Cole was so excited that morning - kept saying "my backpack" and "my shoes" over and over. We went upstairs and dropped Luke off first, so Cole could watch the process, as well as witness his big brother NOT EVEN SAY GOODBYE to his mama. Seriously, he was over playing with his friends by the time I got him checked in, and I had to holler across the room that I was leaving. What's worse? When they scream and wrap themselves around your leg like a boa constrictor, or when they don't even notice you've left. I've had extensive experience with both, and I'm still not sure.
Cole and I went downstairs, and he was just fine until his teacher said, "Come look at these cars, Cole!", while I simultaneously made half a step towards the door. The shrieking commenced, and I high-tailed it out of there. I worried all morning about how his teachers were handling it, but when I picked him up, they said he only cried for EIGHT minutes, and had a great day!! And the most amazing part was he was actually NAPPING when I got there. He is officially the first Hardin boy in the history of the universe to take a nap at school (including his previous stint at Bannockburn as a baby, when he refused to sleep at all...)
So, Reid completed his second week of first grade, and Luke and Cole have now made it through three days of MDO (they go Mon/Wed, with a ridiculous amount of Monday holidays thrown in.)
That means Gray and I have officially had three days at home by ourselves. I can't say I've made the absolute most out of every moment, but I did get to play with him a lot last Wed, and today we cleaned house together. He's quite happy if I just carry him around on one hip while scrubbing the sink/dusting/cleaning the crab water/vacuuming. I thought we were being pretty efficient today, until I realized I had vacuumed most of the house with the vacuum cleaner missing the slightly important bag, with the zipper wide open at that. I walked into the living room and was immediately transported back to Lubbock - a huge dusty haze hung over the entire room. Sadly, it took me about five minutes to figure out what the problem was, but I just put the vacuum back in the closet and decided to give it a good 24 hours to settle back on the furniture. Maybe tomorrow I can give Luke and Cole the swiffers and tell them they can play pirates with them as long as they dust a little first.
It's late, so I won't write about our weekend at the lake, but we had another good trip. Didn't put the boat in, as the water was so low, but swam and played and the boys gathered up bones from the woods. And then created little animals with them on the front porch.
And the people in the back of the cove had a little par-tay for the holiday weekend. Usually we can hear them around the corner, but they're still far away. Sadly, the lake is so low, all the water front has been condensed to this little area in front of our house. So, we got to hear 40 people sing the chorus of every Brad Paisley song ever written as some afternoon entertainment. It actually WAS pretty entertaining. And made me feel REALLY old.
Oh, and my dad and Carol came up for lunch on Saturday, and stayed for a good while. Luke asked my dad if he would play a game with him, then returned with a 1000 piece jig saw puzzle. We all chuckled, but whoever did it last (probably my late grandmother), folded it up neatly and put it back in the box, so it came out mostly put together. We had fun working on it over the next few days.
AND my dad put up the old flag pole in it's rightful spot on the corner of the porch, so we taught the boys to stand at attention while we raised and lowered the flag. That was such a great ritual we had with our grandfather, and all the Fite grand kids could fold a flag with military precision. Maybe we'll work on that next summer.
Well, now. I've gone and written about our weekend after saying I wouldn't. Oh well. Here's some bonus pictures for your patience.
