just when you think you know someone

Drew went to his first football game Friday night. I know, I know. We have neglected him. Our excuses include: Tom and I don't like football and our kids go to bed around game time....so that's how our little sports fan made it to nearly five years old before attending a football game.

I thought I had Drew figured out. He loves music, drums, electric guitars and baseball. He doesn't strike me a a football kind of kid. I. Was. Wrong.

Tom took him, so I am relaying the story. Drew was very into the game. He cheered loudly (at inappropriate times every time). He studied the game. He watched intently until the end of the third quarter.

 After half time the drummers went out on the track to dance and play their drums. Tom said Grandma kept trying to point the drummers out to Drew. He was not interested. He was too busy being impressed with the football players warming up on the field. "Look! Their doing jumping jacks!!" "Look! They are throwing the ball!"

When Drew got home he told me he was cold and tired...but he was glowing with excitement. He said, "The guy on the white team had the ball and then all these blue players came and jumped on him!!" My Drew, the football fan. Who knew?

This morning on the way to school Drew and Miss Shanna were discussing the football game. Drew told her, "but the cheerleaders didn't look very good because they had sweatshirts over their pretty dresses." Miss Shanna gets the best quotes these days. A couple of weeks ago Drew was wearing a new stocking cap. He told Shanna, "My new hat is itching all of my hairs."

Just when you think you have your kid figured out, they discover something new. I can't wait to see what he'll discover next!

Rock Chalk Hay-shock

Julianna loves Jayhawks. She would wear one everyday of the week if she had enough Jayhawk garb. The cutest part is how she says it. Hay-Shock. :)

One time Miss Shanna said that Julianna was the most polite two-year-old she'd ever met. That's saying something because Miss Shanna has known a lot of two-year-olds. Julianna says thank you "shank-oo" and I will be sad when she doesn't anymore.

Wednesday Drew came out of his school with a piece of hard candy. He convinced me to let him eat it on the way home. He told Julianna that it was too small to be a sucker so it was a "sucky." He said, "It's a sucky Julianna. I have a sucky in my mouth." That is all I'm going to say about that.

A few weeks ago we went garage saling. I'm sure I don't have to tell you guys that this is Lily's dream come true. Tons of junk at prices she can afford. We went to one house that had a huge box of gaudy clip-on earrings. Lily found a pair that she really liked. They were red white a blue. She said, "Look, Mom! I can wear these for the first day of July!" I think she meant the Fourth of July...but it's way more fun to now say "Happy First Day of July!" I think we're going to make it a family holiday. Why not?

I need to tell you something....

Julianna is your typical youngest child. She is sweet, funny and a little bit spoiled. At bedtime every night she comes out of her room three of four times and says, "I need to tell you something...uhhhh..." For some reason, we let her do this to us. It always takes us a bit of "Get back in bed!" before we actually throw down the hammer and follow through.

Every night she comes out to say, "When Baby Ben comes tomorrow he will play with me." Every. Night.

Last night I hadn't seen her most of the day. I had a little more patience with the bedtime routine. I was at the bottom of the stairs and she came halfway down to me and stuck her arm straight out at me. Then she asked me sweetly, "Where's my elbow?" I told her, I will tell you...but then you need to go to bed! Then I touched her arm where her elbow is and said, "It's right here. Now go to bed!" She answered, "No! That's not my elbow! My elbow is hiding!" Then she bent her arm and stuck her elbow out and said, "BOO! HERE IT IS!!"

Now, that is some sophisticated humor for a two year old. Tom and I have been laughing at her joke ever since.

our crazy week

This picture pretty much sums up how things have been going around here lately. This is Drew with a box around his middle and a bag over his head. He was running around in circles as fast as he could until he went full speed into the wall.

On Halloween night Lily bit into a glow stick and it exploded in her mouth. If you were wondering; yes, they are toxic. She spent 20 minutes at the sink rinsing out her mouth and spitting everywhere. Then, after drenching her costume, she wanted me to immediately wash the dress so that she could go trick-or-treating for a little while longer. It was 10 minutes past bedtime. Much to her dismay, trick-or-treating was over for the year.

