Dear James,
I'm a month late with your birthday letter, but surely after eight years of living with me and your dad, you've learned that punctuality is not something we're known for, nor does it run in the family, so I know you'll forgive me. I know this, too, because you're a forgiving sort of person, quick to move on, never holding a grudge.
Thank goodness for that, because this year you are beginning to make comparisons between your life and the lives of your peers, and you're quick to let your dad and me know when we fall short of the parenting ideals. Too many chores, no allowance, we never take you to McDonald's, that sort of thing. You like to inform us of all of the wonderful things you'll do as soon as you turn eighteen. I almost died the day you added "buy whipped cream in a can" to this list. Someday you will understand that your mother always whips real cream not because she hates you and wants you to be weird, but because she loves you and wants you to enjoy real food.
Yesterday you were angry with me for one of my many parenting failures and you demanded, "How do I know you're my real mother?" It's hard to tell sometimes, because you are still so remarkably like your dad. Your second-grade teacher is very impressed with your math knowledge and skills, and she told us how surprised she was during the first week of school when you informed the class about negative numbers. I would have loved to see the look on her face a couple of weeks ago when you went to school armed with the information your dad had just taught you about imaginary numbers.
You take after your dad in so many ways. You share his curiosity about the world around you, and from him you've learned to turn to science for your answers. You're so imaginative, always coming up with new ideas. You share his love of games, especially video games. You can be so silly -- you should have seen the look I gave your dad when your teacher told us about all of the weird noises you make in class, seemingly without even being aware of making them -- but you still have a surprising attention span, especially when it comes to drawing and reading.
Now, reading: that's one way I know you're my son. When you find a book you like you get so wrapped up in it that you can't put it down. You don't hear people talking to you, you carry the book around with you when you're forced to do something other than read, you bring a flashlight in the car so darkness won't prevent you finishing this chapter. You're reading books that are shelved in the Young Adult section of the library, yet you still like to be read to at bedtime.
It's a strange age, eight. You're navigating the gray area between childhood and adolescence. You like to snuggle on the couch and watch nature shows, yet you like to rock out to Weezer. You play Legos and cars with your brother at home, yet on the playground at school you and your friends play Twilight. I was the kind of kid who always felt a little out of place at this stage, but I think you're enjoying it, being able to move within two worlds.
You and your brother are still great friends, but I've noticed a bit of a change this year. It's becoming apparent that you are growing older, your tastes are changing, and you're a little less content to play the same old games. Sometimes you even decline to play with Evan in favor of reading, which sends him running to me, pleading can we please not get Calvin and Hobbes from the library anymore because all James does is reeeaaaaad!!! Evan gets frustrated with your growing maturity, but you are often kind enough to humor him.
It's fun being your mom in so many ways, James, whether you're telling jokes or drawing comics or helping me cook or regurgitating facts you've learned from Nature or Nova or from your dad. I like watching you crack up while you watch movies; I like sharing favorite books and movies and music with you and knowing you're old enough to really appreciate and enjoy them; I like overhearing you sing songs or recite poems you've learned at school; I like to see you drawing charts and graphs for fun, or designing board games, or writing stories.
Thank you for helping make our lives so much fun, James. Happy belated birthday. I love you more than any blog post can convey.
21 January 2010
belated birthday post
12 December 2009
trivial pursuit for kids
My kids love to play games, any kind of games. Video games, computer games, pretend games, guessing games, board games. James, especially, love games so much that he's constantly making up his own or playing games by himself. If he doesn't know the rules to a game he'll invent them. His games are always terrifically complicated.
He's certainly passing on his love of games to his brother. This morning I came downstairs to find them deeply involved in a game of Trivial Pursuit. Evan can't read yet, and most of the questions are outside the limits of their young knowledge, so they make up their own questions. Usually their questions are about Star Wars or Pokemon, but this morning they actually created their own categories to work with: Animals, Water, Sand, Air, Candy and Plants. Evan was The Questioner.
Evan: Why doesn't sand evaporate?
James: Because it's not made of water!
Evan: Good!
Evan: Why don't all birds eat fish?
James: Because they don't all live near water!
