Preschool's End….

Jonathan had his last day of preschool and picnic on Wednesday. Here's his first day of 2s and last day of 4s side-by-side. Time really does fly. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise!!

He has come such a long way! He was only JUST starting to talk when he started 2s. Like… single words! He didn't know how to interact with other kids. In 3s, he could talk, but he cried every single day about having to go to school, sometimes having to be restrained by the teacher so he wouldn't hurt anyone with his flailing and kicking. He also didn't really engage with the other kids very much.  This year, he never exactly LOVED the idea that it was a school day, but he almost always went in without issue and always had fun and was happy when I picked him up.

He went from three half days at the start of the year to one extended day by early winter, to two after Christmas and by the end of the year, he was staying all day all three days. He was TIRED when I picked him up, but always had fun with his extended day friends! He cultivated some cute little friendships, including one with his cousin, who he says is his "best friend". I'm pretty sure he is the only one of my children to have ever claimed having a best friend at this age. :)

Here's a little snippet of video from his mother's day luncheon two weeks ago. The 4s group this year was SO tiny compared to my other boys' years! Comes in waves….   (Ben and Simon's grades at the elementary school are still HUGE.)

My last preschool picnic was different than all the rest. I always sort of dreaded them because it's hot on that playground, there's very little shade in the picnic area, they are chaotic, and I was ALWAYS either dealing with a baby or chasing a toddler. (even last year, I was still having to make sure Jonathan didn't kill himself on the playground equipment!) We never lasted more than an hour. This year, we stayed past the time it was over. LOL. My sister-in-law and I just hung out on the grass enjoying the fact that we didn't have younger ones to keep track of.  There are good things about time passing and babies growing up… this is one of them. 

His mother's day gift plate. I now have a complete set of three! ;)  This particular plate is super special. This is the first time I had seen him write his whole first name out and not just "Jon". He also drew our family and had never drawn anything other than scribbles before!  

At the mother's day luncheon with mommy!

Before his mother's day luncheon two weeks ago. All spiffed up and ready to go! 

Jonathan with his sweet teacher, Mrs. Bobo. She is the only teacher to have had all three of my boys. Love her. :) We will miss her lots and lots.

Another Swim Season!

Last night was the official pool opening and swim team meet and greet.  It was COLD…. my kids all three still tried the pool. Jonathan was the only one who stayed in for any length of time. I finally made him get out before the hypothermia set in.

We're all excited to start a new swim team season! Ben advances to the 11-12 group this year, which will be a huge challenge for him. Most 11-12-year-old boys are substantially bigger than he is and this year, he has to swim two lengths of everything. I think he's up for the challenge though and he practiced all winter at clinic. I'm excited to see how it goes.

Simon can't wait to get started! I'm hopeful he'll make some progress with his freestyle and backstrokes this year because he has the body-type and size to actually do REALLY well in his age group if he could just get some speed going.

I was hopeful Jonathan would be ready to swim on the team this year, but we never got around to winter swim lessons AND  turns out they have to be five to be on team anyway. Next year! He is signed up for swim lessons with our favorite teacher though (Yay for Miss Tara teaching again!!), so I'm hoping he's off and running er… swimming ...a few weeks into summer.

I'm excited to volunteer at the meets more this year since Jonathan can be trusted to just play with Simon and doesn't require constant supervision. I was in a groove with doing Clerk of Course last year and really enjoyed it!

The boys are also signed up for swim team at our other pool…(the one where Tom golfs but we rarely actually swim) I'm not sure how that will go, but Ben was excited to give it a try because a lot of his school friends go to that pool and many do swim team. It's also a MUCH shorter and easier season, less practice, and the team wins all the time.  The first pool's team is more challenging, swims against much better teams, but is way too small to ever win… there is only one team in our league we can realistically ever beat. We stick with that one though because the kids so much out of it. The coaching is great and they do an awesome championship meet at the a local high school at the end of the season that is HUGE and the real deal. Just a neat confidence and skill-builder all around.

Anyway… exciting. I can't believe a year went by so quickly! Feels like winter never happened. LOL!

You Are 8!

