Go Faster, Faster

That is D's refrain every time we are in the car. Speed limits mean nothing to him which, frankly, has me a little worried for when he gets his license.

Today was K's Pinewood Derby race. It turned out to be a longer day than I had hoped but overall things went pretty well.

K won his Den's races and received a first place medal for his uniform. It also allowed him to moved onto the final's with the whole pack. He was ecstatic about winning, not exactly a gracious winner. I tried to prep him that he would be going against the fastest cars from the other divisions (all the older boys who have done this before) and that he may not win. I explained that wanting to win and being competitive was fine but that even if he didn't win it was important that he at least enjoy the experience. Yeah, I think I would have had more luck talking to air. He didn't win any of the final heats (he didn't come in last either) and he was a completely sore loser about it. Ugh. By that time we had been there almost 2 hours, both boys were cranky because of the waiting around (and lack of naps) so unfortunately Mom's temper wasn't at it's finest. I finally told K that if he didn't want to watch that was fine he just couldn't leave the general area of the race. He finally went to pout (yes, sad but true) in a little area about 10 feet behind me where I could still see him but where he wasn't bugging anyone else.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad he is competitive and like I told him on the drive home, there isn't anything wrong with being competitive and trying to win, but when you lose it doesn't mean that you get to throw a fit and make everyone else feel bad about their success. I guess we'll keep working on that.

During the Den's race he was more than happy to talk into the microphone when the MC was asking the boys how they felt, unfortunately he was also more than happy to talk into the microphone during the finals when he wasn't doing as well. There is that shyness factor again. A mall full of people, people standing around watching and he's asked if anyone has anything to say and he's first with his hand up and a hand out for the mic.

In the end I think he had a good time and D and I enjoy watching the races. D's biggest problem was the same as always. He didn't understand why he couldn't be up there with his big brother doing what he was doing. Next year we'll know a little more about how things work and maybe we'll make an extra car for D to race in the exhibition race.

K's car is the green one in the middle.

Speaking of success (this would be the TMI part of the post by the way) D is almost completely potty trained. He doesn't have any accidents during the day and most of the time he goes to the restroom without prompting for both 'duties' that occur there. Only occasionally in the evening does he poop in his pants. He is so proud that he has been wearing underwear to school everyday for the past two weeks. He has Thomas and Cars underwear to choose from so he's a happy kid. I will be soooooo excited to not have any diaper type items to change, to not have piles of pull-ups in my bathroom and to only have the expense of buying pull-ups for night. Yea!!!! This success also means that he gets to move up to the Pre-School class at his school. I tried to say that he was moving up to the 3 year-old class but he quickly corrected me that it was Pre-School! <Geez, those Moms. Don't they know anything>

Karate Post

K had his second Karate lesson today.  Please know that this is said with all love and motherly affection, but my son is such a dork.  :)

To say that K is uncoordinated is like saying that I'm slightly pale.  A factual statement but something that doesn't even come close to giving you a complete picture of what occurs.  Let me see if I can bring the picture into focus.

Jumping jacks involved lots of jumping but very little jacking.  None of it in synch with anybody else.  Even with Sensei counting he was totally off.

That brings me to the other issue.  He has no rhythm.  None. Zilch. Nada. Not at all.  He can sing, but ask him to follow a beat and you may as well ask a monkey to read a map in the dark.

Class looked like a Laurel and Hardy sketch.  Everyone is in synch and then there comes K about a 1/2 beat behind and on the wrong arm/leg.  I've been trying to figure out a good analogy and all I can come up with is a drunk giraffe on a balance ball.  Only with more flailing. 

Add to this his running commentary on how 'easy' everything will be to do (it is amazing how easy stuff is when you're not doing it right) and his opinions on the next activity (easy, hard, "now that's what I'm talking about", I've done that, etc - but not in a disruptive manner) and I sometimes wonder if he is my child.  He has absolutely no problem being the center of attention and speaking in public.  He received the first award at Cub Scouts last night and he gave an impromptu speech (they basically had to take the microphone away fro him).  I would rather do just about anything else than to call attention to myself in a group of people.  He is just off in his own little world and confident enough in himself (which is a good thing) to not be concerned.

I have trouble watching him during the lesson because not only do I get a little embarrassed (I admit it) but because with his lack of coordination, balance and rhythm he moves around a lot.  He'll start a sufficient distance from the person next to/in front of him and suddenly I'll look up and flinch because I'm just sure he's going to punch or kick somebody by accident since he's only about 2 inches away from them all of a sudden.

So far though, he LOVES his classes and is having a great time.  I'm hoping that as we go forward he'll get more used to the sessions, calm down a bit and perhaps gain a little more gracefulness.   If not, he'll be fine and I'll just go on as I have.  Letting him be him.

