Before and After.

Duncan was rather upset today.

Seems a GIRL was playing with his hair, and (gasp) she put it in a ponytail which is for girls, and this will never do, so can you please cut my hair so that it does not look like a girl.

I double checked with him twice - because once you cut hair - you can't put it back on - At least not outside of Hollywood, and this was a drastic change, motivated by a temporary situation.

But - he was sure. Cut it off, I'm tired of this long hair.

OK.

Broke my heart to cut off his long blond locks, but it's what he wanted.


Before; My little California surfer dude:


And After; My respectable and devastatingly handsome son who will not tolerate girls putting ponytails in his hair. Ever.

Day 2

So Joey had his 2nd day of kindergarten yesterday. Maybe I should rename this blog "Joey goes to Kindergarten".

After his disastrous first day, I had high hopes for day 2 - especially since he seemed to have forgotten about the fire drill (he hadn't really, it just *seemed* that way)
He was quite content to let me drop him off again, and although he had no clue where he was supposed to stand in line, they eventually shepherded him into the right spot.

I came to pick him up for lunch and what should I see in front of the school but a big fat red fire engine.

crap.

I am hoping desperately that there wasn't another fire drill or worse that someone has pulled the alarm.

It seemed to take forever for him to come out - The teacher met me outside

"Was there another fire drill? " I asked

"No" she replied, "It's fire safety week, but no drills or alarms - He had a meltdown due to......." I stopped listening because it could have been anything really - the wrong colour chair, a loud kid, an inability to transition from one activity to another....he has meltdowns frequently, and I'm sure the school will learn as I have what triggers them and how to avoid them.

It seems that there are a few problem kids in his class - not children with special needs - just children that have not been disciplined very well for 4 years and so the teacher is having quite a time. Thankfully, Joey seems to be fine in the behaviour department, aside from the occasional meltdowns. His EA wants to take him home, and his teacher says "get in line" because she loves him too. Apparently they get quite a kick out of his little quirks. His teacher told me she met with some of the other kids parents and she understands why they are having problems, because the parents don't seem to do anything about the misbehaviour - even in the presence of the teacher.

I'm a little worried about that - since we've been so fortunate in the past. Both the other boys had this same teacher for Kindergarten, so I've been one of 'her parents' for the past 3 years (this is my 4th year) and likely Joey will have her again next year - so I'll have spent 5 years with her - We get along great.
Duncan's class was wonderful in kindergarten; Matthew's too - I got to know the parents and the kids were all so terrific. I'd volunteered for class trips, and truly, there were never any serious behavioural problems with those classes.

To know now that there might be 1 or even 2 kids that are serious problems scares me a little bit, solely for the effect they will have on Joey. He is so easily influenced, and repeats absolutely everything. At Walmart today he kept saying "Go to number 4 - go to number 3" - There is a single express lane with 6 checkouts, and an automatic voice that tells the next person in line which checkout to go to. Joey repeated that line for nearly the whole hour we were there, and I bought more than 12 items so I didn't even get to use the express checkout - had to go to the ONE checkout that was non- express and wait for the lady ahead of me and her 3 items - who could have used the express checkout - there was no lineup - but she chose to use the one checkout available to the people with more than 12 items - GAH, inconsiderateness abounds!! I had to bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing as Joey kept saying "Go to Number 5" - Too bad she didn't listen to him! But that's just one example of how he can perseverate - and if in the company of kids in his class who are acting up - he will copy them.

I know that my next door neighbour is a bit of a problem kid. Luckily, Matthew (who is the same age) was not ever in his class, and again they have separate teachers - which I plan to request again next year. Not that the boy next door is so bad (well he sort of is) but because Matthew is actually a pretty good kid, and for the most part doesn't get into trouble EXCEPT when he's with this kid.
I don't have a problem with him playing with anyone else - but this one kid brings out the absolute worst in Matthew, and they adore each other, which makes it hard to say "no, you can't play with him". I do however put my foot down about letting him come over and playing inside. Nope - not going to happen.

