I promise no more A

Today J decided that there was no way on earth he was going to school. M takes J to school on Monday’s because he is off and i have forced encouraged him to spend time with D after he drops J off at school. A little one on one time at the park across the street. D loves it and i get to go to bed a bit earlier than usual as long as Ian doesn’t decide to that he needs to be played with right away.

Not this morning, apparently J turned into some psycho child, who kicks and screams and blatantly refuses to step one toes in the classroom.

D promptly decides that is his que to enter the class and take J’s place in the land of activities. He is truly in love with going to school. Since right now he is only there for 5 minutes we will see how that is when he is there next year for 3 hours.

M finally pried J’s claws from his leg and the door, threw him at the teacher, grabbed D and hauled ass out of there. J stopped crying after 15 minutes, but refused to do anything with the class for the morning. Way to go kid, that’s what i am paying for.

His teacher sent his classwork home so that I we could get it done for class on wednesday. Get ready people, this week we do the B’s!

In other news, since Sunday marked the first day of Fall it was high time we got out the Halloween and fall decorations. So i am off for a couple of days and it is time to deck the house for Fall! The kids love doing this and it always gets me in the mood to start baking. The guys at work are SUPER excited about that part.

Yeah for the letter A!

Yippee more of the letter A. I cannot think of anything interesting to say about the letter right now.

Today we did some more practice with writing the letter A. J has some homework to complete for class on Monday so i am hoping that he will pick a frigging hand to write with and finish the worksheet for class.

Since J is completely in LOVE with animals we did the Alligator worksheets today. Although i cannot for the life of me convince him that it is an Alligator and not a Crocodile (he is/was a major Crocodile Hunter fan) he keeps his focus a little more on worksheets with animals in them.

Now for those of you with color printers you can print this one. But in all honesty there is very little color in the color version.  The alligator is a brownish color. So the black and white version can be found here. For those of you who like the slanty looking A,  here is the color and black/white version of the Alligator worksheets.

I guess in looking at the versions, the slanty one is more of the cursive letter with the block being the print version, but i like the word slanty better.

We also did a picture with the letter A. We used this worksheet here. I have a ton of stickers and i cut out things from magazines to use in crafts. We picked out things that started with the letter A and J glued them to the worksheet.

Being the crazed OCD crafty person i am, i have a hanging folder box that i keep the kids work in. It has separate folder for each child and activities for each one. When they draw a picture or scribble something to keep (i would love to keep everything, but after a while you realize that one pen mark on a page does not a memory make) that goes into the complete craft file located in their own file box that is upstairs. That one also keeps medical, insurance and important papers. There is one for each boy.

Ok so now i can see that you are slowly backing away from the crazy mommy writing this blog. Truth be told, if i didn’t do this i would never remember whose is who and would misplace something very important (like J’s lost social security card). So for sanity sake i have to be like this. We don’t keep everything that J brings home from school, but we keep a good mixture of it and send pictures to grandparents and aunts for posting on frigs. The rest is reused as wrapping paper or made into collages or part of scrapbooks or, the horror, trash.

With the sticker/glue picture alphabet pages we are going to put them into a binder and then J will have a book of the alphabet that he made. Each boy will have that. We will also put the numbers 1-10 in there. We may add pages to each of the letters as the boys get older and they start doing more. But i like the idea of them creating a book that they can keep and hopefully use some in the early years.

Ok enough of the Martha Stewart part of my brain. I know that it has scared you all. Wait though the holidays are coming up and i get a little crazy over here with a glue gun and glitter. Bring on the plastic pumpkins!!!!

We practice

It is a fine line that i am walking on working with J to pick a damn hand decide which hand he would like to use to write with. I want him to learn and practice so that he is comfortable and yet i don’t want to force work on him too much. Right now we have four 15 minute “lessons” that we do in a morning. Normally broken up with him and D running around screaming like the crazy people that they are. i have been steadily printing out worksheets and whatnot that look interesting to help him. I try to make it fun and have even let him use the glitter pens. Which he has taken a shine too, alittle too much of a liking to for my hubby and I’s liking (for me it is mainly because they are my sparkly writing pens!).

Next week J will learn to write the letter B so this weekend we are practicing the letter A. I don’t want to cram it into his skull how to write. I don’t want him to forget it either. I know my kid is smart, but i always worry that he doesn’t chose to remember certain things. Writing that is a skill he will need. At least until children are required to have laptops in kindergarten.

I have been posting links to sites with various activities for young children and i am glad that everyone is enjoying them. As J and I trek through the new world of learning (mommy is SO tired that pretty soon i will need to go back to school to be able to help with homework. I can’t remember ANYTHING!), I will be posting specific links to the worksheet or activity that we did that day, hopefully, if i can remember how to work the frigging camera, it will be accompanied with a picture of J’s work. Sometimes D’s interpretation as well because as those of us with multiple kids knows, what one does the other will want to do as well.

