My Little Highly Effective Children

Chloe was the letter "i" for her class's end of the year performance. She sang Alphabet Soup and The Seven Habits song, based on the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. This year she and Jocelynne would sometimes say things like, "To settle our fight, we used habit 4: think win-win." Or when something didn't quite work out: "You should begin with the end in mind. Habit 2."



It has been hot, and the kids enjoy their pool. We also take them to the ULL pool on Saturdays, where Landon gives the girls swimming lessons while I splash in the shallows with the boys.



Here Landon and Trevor are building a pheasant cage, with their trusty helper handing them screws when they need them. I forgot to get a picture of the pheasant. Jocelynne named it "Royal", because of its beautiful plumage. I secretly expanded it's name to "Royal Pain in the Rear," because I end up feeding the darn thing and it doesn't even give me eggs.



Joss has it in her head she'll be a fashion model one day. She's getting plenty of posing practice now.



Landon works with a professor here at ULL to count bird populations with a camera in a remote controlled plane. They are working on validating this approach by comparing their numbers with counts on the ground.



Landon wrangles baby pelicans so another researcher can draw their blood. I forget why. Poor pelicans.

Landon is enjoying his summer job, and I am enjoying the income. I just wish he weren't gone every other week. This next week will be his last, fortunately. He'll miss wrangling those pelican chicks.

Logan's language skills seem to have regressed. He thinks, "I'm tired" means "I'm hungry". Sometimes he'll say it, and I'll respond, "Ok, why don't you go to bed?" He'll think about it and reply, "Hmmm. Mom? Does 'I'm tired' mean that I want a snack?" It has been about a week now that he has been confused. Where his language skills are lacking, he makes up in number sense. He loves counting books, and I have to sit there while he counts everything on the pages.

Tristan has been practicing writing his letters and numbers, anticipating his entrance to "big school" in the fall. He's still my cuddle bug, and fights with Logan for space on my lap (now that I've lost weight, there's less real estate there). He'll frequently give me kisses or hug my legs as I stand at the sink and do dishes. It's going to break my heart to see him walk out the door with a backpack in the mornings.