Birds and Bugs

So I go to see my sister Jenna one day, and she hands me a caterpillar in a jar.  "Gee, thanks, you shouldn't have," I thought.

But she was all excited, she found it in her garden on some dill, and researched it on line so I would know how to take care of it. 

http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Papilio-polyxenes

She thought Dyleva would get a kick out of watching it grow and change.   

She was right.  I showed it to the niños and Dylan went off.  "First, mommy he goes in a shell and then after a lot of days he will come out and one day he will be a butterfly.  We had one at Doodlebugs and it took a lot of days."

So I spent a lot of time making this caterpillar happy, including a trip to the grocery store, to find the correct plant for this thing to eat.  Seriously.  Sorry, I don't grow dill.

The next day, he didn't move, I thought I had already starved him to death, but apparently was conserving energy to cocoon. 



We went camping.  With my luck the darn thing would come out while we were gone, so I left some oranges in the bottom of the pavillion, just in case.


Sure enough.  The first thing Eva spotted was the beautiful butterfly that emerged while we were camping!  She was so excited.  It was beautiful.   
 


And the birds.

We have beautiful flowers that Jeff buys every year to decorate our patio.

This year a robin decided to build a nest in one of them, and proceed to lay eggs.  I have been obsessed and fascinated, and paranoid that anyone that came in contact with them would disrupt their natural cycle. 

Dyleva has also been facinated by the progression of the baby birds' life cycle.

We were ecstatic the day, the eggs hatched.The babies were little pink blobs.  But little by little, their little heads would peak up to look for Mama bird.

One day we looked in and there were soft gray feathers covering the little pink blobs. 

Mama bird was not shy.  She would fly in when we were right in front of the nest. Several times a day.   And then one day, right before we left for the beach, Eva ran into the house, yelling for me. 

"Mommy!  The bird just jumped out of the nest!"


By the time I got out there, they had already moved to the next yard.  The babies sat in the grass, with the Mommy and Daddy birds up in the tree, waiting for them to fly.




Mama bird and Papa bird in the tree waiting for Little one

 

We watched them for a while, and then we moved on. 

We have empty nest syndrome.



Fishing

Recently, we were brave enough to take Dyleva camping.  Real Camping.  Well, kind of.


We were in a tent, but at Jellystone.  Not exactly the wilderness....baby steps!

One of the highlights of our camping trip was Dyleva's first authentic fishing experience.


I think it sounded a lot more exciting ahead of time for them.

I was excited.  I think it is peaceful and relaxing.  Well, except the fish probably does not think so. 



Jeff began by explaining to the niños how to attach the bobber, the weight, and of course the bait.

Piercing the worm was somewhat of a scarring experience for my children. 

And then of coure, casting.

For the record, I still cannot cast, let alone a five-year old.  It definitely takes a technique that I do not posess. 

Dylan looked to me, after his line was out, dead serious, "Mommy, I hope the worm is okay."  Aww.

Eva's reel broke within five minutes, so she ended up using Jeff's real pole. 

She, on the other hand, was less concerned about the worm.  "I hope I get a pretty fishy."

I was petrified one of the niños were going to pierce each other with the hook. 

After about 15 minutes of casting, and slowly reeling in, we were down about two worms, and a lot of patience. 
They were hungry. 
"Mom, can we have something to eat?"

They were thirsty.  "Moooommmm, can we have some wáter?"

I'm sorry, did I say fishing was a peaceful and relaxing experience?

At one point, Dyleva was up eating snacks, and I was holding a pole, and I looked over at Jeff, who was casting his Dora pole in the most masculine way posible. 


Jeff fishing with the Dora pole

(Clearly, I took a photo and sent it to all his friends.)

The outing ended in success.  Jeff caught a fish on "Eva's" pole.  Check out this catch!

No one is going hungry tonight! 





Our big catch!!!

Dylanisms 2

My little man says the cutest things.  I can't keep a serious face at times when he is speaking, and so adament.  

The other day he came out, ready for our nature walk at the park.  "Look Mommy, I have my sky goggles.  I am ready to go."  I look up to see binoculars in hand.

*****
"Dylan, you need to wait."

He looked at me and said, "Don't wait, Call 8."

*****
"Mommy, Tia Lisa is going to spin tomorrow?"

"No, Dylan, what are you talking about?"

"She is getting married.  That is when you spin around."

"No honey, she doesn't spin."

He waited a second.  "Will Tio Rich spin then?"

"I don't think anyone will spin."

"Well, will there be cake?" he asked.

***

So I get Dylan dressed today.  We finish, and he looks at me,

like Duh.  And simply says, " A flannel?"

My bad.


