a picture's worth what again?

People ask me all the time 'how's Wyatt doing in school?'.  He's in Chinese immersion, like Henry, and perhaps people are thinking they better check on him since we are forcing him to learn Chinese (and plan on him saving us come their world domination) or maybe they're just curious since he's in Kindergarten, I don't know...

Wyatt jumped off the bus last week with a book in hand.  They make these little paper books, stapled together, pretty much weekly.  The books are pretty stinkin' cute and it's over-the-top-adorable when he reads it to me in Chinese.  And no, I don't speak Chinese.  Which is almost always the second question people ask me after wondering 'how Wyatt is doing'.

But Wyatt's picture book for this week was pretty easy to figure out.  One page says something like 'this is me and I'm xx years old'. 

(Worth noting is exactly how much detail he put into drawing himself and then notice the ones to follow.  Also worth noting is the freakish amount of candles on his cake, it's because he comes from a family who puts candles on anything.  I once even put candle on a hot dog, a birthday dog... so, yes, the poor boy is confused.)

Wyatt's 'this is me'

Next, 'this is my dad'

'This is my brother'



'My little sister'



and then there's me...



 

He told me that he meant to draw a smiley face, but he got confused and didn't have time to do it over... blah, blah, blah.

 

Anyone else not buying that?

labeled

The folders are just sitting there right now, on top of the printer, each one appropriately labeled, stashed with coordinating print-outs and resources, just waiting for me to do something about them...

It's like knowing what I already knew.  Can't I just go on with the status quo?  Does this confirmation make me feel any better?

No.

It's feels like a mountain dotted with barricades and fences.  Where instead of a sword, I'm handed these three damn purple folders and told to go off... 'fight a good fight'.

But I don't want to fight.  I'm not sure I have enough courage, or energy, or even fight in me to do everything that he needs.

And as horrible as it might sound, I do wish there was just some magic pill that he could take that would make it all go away.

I tell people on the phone that 'it's fine, he's only 8, there is so much that can be done to help him.'

We went into his third grade classroom telling his teachers that this is a 'building year'.  Where we don't have all the answers yet, all the pieces to the puzzle, but we are getting there, and that's the most important thing... that we are heading in the 'right' direction,

right?

I want to make it easy, saying that sounds stupid though, who doesn't want 'an easy life'.  But as a mom, you know what I'm saying, that you would do anything in your power to make you child's life less... punctuated.

For me, it's the part about 'that reading will be hard for him, that spelling may be an overwhelming task, that he may never really enjoy reading, that these are things that will always be harder for him' that makes me want to throw up.

It's just more labels to throw into my f'ing labeled folders.

morph

There are few days that I see the kids more excited than this.  I slide the magazine across the counter stopping perfectly in front of Wyatt, who is sitting on a kitchen stool. 

No, it's not a freakishly early Christmas catalog, which by the way, if I see another Christmas display before October 1st I will go all momma-crazy on that thing, ripping it to shreds in front of innocent children, screaming incoherently, until someone from the Target security team has to drag me away and ban me.

On second thought, banishment from Target would be probably the worst day in my life.

So, back to the catalog.  Wyatt glanced down at the catalog, looking a bit confused, and then moved his eyes up to mine asking "Is this from the birthday party store?".  "Yes!"  I replied, "but it's the Halloween costume catalog."

I think there was a mutual gasp from the boys as they grabbed the catalog and settled into the couch to discuss potential Halloween costumes for the next half an hour.

They stopped on the page with morphsuits. 

Henry wanted one so bad last year, but they were out of his size... or so I told him that.  I mean, seriously, I don't want to own a lime green lycra suit that outlines every part of his body and I especially won't want to get one that he'd wear after Halloween, in so that I have to explain to perfectly good strangers that 'my son's in there... and yes, he's feeling fine'.

The boys scanned over the color options and read and reread over the description.

"It says here that you can even drink still wearing it, that would be awesome!"  Henry says.  He ponders that for a moment and says in his drifting off, quieter voice... "that means, if you can drink in well then you should be able to pee out..."

"How cool is that?!"

And that is the number one reason my 8 year old son will not be wearing a morphsuit for Halloween this year,
or ever.

pockets

I found a crumbled up leaf in Henry's pocket, folding the laundry early Sunday morning.  I smiled remembering the day before and laughed to myself because I'm not one of those 'check the pockets before throwing it in the wash' kind of moms.

*

Wyatt had been asking to fly a kite for the last month or so.  It's a hard thing for a 5 year old to get though, it needs to be windy but not too windy that you rip the kite and you don't want to make a special trip for a day when it looks like a downpour is inevitable.  "It's just not a good day to fly a kite, Wu" came out more often than I want to remember.

But Saturday was deemed the perfect day.

And Wyatt mastered it within minutes.  His kite was so high among the clouds that he ran out of string.  He'd run along with it, begging the kite to 'chase' after him.  He was the leader and the kite followed religiously.

Henry on the other hand, took to a style all his own.  He laid down on the trampled grass and took to just watching his kite float among the clouds, a happy gaze in his eyes.  He'd fold his body in as the sun went under the clouds, only to stretch out again when the sun peeked through once more.

