Christmas is for Kids… and reading… and artwork!

I have two very cute stories to tell about my little boy.

• Holiday Children’s Artwork is My Favorite!

Last night he sat down and drew this picture of Santa Claus:

I asked him how he drew it so well?? He said his teacher helped them do it one step at a time… first draw a circle the size of a penny in the middle of the page. Color it red. Then draw two ‘foothills’ next to the penny sized nose… (he asked me what a foothill is?)… then more hills for eyeballs and so on.. finishing with the ‘cloud’ around his chin for the beard.

Whatever she taught them, he is able to replicate this image nearly the same, over and over.
(I have 14 pages of Santa art to prove it!)

• Collecting Holiday Stories and Books

WHITE

The next story comes from a family tradition we have of collecting a few holiday books every year. My mom has helped out and sent a few along the way as well. We are starting to get a real pile of them!

When we were unearthing the giant totes of Christmas decorations on Thanksgiving day, my little guy was so excited to open the box filled with the books! He acted like he had never seen any of them before.

And in the last year he has gone from zero to the stars in his reading skills, so I guess it makes sense that these books ‘feel’ like he’s never seen them, because it’s the first time he could READ them himself!

He lugs two or three of them in the mom-van when we have errands to run, he filled up his church pack with about 10 of them last Sunday to keep him busy during services, and his absolute favorite thing to do in the evenings is read one of them to mom or dad before bedtime!

What a great holiday tradition to let the kids read to YOU for a change from favorite Christmas books.

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Today’s post is sponsored by Kabongo, bringing reading games to 4-7 year olds.

Sometimes letting a kid own his mistake, knowing he will learn from it is the best policy.

From experience I can tell you it’s much harder on the parents! And then making the decision NOT to give him a second chance was even worse. But watching the progress a 6yrold makes after learning a very hard lesson, was worth all the tears.

It’s dinner time in the Rogers’ household. Surprise suprise there’s veggies as part of dinner! What a shock? Hello, we only have some sort of fruit or veggie with EVERY meal, so why is it my 6yrold has slowly gotten worse and worse about eating anything with crunch, or texture, or COLOR! It’s been driving me nuts for a long time now.

This particular night, the side dish was a simple frozen veggie/potato combo. The one thing he can’t stand, is potatoes. I’m talking, make him sit there til he eats one bite and then watch him gag back into his mouth. Not once… many times. (I’m mean that way.) After years of this we’ve all agreed: He hates potatoes. (Let’s not talk about how it pains me as a girl from Idaho that my kid especially hates homemade mashed taters and gravy!)

I decide not to inflict him with the potatoes this particular night. I can only take so many table gags. He has the option instead of 3 mini carrots. But the caveat is he has to eat every one of them (yes dipped in ranch!) in order to go out with the family for Family Home Evening (Mormon speak for a weekly family night almost always held on Monday nights). He whines, I cajole, and he takes a couple flea sized bites.

And then… it’s over? He comes walking out and says he’s ready for Baskin Robbins… huh? My mom-BS-O-meter goes off. I ask him: Did you throw the carrots in the garbage… “No” he sheepishly replies…. (his body language has already given him away). I ask him: if I look in the garbage right now, would I find all your carrots? … Hesitation…. “No”…

I start talking very slowly, and in my most quiet, You-are-in-big-trouble voice.

I make it very clear I will be staying home with him, while the rest of the family heads out for a treat. Little boy crocodile tears start up, and… the rest of the night is pretty much ruined. I send him to his room, he cries more.

And then.

He gets a wonderful idea. A brilliant 6yrold plan. He tells me: “Mom, I will get 3 new carrots and eat them!  Then we can all go out okay?”

What should I do?

What would you do?

Remember, it’s been months. He’s getting worse and worse. Eating less and less diverse foods. If I give in, it feels like the only reason he’ll be eating those stupid carrots is to get ice cream! Seems like a TERRIBLE reason to me?? And when I tell him (still in my quiet mom empathetic voice) “sorry little man, you made your choice, you don’t get a second chance here”, THIS is when all hell brakes loose, and his world has officially crashed down around him. There is no joy in Mudville.

