Strange tails

Alright, I admit that occasionally... only occasionally mind you... I can be a little silly. But this current silliness is effective and so I shall continue it. About what do I speak? Simple -- a method for getting my most noisy three year old to quiet down at night --- both at bedtime and if/when he wakes during the night. This method I call the 'Scooby Doo Silencer device.' Here is how it works:

Xander: Yell, yell, shriek, run, talk, shriek, bounce.
Mom: Xander, it is bedtime, time to quiet down.
Xander (at the top of his lungs): I AM BEING QUIET! SEE? I AM NOT TALKING!
Mom, thinking (yeah, thats a fine distinction!): Xander, you are yelling, that is not quiet.
Xander (switching over to loud singing voice): I AM NOT SHOUTING. I AM SINGING YOU A LULLABY!
Mom: Xander, you know we need to be quiet otherwise Shaggy and Scooby will come and eat all the food in the kitchen
Sudden silence falls.
Xander (in a whisper): Can I sing like this?
Mom: Better not. They have good ears. Who knows? They might be walking past the house right now and any noise might make them come here!
Xander: Oh. (Silence) Wiggles. Hugs Mom. Wiggles again. No voices though!!!!

It works. It really does. I am glad -- it is not monster scary (though Xander is less than impressed by monsters anyway) but for some reason, the thought of having all the food eaten up is of concern and he is unwilling to allow that to happen so... It even works when he wakes up in the middle of the night and announces 'I AM AWAKE NOW!' I will go in and say 'Xander, ssshhh. You might wake Shaggy and Scooby!'

latest

Well, the birthday party went over -- with a bit of a surprise thrown in. One of my oldest friends, Prabha, showed up with her husband Clark, son Lokesh and two other friends, Angela and Shirley. It was *just* a thirteen hour drive from San Jose for Prab and family but they made it! Wow! Was I stunned! The boys were thrilled as well -- Jason especially because Lokesh, who is 9, played soccer AND legos with him. We also saw Chris again. Sigh. He did get into the pool and as long as his feet touched the bottom he was okay. I know I shouldn't second guess someone else's parenting but I really think TK should've gotten him back in the water immediately. Keeping him out of it didn't help him get over the fear, it just reinforced it. Ah well... chocolate over the bridge, as Hank would say!
Mom arrives on Tuesday and on friday we take the train to Portland. That should be an exciting (if expensive!) trip.
Did have a funny encounter with Xander last night. While I was helping him use the potty, we had the following conversation:
Xander: Mommy, I have a dirty secret.
Mommy: Really? What?
Xander: I like to get dirty.
Mommy: That is not really a secret.
Xander: I have a clean secret too.
Mommy: What is that?
Xander: I wrote a love song for you and it goes like this: "I LOVE MOMMY POOPY POOPY POOP!!' Then he was quiet for a moment. "I don't know the rest of the words."
Mommy, trying hard to keep a straight face and failing: "Thats okay, you can work on it."
Xander: "Okay!" and off to bed.

latest news

Well, these days Jason is a reading fool. Yesterday I was reading to him from one of his 'hard' books -- a short novel about the Exo-Force teams. I stopped to help Xander with something and Jason picked the book up and, with a little help on some of the words, proceeded to read two pages to me. I am impressed. He is reading all the time -- sometimes when one wish he would not! And he is working very hard on learning/figuring out the spelling of things. As you can imagine, given the state of the English language, this sometimes proves a confusing process...
Jason is also back to chess. For the past two nights, as part of his 'going to bed' ritual, he and his father having been playing chess. Jason has definately matured. He doesn't get deeply upset when he does not win, just comments 'I am getting closer to beating daddy every game.' And actually, Tom told me last night that, during their second game, Jason was doing VERY well -- until he got frustrated wanting SOMETHING to happen and made a bad trade. Patience is a learned skill.
As for Xander, he is trying to learn to read as well. He will bring me a book and say 'Help me read this, Mommy.' And so we work together. He so wants to be able to do what his big brother does! Indeed, right at this moment, the two boys are in Jason's Lego space and are working, more or less amicably, on building lego sets. Xander is mostly interested in the Mini Figs -- but he is generally willing to follow Jason's directions -- especially since he knows that that is the ONLY way he will be allowed in his brother's space.
Grin. I wish I had had batteries in my camera yesterday. Jason decided to teach Xander how to play chess. It was a scream to watch and listen. Jason was EXTREMELY patient with Xander.
'Xander, please, bring back my knight. We can't play Chess if the pieces keep
wandering off the board.'
or
'Xander, maybe you would like to watch me play a chess game and then you can
see how it is done?'

( That didn't work. Jason played against himself "OH MAN! I GOT BEAT!" and Xander went off to play the Thomas Train counting game 'BY MYSELF!')

At any rate, we have lots coming up. Tomorrow is our first *playgroup* in Tacoma with one of the local homeschool groups. We will see how that goes. Then Friday we are scheduled to go see the Tall Ships in Tacoma and Saturday, of course, is the Pool party for Xander (and Jason). IT should be a very busy time. I am debating whether I should try and make the cake myself or, given the Tall Ships thing, order it made. Probably the latter is the better part of valor.
And it turns out that, sadly, Matt and Maggie will not be coming to Seattle. They are talking about going to Tucson for Christmas but I am not sure that we will be able to do the same. Will have to work the finances and see what I can swing. Wouldn't it be nice to win the Lottery?:>