Knee Deep Blog

Growing up with Eli: Today is his first day of Pre-K

The first words out of Eli's mouth this morning was..."is today my day for school?"  And he was really excited when he heard the words he's been waiting for "yes."

Over his favorite  breakfast item of pancakes and apple juice I told him that every one else on the block didn't start until tomorrow - to which he responded, "I'm the luckiest, that's so awesome that I get to go first."

Now I doing what any mother of a strong willed preschool child does, she hopes for continued enthusiasm and gave him a prideful stroke, even if it was based on the thought of competition.  I think Eli liking school will be easy.  It's the getting up part that we've been a bit concerned about with Eli.  He's a morning sleeper (by the way any of you jealous mom's and dad's out there - ha) and we've absolutely enjoyed it during the past couple years, especially the weekends.  Of course I think it's only because he's making up for not sleeping through the night until he was 18 months old.

Getting him dressed was interesting.  It's a Catholic School and the sheet we received stated:  pants, shirts, no shirts with unsightly or inappropriate logos and pictures or some thing like that, sturdy shoes no sandals.  I remember smiling as I read this and then put it away.  Now that it was 7:30 am and time to get dressed I looked into his closet and did a quick inventory...

1.  Pants:  we have 3 pairs the rest are jeans, sweats and shorts cause you know I have no idea what size he will be in the next couple months considering he's put on over 10 lbs and 2 inches in the past few months. And it's summer, pants are a fall thing. I was thankful it's been warm out and they were clean.

2. The shirt thing...well I haven't bought him any shirts since last fall.  He keeps inheriting a broad array of t-shirts from his cousin and other neighborhood kids.  As I looked through his closet I wondered, "is spiderman or buzz light year considered unsightly or inappropriate for a 4 year old at Catholic School?" I decided yes. 

Hmmm, this means he has a handful of short sleeve and long sleeve shirts that are available, all of which he won't wear because they are "icky" and "boring" and forget the plaid one cause he doesn't like squares on his shirts. Of course these are all clean because he never wears them.

Growing up with Eli: Becoming a "Theater Actor Guy"

This weekend marked the official beginning of Eli's life as a "theater actor guy" when Eli stepped out on the stage in front of close to a couple hundred people in his first performance as both a "white pawn" and a tourist from (Alice in) Wonderland.

We continually ask Eli what he wants to be when he grows up.  The first career he was focused on was being a "muffin maker man" because he really likes the muffins at Third Place Books which he affectionately calls the Muffin Store.  Since that time he rotates with:  Theater Actor Guy both on stage and on TV, a baseball player, a pilot and a Doctor so he can help people (came out of his hospital experience in January of this year).

Back to the musical.  Eli's Aunt Shileah is an amazing director (I'm not just saying that because she may read this), she's won numerous

More Pictures from Tim's Climb on Mt Rainer

The following link is a slide show Tim put together with pictures and captions from the 4 day Mount Rainer climb and Summit.  I wanted to be sure friends on the list see it so I have posted it separately.  If you haven't read about the trip click here to read My Mountain Man Tim Summits Mount Rainier.

The photos really make you  feel like you are really there.  One of the pictures that took me by surprise was the one with the huge crevasse - it made me glad that they were roped together and that no one broke through. 

The one my "critical self" would like to edit is the last one with my mouth moving. I love the caption..."Michele is telling me something....I'm in total bliss" i.e., Michele has no clue and is excited to see me...I'm not back on earth right now and am still on my mountain high.  Yeah, gotta remember some day to look, listen, then speak!  Love you Tim!

Enjoy the photos.  Michele

Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep:  A dose on insight and a little crap from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and Money Wise Women: A Blog for Women that are ready to get their financial house in order

PS Next week Tim and I are going on a week long backpacking trip in the Strawberry Mountains in Oregon...I can hardly wait to be out in nature with not much more to do then hike, eat and relax starring at the beautiful earth!

Defining Moments: Discovering You're Really Part of The Neighborhood

Today I had an aha and deep thought - How do you know you really belong to your neighborhood  and community? 

I mean I've felt like one for a while but I've wondered how much of that is out of convenience of simply living in an urban setting on a block with 15 kids all under the age of 8 and how much has been created out of that convenience?

Today I received an email that both made me smile and has me realize that yes Michele you are part of your community.

The email read as follows:

One of our calico cats, Tigerlily, died unexpectedly over the weekend.

You are invited to celebrate Tigerlily's life at a brief

Furmorial

(that's funeral + memorial,

or maybe just furry memorial - it's Olivia's word)

Tonight at 7 p.m.

our house

Gotta go and shower cause I'm still in my jammies working at 4 (oh, hope my clients don't read this one), finish up my to do list and then prepare my brief thoughts for the Furmorial.

Regards,

Michele Corey, writing for Knee Deep:  A dose on insight and a little crap from your not always average home based business and Internet mom and Money Wise Women: A Blog for Women that are ready to get their financial house in order

My Mountain Man Tim Summits Mount Rainier

Eli and I spent part of the weekend at Mount Rainer National Park.  We were there to play a bit as well as support Tim upon returning from his momentous climb of Mount Rainer - for his 45th birthday no less!

One of the things I loved about the trip is that his cell phone worked and we had some what regular contact a few minutes at a time during his four day adventure. What I also loved about this trip was being a witness to Tim's commitment to a goal and both the mental and physical stamina it took to get there.  He did some graphic facilitation work with Seattle Pacific University in March / April of this year and was invited by the co-hort on the trip. 

This started off a four month training regiment that included leaving our house and a warm bed many mornings before 6 to hike 8 miles round trip, with a multiple thousand foot elevation gain and 40 lbs of water in his pack with the goal of reaching the top in less than 2.5 hours, only to come home by 12 noon and work the rest of the day.   

Vacation Part 2: A New Hard Drive For My Computer and Then The Computer Crash

Part two of vacation consisted of performing a computer lobotomy on my desktop, wine and keeping Eli occupied. 

For the few years I've been whining about all of the time I've lost with needing to reboot because some thing happened whether that be identifiable or not.  I've also spend a lot of time just waiting for things to open or for my cache memory to clear so I could do my work. 

Another issue was that when firefox has a few tabs open for a while it hogs memory and my computer would hardly move.  Yes I can hear you saying, well just close the tabs.  Well when you work with multiple people throughout the day, and multitask between calls closing every thing is a real pain in the butt - so I'm not sure which slowed me down more, waiting or opening and closing every thing multiple times.

Vacation: Part 3 Eli and Alex the Hunting Warriors

This is our first week back of an almost 3 week vacation to the East Coast.  I'm starting with part three, well because I can plus I really like the mini video clip I've attached below. 

New Jersey was the last leg of our trip.   Eli and I spent four days with a great friend Cindy from my Pillsbury days as a Regional Sales Manager in New Jersey.

Fortunately Cindy has an adorable son Alex that immediately bonded with Eli.  Throughout our time together they donned a variety of outfits, but mostly batman and superman. 

Eli learned a few things during our stay in rural New Jersey,