What's special about our kids

Amy is a girl who appreciates structure and having responsibility. Where perhaps we did too much for Reed since he was our first kid and there are so many instances where it's easier to just do something for him rather than wait for him to work his way through something....with Amy our expectations were higher. We'd learned that it'd really be best to let her do things on her own, that way she'd learn faster. I guess that's where it's not so fair to be a second child! (Don't I know it!)

But ultimately I think it suits Amy well. She is quick to jump in and do for herself what Reed is content to have done for him a lot of the time (pouring a drink is one example). She likes having jobs at home and will even get upset if someone does one of her jobs for her (like delivering drinks at dinner time). She works to solve problems when she runs into them, rather than throwing her hands up in surrender. If she can't figure it out, she'll keep working. Her problem-solving skills are terrific.

This has carried over into school as well. Her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Mitkowski, knew that if she allowed Amy to be an authority in the classroom, it would benefit everyone - they often joked that if they forgot something they needed to do or remember, they could just ask Amy and she would know. They let her help kids who were having trouble, they let her give direction. She thrived in this environment.

Now, Reed...he is becoming much more self-sufficient as time goes by, and it's great to see. Now he can reach the higher cabinets (or he'll drag a chair over so he can reach), he fixes his own lunch (mostly)...but we probably didn't do him any favors by over-doing things for him. We're working on it, though!

Reed is great at recognizing the structure and rules for things – I think is why he's doing well with chess. He can explain the rules of a game very clearly and completely. In third grade, his teacher says he's doing everything he's supposed to...he gets his work done (really) quickly and then has time to read while other kids are still working. He even reads while the lessons are going on, but when Mr. Heenan asks him a question about whatever they're discussing, he's prepared with the answer despite it appearing that he wasn't really paying attention. He's a great multi-tasker, hopefully that will benefit him. Somehow it's still astonishing to us how fast the kid can read. He got books for Christmas that he'd read within 15 minutes of opening them. I guess some people might think then the present wasn't really worthwhile, but what they don't realize is that he'll read the same book a dozen times more. Reed is also someone who doesn't follow the norm – he thinks on his own and doesn't do thinks just because other kids are doing it. I hope that's something that continues since it will serve him well in pursuing his own happiness.

Our kids also genuinely seem to enjoy each other's company too. Which is not to say that they don't fight and drive us nuts, but they have a lot of things they both like. They are both big into Pokemon and Club Penguin, and for Christmas they got a Wii game called Skylander that they've spent a lot of time playing and talking about – discussing strategies, favorite characters, favorite moves. They also worked together on a big Lego set that Amy got for Christmas – that is a new shared interest for them that I'm happy to see.

So overall I'd say that they're keepers. Happy New Year!

Whoops!

Well about two and half weeks ago, I picked Reed up from CASA (the kids' after-school program) and he told me he'd gotten hurt playing football. He'd tripped over someone's foot and landed face down. There was a bump on the right side of his collar bone and it seemed pretty painful, but we just figured it was a sore muscle and it'd feel better with time.

Fast forward two weeks later, to this past Monday. A nagging, month-long cold finally brought us to the doctor's office. We also wanted to ask about the shoulder pain, since Reed was still seeming to have trouble.

Imagine Tod's surprise when the doctor took one look at Reed and said "Yep, he's got a broken collarbone." YIKES! Wow, I never would have guessed that (obviously). Dr. Shannon said that even if we'd brought him in sooner, there isn't really much you can do for a broken clavicle - at most, they would have put him in a splint for a few days. She said by that point it was probably pretty well healed.

So now both our kids have had broken bones. Neither of us has ever had one. I think we've got two really tough kids, that's for sure. Reed continued playing football (he just used his left hand) and doing most everything he normally does, all while having a broken bone. Amazing kids we've got.

What a kid!

A couple of times in the last week, I've been struck by what a great kid Amy is. I mean, she drives us batty sometimes (okay, frequently), but wow. She's amazing.

Yesterday was our annual cookie day. Mom started this tradition when Aly was a baby, if I remember right. We get together, bake a bunch of stuff, order lunch and just hang out together. None of us really needs the stuff we're baking, usually, but it's a tradition.

