Happy Dad's Day

Three days until Christmas and all David could talk about all evening was making Keith breakfast in the morning. Actually, it was more like whispering details in my ear every few minutes. We were out of town last weekend, and we really haven't had much family downtime lately. So when David figured out Keith would be home from work he got really excited. The last thing he said before falling asleep was, "I think tomorrow should be all special things for Daddy."

It's hard to really put into words how much both boys love Keith. Sometimes I will walk into the garage to get something and upon coming back in they run around the corner and then their faces fall when they realize it's not time for Keith to be home from work. I love how much they love him and it isn't by accident. We should probably take in several orphan boys because Keith is an amazing dad.

Just some things I have been thinking about.

I have done a terrible job at blogging in 2011. I blame it on my IPad, Facebook and most recently, Pinterest.

I really want to do a better job in the new year. Mostly because writing makes me happy and I enjoy looking back at previous posts.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about labels. At one point in time, I taught around 140 kids a year. So I tended to sum them up in a few words.

Smart, talkative, defiant, struggling, shifty, happy, you get the drift. Since I taught writing and read their journals, I knew that each kid had lots of depth, but if my principal or another teacher would ask me about a student I could always give a concise description.

Now, with my sons, I always wonder how they would be summed up. I think I can guess pretty accurately on David, but Drew... I can't put him in a category and I think that is what bugs me. I really try never to stick any negative label on either of them within their hearing. I can thank my long time best friend for this. Back in college, she used to talk about how her mom would answer for her and say, "Oh, she's shy." This happened time and again and my friend lived out her label, not overcoming it until her teen years (feel free to comment if I have mixed this story up, you know who you are.)

If you say often enough, "he's so wild or she's so sneaky," I think kids will believe you. They'll give a mental shrug and think, "well, I am wild." I have decided to totally reverse this and I tell everyone that Drew is gentle and great with younger kids. Is he? Well, he certainly can be, but the truth of the matter is, he is built like a linebacker and has a high threshold for pain. Drew likes to be first and given the chance would probably win a wrestling match with a grizzly cub. But he loves animals and is caring and I have decided to steer him to using his strength and size for being helpful.

When it comes time to enroll the boys for next school year, I know how I'll describe David and the traits in a teacher I will request. Drew? I think I will just have a meeting with the powers that be in order to get him the teacher that will be best for him.

Sports and adenoids

I mentioned we finished up t-ball. I should probably post my thoughts on that. This was David's third time to play, and boy were they fun to watch! They all really enjoyed playing and being out there and their coach (who is also a P.E. teacher) did a good job with them. He treated them like twelve year olds, which was kinda funny to watch, and they all rose to the occasion. David isn't really an oversensitive kid, so he didn't mind his coach's gruff manner. We have enjoyed playing with the same players, so we thought we would sign Drew up for his own little team.

Hmmm... What can I say? Because of where the cut off date fell, Drew was one of the oldest and because he is Drew, he was by far the biggest. This coupled with the fact that he is a younger brother who has watched t-ball games meant that Drew did well. But I didn't realize that parents had to stand in the field with the kids and that was super, duper annoying. It was too many parents hovering over kids who didn't want to be there. I am talking kids crying, being bribed with candy bars, and sitting in the dugout sipping huge flasks of red Kool-aid. It made the teacherish/Love and Logic part of me cringe.

There were times with both boys when I questioned if we should even be doing a fall sport. David's games were later and Drew had developed a bad cough at nights and I wondered if it was from being out in the dust and the wind. This is the parenting stuff that kills me. Do you encourage them to get out there and play even though you know they might rather be at the park? But then if everyone else has been playing do you want your kid to be the one who doesn't know what is going on and is one step behind? If you know me really, really well, you know how unathletic I have always felt. How I failed miserably at every sport I tried and how deep down inside it really bothered me. I didn't attempt basketball until middle school and everyone had been doing it for several years. I was the clumsy duckling.

Basketball starts soon for David.

