Highlights
- Kids enjoy Winter Olympics, Valentine’s Day and more soccer
- We brave the cold
February was a true winter month for us in SoCal this year. Strings of cold days and rainy skies made for a wet and chilly season. We kept busy though and took it all in stride.
One day, Mama felt inspired to quickly capture a busy day from early February (2/5/2018). Here is an unedited rundown:
Wake-up was pretty ordinary. C came downstairs, bleary eyed, we had our good morning hug/snuggle . . and laughed at some of Wang’s antics . . C started reading the next Magic Treehouse Merlin Mission book, can’t remember which one. He’s been working his way through the MTH books again – from the beginning. He’s on book forty-something, although he just started re-reading the series around the new year? I’m not quite sure. But it’s his current reading obsession.
C’s breakfast was cereal, with a couple of the weekly tree nut doses. It was a scramble getting out the door, now that we’re doing classes at the Westlake ROA Campus on Tuesdays, starting at 9:00. We packed up and scurried out the door. E didn’t get brekky before leaving, so we had to work on his morning doses at school.
With the early time on Tuesdays, we hit morning traffic, so the drive in was about 30 minutes. Worth it though, Cs classes this term are great. Our drive was full of the usual banter and conversation with the boys. I can’t remember much of it right now, but we often have some fun/cute/interesting conversations on the way to school. Yesterday, we talked all about the different stages of growing up . . . it got E thinking about growing, and his brain . . . Es been thinking so much lately about so many things! Yesterday, we had a phone call with Gran while waiting for C – E asked first where Grandpa was. When he found out he was at work, he asked how he got to work. Then he asked about Gran’s back. Then, “When your back was hurt, were you an old, old woman”?
Anyway, we got to school this morning, right at 9:00, so it was a scramble to get C to class. We parked at the top, which makes E nervous. “The stairs scare me”. But he’s getting better at walking down them . . we got C settled, then went to sign him in. I remember to sign him in, but constantly forget to sign him out. But it’s cute, because E always “helps” me. It’s our writing practice for the day. I put the pen in his hand correctly, and does the sign in. Then we went back up the stairs to move the car down to the parking garage. In part to get it out of the sun, but mostly so E doesn’t have to walk down the stairs again. Also, moving the car kills time. We’re staying closer to class this term. Partly because it takes so long to get all of Es doses in, and partly because I’m a bit more involved in monitoring Cs classes this time. On Mondays, he take Word Nerds – class all about words, interesting facts, information, and activities about words – so far they’ve done classes about secret codes and haikus . . there was another one but I forget. Then after a break to eat and get out a bit, on Mondays, he has Cole’s Cool Kids Club – Math Club, games, activities, online math practice . . . Tuesday morning he has M in STEM at 9:00, that’s the early one. But it’s great. It’s just him and Charlie – although a third kid joined today. It’s with a pretty great math tutor, Phuong. It’s math applied to STEM projects. Right now, they’re designing and buiding bridges out of popsicle sticks. Today, they did some online research, and started drawing their designs on graph paper. C loved it. While he did that, E and I sat outside, chatting and eating his french toast – his egg dose for today. It took all of the class and some of the break. But he was busy hopping around the tiles in the pavement, standing on the bench, being generally very lovey, chatting with everyone who came by . . . he’s such a happy, social little guy! But we had to work on being quiet. Tezo put up the Quiet signs. We read them and just kept working on it. We also filled up his water, which is always fun to do at the water cooler. He likes to count to three while holding the water lever down. But he wasn’t getting enough water doing that today, so he had to up it to 4, then 5, then just not counting.
After M in STEM, we went to It’s Right to Write. The class tables weren’t set up yet, and we had some time before class. We gave Charlie Cs backpack to hang on to, and put on a chair next to his. C really likes to sit next to Charlie, and gets anxious if he can’t. But he had to go to the bathroom, hence leaving his pack with Charlie. But Charlie didn’t quite get it, and when we got back, Cs pack was forgotten, and there were no empty seats next to Charlie. C was apprehensive, but he got through. He ended up doing great actually! Not only was he able to relax and participate, but he did his best work yet in that class. They did a free write at the beginning of class – and he actually wrote! About the weird two-headed bug he saw at MOXI a few months ago, and he drew a pretty good picture of it. He also wrote about taking a computer class last year and starting to write a book. Then they learned about, and wrote, bio poems.During writing level, E ate his nut doses, and I went over Cs math assessment. He’s been placed at grade level 4.2, so fairly close to my guesstimate. Most of him mistakes though were more to do with not quite reading directions well enough and other straightforward mistakes.