Since i know that the links i have been giving you have an awful lot of activities and clicking involved to get to a certain activity, maybe this will help some of you who are too damn lazy busy duct taping getting your child to the table to click on 15,000 links just for one damn worksheet.

Today J and I worked on the short and long A worksheets. For those of you that prefer the “A” to be more of the standard block A rather than the slanted A in the worksheets above. Here are the short and long A worksheets for those. It has the same pictures on the bottom as the above worksheets.

These worksheets were good for J because they were so big and didn’t really force him to have to restrict the size of the A. I think that big letters are great for the kids learning to write. While they will have to eventually make them smaller (although since i am blind as a bat, i can appreciate the large letters), it helps them understand the basics of making the letter.

No pictures right now, but i will come back and add them later.

Right? Left? Both?

I have been working with J on his homework from preschool. I have to admit that i am a bit confused on how to teach my child which hand he should chose to write with. My husband is left handed and i am right handed. So far both J and D use both hands when coloring and writing. Now i know that when kids are young they use both hands until they figure out which will be the dominant. To tell you the truth i am still working on that. My hand writing often times resembles a toddler’s.

So while we are working on the letter A for his homework he is struggling to pick which one he wants to use. Perhaps mommy should of spent more time coloring with J? In all honesty though i always was way more into the coloring than he was. I have done some research and in an effort to help him use the pencil instead of stabbing the paper to death I have found some activities to help him.

* Connect the Dots Pictures (these will be good for D too)

* Simple mazes that will help him with maneuvering the pencil/crayon

* Cut and Paste (this site has some simple cut and paste activities that are simple for kids at different levels)

* Trace the lines (this is the website my son’s preschool uses for activities at school)

* Preschool Express (has some great activities for moms and teachers to use)

Just as an FYI to any parents who have purchased the a Graco or Simplicity model crib this year. Several models have been recalled due to infant deaths and some children have become trapped in the gap. There is a list of the model #’s in recall in the article linked above.

Hair

I have lots of it.

Long and still fairly thick thanks to pregnancy hormones (God Bless ‘em).

However I am fairly simple when it comes to styling said hair. Mainly due to time. Seriously getting to pee is occasion for much celebration for me. So needless to say when i leave the house to run errands and do the school mom thing, number 1 on my list is brushing my teeth and 2 is normally put on a bra. How sad is it that i could not even care if i am in my pajamas or not? (Forgive me Stacy and Clinton!!!)  Not to mention brushing my long hair. Normally it is in a pony tail or bun.

Why keep it long, you ask? Well because this

is so not what my husband desires to be married to. (I have an enormous face people, it’s ok no need to deny it.)

He likes long hair. And yes he would probably like said long hair better if i got up off my ass and brushed and styled the bitch, but then he would have to watch Ian or the other two whilst i did this and frankly, it doesn’t seem to be worth the effort.

I do make it a point to wash my hair on occasion and then i spritz some hair sticky in my bangs to keep them off my forehead because for the love of all i cannot stand the feeling of my hair on my forehead. Freak? Yes yes i am.

Well tonight i took a shower and spritzed some stuff in the hair and then laid down to sleep before work.

I woke up looking like this:

not in a bar or looking like her, but the hair people…THE HAIR!

Holy Crap people!  I thought my husband was going to pee himself when he woke me up.

NO AMOUNT OF STYLING PRODUCT WAS ABLE TO TAME IT. The horror people, the horror.

Oh my co-workers cover your eyes.

I am the only one

am I not?

Nope, i didn’t think so.

Oh you have NO clue as to what i am talking about. Right, brain has gotten ahead of me here.

J has started school and his teachers are SUPER nice. Nice in a way that i want to be their very best friend and bake them yummy stuff.

J is shy, he doesn’t talk much, but he is a very smart boy. He picks things up super fast (like phrases mommy uses “One more time and it is time out for you Derrick). He does not however talk around OTHER people or his father. Only his mother and i am pretty sure people are beginning to question that i am “actually hearing” said phrases or if i am in fact imagining it.

They have started writing in preschool. A new letter will be introduced every week because as most of you know, there are requirements for kindergarten. Seriously, REQUIREMENTS, for kindergarten??? I think when i started Kindergarten the only requirement was that i not pee myself or require breastfeeding. Now they have to write their name, tie shoes (Velcro people), know the entire alphabet and count to 10. I was unaware that i needed a degree in education to have children. I may of seriously re-thunk that night of nookie had i known this.

So J and i were coloring today after he had learned the letter “A” and without my asking he immediately said “A, Mommy, look see an A” and he had free handed drawn an A.

I was SO proud i immediately went to the internet and downloaded and printed every preschool “A” worksheet i could find.

How could i not?

Crazy that is what i am.

