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.  ;)

Ohhhhh Yeah....

Jonathan is currently obsessed with the Oh Yeah song from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Thank you to Tom for this.

He calls it the "Boom Boom" song and he'll sing it for you, complete with whispered, "Chick Chicka Chickahhhhhhh". He also likes to hear it over and over again on every electronic device we own.

He has it somehow bookmarked on my phone, which he is often carrying around as we run errands during the day. SO... my life now has this constant Ferris Bueller soundtrack.

I'm walking through the produce section at Safeway picking out produce to this.



I'm walking around Target to this.



Pulling up to the drive-through at the bank?



And perhaps my most favorite inappropriate timing -- I'm walking in the front doors of the elementary school and THIS is what everyone standing there hears.



Because I am not dorky enough, now I have a soundtrack. Thanks Jonathan... thanks for that.

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...

Birthday Countdown...

Ten days until Ben turns 9!

He reminds me every. single. morning. how many more days, followed by how many more days until his party and what he wants for his birthday.

Then Simon wants to start talking about his party (in May!)  and birthday list and then they argue about it. I end up just yelling at both of them to just STOP talking already because it's too way too early in the day go brush your teeth and comb your hair and WHY in the heck are you arguing about what's on each other's birthday lists?!  It's like they are pre-fighting over things they don't even own. GAH!

Anyway, yeah... I'm currently in the same boat I was last year. One day till the rsvp deadline and only three kids' parents have bothered to call or email me to rsvp. I make it easy, people... you don't even have to pick up the phone. Just send me an email!!!

Tomorrow, I guess I'll send out the "Hey... I know you're busy but did you by any chance get Ben's birthday invitation?" email. I even sent the invites by mail this year so I didn't have to sit around wondering if Ben actually handed them out to everyone or if he just shoved them into the bottom of his locker with all of his gloves, hats, etc.

Someone remind me of this though next time I leave some other kid's birthday invite pinned to the bulletin board, waiting until the last minute to rsvp, because yeah, I'm totally hypocritical about this... I don't know what it is, but I can't bring myself to respond usually until the rsvp date on the invite. LOL.

Trampoline...

My kids played on a trampoline at a friend's neighbors house yesterday... now I'm so tempted. We had been looking at those Rainbow Play systems because of a flyer we got in the mail a couple days -- they are hugely on sale right now... but this trampoline. MAN was it fun.

Anyone have thoughts on this?

I guess my biggest concerns are:

a) safety... don't to have kids we invite over breaking their necks on my watch.

b) Those things are UGLY. My neighbors are gave us the stinkeye for our giant inflatable waterslide (which we now hide deeep in the backyard when we set it up). I fear if we put up a trampoline they may vote us off the island or something.

Potty Countdown...

The way I figure it I have five, six months MAX left of diapers being in my life. I could not be happier about this countdown.

Jonathan has approximately zero interest in the potty though, currently. I ask half-heartedly every so often.

For the last few weeks, he has woken up completely dry every morning... which tells me the time of readiness is fast approaching and I can't avoid it for much longer.

"Hey, you want to sit on the potty?!" I ask on these days, enthusiastically selling the benefits of being like big brothers and getting to flush! OH how he loves to flush. And flush. And flush. And Flush.  Bye, bye gallons and gallons of well water...

His answer when I ask though is generally an emphatic, "NO!"

At some point, I need to just ignore the protest and get this party started, so to speak... preferably before August. I don't want to. I hear people hire this sort of thing out now? A friend of mine is sending her son to be potty trained by his daycare lady. The daycare lady told her if she sent him in with 30 pairs of underwear on Wednesday, she'd have him potty trained by Thursday.

Where do I sign up?

Kidding... it's a rite of passage. I did it with the other two and we'll get through it together. I just... oh how I hate that stage where you have 5.5 seconds to find a bathroom in whatever store you are in or ELSE.

As I type this, he is, in fact, sitting on the potty...happily flushing away and talking about pee pee and poo poo,  so maybe we're making some mental progress. Or maybe he just likes flushing.

Sigh.

Threefer Update -- school stuff

Ben:
Two days of MSA down, two to go.  "It's way better than I thought it would be, mom." he says. Still liking the extra recess, snack, and no homework aspect, of course. (I think I'm loving the no homework even more than he is!!)  He was annoyed yesterday that they gave out the teddy grahams snack to the class instead of the one we sent in, which apparently got saved for today. (We sent kids Clif Bars with assorted baked chips ... I think he really just wanted the Cheetos more than anything)

They are reading The Borrowers in reading class right now. I LOVE that book. LOVE LOVE LOVE! I need to find time to sit down and reread it along with him. Have I mentioned I love third grade? It ranks up there with first grade for my favorite elementary school year with him so far. They just do so many interesting things and things I remember from when I was in school.