On to other things. Drew's cough? Wasn't all asthma like we thought. We took him to the allergy/asthma clinic and the doc said his adenoids were huge. Well, the pediatrician had a suspicion of large adenoids last spring... with David. So we took both boys to the ENT who Keith decided looks and talks a bit like a muppet, but a smart muppet. Dr. Muppet had put tubes in Drew's ears when he was younger and we trust his judgment. Each boy put on a hospital gown last Thursday and bravely walked back to surgery to get their adenoids removed. Drew's were indeed big, David's were huge. We are hoping for an improvement in Drew's sleep. This also may have affected his hearing which in turn affects speech. David's constant congestion and inability to clear his nose has already vastly improved. And our hope is that the chronic ear infections David suffered from last spring will stop.

Kindergarten and Happy Birthday David!

Know what five weeks of fall t-ball times two kids will do to you? Leave you with a lot of laundry and no free time for blogging. And boy do I have lots to blog about. I could probably post about a jillion different subjects. Prom Queen moms parading around our elementary school in bedazzled spirit shirts, my thoughts on public school, thoughts on preschool, how much I love my dog, team sports for little kids. You name it.

But, in honor of David's upcoming sixth birthday. I will regal you with how kindergarten has been. David loves it! And I absolutely love his teacher and all of his little classmates. I know them well because I spend two afternoons a week there. David quickly found two best friends. The criteria? That they love the Super Mario Brothers. As a kindergartner, David can now ride the bus home. We are the first drop off, and the bus driver is a very nice lady, (all of my neighbors checked the whole system out last year) so I am fine with it. On the first week of school I was in the office and a mom stormed in talking about how it wasn't very eco friendly for her car to be running for so long in the pick up line. Um, this was already a flawed argument (turn off your car Blossom) but I decided to chime in and say that the school buses are very green. Hippie Mom looked at me like I was the worst mom in the world, "I would never put my daughter on the bus, she's five!" I could only reply that my five year old loved riding the bus.

He looks so confident stepping off it with his new glasses! Yup, David has an astigmatism. He has done pretty well wearing them and taking them off to play on the playground. So, aside from being just plain busy, the year is off to a great start. David will turn six on Saturday. The OU/TX game will be on, just like it was the Saturday he was born. While it makes me sad that the time has gone by so fast I can only be really proud of the easy going, considerate kid he has become!

Hermit Crabs

All summer I have been promising David a frog. I wanted to get the "Grow A Frog" kit that one of my childhood friends had. However, all of the Internet reviews said they ended up with a mailbox full of dead tadpoles when you ordered them online. And, in light of our record breaking temperatures, I decided I didn't want to risk it.

So, when Keith saw hermit crabs for sale in a kiosk at the mall, we were sold. After "Meet the Teacher," and on Keith's lunch break, we took the boys to each pick out a strawberry hermit crab and an extra shell. We got home, left them on the bathroom counter, and, when the boys lost interest and asked to play on my IPad, I said, "sure."Unknown to me, this is what happened. David got out Drew's hermit crab, put it on Drew's bed and told him to babysit it. Then, they started playing Angry Birds and when I came in sometime later, they casually informed me that Drew's crab was lost. Furious isn't strong enough for how I felt.

Fine, whatever, how far could it get? I closed the doors, and made them start looking. David kept saying things like, "well, Mom, I know, we can make a new hermit crab out of Legos!" Or Drew would say something equally idiotic like, "Well, I guess we just need to go to the beach and get a new one." AH! One hour, two hours, three hours of looking later and it was still not found. I was so disgusted with them, that I made them eat a snack of bread and water in Drew's room in silence so they could listen for the scuttling of little crabby legs. Did I mention that Drew purposely picked out the "teeniest" crab there was? Oh, and he wanted a natural looking shell, not a brightly painted one, so the shell was the exact same beige as our carpet. I finally let them go play upstairs while I set a trap in Drew's room of tuna fish on tin foil (the Internet has an answer for everything.) Keith came home to a messy house that smelled like tuna because I had gotten nothing accomplished. After dinner, and no luck with the tuna trap, we all went back into Drew's room to search. Tore it apart. Found two things that had been missing for months but no hermit crab. One nugget of info. from google said, "If your hermit crab is lost, just expect to come across it dead one day while cleaning." Nice. So I came to terms with the fact that it had, as David suggested, "vanished." And I worried that David's hermit crab would die of a broken heart.

Around eight o'clock the next morning, I went into Drew's dark room and found the little bugger crawling by the baseboards. Since I refuse to touch the nasty little things, I shrieked for the boys to come collect the prodigal crab.

