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    Mother’s Day 2015

    May 25th, 2015

    For Mother’s Day, S2’s class did an interview with each kid asking them about their mom. This (the age of 4) is probably the last year the answers are endearingly, innocently funny. For example, S2’s responses are as follows:

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    As you can see, I am 8 years old. I’ll take that over his classmates volunteering ages in the 60’s 🙂

    Today (as I was scanning the latest batch of artwork) S was reading this and asking the boys their own version of this interview.

    S: G, what is something you and mommy like to do?
    G: Read to me!
    S: S2, what about you? What is something mommy and you like to do ?
    S2: Snuggle!
    G: Aw, man! Nice one!

    Yep, that’s right kid! Your brother scored a winner. Yours was pretty good, too, though. So not too shabby 🙂


    The sleep-over

    May 7th, 2015

    G asked for a special play-date with his closest buddies — he wanted a sleep-over. We’ve had kiddos spend the night with us before, but accompanied by their mom and dad. This was our first sans-parent sleep-over… and I must admit, it went really well!

    S and S2 vacated and went up the hill to hang out with our neighbor friends. It worked out well, since their kid was one of the two spending the night. We kinda swapped 🙂 S2 plays with P — they actually are in the same pre-school class and buddies. P has an older brother (B) that is just a few months older than G, so G kind of has an instant friend. Actually, to be honest, G and B get along better than the little ones. Still, it’s a great pairing, and their parents are super rad, so that’s kind of a score for me too.

    Anyway… G explicitly asked for B and M to come over for a sleep-over. I waited on it long enough, but both families were game to give it a go. The boys actually did awesome. No one cried in the middle of the night and asked to be taken home. Everyone came equipped with a tablet, which they proceeded to play all evening. I’ve never observed social tablet time like this. It’s an odd experience to see everyone into their own thing, but then share that experience with their buddies as they come round to watch them play. I remember one of my co-workers at Y! telling me how there will come a time where kid playdates will turn into playtime with video games. Well… I guess we’ve arrived! They were all super happy and well behaved though…. until bed-time.

    There were a whole 30 seconds I though that bed-time was about to be easy. They were dressed, and got their teeth brushed. They lay down…. and then not so much. There was a point in time G was bouncing all over his bed. Yeah…. that didn’t help the others settle down much either. If I had to do this again I would actually have one kid fall asleep first, and then bring in the next one, and then the last. The fact they all had different bed-times wasn’t helping things, and finding the average wasn’t actually helping.

    We had a nose-bleed, and S ended up having to mediate one of the boys to sleep. But it worked out. They were all up at the crack of dawn too. I bought them donuts. Because sleep deprived 6 and 7 year olds, hopped up on sugar is always a winning plan 🙂 I’m the worst best mom ever. Or the best worst mom ever. Either way…
    G has requested another sleep-over. This time for the whole week-end. I’m certainly game for another sleep-over. Hang out until lunch even. But a whole week-end? I may need some special mommy courage for that one.

    I’ve been contemplating a sleep-over for S2’s buddies. However, I don’t know that can happen without their associated parents crashing on our couch. We’ll see…

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    Not too perfect…

    May 1st, 2015

    S2’s has been working on his behavior at school. I won’t lie — the kid is far from perfect, but he is improving. His teacher has been using a color scale. There was a period of time, when he spent more time in the yellow and red than he did in the green. We had to do something. So out came the behavior chart… again. We did this with G, and it felt right to try w/ S2.
    Then again… there are days like today, where in reading his report for the day, and going to the next page, I spot this:

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    I guess he’s pre-loading his behavior?
    My favorite part to this though? He didn’t give himself straight A’s. You know… he’s trying to keep it realistic with one sad face, at lunch, which is occasionally one of his rough periods.

    I’m both mortified about my future, and a little impressed with him right now.