Evan: Good!
Evan: Why can't you eat sand?
James: Because it's not food!
Evan: Good!
Evan: Why doesn't water go upstream?
James: Because hills make it go downstream!
Evan: Good!
It's so much fun listening to them.
11 September 2009
end of summer
It's come to my attention that there are people out there who actually miss it when I don't update my blog, which I really hadn't guessed. I stopped updating during my busy summer and people noticed and said things to me, so here I am, back to the blog.
It's not quite fall yet, but it's starting to feel that way. The days are suddenly noticeably cooler, trees in the neighborhood are starting to glow red and orange, and James started second grade on Wednesday. Second grade! I do not have the requisite first-day-of-school photo to share with you, for two reasons: 1, the laptop is having issues and I can't use it to do the whole photo thing, and 2, I forgot to take the requisite first-day-of-school photo. I actually brought the camera to the bus stop on Wednesday, but neglected to put the battery in it first. Yesterday I had every intention of taking a second-day photo and passing it off as a first-day photo, but the bus came ten minutes early and what with all the sprinting to catch it I didn't get a chance. Today I just gave up.
Second grade, by the way, is great, and Mrs. F. is his best teacher ever. And I don't know if it's maturity or something they're putting in the water at school, but James came home and voluntarily told me all about his day. No prying! Questions answered with multiple syllables! I hardly knew what to do with the sudden influx of information!
When James first got on the bus and went to school, Evan and I went inside and I asked him what he'd like to do all day. He answered, "I don't know what to do without James." Heart-meltingly sweet, I know, but not entirely true. No James means no competition for the Legos, which is mostly how Evan has been spending his time this week.
Evan is due to start school soon too. He was supposed to start next week, but we got a letter from the school informing us that the church in which the school is housed is having roofing work done, which includes asbestos removal, so school doesn't start until the end of the month. We did, however, get to go in to the school to meet Evan's teacher (apparently asbestos exposure of under half an hour is okay?) and she read to him and gave him presents, so he's totally sold on this whole preschool thing.
Evan, by the way, suddenly seems so much older. He's had a growth spurt over the last several months, and we cut his hair short, and finally he really looks like a preschooler. The baby fat is melting and the traces of babyhood in his appearance are fading away as well. It's been weird to witness such dramatic changes in a kid who's always grown so gradually.
We had a lot of fun this summer, and hopefully I'll remember to get back into the habit of blogging to share some of our many photos and stories.
29 May 2009
friday photos: who's that kid? edition
I think we all know by now how awful my camera is, so let's just ignore the poor quality, shall we?
Big news this week: we upgraded our eldest son to the newest, sleekest model:
Truly, I'd nearly forgotten how beautiful and striking his eyes are underneath all that hair.
My foot is in this photo just for reference. Who knew a seven-year-old could possess SO much hair? We could build ourselves a cat out of that.
For the record, his distaste for nicknames carries over to those poking fun at his new haircut. I was immediately chastised for trying to call him Baldy. He's very happy with his new look, though, reporting on how much quicker it is to take a shower and how differently his bike helmet fits now.
Next up: Evan's been asking for the same haircut, so we might have two little baldies on our hands soon. Just remind me not to call them that to their faces.
22 May 2009
friday photos: lilac festival edition
I've been posting a lot of photos on Facebook lately, which made me forget that I haven't been posting any here on the blog. Some of these photos will be familiar to any of you who I'm friends with on Facebook, but shockingly, not everyone I know is on Facebook, so I'm posting them here too, along with a few new photos.
Now that the weather has finally gotten nice, we're spending a lot of time outdoors. Last week Rochester held its annual Lilac Festival. Unfortunately we were only able to go twice, but we managed to see a lot of flowers, take a lot of photos, go on some rides, see a band, and eat too much unhealthy food. Lots of fun, as always.
My boys are not very cooperative when it comes to making them pose nicely in front of flowers and trees -- you'll see it's nearly impossible for them to close their mouths or just plain smile -- but I still managed to get some nice shots of them. As always these days, there are a few in purple-tinted Technicolor.
Happy weekend, everyone!
