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.