This year, Amy helped from start to finish, only taking a break to eat lunch. Afterward, Tod asked if she was helpful...and honestly, she was every bit as helpful as anyone. She did everything we asked her to, did her best, and was geniuinely helpful. When we got home, she ran to the bathroom and on her way said "I didn't go to the bathroom all day because I didn't want to stop working!". When it's something she's interested in (like cooking), she is all in. She works so hard. It's awesome.

Another thing was a school problem that Amy solved for herself. When we had her parent-teacher conference in November, Ms. Rokus told us how Amy was sitting next to a girl named Katie, and that Amy had been really helpful in getting Katie to come out of her shell and feel more comfortable in the classroom. How great for both of them! Well, one day last week Amy told me she'd switched seats in the classroom. The first reason she gave was that Peter (who she loves wanted to sit at the table with the girls where she sits. Then she said, "Well, that's one reason, but there was another reason too." After a little prodding, she explained: "Katie wants me to tell her the answers, but she knows what the answers are, she can do it on her own. I'm afraid she won't be my friend anymore if I don't give her the answers." Wow. So Amy saw the opportunity to change seats as a chance to get out of this problem, while also making her friend Peter happy. I am really impressed that she found a way to solve her problem, and it's one that works for everyone.

Last, Amy has unfortunately gotten a case of head lice in the last week (cue the paranoid scratching). She was invited to a 'penguin pajama party' at her classmate Morgan's home, where a couple dozen little girls were going to eat popcorn and cupcakes and watch the movie "Mr. Popper's Penguins." She was SO excited about this, since she hasn't gotten a lot of invites. Well since she had head lice, we decided it wasn't a good idea for her to go, since she'd possibly be laying on the floor next to other kids, sharing pillows, etc. We were so worried how she would take the news - it's the kind of thing that would normally devastate her. Tod broke the news to her, and while she was definitely very upset, she also told him that she was kind of expecting that to happen. So she wasn't nearly as broken up about it as we feared. We had a special movie night at home where she picked the movie we rented, and we had pizza and she snuggled on the couch with Dad.

We are so lucky to be her parents. She's quite an amazing kid.

I still miss her

I was just looking through old emails, reading things my Mom had sent. Came to this one from October 7, 2006, which brings me to tears.

Thanks for the pictures, Lara. I ordered all of the short album except the giraffe pix. I will try to look at all of the rest later. I am looking for a picture for the hallway at the condo so if you remember one let me know. You do good work (of course, the subjects are adorable. I still can imagine exactly how handsome Reed is going to be when I look at the ones of him on the beach).
Love, Mom

She loved our kids so much.

This one is from December 20, 2006:

I love being able to sit here and look at [pictures of] the kids. I love them all, but the one I liked the best was the one of Amy and CJ looking out the door. How cute was that? You sure have sweet kids.
Love, Yo 'Momma

NFL dreams

Last night as I was telling Reed goodnight, he said "Mom, I really want to play football when I grow up. And I promise that if my game is on a day when our family would be having a birthday or something, I would get enough tickets so everyone could come to the game and we could all still be together."

On the subject of names...

I may have already written about this in days gone by, but I don't recall.

When we were searching for baby names while we waited for Reed's arrival, it was a daunting task. We knew we wanted to use Jennings for the middle name, since it's my middle name, and was my great-grandfather's middle name as well. As the months went by, we settled on two options for a boy name: Trevor and Reed.

The name Trevor came to mind since Trevor Linden was playing for the Washington Capitals at that time. Handsome fella, nice name. Not knowing anyone named Trevor was also a bonus - I wanted to reduce the chances of him finding another kid with the same name in his classes. A solid name.

The name Reed came to us from my Mom. She'd been on a trip to New York City and had visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. With her future grandchild in mind, she looked over the name rolls of all the people who'd come through Ellis Island as they arrived in America. She came to "Reed". When she told me the name idea, she was so excited about it, but honestly the only Reed I knew was a character on the TV show "Sisters" played by Ashley Judd - her name was Reed, which was her mother's maiden name. We quickly realized, hey, Tod's grandmother on his Mom's side was a Reed! Ada Ruby Reed Holt. So after I got over feeling like it was a girl's name (that TV character was probably the only female Reed ever), knowing it was a family name for Tod made it extra special. We figured there wouldn't be any other Reeds around, since we'd never met any ourselves.