He seems to me like he has gotten a little more social lately and I like that. Wish I could be a fly on the wall of his classroom sometimes...

Still no sign of the winter coat. I think it's gone for good. (sigh)

Simon:
I've started paying him off in Minecraft minutes for every sight word he can rattle off without help. Wish I'd done it months ago. He knows 57 out of 60 all of a sudden. He also brought home his first "Little Book" from kindergarten yesterday. It was called "Look" and he read it all the way through without help and without even stopping to sound words out.  YAY! Where has THIS been?! I had been a little concerned about his reading progress lately, but maybe it was all for naught.

He has been doing a little better with handwriting too -- mostly his issue is not wanting to put forth ANY effort whatsoever... but when you stand over him and make him do and redo, his writing is actually pretty age appropriate. His teacher has been tightening the reigns lately too and some papers are coming home with "second attempts" stapled to them. Hopefully we can get him whipped into shape for first grade.

The idea of Simon and first grade right now is a little bit ... um... daunting to me. I'm saying a little prayer that he gets a teacher next year who a) gets him and thinks he's funny and b) has a little boy or two of her own and c) is patient, but also has high expectations and isn't going let him get away with being lazy. I know, it sounds like a Mary Poppins request list... but  that will be the best combination for his success next year, I think. We've had good luck so far with teacher fits... so hopefully that continues.  As a mom, I live in constant fear of my kids getting the teachers who don't like/get little boys... and they are definitely out there!!

Jonathan:
I hesitate to write this, but he hasn't had a meltdown in two weeks. He has been pleasant and adorable and relatively easy. Yikes! We're coming up on one full year of our time with Infants and Toddlers and it's amazing to look back and see how far he's come in that time.

When he started with Ms. Cindy last March, he had basically NO language.  Crazy! We are opting to stay with them because why mess with what's working? He has his one-year evaluation coming up Monday and then something about Child Find coming to talk about the options when he turns three in August. We can either go to the elementary school for speech, if he still needs it. Or we can stick with services in our house. Probably going to go with the latter.

And now I need to end this because Jonathan is climbing into my lap to steal my computer. I really miss having my computer to myself... now they ALL play on it. GRRR....

Busted!

Simon brings home all this artwork that is, frankly, pretty awesome. A couple pieces I have even set aside to use year after year for seasonal decoration and there are some things I have actually been planning to frame.

I just put this one up on the pantry door two days ago. Now, admittedly, I initially thought it was a cute little dog (It was the ears! The EARS, people!!) and had filed it away in his keepsake folder. Then he asked me if I liked his picture of the Easter bunny.

Oops.

Yes, bunny... definitely a bunny. "I LOVE your bunny!!!"

"Yeah, see the carrots, mommy? That's how you know it's a bunny."

DUH.

So it went on the artwork door for spring!

Last night, my sister-in-law posted this piece of artwork my niece brought home...

Hm.....

Hmm....

I think it's safe to say now that the kids are looking at a picture and copying it, huh? 

I texted Simon's to my sister-in-law and she was surprised too. Then she asked, "Did he bring home a duck last week?"

Why yes... he did, in fact, bring home a duck. And I thought it was AWESOME.  

LOL! Am I the only one who didn't realize that's what was going on? The art teacher is tricky and amazing!  She makes kindergarten art look GOOOOOD.  ;)

Knowledge is Power....

I had a mom-piphany yesterday.

So I was helping Simon get dressed and he very matter-of-factly said, "If you hold your middle finger up by itself it's sign language for a REALLY bad word. But if you hold all the other fingers up, it hides it and you are just waving and that's okay."

Hm.

Awesome.

I asked him where he learned it and he said his classmate, we'll call her Zoe for purposes of this story, told everyone. ( Zoe has shared ALL kind of wonderful things this year so far. NOT my favorite classmate, I have to say. )

So, Zoe apparently gave the entire the class the middle finger and explained how it's "sign language".

"Soooo... what did your teacher do?" I asked.

"She told Zoe to NEVER ever EVER do that again."

Well, I guess that's good. But now I have a five-year-old who knows all about the middle finger. Fantabulous.  Third grade is one thing... I think Ben has heard it ALL by now. But kindergarten? Seriously? WTH.

Now, I will say, honest, open, and intelligent explanation for things has really always been my parenting strategy. Guess I just wasn't planning on having to use it much with a five-year-old...

But, as I'm learning QUICKLY, I really can't keep him in the dark about these things and it's dumb for me to try. Ben, I could, for awhile because he was my first... but with two of them in school now and the influence of all kinds of other kids, and some really interesting characters in his class this year... well, I'd be stupid to think I could keep Simon in the dark.

And Simon, especially, needs good and thorough explanations of why or why NOT to do things. Ben seems to have an innate sense of what's okay to try and what's not and a good, healthy fear of getting in trouble. Simon? Notsomuch. His judgement is occasionally lacking.

