Fun on The Farm

It was field trip time a couple of weeks ago. I'm hoping next year we will go someplace different. Not that I don't like One Fun Farm, I actually really like it a lot, but we went there for his field trip last year in preschool too. At least this year they got to do a few new things that they missed out on last year.

One of those was jumping on this HUGE trampoline...

(Jayke is the fourth kid from the left...it's hard to tell because all the kindergarteners wear orange shirts when on field trips.)



It was funny to watch all those kids bouncing but then one brave dad joined them along with Mr. Logan, the cadet teacher, and the two kindergarten teachers. The kids all immediately went into attack mode and had the two guys down on the tramp. There were so many kids on top of them you couldn't even see the poor guys. I was shocked no one got hurt. There wasn't any crying at all which amazed me.

Since I passed my criminal background check...snicker...I was permitted to supervise Jaykeb and his friend Ben while on the farm. I think in the future I may request to NOT be in charge of my own kid. They all have told me how well behaved he is but as soon as I show up he looses his mind! I was about to ask that the teacher have him pull a behavior card. Ben, on the other hand, was extremely well behaved. I'm sure if his mother had been there it would have been a different story for him too. Mothers seem to bring out the worst in their kids.



I tried to get a picture of the whole class but trying to get all those kids to hold still is difficult. Not to mention that I got out there and discovered that my battery on my Nikon was dead. I had to rely on the cell phone camera again. Jayke is sitting up on the straw bales next to Mr. Logan, their cadet teacher from Delta High School.




We got to eat lunch there and before leaving all the kids got to go into the pumpkin patch and select a pumpkin to bring home. Jayke brought his straight home and colored it black. We had perfect weather for our trip and I think aside from Jayke's grouchiness at times, we all had a good time.

This week is Red Ribbon Week. They are wearing bracelets everyday, Wednesday is Red day, Thursday is Jersey day, and Friday is crazy tie day. Oma made Jayke a lovely little tie to wear. They also have a skating party Thursday and fall party on Friday. I hope I can keep track of all this!

Meet Jack

We carved our pumpkin last night. I decided to just do a face this year instead of some intricate design that takes forever. Jayke picked the face out of a book of patterns.



As you can see, we had plenty of help. Luna was right in there eating the pumpkin guts as we pulled them out and put them in a bow.







Jayke got to go to a Halloween party at the YMCA tonight with Opa too. They had a magician there and now he is interested in magic. They bounced in a huge bounce house, played bowling, and got a small pumpkin and treat bag. He is counting down the days until Halloween. Mike is going trick or treating with us and Jaykeb is very excited about that.






We went on our field trip the other day. I have a coupld pictures that I will put up tomorrow. Jayke also got his school pictures back, finished up another season of soccer, and got his first report card. His report card was very good. Pluses in everything. She says he is the quietest most well behaved kid in the class. He is an excellant role model for the other boys who all like him. He does all his work and is right where he should be. They all want to take him home every night. Nothing shocking about that!

Meow

Oh suuuuure she looks sweet here but in reality she is a flying ball of fur and teeny tiny claws! It has been a long time since I have had a kitten and I had forgotten what they are like when they are really little and before they can get their claws removed. I have tiny claw marks covering my arms, hands, legs, and feet. The worst part though was when I woke up the other night and Luna was standing on my face. I reached to move her and it must have scared her because she tried to run, digging her claws into my face. I hesitantly got up to look at the damage in the mirror and was shocked! I looked like a vampire! Blood all over my hands and face. She is lucky she lived through that night.

I am not the only one being abused by little Lunatic...the dogs are being tormented on a regular basis. They walk through the house with a kitty hanging from their tail. My accessories are being rearranged and my floor lamp with the paper shade took a hit the other night. It sits next to the couch and apparently caught her eye for the first time because she all of a sudden leaped from the couch to the lamp, landing almost at the very top. She hung there motionless as the lamp slowly began to fall over. I could read her mind by the way her eyes were bulging from her head and her ears were laying straight back. She was thinking, "Oh sh*t! What have I done?!" I caught both cat and lamp as they made their way to the ground saving them both because Luna would have been in big trouble had she ruined my lamp. I had to carefully extract her tiny claws from the paper shade. She sat there afterwards looking at me as if I had ruined all her fun.

