Back on the bike

As the weather improved we tried to get James outside more. This meant working on his bike skills again!

Jim determined James' current bike to be too small so they picked out a new one. It is the right size but since james isn't quite confident yet we're still practicing on the smaller bike.

 

 

We need to keep at it!

 

My videos aren't embedding in these blog posts correctly so click on this link to see a short video clip of his bike attempts.

 

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Math Enthusiasts

The school sent home tangram shapes for James to practice with for math. He loved these challenges. He didn't consider it math! Just fun. James and his Dad sat at the kitchen table for quite a while playing with the shapes.

 

 

 

James loved tangrams so much that he found an iPad app all about tangrams. He often plays it for fun, even months later.

 

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The News

Wcco heard of our yard troubles and wanted to interview us about it. Jim wasn't home and I didn't know enough to speak well of it, so I sent them over to the neighbor. He was interviewed while James and I watched from the deck.

 

 

Here's the video clip from WCCO-

 

It's funny that I'm blogging about this right now, in the middle of yet another downpour!

 

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James believes in God

We're not religious people. Jim and I both grew up Catholic but for whatever reasons it didn't stick and/or I realized my set of beliefs didn't sync up. It almost feels like you shouldn't admit that you don't go to church, or even feel bad about it. My God doesn't mind, that's what I think.

So when James suddenly told us that he believes in God, we were like, "Okay." Don't know where he got it, but we accepted it.

My plan was always for James to explore religion and figure out what's going to stick with him. I thought we'd do a tour of churches but sadly I like to lounge on Sundays. Horrible excuse, I know.

And then one day in August I asked James what he wanted to do that day. He said he wanted to go to church. Who am I to deny that??

The friendliest church I know is in Anoka. I've actually been here with James before, for a Justin's Gift ice cream social. That organization supports our gay students and families. The church also has a huge rainbow banner on its outside, which is excellent. It means they are accepting and loving.

So we went. Mario came with us too. He must believe in God too!

 

Inside we met an elderly man I explained that I just wanted to show James the church. He seemed prepared to take us into the chapel but I asked to go in alone with James. I want to be the one to answer his questions and start his "journey". It was also going to be our moment.

We talked about why there are churches, why people pray, etc. James said the sweetest prayer, something about hoping that all kids have food and love in the world. I was very proud of him.

And then he wanted to approach the altar. He didin't say much. He just looked and then was satisfied.

 

He does want to return to church, but doesn't know if he wants to see the "show" (his word, not mine) for up to an hour.

He did get excited when I showed him this hymnal and one of the first pages we see mentions a pure heart. Oh, this boy loves his Mario games and one of the objectives in Super Paper Mario is to collect pure hearts. Surely its a sign!

 

There was no singing on this fieldtrip.

There really hasn't been a mention of returning to church either, but I'm sure we'll go again some day soon.

The worst part of this experience was going to the Christian store in Blaine. It was musty and crowded with statues of saints. I couldn't find any children's bibles that weren't all hell-bent and full of sins.

I feel like I really need to be selective about what he's going to read. No random books. It's been a lot to think about.

We did purchase a Children's Bible, after I asked a couple of Mom friends for a recommendation. I wanted something fairly non-demoninational and nothing too heavy. He's only 6. So I did find a Bible and James has loved it. We've read through it twice, all the stories of the Old and New testaments.

So James loves God, and God loves him.

We're still not quite sure what to do with all of this, but we are just letting it happen.

 

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June 26

This happened on June 26!

My Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Huffington Post and Feedly accounts had constant celebrations and updates!

And you already know how I feel about this!

 

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For You, Sweet Baby Nene

I Voted No for you, my sweet boy! And for all the kids. All is right in the world, I'm glad to say :)

 

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School Art & Worksheets

We're collecting quite a mass of worksheets, papers, and artwork. I don't want to be a hoarder. I am trying to work out a system of keeping the really, really great artwork (isn't it all though??) and recycling the rest. Before I recycle I snap a picture. This helps my guilt. I can decide later if I want to create a separate photo book of his artwork.