Dear Simon,

You turned 8 on last Monday. It was a school day, but you happily went off to school excited to hear your name on the announcements and get your birthday pencil from the office.

You have grown up so much this year. You are amazingly mature, responsible, and self-confident! You are sweet and obedient, rarely complaining when we ask you to help or when things don't quite go ask planned. You're always the one to say, "Okay, sure!" or "That's okay."

You've embraced an identity as our family's "computer guy", and can run circles around Ben in this respect. ;) He defers to you on any computer question he has and always says, "I'm not really good at this kind of stuff, can you show me?" I know that makes you feel awesome!

You spend hours creating things on your laptop. Minecraft worlds, Scratch projects, animated pictures. Sometimes we'll be sitting somewhere and all the sudden you'll yell out, "Oh! I have an idea!" and run off to execute it.

You still love your Legos and when you don't have screen time, that's your favorite way to create. You can build anything and are always coming up with new ways to add on to your existing creations. Most recently you built (completely from your head) a helicopter that transformed into two other things!
I'm always amazed at what you come up with and how you stick with it until you figure out a way to build it!

You have made a wonderful little best friend this year, which makes me SO happy, and you two are peas in a pod. When you walk next to each other, you both just keep saying, "Dude…." "Dude?" "Dude…." followed by Minecraft, Pokemon, or Lego-speak. LOL. I love it!

You have become a good little student, continuing to progress with reading and writing by leaps and bounds. You always impress your teacher with your math thinking but perhaps most interesting is what a great speller you turned out to be. Almost every week you nail all 20 spelling words with little effort. Who knew?!

I'm happy to say we've found some books you'll pick up and read on your own. I love walking into your room at night and seeing you with you nose in a book! You love your Minecraft chapter books and the Harris Burdick book you got for your birthday.

You are such a great big brother to Jonathan, his best pal right now! You show him and teach him all kinds of things and he looks up to you like no one else. You two spend hours running around the house with towel capes and swords on adventures only you understand. :)

I'm enjoying watching you grow into this awesome, smart and self-assured big kid! Can't wait to see what this year brings!

Happy birthday Sime-a-doo!

Love, Mommy

Birthday Post...

i owe Simon a birthday post… that and photos coming soon! :)

And This One….

LOL.

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! :)

Weekend Away….

On the train… which I have decided it was way nicer and less stressful way to travel than flying….

So, Tom and I went away alone together for the first time since having kids. Crazy, right? LOL.

We had fun! We trained it to Philadelphia on Saturday and spent two days seeing museums and historical stuff. We had a nice dinner out and did lots of walking. It was amazingly nice to see museums without being rushed or worrying that kids were getting restless.

First stop, the Mütter Museum! I have wanted to go here forEVER. 

Me with the Mütter Giant. He was 7'6"!

Independence Hall

Ben Franklin's Grave at Christ Church Burial Ground (this was such a neat find! We loved it! Super old cemetery filled with signers of the Declaration of Independence and Revolutionary War soldiers)

Saw this sign while waiting for the Liberty Bell to open. Had to investigate!

Add caption

The Graff House turned out to be where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence! We came home and have started digging around on ancestry.com to see if Jacob Graff, who owned the house, was any relation to Tom's family.




The Liberty Bell. Not the most exciting thing we saw, by any stretch. Very over-hyped. LOL!

Next stop, Eastern State Penitentiary. This. Was. AWESOME. 

And lastly, the Reading Terminal Market. It was loud and crowded and overwhelming. We considered eating here, but it was just TOO MUCH. So we went to brunch at the hotel and called it a day! Headed back to the train station...

The 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Train stations are so ornate, old-fashioned, and pretty! :)



All in all, a lovely trip. We can't wait to do another one. I'd love to do New York or Boston next. My mom needs about a year to recover from watching the boys for 36 hours though. LOL! 

Lately….

Not much happening this week. Finally back in our school groove after spring break. Jonathan had a tough week adjusting to that. LOL. Friday was, apparently, quite rough. He was sad on and off all day at school.