22 April 2009
spring break
James has his spring break from school this week, and seeing as we have no spare time or money for a real vacation, we are having what trendy people refer to as a "stay-cation" which, if I understand correctly, is a stupid name for staying home and doing special things on a small scale. In the spirit of staycation, I have made my children pancakes on a weekday morning (unheard of!), I let them stay up late watching nature shows, and we took a visit to the children's museum.
I've posted bits and pieces about our children's museum before, but it really is an amazing place. We spent almost six hours there yesterday and Evan did not have a single tantrum, or even any whining, that's how magical it is. No whining! I wish that could have lasted forever.
The last time we were there, winter break, the place was insanely crowded and I nearly lost each of the children at least once in those fast-paced, waist-high crowds. It was completely overwhelming, for me anyway. The kids still loved it. This time I prepared myself for the worst, and gave the kids a strict lecture in the car on the way there about the importance of staying close together and never leaving my sight unless they want to live in their bedroom until college. All of which was totally unnecessary, because for no reason I can think of, the place was practically empty. I think the kids were even more well-behaved with fewer other children there. I still can't get over how good they were.
Some of yesterday's highlights include the carousel:
Evan is scared of the carousel horses that actually move, so he rode a miniature stationary horse who he named Fluffy.
There's a pretend TV studio at the museum, where James gave us the world news:
And then Evan filmed James' new cooking show:
And of course, the Lego table, where the boys spent at least an hour constructing various things, because they obviously don't spend enough time doing that at home.
In honor of Earth Day, the museum had some Earth-related events going on. We watched a play called Basura (Spanish for garbage) starring a woman whose overacting reminded me of Shirley Temple, and a puppet made out of trash. Together they taught us all about recycling, and even sang a recycling song to the tune of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, leaving us with that charming melody embedded in our brains for the rest of the day.
After the show we were invited to make our very own trash projects. And this is where I lost my patience. I'm fine with plays and songs, even those that indoctrinate my children (if the indoctrination is of a type I agree with, of course), as long as my kids are enjoying themselves. And I am a big advocate of recycling and reusing anything and everything we can. But I can not get behind the idea of reusing old materials to create extra junk that's going to sit around my house. That's not reusing anything, that's just reconfiguring the garbage and moving it from the recycling bins into my kids' bedroom.
Naturally my kids were on board with the plan to use someone else's garbage to clutter up our house, and I do have to admit that they came up with some pretty interesting little creatures, as much as I dislike the whole concept of the thing.
James made Big Mouth:
And Evan made Froglet:
Very creative, and almost cute, for something made out of garbage, but honestly I'm just wondering how soon I can smuggle these creatures into the actual trash and recycling bins.
Still, despite that little quibble, the museum was a really fun way to spend a day of vacation -- so fun I wish we had time to go again this week -- and I'm hoping the rest of the week will be as easy as yesterday was.
10 April 2009
friday photos: scratch-paper-comix edition
I've been wondering about the quality of James' art education all year, as he brings home one construction paper collage after another, but this week really topped them all. I know that kids love to draw on scratch paper, but this is something Evan regularly does in his preschooler art class. Are public school budgets for art classes really so low that first-graders are limited to construction paper and scratch paper projects?
Despite the questionable usefulness of public school art class, my first-grader has a lot of interesting things going on in his head, and he manages to produce some hilarious stuff. This week's scratch paper drawing is actually one of my favorite things he's made at school.
This is Part 1 of a comic-style story in which several of his favorite characters team up against one formidable foe. Read the full story below the fold.
First, Cyclops was tearing down the city. He smashed a building in half in New York City:
But then Luke Skywalker came and stabbed Cyclops in the foot with a lightsaber:
Then, Cyclops got angry:
He smashed the Empire State Building in half:
Then Indiana Jones came and whipped him in the leg and Luke said, "Thanks for coming to help me!":
Then Curious George stabbed Cyclops in the eye with a banana while he was hanging from a giant tree:
Then Spongebob pulled out one of Cyclops' teeth and made him swallow it:
Then Plankton came and wanted to make friends with Cyclops, but Cyclops burped the tooth out onto Plankton's face:
Then Plankton zapped Cyclops with electricity out of his remote control. Then R2D2 came and zapped Cyclops in the face:
Cyclops smashed everyone except Gary the snail, who had a lightsaber:
Then Gary stabbed Cyclops in the face with a lightsaber and he died:
You may have noticed the "Part 2 Come Soon" at the bottom of the page. If Part 2 does indeed come soon and is as fantastic as Part 1, I may post it as well.
