Last Day of Preschool: June 6, 2012

Wednesday:  June 6, 2012

Michael's Last Day of Preschool.

They had a program, which was very well done!!  They had separate ones for every class this year, which was excellent.  Last year, they had ALL the preschool classes together and that was a little bit of mayhem.

Here they are:

There was a lot of variety in the program, which I loved!  They had each kid come up and say what they wanted to be when they grew up.  We got some great answers:

"When I grow up, I want to be a teenager"

"...A movie star"

This cuter than cute little girl came up and said,  "A COP!"

Unexpected and hilarious!

One little girl came down the stairs doing the cutest hops and skips.  But had to hop and skip back because they hadn't called her name quite yet.  And when they did, she did the same cute hop and skips back down.  I just love this age.

Michael came up and said, "An Engineer."

I may be Asian, but I can swear I'm not feeding him this stuff subliminally.  He wants to be just like his Daddy so we know this is the answer for now.  We'll see when he grows up.  But as engineers ourselves, we feel the need to really explain to him what engineering really entails.  For me, I thought I "liked calculus and chemistry" so engineering naturally.  CHEN204 came as one of the biggest shocks of my life.

I digress, back to my graduating Michael:

Then, came some cute songs and nursery rhymes and pledges.

Then some kind of bean bag dance:

Handbells wasn't so popular.  I was just excited Michael got the super mario one:

Michael with his just super sweet and wonderful teachers:

They both were excellent.  So great at feeding back and just being warm and loving with Michael.  They taught him so much and even had science programs for the kids.

I asked Michael where he wanted to go for lunch for his last day of school.  His initial answer was RITA'S WATER ICE!!

I told him that was fine AFTER lunch.

For lunch, maybe McDonalds?  Or Mi Cocina?  Or Capriottis?

Instead, Michael picked the place 40 minutes away:

Can't say I complained about that!  Here's Michael with his buffet plate.  He loves buffets where he can pick what he wants to eat:

No worries - we made it to Rita's!  For those of you who have never heard of Rita's, it's a water ice place.  Which is a fancy way of saying a "smooth sno cone in a cup."  It actually is quite good and we've been quite smitten with it as a family:

Here's Michael's Scrapbook from School.  I just love his self portrait and that silly picture of him on the cover:

This is a funny montage of Michael:

And again with the engineering:

 I like the way he has dad working at the computer.  It is partly true!  And only what he sees!  We need to drag him into a chem lab one day.  ;)

A perfect end to a wonderful year.

Michael

Well - Michael has had a bit of a rough week.  Friday before Memorial Day, he had a fever in the night.  He was fine Sat/Sunday.  However, Memorial Day Monday, he woke up from his nap with a 102 fever, green stuff out of his nose, and a cough.

We couldn't get him into the dr until Wednesday because we had a water heater coming Tuesday and Brian's car was in the shop that same day so he had my car at work.

It was an expensive Tuesday.

Wednesday - Michael was diagnosed with pneumonia.  :(  Poor little guy!  He was given 5 days of antibiotics (kids' equivalent of a z-pack) and lots of breathing treatments.

Today, he is feeling better and finished his antibiotics/breathing treatments yesterday.  I am still worried about his cough because it is still pleghmy, but it is starting to sound like it's loosening things up occasionally.

We have a followup on Wednesday and the Dr will tell us more about what's going on.  I am praying for healing of his little chest!

Then, yesterday, he got pegged in the face by a baseball thrown from his Dad.

Le Sigh.

However, he finally got to go to school this morning!  I received some pretty awesome things from the school at the end of the year.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Michael's school this year.  The teachers are so warm and welcoming.  Michael has learned so much and truly enjoyed going to school.

They sent home a great scrapbook of his activities this year - I will post some pictures of some of the pages.

But I what I was most proud of was his progress report.  Not only did he master all the skills of the year (and them some) - but he had this comment from his teachers:

"Michael had a great year!  He has such a desire to learn that he is a joy to teach.  Michael gives every activity his best effort.  We will miss him."