As it turns out, we couldn't have picked a more fitting name for Reed. He's tall and skinny, like a reed. He reads like his life depends on it. He's often asked us "How did you know that I would love to read when you picked my name?" and we tell him we had no idea, it just worked out that way. So far it hasn't worked out that he's the only Reed around (there's at least one other Reed in his school), but that's all right. We've got the best Reed in town.

Funny, I don't even recall what girl names we were thinking of!

Natural disasters and baby names

When we were awaiting Amy's arrival, of course we were thinking of what her name should be. At the top of my list were three names: Amy, Ava and Katrina for the first name, and a 'j' middle name, to match the rest of the family. Just like with Reed, we waited until we saw our new baby girl before we decided what her name would be. Amy seemed like the best choice - it is a simple, yet pretty name, it's timeless, not trendy, and it won't go out of style. I think it is a sturdy name that suits her. Amy is the youngest March sister in the book Little Women....that Amy has blond eyes, curly blond hair, and is artistic. She is rather bratty at first, but grows into a lady. None of that is to say that our Amy is named after Louisa May Alcott's Amy, or that they're anything alike (wink)....that is just the most famous Amy that I know.

And how glad was I that we didn't pick Katrina? While I still love the name, five months after Amy's birth, hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, killing so many people and leaving many more homeless. How awful if our baby girl had had that name, forever linked to this national tragedy! So I think we knew what we were doing when we chose 'Amy' as our daughter's name. And Janine went well with Amy, and could allow her to be called A.J. someday if she wanted that.

The one thing I didn't realize about the name Amy, and perhaps it's subliminally why I liked it....Amy is the generic name of about half of the bit part characters on TV shows. Got a person who's just visiting town in your show? Name her Amy. Of course I didn't notice this phenomenon until after our Amy was born, but man it is weird! Amys are everywhere on television!! I'm not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's most probably a sign that I watch too much TV. :)

P.S. Don't forget the names that 2 year old Reed had picked out for his new baby sister: Yellow Eyes and Elmo. I get the Elmo part, but I have not a single clue where Yellow Eyes came from.

EARTHQUAKE!

Wow, who would have thought it! This afternoon, a little before 2 p.m., I was standing outside my cubicle at work on the 8th floor, hanging up some new pictures...the building started shaking. My first thought was that a transformer exploded or something along those lines. I went to the closest shelter-in-place area, but since the ground was still shaking I decided to run back, grab my purse and phone, and get to the stairs and get the he** out of there. I was truly scared - later, my co-workers said that by the look on my face, they knew they should get out. Glad I could be of service. LOL.

As it turns out, it was 5.8 on the Richter scale - not huge, but wow. The strongest earthquake in Virginia since 1897, it was centered about 90 miles southwest of Washington, D.C. As I left the building, I was able to check Twitter momentarily and saw people in other places asking if people had felt the earthquake...so then I knew that wow, yes it really was an earthquake we just went through. The quake was felt as far south as South Carolina, and all the way into NYC and up into Canada too. Again, WOW is about all I can come up with.

As it happens, Tod and the kids are in Ekalaka visiting Tod's family. I was thankful to not have them to worry about, since phones were not working, internet wasn't working - I would really have panicked not knowing if they were safe. There was hardly any damage in our area, no one was really hurt - how fortunate we all are.

That was definitely the strangest thing that I've ever experienced...and if given a choice, I'd like to never experience it again!

From behind the camera lens

If there's a camera around, I am most often the one behind it (even if it's an iPhone).

I spend a whole lot of time on pictures - taking the pictures, editing them (dumping bad ones, cropping, slight fixes), then uploading them to a photo sharing site, writing captions to tell the story, plus printing the pictures, putting them in albums, and writing captions in the albums. And all that is leaving out a new task that came along with buying a Mac: assigning keywords and peoples' names to the photos, so they can be easily searched. I spend a lot of energy on it for two reasons: first, I want our far-flung family to get an idea of what our daily life is mostly like (I don't take pictures of everything, despite complaints to the contrary), and second, I want to capture our family's activities so our kids (and us) can look back on them years from now.