Last night the kids did not like what I made for dinner. Okay, so Drew and Lily didn't like it and ended up only having carrots for their whole meal. Needless to say, Lily was hungry in the night. Rather than helping her get something to eat I mumble something about she could get a piece of bread and then wait for breakfast.

Today at lunch I was looking forward to having Cheetos with my sandwich. We never have them in the house and I'd given in and purchased some. Well, I went to get them and they were nowhere to be found. I called Tom and asked if he'd taken them with him for his lunch today. He said he didn't even know we had Cheetos and suggested checking Lily's room. Sure enough, they were there...in her bed...under the covers...a whole bag nearly empty.

Lily was getting ready for dance yesterday. She is required to wear clothes over he dance uniform. I suggested she wear the clothes she'd worn to school over the dance leotard. She said, "No! I like to show off. My favorite part of dance is to choose what I'm going to wear over my dance leotard." That clenches it. She is not doing dance again (after this year). I've got to sign her up to do a show at the local Family Children's Theatre.

 I was going to do a post about how crazy the kids have been but it turns out that Lily is the only one that made the cut into a story. Drew and Julianna have been crazy this week...but they have done nothing specific that I can recall that makes for a good story on the blog. They are just generally running around all day like they have bags on their heads. Lily has actually had a pretty good week....she just happens to sometimes give me the best writing material. I look forward to reading her memoirs.

for the record

This post is all about how my kids are doing in school and in life. I shamelessly brag about them. I can do that because it's my blog.

Lily is still dancing. She sends me mixed messages about how she is really feeling about it. I know she desperately wants to be a on a big stage, in a fancy costume in front of large crowds. I just don't know if she wants to learn to dance to make that happen. We keep going every week. And I question her about her desire to go every week too. We have a scale from 1-3, 1 being she doesn't like it; 2 being it's okay but I don't always feel like going; 3 being she loves it. The first time I asked her it was a 2...then a 3 the next week. And last week after class she was at a 5. So, I must dig through her room once again to find all of her dancing clothes (yes, I know, she should be the one to do that...but exactly when I'm not sure).

We had parent teacher conferences for the kids last month. I wanted to share a few tidbits on the blog so that I can remember later. Lily is doing well is school. She loves to read and write. Her teacher is pretty convinced she will be a famous writer someday. She said that she gave the kids an assignment to write a story, but to limit it to two pages. Lily wrote eight. Her teacher also said that Lily sneaks her white board out of her desk during math to write stories and draw pictures instead of pay attention. I hope we can encourage her to focus on math in math class. As the concepts become more difficult, it will be harder for Lily to just skate by without paying attention.

Drew also had his conference. His teacher said that he is a leader in the class and sometimes directs their play time. I think that's so fascinating because he spends his play time at home being ruled by an iron fist named Lily. Anyway, she said that he does well with the other kids. He still is not remembering many of his letters by sight for some reason, but he can memorize a book after hearing it only a couple of times. I hope that the letter learning will come along before kindergarten. Or maybe he'll skip straight to reading, like I did. Interestingly enough, where Lily can't pay attention to math, Drew is really into the numbers game. He counted objects to 33 during his skills test...Impressive, I thought.

The news from Julianna's world is good. She can finally get herself on the toilet. My life has changed because of this new skill. I can send her to the bathroom without me. Hooray!

Julianna has really shown a lot of interest in writing and drawing recently. She sits at the kitchen table for long periods of time coloring and drawing pictures. (She draws a damn good person, with eyes, nose, hair, arms, legs and fingers, even!) She will be drawing away and then say, "Um, how do you 'pell 'daddy'?" or "How do you 'pell 'Taylor'? and then she goes to work "writing" the words I spell. So cute!

This week we stuck around Drew's classroom during the Halloween activities. I had baby Ben, so we hung out so he could have a little extra time with Shanna. Julianna participated in the classroom like she was one of the students. She did beautifully and Shanna says she's ready for preschool now. I am not ready to send her though. I'm going to keep her home until next school year. She's my last one! I want to hang on to my time with her for as long as possible.