So, lest he decide to flip someone the bird at school this week, I decided we'd have a chat.

"Okay, Simon...." I began. "You know how we try not to say certain words around here? Words like 'stupid' or 'fart'?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, well, those aren't bad words, really... those are just silly words that we just don't like all that much. If you say them, by accident, you probably won't be in trouble. There are just better, smarter words to use.  But words like what the middle finger is sign language for? Those really ARE bad words and if you ever say them or use sign language for them, especially in school, you're going to end up in the office in BIG trouble. Okay?"

"Got it."

Sheesh...  middle finger. At five. Who knew?

Dear Zoe's parents... WTH?!

Neighborhoods...

It has been two years almost and I still miss our old neighborhood a TON. It doesn't even really exist the way I remember it anymore since all but a few of us moved. Still... such good memories and now that the kids are older, I think about how it would be NOW if we still all lived there. The kids are all old enough  (except for the the youngest ones, of course) that they'd be able to just go out and play together and come home when they're hungry.

Big. Giant. Sigh.

Our new neighborhood is still just so BLAH.

I'm reminded of just HOW blah whenever my kids go play somewhere else. And twice in the last two weeks, it has hit me hard. We went over to one of our old townhouse friend's "new" (three years now) neighborhoods last week after school one day (it was the day we ran into Ben's school friend) and they all trickled off the bus stop and ended up playing a giant game of football together. Like a dozen kids, at least. All boys. Tons of ages.

And then Saturday, Ben went over to another friend's house to play and when I left, the mom said she was going to shoo them outside soon to play a giant neighborhood game of hide and seek they had planned.  Do you know that day, my kid, the same one I have to sometimes BRIBE to go outside here at home, spent TWO SOLID HOURS running around outside with other kids?  That made me SO happy!

But then... gah... cry.

He came home... to just Simon and me hanging out in the driveway with sidewalk chalk and light sabers.

Y'all it's SAD. I know some of you don't have neighborhoods and don't care... but I did and I MISS IT terribly.

The really weird thing in all this is that I counted up in my head how many kids there are in this neighborhood of fourteen houses, and I think it's actually somewhere in the 25-30 range, at least half of which are the same ages, or thereabouts, as my kids.

Where ARE they all!? I sometimes see the brothers one house over playing basketball... but mostly I see a lot of people in minivans and SUVs running here there and everywhere. My one saving grace is the really sweet family directly across the street with the mom my age who I really like and they have a three-year-old and a two-year-old, so Jonathan will at least have people to play with as he gets older...

...but Ben and Simon?  We're just going to have to keep adopting other peoples' neighborhoods for them!

Sometimes I wish we hadn't moved. I have to remind myself I do really REALLY love my house and having enough space for the boys. I love being close to our friends who moved up here too. And I like the kids' new school well enough. (although... I sometimes could go either way on that, which is another post... but anyway) I love our big yard and how quiet it is and I love not having to do a three-point turn to get out of my parking spot and I love not having the frat boys next door. (probably at the top of the list, actually!)  I love the "country"ish setting.

And again, I also have to remind myself that it's not like the old neighborhood exists anymore... so I couldn't go back if I wanted to.

I just miss what was, I guess... and what could have been...

Fort McHenry...

60 degrees? Oh how I love this weather... today was the most gorgeous day and we spent much of it outside enjoying the preview of spring!  We took the boys to Fort McHenry this morning and they had a blast!

My three little dudes... 

This one kept threatening to jump from the walls...

Simon with the flag behind him

SO wish Jonathan had gotten in this photo... 

Action shot!

The Star Spangled Banner and the most beautiful blue sky!!!

What's in here?

Simon wanted me to take his picture with the cannon

"Look! It's a brick hole!!"

Simon and a British cannonball

Throwback...

Found this on one my old pregnancy blogs...
OMG. This was a rough period of time...

Poetic...

I got an email from Ben's teacher today (the one out on sick leave) --- apparently the class keeps a notebook where they write to her and she writes back. She wanted to share the poem Ben wrote to her.

*ahem*

I wish you were back.

It makes me want to hack.

And without you,

my world is black.

How funny is that? 

Every single time I have thought about it today, I've laughed out loud. When I asked him about it, he said, "Yeah, I worked really hard on it to make sure it all sounded like it went together." so I'm actually not sure he meant it be funny... oops. ;)

All That Angst Over Nothing...

Ben, I kid you not, was worried about taking the MSA (state tests) this year starting... well, basically the day school ended LAST year. He brought it up at least once a week for nine solid months, even more frequently as it drew closer. There were tears... there were full-on freakouts. "I hate third grade because of the MSA!!" was uttered more than once.  Plus, he was ultra annoyed because he was afraid it was going to happen during his birthday week.

Well, they finally had the first day of the test on Thursday, so when I picked him up, my first question, of course, was --

"Hey Ben! How was the MSA today?"