I really like my neighbours - and their other kids are fine - but this one child of theirs frightens me because if he is this bad at 6, what will he be like in 10 years? I can only hope that my kids choose their friends wisely (as it seems they have at school chosen well mannered school chums who are have similar interests and are not hell bent on destroying everything in their path like the neighbour kid).

Well that's enough random blathering on for today.....

Another first day!

And here I thought with Joey's first day of school that I would have a day off

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

What was I thinking?

So this morning was Joey's first day of Kindergarten! Excitement oh yes - All 3 boys walking to school.
New backpack, lunchbox, snacks packed. Extra clothes, extra shoes.

check check check check check.

Money for his communication bag - check.

Pre-meeting done with the teacher last week - Check. In fact - we had a hard time pulling him OUT of the classroom at his orientation because it was so attractive to him - I mean it had LETTERs and NUMBERS on the walls - all over the place. It was his little nirvana.
Plus they had a sandbox.
Oh yes - let's pump up the whole idea of school - ooooh they have painting and sandbox - doesn't that look like fun?
"YES"

So off to school we went - but first a picture:


I had high hopes for a successful day.
The older boys have been in school for a week, so once we got onto school property - they were allowed to head to their door on their own (big deal when you're 6 and 7).
I walked around to the other side of the school where the kindergarten entrance was, and he suddenly lost the desire to go to school because heavens, there are LOTS OF PEOPLE over there and there weren't any people there before and who are all these people going to MY school and who is this lady holding out her hand and asking me questions like my name and if I'm ready for school - don't I look ready for heaven's sake?
Mummy of course has the camera out again - asking people to take pictures of us AT the school.
Here we are:

You can see that Joey is less than thrilled about this 'school' thing.
here's another one where he's trying to get away, but I had a good grip on him


He wore the blank stare of "what the heck is going on?" whilst a nice superviser type person herded him into the kindy pen and told him where he needed to line up along the wall.


Finally one of the kindy teachers came over and enthusiastically said "Are we ready?" and did the best thing she could have done - The thumbs up sign.
That's good - Joey knows the thumbs up sign - Yay - School might not be so bad after all

Thumbs up


Then the bell rang - and off he went and I walked home - alone. to an empty house.
To quiet.
To dirty breakfast dishes.
So, a quick clean up of the kitchen and putter around on the computer for a bit - download the pictures I took this morning - why is the colour off? Take 146 test pictures using every color space to figure out which one looks best when uploaded. look at the clock - Oh it's after 10 already - Have to leave to pick Joey up at 11 for lunch so quickly surfed online a bit and realized that my morning went by WAY too fast. At least I have the afternoon....

Went to get Joey for lunch - Teacher met me at the gate.
"Just to let you know..."**

**I do not like hearing this phrase. It usually procedes something like "Duncan got his head stuck in a chair today" or "Matthew got over excited and punched another child today" or this dreaded phrase "WE HAD A FIRE DRILL TODAY"

ACKKKKKKKKKK

This is not good.

Joey does not do well with Fire Drills. The last time we had one at our church, he was 3 and was a basketcase, sobbing and screaming and had to be carried out and held the entire time.
He does not like loud noises - or changes in lights.
The fireworks on the long weekend sent him into a tizzy so much that I had to bring him home from the park after 5 minutes, so I know that the fire drill this morning was not a good thing.

His teacher said he had a rough morning because of that - and because one of his classmates was a crier. Joey didn't cry when I left him this morning, but there were a few little first time kindergartners with tears a plenty, and one of them was in his class. She said he refused to go back into the class because they had turned the lights off for the fire drill, so after his initial meltdown, he wouldn't go back to the room until they had turned the lights back on.
Then the crier drove him crazy and he tried several times to escape the room, so they had to shut the door - and Joey does not like when you shut a door on him. That's bad news dude, and set off another meltdown.
So needless to say - He had a very anxious and very exhausting morning and was more than ready for me to take him away thankyouverymuch and let's never come back to this school place again.

He has 1 hour for lunch. The teacher had said that since his morning was so exhausting, that he'd been quite overwhelmed and that if I thought he'd had enough for today and wanted to keep him home this afternoon then just call the school and let them know.

