For the last five years, minus a few months of shutdown and virtual learning, we have been parents to a Montessori preschooler. But this school year, Little b started kindergarten and both boys started at our neighborhood school. Like any big transition, we’ve had ups and downs and regressions and a few tears, but seeing their love of learning and new friendships grow has brought me so much joy.

In third grade, Big B is building bridges, writing 5-paragraph essays, trading Pokemon cards, playing basketball on the playground and in an after-school league, and bringing home more sass and knowledge of the inner workings of Minecraft than I’d ever imagined. Third grade in all its glory has reminded me that his independent streak will only grow. His friends will become increasingly more important and influential. And each time he asks for hugs at bedtime or before the school day, I will take them and lean in as long as he’ll let me.

In kindergarten, Little b is making hats. He brings home a hat almost every single day. I’m starting to wonder what the endgame is here with all these hats. First, the hats made sense. A “First Day of School” hat, a rainbow hat during color week, etc. Now he’s bringing home hats with blueberry waffles, a disco ball? What’s important (and amazing to me) is that every single hat is meticulously colored inside the lines, stapled with care and exhibits a level of focus and effort I honestly only think I’d have in me for about three hats. Every single hat is worn with pride and I can tell he spent whatever amount of time they spend on hat-making in kindergarten to its fullest extent and enjoyed every minute. He’s also reading, using new vocabulary words, and asking questions about everything. His enthusiasm for learning is contagious, and I can’t wait to see the next hat he brings home, even if it’s pancakes.

When it comes to education, I believe the most important priority is loving to learn. If someone loves to learn, they’ll never stop. The rest will fall into place. So far, in third grade and kindergarten, I think we’re off to a good start.

It was about 7:30 Sunday night when six children, ages three to twelve, walked single-file into my living room with serious expressions on their faces. “Mom, we have something to tell you,” my eight-year-old said, surrounded by his brother and four neighbors. “We found a baby bird.”

The twelve-year-old neighbor slowly opened her cupped hands to reveal a tiny chick.

They’d found it in the road next to a storm drain. At first, we thought it was a baby chicken that escaped from the neighbor across the street, who has a coop in her backyard. A phonecall and some Googling later, and we confirmed it was actually a baby quail. A quail couple had recently started nesting in the neighborhood, visiting our backyard most mornings, but I couldn’t figure out where they’d settled. We decided to release it back into the grass close to where they’d found it, so the parents could come back.

After reading a little about abandoned quails, I decided to check on the little guy after dark. I’m glad I did. I could hear it peeping as loud as it could for help, and found it tangled in some grass, covered in fire ants. No mom or dad quail to be found. I took it in, lined a bin with a heated blanket, and big bro offered his stuffed Chewbaca for comfort. The quail slept under Chewbaca all night. We named it Porg.

The next day, we doted over Porg and I called local wildlife rescues. I set up a new heat lamp and bedding for its habitat, but I knew it was only temporary. Its best chance at survival would be with other quails. Unfortunately, Little Bro didn’t see it the same way.

I held him while he cried, and tried to explain that Porg deserved to be free to live in the wild with other quails and a family of his own. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for something you love is to let it go. It’s a hard lesson for a five-year-old to learn.

The next morning, Porg was a little wobblier on his feet and I knew we were doing the right thing. The boys said goodbye before they left for school, and Porg was placed with fellow rescue quails.

Even Little Bro was in a lighter mood knowing Porg would get the care it needed. I may have also agreed to go to the pet store this weekend. He mentioned we already have the heat lamp and supplies for a bearded dragon.

Yesterday, I took the boys with me on a run to Costco. We needed school supplies, which now include mass amounts of disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer. We needed snacks and groceries, and I wanted to check out what was left of their seasonal stock for the summer. Now at 8 and 5, Little Bro sits in the cart while Big Bro insists on “helping me push.” School supply lists in hand, I turned over the reigns of the cart with my standard rule- you hit anyone or anything, I revoke your license.

