First Grade Photo

I almost forgot to post Cam's new first grade school picture! Here you go:

Kissing in a tree

Okay... I have to share this one.

Cameron and I were talking after the prayers and the lullaby (yeah. I still sing him a lullaby. I will sing him a lullaby until he's 25 if he'll still let me sing it to him.) Anyway. He says:
"Mom, Kayla starting singing this song: Cameron and Austin sitting in a tree... K-I-S-S-I dont' know... First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage. I don't even know what that means. It's so strange."

HA!

I told him the full song and I told him people sang that when I was in first grade. It's REALLY REALLY OLD. I told him to tell Kayla that the next time she pulls out the kissing in the tree chant. It's SUPER old and SO not cool.

He thought that was SO funny.

By the way, we went to Cam's school's 50th anniversary today. The first principal was lucky to be there AND his granddaughter is a Kindergartener this year. How cool is that? Anyway. It was a big deal and I don't know how we survived the ceremony with it starting at Jordan's bed time and lasted 50 minutes! We also found out the school is hoping to raise enough money to build a walking track around the school field to make it easier to get exercise. I'm pretty excited about that. We live really close to school and I'd love a track to enjoy a beautiful day and get exercise near home. I donated a little bit just to feel like we could help out. We got an old brick from the school in return. I think we're going to put it in our tree house somewhere.

Who is this big kid?

At some point since school started, Cameron started calming down. Not all the time, but he's mellowing. Maybe I'm learning to react to Cam differently. Maybe he's maturing. Maybe it's both. Either way, there's a happier understanding between Cam and I and the rest of the family. He's not reacting adversely to everything at home and his teacher says she's seeing improvements as well. It's very exciting.

I'm also seeing funny things happen as Cam grows up. Case in point: I bought Cam a pair of Buzz Lightyear khaki pants. I thought they were really cool. Um. Apparently they aren't cool. They're for babies... Even though I still have to roll the bottom of the pants so they fit him. And there's no way he's going to wear them again. Wah.

What is Cam into? Star Wars, soccer, football, baseball, Batman, High School Musical (HSM3 is out on the 24th... OMG we're so excited. No really. We are.), Spongebob Squarepants, Danny Phantom. He still tolerates Little Einsteins for the sake of his sister. He's interested in being his sister's third parent (no matter what his two parents say). He tells me little snippets of what life is like at school. Did you know there are first grade bullies (there are two)? Did you know some of the girls don't like to play with boys anymore? He likes math and social studies. Someday Cam wants to travel the world to research. What will he research? He just says he's going to research the places he travels because he plans to be a scientist. I love it.

First day of First Grade: "Awesome"

The day didn't start out as I had expected. It was wet. It was really wet. It was so wet even psycho-walker Mom decided that I should drive Cam to school today. Of course a lot of parents drove their kids to school today so considering where we parked, we half drove-half walked.

I took Cam to his spot in the gym where the kids wait for their teacher, gave him a big smooch and went back home to wake the girl for her day. I'm thinking positively about the school year. I think this is the year for the boy to relax, have fun and learn. If he lets himself learn how to relax, his enjoyment of everything will jump.

The best part of the day was when I was working late and I called to check on how Cameron's big day went. The very first thing he said was it was "AWESOME!" He met new friends, saw old friends and he has a new desk mate who doesn't really speak English. He thinks she's from Korea but doesn't remember. I challenged him to help her speak English and see if she can help him learn Korean. His first task: Learn how to say hello in Korean. I think that's cool.

Preview of the school year

So... I hate to be whiny. But Cam didn't get my dream teacher for the school year. I'll get over it. To add to the stress, his assigned teacher will not start the school year with her students because her husband is very sick. So I met the temporary teacher who was asked to come out of retirement. She spent 14 years teaching first grade at our school before she retired. I spoke to her about our terrible summer school experience and she looked me straight in the eye and said in the 23 years she taught, she never sent a student to the principal. I hope that's true. To me, that was a good start for the school year.

Cam and I had a good time together the last few days and I think we're headed into the school year with a good state of mind. We went to the local indoor play place yesterday -- he ran around and climbed and had fun. Then we played in the arcade area - I've never spent money on arcade prizes before so he was really excited. He also had a great time playing with another neighbor kid who was out of town all summer. I think I convinced his mom to let him join us in our daily neighborhood-wide walk to school. The more kids, the more fun the walks!

By the way -- that's a picture from our big hike over the weekend. I just think it's sweet and worth posting.

My baby isn't a kindergartener anymore

Can you believe it?


I can't.

The big Cameron and Camryn match up

Cameron and Camryn met face to face in a big Cardinals versus Cubs t-ball game last night. Her mom and I have joked about what a big deal this game was. Actually, it was just cool to hang out.

Cam is getting ready to wrap up his Kindergarten year at school. It's exciting... and a little scary to figure out how I'm going to keep Cam busy before summer school starts. He's looking forward to spending time with me at work. I'm hoping to find ways to keep him from surfing the web the entire time. Exhausting, but I just want him to be happy and not obsess on media like he can when he has a lot of time online. By the way, he looked at me and announced: "Mom, I'm almost a first grader. That means I'm almost really big." Then he told Jordan that she can be big too one day when she goes to first grade. Clearly, he's looking forward to being "big."

