Aww....

The evolution of Simon writing his name over the course of kindergarten... what a fun thing to have!
It's funny... I've been saying on here that I've seen HUGE leaps forward in the last month or so and here's visual proof. :o)

Catching Up...

Last week was busy, busy, busy...

Hoping to catch up here a little this week!

Dusted off the camera yesterday to take some new pictures after a Facebook meme from May 4th (Star Wars Day!) inspired me. I knew my Star Wars obsessed kids would want to try "Vadering". ;)

We haven't stopped laughing at this picture.

Ben didn't want to be Vadered, but he agreed to a light saber battle.

Since I had the camera out, I took a few new pics of the kids since it has been WAY too long.  Simon was quite amenable to this.

Ben, notsomuch...

And Jonathan gave me at least 23 seconds of his time... 

I also got my vegetable garden planted this weekend! We'll see how this little experiment goes. I have two different kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, red bell peppers, and jalapeños all planted in my box.  I planted peas too, but the sprouts weren't looking so great by the time I got them in the ground. I think they wanted to be planted a couple of weeks ago, but sadly, the box wasn't quite ready. :(

There's also a bunch of garlic and a blueberry bush I planted down there in some of the open space back in the fall. And in that same area,  I also put whole mess of herbs in a spot that usually gets taken over by "ground cover". That's what the landscaping guy claims it is, anyway... all I know is it's ugly and looks like weeds and if I'm going to have something go wild and crazy down there, I'd rather it be something fun, like basil, mint, oregano, and rosemary!  Will take a picture later. :) 

Weekend...

Busy weekend!

Saturday morning, all the boys had swimming, as usual.  Their teacher has started taking Ben in the big pool the last few weeks and he is none too pleased about it. Part of it is that it's much colder than the therapy pool, where he has done all of his lessons up until this point. But the other part is purely Ben being Ben. It's only 3-1/2 feet deep in the lane they use, but he's convinced he can't touch the bottom. The logic of, "Well, even if you couldn't touch, you can SWIM now." or "The pool you've been swimming in is 5 feet deep in parts and you've been okay with that!", not to mention, "You are four feet tall, the water is not." is all lost on my otherwise very logical, analytical child.  I don't really have a leg to stand on since, although not pool-related, my fears as a kid were equally irrational. (still are?)

We ignore it though, knowing he'll come around eventually. I don't even get involved, I just give him his goggles, remind him he's NINE, and send him off with the teacher. I know he cries some, but I also know he does eventually swim when he's over there.

(I will say I can tell he does secretly like the fact that being taken over to the big pool by himself means he has surpassed Simon's level.)

Simon is coming along well too! He did panic after jumping a few weeks ago and suddenly forgot he could swim. It shook him a little, but he got back on the horse.  He's also doing much better with his back float, which freaked him out for awhile.

I do think both Ben and Simon, though their skills are vastly beyond where they were last summer, will still hang out in the shallow end of the pool again this year and actually, given that their confidence level is still not all that wonderful, that's a-okay with me. I'll force them over to the deep end when I have Tom there to help me child wrangle. Otherwise, they can stay where they feel comfortable.

Jonathan, this week, started full-on swimming underwater to Tara and to the steps!! He goes further and further every week. I can't get over it! Weirdest and coolest thing ever to see in action.  He may give me grey hair with his fearlessness sometimes, but it's SO different than Ben and Simon in (and me) that it just continually fascinates and surprises me what he can do and wants to do and isn't intimidated by at his age that I never would have even considered for Ben or Simon.  I'm glad I don't have THREE Jonathans though... one is plenty.

In other news this weekend, Ben had a sleepover at grandmom and poppy's. The rest of us got sushi and Tutti Frutti. :)

We also finished our garden box (sans dirt... maybe next weekend) and Ben went to another rock-climbing party where he mastered going to the top of the wall.  :) I posted the video yesterday... so proud of that kid!

I'm proud of Simon too because is working REALLY, really hard on his reading lately!! He got a new Star Wars early reader book at the bookstore yesterday and read us a bunch of pages from it last night.  He is making great strides in that department and is doing a much better job with sight words these days too. He remembers almost all of them now! He and I have definitely put in some serious time on the reading front lately  and will continue all summer. :)  He's my project. It has been a different experience from Ben learning to read. They went about it in totally different ways and on different timetables. Kids are a constant learning experience, aren't they?

And today is Monday... ahhh... my favorite. :) Quiet. Routine. Put things back in order. Happy day!

