Ted in Skating Class

I finally got around to actually taking some pictures during Ted's roller skating class. He is still doing so well in class. This was a big week for him. At the end of each class the kids practice rolling down a pretty good size hill. The parents go ahead of the children and the little skaters roll down the hill working on balance and bravery I guess. This week Ted went down the entire big hill all by himself and did not fall! What a stud! At the end of class the teacher commented to us how Ted is doing so well. 

I do try to practice with Ted somewhere during the week. Mostly it is just Ted putting on his skates and getting the mail with me while we also take Ruby out to go potty. Hooray for another fun week of roller skating. Also another victory was at the end on this class Ted was not completely exhausted so maybe he is building up his endurance too. 

Ted at the beginning of class doing his stretches. 

 This week all the kids lined up and practiced using their breaks. Tyler and I trade off who helps Ted.

 Here is Tyler demonstrating the proper position for using a heal break :) 

 While Tyler worked with Ted, Tidus and I hung out in the shade. Tidus spent the entire time trying to crawl around and eat things off the ground. 

 Our cute little skater boy. 

Slime Bubbles with Daddy

Taking pictures of our activities is just part of the fun. From start to finish with slime bubbles I had taken 249 pictures! Can anyone appreciate how difficult it is to whittle down the number of pictures to a more reasonable amount? Please keep this in mind when noting how many pictures are in this post. 

So here is our experience with slime bubbles. 

It began with Ted, Tidus, Ruby and me out on the porch with our supplies. Tyler was inside getting ready to do his homework and adamant that he would not be participating at all because he had work to do. 

We got this idea from the What's Up Moms YouTube channel. They tend to make their projects seem easier than they are in real life and past experience tells me I am really inept at making slime. All it takes is glue and liquid starch. Why is it so stinking difficult for me? 

With our first attempt we used blue food coloring and what I came up with was something similar to the alien entrails that ended up on the face of the border patrol officer at the beginning of Men In Black. We even have our own Frank the Pug. 

Luckily I bought two bottles of glue in anticipation of my initial failure. While all this was going on Tyler was just inside the door yelling out some slimy solutions. Apparently I was not doing what he wanted so he came out and took over. For round two Ted chose yellow. In retrospect this was a gross color for slime because now it looked more like something from a nasty cold. 

 Tyler says slime is like bread dough. You have to knead it for quite a while. This would have been a nice tip to learn from the video. Finally daddy was able to get the slime to the correct consistency and we were ready to make bubbles. You just insert a straw and blow.

xZ

After a while the kids were filthy from the dirty porch and had pretty much left to play with their toys. Tyler continued playing with the slime long after everyone else was done. 

Both kids were hosed off in the tub after this and Tyler followed with the slime still in hand. 

I forget to mention Ted was terrified of the slime after a bubble popped and then stuck to him giving the impression it was chasing after him. Tyler, ever the jokester, got the evil idea to sneak up on Ted while he played in the tub and hover a bubble over his head. This was absolutely terrifying to Ted... as it would probably be to anyone. 

As you can see Tyler felt a little remorse (and a reprimanding from his wife) so he took some time to get Ted once again comfortable with the slime and Ted grew to love it... kind of.  

And the grand prize for the biggest slime nerd goes to TYLER. Seriously what a goof. He ended his slime playing by forming it over his hand to look like a slime monster and chasing us around. Eww!

Ted writes his letters!!!

Hanging out in the morning is a nice was to ease into the day. That being said, at this point I have already started the laundry, done the dishes, made the beds, walked and fed the dog and got everyone (including myself) clothed and ready for the day. But once all these things are taken care of I like to attempt to hang out in the toy room with the kids and take some time to play before breakfast. Plus, waiting until a little later in the morning to eat means Ted will actually eat his food without my having to say, "Take another bite please," over and over. 

Although I try to think of games both kids can play together, most often I am going back and forth between kids playing age appropriate activities. Tidus and I were looking at a board book and Ted was playing with his doodle pad while sitting on the beanbag chair in the corner. I looked over when he asked, "Look, what is this?" Gesturing to his drawing I realized he was not asking me what it was but more quizzing to see if I knew what letter he created (just like his parents quiz him all the time). 

"Wow you drew an S!" This was the very first time Ted has ever written a letter all by himself without my prompting and without a line to trace. Rushing to get my phone I told him to stay right there and don't touch anything I need a picture! Ted is from the generation that understands the importance of getting pictures of EVERYTHING so he knew to wait until I came back. Little did I realize this would not be a one time event! He erased the S and then drew another. He then erased that S and drew another! For this I needed a video! As I got my phone on video mode he began to draw a C! Yay go Ted! 

