Mike's Yoga Article!

Wes Emmert: Yoga and finding your physical activity niche

Eat. More. Please.

I've been playing with iMovie.

The backstory here is that the first round of Valentine's Day pictures went a lot like the first round of Christmas card pictures. When we tried again I was armed with fruit snacks and Collin was cooperative. When I went through the pictures later, in search of the best one, I noticed Collin was signing one of three things in almost all the pictures:

Eat.

More.

Please.

The Tooth Fairy

After 6 years, 4 months, 2 weeks and 6 days of life,

Will Repede FINALLY lost a tooth.

This was a very exciting event- first tooth, first tooth fairy visit, it happened at school the day of the Valentine's party (note red kool-aid mustache!), but it was also good news because he was a little more than a week away from a visit to the dentist. As you can see in this picture, his two permanent bottom teeth have already grown in behind the baby teeth. Loosing your wiggly tooth at school is much more fun than having it pulled by the dentist.

The other bottom tooth is loose and Auntie B is giving him tips on getting it out.

This one is just funny.

Happy Valentine's Day

The boys in their Valentine shirts.

Our "heartbreaker" and our "handsome little devil" reading Snuggle Puppy.

Me and my Valentine on our first date-Prom 1996. That was during Mike's bald phase. One of the other parents asked him how his treatments were going. I'm glad he's grown out of that.

Our 14th Valentine's Day-skiing at Welch

We've lived in Minnesota for 10 years now, with our closest relatives over 300 miles away. Since our family is the target demographic of this blog, I will say that there no positives and only negatives to living far away from your family. One of those negatives is finding people to guilt/pay to watch your children so you can have time together. My sister Bridget moved to Chicago a little over a month ago and asked when she could come for a visit. I sarcastically suggested Valentine's Day so Mike and I could go out and she jumped on it! She came on Thursday night, went to Riverside with us on Friday and volunteered for Will's Valentine's Day party and then watched the boys all day Saturday while Mike and I went skiing. It was FANTASTIC! We had a great day, Will tested the boundaries of having Auntie B in charge and between her day of babysitting and afternoon in a kindergarten classroom we have provided her with free birth control. Aunt Franny is moving to Des Moines in a few weeks and we can't wait!

Everyone Should Share (Will and MLK Day)

Here's a little background on Will and his curiosity about Martin Luther King, Jr. and civil rights (aside from being born into a family of crazy white liberals). A few years back we were all hanging out on the couch on a lazy Sunday watching a kid's video on VHS. Mike and I dozed while Will watched the movie. When the tape ended the VCR shut off and the TV was tuned to PBS. We woke up from our Sunday afternoon nap to find Will attentively watching Eyes on the Prize. The was probably 3 at the time. In the weeks that followed he kept asking when we were going to watch "that Martin Luther King movie" again.

Fast forward a few years and a lot has happened. We elected our first black president, who happened to be the family favorite. I've attended a series of trainings through my job about the importance of talking about race and the effort to eliminate racial predictability in achievement data. Will started school at one of the most diverse elementary schools in Rochester.

Toward the end of December a flyer came home outlining the school's plan for a Martin Luther King, Jr celebration in January and invited students to participate in a poster and essay contest. Being a teacher mom, we got out our picture books about MLK and Rosa Parks. We read them and then I asked Will about his dream (required for poster contest). He said his dream was for "it to never go back to that way of whites only again" and then he drew this poster and submitted it for the contest.

In the past few weeks we've had many conversations in the car about MLK as they have been talking a lot about this in school. He tells me he gets sad when they talk about it, "mostly about the dead part" and asks if we can go see Martin Luther King, Jr's grave. Early last week I learned that Will's poster had been chosen as one of the winners and that he would be recognized at the all-school assembly. Aside from being a very proud mom, I was excited for Will to be recognized for something that has been a real interest of his.

Here are some shots from the assembly:

Here he is with the principal reading "Everyone Should Share"

The principal announcing the other winner, a 2nd grader.

Will and his classmates with his award winning poster (that my mom refers to as "Everyone should share and have jazz hands").

Collin

Our Little Collin. I took him in on Wednesday for his 15 month well-child check and shared with the pediatrician my concerns that he isn't very verbal, only knows a few signs and I'm unsure of his receptive language-he laughs at "NO." (to a teacher that means one of two things-a language delay or a behavior disorder.) She wasn't concerned, said we'd keep an eye on it and sent us on our way. Of course in the 4 days since that visit he is now clearly saying a variety of words and added a number of signs. It was almost like "oh, you were concerned? you should have said something." I'm not sure if it would have freaked me out more to have him say that or sign it. I took this video of him today as I was teaching him to use a spoon. Clearly all is well with his verbal skills and receptive language.

That Was Awesome!

We've reached that point here in SE MN where we have gotten the right combination of snow, freezing rain and cold that the snow on the ground has frozen over. If you are light enough you can actually walk on top of it, which makes for great sledding on the hill in our backyard. Will had a friend from the neighborhood over this afternoon and they were taking turns going down the hill. I wanted to get a video because they were going so fast. Will's reaction at the end is priceless.