There was some excitement on Thursday when my parents got their puppy! It's a little poodle and the boys love it, but the biggest surprise was that SIMON loved it. And the puppy loved him back! It was a match made in heaven.  ;) We think it's the hair similarity. HA!

 nm,

   /

Friday was Tom's birthday. He came home from work a little early and we went out to a chinese place we hadn't been to in years. Jonathan, for whatever reason, was ALL out of sorts though and acted like a Nanny 911 child in the restaurant, so I ended up having to take him out to the car and sit with him in timeout while everyone finished eating. Not sure what gets into him sometimes. When we got home, he was himself again and ate his dinner happily and played outside.

Tom's big present this year was a trip to Philadelphia next weekend for just us! My parents are going to watch the boys for us and we are heading up Saturday morning and coming back Sunday late afternoon. He was pretty excited. It's literally the first time we will have left the kids overnight and gone somewhere (other than to the hospital to have another baby… LOL!)

Yesterday we had dinner at his parents' house. The boys had fun playing golf with Pap in the backyard all evening! Only got one photo, but it's a good one because it's of Ben, who is my hardest kid to get decadent photos of.

Today we are off to our niece's 4th birthday! (Have I mentioned it's family birthday season?) 

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.

Spring Break for the other 2/3….

Simon and Jonathan are enjoying spring break this week while Ben goes off to school all alone. All parties are taking this well. LOL.

I realized…. it's SUPER easy to have the two younger ones home together. They play together all day and entertain each other mostly without fighting. Ben home all by himself was also very easy.

It's the Ben/Jonathan combo that is the most challenging.  They don't play together and both require very different kinds of entertainment.  Plus, when Ben is bored, he pushes Jonathan's buttons and Jonathan ALWAYS pushes Ben's buttons.  Argh.

Anyway, so the littles are home. We didn't do much of anything yesterday since the doctor's appointment ate up part of the morning and I had some catching up to do around the house. So they played outside together on and off, which was SO nice. Then they played downstairs, back outside, played around with the piano/cello, back outside…. etc. Today, I'm hoping to actually take them somewhere. We'll see. No real plan.

Next year, I'm determined to go somewhere for one of the kids' spring breaks. It seems like EVERYone went somewhere…. I don't even care if it's just to Williamsburg or something, we are leaving town for at least a few days!

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!

I Couldn't Have Said This Better….

One of my boys struggles much more with school than the other two. It pains me to say that he was the kid, who, when I was in school I'd look at and think was just dumb because his handwriting is so messy, he can fill a page with just once sentence, or because he has a messy desk (two actually, but more on this later) or because he struggled with reading for awhile.

But now I know better….

I've actually voiced before EXACTLY what this writer is saying…  it's a lesson everyone should learn. :)

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Today is my 47th birthday, and I guess that is what is making me reflective. I’d like to think I made it to adulthood as a decent, broad-thinking woman, but I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be the person I am today without what my child’s learning difference has taught me.

My son was diagnosed at four, and from that time until now, I have evolved as a person, and most certainly as a mom.

 A few things I’ve learned from my son:

1) All people do not learn in the same way.

2) Being like everyone else is overrated.

3) A bond is created with a child when they know you would go to war for them.

4) A child who struggles in school can come out the other side with an amazing outlook.

5) The pride you feel when the child who struggled finds their bliss and their passion, and helping them feed that love.

6) That you never stop feeling overprotective.

I’ve learned far more from my son than I’ve learned from any other one person. I will never be ungrateful for the ease I felt in a classroom setting. I now have an empathy for those who have to work twice as hard to get half of the result.

I can only say you need to keep on trying. Everyone touched by a learning disability comes out the other side a far better person.

View….

This is our view waiting at the red light near our house on the way home from taking Ben to school. It's beautiful every season of the year for different reasons, but I think spring is my favorite. I love that postcard painting of a red barn! All the time, people are pulled over with fancy cameras taking photos of it.

The horses didn't make it into my shot, but there are usually a handful of them out there grazing in the morning.  Yesterday, there were pigs out in the field with them. :) The boys were happy to see the horses were not wearing their coats this morning. LOL! Maybe spring is finally here?