There are plenty of teaching moments when you have kids and they are all well and good, but the fun moments are when you see that your little one was actually learning! Those are the best :) 

You will notice in the video that Ted sometimes calls letters by their sound. This is because we started out learning letters by what sound they make instead of their name. 

What do you do for fun?

So what do you guys like to do for fun? 

I get this question a lot. What do you like to do for fun? And when you are in a relationship it can mean, what do you and your significant other like to do for fun? I have no idea...

Precious and rare free time is spent watching YouTube, cleaning the home, or blogging ;). When I was doing my internship as a senior in college I worked with a girl who was my age and married. She said her favorite thing to do with her husband was watch TV and make fun of people.

Without even trying, Tyler and I have taken up a new activity....


ROLLER SKATING! Whaaa??? 

Let's back up a bit. Ted is getting so good at skating in his class. I am completely bragging when I say he was probably the second best skater next to a little girl who is closer to 5 and has been taking classes for a while now. I only held his hand once in class and he was leading the pack in all the activities. 

In the beginning of class the teacher told all the kids to warm up by skating to a far wall and back. Ted finished the task and came back to the shade to sit down and wait until everyone else was done. The instructor saw him and asked, "Don't feel like skating today?" I told her he had already skated down and back. With shock in her voice she confessed that she must not have seen him. It seems as though Ted was slipping under her radar quite a bit with all the different activities but he won't for long. He is proving to be quite the skating stud. 

This class we learned about breaking and crossing one skate over the other when taking a turn. Crossing skates was pretty hard for Ted since they are so huge on him. At the park where class is held there is also a basketball court. The kids skated to the court and practiced skating on the lines in circles. 

To my mom: skating on the lines in a circle totally made me think of you :) 

Ted got a kick out of the teacher showing the little people how it is done. She whizzed around the circle crossing one skate over the other as she took the turns and showed what skating can really look like. I was so happy she did this because it was a visual to Ted of how fun skating can be. He loved it. 

Now back to Tyler and me. When I signed Ted up for skating classes Tyler mentioned we should buy skates too so we can skate around with Ted. I wrote off the idea because I figured Ted would not be going that fast anyway and it would be more beneficial to him to be in shoes so I could catch him. But all this skating exposure has reawakened the skating bug in me. This past weekend we went to the skating rink and I picked out some roller skates. I opted for these over blades because they are more fun. Tyler was more into rollerblading growing up so we went to the sports store across the street from the skating rink to look for blades for him. After a few laps around the bike section in a pair of inlines he decided he liked the feel of skates over blades so it was back to the rink to get him a pair. 

Thank goodness for a stroller! It is much easier to skate around the city while pushing a sturdy baby buggy. The Opfar family has taken a couple trips around the neighborhoods in our new skates (Ted either rides in the stroller or rides his bike for now). It is a blast and we finally have something we can tell people that we like to do :) 

Oh, we also both have yoga mats we bought a few months back when I started taking a pilates class from a girl I go to church with so I guess we do that together too. Hahaha. We are a yoga/pilates and roller skating couple... who would have thought? 

Funny Californian story...

As we were checking out at the sporting goods store I was hanging out with Ted who was holding his sand pale and shovel. A worker asked if we had just come from the beach. I replied no, Ted just likes carrying around his bucket. The worker began to talk to Ted about how summer is coming and he can go to the beach all the time isn't that exciting? It will be all sunny and warm in the summer!

What???? She does realize it is sunny 99.99% of the time here right? hahaha Oh I love it. 

You're not trying, you're whining

Another day and we are off to a good start... and then I get out of bed ;) Lately I have been feeling down on myself about pretty much EVERY area of my life. I need to be better, do better, get better and everything. Ugh!

When I get down on myself I think of a line from "The Devil Wears Prada". Andy has once again failed her boss and with tears and a voice of defeat she complains to Nigel about how she is trying so hard and busting her bottom to do everything and she gets no recognition for doing things right but if she messes up then her boss just rails into her. To this Nigel says, "You're not trying, you're whining".  He says more but this line sticks in my head day after day. 

When I look at my life am I really trying or am I just whining? Sadly it is probably the latter. 

Today was an attempt to be more proactive at starting the day off right and keeping going. If we are able to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather it is so much easier to keep a cool head. The kids were strapped in the stroller and we took a long walk to Central Park. I mentioned Central Park in a previous post. We walked the paths, played on two different playgrounds, watched the ducks/geese/dogs, and went out onto the dock over the lake.

