Competition

I love that Baby and I have competitions on who had the hardest workout the night before. He is taking Karate and is only two belts away from a Black Belt! I'm in Roller Derby.

Baby: We had to do 25 push-ups

Me: We had to do the push-ups while slapping our neighbors hand, then walk 5 steps(?) one directions and start all over again going the other way.

Baby: We had to do a bunch of squats.

Me: So did we, 30 seconds and 45 seconds with our butt against the wall. (as you can see I don't get down nearly far enough yet)

Me: And then we had to do group squats while we went around the circle saying different things.

Baby: Huh?

Baby: We had to do 50 sit ups.

Me: We had to do a ton of sit ups and push ups and jumping jacks. We started by doing 30, skating a bit, then we went down by 5 every time we finished skating til we got to 1 and then we went back up to 30.

Baby: We had to do a ton of jumping jacks too!

Me: I had to do it all on Roller Skates.

Baby: What! That's hard!! You win!!!

The Beginning of School

Baby started 5th grade this year. Maybe one day he will demand a new name on this blog, but in the mean time he's my Baby and always will be.

The beginning of a new school year is always an adjustment. After a summer of sleeping in and few responsibilities the children always buck the change back to normalcy. Can't really blame them. Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in a never-ending summer state. But life always smacks us back to reality.

After school I talked to Baby and asked him how he liked his first day of 5th grade.

"I hate it! Our teacher is mean! We aren't allowed to talk in class!"

Olaf and I didn't see any problem with that since that has been his main infraction since kindergarten (other than the fighting with that kid in class last year).

Baby was cranky that whole evening. I could have sent him to bed at 6pm and it wouldn't have hurt anyone.

The next day I asked him how school had gone for the day.

"Our teacher told us that we're fifth graders. We're not little kids anymore. She's our teacher and not a babysitter. That's why we can't talk in class." He didn't seem quite as upset as the day before. Things were improving and he wasn't grouchy that evening.

After the third day of class I asked Baby how school had gone that day.

"Our teacher's mom was one of Walt Disney's first 25 employees and Walt Disney considered his employees family and they used to go for free at least six times a year!"

After the fourth day of class I asked Baby how school had gone that day also.

"Our teacher said that everybody has an inner voice that wants to sing. I'm trying to find my inner voice and let it sing. We sang in class today and it was fun!"

It's official. Baby's teacher can do no wrong. He's in love.

The Fight Without Witnesses

This has been a hard year for Baby at school. I'm hoping he learns a lot of lessons this year, which haven't seem to sunk in yet, and doesn't turn into a juvenile delinquent and spend time at "Juvey." I thought things were going better.

Then I got a message from his teacher to call her please. I didn't get the message until the next day. When I picked Baby up from school I asked if he needed to tell me anything about class yesterday.

"No, why?"

"Did something happen at school with that kid K? Or did you get sent back from class again? Did you go to Skills?" Skills is for Bad Apples who can't behave in class and he has spent more time in Skills the last two years than I care to admit.

Finally after grillling him he finally told me a story. But the way Baby tells a story is not the way most people do. He jumps around, he inserts useless info as if it has importance, he brings people into the story that have no relevance, he back tracks and jumps ahead without any warning. It's almost as if he doesn't want to tell the Real Story.

After about five repetitions of the same story, all different because they all included different parts, I finally was able to piece together what happened after school the day before.

Apparently the kid he's been fighting with all year, we'll call him K, was out front after school. Baby said he was out back on the playground with his friends. Someone came up, punched K, and ran off before anybody could see the perpetrator. Because of the ongoing feud between the two K went in and told his teacher that Baby punched him.

The next day at school Baby's teacher pulled him aside and talked to him. Baby swore up and down that he was in back playing and since K didn't get a look at the Inflicter of Pain, Baby was cleared of any charges. Once again we have escaped Suspension.

Two days later we were out with the family and Baby's best friend, Z. I asked Z, "So K tried to accuse Baby of punching him after school the other day? Good thing you guys were all playing out back!"

Z looked at me a little confused. I looked at Baby and told him he better teach his Alibis to be more convincing. Baby just kept smiling and saying "Oh, we were in back playing on the playground"

Z looked at Olaf and I and said, "I don't like to lie, at all." Olaf and I were stunned. Z poured out the whole story about how Baby HAD punched K because K had punched another friend and talked his way out of it even though there were witnesses and had escaped getting in trouble. Baby decided to mete out his own punishment after school.

As they walked off to get something Olaf turned to me and said, "You couldn't just let us live in blissful ignorance?!?"

I have never been so ready for Summer Vacation as I am this year.

Trouble

I got an email from Baby's teacher. I groaned. We've had a few problems this year with Respect for Teachers and Fighting with Another Boy. It's been a trying year but we're hoping by conquering the problems now Baby will not be a Delinquent by the time he's a Teenager.

Apparently in this incident he had been naughty while in another teacher's class and she had sent him back to his own classroom. His teacher talked to him about what had happened and then against her better judgment had him write a note of apology to the other teacher.

When we came in to talk to her it was all she could do to suppress a giggle when she handed us the note.

Door Bell Ditching

Calvin started a time-old tradition that would probably get him arrested in any town larger than ours. Door Bell Ditching. Now Baby likes to do it too. He did learn from the Master. My neighbor told me this story about him from a couple years ago.

One day her and her husband were home without any kids. Pretty soon the doorbell rang and then she heard someone running across the front porch and away from the door.

"Hey, you gonna get that?" her husband asked from the other room.

"No, it's just Baby doorbell ditching."

Two minutes later the doorbell rang again and once again she heard footsteps running across the front porch, away from the house. Again she ignored the door.

And then a third time the doorbell rang and more footsteps away from the house.

Then a couple minutes later the phone rang. She answered.

"Hi. This is Mary (not her real name) and I'm trying to ask your son to the Girl's Choice Dance. Will you please answer the door?!?"

Some Reasons

There are a few reasons why I love my Baby. Even though he isn't a Baby anymore. On Sunday he got home from Church and decided his room needed to be cleaned. So he cleaned it all by himself. And then he made his bed. And then he climbed on it and demanded I take a picture of Him and his Lovies on his Made Bed.

And then when I hadn't taken enough pictures he decided to snap a few Self-Portraits of him and his Lovies.

And then last night, his Birthday, I walked into my room. Apparently he felt having a Birthday allowed him to sleep wherever he wanted.

And he was so sweet looking in bed with Froggy.

He melts my heart.

Happy Birthday to my Baby

Happy Birthday Baby!

I know he's not really a Baby anymore but you can't tell my heart that.

Commercials

Baby has had a pretty icky mattress for a few years. About two years ago Olaf put a big, three-inch, egg crate, mattress pad on it.

That satisfied him until yesterday.

Last night he told Olaf, "Dad, you can have the pink pad back."

"I think you'll have a pretty lumpy mattress if you do. You can keep it."

"Not if you get me a Tempur-Pedic mattress!"

Despite my best intentions the kid watches too much TV!

Christmas Craziness

This week I got all the Christmas decorations out and decorated the house. I made the boys bring all the boxes out of the basement for me. And since they were rifling around the storage room they found a train. Sometime, a long time ago, I don't remember when, someone gave us the toy train to run around our Christmas tree. So we got it out.

While I was busy decorating the house, Baby and Olaf were busy putting up the tree and the train. Baby has been playing with the train all week. And he brought out his army men.

It looks like a World War II Train to me. He loves it. I think I'm going deaf though. The train whistle doesn't turn off. I don't know if I can make it til Christmas.

4-Wheeler

He's only Nine! I'm really looking forward to his Teenage Attitude!