That's all I can ask from our little guy.  I am elated that he loves to learn because I hope that will intrinsically motivate him.  That in combination with giving his best effort is all I can ask for in school!

Pictures to come later.  There's some really cute stuff from his scrapbook.
P

To-Do-Lists

So I was wandering through my old blog posts and found this to do list from 10/27/2011:

• Need plumber to fix my wobbly sink faucet in the kitchen that might be leaking water into my under sink area. 
• Heater needs yearly service.
• Paint living room with paint already purchased.
• Sell guest bed. (FYI: Our IKEA pull out couch is way more comfortable than our guest bed)
• Move pull out couch to guest bedroom
• Move computer/desk into guest room.
• Convert guest room into a convertible office/guest bedroom.
• Move main level couches and end tables to basement.
• Sell rug on main level or move to basement with furniture.
• Sew new curtains for piano room with fabric already purchased.
• Move piano room curtains to my room where it coordinates.
• Sew pillows for my bed with fabric already purchased.

Sadly, many of the items on this list - are STILL there.  Here is what it looks like using the "cross out" font that I see on all those DIY blogs:

• Need plumber to fix my wobbly sink faucet in the kitchen that might be leaking water into my under sink area.  (fixed leaking water under faucet, but faucet is still wobbly)
• Heater needs yearly service.
• Paint living room with paint already purchased.
• Sell guest bed. (FYI: Our IKEA pull out couch is way more comfortable than our guest bed)
• Move pull out couch to guest bedroom
• Move computer/desk into guest room.
• Convert guest room into a convertible office/guest bedroom.
• Move main level couches and end tables to basement.
• Sell rug on main level or move to basement with furniture.
• Sew new curtains for piano room with fabric already purchased.
• Move piano room curtains to my room where it coordinates.
• Sew pillows for my bed with fabric already purchased.

*shrink away in shame...*

Home Decor Items we HAVE Accomplished:

• Painted Michael's room and installed chair rail
• Purchased new lamps to match master bedroom
• Purchased new couch for main level to replace main level couches that were moved to the basement.
• Decided on color scheme and curtain fabric for main level family room.
• Purchased small organizing cabinet for kitchen area for Michael's supplies and my office supplies.

Not terribly impressive.  

NECESSARY HOME REPAIRS

• Replace leaking water heater
• Replace door knob on front door, which decides when it actually wants to work.
• Replace doorbell (plastic busted on the front of it)
• Replace kitchen faucet (very wobbly)
• Call Electrician to fix light switch in the garage which always trips the electricity to the garage and kitchen when switched on.

Those are the priority items and need to be done.  NEED being the operative word.

To cut down my pretty long list up there, I am going to list 7 interior design goals I would like to accomplish.  Mind you, these are not lofty, but maybe I will do a status update on them in a month:

UNNECESSARY HOME ITEMS:

• Research and decide on home office location (basement or guest room) with layout finalized.
• Paint living room
• Purchase curtain fabric for living room
• Sew living room curtains
• Purchase curtain rod for living room curtains.
• Assemble Michael's desk and place it in his room.

I just want to use that cross out font function. THat's pretty fun and satisfies the task list making side of me.

Eel

Michael graduated from his swim class!  First try!  Even his swim teacher seemed a little surprised at his progress!  :)  Thus, he is in the "eel" level now instead of "pike plus."

Yesterday at swim lesson, he swam out to where the teacher was, turned on his back to float and kick, then turned back on his stomach, doggy paddled a bit, flipped back on his back and then back on his front!

Amazing!  So proud of our little man! AND this is with him missing swim lesson last week because we were in Texas - AND he still has 2 more classes to go - so he advanced to the next level after only 3 lessons of this current session!

Which leads me to a discussion I had with a fellow mom friend about this very thing.  Sometimes, I frustrate myself with teaching Michael something "early" just because I feel like he should already be doing it.  The reality of this (and the competitive mothering that tends to come into play) is that kids learn things when they are good and ready to learn it.  There's no point in tearing our hair out when they just aren't ready.

