We have a Wii in the house!  After missing the one at Walmart on the 6th or whenever that was, I had been calling all the places that the nintendo.com site said would be selling them regularly to find out if anyone knew when they'd have some in stock.  Two of the Targets confirmed that they would have a shipment in to sell on the 17th.  Well, the night of the 16th I woke up at 1:30 to feed Asher and I couldn't go back to sleep.  Finally about 4:00 I got up and fed Asher again and once he was back to sleep, 4:30ish, I got bundled up and decided to try getting a Wii since I wasn't sleeping anyway.  I got there around 5, maybe a bit earlier, and I was 7th in line.  I didn't bring a chair so I sat on the sidewalk a bit but that was cold so I got up again.  I didn't have too long to wait though because at 6 the store peeps came out and gave us all tickets for the 14 they had in stock and said to be back in line at 7:45AM.  We all went over to Starbucks to celebrate our pending Wiiing. I picked up an extra controller and nunchuck and the games zelda, raving rabbits something or another, and something called monkeyball I believe.  I don't know, they looked good.  I wish Zelda wasn't rated T though.  I went home to a full day of being a mom to 3 kids and was very tired while I stayed up until 1 the next night playing with my digiscrapping stuff.  We can sleep when we're dead, right?  Anyway, all in all, it was rather exciting even if I do think it is really dumb that these companies wouldn't just release enough consoles to begin with.  I hope Gavin likes it and that someday he'll know what we did to get this.  I also hope he doesn't just get all moody about NOT getting his magnetics or whatever else he was also asking for.

 

December 7th, 2006

 

OK, I have this computer game called "Virtual Villagers" that is pretty fun.  You get these little villagers and you have to help them learn how to take care of themselves and you get these little puzzles solved with them.  Gavin seems to really like the game too.  I've loaded it onto his computer and he likes to teach them to build things and fish and forage and do research and all that.  Here's the thing:  to get more villagers, you have to have a man and a woman make a baby.  Ya, you take a man or a woman and put it on top of another opposite gender villager and if they hit it off, they will kiss and go into a hut together and if they are lucky, they will come out with a baby.  If they don't hit it off, one goes running and you have to chase them around with the little people until they decide they actually like each other.  Now, computer-wise, this is hillarious and I don't think Gavin is suffering any permanent damage.  I can just see him saying something to his teacher or something that will bring protective services to my door though.  Anyway, that's not the point of this post.  The point is mushrooms.  Yes, the kids in the village have the task of bringing mushrooms, which pop up in random places at random times, back to the food bin.  If you see a mushroom, you have to quick go find a kid and pick it up and drag it over to the mushroom and drop it and hope that you did it all fast enough to actually capture the shroom.  There are brown shrooms and red shrooms, the brown ones are rare enough but the red ones are practically NEVER around.  They are also worth more than the brown ones.  So, we're playing and Gavin asks me: "Mom, if you only had one kid and that kid was bringing a brown mushroom back and you saw a red mushroom, would you make the kid drop the brown mushroom to go get the red mushroom?"  WOW!  I mean, 1) he wasn't asking me to tell him what to do, he was just curious what I might do - he was talking theoretical values.  2) He had the foresight to say that I only had one kid so I couldn't just say that I would get another kid to get the mushroom.  3) He was understanding higher level concepts of taking a risk of losing a known item (bird in hand kinda thing) for the chance at getting a possible and higher value item - knowing that you could end up not having anything in the end if you missed the red shroom.  The whole thing just really left me feeling like I was having an intellectual conversation with someone, not just hanging out with my kid.  Way to go Gavin!