We worked on learning our letter by writing in the sand with sticks. I wrote C-A-T and had Ted sound it out. Yay you read cat Ted! Then I wrote B-U-S. He said b-uh-sss. I asked what that said and he replied CAT! So we still have some work to do.

Ted found a rock and was dropping it through the rungs of a ladder with a clang clang clang. Tidus thought this was the most hilarious thing he has ever seen. He belly laughed each time Ted dropped the rock. I am convinced that no one can make a baby laugh as hard as an older sibling. Of course, Ted had to bring the rock home he is my son. When I was little I had a rock collection. The most famous of all my rocks was a rocked named "Steady". I think I liked to pretend Steady was a pet rock or something. Unfortunately Steady was lost in the big family move of '92. Ted's rock does not get to join us inside, it is an exclusively outdoor rock and gets to hang out at the bottom of the stairs to our home. Bringing a rock into the house can only spell disaster for a 2-year-old or for our possessions.

For those keeping score, yes this is a new stroller. We sold the old two seater  on Craigslist and bought a nicer one, my early mother's day present. It is still a hassle to get up and down the stairs to our apartment but that leads into another point. We are moving on down. A bottom floor apartment opened up in our complex and we decided to take it. It is the exact same on the inside but we will have a good size patio out back and a closer parking spot. Best of all, I won't have to lug child contraptions up and down the stairs! Huzzah!

Paw Patrol is on a roll to our house! Thanks Aunt Elspeth

Thanks Aunt Elspeth for the Paw Patrol toys! Ted and Tidus love them and I was very happy to see that Ted actually let Tidus have one. I made a short video of the boys getting their gift. The package actually arrived last night but sometimes mail goes to the main office and they email out a notification that we have something to pick up. Of course I did not receive this email until the office was closed so we had a fun surprise waiting for us this morning. We must get a lot of Paw Patrol gifts in the mail because you will see that when I asked Ted what he thought his surprise package would be he guessed "PAW PATROL!" 

He was a sk8er boi

Ted started roller skating lessons this past weekend through the city parks and rec department. Huntington Beach has so many activities for kids. What is super fun is that the lessons are outside at one of the big city parks. On a side note, we were able to explore another new park!

The class is so much fun! I have never taken roller skating lessons myself so I did not know what they would be like. My mom is super good at roller skating. I may get this story wrong so anyone can correct me, but I believe her two younger sisters were signed up for skating lessons and my mom was upset because she had wanted to take lessons so her parents signed her up as well. I loved going to the local roller skating rink all the time with my family. My mom would play a kind of crack the whip game as we sped around the rink. It was a blast.

There were quite a few kids in Ted's class and I could tell the instructor knew a lot of them probably from past classes. She looked like she roller derby diva with her black ankle height roller skates. She was also super nice. The class is ages 2-5. The kids started with stretches while sitting on their bums and learning the proper way to stand up and sit down while wearing skates. Ted seemed completely confused about what he was supposed to be doing with his legs, hands, knees, and everything else.

Then they started skating around. The instructor showed them the "potty squat" which is also your safety stance. You hold your arms straight out in from of you and bend your knees and this will prevent you from falling. Ted skated to a wall and back, weaved through cones, glided so the cone went between his legs, and practiced bending over to pick up a small object. He even learned the correct way to step up and down on curbs. The class ended with the kids rolling down a hill to their awaiting parents and then stickers for everyone. He will be a pro in no time. My mom says we need to take him over to Venice Beach. :)

I could tell this class was quite the workout for Ted. He was panting and begging to sit down by the end, but when I asked if it liked it he gave an enthusiastic, "Yeah!" Skating is so much fun. I am so happy that Ted enjoyed himself and that we have the opportunity to put him in these fun little classes.

We found his skates and pads at Toys'R'Us. They are pretty cool. They are in-line skates but the back two wheels have the option to be right next to each other and then when the child gets better the wheels can all be completely in-line. The pads are Paw Patrol of course. It was fun to see all the different skates the kids had. Some had the old Fisher Price skates like I did as a kid that fit over your shoes, some had roller skates, and one little boy had tiny in-line skates with 3 wheels that you know he bought from a skating rink.

Also for all those keeping track, Tidus cut his first tooth! A day or 2 after he turned 8 months he had a little toother popping up from his bottom gums. Teeth are necessary but always a bummer to me. In my mind the first tooth signals the start of the end of them being a baby :( I love the toothless baby grin. Also you can no longer let baby gnaw on you hand. No no no! Yesterday Tidus kept trying to bite my toes and I was like on no you don't!