When did this happen?!?

Life's pace seems to be quickening. I blink and the school day is over. It seems like days have passed, but in reality it's been a month. Christmas was just yesterday, but all of a sudden it's June. Every year seems to move faster, and faster, and faster. It wreaks havoc with my to-do list, and when the passage of time suddenly catches up with me, it wreaks havoc with my heart.

Today was one of those times. I have no idea when it happened, but there is a fourth grader living in my house who ...

• is nearly up to my shoulder in height
• routinely remembers things better than I do
• says "please" and "thank you" when ordering in a restaurant (without prompting)
• gets my jokes without explanation now and only occasionally rolls his eyes at me
• pays attention through an entire baseball game, gets base hits more often than strike outs and makes awesome plays at first
• can use a jump drive to save his webpage project from school so he can independently work on it at home, too... as if I'd be any help with that, anyways...
• cries on the last day of school because he doesn't want it to end

These are the days I want to freeze in time. To put the cork in the bottle to save for later. It is the sweetness of life in balance with the bitter of knowing that time is fleeting. I know that soon I will have blinked again and there will be a teenager living in my house. But for now, I am so thankful for the awareness of The Here. The Now. The Today.

And today meant that O became a fourth grader. We celebrated the end of third grade with good friends and big smiles. With limbo and cheese puffs and Hawaiian nametags. With fond remembrances and sad goodbyes. With bunny ears, big hugs, and deep, deep gratitude.

Signs of Summer

Memorial Day Weekend is the official start of summer around here. We managed to pack in lots of our favorite people, places and events this weekend, and I'm going to save several thousand words by using pictures to tell the story....

First baseball game of 2009

Here's O with Orbit at the FCC outing to the Aeros game on Friday night.

P enjoying the game and the company!

First Buehler's $1.00 cone/cup of 2009... but certainly not the last!

First cookout of 2009!
We had friends over after going to see Night at the Museum II,
which got 30 thumbs up from our crowd of 15.


Marching in the Memorial Day parade

Spectating at the Memorial Day parade. Did I mention I love parades?

Celebrating Gumpa's birthday with Blizzards at DQ.

Hooray for SUMMER!

Just a typical day at the office...

May is the craziest month of the year here, with play rehearsals, school year wrap-ups, Scout meetings, baseball, Spring Fever, etc. Yesterday was the end-of-the-year preschool picnic, so hopefully I will be able to use some of my new "free time" to update the blog.

Coming up... this weekend we'll kick off our second annual Summer of Fun with an Aeros game, a parade, a cookout, and more! Can I get a Woo Hoo for summer?

Working the Room

Yesterday afternoon we received one of those automated phone calls from our new Congressman, John Boccieri. He was going to be at the local grocery store this afternoon and invited us to come meet him. So as not to appear rude, we accepted the invitation.

Now it just so happens that our neighbor, Jim, is the manager of said grocery store. So, when the wait for Congressman Boccieri's arrival extended beyond O's patience this afternoon, he headed over to ask Jim if he knew what the hold up was. Well, then they got to talking politics, and next thing you know O is chatting up Boccieri's advance-man, Ray. By the time I wander over to find out what happened to my kid, the three of them are old friends. Ray is telling O the story of how he got into politics and is encouraging him to get to know more of his elected officials. "Ray," I'm thinking, "don't encourage him!!!" Then Ray informs me that O will be the first person to shake Representative Boccieri's hand when he arrives. So, maybe Ray isn't so bad afterall.

Right on cue, Boccieri walks through the sliding grocery store doors and up to Ray, who introduces him to O as I scramble for my camera. They chatted for a few minutes, about our having heard Boccieri stump when we skipped school to see Obama speak, about O's love of American government, and about Boccieri's third grader. Yadda, yadda, yadda....

And as Boccieri is signing an autograph for O, Ray says, "You know, O here wants to be a Congressman someday, too." To which O replies, "No, I want to be President!"

So there, Ray.

A boy and his money....

...are soon buying LEGOS!

What better way to celebrate Presidents' Day than to spend some of your hard-earned Presidents on your very favorite toy in the whole, wide world.

Of course, the only thing better than a new Lego set is a good friend to help assemble all 1000+ pieces of the new Lego set.

Legos: $100. Happy, busy boys: Priceless

A whole half

Eight years ago today, I took this picture of my adorable baby boy.

Today I took this one, as we ate celebratory donut holes with his classmates.

Still adorable, still my boy... not so much baby anymore!!

January Would've Been Kinda Boring if it Weren't for Cub Scouts!

Thank goodness for Cub Scouts. It's been so cold and snowy that we pretty much only leave the house if we have to, and since O has some kind of activity or meeting or outing each week, it's helping prevent complete cabin fever. So how'd we stay busy in January?

P&O baked and decorated an "A-maze-ing" cake for the pack meeting....




And we celebrated O's big popcorn sales at the Lake Erie Monsters' Scout Day at the Q, where we got to do all kinds of fun things like go on the ice and shoot goals...

and shoot hoops on the Cavs practice court....

Otherwise, we kept busy with swimming two nights a week, Chess club, and playing with friends. Inside. We also spent a lot of time remarking at the incredible amount of snow we've received. It is now up to the bottom of the mailbox and holding. We have a couple of snowpeople and an awesome snow fort decorating the front lawn, too!

We had two wonderfully lazy snow days, during which we stayed in our jammies all day long. We also had a couple of not-so-fun days home with a stomach bug, the silver lining of which was that they were perfectly timed so that O got to watch the inauguration LIVE. That was awesome... well, except for the throwing-up part.

But truly, if it weren't for the bevy of Scout-related activities we've participated in this past month, we would've been bored silly by now! Here's hoping for an early Spring....