Park Exploration.

Today I am dead tired. I haven't slept well in the last couple of days. The dog was up sick all night on Monday, and then last night I kept waking up during a dream in which I was afraid that I went on vacation and didn't have any razor refills. Scary, I know.

I barely got the kids to school this morning. I very nearly fell asleep and missed pick-up time for preschool.

On the drive to get Oliver I looked at the clock and thought how am I going to make it to naptime today?

The boys received a McDonald's gift card for Easter, so I stopped through the drive through, bought a couple of Happy Meals and headed to a park. Living in a planned community means that there are hundreds of parks around. Oliver thinks its great fun to explore the "new" parks, so we found one that we'd driven past a thousand times but never visited.

They ate their food and then ran off to play, and all I had to do was sit there and watch. The boys seem to be playing more and more together, and I still can't believe it's really happening. I'm always afraid to interrupt them, lest I break the fragile spell and they realize that they actually like spending time together.

Colin takes eating very seriously. There was definitely not going to be any playing until all of the food was completely gone. Even if that means eating your brother's left over food.

With the food gone, swinging is top on the list.

Colin has his own less-than-conventional ways of climbing.

Tire swing. Great fun for all involved! Only minor injuries!

Oliver pushing Colin on the tire swing. I see no way this could end badly.

Oliver, swinging at Colin's request.

This is actually a steep grade for a two year old, and he did get stuck more than once. This did not faze him.

Oliver watching Colin try to get out of the tricky tunnel.

When we got home, Colin asked to sit on my lap and by some miracle he fell asleep in my arms. I can't remember the last time I held him while he slept. It must have been more than a year ago. He's always such an active kid that he never has time for things like hugging and cuddling. I didn't want to put him into bed, so I let him stay with me on the couch.

Then Oliver came over and asked if I wanted to look at his school work. Some of it I'd seen before, but I know how proud he is and how hard he worked so I always say yes. Some of the things that we looked at today were year-long projects, and I could see how much he has improved. In just this school year alone he has really come a long way in writing not just his first name, but also his last name and other words too. He has even starting sounding out his own words to write his own notes.

Self-attempted spelling of evergreen (avrgrn), accompanied by an evergreen bush with "little blue berry thingies" on it and some colorful circles "for decoration" purposes.

"Evergreen trees are all green, but the one in our yard turned orange and pieces died during the winter so I drew it like that."

"Some trees have little tiny leaves but some have no leaves still. And those are the roots. They are underground and you can't see them."

"I saw a feather and a sheep. But the feather didn't come from the sheep. The sheep had wool not feathers."

With Colin asleep in my lap and Oliver sitting right beside me with his school work, I was overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment. I'm so fortunate to have all of the pieces of my life just the way they are. Everything is going so much better than I'd ever thought it would 4.5 years ago when Oliver was born. As we looked through page after page of drawings and misspelled words, I just barely managed to keep myself together until we came to this:

At that point, I started to cry. Oliver asked me why.

"Because I'm happy. Sometimes you can cry when you're happy. Your art work made me happy."
"That is so weird, Mom. I smile when I'm happy. You should do that instead."