Christian's To-Do List

Christian wrote a To-Do List yesterday and I just found it.

Here's what it said:

"Go to school
Go home. Yes!
Relax.
Play with McKenna."

 
I think he's got a pretty good life :)

He LOVES playing air hockey with his dad!

Another one bites the dust....

Christian doesn't mess around when it comes to loose teeth. If it's the slightest bit loose, he's going to pull it. We tell him all the time to stop wiggling his teeth, but goes for it anyway. He lost tooth #7 this past weekend. That's a big deal because he is now the official front runner in his tooth pulling competition with Abby. The were tied on Saturday and he pulled (get it??) into the lead on Saturday night. The best part about the whole thing was that he asked if the tooth fairy could bring something for McKenna, since she has never lost any teeth.

That boy...

Tonight Christian got out of bed to tell me something "important." He had forgotten to tell me want he wants in his stocking this year. Hmmm...I don't think I've ever gotten "stocking requests" before, but I was curious to see what was on his list.

#1. He wants tape. The kind with the sticky stuff on one side and the kind with the sticky stuff on both sides. Easy peasy! I've got a bunch of both kinds of tape in the closet. It's just hidden because if he had any idea it was there, it would be gone by now. He is always crafting and making up something that requires tons of tape.
#2. He wants temporary tattoos. ugh. I hate those things. I'm hoping he'll forget about those before Christmas rolls around because even though we also happen to have some hidden away left over from Valentine cards last year, I don't think I'm going to give them to him. I don't want all of our Christmas pictures to have Toy Story and Cars tattoos in them.
#3. A mohawk hat. Oh my word, is that hilarious or what??!! This boy has never ever cared for one second what he's wearing, but apparently these hats are cool.

Can you guys see me actually buying this?? Ha! I guess you'll have to stayed tuned to find out.

Building up his Best Behavior!

 

Christian came bounding off the bus the other day!!! He was so excited. He kept yelling "I got my name on the brick wall!!!!!!!!!!!! I got my name on the brick wall!!!!!"  Thankfully I actually did know what he was talking about. They have cards at school and you get a punch in your card every time you show outstanding character or exceptional behavior. Once you get 10 punches you get to put your name on the "brick wall" and your name is announced on the announcements the next morning.  The wall says "Building up our Best Behavior." Christian was the fourth student in his class to get his name on the wall. 

So we made a big fuss out of this event. It was the perfect opportunity to reinforce the fact that good character is what we value the most! To celebrate we ordered pizza and the next day McKenna, Will and I surprised Christian and went to school to eat lunch with him. He was sooooo surprised!!! McKenna loved taking her lunchbox to school!

One of Christian's little friends looked at Will and said, "Can I pet your baby??? He looks nice." Since I didn't want a bunch of kids "petting" Will and infecting him with all their germs, I told that little girl that Will really wasn't that nice. That he liked to bite people (which is true). You should have seen the look on her face. ha! She didn't "pet" him.

Hot Rod!

We have some friends who have a Mustang Convertible. This summer Christian saw it in their garage and immediately told me that he wants one of those when he grows up :) So our friends came and picked up Christian and McKenna one evening to take them out for ice cream and for a drive. Christian was THRILLED...in fact "thrilled" doesn't even begin to describe it. McKenna was a nervous wreck. ha! McKenna had a great time. She still talks about how loud it was. And I still feel blessed that God has given us dear friends who care about and love our kids.

Christian's Soccer Season

It's been the craziest soccer season thanks to the rain and mud! Christian moved up a level so he's now the youngest on his team, but he's holding his own. We've only had 2 practices and the rest have been make-up games because of games constantly being rained out. Christian had to play his first game before he had ever even had a practice. So far his team has won 2 games and lost 1. Not bad.

For the First Time Ever....

My THREE kids sat and played a game together! It was so sweet. They bascially just rolled the ball back and forth with Will. He loved it. They thought it was hilarious that he would try to bite the ball everytime he got it in his hands. This moment only lasted for about 5 minutes, but it made me smile and gave me a glimpse of fun family times to come.

Love that boy!!!

Christian's teacher emailed me this morning and this is one of the things she had to say:

"He is a superb Kindergartener and is a great role model for other students!"

Cannot even tell you how much it blesses my heart to hear her use the word "role model" in reference to my son!!!

