Bike Riding with Nanny & La La

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more risky than having Nanny & La La on the loose on bikes in an adult community, we added Jakey into the mix. This was, BY FAR, the longest he has ever shown an interest in riding and even in spite of a few spills, no tears were shed (other than laughing) and no pedestrians were harmed...LOL

I had thoughts about trying to remove the training wheels in the near future, but when I mentioned this to Jake he was quick to inform me that he wants to keep his training wheels on FOREVER. Hmmm...we'll see how long that lasts, eh?

Here are some shots of the biking extravaganza...sort of like a three ring circus on wheels! LOL

In an effort to maintain "fair balance" in these updates...we've been having a little trouble at school these days on the listening front. Although I always thought that children were born knowing that THEY are the child and that children must listen to adults, including parents and teachers, etc., it seems this is not the case...or maybe Jakey was missing this gene (obviously from the donor's side...LOL). This equates to a total lack of understanding of WHY he needs to be the one who LISTENS and why everyone else gets to tell him what to do?

I've exhausted many, many attempts at describing how this whole "I talk, you listen" thing works and last week, in a last ditch effort, I broke it down into the simplest language I could come up with (he is, after all, only 4). I told him that a parents/teacher's job is to TEACH and that involves telling children what to do and a child's job is to LEARN and that involves listening and doing what you're told. He thought about this for a few minutes and then said "Then I choose to be the parent". Oy vey. When I explained that that was not possible right now, but that some day he would actually be the parent, he had two questions for me. First, how long till we can switch? And then when I explained about his OWN children, he asked how that was possible since I had told him that boys could NOT have babies. Double oy vey!!

I had to have a special meeting with his teachers and the asst head of school and all joking aside, this really has me TOTALLY stressed out. Bottom line, the boy has a total lack of respect for authority. He feels that he is among equals and expects that he TOO be listened to and that HIS opinion can, at times, outweigh mine or his teacher's. He is frequently heard saying "you're not listening to me". During the conference, one of the teachers was telling us about what had happened just that very day. Jake was sitting doing his work in his kindergarten book (what he does when the other kids his age are napping) and a little girl from kindergarten walked in and was working with the teacher on learning some new words. Well, it seems she was struggling a little bit on the words, so Jake started saying the words for her before she had a chance to say them. Needless to say, the little girl was NOT happy about this, so the teacher asked Jake to please stop and explained that the girl needed to practice/learn them herself. Well, mr. stubborn proceeds to continue to say the words and the teacher threatens to move him to another table...long story, short, he gets moved. (Who among us didn't know that was coming?)

So, he moves to the other table and proceeds to write a note in his workbook that says "Mrs. Byra is a nauhty (his spelling) girl. She was rude to me. She doesn't listen." As the teacher was telling us this story, she stopped and said, I have to tell you, I was just so impressed with how he wrote those sentences that for a minute, I forgot that I needed to respond appropriately" and we all laughed, we just couldn't help it. Even when he's being a TOTAL buster (Bad to the Bone), he's amazing.

Over this past week, I've tried taking away his TV priviledges, but that didn't seem to bother him too much. Then finally, one night, I hit on what might be our saving grace... I told him that instead of the 5 books we read at night, he would only get 3 if he didn't have a good listening day. Talk about a TOTAL meltdown!!!! You'd think I told him he couldn't have ice cream for a year...oh wait, that would be me who would get upset about that, not him. So that's the new rule and since that night, at the risk of jinxing us, we've had 2 GREAT days in school in a row. Which effectively doubles our previous longest streak!!!!! LOL

Now, as you would expect, he's negotiated some modifications to the arrangement and he now has the ability to earn 7 books if he's able to have 5 great listening days in a row. God help me if we hit that, because I'm going to be reading for hours. But, at least for now, we may have found something that works. And for those thinking, hell, the belt/shoe/wooden spoon worked just fine for me when I was growing up...believe me, I'm right there with you. But that's just not "in vogue" these days and besides, I hate to hear him look up at me and say "you hurt me". Now, it's just "you hurt my feelings"...and that, I can live with.

Bye for now...

A Day At The Zoo...

Well, maybe not a whole day at the Zoo...anyone who knows us, knows we don't get out early on the weekend and this was no exception. We had hoped to go with Jordan and GG, but we were having a pancake breakfast with Pops, so we couldn't go late morning and then Jordan's afternoon nap got in the way (we're basically on opposite time lines...Jordan gets up hours before we do and just when we're ready to rock and roll, her battery needs recharging). We certainly missed them, but tried to make the best of our time at the zoo.

