed out much later than we did, but we didn't get started until nearly 9 p.m. as it was, so we'll have to revisit this fun activity over the weekend.