Jaykeb is particularly careful with the little terror. He hasn't managed to avoid her completely though. She barely caught him on the thumb with her tiny claw the other day and the drama that insued was oscar worthy. First there was a lot of screaming for a bandaid. From the racket I thought she had bitten his thumb clear off and was surely sitting in the corner munching on it. Upon inspection, I found a very small hint of blood on his thumb but proceeded to bandage it as if it were the traumatic injury he thought it was. After we tended to his wound he turned his attention back to Luna. "I HATE LUNA!!!! I WISH SHE HAD NEVER COME HERE!!!" This went on for probably 45 minutes. I finally threatened to give her back to Holly and this slowed him down a little but not completely. My child is the king of drama and isn't afraid to show it.

Only 4 more months until we can get her claws removed...please pray for her that she makes it!

Friends and Enemies

I think Jayke had his first fight with a friend at school yesterday. Not a physical fight...just a disagreement. He has had two best friends at school since he started, Ian and Ben. Yesterday he came home and told me he IS NOT going to be friends with Ben anymore! Apparently Ben got out of line while coming back from the library and when Jayke moved up and took his spot Ben tried to say that Jayke cut in line! Jaykeb then proceeded to go and tell on Ben for accusing him of this. I don't exactly know where things went from there but Jayke came home determined to NOT be friends with evil Ben anymore!

I think Alex has now taken Ben's spot on the friend's list. Jayke has his friend on the bus, Jonathan AND his "Arch enemy", Parker as well. Parker is not in his class but is always on the playground where he throws rocks and torments everyone. Alex and Jonathan also both play soccer but not on our team. Ian just lives down the road to the east of our neighborhood and Jonathan lives in the neighborhood directly to the west of ours. Jayke clearly doesn't know in which house though because he took me on a wild goose chase the other night looking for it. I'm happy that there are a couple of kids close by who he is friends with. Maybe eventually they will play together at home.

So did you follow all that? If so could you explain it to me 'cause I'm starting to think I may need a score card. All this will clearly wear a person out!

The Team

We got our soccer pictures taken tonight. Apparently 60 mile an hour wind gusts is not a good enough reason to postpone picture night. Jayke is the second boy from the left. It will be interesting to see how these turn out. I'm just glad Jayke doesn't have any hair to be blowing around!

What We Have Learned In School

We have learned that the teacher does not want to tie 24 kid's shoes so if you don't know how to tie your own, you have to wear them during nap time and also full of rocks from the playground.

We have learned that there is a big ol mean girl who will choke you if you refuse to play with her friend, Parker.

We have learned that being "Special Student" is GREAT until you have to get up in front of the class and tell about your "Show and Share" item. When you find out about this little chore you no longer WANT to be special student. You will also fight with your mother about what you want to take to "Show and Share" even when she only has your best interest at heart.

We have learned that there is an uber hyper child named Parker who will sit with you on the bus and hit you. He will also throw rocks at you on the playground and stretch out the necks of all your favorite t-shirts. Unfortunately, this will lead you to the realization that the teachers on the playground, who are supposed to be watching the children, are actually chit chatting with each other. Thus, we learned that Mommy has to march out to the bus and tell the bus driver about Parker, the little menace...otherwise known as Jayke's "Arch Enemy", causing the bus driver to give you a HUGE hug and embarass you to death but also promise to "get" parker that night.

We have learned that they only teach "Everything you already know" and it is boring all the time. Plus...they won't let you use the computers nearly enough.

We have learned where the nurse's office is. Scraped knees are common on the playground.

We have learned that there is a boy, Logan, who gets to visit the principal on a daily basis...sometimes two and three times a day and WE ARE NOT GOING TO BE LIKE LOGAN!

