Busy weekend, busy week, busy month.

So for starters, I hope all youse guyses had fine Memorial Day weekends. Ours wrapped around the end of a period where S. worked 11 of 14 days, so we were all a little fried and are enjoying the fact she has this entire week off.

Friday was the final day of preschool and the tradition at ours is for the kids to have a bike parade before they share a lunch with their families and teachers. Younger siblings were invited, so C. brought her trike and joined in on the fun. Watching kids in the age range two to five on bikes is pretty funny. The five year olds were all flying around. The four year olds were kind of showing off and excited to be riding their bikes. The three year olds were as likely to be riding big wheels or scooters as bikes, and were focused on doing a good job. And the two year olds* were typical two year olds: just kind of zooming around, happy to be part of it but also kind of oblivious to everything.

(Although C. is now three, I’m treating her as a two-year-old for this story. She just rode around the parade route, smiling and having fun, but in no way interacting with others the way M. was.)

After lunch we said goodbye to M.’s teachers. She really liked both of her teachers a lot, but she bonded especially closely with one of them. The teacher told me it was hard to say goodbye to M., which was sweet and nice to hear.* I think M. is going to miss her, too, but she’s so goofy she didn’t get emotional.

(The day before was a very difficult day in this house. It was one of my five worst parenting days ever. I had to bite my tongue not to make a smart ass remark like, “If you like her so much, want to keep her for the summer?” or something along those lines.)

And thus summer vacation started for the B. girls. It kind of snuck up on us, but the sudden warm and muggy weather sure made it feel like summer time.

Sunday we explained to the girls that there was a big race downtown that we would listen to on the radio, and then watch on TV that night.* M. was obsessed. She asked at least 1000 questions about the race. We went to my in-laws’ for a late afternoon cookout, and M. threw a fit on the way home when we told her we weren’t going to the race track.

“BUT I WANT TO GO TO THE RACE TRACK TONIGHT!”

Tantrums are great.

(The Indy 500 is still not shown live in Indiana.)

The replay started right around bedtime, so I promised to tape it and said we could watch it in the morning. She could not wait to watch it once we ate breakfast. She ended up watching about an hour. We told her that Helio won, so she always wanted to know which car was his. She also loved Alex Lloyd’s car, since it was pink. We showed her the front page of the paper, which had a full-page shot of Helio celebrating his win. She promptly found her scissors, cut it out, and taped it to the wall in her room. So I guess she’s a race fan now. Weirdly she showed no interest in Danica, Sarah, or Milka, the three women who raced. C. was interested, too, but not to the same level that M. was.

I figured out something important about C. over the weekend. I’ve been struggling with how to describe her running style, because it is quite unique. I finally got it when she ran through the kitchen Monday. She entered the room at full speed, took two more steps, hopped straight up in the air, ran a couple more steps, did a half spin, hopped again, then ran out of the room. Clearly she was, in a previous life, and antelope or some other swift animal that is often chased by predators and must take evasive measures. I think I need to set up a series of cameras through the house so I can get some of her moves on video. It’s ridiculous how many moves she makes to get from point A to point B that take her in a different direction from her destination.

L. loves watching all her sisters’ crazy antics. She watches and laughs and cheers them on. I thought she was going to crawl over the weekend, but she only managed to get stuck in reverse, rocking for a few moments and then losing ground. One day, as I was putting away laundry and she was approaching naptime, she pissed herself off. I heard her start screaming an angry little scream and looked down to see that she had just moved backwards a half foot or so. She’s clearly getting sick of not being able to move forward on her own. She can now chase her sisters in the driveway when she is in her walker and they’re on their bikes. It’s pretty funny to watch her go after them and hear all three screaming happy little screams.

It was warm enough over the weekend that we filled the baby pool up twice. Thursday I thought to do it fairly early so the water was nice and warm when we put the girls in after lunch. L. loved it, sitting in it and chewing on the toys that would conveniently float over to her. We’ll have to try to get her in a real pool soon.

Oh, and the Royals are sucking just in time for my KC trip.