How could I throw away this "Baby in Space"???

 

Seriously... no idea what is going on with that one!

I've also sent our family an invitation (through email) to see the artkive of artwork. I have an app on my iPhone called Artkive where I can upload the pictures, name them, and categorize them according to grade. If we had multiple children you could sort it that way too. I'll see if I can keep that up. I guess it's no different than the system I have right now for my thousands and thousands of photos :)

Enjoy!

Click here for the Artkive.

 

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NASA

I guess we didn't need to go on that Kennedy Space Center tour after all! NASA just allowed Google to publish views of several locations in Google Maps. Pretty cool!

 

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Lego Master

In late June we signed James up for a Lego Star Wars movie class. It was described as a class for 5-8 year olds. It turned out he was the only 5 year old (I saw the class roster). I was a little anxious to leave him for four hours but it turned out well.

 

After the first day he told me that the bigger boys didn't give him turns on the computer. They were four boys per computer. I gave him a good pep talk and told him that he needed to speak up for himself. This prompted this little outburst...

"Mom, tomorrow I'm going to speak up for myself. I'm going to stand up for myself and show them what I'm made of!"

WHAT?! I admit that I laughed a tiny bit and then asked him where he heard those words. He told me... Clifford! Clifford the Big Red Dog taught my son a really good lesson :)

So he had those words and I gave him another pep talk in the car, on the way to Tuesday's session. I also snuck a little conversation in with the instructor and she promised to keep an eye on James and make sure he got adequate computer time.

James didn't report much on Tuesday night. He only said they played with Legos and he had fun.

On Wednesday night, after the last session, he told me that most of the 4 hour morning he played with the Legos and did not get on the computers. Grrrr. He said there was one other boy playing with the Legos, some of the time.

So I imagined my little boy playing by himself, probably content, but he should have been participating in the class. It was kind of disappointing. I haven't had any response from the instructor. And we haven't seen any videos posted online (as promised) of the work each team did.

We would still sign him up for classes. He was a little young for the content but I trusted that the teacher knew what she was doing. Maybe not though!

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Farmer James

When I bought my basil plants I thought James would enjoy a small tomato plant. (There's a cute Oswald episode that he loves.) Turned out he really wanted a huge hanging basket of tomatoes. We bought it, thinking it was a good, healthy investment :)

Each day James looks to see if there are any red tomatoes to be picked.

 

 

We had so many tomatoes at one point that I needed to find a recipe for them. I found that you can make salsa out of cherry tomatoes! Yummy.

 

 

What a great harvest!

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A Boy and his Box

We gave James this box to play in, thinking he could be the next Caine. (Legos are James' true medium though!)

James made a simple clubhouse and that was fun!

 

He filled the box up so much that eventually he couldn't even fit in it! I made him clean up his toys and it was back in business.

Mom carefully cut out a hole.

 

On another day we decorated the sides with scraps of wrapping paper. We also added Lego tiles for the roof AND James added an empty tube for a telescope.

Oh, and he acquired another box.

 

You can see one of James' beautiful eyes!

 

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Santa video

I can't wait to show James this video tomorrow. He will freak out!

James' Santa video

I think I made a similar video last year, but he won't remember.

Parenting

Oh the things you need to think about!

Kids, Want Some Cereal With Your Sugar?

Famous Mom

James has a famous Mom. I am on the third page of the Coon Rapids Herald :) I found the same article and picture on the district website, here's the link:

Coon Rapids Middle School Starts a Food Shelf

I've been working on this for a while now. We've collected food donations from our school staff and have a group of students who "help". My friend Peggy is one of the counselors who sees a lot of the students in need, and she's the homeless liaison so we are a great team . I love my staff :)

Lotsa snow

Jim is snowed in! He tried leaving Pennsylvania yesterday but his flight was canceled. He had a whole big ordeal trying to find a hotel and a ride to the hotel. Pretty much the whole area was shut down, not knowing what to do with so much snow! Poor Jim. Stuck out of town for an extra day. I hope he makes it on the flight tonight. He has boarding passes, so it looks good.

