It's Amazing What the Right Help Can Do!

I was in the library a couple days ago with Simon's class and his teacher came to get them and saw me there. She came running up, "Mrs. Graff, I have to show you this!!! I just printed these!" In her hand she had the latest S.T.A.R. reading test scores for her class. (From what I can gather, this is an assessment they do at the beginning and end of the year.)

She flipped to a page and excitedly showed me a line of numbers. I stared at them but had no clue what I was looking at.   "This is where he started in September….." she said, pointing to the first number. "And THIS is where he tested now…." she pointed to another number.

"That's a HUGE leap." she explained. (although it was obvious that was the case without the explanation. LOL. )

Wow!

After she left, the librarian explained to me that that really was a pretty big deal. She said if I had noticed any of the other kids' scores on the page, (I purposely had not looked at the ones visible and the teacher had most covered up anyway) I would have seen that most kids started out on a level closer to where S is now and may have moved a LITTLE, but nowhere near the leap Simon made. It means he caught up this year!

He has had two years of consistent and big academic strides. Hoping to continue this into third grade, which I know from experience is quite the change from K-2. The foundation is definitely in place and he's where he needs to be. He has worked so hard and so have his teachers! They have been the best. :)
The combination of efforts has definitely paid off! :)

Nature Center...

In the interest of getting outside and enjoying the weather yesterday, (and also keeping the boys from wreaking havoc on the house out of boredom) we hit a local nature center we hadn't been to in awhile!

Jonathan looking for birds…..

 View from one of the lookout points. Gorgeous day!

Jonathan was getting restless, but discovered QR codes on the signs he could scan and perked back up. ;)

 Walking though the woods…. so pretty.

After that, we went home for a bit, the went to the playground for a picnic dinner. The boys played for two hours! :)

Going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo, How 'Bout You?

Visited the zoo today for the first time in YEARS. In general, I am not a fan of our local zoo. It's old and run down and SAD. Some people had told me it was better now though with its new penguin exhibit. I had my doubts, but we decided to give it a try anyway.

I am here to report…. it's still pretty sad. But, the boys had fun.
The penguin WERE cute and the exhibit was nice… but they definitely need more.

One of the chimps we saw looked sick. He was losing his hair and had open wounds all over. :(

Anyway, it was a nice day to be outside, so we had fun just walking around. :)

With the much better National Zoo in D.C. so close, I think we'll head there soon. We have to go one more time to the Maryland Zoo make the membership worth it, so I'm sure we'll go back at some point. We'll definitely wait until more of the animals are not "Off exhibit for the winter".  LOL.

Doc Appointments...

The two older ones had checkups this morning.

Ben weighs 60 pounds now! He's 51-3/4 inches.  I about fell over when the nurse said his weight… and now I know why….when I came home and looked it up, I discovered he gained 11 pounds in a year!!!  (and almost 3 inches)  I just looked it up and it still only puts in the 3rd percentile all around. LOL.  Someone has to occupy the bottom of the curve, right? ;)

Simon is not far behind at 59 pounds and 50 inches! (up 3-1/2 pounds and 1 inch.) He runs right in the middle of the chart across the board.

So interesting how different all that is with them!  Jonathan also tends toward the middle of the curve.

Anyway all good stuff. Everyone is healthy! He does want me to take Simon back to the allergist at some point to have him do a food challenge for the shellfish… but said it's not urgent. Maybe over the summer.

The doctor also informed Ben he needs a tetanus booster (and hepatitis? I think?)…. but is letting him wait until fall. Ben is already freaking out about that. So thanks, doc! LOL. ;)

Happy Easter!

The kids had their traditional Good Friday egg hunt with Grandmom, Poppy, and Aunt Debbie on Friday.   For some reason, we don't have many pictures! Suffice to say, the kids had fun and found their easter treasure! ;) After that, we went out to dinner together. I think we were all tired and Easter snuck up on us! LOL!

Then Sunday, we headed to church, home for awhile, then over to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Taylor's for another egg hunt and dinner.  The kids had a blast with their cousins and playing outside. We are finally getting some truly beautiful days around here! :)

Twinkle Twinkle....

