Here comes school, goodbye summer

Kid A has braces! This is kind of a goofy picture of him, but you can see those six little braces on his top teeth. He's adjusting to them quite well, brushing his teeth regularly, though I'm continually challenged by what to feed him. I think it will be easier as the weather gets cooler, because I can make a big pot of soup every week. Right now he's living on oatmeal and pudding, plus regular food cut up into tiny pieces.

I saw the eye doctor last week and yesterday I made it to the glasses store and picked out a pair of dark red specs, quite pretty. I'll post a photo of them when I pick them up next week. It will be interesting trying to convince Kid A to wear his new glasses to school, since that's what they're for. He hasn't put them on since summer school ended.

We also took my car in for its 120,000 mile check. Everything's fine, but it will need new brakes in about 20,000 miles. I hate that! Just fix the darn brakes already, don't tell me to watch them and wait until they don't work anymore. "You may notice it next winter," the mechanic told me. Great. I'll be noticing as I plow into the side of a bus! On the other hand, I was glad not to have that additional expense right now.

Today the kids and I went to Target and bought their school supplies -- about $50 each, plus I still have to buy the required reams of copy paper. Colorado schools are so poorly funded that parents have to buy all the basic classroom supplies. I also splurged on a few clothes for me and the boys, and I have beautiful new running shoes, courtesy of my sister Barbara. Anything else can wait until later in the fall. It helps that it will still be summer weather for another month or two. I remember when I lived in Michigan, you could feel fall in the air by early September. I wonder if that's still true, with global warming.

In addition to all these get-ready tasks, I'm trying to think of what summer activities we haven't done and would still like to squeeze in. More swimming? Tomorrow we're planning a trip to Coldstone Creamery to use the ice cream coupons they earned for participating in the summer reading program.

Last weekend, Kid A and I went to Denver, to the Botanical Gardens, because there was a corpse plant in bloom. (Kid B decided to stay home with Rocket Boy.) We were disappointed that the flower was not more smelly. I read online that the chemicals given off by the blooming plant include those in dead fish, sweaty socks, and human feces, but up close and personal we could barely smell anything.

We had a good time at the Botanical Gardens, though -- walked all over the place at Kid A's insistence. I thought it was going to rain, but the sun came out and it got quite hot. I started photographing the fauna (as opposed to the flora), and Kid A helped. Here's a nice bumblebee we saw there:



and a butterfly, and a fish in a pond (Kid A took that one):

and here's Kid A again, with the science pyramid and fountain in the background. Truly, he was having a great time, but he tends to be frowny in photographs.


What should we do this weekend? What would round out our summer?