1st Day of Kindergarten

Andrew was very excited to finally get to go to "the big school" with Clark.  There was only one thing he was worried about...that it might be such a long day and he might want to take a nap because he might get tired.  Andrew is a little quieter, a little more pensive, and a little more steady in his outward display of his emotions.  In short, Clark is like me, and Andrew is like Tanner.  My friends and I stood around a kitchen island while Clark and Andrew were eating a bowl of cereal and my friends were peppering them both with questions.  Clark was super chatty and just full of detail and emotion, and every time Andrew got asked a question, he answered it, but it was short, quick, and to the point with little fanfare.  We thought the difference was so stark and so funny and at one point my friend exclaimed, "this is just like having a conversation with Tanner and Cherylyn!" So true.

 I didn't worry as much about Andrew going to school as Clark...not being the oldest, he has the advantage of seeing his older brother in action and knowing what to expect.  I had fun getting my boys up together this morning.  In years past, Andrew would usually sleep in and wake up after Clark had already left for school.  They had fun eating breakfast together with Clark telling him some of the rules of school and how the worst thing that could happen to anyone at the school is to get sent to the principals office so don't do this, that, and this other thing.  Andrew walked out to get on the bus as if this is what he does every day, except that he stopped before he stepped on, turned around, and gave me a wave.

Because we live across the street from the school, I ran over to the school to meet the bus, and because of traffic, etc., I beat them by a few minutes and so I was able to get some pictures of them getting off the bus.   Clark was explaining more rules about how until 7:20am, everyone has to hang out in a designated area behind a yellow line, "just like at the airport where they check our passports...remember mom??"  Clark walked Andrew down to his class and I followed behind my two little towheads.  That was the one part that got me a little emotional was seeing both of them walk down the school halls together.  Andrew found his classroom, Clark said bye and rushed off to meet up with his friends, Andrew pulled the door open, gave me another wave and a "bye mom!" and he was good to go.

I spent the rest of the day playing with Audrey.  We went swimming at the club, she hung out on the tennis court while I had my lesson and she made sure to tell me to "be careful" every time I hit the ball in the net.  Hilarious.  We had such a fun time together, just us girls, but we were also excited to see the boys get off the school bus this afternoon and hear about their day.  The first thing Andrew said to me after he ran up to me was "Mom, it was so fun, I didn't even get TIRED!"  He already has a "best buddy" that he met today, and is excited for more fun tomorrow.  Yahoo for school!

1st Day of 2nd Grade

Clark started school today and he was pretty excited to go.  His teacher this year is Ms. Tseng and we have heard nothing but wonderful things about her.  Clark and I got up together at 6:15am, and while he got dressed, I went down and made him his favorite breakfast:  Eggs, Bacon, and Toast with milk to drink.  He ate it on the "Special" plate and was ready to go meet up outside with his best friend Annie before they had to get on the bus.  I made him take some pictures, and every year it surprises me how much he has grown up.  Sometimes it is difficult to notice the changes when you are doing the parenting thing day in and day out 24/7, but I think that is why I like specific milestone days like the first day of school, because it is easier to compare how they were last year on the same day to how they are now and see the growth.

Sometimes I worry about Clark on days like today because he is so much like me.  I remember times  while growing up building up specific events in my head, and then when they didn't turn out quite like I imagined or if I ended up having a bad experience when I was expecting or had planned for a good one, it would really do a number on me emotionally.  I don't know, maybe everyone is like that...but I see that part of myself in him a lot.  However, he got off the bus this afternoon all smiles and had nothing but good things to say about his teacher and school.

