a week gone by

We just got back from a "picnic" at the Academy. There's a soccer field we sometimes go to. We set up our chairs in the shade of some cottonwoods, and we even laid a blanket on the ground. It was about 75 degrees, sunny, with a slight breeze. The boys brought soccer gear, baseball gear, and frisbees. We brought a red ball that takes about a half hour to inflate and once it's fully inflated one of the boys can crawl inside and roll around on the grass and down the hill, tumbling inside it. While Jackson was inside it, Ry and I played catch.

An interesting week it was, because Cyndi was in Iowa for some training. She had the boys' clothes all ironed and laid out for each morning she was gone. The boys were very cooperative all week. They got dressed when I asked. Jackson brushed his teeth without me saying anything at all. Rylee picked up his Legos. Jackson has no more homework for the school year, but Ry still has his weekly vocabulary and reading tests, so we worked on that together until he had it cold. There usually was some quiet time in the evening and also about a half hour after everything was packed up and before we had to leave for school. The work days were short for me, as I took the boys to school and picked them up in the afternoon. It was wonderful to watch them. When we arrived on the school grounds, the boys would separate and place their backpacks in their class lines. Jack played soccer or met Nicholas. Rylee would run around with his classmates, playing lots of tag.

The boys kept track of the time when Cyndi would arrive. She came back Friday evening and we met her inside the airport. Cyndi borrowed Jack's carry-on bag and she had a new briefcase for her new work and to carry her laptop. The boys hugged her all night, even at the restaurant that night.

Jackson has been working on his stop motion animation. Here's the first one he put on YouTube: click. This is probably the third he's done, but he had trouble saving the first two, which were longer. The soundtrack is a favorite of his; he just recently uploaded it from iTunes. You can see how the Legos are ideal for making these kind of YouTube videos, and there's lots of kids doing it on the internet. The minifigures are especially popular and ideal for these movies. Rylee is building lots of Lego cars, planes and houses. He researches Legos constantly on the internet. We are trying to plan a trip to New York City to visit Ariel for a couple of days, and the boys have already planned on a visit to the Lego store at Rockefeller Center. Ariel is in southern France at the moment, joining her mother at the last minute. She wants to go to an international science journalism program in Dakar at the end of June. (More catchup on family whereabouts: Mom & Dad are in Hawaii. Sarah, I heard, got a new job in Chico, and Emily starts work this summer in San Francisco.)

This has been a wonderful season for little league, except for the winds and the late cold fronts we've been getting. But that kind of weather is unfortunately typical for little league season. Ry enjoys his first year on machine pitch (MMP I division). There's not much in real fielding, and frankly there's almost no field coaching once the games begin. Ry is getting many hits, and I especially love watching him run the bases. He puts his head down, pumps his arms, and charges down the baselines until he's safely on base. He's amazing at catch. Because of his age, he'll repeat MMP I next year, and I suspect it will be a stellar year for him.

I am especially so pleased with Jackson's year. I didn't know what to expect. This is probably his last year on machine pitch (MMP II division). The coach really likes him. I've talked a lot about Jackson's play in previous blogs. Typically, he starts in center field and he is all over it, backing up plays, fielding grounders to throw outs at second. He had a particularly great play this week, where he hustled to grab a ball and saved a run and a loss. Then beginning with the third inning, he plays shortstop for the rest of the game and the coach can relax then, knowing he's got his best fielders in position at that point. Jackson has made some very good 6-4 and 6-3 plays. What's also great is that the other boys are also coming along now and we're starting to see some great plays from all of them.

The bleachers behind home plate are packed with parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and grandparents, and the games are getting more exciting. When there's a good hit or a good play, the cheers go up, no matter what team is involved. This week, I was keeping score in the stands with Rylee sitting next to me. Jack's team was ahead most of the game, but the other team, the visitors, had a good penultimate inning and lead by one. In the last inning, Jackson's team scored a run to tie it up. The game went into extra innings. Jackson made a really great 6-4 play that shut down the other team and kept them from scoring. When Jack came to bat for his team in the bottom of the inning, there were two outs. Jack got a hit and was safe on first, the winning run. Jackson also has developed into a good base runner, but his team couldn't get him home and the game ended in a tie. Perhaps the best game of the season.

It's been a kick to watch the boys. When we went to our "doubleheader" on Saturday, I could see that Cyndi was glad to be back home, heading toward the stands for one or the other of the games. That is how we spend our Saturdays this time of year. Cyndi takes the coach blanket out of the car (the one I got from Sandra and David many years ago) to sit on in the bleachers. She might talk a bit on the phone during the game, or often a sister or a friend will join her in the stands to watch the game.

So we spent a little of this weekend cleaning up the yard. Ry ran around the yard and the house dressed all in black, including a black stocking cap and black cotton gloves, playing spy. The boys also found some Nerf guns, with red light beams and spongy darts, to play with. Ry's birthday is coming soon. He has a long, ever changing list of Legos he wants but Friday he told me he drew a picture in school of the "tree house" he wants for his birthday. The painting is still at school, dry by now, but I gather his idea is to enclose the bottom part of the playhouse we built with David and make it into what I would call a clubhouse, with a door and a window. Nice idea.