Archive | Life RSS feed for this section

Lessons Learned

8 Aug

The first day of Kindergarten is now logged in Nate’s red “Homework Folder” with a smiley face in the no sticks pulled column. He said his teacher told him he would have to pull a stick if he didn’t stay seated on his purple square at one point in the day. I’m so proud of him for choosing that square over the stick. Some other lessons learned:

  • He learned what it was like to walk to the bus stop and ride the big yellow school bus like he’s watched his sister do for the past three years. He loved it.
  • He learned about coloring and painting. That was the first thing he told me when I asked him about his day. He apparently colored a skunk – he didn’t elaborate. (Turns out, it was actually a raccoon.)
  • He learned that next year is 2012. Andrew asked him who taught him that and he told us his teacher did. Andrew reacted to that with a supportive “your teacher is pretty smart.” Nate took it further. “Yep! She’s smarter than momma and Nia and me and daddy!” Well, there it is.
  • He learned that some people just don’t know how to play a game called Sharks and Minnows at after school. “I kept tagging them out but they wouldn’t sit out. I told them, ‘I tagged you. I tagged you. I tagged you.'” We assured him it will be ok. Don’t worry about it.
  • I learned that Nia is a loving caregiver even when mommy and daddy aren’t looking. She told me she had Nate sit by the window of the school bus and in between her and her friend on the after school bus so that he wouldn’t fall out in the aisle. I also caught her holding his hand as they walked to the bus stop. Sweetie.
  • We learned that Nate really enjoys his homework. He wanted to read his book over and over and he was so proud of himself when he got the words right. I cherish that I was able to capture his joy in this picture:

Happy Reader

I’m so happy our little buddy had a great first day. I hope to see those smiles and the excitement continue through the school year. And I certainly won’t object to more smiley faces in that no sticks pulled column…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

New School Year Odds and Ends

7 Aug

Some things I want to remember about the new school year that starts tomorrow-

Odds:

Nia is one of only six girls in her class. There are 17 boys. Seems odd to me but we’ll see.

I had to google what the school breakfast is for the first day. I have never heard of a “frudel” before. I suppose it’s good the kids are introduced to new foods.

Speaking of breakfast, we will be paying for Nate to have a daily “second breakfast” because he will eat at home and then may want to eat again when the rest of his class does. Second breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

This is not so much odd but more special to me – Andrew told me to sign him up for the PTO when I sign myself up. Just thought it was cool that he wants to help/be involved like that.

Ends:

I’ve completed the same paperwork information for each child three times. If you count the same info that I filled out in the previous years, you need to multiply that amount by four. (I need to go back to school to solve that math problem and know how to answer some of the questions on the form.)

Both Nia and Nate had three shopping bags each of school supplies to take to their classrooms. We brought it to open house because it was too heavy for any one adult to carry let alone Nia or Nate.

Andrew informed Nate that we want him to wear nice pants for three days of the week and his fast pants for the two gym days. Nate is not a fan of this mommy/daddy dress code rule…

I know I’m forgetting something.

Posted from WordPress for Android

2021 and 2024

4 Aug

Class of 2021

It was just three years ago that Nia got hers. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise. A quick math problem in my head would’ve given me the four numbers. But it just didn’t hit me until her Kindergarten Open House when the child small t-shirt was handed to us. Class of 2021.

Fast forward three years. Another Kindergarten Open House. Another shirt. Another shocker and heart squeezer to see a similar set of four numbers for Nate.

Class of 2024.

Our baby boy is about to begin his journey in big kid school and I’m going through all of those emotions so many parents do. The same emotions I felt with Nia during those first few weeks (months) of her boarding the school bus. I tell myself, we already did this. 2021, remember? Now look at Bean. She’s not even phased about starting Third Grade and neither am I.

Ready to Learn!

