Santa Hard at Work.

I'm just glad I'm not in charge of putting this together. All I am hearing Seth saying (in addition to cursing) : "He'd better appreciate it". Sure, he will.

What It Takes To Get Some Food In This House..

During one of David's grumpy mornings (oh dear, do we have a lot of them!) he refused to speak to me. Minutes later he stormed into the kitchen and started making himself a breakfast.

He ended up toasting two slices of bread and spreading about a pound of butter on each of them. So, it looks as though the way to my kids' self sufficiency is through their anger at me.

A Love Note.

There's A New Reader In Our House.

Thankful.

I'm thankful for these two. When I was a kid I always wanted to be a mom.

Awhile ago, Julia approached me with these questions: "Mommy, when you were a little girl, did you always want to have me and David? Are you happy you have us?" It caught me by surprise. I have no idea why she asked me that. But then again, she worries about death and has an obsession with the cemeteries. From that point on, I made sure I remember every night before they go to bed to tell them that I wanted them all my life in case me being upset at them earlier in a day caused them to doubt that.

What has been on my mind lately a lot is David. I don't write everything because he wouldn't want me to. I barely scrape the surface when I mention him, believe me. I used to think that he is so unlike me and I had a very hard time understanding him and sometimes I still do. I remember when I was pregnant with him, Seth jokingly sort of predicted what kind of child David would be based on his own personality. Most of it came true. David is a mirror reflection of Seth and whereas opposites attract when it comes to a marriage, having a child with an opposite personality as yours might not be easy.

Last summer I was worried who his kindergarten teacher will be. I knew that in order for him to be happy in school, she needed to appreciate his differences. And does she ever. I do believe she has a hard time with him every day, but she doesn't throw in a towel, but rather has long conversations with him. She tested his level of reading which is not done until a child enters first grade. She was concerned that he might be bored with a curricula and to keep him from misbehaving he needed more challenging work. She recognizes that he is a kind and bright kid and we, adults, need to work around his needs.

I had a chance to visit David's classroom with the other parents during their writer's workshop hour. They surprisingly do a lot of writing in kindergarten. The teacher told me David was mad at her. Then she placed a banana on each table asking the students to describe it. Some kids were jumping, yelling while at the same time working on the task. David sat motionless. I saw the teacher approach him and whisper something to him. Five minutes later she did the same. When everyone was done except for David, the teacher showed us the kids' works. Almost all of them drew a banana on a plate and scribbled a few misspelled words underneath the picture. I saw David's work a few minutes later. There was an elaborate picture of a boy sitting at the table and looking at an empty plate. Underneath, he perfectly and clearly spelled "I don't see no banana." After I told my friend this story, she was hilarious and asked me why I don't see a humor in it. Maybe I will years later when I revisit this post, but right now I am trying to find a way of helping David to deal with his feelings. He is a perfectionist and any mistake / misspelling/ misunderstanding sets him off and he shuts down.

So, this Thanksgiving I am thankful for my children who teach me to think outside of the box and that if you are to dress in the morning, you better do it with the style even if it's 5 am on Sunday morning.

Vest.

As I posted in a previous blog, my little man is very much into his looks. David tells a barber that he didn't do a good job of cutting David's hair just after a guy complimented him on how well behaved he is. After his swim lesson he runs away from me into a man's locker room just so he could use a mouthwash and a hand cream. And don't even start me on the topic of his clothes and shoes.

So, I thought it was only appropriate to knit him something he would wear and maybe even appreciate (ok, I didn't really hope for an appreciation from a 5 year old). I must admit, I very rarely knit anything for my kids because it takes so much time to do so and seeing it being tossed in a corner of a closet and never used again kills me. Of course, I don't care someone else doing it to my knits as long as I don't have to witness it.

A few weeks ago I came across this post and immediately decided to knit a vest for David especially with his latest preference of wearing the button down shirts. How did he like it? See for yourself.

The vest still didn't get a chance to be blocked as as it doesn't leave David's back. One morning I found David at his art and craft table trying to make a tag for his vest. It turns out that David doesn't know which way is front because both sides look the same. This kid kills me (usually by raising my blood pressure about dozen times a day) with his cuteness. I think one of the reasons he wears his vest every single day is because he gets so many compliments on wearing a handmade piece that all the attention is starting to get to his head. His sister now insists on a vest too although I'm pretty sure she won't even try it on. In our house it's all about sibling rivalry.

Dusting off cobwebs.

I realize it's been awhile since I posted here. I'm actually considering quitting this place. What's the point of keeping it up if I barely update it? The reason I don't blog more often is I don't find much satisfaction in writing here. This blog has never been a place where I express what's really on my mind and I am sort of "faking" it here since the pictures I post are not the true story of my life. I just feel as though I'm deceiving anyone who comes here to check out what we've been up to.

That said, what and where have been up to lately? David goes through different changes so rapidly that I can barely keep up with him. After I convince myself that he hates his sister ("I don't want a sister, I want a brother" and constantly annoying her), he proves to me that he would move mountains for her. At times, I awe at his generosity, consideration and love for her.

