There are 4 movies in the Scream series (or so I’m told from google) and I’ve got a great pitch for Scream 5. You trap 3 children in a suburban apartment for the summer and you listen to them scream bloody murder the whole time. I can hear the haunting music play in the background, and I’m envisioning the eery shrieks. It’s like I can literally hear them right now. Oh wait that’s no horror movie, that’s real life. Okay, summer has not been that “horrific”, but we are going through a major screaming phase. Ezie mostly. SJ contributes plenty though, and sometimes Z is involved as the perpetrator.

 In keeping with horror film theme if I receive a note like this in the future I could reply- Yes, we all know what I did last summer. I stayed home with my kids. You know this because they could be heard from near and far. I’m pretty sure stock in birth control goes up 15% when my one year old cries, which is every time he doesn’t get his way.

I’ll spare the details, but it’s been a difficult week. That’s not to say it was all bad. We had some really fun boredom busters this week and I still have yet to announce the fun surprises that are to come. Without further ado here are some of the ways we filled our time last week-

1. Swimming
What better way to pass the hours in the heat than jumping in a pool. Lucky for us there is a nice neighborhood next to SJ’s school that has swimming pools and some of the families from the school live there. We are really appreciative that they are kind enough to allow us to join them for some swim time.

I need to do a post that is all about swimming with cochlear implants. All three kids in this picture are deaf and have CIs. It takes some effort to get them all ready, but it’s worth it for the fun they have.

2. Play Date
This summer is all about play dates. On the last day of school Z was totally distraught about saying goodbye to his best bud.

I was so torn up about it myself that at the last minute I found a piece of paper and a pen from the classroom and I wrote a note with my info on that I was hoping would make it’s way back to this boys mom. I totally had forgotten about it until last week when I got an email inviting Z over for the afternoon. This was the first time he had ever gone to a friends house alone. The visit was a success though and I was so happy for him.

3. VBS
I looked online and kept my eyes peeled while toting the kids around in hopes of finding a local VBS. It turns out that one of the moms from pool was volunteering for the one at her church last week. Even though we didn’t find out about it until after it had begun we were still able to make the last three sessions. It was an AWESOME program! Z and SJ I had a blast.

 4. Yard Sales
While looking for churches that had VBS I came across one that was promoting a free yard sale. It was a community event called share fest where they do all sorts of random acts of kindness, one of which is a huge yard sale with no prices. That’s right, first come first serve, take what you need. Not only was it fun to do some yard sale shopping, but there were cool activities for the kids too, like a bounce house, face paint, and balloons. The face paint was pretty rough, but the teenage girls volunteering were very kind to have attempted it, even if I did mistake SJ’s butterfly for a bite mark.

5. Science experiments

Once again, this is a topic that deserves a post of it’s own. We have done some really cool science experiments this summer. These two demonstrated how water can travel up or down through various materials.

6. Balloons

Our little balloon activity was kind of a bust (excuse the pun). It was fun to make balloon figures by watching youtube videos, but whether they burst or fly away I have found balloons always end with bickering and heart ache for my younguns. What can ya do?

Now that I mention all the activities we enjoyed I feel bad about griping so much. Obviously we had some good times. I just need to focus on that and grit my teeth through the rest. Hopefully this week will not be as stressful.