We have imposed new crab rules since finding "Yoshi" yesterday morning. And we have reserved some books from the library. I think, "How to Care for Your Hermit Crab for Dummies," is appropriate.

not much changing here

Everyone here is excited about school starting, but it doesn't really change our lives too much. First of all, both boys are at the same schools that they were at last year. And for the same amount of time (two and a half hours.) The only difference is that Drew's four year old program is in the afternoon, therefore I put David in afternoon kindergarten. This means they will have plenty of time in the morning for chores! And my errands can coincide with the mall being open.

David's elementary is one of the only ones that is still half day kindergarten. I am fine with this. School doesn't equal childcare and I think the group of kids in our school can learn everything they need to learn in half a day. I am pretty pumped about getting housework done, going to the zoo or the park, dropping David off at his school, then Drew at his, running errands sans kids, and then picking them up.

David is excited to ride the bus a few times each week. Lucky for me, we are the first drop off so it won't be a big deal. Oh, and we might as well live in Mayberry with all of the friendly neighbors and kids, so he has plenty of friends to sit by. Not that it will bother David. He doesn't seem phased that since we have switched to afternoon he will more than likely know no one.

We do have a new puppy named "Plaid," he has yellow hair and is four years old. David just refers to the puppy as "boy." Sometimes he gets his feelings hurt and crawls under a chair. If it weren't so funny, the constant barking, yelping and howling might be annoying. It shouldn't surprise anyone that David is the boss of this dog.

There will be full day kindergarten when Drew starts. But this means we will more than likely redshirt him so I have until 2013 until he starts kindergarten. Plenty of time to get photo albums and things in order before I start teaching again! My master plan is to volunteer plenty and weasel my way into a fourth or fifth grade position at their school. But we'll see...

Things that make me go hmmm...

1. Lately, around the baby pool in our neighborhood, I have been finding cigarette butts. Apparently, there is a pair of divorcees who go there late at night to sit in the kiddie pool and smoke. So I am thinking we need to add a "No Smoking in Wading Pool" sign. Weird that we would need to spell that out.

2. I have noticed two new tanning places opened up around us. And I see people going in and out all the time. Who pays to tan in the summer? And why go in the winter? I maybe went a handful of times in high school, but it seems so unhealthy and expensive. I can't believe people are paying for that.

3. Speaking of overpriced, I can never be one of the girls with a really expensive purse. Seems like a big waste of money. My best friend has a fake Louis Vuitton from China that she proudly refers to as her "Huey Wonton." Love it.

Pretend play with animals and hugs

How weird is it that this lady posed in the background of our family picture?! This was on the tram to Animal Kingdom a couple of months ago. Yes, I should post all the pictures or at least develop them in some sort of album. I realized I haven't posted any pictures of us in a long time. So, I will just do this one for now in case you forgot what we look like.

Right now, I have to write about what David said the other day. First of all, he and Drew got real into playing with stuffed animals again. We read a book about stuffed animals getting ready for bed and it spawned this whole making homes for stuffed toys project. Somewhere in the midst of stuffing dogs in shoe boxes, David brought me his beanie baby chameleon. "Mom, I have really sad news. Someone nailed this poor chameleon to a cross." I had no idea how to respond to that, so I just said, "Who would crucify a chameleon?" To which David replied, "I don't know, it's very sad, I took him down from the cross and God blessed him with this little baby." Oh.

It is beyond me what made him think of that. That was mixing up a lot of imagination/Sunday school. He actually posed them and took these two middle pictures a few days ago. I didn't realize they were in my camera until now.

Their little minds just never stop thinking. I said to Drew a couple of days ago, "Drew, are you still going to give me hugs when you are a grown up?" This is the conversation that followed:

Drew: Well, Dad is a grown up, and he never gives you hugs.

Me: (as Keith walked in) Hey, Drew says you don't give me hugs!

Keith: Drew, I hug your mom all the time.

Drew: (not convinced) Well, I know! You must give her all her hugs at nighttime while I am asleep and don't see it!

Me: (smirk)

I get plenty of hugs. Even when Keith falls asleep early. I think Drew is just always off doing something else when they occur. Nevertheless, we have made sure to have some extra embraces in front of Drew.

