Gametes In Love

This year’s visit to Bob’s pumpkin patch was in the middle of the week, and might I say, Genius! It was us and one other family. That’s it! I loved it, and will probably consider taking an afternoon off of work going forward to repeat said excursion. But maybe go even later in the day than we did. Still trying to get the light just right, ‘cuz it’s all about the photos, right? ;p

Tonight as after-dinner treat the kids wanted this bag of candy corn. We were quizzing G on how to split it. There were 8 corn pieces inside. S asked G if everyone got a candy corn, how many pieces would everyone get? Pretty quickly, G answered 4.

Then I threw him in for a loop. I said “I hate candy corn, so I don’t want any” (this is all true, by the way). So now how many do the rest of you get?

At this point G busts out… and I mean, doesn’t even stop to think: “Well, two of us would get 3 and one would only get 2”. I’m pretty sure by jaw dropped. I thought diving by 4 would be hard…. let alone dividing by 3 and dealing with remainders. I don’t know what voodoo math he’s picking up and from where, but I’m all for it. Carry on, child! Carry on!

For G’s birthday, my parents got him a science kit. Ok, fine it’s a wizarding kit, but it’s really science disguised behind magic. I skipped the magic bit altogether and went straight for the cool chemistry fun. And it was! The boys were super excited to see colors change and make their own predictions on what would happen next. At the end, S2 asked me to put more baking soda to the overall solution. I knew it was a “not so good” idea, but in the spirit of experimenting went with it to see what would happen. Well — a massive chemical reaction and spill of liquid on our dining table is what happened. But hey, still an experiment 🙂

I have SO many photos to post. I might end up dumping them all out rather than spread the Foto Friday love.

G had his first baseball game almost a month ago. Conveniently it was at a park with a play-structure right next door, so S2 could run rampant while S and I had one eye on him and the other on our little baseball-player. It was also conveniently overcast, which allowed me the opportunity for some decent photos in what would otherwise be crummy light situation ;p

I kind of enjoyed watching him wave his hands as he declared himself “safe” upon reaching a base.

The kid really worked his butt off for the game, and was rewarded in the end by being declared one of two MVP’s for the game. He got a signed ball from the coaches as his keep-sake.

G is playing Fall Ball this season. It’s a whole new ballgame (literally): games and stricter uniform codes. Little man has to wear a cup. After having seen the coaches kid get his nose broken by a flying ball 5 minutes into their first game (ball bounced up on his face?), I can whole-heartedly support the cup mandate. G, on the other hand, has been of different mind. He’s strongly expressing his “It’s MY body, and I say NO! I’m NOT going to wear it, and that’s IT!”

So… he got a cup.

I don’t know how S finagled this one, but the boy wore a cup to his first game. Thank you, Husband! G even got to practice with it the night before.

As I watched S unpack it, I really wanted to urge G to have his brother try to punch him in the crotch. You know… so he can see he’s “invincible” for a change. But, I suppressed my teenager sense of humor, thinking that there might be some longer term reprecussions I wasn’t anticipating, and it’s probably not a good idea to start that trend.

Turns out, I didn’t have to suggest this to him, because G immediately caught on, and after he put on his new gear, the following event occurred. [yes, you have to watch this 8 second video clip]

[youtube=http://youtu.be/a0FVHD8FbaQ]

That’s right — Great minds. He was already there with me.

Of course, this meant that he also spent his first game banging on his crotch whenever the ball was not in play. Good times! Good times!

September is pediatric cancer awareness month. I’ve been living this past year very aware of pediatric cancer. But now that Unravel is live, I’m trying to help.

One of the Unravel fundraising campaigns this month is Fluttering. I received my kit a week or so back, and we set it up in our front-yard (which was tricky by the way, because you can’t set it up on fake grass :-/) The kids were into it, so it got them excited about fluttering other houses this month.

G and I fluttered our first home together. Honestly, I feel kinda nervous about it: what if the family REALLY doesn’t want it? Will they be pissed off? Should I have asked for permission? But I’ve decided to beg for forgiveness rather than permission in this case, and we’ll see how it goes. G meanwhile enjoyed being sneaky.

On the drive home G and I had a very unexpected conversation. It began with him asking if we just left Jennifer’s house?

“No, buddy! That was R’s house!”

We were here so that R’s mommy and daddy can learn more information about cancer.

He asked “How do you get cancer?”

I did the best I could explaining to him that cancer was not contagious, and it was about your body making broken cells. That some cancers get better. And some don’t.

And then he said “So we need money to make medicine?”

Yes, buddy, we do. We do because government isn’t giving enough, and pharmaceutical companies are focusing on making medicine for adults. So we need mommies and daddies to help get the money to science so they can find medicine.

My throat chokes up having to tell him about it, because it hurts that I have to. And HE gets it! My perceptive 6 year old gets it. Damn you, Cancer! He shouldn’t have to!

So…. if you’re one of those adults that wants to and can help, please support me in my fundraising efforts this month. I have a page here: http://fluttering.causevox.com/ava

G, my boy, today you are 6 years old.

You are in kindergarten and dropping you off at school yesterday made me realize how much our lives are changed now.

You continue to bring a smile to my face and warm my heart when you come over at night for an unsolicited hug, to give me a kiss and say ‘Good night!’. You make us laugh with your jokes. Daddy is worried that if school doesn’t challenge you enough, you’ll be the class clown. These days stinky socks, stinky underwear and potty humor is your thing. I don’t get the appeal, but it sure makes you laugh.

You are so smart and perceptive. I have to watch what I say around you because you pick up on things, process them and draw connections I didn’t realize your mind was capable of.
I love asking you about how you would solve world problems. I enjoyed your long explanation around how we can prevent volcano eruptions through a specially designed shield system (put in place by extra-large airplanes).

This year you’ve lost your first tooth, with another one getting ready to go. You are a numbers kind of guy, and can add in double digits. You can’t read yet, but it doesn’t seem to bother you.

Are continue to be awesome at sports. At any restaurant we go to, where there’s a TV on and turned into a team ball sport, you’re all over it. I can tell, in 20 years you’ll be relaxing at sports bars. On this end I wonder how we’re related 🙂
You are an awesome soccer player, just promoted to the Lions team in your league, and this past year you started baseball too.

You march to your own beat and don’t let others push you into doing something you don’t want. I like that, as your mom, and I hope you hold onto this into your teens (and beyond). I also hate it, as your mom, because I am also included in the people that can’t convince you to do something you don’t want to either. It has to appear to come from you… and even cash bribes are hard to convince you these days to do anything ;p

Now here’s you in your own words:

Do you know your full name? G****** R*****

How old are you today? 6

What is your favorite color? Blue. And green, yellow, red, white, black, and silver. Gold. Bronze. Aaaand yellow. And red. Blue and white and gold and that’s it. And green. And pink. Dark pink. And purple. And that’s it. And I also like dark green.

Who are best friends? Milo, Simon, Kaio, Deadalus and Paul

What’s your favorite book? I don’t know

What’s your favorite movie? Phinneas & Ferb. I have 3 favorite movies: Phinneas & Ferb, and there’s somebody I don’t know, and Rescue Bots.

What about TV show? Can we say all those are TV shows and not movies? Uh-humn

What’s your favorite animal? A monkey

What’s your favorite food? Do you have a favorite food? Yeah, it’s pasta.

What’s your favorite shirt? Why do you gotta tell me that? Stop asking me questions!

***

This is a video glance back of the past 12 months:

Love you bud!

Wow! Photographing G is tiring. Really! Emotionally mostly, because there’s a lot of pleading going into it… mostly on my end.

I had this great vision of G in front of this cool red wall structure I came across. We went, he saw it, and said “I’m not doing this today!” [BTW, this is why I cheat and do his birthday pics at least 2 weeks before his actual birthday :)] So we agreed that we would do it the following day (Sunday). Come Sunday, his best buddy M wanted to get together for a play-date, but G now had to hold his end of the bargain: photos before friends.

You can tell how excited he was already, right?

We agreed we’d do them at home. I setup a chair: mom mistake on my part — should’ve gotten something stiffer with less leaning back. And we proceeded to have 3 minutes of begging (me) and bribing (also me). In those 3 minutes he gave me so many expressions, that I ultimately decided to use them all and make a collage. I am having this baby printed in a 24×36 canvas. It will be awesome! I can’t wait to hang it in his room 🙂

I struggle to call it a first day… because it wasn’t really???

Today school “started” with kindergarteners coming for an hour, with a parent. G’s group came at 10:30. The parent filled out a form (unclear why we had to do this in person since everything else was digital and given to us ahead of time), while the kids played and the teacher was …. somewhere else for the most part.

I’d like to say it was orientation, but it wasn’t, since we did that on Monday night.

I’d like to say that it was intro to the teacher, but it wasn’t since the teacher didn’t engage/direct the kids in any activity. Plus there were only 6 kids there. Most families left after 30 mins since nothing was really happening.

So I guess tomorrow is really “the” day.

G had no anxiety about today. This makes me happy and hope it stays the same tomorrow and beyond. One of the kids in his class came from the MM program. There are others, but in different classrooms, so I’m glad he knows someone in his class.

But hey — in lieu of an actual first day of school story, want actual first day of school photos?

Our morning was pretty chill. Kids had breakfast in their jammies. G had a worm race to his room, where he and S2 proceeded to build puzzles, play the guitar (or noise-making equivalent there-of), got dressed, and then watched a bit of ipad time. I made his lunch. “Feeling Good” played on the radio, and I thought that would be a good way to start the school year. Let’s hope it’s true 🙂