Simon's new cello teacher has had him playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for about the last four weeks. All the practice is finally paying off! Some of the notes are still a little hit or miss because he is still learning to stretch his fingers to the right position... but it's starting to come together. :) The difference from a month ago is pretty amazing! So proud of him!

Birthday Chiptole…. and Science!

In what has become an annual tradition… here is Ben enjoying his birthday Chipotle. ;)

The other two got into some sciencing today… mostly of the vinegar/baking soda/food coloring variety… we exploded a plastic bag, make popcorn kernels dance in water, and then mostly poured things for awhile. ;)

And in Other News...

All he wants for Easter is is two front teeth…. ;) (and maybe the ones on the bottom too…)

Spring Pics!

As a rule, I do not purchase spring pictures. I hate the dumb leafy background and generally dislike the poses they put the kids in…almost always makes already bad Lifetouch pictures worse. However, this one time, I may have to make an exception. I didn't even send Simon to school dressed for picture day and completely forgot these were taken. Cute picture though! At the very least, I figured I'd scan it and keep it in my computer photo archives! :)

Best Day!

Yesterday was such an amazing day, weather-wise! I had wanted to get over to the garden shop to get some seeds to start but Ben had reached his max of errand-running time. His spring break is somewhat cramping my errands style. HA! It has been nice having him around otherwise though. ;)

Simon has made this wonderful little friend, Nick. Nick has been over a few times, but yesterday, Simon went to HIS house.  They actually played outside for awhile. (Nick's mom made them.. YES!!) She says they rode scooters and bikes and talked Minecraft. LOL.

Nick and Simon have so much in common. Neither of them play sports, which is HUGE. Simon is always hanging out by himself at, for instance, Ben's basketball games, even though several classmates are there too. It seems every other kid on the planet wants to play basketball/baseball/lacrosse/soccer/all of the above.  He just doesn't have it in him. He can enjoy a backyard game of wiffle ball/kickball/basketball or whatever once in awhile, and with some practice, might be able to play some of the rec sports sports well enough to at least get by, he just doesn't have a competitive bone in his body nor any interest whatsoever.

Anyway, so he and Nick are peas-in-a-pod in many ways and it's just NICE.

Right after Nick's mom dropped Simon off, our neighbor came knocking at the door, so Simon never even came inside yesterday until bedtime. Totally unheard of.  I was so excited, I didn't even make him do his homework. (Technology Tuesday makes that easy… he was just supposed to play on two websites) ;)

Ben, Simon, and the neighbor spent two solid hours digging in the vacant lot next to our house. This is their favorite thing to do lately. I actually had to relocate them because I discovered yesterday that they HAD been digging up a spot at the top of the driveway, which I now have to fix and plant grass seed on.  (boys!!!)

They got all the hammers out of the garage workbench and went to town… looked like a tiny chain gang out there. Ben says they found flint and every time they hit it, it would spark. Cool! :)

Hoping today brings more warm-sun-shiny-weather fun! :)

Top O' the Mornin'….

He's the only one who has school today. ;) 

Unfortunately, because we broke from our routine to stop and take this picture, Simon ended up arriving at schools sans backpack. LOL. Oops. Had to drop him off and run back home!

Homework Makes Me Sweat….

Simon had this project to do over the weekend. Actually, he had two weeks to do it but I was dreading it so much, I put it off until Sunday… the day before it was due. He had to read a Dr. Seuss book and then write a letter to Dr. Seuss about his favorite character and favorite part of the story. Then he had to draw a picture illustrating his favorite part of the story.

OMG.

Seriously.

It was AWFUL.

The story part was fine. We read "What Was I Scared Of?" the story about the green pants with nobody inside. He said he didn't have a favorite Dr. Seuss book. Neither do I. I kinda can't stand Dr. Seuss, honestly. So we chose Uncle Brandon's favorite. LOL.