"So easy! And we got DOUBLE recess!"

(Duh. I had been telling him about the double recess for months)

"Were you bored?" (one of his biggest worries was that he'd finish and then not have anything to do...  I swear, he fears boredom the way some people fear heights or clowns... we're talking phobic territory!)

"No! I finished the test early but then I went back and checked my work."

I felt his head for a fever.

Now? He's actually looking forward to the last three days of it next week! Crazy kid.

But, of course, he has moved on to worrying about other things now. The worry du jour is swim team this summer, followed closely by "fourth grade and all the extra work I'll have to do!"

Neverending... never. ending.

Cousins Playdate...

It's so nice to have cousins who live close by. And they live even closer now, which is awesome. Next goal is to get our other sister-in-law to move nearby and basically have a (very spread out) family compound.

Simon and Anastasia are 3-1/2 months apart in age, and did not used to get along as well as they do now. This was mostly due to Simon and his grumpy phase he went through between age 2-4... also that they used to see each other so often at family events that we're pretty sure they saw each other as siblings.

Thankfully, he has mostly grown out of his grumpy phase at this point and, because we're all so much busier these days, there are WAY less full-family events --  so now they are good friends. In fact, Anastasia is one of our favorite people to have over for a playdate because they enjoy each other's company so much these days.

Some recent group playdates have not gone so well for Simon. Oddly, despite his "big and tough" exterior, we have discovered that hanging with groups of boys, especially older ones, is not really his thing. We had a near disaster the other day where we went over to a friend's house and a tackle football game erupted with the older boys. He was SO on the outs of that situation...  probably would have walked home if he knew the way. (tough situation given that I have one son who was SO happy to be there and all about this kind of playing and a third who is happy to be right in the middle of the big boys!)

Anyway, so I asked to borrow my niece after school one day and yesterday, I brought her home from school with the boys. They were SO excited. The two of them immediately disappeared into Simon's room where they built Legos for awhile. Then they moved on to the downstairs and built pillow forts for a solid hour or so. They drew some pictures, cut out some snowflakes and then, after dinner, spent the rest of the time building with magnet blocks.  Peas in a pod.

At dinner, they talked about school and their favorite things and who in their respective classes breaks the rules and doesn't listen. Such a funny conversation. :)

I'm sort of hoping some of Anastasia's independence will rub off on Simon. She does absolutely EVERYTHING for herself... it fascinates me. Is it the difference between girls and boys? Or just personality? Or maybe I'm just a lazy mom... LOL.  I don't know... but yesterday, she went to put her mittens on and I watched her lay them out in front her her and compare hands to mittens to figure out which way they went on. So. cute.  Whatever it is, I'm hoping Simon picks it up! ;)

Anyway, so we had fun... I took her home a little earlier than I was going to because she seemed a little worn out from a case of the sniffles and wasn't as perky and chatty as she usually is. Thought maybe she had had a long day. It was such a nice couple hours though!

Still MIA...

Ben's winter coat is still missing. I really thought it would have turned up by now. How on earth do you lose your gigantic winter coat? Plus, it's a small school with a central lost and found. Where did it GO? It has his name in it and EVERYTHING.

Guess I should be thankful we're heading into spring and that he had almost outgrown that coat...

Sigh.

My Blog is OLD and Other Musings...

So, I was just playing with my template and perusing the archives in this place and realized my blog is coming up on its 10th birthday in July.  Double digits!

I have been writing here, on this little corner of the internet, since Ben was two lines on a pee stick and I was confident he was going to be named Madeline, not Ben. (oops)

I don't really like going back and reading really old posts because I hate how young and stupid and naive I sounded -- all first-time momish and whatnot. "My baby has his first sniffles! OMG!" (meanwhile, present day, I ignore the fact that Jonathan lays on the floor of the elementary school lobby while we wait for B & S and looks for jelly beans he has dropped so he can shove them into his mouth... )

On the other hand, it's really cool to look back and how far we've come, how much has changed, how much we've all grown and learned, and really just how FAST the time went.

This journal holds ten years of our family's history--- I started it when I had a job, then I quit my job to have a baby... pregnancies... labors... two more babies... potty training... lots of sleepless nights... fixing up our little townhouse... meeting new friends... first words... first steps... first days of preschool... first days of kindergarten... selling our little townhouse.... buying a house... it's really kinda crazy how much has happened in a decade when you add it all up.

I've gotten sentimental because we're coming up right now on the series of ages I have dreamed about since we knew we were having a third child... 9,6, and 3. This particular set of ages has always seemed wonderful (and light years away) to me -- 9, 6, and 3.