A crowded warehouse store and a hefty cart that barely rests under eye-level isn’t the perfect environment for driving practice, so after about 10 minutes of “come on,” “slow down,” and “watch out,” Big Bro hit an aisle of canned food and I took over. Commence whining. As Big Bro pleaded with me for his right to steer the cart while interrupting himself to yell for samples at the end of each aisle, his younger brother decided it would be a great time for a “game” he invented to which I’m still a bit fuzzy on the rules other than it resulted in him saying “you look like poo” loud enough for passersby to hear. This immediately cured Big Bro of his grief over the cart and sent him into laughing fits which caused the poo comments to get louder and louder.

I started to regret taking this time to go to the store. I could’ve gone the next day and left them home with dad. I tried to calm down their hysteric laughter and keep them yelling “poo” and from bouncing around the aisles, grabbing boxes of sugary snacks and trying to toss them in the cart. Finally, I threatened to cancel our afternoon plans. That kept them straight until checkout.

Then, while waiting in line, an older woman approached me. I felt a quick jolt of nervousness as I wondered if she’d seen their rowdy disruptive behavior. She leaned over and said, “I just want to compliment you on these two young men.”

Young men? It’s a phrase I’d never heard before with reference to my sons. Compliment? Also unexpected given that the majority of this trip I felt like I was trying to keep them from tearing apart the store.

“Your son dropped his paper and said thank you very nicely when I picked it up. You don’t hear that very often from kids his age anymore.”

I thanked her and told her how much I needed that today, holding back tears. I laughed it off, saying I felt like I’d been herding cats and just hoped I got what we needed. She smiled.

I could tell she’d been in my shoes before. I could tell she’d walked the aisles of a grocery store, herding rowdy children while desperately trying to remember what was on her list. I could see in her eyes that she understood how a simple errand could turn into dozens of questions and answers, moments of extreme multitasking. And I could tell when she walked away and looked back at my boys, that she missed it.

Employees gave the boys stickers on the way out and they happily bounced to the car. We continued our afternoon plans. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t leave them home with dad. I know someday I’ll miss it too.

Every week, I write up a quick menu for weeknight dinners, add the ingredients to my grocery list, and head to the store with the bright eyes and hopeful smile of a mom who doesn’t yet know three of the five coming nights will be catered by a drive-thru worker. It’s called meal planning, and it’s how ‘good moms’ ensure their little angels are getting the balanced nutrition they need. 

Let’s be real. This spring we had soccer practice, little league games two nights a week, and guitar lessons. With barely enough time to change, grab gear and tote the boys to their respective extracurriculars, we’re ending the day with enough energy to pack the next day’s lunches and that’s about it. Maybe scarf down a taco before bath time. Almost every night, my carefully curated menu would fall to a more convenient microwaveable meal or quick pickup. 

I am, however, still determined to figure out a better solution. Here’s what I’ve tried so far, and how it worked out:

The Idea- Portability!
Cook portable meals that we can eat on the go, like breakfast burritos, sandwiches and egg bites.
The Reality- Messy car
In most cases, the boys would take a few bites and leave me with multiple halves of partially-frozen re-heated breakfast burritos to eat while watching events.

The Idea- Make Ahead!
Make an easily-re-heatable meal the night before and quickly eat before heading to events.
The Reality- Eat Fast
This depended on the day. I made a quiche that big bro ate quickly before his game but little bro wasn’t hungry yet at 4:30pm. It’s also a bit exhausting to prep the night before.

The Idea- Just Snack!
Have them eat a large snack and eat more snack food after the game before bed.
The Reality- Snack All Night
This also depends on the day. Big bro really needs more than snacks to be at his best, and it turned into the boys munching on sunflower seeds in a dugout and ballpark pretzels in the stands the whole game. The pretzels are really yummy though.

Our reality is, I’m still working on it and I know our schedules will only get busier as they get older. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the last little league game of the season, because afterwards, we’re going out for pizza.

Spring break is over and we’re heading full speed into summer, but first, the boys have little league, soccer, guitar, end-of-year concerts, preschool graduation, field trips and more. Most of our weeknights are fully booked and meal prep is a necessity. But, true to form, I decided now would be a great time to embark upon all those home projects we’d been putting off.

