To the blonde woman in the parking lot:

You have no idea how timely your comment was today.

For the last several weeks, I've been nearly certain that I'm not cut out for motherhood. Every time my son comes home with a behavior record (we're up to 3 as of today), every time one of them punches somebody, every time I run out of patience for the arguing, every time I have to tell the youngest to wash and then "with soap," every time he whines for a snack, or whenever we're at church. *sigh*

It takes a woman with a much stronger constitution than I have, a woman who is much more fun than I am, a woman who tolerates noise and chaos and messes more than I do, and a woman who is much more energetic and creative than I am.

So, on our way back to the car, in the parking lot of the grocery, when you said, "you're a good mom," you'll have to forgive me for waiting to say "thank you" until you were almost out of earshot. Your comment was too unexpected. I wish I had turned around and run after you to thank you. But since I couldn't help releasing the flood of emotions that I've been carefully protecting lately, it's probably best that I didn't.

Blonde woman on her way to the grocery, for your kind words and generous spirit, "Thank You."

Compliments of the Toof Fairy

Joel saw this at Costco for $14.97 and bought it today. What an excellent choice! He put everything together himself, nearly without directions. It was just the right level of difficulty to stimulate him to try and to see the end results quickly and with great satisfaction.
The Mars Rover model is a little flimsy. Some of the parts needed some reinforcement tape because he was a little aggressive with the pieces initially.
The Glow moon is perfect for his wall right next to his bed.
The cards are instructional and colorful. After reading about the lunar phases, he asked what phase the moon was in right now and when the next new moon would be, which led us on a little hunt for info which was fun.
The solar system model is so cool, but a little small. Probably fine from his perspective. And I would have liked to have an option to mount it to the ceiling, though perhaps we can figure that one out on our own later.
But the creme de la creme was the rocket. He couldn't wait to get it home and ready to launch. It didn't go too high to get stuck in trees, but has a remote launcher that involves him in the excitement just the right amount while the grownup safely sets it up for launch.
I highly recommend this toy. What a great afternoon of fun for us all.

More bad news

Another behavior record last night. (2 days in a row!)

Joel's room no longer has toys in it. Each day, if the teacher reports back to me that he was on good behavior, he may choose a toy to return to his room.

That's my idea. It's not much. It's not even tried and tested. It's me groping for something to help him follow the classroom rules. So if it doesn't work, which the odds are not in my favor, I don't have any ideas of what else to do.

The teacher filled out the forms to get him into a boys social behavior counseling group. I don't know what that is or the drawbacks of it. But I agreed to it. The "Behavior specialist" said he's a classic case of "just trying to get attention." I want to interject, "except for the massive amounts of attention that I feel we are constantly giving him (and, yes, at least half of it is positive)."

I was in his class today and he was fine. Not perfect, but not any less perfect than the other kids in the class. It's all giving me a headache.

Good News and Bad News

Things happen.

Today, we celebrated the kids' sleeping habits. They didn't wake us up early for a change. Usually they are asking to get in bed with us at all hours of the morning. Mostly Jamie. But, equally guilty, Joel would just wake up to pee and never go back to bed. But for a few days they've been doing really well. So we made pancakes for b'fast and nearly missed the bus for school.

Then, Joel lost his first tooth on the bus to school. This has been a much anticipated occasion. I'm sure he was beside himself with excitement all day, because his teacher wrote him up on a Behavior Record, his first. He had been breaking 2 classroom rules, fairly consistently. We knew because report cards came out during parent/teacher conferences and he had less than stellar behavior grades. But today was probably the last straw for his teacher with the addition of another infraction: Throwing his tooth at a student.

Being a parent really stinks sometimes. Having to come up with consequences and then sticking with them. I think we did the right thing. It's just hard. I want a manual that says, if your child does (A), do (B), and he'll turn out like (C).

Opposites

Jamie: What's the opposite of sun?

Joel: Moon!

Jamie: What's the opposite of hot?

Joel: Cold!

Jamie: What's the opposite of eyeball?

[silence]

Dad to mom: Do you know?

Mom to dad: Nope.

Dad to Jamie: What?

Jamie: Eyelashes.

Joel's Birthday Menu

Pick one dinner and one dessert:

Dinner

Garlic Cheddar Chicken

Stuffed Peppers

Baked Salmon and Veggies

Baked Ziti

Dessert

Chocolate Cake

Fruit Pizza

Strawberry Jello Pretzel Delight

Bread Pudding

He picked stuffed peppers and chocolate cake.

Cakes, part II

Why make just one? Because...

birthdays are all about cake.

we have to celebrate at school and at home.

Joel's 7.

This is how late I was up making this cake: I just realized (12 hours later) that I made patterns of 8 on this cake when I thought I did 7s. I think I've recounted this 4 times in the last 5 minutes, in disbelief.