Jake was totally into the zoo map this time and wanted to be sure he was giving direction as we made our way through to see each and EVERY animal on the map. Sort of like a "turbo zoo" trip and we did everything but check off every animal we saw (if I had a pen, I'm sure we would have ended up there). I have a feeling that I have a backseat driver in my immediate future...LOL

Later that evening, we met up with the Posse for a pre-race dinner for No-No to help her load in some carbs before her half-marathon the next morning. Jakey was surrounded by both his girls...Jordan and Christiana and of course, all of his Posse aunts whom he LOVES, LOVES, LOVES. Can't be sure how many carbs No-No got, but I can assure you that Jakey got his AND her share as he ate 3/4 of a plate of pasta and countless slices of Italian bread. Lucky for him, Jordan doesn't mind his version of "sharing"!!

Here are some pics from the dinner event, as you can easily see...lots of love and fun going on here!

And we HAD to document Aunt Bear eating short RIBS!!!!! What's next, seafood?? LOL

Was an awesome day all the way around!!!!

OMG...Multiplication & Division at Age 4?!?!?

OK, so let me start out by saying that I am just SOOOOOO far behind on these posts that any hope of catching up is nothing more than a pipe dream. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I'm a BAD mommy... let's just get that out of the way as well. I have a bunch of excuses (training for marathon, crazy job, Lyme disease, etc.), but they all sound so lame, they're not worth wasting any valuable typing time on them. After all, this blog is about THE AMAZING BOY we all know and love.

So, what's he been up to these days (and all those I've failed to write about)...Well, I know it sounds CRAZY, but it's TRUE...Jake is learning how to multiply and divide in school now. And not just the easy stuff either, he's gone all the way through to his 10x tables and is learning to divide by 2, 4, 5 and 6. And for those non-believers who may wonder if this is just a little mommy white lie or exaggeration, not to worry, I have pictures to prove it. (And to be totally honest, I didn't even believe it myself when Nanny told me until I saw the worksheets and quizzed him a little)

Now, I was considered pretty darn good at math when I was growing up and they even brought in some high school work for me when I was in middle school...BUT, I'm sure that I was in 5th or 6th grade when I learned multiplication and division. And even if I'm off by a grade, I know for certain I was NOT 4!!!!!!!!! I'm scared to think what he will be doing when he's in 5th or 6th grade...maybe teaching it??? LOL

Here's the proof...

And for those who were thinking, oh that's not so hard, he just had to count by 2 or count down from 7...here are the mixed numbers problem sheets. Since this time, he's started doing problems like 2,222 x 4, which for him is as easy as 4x2. CRAZY!!! I'm running out of room on the refrigerator to display all of these amazing pieces of work. Anyone with any spare room on theirs, please let me know...LOL

When he's not totally wrapped up in math of some sort, he's really into puzzle balls these days. Regular puzzles were starting to be way too easy, so these puzzle balls (3D puzzles) are SO perfect for him. Unbelievably, they even include a link to his favorite things in life - numbers - as the back of each piece has a number...some up to 540 pieces. His absolute favorites are the ones that I found that include the 8 planets in our solar system. It used to take US days to put one together and that was with quite a lot of team work, but these days, he's able to do them ALL by himself and this usually buys me a little more sleeping time on Saturday mornings. Today we donated a set to his classroom at school which made the teachers chuckle a little when they told me that Jake would likely be the only one who could actually do them. Which again is a little shocking considering some of the kids in his class are 7!!

Here's a picture of the entire solar system (I did my best, but I'm sure I don't have them in the right order...I still can't tell Mars from Venus and Neptune from Uranus...oh vey)

and a close up of Jupiter (my personal favorite).

Last month, in light of being hit by snow storm after snow storm, Jake had a chance to go sledding quite a number of times. We even dragged Nanny along with us one time and had a BLAST listening to her SCREAM the entire way down the hill. Of course, I have NO pictures of these events because I've somehow slipped into this no picture coma and try though I may, I've not managed to snap out of it. I have like ZERO pictures of the boy from the month of Feb and so far in March...at this rate, next year's picture book is likely to take much less time to put together and cost a whole lot less. I think I may be experiencing second child syndrome with the first child...is that even possible?!?!? Whatever it is, let's hope I snap out of it SOON. (And it doesn't help that Nanny's camera has gone MIA...yes, another one!! Nanny goes through cameras like Jake goes through shoes...LOL)

A late addition to this already late post... I DID manage to break the camera out of retirement and take some pics of our recent trip to Turtleback Zoo, a pre-race dinner for No-No with the Posse and some cool bike riding pics with Nanny and La La. Will continue that in the next blog... and yes, that new one will come before he enters college...LOL

Back soon...