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?:>

Wow! Has it been a month?

Wow! I just looked at when I last posted... has it really been a month? Xander is now *officially* three -- though his big party doesn't happen until the 11 of August. Hmmm... I shall have to see what I can remember of the recent past and record it.

Well, first off, Tom did go to Singapore for two weeks. He arrived home just this past Saturday and is still recovering from messed up sleep. For that matter, so am I! While he was gone, Mom, very graciously, came to stay with us. It was a blessing -- both having another adult about the place AND having someone to distract the boys from their father's absense. Of course, they missed him and Xander has been clinging to his father, not wanting to let daddy out of sight for more than a few minutes. But the boys did enjoy having their grandmother in residence and will be thrilled when she returns in a couple of weeks.

During this past month, some things have changed -- Xander is now peeing standing up (thanks to Gma) and is quite proud of that fact. Sigh. He is only JUST tall enough so it can be exciting when he does so. He continues his love affair with 'peeing in the bushes' and keeps holding it in hopes that he can arrange such an event. He succeeded the other night, as we were leaving the park and was quite thrilled to inform all and sundry that he had 'made the leaves wet.'

Another change in the recent past has been the dramatic improvement in Jason's reading. More on that later, though.

Updates

Okay, I have been remiss. I have not been keeping up with this blog. Apologies to any who read it. So much has been happening that there are times when it is very difficult to remember where I put my head (glasses, keys, boys) let alone find time to actually write something coherent!



There for a couple of weeks, both the boys and I were really sick. Fever etc. I finally went into the doc and was placed on a ridiculously expensive antibiotic for a sinus infection. 4 days after finishing the antibiotic I still had a blistering headache so I went back in. Saw a different doc who seemed to think that the previous antibiotic hadn't worked (well, duh!) so she put me on a super high, extra long dose of another antibiotic (which was also expensive). After taking 4000 mg of Augmentin for five days, I called it quits. I felt awful on it. Had a headache but a different one. But there, for a brief period, we all felt better. During that time, Tom's older brother, John, and his new wife, Emmy, brought John's two sons up for a very brief visit. It was lovely to see them all and Emmy is a sweetheart. Jason and Xander were delighted to have their cousins and Xander was especially delighted to have Emmy -- another person to admire him.



Meanwhile, the sun has come out and somehow the boys and I have managed to get too much sun and so are having hystamine backlash -- sore throats, coughs, and drippy noses. AND on top of this, Tom has just been informed that he has to go to Singapore for (probably) two weeks to hand hold Singapore Airlines' hand.

The math question

The other day we met John and Donna in Issaquah. While Donna and Tom took Jason to see 'Shrek 3', John and Xander and I walked, explored the bookstore then headed back to the elder Deans' house. On the way I told John about Xander's one-upping his brother in a math problem. John, of course, had to test this so he asked Xander 'Is 4+3 the same as 5+2?' Xander gave his Grandfather quite a look and said firmly 'NO! And I am RIGHT!' Thereafter he answered every question his Poppa asked him with his favorite number (2). When I told Tom the story, Tom's response was 'Well, of course he was right. 4+3 is not the same as 5+2. Now if my father had asked him 'Is the SUM of 4+3 the same as the SUM of 5+2?' The answer would've been 'Yes."....

Boys...
Last night Jason came bouncing out from the bathroom (post bath) and announced to me 'I have been making and bottling stinky water.' I had to ask, of course. It is required. So I asked 'Stinky water? What is that? How do you make it?' Jason grinned. 'You fart really stinky farts into the water and then you bottle it -- but you don't want to smell it. It will knock you out... I have been experimenting!' I looked at Tom. He rolled his eyes and said 'I didn't do it!'

Hogwarts Summer Correspondence School

Sigh.... I haven't posted in awhile, I know. We have all of us been sick -- we are, in fact, still recovering. I have a sinus infection, a cold, and allergies. The boys appear to have some nasty virus and Tom thinks he has a cold. Blah... but we are getting better slowly. I went to the doctor on Thursday and have been on antibiotics since then.

But though we have been ill, things have continued to happen -- of course:> Jason and Xander have been 'accepted' in to Hogwarts Summer Correspondence school. We made an owl mail bag and letters have been passing back and forth since. The boys are convinced that our local pygmy owl is the one carrying the bag and they are concerned that the bag may be too heavy -- as indicated by the varying locations that the bag appears in the Maple Tree. Jason has also been assigned a mentor -- Harry Potter -- and a house -- Gryffindor. Xander, because he is in pre-school, will be in the same house as his brother. I have uploaded pictures of the mail bag and the letters that the boys have received to the family website. Amazing how busy this has kept us. But the boys are both looking forward to this greatly -- Xander was so excited about it that he carried his 'acceptance' letter around with him for about 1/2 a day after he received it. He has also taken to wearing 'Harry Potter' glasses and carrying a wand. He is really cute. I will have to upload those pictures as well.

I will admit, my memory of things that have happened in the past couple of weeks is somewhat shakey -- the headache and congestion, not to mention the continual low grade fever, has played havoc with my memory. I do know, however, that I am recovering as I actually got quite a bit done this morning (Dropped off bags/peanuts to the mail store, grocery shopped, bought fabric for Xander's robe, swept and mopped the kitchen, vacuumed the dining room, sorted out the ball box, washed clothes, went through Xander's clothes and selected a load to donate, read several books to the boys...) Now we just have to get everyone else healthy as well!!

Home schooling in the news: Amazing what a lot of arrogance and ignorance masquerade as 'insightful' journalism these days. Below are two links: The first is to an article by a man who didn't bother to do any research and decided to blast the concept of homeschooling. His arguments seem to me to be a better indication of why one SHOULD homeschool -- after all, he is a prime example of the results of a public school education... The second article is by a young man who was homeschooled all the way. He is responding to a different attack on home schooling though from the sound of it, the articles have quite a bit in common.

1)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-shaw/lets-restrict-home-schoo_b_49013.html

2)http://homeschooling.about.com/cs/debate/a/guestmbass.htm

S0, if you are reading this and have an opinion, tell me what you think?

what makes a girl a girl

The other day Xander was dancing around in his scivies. I asked who he was being (with Xander, this is ALWAYS a good question). The exchange went something like this:

Me: Xander, who are you now?
X : I am a girl.
Me: Why are you a girl?
X : Because I am in my underwear. Girls wear nothing but underwear.

Yikes! But it is a logical leap -- the other day he saw a model wearing a string bikini. He whispered (a two year old's whisper) 'MOMMY! THAT LADY HAS NOTHING ON BUT UNDERWEAR!'
A woman walking past muttered 'And not even that!'
I explained that it was a bathing suit -- somehow I don't think he believed me....

Bookstore adventures

Took Xander and Jason to Half Price Books for their Memorial Day, 20% off, sale and spent way too much money. When we were paying, an older asian man, chinese, I believe, came up and tapped Xander on the chin.

'Do you see this?' he asked, 'I once knew a very famous man, a man who was the leader of his country. He had something like this on his chin. This one will be an important man when he grows up!'

Then he asked 'What is his name?'

'Alexander' I answered.

The gentleman's eyes widened. 'ALEXANDER! Ah, the great leader! This one will be King of America some day!'

Then, confidentially to me, 'He is very good talker. He is very verbal!'

Yes, it goes on.