So I took my big kindergarten boy to lunch. At MacDonalds. And we ate together and calmed down.
And just when I thought he was ready to go back - he looked at me and said "No Fire"
And I nearly cried. Because that was all he could tell me about his day.
He was scared and it was loud and busy and too much and please don't send me back there all I can say is "no fire"

So I told him - No, there's no fire.
Were you scared?
"yeah"
"Did you play in the sandbox?"
"Yeah"
Shall we go back and play in the sandbox again?"
"No fire"

I decided to take him back - even though he was somewhat reluctant - and it had nothing to do with me needing to go grocery shopping and do some vacuuming, and everything to do with the fact that if I let him stay home - the fire drill would win.
He would still be scared to go back the next time, and I did not want to reinforce the scary school idea. So I sent him back - much calmer, with chocolate teddy grahams for a snack and figured that if he could go back and have a good time with no fire drill this time, then he might come away with a better attitude towards school.
I think it worked.

I did my grocery shopping, and vacuumed and just sat down to read a book for an hour when the phone rang.
Seems that Matthew had an accident and was very upset, and could I bring a change of clothes.
Matthew - who has never had an accident throughout kindergarten - not once. But I guess the switch to a classroom that doesn't have a bathroom in it is a bit of an adjustment. Also, a dribble to Matthew is cause for alarm. He'll even change outfits if he's sweating because he hates the feeling of damp clothes.
so I went up to the school (now my 4th trip today) to take a change of clothes, and waited for 15 minutes in the office and they finally sent Matthew down with his backpack - he was upset enough to want to go home, and since there was only 45 minutes left - I took him home. We had some one on one time - watching a cartoon together - and then made the final trip (#5) up to the school to pick up the other boys.

Joey was dancing to music when I picked him up - so I think his afternoon went much better - so my plan worked!! Ha!
Duncan's teacher came out to greet me and tell me what a lovely boy my son is. I like her.

So that's the end of another day.....
Not as relaxing as I had planned.
Note to self - Don't make plans to relax - it's just not going to happen.

Ice Breakers and first day of school.

Have you tried these Ice Breaker mints. They are Lemon and pomegranate and they are heavenly.
I bought some on a whim whilst in Boston one cold (blizzardy) weekend, and my kids gobbled them up so fast that when I returned to the US I bought more which they promptly gobbled without leaving me a single one.
The next time I ventured to the US, I got smart and bought 3 of them.
gone. gone. in a day (and the 3rd one they don't know I have).

So all this is leading me to think that there's some kind of crack like drug in these 'vitamin enhanced' wellness mints that is causing them to wolf them down like.....well...candy.

Of course like all good things made by Hershey - they aren't available here in Canada.
I usually get my addiction fix of Hershey products in the US. There's something about their chocolate.....and now they've taken that same magic addictive ingredient and put it into tablet pill popping form - cleverly disguised with pretty red flecks and the moniker of "pomegranate lemon-Aid" mints. With Vitamins A, C, E and zinc. So they are good for you.

And if this is the same chemical that is in their chocolate - then their chocolate must be good for you too (see where I'm going with this?)

So tell me - Why am I still trying to feed my kids carrots and broccoli when the good folks at Hershey have developed a delicious way of getting vitamins into us - and furthermore - have made it SO tasty that we can't seem to get enough.

there's some evil genius at work at Hershey - I just know it. They are going to take over the world.....

If they ever combine forces with the other world leader in addictive chemicals....Coca Cola, then we may as well just give them all our money.

For now, I'll just continue popping my secret pomegranate pills - because really, I feel better already, although it might be the fact that School has started and I'm not trying to entertain 3 little boys all day.

Yep - Loving school.
They are too - They started yesterday - and yes, I took the requisite "first day of school pic by the front door" but I have to upload that off my camera.
I'll get to that just as soon as I get myself another one of these yummy mints......