Nine is still kind of a little boy --  six is adorable -- and three is bordering on being a rational human being, FINALLY. (not that a three-year-old is entirely rational... but compared to the somewhat annoying, chase-the-toddler phase for the third time, I'll take a three-year-old who can follow rules, not run into the street and can tell me what he wants)

Ben still paves the way, so I'm sure I will look back years from now, say when they are 15, 12 and, 9,  on the posts I wrote about Ben when HE was nine and think how crazy and overly-worried I was about ridiculous things that didn't matter in the long run.

But I guess that's the fun of keeping a journal... like notching off heights on the inside of a door over the years... it's proof that once you really were only as tall as the doorknob. The problem with blogging is that everyone ELSE gets to see it all along with you: all the words I've ended having to eat... the mistakes I've made... all the times I've written "MY kid will never...." and then they have...  the good and the bad of my entire motherhood journey thus far. It's all here, laid out for all to see.

Truth? There are times I want to take it all down and hide it all.

What I always come back to though and what keeps me here is that I truly believe that being open and showing your whole self to people... stupid, naive, crazy, mistakes and all...the whole you...  that's how you connect with people. By being REAL.

And I guess that's why I've stuck around all these years on here. I enjoy having this permanent record of my kids' childhoods...and of my journey as a mom; but I also value the human connection I've gotten from it that I wouldn't have had otherwise...

So thanks to all have stuck around with me for all this time! And to those of you I have picked up along the way. It has been fun growing up with you. It will be interesting to see what the next decade brings!

HA!

I emailed Ben's teacher yesterday morning to let her know he was coming in with the class snack for the MSA test and that she may want to intercept it, lest he forget he has it and it ended up crushed out by the lockers.

She wrote back that he had actually been doing really well with remembering things lately but that she would go grab it from him so no one sat on it in the hallway.

I wrote back (because I can never resist replying to a reply... I really can't.... ) to thank her and also thanked her again for all her help with making sure he came home with everything he needed every day. (can't tell you how many times I have seen her chase him down the hall with his coat in the last month or so)

Amusingly enough, I arrived at school for pickup and who came wandering down the hall? Ben... with the teacher following close behind. They headed for the office....poked around in there for a little bit, came back out... I looked at her quizzically and she came over to tell me that he had lost his coat and they were looking for it.  They checked lost and found... not there. He couldn't even remember where he had put it down.

LOL.

I assured her it was fine. It has his name in it and always turns up eventually. Plus, it's supposed to be warming up.

TOO funny though.

Frosty...

There was a little snow leftover today from the blizzard that wasn't...   so we went outside this morning after being inspired by my sister-in-law's snowman post yesterday! I needed a good winter
pic for the calendar! Not really a snow fan, but I put on a good front for my snow-deprived last-born.

In this picture, he's eating one of the extra carrots we brought out while staring hungrily at Frosty's nose... ;) LOL!

He Really Does Think He is Five...

Tonight, we went out to dinner... you know, since the blizzard thing kind of didn't actually happen.

Now, I should preface by saying that we have worked really hard on teaching the boys how to act in restaurants from the time they were very small,  and, if I do say so myself, we've somehow managed to get through to them.  (most of the time... there are exceptions.... oh BOY are there exceptions...)

At any rate, the big boys ordered their food first, speaking in lovely, polite, complete sentences and ending with "please" without having to be reminded. (Yes! Score for good parenting!!)

Then, just as Tom was getting ready to order for Jonathan, he looked right at the waitress and said, without missing a beat: "I will have da grilled cheeeeeeeeese please!"

Even the waitress coudn't help but laugh. It was really pretty darn cute.

It's awesome the stuff he picks up from his big brothers! (sometimes)

Snow....

Apparently it's rain elsewhere, but we do, in fact, have snow at our house!

The Friend Zone...

I don't know if I have written much here about Ben's friend issues. It's part of a longer story that I'll type out someday... but, at any rate, the short version is that I started noticing last year that Ben seems to think everyone is his friend and that isn't always the case.  I remember we had one kid over who he had been talking about for a few months after starting school. I listened to them play and overheard the kid making fun of Ben to his face and Ben didn't get it. (not like goofy boy stuff either... really mean stuff... I couldn't wait for him to leave! Needless to say, he has not been back.)

Then came Ben's 8th birthday party, where we invited the entire class because it was at a place that let us have 25 kids and Ben insisted he wanted the whole class to come because everyone was his friend. I got to see first-hand the reality... some of those kids were NOT so nice.

It has made me wary of when he comes home talking about any "new friends" or "best friends". He has  already been through one this year who was his "closest friend" who started taking things out of his desk and breaking them on purpose and then turned on Ben even more a month later and started making fun of him.

Thankfully, (I think?) Ben seems to be starting to pick up on when he's being made fun of... it just takes him longer than most and it has to be pretty obvious.

He is starting to be hurt by it, which is sad, but, on the other hand, I'm glad he is learning how to tell when someone isn't actually being kind to him.  There were some really heartbreaking rough patches last year where he stuck with kids I knew were using him as the butt of their jokes simply because he didn't realize what was going on and they thought that was funny.  We call those kids "the turds" now and I try to shoot lasers at them with my eyes whenever I see them.

