jessica

little jimmy and the eagle

since j-man was four or five years old, he has been extremely competitive. that is an understatement. competitive should be his middle name. it started before four or five, but it really kicked in about this time.  so, because of the competitiveness, to get him to do anything that he might be slightly hesitant to do, piece of cake. make it a competition. he would try his hardest every time.

hubs likes to have fun with this competitiveness.  around the time j-man was four or five, hubs made up this character. he named him "little jimmy". whenever j-man would refuse to do something, hubs would say "little jimmy would do it and do it FASTER than you"... or something similar. that's all it took to get him to do anything. seriously.

aside from living in china, little jimmy and the j-man were surprisingly similar.  little jimmy was the EXACT same age as j-man. even had the same birthday. had green eyes. loved hockey.

now this "little jimmy" business has worked for several years. when j-man was a little older, hubs explained to him that little jimmy was his alter ego. explained essentially what an alter ego was. he explained that little jimmy WAS him.

j-man accepted this and chose to believe there is a little jimmy.

little jimmy has come up periodically in our conversations. not for a while now, but most recently, at dinner tonight.

j-man:  hey, do you think that little jimmy likes sausage on his pizza?

hubs: what?

j-man:  sausage. do you think he likes sausage?

hubs: who?

j-man: (annunciating because obviously he is talking to someone who is being dense):   YOU know. little JIMMY.  my ALTER EAGLE.

wordless wednesday 04.30

kidversations

robbie came over to play with the J-man after school today.  i just love listening to their conversations.  i changed monkey girl's blowout diaper and looked for something to dress her in after i cleaned her up.  in the meantime i left her in just her diaper in the company of the two eight year olds...

J-man:  ha ha ha! isn't my sister  chubby!

robbie (who also has a baby sister): nah. all babies look like that.

J-man:  but she's fat! isn't she fat?!

robbie:  they're supposed to be fat.  that way when they grow they can stretch all that fat out and look like us.

you can't make stuff like this up!

wordless wednesday: a daddy moment

are you smarter than an 8 year old?

i have mentioned before i have a kinda smart kid.  no idea where it comes from, though.  i hail from the land of The Teacher Who Falls Asleep Mid-Sentence and the Guidance Counselor Who Proclaims Every Student "Not a Rocket Scientist", and let's not forget The Calc Teacher Whose Nine Year Old Can Do Calculus, So Why Can't You??  ok, enough about my bitterness. wow, where did that come from? okay. back to business.

let me share a couple of the math problems he's got as homework. (this is not a challenge, unless you'd like to work through the problems, then have at it.  it is merely a demonstration of how hard parenthood truly is.)

problem 1:  Every yellow marble is expensive.  One-half the orange marbles are expensive. One-half of all expensive marbles are yellow. There are 40 yellow marbles and 25 expensive marbles that are neither yellow nor orange.  How many orange marbles are there?

this one is short. you'd think it would be easier maybe.
problem 2:  If 5 x's and 4 y's and 12 y's = 5 z's, then 30 x's = how many z's?

say, whaaa?  um, when i was 8 we were still learning our times tables.

i've tried to help, and i always come up with the wrong answer. and the kid ends up teaching ME.

now if i could just get him to clean his room. or wash his face.

i hate rube goldberg

alternate title: the project that kicked my butt.

no, it wasn't a house project. it wasn't a craft project. nor a photography project. i WISH.  it was a fourth grade  exCel project.  the J-man is in a pull out program for accelerated  kids and they decided it would be fun to make the parents work really hard.  back me up, parents of school-aged children! homework and projects are homework and projects for PARENTS. not because we want to, nooooooooo.  because they wouldn't get DONE without us.

so, the kids are studying rube goldberg. who's that, you ask? well, i had to google him myself. rube goldberg  is best known for his series of popular cartoons depicting rube goldberg machines, complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. so, we begin. the instructions on the sheet tell us that the contraption must transport a marble or series of marbles from point A to point B, achieving the following things:

