Wii are having fun

Cameron loves his new Wii. LOVES it. Did I mention how he loves it? I'd say that if he could play it all the time and win that entire time, he'd play it non-stop. He's an incredible bowler. In his first day playing, he bowled a 178. Wow.

He's enjoying that, but he did have a really hard time with his sister's birthday. He felt so dang jealous of how she was the center of attention. Poor kid. I know how hard that is... It's a big part of growing up with a sibling. At one point he went to me and said: "I'm feeling jealous." So we talked it out. I'm not sure it helped... But we did find a little time in the day to get away from it all and go for a little walk/run around the neighborhood.

On the whole, this time off from school has been good. I think he's enjoying the family time away from school. He gets some extra family fun for the next few days. My parents are up from Florida to watch the kids while Randy and I travel for work. They should have fun watching Cam and I know he'll enjoy the Grandparent time.

Merry Christmas!

You gotta love it when your son is as excited about books as the new Power Ranger helmet he got for Christmas.

Cam didn't want to go to bed tonight before he got a chance to try and bowl on our new Wii. He immediately threw a bowling ball into the crowd of people at the bowling alley. He seemed a bit distressed about that. I told him we'll work on it. By next week he'll be a bowling pro.

Cam had a hard time waiting for present opening time. He was the oldest kid in the bunch this year. I think that was a little different for him. But he did write a sweet note to Santa. I expect Cam will find the four cookies and glass of milk will be a hit with him. I'm not sure how much longer we'll enjoy Santa with Cam, so I'm eating it up this year. Next year, Jordan will probably buy into it. That will be fun to see.

Holidays together

Cam and Jordan have been a lot more "together" these days. Sure, it's mostly because they're stuck with each other while we all hang out for the holidays. But they're also just playing together more. They're also fighting and arguing and bothering each other. But that's all part of being siblings. I just think it's cool to see them coming together and sharing their attention with each other. They chase, they hide, they scream, they giggle. It's fun to watch.

Right before school let out, I helped out with the holiday party at Cam's school. The teacher made it a craft-themed party. I decided to make "crafty" food. I mixed a bunch of frosting different colors so kids could decorate cookies. I also brought bagels and raisins for the non-sweets kids (those actually exist). It was fun to watch the concoctions they came up with. The kids had fun playing and eating at the same time.

Sledding fun

Cameron is starting to really enjoy his sled... And living with a really cool, steep road next to our house makes things really fun -- With parental supervision of course.

That little giggle of his as he's sliding down the hill is fantastic.

Figuring things out

The holiday season is interesting as Cam gets older. He's always kind of understood why we celebrate Christmas and he's always been much more excited about the Santa stuff than the God stuff. But recently, he started seeing through the Santa stuff. He announced to me:

Cameron: "Mom, Santa is already dead. There's just people pretending to be him."

Me: "Hmmmm. Interesting theory."

I didn't really say much more than that... But I think he's starting to see through the ruse. I haven't spent a ton of time trying to keep him from coming to the conclusion that Santa is just from our imagination... But I have a feeling this is the first crack in the Santa foundation.

Other than the Santa think, Cam's teacher and I are discussing ways to help direct Cameron's attention to constructive work when he's done with the class assignments. Apparently, his teacher finds Cam dwelling on super heroes when he doesn't have to do work at school... And we've seen a bit of a correlation between super hero obsession and violence against his friends. So we're trying to limit his time dwelling on superheros. So instead, his teacher is thinking about giving Cam a "six-year-old's" research project. Cameron and I are going to pick out a topic and Cam will get to go to the library, look up books and work on a research project. I think that's pretty great. It will give Cameron a new challenge and help him focus his time on something more constructive. Pretty exciting stuff.

He loves the snow

We had a great snowy morning to enjoy yesterday. Cam hopped into bed around 6:50 and I said: If you get dressed quickly, we'll eat a fast breakfast so you can go out and play in the snow. That boy was fast. I had both kids fed and dressed by 7:06. They were bundled up and out by 7:10. To top it all off, Cam got a new sled! He loves it. I'll be honest. I've never bought him a real sled before. I always think of it before it's too late in the season. We have a really sweet sled, but it's a classic sled, not a fast sled. So this year, he has one. It's a cheap piece of plastic and it's exactly what my boy always wanted. He had a BLAST sledding down the slight hill in our backyard. It's a great starter hill.

We got to play for an hour before packing up for school. We walked to school with all of the neighborhood kids and they were all high on snow excitement. It was great. The thrill of snow isn't exciting until you've spent a good 10 minute walk up and down steep hills with super-hyper kids (ages 5-10) trying not to throw snow. It was fun. The whole morning was fun.

New World

So I'm trying to de-violence Cam's world... We're focusing less on super heroes and more on positive things. I'm thinking about leaving Tae Kwon Do and moving Cam's attentions to piano lessons.

So a funny thing as I try to make these changes. I walk into Cam's afterschool program and there he is in a Spider Man costume running around "fighting" someone. I immediately found the director of our program and talked to her about Cam's recent violence issues. She's so cool and responsive that she's willing to take the costumes away from all of the kids to help restore my boy's grip on reality. I think that's super kind. She seemed impressed that I wanted to talk about Cam's problems... I think it's important that every person who watches him is on the same page. As Randy mentioned: It's in her own best interest.

So true.

Go Tigers