The Goody Bag Conundrum

Last year, one of my neighbors went off about goody bags. She said she hated them, that most parents that she had talked to despised them, and that if she were president she would send around a petition banning them. I can't stand them either, so at Drew's neighborhood swim party last year, I got tons of animal beach balls from Oriental Trading. As each child left, I let them choose an animal to take home. Clever, right? The balls served as decorations, amusement, and party favors. Wouldn't you know that the "down with treat bags" neighbor's kid, marched right up and asked where her goody bag was?! I felt like a bad hostess as several other pairs of eyes looked at me accusingly. "But, the animals served as..."

Since last year David has been invited to parties of classmates and of course, Drew is not invited. So treat bags have become even more of an issue. It would just rub salt in Drew's wound that not only did David get to go to a party, but he came home with a bag full of treasures. And yes, I know life isn't fair. And we dealt with it, but sheesh.

On the other hand, Drew's class has this dumb, dumb, dumb, tradition of when it is a child's birthday, sending treat bags to leave in the other children's cubbies. Whoever started this should be shot. Preschool was from 9-11:30 so that meant that almost twenty times last year we got a sack stuffed full of candy right before lunch. And, yes, again, I know how to say "no" but it was annoying. Especially because then David, hungry and tired from pre-K, would start bellyaching that he never, ever got bags full of chocolate at his school.

Maybe it's only people with multiple kids that dislike party favors? Because this neighbor has three kids. I can't even imagine hunting for junk toys under car seats times three.

Drew's birthday is coming up. He has brought up treat sacks several times. I wish I could just hand each kid three quarters instead. Teach em' the value of seventy five cents. Maybe I would enclose a note saying, "Buy your own junk. Have fun." But that would probably be even less popular than beach ball animals.

My question is, if I circulated a petition outlawing all baggies full of high fructose corn syrup and plastic, would you sign it?

I didn't realize I took that long of a break!

I have needed to post about all sorts of things. David's friend who convinced him and me that his dad is a pirate, our trip to Florida, t-ball, soccer, summer chores, really you name it and I have composed a post in my head while driving and then been too tired to type anything out later.

The other day, David came in and said, "See this picture, I drew it to remember Drew by in case he dies." Keith and I just looked at each other. "That is not funny David," Keith said. "But Dad, I am not laughing and if he dies, I guess we can use his room as a guest room." WHAT?! David loves Drew to pieces so we have no idea where all that came from. Then the next day, David asked, "What's that terrible disease that means you have to leave your family and go live somewhere else?" Cancer? No. Well, this had his Sunday school teacher written all over it. Leprosy? "Yes! Leprosy!" Drew had to pipe in, "Mom, one time I had leprosy on my bottom. Will you take me to Mimi's house and leave me there?" But if I did that, I wouldn't get my daily laughs.

While in Target today, they both mysteriously became pregnant with rectangle babies. They had no idea how they got there. Then, as I was heading over to get some milk, they both started birthing their Lunchables. I am pretty sure David said, "Ow, this hurts, I am glad I am not a girl."

I am too. Those boys crack me up!

A Dog Like Jack

I thought I was being pretty clever throwing a few story books in the library bag. "I'll entice David with books full of pictures of dogs and get to read fiction instead of a book on hurricanes." Big mistake. The last three pages of "A Dog Like Jack" show a dead Jack in the animal clinic, Jack being buried in a hole in the ground, and a little boy who doesn't want another dog because there won't ever be a dog like Jack. I will get better at skimming books before reading them aloud at bedtime. I pretty much felt like doo doo seeing tears come out of David's eyes and hearing him say, "I don't want Scout to die." I mean, who sends their kid to bed that way? They should put those kinds of books in their own section. I'll happily read about atmospheric pressure and trade winds tomorrow.

