Second Child Syndrome

My poor little boy. He's the second child. His baby book is half the size of my daughter's. I promise myself I will catch up before he's old enough to realize it. I did move one step closer a few months ago when I ordered all the pictures I'll be using from Shutterfly in preparation.

He was two years old when my daughter started kindergarten and I must confess I have been more engrossed in her education than I have in his. I half joked that he will naturally have a head start by virtue of being a boy. Sadly I followed through on that joke and I feel guilty that I didn't as much time preparing him for the Vanguard test as I did my daughter.

Now I find myself at a precarious point in their lives. She starts third grade next year; she's half way through elementary school! She's also been blessed with an amazing intelligence that has her making straight As in a gifted and talented program. But I don't want to take that intelligence for granted next year. I still need to pay as much attention to her.

He's starting Kindergarten and I feel that this year is crucial because it will very well indicate how well he will do for the rest of his elementary school education. I am going to have to be so balanced next fall with my time. I'm going to have to divide my time equally between the two of them and Rey will also have to be very involved. We will have to divide ourselves up according to our strengths like we did when his daughter lived with us a few years ago when she was in middle school. Rey would tackle subjects like math and science and I helped with English and History.

One thing I've resolved to do is to stop whatever I am doing whenever my sons asks me to read to him. (within reason of course) I think that if he's asking for me to read to him I should take full advantage of that desire before it dies away like a flame on a cold night.

I did that today and then we talked about the sounds of the letters. I typed some short words on my laptop and then family names and he sounded out the first letter and guessed the word or name. So then I decided to test something on him. I got the "Dick and Jane" reader and read the first few pages with him. I was pleasantly surprised that he was able to sound out the first couple of letters and then he would guess the word. A teacher friend told me once that that's the beginning of reading so I welcome anything he can give. He just turned five and he isn't starting kinder until August. I have a good two months to work with him on his letters, phonics, and reading.

Now if I could only get that baby book finished too!

Enough with all the Hurricane Stuff

Remember this yellow dress? I posted a picture in it a while back and it didn't used to close all the way. I wore a white tank top under it that time. Now it does. So here's an update of my slow but sure progress. I'm still down almost 40 lbs. More like 38 lbs but I want to say officially 40 soon.

I do not mean that enough with the hurricane business in an insensitive way at all. I just mean that I feel like my life has been in some crazy limbo since this crazy hurricane blew through here last week. I think a big part of it is that the kids are out of school. It makes me feel off schedule. Thank goodness my sister and mother-in-law have been able to help me with the kids. My sister kept them one day and my mother-in-law kept them the other days.

Another reason that this hurricane was a huge inconvenience is that my son was having such a difficult time with school. The last couple of days he had just started getting used to it and now when he goes back we are going to have to start all over again. Back to square one with him.

Thank goodness my daughter is very self-motivated. I will have no problem at all with her. I wish my son was just like her but I know that's very unrealistic of me to even say. I love him with his own unique challenging personality traits. I have to! He's mine.

I have been so off schedule with two important things in my life lately. Exercise and writing. I have not been doing either one. So I've made a list of three projects I'm going to work on that are due in the next two months. One is due October 1, another October 31 and the other November 30. That way I've given myself some goals to work towards. I need to do it that way.

P.S. Fall really has arrived in Houston after the hurricane. The nights are in the 60s!

"School is YUCK!" or so my son thinks

My daughter has been so patient trying to encourage my son to go to school. He is not budging. Not even the idea that the two daughters of a good friend of ours go there changes his mind.

Yesterday we were in the area so I told my husband we should drive by his new school to encourage him to go to school.

My daughter, age 7 (in a very excited voice) "You're going to school this year!"
My son, age 4 (in a flat tone) "THAT is not exciting!"

So later that evening we did drive by his school and we showed him the playgrounds, both the Pre-K (that will be his) and the older one.

"I don't want to go to school! School is YUCK!" he yelled.

I didn't want to tell him he was partly right. I don't think that would have been the motherly thing to do.

My daughter on the other hand will ask me, all interested, how many years did I go to school. I do the math with her. Kinder plus 12 years = 13 years. Plus 4 years of college and it took me 4 years to get my Master's. Twenty-One years of school! She is in awe. She thinks that's super cool!

My son on the other hand, if he could reason that out, would probably have a heart attack.

Report Card Celebration

Tonight I had to go to a reunion planning meeting. I had such a good time with the girls that showed up. We had some good laughs going down memory lane.

