April 2019 – Family Highlights – Heidi, Tyson, Calan & Evan

Highlights

Kids went to gem and mineral show with Dada
Evan’s Spring Sing concert
Calan sets a new 3×3 speed cube record

Calan

This month continued the Future Pro football season for Calan. The team was doing well with Calan alternating at QB with one other boy. One game was a little tough as the coach was gone, and they had to play on a new field he hadn’t been on before. He wasn’t feeling quite up to playing and missed a lot of the game. He finally went in and felt good enough to throw a couple passes and a few plays on defense. The following week, he recovered well and was back to his usual self running plays and throwing passes. The best part of that day though was igniting a friendship with his teammate Kelly. He knew Kelly of course, but that day after the game he got to spend some time playing catch and then getting some snow cones at the food truck next parked next to the fields. Another instance where you can really see that with the right kind of kid, Calan really thrives in making a friend and sharing time with them. He couldn’t wait to see Kelly again at the next practice.

NBA playoffs started this month, and Calan and Dada took advantage and watched some good, early series. This of course, prompted Calan’s love for basketball. And so after weeks of being so football focused Calan returned to regular basketball playing out on the court. You’d find him out there practicing and enjoying shooting around, especially early in the mornings. He is so motivated by seeing others play. Pretty typical for kids, but it’s strong for Calan.

One incident Calan would love to forget is a freak bike accident on the long bike trail. It was the first one on his mountain bike he got a few months ago. The tire just slipped when it came off the pavement and onto the dirt shoulder on the side of the trail. We were almost home too, so it was especially hard after a nice, long ride. Needless to say he scraped up his knees and elbow pretty badly. He has been remarkably strong through the recovery. 🙂

As he continues to practice with his speed cubes, Calan worked on his 3×3 speed this month. He’d been under a minute a few times previously, but one day managed to get a time of 36 seconds on his timing mat. A fun moment for him!

Day-to-day, Calan continues his routines of seeing Mr. Henning and Miss Kim along with his violin lessons each week. Also, playing a few piano pieces daily. Doing “read-alouds” with Mama have been working out great this month. They read “Farmer Boy” (Laura Ingalls) a lot.

Evan

Evan had some springtime events at preschool this month, taking us back four years when Calan did these things. The first was the “Spring Sing” school concert. As always, it was fun to see Evan in his school environment; visiting his classrooms, seeing his classmates and of course Evan showing us his different school projects decorating his classroom. The concert itself hadn’t changed from 3 years ago – just a different set of kids mostly all “yelling” the lyrics to the cute springtime and Easter songs. Evan displayed his style of performance that confirmed our two boys aren’t terribly enthusiastic about getting up and singing and doing choreographed moves to songs. That aside, it was still something to soak up, watching Evan up there all handsome and in the limelight up on stage.

One treasured school activity this month was Evan getting to bring home the new, baby chicks from school for the night. After watching the eggs for a while at school and seeing them hatch, each kid gets to take them home overnight for a sleepover. Evan was adorable watching them and teaching us about how to care for them (with Mama’s informed support of course).

Evan also got a little more into learning some basic basketball skills recently. In particular he liked doing the perfect bounce pass, carrying out the strict form he learned for how to do it. Calan helped him, and Evan loved showing Mama how to do it at one point. He also applied this focus to dribbling correctly and playing mini-games with Calan on the sport court.

Notable quotes this month:

“I’m running out of air.” When having a slight reaction to wheat dose and nose clogging up making it hard to breathe. 🙁

“Your sunglasses case came with sunglasses?” Referring to Dada’s new sunglasses that came with a hard shell storage case.

“Mama, I love you all the numbers except the really small ones. So, I don’t love you one, two or three.”