Thoughts on school

I know I just blogged that we are all enrolled for next year and I feel good about the decision; but right now, I am just ready for this year to be over and not to have to think about school for awhile.
It's nothing bad, but school, and the conversations we are having are just making my brain hurt right now.
Getting Drew from school seems to be such a chore lately. For one, David is with me and Drew is on the playground so getting them both to leave is a hassle. Plus, I check with Drew's teachers on how his "self-control issues" have been. Sometimes, it's my most dreaded ten minutes of the day. Case in point, last week, Drew pushed this sweet little girl, she feel into a table and it left a bruise on her back. When Keith got the whole story from Drew we found out that this girl was pretending to be a baby and kept crying. Drew's BF told him to "get her" so Drew took her down. Doesn't make it right in the least but at least there was some sort of explanation. Anyway, the next morning after taking David to school we went to Target to buy Emily a Hello Kitty ice pack. Drew and I noticed lots of toys that we wished we could buy, but darn it, all of our money had to go towards helping our friend that he hurt. So today, I am trying to wrangle both boys plus an extra and Emily's grandmother comes over to tell me they appreciated it. While I am telling her no thanks is necessary and we are not raising a boy who pushes girls, I find all three boys in my care clustered around another student's baby brother. They are all pointing at him saying stuff like, "Wow, what a weird looking baby" and "That is a funny looking baby." The child did look like Ernie from Bert and Ernie. He has lots of sticking up black hair. But gee guys, think it, don't say it. I have to move from further discussion of last week's push incident to telling the mom that all three boys were bald babies and they aren't used to babies with so much hair. And he is adorable and precious. And I tell them not to hurt the babies feelings. My head is pounding and it's only 11:40.
David has presented me with different challenges. I think there are great reasons to homeschool or to attend private Christian schools. But at this juncture, we are throwing our hat in with the public school system. I had no idea that I would need to explain our beliefs in such detail in pre-k. Case in point, David studied space, so we have been checking out books on space. In reading a book about the sun, David grew very indignant saying that the book was lying and that God is the one who created it all. This grew into a mini lesson on Creationism and how some things in books may not be true. Then, some goober in David's class brought a picture of his dog Zeus for his "Z" surprise letter sack. This kid's clue was "the name of a god." And it stumped David because God's name isn't Zeus. So we got to talk about false gods that afternoon.
And while David's preschool/mother's day out was Church of Christ, Drew is attending a secular one. I often think if they could just tell him, "Jesus wants you to be nice to your friends," they would have a better boy. But they can't. At least one kid in his class is Muslim. It's quite the little multicultural crew there. So it's left to me. We talk and talk about it at home. I find myself working to teach values way more than I did last year. I think I coasted knowing that David was getting taught the Bible at his school last year and I didn't focus on it as much as I do this year.
Like I said, it's nothing bad or major. Getting opportunities to answer the boys' questions are a great thing. They won't suffer from learning early on to let their lights shine and to stand up for what they believe in.
But all of this is why I keep falling asleep on the couch at ten o'clock. It's exhausting.

Enrollments

I enrolled both boys in elementary school today. It was kindergarten enrollment day, so I got to fill out thirty minutes of paperwork for David to keep attending a school he already goes to. Go figure.
The bigger event of this morning was going to Drew's speech IEP. If you aren't familiar with that term, IEP stands for individual education plan. After working with our school system, videotaping Drew and waiting, I have gotten him speech services.
Today's meeting was to sign off on his speech goals. And fill out the paperwork for him to be an "itinerant" student. I have sat in on tons of IEP's and signed my name by the "classroom teacher" line. This morning, David's teacher signed by that space and I initialed and signed on all the "parent" lines.
I am so thankful for nice people. The guidance counselor, school psychologist and speech pathologist were all wonderful. See, what I didn't realize when I was teaching was that when it comes to your own kid, especially when they are being flagged as having a problem, it's real easy to get emotional. I kept it together, but there were a few times, when I felt my throat get choked up. When the speech pathologist read about Drew being above average academically and on target socially and emotionally I started to feel the sting of tears. Thank goodness he has those tools. And when she read that if left untreated his stuttering may affect his interpersonal relationships I wanted to cry. But I didn't. It pains me to think of my kid who has so much to say unable to say it at times. So much so, that when other people bring up the stuttering I get pretty prickly.
My biggest lesson that I have taken from this is that you don't really know how something feels unless you have gone through it. As a teacher, I would have seen this as very minor. A speed bump. A hiccup. As a parent, this morning was huge. It was the last step in getting Drew help in becoming more fluent in his speech.

