Evan at Five

How can it be that you are five? Where did the time go? I can still picture you as the two pound bundle of fire and fiest. Your tiny fists clenched, your will so strong that you survived against all odds.

You are still feisty and passionate. Full of life, full of energy. Yet your sweetness makes me weak in the knees. You are the most apt to say "momma I love you" for no reason except you feel like it. Lately you have sartre calling me your "best buddy ever" or the "best mommy ever". Which I will never argue with. Just the other day you woke up from your nap and looked up at me and said " I need some love from my bug" I then hugged you until you begged me to stop.

You still love ladybugs and Ringo and cacti. And they, plus about twenty other buddies have to join you in bed each night. For some unknown reason you have taken to wearing a touque to bed each night, which really makes me giggle. You wrap your arms around my neck and sing at the top of your lungs every night. I cannot tell you how much that makes me smile.

While you still love music, you have stopped singing the National Anthem. That makes me sad. I loved it when you would just break it out when ever the mood struck.

You have an amazing capacity for sports. You remember teams, cities, logos, colors. Your favorite teams are the Kings, and pretty much any team that wears red. Which makesnit difficult when you want to root for the Red Wings or the Canadiens.

Your vocabulary becomes more astounding each day and I firmly believe you will do somthing in life where talking is important. It has been well documented that you really do say the funniest things.

This year we started T-ball and hockey. You do have focus issues as you are usually too busy talking to anyone who will listen about whatever it is on your mind. I love watching you in the outfield talking to the apposing teams coaches. They usually smile, nod and sometimes laugh outnloud.

You like to call yourself Jack Johnson, or Eli Manning to your brothers Anze Kopitar and Peyton Manning. You also like to pretend to be literary characters, you are often Jack (of Magic Tree House fame) or Harry Potter. For reasons unknown to me, Ryan is always Annie or Hermione Granger.

Your reading is coming along so nicely. I am amazed somedays by the sight words you have and listening to you sound out words as you see them or try to write them. You recently told me that the thing you love most about school is learning. I hope you feel that way for the rest of your life. That is why I have been agonizing over sending you to our local public school. While it is considered to be a great school I fear that too much emphasis is placed on testing and conforming to what politicians believe is important and not what is best for the children and the way children learn. I am 90% sure where you will end up next year, and no matter which school it will be somewhere that appreciates your uniqueness.

You are so special my little man, so full of life, so full of opinions, so unabashed. You are vibrant, technicolor, a tornado, a tsunami of passion, you are larger than life. You are Evan at Five.

Yikes

It has been so long since I posted. My intention was to post the Boys at Five posts, their birthday party post, and a recap of our school visit, but I've had some trouble writing them, not because there isn't enough to say, but because I have an iPad and I cannot blog from it. (some random incompatibility with blogger) I am composing them on the iPad in word, but I keep getting distracted by words with friends or angry birds or plants vs. zombies, or NY Times crossword puzzles, or sudoku, or any of the 10,000 other things I can do on that cool little toy.

My school visit went well, and I am 99% convinced that this is the school my boys should attend. They will be nurtured and they will be given the tools they need to be critical thinkers. I love it. the 1% I reserve because the school is moving and they have no idea where they will be next year. But this school feels right enough that I might just drive to LA if I had to. (no, I won't have to)

The boys had a fun party, and they are five. (I assure you, there will be more on both) But right now it is my turn to play a word and I have terrible letters. What can I make with VVAAIOT?

Educating Ryan and Evan

It has been no secret that I have been stressing about sending my boys to public Kindergarten since oh, well before the boys were born. Stressing is a mild description of my state of mind, agonizing, is maybe a better descriptor.

I've considered many, many, options from home schooling to selling my soul, going back to work and taking a second on the house to send the boys to a private school, and everything in between.

I had resigned myself to sending them to the local elementary. The one with 900 kids. (that's as big as my high school) The one with 7, SEVEN kindergarten classes. But as registration grew closer, I grew even more apprehensive. Sick even.

