Sean and Aleece

Leif is in Cub Scouts and he loves it.  A part of Cub Scouts is a activity called “Go See It.”  In these Go See It activities the group goes to different location to see what they do there.  Last night the Go See It activity was to go visit a local fire station.  The Fireman that was showing the kids around had them go through a mock rescue event.  He took a room in the station and filled it up with fog to simulate smoke and turned off all the lights.  The boys had to crawl into the room with a fire hose and save a stuffed animal dog.

Here is Leif leading the group out of the room after they saved the dog.

Leif is learning to read in school.  One thing Aleece has done to help him is to create flash cards with single words on them.  The idea is from time to time we will pull a few of them out and quiz Leif on the words.  Aleece usually does a better job remember to do that than I do.

So, last night Aleece pulled the flash cards out at dinner and was quizzing Leif.  Aleece pulled out the word “do” and Leif sounded it out by letter and said it was “doe”.  Makes sense, the letter “o” can make different sounds depending on the word.  I was trying to help Leif and told him that when “o” was at the end of the word with no other letters after it makes a “oo” sound.

What is the next word that Aleece pulled out of the mix?

“no”

A word that proves what I JUST told Leif wrong!  hehe, thanks Aleece

Calling Santa

So today Kalven was not behaving the best.  He was being mean and rude.   Aleece threatened to call Santa and get Kalven put on the naughty list.  Kalven being the little bugger he is called Aleece’s bluff and said, “Ok, call him.”  At that point Aleece was trying to think of who she could call (she does not have Santa’s phone number on speed dial and besides that’s a pretty hefty long distance call, charges are HUGE!) so she called me.

I am at work and I answer the phone and Aleece immediately says “Hi, can I speak with Santa please?”  Needless to say I was a little confused.  Aleece ignores my questions about what is going on and asks to talk with Santa about Kalvens spot on the naughty/nice list.

She then goes on to have a one sided conversation by herself about how rude Kalven was.  I can hear Kalven in the background saying he is nice and wants his present and pleading his case.  Aleece then hands Kalven the phone and tells him to talk to Santa himself.

Well, now I am on the spot!  What did I do?  I russeled up my best “Ho! Ho! Ho!” and tried to talk to Kalven in a Santa Voice.

Boy did Kalven sure change his tune fast.  He said sorry to “Santa”, to his mom, and to his brother.  He said he will try to be better the rest of today.  He then said “Thank You” and handed the phone back to Aleece.

Now, since I am at the office I could not see this, but I can imagine.  As soon as Aleece got the phone I could almost hear how big Leif’s eyes got.  Leif popped up real quick and asked to talk to Santa too.

Aleece handed Leif the phone.

Leif talked to Santa for a few min and made sure I/he knew he was a good boy.  Then Leif asked if this was the real Santa.  How do I answer?  Just like any good parent, “What do you think Leif?  Do you think I am the real Santa?”  Leif quickly said “Yes I do.  You ARE the real Santa!”

Aleece got the phone back and thanked me for helping her out on such short notice.  I told her no problem and hung up.

Then I turned around to get a coffee refill and was looking at three co-workers giving me strange looks for my “Santa” voice.

Yesterday I was working from home.  After lunch Leif comes running down the stairs and bursts through the office door exclaiming, “Daddy, Daddy look!”  He then proceeds to open him mouth in a big smile.  A gaping hole was present where a loose tooth was just moments ago.

Boy was this kid excited.  Not only did he loose a tooth, but now the Tooth Fairy can come when he sleeps.  Leif understood that sleeping part so much he wanted to go to bed at 3pm.  He even snuck away and crawled into bed waiting to fall asleep, and it was not even dinner time!

I had to detail out all of the things that he had to do before he could go to bed.  There was errands at the store, dinner, bath, brush teeth, and THEN bed.  Leif said all that was going to take forever and can we just skip it and let him go to bed now.  I said no.

So we ran our errand, had dinner, and then Leif tried to sneak up to bed once again.  I got him out of bed and into a bath then got his teeth brushed.  After that he got distracted by playing with Kalven for a little bit.  But only for a bit, very soon he was asking to go to bed again, and it was only 6pm.

We got him to stay up for a little longer by watching a movie, but by 7:30 there just was no stopping him.  Off to bed he goes, with his tooth pillow tucked under his head.

Well, the “Tooth Fairy” had to wait before making the exchange because Leif was so excited it took a while for him to fall asleep.  It took so long that the Tooth Fairy kind of forgot to make the exchange last night.

I went in to check on Leif this morning and he was awake, but just laying in bed.  I asked him if he wanted to get up and he said no.  He said the Tooth Fairy had not come yet so he had to stay in bed so she could come get his tooth.  Nothing I could say would get him out of bed, not even for a min.

Finally I got him to go snuggle in bed with Mommy.  As Leif climbed down the ladder he had the tooth pillow and blankets in hand, I told him I would hold on to that stuff so he could climb down.  Leif went into our room and snuggled in bed with Mommy, I was carrying his pillow and blankets behind him.  Leif insisted that he lay on his tooth pillow to keep his tooth safe for the Tooth Fairy.  Thankfully the “Tooth Fairy” was able to make the switch as we walked from his room to ours, Leif did not notice.

Later after I went to work Aleece asked Leif why he was still in bed.  Leif explained that he was still waiting for the Tooth Fairy to get his tooth.  Aleece had him check his pillow and Leif found out that somehow the Tooth Fairy had gotten his tooth!  There was a dollar and a toy tucked in the little pocket.