Edy, my sweet little Edy, she'd run with her kite, letting it bump up and down as it bounced off the grass with each tug from her string.  She couldn't get her kite up in the air, so she'd borrow one brother's.  She watched the boys carefully, she knew to not let go or we'd lose the kite.  She was sucking every bit of that morning up; learning, processing, growing.

 

I stepped back from the scene wishing I had my camera, but I didn't... and it's OK,

 

it's burned into my heart, into my soul.

I slipped that memory right into my pocket.  It's there and I promise, it's not going anywhere.

Like I said, I'm not one for emptying pockets.

kirks

I'm certain there are more times than this, but there is only one time that I distinctly remember getting spanked (shut the front door; yes, some parents spanked their kids... and yes, I was one of them.  I'm apparently over it and doing fine, so there is no need to contact social services).

Anyway, the one time I remember getting spanked, was when I wouldn't wear what my mom had picked out.  It sounds trivial, but I imagine I threw my body across my canopied bed, kicked and screamed, and more than likely, threw some of my clothes across the room.  I don't remember the minor details, I just remember getting a whack across the butt and a proclamation that I was to 'pick out my own clothes' from then on.

And I did.  And I loved it.  It's where my love of fashion started, I imagine.

Now I have a daughter, a two-year old little girl that refuses to wear anything other than 'kirks' (skirts).  She will stand up, scream at me and pull off a pair of jeans if I have the audacity of trying.  But then there's that memory in the back of my mind, of where I started, that just makes me roll my eyes at her and laugh.

She borrowed a friend's 'high' heeled shoes yesterday.  Little pink plastic shoes with diamond stud running across the toes.  When she first put them on, she couldn't stand up and proceeded to wail.  I teased her 'welcome to womanhood'... she only looked at me with determination in her eye and steadied herself.

She wore those heels all. day. long.  She cried anytime they fell off her feet, but was oh, so proud when they worked with her, exclaiming to me "See Momma, walking!"  She even said goodbye to the shoes as her friend took them home with her.

And I begged her friend's mom to never bring them back over...

I'm going to have enough to deal with come January, when it hits 20 below here in Minnesota and this little girl of mine is only going to wear 'kirks'.

(sigh)

keep your eye on the prize

You would think I would know better by now.

We've had several 'professional' pictures taken throughout the years that have turned out, should I just say, less than spectacular.

And because it was so good the first time, let's do another pose.

 

Perhaps you remember this awesome (cut off a freakin' head while your at it) one:

 

 

I thought I was prepared though.  I even reviewed proper smile techniques with the boys.  You can ask Henry, it went something like this "think of something that makes you happy... yes, say Lego's and then look at the camera and please smile, with teeth.  Show me your smile... NOW!"

 

But I must have had a momentary lapse in judgement (yet again) as I picked out this cute white collared, button-down shirt with tiny black vertical pinstripes for Wyatt's back-to-school picture day

 

and I packed in his school lunch, a Camelback bottle full of Crystal Light fruit punch.

 

You can see where I'm going with this... You would think I was some sort of back-to-school-picture-day-mom virgin.

 

Wyatt came running off the bus, moving in this choppy back and forth run that only a big ol' backpack can do.

 

I looked at him and then glanced down at his shirt.  There were splatters of red drink all across the front of his shirt and better yet, he had a big swipe of blue marker running across his right shoulder.

 

I asked him and he swore that pictures were taken before all of this happen to his shirt.

 

But it's hard to trust a Kindergartner sometimes, after all, that same day, he told me he got a prize and pulled out, from his backpack, an empty bag of potato chips that he found on the floor of the bus and started licking the insides of the bag.

 

So, you know, that recount of a day's events is hard to believe when things seem to get a little messed up in the mind of a Kindergartner.



supa socks

Wyatt hates that Edy loves them. 

They were in the back of his underwear/sock drawer, remains of the days when we fought (and cried) for several minutes every day over Wyatt having "bumpy socks". 

I still cringe at the thought of him sitting on the last step of the stairs, waiting for his final verdict of his socks being 'alright' or the full-on freak out over him being able to feel his sock's seams. 

And yet, somehow, it's over. 

I can't even remember the last time I heard him complain about his socks not fitting just right. 

We've found socks that seem to fit him well enough that we don't stray far from them.  These socks have appeared to form some small feat (no, I couldn't pass that one up) in him getting over his sensitivity to sock seams.  So, these Spiderman socks casually made their way to the back of his drawer like the million of other things that he no longer wears and no longer fits him...

(because I only clean out drawers when I can on longer fit anything else into them).

And even though they were in the far back, Edy found them.  Her little eyes lit up when she saw them.  Socks and even better, socks that reminded her of her favorite person, her big brother, Wyatt.

She calls them her 'supa socks'.

She calls everything that has a superhero on them 'supa'.

Being her biggest hero, I'm pretty sure she'd called Wyatt a 'supa' too.

Even if he still hates that she's wearing his socks.