****
So this morning I was saying goodbye to Dylan, gave him a kiss, and turned him toward the door. 

He turned and said to me, "Mommy, when you kiss me, I never wipe it off until it dries."

****
While on vacation, Dylan was under the weather.

He said to me, "Mommy, I don't feel good.  But I am not going to say anything because I don't want anyone to feel bad for me."
****

Putting his laundry down the chute.
"Mommy, I can reach on my tippie toes, but not on my real feet."

****

Today, we were hanging in the backyard on a beautiful day.
Dylan sits down in the Adirondack chair and says, "Mommy, I'm cozy.  I am in the sun, I have a bebida and an agua.  This is cool."

****
I don't like Transformers.  I told Dylan (after previewing it) that it was too violent.  We weren't going to watch it again.

After it ended, he came quietly into the kitchen and said, "Thank you Mommy.  I really enjoyed Transformers."

Really?  Now what do I do?

****
After watching his sister bop around like a crazy person, he looks at me and says, "Mommy, she is foolish."

*****
I was tucking Dylan in one night and he said that we never sing songs anymore.  So I started going through my repertoire, and after I sang him the ABC's in Spanish, he started sobbing.

"OM goodness what is wrong?"  I asked

"It reminds me of the old days!" he sobbed.

My son is an old soul. 

*******
So we were having a conversation about guns.  Dylan was asking me questions about guns.  I simply explained that we don't play with guns and that they can hurt people.

Dylan thought about it for a minute.  And then he asked me, "Mommy, what about a love gun?"

Gene Simmons would be so proud.

*****
In the car one day, Dylan started asking me about the golden flag.  I had zero idea what he was talking about; I figured it was some kind of Willy Wonka reference.  

So I kind of humored him.  Asked him a couple of questions.  But he was adamant to talk about the golden flag.  I eventually said, "I don't know honey, where the golden flag is. ?!"  Some mother.

A day later, I heard him singing while he was playing, "You're a golden flag, you're a high flying flag, and forever in peace may you reign...."

The Whirlpool

Today as we celebrated Tio Dan's 50th birthday, Dyleva spent most of the day in the pool. 

They played for a while, but the highlight came when about 7 high school kids jumped in the pool.  They started to créate a Whirlpool by all moving around the circular pool in the same direction.  Dylan and Eva stared from the deck in fascination.  Eventually, they became brave and curious enough to jump in.

Clearly, the Whirlpool pulled them to the center.  They paddled and paddled their way back to the ladder.  No luck.  I watched and let them experiment with the current, but they couldn't make it on their own. 

I eventually stuck out a noodle, and one of the nice niños pulled them to safety.  They got out, a Little scared, and continued to watch the big niños.

The debriefing came later.

Dylan said, "Mommy, in the Whirlpool we were stuck and couldn't get out.  But mommy, you didn't really save the day, the big niño saved the day."             Thanks Dyl.
"Was it scary?"         "A Little."

Eva was more interested in the scientific aspect. 
"Mommy, if we were bigger, would be have been pulled in the middle?"
"What if we jumped in by the ladder?  Then what would happen?"
"What if it were just me and Dylan, would it still work?"
"Mommy, there were 7 niños, what if there was only 4, would it still be a Whirlpool?"
"What if we wanted to swim the other way?

One very cool science experiment.

Goodbye Yeso

Today's the day!  It has finally arrived.   


After six long weeks with the cast on, today Eva finally got her cast off.  

It was getting old, and she was really ready this last week.  Swimming has become difficult, she has become reluctant to bathe....it's time!

She has really been quite the trooper during this whole experience.  She hasn't really complained about it at all.  And my brave girl did awesome today as it was sawed off!

Summer Fun

Dyleva is having so much fun being kids...here are some random summer photos.

Puppet show at Buffalo Zoo

Shy Eva

Birthday Party for Demitri

Bike Ride at the Outer Harbor

The Full Moon view from our tent in backyard

The view from our failed attempt at Shakespeare in the Park

Rainy Day Tea Party

Dylan asked me about two months ago, if we could have a tea party. It was while we were preparing for Eva's birthday, and super busy.  So today, I made good on the promise for "another day."  

Now, we go all out for our tea parties.  First, the grocery store.  Yeah, they're not cheap.  We pick out all kinds of munchies.  First the ninos wanted soup.  Okay.  And a bread bowl.  Oookay...

We also got a ton of fruit and cookies of course.  We already had our blueberry pomegranate SLEEPYTIME tea, (not an accident).

When we got home, Eva went to the basement and started pulling out all the tea party dishes.  Then Dylan began to wash them.  