Sometimes I wonder if I go overboard; by most people's standards, I probably do. I hear of other moms who don't ever print their pictures, who barely even upload them off the camera, or who upload them to share but don't bother with captions to explain what's what and who's who. Tod's Aunt Suzy said to me "You're quite a documentarian" and at first I bristled at that, but then I realized it is accurate to say what I'm doing is documenting our lives. I think I probably do fall into the "overboard" category, but I'm alright with that. I enjoy doing it, and I know all too well that time flies by and it won't be long before these kids are grown and the days of missing teeth, first days of elementary school, and first friends will all be memories. If I have the pictures, I can relive the moments.

I hope that one day Reed and Amy will look back and see this work as the treasure that I think it is. I don't have a tremendous amount of pictures of myself as a kid, and the ones I do have are so special to me. I hope the kids don't say "good grief, why did Mom take so many pictures?" or "can you believe she spent so much time on this?" or see the many photo albums as a burden. They are my gift to our kids, and I hope they'll know how much love went into every single bit of it.

Guest post from Dad-o

Amy loves to sing to herself in the shower. She'll make up a story and sing the story to herself. It's usually something about fairies and her friends going on some mission with the fairies. Fascinating.

Last night Amy let said, "Dad, how about I'll read to you you while you comb my hair. Sound good?" Of course I said yes. She read three books to me...each of them twice...while I worked all the knots out of her curly locks. We sat on the bed with her in front of me. It was a nice time.

While driving the minivan sometimes I like to reach back and present my hand to Amy. Usually she'll give it a soft squeeze and then let go. It's just a little thing we do.

Under the spell of Harry Potter

I think it was just six months ago that we gave Reed the first of the Harry Potter series of books. He roared through that 400+ page book in a matter of hours, not days. The same with the next six books...so into them that he stayed up late, got up early and read in every spare second during class. Now I think it's safe to say that he's read all seven of the books at least four times apiece, if not more. And as always, lest we think that he can't possibly really be absorbing what he's reading...he is. You can ask him anything about the books and he'll answer. He's watched a few of the movies, and he knows what's different about the movie than the book (and he's not too happy that the movies are different).

Give him a book, and he's a happy, happy kid.

"I have a question"

About 5,241 times per day (estimated), Reed says "I have a question." Even when he's asking a series of questions, if there's any time at all between them, he still prefaces it with "I have a question". We now just say, "Yes, we know." :)

Reed's idea

Today was the second or third time Reed's mentioned this...he wants to be homeschooled. For him, homeschooling means he would just read books about each subject on his own, and he'd learn about whatever the subject is, and he'd be done. Recess would be going outside to play. He'd just be self-taught, no tests. Wonder if it'd work?

Homework

Amy loves homework. LOVES it. Some days, she forgets her homework journal at home, so when she's at Quantum Leaps, she'll do her homework on a loose piece of paper. And while another kid would just shove the paper into their homework journal at the appropriate spot, Amy will re-do her homework, so that it's properly done in the right place. She got two "homework passes" that would allow her to skip doing her homework for a day. They hung in the kitchen for months before she decided to take them back to school to see if Mrs. Mitkowski would let her give them to another child. She had zero interest in skipping a day of homework. Quite different from our experience with Reed's homework in kindergarten, where it was a literal fight more days than not!

Reed doesn't mind his homework too much, though he does think it's boring and useless. The only thing he really takes issue with (and I don't blame him) is the word searches on Thursday. These are computer-generated word searches based on the week's spelling words. Now these are not like a word search you'd find in a book, oh no...these computer-generated word searches are hideously awful. The words are upside down and backwards and sideways and just terribly difficult to find. We've long since given up on getting him to find all the words on his own (usually there are 15-20 words), instead we say "outside" is in the upper left corner and let him find it that way. So much easier. He doesn't see the value of these word searches, and frankly neither do we. He doesn't get a single thing out of it other than frustration, it's not like it helps him know the words any better. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that word searches will end when second grade does in a few weeks.

