Good morning good morning good morning it’s time to rise and shine.?? Good morning good morning good morning I hope your feeling fine.?? The day is shining just for you and all your dreams are coming true doodly do doodly do….Good morning good morning good morning….

Where in the world do I know that song from??? What are the rest of the lyrics??? Psalty??? Down by the Creek Bank??? Bullfrogs and Butterflies??? Where where where????? 25+ years later it still dances in my head on mornings like this and I sing what I??remember of it??to my kiddies.??

Why such a dream come true morning??? Well I’ll just tell you.?? When we bought this house just over a year ago I told my dear husband that the most important project to take on was to remove the almost white carpet from the front two rooms.?? I knew that we would destroy it with two children in about 60 days (and we did).?? Any mother that can keep a light carpet spotless with small children has earned the gold star in my book.?? I am not that woman.

Jim, still tired of the last floor replacement in the old house, promised if I would wait until this spring he would do it.?? That gave me a whole year to beg and plead him to ALSO rip out the tile in the entryway, hallway, AND kitchen and put wood laminate in those areas too.?? He did NOT want to pull tile out again.?? In the last month, I wore the poor guy down.?? Last night we rented a jack hammer from Home Depot and he allowed himself a 350.00 Miter saw for the wood project (there always has to be the reward of some new great tool involved – kinda like woman’s new clothing after dieting – we must be gifted for our diligence and hard work 😉 ).

So today is the day!?? Tanner and I even bought gloves to help Daddy carry out the tile.?? I am so excited for this work project because within the next few weeks those ugly carpets will be gone gone gone!!!!!!!?? Yippppppeeeee!!!!?? We are keeping the carpet in the bedrooms for now and with the exception of the playroom, they look ok.?? I am happy happy happy.

My Smart Boy – (compliments of my home school blog:)

As Vicki suggested, I bought unifix cubes.?? I bought 100 – 10 of each color.?? Tanner loves working with them so today I decided to work with patterns.??

I took 4 blocks – 2 blue and 2 red.?? Pattern was 1 blue 1 red 1 blue 1 red.?? Asked Tanner to copy my pattern.?? He took two different colors 2 brown and 2 yellow and then did 1 brown 1 yellow 1 brown 1 yellow.?? With different colors even, he copied my pattern.?? Smart boy.?? We did this awhile and since he was so good at it I kept making the patterns more difficult.?? I couldn???t trip him up for anything.?? Finally I asked him how many colors I could put in my pattern for him.?? He said 5.?? I thought that would be really tough especially if he was using totally different colors because he would have to use the 5 colors of the set I wasn???t using.?? We divided the set.?? Here was my pattern:

15 cubes long:?? green, green, blue, green, orange, orange, orange, white, red, red, white, red, blue, blue, orange.?? This pattern incorporated 5 different colors and the pattern was very random.

He used the other 5 colors and matched it perfectly on the first try.?? Maybe this doesn???t seem too difficult but it IS especially if you are not using the same set of colors because you have to figure out how your colors match the code.?? Maybe you will see what I mean if I write this out.?? Mine is top, Tanner???s is bottom

grn grn blu grn org org org wht red red wht red blu blue org
ylw ylw?? blk ylw brw brw brw prp br2 br2 prp br2 blk blk brw

I was watching him do it and having trouble in my own mind keeping the pattern straight because as he went he was copying the color pattern but ALSO copying the sequence of the colors which meant he had to correlate every one of his 5 colors to one of my 5 colors and then keep the scheme consistent.?? Is it just me or is that really intelligent for 5??? I thought so!?? I saved the blocks to show Jim when he gets home.??

My By the Book Boy

I am seeing so much of myself in my son lately.?? Tanner can’t tolerate any form of failure.?? In teaching him a better way, I am having to learn it myself.?? When we work on handwriting, he whines and cries with EVERY letter because he will only accept his work if he deems it perfect – perfect defined by the example.?? Once in awhile, on a really good day, he will do something less than perfect and say “But that’s okay mommy right?”.?? To which I am quick to affirm.??

This week during teaching we were working on math and he was instructed to color the objects of the longest length.?? After a bit he had to color a fish and he said “Mommy I don’t want to keep coloring the longest ones”.?? “Okay just circle??them then” I replied.?? Very seriously he looks at me and says “Does it say that?” meaning do the instructions say you can circle instead of color.?? I say “No but you can if you want”.?? I watch him.?? He resumes coloring.?? I knew it.?? I knew the minute I affirmed that the book did not specifically say he could circle that he would have to stick to the directions verbatim.?? I saw myself in that moment and wondered how I ever survived that kind of personal pressure.?? I think I am getting better but it has taken me a lot of years.?? Hoping Tanner sees the new me and will emulate that.