The badness began when he had to write the letter. I made it easy by having him dictate everything to me so he could just focus on the handwriting part later. Following the directions for the assignment though (at least three sentences for each question), the letter was REALLY a lot for him to write.

We sat down with "second grade paper" to get started. (Simon definitely needs lines to constrain his other enormous handwriting) THIS was when I realized, there was NO WAY on God's green earth this child was going to fit all this on an 8.5x11 piece of paper.  And it HAD to because the letter then had to be glued to a scrapbook page.

I started him writing. He cried. He whined. He did super crappy work on purpose. I made him start over.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. x 4

I finally said this was NOT going to work and told him just go in Tom's office and type it.

His face lit up and the bad attitude melted away. "Okay!"

Wait. Seriously?!

He had the entire thing typed up in about 10 minutes and smile on his face, with only minor corrections needed to his punctuation.

He then asked if he could do the drawing part in Paint on the computer. Um YES. Yes, PLEASE. His drawing was minimalist (at best)… but whatever. It would have been if he had used crayons and markers too.  He was just NOT into this.

Slapped it onto scrapbook pages and then saw the last direction on the homework sheet. "Decorate the scrapbook pages." I sent him back to the table with some markers. The result was…. well, it was DONE anyway….

(cry)  Simon is most definitely my most challenging child when it comes to school, homework, and anything related. He just has a million other things he would rather be doing. It's like pulling teeth to make him put forth any effort whatsoever. I'm not sure what to do about this. He's doing fine…. blows through math and spelling worksheets and always says, "That was so easy!"… but they are always SUCH a mess. ARGH. How do you entice a kid to slow down and do his best? To take pride in his work? I used to worry about this with Ben too but even he takes a LITTLE bit of pride and care in how his work looks…. Simon takes not caring to a whole new level….

Lego Club….

Lego Club yesterday for Simon for the first time in WEEKS thanks to snow and ice.

I love Lego Club and HE loves Lego Club… but, he's kind of a show-off and I have to figure out how to rein him in just a little. The whole time the dad who teaches the Scratch part is talking, Simon will interrupt him with things like, "Like this? I made a project that does THIS." or "I already know how to do that!" OMG. It's embarrassing. I have to hover over him in fear of what's going to come out of his mouth.

(In his defense, he does usually already know how to do it as they are working on basics right now and he spends so much time fiddling with it, that he has figured out almost all of that stuff on his own.)

It's a fine line between encouraging your kids at something they truly have a knack for and turning them into prideful, obnoxious little monsters.  We ran into this with Ben and swimming a little bit too with some braggy-ness and sore loser, poor winner behavior, though I think we have finally gotten to the point where he mostly understands how to be both respectful, gracious, and a good sport at meets.

In addition to the fact that humility and tact is a learning curve for pretty much ALL kids, it REALLY doesn't help that my kids don't pick up on social cues easily. So when Simon interrupts the teacher and says, "I can already do that, it's easy!" I say, "Simon! Shh! That's really rude!", he looks at and both thinks and SAYS out loud," "WHAT? Is IS so easy!"

(facepalm)

Kids. Who knew the easy part was actually when they were non-sleeping newborns? No one tells you this!

Snow, More Snow, Basketball, and a Fat Cat...

So we got some serious snow. The kids hardly even wanted to play in it. Even they are ready for spring! I think they spent a total of MAYBE an hour out there?

The birds were happy I had put a feeder outside. :) 

The cat was entertained, though slightly annoyed he could not go out and "play" with his "friends". 

We were initially quite creative and busy…. Jonathan wanted to replicate something he had done at school with snow, baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring.  This kept them entertained for about 45 minutes, so totally worth the mess! After this, everyone dispersed throughout the house to play Legos, build forts, and ask me every three minutes if they could play Wii. 

We also made snow ice cream for the first time. The kids loved it. Me? Not so much. The sugar didn't dissolve so it was super gritty and awfully sweet!

These pics were the day before the snow, but I had to share. We were at PetCo and saw this cat. The photo does NOT do it justice. I have never seen a domestic cat so big.  It HAD to weigh 30 pounds, at least…. 