As I put the food out and the music on, Dyleva went and got dressed up for the party, (Dylan was a Fixer-guy, Eva, a princess) and got their babies to join them.  
We discovered neither child likes dried apricots, even though I got "Mommy pleeeaaasssee!" in the store.  They ate everything else.  It was a beautiful rainy day.

Dyleva spent the rest of the day in this kick-ass fort we built together that spanned the entire living room.  They temporarily moved in.    Most of the time they were very sweet to each other, hiding in a different part of the fort, and sharing their toys with each other.  That took a lot longer to clean up than the tea party....but it kept them quiet.

Obstacle Course

When it is time to go to bed at night, Eva, is the biggest dilly-dallyer in the world.  Dylan is tired and just wants to snuggle with Mommy.  Eva is hard-core.  She will look for any excuse to delay, distract, dawdle, defer, detain...

So one night Jeff was on the couch watching American Ninja Warriors.  Of course Eva, ready for bed, immediately found it fascinating in the hopes it would buy her an extra 5 minutes.  Well that exposure created 'Obstacle Course Mayhem' in our house.  

Dyleva began creating mini obstacle courses all through our house.  Eva went to a Tae Kwon Doh birthday party where they had a course set up.  Eva raised her hand, to tell her instructor about ANW, and all hell broke loose with the formerly quiet children sitting and paying attention.  They all started talking about ANW and he couldn't get them quieted down.  So funny!

Eva and her future husband

So today, our backyard became the obstacle course.  We had jumping, climbing, crawling, strategy, balance!  The ninos loved it.  It was about 86 degrees out, so every time they completed the obstacle course, they got a popsicle.  What fun we had!

Hide and Seek

Dyleva sure has been keeping busy since their summer vacation began, only about a week ago.   Everyday, we let the weather guide our travels.  Yesterday's rain led us to the 
Science Museum.  But today, we woke up to beautiful sunshine.  Perfect for a picnic in the park.

The back of the park is forest-like, with lots of trees and really short grass.  The perfect site for a game of Hide and Seek.  
Eva brought her walkie-talkies, I guess, in case we lost Dylan?

We started playing, and eventually attracted every child away 
from the playground and invited them to join in our super-
cool-walkie-talkie-hide and seek game.  

When we left to have our picnic, we left like 12kids behind 
with the walkie-talkies.  (To ease Dyleva's nerves we verbally confirmed their return).

We had a lovely picnic, even with our new fan club that 
followed us.  We introduced them to hummus.  Dyleva learned a great lesson about sharing and friendship today.

Each adventure Dylan exclaims, "Mommy, I'm so excited!"
And Eva finishes with, "Best Day Ever!"

Kind of raises the bar for tommorrow.

Spinning in Circles

Maybe it is the liberation that comes with having (slightly) older children, more manageable, or maybe we just are adventurous this summer.  

We have been able to go and see and do things that mommy has not been brave enough to do alone, or without one child buckled down, before. 

Like going to Old Home Days with only one parent...luckily we hooked up with family!  Dyleva had a ball as they jumped, ran through an obstacle course, and spun in lots of circles with their cousins. 

Dylan in his obstacle course.

It was a great morning as we moved from the tilt a whirl, to the ferris wheel to the slides.  Wow, it has been a while since Mommy has been on one of these.  I was closing my eyes and gripping the handle bars.



We had a nice lunch and the ninos discovered what stromboli is.  

The Birthday Trifecta

A trifecta is a bet of three that falls miraculously into place.  Well we had a birthday celebration trifecta of sorts.  It began with a surprise 70th birthday party for Aunt Joyce on Saturday.  

Dyleva spent the day in the pool, was it a birthday?  They probably didn't even notice the music, candles, celebration.  They were so busy swimming with their cousins.

It was a huge gathering of family and friends to celebrate the crazy life of Joyca!  Polka band included.  

Sunday, we celebrated the 93rd birthday of Grandma Gramma.  Oh I remember the days when she used to be a young 70 year old whiper-snapper bitching to me about my roommate.  (Sorry Lis.)

Again, Eva and Dylan spent their time in the pool and playing hide and go seek.  But they had A LOT of fun playing with Jacek and Logan.  Amazing how many spots they could find to hide in Grandma's backyard.

Tonight, dodging the raindrops, we went to see Tia Jenna to celebrate 31 years.  Poor Tia Jenna probably wasn't expecting soccer games, tag, and Fairy Monopoly.  But we found a rainbow during our stay, clearly, good luck.  

Rainbow!

Check out the beautiful books Dyleva made for Tia Jenna
(FYI, I cannot get the pages to turn the correct way, sorry) :

 

Birthday Trifecta? We nailed it!