Ultimate Summer: frogs

 

Monday 

I stare at a bag containing a tent roughly the size of a mammoth, and will it to become a pop-up tent. I can do this. I have google. After 30 minutes of  imitating an “I Love Lucy” episode, minus the live studio audience, the tent is set up, and  I take Ollie and Harper to story time at the park. 

I’ve decided to let the theme of story time dictate what our activities at home are, and this week was frogs.

We go back to the church where I climb ladders, hang paper , paint a wall that could pass as an ancient wall in Israel, and move heavy furniture to various classrooms. Then my husband, with impeccable timing, tells me the room will be too small for the amount of kids I have registered in my class. 

I silently take everything down and move it one by one to a different classroom.  A bigger classroom. A classroom that might as well be in Israel because it was very far away from my first classroom. 

Determined not to have a day wasted, I go to recreate the last “I Love Lucy” episode I shot, only this time it’s worse because I’m tired and overly confident. 

I go home only to come back the next day to take the tent down because I decide it just won’t work for what we need.

Wednesday

I steer a cart that is seriously desperate for a realignment and possibly wasn’t designed for both a four year-old and one year-old to sit in and drag them over to look at some turtles at a PetCo.  Self-conscious of the fact that I am just taking my children to different pet stores this summer and feeling guilty that all my kids have done this week is watch me get ready for VBS (or PBS as Ollie calls it),  I give a performance that could land me a job as a narrator on the Discovery Channel. 

We found one frog in the entire store and one of the employees had to get him out for us as he buried himself under some moss. 

I gave another performance as “potential frog buyer.”

Friday

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” I exclaim with glee as Ollie runs into a pool without a life jacket. For forty-five minutes I have been trying to encourage Ollie who was donning a life-jacket to let go of the side of the pool and let me carry him around. Ollie isn’t one to be forced into any situation, but will eventually do it once he’s given enough freedom to explore. 

Another mother and I have been following him and her son around the aqua park (we had met them five minutes ago but they were now life-long best friends) when his friend runs back into the pool and Ollie forgot to be scared.

The rest of the day is spent prepping for Harper’s half-birthday party. I’m aware of how indulgent it sounds to celebrate half-birthdays but my daughter decided to be born on Christmas-Eve to a father who is a Worship Pastor. I’m really just trying to make up for the neglect she will inevitably be feeling on her actual birthday. Is there a perfect solution? Still working on it.

Three baby girls having a tea-party. I just can’t handle it.

Saturday

“Why aren’t people coming? Lemonade! Ice cold lemonade! Okay, they’ll come now.” 

I was exhausted and I had no desire to fulfill St. Jude’s theme of baking a cake but we made a commitment to follow the baking challenge so we could raise money for St. Jude’s hospital.

 It was our last week, I got the idea to do a lemonade stand after seeing one of my friends, who is participating in the same challenge, do it the first week. I was going to make cake balls and sell them along with the lemonade but I rushed them and they turned out to be a delicious, unsellable mess. 

I spent all week trying to find Orbeez and finally found some at Target. This was going to be our water play for our frog-theme  because they are supposed to expand in water and I thought they resembled frog eggs.

After 4 hours 

After 24 hrs 

The water absorption isn’t impressive but they are fun to play with, anyway.

We also watched a video on a frog life cycle and made these jumping frogs. 

Ollie cut out the shapes after I drew them out and I just am in love with how his frog came out.

The frog theme was fun, but we had to be really creative when we could get it done. Ollie’s bonus grandma is terrified of frogs so when I told him Orbeez were frog eggs he was like “Oh we cannot bring those to Poopsie’s house… she won’t let us come inside.”