Month: March 2016

The Saturday before Easter we took the kids to an egg hunt in town.  My parents and Aunt Liz and Cousin Ryan also met us up there.  Neither kid really gets into egg hunts, they aren’t terribly aggressive and certainly aren’t in any hurry to collect plastic eggs.  Both kids saw friends from school so at least that was nice.  Afterwards, everyone headed back to our house for an early dinner and visit.  Emily and Adrian also came over, so it was a very enjoyable day!

Easter Sunday started around 6:30 with Ajax up and ready to go.  We made him lay down till 7 am, but at 7 on the dot he was up searching for his Easter basket.  Ajax found his almost immediately but then helped Noomi hunt for hers.

After breakfast we headed into Dearborn to my grandpa Nader’s house and then to Theresa and Tim’s in Ypsi to see the rest of the family.  We’re getting closer to having a nicer picture of all three kiddos.  Baby Vivian is crawling all over the place and starting to pull herself up on things.   Ajax took her for a few walks (with papa) up and down the street and both kids entertained her with bubbles.

Today, with both kids in tow, I headed to the schools for parent-teacher meetings.  Unfortunately, Dave had to work in Dearborn and couldn’t make it.

First up was Noomi’s meeting with her teachers Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Smith.  In short, they said Noomi was an absolute treasure to have in class, a truly lovely child.  They said it has been amazing watching her grow and open up this past year.  She is starting to speak up for herself, which is something she didn’t do at the beginning of the year.  She is also enjoying gym and running with the other boys and girls, where as in the beginning of the year she was hesitant and hovered on the side.  She is also doing well counting to ten and recognizing her letters.  She is holding the pencil with a three point grip and can spell her name.   She also did very well recognizing patterns and sorting.  Again, just a glowing review.  We did talk about her language development and they said that the “ka” noise generally doesn’t come till 4, so they weren’t so worried.  If it persists we’ll make a plan with a speech therapist next year.

Next was Ajax and he also received a solid review.  The teacher said Ajax was one cool kid and doing well in class, though at times he could be a bit stubborn.  Actually, she said – when he sees a real or perceived injustice or someone not following the rules he will be the first to point it out and debate the topic… passionately.   She suggested he may be a civil rights attorney when he grows up.  She said she is constantly impressed with how polite he is in class and she can always count on him for almost adult-type politeness.   She said that academically he’s moved beyond the “bench mark” stage and she would consider him an advanced learner.   He’s a great reader and is doing well in math.  Overall, a great review.

The kids are still enjoying the boxes. Dave has dubbed our living room full of boxes as West Box-a-delphia.  As an extension they’ve been playing with these cardboard tubes and of course they are now swords, light sabers (Noomi walks around saying- pew pew pew. As a side note, her favorite character in Star Wars is Darth Vader and she’s starting to do this evil deep laugh when she’s the bad guy).

Last week on Tuesday I picked up the kids from school and the teacher told me that Ajax had fallen on the playground and hurt his wrist.  She explained that they put ice on it and it wasn’t swollen, but he seemed uncomfortable.

We got home and Ajax complained a bit about his wrist, but not much. When he woke up in the middle of the night, however, in pain, Dave and I became slightly worried.  That didn’t stop us from packing him up and sending him to school on Wednesday morning, telling him that he was fine.

After a few hours of deliberating at work (and my mom reminding me that Emily had broken her wrist in a similar fashion) I ran to school and picked him and took him to the doctors.  They did an X ray and while it wasn’t broken, they put him in a splint for a week.  First child issues!

Bragging moment!  Ajax came home from karate last week and was beyond proud to declare that he broke a board in class with a flying side kick!  He has been waiting and waiting for this and was so proud.  He broke it on the first try!

Yesterday we had a busy day with family!  We celebrated Grandma Dara’s birthday by having everyone over for the day.  Noomi was excited to see “her baby” and we were all surprised to see that baby Vivian was crawling, sitting up and has even declared her first word – Papa!  At eight months she is clearly gifted, we all agree.

