Postcards, Peyton, Pee, Party

Let's start at the begining, which is actually backwards.

Postcards: Elijah's cousin Joey brought him some post cards from New York, and he taped them to the wall next to his bed. I then asked a few people to send him some, he has received two from Texas and one from California. He is absolutely fascinated that he can receive mail from other places! He has been fascinated with New York, California and Japan. So far we have two outta three, but he wants to collect one from each state. And maps, he wants some maps, so mommy is going to buy some local maps, a map of the US, and a world map. He already has a globe. He loves to point out and tell people some of the places that he knows. "Papa Chico is from Puerto Rico"

Peyton, oh what a ham he is! He was diagnosed three days before his fourth birthday with the need for glasses. And three days after he started wearing them. He didnt like them at first, but slowly but certainly is coming along. He has been a bit clingy lately, which is rather annoying. He is four, not 18 months, its aggravating. What is adorable though? His curious nature! He asks a million questions a day, and has a reason behind everything. I love it. He says the goofiest things, and wonders why ONLY BOYS can do things. Mommy, why do boys eat dinner? Mommy, who do boys watch tv? Mommy why do boys where shoes? Mommy why do boys do this, or that or everything? It is funny.

Now, on to the negative part of Peyton. He has regressed, and has been peeing at night. It is sooo not cool because I noticed lately that he has been sleeping in it, and telling me "My mattress got me wet". I guess I need to nip it in the bud and buck it up and buy some night time pullup short things.

One about both of the boys.....they are now a differnt age! Elijah is now a six year old and is about to enter the first grade in less than two weeks. Peyton will be in Pre-K4, since he turned four!! He had a nice party with his siblings, he had a blast. For Eli I decorated his room, Linda bought him a bike, Damion bought training wheels. It was rather lowkey, and we all enjoyed it.

Thats my update for now!

Oh Boys

As I walked into my bathroom yesterday morning, I realized the "joys" of living with not only little kids, but living with boys! If it were not for my teenage stepdaughter, I would have no other estrogen in my house. I looked into my tub, and saw dinosaurs, boats, cars, and superheros littered on the floor and inside the tub. The weird part of seeing all of these items is that this is not their bathroom,they have their own. They picked out this vibrantly green paint to use on the wall, and decorated it in a Spongebob-Underwater sort of thing. I think they spend more time in my bathroom than they do their own.

The previous day, I watched them as they were bathing in their bathroom, I watched them play their little boy games and saw them pretending. I thought back to my childhood, when my sister used to take a bath. It seemed that we were in that tub for hours, pretending with every ounce of our being, with the little toys we had. We would play with the soap, the tub stopper, anything we could get our little hands on. It made me realize how different being a boy and being a girl is. There are so many things I want my boys to be interested in, but I have to remember that they are BOYS and just because I think its cool, it may not be to them.

Pictures

I think that it was on a tv show, but it has been stuck in my head for a while now. There was a man who took wayyy to many pictures of his child, he captured everything that this child was doing, on a daily basis. As previously stated, I do not remember where I heard this, but the information has been with me, embedded into my brain. The person who was advising the man told him to take the camera and put it down, live as a parent and not as a photographer.

I think it is easy some times to capture what our children are doing, through film. While we are filming we are missing so much behind the lens. The children want to experience life, and want their parents or caregivers to be there for them, in case they are scared or have something fun to share.

I tend to take a lot of pictures because I have no pictures of myself when I was young, I think my sister does the same thing. As well, I think that it is easy to take an abundant amount of pictures because technology allows people to do so.

Common Denominator? Its.....Me!

Elijah is fascinated with GOD and Jesus. He has told me repeatedly that God tells him secrets in his ear, and talks to him when he is sleeping. He also told me that God writes your name down, and then your mommy's name, and then you are born a human. I take that as his take on predestined birth.