We have learned that if your eyes are red from allergies and you are just sitting at the lunch table eating your lunch, a perfect stranger will come up and send you to the nurse who will then call your mom and make her leave work to come and get you. Apparently taking your temperature twice and having it read normal won't deter them and neither will your mom's word that it is simply allergies and the same thing happened last fall. We learned that Zyrtec will quickly make the itchy eyes go away and the rest of the day will be spent shopping, running errands, and mowing the lawn.

We have learned that if you forget to take your library book back on library day you will not be allowed to choose a new book. This will cause you to go home and blame it all on your mother for not remembering the schedule! You will probably bring this up many many times over the course of the evening because it was clearly traumatizing.

We have learned that 5 year-olds cannot do a sit up.

We have learned many songs and dances in music class that are "just dumb"!

We have learned a lot and it isn't even the end of the first grading period! It is exhasuting! We have learned that taking a nap after school, however, will only make us grouchier for the rest of the evening. This not only happens to five-year-olds but to thirty-six-year-old mother's as well. Sometimes this makes one wonder how any mother does it without a cleaning lady, nanny, chauffer, and yard boy!

As you can see, Jayke and Luna are good friends now. She even cries and looks for him when I get home from work before the bus drops him off. He says she is his favorite kitty. I don't bother mentioning she is his ONLY kitty.



Grandparent's Day is coming up at school. We had to send in pictures of the grandparents. I tell ya what, school is more work for me than I ever imagined. I spent days looking through all my stuff trying to find pictures to send in. I couldn't find any that were recent enough so I had to go take one. I found one of my dad and "Other Mother" to send but not of my mom and Jim so I went and made them sit for a picture. I had to order the others to be printed and picked up at Walgreens. When I got there to pick them up turns out I didn't hit the confirm order button so they weren't there. I had to go back home and do it all over again. Spent two days on that! If I had time I would have gone to Dad's and gotten a new one of them with Jayke too but there wasn't time and Mom is in Florida.



We also had an art project to do together at home the other night. We had to decorate a paper pumpkin that will hang from the ceiling in his classroom. We made one side a pirate and the other was just a jack-o-lantern but anyone who knows me knows I couldn't just cut out some shapes and glue them on. No, I had to make crepe paper hair and use scrapping felt bat stickers for eyes. We used black cardboard letters that spelled Jaykeb for the mouth. It is awesome! I even let him help me with MY art project! LOL I guess I should tell the truth...Jayke did glue everything on but I showed him where to put it all. I looked at it later after he had gone to bed and decided there was no way the teacher would believe that he helped with it so I pulled a couple things off and glued them back on a little crooked. I know...I'm scandalous!!

Here She Is!

Luna came to live with us today. My friend Holly's cat had kittens and I finally decided to take one. The past two years were the only time in my life that I haven't had a cat and Jaykeb has really been wanting one so here she is!




Luna is short for lunatic because I unknowingly chose the feistiest kitten of the group. She wasn't so rambunctious when I first saw them and chose her. I didn't have much choice because the others were all spoken for but after seeing them I would have chosen this one anyway. She had the cutest face out of the bunch and was the littlest one.

Jaykeb wanted to name her Myrtle but I couldn't see myself calling, "Here Myrtle!" We finally agreed on Luna. He is very excited about her but afraid of her too. She scratched him right away so now he won't hold her and will barely touch her. He will get over it I'm sure.



One of my dogs didn't care about her at all. The other is very interested in the little critter but she took care of that right away by giving him several smacks to the face. He then came over and buried his face in my lap as if he were crushed and hasn't paid any attention to her since. Poor guy. Probably a good thing though cause Luna is VERY tiny. I think she is missing her momma today because she cries loudly if I'm out of her sight and curls up on my shoulder when I'm sitting on the couch. I gave her a stuffed animal to sleep with and comfort her when I'm not here. I will probably be getting even less sleep now that I have little Luna to romp on my bed all night but I'm glad she is here.

YAY!! It's fall!

It's that time of the year again! My favorite time of the year. FALL!!! So how early is too early to decorate for Halloween? Apparently for us the second week of September is not too early because we are completely decked out! It looks like someone vomitted Halloween all over my house!

We only decorated the inside. We don't want the neighbors to know we are crazy or anything. I will do the outside next month.

