No Child Left Inside

I have so much to say that I can't decide where to begin. I want to tell everyone about our amazing time in the country this weekend, but I was also surprised this evening with a gift of such kindness that I want to share that news as well. So there will be part one and two of this post.

Part 1: The woods

As most of you know John and I are very into the outdoors. Emerson has grown up thinking that all trees are watered by little boys and that a campsite is just as good of a place to sleep as a bedroom. Isaac on the other hand has had very little unstructured outside time. Let me go one step further. Isaac has had almost no time to truly just experiment, to try and fail and try a different way. As a result he shows very few problem solving skills. At home this leads him to get really angry and frustrated. Yesterday we spent the entire day with the boys running around or friend's property up north. They piled gravel with their trucks, they stacked bark into piles, they watched butterflies, they swam in the lake, they turned the compost, chased the cat, and truly explored their surroundings. I watched with pride as Isaac was confident enough to go out of my site because he was captivated by a butterfly. I was overjoyed when Emerson told me he was hungry and then he proceeded to pick and eat some figs off of the tree.

There is something about nature that brings out the best in my children. They were on neutral territory, it was peaceful, they noticed little things like the breeze, or the cicadas. They ran and laughed and they were just boys. It helped tremendously that our friends we were visiting us love all of us unconditionally. You have to be a brave sole to invite a family with two wild three year old boys to your home. The loves us through time outs and fits, along with all of the good stuff. It was a wonderful day.

Part Two: The Suprise.
So a while back I had a pity party on a rough day. Unlike most pity parties though it did not fall on deaf readers, What I love about our community is that we truly are blessed to know some amazing people and many of you have been in that same place. Tonight I came home (the boys were all still out) after a very long day at work, to a gift basket and card sitting on the kitchen table. I sat down to look at the card only to realize that many of my fellow adoptive Kazakh parents put together a huge gift basket of fresh food and frozen meals for my family. Each had included a sweet note of encouragement.

What an amazing gift of kindness and support! Thank you from all four of us.

This week is going to be crazy as I am back full time to get my students started and then I am off for the next 4-6 weeks. Today was a very long day that started at 4:45am. As soon as the boys got home we headed out to the Meet the Teacher night. It went pretty well but Isaac lost it at the end.

My mom and dad came over and brought us some wonderful food for the week, and now I am off to clean the kitchen and sleep fast before another long day.