He had a sad night last night. He was tired. He made a bad choice. He knew it and felt bad and ended up sobbing about how he's the worst brother in the world. He ended up going to bed happy, but it took awhile to get there. So I can't wait to tell him what his teacher thinks of him.

On Day SEVEN I cried

Today was Christian's 7th day of school. I was priding myself on the fact that I haven't even cried about him going to Kindergarten. Christian's got a cough and stuffy nose, so I decided to let him sleep in an extra 40 minutes this morning and skip the bus. I thought he might be excited to have me drive him to school. In fact as I considered it this morning I actually worried that he might like me driving him to school so much that he would want me to do it everyday. I couldn't have been more wrong. He was ticked off! He was so mad that he missed the bus and I didn't discuss this with him first. Oh boy. I even told him that he could get an egg and cheese sandwich from McDonalds (his favorite) and he barely ate it.

As I walked him to the door of his school he took off without me and headed into the building and down the hall. A teacher standing at the door said "Good morning Christian" as he walked by. I watched the back of his blue backpack get lost in a crowd of other kids heading to their classes and I realized that for him the transition is over. He's there, he loves it, teachers even know his name. He knew where he was going and he didn't need a hand to hold. And that's exactly the way I want it!!! This is what I've worked hard to prepare him for, my heart is just a little sad.

Stupid clouds....I didn't have my sunglasses with me so all the other kids getting dropped off could clearly see a crying mom walking back to her car.

Discernment

Navigating the murky waters of parenting a child in public school is challenging. We're on week two and it's hard. The actual school, teachers and academic part is great. The kids and social part is hard. Christian is sensitive. We've been hard on him and not allowed him to be mean. We've corrected him and disciplined him for being greedy or for being a show off or for being mouthy or rude or selfish. It hurts his feelings when other kids act like no-it-alls and make him feel bad about himself. It hurts my feeling too and makes me want to cry. The bottom line is that he is going to have to toughen up. He is going to have to learn to stand alone and be self assured.

Lord Jesus, I need wisdom and discernment to help him do that.

Thankfully he is talking to us about it and not keeping it inside. And he is recognizing the ugly rudeness and meanness in other kids and he knows it's not right.

This is hard!

What did you learn today??

I've been asking that question every day so far this Kindergarten year and so far the answers have been rather hilarious. He hasn't learned anything academic so far which does not come as a surprise to me, I know it takes awhile to get the school year going. But he has learned lots of  "social things."

For example on day two he learned:
"Mom, did you know that if you miss your mom at school they won't let you go home? Even if you cry your eyes out you can't go home. This one girl cried all day and they still didn't let her go home."

Day four he learned:
"Mom, you are totally wrong about the library. You are allowed to be LOUD. I know because my whole class was really, really loud. Why did you always make me whisper in libraries?"

The Rest of the 1st Day.....

I could hardly wait to see Christian get off the bus! We got to the bus stop 20 minutes early, which was good for McKenna so she could practice peddling her tricycle.

As soon as I saw his face I knew it was a great day!

I wanted to pick him up and hug and kiss on him and cry...but I didn't.

As soon as I asked him how it was, he said "Awesome!"

He was full of stories for the next 45 minutes and then he was done talking about it.

He missed his sister big time. The first thing he told her was that he had a surprise for her. It was a picture he colored of the raccoon in the Kissing Hand! So sweet.

The rest of the night was busy. He was tired, but was not about to admit it. We had his celebration dinner, then he played some baseball with daddy and then we had ice cream cake (he asked for it and then didn't even eat a piece because he was too tired).

Christian's thoughts on the first day:

We went to the bathroom a lot.

We talked about manners A LOT!

I got to make a heart out of licorice.

Recess in kindergarten is way longer than it was at preschool.

I saw a girl crying. I think she missed her mom.

I couldn't remember whether I was supposed to stay downstairs or go upstairs to my class, so I just asked a teacher! (so proud of him that he handled that without getting upset).

We read "The Kissing Hand" and I told my teacher I heard that story already.

Lunch is noisy.

My teacher kept saying "take this home. show this to your mom."

It was awesome.

It was cool.

Later as I was tucking Christian into bed he said, "Mom, I think you needed the Kissing Hand more than I did."

Christian's 1st Day of Kindergarten

The first words out of his mouth this morning were "I don't want to go." That was hard, but thankfully God gave me the exact words I needed at that moment to get him excited. By the time 7:30am rolled around he was ready and so stinkin' proud of that Mario lunch box!