• the majority of the "marble run" must be constructed by the students. HAH!
• only a limited amount of prefab or ready made game parts may be used (yes, i DID think i would just rob pieces fromt the 'mouse trap game' until i read this rule. even after, i considered it.
• points will be given for each type of material, the time it takes for the marble to run, sounds the marble makes en route, replacements (when one marble 'quits' and another takes over), simple machines, and completion (25 points if the marble(s) make it to the end in three tries

let me add. this project was given about three weeks ago. but alas, the Overscheduled Child has no time to do anything. (especially not schoolwork!!) ha ha.  so, mercifully, the school board gave us today  off as a teacher workday, the day BEFORE the project was due, to finish 'er up.  plusses: he finishes his project.  minuses: well, he's home with me and i will have to make lunch.

we started this project at 7 this morning.  i am just posting about it now. working nonstop, no bathroom, lunch, water breaks.

the end result is depicted in photos below. but let me tell you, first, some things experienced on this journey:

• the oven and refrigerator eat marbles. they get lost in the vast, dark, dusty and crumbly abyss.
• hi temp glue guns (which i rely on for pretty much every project i do) burn like *@#&$^!@.
• knives are sharp and pierce skin, sometimes the same skin that's just been burned to blistering
• my left  index finger will bleed for a long time
• eight year olds  cry when mommies yell at them out of frustration
• babies can destroy a project in 0.2 seconds while driving over it in a walker
• schools must hate parents. why else would they give projects like this to kids?
• i hate the exCel teacher
• i hate rube goldberg

and, now, the project in all its glory. note, the jingle bells we glued to the "incline plane" (a simple machine) - bonus points!!  i can just hear all the ooohs and ahhs over our creative uses of the cardboard from paper towels, water bottles, frisbees, oversized popsicle sticks, and corkboards.  we're quite amazing.

 

5/6 of a year...

that would be ten months.  february 24th.  where did february go? little one, you are  growing by leaps and bounds, in all ways.  here are some new and newish milestones:

• you continue to have rhythm. you drum and pound on everything. using hands, feet, whatever. you love music with a solid beat
• you now say J-man's name. it sounds a lot like "dame". we know that's what you're saying because you're consistent with it... and will only say it if he's around or if we prompt you to repeat it.
• you mimic EVERYTHING. if someone laughs, you laugh. if someone yells, you yell. if someone blows at you, you blow right back, but you add a bonus wet stream. if someone is singing, you sing. if someone growls, you growl. it's dang cute.
• you wake up in your crib a happy girl and sing to your bear and doll. it's a lot like mommy's singing. really off-key
• you will stand alone fairly well. you're still not sure you want to do much more than that, for when you want to get somewhere, it's the old standby crawl
• you know exactly when you're in trouble. when you are chewing on something you shouldn't, (and you know it), when we come after you to take it away you squeal and crawl away as fast as you can. and dang, you're fast.
• you still poop more than any of us think is humanly possible. and passing gas is another story. daddy gets blamed a lot for the noise you make. it's that bad.
• you are still sleeping from approximately 8 pm to 730-8 a.m. - what more could a parent ask for? i sure hope i'm not jinxing it by documenting this.
• you love the roomba. daddy calls the roomba not only a good cleaning tool, but an excellent babysitter.
• you previously hated the vacuum, but now you are curious, don't cry anymore and want to touch it.
• you still only have two teeth. on the bottom. i guess that 3rd tooth that popped in decided it wasn't quite time.
• you're in love with baby einstein and squeal and clap at a few parts, especially the monkey.
• you love to be swung. upside down, side to side, around in a circle. you've always been an extreme movement baby, and the crazier the better.
• you weigh 18 lbs by our calculations. we haven't been great at on-time checkups.
• some of your favorite toys are the remote, the phone, and an old digital camera. high tech girl.
• you love, love, love to eat and to date the only thing you've really refused are the baby food peaches and anything mixed with the peaches. i don't blame you, they're sour and smell like feet.
• you're surprisingly good at eating real food with only two teeth.
• you're a cheerio fiend
• you like the sippy cup but would rather chew on it than drink from it. you still much prefer your bottle.
• you've NEVER been a pacifier chick, and for a brief time you sucked your thumb but now you use niether. that will be easy on mom and dad, no weaning.
• you like to drag a blanket, a piece of dirty laundry, whatever, behind you.
• you wrestle like a maniac to get out of the diaper changing position. and you keep us on our toes by coming up with new moves.
• you give "five"
• you nod and say 'yes'
• you make the cutest faces. you have soooo many fun ones.

