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February 21 Ben's Faces Photo AlbumSo I picked up the paperwork to enroll Ben into kindergarten this fall. The school wants four picures of Ben so the teachers can get to know his face and name before he starts school. Ben hammed it up for the camera so take a look at the new album I just added. Kindergarten, here we come!Well, we stressed and fumed and talked and talked and talked and talked. We also talked with Ben's preschool teacher. She sees a side of Ben we never see. (I get the sassy side that says things like, "Oh, come on, Mama" when I tell him No. It's truly disturbing how young sass starts.) And she suggested we send him to kindergarten.
So we're going to.
See, our preschool teacher has a master's degree in early childhood development. She has something like 20 years experience teaching preschoolers. She is experienced in diagnosing learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, and all sorts of things like that. In short, to quote Steve, she is a better parent than we'll ever be.
So, we decided to trust her judgement and we'll send Ben off to kindergarten this fall.
And the night we decided to send him, I had a nightmare.
Ben was getting ready to go to kindergarten.
Steve sat on the front porch and hollered to me, "The bus is coming!"
(Which is bizarre because we are only two blocks away from school. That boy will be walking. With me.)
I scurried around the house desperately trying to find Ben's finished math homework.
Steve sat on the front porch and hollered, "The bus is here!"
I got more desperate. Tossing pillows, opening and closing doors. Moving papers. Can't find Ben's math homework.
Steve sat on the front porch and hollered, "The bus is leaving!"
Erg. Ben may be ready for kindergarten, but I'm clearly not.
Kindergarten. To go or not to go...Turns out when your kid is born 15 days before the cut off date for kindergarten entry, you've got some deciding to do.
And I hate decidiing.
It started with deciding whether to go midwife or OB. Then cloth vs disposable diapers. Then circumcise or not. Then formula or breast. Then what kind of formula. Then preschool... And now kindergarten.
Back in the day, doctors told you what to do and preschool wasn't an option. Sigh.
Out here it's very trendy to hold your boys back from school for an extra year. This would put many boys with summer birthdays entering school when they were six, rather than when they were five. Either way you've got to choose whether you want your boy to be the oldest or youngest in his class.
Why do folks hold their boys back? Here's a sampling of the reasons I've heard:
So, do we send Ben to kindergarten or not? Well, if we send him this year, he may be too emotionally immature to handle sitting still for 20 minutes at a time. He may become bored and be a trouble-maker. If we hold him back a year, he will learn to read and write in preschool. By the time he gets to kindergarten, he'll know everything they plan to teach him. He may become bored and be a trouble-maker. If we send him this year, he will be the last person in his class to drive. If we send him next year, he will be the first person in his class to drive. As a sophomore. Truly terrifying. If we send him this year, he will be a grade ahead of his friends from our mommy group. If we send him next year, he will be in the same grade as his friends from our mommy group, but he won't be going to their school. It's crazy-making. February 13 Guess what this sound is...Spss spss spss TWENTY-FIVE! spss spss
Spss spss spss THIRTY! spss spss
Spss spss spss spss FOURTY! spss spss spss spss
Spss spss spss spss spss FIFTY-FIVE! spss spss
Spss spss spss THIRTY-FIVE! spss spss spss
Any clues?
No?
That's the sound of Ben in the back seat as we drive into Redmond. He wears headphones now to watch TV, which is great for me. I don't have to listen to Tonka Race Around the World for the 10,792nd time. But, interestingly enough, he whispers EVERY word in the movie. Every single one. But while he's watching the movie and reciting the lines in a whisper, he's watching the street signs. Whenever he sees a speed limit sign, he yells it out for us to know. Really loudly.
Except once, when he held his two hands above his head. One making "2" and the other making "5".
Nice. February 10 Happiness is......a boy and a skate park.
The city of Sammamish recently opened a new skate park. This is a concrete playground for the 7- to 17-year old set. Boys love this place! (I have no idea whether girls like it. We've been there three times already and haven't seen one that wasn't a mom yet.) The first time we went, we just checked out the scene. Ben watched the bigger boys doing fancy tricks with skateboards and bikes. He yelled things like Wow! and Cool! and truly stroked the egos of the other boys. One felt the need to tell us all about the names of the tricks the other boys were doing.
The second time we went, I let Ben ride his scooter on part of the skate park. Just the part with small ramps. Ben loved it! He quickly stopped dragging his feet to slow himself down and sped around the edge of the circular ramp, thrilled he was going sideways.