Graff Boy Band...

Jonathan has moved on from Girls Just Wanna Have Fun to You Don't Know You're Beautiful.

Simon got in on the action...

Complicated!

Ben has this sudden interest in having a social life and seeing friends all the time outside of school.
I'm excited about this because it's kind of a first. And he has made this friend who seems to like Ben as much as Ben likes him... which is a rare find, honestly.

I really want and NEED to encourage this because Ben needs this a LOT... like really, really REALLY needs this.

There are multiple issues in play here though, the biggest of which is, what the heck do I do with Simon? When I so much as mentioned to Ben that maybe we could bring his friend home from school with us tomorrow, Simon immediately burst into tears. "What about me? What will I do? I won't have anyone to play with."

I asked Ben if he would mind if Simon played with them if this playdate happened and he was okay with it. (though I wouldn't make him do this every time, of course) Simon wasn't into it though and just cried and cried.

Sigh. Simon actually has really clicked with one little boy in his class lately, but he doesn't have the kind of mom who is just going to let me bring her kid home from school with me. It will have to be a mom/kids playdate and that doesn't really work for a Friday evening.

Argh.

So complicated. I feel like Ben is having to sacrifice because I don't know what to do with Simon. It stinks. I should be able to say, "Yes! We'll bring your buddy home for a few hours! Absolutely!" But it's just not that simple. I SO wish it were that simple, for Ben's sake.

Multiple kids... especially close in age ones who are the same gender and each others' main playmate... it makes things complicated. Really really does.  What do you do?

Math. By Simon.

He did this this morning before school and came running downstairs with it. He said he wanted to take it to school to show his teacher.  I didn't say a word about the backwards or reversed numbers... just said his math was pretty awesome.

When he came home with it in his folder I asked if he had shown Mrs. B. He replied that he had.
I said, "Did she think say you did a good job?"

He said, "She told me a bunch of my numbers were backwards."

LOL.

So yes, still writing backwards. Still thinking it's a lefty/kindergarten thing. I told the teacher to just give me a heads up when and if I need to start worrying about it.  He can write forwards and read forwards... so I THINK it's nothing. I think. LOL.

Monday....

I have come to really and truly LOVE Mondays. Crazy. I know. The older I get, the more difficult deviating from the daily routine becomes. And Monday means we are back on track from the wacky craziness of the weekends... ahhh.... well, at least during the school year. Summers drive me nuts with the lack of structure. It's nice for a week or so then I get all antsy and lost and unproductive. I know, I have issues...

In my defense, everything is easier when we are in our routine. The kids are easier... the house upkeep is easier... everything.

Anyway...   so it's Monday. A new quarter at school! Ben has vowed to not miss his reading goal again, and to start right away. So YAY for life lessons. I emailed his teacher just to make sure he wouldn't be the ONLY kid not invited to the ice cream party. I'm good with him not being allowed to go (happy about it, actually), but I would have felt bad if he was the only kid from his class eating lunch in the cafeteria Friday. Yikes. (would have gone to pick him up for an hour or something if that had been the case). She replied that no, there were about four others in the same boat, which surprised her because she thought they would all work extra hard to get to go to the party... but yeah... apparently my slacker, procrastinating child is in good company.

Simon seems to have turned a corner in his bad mood and happily skipped into school this morning. Hope it stays that way. He has been a beast lately.

Jonathan is still pleasant and wonderful lately. (So maybe, just maybe, I have a respite for a bit before one of the three goes psycho on me again. they rotate the crazy, which I think is actually pretty considerate of them...) I bought him a little watering can from the dollar bin at Target today and he watered all of my outside flowers "by myself!!! I do it by myself! YOU do not help me!!!" He cracks me up. We had good intentions of planting sunflower seeds down by the woods on the vacant lot in our neighborhood, but we got chased off by a mutant monster bee. Maybe tomorrow.

Nothing much else to report. Ben has a well-visit at the pediatrician's this afternoon, so I have to pick both big boys up from school. I sort of feel bad about that, because Simon will miss center time in his class, but Simon, on the other handwas pretty excited about cutting out at 2:50. LOL! So I guess it's all good.

Update

Been so busy this week... gah.