He picked a good day to be bad

Lucky for Drew I just started reading "The Ways of Boys.". It was in that little new release section of the library that we pass by before checking out our books. I think this section is especially for harried moms. I was a tad disappointed that there wasn't any chick lit. out that I hadn't read, but I figured I was due a parenting book.
So anyway, this book talks about the impulsivity of boys along with addressing their competitiveness and wiggelieness. I haven't finished it but so far It has been helpful and much of what it says rings true for my very male household.
Today, David came and found me and casually mentioned that Drew had just peed on the living room floor. I walk into the living room to find Drew scrubbing a spot on the carpet with the bathroom hand towel. "Mom, I peed on the floor."
"Well, finish cleaning it and go to your room, come out when you can apologize and tell me what you did wrong."
Exactly thirty seconds later, "Mom, sorry I peed on the floor. I should pee in the toilet."
I know it probably sounds bizarre that I didn't beat his bottom, but Drew seemed every bit as puzzled as David and I on why he urinated like a bad puppy. I think he was just playing around in his underwear and airing things out (seen him do that before) and just started pottying. The floor was barely damp, we were having a great day, and I saw no reason to ruin it over something relatively minor, I mean Keith and I had a friend in college who would forget where the bathroom was from time to time in the wee hours of a Saturday night and heck, we still hung out with him. You just had to point it out to him the next day and he would take care of the damage.
In other news, I had to take my car in to the shop to get my side view mirror put back on, I have accidents from time to time too. This one stemmed from being in too much of a hurry backing out of the garage. David was with me and picture the scuzziest auto body shop waiting room you can. Plastic couches, sun faded pictures from the early nineties, grease stained carpet and the smell of gasoline and stale coffee. David didn't see any of that. He sniffed appreciatively as we walked in, "Oh, diesel, thanks for bringing me to a place with my favorite smell." Really?! Then, of course, he had to use the bathroom. And he started opening drawers to reveal shaving cream and razors, I am trying not to even let my body touch the walls and he is exclaming, "Wow! Looks like someone lives here!". Thankfully, Keith and Drew came to get us.

Imaginations

David got a small toy rabbit from his Mimi. He named it Funny Bunny and has told us that he has to take care of him because his dad got hit by a truck and his mom is on vacation. Sometimes David changes the story slightly and both of Funny Bunny's parents have been hit by a car. David is really into a few stuffed animals and making little beds for them and taking care of them, so I am trying not to let Funny Bunny's woes disturb me.
Drew has a book on the Canada Lynx that we have been reading him. He picks the book out for us to read to him but then starts staring really hard at the photographs asking if they eat people or if they would, "chew on his bones.". No Drew, they are probably afraid of humans and furthermore, you are much bigger. (A Canada Lynx is about thirty seven pounds, so Drew has a good five pounds on these cats.). Then, because he still looks a little sleepy and worried, and for good measure, I tell him that our German shepherd would never let anything hurt her little boys.
I sometimes imagine the worst too. For instance, Drew's asthma and allergies are pretty bad right now. The pollen alerts on the trees he is allergic too are on high. So, Drew is wheezy and sneezy. I have been so worried that his teachers would think he was sick even though I had explained to them the situation. Luckily, I have a few voices of reason too. I was obsessing over it and my cousin stopped me in my tracks. "Natalie, do you think Drew is the first preschooler they have had with seasonal allergies?! He is fine!"

Happenings

Drew has decided he loves Pempto Bismol. He has always been a gassy, acidy little fellow. We have to cap his four back teeth because his reflux was so bad when they were developing. Anyway, when complaning of a tummy ache one day he discovered he liked the little pink pills and now he requests Pepto Bismol almost daily.
David is into dwarf planets. They are learning about the solar system at school and he has a little song that he sings that names them all. Grown up that I am, I though it was hilarious to check him out a book on Uranus and set it out for Keith to read at bedtime.
Me? I have discovered "Words with Friends" but I am mistrustful of some of my opponents. I think many of them are using "Cheat with Words with Friends." I'll still play though. I don't mind losing and it is a nice little activity after the kids go to bed.
Soccer practice starts this week for Drew, and David's t-ball will start up shortly as well. Bring it on. I am sick of indoors and once the Bachelor finale airs I will be done with tv. Actually, don't hold me to those last five words.