He's the very first bus stop in the morning and the very last stop in the afternoon. He's on the bus for 2 hours a day. That's 10 hours a week. That's 40 hours a month. I don't love it. Seems like such a waste of time when it takes me 10 minutes to drive to school. I'm selfish, I would prefer to have that 40 hours with him. So we'll see if this is something we'll continue to do. The only plus is that his best friend is stop #2 and I know Christian will LOVE having time every day with his best buddy!

Okay, don't judge.....stalker mom here followed the bus. Ha!
Yeah, I followed it for an hour, all the way to school. I wanted to know the route and see how long it actually took.

Stalker Mom used her giant zoom lense to capture Christian getting off the bus and then he spotted me and gave me a smile and a wave! Love that boy! I'm sure he's having a great morning.

I haven't cried yet...the same cannot be said of McKenna. She had a meltdown for about an hour about how she had no one to play with because I am a "mom" and not fun and Will can't talk so he's not fun to play with either. Honestly, I hadn't given McKenna a thought. I didn't think much about how all of this would affect her. So at 9am I called our neighbor to come play and thankfully she arrived at 9:30 and they're playing now! whew...what a morning!

My goal for this afternoon is to make sure Christian feels encouraged, proud and loved. I'm hoping he'll be ready to talk, because I'm going to be ready to listen to all the details of his day. We're going to do a "Thumbs up/ Thumbs down" everyday, where he tells me the best thing about his day and then his least favorite thing about each day.
He's planned our special celebration dinner and McKenna, Will and I will be waiting at the bus stop with balloons this afternoon (I know this is the only year I'll probably be able to get away with that)!

Well, look at that...I blogged all of this and still haven't cried :)

Somebody pray for me.....

My baby goes to kindergarten today.

Meet the teacher!

Can you tell??? I forgot my camera. So these were taken with Ryan's camera phone. Sorry!

Meet the teacher night was a turning point for Christian. It's the first time he let himself get excited about school. In fact, on the way home he said "I feel like a whole new person. I have a new classroom, a new teacher, new friends, everything is new!" He got to practice riding the bus. And he made a new friend named Blake. So, so thankful he made a friend.

He did give me the evil eye at one point. He was sitting at his table silently with 3 other very nervous looking kids. So of course the former teacher in me popped out and I started talking to all the kids at his table, introducing Christian to them and asking them their names, etc. If he could have crawled under the table he would have. He was so embarassed, so I backed off and let them all silently sit there. I guess they'll eventually get to know each other :)
It was a good night.

Hurricane Party!!!!

Thanks to Irene, we had an impromptu hurricane party last night :)

My sister lives three hours east of us and is expecting to get some serious rain over the next 24 hours. Apparently she's not the only person worried about the power going out and her sump pump not working because there was not one generator available for sale anywhere within a five hour radius of their house. So they arrived last night at 10:30 to borrow a generator and they left this morning before 8:00am. The kids stayed up until midnight giggling and having a grand time and today we are all very, very sleepy!

Preparation

Christian is not excited about kindergarten. He doesn't like new things and this is no exception. So in an effort to make kindergarten seem super cool, we paid a visit to his school. We hiked around the environmental center adjacent to his school and then headed to the playground.

I'm not sure if it helped him feel excited about kindergarten, but he sure did have a good time. I know he's going to love school, he just needs to get through the first day. We've decided to have a special celebration dinner the night of the first day of school. I've told Christian over and over that it's to celebrate how "great" his first day of school will be, so he will start planning on it being "great." He gets to pick the meal. He's picked "pizza that the man delivers in his car" and "birthday cake that's frozen with ice cream." So Papa John's and ice cream cake it is!!! And now he's looking forward to the first day :)

Paparazzi

Whenever Will does something new (like roll over for the first time) I'm not the only one running to get my camera. McKenna runs to grab her toy princess camera and Christian gets his DSi, that he can take pictures with. It's pretty hilarious as the three of us stand there taking pictures of our bewildered baby :)

I can't believe he did that....

Ryan took Christian to Hershey Park today!

They pretty much had the best time ever!

Christian keeps telling me how "awesome" it was!

It's a good thing I didn't go....

because Ryan let Christian ride on this.

Ummm...yeah....it's a REAL roller coaster.

He loved it!