Time for some reminiscing

Yes, it has been a while.  Honestly, I think I'm going to have to close down the blog around the end of the year.  I would love to have the time and dedication I once had, but that does not look like it is going to happen any time soon.  However, I do want to finish out the year, to end on a good spot.  I will have to do a few more posts about previous events over the last two months or so, but for now, since it is the correct time, I will do my best to talk about our wonderful Mr. T.

I cannot believe he will now be in double digits.  Yes, teenage years are another momentous occasion, but I remember well moving into that double digit age range and how much older I felt.  Currently, having a son in the same double digit, it still makes me feel older, but not in the same way.

Reflecting over the past year, it really amazes me how your own kids change over the course of 12 months.  I think I was expecting it to be a gradual change at some point.  And maybe that is yet to come as they become more independent, wanting to spend more time with their friends or at activities and such.  But because he isn't there yet, I have loved to watch him grow up.  And yes, part of that is literally to grow up.  He will have another check in under a month, but until then, I would guess he grew another 2 inches or so over the past year.  He is now wearing the same size shoe as me.  His frame is much thinner, as a result, he is really feeling cold now that the temperature has turned.  Oh, how I remember that feeling too.

As far as the other aspects of growing up, it has been interesting to see how social aspects of school and outside of school have really taken shape as well.  He has this wonderful carefree attitude, if he is in a comfortable, safe setting.  I know he is worried about someone asking him what he is doing, but I know he is very capable of answering those questions too.  This week, the school ran a fundraiser at Chipolte, and I had a large sign made advertising the event.  Someone suggested that maybe one of my kids would be willing to stand outside during parent drop off on Monday and then possibly go on the morning news program to talk about it.  I thought Trevor would enjoy doing it, and he said he would do so.  The night before, I think he was second-guessing himself - also I'm sure wondering what his friends would think of him doing it - but I ran through what it was all about so he could talk intelligently about it.  So I went to school early with him just to make sure it all was ok.  Gwen and I hung out inside and watched him do his thing.  He was SO in his element.  This is one of his friends that came to talk to him about it.  For a while he was dancing around doing his attention-grabbing Trevor thing that he does.  And then after the first bell rang, we walked over to the morning news rehearsal.  He did not have a script, but was able to practice what he wanted to say.  I watched him while he was on the news and while he may have stumbled over a few of his words, he had SUCH confidence.  He was so in his element.  He is a natural public speaker.  Can you tell I was a proud mom?  All I hope for him is to find out if it is something he recognizes as his strength.  When I talk to him about it, he thinks he gets stage fright and doesn't always want to do it.  But when he does do it, he has such a light from within.

His relationship with his sister is one that has also taken a great leap over the past year.  Yes, they still fight, but they are learning the rules of fighting.  In that if they want the fighting to stop, one of them has to walk away, rather than continuing the argument.  But Trevor has recognized the value of another playmate, especially one that worships you.  Legos are the common play right now, but there also is variation to school, military, or Ninjago directly.

This morning, I told Trevor that Gwen and I had a talk about him bringing his cookies for a treat for his class.  She had said that there were quite a few classmates where the older sibling brought one of their class treats for the younger sibling in her class.  So she thought that Trevor should also bring her one.  Problem with that, is that she did not do the same thing in return when it was her birthday.  So I told her, I will ask Trevor, but that it was his choice, because she did not bring one to him for her birthday.  Sure enough, as soon as I talked to Trevor about it, he said right away, he would give her one.  And when I picked the kids up from school today, he was very proud of the fact that he did give one to her, and she was EXTREMELY appreciative, even saying, "Trevor, this is the last time, I promise, that I will thank you.  Thank you SO much!  I really appreciated that delicious cookie that you gave me" Because she had already thanked him 4 times previously.

His enjoyment of reading has also kicked up a notch.  He is finally reading books that are longer than 150 pages.  His current series is Eragon.  Now, he still gravitates towards nintendo or computer games, but he also has already read the first book, which I believe was over 500 pages.  So I will consider that a win.  I don't expect him to always pick a book over nintendo, but it is nice to know that it is an option that is out there.

Finally, I will say that he is starting to understand that there is a world outside of high school.  I was talking to him about it tonight, and I do know that it is pretty immature at this point.  I'm not expecting him to be able to picture his life at, say, 20 years old.  Because when I do ask him to think about it, he seems a little scared at the fact that I won't be with him to watch out for him.  We are still at the stage of testing boundaries and finding out what happens when you make a bad decision.  So right now he thinks that he needs to have a roommate in college so that he can get that person to do part of what he is expected to do.  Laundry and the dishes for example.  He also wants to get married early so that his wife can help him do his chores and such.  See a pattern?  I would say right now, he isn't ready to let me go.  And that is a good place to be, because I am not ready for that either.  But in the mean time, I will always enjoy all our conversations.  From what he did at school, to the things he and his friends do, to answering questions he has about what I remember when I was his age.

I love you buddy.  I hope your double digits are spectacular and I can't wait to see what they hold for you.
 

In the groove

Well, here we are, second full week of school and I'm beginning to feel like I know what it is like to have two kids in school full time.  It is a whole other world.  I can run errands for more than one consecutive hour.  Granted, that isn't my idea of fun, but now I don't have to split it into multiple days if I don't want to.  I'm trying not to over-schedule myself with volunteer work and such, but I just can't seem to stop.  Library, envelopes, fundraiser stuff....and the classroom helpers haven't even been contacted yet.  Yes, we are still in the baseball/hockey overlap timing, but that will be done soon enough.  I'm needing to get ready for a big birthday coming up.

As far as the kids go, we have had a pretty smooth week.  Only hiccup was that Trevor got a nasty cold on Sunday night.  I thought he wasn't going to go to school in the morning, but seriously both of my kids make me feel like I'm running a psych ward the nights that they are battling the start of colds.  Gwen started her nighttime screams on Monday night, a day later and Trevor was at least down to moaning.  Although there have been some bumpy mornings and afternoons, it does feel like nothing is a surprise to the kids.  We leave the house whether the kids have everything they need or not.  We do as much as we can the night before.

Gwen has had a few school lunches now, and she still seems a bit puzzled by it.  Especially so by the fact that there are two main choices, but whatever your choice, you still get the same side dishes.  And yes, she has admitted to eating very little for lunch and come home starving, but I think this next month, she will know a lot more about the food she does like to eat at school.  I just hope it doesn't turn into bringing her own lunch 100% of the time.  She has one "homework" activity every night which is to read or be read to for a total of 20 minutes.  We were having a hard time finding something that she was interested in that could keep her interest (because of the length of the book) for more than 3 minutes, so I decided to bring out the magic tree house series.  Well, that was a major hit.  We are on book 6 in the series.  I know she is a ways off from wanting to read those kinds of books by herself, but I'm happy to have found a good bunch of books that I know will help her get through her reading time here at home.  She has started to have some math homework as well, and seems to be grumbling about doing her homework instead of being able to play with her toys.  She isn't as into screens as Trevor is, but I'm still trying to teach her the same habits of homework before playtime.  We got a call from her teacher after last week's school to see if there was any concerns on our part.  No she seemed to be loving school.  And her teacher thought that Gwen was doing a great job too.  Our conferences are scheduled for both kids on Gwen's birthday, so it will be a great place to put together the kids' goals for the rest of the school year.

Trevor seems to be gliding through his new year as well.  We had a hiccup as Trevor is known to do from time to time, but thankfully no real continual issues, so far.  I'm trying to maintain his independence on things that he needs to do for school and piano and such.  It is hard to not know if he is doing the work appropriately, but judging that is for his teachers.  I do not need to get in the way.  I'm thankful to have started our homework meetings again, so I can at least talk to him about newsletters and things we are getting communication about to see if there is anything I can help him with.

All in all, the house is getting cleaner and more organized, and I'm helping out a lot more with the school projects.  This is shaping up to be a great school year for everyone.

The First Day of School

I have to say, I enjoy Facebook on days like these.  It was filled with friends and family posting their pictures of the kids on their first day of school.  I, of course, added to our yearly ritual as well.  Thankfully, I'm not getting groans from the kids yet, but I'm sure they are coming.

Last week was our last hurrah.  We went to the state fair, ate lots of food, went to back-to-school night to drop off school supplies, Trevor forgot his, baseball practice then headed out to the lake for the only time all summer our family of four was there.  Thankfully, thankfully, THANKFULLY we got gorgeous weather both Friday and Saturday we were there.  We were able to be lazy and gradually enjoy waking up and walking around, and then the four of us went on a boat ride for the afternoon.  The kids stopped and jumped into the lake at three spots, and since the lake has not gotten rain for a while, the algae had started to bloom.  It is a river/creek fed man-made lake, so at least it doesn't have completely still water, but it was still bad on shorelines.  Saturday, we got to say happy birthday to a very fun girl, and visit with my cousins kids.  Again, THANKFULLY the weather was spectacular, so the kids played for hours in the water, went on a pontoon ride, and then got showered and changed for dinner.  After dinner, the kids got a little more time to play, girls on the ping pong table with Russ, and Trevor and JJ played their video games.  Then, they played a baseball game before ending on charades.  Gwen requests that every time.

We came back on Sunday, and it wasn't very good weather anyway.  We had a fun birthday celebration to get to!  First birthdays are always fun, mostly because the kid has no idea what they are getting into, but seem to understand that for some reason it has to do with them.  It was a great evening.