Michael is good and ready to learn how to swim, which explains his rather quick progression!

And that makes me a proud mama to a little "eel."

Joke

On the way to t-ball, Abbey was telling jokes she read from Highlights Magazine (as you can imagine...).

Michael decided to join in and said, "Hey, listen to my joke!"

"I was walking along and a chicken started pecking at me.  But I did not stop!"

Pause.

Huge laughter because it was hilarious how BAD that joke was!

Well, it must have been a pretty good joke if everyone in the car was cracking up.

I am thinking he gets his mom's "talent" in joke telling.

When we were getting the kids buckled in the car,  I hear this conversation:

Abbey:  This car smells funny.
Michael:  That's my dad.

Cleaning...

So I am cleaning.  Michael asked for his friends from school to come over tomorrow, which means I HAVE to clean.  :)

Around 10:30pm - I went upstairs to get something and I hear thumping in his room.

"Hi Mommy!  I was waiting for you to give me hugs and kisses."

Oops - Brian usually comes and gets me if Michael wants hugs and kisses, but this did not happen today!

Don't have to give ME an excuse to delay cleaning yet again (kind of like this blog post at 12:22am).

I cuddled up with Michael and we talked a little bit about our day.  Abbey came with us today to Michael's t-ball game so we talked a little about how he focused and did his best.  We talked about how fun it was to play t-ball and how delicious his snack of Cheetos and CapriSun was (t-ball is mainly about the snack right?!).

We talked about having friends who do not focus and distract us from doing our best - are sometimes not the best choices to have as friends.  Michael has a teammate who consistently expresses how much he does not want to be there and it shows.  So we talked a bit about that.  Michael has started to notice this "friend's" behavior and the difference between "focused, hard working, with a good attitude" and "not focused, not paying attention, and bad attitude."

In the middle of our conversation, Michael says, "Mommy, you are the best!"

Well, how about that.  It is a lucky thing that I think he (and his dad) are the best too.

Pretty glad I popped in there to snuggle at 10:30pm instead of saying, "I need to MOP!!!"

First Picture in May Downloaded

In case you wonder about my "workflow" for my personal pictures, I download pictures from my camera to my hard drive throughout the month.

Since I upload pictures throughout the month, it is always interesting to me what DAY is my first image.

For the month of May, it is the 22nd.  PRETTY pathetic.  That means - that up until today, I did not have a single image to upload.

Not-a-one.

I will post later about Christina's uber fun wedding.  

However, for now, I will share our first downloaded img in May:

Pinterest Drive in Movie box.  I tell ya - my 31 order came in REALLY handy!  :)

We had to prop the right flap up with his butterfly holder to keep his food on there.  Have to say Michael was pretty ecstatic to watch cars in this today!

Abbey is over now - took one look at it - and said - that's weird.

WELL - I have a WHOLE SLEW OF PINTEREST MOMMIES THAT THINK IT IS GREAT!

And my Michael too!

A day in the life I tell ya!

Onesies

This morning, in my groggy slumber at 7:20, Michael came into my room and said, "Mommy! I don't even think about playing Wii anymore! But now it is Tuesday and I think I will play Wii on Tuesdays. And wear onesies. Have a good sleep Mommy!" He gave me a kiss and off he ran. I went back to sleep and thought about at what age Carters stops making onesie pajamas. Will be a sad day for Michael! I will blog about the wedding later in the week as well as my experiences flying in first class. On the flight back, Brian took care of Michael. Luck would have it that this flight would be the one where we got TVs for each seat! $8 later, Brian and Michael settled in to watch Star Wars on Tv and take naps. LUCKY guys!

Caught Up and The Frivolity of It All

Here I thought I was SUPER behind on my posts.  

I wasn't.

Apparently my life is not as interesting as I thought.  Or rather, it is uneventful, which I think is a rather good thing.  I'm not one for drama.

SO - here's a post about interior design.

I'm pretty bad about making interior design decisions.  I'll buy some fabric that I'm hot and heavy about and let it sit in my closet for a year and then decide I'm not hot and heavy about it anymore.

