International Day at Montessori

So below you'll see a few videos from International Day at Hamslice's Montessori. It was his first school performance, and just as cute as can be. I should mention that Hamslice's class was the last one to perform, so they had been sitting on the floor patiently for about an hour before this. I imagine this explains some of the behavior...

Here's the warmup -- Hamslice fooling around on stage with his favorite buddy, Brooks. Our guy is the blond in the front row, wearing the dashiki


Next comes the introduction where the class says Good Morning in Swahili


Here's Hamslice doing his speaking part. I was so proud


And then... well.... then there was the singing and dancing portion, which Hamslice took to a new level complete with stunts, a time out, and a dash to his mom. My poor baby.

Taking a break from uploading Movies

I've noticed that this blog used to be written by hand with my own comments, but lately all I've done is upload movies. (not that there's anything wrong with that, right?) So to take it old school, I'll try a text entry again.

Hamslice has been giving us a run for our money lately, with the pinnacle being the specially requested parent teacher conference two weeks ago. I was sweating that conference BIG TIME because I was sure he was going to be kicked out of Montssori due to his inclination ignore anyone in authority.

To my (sort of) relief, they just wanted to see how we were managing him at home, and they wondered if they could borrow any techniques. I said "sure... here's one, stop letting him push you around!"

Since then his behavior has improved greatly. I'm not sure if it's because some new synapses attached in his brain because he's growing, or if it's because his home and school lives are now more similar. Either way, we'll take it.

I hear that after you get through the 3s its smooth sailing until they're about 8. Here's to riding it out for another 10 months!

Cyclone!

Night Time Reflexes

Sometimes Hamslice still wakes up in the middle of the night, and often his first impulse is to grab a toy and crawl into bed with Mom and Dad.

Last night, his toy of choice was Hambone's Makita cordless hammer drill... fully charged...

I am pretty impressed that I was able to spot this as a no-go even at that groggy time of the night. We all emerged unscathed, except that I may never sleep again.

Goin' CRAZY at that playground

While we were on vacation over Labor Day, we took a day trip up to Lewes Delaware just for kicks. Hamslice found this playground and played his little heart out. There was a long nap that afternoon!

On a side note, Hambone dug around in the house where we were staying and found a bowl of old, obnoxious sunglasses. He picked out a special pair just to wear while standing next to me. You'll see those highlighted in this movie as well.

Awesome.

OC Hurricanes make great vacations

We had a great time in Ocean City this weekend. We drove up around 2pm on Friday and stayed through the weekend. Vacations are awesome.

Happy Birthday Hamslice

His actual bday is later this week, but we celebrated on Sunday anyway

Dino-Mite

A little motion sensor never hurt anyone, right?

"Dripping"

Last week Hamslice had a touch of stomach flu, and spent the morning being sick in the bathroom. It was the saddest thing. He would come to me and say "Mom, I'm gonna Drip" and then out would come anything he might have had to eat in the past several days.

Since then, he's been obsessed with "dripping." All of his toys now have little sauce pans next to them just in case they need to be sick. I get emergency calls into the living room to check on his toy dinosaur who is "dripping on the rug."

It must have been pretty traumatic for him to be sick that day. My poor baby.

Electric Cars in Iowa

Hamslice School Picnic

sharing with mommy

Shopping Shennanigans

Deconstructionism

You put the lime in the bathtub and shake it all up

Nationals Vs. O's game recap

Dr Doolittle look out

Hamslice Fishing Adventure

Vacation Pics and Video

Earlier this month, Hambone, Hamslice and I went mobile. We packed up the Avalanche and drove to Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan (and then back to Maryland) in one week. We were tired at the end, but overall had a complete blast. I have more videos, but can't seem to get them out of my phone (stupid Apple). Here's what I have so far...

Here we are at Navy Pier:



And here's a video about the Ferris wheel sign...



Here we are at Dutch Village in Holland, Michigan:

Fountain of Hamslice

Hamslice discovered the fountains in the inner harbor a few weeks ago. It was a ... refreshing experience, let's just say...