AIT

Tanner had a great time at AIT last week though mommy was sore for two days.?? I had to run laps, do jumping jacks, push ups…the whole drill with him and it was VERY VERY hot that day.?? He played “ketchup and mustard” where kids wear flag belts and have to chase each other and remove each other’s belts.?? After he acclimated to the game, he won hands down three games in a row – was the last man standing.?? He was so proud of himself I even caught him victory dancing (which is amazing for Tanner).?? It was adorable.?? He really is very athletically inclined.?? That’s why I pushed him out of his comfort zone on this one – I knew he would do well and enjoy it.?? He still wants mom to be on the field with him though.?? People if I end up a PE coach at the end of this, NO ONE will believe it.?? I am the most non athletic person ever.?? Sigh….what one does for their kids…..sheeeeshhh.

We had to have a talk later about being a good and kind winner and a kind loser too.?? I explained that when other kids win sometimes, that I expected Tanner to be very happy for their success and tell them they did a good job.?? He then let me know that he really likes to win though.?? LOL.?? Don’t I know it.

The Difference Between the Sexes

Zandi and Zane were over last week and I always get a kick out of watching my boys interact with ME as a three year old.?? Zandi is my little twin.?? She conned Tanner into playing house with her and next thing you know I actually heard Tanner telling her “Bye – I love you” as he (the daddy I guess) left for work or some such thing.?? He adamantly denies this now by the way.??

Ty and Zandi are the most interesting to watch though for a variety of reasons.?? Zandi got a doll out of my hope chest to play with and Ty copied her and chose a different one.?? Zandi treated her doll like any 3 year old girl would.?? Very loving and nurturing.?? Ty, on the other hand drug his doll by the hand down the hall and said “I am going hunting with my baby!”?? LOL.?? I wasn’t sure if I should let Ty play with a doll until that moment and then I realized that nature intervened and I had NOTHING to be concerned about 🙂 !

OCD

Ty still has some OCD issues going on.?? Here are two examples:

Example 1 – Repeat behaviors

T – Mommy can I watch tv when we get home?

D – Yes

T- Can I?

D – Yes

T- Can I watch tv?

D – Yes

T – When we get home can I watch tv?

D – Yes TY I SAID YOU COULD

T – Can I mommy?

D – TY JORDAN!?? I will not answer that question again.?? I have answered it over and over.

T – Did you say yes?

D – AAAAAGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Example 2 – His Room

I believe I mentioned in a recent post that Ty can’t tolerate anything in his crib at night.?? No pillow, no sippy, no blanket…nothing.?? He has always been this way.?? Tanner loves to aggravate this situation by throwing things in which annoys the daylights out of Ty.?? This week though he has been making me clean his room before bed.?? If ANYTHING that doesn’t belong in the room is in there he is quick to point it out before I leave.?? Two nights ago, he wanted the tractor book back in the playroom.?? Last night, their were clothes on the floor and he asked me to pick them up.?? Jim thinks he is stalling but I don’t because I have seen him progressively get worse and worse with this over a long course of time and is consistent with it.?? He doesn’t care about any other room being messy but it cannot be his room before bed.?? Weird.

Mr. The Incredible

My friend Missy mailed Ty a Mr. The Incredible play cell phone and Mr. The Incredible (Dash actually) jacket this week.?? Ty loved them!?? He has watched this movie twice a day all week.?? I have indulged him because he is actually starting to watch it for very lengthy periods now which is a big step for his attention.?? He is quoting movie lines this week too.?? My two favorites are:

“Where is my Super Suit????” – said very loudly while pretending to look throughout the house.

“I am NOT happy BOB“! – He imitates Holly Hunter perfectly with this one.?? Truly my favorite.

I realized though that he truly does have high aspirations for becoming Mr. The Incredible someday.?? He asked me for a piece of gum and I said he was too little for gum.?? His reply was “When I get to be Mr. The Incredible can I have gum?”?? LOL.?? Career pathed at 3.?? How does one homeschool their child to become a super hero I wonder??? ;)?? This Delight Directed Learning business is about to get interesting.

And now I must depart and help Jim with our project but I will leave you with one more cute Ty quip.?? As we were walking to the park this week, he grabbed his daddy’s hand, looked up at him and said “Daddy you are a CUTE guy!”

And mommy thinks Daddy is a cute guy too – especially today!!!!

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