Anyway so:

Our handyman has been here at the house working on a list of things I've been compiling for a year. At the top was getting rid of the massive entertainment wall unit that the previous owners left here claiming it was a "built-in" (it wasn't) It was functional, but massive, and didn't really fit with our decor. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see it leave yesterday and now our tv is hanging on the wall. The room looks weirdly empty though because we need some other things on the wall and also because we don't have the console for under the tv yet. I've also lost all my toy storage and am at a loss for what to do with pile of puzzles and toys that got emptied out of the cabinets that were part of the wall unit. So... there are pros and cons to it being gone, but mostly i'm just glad it's gone.

Ben has had a good week after a rough start. They started division with remainders in math class and he didn't grasp it well the first go-round. Monday was a rough homework night that involved pencil throwing and paper crumpling. He's got it now though and is super fast. :)  So yay for that!

Simon has just had a rough week period. He's going through a bit of a moody phase... not sure why. But he's awfully surly and cranky. Today was the worst. He flipped out about going to school right before we left and I had to walk him in crying, break all the rules and walk him to the classroom, dump him with the teacher and flee. She emailed to say it took awhile, but he eventually got it together. Why was he like this today? Well, his complaints range from "There are too many people at school and I don't want to be around so many people"(?) to "We didn't get extra minutes at recess yesterday" and also, "I'm nervous about first grade." They've been talking up first grade a LOT lately in his class and I actually sort of think this may be the majority of the issue... at least the part where he doesn't want to go to school. Not sure about the general bad mood...

Jonathan is having a good week. He's the danciest, singiest, happiest little thing ever. He's also all into "helping" with everything all of a sudden. And I mean EVERYTHING. He even helps me flush the toilet. Nothing is sacred. Anyway ... he is SO much fun and I am really enjoying our days together. He is definitely going through that nap transition period where he doesn't want to go down every day but then crashes at some later and completely inconvenient time. Today he fell asleep at 2:15 in the car and then I had to wake him up at 3:15 to go get the boys at school. Not fun.

So that has been our week. I'm completely exhausted and ready for it to be the weekend! :) Loving the gorgeous summery weather though!! :)

Birthday #2...

Simon has decided he does not want an Earth Treks party after all, which I'm thrilled about because I was having panic attacks thinking about how I was going to corral 14 5-year-olds there since the majority of parents would probably drop off.  He's also kind of having some friend issues at school, and had planned to invite every boy in the class, which I was starting to think was maybe not such a great idea since apparently he doesn't actually like or play with some of them.

Anyway, so now I am scrambling to come up with a Plan B. He has asked for Kiddie Crusoe, but I'm pushing for a family barbecue with rented crazy huge moonbounce, which I think is really more Simon's speed these days.

So we'll see where that goes.

More later. The last few days have been crazy busy. So glad to be back in our routine again with school and whatnot. Whew!

Last Day of Spring Break....

I sure hope my boys are refreshed and relaxed. They should be. They basically spent all of spring break playing Minecraft and Wii. I made my peace with that. It was pretty cold outside until yesterday, and with Jonathan on my own, it's kind of hard to pull off anything crazy fun and exciting like a trip to the Science Center or even one of those bouncy places. It's just too complicated. Maybe next year we can shake things up. Three-year-olds are easier, right? (ha) Well, at least they are a little easier to take places and less prone to needing three-hour afternoon naps.

At any rate, no one seemed particular disappointed in this arrangement. 

Of course, now I have to spend the next couple of days weaning them off the electronics and back to their allotted 30 minutes a day, which I have discovered, seems to keep the screen rage away. As yes, screen rage is actually a thing... well, around here anyway. I can't figure out what it is, but anything over 30 minutes and it's like they are little drug addicts wandering around looking for their next fix, especially Simon (Ben has gotten easier about it over the past few months) But Simon... OMG...  "Can I play Minecraft?" "No."  "Whyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeee?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"  Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Every 20 minutes or so.  

Today we're spending some time with friends, thank GOODNESS. Ben has asked to see his friend Trey no less than 40 times over the last two days. 

We were supposed to have some kids and moms over from Simon's kindergarten class yesterday but one of them came down with this horrible non-stop stomach virus that's going around. Unfortunately, it was the kid who was also coming with his second grade brother, who is a friend of Ben's. The other mom suggested we just reschedule for when everyone could come and I agreed... I would have happily just had her and the other little boy over, but then I would have had to deal with Ben tormenting them the entire time and whining about how unfair it was that he didn't have a friend over. He can be relentless sometimes... 

It was a nice break from routine, but I think we'll all be happy to get back to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday! :)

Well Hello My Name is Simon....

The older Simon gets, the more interesting he gets.