James and I are surviving well enough but we miss Jim terribly. I haven't been sleeping well because I imagine strange noises throughout the house, like its getting broken into or something. I was awake at 2am, 4am, 5am, and then finally giving up at 5:30. James asks for his Dada and I'll tell him he's on a trip, and James will say, "Oh okay. He on a plane." He'll be very happy to see his Dada though!

I don't think our snow compares to the East Coast's load, but I've needed to shovel our driveway twice now because the snow plow has piled it up at the end of the driveway. It's not easy to shovel when you have an active 3 year old in the house. I left him for a few minutes at a time to shovel, peeking in at him as he was content watching his show. He was fine, of course!



I haven't had too much trouble with James. He really only whined/misbehaved one night when I was on the phone with my friend Erin. Erin laughed because she could him in the background saying something like, "I don't like that Mama!" I think it was because I denied him cookies for dinner. Silliness.

Some really great things that James has said or done-

He recited the entire alphabet in Spanish to Jim over the phone last night! I was truly amazed. He's done this a couple of times, but not on command and not with whatever little song at the end. I didn't catch the words but I'm anxious to see if I can get them from the Spanish teacher.

Yesterday morning James was looking out the car window, on the way to daycare, and he told me, "Mama! I build a spaceship and go to the moon!" I love that he dreams big :)

This morning James told me, "Mama! Look at the beautiful colors way up high!" He was showing me a beautiful sunrise. I'm so glad to see these things, probably something that I would have missed because I'm so one-track in the morning, getting James to his daycare safely and then myself to work on time. Its a wonderful thing to see the world through his eyes.

Last night James peed again on the potty! "Just like Arthur", he told me. I love that Arthur! James' sticker chart is filling up! The Elmo sticker at the very top was last night's addition.



Speaking of Arthur, one day I picked up James from daycare and I was talking to the teacher. I saw that a little girl named Daria was following James around on the playground equipment and I asked her, who are James' friends? She said that during the day you just don't see Daria, James, and Arthur without each other. It's either two of them together, or all three doing their thing. This morning James was chatting about his friends in the car and I asked him about his "best friends" and he told me that they are Arthur, Daria, and Russell. So cute.

And last, speaking of friends, James has a bunch of Valentines all ready to be delivered to his friends at daycare. I spent a little time last night addressing them to all the kids in his class and attaching Star Wars pencils and Hershey's kisses! I kind of dread the amount of candy that I think will be coming home with James on Friday!

A little bit of everything

I'm behind on my blogging. Here's a bunch of pics that I've been taking but haven't been posting promptly. I've just been so busy with work and taking care of James while Jim is gone. Even the weekend was busy, with a visit from Grandpa Roger and then SuperBowl. There haven't been too many quiet moments lately.

So I caught James picking his nose again. Ooops.


I made cookies for the people at work to celebrate Guidance Counselor appreciation week. Vanilla bean cookies with raspberry cream. They were delicious.


James and his friends were playing at the daycare playground when I went to pick him up one afternoon. He was playing in the "castle" and peeping out at me through the holes.






James just told Jim, "Dada my best friend". It was so sweet!


He's really enjoyed this Dr. Seuss book lately called Put me in the Zoo. He's finding Jim's spots in this picture.




James has his mystery scratch on his face. Daycare didn't see what happened, and James doesn't know either. It's healing fine but its so weird to see James' beautiful face less than perfect.


Superbowl Sunday. Jim's friend Paul brought his six year old daughter Hannah. James wasn't at all shy about sharing his toys and playing with her. She did great with James. She even helped me put a suddenly cranky James to bed, participating in the bedtime books.


Playing with trains.


Hannah left a drawing on our refrigerator white board.

Awesome

I wish I was this awesomely talented! Wow!