Monday, I spent the entire day getting ready for today.  Grocery shopping, whoops, I forgot one thing, so I had to go back a second time.  Major laundry to make sure all the right clothes were washed (more for the girl than anything).  All the darn paperwork that needs to be turned back in to the school.  Making the kids fill out their lunch wishes for the first month of school.  It took all day, but it all got done.

Then today:  Gwen was excited for the day, and found out the night before that Trevor said he was nervous.  At first, that shocked me, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.  He's hitting that age where he really cares about what other people think of him.  Its not so much anymore about doing the work.  He has no issues with that.  His words about being nervous were something about how he was afraid the new kids would be mean to him.  I made him make sense of that thought by asking him what he would feel in the reverse situation.  I told him I had been a new kid and I was more worried than anything because I thought that everyone would have already made their friends.  He was also sad to see the summer go, but I think that is normal.  Thankfully neither kid was up late with nerves or excitement.  I remember 4th grade was the year I was up past 2am on the first day of school because of my nerves.  In the morning, Trevor didn't want to get up, but that's him not wanting to get moving.  He was up.  Gwen was not up, but was good getting moving, again because she was so excited.

We decided to walk to school, and while protesting at first, Gwen made it, and she told me that she did not want to walk home.  I figured I could accommodate because she would be exhausted and probably not willing to walk back.  Trevor was out the door and running to school.  Guess those nerves wore off!  We got to school in plenty of time.  I asked Gwen if she wanted me to walk her to class, and at first she said no.  I told her that I would say good bye to her at the office, and then she said she wanted me to walk her to class.  I was fine with that.  She found her hook and took out her stuff, and seemed very confident to walk right into class.  She said good-bye with a giant smile on her face.  I'm pretty sure she didn't see me choking up.  But I took a deep breath and moved over to Trevor's room.  I saw him going 100 miles and hour with a fellow classmate from last year.  No worries from him.

So I had a whole day to myself.  I treated myself to dinner with a friend at Crave.  I had a salad and dessert and didn't have to keep checking the clock!  It was amazing!  I filled the rest of my day with little things.  And quickly it was time to get the kids.  I met them in the front area, and Trevor was good, but Gwen was on the fritz.  She was SO crabby and I could tell hungry, thirsty and exhausted.  Now, she would never admit it, but immediately she was yelling at me that she didn't want to walk home.  I explained that I brought the car, but that wasn't good enough.  She couldn't even walk to the car.  *scream scream* *whine whine* I asked her to talk about her day and she didn't want to.  So I asked Trevor.  Then she wanted to.  We got home and she wanted to eat something sweet.  I had her finish her lunch.  It wasn't as uneaten as I thought it would be, but after she had eaten, it helped a bit.  She had homework to do, but didn't seem like she wanted to do it.  Anyway, bottom line, Gwen was tired, Trevor said he had a great day and was all smiles.  He really enjoys how often he rotates classes for different subjects.  They have about a third of their class as not being in their last year's class.  That is nice.

So for now, we will plod ahead to get into some sort of routine.  I have some big events to plan for in the coming weeks already, and I don't know how I'm going to pull them off.  We shall see.

The Summer? The End

Well, I won't dwell on the fact that there are some things about the summer that weren't exactly perfect:  Namely the weather and the fact that labor day weekend is the first time all summer that we as a family will be traveling to the cabin.  Yikes.  But no, instead I choose to remember the great times we had this summer.  These last two weeks were done in style.  We had a few days of nothing on the schedule so the kids could just hang out at the house.  But mostly we had to pack in all the things we wanted to make sure we did before the summer was done.  I look at the list, and thankfully we did all the things we had to do, but did not do things we could do when it was winter.  Last week, the big event was Valleyfair.  It was a hot day, unlike last year, so we spent a few hours in the water park.  Gwen was happy in the splash pad, and going around the lazy river.  That's up my speed to at this point.  Trevor went on all the roller coasters this year, and even the giant swing.  Next year, he'll have to try Steel Venom when it is not closed for repairs and maybe the Power Tower.  New for him this year was Wild Thing.  To which he said, "was that supposed to be fast?"  Good for him.  He should ride those coasters while he can!

This week, we went to a friend's pool one day and the State Fair today.  Both gave us some great memories.  It was a hot day today, but luckily a friend gave us a great free giveaway and I never knew how many places had free water, as long as you had your own container.  We ate everything we could, and barring any investigation by CPS due to lack of nutrition today, I think we had a great one!  Cheese curds, mini doughnuts, frozen grapes, milk shakes, french fries (a LOT), chocolate chip cookies, lemonade, Icees, beer (for the adults), a giant pickle for Trevor, and there could have been more.  We visited the Twins shop, the skyride, agriculture building, the cows, pigs, horses, sheep, giant slide, butterfly building (Gwen lasted 3 minutes because she couldn't take the things flying in the room), the maze, trampoline, and tried to stay in the shade as much as possible.  Did I mention it was hot?  Thankfully they had a lot of "mist-ers" out spraying people or blowing a fan with a mist-er on it.  It was very nice.  And we lasted 8+ hours.  Gwen had a few piggy back rides, but really she did great walking around.  No big complaints.  Lots of smiles and good times!  That was really the theme to the summer.  Lots of smiles and great times!

This summer the family got to visit Dr. Johnson and family in South Dakota.  The kids were excited to be in a new state for them.  It was a lot of fun to see so many fireworks on the 4th of July.  We got out to play golf on the small par 3 course by our house.  I did not golf much at all this summer, but we had lots of fun other places.  We visited the city pool a few times and had some great weather and not so great crowds.  I was happy about that!  Trevor got to camp and I didn't have to do anything except bring him to the place.  He did not come home with a million mosquito bites, and he wants to do it again next year, so I'd say a success!  There was a lot of baseball played, by both kids and I'm sure it will ramp up from here.  Even Russ got in on the action when his Twin's Fantasy camp reunion game was played last weekend at Target Field.  Trevor got to really see him pitch and pitched himself on the very mound that the Twins also pitch off of.  It was a great experience for everyone!

Although Trevor says he's not happy that summer vacation is coming to a close, I think there is a part of him that will be happy to see his classmates again.  He knows that with summer ending, comes winter and cold and says he doesn't like the cold.  We'll see.  Next summer will be here again before you know it.  And with the kids having little tastes of fun things to do in the summer, I know we'll be doing a lot more of this summer, in the future summers.  But for now, I too am happy for school to be starting.  I love that I'm going to have time to volunteer more at the kids' school, and get a better idea of what I can do with my time having them at school.  So we'll see what this next change brings.  Hopefully lots more fun to come!

Trevor's weeks

Both kids had a pretty exciting and event-filled last week of school.  I wanted to get it all down a while ago, but of course, time slips away.  I'll try to do a post for each kid that primarily focuses on that last week of school.


So Trevor started off the week on Sunday going to a Twins game with Russ.  I had gotten some good seats for Russ, and it worked out to take Trevor, so off they went for the 12:10 game.  It was a kids giveaway for a Willingham jersey to the first 5,000 kids.  Trevor was lucky enough to get one.  The seats were directly to the right of the Twins dugout (looking at the field), so they could see the players going into the dugout during their at-bats.



It was a bright, sunny day, and after the last out of the first inning, Trevor was thrown a ball from Dozier.  You can see the change in Trevor's smile after he got a major league baseball!  The ball is now sitting in a case, so it will never be played with again.  There is a nice grass mark on it as well.

So because I was curious as to if either of the boys were going to be on TV, I had been recording the game.  Russ texted me about the ball Trevor caught, but it wasn't anything that you could see from the game on TV.  They cut away after the last out.  But the game went on, and the Twins had a home run hitting time.  It isn't very often that there was a game like that.  And then, at the top of the 8th inning, one of the reporters went out into the stands to do a little report on what was happening in the game.  My mom called and asked me what Trevor was wearing at the game, because she thought she saw him!  Turns out, she was right!  Although I wasn't sitting watching the game, I did a little rewind, and saw him.  So did Gwen.  He is enjoying a helmet bowl of ice cream, and no one nearby knew that they were on camera.  Now he not only got a ball, but he was also on TV.  What could be better?


So back to school he went.  Monday was nothing too big for him, but Tuesday was the talent show.  He did well enough and I enjoyed listening to him during the evening performance.  They got their annual trophy for their participation which is always the best part.  Now, on Wednesday, a different event happened for him.  Because of a drawing done from the kids who won lunch with Tony Oliva, a ride in a limo and DQ, one of the kids got to swap days with the principal.  That person was Trevor.  So the day he was able to swap was the Wednesday of this week.  I asked Trevor to dress up like the principal, which meant a collared shirt and tie.  He was somewhat against it until I told him that he may have to give a speech at some point, and he should look his best for it.  So he agreed, and went into school for the day.  He was able to help out with the arrival of students, be on the morning news, and observe some of the classrooms.  I was at school for my weekly Wednesday envelope duties, so I snapped a picture of him in his "office".

He said he was going to try to get extra recess for the school, but then learned it wasn't his job to do...yet.  Maybe some day.  The principal had to go and sit in Trevor's class for the day, and they had some school work for him to do as well.  Another memorable day for Trevor.

Last day of school, the 3rd grade had an all-3rd grade party with a Hawaiian theme.  I was able to help out, and Gwen helped me helping out since it was in the morning.  The kids are very anxious to get out and start their summer vacation, but they had a good time as well.

