Welcome to June

It is June and the flowers are blooming and the bees are buzzing and the co-workers are having lunch picnics by the C&O canal towpath.

I am settling down a little more in my new job and have started using the automation for which I was accepted. The unexpected perk of liking my co-workers so much continues to surprise and please me.

Being outside during the work week made it doubly likely that I would take Megs out for a hike on Friday (Mommy and Megan Day).

We went to Sugarloaf.

It was overcast and basically empty on the mountain so the wildlife was in fuller view than usual.

We found a long Black Rat snake (above).

Once we got to the summit she found many many lizards.

Mostly she found skinks, even once a blue tailed skink. If anyone knows what that red headed fellow there is please let me know.

She crawled around on rocks looking in crevices and being "silent" and "sneaky" so as not to disturb them. It was good fun. She asked me to carry her on the way down but I distracted her with a marching song so this time she did over a mile and a half or climbing and hiking on her own.

We left the mountain and headed over to Kiernan's school to see the field day celebrations.

He was very excited to see us. Megan was made a fuss over by all the bright orangely clad first graders and I discovered that I should have sent a towel with him...next year.

Twin Ridge had a great field day that is basically a mini Olympics for all the classes (color coded). They prepare for it for months beforehand, in gym class.

After seeing Kiernan and watching some magic school bus with him for a cool down period I took Megs home for a nap and as soon as David got home headed back to grab Kiernan for a little one on one time with him as well.

We went to California Tortilla and chatted.

Then I went to work and missed the kids and went for a walk and found some beavers.

On Saturday there was t-ball and machine pitch. Megan had a good game (when she could be bothered to stop spinning in circles and picking flowers) and Kiernan had a bad game.

She played and had snacks and got Daddy all to herself.

Kiernan had some good fielding. He made a great stop at 3rd that two coaches commended him for and he covered 1st in another inning with complete attention and competency. Both of those things are tricky for any 7 year old but he managed them beautifully.

Unfortunately it was not his day for batting.

To begin with he wanted to open a can of V8 for me to enjoy while watching the game. It was very gallant. He has just leaned how to open pop top cans and of course he sliced his thumb and splashed blood and V8 all over his uniform.

I always have a first aide kit in the car so we washed him off with drinking water and bandegedhim up and rinsed his very tomato smelling shirt and headed up the hill.

Then he went to bat and struck out every single time he was up to bat.

He hit nothing until the 2nd to last inning when he followed up some very good swings with some solid contact. Unfortunately the solid contact was to the hand.

He cried and screamed and we were a bit worried that he had broken something.

He collapsed on me and sobbed some more.

We had a tough parenting moment here. Both David and I wanted him to try to shake it off and at least be benched with his team for the rest of the game, or at the bare minimum to stay and have team snacks afterword. 

I took Megan away cause she wanted to climb on him and get us to pay attention to her so poor David (still sick) tried to pep talk Kiernan in to action.

It was no good.

We went home at the end of the game with a still sniffling boy who was now mad at daddy for being mean.

Ug!

On the upside when Nana asked Kiernan about his game on Monday moring he said there were some good points and some bad points. He bragged about his war wounds and told her about his good stop at 3rd. So it was not a total loss by any means.

There are 2 or 3 more games this year.

Fingers crossed.

We had a cookout with Martin and Aunt Lore. We cooked a bit and Martin brought lots of German summer sides like a great warm potato salad that I have seen before but never in vegetarian form.

I put the good company to hard work and had them help me dig more and flatten more for the pool.
 It was good to have grown-up help and to be able to send poor David off to bed.

Megan has developed a new love (Equestria girls battle of the bands). This is a TV show in which magic spells and battles take the form of pop diva sing offs. She watches it with a microphone and dose impassioned singing and dramatic arm motions.

Here is Megs having a moment of Diva (that is her Diva face) up on Sugarloaf.

My superstar crazy girl.