 

Novemeber 14th, 2006

 

I've debated bringing this up on here, but honestly, this is a very common problem and not talking about it doesn't help anyone.  We've been dealing with nighttime wetting.  Really, we never stopped putting Gavin in diapers overnight and we just kept getting bigger sizes.  I figured he'd just eventually be dry overnight on his own and we'd stop using overnight diapers when that happened.  Well, he is now 7 and it really hasn't stopped on its own.  I got worried that if we ignored the issue any longer and let him just keep not paying attention to his need to go at night, he'd get hard wired to not wake up and have to deal with this as an adult.  SO, we bit the bullet and bought the bedwetting kit the neurologist suggested to us.  It is really pretty slick - it is an alarm that plugs into the wall and a tiny little sensor that snaps onto special underware that have wires all through them.  If the underpants get wet, the moisture connects the wires and completes the connection so the sensor sends the signal to the alarm to go off.  It only takes a TINY bit of urine to make this go off so the idea is that they will be able to stop before emptying their bladder. We also got this awesome mattress pad that is sheet and waterproof mattress pad all in one PLUS it has another layer of sheet and waterproof layer that zips on top so if it gets wet, you just unzip the top layer and you have a brand new dry bed ready to go.  It is all attached so when Gavin rolls around and such, it doesn't shift or move.  I LOVE this!  SO, we got this on Friday and Friday night we set it up and walked Gavin through it and he went to bed that night ready to go.  *I* was ready to be getting up and walk him to the bathroom at night.  The alarm never went off!  He was dry all night long on his first night!  This is the kid that had a wet overnight diaper EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!  The second night the alarm went off twice and Gavin did pretty well with that.  Every night since though - he has been totally dry all night long!  The instructions with this set say it takes a month or two on average!  You know - this makes me think that Gavin just didn't care when he had on the overnight diapers and it just took not using them and making the switch to get him dry.  We've got to see this keep working and being totally dry for 2 weeks before we stop and call it a success - but I'm really impressed.  I'm glad that we got it and made this change.  YAY Gavin!  Keep it up!

 

November 1st, 2006

 

Gavin went trick or treating as.... a dinosaur... the same thing he has been for the last 4-5 years.  He wore the Picachu costume that I made that one time 2 years ago, but he still wore the dino costume to his school party that year.  The dino costume wasn't the exact same one each year.  He liked it so much that I bought him the next size up a few years back so we have two.  I'm going to have to get another one I think so that when Ash is big enough, we can have 3 dinos.  He was going to be Darth Vader, but he lost the rights to wear that costume during his white-slip-mania in the beginning of October.  I was really hoping he'd wear that Picachu one since I made that but no... dinosaur.  Jessie saw him with that one and almost decided that SHE wanted to be a dino again too instead of her snow princess costume and I would've been so bummed!

 

October 24th, 2006

 

I just saw Gavin's 2nd grade school pictures and they are AWESOME!  His past two years of pics from school have not been very good so I didn't have much expectations from these.  (My 2nd grade school photos are of the most ackward funny looking kid you can imagine.)  He looks so good!  I'll have to get it scanned in for here.  Gavin seems to be doing better in school this past week or so.  Hopefully that will last.  He had a week of FOUR white slips in one week - it was totally insane.  Sometimes I wonder what is going through this kid's head.  On the possitive front, he seems to be doing really well in reading this year.  His teacher sends home good news from reading class a lot.  I'm a little skeptical that I'm not hearing ANYTHING other then great - is she telling me everything?  Is she just trying to encourage him or is he really doing so well?  He still asks me to come read everything for him from his games so I'm not sure.  It seems to me that he should be able to read stuff like that on his own now.  It seems to me that he should be able to read his Junie B Jones books on his own now too.  Part of me thinks that he can - he just doesn't think he can.  Like swimming.  He can swim, but when he found himself out in the lake where he couldn't reach the bottom and he didn't have a floating device, he panicked.

He is so cute with his missing two front teeth these days!  He keeps wanting to cut his hair short which is depressing for me, but it is his hair, afterall.  It seems there is a little girl at the daycare he goes to after school that has a bit of a crush on him.  She is 5 years old.  It doesn't seem that Gavin even knows that she is facinated with him - typical guy, right?

