Henry: Shoe Tying Fool!

There is an unwritten rule in our house - once you grow into size 9T shoes you will get tie shoes and you will learn to tie them.    Being a lefty we cut Henry some slack thinking it might be a little more tough to learn shoe tying as a lefty and let him wait until he got to 9.5T and we still continued to tie his shoes.    He recently moved into 10T and with Kindergarten around the corner the time had come!

Henry had protested for MONTHS on learning to tie his shoes.  We could get him as far as making a starter knot but not much more.  The next step put him over the edge and would create a 20-30 minute protest.   He was not willing to figure out the next step . . .we tried bunny ears; we tried making a loop and chasing it around and neither was well received.

After a series of events about 10 days ago we were determined to get Henry to try just a little bit harder; a little more willingly.  After he and Mike spent some time on it a week ago Monday night Henry had accomplished the nearly impossible withing 15-20 minutes.  It was amazing.

Last Tuesday morning Henry tied his shoes almost like a pro.  His current shoes are a bit difficult to put on; the laces need to be loosened quite a bit which he still needs help with but that is now the hardest part of tying his shoes.  What a difference a week makes!

(Henry also picked out his own clothes . . .he was directed to get pants and a long sleeve shirt.  I just love how willingly he did the task - even though I had paired some shirts and pants to take the guess work out of what goes together and had those sitting on his dresser he picked these out all by himself.)

Henry: Kindergarten Physical (5 yr check up)!

Henry had his Kindergarten physical yesterday afternoon.  We delayed his 5 year check up until this time so his "official" 5 year height/weight stats are a bit skewed since he had 4 more months to grown/gain weight.

Henry weighed in at a whopping 35.6 pounds (8%) and measured 41 3/4" high (14%).  On the comparison curve he is maintaining consistency, albeit on the small side.

He went through the various stations.

First stop was the "hearing" stop.  The nurse explained what would happened and asked him to raise his hand when he heard a sound. She put the headphones on and began.  I'm not sure how high of decibel she got but she stopped to ask him if he heard any beeps and he finally starts nodding every time he heard a beep. . . .ah, that is my extremely shy boy.  He warmed up a little after he passed that station and was able to stamp that off the activity sheet the doctor's office had made up.

Next up was the "eyesight" stop.  The worst part of that station was keeping the bar pushed in enough with his forehead to enable him to see the images on the screen.  He sped through that station naming off the images and letting her know which direction the E was facing.

The 3rd and final stop was seeing the doctor.  All checked out with the doctor fine.  She did think one or both of his feet are a bit flat but nothing that can't be solved when necessary.  We talked about our concern that he is reading backwards or right to left.  She just suggested we inform his kindergarten teacher so she can keep an eye on it.  Hopefully it will work itself out before long.  Not quite sure if it might be a left-handed "thing" - their world is opposite from right-handers so it would make sense to read from right to left instead of left to right.

Henry is cleared for Kindergarten!

(He had already taken off one of his shoes when I wanted to take the photo . . Apparently its more fun to keep the other shoe one so he could say "it looks like I have a peg leg."  Right . . . )

Easter 2015

The boys had a conflict for the Easter Egg hunt at grandma & grandpa's church so we found an alternate one to attend the evening before at the Fallbrook Y.  Both the Y closest to us and the Fallbrook had an Easter Egg hunt that night but the one closest to us was apparently going to be in the water so we opted to head out to Fallbrook.  I think they planned for an outside hunt initially but Mother Nature did not cooperate so the hunt was inside.  The three different age groups 'hunted' down different hallway areas then enjoyed some crafts & games including an inflatable after the hunt.



The day before Easter our church at an Easter Egg hunt.  Henry was agreeable to have his picture taken with the Easter Bunny this year but thought it would be fun to wear his "basket" on his head so Ralph followed suite.  There were also some games before the hunt.

In the afternoon we dyed Easter eggs.  I had bought an odd kit that instead of using vinegar and the little color tabs it was more oil based and created more swirls on the egg.  There is also a step to add glitter after the coloring dries we did not get around to.

On Easter morning we went to 7:30 am church.  Henry did ask about baskets or hunting for Easter eggs.  I told him we are up kind of early maybe there will be something after church and he goes on to indicate they will just wait in the car (until the Easter bunny comes . . .or I hide them while they wait in the car).

I did have matching shirts picked out but Ralph wanted to wear his tie after he saw Mike pick out his suit.  Luckily Henry didn't mind.  Will have to work on getting him one too!

In the afternoon we went to Grandma and Grandpa's.  The boys had plenty of room to run around and find the eggs.  They are not the most observant egg seekers - they'll pick up one and then see another one further away and run to pick up that one but miss the 4-5 around the first egg so there was a lot of running back and forth.  Every so often they'd disappear too so they could investigate what was in the eggs.

Ralph: Science Fair 2015

The K-3rd grade Fair was the night before Ralph's birthday.  After checking a book about candy experiments out of the library a few months book Ralph decided he wanted to see if a Starburst candy would sink or float.  The topic was pretty focused and by the time it was too late to add to it I thought maybe we should have done a bit more - whether it be trying more shapes or trying other candies but we already had the photos and experiment done so I let it be.


Anyhow,  Ralph learned a Starburst in its original square form sinks but when it is made into the shape of a boat it floats.    Even though it takes work behind the scenes I enjoy that he does the fair in that it gives him a chance to work on speaking with people he is not familiar work and work on presentation skills.

Ralph: Birthday Celebrations!

Ralph had a small birthday party with the other first graders in his before/after school program and two schoolmates on his birthday.    We were somewhat limited on the number of guests since, after trying to come up with a location for a birthday party it was pretty clear Ralph just wanted to have friends over to play video games.  Pizza and video games . . what more does a kid really need?

We went with a Mario Kart themed party since that was the game he plays the most.  I'm not really sure there was much Mario Kart playing that night but I think the kids had fun playing different games they may or may not have been used to.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us on the Sunday following his birthday to open gifts and have cake.  He opened gifts as you would expect a 7 year old to open gifts - not caring about some and very appreciative of others.  Unbeknownst to us he was trying to hide a headache from us - and unfortunately he couldn't avoid it.  The headache cut the festivities short and he didn't get to investigate all of his gifts right away.  He has slowly been making his way through them since his birthday.  He is enjoying the Wii game Kirby's Epic Yarn.  He has learned how to play MoneyWise for Kids by mostly following the directions but may have added his own interpretation to a rule or two.   The Pokemon cards didn't stay in the package long.  We have been working on the The Diving Octopus.  The Wii steering wheels are still in the box which is funny since that used to be all they would play . . .but has been replaced with Kerby's Epic Yarn.    Yahtzee has been opened but we only made it halfway through a game the other night.