You got this. Nate’s got it. He’s going to be fine. We’ll take it day by day. There will be challenges and there will be great days. He has Nia there now at school and after school with him. She watches out for him. He’ll be fine. He’s excited about starting big kid school, although he keeps reminding us, “I’m still 5 years old.” He’s a smartie. He’ll be fine. His teachers seem wonderful. He’ll be fine. He already practiced how he’s going to sit and be a good listener. (He wasn’t even blinking. So intense.) Again, fine.

And then, just when I think I’m going to out-argue my “fines,” I remember the little school mascot dragon footprints that are leading the way from the school bus drop off to the Pre-K and Kindergarten hall. He has fun feet to guide him. Fine.

Follow the Dragon Feet

Sweet boy. I’m so in love with your personality and passion for wanting to succeed. You will follow those footprints like no one else. And I believe, when you feel ready enough, you will make some of your own for others to follow. As long as you don’t lead them to the timeout chair, we’ll be – yes – fine.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Found: Sweet Memories

1 Aug

Colorful Clues

Tiny, colorful pieces of paper tucked in secret places around the house and extremely giddy children and their Lola have welcomed Andrew and me home over the past week of work. It has been a hilarious way to separate our job and commuting from family time and leave it all behind. For while Andrew and I were in our cubes at the office, the kids and Lola were giggling while writing out scavenger hunt directions (“Go to the beer closet.” “Go to the Lola’s toilit.”) on paper they would soon slip into the porch swing, picture frames, dog cage, shower…

Lola got the wonderful idea from her friend, Sandy, and she loved every minute of it. She especially loved hearing the laughs of the children and our reaction as we all hunted.

They hid the clues so well around the house that I would walk right by them before starting the game and not even notice them. They were everywhere. Upstairs, downstairs, outside. The kids had us going up, down, left, right over and over again and they screamed and laughed and ran around the whole time. During one hunt, Andrew and I raced each other. He searched for his dad clues and I looked for the ones labeled mom. I was still in my fancy polka-dotted dress from work. The dog followed us, barking at the frenzy. Andrew and Nate may have won (due to dog interference, I must add) but really we all won. The memories are a treasure – plus – each scavenger hunt ended with a special sweet direction to us like, “Let’s get ice cream” or “Let’s bake something sweet.” Smartest and sweetest scavenger hunts ever!

image

Treasure Found

image

Sweet Scavenger Hunt

Posted from WordPress for Android

Tags: ,

Traveling Bean

23 Jul

Our Georgia-born Bean felt so at home and made so many memories during her two weeks of living where her mommy and daddy were born and raised. Her sweet, happy voice through the phone, (with some more detail given by grandparents) told us all about her West Virginia and Ohio adventures.

She used a shelf that held movies as a “hotel” for her Barbies at Lola and Papa’s.

She spent hours creating new stories with her Barbies in my old Barbie Dream House.

She got a mani/pedi from cousin Michayla while they talked about things they liked and what they would do after their nails dried.

She took a road trip with Honey to see her newly 16-year-old cousin Savannah march with her high school band in a parade. Carnival rides and games with cousin Gabbie, Aunt Sissy and Uncle Brian made for an extra special visit.

Big screen showings of “Zookeeper” with cousin Alexandra and “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” with Papa and Lola. “Gnomeo and Juliet” with Honey at her house. Popcorn for all three.

She watched, entertained, as her papa, uncles Anthony and Matthew, and cousin John Luke lead a stray goat back to its gated area at the Oglebay Zoo. Lola, Aunt Nancy, cousin Michayla and (soon-to-be Aunt) Cara all shared in the leaping goat fun.

She stayed up way past bedtime a few times – once until 1 in the morning watching a movie called “Aliens in the Attic” and another time doing who knows what but she sure was rubbing it in to me that it was 1:04 before she fell asleep.

She played Family Feud and Hang Man on her Grandma’s iPad and chased cats around a tree at Great-Grandma Nancy’s house.

Soaked with a garden hose when a threatening storm prevented a swim in Grandma’s pool. She got that swim the next day with Grandpa and cousin Alexandra.

Best friend necklaces with cousin Alexandra and shopping at Justice with Grandma.