I know I've said it before but it's becoming apparent he has a mind for building and engineering. He can build Legos like nobody's business and invents his own things without even following directions.  I was helping Ben put one of his ships back together yesterday that had fallen from the shelf and when I'd get stuck or disoriented with the directions and would be sitting there trying to figure it out, he would jump in and explain, "It goes like this!"

He is VERY interested in what makes mechanical things work too. The boys all got these silly ping pong ball guns in their Easter baskets and he studied and studied his until he was able to explain exactly how the trigger pulled the spring back and shot the ping pong ball out.

Oddly, (and I say this is odd because he's so creative and generally this is not true for creative types, at least in my experience) he seems to really have a grasp on math and numbers too. For instance, he'll explain all the ways different numbers make another number. In the car yesterday he went on and on about all the different ways he could make 10. "There not just 5 and 5, but also 4 and 6, and 3 and 7!" I'm not sure that's actually what he's learning in kindergarten math right now... I kind of think he just KNOWS it. ? I could be wrong about that though.  He also seems to inherently understand multiplication in much the same way Ben did at his age. "So 5 + 5 + 5 is 15...  three fives make fifteen!" It's funny to hear a kid GET that concept but not have the language to express it or really understand what they have done!

I used to think he had my brain (which is entirely right brained and virtually NO left... I picture a giant blank space where my left-brain should be, actually...  LOL) ... but clearly it's NOT mine. Or at least not entirely.

Anyway, it's interesting to watch him grow and learn and see what his interests and talents are... he's very different from Ben, so it's a totally new experience.

What will he be? I wonder all the time... sometimes it seems like he'll be some kind of entertainer or artist. Other times, I think engineer, architect... something in that type of field.  Maybe it will be a hybrid somehow... architects, after all, have to be creative and so do engineers!

At any rate... interesting to watch it all unfold...

Nanee and Pap's Egg Hunt

On Saturday, after naps, we all headed over to Nanee and Pap's for the annual cousins egg hunt. We've come a long way since it was just poor, lonely Ben running around finding eggs while a dozen of us followed him around. It's way more exciting now! ;)

Excuse Ben's Jedi robe... for some reason, it was integral to his wardrobe that day...

Good Friday Dinner and Egg Hunt....

We had our annual Good Friday dinner at Grandmom and Poppy's, complete with Aunt Debbie's fabulous egg hunt! Pictures are hard to come by because the big ones moved too fast! But here are a few...

The Rest of Our Week...

Well, Simon bounced back quickly from his crazy day. He stayed home from the school the next day to give the antibiotics time to kick in. I let him spend the entire day building Legos in his room and he told me, "Mommy, I really like building Legos all by myself when it's so quiet here!"  I guess I take for granted that he's never really here by himself or even just with Jonathan and me. When he's here, EVERYONE'S usually home and yeah, it can be pretty loud and crazy around here.

Jonathan had a well-visit that day, so the doctor got to get a look at Simon and told me next time he has that reaction to getting sick, to bring him into the office instead of going to the ER because he wants to see it in action.

In Jonathan news, he had his well visit and is 30 pounds and 36 inches tall. I think the nurse may have been generous on the inches because I measured him just the other day only got 34-1/2. He was a little wiggly on the table while she was measuring. LOL.  But going by those stats he's in the 44th percentile for weight and the 29th for height.

The doctor listened to him jabber on about computers and passwords and pushing buttons and declared, "Well, he definitely doesn't have a speech delay anymore and he's certainly not autistic." I agree with the speech delay but just nodded and smiled at the "not autistic" comment. Do I think he's autistic in the way that most people think of when they think of someone who is autistic? No. Do I think he may have some mild spectrum-y tendencies much like his oldest brother that don't necessarily interfere that much with his functioning?  Probably. But at this point it's kind of semantics, neither here nor there, and definitely not worth arguing with the pediatrician.

Anyway, so Thursday, Simon was completely fine and went to school, though a little worn out when he got home.
:)

So yay for a quiet end to the week and beginning of spring break!

Yesterday Went Sideways....

Jonathan and I had a lovely morning at preschool yesterday. We stopped at Safeway on the way home and got some things to take to Grandmom's for dinner since Tom was going to be home late.  We came home and I was just explaining to him how we were going to have some lunch and then he was going to take his nap, when my phone started buzzing on the counter.

I didn't recognize the number. "Hello?" I said, assuming it was going to some kind of sales call.

"Hi, Mrs. Graff. It's Melissa, the school nurse from Jacksonville. How are you?"

