September 14, 2006

Hey all,
Quick check-in. I'm so tired tonight. I had parent-teacher conferences with the boys' teachers today, which was interesting. Both boys are doing just fine. Joseph's teacher was so sweet and kept telling me what a "perfect" boy he is-- just what a mother wants to hear! He is doing well with his letters and numbers-- ahead of most of the kids in the class. He is respectful and kind to the other kids and listens well to directions. Only thing she mentioned was that Joseph can be sensitive at times (which I knew!). One time they were lining up after going to the library and the library lady told Joseph to go to the end of the line (he was trying to get in line somewhere in the middle, he doesn't like being the "caboose"), and for some reason that upset him, and Mrs. Vitale said she could tell he was trying to fight back the tears, but by the time he got back to the classroom he was fine. So I'm relieved that he's not having any of his temper issues that he sometimes has at home.
Brigham is doing fine as well, Mrs. Mendoza praised his drawing and writing (surprise, surprise), and said he is totally fine socially and maturity-wise. She said if she didn't know, she wouldn't guess he's the youngest in the class. He's sometimes not aware when activities are changing, he gets very very focused on what he is doing, again I'm not surprised at all about that! So she'll have to say his name to get him to hear her and then he quickly catches up to what he's supposed to be doing. He's hasn't quite mastered the letters and numbers the way Joseph has (they have a sheet they go over with each child, they have to identify each letter by name-- lower case letters, and then be able to say the sound when the teacher points to the letter). Joseph got something like 49/52, and they have to be like 50/52 at the end of kindergarten. Brigham was at 37/52, so I need to work on him more with that. I need to figure out a more hands-on way to work with him, since that is how he learns. Joseph likes to sit down with flash cards or with our reading workbook, but Brigham does not. He needs to be *doing* something for it to sink in. Any suggestions?
But my main concern, at 5 years old, is their maturity level and behavior, and they are both a-ok with those issues.
Today and yesterday I feel like all I accomplished was errands. Ugh, boring. Yesterday I went to K-Mart (for a tire and tube for Ben's bike), Toys R Us (trying to find "moon sand," but discovered you can only buy it in the big kit which I dont' need), Home Depot (lightbulb for kitchen light fixture, it's a special kind I've only found at Home Depot), Insurance office to get our Hyundai on our Mercury policy, and then Target to find batman/spiderman umbrellas for the boys. The day before we went to Walmart and while we were there tried to find umbrellas, but they only had girl umbrellas and sponge bob umbrellas, so that was a wash. Actually, Joseph wanted a CareBear umbrella (pink carebear handle, pink and turquoise umbrella), but I was worried he'd get made fun of at school for having a "girl umbrella." I told him he could get it, but if I found a Batman umbrella at another store, he could give the Carebear umbrella to Mosey, and he was cool with that. I have NO PROBLEM with my boys liking carebear merchandise, and honestly it annoys me that they are geared toward girls. Why didn't they have a yellow, green, or blue carebear umbrella? Why are carebears more intrinsically "girl," than "boy?" But I also really dno't want my boys getting made fun of, particularly Joseph since he is so sensitive. Anyway, problem solved when I found batman and spiderman umbrellas at Target.
Today Mosey and I did MORE errands, going to the bank to deposit some checks, the DMV to register the Hyundai, Cooper City city offices to pay our utility bill, the dry cleaners to drop off Ben's work shirts, the UPS store to mail off a drawing I did for someone, and back to the insurance office to drop off a copy of the Hyundai's registration. And then to the grocery store for milk after I picked up the boys from school. Whew!
Why did I think I'd have all this extra time after the boys went to school?! :-)
Oh yeah, I also went through ALL the bills and junk mail from the past 6 weeks to make sure we are up to date with bills and all that fun stuff.
Tomorrow I have seriously got to get some major cleaning done on the house. It's picked up pretty well, but the heavy duty cleaning really needs to get done.
Ok, what a boring email this is, but I have to get to bed now.