I had written him a love note and drew a funny picture on it and put it in his lunch box.  I thought it was weird for him that he didn't mention it at all, and when I brought it up, he was like uh, yeah that was funny.  I finally learned why as I was tucking him and Andrew into bed tonight, and I said "I am glad you had a good day today."  He said "Yeah, it was good, except when a couple of kids stole my note from you and started laughing at me because of what it said...but it was my own fault, I should have just kept the note to myself and not shown it to anyone...I had only wanted them to see the funny picture you drew."  I almost burst into tears, I felt so bad.  I am not sure if this was the best parenting moment for me (aka no judging), but I said to him "you know why those kids were laughing at my love note to you?" and he said "Why?" and I said "Because maybe they were wishing their mom had written a love note to them in their lunch today." He said "Do you know that because you learned that at Mom school?" And I said "You Betcha."  I asked him if he wanted any more notes or not from me, and he said "I will like any notes you want to put in my lunch any day you want to send them, Mom."  One of the many reasons this experience was so precious to me, is because I realized that if this had happened to Clark a year or two ago, this incident would have probably caused a royal meltdown at school, but it didn't now, and he said he just grabbed the paper back and shoved it into his lunch box even though people were still asking to see it.  I am just happy that at least today, Clark handled himself well through an unpleasant experience that should have been a pleasant one...and really experiences like this are at least half the battle of life, right?

Dancing Girl: Part 2

So we have now gone to Ballet class 4 times and Audrey refuses to dance every time.  She likes to watch the other girls dancing, but she WILL NOT get up and do it with the rest of the class.  Finally on the fourth time, I told her we couldn't just sit there, and it was time to go home.  She was okay with this until about half way home, she realized what she had done and started bawling.  Later, in her broken 2/3 year old English, she told me "I like dancing, but girls scare me."  I thought that was hilarious.

Anyway, we are taking a break, and I am thinking about trying to start her in another class maybe after the summer to see if she is ready...but who needs class when you have Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses??? Try to watch her and the screen at the same time...it is kind of ridiculous a) how many times she must have watched this show and b) that she has pretty much memorized all the moves.  I like how she uses the entertainment center as her bar.

Like Mother Like Son: Part 2

So as if the lost shoe episode wasn't evidence enough of how much Clark is like me, we had another fun little experience today that took me down memory lane from my days of yore.

Ahem...another story my family likes to torment me with is about when I was about Clark's age (I know I knew how to read!), my parents bought me a new pair of shoes.  When I got them home, I was in the bathroom putting them on, and when I looked back into the box, there was an extra little present in there...just for me!  Except that when I picked it up, the outside packaging read "Do Not Eat".  I remember actually having the thought that I really could eat it, but whoever put that little treat in there probably just wanted me to ask my mom and dad first.  I felt the little pouch and I thought for sure it was Pop Rocks.  Score!    Yeah right I was going to bother to ask mom and dad...these were my Pop Rocks and no one else was going to eat them but me!  So I opened them and tried a couple.  They didn't taste like Pop Rocks, and I immediately had this feeling of dread and fear wash over my whole body.  WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING???!!!  It said "DO NOT EAT"!!!

Of course I quickly ran and found my mom and confessed what I had done, and I remember she gave me this look like "You CAN read, can't you?"  My little 6 or 7 year old brain couldn't fully express why I had done what I did, but I just knew I needed my mom to make it better...fast.  I don't know if she called Poison Control or not, but thankfully, I did not die, and I learned the important lesson that if something says "Do Not Eat" on it, it probably means that it is more likely to be ummmm...Silica Gel and not some awesome candy like Pop Rocks.

Just in case any of you are interested...Silica Gel really isn't harmful to eat.  

Moving on...ohhhhh almost 25 years later...Clark asks to go over to a friends house after school.  That friend lives in our neighborhood like 6 houses down.  He had only been gone for about 10 minutes and I was on the phone upstairs when suddenly I hear the friends mom downstairs calling my name...in THAT tone.  You know, the one where you immediately drop the phone and run (more like trip and fall) down the stairs because you think your kid must be bleeding something fierce?  Yeah, that one.  When I got downstairs however, Clark was teary eyed, but there was no blood that I could see.  My brain then immediately thought he must have done something horrible to someone else, but before I could get out the words "WHAT DID YOU DO!?!?"  My neighbor starts frantically telling me about how Clark came over and she heard the boys in the kitchen getting snacks when she heard her 10 year old say "No Clark, don't eat the crystals!"  She jumped up and ran in just in time to see Clark take a bite and swallow some  home grown science kit crystals they had made.  All she knew was that it had chemicals in it and they used gloves when they were mixing it all together so she was kind of freaking out a bit about what Clark had just ingested.  I looked down at the remnants of the piece of crystal she was holding and then I looked at Clark and said "Why did you eat this??!"  He responded "I thought it looked like a cookie with sugar candy on top".  And then he burst into tears.  We quickly got online and found the instruction booklet for this particular science crystal kit and sure enough it said "May be harmful if ingested or misused.  If ingested, contact your physician immediately".  Well, that didn't sound good.  So I quickly got the guts to call Poison Control and the man was very nice and let me know that Ammonium Phospate MonoBasic is apparently not dangerous at all in those quantities.