It has been three years since I've seen all my Halloween decorations and it was like Christmas...only spookier! Most of my stuff I had only used one time before my move back North so I didn't even remember most of it.



I found this vintage cat mask that I had bought the Halloween before I moved back here. Jayke wanted to try it out. This is not NOT his costume for trick-or-treating, of course. That I'm saving for a later post. I will say we had the annual costume debate and I was able to persuade him into being something more age appropriate than what he was wanting...probably for the last year. I think I said that the previous Halloween though too so we will see.



Here is The Boy decorating our Halloween tree. Yes, we have a Halloween tree, actually two but I can't find the other one. Whats a holiday without a tree to decorate???



I would use The Boy's CROP for decorating purposes however, I think we saw how that turned out! Hopefully I will have some fall field trip pictures later, pumpkin carving pictures, AND finally, the costume pictures! LOVE FALL!!

A Student AND an Athlete

I had no idea there would be so much homework in kindergarten!! The Boy missed a day of school last week and when he came home the next day he even had make-up work to do. So far he doesn't mind doing homework. He gets most of it on Fridays so I make him sit down as soon as he gets off the bus and do it to get it out of the way and lets be honest, mostly so I don't forget to have him do it. I wo my homework while he is doing his. I go through all the notes from the school and fill out anything that needs to go back to school. We also go through the menu for the following week and decide IF he will eat each day. He seems to like to take his lunch about once a week. I get his lunch money ready and back in the bag so I won't forget that either. Proof for my parents that yes, I do know how to be organized sometimes!



Soccer started tonight. I don't know who was more worn out The Boy or his mother. I felt like I had played or something. I'm not used to getting up at 6a.m. and going all day. We didn't get home until almost 7:30 then there was dinner, homework, and a bath. By the time that was done it was bedtime. Good thing we took those naps after school! LOL

I think soccer will be more fun for him this time because he is now one of the older ones on the team again. He came close to scoring a couple of goals tonight and saw one of his friends from his class. He has a couple of friends he talks about everyday now, Ian and Ben. I guess there was a playground incident Friday that his friend, Ben, tried to save him from. Some girl was choking him on the playground because he wouldn't play with Parker. I don't know who Parker or this girl is but if she chokes my boy again I may have to go find her...or put him back in karate so he can take care of her himself!

The Boy and His Crop

Okay, so it isn't much of a crop. Someone should tell my mother that you HAVE TO WATER YOUR GARDEN!! I think he has about 5 gourds that made it. I have no idea what happened to the pumpkins although if I had to guess, it would probably be safe to say LACK OF WATER killed them! I know they planted flowers as well and there wasn't even a hint of a flower in the vicinity. Plenty of weeds and hard, cracked, dry earth though. Oh well, as you can see The Boy is quite proud of his poor little plants. We just don't talk about the ones who tragically died.

Roadblock!

Jumpin' Jumpin"

We went to a birthday party for my friend Holly's daughter a couple of weeks ago. Jayke had a blast jumping on the trampoline with her younger daughter, Kennedi. He didn't want to talk about it when we left though. Girls are off limits. I tried to tell him it didn't mean anything if he played with a girl. His response was that he wished Holly didn't even have a trampoline so he didn't have to go there and jump on it anymore!

If You Pitch it They Will Come

Apparently if you pitch a tent in your front yard little girls will show up with Capri Suns wanting to play.

Just School and Stuff...

We went to Jayke's open house as school tonight. Seems silly that they would have open house so soon. He showed me around his class room and pointed out all the kids. He had one little girl chasing him around the room which just about made his eyes roll out of his head. He HATES having any attention from girls or having anyone mention girls in front of him. It always induces eye rolling and evil glares.



I think riding the bus is still his favorite thing about school. There was one day he came home and asked me if I could pick him up the next day because he couldn't find a seat that day. I made him ride though and now everything is fine again.



