Bus - Making the Walls

Here's how we make the walls for the bus.

We eyeball the curve on a piece of wood or foam and place it against the ceiling where we will want to fabricate a wall.  Then we grab scraps and nail them together based on such important intersections as vertical wall to floor, jogs, and gaps we may have missed.

Then we trace the template on the final product material, cut and test fit.

Before we install the panel, we paint it outside and add any necessary blocking.

Spanish Eating Habits

Growing up, I had three meals with a afternoon snack called merienda.  As a young adult I traveled to Spain and found out that they eat many more meals but with smaller portions and over a larger period of time.  They eat dinner anytime between 8pm and midnight!

I've tried to give the kids the eating schedule I grew up with, but it is time to throw in the towel.  Not only do they like to graze through the entire day and evening like the Spaniards, but they do it at staggered times from each other!

Max likes to eat his breakfast later - ideally at around 9.  Simone likes to eat as soon as she wakes up.  Their hunger for lunch seems to be about 3 to 4 hours later.  Simone usually doesn't like to snack as much in the afternoon, but Max would do it all 5 hours if he could.  Dinner is whenever they're hungry and that can range from 4pm to 5:30pm.  There are several dilemmas at nighttime:  

1. One is more hungry than the other
2. They feel hungry, but will only pick at their food.
3. After dinner, they play, get ready for bed, and read books ... and feel hungry again!

There have been many times at night that when I've started my nighttime goofing off, the kids will emerge from bed and tell me they are hungry.  At first, I was enraged that they didn't eat during dinner time.  Michael then told me that he used to eat the same way.  He barely ate when his parents had dinner, would go to sleep, and then later in the evening eat ravenously!  Knowing this, I haven't freaked out if they don't eat as much at dinner time.  When they do wake up hungry, I tell them they have to eat something nutritious.  They are so starved it seems that they happily scarf down fruit that hours earlier would have seemed vomitous.  Knowing that my kids' appetites resemble Michael's has tempered my frustration in feeding them.

Handbook for Future-Simone and Future-Max

Eat. Sleep. Play. Learn. Pee. Poop. Repeat.

The last 6 1/2 years have been filled with these verbs.  It was doubly so 4 years ago when I had to take care of newborn Max and toddler Simone.  I've decided to write more about these considerably uneventful occasions because I have found myself wanting to know what I was like at the kids' ages and not having answers.  When I ask my mom about her travails in raising me from infancy, her usual answer has been that she doesn't remember.  I know that in the future, I too will not remember.  I already forgot that Max used to call Simone "Mone" when he was younger!  If and when Max and Simone have their own kids and they ask me when they were potty-trained or when they started eating solids or when they started reading, I'll be able to tell them!

Midnight Mishaps

Max surprised us all last night and peed the bed.  He hadn't done that for several months - I think the last time was a one-time incident over the Summer!  He felt bad.  While I was changing him, he said, "I'm not going to cry."  :-(   I gave him a hug and assured him we all knew he didn't mean to do it.

I can't remember if I've written about this before but, as mundane as it may sound, I feel it's important to log.  I think that the cause of my kids' urinal accidents at night is fatigue.  Earlier in the year, Simone and Max would have intermittent accidents and it seemed to coincide with when they had gone to bed really late or when they were having a growth spurt.   Max recently took 3 hour naps 2 days in a row - a sign to us that he's growing and his body is requiring more rejuvenating sleep.  Yesterday was the first napless afternoon and his body must have been so dog tired that Max couldn't wake up from his urge to pee to go to the bathroom, literally.  Figuratively, he did - in the bed.

Simone's Reading Storm

Simone loves to read and is starting to read on her own!  We got Diary of a Wimpy Kid from the library and she started reading it in the car.  When we got home, she was reading it.  At night, I offered to read it for our read-aloud time.  She declined and said she wanted to read it on her own.  After I read aloud, I let them read in bed by themselves with the light on.  Simone kept on reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid!  She reached halfway and then lost interest, but I think that's because there were other books we got at the library that piqued her interest.

The second book she started reading on her own was Super Diaper Baby.  Max and I, however, were also interested so we read it for read-aloud time anyway!

Last night, I read for about 20 minutes and then started helping Simone read Super Diaper Baby when she got stuck on words.  Tired after a day of cleaning, I fell asleep and woke up 40 minutes later.  She was still reading!!!  I had to tell her to turn off the light so that she and her brother could finally go to sleep.

Here's a video I unearthed that shows how early Simone's love of reading began.

When Mommies Cook ...

While I was cooking up a storm for Christmas, this is was the kids were doing for fun.

Belly Flop Max

Every Monday, I wash the family's clothes.  I don't know what it is about a pile of fresh laundry, but it attracts the kids, especially Max.  He always feels compelled to jump on the pile!  I tell him that he's limited to the pile of unfolded clothes and he usually complies.  Here's a video of him doing a particular jump.