tft: dreams, aspirations, and all that jazz

let me just jump right into it. if you could do anything with your life, what would it be? if you could truly follow your heart, no holds barred, what would you do? what would you be? there would be no obstacles, no financial issues holding you back. if that were the case, would you change anything from what you are doing now?

i've got a zillion things going around in my head surrounding my impending resignation from my job. i guess that's what is bringing this tft on.

who really "knows" their direction in life, and what they want to do by the ripe old age of 18 and fresh out from under mom and dad's wing? when i was a kid, i wanted to be a pilot. (along with a mommy, a racecar driver, a chef, etc...) but mostly, i dreamed of flying. i took classes and flight school in high school before i even laid eyes on an airplane in college.  but after a period of time, despite enjoying it immensely, i realized that wasn't "really" the direction i wanted to go. always being a creative type, i switched gears to attend design school.  i've been doing that since '96, and i truly love it. but now i see myself doing something that, well, would make more of a difference. in the lives of other people.  at the very least, the lives of my own children. instead of this insanity that i have going on.

in the meantime, i will enjoy my design and pursue photography... because i need to pay some of the bills... but there's something more to do, i know it!

am i the only person who feels this way?  is everyone else pefectly happy with their direction? maybe i should get this book titled "i could do anything. if i only knew what it was: how to discover what you really want and how to get it"

maybe i will.  now, tell me about YOU. what would you do if you could do anything with your life? 

other tft'ers this week:

• nicole on  babies and germs
• jenny on brand names
• cass on luxury
• kristi on esp, premonitions, etc.
• michelle on celebrity babies
• denise on ghopsts and haunted houses

my little hockey astronaut...

***warning: boasting follows****     my little hockey astronaut scored a goal and had an assist (that should have been a goal) tonight.  i do my share of complaining about hockey, but it's so, SO much fun to watch them play and improve. the whole chest swelling with pride parent thing.  let me  tell you, this kid can steal the puck in pretty much any situation. and his skating's catcing up to his stick handling abilities.  he might make that wild draft pick 2018 yet.

tft: overscheduling kids

down time. everyone needs some. even kids.  i remember being a kid, and in the summers, we basically ran free outside and just enjoyed being kids. we made our own fun, our own games.
fast forward to today.  i'm a slave to the clock and this activity, and that activity. can't we all just stay home?

i have an overscheduled eight and a half year old.  no two ways about it.  there is rarely a night that we aren't running him somewhere, and from that somewhere to somewhere else. right now we're perhaps in the throws of the worst of it. for it is HOCKEY SEASON.  and hockey in minnesota is hard core. even when you're eight. this week, we have hockey on tuesday, hockey on wednesday, hockey on thursday, hockey on friday and a jamboree (basically a tournament) on saturday and sunday. every weekend between november and march is disrupted by hockey.  weekly he is (and so we are)  scheduled for in piano lessons, practicing for piano lessons on the nights there is no piano lessons,  soon-to-start chinese classes two nights a week (by persuasive request).   also sprinkle in there ortho appointments and such. you got yourself a crazy schedule.

in the summer we've got baseball, soccer if it doesn't conflict, golf, and then football (which i've already vetoed for the upcoming summer). camp invention. the list continues. what will i do when the baby gets older and wants to be in activities of her own?

i'm not trying to overschedule.  the kid requests it. adamently. he's a complete sports freak. and who am i to say no? maybe he'll be the next wayne gretzky or tiger woods. (personally i like the thought of a non-contact, low impact, warm sport like golf) seriously, i want to expose him to whatever he shows interest in. i remember that a lot of things that i was interested in (gymnastics etc)  just weren't available where i grew up. things that i believed i'd have loved and excelled at.

i really try to balance. but it's hard. we do have down time. i make an effort to make sure he's able to do stuff that's not scheduled. read a book, ride his bike, run around outside with friends.  life's a juggling act.

what do you do to keep the balance?  tell me your thoughts.

others with thursday thoughts:

Nicole on signing things as Husband and Wife

Denise on Valentines and Flowers

Amy on School Wellness policies
Kristi on Regional Stereotypes

Jenny on L.O.V.E
Nicole about keeping in touch with out-of-town family

Robyn on Technology and Parenting