It started with the laundry room. I want to install cabinets and paint it a lighter color, as it’s currently the dark tan that matches the majority of the interior of our house. Then, I snagged my shirt on part of our laminate countertop in the kitchen. We decided while we’re looking at cabinets we could look at counters too. But, if we change cabinets and counters we’d need new paint. Needless to say, we now have new countertops scheduled for installation this week, cabinet refinishing, and I’m working on painting the whole house in phases. Ironically, the laundry room will be the last thing to get done.

Home projects have a way of starting a domino effect, and the “one more things” just keep on coming. I’m hoping to have it all accomplished (minus the laundry room that started it all of course) by the beginning of summer. You know, when all of the athletics and extracurriculars and end-of-school celebrations settle down.

Every spring break for the last three years, to my husband’s terror, I’ve brought six-legged crawly insects indoors for the boys to observe and experience. It started in 2020 with a butterfly kit from one of my favorite brands featured in this post, where you can buy kits to raise insects from egg to to winged and ready to fly. The butterflies were a wonderful experience as we watched them emerge from cocoons and dry their wings. The boys named each one, drew pictures of them and happily released them in our backyard.

The Ant Farm

I couldn’t wait to do it again the following year, but wanted something a little different. We’d never had an ant farm before, so that’s what we chose. I ordered the kit and expected our ant farm to prosper with workers and eggs and a nursery in tunnels like a bustling underground city. When the ants arrived, however, the instructions revealed that the Department of Agriculture actually prevents shipping queen ants, and workers only live for a few weeks without them. Also, they were fire ants.

I followed the very detailed instructions for putting the fire ants into the habitat and we watched the workers dig tunnels and eat fruit and carry on. A couple weeks later, we watched some of them slowly die a lonely, queen-less death. Then, we watched as fellow workers carried off the dead and buried them in one spot outside their tunnel that we reluctantly dubbed “the cemetery.” When I couldn’t stand to witness any more harsh ant reality, we released them in a local park. Thankfully, we happen to live in the natural habitat of this particular ant. I’d like to think they were found wandering the desert and brought into a thriving colony, nursed back to health by a merciful queen.

The Praying Mantis

This year, I went back to the website and selected ladybugs as our annual insect learning experience. But, they were out of stock. So, I chose the next best thing- praying mantis! I imagined an adorable green insect sitting on some twigs and a leaf in its habitat, ready to be observed and studied. I selected two eggs, as I wanted to make sure we’d have at least one if one of the eggs failed. When the shipment arrived a day later, the instructions revealed one egg actually yields hundreds of praying mantises. Manti?

I could’ve tossed one of the eggs- or both- and made life a lot easier. Instead, I cared for the eggs as instructed, which turned out to require a lot more maintenance than I anticipated. I provided humidity once a day- but not directly! Kept them out of direct sunlight, away from drafts. I was half expecting a gremlin to hatch when one morning Big Bro came running up to me yelling, “They hatched! They hatched!”

They hatched alright. I don’t know how I expected to react to several hundred tiny praying mantises..es… inside a netted habitat, but with a fake smile slapped across my suddenly queasy face, I took out the instructions once again.

Good news for me, one must release all but a few of the insects before they start eating each other. Flashbacks of the ant cemetery flew through my mind and we went to a park to either control the local bug population or feed several birds.

I purchased live fruit flies at the pet store because of course they’ll only eat live insects. So much for the twigs and the leaf. The flies escaped the enclosure of course, so I set it outside only to find a few minutes later a very satisfied spider was perched on the habitat, gobbling up their food as it escaped. Turns out two-day-old mantis babies are terrible hunters.

Now, we have nine baby mantis bugs who have gone a few days without eating each other and I’m calling that a win. Baby Bro is still a bit wary of their pinchers, which he knows will grow quickly, but we have a solid plan to release them in our garden when they’re ready so they can protect our broccoli.

Next year, I hope the ladybugs will be back in stock.

This week, we celebrated the boys turning 8 and 5. When I say this week, I mean we celebrated for a straight week. This year, their birthdays landed on Tuesday and Thursday, making it less convenient to choose an in-between date to throw a joint party, and with both having their own friends in school, they had their own individual birthday bashes for the first time, two consecutive Saturdays. 