But then - I get a kick of inspiration - and I re-do a whole room.

Perhaps you remember my split-pea-green soup traditional living room:

Well - I found this fabric at Joanns last week and decided to give it a go with a wall color I bought a year ago:

The color is a grey-light aqua-blue.  I love it still.

And the grey/white/yellow ikat/damask leans toward my more "transitional"decor style as deemed by many "reputable" decorating style quizzes I have taken.

What is transitional?  It means you like classic items/silhouettes but with a more modern twist.

So - this damask is classical - but it is modernized by 1) the color palette and 2) the size of the repeat, which is larger than standard damask, and 3) it has the kind of "painted" effect of an ikat pattern.

The yellow in the fabric pulls in with the yellow in my kitchen.  SO I think it's a GO. 

I'm still thinking though - so I do a little pairing around with a throw pillow I already have:

Then with my current pillows:

Then - with an odd assortment of items in my living room to see if it would pull together:

And I think it will!  Well, at least I like it.  If you don't, you can say so, and it's absolutely fine!  To each their own.

Originally, I thought that I would paint the walls grey - but I found some blog posts with pictures of that (or yellow walls) and it just seemed kind of flat and uninteresting and too matchy matchy.

So I threw it up with my original paint color and I like the contrast.

I'm off.  As soon as I am back from Texas, I will be painting my living room and marching forward.  All I needed was an inspiration point and I'm sold.

A pet peeve of the new blogger layout?  When I choose my size as "XLARGE" to display, my vertical pictures are fine, but my horizontal ones get cropped to squares. ARRRRGGGHHH!!!

SO I've been choosing "LARGE" for my horizontal images and "XLARGE" for my vertical.  My next plan of action to is to chk the html code and see if there is a restriction on the size width that I just need to change.  But that is for another day.

Slip 'n Slide Debut April 21

I think that every year, I need to blog a posting that's entitled the slip 'n slide debut - just to compare how early/late it happens.

This year, it was April 21.

Michael was pretty thrilled:

Brian was wishing his-former-clarinet-playing-band-nerd-of-a-wife had to do this job:

The filling commences:

And then the job gets delegated:

So dad can get back to doing this:

While mom goes around taking pictures of her azalea bushes:

I just like this picture of Michael in our yard for some reason:

Playing with the little ramp that projects you into the pool:

Getting his belly completely scratched up to do this:

Guess we should have checked for rocks and sticks BEFORE we put down the slip 'n slide.

I spent some of the afternoon on the deck, reading southern living and listening to pandora while Michael took a nap.  It was an afternoon of bliss!  Especially after having a seriously fun family session in the morning.  Wish all my sessions could have been like the one I had that morning!

Then the next week - back to highs in the lower 50's and drizzly.  Spring is so pretty and nice, but so bipolar at the same time.

First T-Ball Game of the Season!

On April 25th, Brian made his debut as an official Little League Manager/Head Coach.

He did awesomely well!  Check out this nice mitt bump props from a player:

Doing warm ups in front of the trailer park by the ball field.  

Don't get me started about the styx I live near.

Michael rocking his warm ups:

Team ready for action - not in numerical order:

Michael up to bat:

Game ON!

Michael has a pretty decent swing.  Here he is running to 1st:

The parents in the stands had lots of positive feedback for B.  They love that he is teaching their kids important t-ball skills and also encouraging a nice team spirit.

As Brian told his co-workers:

"I teach them skills.  And I don't take S&*T from little kids."

NICE.  Apparently - parents like that!  :)

Blue Rockin' It

This weekend, our neighbor gave us some free tickets to see the Wilmington Blue Rocks play ball!

We jumped on that like a family that loves to sit in 50 degree weather with a little drizzle.

You could say we were hard core and desperate for something fun to do that was different!

Anyways!  We showed up at 4:15 for a 6:05 game.  We were THAT excited OR really poor planners at our day and did not have enough time to do something different.