Class walking field trip

Cameron asked Jordan and I to join his class (and the other three Kindergarten classes) on a walking trip to the little gardens that are nearby. I love it over there and couldn't pass up the chance. Of course I took things up a notch and created a little scrapbook (at Scrapblog) from the pictures I took. Enjoy!



If you can't see it, you're welcome to click here to watch (even in fullscreen)

Bowling and parenting

I am a tough mom. I believe in tough love. I love my kids with all my heart. It breaks my heart when my child does something wrong at home or at school. Cam made a bad choice at school yesterday... And I knew we had to deal with it by making a point. He had a field trip today and I had decided at first to prevent him from going on his field trip all together. But after talking to Randy (who is out of town - he's always out of town when we have an incident at school) and Cam's teacher, I decided that he should go bowling, but not to the after-bowling park trip.

It made a point. We had a ton of fun bowling, but Cam was SUPER upset about not going back on the bus to play at the park.

The whole thing was emotionally taxing and I still feel a little spent. I'm looking forward to a weekend where the kids and I can play, sleep (I hope we all take naps) and play.... And maybe clean a little.

Getting back

We're back in town after a long trip for work... So Cam and Jordan got to play with their grandparents.

So the first day I get to send Cam off to school, he snuck his iPod into his classroom. Bad move.

His teacher was kind enough to just take it from him for safe keeping. I let her know that he shouldn't get it back without her handing it to me -- So Cam had to go a day without it. She never chastised him - but when I picked him up from school, he was very sorry for sneaking it in. He says he learned a lesson.

I know I did. I'll search his bag much better every morning - just in case.

By the way - I missed him a ton and it's so cool to be home again. He's taken to trying to parent his sister -- He was doing it before we left town, but it seems like he's taken it to a higher level. What's scary is the tone he uses with his sister is exactly my Mommy-in-charge tone.

I sound really strict.

So many things

There have been so many things going on in Cam's world... But I've been a bad blogging mommy who has worked too much and blogged too little.

Mr. Cam continues to research caves at school. He's still working on his social skills there... And that's putting it mildly.

He's becoming an amazing pro in tennis and bowling on the Wii. He's also starting to consistently hit home runs in baseball. He is fiercely competitive and his Dad has been forcing him to play against us so Cam can deal with losing every once and a while.

In between brilliant conversation and excellent reading and writing skills, Cam still thinks he can cry to get his way. It is exhausting.

I'll tell you this though -- He loves his parents. I found the sweetest page he wrote in school: "I love my mom and dad. They are my best frens" (You know, that's Kindergarten spelling for friends)

Found in Cam's bag:

Two pieces of paper.

On the front of the first page: A big heart with the words, "I love you. Look on the back"

On the back of the first page: "Lets have a sleep over this night."

On the second piece of paper: The girl's phone number








Wow.

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.

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.

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.

Another awesome Halloween

Cam had a ton of fun today. He had a really cool school party, followed by a quick visit at Jordan's school party, followed by a quick dinner and a REALLY long trick or treat session in our neighborhood. He was INCREDIBLY patient as I asked him to wait for his sister to walk up to each door with him.

He's a great big brother and a fantastic superhero. Picture will come soon. I promise.

My hands smelled like pumpkin all day

I got to spend the morning with Cameron and his class. We carved pumpkins! Now the first response is -- Good Lord! Kindergarteners with knives? That's nuts! Well, this was a chance for me to learn about ways kids can carve pumpkins WITHOUT knives. It was pretty great. The kids used mallets and cookie cutters. Cameron wouldn't help us get the seeds out of the pumpkin... But he and his friends were all about hitting the pumpkin with a mallet. The end result looks strange, but it was a fun time for all.

I went straight to meetings on campus and smelled VERY pumpkiny.

Pumpkin fun

We had a great time carving pumpkins a couple of weekends ago... Unfortunately I forgot the rule I had given myself a number of years ago: Carve at the last possible weekend. So now Cam's current alien pumpkin is rotting. I made sure he got a picture with the pumpkin before it totally decays. It was rough explaining to Cam how this pumpkin won't make it to the 31st. Fortunately, we have another weekend to carve more.

I also found out that Cam's class only had one volunteer to help with the class Halloween party next week... So now I'm offering to help. I'm bringing cupcakes and some small pumpkins. I guess we're going to create "centers" so the kids have different games to play so groups of kids can go nuts in smaller groups. I'm also going to bring Jordan so I can visit her class party for a short time and then we can run off to Cam's big day.

Seems complicated for a fake holiday don't you think?

What a guy

How can someone drive me NUTS one second and the very next I just want to hold him tight and never let him go. That's the kind of relationship I have with Cam these days. He is READING up a storm. It's incredible. His teacher keeps sending home new books to read and Cam just roars through it. I love it.

Today the whole family played at Cam's after school program. We got to watch him run around with his friends in the gym and out in the playground. He was having a lot of fun -- but he's not one to dangle along the monkey bars. He did seem to have fun just running around and screaming.

Homework

Cam started getting a homework folder sent home for us to finish each week. I have quickly found that any homework Cam works on, he wants me to watch.

"Mom! Watch me write an upper-case 'L!'"

"Now watch a lower case one!"

"Mom! Are you watching?"

"Mom! Aren't you proud of me?"

I'm not sure what is the proper balance: How much should I watch and how much should I require him to do on his own for the sake of my own sanity and his ability to do work on his own? Tricky, tricky, tricky.