Here we go - First day - Grades 1 and 2


By the way - the first day of school was the usual chaos in the morning getting the classes all organized.
The boys LOVE their teachers - and I think they will both have good years.
Joey will start on Monday - the kindergarten is a graduated entry which means that he starts on Monday and goes only 1 day next week, 2 days the following week and 3 days the week after that. He was all excited about starting school - until the boys started back and he realized that having mum to himself is not such a bad gig after all. He got to come shoppping with me, and had my undivided attention, not to mention that with those big brothers gone, it's actually quite quiet in the house - nobody terrorizing him, shoving him out of the way, telling him to move off because they don't want to 'share' the same couch as him - nobody to taunt him, tease him, deliberately ignore him, or compete for my attention.
Brothers are great - but not so much when you are 4.
I do think that he'll love school though. He had his meet the teacher conference today and he loves the room so much he didn't want to leave. That might change when there are other kids in there though. We've met a few of the kids who will be in his class this year. Both girls, and both the youngest in their family, so he's in good company. Both girls were a good 2 inches taller, so I have a feeling he'll have lots of "mummy" figures to coddle him.
We did manage to get him fully toilet trained this summer - so that's not an issue. The speech is improving rapidly, although he still ignores kids his own age. Should be fun though. I am bringing him home for lunch for the first little while - as I don't think he is independent enough to stay at school for lunch since he can't put straws in his drinks, or open packages or containers very well (read 'not at all' ) and the lunch supervisors are not terribly helpful. Plus they only get about 20 minutes to eat and then they go outside and Joey just doesn't do well when rushed. Even Matthew is having difficulty with the rushed lunches still.
All this to say - I will have a quiet and hopefully tidy house when I have all 3 boys in school.
can't wait.
I think I'll have a coke.
and another mint.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....

I've started humming that commercial....2 more weeks.
That is all.

Until then, I have 13 days to fill with interesting things to occupy 3 little boys. It's hard.
They are tired of riding bikes and playing with the same neighbour kids all day every day, and truth be told, I'm tired of those kids too.
I've disabled my doorbell because of the constant ringing.
put masking tape on it and wrote in big green marker "NO"
It appears to have worked so far - should have thought of that back in July. Much easier to ignore a knock than a doorbell, and really, I have a doorbell happy next door neighbour who was ringing several times a day - Even when one of the boys came in to use the bathroom, there would be the inevitable doorbell ring "can he come out" (Dude, let the boy pee for heaven's sake) or even worse I'd get the "Can I come to your house?" to which he'd get a "no" and a blank stare until he kind of meandered off to find something to do.

so ideally, I'd like to find something to do with my kids that involves not being in our house, or our street, or anywhere near the neighbourhood kids that they've been playing with all day every day for the last 6 weeks. That much closeness inevitably leads to bickering - they are all starting to act like brothers rather than friends and that means petty arguments, namecalling and stomping off home. It also means that they are getting bored and getting into more trouble. Bikes can only be fun for so long so hey, lets throw some rocks, or dig holes in the yard or (gasp) climb on the cars (yep they got yelled at for that halfway to the roof of our minivan).

But another day down.
This weekend is an anniversary weekend for me and the hubby - so we'll be jetting off to Niagara falls (or driving off in our fuel efficient Civic is more like it) for a fabulous kid free celebration of 11 years together. We really need this time to ourselves - just to enjoy each other's company without distractions. It seems that all around us we are seeing friends splitting up, marriages crumbling and the stress that comes with kids and ever rising prices is enough of a strain on any marriage. Getting away just the two of us without the distractions of kids and work and obligations is going to be so nice and so welcome. We are both looking forward to it - and the fact that the kids are going to be having a fabulous fun filled weekend at Grandma and Papa's complete with *sleepovers* means another few days that I don't have spend entertaining them.

Matthew of course is aware that he will be sleeping over, but has still voiced his displeasure at it. He hates sleeping over anywhere and while he loves going to Grandmas, at the end of the day he wants his own bed thankyouverymuch and anywhere else is cause for tears and anxiety. When I went away to Boston for the weekend, he did spend 2 nights at Grandmas (not in a row, it was Thursday and Sunday) but this is going to be 2 nights in a row which is a very very long time for him to be away from home and he is already telling me about how he will miss me and remember when I went to Boston (oh yes I do) and he mist me SO much (yes he 'mist' me, he wrote and told me so)

But when I come back it will be only one more week until school starts and that is SO close and means that there will only be 8 days for me to fill with wonderful happy memories. One of those days we will take them to the CNE ('The Ex') as it is a rite of passage for all Canadian Children to attend the Ex at least once in the summer time.
So that leaves 7 days.....
So if you have any ideas on what I can do to keep 3 boys occupied for 7 days, beyond the usual, I am all ears.