SO - we explored the Wilmington Water Front, which as the parking attendant so positively endorsed with a shrug of his shoulders and said, "It's a waterfront."

Yes, he was correct.  But we were almost 2 hours early for the game, so we enjoyed their mini waterfront with 3 restaurants on it.

Then, we waited to get let in by the gates.

Once inside, it was the most lucrative ball park experience we have had to date.  For $2, we got a Blue Rocks backpack, a kids club hat for Michael, and THREE stadium plush seats.

AWwwww Yeaaaahhh....

The Blue Rocks Kids Club hat was already awesome - Michael wanted it.  But then when we turned it around, it said, "TEXAS ROADHOUSE" on the back.

DOUBLE Awwwww.....yeahhhhhhh....

So we sat in the very very cold weather and ate chicken strips and hotdogs. I took Michael over to the bouncy houses where we spent $12 on bouncing time and this cool wiffle bat ball thingy that MIchael REALLY loved.

After the 3rd inning and some drizzle with a 70% chance of rain in the forecast, we left and called it a successful day!

What A Rainy Sunday Looks LIke

It's Rainy and Nasty out today - so Brian was an angel and watched Michael for me so I could go through all our buckets of clothes to sort clothes out for the resale:

The 2nd couch length full of clothes I need to tag.

Sad thing about this is that I was still able to save one full bin of Gap/Gymboree/Janie and Jack clothes for each age:  2 yrs, 3 yrs, and 4 yrs old clothes.  Michael was well cared for!

0-12 months filled one bin and 12-24 months filled another bin.  ALL brand name clothes!  I could have sold them in the resale and made more money, but I just can't bear to part with our "nice" clothes at rock bottom prices.  I'd rather share them with friends and family to use.

Plus, many of the items of clothing spark very real memories for me of our vacations in Europe, etc.  I just couldn't sell it.  After they've been used 2-3 times by our nephews, I think I'll be ok to sell them!  :)  If they are not threadbare.

Little League Opening Day Parade

 Well, to be blessed to be the wife of the head coach of a little league team means to be privileged to work on the parade banner!

Here are the little guys getting ready to get going:

This picture is worth enlarging to see Brian's face.  He knew those letters might not make it through the parade and we knew the kids weren't going to help those letters stay there:

Playing keepaway with the banner and using your height to your advantage:

The gaggle of kids begins to form:

 Michael before he realized I had coerced my way onto the field to get the closest angle on the action.

And this is what he does when he sees me:

We got some lemonade afterwards at the lemonade stand and walked the half a mile back to the car through the town proper.

Last weekend was BUSY.  And a glimpse to what life is going to be like later.  To give you an idea:

Saturday -
7:30am-10:30am:  Parade, home at 11:00am about.
2:00pm - Brian leaves for fundraising poker tournament at Sacred Heart
4:30pm - Brian back home after not doing terribly hot at the poker tournament.
4:45pm - Abbey appears and the kids play.  Brian is working in the yard.
5:45 pm - Order pizza for the sitter and Michael to eat for dinner
6:45 pm - sitter arrives.  Parents out to Night at the Races
11:15pm - we return home.  I take sitter home.
12:05am - Collapse in bed.

Sunday -
9:00am - Church
10:15am - Pancake breakfast for fundraiser for little league and then team pictures
I left early in my own car to prepare for my pre-session consultation

1:30pm - I leave for my pre-session consultation.  the boys napped at home.

3:00pm - Back home to find the boys still asleep.

4:00pm - WEEKEND BEGINS.

We did NOT win the banner contest because apparently the kids are supposed to make it themselves.  RIDICULOUS.  :)

I hate to say it, but I'm a fan of this egg layin' hen from Hallmark this year:

Not only is she sassy in her little outfit, she says, "Whoop, there it is!"

Who here remembers THAT little diddy?!?!  :)

On Easter, we went to church, and while we were away, the Easter bunny came. Michael was on to his little hiding places though:

As you can see in the 2nd picture, gardening is not our forte.

