Back to playing catch up on some old posts that still need to be written...
Mother's Day celebrations started early thanks to Tyler's preschool class having a Mother's Day Gathering. The kids sang us songs and then served us breakfast, it was adorable!
On Mother's Day we went to church, took some pictures with the boys, and then enjoyed a belated Easter tradition, dinner at PF Chang's!
You have grown up so much in the last year. You have become so self reliant, so capable, and so big. Towards the end of the school year I realized our morning routine had become magical for me; our activities in the kitchen were almost choreographed. I'd come out of my room in the morning, ready for the day, and you would already be dressed (since this is a requirement before you're allowed to play any electronics on school days). You would head downstairs to feed Sonic while I would help Tyler get himself dressed and down the stairs. You would put on your shoes and get Tyler's out. You would make your water bottle while I made breakfast. You would fix drinks while I got out vitamins. You would fill out your reading log and then put snacks in your backpack while I signed the reading log. I can not explain what a strange phenomena this is, eight years in the making.
I do have to concede that your helpfulness doesn't always come cheerfully. I've made a habit of letting you out of the car at the end of the pipestem on our way home to bring up the trashcans, and you complain heavily about this. We'll ask you to run things up or down the stairs and you grumble. We send you back to the basement to turn off the tv and lights you or Tyler have left one and we hear, "Oh, come on!" (You sound just like Gob, but you don't know who this is.) Recently Grandad was trying to explain "freedom" to Tyler and you interjected, "There's no such thing as freedom when you have parents. I do everything at our house." But you're not always that upset about helping out. You have gotten pretty good about accepting cleanup time for the basement or your bedroom, and you even seem to understand that Tyler is expected to do certain, easy, tasks while you're expected to do most of the work. You also have plenty of moments of appreciation as well, for our house, lifestyle, and how much Daddy and I work to provide for it. You do frequently tell us how much you love us and that we're the best parents ever. Just last week when Dad wasn't home one evening because he was doing shave ice, you said, "Poor Daddy. You and Daddy work so hard. You guys deserve a break." Followed by, "I know! This weekend I'm going to make you guys breakfast and bring it to you upstairs!" I've also heard you talking to friends and saying, "I'm not really spoiled, but I do have pretty much everything at my house." I have to say, you're pretty spoiled, but you're also a good, sweet kid, so I don't really mind.
You are still an excellent big brother, 90% of the time. You now help Tyler with getting dressed in the morning, or brushing his teeth before bed. You've been very encouraging of him as he truly learned how to swim this summer. The day that it all clicked for him, he was swimming back and forth between Daddy and I. You asked him to swim to you too, and I had deja vu from Tyler first learning to walk and him going to you. You do plenty of teasing, picking, and arguing as well, but there's no doubting your love for Tyler. You've shown him how to play a few things on the piano, worked with him on identifying his letters, and love to play video games with him too. You would be so bored without him!
You literally took Tyler under your wing to show him around at the Kindergarten Orientation!
A new game, Pokemon Go, came out this summer. It's unlike any game that's ever been out, but I'm sure you'll laugh at this part of this entry some day as it will be a common game type. I mention it here because we have all been playing it together like crazy. The first weekend you, Tyler, and I wandered around for 3 hours playing. Another weekend we met up with Uncle Joe and Lindsey to play. We also went to DC one Saturday to play and wandered around the Air and Space museum for a little while too. The four of us played at the beach and even got Grammy playing. You text Uncle Joe funny pictures you take in it and compare notes with all of your friends. You and I, on my phone, are the farthest along of anyone we know, and you love that. It's been a lot of fun, but it does feed your electronics obsession. I swear you would play with something electronic from morning to night if we would let you. Half the time when we tell you it's time to turn off the Xbox, we'll turn around and find you on the iPad, and you'll think that's okay! You've also been caught after bedtime with the iPad a few times. We try to keep you balanced by sending you outside, to read, or to play your piano, and we know that most days, most of the year, your schedule doesn't allow for much electronics time anyways. One cool thing is that you are able to play online with some of your friends, including Aidan Cheek, Uncle Chris, and now you recently exchanged Xbox names with your pen pal from last year, so now you can play games and talk to each other as well as continuing to write each other!
Since I mentioned reading, you are an absolutely fantastic reader now. At the end of second grade when they did the reading assessment, 2nd graders are expected to score a 25 at the end of the year, 3rd graders a 38. You scored a 34! You read chapter books on your own now and right now you're finishing a three book series called Jedi Academy that is written in comic book form. You've flown through the series. You, Tyler, and I all read The BFG together this summer too and really enjoyed it. This year you are completing the summer reading program all by yourself for the first time. Another example of your self sufficient-ness.
