October 21, 2013

I've been thinking about this space some in the last few days. I found myself wandering around my blog, reading old entries. It was a great reminder about why I started this in the first place - to capture, for me more than anyone - those little moments in my life that otherwise I'm afraid would become a blur in the day-after-day routine around here.

So, I'm inspired to add another entry.

The weather has turned. As I told the kids at the bus stop this morning (including a boy, not mine, who was wearing brr-shorts-brr), it is no longer post-summer. It is now pre-winter, and we need to start dressing like it. My son, for some reason, took that advice to heart and pulled out his winter coat. After a beautiful, glorious fall, I suppose we are due for some true-blue pre-winter weather. As much as I'm not feeling ready for it, I do remind myself that I live in the land of four seasons for a reason, and that winter isn't all THAT bad.

That said, I am going to escape this climate. One and I are flying to LA (as in, California) at the end of this week to visit a buddy of his who moved back to his homeland of California after his family tested out what living in the midwest would be like for a year. N's absence in One's life has been felt deeply. N and One formed a quick bond, and they became good friends. This is something that One has sort of struggled with. He has plenty of friendships with plenty of kids (boys and girls), but he doesn't seem to have that deep friendship with a person or two. That is, until N came along. We all got to know the family, and we all really fell into some serious like with them. It was a sad say this summer when they moved back. They suggested that we visit, so before getting cold feet about it, I booked us some tickets. One and I are flying there, just the two of us (!!), for the long weekend. I am looking forward as much to spending time with only One (one child! what a luxury!) as he is to the trip to see his buddy. I have high hopes for us. It should be a great trip.

Another One update - he decided to give soccer a go, inspired, actually, by friend N. Last spring, he went to a tournament that N's team was participating in, and he thought, "hey, that looks like fun," so he asked if he could play soccer. Turns out you need to try out to get onto a team, and turns out try-outs were that week. So, we bought the soccer gear in under 4 minutes flat, and off to try-outs he went. He ended up getting an offer onto the Classic B team, which has been a great fit for him. Nice group of kids, excellent (female, first ever, for my boy crew) coach. His skills and confidence have improved nicely as the season has gone on. He is done for now, and will pick it up again in the Spring. He plans to still play basketball in the winter, and we are awaiting word from which team he will end up on after those try-outs from a couple of weeks ago.

Update on Two - fifth grade is great. He has a fantastic teacher. I am a broken record with all of this good teacher reporting, but really, the teacher this year is wonderful. She's very solid, has high expectations, wants her children to learn core concepts. Plus, she's kind and interested in the kids outside of school and even came to watch Two and his friends play football one windy Saturday morning. I think she likes my boy alot, and she has mentioned that he is very kind to some of the other (special needs) children in his class. That makes me more proud than any 4 on a report card would. Beyond anything, I want my boys to have good hearts and compassion towards others.

Two's football season was ended quickly due to a broken foot. Bit of a story here, but basically he broke it during a neighborhood game of kick the can (and a brother may have somehow been involved in the accident) but we didn't believe he was that badly hurt, so we didn't take him to the doctor. For 8 days. When we finally took him in, after resting and ice wasn't helping him, we found out it was broken. He's now in a boot (no cast, thank goodness) and, for the most part, is honoring the no-running rule. He is committed to letting it heal so he can return to his fun, which will soon be basketball. Fortunately, the basketball coaches have seen Two play a lot (for one of the coaches, our neighbor/father to Two's very good buddy, in his court in his backyard) so the fact that he had to miss try-outs wasn't a huge problem. They know what kind of a player he is, so he will be placed on the right team. Poor kid. I think I'm done with beating myself up for not listening to him about his hurt foot, but... yeah... That was some bad judgment on my part.

And onto Three. He's just a honey, until, that is, he isn't. He can be the sweetest boy, just touching my soul with his sensitivity, and he can also be incredibly stubborn and difficult when he doesn't want to do something. He's also playing soccer, which he loves because of all the running. I volunteer on the playground once/week, and he runs and runs and runs during recess. Loves to run and chase and be chased.

He also has a great teacher, and she has implemented spelling homework which I sort of love. Which is saying a lot, since I am not a fan of homework for kids this age. He needs to come up with rhyming words from a word chunk ("in" or "ip") and then, as a family (yeah, right, the big brothers aren't so into this), we are to come up with long words that have those short chunks hidden in them. It's a great exercise to talk about words and how they are constructed. He's fairly grumpy (see, stubborn and difficult) when doing the homework, but he gets it. And his understanding of language is improving.

One last quote from Three, before I run to get him from school. He was complaining about his hair being too long (it's luscious and curly and thick and beautiful), and he asked if it could be cut shorter. "You know, mom. Like, short. Like, now? When I run? It just poofs out behind me like a parachute."