9 things for 9-9-09

Today was filled with momentous events......some good, others bad. It's a ying/yang day, I guess. Here are 9 experiences to mark the day:

1

Ansel started Kindergarten today.

It was SO hard for him to wait this long for school to start..... He has been waiting since the beginning of summer and kept asking me if summer was ever going to end so he could go to school, F-i-n-a-l-l-y. He was positively glowing all morning. He was up so early all dressed up and ready to go. (he has afternoon kindergarten at 11:30)

I got a call from his teacher after school, just to tell me what a sweet kid he was, and that she wanted me to know that he is extremely bright, picking up on everything in class so fast. She said "I think he is already reading" I told her that he was, and she said that she would definitely up the challenge in class for him. She also told me that Levi's teacher had mentioned to her that Ansel would probably need extra challenges in class, because Levi sure does. It makes me feel good that my kids are getting so well taken care of at school. Isn't it the best when teachers take a real interest in your kids???!! It's the stuff parental dreams are made of.


It was Calder's 2nd day of the second grade... He is old hat at this now, so no exclamations are necessary. (although he was extremely bummed that his two best friends got in a class together and he didn't. A very sad day for Calder when he found that out). He is in a 2nd/3rd grade blend. (and it turns out he has a couple of friends in his new class, so the sadness is gone. One is from his soccer team, the other from church. Little boys get over things so easily). Calder is one that doesn't ever really need to worry about friends actually. He is one of those kids that others flock to. Did you know any of those kinds of kids growing up? He is well loved, and as he puts it "I don't need to make friends, they make friends with me".

Now if only school work was so easy for him...... *sigh* That is our "Calder" struggle-- he has no interest in traditional school work, you know the three RRR's. Actually, I take that back, writing is his strong suit, it fills his tactile needs (he is very tactile in learning) and satisfies his creative side. But the other two are like pulling teeth.


Levi is just blazing through. He is big man on campus this year (as a 5th grader), but other than that no new surprises. He is in the same class/same teacher as last year because he is in a 4th/5th grade blend. (which I really love by the way). He has been in school two days and has read TWO 300 hundred page books in that time. He told me today that his teacher told a fellow teacher, at the school, that Levi had done this and she didn't believe him!!

This kid reads SO fast that I can't even keep up with him (and I am not a slow reader). I will get halfway down a page and he will ask me how much longer, like he has been patiently waiting for a while and just now is asking. Speed reading at its finest. (the best part is that he remembers everything he reads.) His teacher really loves him. It is really neat to see their relationship. When we went to back to school night, and walked into Mr. Anderson's room, he dropped everything (even the conversation he was having with a parent) and rushed over to say hello to Levi. I was so surprised and pleased to see the emotion behind the welcome. I could tell that he really had missed Levi.

He took him over to the class "library" and told Levi that he had bought all these new books with Levi in mind, as he was pointing them out, Levi kept commenting "oh yes, that's a great one..." "oh I just finished that one". Mr Anderson kept moaning "oh Levi, how can I ever keep up with you??" So I had to point out the ones that I knew Levi hadn't read to appease poor Mr. Anderson. He felt much better at that point.

2
Mommy outing with/for Kaelan

During kindergarten time, I am down to just one kid at home! So fun to spend some one on one time with my little guy. We had an outing, just he and I, to Bridgeport Village (a really neat outdoor mall close to our house). We got Gelato ice cream (peach and oreo cookie) and played on the play ground that is in the central area of the mall. He had a great time. He is so active and fearless, it was interesting watching him. He was drawn to kids with similar temperaments and it was really interesting to watch them play together. (because school is in session all the kiddos were KK's age, a built in playgroup!!). They would chase each other laughing and pushing, enjoying the physical aspect of their play. I noticed that he was always playing with children that had older siblings, I wonder if that is a common phenomenon for younger children. After that we went and bought some Thomas the Tank Engine books from the bookstore with mommy's border's rewards money. KK was a happy boy when he took his nap today.

Oh here is a little video clip from today, of him doing somersaults. I was impressed by his control!! :

3
A Yang (bad) for the day

But I should back up a bit to include a "yang" for this day. It happened just before it was time to take Ansel to kindergarten. It was caused by distraction, on my part, coming from the smallest member of our family. It is a hazard of having a newly potty trained person in the household, and trying to keep the house clean for a work party coming up on Friday, at our house. When said, small child, comes running down the hall yelling "poo poo", I drop everything and run to assist before there is an accident.

Unfortunately, the thing I "dropped" was a sink full of running water and bleach, plugged up and flowing freely. Not good. Especially since this "said" distraction was replaced my another and another, until I had completely forgotten the filling sink for over an hour. I know.... cringe... it was bad. I discovered.... or ahem.... rediscovered my filling sink when I went into the laundry room, to access the garage, and stepped into 3/4" of standing water on my laundry room floor.

Panic set in, but I quickly turned off the HOT water and burned my arm reaching into unplug the over flowing sink. Water was every where, under the washer and dryer inside the cabinet the sink is on, over-saturating the rug and flowing into the vent. I yelled for Joe's help (he was home sick) and grabbed some towels to start the soak up process. Joe politely reminded me that we have a carpet cleaner with a spill pick up feature, after I had gone through 4 beach towels to no avail.