I think that Caleb continues to be your best friend, but I think that you think of him more as a family member, a given who will always be around, like a cousin. He is the only friend that you ever randomly ask when you will get to see next, or say that you miss. Even though we rarely seem to go more then a week at a time without getting together, unless one of us is on vacation. However, when you are asked who your best friends are, you automatically say Nate, and now Nathan. The three of you call each other "The Three Doritos" which was a phrase Nathan's mom coined during a sleepover at his house.
You're on the far left, Caleb on the far right, getting ready to paintball for Caleb's birthday party.
The Three Doritos! You, Nate, and Nathan
Girls became interesting to you towards the end of 2nd grade, after not really even having any friends that were girls in first grade. I even overheard something about a kiss when I picked you up from school one day, as a buddy asked you about it. You finally told me who he was talking about (Izzy Stinchcomb) but I'm still unclear if the kiss was recent, or something that happened when you two were in the same preschool class. You also had a crush on another girl, Caelyn M, as did every other boy in your class. Unfortunately she moved to Texas after the school year. The song Treat You Better came on in the car one day, and you said, "If Caelyn had decided she liked another boy, I would have sang this song to her." I liked that you were talking about that openly with me, and that you were choosing a song about treating a girl well. Please keep up both of these things.
You and Caelyn during your birthday party
We are slowly expanding the foods you like. You don't complain as much when we put something new or that you "don't like" in front of you. You do try to bargain for something that you do like if you eat what we give you first. A few weeks ago we had baked chicken for dinner. You complained at first, but ate the serving I gave you, asked for more, and ate it too. The next day you asked for the leftovers. I consider this a huge win. You are pretty willing to try anything now, but I can't say that you take an actual bite out of some of the things you are "trying." Your favorite food continues to be bagels, so we still have some work to do... Your appetite is definitely starting to grow with you, you frequently decide you're starving right when we're asking you to take care of something or walk out the door or go to sleep, bananas or yogurt drinks have been our go to fix for these requests.
Trying Calamari, without knowing what it was. When I told you, you stopped eating it, but, you've eaten it again since!
You fight sleeping. It's been years since you've napped regularly, but you barely nap at all; I nap more often then you do. You're a night owl like your dad and the two or you regularly stay up later then me on the weekend. You are still the first one up the next morning though! You are like a robot. Until you aren't. One weekend this summer you were just done, emotional, whiny, and pitiful. We sent you to nap three times and you kept coming back out. I finally laid down with you, and you were out for hours. This was following two weeks of baseball camp, with the second week being 5 hours a day and in scorching heat. Then you stayed up late Friday and Saturday night, and were up early Sunday for a few hours of paint ball in the heat again, for Caleb's birthday. You are regularly on the go like this, and you usually enjoy it.
You've stayed pretty busy this summer with camps and I am so proud of you for your attitude through all of it. The first two weeks of the summer you were at basketball camp. The first week you knew you had buddies going, but the second week we had no idea if you would know anyone. You didn't have any hesitation walking in on your own. It turned out that you did know a few people, and you would tell us what they accomplished each day as well as about your own great steals, passes, and money shots. The following week you went to VBS at your old preschool, Tyler went as well. You both loved it. You would come home so excited, talking about all the fun things you did and singing the songs, and telling me that you have the coolest counselor there. Cool is not what anyone else would have labeled him, and when I passed along what you had said it clearly made his week. We followed that week with a trip to Myrtle Beach where you boogie boarded and went out in the waves like a teenager, leaving me an anxious mess. You were so happy and grateful the whole trip. You finally had one week off before rolling into the baseball camps I already mentioned. The first week was pitchers and catchers camp, with the high school coach and some of his players running it. We were a little disappointed when you chose to work on pitching only, no catching, but you did really focus and work hard on the pitching. There were only 12 kids out there and you quickly started calling the other boys your buddies. The next week was the 5 hour days and probably 25 boys, including Nate. You continued to take camp seriously and you were excited by your personal victories each day. The last day of camp Dad scheduled you a one-on-one practice with the high school coach afterwards, and you were happy to go. All of this to say, I have just been so impressed with your attitude and your work ethic all summer. You're growing up to be an amazing kid.
You have recently added a phrase to your attempt at puppy dog eyes when you are asking me for something. You've started saying, "Please Mama, for your little baby?" The first time you said this I just stared at you blankly. All I could think was, you are so not my little baby, you are so big. As much as you will always be my first baby, you're zero parts baby any more. And as I literally cry about this, I am just so excited to watch you continue to grow up and become yourself. We are so proud of you, and we love you with all of our hearts.
