children, kids, kindergarten, life in pictures, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Changes

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I understand there are laws that govern classroom size.

I understand that moving kids three weeks after school starts to a new teacher and classroom is ultimately in the best interest of the school.

But, really, did it have to be my kid?

Does this look like a kid who is happy to be moving to a new room?

I believe that eventually many wonderful things will happen with this transition.  Full Speed will learn valuable skills about handling change, he will meet new friends and he will love his new class as much as his old.  Maybe even more if we are lucky.

However, when life is teaching us lessons, it would be helpful if there was a nanny on stand-by to intervene at the inevitable angry outbursts of a five-year-old when change is upon us.

Any volunteers?

children, gratitude, kids, kindergarten, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Happy Face

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I am getting better at the kindergarten drop-off.  Full Speed  is still doing awesome with it.  He even does silly things to try to make me laugh (like putting his backpack on his head or doing a funny dance) as he walks towards the doors of school.

Even though it is going swimmingly, my heart still aches as I have to leave him there.  Without realizing this morning, I inhaled sharply and let out a long, slow breath as I watched Full Speed get out of the truck.

T.Puzzle, who seems to have inherited some of my highly empathic genes, immediatlely asks, “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

It shocked me back into the present moment.  I was stunned that my three year old picked up on this and a reminder that little eyes and ears are always watching.

“Oh, T.Puzzle, sometimes Mommy gets sad when I have to drop Full Speed at kindergarten.  I miss him and I miss you while you are at school.”

“It’s okay, Mommy.  Put on your happy face, okay?”

So, I did.  Thanks, T.Puzzle.

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Tag, You’re It

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Full Speed brought home a P.E. calendar that has an activity per day on it.  The goal is to complete each activity and then turn in the calendar at the end of the month for a surprise.  As Full Speed’s mother I’m all over this.  Anything that can be used to channel his energy for good and not evil is always a plus with me.

One such listed activity is play tag with friends.

Perfect.

Full Speed wanted Miss Cutie and Cute Baby to come over.

Even better.

Since T.Puzzle is still on restriction as his eyes heal, tag would be indoors.  I knew these girls, who are both very good at keeping up with my guys, wouldn’t necessarily increase the craziness level of what I presumed would be a raucous game of tag.

Unfortunately, the girls had other plans.  I relayed this to Full Speed and he rolled with it.

“That’s okay, Mom.  I’ll just play tag with my brother because he is my friend, too.”

Well said, Full Speed.  Well said.

children, humor, kids, kindergarten, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

Ten Minutes

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My Type-A personality is slowly conquering the insanity of kindergarten drop-off.  My solution is to be there extremely early.  Full Speed has responded well to this.  He loves to get to school early (Type-A in the making, baby!).

So, I get the boys out the door by 8 a.m. and we miss all sorts of traffic and chaos.  The downside is we have to sit in the school’s car drop-off line for roughly ten minutes before the doors open.  No problem, right?  That is if you enjoy being in a confined, motionless space with the antics of Full Speed and T.Puzzle.

Me?  Not so much.

The first morning I tried this routine it was a disaster.  The boys went absolutely insane.  If they could have somehow managed to run laps in the truck, they would have.  Me?  I silently wished for a tranquilizer gun.  Now that could have been fun.

I regrouped.  The second day I had some hand-held electronic games to occupy them.  This turned into a no-go as well.  They couldn’t figure out to use them and their frustration only increased their hyperactivity.  Also, one of them manage to break their game which caused it to emit a high-frequency continuous beep.  For the life of me, I couldn’t get it to stop.  I tossed it on the floor in frustration and it kept beeping at me in contempt.  I still have nightmares of that beeping.

I switched gears again.  Quiet coloring activities seemed the route to go.  This is mostly working except for Full Speed’s accidental grafiftti work of the truck and his shirt with his dry-erase markers.  Of course T.Puzzle keeps dropping his artwork and color-wonder markers (oh, how I love color wonder, no mess on clothes or car) and this doesn’t help his mood.  To problem solve these challenges I discovered washable dry-erase markers (yay!) and now use scrapbook mounting squares to hold T.Puzzle’s artwork in place on his mini-lap desk.

What are these guys gonna throw at me next?

It’s only ten minutes is my mantra.

I can handle anything for ten minutes.

Well, except a homemade car bomb.

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Birthday

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Ohio Stadium, home of the Ohio State Buckeyes ...
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Heading into my birthday weekend (yes, I turned 36), I had the weighted guilt of bad-mommy mojo slowing me down.  When I picked up T.Puzzle from school on Friday after only his second day back, I felt huge relief that the incident memo I received from his teacher was a result of an injury.  Thankfully he had not physically lashed out at another student. It’s hard to feel like an awesome Mom when my first thought over such a thing is “Yay!  My kid tripped, bit his tongue and cried.  Oh, thank  god!”

Sorry, T.Puzzle.

What’s a girl to do?  Only thing she can, hire a babysitter and go away for the night with your husband I guess.

Mad Dog has a simple formula for a successful marriage.  Since he is married to an emotionally sensitive woman and her birthday celebration unfortunately seems to always coincide with an Ohio State Buckeye‘s game, his answer is simple:  spa, baby!

Yes, my marvellous man sent me to the spa while he hung out at the hotel’s sports bar.  It was a win-win.  Literally, the Buckeyes won.  After I returned from the spa, we went on to have a spectacular dinner and a lovely time.

Full Speed and T.Puzzle in happier times

When the fun was over and we were driving home I received a text from our sitter that T.Puzzle had bit Full Speed.  Was it bad that my first thought was to ignore the text and as we approached our exit to home, tell Mad Dog to skip it and keep on driving??

Of course I texted her how to handle the fall-out and Mad Dog and I promptly emptied our wallets for our eternal gratitude for our babysitter and any lasting emotional distress she may incur.  Anyone that survives an overnight with Full Speed and T.Puzzle is alright by me.

I’m just thankful T.Puzzle bit his brother instead of her.

Sorry, Full Speed.

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