 

September 28th, 2006

 

We all went out again selling last night.  This was less fruitfull.  We only sold 4  things last night.  I'm really hoping the online part takes off!  Some of that stuff in the catalog looks really cool!  There is this sun dried tomato cheese spread and some really great chocolates and this set of magnet "lists" that we use for grocery shopping so I need some of those!

 

Also, Gavin lost ANOTHER front tooth yesterday!  This time he got the tooth home. (and put it under the pillow AND was upset this morning because the LOSER tooth fairy forgot to leave him anything and take his tooth!!  Oh MAN I suck at this.)  He is so cute with his missing two front teeth.  There is this Junie B Jones book that talks about Junie losing her teeth so that her baby brother can get teeth.  It's too cute because little Ashy is getting his teeth now. :) 

On the school front, so far things seem to be going better.  We got the bus driver changed (YAY!) and there have been no reports of trouble since that.  His reading teacher has been giving glowing reports of him since day one, and I've been in contact with his regular teacher regarding assessments for dyslexia or even slight autism and the possibilty of him getting some more advanced math opportunities. 

 

September 26th, 2006

 

School fundraiser time!  Apparently the kids that sell 40 items or more get to ride in a limo to lunch.  Gavin is really excited about this.  We went out last night to some neighborhood houses letting Gavin practise his selling skills.  He's doing OK.  He is not shy, that's for sure!!  He sold about 13 items last night.  The really cool thing is that this has an online site that I believe people that don't live near us can order from and give him credit and it will be shipped to them.  I'll put a link to that up on the front page and on this page once their site is up and I've got him registered.  While we were out selling one of Gavin's little friends came out and kinda went around with us.  That was so much fun for Gavin to have a friend his age in the neighborhood.  It was nice for Kris and I to see another 2nd grader that acts a lot like Gavin.  Maybe he is more normal then we thought.  We also got to talk with more of our neighbors - man I wish that we did that more often.

 

September 22nd, 2006

 

Well, lots to update!  Gavin has lost his first front top tooth.  The other is pretty loose too.  He looks so funny with that tooth missing!  It came out in the van (UG!  That stupid van - they are using it for the magnet school kids instead of the bus and I DETEST the driver!) and then got lost at Cindy's house so we'll be writing another note for the tooth fairy I guess.  Gavin is also now taking Irish Dance classes!  He LOVES the lessons, although how it worked out has him in a class with a bunch of little girls.  He was worried that dancing was only for girls so I told him that the boys were the big strong ones in the dance classes and got to do moves like picking up the girls and stuff.  Well... we got home and he tells his dad: "Mom said I could pick up girls at my dance class."  Um, well, that didn't come out right, did it?  Truth be told though, I'm sure learning to dance will come in handy in that area too.  His first performance should be right around St. Paddy's day so I'm looking forward to that.

 

In school I'm not sure what I think about his new teacher and his 2nd grade class.  He has already gotten 3 "white slips" which are like being sent to the principle's office - however whenever I talk with his teacher (which is a guy!) he acts like it wasn't a big deal.  I've discussed his ADHD issues and impulsivness so hopefully they will understand this is an ongoing thing that they have to deal with and that they can't just send him out of the classroom all day long.  He seems to be doing really really well in reading so far, so that is great! 

 

Of course, Gavin loved our most recent Ren Fest trip. At the climbing wall he told the guy that he has done a number of those climbs so the guy running it put him on a harder wall and he still made it to the top!  He also loved the Hobbit trail and kept asking about it the whole time we were there.  He and Jessie also both got wands since the cheapo one I got off of Ebay broke.

 

September 7th, 2006

 

2nd grade has begun.  Gavin's teacher is "Mr B" this year.  We are interested to see how he responds to a male teacher.  I have to call him today though because Gavin has already managed his first "white slip" of the year.  It is amazing how busy school makes you.  First there was the issue with his bus (van actually) not showing up, or being really late, or dropping Gavin off at the wrong address and an empty house with no one home!  Now starts the real work of getting to know his teacher and getting all of his um, issues, worked out for the year.