PS~ As much as I've known I needed to get this entry written, you actually encouraged me to do it! About a week ago at bed time, Tyler asked me to tell him everything that he had ever told me about his rainbow monsters. I pulled out my phone and started reading through blog entries that mentioned his monsters, one being, To Tyler at 4 years old. You asked me to read one about you, so I read To Timmy at 7 years old. You loved it, and asked for at 8 years old, and I had to admit it hadn't been written yet. You told me that I needed to get to it! It made me so happy to have you guys enjoy hearing what I've written here so far. I love you!
Oh Tyler, I don't know where to start! I think the word I use for you most often is crazy. You are crazy sweet, crazy silly, crazy persistent, crazy picky, crazy specific, and crazy imaginative. You are still super cuddly and pick-up-able, though Daddy is encouraging me to stop carrying you around. You are finally choosing to try to stop sucking your thumb, and seem to be making good progress. I can't believe you are in Kindergarten.
Your sweetness is unmatched. You love with your whole heart. You still love helping Dad fix things, you love cuddling with me, you love playing with Timmy. Last week I was sick and miserable, you would forget and ask something of me as usual, I would tell you I still didn't feel well, and you would respond, "Do you need anything?" Another day you came home from Susan's with a bag of snack size KitKats, there were 4 left, "One for each person in our family." You are always thinking about other peoples feelings. You will sometimes feel a sudden urge and "need to play a song for you, Mom." Sometimes this is on the piano, sometimes on your guitar that the Pavlus' gave you for your birthday. You stare me in the eyes while you play, and then ask if I liked it. You are very serious about it, it is clearly a gift for me, and I love it. You and Timmy were playing video games the other day and got into a real life argument. Timmy wasn't being nice, but you were over reacting, so I scooped you up to go upstairs to try to get you to nap. Once you cried it out and told me what had upset you, I said Timmy was going to be in big trouble when I went downstairs. We laid there a few more minutes and you said, "I don't want Timmy to be in trouble. I want to go swimming with Timmy." Last week we were at a back to school picnic and you won a prize at a game that was one of Timmy's favorite candies. You came running over and told me that you won it for Timmy; then you asked if you could play again and win one for yourself. I regularly tell you that you are the best brother ever.
Your level of silliness is new to me! And you have such boy humor! You laugh at burping and farting, and when I'm trying to get you out of the shower to get dressed, you're preoccupied dancing around naked. You have started "doing downward duck" which was a phrase in the Angry Birds Movie, that was the bird doing the downward dog yoga position. You think it's hilarious to bend over, the less clothing the funnier, and wiggle your butt around saying "downward duuuuuck". You do it when someone is coming around the corner, or through the doorway, like a surprise attack. You are too much.
You will ask for the thing that you want one million times until you get it. Last night it was for a refill of your Co-ca-Co-lah. You latch on to an idea and you won't let it drop, like when you saw an airplane one night and thought it was a shooting star, and I explained, no, it's an airplane, shooting stars go super fast, and you corrected me that there is another type of shooting star and it goes really slow, and that's what we're seeing. Frequently, if you have any kind of "injury" it means that you can't do something for yourself, like walk up the stairs. You will follow through with this complaint as you hop, crawl, or sit on your butt from one step to the next for the whole flight of stairs. You are crazy.
You are so weird about what you refuse to even taste, and what concoctions you come up with yourself that you swear are yummy. Last week at dinner you told me that cantaloupe is disgusting, then you ate the hot dog out of your bun and replaced it with cheetos, yes, there was ketchup on the bun too. You ate it all up. You also like to put fritos onto your plain cheese sandwich. (Though this may have been inspired by my putting potato chips on my PBJ). You also like to dip your pizza in soda. You will eat bananas now though, and grapes, and you'll still eat broccoli, but you have a long way to go on eating. You also don't like your food to touch each other. Like, you don't like your broccoli to touch your grapes, it's not even food items that will actually affect each other that you worry about!
When you ask for someone to make you water, which you are totally capable of doing for yourself, you expect crushed ice. If Timmy brings you a cup with regular ice, it sometimes brings you to tears because, "He should know I don't want this ice!" When you want to play a game, or build with legos, or color a picture, you want to do it your way. You not only won't take suggestions, but you also want whoever is doing the activity with you, to do it your way.
The scene in Inside Out where Bing Bong sacrifices himself to save Riley's memories makes me sob. I so don't want to see the day where your Rainbow Monsters are gone. Just a few weeks ago, at bedtime, you asked me to tell you every story that you ever told me about your Monsters. You didn't remember a lot of what I was telling you, luckily I have previous blog posts with the stories, and even some video of you talking about them, to show you. So while the details and regular visits with the Rainbow Monsters seem to be diminishing, they are still alive and well. Lately you've been telling us about the Rainbow Monster's baby. Every few bed times you share a new word that the baby has learned, or that the baby is older, apparently Rainbow Monsters grow up much more quickly then humans. I was so hopeful that your Rainbow Monsters would make a comeback in your art now that you are in Kindergarten, and you didn't disappoint me, you made a rainbow monster the first Friday of school (though it still needs to be colored in)!