So my child will live.  Bonus!

As soon as it was all over and we had decompressed, I asked Clark what he learned from the experience and he said in true boy fashion "DO NOT EAT that!"  We had to flesh that out a little bit and talk about how you never just eat something without asking when you are at a friends house, and in addition, if you are not quite sure what something is, don't eat it until you find out exactly what it is.  I was more annoyed at his manners than anything else, but how could I, Silica Gel girl, be really mad in this instance?  I couldn't, not if I didn't want to be a hypocrite anyway.  I want to tell Clark my Silica Gel story...but I know what will happen...he will say something awesome like "What the heck mom?  Why would you EVER eat something that says DO NOT EAT all over it?"

And I am just not sure if I can take that kind of judgment from my 7 year old. 

The Lost Shoe

My family can attest, as they like to do on numerous occasions, that I was a disorganized mess when I was younger (don't even get them started on how we found a hand-mixer beater in my underwear drawer).  Tanner may attest that I am a disorganized mess when I got older too, but let's not go there.  I managed to lose practically everything when I was little.  My first memories of it began when we moved to England when I was nine.  Looking back on it now, I think the stress of moving and living in a hotel for like three months may have had something to do with it (thanks mom and dad!  yes I blame you.  I should have called child-line. ;-)).  I managed in quite a short period of time to lose my shoes, my textbooks, my fountain pens (at least 3 but if you ask my dad, it's like 15), my cardigan,  my backpack, and most famously, my track and field underwear.  To add insult to injury, said underwear was found by my sister outside on the track at school.  I don't quite know how it got there, but whoever said there is no down side to labeling your clothes with your name, hasn't talked to me.

23 years later, my 7 year-old comes home from school while I am out running errands.  When I get home, my maid tells me Clark came home with only one shoe.

Me:  "How did he come home with only one shoe?"  "What happened to his other shoe?"

Siti:  "I don't know...but he only had one shoe."

I go find Clark.

Me:  "Clark, how was your day at school?"

Clark:  "Fine."

Me:  "Did you come home with only one shoe today?"

Clark:  "Yeah, I lost the other one."

Me:  "How did you lose your shoe?"

Clark:  "Well, when I went to Tae Kwon Do (his after school activity), I took my shoes off, but when I went to get them back on when it was time to go, I could only find one shoe and one sock."

Me:  "Did you look around the gym for it?"

Clark (getting upset):  "YES!!!  IT WASN'T ANYWHERE!"

Me:  "Okay, that's okay.  So did you just walk barefoot from the gym to the bus and then to the house?"

Clark (sounding very proud of himself):  "OH NO OF COURSE NOT!  I put my one shoe on one foot and the one sock on the other.  So both of my feet were totally covered mom!"

Awesome.

It's been a week and he says he can't find it in the lost and found.  I think I am going to have to go over to the school and look myself.

Maybe I will find it on the track.