After class, we sat in the car for a few minutes so that C could drink his water. His eczema is acting up – he didn’t drink enough yesterday, and had a pretty big free eat, two peanut butter cookies – also had a tummy ache with them, so today we had to crack down on hydration. After he finished, we drove home, and got to smoothie. Then headed to the bank for a quick deposit, then to Josiah’s house to get something from Erica. C was supposed to stay in the car, but while I was chatting with Erica, he got out and started running around with J. Of course, when it was time to go, C was missing, hiding in the bushes. It was work, but I got him back in the car, and we got back to poor Leina, who’d arrived early and was waiting for us, sitting in the sun out front
Calan
Calan continued on with his enthusiasm for soccer, and really enjoyed the rest of his season at the Y. It seemed that whenever he had the chance he’d be kicking a ball (any kind of ball), around the house. Openings between furniture or the area where the stairs started would be soccer goals. The soccer spirit was high and frequently on.
As we watched the Olympics this winter, Calan found himself getting into the competition and was interested in most of the events. As with a lot of boys, when they see exciting sports on TV they want to ‘pretend’ to be in on the action. So, instead of sitting intently watching some of the events that had filled our DVR, Calan would often make up his own competitions around the house. Most of the these games would actually be related to…well, soccer. At one point, he actually set up a series of events that were taking places at various places around the house. He would write the event names, complete with current scores of the contests post-it notes. The house was filled with these small stickies of all colors, and sometimes Mama and Dada would have to participate…whether it was “little soccer” or “big soccer”, whatever version was happening, that’s what you played.
For extra fun this month, Calan caught Evan’s latest wintertime cold. Poor Evan couldn’t stop coughing for days and days. We eventually gave him an antibiotic after he was diagnosed with mild bronchitis. It seemed to help, and Calan eventually pulled through. Of course that didn’t do well for one of the soccer games, but Calan was a trooper and rested as much as he could.
Calan expressed a little dislike for going to River Oaks this semester. This isn’t something we’ve really encountered in the past. After talking about it with him, Calan revealed that feels a little “overwhelmed” between classes there. For whatever reason during the ten-minute break between classes there, he feels rushed. In fact, in his Right to Work class, they talked about personification of emotions on sessions, and Calan chose the feeling of being overwhelmed and drew pictures and a short description of himself in this state. We talked about how we can make these feel better, and it seemed to help.
In his M in STEM class, he built and tested small bridges they constructed out of Popsicle sticks. They had fun placing heavy books on them, shouting “More heavy books!”
In math this month, Calan spent a bit of time doing multiplication. For example, learning about multiplying fractions and some mental multiplying he liked to do such as at bedtime when he would go through the tables of two and one digit multiplications.
Calan also had fun this month going to the CYBA basketball playoff games. His friend Nick was on a team, coached by his dad Steve and Ian’s dad Frankie. It was exciting to go to a few different gyms around town in the evening to watch the “Orange Men” play. The team of nine and ten year olds was pretty good and battled hard all the way to the championship game. They didn’t win, but Calan got to be a part of the fan base and supporting them in their games.
After a lot of deliberation and really digging into what’s best for Calan when it comes to violin, we finally made the big switch for him in violin teachers. This month, Calan started lessons with Ms. Dena. She is really great, and is exactly what Calan needs. She provides a no-pressure learning environment where Calan can learn more in a style that is best for him. The style is just a bit less rigid and involved an open communication with Calan (and Mama!) about what he likes, how he wants to learn, and overall giving Calan some ownership in all this. In the first couple of lessons, you could tell he was less stressed within the lessons as compared to the past. We’re glad we made the switch and at least for now are on a better path for Calan to enjoy violin more.