Peeking into the loot.  Brian did not get the memo about changing your close promptly after returning from church:

Then there was the egg dying:

Michael is a fan of egg dying.

After that, we hung out around the house.  It was nice and relaxing.  I made an herb crusted rack of lamb that Brian and Michael liked a lot at medium rare.

I had just come off of being vegetarian for 40 days, and I was a bit grossed out by the whole thing and happily ate my sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole.

SPeaking of which:  While I have returned to eating meat, I find I don't crave it as much anymore.  IN fact, I don't even care for it much anymore.  I'd much rather order the seafood dish or the vegetable dish.

That was Easter.  Short, sweet, and simple.

P.S.  ANOTHER reason I love the new blogger platform:  It is super easy to select pictures AND they upload in order (no more backwards picture selecting for me!) AND if I need a picture added in the middle of the post, it adds it where the cursor is!  Before, it would add the picture at the top of the post, no matter where my cursor was!

A sneak peak of Easter

Yea, I'm a little late with Easter!  Downloading pics tonight!

Found some on one camera, a little anti-climactic but oh well!

I set the table:

And my awesome volunteers for Liturgy of the Word with Children sent me these!  LOVE!

They must have known about my flower corner!

More to come!

P.S.  Anybody else's blogger platform change?  As much as I like change (uh huh) - I do not like the time you have to spend learning where all the buttons are!

However, now, the blogging platform for my personal blog matches that of La Lume.  So I AM a fan of that!

Bringing in the pros

So I had a couple of minutes alone with michaels preschool teacher today so I decided to ask her what would be the best way to deal with the attitude that comes with frustration (and a little bit of fatigue too) that I have been getting from Michael.

I have not talked about it a lot because for a while I felt like I should sort of shy away from the subject because my son is supposed to be perfect. Or at least to the world at large.

However, in the last few months, I have been witnessing a Jekyll and Hyde personality in our boy. One minute, he is great, cooperative, respectful and kind. The next minute, he is throwing dice at my face and yelling at me. Sometimes in public. Sometimes at home.

Definitely-tiger-mom-losing-face behavior.

It is a result of his frustrations and his lack of knowledge on how to communicate that in a respectful manner. And from conversations with my friends with children of the same ages, it seems to be a recurrent theme of this age development.

I bet you want me to get to what the teacher said.

She told me that when Michael is being disrespectful and rude, to calmly say:

Michael, that is not a very polite way to say that. When you can speak to me nicely, I will talk to you.

Then proceed to go about whatever you are doing while ignoring his negative behavior.

She said this gives him the opportunity to make a decision on how he will behave and allows him a chance to correct himself.

If he chooses correctly, he will ask you in a more polite manner.

If he chooses incorrectly and continues to give attitude, then you introduce the consequence - whatever it may be. For Michael, it is removal of ALL screen time. For every child, whatever works for them will be different. And you follow through. And oh yes, be consistent.

Follow through and be consistent - yes yes yes.

I tried that today while we were out and about. I was calm and stated what i was supposed to state, ignoring the attitude. And it worked! Michael calmed down and redirected himself. A minute later, he explained to me why he was upset. Calmy and rationally with respect.

Neat. Just got to keep doing that. However, I find it very challenging when the steam is starting to come out of my ears because the ghetto fabulous phuong would start snapping her fingers and say, "I KNoW you didn't boy! Don't make me get in yo face boy!"

But that is not godly and not the example I want to set for him.

Sigh - I miss the days of discipline where time out worked just fine. I could still use time out and do from time to time. But I feel that as Michael grows older, my parenting paradigm has to shift from "yes, I am the boss and you must obey" to "you are free to make your own choices and each choice as its own consequence. Just as god gives us freedom to make our own decisions and reap the consequences of them, so must you learn to do the same."

And I can only hope that I am setting a good framework for the years to come where he views his parents not as a totalitarian dictatorship, but people who will love him no matter what his decisions may be, who are forever hopeful and prayerful that he makes decisions which will safeguard his heart, his future, and his relationship with us and the Lord.

That's it for one night.