For any of you moms with other preschoolers or even younger (as i force use these sheets with my 2 yr old as well to keep him from ripping and eating helping when j and i do things more on his level) I have a some great resources that i go to often. I will try to keep you updated with things that i find. Ok this is taking for granted that people are still reading this and haven’t thrown their hands up at my inability to hit the “Publish” button vs the “Save” button. Seriously people i have three kids, cut me a wee bit of slack.

Here goes:

* Basic coloring pages of various animals, alphabet, etc. (i use these a lot with both. To make it more fun we make puzzles out of them by cutting them up or we cut out the pictures and tape them into a bigger picture)

* Preschool activities and worksheets (i love this site for different activities for each letter or holiday, like puzzles or putting together animals. It can be difficult to get to the actual page to print because you have to click on what seems like ten links, but it is worth it.)

*  Coloring Pages (This one has a ton of fabulous cartoon pages that are printable. We LOVE us some Disney here!)

* Preschool Activities (I haven’t used this page alot, but i am starting to use it more. Great variety of activities to keep you involved with you little ones)

I hope those sites help out some of you with little ones. I love doing things with my boys and even though i am EX-HAUS-TED people, even i can follow these activities. Enjoy!

Leave me a comment or send me an e-mail and let me know what you think!

I want, can i have?

Every year i get a new piece for my Halloween town. It is not fair for them to come out with a WHOLE NEW THEME this year. All costing a small fortune and sending my husband’s head through the roof at the though of paying $80.00 for something that will only be out for about a month (6 weeks, i get my way which i do). I even baulk at the cost though. It is a lot of money to pay. But dammit i love these things:

These people must not have any bills!

School

Well J had his first day of school today. It went really well. I discovered that yet again, i do not fit in with the moms. Maybe it is because the last time i fit into a pair of khakis, i was an infant. Maybe because i am not a blonde (Ok i was for a while, but the price was too much once i had to start buying diapers. Diapers or hair it was a hard choice) .

It is like being in high school all over again. I struggle to overcome the social stigma’s that i have, but yet again i am beat down by the pretty petite people. This is not said to offend my pretty friends, because you are all beautiful. And petite, yes.

I don’t fit in though with the school moms and i have no clue why. It is like the playground moms. Who knew that i would be so wildly avoided even in motherhood? I have lots of friends and lots of mommy friends, but we travel in different circles so they aren’t people that i would see at school or parks unless planned.

I will admit i am scattered and mainly this is due to, short of putting a leash on D, i can’t take my eyes off him. He will run into the street or dismantle a room faster than i can blink an eye. I try to be social. It is important for my kids to see me like this and to not pick up on my shyness. I see lots of me in J though, but he makes friends fairly easy aside from his shyness.

I feel like i am pulled in different directions. The need to fit in with the seeming “in crowd” of mommies and the real fact that i just don’t care about fitting in. I feel judged every time i go to a park or school function. I feel that this isn’t fair to judge me on the outward appearance. There is so much these mothers don’t know.

Yet i am doing the same. Judging them based on their perky thinness and popularity. I feel like i should where a badge that reads:

“I am not unfriendly just tired. Overlook the mismatched, generic clothes and get to know me for who i am.”

But i shouldn’t care and i shouldn’t teach my sons that they should care about fitting in. I can’t help it though and i can’t help bu feel left out at times.

What am i being left out of though?

My sister’s baby shower

Yeah this was a disaster.

35 people invited.

7 people RSVP’d they were coming.

3 people, none of whom RSVP’d, outside of family members came.

Yeah big fun.

The food was good since i spent $400 and made all of the foods Tracie loves. I went without sleep for a day to get everything prepared and decorated. I virtually drove myself mad finding pictures of frogs and giraffes to color and put all of the house to go with her nursery theme. (my boss by the way thought coloring pictures was a great way to spend my time at work! Thanks Jeff!)

I snipped and snapped at my kids and husband, because i was on a caffeine induced decorating fit and was driving everyone mad.

All to have 8 people there.

I hate to say it though, my sister has not made it a point to be nice to people in her life. She is not a social person and will tell you to your face that she hates people. I don’t think that endears people to want to show up bearing gifts for her.

I felt bad, but she even said at the shower that she wasn’t like me and didn’t have a lot of friends. That made me want to reach out and hug all of my friends that have stood by me over the years. I have a lot of wonderful people in my life, a lot of whom i have known since elementary school.

I wouldn’t trade them for the world. It is nice to have such great support outside of your family.

Busy busy weekend

We have a ton to do this weeked.

My sister’s baby shower is tomorrow and i am hosting it.

M leaves for his first Redskins game at Fedex Field. Can we say super excited?

Ian is not feeling well and is not gaining weight. So we are on super baby watch.

School starts for J on monday.

Mommy needs a nap. And maybe some valium.