I can't give him a time out, so I'll settle for a post

I want to put a certain little pre-K boy in a long, long time out. And it's not my little pre-K boy. Remember when David got bit? He's also been kicked, punched and choked by this other kid. Let's call him Bob. From day one, David has scooted away, told him to stop, and finally started telling the teacher. I saw a scratch on David's neck a few weeks ago on the same day that I watched Bob kick David in the line to go home. I e-mailed his teacher. I like his teacher and was happy with her response.
Last week, we had a class playdate at the park. Only four kids showed up. Bob was among them. Somehow, in the crawl tunnel Bob bit David's head. And Bob beat up on my little cousin who was also there. My cousin doesn't go to school with them, he was just hanging out at the park with his mom. Apparently Bob doesn't have to know a kid to hit them. Today, David told us that he had to run in the hall at school. David didn't want to run; it made him sad to break the rule. But Bob was trying to get him. So at dinner we did some more practicing on what David should say to Bob. Instead of, "Stop that," we told him he can say in a really rough voice, "CUT IT OUT, THIS IS GETTING REALLY OLD, BOB!" I think I may have to schedule a conference with the teacher if I keep hearing about this. Under no circumstances will I tell one of my kids to hit back. I think that sends a bad mixed message.
It also came out tonight that Bob watches his dad play "Halo." Maybe it's his dad that needs a time out?
The boys got out their stuffed animals today and asked me to take pictures of them with their favorites. I love how innocent this age is. I dread the day they realize that carrying around blue plush dogs is a babyish thing to do. Aside from our blankeys and animals, we're about as rough and tumble as you can get around here. I don't mind a little bit of horseplay, but you can't blame out and out bullying on "just being a boy." Drew's teacher may have her work cut out for her tomorrow. In rehearsing what David should say, Drew started telling us what he was going to tell "Tom." Tom is a kid that I think kicked Drew once, but Drew just plain doesn't like him. We are a little worried that Drew will go regulate on Tom. Like everything else, Drew wants what David has. This includes a nemesis.

Now I know what chopped liver feels like

I'm losing the boys. Both of them. They follow Keith around like little ducks. All. The. Time. We have to rotate who gets to sit by him at dinner. If it's an odd day, Drew gets to sit by Daddy and say the prayer (he was born on the 13th.) David, whose birthday is on the 8th, gets to sit at Keith's left on the even numbered days.

Keith had to take care of David a lot after Drew was born. So those two have been thick as thieves for a while. But Drew? He's turning on me. Oh sure, after playing Mario with Keith, he'll come and give me a kiss and tell me I'm his Princess Peach. But heaven forbid I get to buckle him in his car seat when Keith is around.

Keith took them to Lowe's to build music boxes this morning and then they went to Academy to get t-ball pants and a soccer goal. They ended their activities with a trip to Subway. Those three have a blast together. And I can't complain, I went to my old BFF's Valentine's Tea while they were doing all this. I just want them to think I'm fun too.

I actually got out my cookbook this evening and started letting them pick out desserts that we would make together just to reassure myself that they still like to do some things with me. We plan to make a strawberry pie, a mud pie, and a banana cake in the near future.

But once those things are made and eaten, I think they'll run straight back to Keith's arms. Oh well.

My night off from reading bedtime stories...

My builder and my baby hippo

Yesterday evening, the boys decided it would be "fun" if David took apart Drew's wooden zoo. This way, David could try and put it back together. The zoo isn't really supposed to be taken apart once it has been first assembled.
David has been taking toys apart and removing wheels from cars since he was about eighteen months old. Keith used to call him, "his little meth head." I guess meth addicts like to take stuff apart when they are high? Not one of Keith's better kid nicknames.
Anyway, the zoo is half assembled back. I had to put a halt to the building because it was bath time. David can finish his project during quiet time.
Since he has become obsessed with Legos and can create helicopters and police cars by following the instructions without any help from us, I am hoping that he leans more towards architecture or engineering. Not drug addict.
Drew is really missing swimming. I need to get him enrolled in swim lessons somewhere. I know most kids love to swim, but he is such a water boy. Lately, during his bath, Drew just submerges himself like a hippo and tries to swim underwater. No small feat since David and a ton of bath toys are also in there. I had to tell him to stop opening his eyes underwater. Just because we know a good optometrist doesn't mean we need to pick up an eye infection.
I have been trying to tell Keith we should let him swim year round somewhere and eventually competitively. I don't really care what sport he does. But getting to sit indoors sounds nice for me. No wind or cold to brave. Even though I point out that Drew has large hands and is tall like Michael Phelps, Keith doesn't take the bait. Apparently, if you swim competitively year round you have to travel a lot.
As I type, they are watching "Clifford" with glazed over jelly faces. Sweet little preschoolers. As fun as it is to speculate on what they will do, I will truly be happy if they are only average at the things the world counts as important and above average at being kind young men.