Evan, by the way, thinks this is just about the greatest story ever, and while I'm not entirely on board with all the stabbing, I do think a giant Cyclops destroying New York would need to be stopped, even using violence if necessary.
Let me know if you're interested in seeing more of my kids' artwork, or if this is one of those blind parent moments in which I'm forcing everyone to look at something I think is brilliant and you're all dreading the prospect of having to look at more children's scrawling excuses for art.
27 February 2009
friday photos: january edition
It's been a while since I posted any Friday photos. I mentioned before that our camera had been broken for a while, and it also has some crazy issues with the image quality, so I don't actually have very many photos from the last few months that are both in focus and in realistic colors all at once. So there are not many photos here representing January, but at least there are a few good ones.
I made a hat for Evan. It's supposed to be a crab, but he wouldn't let me round out the top, so it's a square crab. Or, alternately, just some kind of square red monster with beady eyes and claws.
We've done a lot of sledding this winter; the weather has been just perfect for it. Greg and James at one of our favorite sledding hills:
James' birthday occurred during my not-posting phase, and while I did manage to write the annual birthday post, I didn't post many photos. So here are a few extra birthday moments.
First, James putting together the Lego ship he got from Grandma Kathy and Papa. (SO! EXCITING!)
With the finished craft (for a moment there I was almost disappointed with myself for not remembering the name, until I remembered that I don't really care), which he put together all by himself:
One of the treats we had instead of a real birthday cake was a birthday sundae. Candlelight is really not adequate to illuminate the staggering amounts of sugar on top of the ice cream in that bowl. It was truly impressive. And naturally he ate every bite.
The photos don't show it well enough, but it was a pretty good month.
08 January 2009
happy birthday to james!
Dear James,
You're seven years old today. Seven years old! It hardly seems possible. But it's true; you're growing up. Things are changing in your world. You're slowly growing away from being a little boy, and starting to make your way to adolescence.
7 mini Dutch babies for a 7-year-old boyPhysically, you continue to grow up and up and up. Just last week we sent you to get ready for bed and you returned, totally oblivious, wearing your little brother's pajamas. Sure, they were short in the arms and legs, but they still fit you, you insisted. It wasn't until I really looked at the photo above, taken this morning, that I realized your face is growing up too. I think it's because your grandmother just trimmed your hair to allow us to see your face properly for the first time in months. Now, looking at that photo, I can see that all traces of chubby babyfat cheeks are gone. I don't know how this is possible when you're already out-eating me much of the time now.
You still look exactly like your dad, and you behave like him more and more as you grow older. You like to tease, tell jokes, play pranks. You are agreeable and cooperative. Anger and moodiness can often be cleared away in a matter of minutes. You're as curious and inquisitive as ever, always wanting to know how and why. Thank goodness your dad is a scientist with endless patience. He's been teaching you multiplication as well as some scientific principles that I would have expected to be too advanced for a first-grader, but you've proven me wrong.
Old age hasn't yet diminished your cheerfulness or optimism. When we were stuck in airports for so many hours over the holidays, you were the optimist. You were sure, every time, that we'd be on the next flight, that any minute now we'd be boarding an airplane. You played games with your brother, you befriended other kids waiting in the airport, you made your own fun and continued to enjoy yourself and boost our spirits when your dad and I threatened to get too disgruntled. You were tired, but you kept going, so excited about going to see Grandma and Papa for Christmas. When we left the airport after that first day of unsuccessful travel attempts, you were so surprised and disappointed that it hadn't happened. It was heartbreaking.
