Fall Ball

Oh no!  I was afraid this was going to happen.  My busyness factor has increased tenfold and blogging has taken a backseat.  I apologize to my regular readers.  I know we'll find our groove soon and I'll return to my biweekly posts.

Fall ball started last weekend.  For us that means softball for Ella and baseball for Holden.  This coming weekend they'll both also start soccer.  This means our weekends for the foreseeable future are hijacked by sports.  I'm not going to lie, I'm resentful and secretly hoping they don't like one sport or the other so we can get back to our free and clear weekends ripe for last minute getaways or spontaneous neighborhood jaunts.  But the kids are happy, so I'm keeping my mouth shut.

 

Saturday morning started off with piano lessons with Dad.  This is one of the few times of the week where I can be alone.  I escape to the coffee shop on the corner and read the paper or my book.

In the afternoon we headed over to Riverside Park where we found the baseball field right on the edge of the Hudson River.  Absolutely gorgeous setting.  My resentment faded a bit as I enjoyed the view and sunshine and Ella's enthusiasm.  She was thrilled about the whole thing, except her team name:  the Peaches.  Ugh.  We both agreed that softball teams should be named after major league teams just as the Little League baseball teams are (Holden is on the Yankees this year).  Just because they're girls doesn't mean they need a silly name.

We kept to our tradition of spending Sunday mornings in a museum.  Even sports isn't going to keep us from our culture, entirely.  Kevin read about a new app for your phone from The Metropolitan Museum of Art with mini scavenger hunts.  The kids always do better in a museum (especially Holden) if they are looking for something specific.  So this really helped in holding their interest. 

Kevin also realized that the cover of a book the kids both read last week while visiting Philadelphia has a painting that is on display at The Met.

Washington Crosses the Delaware

Holden walked into the room and said, "Whoa!  I didn't expect it to be this big!"

Luckily, Holden's baseball games are on the same beautiful field right on the Hudson.

Holden's first at bat and he hit a single.

The kids discovered foosball.

This week has been insanely busy for the three of us.  This is our first week of not only having both kids homeschooling but also taking outside classes during the day.  That makes for long days.  Ella started her science class on Monday with 12 other kids and loved it.  She said, "Everyone is so nice!"  And they both started a creative writing class with 3 other kids on Tuesday.  Holden said, "It was awesome!"  They've both been using their free time this week working on their stories.  It's all online so their classmates and teachers can leave comments and feedback on what they've written throughout the week.  So 21st century.  They also started working/playing with their Spanish teacher twice a week and this afternoon Ella is taking a cross-stitch class at the New York Historical Society with a friend from theater camp.  And there are more classes starting in the coming weeks.  This means that all of our regular schoolwork needs to happen before/after/in-between all of these other classes.  I'm basically exhausted all the time.

To try to be as efficient with our time as possible (and being efficient is my very favorite thing to be), I decided to try out something very Manhattan - having a hairdresser come to our apartment to cut our hair. 

It sounds completely ridiculous and I've been nay-saying our friends who have been using her for years, but let me tell you, it was awesome.  First of all, she charged less than our salon hairdresser.  And best of all, while she was cutting each child's hair I was inside working with the other child on schoolwork.  No travel time.  I even got my hair cut. 

We've also been trying to start our days with recess as a way to wake up and help Holden stay focused on his work when he gets home.  This week we walked around the reservoir first thing in the morning.  I think it's working.

 

Yesterday afternoon we stopped by the American Museum of Natural History with the intent of buying birthday presents for my niece, Piper.  But when we checked in at the Members' desk the employee gleefully bragged that she had just sold tickets to Justin Bieber and his entourage!  Our museum trip turned into a hunt for The Biebs.  We ran all around the museum but to no avail (he later posted photos of his visit to the museum on Instagram).  At one point Holden said, "It's like we're the cheetahs and he's the gazelle!"  I felt a little bad after that and we decided to just go to the gift shop and leave Justin his privacy.