We finally figured out how to get Reed to do his homework at his after-school program (CASA) most days...if he does his homework there all week, he can bring his Nintendo DS to CASA on Friday. So much easier on all of us! Only problem is that we're probably not paying as much attention to his homework as we should, but that seems to be okay.

I certainly don't remember ever having homework in elementary school, so all this is pretty foreign to me. Hopefully they're getting something out of it!

Say what?

Looking over some work Reed brought home tonight.

Q: What adjectives describe you?

A: "awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Q: What adjectives do NOT describe you?

A: "boring, female, pineapple-ish, constipated, and loser" What a nut.

Things and stuff

Nostalgia

Monday was my first day back at work after our big San Diego vacation (more on that later), and the weather was lovely. Just the sound of all the kids on the playground at the Employee Child Care Center made me so nostalgic for the days of having our kids there. What a great thing it was, having them downstairs from me, getting to see them outside having fun with their pals. I miss having little ones, but also am enjoying having big kids too.

Comments from Strangers

Every so often, someone we don't know will comment to us about Amy. It happened just today, as we were waiting for bagels at breakfast. A lady came by and said "I just wanted to say that your daughter is beautiful, and she has such a great spirit!". It's not the first time it's happened. In fact, at Katie's wedding, the boyfriend of one of her friends sought us out to make a similar comment about what a delightful spirit she is. Amy is quite something!

The Royal Wedding

Well it may not have been the real royal wedding (that'd be Prince William and Catherine's, which just happened a few days ago), but it was our royal wedding! Katie and David had a beautiful San Diego wedding on April 16, and just about the whole family was there to wish them well. We're happy to have David join the family and only wish that California were closer, so we could see them more often. Amy was invited to be the flower girl, and she's been excited about it for months. She got a manicure, a pedicure, and her hair done all fancy like the big girls, and really enjoyed being part of it all – she was quite an observer, quietly taking everything in. She tossed petals as she walked down the aisle with Mitchell, and stood quietly through the ceremony, looking just beautiful. Reed and Aly were assigned to hand out programs to the wedding guests, and they looked great and did a terrific job. Then it was on to the reception, where let me tell you, Reed cut a rug like you can't even imagine!!! It was the first wedding he's been to since Cristie and Brandon got married six years ago, when he was just two years old. He boogied the night away then too. Once Aunt Jennifer got him on the dance floor at Katie's wedding, he was all over it. He needed about 6 feet of clearance on all sides to allow for all the fancy dancing he needed to to. Afterward he told us "I just did my arms freestyle but for my feet I had a routine" – so very much fun to watch, I can't even describe it. I will remember and treasure it always.

Growing Up

Reed is nearly eight and a half years old now, and we're doing our best to give him more autonomy and responsibility for himself. Just yesterday he rode his bike to his friend Harrison's house (it's only a block away, but crosses a semi-busy street). He was so very proud of himself for this adventure. I know in another day and age, in another place, this wouldn't be a big deal at all and he would have been doing this kind of thing for a while. But we live here and we live now, so it's a Big Deal. These kids grow up so fast!!

Race for Hope

This morning, Team Ginger gathered once again to participate in Race for Hope, a fundraiser for brain cancer research. There were 12,000 race participants, 300 of them survivors. Just 300. While I was so happy to see each one of those survivors, wearing their bright yellow shirts, it made me so sad that Mom wasn't there among them. This year we didn't work so hard on fund raising like we did last year, I think partly because we were all caught up in preparations for vacation and the wedding, but I think next year we'll be back on track. We gathered together and we all took time to stop by the "Wall of Hope" where the picture above was posted along with those of others who've lost their fight with brain cancer, and those who have survived it.