Why the librarians should act nicer about me checking out forty books a week

I have this dream of raising life long readers. Kids who stay up late with a flashlight to finish a good book. It's really important to me.
Out of all the classes I taught, I had one class of mainly boys who were exceptional. As a group, they were athletic, considered cool, and in my seventh hour because they were very smart. And get this, they were all addicted to reading. Which isn't coincidental that they loved reading and excelled in all their classes. Somewhere along the road in elementary school, some librarian, teacher, parent or probably a combination of the three had lit a reading fire in them. They traded books with each other. Recommended thick novels and then discussed them. Asked me as soon as they walked in the classroom if they were going to get silent reading time that day. Like I said, they weren't nerdy, and a few were a little mouthy, so I let those rowdy rascals have plenty of silent reading time while I put my pregnant feet up and surfed Gap Maternity. It was great. I ran into a mom of one of these old students the other day. She was working at the mall and recognized me. When I asked about how Hunter's senior year was going she told me about all of the colleges he had been accepted to and which engineering program he had chosen. I wasn't surprised.
School, standardized testing and writing essays for college comes easier for bookworms.
Because of this, and because I know that choice and having ownership in what they read are so important, I give David and Drew a lot of freedom in choosing library books.
They have discovered the non-fiction section. Which to me, is where they check out the world's most boring books. They can each choose five non-fiction. David usually chooses stuff like the history of the Ford car or how rocket ships are built. Drew likes books on marsupials or dung beetles or amphibians. I allow this because it makes them so very happy. Even if the books are so long that I have to paraphrase until my head hurts.
While they choose these, I have discovered the fun books on subtraction or the necessary books about subjects that are uncomfortable like, "Your Body is Your Body." I rush around and grab a couple of these.
Then, we move on to the DVDs. Equally boring "Animal Atlas" or "The Best of John Deere." I don't know how they stand it.
We then head over to fiction where Drew gets piles of babyish board books. He just loves them. If there is a Baby Einstein symbol on it, he puts it in his basket. He knows they are baby books, but he reverts to a much younger child at bedtime and likes the touch and feel books. Whatever. I grab some easy readers for David, because he can recognize the sight words and then some Truck Town books that he thinks are hilarious.
Oh, and somewhere in all of this I have checked out three or four books to listen to on CD. On Fridays, Drew is with me in David's carpool line and that wait gets a little long. If we have errands those stories on CD are lifesavers.
So you can imagine what we lug to the check out desk. Some mean twist of fate has made it where my library card doesn't work at the self checkout. I swear, they see us coming and whichever librarian has done something bad (dog eared a book?) has to check us out. David wants all his books completely separate. They can't be contaminated by Drew's. And Drew, who has been fairly good for the entire time decides he is going to let loose and gets real comfortable. Sometimes he lays on a bench and bangs his heels. I am picking up books and sorting books and asking Drew to come back with his board book if he wants it checked out. And no one who works there is very friendly or at all helpful. Heaven forbid they help a five year old who is trying to stuff a giant truck book in a little plastic bag.
When thirty have been checked out, they tell me I have reached my limit. I then ask for them to look up David's (lost) library card. Yesterday, they actually made me show my identification for this. Grrr. At the end I wish for a wagon to haul all of our treasures to my car so that I could leave faster. No one has offered us a happy dalmatian sticker in weeks.
I have this compulsion to stand there and explain to these people why we have so many books and that we do read/look at every single one of them before returning them the next week. I think they just want to go on their lunch break.
Who knows what either child of mine will grow up and be? But I will know that I gave it my darndest to help them love books when they were little.

Commando

Yup, we are celebrating one year of being a diaper free household (nighttime "paper pants" are a different story.) All the same, Drew got a little potty on his underwear on Christmas day. Keith told him it was cool to go without underwear and that this was called, "going commando."
I just found a pair of underwear laying in the middle of the hall. "Who took their underwear off?" I called. David said, "They are Drew's, he decided to go commando." Then Drew, fully clothed, came in the room, and said, "Yes, I am going commando for the rest of the day."
Nice.