Today has been a struggle with both of the boys. Elijah has been home since 2:30 and we have been toughing it out for the last five hours! Peyton got home somewhere around 4:00 this afternoon, due to delays, but even in the last 3 hours and 40 mins we have been butting heads. Peyton missed his 3:15 appointment due to the lack of planning on my part. I was unable to take him to the Ped, and should have known that when I set the appointment. But some small thought in the back of my mind thought I could pull it off, but alas that was untrue.

In the middle of dinner, the boys barber came over to give them a haircut, which totally distracted them. Peyton has picture day tomorrow, which I am not looking forward to, since both boys suck at posed pictures.

An overheard prayer from Elijah "Dear God, I want you to give us some snow. Make it winter again, and bring us more snow. So I can play a snow fight with my brother! Amen"

He is currently doing his homework and singing "North Americo, North Americo, that is the name of my continent." So I asked the following questions and these were his responses.


City:Albany
State: Georgia
Country: United States
Continent: North Americo
Planet: Earth
Galaxy: Power Ranger Galaxy Rescue

Every Moment Worth It

It certainly has been a long while since I have written or even visited this blog. I wish that I could say that all is well and that the boys were all peachy keen, and perfect angels. Of course they are angels :), but they are little kids and boys none the less, so their little horns do come out every once in a while. By that I mean daily!

Elijah is in Kindergarten and he is a busy little kid if I have ever seen one. He has so much homework to do, nightly. I never knew that a kindergartner had so much to do and learn. But there are plenty of standards that the children have to meet and/or exceed. Elijah started the year off a little bit rough, could not focus too well, and his work was a reflection of this.After more testing, a lot of talking, a lot of thinking, I decided to allow Elijah to start medication. Although I was apprehensive regarding medicating my child, I figured that he deserved a chance. He was struggling in school, and Kindy is, of course, the foundation to the next 12 years of his life. I did not want take the chance of prohibiting him from going on the path in which he needs to go.

So since Oct (I think) he has been on Ritalin. And to be brutally honest it was scary the first day, he had a huge headache, and had a belly ache. I was so scared and could not keep my eye off of him for a moment.The next day he sat at the dining room table and colored from 9am till 1:30pm. WOW!!!!! It has been up hill since that day. There are still days where the active Elijah overtakes the focused Elijah, but even those days are not that bad.
He is doing AMAZING in school. I had a parent teacher conference the week before his spring break, and I was flabbergasted what I found out. I saw the types of reading materials and to my amazement they were on a lower level than we have been reading at home. At home Elijah is reading Dr. Seuss kind of books, at school there are a lot less words and a lot less story.

We are working at home on spelling, writing, reading, and math. He repeatedly informs me that he is going to be a Mythbuster or a Firefighter. As well he tells me, daily, that he loves math and science. I sure hope so, because his mommy sucks at it.
I could not be any prouder of him. I truly love this boy and am so grateful to have such a wonderful son!!

Peyton is a dear, he is the sweetest, most kind child I have ever had the privilege of knowing. And I know a lot of children :) There is not a day that goes by that he does not ask how one of his cousins or aunts or uncles are doing. And despite my mother being a horrible grandparent, he adores and loves her with immense emotion.

I am watching him play with Tristin, a little boy his age, who lives across the street from us. Tristin fell off of his bike and Peyton was the only child to help him get up AND help him stand his bike back up. That little boy is extremely mean to him, and often makes him cry.

Peyton is such a smart little cookie, I am so sooo soo sooo proud of him. He never stops talking, and his is incredibly creative and inventive. He is a bright, goofy, handsome little three year old with so much potential. Elijah often gets upset with his little brother because Peyton loves and adores him and wants nothing more than Eli's approval.

They get along as well as a five and three year old set of boys could possible get along. Could be worse, could be better. They tend to fight over simple things, and stick together during the big things. They can team up very well, and can be persuasive. Elijah and Peyton somehow managed to cut out Steak N Shake coupons (for grilled cheese sandwiches, fries and a drink all for 2.99) and convinced us to take them there. The highlight of their efforts was when they pulled money out of their pockets and told us that they could buy it themselves.