And this is my littlest monkey waiting with me in the carpool line. He sometimes asks to have his picture taken. I happily oblige. :)

In other news, Ben's basketball team WON yesterday, which means they are one of the two teams in the championship! First year since Ben has been playing that has happened! They usually win the first playoff game and lose the second one.  The game got kind of physical and Ben actually fouled out. He was SO upset. But it worked out in the end and now he's just excited to be in the championship game! So, we are back on Wednesday for what will (finally) be the last game of the season. :)

Wacky Wednesday...

When last we left our intrepid baby humans family…..

Let's see….

Much to everyone's surprise, Ben's basketball team won their first playoff game last night! They play again on Saturday and if they win, then they have to play again on Wednesday. As cool as that would be for them, I partly hope they don't win because he's signed up for this Wednesday night dodgeball league thing at SkyZone and he has already missed the first two games for basketball. :\

It was Wacky Wednesday at preschool yesterday. Always super cute! The kids follow handprints on the floor to go in a different entrance and crawl through tunnels to get to their classroom where things are all kinds of wacky. I, however, neglected to consider how averse my youngest child is to "wacky" and changes in routine. LOL. We got through the first part of the wacky entrance (a back stairwell) and he stopped dead in his tracks at the first tunnel, looked up at me and said, "I do NOT want to go to to school today!" Thankfully, I was abel to distract him and hustle him through to his classroom and bypass the rest of the wacky before he started to freak out. I think the rest of the day went ok… WHEW. Close call. ;)

In other Jonathan news, Simon came home from school with J's kindergarten packet two days ago! Weird to be filling all this stuff out for a third time.  (insert requisite "Wasn't he just born?!"  "Time goes too quickly!" statements here)

Our kindergarten roundup appointment is on March 30th! Still not 100% sure on the kindergarten thing for J, and likely won't be until August…. but still registering him and we'll see how it goes.  Roundup day will actually be very telling and helpful as far as seeing how good of an idea this is… will he go with the teachers to the stations? Will he be compliant for the screening? Stay tuned.

Not much new in Simon-land. We have discovered a new chapter book he likes and wants to read on his own. Its title will come as a surprise to no one. LOL.  And by "discovered" I mean it had been on his shelf for months? Maybe since his LAST birthday. A friend of mine was talking about it last week and how much her son liked it and I said, "Wait! I think we actually HAVE that!"  I had put it on the shelf and forgotten about it because it's a TOUGH book… no pictures and tons of words per page.  I didn't consider its read aloud possibilities though… so that's what we're doing….

I read a chapter to him very night and then he usually tries to read some on his own, which is AWESOME!  He even took it to school this week as his "drop everything and read" book. I love that!

He has gotten really into his Rubik's Cube lately and was excited yesterday because he "solved the blue side". I didn't have the heart to tell him that he'd have to UNSOLVE the blue side to solve the other colors…. LOL.  He has asked for a triangle shaped Rubik's Cube for his birthday…. for anyone needing a birthday idea for him! ;)

More snow today. Thankfully, I made it to the library yesterday while Jonathan was at school. Came home with a pile of books.  I also have ingredients to make an awesome cake, broccoli cheddar soup, and homemade bread today. Can you tell I have high hopes for this snow day? ;)  Also, miraculously, Tom hasn't tried to leave for work! Not sure if he will…. hoping he just works from home today. 

Still enjoying my Facebook hiatus, but I'm worried I'll end up cheating today since we're stuck here with the snow and all. LOL!

Raspberry Pi….

We got a Raspberry Pi for our budding computer geek to explore. I am clueless as to what to do with this thing, but super excited to try it out. Reminds of when I first met Tom and we would spend our dates at the Computer Show & Sale or CompUSA picking out parts to add to our computers. 

Unfortunately, I overlooked the fact that we need a usb keyboard. So we can't get it up and running today. I guess it will be next weekend's project. 

Anyone else heard of this thing? Played with it? 

Stupid Cold… sports...birthdays…. cellos….