Seth decided to involve David with a cub scout organization. As long as I don't have to bring him to their meetings, I couldn't be happier for them especially when two of them went camping for an entire weekend with the organization.

David's sense of fashion drives me crazy. He is into button down shirts, jeans that have to be certain length and sweaters (no sweatshirts). He won't ware anything that says 4t or 6t on it. The mornings before school don't look good if there's no ironed button down shirt in his closet. It doesn't matter that he has a gym that day. Right now I'm knitting him a vest, so hopefully, he'll like wearing it on top of his shirt.

We took the kids to the "Bubble Show" on Broadway and David was one of the kids chosen to help out on a stage. It didn't go well with Ms. Jealousy. Thankfully, David shared his gift with her.

We did the usual fall activities : pumpkin and apple picking, Bronx Zoo during the Halloween celebration, pumpkin carving, lots of Halloween parties and going trick-or-treating. David found a Darth Vader costume at one of the garage sales and decided to use it during Halloween (yay!) and Julia went as a Super Girl.

Julia really surprises me with her personality. She has never been a very girly girl. Yes, there was a year when she'd refused to wear pants and she used to dress up in some of the princess dresses. But she never liked playing with dolls. She will still chose to play a board game over any activity. Her favorite game nowadays? Trouble. The hours she spends playing it per day? At least 2.

She's been wearing a princess cape, white Minnie Mouse gloves and her rain boots everywhere for awhile pretending to be a Super girl. David told me that next year he wants to be Indiana Jones for Halloween because it would make Julia happy. She's obsessed with super heroes and adventurers . She loves when David reads his beginning books about super heroes to her and she's pretty much memorized all the information about them.

She reminds me of David at her age. He used to wake up earlier than anyone and head straight to their arts and crafts table and do his projects. Julia does the same thing now except she wakes up anytime from 3 to 5 am in the morning and refuses to go back to bed. Without any naps she surprisingly functions pretty well during the day.

Whew, it was a long catch up post. Hopefully, it won't be too long before I write another post.

I couldn't think of a name for this post. Just couldn't.

I wanted to vent a bit here, but if I started, there would be no end to it and I don't want to loose two people who visit my blog.

Instead, I'll show you some pictures of my finished knitted work. Seth's co-worker is pregnant, so before we left to New England, I knitted a blanket, a bib and a vest for her baby.

I've been also a bit obsessed with knitting the bibs from this site. They are very cute, a very quick knit which led me to make at least 10 of them.

What gets me through lately? Reminding myself of cute, clever, not so typical (for their age) things my kids do. This picture makes me smile. It's David packing for our vacation. I wrote him a list of things he needed to place in a bag and he picked it all on his own and would check off each item as he'd place them in a bag. I had promised myself I would trust him and not check on him. Once we got to Maine, we realized that the only thing he forgot to pack was his pajama top. Why is he so mature in some ways and extremely immature in others?

The First Day of School.

Both kids on their first day of school. David entered the kindergarten and Julia started the pre-k. I need to remember to take a picture of them on the same spot on their last day of school, so I could compare how much they've grown and changed.

David loved his first day. He's pretty excited that the assistant teacher is a young man. He loves the school's library, art room and the gym. He told me he read our favorite book "The Giving Tree" to the classroom.

On the second day of school he asked me to give him paper money in the future to buy lunches although he did add afterword that he loved the lunch I made him.

Seth dropped Julia off at her classroom. She keeps telling me she is too big to kiss me goodbye. It's sad, but I get flooded by her kisses at home, so that makes me feel better. The director asked her today if she had a great day and of course, Julia said she had a bad day. She says everything opposite she knows people expect to hear. Oh, it reminds me so much of David.

I'm looking forward to this school year and hope both kids will have fun and make some good friends.

We Are Exhausted....

because we just returned from our vacation visiting Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. As we (the kids) were having a great time, I promised myself not to leave the house again until they are at least 15 years old. Yes, they lived on the beach for 5 days straight, yes they ate in the restaurants 3 times a day (David's dream come true. Am I really such a bad cook? ), yes they visited a light house (the reason we went up North), yes the kids went on the rides, yes we slept in 5 different hotels throughout this trip (more excitement for the kids), yes David built a diving board and kept jumping off of it.

We went on this trip without making any reservations or doing any research. It is so not typical of us especially of Seth who likes to plan a vacation at least a year ahead. We barely see each other at night to discuss our days let alone our vacations. So, Seth took a week off and we just decided to drive up North to Maine. Then a few days later we (Seth and I) couldn't take the beaches anymore, so we drove up 3 more hours to Vermont just to show the kids the Ben and Jerry factory. It turned out to be the best move as we came across a lake located 2 min away from the factory. We spent the whole day there and the kids had a great time playing, kayaking and meeting new kids. I was able to squeeze 5 hours of uninterrupted knitting. Everybody was happy.

I really don't want to leave my house for a long time. Ask me tomorrow though when the school starts and I'll probably be ready to get out of this town... alone.