 

July 12th, 2006

 

Happy 7th birthday Gav!!  We survived the cabin trip!  Gavin had a scary event in the lake where he lost hold of his noodle and seemed to get too scared to remember that he could swim.  I think his confidence needs some work.  Hopefully I've grilled into him the concept of floating on your back when that happens now though.  The RV rental was a lot of fun too!  On the fishing front, Gavin got a large mouth bass again this year.  He didn't get quite so lucky this year on the whole catching thing, but that's part of the fishing game I guess.  He also got to experience fishing with the little minnows instead of leaches or worms.  I cannot believe how good he is at getting all the bait onto his hook. Good though, because he can bait my hooks for me.  Gross.

 

I've updated this page now and made another archive for the older items.  I'll need to get the photo at the top of the page updated, but the old one can stay there until I have a new one to put up.

 

July 3rd, 2006

 

We are heading to the cabin this weeend and Gavin is SOOO excited!  This year we are renting an RV to make the trip a bit easier with the 3 kids.  I'm looking forward to that almost as much as Gavin is.  He has been keeping a countdown until we get the RV.  He is also excited about all the fireworks!  We will be celebrating his birthday while at the cabin, so I'll have to remember to get those presents wrapped! 

 

 

Last night we went out to Party City and picked out the kids' party themes.  Gavin wanted the Disney movie "Cars".  He also has a shirt from this movie that he really wanted.  It is odd... because he's never seen the movie.  Anyway, we got some plates and napkins and such for that.  (I guess he's going to have to SEE the movie sometime! hehe!)  I still have to settle on a date, but I'm thinking July 15th-ish or so since that's the much AFTER the 4th, which is always a hassle to plan a party during.  We'll see how Dad's drill dates are.  I'm also thinking of having a small group head over to Grand Rio for his birthday so if you're interested in going with us please let us know.  I do not intend to "host" his party there or anything, just bring him to have fun.

 

May 15th, 2006

 

Gavin has been doing so well with his spelling!!  His current list of words is frog, frogs, cup, cups, tree, trees, birds, and gloves.  This is one of his hardest weeks since other then the 's', there is not much of a pattern.  He has gotten consistantly 100% on ALL his spelling tests (actually better since he gets the challange words too) except on ONE week when we never managed to get the spelling word list home so we didn't practise even once.  He still got 4/6 that week.  His reading seems to really have improved as well!  I haven't been sitting in on his tutor lessons lately since I've been off with Jessie while Kris supervises the tutor time.  The other day he wanted me to read Jessie and him "Duck Feet" but I was busy reading this giant number book to Jessie and she didn't want Duck Feet just then.  We had just finished reading our 2 chapters in the Boxcar Kids so I told him he could read Duck Feet if he wanted to.  He actually did it!  I was so impressed with how he was reading like it was an actual story and not just a bunch of words.  BTW - he really loves the Boxcar Kids, the Magic Treehouse, and Junie B Jones book series.  We can actually use getting a new Junie B book as a bribe for doing certain things, which is awesome!  A) we get him to do something he may not want to do and B) how awesome to have books be sooo loved that they are bribes??!!

Swimming wise, Gavin has been doing well, but I think we are taking a bit of a break from Foss.  They are starting lessons through Lifetime, where we are members, so we can get cheaper lessons that way.  That's nice.  I'd like to get him into a sport of some kind since he's asked about that - but I'm not sure what to do since I don't want to sign up through his school which is SO FAR AWAY, but we don't get the paperwork for the local stuff.  His tutor teaches more locally so she's looking into it for me.  She's also checking to see if I can get him into a summer school or reading program locally.  He'd really love any of the sports I think.  He's shown interest in basketball, tee-ball, and soccer.

 

May 4th, 2006

 

Well, my harrassing of the company apparently worked because they caved and gave me the code.  Now we'll see if it works! LOL!

 

Gavin is excited about the end of the school year activities.  There is apparently a carnival tomorrow and all sorts of stuff for the last week.  Hopefully we'll be able to get him to a lot of it even with Tater here.  Yikes.