Shopping spree to the extreme with Lola and Sandy – trying on clothes for an hour and loving everything your Lola bought for you.

Board games galore with Honey – along with a side or two of yummy spaghetti dinners.

Hugs and smiles for Great-Grandpa Domenick and Velma and Honey’s neighbors Callie and Jimmy.

Cookout with tons of family and good friends at Lola and Papa’s on your last night in West Virginia.

Squeezes good-bye and see you soon hopes for everyone after many sleepovers, snuggles, love and fun.

Hugs and kisses hello for us. We missed our Beanie Baby.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

What Color Is This?

21 Jul

Why do we keep asking him that? Like he’s suddenly going to know? As if one day Nate is just going to wake up and be able to show us what part of a tree is brown and what part is green? He’s tired of being quizzed. He tries to guess. He often gets it right. In fact, his preschool teachers said he would always win when they played the color map game. But it wasn’t because he saw the colors, it was because he memorized that certain things were supposed to be certain colors. He adapted. That’s amazing to me.

But I still can’t help but feel bad for our little buddy. Each time he said someone’s shirt was brown when it was clearly green to us, we would shrug it off. He’s just being silly. How awful I feel. He saw brown.

“The boy in the brown shirt, mommy.”
“I don’t see a boy in a brown shirt honey. I see a boy in a green shirt. Which one is he again?”
Nate would concede, “Yeah, he’s in the green shirt.”

It wasn’t until I took him to register for Kindergarten that the woman testing his vision called me into the room to show me how he was answering the color blindness test. He knows his shapes but he couldn’t see them in the dots. He guessed. He got frustrated when she asked him to trace the circle he saw where the square was actually camouflaged. “I think he’s having a hard time with his reds and greens, mom,” she softly told me. “He should be ok. It’s not until later in life, when he wants to choose a career, that it will matter. For example, the military and pilots.”

My mind blurred with thoughts of all the color confusion and worries about limitations it could cause him down the line. I came home and googled like crazy. Males more than females. Inherited from the mom. The green in stop lights look blue to them. Horizontal stop lights can cause an issue because a color blind person memorizes the color positions on a vertical one.

Questions flood in: what if he wants to be like his daddy and try to go to West Point? What if he can’t now because of this? Andrew mentioned some classmates had doctor approval. Then he hit me with more worry, “He’ll just have to be careful when working on electricity and stuff.” I started to cry. “You mean he won’t be able to safely do handy man work like you do for your family?” Andrew comforted me with, “I’m sure his wife will help point out the colors to him.” My humor came back. “Unless she’s mad at him.”

Apparently, color-blindness is fairly common. Our eye doctor reassured me about it during Nate’s first visit today. She didn’t make it seem like it was a big deal at all. She said his green is just different from our green and that they now have a contact he can wear for construction/electrical work that helps distinguish the color differences.

When I think about where life may take him, it seems a white baseball may suit him better than we thought. Especially since the doctor said his depth perception is excellent.

Tags:

In Between Seasons

19 Jul

Nate may not have a tee-ball practice or game to play in during these summer months but that doesn’t mean he’s not playing every chance he gets/invents. It’s been too hot outside to really quench his baseball thirst so he’s improvised. Some of has hold-him-over pastimes consist of:

  • Wii baseball. He will play that for as long as he can with us watching him like fans. Andrew doesn’t like him to play it too much though because Nate is changing his swing a bit because of it. Priorities, people. Priorities.
  • Toy baseball men that he has a field for and cards that tell you if the player singled, doubled, grounded out or crushed it for a home run. He even has a really cool, small, marble/skee-ball type baseball game that he continually wins.
  • Baseball books. Forget about reading anything other than a book with baseball as the subject matter. One in particular basically involves cartoon characters singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” which means you are signing it. Over and over again.
  • Trips to the stadium to see the pros play. We had some great times and I think we are all now hooked on our minor league team, the Gwinnett Braves.
  • Baseball on tv. He will watch it intensely but only for a few innings. After that, he feels the need to act it out and practice the plays the MLB players just did. After seeing some awesome dive and catch plays, he’s been requesting that we throw the ball to him out of his reach so he must dive to catch it. I was told I wasn’t doing it right because he never had to dive for mine. Fine. But if I can’t throw, I’ll capture it on video.