For those that do not know Oct is Aleece’s birthday and Halloween is her favorite holiday, so we have a few Halloween decorations.  This year Kalven is also very excited for Halloween.  Not so much for the candy, more so for the scary stuff.

Kalven is a scare-kid, his rush is from scary stuff.  At the State Fair I took the kids through the haunted house and I had to carry Kal all the way through because he was so scared.  I think his face was buried in my shoulder the whole way.  But as soon as we got out the door Kal was begging to go again.

So, anyway.  Last night we broke out the Fall and Halloween containers.

All over the livingroom floor.

Kalven was running around picking up random Halloween stuff and just shrieking with excitement.  We had to have him sit down four times because he was getting too excited.  At one point Kalven could not figure out which Halloween thing to pick up and get excited about next he just did a little dance and then flopped himself down on the floor.  kal exclaimed “I love Halloween!”, he then jumped up and grabbed the closes thing and started to play with it.  At this point Aleece made the comment “I think Halloween just threw up in out livingroom.”

Leif lost his first tooth today.  It has been really loose for about a week and he has been grossing people out showing them it is loose.  Wiggling it back and forth, well today he finally got it out.  This is one excited kid, he can not wait for the tooth fairy to some tonight!

For the last two and a half years Leif has been going to Early Learning, schooling for kids with some kind of disability, and has been seeing a Speech Therapist.  Leif has Apraxia,  a speech disorder where the signals from the brain get scrambled when transmitted to the muscles that form words.  Leif starts kindergarten this fall and this summer we chose to put him in a Bridging program.  In all of Leif’s Early Learning schools his classes have been small, 4-8 kids with 1-3 teachers in the class.  In Kindergarten he will be going to classes of normal size with just 1 teacher.  The Bridge Program is a kind of practice run for kids so they can get used to the classroom and the where things are in the school.

Monday was Leif’s first day of the Bridge Program.  He got to ride the bus, which is not new for him, but his bus stop is no longer at the end of our driveway.  It is now down the street.  Another big change is this bus does not have seat restraints.  Leif was so excited to walk down the street to get to his bus and that there were other kids down there he could play with.  He was also just amazed that the new bus did not have seat belts, he could just “sit there all by hisself!”

Kalven is also going to school this summer and on Monday both kids had school.  The problem Aleece had was that the kids pick up times were 1 min apart in time but a block and a half apart in distance.  Since Leif will have to get used to this new bus stop location Aleece walked with Leif to the bus stop and then let him wait there on his own, probably a harder thing for Aleece to do than Leif!

On Tuesday Aleece went to talk with Leif to the bus stop and Leif told her, “No Mom.  You stay in the driveway.  I can do it on my own.  I can see you all the way to the driveway.  You stay here.”  I think that broke Aleece’s heart a little, but at the same time I think she was also really proud of her little 6 year old.  Aleece went over the rules for crossing the street and how to behave at the bus stop and let him walk down there on his own.  Aleece did keep an eagle mom’s eye on her little guy as he walked down to the bus stop.

That little guy is growing up so fast.

Yesterday we were cleaning house and Leif was helping out.  He started to pick up some of the workout stuff and was bouncing on a yoga ball.  He loves to bounce around on that thing.  I was downstairs and Leif was trying to talk with me.  So he bounced right to the top of the stairs.  Then he bounced too close and ended up bouncing all the way down the flight, landing on his face.  He has a hard head just like his old dad and is fine, a little rug burn and a eye that is starting to get black.  But otherwise no worse off.

Yesterday some thunder storm came rolling through town.  Kalven was way too tuckered out from a morning of playing and was passed out in a nap.  Leif was up and raring to go, he loves to play outside.

He even LOVES to play in the rain.  He often tells me so.

When the rain started Leif wanted to go out and play, so I thought “Why not?”  Leif and I headed outside and I watched him play in the rain from the safety of the garage.  But it did not take Leif long to want to go splash in the puddles in the street.  Our street is kind of busy so we do not let him go out and play in the street alone, but I was thinking it has been far too long since I have splashed in puddles.  So I headed out to the street with Leif.  I watched for cars and when one came down the street Leif and I raced up the driveway, Leif winning each time .   When the street was clear we would go splash and make dams with our feet.

Sometimes you just have to remember what it is like being a kid and just go be silly.

This morning I was working in the downstairs office when Aleece sent me a message.  She just asked if I could come upstairs for a moment.  I could so I went up.  When I got there Aleece told Leif to ask me the question.  Leif asked, “How do babies get inside mommies tummies?  And how do babies get out of mommies tummies?  Can I see pictures?”.

Yep, at 5 years old Leif is asking about how Life starts.  What a curious little man!

We gave him an age appropriate answer that was not shrouded in fairy tails of birds and such.  He was satisfied with it and will be I suppose for a few more years.  I can tell you that I was not panicked about it when he asked but I sure was not prepared to answer questions like that at 7:00am and no coffee!

Kalven survived.  His first day of school was a success.  He loved the adventure of getting on the bus, up until the point where he realized that Mom was not coming with.  At that point he got upset.  But the teacher tells us he calmed down, had a good day observing and made it home just fine.  Here are some pics of the day…

Here is the little man all ready to go.

Getting on the bus…

The day is over and Kal is arriving home.  Mom is waiting to help him off the bus.

Look at this guy, he is just walking off like it was no big deal.  What a trooper!