1 day we'll go to the local splashpark and have a picnic...
1 day we'll go to MacDonalds playplace - Probably the day before school starts
1 day is bound to be rainy and horrid so we'll go to the video store and rent movies and make popcorn and have "theatre" day

and now I'm down to 4 days...
help.....
me.......
not long now.

death for breakfast

When you make eggs in the microwave - I cook 'em in a little green cup - so they come out as a big yellow blob which I then cut up into chunks, and serve with ketchup.
Usually I put this on a green plate - because Matthew likes the green plates - and sometimes a red plate but never a blue plate.

I had forgotten to run all the dishes last night, and the kids plates were all dirty except for two older ones, which we rarely use, but they'll do in a pinch.
One is Dora (*Unacceptable now, because Dora is a girl and besides that's for babies)
the other is Spongebob.

I went with the spongebob plate.

Have you ever really noticed that microwaved eggs come out looking like spongebob?

Then when you cut them up and put ketchup on it - you have a spongebob massacre. Ever thought about that?

I didn't.

Won't make that mistake again.

summertime and we don't need to sleep

I think that's my kids motto.
They've been staying up later and later.
every night.
And still getting up before 8am.

They are active all day long - out the door riding bikes by 9am
swimming
playing
running
not eating - heavens no - haven't got time for that mum, gotta go go go go go - unless one of my friends invites me for lunch in which case then eating seems like a fun and wonderful thing but otherwise no.
Snacking. Yes.

Snacking is different from eating lunch. Snacking involves something in a little bag that is portable and can be eaten with one hand whilst riding a bike.

the evil ice cream man continues to come around nearly every day......right before dinner. That's another snack.
Duncan runs in and spends his own money - always gets a chocolate cone dipped in sprinkles for $2.75.
Sometimes I buy it for him, and sometimes he buys his own.
Either way - it means that dinner time goes over about as well as lunch.
It's light out until 9pm, but I make them come in at 8.

They are then supposed to have something to eat, get into jammies, and GO TO BED.
but this last part isn't happening.
They are not tired.
I don't know how they do it, because *I* am tired.

Why aren't they getting tired?
Are they saving it all up so that when they are teenagers I will be forced to stick dynamite under their bed in order to get them up for school?? Is that it??

Oh that reminds me - Matthew loves to play Rock Paper scissors. Duncan likes it too - and hates to lose.
Duncan is very bright and academic - but sometimes Matthew is just such a clever little bugger that it throws Duncan for a loop. They were playing Rock paper scissors, and Duncan kept winning so finally they did 1 - 2 - 3 and Duncan threw down rock and matthew did some brilliant move where he wiggled all his fingers and said "it's dynamite - and it beats rock!"
Oh my goodness - the resourcefulness. I laughed, because dynamite made Duncan quite upset because he couldn't beat it.

So then D. started using 'dynamite' and clever Matthew became water and put the dynamite out. - How funny is that?

And despite the constant fighting - they become super best buddies (solidarity at night) in the evening and ask for 'sleepovers' and play with each other until all hours. Duncan was out by 11pm and I just put Matthew back to bed - it's 11:56pm.

And now a random picture from the archives - because I had lost all my camera cards (4 x 2GB each) and was super peeved about it - not because of the cards, although I was mildly upset about that - but memory is cheap, and I'll have to get new memory when I get my new camera anyway because stupid NIKON cannot keep all their cameras with the same type of memory. So my D80 takes SD cards, and the D300 takes Compact Flash and since it looks like Nikon isn't about to change their higher end cameras over to SD anytime soon, I'll have to go with CF when I upgrade. All this to say:
I found my cards - and was so happy because there were pictures on there that I hadn't uploaded yet - Most of them from my best friends daughters b-day party in June.
So
Found the pictures - and here's one with our kids because it's funny and cute (Joey was grumping)