The art of correspondence

Luke wrote his thank you notes for First Communion gifts a few weeks back.

Today, Luke got a very nice note in the mail:

Dear Luke,

This is in reference to your note thanking us for the money for your First Communion and asking "What'll I do with it." You may do anything you wish with the money but here are some suggestions.
     Give 10% to the poor (box at church) = $3.00
     Put 80% in your bank account = $24.00
     Spend 10% at Target, buy anything you like = $3.00

Love,

Bubba and Gramps

Shoes!

Luke and Megan picked out new shoes last week—and chose the same ones as Dad and James.

The first week

James finished his first week of Adventure Camp on Friday. He spent all day at the zoo on Thursday and was back at the Richmond Heights community center again on Friday. Though he was very sad at drop off and Thursday when both Julie and I took him, and Katie said he was sad a few times at the zoo, everyone at the camp seemed to think he had a great week.

You can read about what his group did for the week here (James was in group one). Also, there was a big photo on page 2 of the front page section of Friday's Post-Dispatch of James's friend and carpool buddy Lucy you can see here (if the link still works).

We are of course very proud of James—he went a whole week without a nap, away from home and the familiarity of school, and he tried lots of new things. Here's his last note from Friday's day:

During swim time I: played ball in the water.
During cooking I was able to: make a spider out of an oreo.
I had the most fun doing: gym because I played basketball.
At special activity today I: cooked.
I would like to be able to work on: socializing more with other campers.
Other: James had a great week at camp. Even through the ups and downs he was able to smile and laugh a lot.

Four months!

Isabelle is a happy baby, eh? She smiles all day long while she's awake, found her voice last week and squeaks, squeals, and coos, loves it when Luke and Megan read to her, feed her bottles, fight over her, and talk and sing to her. Megan is teaching her to roll over, and she's starting to roll onto her side by herself. James has come up with a way of saying a version of "Bella" and, while he'd still like to get his fingers in her eyes every once in a while, is also content to touch her feet or pat her gently. And (cross fingers, no jinxes) she's been a great sleeper so far. How sweet!

Day two ...

Highlights:

During ice skating I was able to: try to ice skate.

I had the most fun doing: gym time because I got to play baseball.

At special activity today I: danced.

I would like to be able to work on: listening to directions.

Other: I hit the ball off the tee today!

Additional note from counselor Katie:

James has been changed four times today. All four times were poop. The third and fourth change were only twenty minutes apart. The fourth diaper contained so much poop it went through his gray shorts. I put them in a ziploc bag in his backpack.


Guess two weeks of Miralax and flax seed and lots of V8 Fusion finally uncorked James. Sorry Katie!

Adventure Camp!

Okay, it's been four months since my last post. But I haven't given up. And rather than try to connect then to now in some smooth way, I'm just going to jump right in. FYI out of town family, pictures of Isabelle are being taken and will be posted.

James started Adventure Camp today—a free camp for kids sponsored by the Variety Club of St. Louis. It's offered three weeks in the summer, and we thought we'd give it a shot. The usual worries applied, but we figured that James would have fun doing something besides asking for his music toys non-stop because he's bored, which is his home routine.

Luke and Megan and I dropped him off this morning. Before I left, I watched him march around the room where we had dropped him—full of kids and teachers—in his sort of James-doing-reconnaissance way, then go up and kind of climb on the back of a counselor who was kneeling down to talk to another kid. When she turned around, James gave her a big hug. Not bad.

When we went to pick him up this afternoon, he came charging out of the gym where he had been playing ball, huge smile on his face, and gave me a giant hug. He was so happy! Here's the report from day one:

I spent time with: Katie Mace
During swim time I: was able to splash in the water and play with the beach ball.
During free time I was able to: play ball with my friends.
I had the most fun doing: swimming because I got to play ball while I was in the water.
I would like to be able to work on: participating during art class.
Tomorrow we will be doing and I need to bring: ice skating and I will need to bring warm clothes (St. Peters Rec Plex).
Other: I had a lot of fun today. I smiled and laughed almost the whole time.

Wow—ice skating! And warm clothes—it's 92 degrees at 8:30 as I finish this up.

More to follow, sooner than four months from now I hope.

The siblings visit ...

Luke, Megan, and James came to visit their new sister on Wednesday night.

James looked at Isabelle a few times, but he doesn't want to get too close to her, though he does sign "baby" when you ask him. As you can see from the series below, he also accidentally popped Megan in the eye doing "Up!"

Thanks to Grandma and Paw Paw for lots of shuttling to make it happen—and to them and Bubba and Gramps for keeping all the plates spinning on the home front.