So we made it through that week....from Trevor's perspective, he had a lot going on.  The next weekend we didn't have a tournament, so we were able to go out and play at the zoo with his cousin Adam and a good group of the Johnson family.  The weather was forecasting rain, but it held off the entire time we were there.  We got around to see almost everything, and the kids were troopers!  One of the most unique experiences I've ever seen while there was that they opened a feeding time for the giraffes.  Anyone that wanted to was able to feed the giraffe.  Trevor was psyched and did what was expected.  He even felt how sandpapery the tongue of the giraffe was.  You had to buy the crackers for the giraffe, so it wasn't free, but I think it was well worth it.

Since the zoo, we have been doing the summer activities and baseball tournaments.  The last tournament is this weekend but previous to that, we had a tournament in Rochester.  This was the first tournament where the kids decided they were going to stay in hotel for the weekend.  They had two games early on Saturday, and had Friday off.  Trevor was really excited to get down there, but we first had to wait for Russ to come in from his business trip.  He landed around 3:30, and we picked him up and drove to Rochester.  When we got to the hotel, first thing to do was to jump in the pool.  (Kids, not really first thing for the adults).  Even though it was close enough to dinner time, the kids didn't care.  They started arriving and came to the pool to swim, even if they weren't staying in the hotel.  We decided to order pizzas and eat them in the commons area, where they usually have breakfast.  Dinner was served close to around 7:30 and the kids (and adults) had a lot.  Because of the swimming, they were not as rowdy as usual, but still pretty high energy from all the excitement.

After dinner, it was after 9:00 and they had to be at the field the next day at 8:00am.  They fell asleep rather easily...at least in my room, and woke up pretty good too.  Unfortunately, the kids had a rough bunch of games that weekend, but had more swimming both Saturday and Sunday before heading back home.

Now through this whole time, Trevor once said to me, "Mom, that was the best day of my life!"  Do you know when it was?  On Friday night before going to bed in the hotel.  Well....I know Trevor lives in the moment...so it didn't really surprise me, but after the other days that he had had prior to that, I was a little surprised that it took a swim in a pool with his teammates and some pizza at a hotel to become the best day of his life.  Here's to many more, Trevor!

The end of another school year

While these past few months have flown by, it is hard to believe that it is the end of 3rd grade for Trevor, and the end of Kindergarten for Gwen.  We got their report cards on the last day of school, and for the 3rd year in a row, they told them which teacher they were going to have to start next year.  I got the teacher I requested for Gwen, but did not for Trevor.  They changed the configuration for the Gifted and Talented program.  They had previously had two multi-age classes - 4th and 5th combined - but decided to start the year next year with one teacher for all 4th and one teacher for 5th.  So that means, that for a lot of these kids, they are going to be with generally the same kids for 4 years straight.  I guess there are pluses and minuses to both, but it is somewhat hard to see the more positive aspects of it when there are some hard personality conflicts between a few of the kids.  I was so hoping for a relief from that for next year.

Regardless, the reports for both of the kids were great.  I didn't even think it was possible to improve on Gwen's report card from midway through the year, but she did.  I think she got along and listened very well to her teacher, and loved all of her classmates.  There isn't anything I would do any differently over the course of the school year.  She has grown so much, with the help of her classmates and teacher.  I hope she will have a wonderful 1st grade in her transition to eating lunch at school.  That's really what I think is going to be the most tricky for her.  I can bet though, that she won't be the first person who will have a big adjustment to that part of school.  So I'm not really that concerned.

Trevor also either improved or stayed the same as to his report card elements.  I think responsibility-wise we have really made improvements on how he handles his school work, and hopefully can carry that in to the next year.  One thing that I hope to work with him on is his ability to realize when a problem presents itself that he doesn't know with certainty, that it is ok to ask for help.

Gwen and I were able to help out at the all 3rd grade party the last day of school.  It took place in the morning, so that's how Gwen got to come with us.  She loved feeling like a big kid, as she always does.  She even got to have a sno-cone since they had some leftovers.  Their theme was Hawaiian.  To bad the weather was more winter like than Hawaiian.  This weather has just been so crazy!

Both kids got their yearbook, and while Trevor doesn't really pay much attention to his, I think it may be interesting for him to have and look back on when he is older.  Gwen on the other hand, eats that stuff up!  She is able to tell you all the kids that she knows, and it is primarily the older kids because they help them being the bus patrol.  She also knows a bunch of kids from dance, Kids Safari (after school program) and any of the siblings that go to Trevor's sporting events.  When she got her yearbook, she spent a good hour plus paging through all the pages of her yearbook noticing who she knew from each class.  Because she is in the afternoon class, she was able to participate in the 5th grade clap-out.  The 5th graders get to walk around the school at the end of the day while the rest of the students and staff clap for them.  Gwen said she got a little sad to know that they won't be back at her school next year.  I have a strong feeling that she is going to be one of those kids that during her clap-out, she will be crying.  Maybe even Trevor's too.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The summer vacation has started.  We still need to do a little bit more work on setting expectations for the summer.  We might have to invest in something to keep the mosquitoes out of the backyard because Trevor doesn't to be out side when they are swarming.  Next week Gwen's activities start, with Trevor's 3 times a week hockey clinics.  I'll just be happy to get the long sleeves packed away.  Maybe even the winter jackets?  Please?  Bring on the summer weather for summer vacation!

Who knows which is more busy

You know, you go through your head, you look at your calendar, and you think...."well, if I could just get through May....June will slow down", or "If I could just get done with school, then my time will really free up".  Or how about, "Once my baby is in 1st grade...all day school...then I'll REALLY have a lot of free time."  Yeah, right.  It's all a big joke.  I ran into one of Trevor's classmates family at a garage sale, and she was talking about how that idea never ends.  It goes well into "when the kids are out of the house...." to "when I retire....."  You always think you will have more time on your hands.  And it NEVER happens.

So you do your best to enjoy as much of it as you can.  Having two kids in various activities does make it hard to make it to everything, but with the help of the village, you do make the best of it.  I decided to run out to Chicago for a day and a night to see the Rolling Stones in concert.  I think it was the first time I was actually old enough to remember all the sights of downtown.  We didn't see it all, but I really think I got a taste of it all.  Thanks to Russ, we stayed in a ritzy hotel for the evening, and thanks to the weather, we didn't get rained on at all.  It was overcast for most of the day, with rain threatening, and actually during the concert, there was a flash flood warning but we never saw any of it.  We went to the park and ate at the park cafe, we found a speakeasy and had a few martinis.  We enjoyed over 2 hours of great Stone's music and had no problems getting back home the next day.

The kids got some extra time playing around:  Gwen got a playdate in the morning, to stay in the after school program, and then had a playdate at night during Trevor's baseball practice.  She LOVED it.  That girl and her social wants.  It sounded like everything went smoothly too...no fighting or what have you.  When I came back, she had her dance recital practice, and then had another small playdate.  Now, I would think that once school gets out, this time may be a little less hectic, but I'm thinking, probably not.

Trevor, also got to be in the after school program, but he's enjoying playing baseball as much as he can.  Last night, they had their first winning game!  Unfortunately, they had the late game so they weren't done until after 11pm.  On a school night!  I took Gwen home at about 9:30 and she crashed as her head hit the pillow.  I was able to keep track of the scores through an online scoring program that one of the dad's uses.  It was so FUN to watch that winning game.  Trevor pitched two innings and did really well!  It was for two innings that I was able to be at, so I was happy that I didn't miss that.  Hopefully it will give the team a little boost that they need to get some more winning games!

This next week continues to be busy with Kindergarten "graduation", talent show, Gwen's dance recital tomorrow, baseball practices/games, and year end parties.  It was a very fun year, I think, for both kids at school.  I can't wait to see which teachers they get for the next school year!  And maybe the weather will warm up soon???

Two weeks into heavy baseball

So it has been about two weeks since baseball has started for both kids.  Technically, I guess it is only 10 days or something, but I look at a week as Monday - Friday.  Since we are almost at Friday, then it is almost two weeks ;-)

Trevor's first game, which was the same night as Gwen's baseball pictures, ended up being washed out.  The field was unplayable, so I guess that means that they will have to make up that game at some point.  So then his first game became the tournament over the weekend in West St. Paul.  It was a late game on Friday, and two games during Saturday, where there was snow, wild wind, and rain.  PERFECT weather for baseball, let me tell you!

The first game was a bit of a disaster.  The team didn't even score a run.  Most of the batters looked scared. The pitchers were walking everyone or the fielders couldn't field a ball to help the pitcher.  The two games on Saturday were more of the same.  Trevor pitched for an inning on each of the games on Saturday.  He struck out 4 of the 6 outs, and threw a ball to first for another out.  So he was feeling pretty good about his pitching.  He is a very nervous batter, and so far has only got on base by walking or for a fielder's choice that  didn't put him out.

He's had two games since then, and pitched in the first one.  He struck out two, hit a batter, and walked another, but ended up with quite a few hits, so much that he went over his 50 pitch count.  So he didn't finish that inning.  The good thing is that he isn't not throwing strikes.  If the fielding was better by everyone, I think the team would do a whole lot better.  And from what I know, they know how to field, it's just they have all the bad luck during the games.  If they could put it all together, I know they could win a game.  Because of their coach, and the good attitude of the kids, they are still happy to be playing!