Cars, Fish and Water

Tonight K painted his Pinewood Derby car for Cub Scouts. We are running a little behind (surprise, surprise), mostly due to the snowstorm and J having issues at work. Today we did one big push to get the final parts done (we had started it already) and finished the last of the shaping and started the painting.

K wanted his car to be green (no really, not red) so we put down a coat of white to help minimize the absorption of the green into the raw wood. He now has one coat of green and we will need to do another tomorrow. Through all this J and I have been very adamant that K participate in the design and work of the car. We did draw the line at him using the jig saw (short attention span + fast moving blade = bad combination) but otherwise he's helped with the chiseling and sanding. And the shape of the car was all on his direction.

In keeping with that he is in charge of painting. I hate to admit it but I am having a really hard time not "fixing" his paint job. I guess all I can say is that no one will accuse him of having his parents do his car. :)

Here is a picture of said car (with one coat of paint):

For those of you following the fish saga I don't think that I mentioned that after the first fish died and the tank broke (not in that order) we bought another fish for K. Well that fish also died after about 2 days. I cannot believe the amount of money we spent on just trying to get our son a fish. Wow! So tonight J and I were talking about maybe we could try another fish. We already had the tank, food, etc and K really did enjoy the entire 5 days he spent with his two fish before this. We go to get the tank down to make sure everything is still where we put it and find out that the tank is cracked. Okay, no more fish! It is apparently a sign and I'm fine with being hit over the head with a small bat, I don't need to try a third time to get hit with a sledgehammer. We are going to wait a few months and if he still wants another pet we'll look into a hamster since we still have all the paraphernalia for that animal too.

Tonight while K was painting is car, D was in the bath. D normally does pretty well in the bath so I'm letting him take them without me sitting right next to the tub. It does mean that I walk back and forth from where,ever I am to the bathroom numerous times at about 3 minute intervals. I'm hoping that counts as exercise. :)

Today I hear this 'Sploosh' sound coming from the bathroom and go in there to find that D is taking one of the cups that they play with in the bath and dumping it out onto the bathroom floor. There was a lovely lake in the bathroom by the time I got there. Unfortunately when I first heard the sound I was in the middle of cleaning up the paint brushes, etc. from painting and couldn't just drop what I was doing to go in there. By the sounds I'm guessing he dumped four or five cups of water. Needless to say bath time was immediately over! Once again, just when I think I know what to expect from their behavior they pull out a surprise.

After I got K to bed D came in to help (according to him) me fold laundry. His version of helping consisted mainly of taking things I'd already folded, folding them again (his way) and sticking them in a different pile. He was very good and excited about putting his clothes away in his drawers.

That is all the excitement for now. I still owe you the Karate story, but it will have to be later this week.

Wicked Witch of the West

That is probably what my kids were thinking I was when I picked them up this afternoon. Today was one of THOSE days. I swear almost everything went wrong today.

(this is really, really long...I was using it as therapy)

But Mom, you were in the bathroom for two minutes

I went to the restroom this evening (I know, what was I thinking) and this is what I came out too.

Apparently coloring on the paper had becoming boring. (Apologizes for the blurry picture. I'm not sure what is wrong with my camera. Most of our Christmas pictures came out this way too. :( )

I could not believe that he colored on his face. It's been at least 6 months since we've had an incident with him coloring somewhere he isn't supposed to and I thought we were past all that.

To top it off, as he was getting out of the bath he dumped over the bucket of bath toys. I keep telling the boys to make sure there isn't any water in there but they don't seem to remember this. As it dumped out this huge wave of water came out (it is about the size of one of those 5 quart rubbermaid containers). As I'm trying to clean up this lake of water in the bathroom I hear J going "No, no, no. What are you doing?" Apparently since D was running around sans clothing he decided that it would be fun to pee on the floor of his room. Argh!

Last week I went into my room and found that he had taken his pants and pull-up off. When I asked him what he was doing he said he was peeing on the puppy bed. I guess he gets points for honesty. When I asked him why (because I have to know) he said because he wanted to. Okay then, not much to say to that. :)

Seems like just when I think all the 'exciting' surprises are over they think up something new. At least they boys are entertaining.

What's all that writing?

Technorati Tags: Food

I stopped by Jack in the Box today to grab a milkshake (hey, it has milk in the title) because it was 6:00p and I was getting hungry.  I'm reading the menu and notice that it seems awfully busy. What is all that extra writing?  Wait, those are numbers with 'cal' next to them.  What!  The calories are now listed next to each food item.  Uh-oh.

Now don't get me wrong it isn't like I was under the impression that Jack in the Box was a health food restaurant but there is something very disconcerting about seeing this glaring number next to your order.  Granted it didn't stop me from ordering my milkshake (which was darn tasty by the way) but still...