Fast-forward to a couple months ago. One of Ben's teachers asked me if he had mentioned a little boy he had been talking to a lot. I told her that no, Ben hadn't said anything about him at all. She said  I should ask Ben about him --  that they had some things in common and really seemed to have struck up a friendship that she had been trying to encourage, even to the point of overlooking the fact that neither one of them ever got their morning work done anymore because they were too busy chatting with each other.  She said she thought their friendship was more important. (I love that!)

I was excited, but cautiously so based on our past experience with Ben's other "friends". I started asking him about the other boy and Ben insisted he was his closest friend. In fact, as the weeks went on, I started hearing more and more about him and he started asking to have him over to play.

Again, we've been burned a time or two with playdates, so I started doing some research. (it's a small town, wasn't hard to find people who knew the kid's story) Apparently the family life at his house is less than ideal... like WAY less than ideal. Really awful stuff no kid should have to deal with. Also, I'm told he's a nice kid, but a dare-devil with little supervision.  One mom told me he came to their house once and she found him outside with a golf club hitting balls toward their windows. I was warned by multiple people to NEVER ever under any circumstances let Ben go over to his house and play. Another mom told me he made her younger son cry. I've been told not to get involved with the mom, but also that she's so much of a flake, that won't likely be an issue anyway... she'll forget my name before she's even gotten to her car.

I started to think this was another REALLY bad choice on Ben's part, and actually started assuming the kid was probably not actually nice to him and he was just oblivious again.

Well, I finally met the little boy yesterday when we went to play in a friend's neighborhood where this boy also lives. Turns out I was wrong. Like really, REALLY wrong. He told me Ben is his best friend. He was SO excited to see him.  It was genuine -- and they actually seem to get each other, which is a rare find. Ben introduced him to me as "This is ____! His desk is a black hole just like mine!!" (and the other kid nodded in agreement) LOL!

I watched them play for awhile and I can rattle off only a couple other kids I have ever seen Ben interact like this with. (one is the friend we had gone to visit... one is his friend from his old school... can't think of any we've met since he started at the new school....) I could have cried.

So... despite this kid's really weird and totally not ideal home situation and the fact that I'll have to supervise playdates REALLY closely to make sure he doesn't jump off my deck, run with knives, or climb onto the roof or something, I think I owe it to both Ben (and to him, possibly even more so) to try to make their friendship work.

I think they might be a friend to each other that both of them have needed? Maybe? Maybe not? But I hope...

I think back to some of the friends I played with growing up. Some didn't have the greatest home lives either and I know my house was a place of safety and stability for them. We ended up going our separate ways as adults, but we still keep in touch they still tell me they have good memories of when we were younger and happy memories of coming to my house. So maybe we can be the same for this kiddo... and maybe Ben will finally have a close and true friend to share the rest of elementary school with... (and maybe middle school and high school, but I'm not thinking that far ahead yet. :)

Would it be nice and so much easier if he made a "best friend" with parents who we had some things in common with? Absolutely. Not gonna lie. But this is what we were given to work with, so we'll see how it goes... and I think it could be something really good, I do!

I keep trying to end this post with a quote... because I knew I had some fitting ones that sort of sum up my thoughts on this situation. I've gone back and forth and finally settled on this one from one of my favorite authors --

"My personal belief is that God looks through Her rolodex when She has a certain kind of desperate person in Her care, and assigns that person to some screwed-up soul like you or me, and makes it hard for us to ignore that person's suffering, so we show up even when it is extremely inconvenient or just awful to be there."  -- Anne Lamott

Snow-prepared...

We have a frozen pizza, a brand new copy of Wreck if Ralph on DVD and some hot chocolate.

Nothing more to do but wait.

March snow... this is ridiculous.

Twilight Zone...

Jonathan had some kind of brain re-wiring overnight four days ago that seems to have left him a different child. He has taken the verbosity to a whole new level, now saying things are "my favorite" that he "loves them!" and comparing things to other things and asking people questions about themselves and inviting people into his play. He's happy ALL day long, taking great naps, sleeping great at night, hugging, kissing and snuggling constantly. "Mommy, please read dis book to me. It's my FAVORITE." The sweetness is unbearable. It's also downright WEIRD. He's always been silly and affectionate, but with a healthy dose of crankiness to keep us on our toes.

I thought it was my imagination until Miss Cindy showed up today to work with him and wondered aloud who this child was and where Jonathan went. LOL.

So there's that.

