children, gratitude, happiness, humor, mommyhood

The Sword Fighting Champion

WFAM

Little T.Puzzle and I settled back into the couch’s cushions and prepared for the smack-down sword fight to begin. Full Speed was already talking a big game. Before he had convinced Mad Dog to do battle, he had tried unsuccessfully to sweet talk me into a sword match.

“Mom, remember how you used to be sword-fighting champion of the world?” he argued.

Not really. I’m guessing at some point either myself or Mad Dog made this outrageous claim to entertain ourselves. Leave it to Full Speed to file this fictitious tidbit in his infallible memory and believe it as truth.

As ‘sword-fighting champion of the world’ I politely declined.  Full Speed was more than happy to turn his aggression on Mad Dog.

About the third match in, Full Speed crouched low to the ground. You could sense he was pooling his energy in his legs and was about to burst forward and administer a mighty blow.

Little T.Puzzle and I waited for the dramatic outcome. Full Speed yelled, flailed his arms and shot up like a rocket. Instead of his sword making contact with Mad Dog, it flew out of his hand and landed harmlessly a few feet away.

I burst into laughter. Soon, we are all cracking-up and I realized that being a sword-fighting champion pales in comparison to a great, cacophonous laughing fit.

Thanks for the chuckle, Full Speed!

children, mommyhood

Pebbles Lost

WFAM

Why, even after all these years, do I think I can take both boys on a simple errand and actually think it could be simple?

I had already had a successful Walmart run with little T.Puzzle in the a.m. (this in itself is nearing miraculous) but in my haste had forgotten a couple items. I figured I’d scoop Full Speed up from camp and head with both boys to the grocery to get the remainder of my list.

When all was said and done they were banished to their rooms and lost pebbles out of their reward jars for their embarrassing display of awful behavior.

Me?

Well, I just lost my marbles…

humor, kids, kindergarten, mommyhood

Kindergarten Lessons

WFAM
The boys ‘quietly’  sitting on the couch together

As we drove past big brother Full Speed’s soon-to-be grade school, he began to explain a few things to his little brother.

“See T.Puzzle?  That’s where I will go to kindergarten. Maybe next time you can come with me to my screaming (screening).”

Little T.Puzzle was duly impressed. Full Speed continued.

“The hardest part of starting kindergarten will be keeping quiet and only talking during recess. I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” he said.

Frankly, neither do I.

children, mommyhood

The Screening

WFAM

All was going great. Little T.Puzzle had been dropped off and Full Speed had been amply prepped for this morning’s scheduled kindergarten screening. I talked it up big time. We were going to have an adventure going to his new school, meeting one of his possible teachers and answering questions about how smart he was. Full Speed thought it all sounded ‘cool’.

No sooner had I sat down to complete some paperwork and his screening was complete. The teacher said he did a wonderful job and he was beaming.

Super.

Then, as I took him to his summer camp he excitedly explained the screening process to his camp counselors. They were happy to listen but also a little sad at how much Full Speed  has grown-up and that he will be leaving them to start kindergarten in two weeks.

Their sadness was too much.

Full Speed looks at them, then looks at me and bursts into tears. This is extremely out of character for my little go-getter. Me and a counselor took him into the hall and calmed him down. He shook it off quickly and headed back to his classroom for his snack.

But the real question remains, who is going to calm ME down as Full Speed’s kindergarten start date approaches??