We did take them to Steak N Shake, and they had a ball ordering their own food, getting their own bill and paying for it with their money, and they even left a small tip. I loved experiencing that with them, seeing that my teaching them generosity, persistence, and need for a good milk shake, was not in vain!

My world has changed since I became a mother; the ups, downs, in betweens, stresses, laughs, tickles, arguments, debates, sleepless nights and hugs, makes every moment worth it.

When He Grows Up

After washing his hands and leaving the bathroom, Elijah rubbed on some hand sanitizer (or as he calls it, Hand Sansatizer) and I said to him "Wow, thats a great job, who taught you that?" He said that his teacher did. I told him that's exactly what dr's do, and that his fave Dr does that too. I then asked him "Are you going to grow up and be a Dr, like Dr. Dixion?" He said "Nope, I am going to be a Power Ranger!" and off he went! Oh what ambition my lil 5 year old has!!

Bus Mishaphs :(

Monday’s school day went well; he got off the bus just fine. Tuesday was a whole new story, and here it is:
The bus Elijah is supposed to ride come and dropped of the children. I waited for Elijah to get off the bus, and then the bus pulled off. I didn’t think too much of it, he must have missed the bus I thought. I would have just gone to the school picked him up and called it a day. As I walked home, and called David and told him that Eli wasn’t on the bus, he flipped out. When I got home, he was scrambling to find the number to the school. I located it, and called to see where my Elijah was. Upon calling the school, I was told that they sent him home with his big brother. Hello, his big bro goes to a whole different school system, and I told them that. They kept putting me on hold, so I told them that I was coming to the school. As soon as I got there with David, they told me to go back to the bus stop and wait because the bus will drop him off. I went back and was there for about 10 mins when David called to tell me that they told him to go to the "bus hub" and get Eli. (The bus hub is a central location where the kids who live on the other side of town or in different neighborhoods switch busses.) David wasn’t even outta the parking lot, when the principal called him back to tell him that Eli wasn’t at the hub. David went back to the school and waited and fussed as Elijah’s teacher and the idiot Principal were trying to locate him. So at this point I find out that he was put on the wrong bus, they didn’t know what bus it was, and when they were dispatching, they were calling out a name that wasn’t “Elijah Boyd”, so of course he didn’t answer, he didn’t know who the heck they were talking about. As I stated, David stayed at the school as instructed and then eventually was told by the police officer that was called to the school, to go back to the hub. David called me to tell me what he was doing; at that point I was hysterical. Not long after, the Principal called me at home and told me that Eli was standing in front of her, and to call David and tell him to come pick up Elijah. I called David to tell him, I dropped the phone, told my stepdaughter that I would be back and to watch out for Peyton, and I flew to the school.
I honestly wish I could say that’s where all the drama ends. As I stated previously, they were blaming Elijah for not answering when they called his (WRONG) name on the bus. I felt soooooo soooooo sooooo bad for him being in a strange situation, on top of the fact that he has anxiety. He ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug he ever has in his whole entire five years of life. I could not believe what I felt when I hugged him, sweat! He was SOAKING wet in sweat. And the worst part of all of this? They didnt even offer him a drink.
And to top it the entire ordeal, the principal blamed me for not putting info on Eli. WTF?! I opened his book bag and what do I see???? A piece of paper that I filled out the day before with my name, address, home and cell numbers, my birthday, AND my SS number! What more do they need???? I guess blood, hair, and DNA samples!
It was the most emotional day of my life; I wouldn’t want to deal with that ever again. As soon as I got home, I printed out this HUGE ID tag that had every last bit of information on it short of his SS number, and made sure it was on his book bag. When he went to school this morning (I did put him on the bus) everyone knew who he was, where he lived, what his mom and dad’s names are. I thought to myself that this boy BETTER come home safely today!
He rode the bus home with no glitch today. As he was getting off the bus, I saw this big ole white thing attached to his book bag……….. It was an index card with his name, mine and David’s cell numbers (although they managed to get those wrong too) and his bus number on it! I found humor in it, but it served its purpose.
I am just so very grateful that my son is ok, and that he is back to annoying his brother and being loud.