Argh. It did turn out to be a cold.  Jonathan has it too and seems to be on the same timeline, so I guess we picked it up at preschool or the grocery store. LOL. Ah well… could be worse. Still, annoying and time sucking. I haven't gotten anything done this weekend.

Ben's basketball team lost their last game of the season to a tough team yesterday morning. Close score though, so super frustrating. Even more frustrating is that we are scheduled to play the first round of playoffs Wednesday night against the ONE team that beat us really badly during the season. Ugliest game of the season. Kind of discouraging since, once you lose in the playoffs, you're out. On the other hand, it immediately frees up all upcoming Wednesdays and Saturdays until swim season. ;) So, positives and negatives there. ;)

He says he wants to play basketball for his school team next year, which I think is AWESOME. It will provide a built-in frequent and regular social outlet, which he desperately craves and I can't always give him enough of because…frankly, two little brothers sometimes make that challenging.  He likely won't make the "A" team as a sixth grader (and a tiny sixth grader at that), but they have a "B" team. There are barely enough kids to make an "A" team, so he'll be able to play in some capacity no matter what. (Hooray for small schools! LOL!)

Trying to decide what to do for his 11th birthday. We were talking about a cool home-party glowing backlight bash, but a few days ago, it occurred to me that he has only been invited to ONE birthday party this year, which makes me think maybe 11-year-old boys don't really have "birthday parties" per say…  and that this is some unspoken rule i'm not aware of since he is my oldest?  Anyone have any intel on this?

Tom and I were talking and we're thinking maybe we'll offer him a cool day out/trip somewhere (Philly? Great Wolf?) and then let just let him invite two friends over for a sleepover one day soon.

Yesterday, I took Simon to cello and met the teacher for the first time. (Tom took him last week) He's very nice. He does GREAT with Simon.  I was particularly impressed when the lesson was over and he said goodbye. Simon sort of mumbled goodbye in reply and looked the other direction (as he tends to do)  The teacher actually stopped him and said, (very nicely) "Simon, can you look at me when you say goodbye?"  OMG! This is something I always encourage teachers to do with him because we are REALLY working on this.

Anyway, Simon is doing much better with the individual instruction. He has taken him back to the very beginning and is working on perfecting his bow hold and tone, which the large group teacher didn't really have much time to focus on with the kids.  He says he is doing very well! When he practices, he takes it very seriously now and is doing a great job. I think this is definitely going to continue be a good activity for him in many ways. :)

Not much else to report. I have been going combing through my archives, starting at the very beginning, replacing pictures whose links long ago went dead. Also adding labels. Those weren't an option way back "in the day!" LOL. It's a long project, but I've just been doing a few pages a day. It's amazing to look back at the very beginning…. when I first found out I was pregnant with Ben, his ultrasound, all the crazy things I cared about as a first-time mom… I even have an entry about his first cold with a photo of a pile of "supplies". I'm sure these elementary school years posts will seem just as funny a decade from now when I have a 21, 18, and 14-year-old. (OMG) I love having it all to look back on and laugh and revisit though. :)

On a sadder note, in light of current events in our little town, I also find myself being incredibly thankful for three healthy pregnancies and deliveries…. and, even more importantly, three healthy kids. You see, one of Simon's preschool classmates who also goes to our elementary school, is losing her battle with leukemia after a third relapse. It's heartbreaking and, to my mom-brain, completely unfathomable and unfair. As I revisit old posts about stitches, colds, ear infections and just regular childhood stuff,  I can't help thinking how Ava's mom has not lived without constant worry for her daughter's life since she was two years old. :(  Praying for them often…. I can not even imagine.

That Was Almost Super Cool….

Tom was blowing into a bottle a little awhile ago and he asked me what note it was. Without a piano, I have no idea. But Simon piped up, without hesitation, "G".  We went and matched it to the note on the piano and lo and behold it was a G.

Say what?!

Perfect pitch? No way? No one on even the most musical side of my family (and they are QUITE the musical bunch) has perfect pitch! Had we accidentally stumbled onto some kind of super crazy musical brain wiring?