"I'm okay... but... uhoh?"

"Yeeeah... I have a very green Simon here in my office."

(relief) "Oh no... He must have caught the stomach virus that's going around his class. I'll be right up."

"Well, Beth C. is here with me and says she'll bring him home for you if you want."

"That's okay. I don't want him to puke in her car. I'm right around the corner. Be there in five minutes."

Jonathan and I jumped back in the car and headed to school. I was not particularly worried about anything except getting my mom to come up and sit with him later so I could go get Ben at school or having her get Ben at school.

Then I got there.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight I encountered when I turned the corner into the nurse's office. Simon was sitting with Beth with his head in a trash can. His face was completely ashen, his eyes were glassy and his lips had NO color whatsoever. He could only nod to say yes or shake his head for no.

The nurse thought maybe he just really needed to throw up since he was complaining his belly hurt, so she was pushing water and Coke. Nothing was happening. His eyes kept rolling back and then closing and he couldn't even support his own weight to sit up, much less stand or walk.

Scary. Scary. STUFF.  Ranks up there with scariest stuff I've experienced as a mom EVER.

She took his pulse, which was normal and  his blood pressure, which was on the low side of normal.  Everyone agreed he was stable enough that  I should take a minute and call the pediatrician to ask him what I should do. I called him and nurse put me on hold and then came back on to tell me I needed to immediately take him to the ER.

Wait. What? How?

I looked around at my somewhat desperate situation... Jonathan, who had a completely full diaper and was due for a nap and currently rolling around on the health room floor. (gag) No diaper bag or other supplies on me. A 50-pound, obviously ill five-year-old who couldn't walk and looked like he was going to slip into a coma at any moment, oh and Ben, lest I forget him, was still in class, oblivious to all the action.  Should I call an ambulance?! Should I throw them both in the car and just drive as fast as I could to the hospital and sort the rest out later? What about Ben? He had to get home from school somehow!

I called the pediatrician again, must have sounded frantic enough that the gatekeeper let me talk to him personally instead of just relaying the message. I don't even remember what I said, I just wanted to hear it directly from HIM that going to the ER was actually necessary. He assured me it was because of how sudden it all came on. And then he asked me a bunch of questions about if he'd possibly gotten into any medication or poisons. "Nothing! He has been at school all morning!" Can I let him go to sleep?" I asked. "Because he really just wants to sleep." He told me that was okay. I was relieved, beacuse I was fighting a losing battle on that one.

At some point, I called my husband who was in North Carolina and thus completely useless to me. I called my mom who was a half hour away at the grocery store, but headed out immediately. Then I called my mother-in-law who is ten minutes away and she came right over to school. Between my mother-in-law, the nurse, Beth and I, we formulated a plan that  I'd drive the van up to the door and they'd wheel Simon to the car and life him into his seat.  My mother-in-law would watch Jonathan at the house and give him his nap, my mom would come with me to the ER, and Beth would pick Ben up from school and take him home.

We headed to the house, where I left Jonathan with my mother-in-law and took a minute to grab some gatorade, snacks, some cash, extra clothes for Simon, a blanket, his DS and my laptop. (Not my first rodeo!)  By that time, my mom was almost to our house, so I picked her up on the way at the nearby grocery store and she talked to Simon all the way to the hospital. He sipped on the Gatorade and eventually started to perk up enough to make silly faces at himself in the rear-view mirror.

As we got closer to the hospital, he still looked tired but he was talking and could walk on his own. They took us right back and he got a hundred different tests... blood sugar, EKG, flu, strep, blood pressure standing up, sitting down and laying down. All was normal... except for strep. That he had.

So after being there three hours what they concluded is that he had strep... yes... but that his body's reaction to a mild fever/dehydration and onset of illness caused what's called a vasovagal reaction...  this happens to Tom too. He turns completely ashen and then passes out cold and this is often the first warning of an illness that he gets. It's great fun, really.  It happens to his mom and grandmother too but illness isn't their trigger... they don't have any known trigger... just seems random! We had actually started to suspect this might be the case while in the nurse's office and I was happy to have it basically confirmed.

He's on an antibiotic for the strep now and is completely back to normal and will go to school tomorrow. And now we know what to watch for next time and what to do. (lay him down and push fluids)  The school nurse sent me an email about how she'll put it in his file and what she'll do if it happens at school again. It's actually all pretty fortuitous that it happened to him this young so we know what to do going forward and to keep an eye out for it happening again.

