Goodbye, freedom....er, summer....

It's official. Summer has come to an end.

Well, after today, anyway.

My back-to-school meetings start tomorrow and I'm kind of thinking that all the natural induction techniques I've been trying (don't ask) aren't going to kick in in time to miss them.

As I type this post, my little man is STILL sleeping, thanks to the no-nap day he had yesterday.

He's sleeping our last day of summer away and has no idea. And really, it's only a half-day because my mom is taking him at naptime today until 5:30 pm tomorrow. Sleep is his first priority, I guess.

And I can't blame him...first of all, his mama is the same way, when third-trimester insomnia hasn't hit hard.

And secondly, we had a really fun day yesterday. We started out with a competitive Candy Land tournament. Considering he only had to go to his room once after throwing his "guy" when I went first one game, I'd say it was a success.

As we played, an internal debate went through my mind about whether or not to go to the gym. It would be my last Tuesday spin class before school started, but it would be my last full day with my little man before school started too.

L won out, as he should have. After an embarrassing interaction with my step-brother-in-law who arrived to work on our house ( answering the door in my pj's and braless, with bedhead and glasses at 9 am), I decided I needed to get moving.

L and I hit up Hell WalMart to buy some crafting supplies and a few other necessities. And then we had the best crafting day of our lives! We actually had a heat warning complete with 110 degree heat index, so it was a good day to stay inside.

First, L practiced cutting with some great pre-school scissors we found at WalMart. All I have to say is that if I would have known back in June how long cutting paper would have kept him busy, we would have bought those $2 scissors a l-o-n-g time ago.

Next, we did a bunch of activities that we stole borrowed from Abbie. We tweaked them a little to fit our needs and supplies and I think they turned out pretty darn cute. Nothing like some DIY preschool crafts to make you feel better about your parenting abilities.

We painted some plastic cups to make noisemakers. L was minimally interested in the actual painting:

and much more engrossed in the way that the water changed colors as he cleaned his brush.

"Yook, Mommy, yeyyo and bwue make gween!!"

"Oh my gosh, bwue and owange make bwown!"




(And thank God for washable paint. If my husband would have seen our kitchen table pre-cleanup, he would have stroked out.)

We put our cups aside to dry and did some sponge painting. I have a phobia of sponges...as granola as I am, I only use paper towels because I know how disgusting sponges are. So I had to buy sponges at WalMart for our sponge fish.

I hate to cut. A lot. And cutting a fish out of a sponge this thick (I couldn't find a plain old kitchen sponge) made it even harder. So go ahead and laugh at my fish.

I think L might have liked this even more than the colored water:







After a quick lunch break, we busted out the glue to make a snake/mobile. I didn't have any cardboard so I used an insert out of the bottom of a large gift bag. L really liked the glue. He tried brushing it on...




and then he insisted on just using the bottle, too....
during which I must have said, "That's enough," and "that's plenty" about 741 times.

He glued on macaroni and beads and created quite the masterpiece:


I cut it on the line after it was finished and I refuse to show the finished product. I don't know why I suck so badly at cutting, but I do. Perhaps I'll spend some time in the kindergarten classrooms during my plan time this year so I can learn how to cut on a line. It's bad, folks.

Moving on.

By then, the cups L painted were dry, so we wrapped them in Saran Wrap and made noisemakers. L was very pleased with them...
...and besides shaking them, he found lots of other uses for them. Creativity at it's best, no?



We added a few of the beads to our fish and judging by his face, I think L was pretty proud of the final product.
Today we are off to the pool to soak up our last day of summer. And then it's back to work tomorrow.

Well, unless my plan to bat my eyes at my OB this afternoon works and he writes me a note to get out of it.

Namaste!