Asher went on his field trip to Cowboy Stadium and enjoyed himself. He got sick on the way up there and threw up on himself but luckily his grandparents were meeting him so they graciously went to Target to get him some clean clothes to wear. He doesn't like to talk about school or the field trips, so it took a while before he finally said anything about it. He enjoyed it and would like to go again, but only if he doesn't get sick again. I've thought for a while now that he has my Cyclical Vomiting Syndrome and nervous stomach, so we'll have to teach him how to control his emotions some for that.
He's doing pretty well in school. The content stuff is a piece of cake. He knows all of it and has all year long. He's reading beyond 2nd grade (he passed the TPRI reading test for 2nd grade with flying colors, spelling "mule" as "maul" and "which" as "witch") and the math stuff is, in his words "so easy."
Where he's struggling is participation in gym and music and his behavior towards his classmates. If he doesn't like an activity, he won't do it. He says that the activities are dumb or stupid and preschool activities.
Honestly, music and gym are not the classes I care about that much. Not doing well in those is not going to hold him back. I do want him to participate, but I really don't care if he doesn't do well in those classes. I never enjoyed PE classes or piano lessons, so it doesn't surprise me that he doesn't either.
I had a parent/teacher conference about a week and a half ago with his teacher and she admitted he knows everything. She gives him the handouts and while she's explaining it to the other kids, he does them. Then he gets to read a couple chapters in a book and go on the computer. Since it's a kindergarten class, the books are easy readers and he's read pretty much all of them, most of them multiple times. So we personally bought some older kid books (Encyclopedia Brown, Boxcar Children, and the Magic Treehouse) and sent them up there so he'd have something more challenging to read. There was talk about trying to get him into a 2nd grade classroom for a part of the day to see if that helps challenge him but so far it hasn't happened.
He says his behavior comes from sometimes just getting angry, so we've talked to him a lot about ways to handle his anger that aren't destructive or harmful. We've had mixed success with that, but we've only been working on it for a couple weeks. I've noticed a difference at home, but we'll see if it sticks.
He's a pretty typical 5-almost-6 year old in his behaviors, but I think being bored in class is also contributing to his behavior issues. So I've set up a time that I'll go observe his class, mainly him, and see what I think. We're really leaning towards pushing to have him moved up to 1st grade next semester. Even if he ends up doing 1st for three semesters, I really feel like he needs to move up soon.
Elijah is so 4 it's not even funny. He's at times crazy and sweet and endearing and lovable and cuddly and at other times you want to pull your hair out. He's doing well at school, too, with his occasional 4-year-old fits of anger. He had some struggles at the beginning of the year but he's doing better. He still has fits of rage at home but he's quit throwing things and instead growls and stomps his foot. It's still annoying, but decidedly less destructive. He frequently comes to me wherever I am and acts like a goofball because he wants to make me laugh. He's usually successful.
Eden is sweet and sassy and so much her own person it's crazy. She's opinionated and bossy and sweet and adorable. I swear, each kid is cuter than the last, but she's going to be hard to top. She loves to poke her head around the doorframe when I'm in my chair in my room and say "Hi!" in this bright cheerful voice and as soon as I respond she says "ok bye!" and leaves. She also loves cheese, almost as much as her older cousin. She saw me grating cheese last night for our Thanksgiving dinner and insisted she get some. I had exactly enough for the recipe so when I finished, I gave her the scraps in the grater. She stood at the bowl until every last morsel was in her mouth.
I'm doing ok. I'm 26 weeks tomorrow, so beginning the 3rd trimester, and definitely feeling it. The round ligament pains are worse every pregnancy and they started about a month ago. I basically can't sleep comfortably. I've also got some indigestion, which I never had before, and a variety of other pregnancy things that aren't fun. I'm already counting down until 37 weeks when I'm full term and safe to deliver at home. I seriously sleep fairly well the night after delivering, mostly because delivering is hard work, but also, I'm not pregnant anymore and some of the pains are gone. It's weird, I know, but what are you gonna do.
Some interesting things have come up with our midwife and based on my previous deliveries, we've made plans to have a birth kit in my house starting at 37 weeks, with Mom agreeing to be my back up baby catcher. I'm not at liberty to discuss the issues (they're not mine) but we did get some resolution today about them. I'm trying to stay positive, but the resolution is making me a little anxious. Someday I'll be able to be less ambiguous, but this is not the forum for that. Rest assured, I'm ok, the baby's ok, everything will be fine in the end.
We're prepping for the annual Walke Thanksgiving trip this week and that is a real chore. Getting five of us packed up to go is hard enough, but throwing in the food we have to prepare, either at home first or there, and all the sundry things we have to bring because we have small children....well, we've been packing and prepping pretty hard core for about three days at my house. And we're not totally done. I'm most looking forward to my birthday dinner at The Melting Pot on Friday with some friends of ours who's wedding we had to bail on in July because of my morning sickness.
We've got lots going on the next few weeks with travels and holidays and doctor visits and I'm so exhausted I just want to take a nap and sleep until New Year's. We'll make it through, though, and then kids will enjoy all the stuff we have going on, so that makes it worth it. Mostly.
I'll try to post more regularly as things happen. Nothing super exciting is happening for about three weeks, so we'll see how I do.
We were the Mario family for Halloween: Toad, Mario, Bowser, Princess Peach, and Luigi
Me last week. I'm looking rather bulbous here. I'm in the "cute" phase currently.