I feel like we don't see you much anymore these days -- you're at school all day long, and when you get home, most days you play outside until sunset. We get to see you for dinner and bedtime, with a little play in between, sometimes a bath, some homework,some chores, some reading. Your days are full and busy, but you don't seem to miss us much. I don't notice it most of the time either, how little time we're really spending together, until weekends or vacations when I get to spend entire days in your company and I'm reminded of how much fun it is to play games, to cook, to read, to snuggle with you.
I love you, darling boy, my sweet baby James. Happy, happy birthday.
05 December 2008
friday photos: thanksgiving edition
I forgot to bring my camera to my mom's house for Thanksgiving, so I'm stealing some of my sister's photos to post. I spent a lot of time hogging her sweet camera, so it's pretty likely that I took these photos anyway. These are, by the way, photos of three of the things I was most thankful for over our Thanksgiving vacation.
James has been experimenting with a ponytail lately, and this is his samurai impression:
Those of you who know Greg will not be surprised when I say that he was the instigator of the frosting war paint:
Amazing turkey cupcakes that my sister and her husband bought.
Okay, so I'm kidding about cupcakes being one of the top three things I'm thankful for, but seriously, look at the detail on that frosting. That entire thing is edible, and extremely rich and delicious. And we all know that Thanksgiving is about cramming yourself full of desserts that singularly exceed your recommended daily intake of calories. Besides, it's not as easy to take photos of the things I'm truly thankful for: love, good health, prosperity, safe travels, family togetherness, and all that good intangible stuff.
21 November 2008
friday photos: first grade update edition
Last week we had James' parent-teacher conference. We suspected that the conference, like all previous conferences with James' teachers, would be fine, because he is bright and, with the occasional exception of talking too much, generally well-behaved.
Also, I had heard a funny story from our neighbor a week or two earlier after his conference with his daughter's teacher. Neighbor Girl and James are in different classes this year, but still play together every day after school. NG's teacher was asking NG's dad about what NG does outside of school, and NG's dad mentioned that NG plays with her neighbor James a lot. NG's teacher said, "Oh, you mean Smart James from the other class?"
So, knowing that other teachers in the school know our son as "Smart James" had us feeling pretty relaxed going into this conference.
We love James' teacher this year. Mrs. M. is friendly, enthusiastic and experienced, and best of all, she loves James to pieces and couldn't say enough about how well he is doing in school. The only issue that came up at the conference was when we told Mrs. M. that James thinks school is too easy and he would love to have more challenging work (something he's told us on a regular basis since school began this year). Luckily Mrs. M. realizes how bright James is, and that he could benefit from more challenging work, but unfortunately it seems she has little flexibility to provide him with more challenges. Because of the requirements and structure of the first-grade routine, Mrs. M. doesn't have time to work individually with James on advanced material. And it certainly wouldn't be fair to ask her to put in extra work for a kid who's already excelling when she probably has her hands full trying to keep some of the other kids up to speed with regular class work.
So we're trying to spend some extra time working with James at home. Last weekend I bought him a 320-page workbook of second grade skills, which he is currently flying through with little trouble. He is perfectly content to sit down and fill out worksheet after worksheet of spelling and math problems. Good practice for his handwriting, too. And we're currently reading Beverly Cleary's Ramona books, which James is enjoying just as much as I did at his age.
I never realized when James started school that it would be so much more work for us, but the older he gets, the more fun we are all having.
Oh, and a word on Evan: I discovered yesterday that he can recognize the numbers 1-9, when I thought he didn't know any of them. Smart kids!
07 November 2008
friday photos: end of autumn edition
One of the nice things about renting is that you don't have to do any yardwork, but you do get to enjoy the fruits of the maintenance crew's labor. They recently took a leafblower to some areas of the complex, and for about a week my kids have been eying a particularly enormous pile of leaves near the end of our street.
We've had gorgeous weather this week, but both Greg and I have been fighting off some kind of vague undefinable illness for a few days, so it wasn't until yesterday that I felt ambitious enough to actually take the kids to the end of the street to play in the leaves.
And this leaf pile, oh my gosh, the kids were tunneling through it, they were swimming in it, they were at times completely buried and lost from sight. They had an absolute blast. And good thing, too, because this morning some workers from the town came by and took away all those leaves.