So for the past two weeks, Gwen has also been gearing up to play her baseball games.  Her season was pushed back a week because of the weather, but they had two good practices last week before their games this week.  She is the only girl on her team, but she knows 3 other boys from being at her school, 2 of them in her class.  The reason I put her in baseball was because they don't have a similar option in softball.  If I wanted her in softball, she would already be in a league where they kept score, outs, standings, etc.  I thought this league, where there are no outs, everyone gets to bat, and no score is kept would be a lot less stressful.  Plus, if it was impossible to be in two places at once, if she had to miss a game, I wouldn't feel bad.

Unfortunately, for her first game, I had my last PTA meeting of the school year.  So I had my mom bring her to her game.  Trevor had a baseball practice, so he hitched a ride with his friend.  I don't know how I could have done this week without Trevor being on the team with a good friend.  Anyway, I was getting texts from my mom about how Gwen was doing.  They actually had a half hour practice before the game, had one inning and then they were done.  It was a hot day, so no one complained.  She was up to bat, and was told she had two more pitches before she got her hit!  She was so excited!  Then, she got to be the catcher!  Super happy to be doing that as well.  She got to tell the batters where they were supposed to stand and where to go after they hit.

Not without noting though, watching her with all these boys, she is definitely out of her element.  All the boys are so rough and high energy, part of the time she just stands around and watches them.  She has tried to keep up with them, but it really isn't in her nature.  After pictures last week, she asked me when she could play softball.  I think she really misses her girl friends.  I'm glad we tried it, just to see how she would like it.  It would also be easy to keep her in baseball if she really enjoyed it.

So this week, Russ is out of town in Canada.  Looking at our schedule we have 6 baseball events, 1 dance event, 1 meeting for me, all within the span of 4 days that Russ is gone.  I was doing my best to make it all work, and really looking forward to yesterday (Wednesday) being our least busy day.  It was just a home game for Trevor.  It started off fine, Gwen and I went to our usual envelope stuffing at school during the morning, but when we got home, Gwen was barfing.  She tried some sips of water, but it came back up.  Again and again.  Waiting a little over an hour, and trying again.  Nope...well she didn't go to school, but I was trying to figure out how baseball was going to work.  Luckily my mother-in-law works so close and has offered her help whenever I need it.  HELP!!!!  So she came over after work to sit with a sick Gwen while I went to watch Trevor play.

She only got sick one more time, and took a nap as well.  She had a freezie pop (because she can't tolerate carbonated beverages and doesn't like gatorade) that she did keep down and went to bed when we got home around 9:00.  Thankfully she slept through the night and has not gotten sick since last night.  We are still not going crazy with food or liquids, but she is slowly getting her energy back up.  We won't be going to school or her baseball game tonight, but I think I'll be ok to let her come to Trevor's baseball game and sit by me.

During the day yesterday, it really brought me back to going through the exact same thing in grade school.  When I had a stomach bug, I got it bad.  I couldn't keep anything down, but after you are sick you are SO hungry and thirsty.  Gwen was begging to have water, just like I used to.  But as soon as she got a sip, she was sick.  Within 2 minutes.  Then she was crying that she was sick.  I remember going so far as to suck on a wet wash cloth because that should slow down your water intake, only to get sick 5 minutes later.  It was SO not fun.  Gwen seemed to find some understanding when I told her that when I was a girl I went through the same thing.  I am slightly worried in that she said that she is looking forward to going back to school so she can tell her classmates she got sick 5-6 times that day.  Good grief.  Well, at least she is looking on the fun side of being sick!

Then, to ad icing to the cake, I have a cold, in addition to getting some not so good health news from members of the extended family.  Lots of prayers for everyone involved.  It just hasn't been a great week this week.  I'm hoping to hit the hot yoga on Saturday morning to let it all just melt away......

What used to be the start of the summer season

Has become the kick-off to the really busy season.  Over the past few weeks, we have been able to get out and do a few things as a family.  Primarily because baseball has been having to be pushed off because of the snow and cold weather in the area.  They have been practicing in the gym, but there really isn't a whole lot you can do in a gym to simulate outdoor baseball games.  Their first game is on Wednesday, and Gwen's first practice is on Tuesday.  So it starts.....

But before this week, we have had a few fun activities for the family:

We decided to hit the theaters.  Somewhat of a last minute decision.  I might have decided to have the kids watch the original Wizard of Oz movie before going to see Oz, the Great and Powerful, but as it was, they knew a little about it and knew that it was a Disney movie, so it was going to be a good show regardless.  Now I have not seen Wicked.  So I'm not familiar with that story line, but I had thought that the movie said that it was based on the book series.  It must have followed some track to be aligned with the Wizard of Oz movie.  I don't know if Wicked then was not a part of the original story or not.  It was a very good show, and Gwen did well enough with the "intense spots" of the movie.  She asked me to cover her eyes.  The next week, we rented the Wizard of Oz movie from Amazon and now the kids have the whole story.  I would bet we'll be buying the latest Disney movie when it comes out.  Maybe Gwen will enjoy it enough to not have to cover her eyes for so much of it next time.

The next adventure was going to a local hotel in order for Russ to get a points bonus for the hotel chain he usually stays at during work trips.  For staying one more night in April, he was able to get the equivalent points for staying 3 weeks for business.  The place had a pool, hot tub, and sauna as well as a concierge lounge and nice restaurant.  We did stay during a school night, so it was a little tricky to try to have a good morning routine and know how long it was going to take us to get to school in the morning instead of our usual 2.5 minutes.

Our most recent adventure involved going to the lake for our summer kick-off opening weekend: the Kentucky Derby.  We were missing a few key players due to other activities, but they were all with us in spirit.  Usually, we find some lucky hats to wear for the running of the derby, but we decided to swap that idea out for bandannas in a show of solidarity for my aunt Barb.  She is on her second treatment plan for cancer and halfway through.  It was wonderful to see her cheering on her horses as usual and to get the annual picture of the winners.  The youngest kids played very well together and it was nice enough to have them playing outside, just not nice enough for a boat ride yet.  Sadly, we won't be able to enjoy a boat ride until baseball season is done, sometime in July.  Having not played a baseball game yet, we aren't really sure how well the team is going to do, so it will depend on where they finish as to how long the season ends up being.

I refuse to bring myself or the family down in the depressing state of the weather this year.  I have tried my best to simply ignore any temperature below 50 degrees.  When it was even colder than that, I was constantly looking ahead in the weather forecast for the time when the temperature was warmer in order to count down until those days.  Even Trevor was fed up with it.  He is the most optimistic kid I have known and when he wasn't finding the positive in it, you knew that it wasn't a good day.

So there we are.  We kicked off the season and it is now in full swing.  I hope the weather cooperates!  Whatever that means.  Really though, I just hope all the kids have a good time and enjoy whatever activity they are doing.  Bring.it.on!

Things are changing.....

It is so cliche to say that the kids grow up in the blink of an eye.  But really, over the last month, the kids really have grown up and come so far from where even I once was in my life.  Facebook is amazing in that you can keep in touch with people from all points in your life, and I am further amazed at how many different ways people's lives can go and yet still feel connected to everyone in some strange way.

But back to the kids:  Last week, we got an installed Gwen's bedframe for her bedroom.  With that, came the end of a 7 year era where someone was sleeping on a bed that was on the floor.  Gwen was thrilled of course to be getting off the ground, but it also made me realize that she didn't need any of her 3 step stools that we had for her to help get up higher to things in the house.  She can reach all the faucets to wash her hands in the bathroom, brush her teeth and the like.  

This week, Gwen and the whole Kindergarten class went on a field trip to the nature center.  It is amazing to see these kids and how much they have all grown in the past school year.  They are almost first graders!  Gwen had her first lunch at school, well, on the field trip anyway.  I will say, I'm concerned about next year and her speed of eating.  She, like me, is a slow eater.  She is also a picky eater.  She is also a social eater.  So put all these things together, and I have no idea how she will get through the day eating probably less than half of what she eats now.  She averages about 20 minutes to eat, but that is without any friendly distractions.    When she got back from her field trip she was very hungry and had eaten about half of her lunch.  Today at school they talked and made a note to their parents about going on the field trip.  Gwen's favorite part of the trip, and she mentioned it again and again and again, was the bus ride.  I seem to remember that it was the same thing for Trevor.  But I also know that she was telling everyone she could that she got to go to school in the morning.  She is looking forward to starting 1st grade, being a big kid, and all that it entails.  That's going to be a totally different ballgame!

For Trevor, we have been working on becoming more dependent on me for reminders and such.  I have been amazed at how much it has taken off my plate.  I think he thought that it meant I was going to leave him alone completely, but because of our weekly touchbase meetings, we can evaluate things that are happening and find new ways of doing things.  It has been a drastic shift for me to be much more hands-off, but I know that it means he has to figure out his own way of doing things.  While I know he can't grasp what it is going to be like in high school or even middle school at this point, I think it is a good idea to at least put some thoughts in his mind now, rather than have a whole shock to the system in a few years.  He is in the middle of some standardized tests which helps determine if he is accepted into the next gifted and talented program at his school.  

He's also ramping up and getting into the swing of things for baseball.  We have found out that for our first really traveling tournament, we will be going to Rochester.  With hockey this year, we will also be traveling, probably out of town as well.  So here we go.  The weather could use some improving.  Poor kids have only been able to do some fielding in the school gyms until the ground is good enough to play on.  Yeah, the weather is a whole other issue.  Everyone has stopped selling winter gear, but both kids have changed shoe sizes and don't have good boots anymore.  With the snowing and melting, raining and such it sure has been wet on the snow gear!

