The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good
A couple of weeks ago I went to Dash's Parent/Teacher Conference.  I was very, very pleased with everything his teacher had to say about him.  She praised him for being ahead of the class academically and also reassured me that he was a good kid who didn't fall into the bad habits of some of the naughty kids in his class.  She also said that she had never seen a boy his age color as well as he does.  I mentioned that his perfectionism is borderline OCD and she laughed...and then agreed.  Dash stays busy outside of school as well with various projects that he creates for himself and coaching Colt in whatever sport Brandan is doing at the time.

One of Dash's many projects was to create football gear for himself.  Notice the hip pads sticking out of his pants.

 



Conference Sunday, the boys headed out to play some football in the front yard.  This is halftime.  Dash is the coach.  Oh, and its cold outside, don't let their clothes fool you, like 40 degrees.

 

Colt is absolutely excelling in "preschool".  It took him a while to be okay with me as his teacher, but I think I'm doing something right, because he is learning his letters and counting everything and getting closer to holding a pencil correctly.  Well, a little closer.  However, even with all this academic progress, I think I may be even more excited to see him finally start to play a little more independently instead of sitting around waiting for Dash to come home.

I may not have mentioned before, but Sport had a run in with two rogue deer that found their way into our backyard and nearly trampled him trying to find their way back out and away from Dash who was chasing them.  Since that day, Sport has been terrified of deer and even the front yard, which was the scene of the attack.  It was bad enough that he would even wake up in the night crying about deer.  Happily, these incidents have become fewer and farther between and the other day we were able to point out deer from the van window without a hysterical response.  Progress.

One morning Colt and Sport dressed themselves as pirates and boarded their ship, aka the sofa.

 

Brandan's football team just finished up their season this last week.  They went 6-1, only losing to a much bigger school and they even kept that score respectable.  He did a great job and had a lot of fun.  The boys are a little sad to see the season end, but Dash is already coloring basketball pages in anticipation of what is to come. 
Brandan's also decided his carved golf ball collection was getting pretty big and so he decided to try his hand at Ebay.  He put one carving up and it sold within the week!

The golf ball carving Brandan sold on Ebay.

 

As for me, my good news is that, despite the fact that my belly is as big as ever, I have actually felt good enough to still be running.  I usually go out 4 or 5 times a week and gross out the town of Upton by jogging down Main Street.

The Bad
Last Monday I got a call from Dash' school, actually more specifically from his principal, Mr. Coberly.  While we exchanged civilities, I kept hoping he was just calling to tell me that Dash had suddenly become severely ill, but no such luck.  Dash, my kindergartner, had been sent to the principal's office!  And from P.E. no less!  Mr. Coberly was kind of laughing while he told me the story, but I'm 8 months pregnant so I had to really fight so I didn't start sobbing on the phone.  What happened was that Dash was refusing to do anything in P.E., just completely shut down.  So finally the teacher called in Mr. Coberly, who took Dash by the hand and led him into his office.  It took a few minutes, but Mr. C was able to get to the root of the problem and he was quick to assure me that he had never had a problem like this before.  Dash was unhappy about not being allowed to run as much as he wanted in P.E.  Actually, this is specifically what Dash said (I know because Mr. C quoted it to me) "I'm the fastest kid in my class so if I'm not the line leader during warm-ups than I have to run slow and there just isn't any point"!  I was mortified, but Mr. C just laughed and said he thought to himself, "well, hell, this is Brandan's kid".  Mr. C explained to Dash how sometimes we run fast and sometimes we run as a class and if everyone didn't listen to the teacher, then she would have 22 kindergartners running around the gym.  Dash's response, another direct quote, "well, that wouldn't have been a problem today because 2 people are sick so there would have only been 20 kindergartners"!  Again, I had to choke back a sob, but Mr. C said he had never had to use so much logic when dealing with a kindergartner before.  Anyway, they finally made some compromises and Dash said he would apologize to his gym teacher, but only after Mr. C promised he would take him outside and let him run some timed sprints and also promised Dash that he would periodically time him throughout the year if he would behave in class.  Well, this seemed like a good idea at the time, but that night as I was talking to Dash, we had almost come to the conclusion that things went better when we listened to our teacher when Dash said, "actually, if I didn't get sent to the Principal's office, I wouldn't get to do those fun races".  Well, crap, how do you argue with that?

No thanks to Brandan, Colt is completely confused on what is appropriate and inappropriate language.  The other day Brandan told him that old joke,
Guess why. Cow Pie.  Guess who.  Chicken Pooh. 
Clever, right?  Well, Colt overheard me tell Brandan that I didn't love him teaching the boys such ridiculousness.  Now Colt yells at Brandan every time he says "cow pie" because "Momma doesn't like that", but Colt's new favorite phrase is chicken poo.  All day long its, "Mom, I love you. Guess why. Chicken Pooh!"

Sport has hit his Terrible Twos full force.  Its a good thing we love him so much, otherwise, we really wouldn't like him.  He is a super demanding, whiny, headstrong, opinionated, fit-throwing toddler.  For instance, he has to wear whatever he picks out,including clothes from his brothers' drawers, drink from the cup of his color choice even if you have already poured his milk in a different cup, and have his blanket spread over him in a way that no one can accomplish.  Conference Saturday was a rough morning with Sport, so I was actually glad to hear that he can leave for his mission one year earlier than we had planned!

Sport splashed water on his clothes one day before lunch, demanded that we take them off, refused to get re-dressed, and then insisted he be given a bib before he would eat.

The Ugly
A stray cat has taken to hanging around our house, probably because the boys keep talking me into feeding it.  The boys love their "pet" though and I like that its not actually my responsibility.  So every time our kitty shows up the boys stop whatever they are doing to watch the mangy stray from the windows, because this is as close as she'll let them get. 

The boys eating breakfast by "our cat".  Just so you know, I washed my windows that same day.  And also, just so you know, two days later, they looked just like that again.