Two Things...

1) I put a homemade South Korean flag in Ben's lunchbox today as a surprise. (he's been bugging me to print one out on the computer) I'm betting he's the only kid in the history of kids to think this is the coolest lunch bag surprise EVER. I kept looking at the clock to see if it was 11:30 yet because that's when lunch starts at school. ;)

2) Don't tell Simon this, but he has officially pretty much become way too big for me to physically force him to do anything he doesn't want to do. He was resisting going upstairs for his nap today and I had to trick him into racing me up the stairs because truly, I could NOT lift him to carry him up. I can pick him up under normal circumstances, but definitely not when he's resistant. Thankfully, he falls for a lot of my tricks, plus, we have a very well-established "sit on the naughty step" routine for when he doesn't listen. Lately, all I have to do is threaten the naughty step and he straightens up. Have I mentioned he weighs 34-1/2 pounds these days? SHEESH.

The Birthday Gift Verdict...

So, after much deliberation (and surfing around Amazon yesterday afternoon) here are the birthday gifts for the big six-year-old.
I don't think I'll ever top the Leapfrog globe from last year, which he still plays with constantly... so I'm not even going to try. LOL.


1) World Almanac for Kids 2010

He's so into facts and figures and has been having a ball with a football almanac that Tom got him from the library, so I think he'll love this.

2) Backyard Football Wii Game

It's a game he and Tom have been looking at for awhile now. Apparently, it's a great football Wii game for young kids. Plus, as Wii games go, it's CHEAP at just $19.99!

3) Adjust-a-hit Golf Club Set

Our neighbor has this and both my kids LOOOOOOVE it. It's just a plastic golf set but the clubs are adjustable to the child's height. Also, because I am not stupid, I bought two of these, one for Simon's birthday too. ;) (hopefully they don't fight over it TOO badly until then... ugh)

4) Bug Collecting Set

This, he saw in the Toys R Us catalog that just came and actually asked for it. Maybe we can use it to capture some of these stink bugs that are still invading our house.

Cat in the Hat and My Computer Junkie...

It was Dr. Seuss' birthday yesterday and Ben came home from school like this. ;) Too cute.


And here's Simon... who I kid you not, would sit here, at the kitchen table, all. day. long. and play on PBSkids.org. I especially love the open-mouthed stare.

The Return of the Flags and Maps...

The Olympics pushed Ben back into his flag and map obsession HARDCORE. What's great about it this time is that it coincides with a unit on maps and the United States they are doing in school right now.

Yesterday, he came home with a drawing of "Hawii" that was completely cartographically (is that a word?) accurate. At any rate, it was exactly the same shape and number of islands you'd see on any regular old Rand McNally.

He completed the picture with a Hawaiian flag in the right hand corner. I actually didn't KNOW it was the Hawaiian flag and assumed he meant it to be an American flag (that was not quite right) because it had red, white, and blue stripes and a square in the corner. But his response was "NO, it's the Hawaiian flag!!!" I asked if his teacher knew it was Hawaii's flag and he said, very exasperated, "No... she thought it was an American flag too."

Turns out, when it comes to flags he knows more than both his teacher AND me.

More Letters...

Three letters came home with Ben today, all from the same little boy, Isaac. They all said the exact same thing.

Dear Ben,

I lick you.

Your Friend,
Isaac

LOL! ;)

Mail Call...

Ben's class is doing a unit on mail this week. They've been learning how to write a letter and writing letters to one another. There is a post-office set up in the classroom where certain kids each day act as the mail carriers and others work in the post office "selling" stamps and sorting the mail.

Here are two that were written to Ben that came home today. The first one made me laugh. The second one is just too sweet for words... (it was written by the little girl in the class who I've always felt sad for... she's the one who didn't have a Halloween costume and had to borrow one from the teacher and whose parents never seem to check or empty her take-home folder :( )





Incidentally, I find the handwriting on letter #2 extremely impressive. Holy cow. Ben's handwriting is atrocious.

Anyway, they also mailed letters to themselves from the school office that should be arriving tomorrow... can't wait to see what Ben wrote to himself. ;)

Whittle Night!

Last night was Whittle Night at Ben's school. Each grade got 30 minutes of free play on the equipment. It went by WAY too fast and Ben was too busy using every one of those 30 minutes to smile for any pictures... but here you go. ;) It was pretty awesome! Youner siblings weren't allowed, so luckily, Tom was able to come home a little early and stay with Simon. Otherwise, I don't think it would have been possible to keep him off the equipment!






(this is where I gave up on the crappy gym lighting and switched to the flash... LOL)

I Think I'll Keep Packing the Lunches for Awhile...

Yesterday:

Me: Ben, since you're up, you can help me decide what goes in your lunch! What do you want today?