As far as my life, I have been reflecting on that as well.  Having been volunteering as my main source of time commitment outside of family, that has been shifting too.  My two year stint as PTA treasurer is coming to an end in a little over two months.  We have a great replacement named, and since I'm not going anywhere, I know it will be an easy transition since I can be asked questions if something is in question.  But as of this September, I won't have a kid to look after an average of 5 days a week.  I'm goaling myself to find something part time, or get more involved in church/school volunteer opportunities.  It depends on what we need to do.  I for sure would love to get more time at hot yoga.  With the summer, I know I won't go as often as when the kids are at school, but it sure is nice when I get the chance to go.  So peaceful.  

So there is time to think about the coming changes, but they sure are coming.  And coming fast.  Did I mention that Trevor and I can almost wear the same size shoes?  Yeah, he's growing up....in the blink of an eye.

Wow...it has been a whole month

I would guess that is the longest I have gone without blogging.  I know a year ago, I was doing it almost every day while we had our Disney trip in early March.  When you really want to remember things, you know you have to write them down right away or they will slip away from you!

As is true with our lives these days, so much has happened in a month!  A month ago, Trevor still had two weeks of hockey left.  He finished out those last few games strong and we also had the year end hockey party.  It was at an indoor batting facility that also allowed us to use an open space to play dodgeball.  The kids and the coaches also used the batting cages, and we ate and had a very good time.  This was Trevor's 4th year as a mite, and next year he will be a squirt.  I'm learning so much about hockey and it seems as though Trevor really enjoys it.  Hopefully he'll have a great team next year and I'll know a bunch of the parents that I have gotten to know over the past 4 years.

Out with hockey and in with baseball.....Trevor had his first tryout experience a week after hockey was done.  Being new to the tryout experience, I had no idea what to expect.  Neither did Russ, except he had his own tryout history to rely on.  However, since we were young, they have really restricted the ability for parents to watch their kids try out.  I guess there have been parents who have taken it upon themselves to argue about a kid's tryout to try to get him/her onto a different team.  So now parents don't get to watch.

Before we left for Florida, Trevor found out he made a team with his best friend, and knew 3 other kids on the team.  That means he know almost half of the team.  He had his first practice this week, and anything I tried to assume based on the previous year's schedule is completely thrown out the window.  This weekend, the coach will be signing up for tournament/game schedule and he asked to send him any dates that weren't good for us.  His reasoning is that because the team is only 11 kids, if there are more than 2 of them missing, I don't know that they can even have a game.  Unfortunately, we did find out that this year (for the first time) their Bloomington team is hosting a tournament over Memorial Weekend.  Similar to the Bloomington Hockey tournament, parents are required to volunteer and be there throughout the tournament.  So this isn't one that we can miss, even if we wanted to.  Bummer!  So baseball will be a learning experience for us.

Gwen has been signed up for "instructional" baseball, which is what Trevor did in Kindergarten.  The alternative option for Gwen to play softball would have her on a team with 1st and 2nd graders where they keep scores and outs.  Since she didn't have any t-ball last year, I think she needs more of a less pressure setting so she learns how to hit the ball, rather than throw her in somewhere where she doesn't know yet even how to make an out.  Also, this way, if there is a scheduling conflict, I won't feel bad at her not making a game because they aren't keeping score yet.  Fortunately, we have about a month before baseball for her starts, so one less thing to worry about in April.

Also on the Gwen subject, she has really taken an interest in drawing and coloring.  She has gotten a variety of writing instruments and coloring pads which she does at least once every day.  She even wrote a note to hear teacher (at my request) asking if she could bring her sketch pad to do during choice time.  He approved, so she has been enjoying the attention she gets from her classmates when she shares her drawing toys with them.  She is still very happy with her Lego Friends toys and got another set for Easter.  I *think* she is done with all the major sets.  I have no doubt that they will come up with more....what a goldmine that stuff is.  Gwen found an older girl in Florida while we were at a restaurant that had a small Lego Friends set. She brought her sticker book about Lego Friends so she made a quick friend with this girl.

This month we also had our first full week of a family vacation in which we didn't have a major event planned.  Don't get me wrong, I love Disney trips, but they can be a bit tiring, making sure you get the most out of the trip.  Going to Florida for an entire week where we just had to worry about when to golf and meet up with people we wanted to see was a very different experience.  We did go out to see a Twins spring training game, and it was a very nice day for it.  It was windy and cooler than we would have liked, but the stadium remarkably kept out most of the wind.  #7 didn't play that day, but we did see a home run and the Twins did win the game.  We had three rounds of golf scheduled.  Trevor played two of them.  Gwen was asking to play golf with us, but I think it is another few years off before she is going to be able to make it at a nice course for 18 holes.  We did take her to the driving range and putting green.  She was satisfied that she got to use her clubs.  We found a morning to head to the beach to get some shells and to bury Trevor up to his neck.

My Grandpa turned 90 earlier that month, and we got to celebrate with him one day that he came over to visit.  It sure is nice to see him and for the kids to get to get to see him as well.  Gwen pulled out all the stops with Grandma Joannie as they both enjoyed basking in the sun by the pool.

But we are back home now, having had two baseball practices, primarily indoors.  Sounds like there will be a strong possibility that Trevor will be a major pitcher for the team.  Between my nerves and trying to get Trevor to understand the reality of what being a pitcher actually involves vs. what he thinks about in his mind, it is going to be a very interesting season.  After his first practice, he said he was glad to be back doing baseball stuff.  He has already started throwing the ball at the wall even though there is still snow in the yard.

Apparently, it is also the season for everyone to need new shoes.  Gwen doesn't exactly have a functional pair of sneakers at this point in her life.  She has many fashionable pairs of shoes, but with her feet outgrowing most of the current pairs, it was time to get a few new ones, and Trevor actually also complained that he thought it was soon going to be time to get a new pair for him as well due to his toes hitting the tops of his shoes.  So I just had a big box of shoes sent this week and T is only one size away from being in the same size shoe as me.  My mom was remarking how again, he seems to have shot up another inch in the past few months, so now he hits me slightly above my chin as opposed to by my shoulder like he did last year.  I was seriously hoping to make it until he was a teenager before he outgrew me.  Fat chance of that I'd say.  Now we are going to have to hope that it isn't before he's 11.

So anyway....before this post ages another day, I'm going to submit for now.  Pictures are something I haven't updated in a long while, except for the occasional mobile upload.  I have so many things on my to do list.  And the days seem to fly by.  Wherever will I find the time....until tomorrow I guess???

A busy week for Trevor

With the changes to Trevor's way of doing things, as well as hockey and a few more events, Trevor has kept himself very busy over the past week.  This weekend was the last Bloomington hockey tournament.  They have a Minnetonka one next weekend, but the parents don't have to be as involved as this past weekend.  Trevor also decided to come with me to the Gopher basketball game on Saturday and last but not least, we had a baptism to attend and visit with relatives on Sunday.

Starting off with his school work and changing his homework routine and anything having to do with getting ready for school.  It started off rather difficult, but then was really easy.  Now we are back to somewhere in between.  I know I have to let go to the point of letting him learn from his mistakes, and I know for sure that I'm not oblivious to what is going on, I just need to point him in the right direction, when he asks for help.  A big change is talking about his results of tests and such.  He has gotten to the point in his class where he has met all the requirements of a 3rd grader and they are doing their expanded curriculum things like analogy word tests and reports on the current unit which happens to be Egypt.  So first step is to do the homework that is assigned by the due date (sometimes this might be studying for a test).  Then when they get the test or report handed back, we get to look at it and see how he did.  For the most part, Trevor looks at the test and says, well, I only got 6 wrong, that's pretty good.  Well 6 wrong is relative and since they don't have grades yet and are only evaluated on if they took the test or not, it is up to us to determine if that was a good grade or not.  So I need to put it in perspective.  If he were in middle school or high school and got a 14 out of 20, what grade would that be?  A C-.  That is a much easier thing to evaluate based on his own desire to get a good grade which then leads to getting into a good college, and job beyond that.

But that is the key thing that I know Russ is having a hard time with Trevor on.  It is finding how to motivate him to get what he wants.  For the most part, school comes easy for him.  He is taught something and he can repeat it back in test format.  But he can't teach it back to someone and when it comes to written tests, explaining what he knows and why, he doesn't do so well at it.  But they aren't graded on that part.  He does what is expected of him and that's it.  If it is something that is interesting to him, he will go at 110%.  He researches and wants books on the subject, he wants to talk to adults about what he knows, etc.  So if you ask him to take a test on something that he doesn't really care that much about, he'll do it but that's all you'll get from him.  If you ask him to do homework on the current math topic, he will do it as fast as he can and not put a lot of time into it.  So if he doesn't get an A on a math test, there really isn't anything I can do to motivate him to want to get a good grade.  It is something he has to want for himself.  With Chess or baseball, there is no need for motivation.  He is motivated to do as good as he can, so you will often find him practicing baseball in the backyard in the spring and summer and reading books or playing against anyone who will play him in chess.  When it is swimming or hockey, he does it because yes, he does enjoy it, but there isn't that motivation there to do better.  He does what is asked of him.  I don't doubt that like school, the motivation might come later.  But while Russ and I both want him to be motivated to do better, it isn't something we can will onto him.

Anyway...not to get too sidetracked, Trevor did have a great week outside of school.  He had his 3rd grade mallet performance.  That was a fun show to watch.  Every 3rd grader got to play a mallet song and sing if they weren't playing.  I know his piano helped him know how to play his piece, but man he really had a doozy of a song!  I think next year is the recorder performance.  I remember when I was playing a recorder in 4th grade.  I don't really know that I'm looking forward to all those 4th graders playing their recorders......