 

May 2nd, 2006

 

EA GAMES is a horrid horrid company!  We bought Gavin this 4 pack of CDs awhile back for the Harry Potter games.  I don't know how much it was at Target back when we got it, but it is selling now at Amazon.com for $19.95.  It had the first 3 Harry Potter games from the first three books, and a quiddich thing that was really not very good.  Gavin LOVED those games (not the quiddich one).  Well, when he got a new PC from santa this solstice, all of his games needed to be reloaded onto the new PC.  We've been doing this slowly as Gavin plays a new game here or there.  Gavin's CDs are all in this zipper case with the plastic sleeves for the CDs.  We've gotten most of them loaded at this point but this weekend we ran into a snag when trying to load the Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets game.  It asked for the serial number off the back of the jewel case!  WHAT???!!!  OK, we've gone over probably 30+ games in Gavin's stash so far and NONE of them have asked for this.  Stupid security measure anyway because DUH on if you have the original CD that you are planning on copying then you can also just copy that serial number from the case... if you are thinking like a theif, that is.  We weren't.  And the cases got discarded when the CDs were put in their plastic sleeves.  So we have no serial number.  (If YOU have this game and have a serial number, we'd be very thankfull if you might share it with us.)  So, I contact EA Games and ask them to help out, telling them I'd be happy to fax them a picture of the original CD along with the other CDs from the set and the jewel case for the Prisoner of Azkaban because we actually seem to stil have that one.  They say that I have to A) MAIL them the CD in certified mail, which they will try to mail back to us but don't make any gaurentees, and B) send them a 'nominal fee' of $10.  WHAT?  First, if we send in the CD, we have no jewel case to protect it (thus the problem) and second if we don't get it back then what good is the serial number?  Second, the WHOLE BRAND NEW GAME didn't cost $10 in the first place so what the heck are they even thinking?  Basically they are saying too bad for you, we don't care.  You may have bought the game but we don't care about you now go f*** off.  I asked for a phone number to talk to a manager regarding the issue and they won't even respond to me at all now.  (The only access you have to them is e-mail.)  This company is sleeze.  sleeze sleeze sleeze.

 

April 21st, 2006

 

"My mom has tried drugs."  This is what Gavin told the doctor at that well child visit.  I totally forgot to share this on the last post.  You see, I've been really diligent about telling Gavin all the ills of smoking.  I HATE smoking.  I hate it beyond hating it.  I'm allergic to it for one thing, and I just don't like being around it for another thing.  I think it stinks and just smelling it makes me feel gross.  So every oportunity I have with Gavin, like seeing someone smoking for real or on the TV, we talk about it being gross.  Well, Gavin seems to have picked up my feelings since he'll point out people smoking to me now and tell me how gross it is, which is good.  However lately he's been adding.. "but someday I'm going to try it."  Oy!  Well, we see this person smoking on TV and he asks if he could ever try it some day.  Not being one to outright forbid such a thing, I told him that maybe someday when he was much older if he wanted to see what it was like he could - but that it'd be gross.  Then he asked if I had ever tried smoking.  Also not being one to lie about such things, I admitted that I had tried smoking once in high school.  I tried one cigarette between my friend and I and there was nothing exciting or good about it at all.  It was just gross gross gross gross.  I also said that even just trying something like that was dangerous because cigarettes can be addictive and they can make you need to smoke them even if you don't want to once you start.  I don't know if he got that so I think we have more discussions in front of us.  ANYWAY, that was our talk.  So we go to the doctor last Monday which was after this whole talk and the doc is asking about booster seats and talking about strangers and all those doctor questions and such and Gavin pipes up... "My mom has tried drugs."  I didn't even know what to do.  I couldn't say "No I haven't." because to Gavin cigarettes are drugs and becuase saying no would've looked really "guilty" to the doc.  I laughed it off mostly and hopefully that doc doesn't think I'm a complete freak.  The irony is, for the record, I think I'm quite possibly the ONLY 30+ year old in awhile that has seriously NEVER even tried anything that the mass public would consider a "drug".  Trying that cigarette was pretty much the height of my rebellion.  I know, I'm SUCH a trouble maker!