How I wish we didn't know anything about this disease, and we were back to when life was simple and easy and we still had Mom around. It feels like she's been gone so long. I think of her every day. And while I know they are just "things," the kids are outgrowing stuff that Mom gave them and it makes me sad that they might forget her. I don't think they have any clothes that she gave them any more – Reed has long since outgrown the NASCAR paraphernalia she bought him over the years, none of the special outfits she bought for Amy fit her anymore. They have lots of stuffed animals, some special decorations in their rooms. Amy wore the Hawaiian cross Kiki gave her in Katie's wedding. There are books she gave them, some they're getting too old for. While I know the things are not important, the connections they represent to Kiki are, and I'm afraid that they're fleeting. We will all do our best to make sure the kids remember, and know how very much she loved and treasured them.

Getting all grown up!

Amy turned six last week. Six! She got a new bike, since she'd outgrown the hand-me-down that she had. She loves to ride her bike and is really good at it.

She's doing so well in kindergarten and truly enjoys it. She gets glowing reviews from her two teachers, Mrs. Mitkowski and Mrs. Cote, as well as a long-term substitute she had, Mrs. Steppling. They marvel at how smart she is and how they can always count on her to know what's going on. She is a hard worker - every time she misplaces her homework journal, she'll do the homework on another sheet of paper, but then when she finds her journal gain, she redoes her work. I think you can infer that she's got a bit of a need to do things perfectly.

Amy can be all sweetness when she wants to be. She can also sometimes turn on a dime and boy you'd better stand back. She is also quite generous. Cristie gave her a $20 gift card for Build-a-Bear, along with a bear to be stuffed. Amy gave $10 of it to Reed, so he could buy his own bear. Actually both the kids are pretty generous with each other, really.

Amy is a planner and she likes to know exactly what to expect. In two weeks, we're going to San Diego for cousin Katie's wedding. Yesterday morning at breakfast, she said "I think we should get up early, go to the airport, go through security, then find a place to eat breakfast, THEN find our airplane." And that's two weeks out...think how closely we're going to have to plan things when it gets closer!

Amy is working so hard at tae kwon do since she started back in February. Lately I've seen a lot of improvement in her kicks and her body control. She earned a new tip pretty quickly after starting back, but since then she hasn't gotten another one. She's taken it pretty much in stride, which is a happy surprise. Things that before would really set her off, she is dealing with a bit better, for the most part. She still has her moments, but in the last month she's definitely been doing better.

Oh and this past weekend, Amy got her ears pierced! It was a gift from cousin Nikki, and she was there for the big event, along with Aunt Jennifer, cousin Aly, and Great Auntie Wanda. We had a store full of people. I'd told Amy what would happen, but I think you can't really know what it's like until it happens to you. She held my hand for the first ear, and she REALLY held my hand for the second ear. But she didn't flinch one bit, didn't cry (though I think she wanted to). She was very brave, and the sparkly earrings look terrific.

It's so exciting to see her learning and growing. She truly is a joy and we're so lucky to have her!

Look who got glasses

When Reed had his 8 year old checkup, I was surprised to see he didn't do well with their mini-eye exam. They said he was borderline for being referred for a full eye exam. Then a couple of weeks ago, I was reading the clock from across the house, and he said he couldn't see the numbers. Wow. I finally got around to making him an appointment, and today was the day. Sure enough, he is slightly nearsighted, enough to warrant glasses. He quickly picked a pair of glasses and we returned a few hours later to pick them up.

To our surprise, Reed was excited about it and happy to have the glasses. Of course, he hasn't run into any pals yet, so we'll see what happens when other kids see his new look. Hopefully it will go easy for him.

He's supposed to wear the glasses for general everyday stuff like being in the classroom or around the house, but not for reading. We'll see how that goes.

In doing a little online research, it looks like nearsightedness can be hereditary (both Tod and I are nearsighted [or he was before laser surgery, anyway]) and they think it can also be caused by too much "close work" (i.e. reading). Well bingo, there's your recipe for glasses in the second grade! I guess in this case, too much reading is bad for you.

