So far, so good

I am happy to say things are improving around here. Definitely not perfect, there has still been some yelling, but it is becoming a rare thing, not an every day, usually more than once thing. That's progress! There was one day about two weeks ago where Silly was having a meltdown over something and I was doing a really good job of staying calm and keeping my voice normal. He yelled at me for making a simple request (something like brush your teeth or put on your pajamas) I asked him why he was yelling at me and he yelled right back, "I don't know!" At least he's honest. He's been a little grouchy lately, partly because he goes to bed at 8:00 like he's supposed to, but then he stays up reading until who knows when. I need to start turning off his light and taking his book away. I don't think it helps that he sleeps with his lamp on, his lamp which is pretty much directly over his head while he sleeps. That can't be good. I need to find an article or book on why it's good to sleep in a dark room - he likes science, maybe that'll convince him to turn it off.

I think the arrival of spring helps too. We've had some beautiful, warm, sunny days, great for staying outside for hours on end. My tiny little dogwood tree is just starting to bloom. I hope it stays this nice next week while the kids are on spring break, then we can just be outside as much as we like. What could be better than that? Maybe I'll even plant some stuff...we need some more color around here; more plants, less empty mulch.

My last post I pretty much just poured my guts out and didn't actually mention a single thing we've been up to lately. So, let's talk about what's new and exciting around here.

The most excited person is Bubba, as always. I don't think it's just his age, but more his personality that he get so excited about every little event. He's always counting down to something. He is thrilled about his birthdays and talks them up for months before and about them for months after. He turned 5 last month and had his two favorite friends over for dinner. His request was spaghetti with meatballs. And he wanted fireworks cupcakes.

The plan was to let the kids decorate their own cupcakes and see what kind of fireworks we each came up with. There were two problems; 1 - kids just want to eat cupcakes, not decorate them, then look at them and compare and see which one they like best and 2 - I failed to notice ahead of time that what I thought was a 4-pack of colored icing tubes was actually a set of candy decorating pens, which required being placed in hot water. Clearly, they were not bothered by either of these things and were perfectly happy with their sprinkles.

Mamie - please note he just so happened to wear his robot shirt that day. I took a picture of his with the robot game you gave him while he said, "Thanks Mamie!" but that one came out all blurry.

After the party was over and the friends went home, Cakes and I used the candy pens and decorated the cupcakes for Bubba to take to school Monday morning. They're actually cool little pens, now that I know what they are. Unfortunately, is snowed Sunday night and school was canceled Monday, so his class never saw these cupcakes because we ate them for breakfast. Fireworks, cupcakes, snow day, those things go together, right?

Then St. Patrick's Day came along. And Bubba had really been talking up the whole leprechaun thing, so I had to do something. He was determined to catch a leprechaun and find his gold. Cakes and Silly throughout the week got into it and kept telling Bubba they'd heard or seen something. That morning we found some leprechaun footprints on the toilet seat and that afternoon we found a trail of Skittles leading to some gold nuggets. (I was looking for gold candy, but I hate those gold coins, they don't even taste good, that's not real chocolate, so I was totally impressed with myself for thinking of Hershey's nuggets, gold nuggets are way better than gold coins!)

Then the next week Bubba had Fiesta Day at preschool, the pinnacle of which is the pinata. March was party central for this kid!

With his loot, wearing his birthday present sunglasses

Can you tell he was really excited about this? He did like those peppers, but he was not thrilled about the hat.

Now he is counting down to Kindergarten! Registration opened last Thursday, he had his physical Tuesday and we went straight from the doctor's office to the school office to sign him up. We turned everything in, scheduled his screening appointment and went home. Literally as soon as he buckled himself into his seat he said, "Can we go get my stuff now?" So now he won't be on my case about getting him signed up, but he will harass me all summer about his school supplies. I told the ladies in the school office that he is so excited to start Kindergarten; that doesn't mean he'll talk to anyone for the first few weeks, but he *is* excited.

I do in fact have two other children...

Cakes is her little busy self. She quit swim team last month because I finally found a volleyball class for her! It is not at all conveniently located and we have to drive through Friday evening Virginia Beach traffic to get to it, but it is a really great program and she is loving it. She's playing with the Volleyball Academy through Tidewater Volleyball Association. She likes it so much she even toughed it out and worked the whole 90-minutes last week even though she got a tetanus vaccine that morning and her arm was really sore. That's some serious dedication. Since volleyball is only once a week, the two of us go to the YMCA together twice a week to get more exercise. Scott and I were laughing, because at the end of the first class, 2 or 3 girls said goodbye to her by name. She makes friends faster than anyone I know. Guess I better take some pictures at class this week...

She's getting excited about middle school. She decided to join the band and wants to play the flute. We went up to the middle school for an information meeting and she was mad that she couldn't go there already. She got her required-for-entry vaccine so she's won't be banished from the school in September. And we got her sports physical filled out so she can try out for anything she wants next year.

Silly finally had a soccer game last week! Our first 2 games and 4 of 6 practices were canceled because of rain or extreme cold. It's been a slow start, but he has an awesome team. Scott took him to the first practice and told me that all the coaches were chatting with each other about how many of their team members returned. Some had 3 or 5 returning players, then they asked our coach and he tells them that all 10 of his came back, plus one kid's twin brother. These kids have been playing together for almost 2 years, and they're all great kids. Theoretically they don't keep score at this age, but tell that to a bunch of 7/8 year old kids (and their coach!), after Saturday's game I asked Silly what the score was because I'd lost count, he told me it was 10 to 1. The team they were playing against seemed a lot younger and it was mostly new kids with a new coach. They're all keeping track, but none of them really care. They're just happy to be running around outside, kicking a ball every now and then.

Cakes and Bubba are already looking forward to a new school year, but I don't think Silly is. He adores his teacher (and I do too) and I think he will be sad to leave her. She really is fantastic and it will be hard for anyone to measure up to all of her wonderfulness. All of those kids adore her. They were writing Young Author books last month and in their "About the Author" page she asked them to write their favorite and least favorite school subjects, several of the kids told her they had a hard time thinking of anything because she makes everything fun. I'm pretty sure his last day of 2nd grade will be a sad day.