Highlights
- Fall football starts
- Calan’s math explosion
- Good friends for T-Day
- Getting ready for Christmas
Calan
Time seems to move faster as you get older, is the old cliche. Sometimes you don’t even notice time passing, which proves it truly is flying. This month was no exception. Perhaps the end of the year can do that.
Flag football
For Calan, his highlights included the beginning of his third flag football season. As fall basketball wrapped up, it was on to the outdoors for late afternoon Wednesday practices and Saturday 10:oo am games. Our official coach was Kyle H. from the Y, who we’ve gotten to know a little bit from him refereeing basketball games and more importantly, being Evan’s buddy in childcare. Sharing the coaching duties with Kyle was a volunteer Dad, Ryan who we had just recently seen coaching basketball opposite courts from us during our Monday practices. We were pretty happy with this duo as we expected them to be a little more “into” coaching and less hands off and go with the flow. Calan obviously responds and grows much better with the more involved coach. The team was large again, which has its pros and cons. Less playing time in practice and games, but Calan has a chance to get acquainted with more kids and be a part of a larger group. This was Calan’s second season in Division I, and he’s been doing great. Again, he doesn’t get a lot of “touches” in the games, but when he does he goes for it 100%, especially on offense. In fact, one run he got going so fast he couldn’t keep up with himself – video. He even caught his first flag football pass – video. Defensively, he’s still a little reserved. But that’s ok, as we tend to see the more aggressive kids get banged up a bit more. We worked on the mouth guard again in the beginning, and he actually got comfortable with it. During the second game, we cut it down in size on the sideline so it wouldn’t push too far back in his mouth to make him feel like he was choking. Unfortunately, in the middle of the month he got hit pretty good with a cold. The kind that makes him feel “stuff” way back in his throat. Calan can’t handle this too well. His gag reflex gets pretty sensitive, and he has to have water ready to wash it down at a moment’s notice. Needless to say, putting a mouth guard in only makes things worse. Being the non-aggressive type works to his advantage then, so we’re getting by without the protective mouth gear.
Another effect of his yucky cold was missing out on our schedule Long Beach trip to challenge up on peanuts and check in with Dr. R. We had to postpone the appointment into late next month. No harm done in the long run as it just extends his treatment, and gives him a chance to continue more slowly as we ramp up peanut intake.
Other notable events this month included Calan being really interested in the presidential election. It was a bigger deal to him than we would have predicted, and he really got into tracking the votes on election night. He was rooting for Hillary simply because she was a “girl”, but also found Trump intriguing.
Calan has also been cruising along in his school books. What stuck out this month was his math. He would get on these rolls and want to just stay focused on learning, doing and repeating the exercises in his books. This lead to two things: first, getting pretty good at addition and subtraction, and even beginning multiplication. And, second, finishing his book for the year. So, we got the next books, and Calan started his second grade curriculum.
Notable quotes this month:
“I’m going to vote for myself when I’m 35. I was born in the United States and I’ve lived here more than four years.”
Hanging out in the downstairs office/guest room: “Dada, here’s something I’ve been wondering for years…actually something since I’ve been born.” Then, looking around the room, says: “Well, there’s no clock in here.”
“I’m glad I’m not a girl. Because if I had to have twins I would just…” (makes a face like someone passing out) “So I’m lucky I’m a boy…and Evan too.”
“People who want to get married, need to fall in love first. They will have to fall in love so they can get married.”
“If you do something for your allergies, it’s more important than getting poor.” He explained that he was making the point that you’ll die sooner from an allergy than you would from running out of money at the end of your life. Deep…
After clapping for the opposing team who had just run for a big gain, Dada says “Why are you clapping, Calan?”
“Because they didn’t make a touchdown.”
Seeing Calan limping around the house with a makeshift crutch, Dada says “Does your foot really hurt?”
“No I’m just pretending.”
“Why?”
“Because I like to. That’s just what kids do. Its part of playing”
Calan: “Mama said we’re having turkey for Thanksgiving.”
Dada: “Are you excited?”
Calan: “Yes, I think it came from a real turkey.”
Dada: How do you know?”
Calan: “Because there are two bones on top.”
Dada: “Why does that make you think it’s a real turkey?”
Calan: “Because I saw one on ‘Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.’ ”
Evan
Evan continues to be our little troublemaker. Leave something of importance out, he’ll find it and assume it’s free to play with. Leave out markers or a sharpie, also fair game to see what surfaces will accept these attractive, bold colors. Little by little, we’re getting better at putting things away. It’s not like we haven’t already, but it’s time to get serious. While he hasn’t done anything really terrible like breaking a TV or dumping smart phones in the toilet, he’s still our little Dennis the Menace. He keeps us on our toes all day and our exhaustion levels on high by the nighttime.
At Thanksgiving this year, it was fun to see Evan engage more with Uncle Colin and Erin, who visited us for dinner. Colin loves to play with the kids, and we knew Even would be perfect for him, since Colin hadn’t seen him since he was a baby. The two did push-ups together, and of course Evan landed a few wrestle-mania style “love attacks” on Colin. After dinner, we did our “triathlon” of a quick basketball/zip line session outside, then a few sets in the gym with some up-tempo music, then a long run/stroll outside in the cool night air. (This exercise routine has become the tradition this fall on Thursdays. The kids really love it.)
Evan and his brother also couldn’t wait to start decorating for Christmas right after Thanksgiving. We leveraged their eagerness to help get things out from under the house, unpacked and put up around the house. The tree was naturally their favorite. Of course, Evan didn’t actually leave much up with the other decorations. For him, it was a fresh batch of new toys. He can’t get enough of the battery operated, animated music makers that Gran has sent us over the years. At first it’s cute… but then he gets obsessed, and then a lot of yelling ensues when BOTH boys become obsessed over them. In the end, we’re left with all these festive “toys” strewn about the house IF they survive the onslaught of “playing” that goes on with them. To make life easier, after a week, said decorations disappeared one-by-one back under the stairs. Ah, a calmer life. We’ll see them again next year. 😉