Tom put more water in the bottle and played another note. Simon said, again without any hesitation,  it was a D.

No way!

No way, indeed… It was an A. ;)

Ah well, it was cool while it lasted. ;) LOL.

Jump Rope for the Heart

I just happened to be at school today doing something else (library, what else? LOL) when I realized Simon's class was doing their Jump Rope for the Heart thing. I popped my head into the gym to see him. :) The gym teacher told me to be sure to take some video because he worked SUPER hard to figure out how to jump like that. (not an easy thing for him… coordination does not come easily) He is quite tickled by the slo-mo video I took. ;)

Three Kid Updates….

I hate when I let too much time pass between entries. I don't know where to start.

I guess i'll start where I left off. So that test Ben said he didn't need to study for…. he managed to get an 80%. Pretty respectable. But, he'll be reviewing next time.  ;)

We got to visit Ben's school last week for an open house. It was our first chance to see him in his classroom. It was an eye-opening experience, for sure. He looks really, really happy and comfortable. We saw morning meeting (a little thing they do every morning in homeroom), writing and tech (they were typing something in the tech lab that they had written), and math. The fifth grade is divided into three math sec ions and his math class has 13 kids in it The small class means there is NO hiding… the teacher walks from desk to desk to make sure everyone is doing the right thing and understanding.  One of the the things that struck us as most interesting while we observed (we saw Ben's classes and also wandered into some middle school classes), is how readily kids raised their hands to say they needed clarification on something or weren't getting a concept.  No one seemed worried about looking stupid or getting a wrong answer… and the teachers were in no rush to move on until everyone was on the same page. That's a pretty big deal!

As for Simon --

He just started private cello lessons with a new teacher. The large group situation wasn't working well for him, which the school instrumental teacher waited three entire sessions before decided to share with me. (and only after I asked) At any rate, it was a good move, because he came home from his first lesson yesterday all smiles, saying, "Mr. G says I am a good cellist!" He loves it!

He is doing well in school. Math and spelling are his best subjects. (spelling is the big surprise!) They have been reading chapter books in school finally… just finished Freckle Juice and another one called Elevator Duck. He also picked up his first chapter book to read on his own. (He loves to be read to, but has never had any interest in reading a chapter book of his own accord) Handwriting is still pretty atrocious and his teacher gives him extra practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Truthfully, I'm just biding my time with that until he can just type everything. I don't hold out much hope his handwriting is every going to improve all that substantially. LOL. 

He has been playing a TON with Scratch and Makey-Makey lately. He persistence with this amazes me. Yesterday, he fashioned a room alarm that involved a Scratch program and an aluminum foil step near his door. When you stepped on the foil, it set the alarm off on the computer. Color me impressed. We basically let him play with Scratch, Makey Makey, and anything else coding/invention related as much as he wants even though it's technically "screen time". It's the one thing he is extremely self-motivated about… he REALLY has a knack for it and he has taught himself a ton. 

Not much new in Jonathan-land. He stays for extended days at preschool now more days than not and seems to like it.   :)

He has gotten more into writing lately and is doing it more and more (on his own terms of course) He asks me how to spell things all the time and I've started keeping a little notebook with words he asks about so he can reference it when he needs it. I find it strangely interesting that he can read pretty much anything, but asks how things are spelled. (If I make him slow down and sound it out, he can do it himself and then can recognize the word once it's spelled correctly… but usually can't just flat out spell a word on his own… even an easy one like "cat")  Seriously, isn't that weird and interesting? You would think with the reading would come the spelling; but obviously they are two completely different processes for him. 

We just a ton of snow dumped on us last night. The big boys and I went out sledding in the early evening. They had SO much fun. It was nice that Tom was home so Jonathan could stay inside because he's kind of high maintenance in the snow most of the time and doesn't last very long. LOL. 

Now that we have had one really good snow, I am anxious for spring to come. I'm ready for warmth and sunshine. I've been pretty tolerant of winter thus far, even though it's my least favorite season… but yeah, it's time for something new. ;)