Theresa and Tim also brought some cardboard boxes so that we could make a rocket ship (luckily they were able to get some large boxes used to ship coffins from the coffin warehouse).  The kids built an awesome fort and the adults seemed to have more fun engineering a rocket.  The rocket is for the PTSA’s Family Reading Night which I am organizing with a space theme (come read under the stars!).  I thought with such a theme we obviously need some sort of rocket/space ship.

Everyone had a great day.  The kids ate nothing but sugar.  Seriously.  They were so hyped up and Dave and I were so exhausted that by 7 pm we crashed on the couch and let them watch cartoons to slowly bring them down from their sugar high.  Believe it or not, they both slept all night and didn’t get up till after 7 am.  Success!

I feel the need to back up a bit.  All the way to Valentine’s Day.  I took the day from work so that I could attend Ajax’s party.  This year I sent the kids’ holiday cards and decorated boxes to school two weeks early.  I guess I’m still paranoid that I’m going to forget the cards all together.  This year I even went a step further and taped candy to each one.  Ajax’s party was pretty cute and he was very happy I could attend.  All the kids loaded up on sugar so I’m sure they were great listeners for the teacher.

After the party I picked up Noomi from school. For some reason Noomi’s class didn’t have a party.  When Noomi found out that Ajax’s class had a party she was understandably upset. She was so upset that for some reason I told her that we’d have our own party at home.  She clung to this and I realized I would in fact have to give her a party – so we opted for a fancy dinner party.  I pulled out the fancy glasses, my finest table cloth (I realize I only have one nice table clothe and it’s a Christmas one, oh well).  Dave stopped on his way home and bought Noomi flowers.  Overall, Noomi was very happy with her party.  Plus Ajax was excited that I made them mac and cheese and didn’t make them eat the steak and veggies I prepared for Dave and I.

A few weekends ago we headed down to Jackson for a day with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Gordy.  We went to the Ella Sharp museum for an exhibit- Art of the Brick – in Jackson.   Everyone enjoyed it- kids and adults.   There were large sculptures made of Lego and an entire play area where kids could make their own creations.  After the museum we of course hit an ice cream shop where Ajax put away a serious amount of ice cream.

Afterwards we headed to Lansing for dinner at Emily and Adrian’s house.  The kids may have been out a bit too long as they had a bit of a meltdown when it was time to pack away the Nintendo and go home.  But overall, an excellent day.

School was cancelled today … again.  I think we’ve had such a mild winter that the mere mention of snow has school administrative officials in a bunch and then in a knee jerk reaction cancel school.  The weather was so bad, however, that my work closed around 2:30 and Dave ended up staying the night in town at his cousin’s house.

I picked up the kids from daycare and they both said they had an awesome snow day playing with friends.  We did an early dinner and after much threatening we went out in the blizzard to plow the driveway – like a true Michigander- and play in the snow (threat: eat your dinner or you can’t go out in this freezing blizzard with me to shovel the driveway.  Children:  NOO!!).  After we cleared the driveway it was immediately covered again.

Noomi told me that she had five dinosaurs in all her fingers today.  So that was cool.  Ajax asked me repeatedly if he was cute and I told him, of course he was the cutest kid I knew!  After the tenth time, however, I asked what was going on and he confided that a girl at school told him he was not cute.  In a moment of panic, not knowing what to say, I blurted out that’s bullshit!   And then proceeded to lecture that – although some people find it cute to tease or be mean to those they like, that is a jerk move and we are not mean to those we like, etc.  I don’t think I handled it the best and I’m sure a TV mom would of had the most gracious thing to say that instilled calm and confidence in their young child.

On a side note, Ajax seems to do much better with his math homework when Dave and I do not hover.  It was taking over 30 minutes to do a few pages of worksheets, but after we stepped back Ajax knocked it out in a third of that time (so that he could get back to playing Legos or really anything else).  Go figure?