Today, we went for a third time. Today we bought Ben wrist, elbow, and knee pads. We got him padded up and turned him loose. He rode his scooter across the entire park. Up, down, and sideways, dodging bigger boys all the way. He took a few major spills as evidenced by the scratches and scrapes he accumulated during 45 minutes at the skate park, but those falls never stopped him.
I believe we have a skate punk in the making.
Steve took pictures. I'll try to get those downloaded tomorrow. Today I'm too lazy to get off the couch to get the camera and the sync cable.
February 07 Operation Soft Poop: a rocky startBen is still holding back his poop. He's holding it back so much that when he can hold it back no longer, he doesn't have time to get to the potty. I changed poopy underwear twice today.
And poor Ben hates it that he pooped in his underpants.
I did make granola bars with added old-fashioned rolled oats, flax seed and FiberSure and dried fruit. If that doesn't get him to poop, hopefully on the potty, nothing will.
February 06 And now, Operation Soft PoopBen's going through a bit of a crisis. After being violently sick last week, his bowel is all out of whack. He's just discovered constipation.
And he doesn't like it.
2 nights ago Ben woke up screaming. I was out of bed and halfway to his room before I woke up. He screamed again. When I came into his room he was standing up right in the middle of the room, half bent over, crying. "My butt hurts! It hurts! The poop hurts!"
Poor guy! And all I could do was be a cheerleader, "I know it hurts, Ben. But all you can do is push it out."
This went on for a good 10 minutes or so until he finally got all the poop out. Serious heart-wrenching screams of pain.
And Steve slept through it all.
This has had lasting repurcussions.
Today, while I was cooking dinner and talking on the phone (to Steve), Ben suddenly screamed and begged me to come sit on the sofa with him. I hung up and saw that he was holding his butt. He simply does not want to poop anymore because it hurt so much a few nights ago. I finally had to just sit him on the toilet and make him stay until he pooped. Which he did.
But he still didn't like it.
And after looking in the bowl when he was done, I understand why.
So, now it's time for a change in diet.
No cheese, yogurt, or other dairy products for a few days.
More popcorn (really), bran, and fiber. More fruits and veggies. More whole grain breads. More fruit juice.
Wish poor Ben luck!
And if that doesn't work, well then it's time to buy some stool softeners. Luckily, these are over-the-counter.
February 04 I want to move...Ben's friend Lexie moved recently. Just in the past few weeks. Not far, we'll still be seeing them once a week or so when our mommy group meets. But their move has left Ben wanting to move himself.
BEN: I want to move.
MAMA: We're not going to move.
BEN: I want to move. Our house is too big. I want a house like Luke's. [Luke is another of Ben's friends]
MAMA: Our house is not too big. We're not moving.
BEN: Our house is too big. We have two couches. I want one couch like Luke has.
MAMA (thinking of Luke's mom's family and living rooms, both with couches): Miss Debbie has two couches too. We're not moving.
BEN: No! She only has one couch. We need a smaller house.
MAMA: She has two couches, just like us. One in the family room and one in the living room.
BEN: No! No, I mean in the one room. She only has one couch!
MAMA: OK, Ben. We're not moving.
###
BEN: I want to move.
MAMA: We're not moving.
BEN: I want to move and be by Luke.
MAMA: We're not moving.
BEN: If we lived by Luke I could play and play and play with him everyday except when I have school and everyday after nap.
MAMA: We're not moving. And, anyway, if we move you couldn't play with Oliver and Max and Mason [our neighbors].
BEN: We have to find a house nobody's living in. I know! We could move into Lexie's house!
MAMA: Lexie didn't live near Luke. You wouldn't be able to play with Luke everyday if you lived in Lexie's house. and we're not moving.
BEN: I know. But we could still live in Lexie's house.
MAMA: OK, Ben. We're not moving.
###
BEN: I want to move.
MAMA: We're not moving.
BEN: But our house is so BOR-ing!
MAMA: We're not moving. If you're really that bored, I'll rearrange your furniture.
BEN: Yeah! Do that!
And so I did. Moved his bed to the other wall. Moved his bookshelf and chair. Added another nightstand to the food of his bed. So far he's happy, altho today he did ask if I could move his stuff back because he didn't remember what his old room looked like.
I said no.
And then I said, We're not moving.
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