 

April 17th, 2006

 

The ADHD saga continues.  The generic Ritalin is doing NOTHING for Gavin.  There is no difference at all.  The Neurologist wanted us to change the dose which we tried, but there is still no effect.  I'm still glad we at least tried it because now I have concrete evidence that it isn't the issue.  The Ped we just saw recommended a different med that is not a "drug" like Ritalin and it also isn't an antidepressant.  It isn't mood altering at all.  I think he called it stratera?  Anyway, he said he's seen a lot of good from it and it is much less associated with negative affects.  I'm keeping his advice in mind, however I'm more interested in the sleep dissorders path.  Apparently Gavin's specific type of ADHD are highly linked with sleep dissorders.  The kid can snore like a wild boar and don't even get me started on trying to wake him up once he is asleep.  You'll have better luck as a beaver in a petrified forest.  That also is his issue with night time bladder control, I think. Apparently it is highly connected for kids to have ADHD symptoms and night time bladder control issues - which is interesting as well.  We've gotten a number of "the best kid's sleep dissorder clinic in the cities" according to the doc we just saw and we're going to look into that before trying other meds I think.  Not that I'm signing him up to instant tonsilectomy surgery or anything, but I feel it is worth looking into.  The doc also said he didn't need to come back for another well child visit for 2 years but I think that's a moot point with his current issues.

 

April 11th, 2006

 

OK, Gavin is trying to decide between wanting a jumping castle (otherwise known as a moonwalk) in our backyard or going to Chucky Cheese for his birthday.  He has also asked for a "big kid" bike.  I believe the one that he currently has is a 16 inch so I'm guessing he wants the 20 inch one.  Something like that anyway.  Anyway, it's no big deal but the grandmas are always asking what he'd REALLY like for his birthday and I know he doesn't need anymore plastic toys to lose in the house.  If any of you grandmas out there want to take over on these items feel free to let me know.

Gavin's meds attempt isn't going over so well so far.  For one thing, it makes this already too skinny kid not want to eat.  For another thing, I cannot see it having any affect at all.  I know the doc is going to say that she wants to try a different doseage, but with the whole not eating things I'm not sure.  I was also given an article about some kids having sleeping dissorders that makes them have ADHD symptoms due to not having quality sleep.  The studies took several kids and they had their adnoids and tonsils removed (there was more to it, they didn't just grab kids off the street and perform surgery, but I'm summarizing.)  Apparently it had a statistical difference in the ADHD symptoms in a number of kids.  This caught my attention because Gavin has always had snoring issues really badly while sleeping.  Plus, the kid sleeps like a zombie and cannot be woken up for ANYTHING once he is asleep.  I do think it is worth looking into.  I also think we'll look into talking to someone with Gavin about picking quality friends and learning to interpret social clues regarding friendships.  The poor kid seems to pick the kids that are brats (Sorry Drew and AJ's mom - but you should be aware that your boys are mean and horrid and I'd like to beat them up for how mean they are to Gavin) to befriend and then try to force them into being his friends. 

 

April 5th, 2006

 

1st graders are weird.  I'm sorry, they are.  When I went with Gavin to drop him off in his classroom after his doctor appointment, there were all these kids in his class going nuts telling us that Gavin was late.  Yes, I think we're aware of that.  Thanks for telling us that though!  There was this one bossy little girl that had her hands on her hips and was following me around telling me that I could stay if I wanted and Gavin's desk was over there and ya, Gavin is late and he missed this and this and this and this.  They even ate lunch already!  I hope she grows out of that because YIKES girl!