It took filling up the cleaner tank 5 or 6 times to get the water all up from the floor and cabinetry, but I eventually did. Now I have an extremely clean laundry room floor that smells like bleach. I guess it could be worse..... but I don't want to find out how. Funny how worrying about preventing a possible small mess, by KK, led me to create a MUCH larger one myself. Oh the chagrin, wasted time and mess.

4
A little garden bounty to brighten things up

I harvested some of my garden today, look at the beauty:
Doesn't that just brighten your day?? It did mine.

5
Soccer practice/Soccer practice/Soccer game

Wednesday is our crazy day. We have three boys in soccer that practice at 5, 5 and 6. Joe takes Calder (because he is his coach) and I take the rest. Today was a little different because Levi had a scrimmage game lined up instead of regular practice and it was taking place at 6:30, so it made it a little tighter for me (Ansel practices at 6). Soccer is good for my boys. They have way too much energy and soccer really burns it up!

6
Another "Yang"West Linn Patrol cars:

(license plate blurred out to protect the owner) ;-)

I took Ansel to his practice, and then headed over across town to Levi's scrimmage. On the way a police officer got behind me and was following me pretty close for a while. It made me nervous. I was doing everything by the book and really didn't have anything to fear, and yet...........all of a sudden he surged forward to almost right on my bumper and on came his lights. Great, I thought. This is so my luck. If Joe were driving this wouldn't happen, I KNOW that for a fact. Some guys have all the luck.

I pull off the main road, onto a side street and roll down my window, "what seems to be the problem, officer?" I ask. "I can't read your license plate" he says curtly. "????" was my response. "that will give you a $100 ticket in most cases for disrupting procedure" he says ostentatiously. I am still trying to grasp what in the world he could mean by this when he says "you can't having any covering over your plate." Now I get where this is coming from.

When we bought our Enclave, my step-dad Kurt, provided us with a plate protector to protect it from becoming illegible in the snow. Now, apparently it was having the opposite affect, as this officer was claiming he couldn't read it in plain daylight with no inclement weather effecting the visibility. Apparently these CLEAR plastic protectors are illegal in Oregon, but not in Utah?? Because, as Joe puts it "why do they sell them then??". Luckily he let me off with a warning, after he felt that I had been sufficiently humiliated for the day. As we drove away, Levi asked "What was that all about?", and responded with a "I really couldn't tell you" What a complete waste of time.

7
Stunt planes are cool(the stunt plane we saw)

When we finally arrived at Levi's soccer scrimmage we noticed that right next door they were having a HUGE biker "convention" at a local tavern. There must have been at least 600 bikers with their leather "skull" jackets and tattoos. Loud music was blaring, and low and behold there was a stunt plane performing tricks overhead. (a very cool benefit indeed) We got out and were watching it instead of Levi's game. (oopss).

8
Yang #3 "poo poo, mommy" and Honey buckets

I became very familiar with the good old "honeybuckets" on our Hood to Coast relay race, as that was our only source of "plumbing" on the run. Even so, I don't enjoy entering them for even a moment, and try not to breathe too hard when I do. After wards I always feel the need to bathe. Yech. Well, imagine if you would, dear reader, having to help a little boy "poop" in one of these contraptions. Doesn't the thought of it make you nauseous? Well, add a little boy who appears to be constipated and can't make up his mind whether or not he has to go, coupled with the fact that he is newly trained and so the answer is never "no" no matter how much I wish it could be so. No, I didn't want to risk cleaning poopy underwear at the soccer field because I wouldn't take him to the potty for the 10th time in a row.

Well this is what happened to me. He was so sincere in each request that we would hurry to the honeybucket, lock the nasty door, attempt to cover the nasty seat, and check to make sure there was more "purell" in the dispenser, and wait for about a minute. Until he got bored and wanted to go out and play. (I don't blame him, who really wants to wait out a BM in one of those nasty contraptions that have "blue pee pee" as KK so correctly pointed out). We did this about 8 times and at about the 3rd I was already begging for mercy. But, even though he never did have success on the potty, he also never pooped his pants. So it almost comes out even....almost.

9
Winning a soccer game during a beautiful sunset.

Levi's team was definitely the dominant team. They crushed their opponents 5 to nil. It was a great victory. I had a good time (inbetween honeybucket trips) watching Levi do his thing. That kid is FAST. He blew by everyone on his team and the other team. I think he must be built for speed. It was the first time I could really see a clear difference in speed between Levi and his peers. Wow. that kid can really move. I was impressed. Really impressed. He reminded me of a Ferrari next to a camry. Racing along together and then all of a sudden turning it on and blowing by as if the other was standing still. It was fun watching him excel at it. He also had the most amazing falls. He sort of just rolled/somersaulted and came up running, with out a pause. I must admit I let go at that point and yelled "WOW. levi that was cool!!"

As the game came to and end we were greeted with an amazing sunset. What a way to end the day.

What KK did during the soccer game (beside enter the honeybucket):

Here is the official end to the day (I let the boys stay up to 9:09pm):

(it says 9:09 on the microwave, the flash ruined it)

9:09pm on 9/9/09.
What a day. Whew. I am glad its over.