The very next night we had Trevor's First Reconciliation.  We had 4 weeks of prep, religion meetings, and then this one service.  He of course wanted to be a reader and of course we got the remark that I feel as though we always will:  "Wow Trevor, you really have a gift for public speaking!  I wonder what you will do with that when you are older".  To which Trevor thinks that after he is professional baseball player, he thinks it will fit in perfectly to becoming the President of the United States.  Anyway, they had 5 priests to perform the sacrament and invited the adults to take part as well.  Now, I had my first reconciliation when I was in 4th grade, and if I remember correctly, that was the first and only time that I had done the non-communal form.  So that night I had my second.  Trevor didn't seem to be nervous and I think got out of it what he needed to but it was another momentous night of our week.  

The weekend was primarily about hockey with a few other events sprinkled in.  Trevor had a really good tournament, as seems to be the case very often.  The last game of the weekend he scored a goal, but they said it didn't count.  The team and the coaches "counted" his goal anyway and he got the "lunch bucket" award for his play during that game.  I can't tell you how many times the parents were saying that we were all glad that hockey was coming to an end this year.  It is a long season and it would be nice if we got a break between hockey and baseball, but that just isn't in the cards.  We will have a week long break to sunny FL so maybe when we get back most of the snow will be gone.  With this latest dumping and snow day it is hard to believe that there is enough time for it to melt when baseball is supposed to start the beginning of April!

On to the last few weeks of school in March!  This week the kids already didn't have school Thursday and Friday, and Gwen was even off on Wednesday, but add in this snow day today and I think we'll be ready for school to come back again next week sooner than Monday!

Parenting...tough stuff

It really isn't anything to get worried about, but being a parent is sometimes hard.  You try to be the best parent you can be, and then get information that you are probably contributing to the problem.  It is hard not to feel like a mini failure.  Our school has been lucky enough to have had 3 seminars with a very cool teacher, parent, coach, and tutor named Megan Stone.  She also has been working with the entire staff at the elementary school to coordinate a complete effort from home to school when it comes to basically empowering kids.  Her subject is called Tools for Schools.  Part of it is learning and teaching your kids organization techniques, but also just to key the kids into taking control of their schoolwork as though it is their job.  Actually, school is their job but it isn't something that they can just sit and enjoy, they need to be an active participant.  Where the parents (and me in particular) can throw a wrench into things is how much we take over things for the kids.  I solve problems, I set schedules, I remind rather than let happen what will happen in order for the kids to learn from their mistakes.

So last week, I heard basically the same message from two different sources that I need to let Trevor figure things out for himself.  This is NOT to say that I ignore questions or talk through issues with him, just that he is the one that has to come up with the questions on his own, if he gets stuck.  If he forgets something, gets a poor score on a test, or makes a behavior mistake, it is up to him to figure out how to change it for the future.

One of the big changes is having a weekly meeting, just him and I to discuss the next week of activities and homework.  It is a chance to plan out our next week, have him sync up his planner and let me know what he needs from me.  We also chat about feelings, highs and lows from the previous week.  This week he expressed his fear to me that I was trying to push him out of the nest, basically.  He said he thought he would feel very lonely.  I reassured him that I wasn't going anywhere, but that it is better to learn these skills now, especially how to remind yourself of something important, rather than continue to depend on me to remind you when I'm not going to be able to drive you to your job and remind you all the things you need for your events in your life.  But it was at this meeting that it was very evident how dependent Trevor had become on me.  And it was also then when I knew I didn't do a very good job at teaching him independence.  Now I know I'm not the worst mother out there.  Today on Dr. Phil there was a mother with older teenage kids that she still flossed their teeth for them among many other things.  So no, I know I'm not an extreme parent.  But today, it was SO hard to bite my tongue and let him go without doing a number of things that I constantly remind him to do.

Another thing that we are going to continue to work on is open communication between his teacher, Trevor, and I.  Right now, we primarily communicate via email, and now that Trevor has his own email, he will get cc'd on everything appropriate.  The only thing that may not be included are feelings that he might be embarrassed about that he would not feel comfortable directly talking to his teacher about.  Really, when you think about it, what good does a parent/teacher conference do when the child isn't there to contribute to the discussion or make plans how to work on his/her own strengths and opportunities?

So here we go.  On to a new place.  It is interesting to me that when it comes to teaching Gwen these same things, I feel as though she is already ahead of the game.  Although she doesn't have homework like Trevor does, she is much more willing to take charge of her things she needs to do for school.  Trevor was much more willing to let me help him.  I guess it is just the natural differences between the kids, but hopefully when Trevor succeeds with his tasks, it will cause him to take such a big pride in his work that it will be worth the difficult learning times ahead.  Only time will tell....

Oops...there went half of January!

The holidays seemed to get away from me pretty quick this year.  Or I should say blogging about the holidays and after seemed to get away from me pretty quick.  This year was pretty similar to past years.  Christmas Eve mass, with dinner and gifts at Vicky's.  Then Christmas morning at our house, so Santa can come and visit.  Then Christmas afternoon and evening dinner with my folks for my birthday and gifts, and then the day after it was ice skating, dinner and gifts at Jerry's house.  It just so happened that Russ's alumni hockey game was that morning, so we watched Russ skate at his old home rink while the kids and I huddled under my new fleece Bears blanket, also under the barely warm heaters.

The next day was Vicky's 12/12/12 birthday celebration so that everyone could come and visit.  We saw some out-of-town guests that we don't get a chance to see very often and got ready for Trevor's hockey practices and games.  Gwen had caught yet another cold, so we spent 120 minutes at the minute clinic to get a prescription for an ear infection before driving out to the lake for New Years weekend.  We got to see a few more families there before heading back on New Years Day since the kids had school the next day and my parents left for Florida that morning.

The kids got spoiled and the family got some new toys that we are still trying to work the kinks out of.  But it was a wonderful holiday season to spend as a family.  It was hard to get thrown right back into the heavy routine of all the activities the kids have.  I decided to finally cave and let the kids try out the after school program that working families sometimes use.  I knew it would save me a trip to school on Mondays since Trevor already stays after for Chess club and also knew I couldn't get away with only letting Gwen use it since Trevor had been asking too.  So now, twice a week, I get an extra hour and a half without the kids.  Assuming the weather is nice enough, the kids also have the option of going outside and being on the playground.  Gwen used that to its full potential on her first day and was complaining that I should leave again to give her more outside time.  It's a pretty sweet deal for me!

Russ went on a little vacation with his dad and brother to play baseball with the Twins.  Sounds like they had a blast and only got rained out one day.  He was gone 10 days, over the stretch of two weekends.  That was a strange adjustment having him gone on the weekends.  Poor Gwen didn't like all the extra hockey things she had to come along for.  Trevor ended up asking to not play in a hockey game on Saturday because he came down with a bad cold.  I was watching for a fever, but it never occurred, thankfully.  Even with most of the entire day that we never left the house, it was such an exhausting two weekends.  But it does keep the time flying by.

Now, since the holidays are over, it is already time to start thinking about the summer.  By the end of the month, the summer programs are usually published and we already have the traveling baseball tryout dates.  It always makes me feel a little warmer to start pushing forward towards summer, after the holidays.  There is a lot to get done to make it through to that point next!  

Trevor growing up

Since the wonderful Monday luck that I had a little over a week ago, many things have changed.  Mostly our luck...but we'll start with the first big event.  Trevor had a well-check for being 9 years old.  Not really surprisingly, the kid is growing up, literally, quite fast.  I was asking if he would please start to slow down, at which the doctor explained that no...he goes faster before finally slowing down.  So he's now less than a foot away from over taking me.  92nd percentile for height and 76th percentile for weight.  Not exactly a string bean, but he's leaned out over the years.  We had a little conversation about how he'll probably be the tallest one in our immediate family and I don't think the idea really makes sense to him.  I'm guessing its one of those things you can't really imagine what it would be like to be that big.  I don't know that I ever really thought about it.  I was usually one of the tallest girls in my class.  Anyway....it was a good appointment and we had some good conversations about what is expected for his age.

Then, this past week, the kids have been pretty pumped to get close enough to Christmas to see it coming within a week.  Unfortunately, Gwen got a bad cold starting on Monday night.  She had a low grade fever, and didn't have any energy on Tuesday.  So I explained she wouldn't be going to school.  She was SO mad at me.  She was crying "Mommy, PLEASE can I go to school.  I REALLY want to!"  Man, if I could have recorded that conversation to play for her later.  It really gives me a peace of mind that we made the right choice for her this year.  She got better that day and night so she was able to go to school the next day.  So on Wednesday when she went to school so was so happy.

As a side note to all of this:  Russ and I volunteered to help with the winter party in class on Thursday.  They were playing a game that put the kids in a line to hand the game to the player sitting behind them.  The class spontaneously chanted "cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-CHA" while sitting down and their teacher remarked...."this class is so fun...they will be remembered as the class that spontaneously breaks out to cha-cha."  Russ and I see it too.  The kids get along very well as a class, have fun and still know how to get down to business and do what is expected of them.