Then, I was driving the boys home from school today and, while sitting at the red light, I realized the silence in the car was deafening. I turned around and Simon was just leaning his head on the window, staring off into space. (Ben's usually fairly quiet on the ride home, but SImon chats up a storm)

I briefly thought perhaps he had choked on the candy treat from school that he had been eating and I had a moment of total panic. But when I called his name he picked his head up. "You okay, buddy?"
He said quietly that his head hurt, his cheek hurt because he had bitten it and his knee, where he skinned it yesterday also hurt. Overall just NOT his chipper Simon self. Not usually a complainer, that one.

I am fully aware of a stomach virus epidemic at school right now so to say I am on red alert tonight would be an understatement. He got into jammies right away when we got home, spent the next hour or so in bed playing Minecraft,  didn't want dinner... but then, a little while ago, he came down and said he was hungry and had a bowl of oatmeal and a banana... sooooo... hopefully he was just tired or something. Gosh, I hope so.

As for Ben? He's just in a easy phase at the moment. This changes from week to week lately, but he seems happy. Is doing what he's supposed to do in school, isn't complaining about going and is bringing home what he needs.  So... I guess all is well there.

The snow thing is looking more and more likely... like LOTS of snow. Bleh. And with 40-mile-an-hour winds it doesn't even sound like it will be fun to play in! Yick. Spring needs to come SOON.

The Party So Nice, We'll Do it Twice!

I sure hope we like this EarthTreks birthday party Ben is having... because Simon is having an identical one in May. LOL! That's what he wanted...  well, I guess I'll be buying goodie bag stuffers in bulk!

Snow...

There is significant snow in the forecast for the first time all winter. (sigh)

I'm so over winter. If our whole family didn't live here, I'd be all about picking up and moving somewhere warmer... one of the Carolinas, maybe. I just can't take it. I'm cold ALL the time. I'm tired of being inside. I miss my shorts and t-shirts and flip flops. I just want to feel that warm hug that is the summer sun and swim with the kids and see our pool friends. Tired of grey skies and of being cold.  Yes, it's humid and awful here sometimes in the summer... but, after years of weighing the pros and cons, I've definitely come to the conclusion that I'd rather it be warm/hot outside than freezing cold.

Anyway, so at least it's kind of an ideally timed snow, the way it looks right now anyway. It's supposed to start Tuesday night. If it actually plays out that way, I won't have to worry about Tom not leaving work early enough or having to go get the boys early from school or driving in the snow to get the boys from school at their usual time. Hopefully it will be enough to keep Tom home on Wednesday if school is cancelled, which if there is any accumulation at all, it will be because we have had no snow days this year.  Doubtful though. My husband digs himself out come hell, high water, or a foot of snow. Maybe he will meet his match though in our new, more northern, snowier location.  (we haven't had a good snowfall since we moved to test this out)

Guess I should dig the snowsuits out from the back of the closet... looks like winter isn't finished with us yet!

Weird School...

Ben was chatting away in the backseat of the car yesterday and said something about one of his friends telling him that school is giving out Target giftcards for kids who do their best on the MSA testing they are doing the next couple weeks.

I didn't really pay any attention to it and chalked it up to third grade silliness.

Then I got the email from the reading teacher this afternoon:

"We will not have homework this week due to the MSA testing that will occur on Wednesday and Thursday. Hopefully, they will use the extra time to get their "wiggles" out and get some extra sleep!

Reminders:

Don't forget to turn in February Book Logs in by TUESDAY to get a Pizza Hut certificate!

Get extra sleep and eat a good breakfast this week and next week.

Pray it doesn't snow, we want to get this test DONE and get back to our regular program!

The kids will have extra recess this week, no homework, and have a chance to earn gift cards by doing their best during testing."
Seriously?

SERIOUSLY! What the HECK? How does that even work?

I emailed a teacher friend at another school and she said their kids are getting pencils.  LOL. That's a little more like it.

Target gift cards? Can *I* come take the test? Sheesh.

Fun New Quirk...

Last week, Jonathan started with a fantastically annoying new quirk.

He will not let us take his plate away. Even if he says he is finished, you can't put it in the sink, throw anything in the trash or even remove it from the table. This has carried over to snack time at school too.

The only way to do it is to completely distract him with something else (not foolproof... he will still sometimes come back to check on it ) or wait until he's in bed.

It's always something!

Getting to the Bottom of It...

Why is it that all the most dramatic things happening in my life lately seem to revolve around pickup time at the elementary school? 

So Thursday, I was standing there minding my own business, like I do every day... entertaining Jonathan, chit-chatting with the two other kindergarten moms who are always there in line with me. 

Then my librarian friend came around the corner and rocked my world -- 

Her: "Soooo... did you get any emails from teachers today?"

Me: "Uh. No?

(silence) 

Me: "WHY?" 

Her: Nothing from Mrs. B? (Simon's teacher)

Me: No. WHY? OMG. What did he do?

Her: Do you want to hear it from me or do you want her to tell you?

Me: (already mortified) Just please tell me what he did. 

