May Days

Tomorrow I'll be running (in charge of) the 7th Annual Pi Mile Run/Walk. Last year, the race was held two days after I had the boys so I missed attending. I'm looking forward to being at the race again instead of only organizing everything behind the scenes. Due to a late Easter, Prom, and a few other conflicts, we had a hard time choosing a date this year, so the other teachers who help me and I decided to go for Mother's Day. One of my colleagues started promoting it to her students by telling them to bring their mothers. I used that line in my classes and when some of my students turned in their registration forms, they told me they were bringing their mothers. Luckily, it looks like Mother Nature will be providing a beautiful sunny day. I'm hoping Eric can bring the boys over to the race, but it will depend on how their day is going. Each year we use the proceeds to give scholarships to some of our top seniors in math. We've always honored our top seniors with certificates at awards night, but seven years ago I thought it would be nice if we could give them scholarships as well. Even when it's only enough money to cover the price of a couple of textbooks, I think the students are always surprised to see the check when they receive the award. (Colette- As you can see, I'm still using your fantastic design from the first year!)

The recent happenings:
The boys have started teething again. Aiden's 3rd tooth (upper left) finally poked through yesterday. Reid crawls on his hands and knees almost exclusively. Every once in a while, he'll default to his army crawl/drag.
Judging from the howling that goes on, we've gathered that having your face cleaned with a washcloth is the WORST thing we could do to the boys. To make amends, we take the boys for rides in the living room in their high chairs while they hang onto the washcloths. For this and other reasons, it's been handy having high chairs on wheels.


The following picture was from this morning. Eric and I were trying to eat breakfast, but the boys started howling when we abandoned them. We quickly scarfed down our breakfast and found the only way to get them to stop was to feed them. I had just nursed them not too long before this picture, so I'm thinking nursing will be coming to an end pretty soon. They're just not getting enough from me anymore. (With great joy, I stopped pumping a couple of weeks ago.) I wanted to wait for them to adjust to whole milk in sippy cups after I cut them off from the bottle, cold-turkey, last weekend. They're doing a great job with the sippy cups. (Another nice feature of our high chairs is that we can tip the seats back into a reclining position which makes it easier for the boys to tip their cups up.) I think Reid initiated this protest because he's always hungry. Aiden quickly decided he should join in.



The boys are also doing a great job with finger foods. Reid finally mastered the pincher grasp over the last few weeks. He grabs with his left hand first and hangs onto that piece of food through the rest of the meal. He eats the rest of his meal with his right hand. We joke that he's squirreling it away for later, so we always have to do a Cheerio check to make sure he's not sneaking food out of the kitchen. We have found Cheerios in some surprising locations. I think our next goal is to phase out baby food from jars and have them eat whatever we're eating. I guess I'll have to step up my food planning when Eric's out of town. I usually eat leftovers, cold cereal, PB&J, or whatever my mom's cooking.