Anyway, so scary stuff!! Glad today is a more normal day!!

Third Time's the Charm!

Finally got a decent school pic of Simon for this year. I had kind of given up; but we got a third chance with the spring pics (which generally, I think are dumb and don't even dress my kids up for, much less purchase)

I told him to make sure he showed his teeth this time and opened his eyes this time.. and show his teeth and open his eyes he did! ;)  Can I still get a better picture of him than this? Yes. But I did want the real-deal school photo and this is passable. Sadly, it's NOT the one that goes int he yearbook. That honor goes to this lovely one... thanks, Lifetouch! (I don't even have a copy of the retake of this one, it was so bad!)

Angry...Bored....

That actually about sums up Simon's state of mind these days. Not sure what's eating at him... middle child stuff or school issues or what... but angry and bored are the two moods we are seeing the most often around here.

I always say they take turns being the challenging one. Right now, Ben is the easiest he has been in a year... and Jonathan, while still two and all that that entails, has kind of taken a chill pill too.  So, Simon was obviously next up to bat to give us a run for our money.

And so it goes... and so it goes...

Anyway, so he made this neato little thing at school yesterday with one of moms of a classmate. Not gonna lie, the design actually kinda blows my mind, being the spatially challenged person that I am...

No Wigglers...

I came across my tooth fairy supplies yesterday while I was cleaning and realized I haven't had to use them since we've been in the new house. This means no one (read:  Ben. Simon's are pretty solidly hanging in there right now) has lost any teeth around here for two full years!

And honestly, I can't remember the last time he lost a tooth before we moved either, so we might actually be closing in on 2-1/2 or THREE years. He lost like eight over the course of a year and a half and then just STOPPED. That's a little weird, right?

Not that I'm complaining. I'm kind of a sub-par tooth fairy...  always forgetting until the last minute and whatnot. But I DO have this to use for next time and I'm kind of excited about it.  ;)

When we were at the dentist a month ago, no one had any wigglers. Ben will probably be next up though again since Simon's teeth show know hint of going anywhere anytime soon. I kind of expected that because he took SO long to get his first tooth. He had half a dozen teeth on his first birthday, but they had all just come in the month before... I remember because I was actually starting to wonder if he actually HAD teeth, my poor gummy-smiled baby...

Also, look what I dug up! :) Aww... five-year-old Ben... old house... (cry)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Well, yeah, it's actually on Sunday. But today was the day for green at school! So here they are... Ben's outfit cracks me up. Simon was wary of putting on the doodleboppers on his head. Seems he has gotten a self-conscious streak all of a sudden. "People will laugh at me!!" 

"Dude. Of course they will laugh at you. You're FUNNY!!! It's like your THING!" 

 Anyway, so  I told him his friends would all have silly things on and he got into it. 

Haven't caught up with the little one yet to take his green shirt picture.  There was a very funny photo op at school today where he was leaned over headfirst into the trashcan lamenting that I threw away his uneaten snack and it looked like he'd had a little too much green beer... wasn't fast enough to get the pic though.  ;)

Five Going on Nine...

I know this is probably a second-child/younger sibling thing... but it's driving me crazy, probably mostly because I was NOT a younger sibling.  Simon wants to do absolutely everything Ben does. Everything. He copies Ben constantly. I honestly don't know how it doesn't drive Ben more nuts than it does.

The imitation thing doesn't drive me quite as crazy as when he keeps trying to do things that aren't geared toward someone his age and subsequently gets frustrated and takes it out on us.

I have to bite my tongue a lot in those situations because sometimes I get SO impatient and annoyed that he wants to jump ahead to what Ben is doing instead of just mastering being FIVE and doing five-year-old things.

As in, "OMG. STOP TRYING TO WRITE IN CURSIVE AND JUST FOCUS ON LEARNING TO PRINT THE RIGHT WAY!!!!!" (because his printing is painful and a huge struggle right now)

And, "For the love of pete, STOP trying to play Minecraft... how about focusing on learning to , oh I don't know... READ?!" (because that is slow going these days too)

It's also hard to watch him continually try to insert himself into Ben's conversations with friends. He doesn't really understand what they're talking about usually and he ends up sounding silly. In these cases, I feel bad for him because Ben and his friends always look at him as if to say "Oh Simon... you just have NO clue..." and Ben gives his friends the, "That's just my dumb little brother." look.

I guess there's nothing I can do to change this whole dynamic, but geez it's tough.

You really start to see firsthand how birth-order baggage happens...