We have already had homework. He prefers to drag his little chair out and sit at the coffee table to do it. I make him do his homework as soon as he gets home from school so we don't forget it. I still haven't decided if I like his teacher or not. I've had several things come up that have made me wonder about her but I'm trying not to form an opinion yet. I have a conference with her on October 22nd so I will know better after that. One of the issues may be more because of Jayke than the teacher. There is some fibbing going on about whether or not she will tie his shoes for him or not. He comes home from school with rocks in his shoes everyday and says that the teacher won't let him take them off to get the rocks out because he can't tie them himself. I haven't quite figured out if she really won't do it or Jaykeb just won't ask her to.


Soccer starts again next week. I wasn't going to put him in this fall because I was concerned that going to school and soccer was going to be too much for him. He is already exhausted after school but that is getting better now that he is getting into a routine so we are going to give soccer a shot and see how it goes.

I am also adjusting to getting up at 6 a.m. for the first time since I went to school and getting to work by 8a.m. for the first time EVER! I no longer have to take a nap every afternoon and am finding it easier to fill the long afternoon and evening with activities other than laying on the couch watching NCIS reruns. It is actually kind of nice to have all that time to get stuff done and errands run. We will see what happens when it is freezing cold and still dark out when I have to get up in a couple of months.

Almost...

....ready for the training wheels to come off!

Much Better

Here he is with his new NOT A PURSE school bag. You can't see but it has Mario from Mario Brothers on it. Much cooler than that PURSE I sent him with the first day.

School is going well. He is exhausted everyday when he gets home as am I from getting up so early. I think we will eventually get used to it but for now we don't do much...just come home and lounge. I am signing him up for soccer again so we will be even more worn out. Jayke hasn't really gotten the concept of time yet. He can tell time but doesn't understand that 1a.m., for instance, is in the middle of the night. The other night, as I was putting him to bed, he asked me to please get him up at 1a.m. so that he would have time to eat a pop tart before the bus came. He also had decided that he had had enough of school and would just go on back to Oma's from now on like he used to. You should have seen his face when I told him that he would be going to school for ATLEAST the next 13 years!

Is That Ketchup on Your Nose?

Day four of school did him in! He didn't eat lunch because he didn't like it and fell asleep at the table before he could eat what I gave him when he got home. Good thing I didn't get him up at 1a.m. like he had asked me to. He thought getting up at 1a.m. would give him ample time to eat a pop-tart before the bus picked him up this morning.

Finally Water is OK

Okay don't fall out of your chair...I said I might put up more pictures. Guess I got bored enough to finally do it. Not to much excplanation for these other than Jayke's two days a week at my dad's has greatly helped with his hatred of the water. He is slowly learning to swim...with floaties still. He also will jump in from the side which is a huge accomplishment because this causes him to get water on his head which he hates! Here are some pictures I took when we were over for AJ's birthday.

School Daze

Due to poplular demand...or rather a bunch of grouchy relatives, I'M BACK! At least long enough to post a couple pictures of Jayke on his first day of kindergarten.

He started school on Wednesday and was very excited. Turns out he was only really excited about riding the bus though. School he couldn't care less about. He is anxious to use the computers but acts bored about the rest of the situation.

After the first day I found out that the kids on the bus made fun of his school bag because it was a tote like we were instructed to send and to the other boys resembled a "purse". Being the over-prepared mother I am...or maybe that is the shopaholic that I am...I had a brand new back pack all ready to go in place of the "purse" the next morning. Day two went smoothly.

Day three didn't happen. A fever, sore throat, and sore legs happened. There went the perfect attendance award. On the other hand, I am now going to work at 8 a.m. Something I have NEVER done. Yes, it is slowly sucking the life from me too. I have to come home and take a nap at 3 o'clock. I'm hoping this is a temporary situation and as I adjust to the disgustingly early time I have to haul my groaning carcass out of bed these days it will get easier. Naps at 3 o'clock will hopefully no longer be necessary. 3 cups of coffee and 2 Diet Cokes before 9 a.m. will hopefully not be necessary for much longer either. I'm spending all my time running to the bathroom instead of working.

So that is my brief update about the beginning of school for The Boy. If I get ambitious I may come back and put some pictures of him swimming on here as well. Enjoy!