Then I started bantering around the idea of my own private school. Hiring a teacher and recruiting 6 or 8 kids, rotating homes, locations. It was because of this idea that I started thinking about the teachers I knew, I reached out to see if anyone knew of anyone.

Lo and behold, a friend of mine, who taught at a private school with a teaching philosophy I love before having her son, was interested and looking for part time work. We had a discussion the other day, and she mentioned a school where a friend of hers works. A place she is considering for her own son in a year. We talked briefly about the teaching philosophy, and it sounded great. I immediately googled it, and found it is a school with an approach that was one of my favorites when I did my initial research 5 years ago.

One of the things that had been holding me back from many schools, and applying to many charter schools was Scott's insistence that the boys go to school in the neighborhood, so they could hang with their buddies after school, like he did. He was pretty adamant. However, just after the application deadline for one of my favorite schools passed, Scott had a change of heart.

Armed with this new freedom, and knowing that most application deadlines had passed, I took a chance and "swung by" this new school of interest. And while it is not in a new building, I've described it as a bit dingy, and it is far away from home, I filled out applications on the spot. It felt like a weight had lifted off of my shoulders. The weight of the world so to speak. I think I actually slept last night for the first time in well, a long, long time. I now have an option.

We officially tour the school on Thursday, and I hope it is all that I want it to be, all that I need it to be, all that my boys need it to be.

Rituals

The bedtime ritual around here is one of those things that I know that I am going to miss when the boys get too big to be tucked in.

Evan especially has his "things"

Scott has to sing Hallelujah
I have to say "the words"
"No crying about buttons or buddies, curtains or fans, mirrors or lights, tents or pillows, or NOTHIN'"
and then we hug and kiss.

A few months ago he started adding a death grip on my neck followed by the phrase "I'm never gonna let you go!"

Which always warmed my heart and I would say, "you never have to honey." but every time he said it, I would think of the Sergio Mendes song "I'm Never Gonna Let You Go" So after a few weeks I started singing the chorus to him,

I'm never gonna let you go
I'm gonna hold you in my arms forever
Gonna try and make up for the times
I hurt you so

And then I would get to that last line and find it inappropriate (as is the rest of the song) to sing to my baby, so I changed it up a bit.

Gonna try and make up for the times
I tickled you soooooooooo....

during which I would tickle him and he would be forced to release his death grip on my neck.

he got wise to me and said that I had to say cuddled instead of tickled. I obliged.

Well, in the last few nights Evan has decided that the singing of the 80's classic was his to sing,
and oh. my. goodness. nothing can make me smile like my 4 year old belting out, directly in my ear...

I'm never gonna let you go
I'm gonna hold you in my arms forever
Gonna try and make up for the times
I cuddled you so.

Ryan-isms

Just a couple of things that Ryan has said in the last couple of days that have made me laugh.

Ryan: (to Evan) WHAT? por favor?

Ryan: Mommy?!? I tripped over my boot and went KER-SPLAT! and my hand got covered in chalk.

OUR Magic "Tree"house

We had a bit of a construction project out in the backyard a few weekends ago. It started well.


And then a rock got in the way. There was a lot of banging, sledgehammering, and sawing? Eventually the rock gave in.


There was a lot of standing around, looking at things. There were many trips to various home improvement centers. There were lots of laughs. There were lots of offers of help.


In the end there were two very excited boys, and Ryan and Evan were pretty happy too.






There have been dinners in our new magic tree house/pirate ship/hunting cabin/fishing boat.

There will be many childhood memories made.

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Oh, and some T-ball video, just because it is really cute.

Evan-isms

Evan: (in the car on the way home from Phil's BBQ) Look Jack in the Box!!!! I *LOVE* Jack in the Box.

Me: You have never had Jack in the Box.

Evan: Yes I have!

Me: WHEN have you had Jack in the Box?!?!?

Evan: I haven't, but I've been DREAMING about it!


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Evan: (In the middle of the night to Nannie) I need to blow my nose.

Evan: Where is Daddy?

Nannie: In bed.

Evan: You should be in bed too.