Turning Two

When you are turning two, your wish list includes the following: birthday hats, balloons, cake and singing. Here's how the day played out.





Opening presents is easy now, especially with all the practice a few days ago.








2 pancakes = 1 mouth sweep to prevent imminent choking. Repeat process while eatting PB&J for lunch.

Family swim at the YMCA for a little afternoon entertainment.








Spaghetti is his favorite dinner. No mouth swiping.









Cake is so delicious that you need to dig your spoon into the frosting before blowing out the candles. All the while, the balloon never leaves your hand through 2 pieces.








After you have eaten the frosting and decide that you are still hungry, you eat a second large plate of spaghetti.






Top the day off with a Giant's game. Life doesn't get any better than this.

Naughty Diesel

This is Thomas the Tank Engine. Timothy loves Thomas. He has seen the shows and read the books. He knows all the characters. He prefers playing with the wooden trains to watching the series on PBS. He'll push any train into your hand when he wants you to play with him. Any train but Thomas. Thomas is his. He is unwilling to share.

Thomas is "cheeky." He usually get himself into a predicament which resolves itself with a lesson in morality. All in all, he is a pretty good role model for the two year old crowd.

Beneath the Christmas tree was a gift from one of my other children for Tim. It was another engine, Diesel. Timothy cites the books and refers to him as Naughty Diesel.

"Oily, scheming and ever ready to stir up trouble in the shed, Diesel's characteristic smirk is a sure sign that somebody, somewhere, is in for a bit of trouble." So says a web site selling this train.

Tim is now willing to share Thomas. But don't lay a hand on Diesel!

Shudder.

Merry Christmas

All the hard work...

wrapping

Andy will never guess what Megan wrapped for him

hanging the stockings

leaving cookies

feeding the reindeer

It all paid off. Santa made...

One happy gamer

One beautiful princess

One accurate archer

One serious engineer

Homeroom Mom

I've never been a homeroom mom before this year. I guess I'm still not. It's called a parent liaison in our district. It means that you have to trim and count boxtops periodically. It also means that you have to make sure that all the parties are planned. You don't have to do it yourself, but you need to secure a volunteer. I didn't fully understand the role when I volunteered to be the parent liaison for not one but two of my kids.

One of my children is in fifth grade. That translates to the sixth and final year of school parties. Many fifth grade parents have already planned parties. Most fifth grade parents have all of their children in school full time. They work. And fifth graders are not particularly cute anymore. All this equates to being blessed if one parent signs up to coordinate a single party. Such was the fate of our fifth grade Christmas party. I had begged off Halloween to a neighbor and am fortunate to have a volunteer for the year end party. So, I took over.

We painted ornaments. We used droppers to drizzle paint into clear glass balls and swirled it around. One parent volunteer mentioned that it tied in well with the modern art presentation that she had just done with the class. (She is the art outreach parent. What do the teachers do these days?) Just luck. My son doesn't deem such events worthy of relaying.

Did you notice that they aren't terribly cute? Except the short one in the red sweatshirt.

While some were painting, others were decorating gift bags for the ornaments.

My son made Frosty the Serial Killer.

We also played reindeer games. As I was the official, I asked Tim to pose for me. He's a very serious reindeer racer.We had cookies, Chex mix and juice. It took about an hour and nobody complained to me. Drew told me that some of the boys said that the reindeer games were stupid, but two of them asked if they could take the deer home. How stupid could it have been?

I've learned that if you ask a parent to send in something specific, they are happy to help. Many even express their gratitude that you were willing to plan the party and make all the calls for the sake of their child's happiness. I also learned that in addition to red, green, gold, blue, silver and white paint, Illini orange should be on hand. And I met a very nice neighbor with a daughter in the class.

If anyone needs plans for a Christmas or Halloween party appropriate for grade 3-5, I'll sell them to you. Check back in 6 weeks because it looks like I'll be marketing the third grade Valentine's Day party at that time.

The Polar Express

Last night was the debut of The Polar Express, performed by the third grade.
Ellen was reindeer #2.

