I always knew that boys liked danger, but I just don’t know what it is that draws them towards it. Recently, my three have started using ramps with their tricycles…yes, they all still ride tricycles because we haven’t bought the big boy bike yet, but maybe for Jax’s 6th birthday in November.

I don’t know how it got started though I think Mark set up the first one. Since then, they’ve done “all sorts of tricks” though all they really do is ride as fast as they can up the ramp and end up off the ramp. I’ve only seen one accident and thank goodness it was on a tricycle. What will I do when they start riding big bikes and have wrecks like I used to have. (I was in the doctor’s office at least once every summer because of a bike wreck.)

We have the standard red, radio flyer trike, a yellow dump trike with big tires (it really looks like an off-road one), and a smaller trike that’s all plastic. I think the only one that we paid retail for was the red one and the others were all purchased at garage sales. Then Jax also has a scooter that he got for Christmas several years ago.

All three boys try to ride all the “vehicles,” and it’s so funny to see the three of them on the different sized trikes. Jax is really too big for the plastic one, but it’s his favorite because he can make it go faster. Carson likes to ride the red one and even though it’s a little big for him, he can make it go pretty good. Ed just rides whatever’s left, but to my amazement at less than two, he can make the scooter go like you’re supposed to. (It seems like a lot of hand-eye coordination would be involved there and I’m not sure I could have done it at 10, much less 2!)

Lucky for me so far the ramps have been pretty small compared to the vehicles. In fact, the red trike’s back tires don’t even fit on the ramp, but it’s still fun to try! Just now, I looked out the window and Jax was trying the scooter on the ramp. My, oh my, I’m going to have a heart attack before they’re teenagers!

Then there’s the whole other boy thing: BUGS! Carson is really into trying to catch bugs this summer. The theme for the library summer program was “Catch the Reading Bug” and the boys got a great goody bag at the end of the summer and one of the really cool things in it was a bug cup. Carson has definitely got his good out of the cup. Just yesterday we caught three or four grasshoppers, several butterflies and some really strange bug that Mark said is some kind of squash bug, but to me it looked like something from the dinosaur times!

We are still doing really well with the homeschooling stuff, too! I am always amazed at how much he really hears and understands when we get done. The other day, we “traveled to France” for history; and at supper that night he told everyone how the Eiffel Tower came to be. (If you don’t know sometime when you see Jax, ask and he’ll be glad to tell you!!!) And, I can’t believe that in Kindergarten he’s learning his continents. He knows all seven of them and just gets a little confused with Africa, but we’ll study it soon and then he’ll have it down, too.

The other thing about it that I find way cool is Carson’s desire to be in school, too. I think I will work harder next week to make sure I have “lessons” for him, too. He can do some of the stuff we do, but I think it would be cool for him to see his progress like Jax can. AND, Jax is a really good teacher, too. Today we played memory with the alphabet trying to match the uppercase and lowercase letters. Jax would tell Carson what letters he had drawn and try to show him how he could read them, too!

This week in school Jaxson wrote a poem, too. It was so cool and it made me so proud as I transcribed for him. Here is the text of the poem and a scan of the picture he drew, too!


The Jag-Wolves Pack
By Jaxson Jarvis

Grass growing high,
Vultures laying low.
Wolves laying on their left side;
Jaguars laying on their right side.
Footprints washing away
Rain swooping down with hail.
Bears hibernating.
Dingos off for their evening fish hike.
Lions off for their evening dingo talk.
Tigers off for their talk about the city.
Cheetahs talking with alligators about the tiger plan.




I’m not sure what all the evening stuff is about, but I think it’s cute that he wrote this poem all on his own. We started by brainstorming what words he wanted to use and what he wanted to talk about. And then he just started flowing. It was so awesome to watch, but then again with a daddy whose Master’s Degree is in Creative Writing what else would you expect?

I’ve been taking a lot more pictures lately than I had been, but there still isn’t anything great coming out of them. I hope that I can go out on the land this weekend and really get some good ones. Carson needs his three year portraits done and I just like taking pics! I’ve also been scrapping some lately, too. I’ve finished about 20 pages or so in the last few weeks. I wish I could scrapbook a lot more, but I have so much other stuff I should do that sometimes I feel guilty for the time I would spend scrapbooking.

Anyway, this is a lot longer than I anticipated (but that’s what happens when you wait so long between posts, huh?) so I’ll quit now and hopefully have more this weekend!