Gametes In Love

As I was putting the kids to bed last night, we started talking about the 4th of July. I asked them if they knew what the holiday was about. Their initial guess was totally wrong. I don’t remember it (sorry!), but it was totally off base: enough so that I had to tell them about it.

G reflected on my story about declaring independence from the UK with the following:

G: Why would you want to leave England? They have a great soccer team!

So there you have it folks — the sad side effects revealed. Happy 4th!

We have an incoming first grader in our home. G finished kinder mid-last month. I haven’t posted about it because: 1) I’m still figuring out what I want to say; 2) I’d been super busy at work preparing for a big conference in DC; 3) S and I went away on a vacation (just the two of us) and this post stayed in Draft limbo land. In all honesty, mostly it was latter two.

My biggest confusion around how the year ended is really highlighted by the fact that I simply didn’t know what to expect out of this year. I had an image in my head that G would have fun, learn how to act in a classroom with a single teacher, get acclimated to a new world. But beyond this, I expected advances in reading, math and other subjects. And he has in some areas, just not all like I had thought?expected?wanted?wished for? That’s the part that gets at me. I just didn’t know what it would really be like.

Our end of year conference with Ms. P, highlighted that G is a smart kid, and he’s matured throughout the year. Where in the beginning we were receiving some notes about him being the center of attention, stepping in to answer on behalf of other kids, and generally giving some attitude, he’s mellowed out. He’s more patient, and respectful. He’s excelling in math, though his reading is no further than it was in the beginning of the school year. That last bit makes me sad, to be honest. I’d been working with him, but I’ve realized that I don’t have the necessary skills to push that through, and I was hoping that his regular school would offer some progress. It didn’t, and his teacher wasn’t worried about it. As it turns out, reading is not a requirement for kinder. Not that I was expecting it would be, but I was really hoping it would click in for him.

Ultimately, the context I needed is that G’s pre-K program offered a curriculum they admitted was the equivalent of public school kinder. Their kinder was the equivalent of public school 1st grade. I missed that memo. So I was working off of those expectations of progress.

We got a great hand-written, single-line, 4 page letter from his teacher, though. She’s old-school and that’s her way of doing grading. As a matter of fact, I had to go into her classroom after class was dismissed on the last day to get his ‘official’ Common Core report card. Getting that report card was pretty important to me, though once I was holding it in my hand, I definitely acknowledge the value and effort that the personalized letter offers and it took.
The summary in the official report read simply “G had an amazing year”.

I believe he did!

I went away on a business trip last week. I brought my little iPad Air with me. It’s my device, though 90% of it’s use these days is done by individuals under 4′ in height. As such, I’ve been discovering some “goodies” on it…

As I opened up my photos app to look through some of the images I had taken during one of the panels I sat on. Instead I found what is close to 100 photos and videos. Of what? Lesse, corner of G’s forehead. Another corner of G’s forehead. Same corner of G’s forehead… about 10 times in succession. Then some blurry examples of his minecraft dragon, S’ desk… all with at least 5 exposures of each. You get the picture? (no pun intended)
Nestled in these were also a couple of videos. One of them stood out because it was quite long. Of what you say? See for yourself.
[youtube=http://youtu.be/z-UH47RCLSw]
Feel free to keep the audio off — it provides absolutely no value.

I started watching it, a bit confused. Maybe he thought he was still in still mode, but was accidentally recording in video. I mean why else spend so much time recording your feet. But as I kept watching his journey around our home, it became very clear to me that this was no accident — it was intentional. And in his thinking, G took a full on tour around the house opening every door he had access to, presenting it all to his home movie. I started cracking up before we were a minute in, and kept laughing all the way through. Well… all except to the point where he took the video into the bathroom, put the toilet seat down, and I seriously thought he was about to record himself using the restroom. Thankfully that is NOT featured. So then I continued on with the laughing. Mind you, I was watching this at a bit after midnight, hoping my housemates didn’t think I was looney.

The next day I asked him about it. Surprisingly he still remembered doing it, given that he recorded it back in early April. I asked him what he was trying to do? His answer? Try to see how long of a video he could take and fill up the pad. D’oh! Well, lucky for me he got bored after 6 minutes and two passes through the house.

So yes, enjoy! I’m sure it will not have nearly the same entertainment value to you as it did to me, but have at it anyway. My butt makes a cameo :-/ — I’m going to have to teach this kid a bit more about composition.

This morning the boys and I headed to the beach. S needed some quiet time at home to get some work done, and the kids seem to tolerate each other outdoors, so off we went. We ended up on Pescadero State Beach.

A few weeks ago we went strawberry picking and S2 pleaded for 8 minutes (he was very precise!) at the beach on the way home. I agreed, thinking if G hated it, 8 minutes would be fine. G hated the beach in the past: it was too loud, and he just really didn’t dig it. That day was the first time we’d gone since he declared that. Those 8 minutes, though, turned into more than half an hour, and I could barely peal both of them away. The two were busy chasing each other, finding logs and sticks of all sizes, and throwing them into the water.

So I wanted to go again — this time less stressed for time and something we had to do later. Today seemed like a good day.

During our last beach visit, S2 declared he didn’t like sand in between his toes… but didn’t want shoes either, so he was running around in socks the whole time.
G found a ball (spherical objects are somehow magnetically attracted to this kid… and vice versa). The beach was deserted, so I figured “finders keepers” applied at that moment. So we have a new ball!

I won’t lie — being alone with the two of them freaks me out. I won’t let them anywhere near the water which helps, but we are a LONG way away from me reading or doing anything but staring in their direction when we’re out there. And those two are fast! Thankfully, G IS his brother’s keeper when we go, and is very helpful in running after him and corralling him back.

We took snacks, we took pads (it about an hours drive each way, so it’s my deal with them), and life was good.

Now here’s a gratuitous over-share of photos.

For his birthday last year, we got G his first pedal bike. We thought it would be a big win after all the awesome stuff he’s been doing with his Strider, but he saw it, and was not in the least amused. Total number of minutes driven on it? 0!!!

Until today, that is!

About a week ago he expressed some interest in riding his new bike. We brought it with us to a play-date party, and even though it never left the vehicle, perhaps a bug was planted. He asked to ride today, and S took him. As much as I wanted to, as well, G explicitly asked that I didn’t. Don’t know what that’s about, but I honored his request.

I got this video from S a little bit later:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb6DhYTZObk]

Our boy rides!!!

The coolest part, is that it was with (what I understand) NO help from S. S was helping S2, and when he looked up G was some 20+ feet away already going at it. There was no holding, no running after him, no training wheels. He just got it! He needed to figure out how to get some momentum with his pedals, but he rides. Yeah for balance bikes.

They got started on the grass, so that if he fell it would be a softer landing. But riding on the grass sucks, as anyone knows, so they moved next door to the dirt mount of the baseball field.

I’m excited! I’m hoping this will be the start of some week-end rides for us.

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:

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 🙂

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…

Once in awhile, I’ll catch the boys playing pretty nicely with one another. This was one of those days

After telling G that there’s very little he will do (in life) that would sneak something past us.

G: Well there’s one thing you don’t know!
Me: Oh yeah? What’s that?
G: Ha! Nice try!

Heh! I guess we’re coming to an end of me being able to sneak one past them too