Anyway, the appointment was to go over his attention issues.  As much as I have been against the idea that any kid actually has ADHD, and that it is just a ploy of the schools to make all kids fit into their learning concepts, I have to admit that Gavin is very much singled out in his class as an extreme.  It is far beyond normal variation and it is affecting his reading, his self esteem, and his ability to make friends.  Did you know he has not been invited to even ONE birthday party that was not from a relative his whole life???  I find that very discouraging.  SO... the doc has gone over the meds that he can take and we've got a prescription at home (that I forgot to give him this morning, wouldn't ya know) and we'll see how it goes.

 

 

March 14th, 2006

 

Gavin had his first school concert tonight!  Grandma and Grandpa, Farma and Kelly and of course me, Kris, and Jessie all came for the big event.  It was really cute with the kids all singing farmer type songs.  They had some kids with speaking parts and, true to my genetic form, Gavin was saying that he wished he had gotten a speaking part.  That's my little 'in the spotlight' guy!  Exactly like I was at his age... and now... for that matter.  He was waving at us for most of the intro from his spot on the bleachers.  Hehe.  We of course, were waving back!  Darn parents. 

Gavin is up to about 65 in his high frequency words.  We've told him that if he makes it to 100, we will take him out to this waterpark he really loves.  I love it too because it has dippin dots, but that has nothing to do with why we'd go there when he makes 100!  The only thing is that Daddy has to come this time because I do NOT want to take Jessie and Gavin and end up losing Gavin a million times as he runs off and doesn't come back and then I get all upset until I find him and he plays nicely beside us for about 2 seconds and has dissapeared again.  It isn't fair to him to make him play with the kiddie stuff, but I also can't just carry Jessie everywhere and not let her get down and do stuff.  Technically I feel like I should be able to just let Gavin go play and check in with me every once in awhile... but theory is a lot better then reality on that one.

 

Feb 27th, 2006

 

It seems I can no longer dress my little guy up in whatever I want to see him wearing.  Apparently pink is coming in as a color for boys and men.  There are a LOT of pink shirts out there for the male of our species.  I've noticed Ralph Lauren leading the pack but of course Target jumped on that bandwagon quickly.  Since Gavin has often said his favorite color is pink and always picks pink when he can for things like cups and plastic spoons or whatever, AND since he has often lamented about how he wished he was a girl so that he could wear pink, I was all excited to go get him a pink polo (the Target ones, sorry Ralph Lauren but $30+ for one polo tee is a bit much) to match with some dark green pants to match Jessie's outfit for Ostara.  (again, Easter, for those of you that are confused.)  Jessie's outfit is, of course, not pink but it is a mossy green with three little pink flowers on it.  I fight pink with her because I'm irritated that it is often the only option, but for Gavin since he LIKES the color and it is certainly not even a common option let alone the only option for boys clothing, it seemed good.  BTW - I was at the baby depot in Burlington Coat Factory looking for a spring dressy coat to wear with her dress and they SERIOUSLY only had PINK!  Tons of PINK spring jackets.  Blech!  Anyway, I've wandered from the point.  SO, I point out the pink shirts to Gavin at Target all excited that he's going to be so thrilled that BOYS can wear pink now and he actually looks at me like I've gone out of my mind.  He said "I'm NOT wearing that mom!"  He totally refused to touch it.  He wouldn't even go near the shirts that had a tiny little pink stripe among the green stripes.  He almost started crying because he thought I was going to MAKE him wear it.  OK, so, society, 1, mommy and her gender wars, 0.  Actually, I think that score was hit the day my 1 year old boy made a gun out of legos when I refused to allow toy guns in the house, and then the score was expanded upon the day 3-year old Gavin got his "Loving Family Doll House" for Solstice and he put it in the corner and shoved the baby in the oven.  He now has a nice checkered green shirt that I guess he will be wearing with tan pants this year.  *Sigh*

 

Feb 17th, 2006

 