So on Wednesday, our traditionally busy day, we went from school to swimming to religion class.  Trevor reported that he got two rocket rewards that day...at the beginning of the school day.  The kids got their last day of swimming classes in, and we had to run to church after eating a quick dinner in the car so they could practice for Christmas Eve mass: bringing the nativity characters up to the manger.  We made it just in time to practice and then get back home for a half hour before religion.  This religion class was really just their Christmas party, which I volunteered to help for.  When I got to his class, it turned out that they had more than enough people to help organize the snacks for the party.  So we tried to get as much done as we could, but there was a lot of waiting around.  Then my special time happened.  The religion leader came in looking for someone to help drive a person that came in for confession, but broke their key off in their car lock and needed a ride back home to get their spare set of keys.  I jumped at the chance.  It was a perfect opportunity to pay it forward since I was the one in need just a week prior.  The woman offered to pay me for gas, but I declined.  She then said that she would pray for me and my family, and that was something I could accept.  She needed a ride about 5 miles away and back, but we got back in plenty of time to do what was needed to help for the party.

I had a chat with Trevor about how lucky I felt to be able to pay my help back to someone that needed it.  Because of his day of rocket rewards, and my luck he thought maybe it was just a lucky day for the Johnson family.  I said that because of Gwen being able to get back to school that day, I knew she would agree that it was a great day for her as well.  We decided that because Russ was in town to enjoy the day, that would be his lucky day as well.

So the kids are now off of school until next year.  It started off with Gwen having a difficult sleeping night last night with her cough but she seems to be handling it ok.  Trevor has been playing Ninjago/Lego Friends with her nicely for most of the morning and we have activities to get them through most of the next week.  Christmas will be here quick!  Happy Holidays everyone!

Trevor's parties

Well, we had three of them.  Technically, I don't know that you would call his actual birthday a party since it was just the family.  Regardless...it was something else I had to organize.  We had his family party on Sunday prior to his day.  It was a day for the Bears vs. Vikings football game....glorious game.  We watched it and when the Bears won, Trevor quickly removed his Vikings jersey only to prove that he was cheering for both teams and had his Bears jersey underneath.

Trevor wanted his traditional spaghetti (two years now) dinner instead of pizza or lasagna.  We ate, sang happy birthday and opened gifts.  After that, it was time to clean up and get ready for school the next morning, so he didn't really get a long chance to play with his gifts.  He opened his character Ninjago sets because those he could put together quickly and play with.  This Sunday was the last day of the kids' 5 day break from school.  So we had to make sure we were ready to go the next day.

On Tuesday, we had spaghetti again, and he got his gifts from us.  This time, he had to run to hockey practice and since Monday is going from school to chess to dance class (for Gwen, not for Trevor), he hadn't had any chance to play with his gifts until Thursday (Wednesday is swimming and religion class.)  But wait...Thursday was the last school day of the week for him, so we decided to have his sleepover party with 3 of his friends since they didn't have school and he didn't have hockey on Friday.  Turns out, two of the three boys had never had a sleepover at a friends house before, so it was somewhat of an experiment.  One of the two did have a hard time falling asleep, but finally did so right around 11:45.  Then they were up again at about 5:30am.  I suppose at some point, I will have to do this with Gwen to keep it all equal, but I can guarantee I'm not doing a group of guys again.  I can handle one at a time.  Its not a big deal at all.  But wrangling and keeping all 4 of them busy and entertained was not all that easy.  Perhaps I should have pushed it away from the other parties because I was seriously burned out by this point in the month.

The one saving grace through all of this was that the boys were saying the next day how awesome of a party it was.  That was my hope....Trevor had been to a sleepover party earlier in the year which was where he got the idea.  So I'm glad he got to feel as special as he did having more than one friend over to stay over night.

And with that....this weekend we were finally able to get out the Christmas decorations.  His birthday celebration is done.  Time to get reorganized and ready for the incoming gifts this month.  I'm finally feeling like I can start to cross things off the list now.  Here's hoping!

Such a big kid

Today's the "real deal".  The day when my baby boy turns 9.  He has been excited to get another year older, but he also knows it isn't exactly a new thing anymore.  We had his family birthday celebration on Sunday, and he was correcting everyone so that they knew he wasn't 9 yet.  He has school on his birthday, so that allows him to bring cookies for his birthday to share with his class.  He usually gets about 2 per 6 or 7 years and starting next year, he's going to have a stretch of a few that he doesn't get to school for.  Regardless, it's always a special day when you get to celebrate your birthday at school.  Or at least that's what I've been told ;-)

He has decided that he wants to have a sleepover party this year, but he also wants to be able to play nintendo, so I explained that he can't have more that 4 people and that's what he's doing.  Hopefully they will be able to get to sleep at some point and everyone will have a good time.  Then we can full out decorate for Christmas.

He has his doctor appointment in a few weeks to get his measurements...I'm pretty sure he's on the tall end of the spectrum.  And he's proud of that.  He's catching up to a lot of his relatives...at least he's within a head of a few of them now.  Part of the getting bigger means more responsibilities.  He can stay home by himself for short periods of time, which Gwen is not all that impressed with.  Thank goodness we have the idea of babysitters almost being someone to play with, rather than someone to watch over you.  He's never put up a fight to have someone watch him.

He's also having a lot of activities that he enjoys.  Baseball, hockey, swimming, golf, chess, religion class, and piano.  With school this year, he just starting hitting some subjects where it doesn't automatically come to him without thinking.  To which he said last night, "I think they gave me 5th grade homework or something.  I don't know how to do this yet."  Granted, he has been learning a lot in his other subjects, but I don't know that he has understood that there are different things and rules to learn with new topics in math.  I guess I'll have to sit down with him again to help him through the new stuff.

While he does love his video games and computer time, I'm SO happy to say that he enjoys his time away from the screens just as much.  He spends hours outside throwing the ball around during baseball season.  He still gets out his diecast cars and plays around with them.  He writes in his journals and reads a few different books for extended periods of time.  And I LOVE to have heart to heart conversations with him.  I know he has already stopped believing in Santa, so I'm prepared to have that conversation with him but he has never been ready to give it all up.  Which for me, is very nice.

I hope to continue these wonderful memories the next 9 years.  It's time to celebrate today!  I love you, my 9 year old!

The election

No...this will not be a stance on my political views...only an interesting night as seen from a mom's perspective.  I like to listen to what the kids are saying, and try to see if there is a teaching moment.  So Tuesday evening came, and while the elementary school had their student council elections, I had thought that  by 3rd grade they would at least talk about the electoral college.  Not so, I found out.  I told the kids we were going to watch the returns to see who would be the president.  I printed out the electoral college map and explained it to Trevor as best I could.  Trevor really didn't understand why we were watching it.  Bottom line, I explained that it was only something that they reported on every 4 years.  The next time he would get to experience it, was when he is in 7th grade.  YIKES!!!  I remember the last election and Trevor being in preschool.  Yep...seems like yesterday.

Anyway, the returns started coming in, and Gwen was completely uninterested.  Not really something I would expect a 5 year old to grasp.  I became entranced, the way I do when I see numbers rolling across the screen.  And numbers adding to other numbers?  Whoa....WAY too much excitement for me.  Trevor was hoping for an Obama win, so when Romney came out with an early lead, he got scared.  I tried to explain that states like California were yet to come, and he seemed to settle down.  I could tell he was also getting entranced by the numbers and the news kept up to date on countdowns to pole closings and such.  He started to color the states each candidate won and noticed trends like how Obama won the entire east coast and Romney had most of the south and central regions.  I let him stay up later than normal, and he had to give up his reading time, but like I explained...it only comes every 4 years.

He finally went up to bed at 9:30 with the promise that I would color in the states as far as I stayed up.  The race was called shortly after, but I was still entranced by the amendment voting that was taking place in our state.  Again, watching those numbers count upward was so mesmerizing!  Two nights after the Madonna concert, where I stayed up to 1:30 on a school night, I stayed up past 11:30 on election night.  As I figured, Trevor woke up at 6:30 and needed to know right away who won.  He completed his map, and brought it to school to explain to everyone what he learned that night.

I think it was a pretty educational night!

Fun times

Coming back from our Disneyland trip, the fun for the kids just doesn't seem to have slowed down at all.  Because of Halloween, and the part that the school does not do a costume party during school hours, that left for a lot of "parties".  Trevor got to wear his costume at the school's Costume Party that took place the Friday before Halloween.  I was with Gwen during the party where she met up with two classmates and spent most of her time dancing at the dance party.  They also had a photo booth set up to take pictures, so now she has a photograph to remember the event by.  I have to say, it really made me want the time to slow down because it really was very easy to see her just a few years older going to a middle school dance.  She behaved exactly like those kids do...giggling and running around, dancing to the music.  I don't even know if they have dances like we did in Jr. High.  I do remember how much fun it was though.  After the party, Gwen was excited that she became good friends with one of the classmates she doesn't usually see.

Then last weekend, Trevor had his hockey tryouts.  This is his last year of mites, and he is hoping to make the advanced mite team.  Last year he was in intermediate.  He made the callback scrimmage on Sunday, and we found out on Tuesday, he made one of two advanced teams.  He was overjoyed.  So was I.  I knew it meant a lot to him to be able to progress every year.  The team already has 4 practices this weekend...so let the hockey begin!  Also on Saturday, we headed to an Apple Orchard/Pumpkin Patch with Derek, Kyrsten and Adam.  It was a little chilly, but we got our warm cider, apple doughnuts, pumpkins, pictures and a hay ride.  Harvest time complete!  I couldn't believe what a well-behaved kids Adam was!  It was so nice of him to let us play around while he enjoyed snuggling in his warm clothes.