You get the picture. The rest of the night is destroyed. Family night has been canceled. He was still quite distraught when he went to sleep.

BUT.

The next night, guess what we had for dinner? ZUCCHINI casserole. Guess who helped stir and pour and make it? YUP. The boy child. Guess who ate his textured, green, many flavors at once dinner? First I’ll tell you my dang older kids were the ones complaining! OY. But the 6yrold?? HE ATE ZUCCHINI.

Amen. Worth every tear.

Photo of TK taken by the amazing Marcel Walker. Recipe of casserole will be featured tomorrow.

A “SDRAWKCAB” party…

Can you imagine anything happier or closer to heaven in a 6yrold boy’s world?

A backwards, up-side-down YTRAP!

I think my older girls had more fun planning and executing the whole thing… than the boys did playing and eating and bleeding.. (more on that later).

• Balloons taped to the ceiling upside down

(See picture at top)

• A bundt cake frosted and smooshed upside down onto a plate

• Little boys in backwards clothing (And Big boys too…)

We ran the whole party backwards. Invites instructed the kids NOT to bring gifts. Instead when they walked in the door they were handed a small dollar store wooden car kit, and ushered to the ‘wrapping station’, where one of the girls helped him wrap up his gift. (These were placed in a pile and they took them home after the party as their ‘thank you’ party gift!)

Then of course we ate the cake right away. (I love pudding/cool whip frosting BTW!)

I wish I had recorded the boy’s conversation while they were eating their cake. 8 little boys debating and discussing the various ways and ‘what-ifs’ of a world turned upside down. “What if the TREES were upside down?” Oh yeah… “What if our eyeballs were upside down”. And my favorite: “What if you were DEAD?! Then you’d be upside down for sure!” Is that a total 6yrold boy thing to say or what?? They seriously sat at the table and What-if’d for nearly 15 minutes!!

My girls created a Pin the Donkey on the Tail game and that was next. After wards they went out to the back yard (oh praise be for GRASS!) and they started an impromptu game of ‘freeze’ tag.. we couldn’t think of a really good way to play it backwards… so they played it normal fashion… (here’s  where the blood showed up..).

First one little boy came in the house trailing blood from a fat lip… and then my kid came in a few minutes later from a bloody nose. Okay I thought?? Freeze tag and 6yrold BOYS do NOT get along!!

We switched to ‘Goose, Goose-DUCK!’ Played normally except the kids walk around thumping heads saying Goose… Goose… Gooose… Goose… DUCK!!! And running for their lives. A whole lot less blood!

Then we ended the big event with the inspiration for the party: Otto Grows Down.

I promise, little boys LOVE this book. They sat riveted… their parents came to pick them up and couldn’t believe they were all sitting there… eyes glued to the story… (possibly imagining what if I Started Growing Backwards…)

At the beginning of the school year I shared a Kindergarten story.

Turns out, he was not smarter than a Kindergartner and therefore got to STAY in all day Kindergarten.

HOWEVER.

They re-evaluated.

And.

Now? He is. Smarter than a Kindergartner, I mean. He’s reading. (Man is it cute to listen to him!) He can count by 5s to 100. He adds single digits in his head. And I quote the teacher: “He excels in science.” I’m not sure what science Kindergartners do, but apparently he excels.

We got the call last week.

“Mrs. Rogers? We think your little boy is amazing. And we evaluated all our little friends in Kindergarten, and we are very pleased that our teachers are teaching so well. And we don’t mean to cause any problem, but… he can’t stay in all day Kindergarten.”

So much for public school, eh? It’s a long financial story, but they ran out of funds for EVERY child to stay all day, they only have extra funds for children who meet a ‘need’. And we no longer ‘need’ that extra hour and a half.

Our options are:

Pick him up early (while 2/3 of his friends stay the rest of the day) or pay each month to allow him to stay the full day.

Welcome to education in 2010.

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My husband’s suggestion: Hire him out as a tutor the last hour and the school can pay HIM!