Conference time has come again.  With our tutor for Gavin, he seems to be catching up a little, but he is still not really on a 1st grade level.  He has these goals for his reading of 100 high frequency words and reading 60 words per minute of an "at level" book.  I think he has a shot at the high frequency words, maybe, but that 60 words per minute is gonna be tough!  He's at about 9 words per minute now and that is at a below level book.  Math-wise though, he is really growing!  His teacher has her class split into 3 sections, high, medium, and low for math skills.  She's had him in the medium group just because his behaivor is very young for 1st grade, which I'll agree to.  He IS a July birthday kid.  However he has been getting bored with the math work and is doing problems that are too easy for him so she is going to try him out in the high math group.  He's just so bouncy and doesn't stay put in his seat that she's not sure how he'll handle the move.  The high math group is doing a mix of 1st and 2nd grade math work so hopefully the harder math (which he loves to do and will really settle down to work out the problems) will keep him occupied.  I just wish that when reading got harder he concentrated on that more too - but with reading - the harder it is the less likely he is to try.  He is apparently "doing fine" in everything else.

I was asked to have Gavin's IQ tested to see if we could find a dyslexia issue with his reading.  Well, the school won't do it and I don't want to pay hundreds of dollars to have it done.  I found a site online (there are a million) that claimed to have a kid's IQ test.  We did it and it was really stupid.  The questions were ridiculus for a 6 year old - things like "Who was alive first, Abraham Lincoln or Aristotle?"  Then the ranking it gave him was predictably off so it was clearly not set for a 6 year old.  What a waste of time. 

 

Feb 1st, 2006

 

Gav got a 6/6 and 1.5/2 for spelling and bonus words!  YAY!  He had more trouble with the high frequency words which are 100 words they expect the 1st graders to memorize how to read by the end of the year.  He only got 27 of those.  I know he knows more then that, but the testing rules only give him 3 seconds/word so that probably makes it harder. 

The other day, in amongst his homework from school were some pages that looked like they came out of his math workbook.  They were from chapters MUCH further ahead then where Gavin's class is.  I believe that they are on chapter 3 and this was chapter 13.  Anyway, it had two digit number sums like 25+54 etc.  I went over it with Gavin and showed him how it worked and he did the whole sheet!  He brought it in to his teacher and he got a little sticker on it, but he claimed he didn't remember what she said to him.  Bummer on that, I wanted to know what she said!

Gavin went to his first swim meet at Foss last week.  He worked SOO hard and actually made it swimming all the way from one end of the pool to the other end, the long way.  He has never even tried that before so we were pretty excited.  He is looking forward to going to more of those.  They only have one per month so that's not too much time commitment.  The hard part is that in order to go, you have to be a Foss member and they are so expensive!  I've been thinking maybe the kids can just spend some time independently swimming at Lifetime, but they don't have swim meets that way.  Well, it's still an option.

 

January 23rd, 2006

 

The kids have started spelling tests in school recently.  I don't remember spelling tests in 1st grade, but then again, I do remember reading lots of books independently so whatever.  So far Gavin has done really well!  They have had two spelling tests.  In each one, he got 5.5 out of 6 (the teacher took off a half point from one word because he wrote it "too small" - it was right, just small.  Wierd.)  In the first test, he got 1.5 bonus points (out of 2) and on the other he got the full 2 bonus points for spelling the harder words!  WOW!  For my boy that is struggling with reading, he sure can spell.  We've been practising his "high frequency words" which are really just words that are used a lot in English and thus they expect the kids to memorise reading them.  He's doing OK with these but man, I tell ya, English is a really messed up language!  I always knew this, but what "rules" do you give a child learning to read that tells you how to sound out "Who" or "Are" or "You"???  Messed up I tell you.  I just wish that he'd believe in himself better.  He doesn't really TRY to read in real life.  I wish that he'd transfer what he is learning to his daily world and notice how reading can help.  Right now he has told me he doesn't want to be an astronaught anymore because he doesn't want to have to read so much.  He has asked if he can work at Target instead if he doesn't learn how to read.  How depressing is that?  (Not to mention that you CAN'T work at Target or any retail job without being able to read.)