He's Gonna Break Me

The beginning of this week was pretty darn bad with respect to Mr. Alex's behavior at school.  Monday started off alright, but Tuesday started to go downhill, and then Wednesday was all sorts of bad.  Bad to the tune of ending his day on red and an email to me from his teacher.

Yesterday was much much better.  Like PINK better.  So he asked if he could play his tablet for a little bit.  I just looked at him with shock that he was even bothering to ask after landing on red.  He quickly explained that yes he did land on red, but it took three clip downs to do that, but then yesterday he clipped up three times so they cancel each other out and it's like he landed on green.  Which is just...what.  I mean, I understand his reasoning, but why is he thinking like that already?!?

Anywho, I told him I would think about it, but that he needed to do his homework and spelling words.  He didn't throw a fit and sat down.  He did his homework and spelling words without complaint, and hung in there when I made him go over his words three times.

Once we were done, I told him he could play for a little bit and asked him if he understood why I decided he could play.  He said he wasn't sure, so I told him that I let him play because he did a great job turning it around at school and he didn't complain or throw a fit about getting important stuff done first.

He replied, "Oooooohhhhh!  So if I get good colors and do all my work, I get to play?  Oh, ok.  Now I get it.  That makes more sense."

I just...

Look who's big enough to be forward facing!!

Kitties!

Alex had a birthday party to go to on Friday night and Travis was mowing the lawn, so Sam and I had some time to kill.  I decided meandering around Target would be time well spent.  Everything was going swimmingly and then we hit the $1 section and Sam found some plush toys.  Specifically, he found two little plush kittens.

Any guesses on if I made it out of Target without BOTH of these?

I have heard the word "KITTIES!" so. many. times. in the last 4 days.

He's REALLY happy

The awkward smile on this kid.  Good gravy.  They handed out the hats for his baseball team the other day.  All I wanted was a quick picture of him with it on.  This is what I got:

Then I thought maybe if I told him to NOT smile, I would get a genuine giggle, and in turn a not spastic look.  Turns out he couldn't do it.

Follow My Fingers

Alex had his first full on eye exam at the optometrist yesterday.  He loved it.  Like as we were walking back through the waiting room to leave he said, "That was super fun!"  That was also his response to the glaucoma air puff test.  This kid is a strange one.

My favorite part of the exam, other than finding out he has 20/20 vision and excellent eye health of course, was the doctor was testing the movement of his eyeballs.  She instructed him to hold his head straight and follow her hand with only his eyes.  He was doing really well until she got pretty far off to one side and he started to turn his head to keep her hand in sight.  She reminded him to only move his eyes and he replied, "Yeeeaaah...ummm...my eyes aren't really that flexible..."  It was all I could do to not burst out laughing.  

Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Alex is playing Little League this year for the first time.  I'm not sure, but I think he's a little excited...

Helping?

Alex has been asking if we can paint his room for a while now.  Just my luck, Menards had a sale last weekend that included a very substantial sale on paint.  So off to the hardware store we went.  I should have thought it through before taking Alex with us though, because as soon as we got the paint, he was ready to get that room PAINTED.

I tried to explain to him that there is a fair amount of prep work before you can paint a room.  He was baffled by that, so I told him an example is masking the stuff you don't want paint on.  In his eagerness to get the project started he told me he would do it.  I was giving Sam a bath, so I told him I would show him how/help him when I was done with that.  Oh no, that won't do.  "I can do it Mom, I know what I'm doing."  Oh really?  Suuuuure you do.  Whatever.  Ya know what?  Knock yourself out kiddo.  Masking tape is cheap.

After about 5 minutes he came back into the bathroom to announce his progress:
"I got the whole top of my dresser done Mom!"
"Ummm, buddy?  You don't need to tape your dresser since we can move that out of the room if we need to."
"Oooooohhhhh...huh...well...turns out I don't know what I'm doing."

Again I told him I would do it when I had the chance and he could help me, but it just couldn't be right then.  He begged me to just show him what to do so he could get started.  So, I showed him one strip against the door frame thinking the tediousness of the task would turn him off straight away.  Nope.  "Got it!  Thanks Mom!"

After Sam's bath I found this:

We're going to need more tape.

Acorn and Tree

The first graders are all learing about the "ar" letter combination this week, so the teachers decided it would be fun to have a pirate dress up day...Arrrrrrrr!

Today is that dress up day.  When the note was sent home about it on Friday, I asked Alex if he wanted to dress up like a pirate.

Me:  It's pirate day on Tuesday.  Are you going to want to dress up?
Alex:  Ummmm...I mean...not really.
Me (trying to hide my relief/excitement about not having to come up with a costume):  Ok, buddy, I was just checking.
Alex:  Mom?  I don't really like dressing up.
Me:  ME.  EITHER.

Monday

I was totally on time this morning.  Alex ate something, took a quick bath with Sam, and was the first one to the bus stop.  Sam was dressed and ready to go with a couple minutes to spare.  I got Sam, the dog, my work stuff, Sam's stuff, my beloved coffee, and myself into the truck at exactly the right time.  I was kicking Monday Morning's ass.