Evan also continued on with his soccer season. Again, he had his shining moments of focused participation but most often was not super interested in following directions to do drills, play in little scrimages during practice or go running in when his name was called on game day (Saturday). It was all we could do as parents to keep the motivation going. Since there wasn’t any real pressure here, we decided to skip out on one of his games. It was a good decision for everyone. The next game back, he was a little more energetic and engaged. We were still happy to see this season wrap up though but glad he had the chance to try something new and make some friends.
On the reading front, Evan is showing more and more interest in wanting to read words himself. In fact, he’s started doing more than just saying site words that we point to in a given book. With a little confidence brewing, he’s asking to read whole sentences and even an entire book if we let him. In particular, the book “Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball” is one that he took a liking to and really wanted to learn. As long as words weren’t too long, he was able to read most of the pages all on his own for a few nights.
Evan of course is much more typical when it comes to getting in trouble as toddlers/pre-schoolers often do. He’s definitely a repeat offender on some of his antics. For example, purposely locking the bathroom door from the outside, then closing it so no one can get in. It goes without saying that when he does something wrong we do our best to work with him and communicate that choices he’s made are not good. Then of course an ensuing consequence. Lately he’s wanted to “do better”. After a big incident where we left out one of his SLIT bottles accidentally, and he ended up drinking what was left in the bottle (a very expensive mistake on all our parts!), we had a bit of a heart to heart. He came to us afterward and said “Guys, how can I do better?” It was a sweet moment to say the least. He’s not going to be perfect, but it let us know he’s kind of working through it.
Mama and Evan frequently did little outings while Calan was in his classes at River Oaks. More and more, it’s a little more like a drop-off for Calan at school. This provides a chance for Mama to run some quick errands. Evan enjoyed a trip to Ralph’s on one occasion. He’s starting to get interested in spelling and liked spelling the word “Ralph’s” with Mama, He aslo counted the cans of kitten food when they placed them in the cart, and help put them up on the conveyor belt at check-0ut.
Evan is also into a fort and ‘tree house’ building phase. He’ll often construction these little dwellings out of blankets and pillows he collects from the living and family rooms.
We used our buddy Daniel Tiger’s teaching this month with Evan. Singing the little tunes he does about ‘choosing one more thing to do’ when it’s time to stop and transition to something like nap or meals, and also about stomping three times when you’re mad. Of course, Evan loves doing these in the moment but in real time they aren’t used so well…of course.
Evan seems to love learning more new capital letters on the chalkboard. He focuses hard and really takes his time to write them neatly. It’s interesting to see what he takes a liking to and wants to try his best at.
Notable quotes this month:
Girl on Calan’s soccer team says to Evan: “Come on, let’s play.” Evan looks up at her intently “Okay. What are we gonna do to play?”
Coming home one day, walking in the door randomly says… “What if she doesn’t like me?” Dada says: “What? Who are you talking about, silly?” Evan replies: “Nothing, just talking to myself.”
Taking a bath one night with Calan, he played a little to excitedly with the soap bubbles and accidentally got some in Calan’s eye. We asked that he say sorry to alan. He did this right away, then paused and looked up and said, “Dada, how do you hug in the bathtub?” An apologetic fist bump was in order.
Interesting conversation that Evan started with Calan one day:
Evan: “Hey Calan, remember when Kitty died? We were really sad. Wang didn’t died, so we’re not sad for Wang. Cuz cats always get dead and plants always get dead.”
Calan: “Yes, everyone dies. Unless you’re ‘Ho-Ho-Ho’ or something like that. (Apparently this is a pseudonym for Santa Claus).
Evan: “Pu-trize!”
Mama/Dada: “Awww, he still says pu-trize” (with wide smiles)
Evan: “Oh I mean… Surprise!”
“After I get older and turn four, and play real soccer, I can eat a donut” – said after talking about training his body right now to eat allergy foods. This was on the day of his last soccer game where they had donuts for all the kids.
Dada: “Evan, did you brush your teeth this morning?”
Evan: “Yes, but I forgot”.
One of our favorite moments when Evan says things is when he looks up and says “I love you guys. Calan, Mama and Dada.”
