Tag: storytime

children, gratitude, happiness, humor, kids, life in pictures, mommyhood, motherhood, parenting

A Really Good Week

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While Full Speed has been honing his basketball skills at camp this week, T.Puzzle and I have spent much quality time together.  T.Puzzle didn’t make the age requirement for camp so I tried to plan some special things for him and me to do.  Here’s the breakdown along with T.Puzzle’s assessment of the each day:

Monday- Chik-fil-a lunch and play time at the indoor playground

T.Puzzle said, “Monday is a very good day!”

Tuesday- Storytime at the library concluded with an art project

T.Puzzle said, “It was probably a little bit good.”  Apparently the quiet sitting and the craftiness were not truly his thing.

Wednesday- Pool time along with pizza from the Tiki Shack

T.Puzzle said, “This is probably a very awesome day!”

Thursday- bike ride to the park and playing hide and seek with Mom

T.Puzzle said, “I’m getting boring (referring to his boredom over the bike ride), when are we gonna be there?”  As for the rest he highly enjoyed himself.  Here’s a video of him ‘sharing’ a goldfish (his favorite snack) with his Dad.

Friday- We had to stick around home as the laundry situation had reached emergency status.  While Mom tackled the laundry problem, there was still time to read some books together.

T.Puzzle said, “Friday was a really good day.”

I completely agree, except for the laundry part of course.

children, eyesight, mommyhood

The Conference

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Mad Dog and I attended Full Speed’s year in review at his school. We have been lucky in terms of his placement with a teacher who can appreciate him. She has a son that is very ‘active’ as well and therefore finds Full Speed’s antics to be quite charming.

At the end of the session I asked her point blank if she felt his vision was impeding him in any way. Until now I have never asked this directly. I never wanted to make an issue out of something if there wasn’t one there. I also know that Full Speed being Full Speed, he would voice out loudly if he couldn’t see something well. Over time, I did notice when I picked him up during storytime he was always seated up front. I figured it was so he could see better and let it go at that.

Turns out he’s not placed in the front to see better, it’s so he doesn’t get ‘distracted’ way in the back. Apparently he needs to be right under the teacher’s nose when the class is gathered on the carpet. This is to help prevent some of Full Speed’s aforementioned charming antics.

Maybe I should worry less about his vision and focus more on behavior modification.

children, mommyhood, tantrums

Just in Case

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I haven’t taken little T.Puzzle on many outings lately. It’s mostly been due to illness but if I’m going to be completely honest, it’s also because he is so tantrum-prone that my nerves can’t take it. Granted, Full Speed gave me the same sort of issues at this age, but I was younger and my tolerance was higher for behavioral catastrophes (and there were many). Anyway, I have been feeling guilty that little T.Puzzle is missing out. I used to take Full Speed on several structured activities and lately all T.Puzzle has done is observe my laundry skills (which are mad fierce) up close and keep me company while I run to Target (not very educational I suppose unless carrying my purse helps him understand gender roles).

In this new year I am making a commitment to take him on more outings. Today it was storytime at Barnes and Noble. I know I had a 50/50 shot of it actually being enjoyable. He did okay during the story itself and only tried to casually tackle me a couple times. He quickly lost interest in it (he did enjoy the song portion) and darted to the dreaded, community Thomas the Train table as soon as physically possible. He was insistent that his train stay in contact with the railroad at all points and attempted to circle the table again and again. He was running over babies, tossing toddlers and stomping on granny toes to maintain this goal. After about 15 minutes of constant correction by me, I decided it was time to leave. My friend suggested getting a Thomas book to distract him, and it did, but once he realized we were leaving the table for good, a tantrum ensued. Surprisingly, it only reached a level four. Additionally, he did the wet noodle formation in the store in protest. He kept this going out to the parking lot as well. That’s getting pretty tough because he is almost as big as me. I barely powered through and managed to plunk him in the carseat tears and all. By the time we were home, he was calm and even said he was sorry. He is making progress. I think I better up my weight training regiment just in case.