Basically you are everything, and I don't know what we would do without you! We love you and all your types of crazy so much!
This morning, for the first time, both boys had their first day of school together! Timmy headed off for 3rd Grade, and Tyler finally got to join him in Kindergarten!
Tyler has been excited for Kindergarten to start for several weeks, but has clearly had some nervousness as well. One afternoon on the cruise, when they were supposed to be resting, I heard Tyler say, "Timmy, tell me all the jokes you know, so I can be funny and make new friends." Last week, when we found out who their teachers were (our prayers, and flat out request, was granted for Mrs Bekenstein for Tyler) Tyler was very excited, thanks to Timmy telling him that she's the nicest teacher ever and doesn't give much homework! When we went to meet his teachers last week, he was talking to Mrs Bekenstein and told her, "You will have to remind me of things because I'm forgetful." I let her know immediately that that was self diagnosed, that we had never thought that or said that to him! I also sent her an email the next day, which I will copy at the end of this post, as it is the insight into Tyler that I felt the need to share with her!
This morning, the closer we got to school, the more nervous Tyler seemed to get. Grandad and Susan walked down their street to the front of the school with us, and said goodbye there. Next we said goodbye to Timmy right inside the door. Timmy was just back to business as usual! He's in Ms. Kim's class this year, who we've heard good things about. He has several buddies in his class and is excited to see friends every day again. He ran off on his own without even a look back!
We then had a few minutes with Tyler in the cafeteria, where all his classmates will go each morning when they arrive at school, until their teacher comes to get them and walk them back to class. Tyler sat on the windowsill and called me to sit next to him. He said, "I don't know how to read yet." I told him, "I know buddy, no problem, no one here knows how to read yet." He looked a little more at ease and said, "But I don't know all my letters either." I told him, "Other kids won't know all their letters yet either, and you do know almost all of them, but you are here to learn them together." Tim told him, "And you'll work on one letter for a whole week at a time, no problem." He looked a little calmer again but said, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do all day." I told him, "Your teachers will tell you what to do, and when to do it, and how to do it, so all you need is your good listening ears." He finally smiled and said, "I always have good listening ears."
We spent a few minutes introducing him to several kids in his class that he has some kind of connection with, either they are younger siblings of Timmy's buddies, or they've played tball with Tyler before, or he's had speech with them. Then we asked him if he wanted to say goodbye there or have us walk him back. He took both of our hands and said to come back with him. We said quick, painless, goodbyes as he walked into the room, telling him to have a fantastic day and that we couldn't wait to hear all about it!
My email to Mrs Bekenstein:
Mrs Bekenstein,
I find myself needing to explain Tyler to you a little bit, especially after his concession to you yesterday about being forgetful, which I still have no clue where that came from! (He has a great memory!)
Tyler is sweet, loving, empathetic, and eager to please, much like his brother. Beyond those similarities, he is very much his own person. Tyler is the baby of the family, and very fanciful in his imagination, which play off of each other. He has sort of imaginary friends, he's never played with them but he tells us stories about them. They are "my Rainbow Monsters" and he tells us random facts about them or that they've been hurt, or had babies, etc. The stories are starting to dwindle off, but I bring them up because he uses them as excuses sometimes, "But my Rainbow Monsters don't make me eat carrots," or, "My Rainbow Monsters never make me put my shoes on by myself." His fanciful imagination is what I wrote about in my teacher request form, because I wanted him to have someone who would not just put up with his imagination, but hopefully get a kick out of it like we do!
Tyler is also just silly. He loves to wear his shoes on the wrong feet on purpose, or leave a milk mustache on his face. He will also share "facts" like, "You know rain is made out of poison ivy?" There is no telling him otherwise, he will argue that this is truth until I give up trying to convince him. He also either actually becomes convinced, or very believable pretends he's convinced of things. He had an eczema rash once that we put medicine on for days, one morning he accidentally spilled milk on it, the next day it was finally cleared up. He now wants to put milk on all his boo-boos...
Tyler also has very specific ideas, and when he wants you to play a made up game with him, or build a tower, or play in the sand, he'll tell you that you're doing it wrong, and then tell you how to do it right. He's just a little headstrong.
Over the last few weeks he has been extremely excited for Kindergarten, but has also exhibited some nervousness about making new friends. He would tell Timmy things like, "Tell me all the jokes you know, so I can be funny and make friends." His speech intelligibility used to be worse, and he had some time in preschool where his friends couldn't always understand him, I don't know if this plays into his concerns, but his speech has improved a lot already. There are a few kids in the class he has met in passing or in sports, but no real buddies, yet, so I'm anxious for him to click with someone!
I know he's in good hands, just some forewarning! :)