But when I got into the truck, I was reminded that somebody (ahem Travis) must have pushed the button to reset the seat adjustments, because my little "Driver 1" button sent me on a ride to the back seat with the steering wheel damn near out of reach.  Not a big deal, I'll just readjust and reset it.  I started making the adjustments and was to the minute tweaking point when all of a sudden the alarm started going off.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

The FOB for the truck is obnoxiously sensitive, so I figured I just sat on it funny and must have hit the "panic" button.  I scrambled to get it out of my pocket and hit the panic button again to turn off the alarm.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

Ok, so that wasn't it.  I tried starting the car to see if that would reset it.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

I tried turning the car off and hitting the unlock button from inside the car.

HONK! HONK! HONK! (and don't forget we are still in the garage so this is echoing like crazy)

I got out and locked the car manually and unlocked it with the FOB.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

Now Travis is out in the garage to see what is going on.  I yell to him that I can't get the alarm to turn off.  He suggests trying the remote start.  I tried the remote start.

HONK! HONK! HONK! (And now Sam is crying)

Travis goes back in the house to get his set of keys while I am now back in the car manically turning it on and off and pushing every button on the FOB.

HONK! HONK! HONK!

Travis comes back into the garage and is now standing between the two vehicles smashing buttons on his FOB.

HONK! HONK! HON ...  silence

I look up in amazement at the wonderful man that is my husband only to have the beautiful silence broken by him bursting out with laughter.

The alarm going off was the alarm on HIS car.

PINK!

Alex has been doing an amazing job at school the past couple of weeks.  He has been landing on PINK most days; just like his friend SoAndSo, the greatest first grader to ever walk the land according to Alex.  SoAndSo can do no wrong.  Ever.  He is amazing and perfect in every way.  Did you know SoAndSo has the coolest Nerf Guns?  And he's super good at sports?  And he's like one of the smartest kids?  And he's funny?  And he lands on pink every day?  Did you know that?  I'm surprised you didn't because SoAndSo is that amazing.

Let's review...last year, pink was the worst you could do and red was the best for some ridiculous reason.  But, this year, things are reversed.  So now pink is the best and red is the worst.  And while this makes much more sense to me, it took an absurd amount of time for me to adjust.  Shocking, I know.  This year, it looks like this:



Anywho, so far this year we have battled about his behavior, and I have continually reminded him that it really isn't all that hard to land on at least green.  Green, you know...the color they start each day on.  Yeah, that one.  Just be nice and get your work done.  Just don't be an ass and you will be fine.  Over and over, day in and day out, this was the mantra spewing from my mouth.  Just be nice and get your work done.

We also base the amount of time he gets to play on the tablet around how his day goes.  For a very long time it was this:
Pink-30 mins
Purple-25 mins
Blue-20 mins
Green-15 mins
Yellow-5 mins
Orange-Ya lost it for a day
Red-You dun messed up and now you don't get a tablet for 4 days

So as long as he stuck with the baseline green, he got 15 minutes of table time a day.  Good good.  But then he started consistently ending his day on yellow.  And then the "it's too hard to land on green" stuff reemerged.  And that only took a couple of days to morph into "I still get 5 mins even if I land on yellow so it's not a big deal."



So that little shit decided 5 mins of tablet time, in conjunction with incessant complaining about how little time he got, was an acceptable way to go about this deal.  And yes, I realize I set it up that way and he decided he was ok with it, but that is not the point!  So I changed the deal.  And he was PISSED.

The new deal:
Pink-30 mins
Purple-25 mins
Blue-20  mins
Green-15 mins
Yellow-YOU GET NOTHING AND YOU WILL LIKE IT
Orange-Ya lost it for a day
Red-You dun messed up and now you don't get a tablet for 4 days

Oh man did he have some thoughts about this.  I wasn't being fair!  I can't just change the deal!  It's too hard to get green or higher!  I can't just change the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeal!!!!!!!!!!!

Too bad suckah.

Back to the past couple of weeks.  All of a sudden he was coming home landing on pink every day!  It was awesome!  He was so proud of himself and we were falling all over ourselves praising him.  He got to have Pizza Hut one night.  And he got to have a couple friends over for dinner the fourth night.  And so on.

Finally after about the 6th day on pink in a row, I asked him what changed to help him.  Completely matter of fact he told me, "Oh, SoAndSo in my class told me how to do it.  All I have to do is be nice and get my work done."  How nice of SoAndSo to share that bit of top secret information I clearly have been withholding.

4/7/16

It is currently snowing.  It is April 7th.  APRIL.  And it's snowing.

Carson, Eat Your Heart Out

Alex told me a joke this morning.

"Mom!  Why didn't the toilet paper cross the road?"
"I have no idea buddy, why?"
"Because it was stuck in a crack!"

I, of course, burst out laughing because I have the sense of humor of a, well, an almost 7 year old boy apparently.  But I guess my laughter wasn't convincing enough because he followed it up with, "Get it?  Get it?  'Cuz ya know like a butt crack?!!!"  Yes.  I get it.  Now stop ruining it by asking if I get it.