Her: Well, apparently, he pulled his pants down and showed his butt.

Me: He did WHAT?  Where?! When?!

Her: In the gym line. 

The gym teacher walked by right then and knew what we were talking about. She stifled laughter and shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know why! I just don't know!"

Right then, Mrs. B. came down the hall and pulled me aside to tell the story. Apparently, they were lined up after gym and someone reported that Simon had "shown his butt". This news went from the gym teacher to the kindergarten teacher who said she'd had a talk with him about it and hadn't felt the need to email me... that I should just talk to him when we got home. 

Simon came out skipping out of the parent pickup line all smiles.

I was NOT smiling.

"Simon, WHAT did you do today?"

"Hi Mommy!"

"Simon, WHAT did you DO TODAY?!"

"Um..." He put his finger to his mouth while he thought...   "I drew a picture? It's in my folder!"

"Try again."

"Ummm... I played on the playground!!" 

"Simon... did you pull your pants down in the gym line?"

"No?" 

This was my first clue that maybe the story needed further investigation. Simon, while known to fib occasionally, is usually pretty quick to admit when he's been caught.

Ben came out of the line, followed by my two Thursday carpool friends... so I didn't have time to dig deeper.

"We'll talk when we get home." 

Later, at home, I asked him to show me what he did that got him in trouble.  He turned around, stuck out his backside and wiggled it. I couldn't help but laugh. 

"THAT's what you did?"

"Yeah!"

"That's it? You just wiggled your butt? You didn't pull your pants down?"

"No. I just showed them my pants butt. Not my REAL butt!" (as if this was the most absurd thing he'd EVER heard.)

"Well why do they think you said that?"

"I don't know. Maybe because that's what the kids said? They told Mrs. L."

Okay, so I whittled away at the story the rest of the evening until I was confident that what had ACTUALLY gone down is exactly what Simon demonstrated. Probably not the smartest thing he's ever done at school, but certainly not as bad an infraction as mooning the class.  I quizzed him about it 47 different ways to make sure he wasn't pulling one over on me and then I emailed the teacher. I pointed out that it didn't sound like a teacher had seen this happen, that they had heard the kids say "Simon showed his butt". But that they meant he had done what he showed me. 

I told Simon he needed to go to school and tell his teacher what really happened. She asked him toward the end of the day and he gave her the same story. She came up and told me I was right... that the kids had reported it to the teacher who didn't see anything and it seems like it got miscommunicated/lost in translation. 

WHEW. 

I did tell her that I was 99% sure this was what had happened, but that the pants down scenario was not entirely out of the question given that he dropped his drawers and peed on the preschool playground just last year. 

I'm just glad to have cleared his name... it turned out to not be a big deal but really had me concerned there for a good couple of hours!!

OH that Simon... what will he do next?!

They Don't Pay Them Enough...

I picked the kids up at school yesterday and Ben emerged from the pickup line with marker ALL over his face. I wish I had taken a picture, but it was kind of a crazy afternoon all around. There was a moustache, some cheek decorations... stuff all around the eyes. He looked like something out of the circus.

I laughed and looked quizzically at  his teacher, who was manning the pickup line.  She rolled her eyes, shook her head and sighed heavily. "Well, you know, it was mix-up day... they had the Expo markers... they ALL did it annnnnd that's the LAST time we play with the Expo markers! Right Ben?"

LOL!

Swim Team...

I've been telling Ben he's going to do swim team at our pool this summer whether he likes it or not. Now that he's a pretty good swimmer, he has really come around to the idea.

You don't even have to be good to be on swim team... some kids are, but some kids are still just learning and, from what I gather,  for them, it's basically glorified swimming lessons with medals at the end.

Simon was hesitant, but once he heard there were medals involved and that his good friend Quinn is doing it, he said he wants to do it too.

So... swim team.

The pros -
-intensive swimming lessons for a full month
- all their pool friends are there and some school friends too, so it's built-in friend time
- encourages them to push themselves and excel in something
- Ben, especially, could use the confidence boost he'll get from it
- exercise!

The cons-
- Have to be at the pool every day for most of June and part of July. Some days twice a day and meets are twice a week in the evenings
- Meets last hours sometimes
- Have to manage it with Jonathan... Tom will be able to come in the evenings...but I can't depend on much help there really... this would have to be mainly me.

Now... I was talking to a friend I ran into at school yesterday and she told me it's a pretty casual thing. They don't mind if you can't make every meet. Everyone misses some for vacations anyway. She said last year, her family skipped most of the "away" ones because she's in the same position I am with three kids (her youngest is J's age) and it's just too hard to watch him at a strange pool... plus, she said, some of those other pools' teams have upwards of 100 kids and the meets SERIOUSLY last forever.

I really think it would be good for the big boys though. SO good for them...

What to do what to do. I'm just so bad with these kinds of commitments...  I should do it, right?