Excited Kids; So much fun!

Ryan is having a great birthday so far. He opened a package yesterday that he thought was school supplies, but turned out to be Lego Star Wars for DS from his Aunt Bee and family. Not having a DS of his own did not stop the excitement. After some discussion about borrowing Zach's DS he said, and I quote, "This is the best! I couldn't have asked for anything more!" We were getting ready to head out the door so he brought  the game with him in the car just by itself. He read the directions and was just so excited to have it.
This morning he got to open his gift from our family. It was a blue DS. His chin nearly dropped to the floor. This time he said, "This is AWESOME! I couldn't ask for anything more!" Then he opened his gift from Grandmommy and Granddaddy, a Calvin and Hobbes collection, which generated more beaming smiles and exclamations of joy. This kid is so happy. It's like it's his birthday or something;-)
As Ryan was rejoicing about his gifts Lily hugged her new stuffed animal close and said with all the joy in the world for herself and her brother, "And I have my Hello Kitty!" You see, yesterday we went on a Grandparent sponsored trip to the State Fair. The kids had a blast, but that's another post. At the fair Ryan won a stuffed animal and he chose to get a Hello Kitty and give it to Lily. He said to me afterwards, "I'm really glad I got that prize for Lily. Even more than if I had gotten one for myself." It has quickly become of of her favorite things in the world. Lily even pulled a chair up next to hers at the table so Hello Kitty can sit next to her in the booster seat at meals.
All in all a good day so far. I think it has been nice for him to have the day off from school. Last year his birthday was the first day of school and for a while there we thought it was going to be the first day this year as well. he takes it all in stride and doesn't complain either way, but he seems to be having a really fun day today with the neighborhood kids.

Showin' the Love

Lily got these great window crayons from Grandma and Grandpa for Valentine's Day. She put them to good use today making a welcome home display for Ryan. Yes, that picture is from this afternoon and yes she is wearing her PJs. She has a fever and sore throat today, so we had a very relaxed PJ day.

This is what our finished creation looked like. Lily suggested she do the first letter and I do the second and that we switch back and forth for the whole sign. I started to say that wouldn't work because we would have to do all the letters backwards, but then I realized when I thought about the words we were using that most of her letters would end up being the same backwards and forwards. Wasn't that fortuitous?! I started out by doing one of her "e"s because I thought it was too hard to do backwards, but when we came to the second "e" that was hers she suggested that she could just do the upper case "E"--- brilliant! So that's what we did. As for that "N", well I started telling her about doing it backwards, but I stopped because "N"s can be confusing enough and I knew Ryan would know what it was supposed to be. That big heart on the top was Lily's idea, she decided everything about it and sent me for a stool so she could reach the perfect spot.

This is Ryan's reaction. I think he felt the love:-) Lily was so excited to do it and had so much fun with it. She even left "secret kisses" for Ryan. They are red ovals with her name written by them. I just love my kids. They are so awesome!

Lego Boy

There is almost always a pile of Legos in our family room. Ryan LOVES them, especially the Star Wars ones. I'm usually pretty impressed when he builds one of those ships. There are a lot of directions and it takes a lot of focus to finish the big ones. He recently bought the Battle of Endor kit with some birthday money and some money he had saved up. It took him 3 consecutive days of working after school to build all the parts. He had so much fun doing it. I don't think I got pictures of it because it "got destroyed" before I had a chance. It was really cool though.
This morning he showed me this...

I'm sure he knows much more about it than I do, but it's the ship Boba Fett uses in the second movie. The thing is, he never got a kit to make it. He did it all on his own, from memory. And I thought I was impressed when he built ships with directions! I'm sure Star Wars purists will have all kinds of things to say about it's inaccuracy, but I think it's pretty impressive.

Time Out

My child cracks me up sometimes. I was at the table eating and I heard him stomping up the steps. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"I'm giving myself a time out."
"What happened?"
"I'll tell you later. I can't talk right now. I'm in time out."

Woohoo, We Got Out of the House!

I have not been out of the house since Sunday and Lily has been cooped up since Friday. We like being home, but there is something about not being able to go out that makes a person a little stir crazy. So first thing this morning (for Lily at least- she didn't wake up until 10) we counted $3 out of the change jar for each kid and I took them to a surprise destination. Ryan came up with all kinds of guesses as to where we were going, so many I feared he was going to be disappointed with our destination. I was really only planning on taking them to 5 Below. I figured in a store full of stuff for less than $5 they were bound to find something that would be exciting for them. I'm glad I counted out the money before we left because I was tempted to give the each a few more dollars a couple times. Lily was so excited about so many things and Ryan really liked some of the $5 items. I did tell Ryan he could use a couple of his own dollars if he wanted something bigger. He is such a miser though, he wouldn't part with his money. As  matter of fact when we counted out the money this morning he asked me if they had to spend it. I told him he did. What kind of kid doesn't want to spend free money?! My kind I guess. He gets it from me. After all I'm the girl who didn't apply to Hopkins because it had a $50 application fee and I might not even get in. Ugh, I know. I realize now how silly it was. I really want to teach Ryan about value and using his money for things he values instead of squirreling it all away for no particular reason. It's funny the things you think about when you're a parent.
We went through the whole store. Lily found a necklace and bracelet pretty early on and though she saw some other things she liked nothing topped the necklace and bracelet. Ryan took a little longer to decide, that might have something to do with the extreme girlie-ness(is that a word?) of the first area we explored. He eventually found a soft, Nerf type sword that he could use to fight his brother since he has a similar one that came with his Playmobile knight set. Yep, that seems about right, dress up girlie stuff for Lily and weapons for Ryan. I was a little surprised he didn't want a USA soccer ball, but he does already have like 3 soccer balls and I'm sure he'll get another one when the fall season starts. All in all a successful outing.

Thinking Out Loud (well, at least in type)

Those who have been around me lately may or may not know, but I'm thinking about homeschooling our kids. Ryan is completely bored in school and he is there (including the bus ride) 6 1/2 hours a day. That may not seem like a lot to some people, but when you think of the time left over that's not taken up with dinner, bedtime routines and homework it's not much and of course the morning is just getting ready for school. The boy wants to learn. He's not bored because all they do is work. He bored because he doesn't feel like he is learning anything. I don't blame him, a lot of the work he brings home is far too simple. I worry though. I worry that he won't learn the right things if he is home taught. I worry that I won't be able to teach him music because I don't even know how to read music. I worry that he will become what Jay calls "one of those pod people" that don't seem to quite fit in to what we think of as normal society. I worry that I might go crazy being home with both kids all day long every day for the foreseeable future. I worry that I might start with good intentions and then want to give up when it gets hard.
Then I talk to my homeschooling friends and I look at their kids and I think it might work. I was at a meeting last night for Sunday school and as we were leaving I saw my friend, Deb, who has been a great example for me of home-school life. I went over to say hi and she told me she was going to invite me out with them that night- She was with some of her home-schooing friends. They invited me to sit down and we talked about homeschooling and lots of other stuff. It was great to talk about my fears and hear some of their stories. It's funny how God keeps pointing my way. Just this school year I've met 3 moms(not including the ones from last night) who have given me all kinds of great information and encouragement about this. And last night during my meeting one of the ladies shared that she teaches a home school Bible study for kids that they go to while the moms go to their own Bible study. How great is that? I didn't even know that existed. Then one of the other coaches said that his wife home-schools their kids. I've been learning all about the social activities, co-ops, group field trips, weekday play dates, etc. that offer great opportunities for socialization. A friend gave me a book written by a lady who didn't finish high school until her last home-schooled child did. All of her children went to college and are doing well in their chosen fields. I've been reading the blog of a really amazing photographer, Jasmine Star, who was home schooled. She has the most amazing stories and she is really cool. Oh, by the way, she went to law school, but decided law was not what she wanted to do. So she became an international wedding photographer instead.When I started reading her blog the home-school stuff was just a side note to me. I wasn't thinking about home-school then and her talking about homeschooling didn't make me want to home-school my kids, but seeing a good product of homeschooling makes me happy now that I am thinking about it.
So I've written about my fears and other people's successes and even all the nudges and arrangements God has made toward homeschooling, but what I haven't really talked about is why I want to do it. I don't think the public education system is failing my kids exactly, but I do feel like they could be learning so much more. Well, at this point I'm really only talking about my experience with Ryan and what I expect will happen with Lily since she is not in the public system yet. I can cater their learning to their needs. I feel like Ryan's love of learning is getting squelched in the system that says every child needs to be up to this level by that time. So all the focus seems to be on kids who need more help. I understand with limited budgets that they need to make choices about where they put their resources, but meanwhile some kids are sitting in class bored out of their minds because they've known how to do this stuff for 2 years. I keep hearing "as they get older there will be more separation in classes and he will be with kids with similar abilities." Well, I'm tired of waiting for that to happen and he is, too. If we kill his love of learning in these "in between" years what good is it to be with those kids in however many years? He needs to form good study habits now or he will never think he has to work to learn anything. Believe me, this will cost him dearly when he is older. In getting to choose our curriculum I will get to explore their loves and interests with them. We can go in depth about things they are really interested in instead of glossing over a bunch of stuff they won't retain because it was just a small bit they learned. I have so many ideas about studying how things work together. Studying each state, one at a time, but in groups (i.e. Northeastern states) during a block of time. So they can relate where they are on the map, etc. We can learn about so many things by doing them instead of reading about them. Composting is a great example, or growing plants from seeds(yes, I know they do this one in school). The opportunities are endless. I love that about homeschooling.
Another big issue for me is scheduling. I believe our kids today are way over-scheduled. I understand why parents want their children to experience many different activities, but I really believe they need free time, too. With them being at school for so many hours five days a week it seems like too much to schedule more than one or two activities/sports. With homeschooling I can build those growing opportunities into our curriculum. Piano lessons and dance classes for music; soccer, gymnastics, baseball, etc for P.E.; pottery classes for art; the list goes on and on. I'm also a firm believer in family dinners. Doing these activities during the day would allow us to still be able to come together for a meal every night.
Perks that are not good reasons to home-school, but I will really enjoy- awesome! Being on our own schedule. That means we can sleep later if we want, we can take vacations in the middle of the school year means smaller crowds plus we save money for it being the off-season and we can start our lessons when we are ready. Less wasted time waiting for everyone to be done, walking quietly from place to place and riding the bus for half an hour to get somewhere 5 minutes away means that we will probably not spend 6 hours on school a day= more play time. Picnic lunches together when it's nice outside. I get to choose the school supplies. More family time. I can see the interactions my kids are having with other children and act accordingly. For example if the get along really well with some kids we can make play dates, but if someone is a trouble maker I won't make my child sit next to them while they are trying to learn if they don't want to. We can learn about whatever we want with no time limits. If Ryan wants to spend 4 hours in making a craft, as he has been prone to do lately, he can because we have lots of time in our day.

Imagination

I love when my kids speak encouraging words to one another, so yesterday when I heard Lily encouraging Ryan with, "Don't give up, Ryan. You can do it!" It was music to my ears. Knowing he was playing a princess Wii game with her because she loves it, but can't really play by herself made it even better. He had asked to play Wii and I told him he could play whatever he wanted. When Lily saw him getting ready to play she asked him to play princesses with her. After making checking with me to make sure he'd still get a chance to play the game he wanted he gladly obliged. I love when they play nicely with each other and do kind things for one another.

Of course all the wonderfulness only lasted for so long and they started getting frustrated with one another because Lily couldn't get past a particular obstacle. I helped with that one and everything went okay for a while longer. Then came another one and I couldn't keep helping, so I told Lily it was time to stop playing for now and let Ryan play his game. She didn't like that, so she went up to her room and cried. Ryan went up after her and the next thing I heard was Ryan running around saying, "I'm a green bog!" and Lily laughing and giggling as she chased him with her princess wand. They were playing the Wii game in real life. I was so impressed with Ryan in so many ways. He went on his own to cheer his sister up. He used great problem solving skills and used his imagination to come up with just the right thing to make his sister happy again. They spent the rest of the afternoon playing their own versions of Wii games in real life. They played Excite Truck, Mario and Sonic Winter Olympics and Mario Kart after they were done playing princesses. These kinds of afternoons warm my heart.

Our New Toilet

It's about 10PM... I hear Crash! Boom! Bang! I recognize the sound as the stool in the upstairs bathroom. It sounds horrible. I run upstairs. "Are you okay?!" I ask before I can even see what's going on. No response. I get to the top of the stairs and flip the light on because the bathroom was completely dark. And that's when I saw it. Unfortunately, Ryan did not see it, at least not the way I did. He was standing there holding the the upside down wooden stool at a 45* angle in one hand and aiming perfectly into it with the other. Oh, yes, he had turned the stool upside down and was using it as a toilet. Realizing he doesn't know what he is doing I very calmly(well as calmly as you can when someone is peeing in your stool) say, "Ryan, that's not the toilet. Can you stop peeing?" No response. This is when I just start cracking up because, well, because he is PEEING IN THE STOOL! Realizing it was no use to try to get him to stop I go to get some rags to limit the damage. I throw a couple old towels in and under the stool to try to soak it up. Meanwhile I'm laughing so uncontrolably I'm snorting. Oh, yes, people. I snort laugh when I really get going which only makes me laugh harder. It's a vicious cycle I tell you.  Anyway, I was laughing and Ryan started looking confused and fussing a little bit. Inevidably when you choose a wooden stool as your liquid waste recepticle things get messy, so I changed his clothes and got him to bed.
As I cleaned up the mess while still laughing at the whole situation I realized something. I'm turning into my mother because I am going to have to tell this story. I will tell this story many times and each time I tell it  I will be cracking up before I get through the second sentence. I've started laughing several times just writing it here. I know sometimes I will just start laughing out loud because I thought about it. Yes, I am becoming my mother. Well, at least I'll be doing it with a smile.

Football on the Brain

Ryan LOVES football. He watches the Ravens game every week. He's starting to understand parts of the game, too. This morning he asked me if I wanted the Dolphins to beat the Steelers. I said I wanted whatever teams need to win for the Ravens to get in the playoffs to win and the ones who need to lose for the Ravens to get in the playoffs to lose. Then he asked me who the Colts were playing. I told him I'm not even sure who the Ravens are playing he laughed and said, "Yes you do! Their playing the Oakland Raiders." I can't tell if he was completely shocked that someone wouldn't know the Ravens' schedule or if he just thinks I know everything he knows. I guess I had heard it in passing this morning, but it didn't matter that much to me, so I didn't retain it. Ryan however remembers every fact he's ever heard about the Ravens. He can probably tell you the score of every games this season.
Just a minute ago he dropped a game on the floor and Jay told him not to go around throwing stuff on the floor. He said, "Daaaaaaad, it was like when Derrick Mason dropped the ball!" Not, "It was an accident" or "I didn't mean to!" Nope, "It was like when Derrick Mason dropped the ball."

****Please note these things are all from my memory. If any of them are incorrect I'm sure I remembered incorrectly. Ryan would be very upset if you believed he messed up Ravens facts. I accept full responsibility for any misquotes or inaccurate football scheduling information.****

Where Are All the Candles?!

We had a birthday cake for Jesus yesterday. I like doing this because it's a good concrete way for the kids to relate to why we have Christmas and bring the focus back to Jesus on Christmas day. And I don't know about other people's kids, but with my kids it usually brings up good questions, too. When I asked Lily if she wanted to help me make a cake for Jesus' birthday she asked if Jesus would come to eat it. Which was a good time to talk about Jesus wanting Lily to enjoy the cake for Him and talk about Jesus wanting good things for us. Later I let each child pick a color candle to put on the cake. Lily chose pink and Ryan chose blue. So I put 2 pink candles, 2 blue candles and 2 yellow candles to be neutral territory in the middle. So Ryan asked why there were only 6 candles because Jesus isn't six. I made the off-handed comment that I didn't have 2,000 candles (a rough general estimate, I know). Ryan said He's not 2,000 either, just like he would say "Nuh-uh!" when I say it's 12:30 instead of saying it's 12:28. My dad, who was standing near by, agreed that Ryan was right. Then Ryan said something very profound, but I'm not sure he knew how profound. He said, "Jesus is infinity!" Again, my dad agreed and a little dialog about Jesus and God being one went on. I plan on delving more into this with him, but what a great conversation starter, right?! I LOVE Christmas!

The Never Ending Fuss

I feel like I've been living in the world of the never ending fuss. I swear almost every word that has come out of Ryan's mouth in the past 2 weeks has been a whine, a complaint or a plain old fuss about something. I've had it up to my eyeball with fussing. I thought he had turned acorner this morning when he woke up cheerfully before I even went to get him. He even leaned over to me this morning and whispered, "I'm trying to be extra nice to Lily and not tease her." He cheerfully let her have her way when she was being a little stubborn. Usually that's the time he digs in his heels. I was so happy.
Too bad I had to run errands after he got home. It may have been the worst shopping trip we ever had. There was fussing, chasing, blatant disobedience, rolling on the floor, climbing on the foam pads, etc, etc. I want my Ryan back!!!

You Be Bruno, Okay?

I wonder if anyone else's children play that way. We're watching Dancing with the Stars. Lily has worn two three different princess dresses and danced a different routine to every song. She's convinced Ryan to join her for some of them. He likes to try to imitate the moves of the dancers. It's so stinkin' cute. I got to be the judges. Ryan told me to say what I really think, "even if it's 1,2,1." Too funny. I wish he would let me sign him up for ballroom dancing lessons, but alas, he has no interest. Maybe when the hormones hit ;-) Wait...Did I just have a moment of looking forward to male hormones hitting my house?! I take that back!

Halloween

Ryan decided to be Anakin without any trouble in the end and he was happy. He was really happy to run into his friend Luke at Trunk or Treat and be able to have a light saber battle. There were also some great adult Star Wars costumes.
Lily wore her Sleeping Beauty outfit (minus the crown) in the morning. We took it off to eat lunch and after that she wanted to be Cinderella, but the only dress up shoes she has that are good to walk in are Sleeping Beauty ones. She wanted to carry Ryan's Cars "pumpkin" from last year. She was quite a mix.
My costume was more subtle, I was a tourist. I wore a Paris shirt and my camera. I wanted to wear a touristy hat, but I didn't have one that I thought worked.
The best part about Halloween this year? It didn't cost me one cent. I had a huge bag of mini-tootsie pops that I had bought as rewards for my kids. Realizing we wouldn't get through the whole bag in a reasonable amount of time I decided to use that to give out to trick or treaters. I also pulled out the candy my kids don't like from the loot they had gotten earlier in the day. I hate throwing all that candy away, but if no one in your house eats it what else can you do? I thought giving it to kids who might appreciate it was a good solution. It wasn't bad candy, just stuff like Laffy Taffy, Whoppers, Blow Pops and Tootsie Rolls and I checked it before I gave it out, too. I did feel a little bit bad about "re-gifting" candy, so when I did I gave out handfuls instead of one piece.
Now my only problems are that I didn't really take "costume shots" of the kids and what to do with all the candy they got from 3 rounds of Trick or Treating. They sure had fun, but there is so. much. candy! I think I'll help them with the chocolate bars;-)

The Great Costume Debate

Ryan wants to be a skeleton for Halloween. Every year we go to Trunk or Treat at our church. They have a rule about no scary or gory costumes. To me a skeleton is scary. Jay doesn't think so. So he asked the lady at the information counter on Sunday. She is dressing as a witch. Seriously?! She thinks witches aren't scary? I'll give you that Glenda the good witch of the North is not scary, but I'm thinking that's not what she is talking about. What do you think? Skeleton-scary or not?

In an attempt to get Ryan to change his mind (and also use a costume we already have) I suggested Anakin Skywalker. He then decided to be Count Dooku. At least if he went as Dooku some people would just assume he was a Jedi. I could probably live with Dooku, but where do I get that costume?! I can't even find a Luke Skywalker costume for kids. For adults, yes, kids not a one. Plenty of Anakin, even some with creepy masks, but he doesn't want to be Anakin. Needless to say I'm not ready for Halloween tomorrow.

A Ryan Funny

We were walking through the grocery store and Ryan announced dramatically, "Mommy, I have chicken pox!!!" We were coming out of the cold food area, he meant goose bumps.

Play

Yesterday my kids were being goofy. When I told Lily to get he shoes on for gymnastics she came to the door in rain boots and a clown nose. Later she wanted to pick Ryan up at the bus stop as Buzz Lightyear. As soon as Ryan came in he put some of Lily's pink hair stuff on top of his head and the clown nose on his face. Then he tried to juggle 1 ball. They had me laughing anyway.

Today I hear "Roar! I'm going to eat you!" Then I see this ...

Big Bad Wolf coming around the corner.

And from the other corner come Little Red Riding Hood...

Oh, no! He got her!

It's a good thing her dad came and took her out of his stomach...LOL.

Ryan cracks me up. You may notice there are no eye holes in his mask. He can only see because he glued (oh yes, I said glued) his mask so there was a tiny hole at the bridge of his nose where he could peek out.

They are fun kids, especially when they get along.

Currency

I know I've said this many times before, but it's worth repeating. I have found Ryan's "currency", in other words what he values enough to use as a reward or punishment if necessary. His "currency" is currency. I've been finding new and interesting ways to use it to get him to behave the way I want. The latest in my arsenal of mommy weapons is the allowance chart. Ryan has certain responsibilities in our house. He sometimes fusses, complains or refuses to do these things. If he refuses he will get a warning and then punishment, but this is stressful for me and him. So I decided to make a chart. I listed all his responsibilities and made boxes for each day. I assigned a cash value to each one and added that to the second to last column. The last column is left blank and at the end of the week we will add all the checks(bonus math practice!) We started last Thursday and that means all the checks were finished yesterday. Today we will add up the amount he has earned. It's worked out pretty well for chores. We both need to work on a few things. I need to work on reminding him of things and he needs to work on remembering or checking the chart. This chart is going to be good for both of us because it will remind me to pay him at the end of the week and not just sporadically through the week.
I saved the best thing about this chart for last. I decided to add a "bonus" section at the bottom. It includes one off things or things that I want him to do, but are not really chores. One of those is putting away his clothes which he won't have the opportunity to do unless I've done laundry, so I didn't count those kinds of things in the total that Ryan *should* get every week. The best thing about this chart by far is this one little row that says, "no teasing Lily." This one is worth the most on the entire chart because I know it is hard for him and because I REALLY want it to work. One of his favorite things in the world to do is tease his sister. It drives me crazy. Every day there would be fussing, screaming, crying and someone would inevitably get hit(sometimes with an object). This past week has been wonderful. Each time Ryan starts getting close to teasing I remind him of the chart and he stops. Sometimes he will even ask me if something is teasing before he does it or if he did something that made Lily fuss. I've heard him many times say to himself or me, "I don't want to tease Lily." He got a check for every day this past week and it has been a such a different environment in our house. Our house used to be full of negative noise from the time Ryan came home from school until dinner and sometimes until bed time. Now it's not necessarily quiet, but the sounds are of playing, laughing, music and dancing. I can handle that kind of noise, I can even enjoy it most of the time.

This is what his chart looked like this week. He was sick for a couple days this week and I never reminded him to do the trash cans, but other than that he did really well.

Learning in Daily Life

Ryan's eyes are closed, he is in the middle of a prayer, "God, help us to be reliable to each other." His eyes pop open, he looks at me and says, "What does that mean?"

ROFL...I don't know where he heard that word.

Ladies' Man

When I unpacked Ryan's backpack today I found a little heart jewel. So I asked him about it. Apparently it came from a little girl in his class from when he was out sick, because she loves him. I asked him, "Why do you say that?" He said because she told him. Did I mention this is neither the little girl who I saw say she loves him, nor the girl he wrote his note about. So I asked him how many girls have told him they love him and together we came up with three(he didn't remember the girl I saw saying it to him, but I know she did since I SAW IT). The one he wrote the note for apparently told him she loves him and his note was to return the sentiment. He hasn't given it to her yet. It's kind of cute. I'm glad he is well liked. He has some really good friends that are boys too. I was a little worried about him in the beginning of the year because he is as young as you can possibly be for his grade and truth be told he's kind of shy (don't tell him that because I don't want him to live it out because he was told that's what he is). I was worried about what that combination could mean, but he always does well with other kids once he gets to know them. I guess he feels really comfortable in his class because the kids seem to like him and the teacher says he cracks her up. It really puts my mind at ease knowing he is going somewhere he enjoys with people he enjoys every weekday.

WHY?!

On a normal weekday morning it's a struggle to wake Ryan up at 7:30. Today, after much prodding, he finally got out of bed at 7:45 and Lily slept until 9:15. (Luckily the bus stop is so close that the baby monitor works.) Most mornings I'd say she's awake before 9, but not before 8.
So why do they wake up at 7AM weekend mornings?! It's so unfair:-(