Timothy was a total monster. Despite my best efforts, he is loud and a showoff most of the time. There are two schools of thought on how to correct this. 1. Keep at it and he'll gradually improve for longer periods and in time he will behave. 2. Avoid quiet situations with him for a few years until he matures into it.

Bragging

This is very exciting for me, but Tim is unfazed. I was startled to realize a few days ago that he knows the sounds that most of the letters make! At least 20 of them. He doesn't associate most text with its sound yet. He also doesn't know the names of the printed letters. But if I ask, "What sound does M make?" he knows the answer, regardless of the order they are presented. I really can't claim credit for this achievement. It was the electronic babysitter, the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD. But I'm still a proud mama.

Baking Day

Family baking day. No group photo. Somehow one participant avoided the camera all day.








The cookie loaf. Ellen's loop hole around "You may have one cookie each."







In case you couldn't appreciate their true size, here they are next to normal sized cookies.







Sampling the work.

Tis the Season

Finding the perfect tree.
Kid decorated tree. They are responsible for the lights, backwards ornaments, multiple ornaments per branch, clusters of similar ornaments and diving angel. Isn't it beautiful!
Megan's cookie decorating gathering.

District Debate

Class rank is fair game these days in the Ball Chatham School District.

What is your district doing?
Do you think high schools should calculate and publish this data?
And if you read the link, how does the University of Illinois compute class rank for students coming from schools who don't provide this information?

Looking Forward

It's that time of year again. No, not Christmas. Well, yes, but that's not what is troubling me today. Most of the children's extracurriculars are screeching to a halt and it is time to re-enroll. And the issues are "How much is enough?" and "How much is too much?"

Some of my kids could never sign up for too much. They would pleasantly attend any event to which I chauffeur them. Others can't function without adequate down time. But most are young and can't stay home without adult supervision so they must minimally ride in the van to sibling activities.

I'd like them to be well rounded and exposed to areas that interest them. That would be great if I had some specialists among them. 4 kids X 4 activities = 1 insane mother. More insane than usual. So how to narrow the field?

I've come up with some basic guidelines:
Rule #1: 4 kids X 4 activities = 1 insane mother
Rule #2: I can support events that I cannot provide at home.
Rule #3: I can support lifelong pursuits.
Rule #4: The child must feel truly passionate before breaking Rule #3.
Rule #5: Tim does not indefinitely tag along well.
Rule #6: You can add another event if it doesn't intrude upon my schedule.
Rule #7: We must find a session that doesn't conflict with other activities if you wish to be delivered and retrieved on time.

So, here is how it will likely shake out:
Drew: Scouts, piano, French horn*, season sport**
Ellen: Swimming, violin
Megan: Piano, seasonal sport**, story time
Timothy: He can wait until August when he gets my undivided attention.

* School band = nothing for me
** 7-8 week commitment, like YMCA session or intramurals

The Happiest Place on Earth

Our second day at Disney was LONG. We began with breakfast with the princesses at 8:20.

Not so early, but we had to leave our resort at 7. We stayed at the Magic Kingdom until mid-afternoon. Tim napped through lunch. We headed back to our room to rest but instead the bigger kids spent time in the pool. We had a late dinner scheduled. Late for us anyway. We figured that with the time zone difference that we could swing a 6:50 reservation. So we headed to Marrakesh at EPCOT. By the time we returned to the bus at about 8:30, the kids were falling over exhausted. We had just missed a bus and waited. We finally board our bus and it is packed - SRO. Tim is not cuddly, least of all when he's tired. So, Andy and I were quietly singing Wheels on the Bus to him, to keep the whining to a minimum. Some nearby folks overheard us - remember packed bus, maybe 18" away. I guess they couldn't take one more verse because they began boisterous Christmas carols. It took about 3 seconds before everyone on the bus was belting out some old favorites. By song 3 we were so loud that the driver was singing over the microphone. It ended up being our best transportation experience ever. Where else can 75 exhausted and sober complete strangers do this? Only at the most magical place on earth.

The next evening on our return trip some strangers were telling us about their unique bus experience the previous night. Same bus.