Afterwards I went to pick up the kids at my sister's house and my daughter told me it was report card day. I didn't even remember! Actually, I don't remember seeing anything about it in the take home paperwork. She got straight A's again for the second 9 weeks! I was so proud of her! I told her that even though it was late we would go by Starbucks to celebrate.

As soon as we got there my son said, "I want to go inside!" I called my husband and told him we were stopping at Starbucks to wreak havoc and bother the poor unsuspecting customers who were quietly reading inside. And we did.

One poor man, who was trying to read, left after my son decided to go sit on the "tall chair" next to him and was trying to make conversation with him. Meanwhile my son kept ignoring the poor woman who was sitting next to us, who was trying to make conversation with him.

We didn't stay long but it was a nice little stop on the way home. My daughter was asleep by the time we got home. My son isn't of course.

I sent some pictures of them to a friend in Seattle today and she said they looked like they have a lot of personality. I told her they have HUGE personalities and they are fearless.

A few days ago we had dinner at Cafe Express and we were in line in front of a police officer. He kept chuckling at things my son was saying and doing. Finally my son turns around and lightly pokes him in the stomach. The policeman really laughed then and said, "That's assault on a police officer." Crazy boy!

It's Friday night and I just had coffee, against my better judgement. I'm taking a shower and going to bed soon.

My Daughter, the Reading Champion

My daughter was so happy and proud yesterday. Her class had the most participation in the March of Dimes Read-a-Thon. They received special recognition at a class assembly and she got a medal.

In additon to that, she was called to the office later to take a picture with the principal and the director of the March of Dimes. I asked why and she said it was because she raised the most money in the school. She was so proud and I was so happy for her.

So thank you to all of you who pledged money for every book that she read. She read 21 books and raised $160. My boobooshka!

My Recent Discovery

Who would believe that we'd be so close to the end of September? School has been in session for almost a month now. I've had my good days and my bad days. Some days I get her there early, a couple of times I've gotten there late, but most days I get there right on time.

Now that I'm starting my second round as a mother with a child in school I'm finally catching on to how things work. No one really tells you.

Remember the really popular girls in school? The cheerleaders, the dance team members, the flag corp and any other popular girl kind of team? OK, if you don't remember them just think of the movies, "13 Going on 30," "Never Been Kissed," and "Mean Girls," to name just a few. Remember the really popular girls that were slightly or outright rude to everyone when you were in school? They were the ones giving the parties and being invited to parties.

Well those girls get started in Kindergarten and First Grade. They are already popular when they start school! It's amazing! But I found out why. These are the daughters of the parents who are very involved with the PTA.

There was a PTA meeting on Thursday at my daughter's school and the first graders were performing, so of course I made it a point to go. They sang around five songs while all the parents said ooh and ahh. Three or four little girls were standing in front of the microphone and they were the main little spokespersons.

My sister leans in and says to me, "There go the future cheerleaders of Waltrip."

I cracked up but I realized that it was true.

I was talking to my sister in California, who has raised two children, and I told her what I had discovered. "Oh yeah," she says, "That's how it works. The PTA mother make sure to put their kids right in front all the time. That's why Hannah (my niece) always wanted me to get involved in the PTA."

Well I just now caught on. And who are the PTA mothers? The really active ones, the officers, the ones who have time to volunteer, are the stay at home moms or the moms who work part-time. Interesting... but just like all organizations that's how the politics work. If you want your kids to be active and popular you must lead by example.

The reason I wouldn't know anything about this is because 1. My parents weren't involved in school at all and 2. Well, I wasn't popular. Of course I wasn't a total outcast and I wasn't a total nerd, but I wasn't in the popular crowd either. I was in the middle of the road group. I was the high school newspaper editor.

The closest I got to popular was our senior year when one of my best friends started dating one of the popular boys, who was actually a couple of grades below us, but part of that group. The summer after we graduated she dated him and my other best friend started dating one of the popular boys too and that summer they attended all the popular kids' parties. It was really strange to have friends in the popular group all of a sudden and after school was over with.

So my parents weren't ever involved. I was fortunate if they went to Open House and met my teachers. My parents were older and their motto was, "No news is good news." They didn't worry about me and I was left to defend myself. I guess by making newspaper editor and not being a total outcast, you could say I was a self-made woman.

Now I'm a parent and I'm faced with the important question. Do I become very involved in school? As involved as I can working full time. Or do I stay semi-involved to teach my daughter the type of self-reliance I learned? I don't want to be totally uninvolved like my parents were. That's not good either. It's an interesting question to consider. If you're a mom tell me what you're doing and how you feel about going either direction?