When are fall tee-ball sign ups? Not soon enough.

Tags:

The Usual at Table Two

17 Jul

We ordered our usual at our favorite diner and got a side of kindness from strangers. Although, the waitress/manager sure doesn’t treat you like a stranger. She has your coffee waiting on the table when she sees your car pull up outside. She sits down in the booth with you to take your order. That is, if it’s a new order because she’ll have your “usual” memorized.

Today, she was very busy because the diner was marking its second anniversary and she had to send the other server home because she came to work with purple and black striped hair and some on her skin. I love that she let us know this as she greeted us. What I love even more is that she too had a thin purple streak in her hair.

With or without the hair color obstacle, the celebration included a free blueberry pancake for customers and a whole lot of maneuvering chairs and tables to make way for the eager breakfast and coffee crowd. In one case, an older Navy veteran sitting at a table for three, gathered his coffee and mountain of individual serving creamers to move to the counter so that the family of 5 who just walked in could have a seat together. That same man soon generated giggles throughout the diner as his phone sounded a ringtone of an alien space ship.

Some customers helped clear the tables. Others made sure to let her know they were ok waiting, not to worry. They wished the diner’s staff a happy two years as they left to go about the rest of their Sunday, satisfied with full bellies and hearts.

See you next Sunday…

Tags: ,

Fish from the “Festibal”

17 Jul

Winning a bag-o-fish from a festival (or “festibal” like Nate will continue to pronounce it until someone other than me corrects him because I think it’s pure sweetness) is not really a rite of passage or milestone but it’s certainly a memory that sticks with a kid for many reasons.

There’s:

  • The fun of the game: Getting that ping-pong ball in a bowl filled with bright (toxic, toilet cleaner) blue water? Yeah, that’s awesome!
  • The reward: Having the game person (a really cool character with skull and cross-bones rings and tattoos who tells you every day above ground is a good day) scoop out some tiny fish from a dirty cooler and plop them into a clear bag just for you? Double awesome!

  • Three Fish and a Football

    The new stuff: Getting to go out and buy a new fish bowl/tank or at least special fish food? Triple awesome!
  • The thinking time: Naming each one after much thought and then trying to remember which one you named Goldie again. The one with the damaged fin? Still pretty awesome!
  • The discovery: Finding them floating lifeless in their new home days after they moved in and holding a flush funeral for them? Minus awesome times three.

Nia still remembers when she experienced that. Andrew told her he was going to swim with his other fish friends. Flush. Nate doesn’t have that same censoring though. He already knows what’s going to happen. Partly because Nia told him (because that’s what older siblings do) and partly because he discovered a dead fish on the ground near the festibal game. He now thinks his fish are going to get out of their tank. I had to assure him (better not happen) that they love their new tank home so they won’t want to leave.

That is, until we are forced to remove them. And I think Nate will be ok with that. He’s already asked if he can get new ones after his game fish die. Although, no fish will be able to replace the memory of the festibal fish.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

“Back Before You Know It”

11 Jul

Those were Nia’s words of wisdom and comfort during her phone call with Nate tonight. She also created a big smile on his face and an immediate thank you from his mouth when she told him she got lollipops for him on the trip to WV. Sweet Bean also picked out special souvenirs for mommy and daddy. I have a cross statue coming my way and Andrew will get to take a baseball guy statue to work with him. (Thanks to Lola and Papa for funding the souvenir purchase.)

She was also treated to her favorite Chinese food – Sweet and Sour Chicken and Wonton Soup. (Lucky!) Tomorrow, the plans call for a day at the Oglebay Zoo or a trip to a museum. It all sounds awesome to me. I can’t wait to hear about her next adventure during our nightly Nia report.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →