Driveway Granita

I have been a blogging addict I know...sometimes I'm not in the mood, but I happen to be at the moment, and cute things are happening.  What can I say.

I'll try to make this quick.  The minivan has sold me on one feature:  playpen.  I desperately needed to get some shoveling done today as the driveway was covered in ice, and it warmed up enough that the ice could actually be separated from the blacktop...but only for today, because tonight it's going to freeze nice and cold.  And for a while after that.  Compacted ice for the rest of the winter; not so nice.  I pulled up the minivan, opened the trunk, and Asher happily played in the back while watching Owen and I shovel for a good long while!  Then he went up to nap and we went at it some more.  2 hours of chipping, shoveling and clearing later and just the patch of drive between front door and garage were clear, and we were whooped.  Owen LOVES SHOVELING.  Seriously.  He will do it for hours.  He loves chipping ice even more...2 years ago he loved chipping ice, and now he can do a much better job.  I was using a flat-nosed metal roofing shovel to get under the ice sheets today and Owen desperately wanted a 'sharp shovel'!  The best I found was a small hoe.  He can wield a hoe, let me tell you!  I would direct him to a patch of ice and he would break it all up and then I'd scoop it off to the side of the drive.  At one point in this great fun he looked over and said, 'Mommy, we're like ice farmers!'  Indeed!  Later I noticed he'd gone missing and he came out of the house with every mixing bowl I own balanced in his arms, and explained that he needed to 'make snow cakes.'  Of course :)

Then, it was time for Owen's first gymnastics class.  He found out it was on the docket and he was bouncing off the walls.  VERY excited little boy.  He happily donned a t-shirt and swishy pants and we set off for the gym (barely a mile away...yippee!).  Unfortunately I hadn't been there before and was looking at the nondescript office park sort of buildings on the left of the street instead of the right, so we arrived at about 3:58 for the 4pm class.  Fine, but when the teacher came to get Owen's class at the door to the gym, Owen freaked.  I guess we really haven't done a 100% new thing in a while where he has to leave me.  He wasn't crying, just not willing to go in.  After some pep talk and walking him in there myself, he plucked up his courage and made the break.  Through the glass wall where the parents watch, I could see that he was having fun.  It's a big open gym with several classes going on at once and since it was his first time (and all the other kids in his class were returning students) he had to be frequently corralled into line (Owen, over here! Our class isn't jumping on the trampolines!  Owen, you can't jump off the balance beam!).  He was just so excited about the whole thing.  I promise you I saw the teacher's eyes getting big at his adventurousness and that he was doing the little activities spot on...he was one of the littlest in his group (3-5 yr olds), and he jumped *right* in, despite it being his first time.  His favorite was hanging on a high bar, swinging back and forth, and then falling waaay down into the foam pit.  No fear at all...whose kid??  Here's the funny part.  At the end of class, they get a stamp on their foot or knee, line up to high-5 the teacher, and then come out to the parents.  He came out, hugged my leg, and his face suddenly got all red and scrunched up and the tears just poured.  'What's wrong, Owen?!!'  Had he been that nervous the whole time that once he was back with me he was melting?  I couldn't believe it.  "I want to do it MORE!!!  I don't want to stop doing that!!  I didn't get to do all the things in the Japanese!!"

Yes, it was a heartfelt agony from him at having to walk away after just 45 mins, and at not having gotten to do the big uneven bars, climb the rope to the ceiling, etc. that the big kids were doing.  I told him that he would have to be much bigger and do lots of practicing first on the little kids things before he'd be ready for that.  "But I did all the things today and it was easy for me!"  (Well, he wasn't wrong exactly, that was kind of hard to answer.)  It was so sweet.  He was really torn up that the class was over and he couldn't 'do it all day long'.

The other funny was after I finally figured out what this 'Japanese' reference was.  He couldn't remember the word 'gymnastics' and so the closest his memory had gotten him was 'Japanese'.  So he kept calling it his Japanese class.  Misremembering a word...THAT he got from his Daddy :)