Gwen was invited to a classmates Halloween party last Sunday.  She was REALLY excited to go, because she had yet to have any actual playdates since school has started.  We know the girl from both school and she is in her dance class for the past two years.  It was a two hour party and when I picked her up, she didn't want to leave.  So we'll have to have the girl back over to our house sometime in the coming weekends.  Unfortunately, her parents work during the day, so she attends a daycare place when she is not at school.  Weekends are the only time.  So Gwen was able to get out her costume again for that party, and she got out her Jasmine costume again for her dance class costume party.  It was nice to be able to use that one again and I know it was much easier to move around in, than in her Merida dress.

Then, last Tuesday was the All-Star lunch.  I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my previous posts or not.  This lunch was set up by the school as a prize for selling their goal amount of fundraiser product in September.  The school's top 2 sellers were to be at the lunch and 5 more were drawn from the entire school.  At the lunch, would be Tony Oliva, who is a former Minnesota Twins baseball player.  The lunch was catered by TGIFridays and they had candles, flowers, a nice tablecloth, plates and made it all fancy for the kids.  After the lunch, the kids got to ride in a limo to Dairy Queen for a blizzard and back to school.  I made it a point to order all the product from family and friends through Trevor's name because I wanted him to have as many chances as possible to go to this lunch.  I did buy one ticket for Gwen so she could be in on her class drawings for treats.  So the drawing happened, and Trevor was one drawn!  I was so excited and so was he.  Shortly after, Gwen was drawn.  I was shocked....well, not really since I know she has a wild good luck streak.  Her odds were something like 1 in 400 or so.  I was just so glad that Trevor was already going, or I'm pretty sure there would have been a quick Hunger Games situation:  "I, her brother, nominate myself in her place to go to the lunch!".

I made sure to lay out the expectations for both kids, in order to behave at their "fancy restaurant" and had Trevor think of some questions he wanted to ask Tony.  He did, and I also said he probably would want to get his autograph.  Because both kids were at the lunch, I asked if I could go to take pictures and really to observe Trevor and his awe.  The other 3 kids that were drawn were two second grade girls and one first grade boy.  The two top sellers were two 3rd graders that Trevor has had in class before.  Yes, Trevor was in his element.  He sat across the table from Tony and chatted his ear off as much as he could.  He asked him if he remembered him from when he met him at the Metrodome.  I guess he did a meet and greet there when Trevor was...4???  Tony politely said no.  Trevor asked him what it was like to play for the Twins.  He said that he was very lucky.  He came from Cuba and didn't really know what it meant to play professional baseball.  He just knew he liked to play it, and loved the people he was with.  Although Tony has retired from playing baseball, he has had a lot of different roles with the Twins.  I believe he was a batting coach during one of the times the Twins won the World Series, so he had a World Series ring on.  He passed it around so the kids could take a look at it.  Trevor's eyes lit up.  Then he started rattling off all the baseball facts about the world series that he could remember:  How many times the Twins won...how the Twins weren't always the Twins....then started veering off into history lessons...why WWI started....my eyes started rolling at this point, but Tony was a good sport.  He found out that he was my son, and he told me that I must have raised him right because he really knows his baseball stuff.  He would love to sit down with him more to chat about it.  Trevor was giddy at this point.

Tony had brought some pictures that he signed for the kids, and on the picture had some of his stats.  It stated that he has had 220 career home runs.  Trevor was again, in awe.  I felt bad that I didn't have him study up on Tony Oliva before we got there.  But all was good....the lunch ended, we got some pictures in front of the limo, and the kids were off to have their ice cream.  I knew Gwen enjoyed that part the best.  Limos are cool!  The principal was riding along with them, which was good since the kids were contained.

The kids got back to school at 1:00, and Gwen headed right to class.  We carved more traditional pumpkins than we had in many years.  And then the next day she got another treat:  Another kid from her class asked if we would like to have a standing playdate on Wednesdays where every week they would go to each other's houses - trading off.  That week it was her friends house.  And it was Halloween...so the day was extra special.  I was able to get my windshield replaced on my car and have it back before the kids were done with school.  I made sure everything was set, and we headed out for the night.  It was chilly so I rode in a car while the kids walked.  We were able to hit a lot of different neighborhoods and get plenty of candy.  I was glad when that day was over.

Too much fun!  It should be illegal.  It sure is tiring on a mom.  It is now November:  another birthday month, and party month.  Less than 8 weeks until Christmas...I guess I should be starting to organize the Christmas stuff as well.  Happy Holidays everyone!

Gwen's week

I should say, that before the continuation of Gwen's week, we did have a day where we had to give the kids equal treatment.  Gwen's birthday was last Wednesday, and the next Thursday we had the kids' school conferences.  I was a little bit nervous, seeing as how I had hoped that both kids were making a good impression on their teachers this year.  My concern for Gwen was simply that we had made the right choice sending her early.  From what she has told me, she loves it and wants to go all day.  I was hoping that the teacher would feel the same way.  With Trevor, he had a bit of a rough year last year, and I was just hoping this year would be a little bit easier on him.  Similar to Gwen, he was remarking how well he was doing, and I was hoping his teacher would say something similar. 

With both kids, I was blown away.  With Trevor's teacher, she didn't focus on his "issues" simply noted how Trevor was also aware of them and working to minimize those things.  She had wonderful things to say about him and has done a wonderful job of complimenting him on the things he does very well in order to build his self esteem.  With Gwen, her teacher wouldn't have even known that she was young compared to her classmates except that she was telling everyone the day before that she was turning 5.  He had to ask her a time or two to be sure.  She has been conducting herself very well and in line with the other classmates.  He also remarked at how well her class gets along with each other and that it is a really fun class to be a part of.  It was so heartwarming!

So after that meeting, we picked the kids up and told them that we had been planning a trip to DisneyLand!  We had just planned it a few weeks before, but wanted to make sure that they were doing well at school first.  Russ was expecting yelps of joy and utter excitement, but in reality they weren't exactly jumping up and down.  NOT because they were bored with the idea, but kind of like me, they needed time for the information to set in.  That weekend, I got out all of our pin trading that we had done in March, and the kids got PUMPED for that.  I never would have guessed that part would be really exciting, but it was.  Kind of like a little treasure hunt for them.  I got a bunch of pins sold in bulk off of ebay and they picked through them to decide which they were willing to trade and which ones they wanted to keep. 

On Sunday, it was Gwen's family birthday party.  We did have a small recognition for her on Wednesday, with just Russ, Trevor and I to sing Happy Birthday, blow out her candle on a brownie and open her Merida (Brave) costume and big Heartlake City Stables Lego Friends that had over 1000 pieces.  We got her Olivia's house that had over 600 pieces around Easter and she has put that together by herself.  She got about the same distance through the stables before she handed it over to me. 

So Sunday, we had burgers, brats and hot dogs for dinner with french fries and chocolate cake for candles and singing time.  Gwen was PUMPED for her party....so excited that everyone could come, that she got to play with and see both of her cousins....she did want to play party games, which was a little difficult given the age range of the guests...but she did have a windfall of gifts.  More Lego Friends again...I believe she is 2-3 sets away from the entire Heartlake City.  And she got a wonderful Barbie-sized Merida doll and horse that she is able to play with when she wants a little break from her Lego Friends.  We were able to complete all 6 sets within 4 days but now she has in the teens, the number of Lego Friends characters.  It is because we have so many friends, that I cannot throw away the boxes that the sets came in.  She can look at the faces of the characters and know which set they came with, then will look at the box to remember the name.  It is very confusing.  Especially because none of the names are also friends of hers.  It would be easy if their names were Megan, Ellen, Elizabeth, etc.  But they are Stephanie, Sophie, Ella, etc.  Cute names, just hard to remember. 

Rolling right into Monday, we went to her 5 year check-up.  Because we had already gotten her immunizations for Kindergarten, it was a very "boring" check up.  They measured her height at 43.5" and weight at 44lbs.  She's still a square...virtually.  Both her height and weight measured at the 75%.  The doctor told her she won't have to get shots until she is 11, which hopefully she believes him rather than asking me every week if she has to get more. 

And then to round out the week, the kids' school did their drawing for their Fall Fundraiser.  The "big" prize this year is a lunch with Tony Oliva, followed by a ride in a limo to DQ to eat a blizzard and drive around for a bit.  They had a mid-range prize that was given to the top seller in each class, and one drawn student from each class.  I had chosen to put all our purchases with Trevor so he could have more of a chance to be drawn for the drawings, because I figured, Gwen being in Kindergarten and only half-day wouldn't really care a whole lot about the lunch, or even pay that much attention to it.  Found out that Trevor was not the top seller in his class, by about $50, but that he did get drawn for the classroom drawing.  The overall lunch was drawn from the entire school, and Trevor was SUPER excited that he got drawn for the lunch with Tony Oliva.  Would you believe Gwen got drawn too?  Her name was in the bucket one time.  I gave a cash donation in her name so that she could be included in the drawings, but like I said, I wanted Trevor to have more of a chance.  Trevor's name was put in 5 times.  Gwen was put in once.  The entire school drawing, only 5 names were drawn.  I'm pretty sure her odds were around 1 in 750 at least.  That girl has always been crazy lucky.  But I'm very thankful that Trevor was drawn too because I don't know that he would have been very happy had Gwen gotten to go, and he couldn't. 

Regardless....we will be in warm California next week enjoying the company of Mickey and Lightning McQueen.  I can't wait to be warm again!  I know its only been a few weeks but I don't want to have to wait until March before I feel warm again!