Dancing Girl

 

 

When I was little, I lived in my bathing suit.  I actually remember going on errands with my dad in my bathing suit.  I remember thinking that if I dressed in my bathing suit in the morning then at some point that would mean I would HAVE to go swimming...which was my purpose all along...not to mention the time I would save not having to get undressed from regular clothes into my bathing suit.  I was all about efficiency back then.  ;-)

Fast forward 28 years, and now I have a daughter who is 2 going on 3, and guess what, she is all about efficiency too!  She pretty much demands to wear her "dancing dress" every morning complete with her ballet shoes.  Princess crown is optional.  I know she is thinking, "If I get dressed like this, it means I am going to get to dance all day long!"  She is also very particular about making sure the little elastic ties on her ballet slippers stay in a bow...all the time...and I am here to tell you, those things come untied...all the time.  She prances down the stairs, puts on the 12 Dancing Princesses Barbie movie (not a huge fan of barbie, but I am a fan of this movie, mostly because of the classical music).  She has the beginning memorized and pretty much copies the ballet moves as they happen on the screen.  She tells me that I have to come dance with her, but a lot of times when I do, she proceeds to correct my every move.  "No no Mom, not that way...thiiiiiiiiiis way."

I always told my mom that if I had a girl, I would make her be a tomboy like I was, and I would make sure that she was dressed in track suits every day.  *Cue look of horror on my mom's face*.  And maybe if she had come first in the family, I might have done that, but after two boys, I was ready for my own little princessy, pink skirt twirling, crown wearing, dancing girl.  Thank goodness that is what I got.  I am starting her in ballet class beginning next week.

Celebration of Learning

Today I attended a “celebration of learning” day in Clark’s class.  They have all been learning about Matter and how you can change the states of Matter.  It was actually a lot of fun to see Clark so independent and learning so much.  We did an experiment together and I just continue to be amazed by the amount of technology kids are learning in 1^st Grade!  The kids have all learned how to use Quicktime, PhotoBooth, and the basics of iMovie this year.  Clark had a poster he created about matter hanging outside.  There was a QR code on it, and when we scanned the code, a QuickTime movie popped up with Clark explaining his poster and why matter is so important.  He showed me how to do it all.  I felt like such an old fogey.  And don’t even get me started on the kid’s skills with the Smart Board.   Our experiment was mixing milk and oil and shaking it up and seeing what would happen.   He was convinced the oil would float on top of the milk, but when we shook up the bottle, he got a little concerned.  I told him we should go read his science book and then go back in a few minutes to look at it.  When we came back, he was so excited and happy that the oil had separated and was floating on top of the milk.  See, Mom’s are good for some things!  For everything else, there are QR codes.  ;-)  

Indoor to the End

So apparently during Primary today, the music leader had the children sing all the verses of "I am a Child of God."  The kids were rusty on the last verse, so as she was teaching them the words, she asked the children:

"So what does "endure" mean in the part where we sing "Celestial Glory shall be mine, if I can but endure?"

Clark raised his hand and said "Does it mean that all we have to do to be able to go to heaven is stay in our houses all day long?"

It took them a second to figure out what he meant, and then when everyone realized what he was saying, a discussion took place about the difference between "endure" and "indoor."

Clark's teacher leaned over to him and said "I'm with you, I wish it were that easy."

I am sure Clark was thinking, "Hey, I am down with this if I can stay indoors all day and play wii and still make it to the Celestial kingdom."  I was just happy that he wasn't cracking some joke about the word "but" in the song.

This story was particularly funny to me because this morning, the boys were asking why we had to go to church and why we couldn't just stay home and watch movies and play video games all day.  I said "because watching movies and playing video games doesn't make you a good person, going to church helps you become a good person."  Surprisingly, I didn't get any argument with that response and they happily got in the car to go to church.

Andrew has lately been obsessed with the war in heaven.  He seems shocked that Jesus and Satan are brothers and that their father is Heavenly Father who is also our Father.  He asks me almost daily, "If Heavenly Father is Jesus and Satan's dad, then why did Satan become bad?"  I keep telling him that Jesus and Satan both had to make choices and Jesus made good choices, but Satan decided to make a lot of bad choices.  He then always responds with "well then, I am only going to make good choices because I don't want to be like Satan."  We are still working on making the connection between all this very deep spiritual stuff and the daily trials of getting along with his brother and sister, but we are just taking things one day at a time!