He stood there for a moment, deep in thought.

Ben: Okay, just two girl scout cookies.

Frustrated...

I love Ben's school. I love his teacher desipte the fact that she's a little on the introverted side with adults. (I can sympathize, so it's all good)

What I'm notsomuch loving is this whole 'my-child-goes-off-to-school-every-day-and-I'm-clueless-as-to-what-happens-while-he's there'.

There was some of this during his years of drop-off preschool and I know it's just how it is once they go off to school... you don't get to know what goes on every day. But at least at preschool, he wasn't expected to master monumental academic tasks like say, learning to read, write and spell.

Obviously, as the one who helps him with his homework every night, I have a decent idea of where he is with these skills right now. I also have deduced which skill-level group he is in in his class. (though it took me nearly two months to even figure out they were grouped this way, that's how quiet they keep this... ) I got one 20-minute conference in the fall where I was given a TON of information about his test scores, his strengths and weaknesses and whatnot. And now, several months have gone by -- he's been Dibel'ed again and had various other evaluations, I'm sure, and I have NO IDEA where things stand. NONE. The 1-5th graders got report cards yesterday and the kindergartners got nada.

It's frustrating. I realize "It's only kindergarten", but it's not like they sit around singing the alphabet all day and coloring pictures -- they expect a lot of them and I want some kind of progress report, darn it!

(sigh)

That's the end of my rant. It's county-wide, so it's not even like a different school or teacher would make a difference. I mean, I COULD request a conference, but I'd prefer not to be that parent, so I guess I'll just plug along in total ignorance until the May conferences. Lame!

Daddy's Footsteps...

Ben is learning to play Civilization, one of Tom's FAVORITE computer games. The funny thing is that Tom underestimated how well he would understand it. He opened his computer this morning to start a game and noticed saved game. He opened it up to find it was a game Ben had started.

Tom: "Did you help him with this?"

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (I don't know the first thing about Civ, seriously)

Apparently, Ben had started a game, named all the cities, spelled them all correctly (he named them after NCAA Basketball Colleges), started researching masonry and saved the game. LOL!

Maybe He'll Be An OB/GYN?

So Ben... he has this sort of side obsession right now. Actually, when I started really thinking about it, I realized it actually goes as far back to when I was pregnant with Simon, he was just too little to really articulate it.

Pregnant bellies.

(Back then, he used to LOVE to play this game where he'd stick a ball, or his froggy lovey in his shirt and then push it out.)

One would assume that being almost six this time around, he'd have lots of questions and whatnot about the baby and how it got there and how it's coming out. And he IS a little curious about all that. But mostly? He's just into the belly.

I discovered this actually about a year ago when he was playing with his Legos at the dining room table and built a pregnant Lego woman out of people parts and an R2-D2 head. He also built a hospital bed and heartbeat monitor. (somewhere on here is a picture I took of it which was really quite funny) It was amusing at the time, and I noted that he acted a little shy about it, not wanting to tell me what it was, I had to guess. But then I kind of forgot about it...

Then I noticed he was really into this ONE part on a Sesame Street DVD we used to watch a lot (Elmo Goes to the Doctor) that featured a pregnant woman getting a checkup, with the doctor measuring the belly and listening to the heartbeat. It was on a loop in our van DVD player the longest time and he used to make me back it up to that part over and over and over again. Thankfully, it has gone missing.

I'd ask him, "Ben, what do you like about this part?" And he'd always answer that he didn't know and he'd squirm around in his seat.

Pretty much as soon as he knew I was pregnant this time around, he started staring at my belly all the time and acting all squirmy.

Tom and I have done our best to be open books about the whole process. We took him to the library and got him books about reproduction. He might be one of the most well-informed almost-six-year-olds out there. (though no, he doesn't yet understand how the sperm gets to the egg) I've read the books to him, talked about the pictures, showed him his ultrasound pictures and pictures from when I was pregnant with he and Simon. We watch A Baby Story all the time together because he's so into it... my assumption has been that the more access I give him to all the info, the less mystery there will be and maybe he won't continue acting so WEIRD about all of it. It's been a test of our parenting, for sure...

The real tip-off that the demystification was nowhere close to finished was when I picked up my laptop in our room in Disney, to find the Mac Help program on the screen and in the search box he had typed "preginit bellys.com" (he must have thought he was on the internet and THANK GOODNESS he wasn't!!! OMG! Can you even imagine what might have come up?)

Since then, we've ramped up our talking and reading even more. I took him to my checkup with me on Wednesday and he was fascinated and very nearly speechless by the whole thing.

OH! And just two days ago, he finally pulled out a lunchbox he had been hiding in the back of his closet. I've known about it for months and months now. It's where he hid the pregnant Lego woman he made. He asked me if I wanted to see what was inside and opened it to show me not one, but FOUR pregnant Legos and a heartbeat monitor. LOL!

I'd like to think that him taking that out of hiding was a huge step... in the meantime, I guess we'll just keep talking and keeping all this pregnancy/baby stuff out in the open so he feels more and more comfortable with talking about it.

What do *you* make of all this?!

Such a Great Big Brother...

A little backstory: Simon has hung out around 90% potty trained since summertime. He's great with the #2 but there are days where, if I don't take him to the potty every so often, he'll just pee in his pants and THEN tell me he has to pee-pee..,. over and over and over. True, it's no big deal for me to make him go every so often, and it mostly beats changing diapers, but that is not technically "potty trained" and it certainly won't cut it for preschool in the fall. I've been paranoid that we're going to be stuck in this rut forever and have vowed to never again let a two-year-old insist on not wearing a diaper... that I will definitely wait until Three is much closer to Three before even attempting it.

Anyway, so Ben has heard us begging Simon with every pants/underwear change to please tell us he needs to go BEFORE he pees his pants.

So miraculously, for three straight days, Simon's been doing AWESOME. It's like he turned a corner out of nowhere.

Yesterday morning, after Simon emerged from a successful bathroom run, Ben said, "Can we go upstairs now?" I said sure and we trudged upstairs.

Ben said to Simon, "Okay buddy! Now you get to pick your Lego guy! Which one do you want?"

He then proceeded to explain to me that he had told Simon three days ago that if he told Tom and I that he needed to pee pee and kept his pants dry, that he would let him choose a Lego guy. Come to think of it, I had heard him mentioning something about choosing a Lego guy to Simon on and off for the last few days. So he had offered him the reward AND kept reminding him of it.

(jaw drop)

Is he not the best big brother ever?! Gosh, I love that kid...

And Snow Continues to Be the Topic of the Week...

Pics from yesterday...

The boys -- Simon REALLY dislikes the snow. He begs to come inside.


Ben, on the other hand, would stay out all day and all night.


We've got these precarious-looking snow formations everywhere...


One of our neighbors built a really cool sled run in his backyard! Simon had already gone inside, but Ben enjoyed a few good turns down the hill. It scared him a little though, I think, because after about four times down, he was done and just wanted to watch everyone else.




I am not sure this tree is going to live to see another spring...


Our street at 4:30 yesterday...


And hey, guess what?! MORE snow tomorrow and Wednesday!

Day Two of Our Captivity...

Here are the pics from our brief time out in the white stuff yesterday morning... it was still snowing and my camera was getting wet, so I didn't take many!

Ben and Trey


Simon "helping"


Ben after he fell backwards into a snowdrift


Quinn


Simon


Snow, snow everywhere!

The Rest of the Disney Photos...

Dumbest character meet and greet EVER. Lightning McQueen revs his engine every so often and his eyes move back and forth. Mater just moves his eyes. Seriously. STUPID.


Tom foolery by the Muppets fountain at DHS


Fist bumps for the toy soldier... OH! And I FINALLY got to ride Toy Story Mania. SO FUN!


Ben starting out on his Kim Possible mission in Epcot. Seriously, SO cool. Do NOT pass this up if you go!!


You had to find these beer steins in one of the German shops and when you pushed the button on the cell phone, they started to sing. The phone then "translated" their melodic message and sent it back to base after which you got further instructions... LOL


Looking for a code on a toy train in another German shop


The final part of the mission where we caught the bad guy... he was hidden behind a window Germany and when you activated it with the phone, the window flipped around and revealed the bad guy being chased by a little German girl. LOL!


Seriously. He really got into this...


Simon and his beloved drums somewhere between Italy and Mexico... we passed them twice and had to stay for about 15 minutes at a stretch he adored them so much.




And so what did we get to keep him occupied during dinner at Mexico? BONGOS! He was a happy, happy child. Can't say the same for the diners around us. ;)


I don't really like the food in Mexico much, but you can't beat the view


Ball at night


Starting a new Kim Possible mission in the UK. This one was AWESOME. In the phone booth, a little arm popped out and a golf ball rolled out that he had to take to another place to get the next clue.


Simon thought he was playing too...




We ended up quitting that mission shortly thereafter because Ben got tired of walking... but at one point, it took us to the golf shop (to analyze the golf ball for a secret code) and then to the tea shop to tell a cast member a secret code and receive a packet of tea with yet another code on it. AWESOME.

Breakfast with Lilo and Stitch


Parade... the boys loved this. My camera did not. The lighting was difficult, even with my flash. :(














And that's the end... until next year! :)