Throw in their actual birthdays, which we celebrated with their choice of restaurant and dessert (they kept it classy choosing Raising Canes and McDonalds) then a family dinner on the Wednesday in-between, and I think we have sufficiently acknowledged this transformative change in age. 

So why don’t I feel like it’s sunk in? My baby will be starting kindergarten in the fall. Today he filled his own drinks, dressed, fixed his own snacks and repeatedly told me “I’m five now so I can do it myself,” or my favorite, “I’m so much smarter because now I’m five.”

I keep waiting for that moment. The moment I realize they really are big kids and will only become even more independent. They’ll become “so much smarter” and there’s no going back. I keep waiting for it to hit me and drudge up feelings of nostalgia for the bottles and pacifiers and wobbly feet. 

Maybe it’s because I’m growing with them. Maybe it’s because each new “version” of them just keeps getting cooler. Maybe it’s because they still end up in our bed in the middle of the night.

Whatever the reason, I know I love watching them get so much smarter.

At 8 years old, big bro likes baseball, writing, reading, Pokémon, legos and playing outside.

At 5, little bro likes drawing, telling jokes, music, Pokémon, legos and playing outside.

They both dislike bedtime.

In most places, January means snow days and warm slow cooker meals, or scraping the ice off your car and fussing to get coats on the kids. Here in the Phoenix East Valley, it means throwing on a hoodie for the mornings and evenings, and spending the day enjoying some of our best weather outdoors. There’s a reason our population increases by hundreds of thousands each winter.

For our family, it’s a great time to enjoy the parks in and around our home. Over the years we’ve gotten to know our absolute favorites. So, here are the top 5 parks we visit on a regular basis, but in no particular order because I honestly couldn’t decide!

1. Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch: This is our go-to park in Gilbert for a laid-back afternoon of feeding ducks, playing a game of tag, climbing trees or walking the trails. This expansive park not only includes several ponds and miles of natural trail, but its own observatory where you can stargaze on Saturday nights. Its abstract playground features a giant concrete snake that my boys both learned to walk on, and dinosaur dig areas that bring their imaginations to life.
2. Tumbleweed Park: This popular park in Chandler has plenty of space for athletics and recreation. An on-site rec center provides programs and opportunities for all sorts of activities, while a large playground features barn-style structure and a mini city complete with climbable fire truck, school bus, and roads to scoot, bike or skate on.
3. Mansel Carter Oasis Park: This park in Queen Creek is a hot spot for cooling off in the summer. Its splash pad centers around a pirate ship with water slides, canons and more. Ponds for fishing, playgrounds, a fitness area, and even a sand play structure with running water make it the perfect place for wearing out even the most energetic little ones.
4. Riverview Park: Riverview Park in Mesa is an expansive park with room for events, a large splash pad, and two climbing structures, each spanning more than 50 feet. Sidewalks connecting all of the amenities are also great for skating, biking or long walks.
5. Gilbert Regional Park: This regional park has opened its first couple of phases, but still has even more room to grow. With an amphitheater for events, sport courts for tennis, pickleball and more, and a three-part playground for tots, big kids and splashing, we’re thankful it’s a short drive from our house. We spend a lot of time at this park for playdates, parties, or just an afternoon.

It’s the best Christmas gift a kid could ask for. This winter break, we were joined by my brother and his family for a dream vacation to Disneyland, Universal Studios, and spending the holidays with family in Arizona.

We started in Santa Monica, where the Chapins dipped their feet into the Pacific Ocean for the first time. The water was December cold, but the kids still managed to splash and play. We spent the next day at Disneyland, riding the classic attractions including Dumbo and Thunder Mountain. We marveled at the Star Wars land and accidentally traumatized our four-year-old with the 3D Rise of the Resistance ride.

We saw Jurassic Park dinosaurs, Transformers, and Harry Potter at Universal Studios, where all of the kids picked up magic wands and drank butter beer (some liked it more than others.) After Los Angeles, we drove back to Arizona for the Christmas holiday, and then to Tucson to tour the Desert Museum, Air and Space Museum and spend time with Leonore’s family.

It was a busy trip full of laughter, excitement, and holiday cheer. But the best gift this year was seeing all of our kids make lasting memories together.