Lately, Reed has been very into Harry Potter. I can't recall when he started reading the books, but I think it's only been about 6 weeks. He's blown through them, finishing some in a single day (school days, no less...what's he doing in that classroom?). Even though I'm told some of the books, particularly the last few, have really scary parts [bad parents for not pre-reading the books, I guess], that hasn't seemed to bother him at all. When he was reading book 7, he said "I think for a reward when I finish all 7 books, I should get to watch the movie." So that's what we did. He enjoyed the movie so much that the next day he started re-reading the series. That was last Saturday (7 days ago), and he's read all of books 1-3, is reading book 4 at school and book 7 at home. The speed with which he goes through books is amazing. But he seems to catch all the details, even in books like these that have a lot of words that he's not familiar with.

With these glasses (for today, at least), he's happily receiving compliments that he looks like Harry Potter. Hopefully he'll continue to feel good about the glasses.

"What I want to be..."

The other day Amy had to do a “What I want to be when I grow up” thing as part of her "Star Student" poster and she was trying to sound out how to spell her answer. It started out with “sec” and I was horrified that she was maybe going to say “secretary” (my girl can do so much better than her mama started out!)….but she said “secret agent”. Then she thought more about it ended up changing it to "person who can do magic”. I think she's pretty magical already.

Amy's lesson...guest post by Dad

The other day Amy and I were were working on Amy's word club where the teacher gives her 5 words to learn to spell... Or "master." I would say "Amy, please spell the word 'because'" then Amy would write the word on a piece of paper. I wasn't paying very close attention while Amy very quietly spelled all words perfectly.

In addition to being quiet (which is abnormal for her) she had a guilty look on her face. I asked her to hand the scrap paper that was near her. She said, "no, you don't need this. I'll just crumple it up." with hand motions and head bobs trying to be as casual as possible. I asked for the paper again. This time she said, "how about I'll just throw this in the trash?" She was working hard to not have me see that paper. next, she said I could have the paper but I could only look at one side.

It turns out she has written the words on that paper and used them to cheat. I very calmly confronted her and she finally she admitted to it and said "I was cheating".

We had good talk about the importance of doing work honestly...but it was hilarious the way she knew she was busted and tried so hard to cover it up. 5-6 must be the age that kids realize they have the ability to cheat and they know that cheating is wrong, but they need to test the waters.

Music and technology

Tonight was the first time that Reed wanted to make a very specific playlist for the iPod Touch (which he inherited from Tod a few months ago). There are many songs on the Kids Music playlist and mostly, he just didn't want the Wiggles to pop up for him anymore - he's waaay too grown up for that. It was fun putting it together, having him think through which songs and artists he really liked and wanted to put on his playlist.

For this initial run at putting together his favorites, we included Justin Roberts, Barenaked Ladies' kids album, Recess Monkey, TMBG, we've also got some pirate stories on CD that are on there, the Philadelphia Chickens CD that goes with the book, a little Ziggy Marley, a Phineas & Ferb album. You know, the classics. :)

I can't imagine having this capability at the same age - having access to so much music that I liked, being able to control and organize it how I wanted to – oh, I would have been so thrilled!! It's not quite the same as when I was a teenager making mix tapes, recording songs off the radio, but I guess it's the equivalent. I think the apple didn't fall too far from the tree, and that makes me happy.

She's officially a Daisy!

Last night was Amy's investiture in Daisies. It's been off to kind of a slow start with the program, so they haven't done a whole lot yet, but she's enjoying it. We hope she'll get a lot out of Scouting, I know she has had fun with the girls in her group. Here she is with Riley, Claire and Emma, who are all in her class with Mrs. Mitkowski.

Random

We made it to 2011. 2010 was difficult, so here's hoping for a better year.

Several random things, I suppose. Most recent would be that Amy lost her second tooth! To backtrack a bit, though, she lost her first tooth on December 21 – and can you believe that she swallowed it?!? It'd been verrrrrry lose for a while, but she didn't want anyone to mess with it. Finally, she was eating a cupcake and it came loose and down the hatch it went. She handled it very well (and thankfully didn't ever ask for us to try to find the tooth...ick!) – she wrote the tooth fairy a note ("Dear Tooth Fairy - I accidentally swallowed my tooth. Love, Amy" and the Tooth Fairy still delivered! Yesterday, the kids were playing Pokemon on the trampoline, when Reed ran in and said "Amy lost her tooth!"....and there she came, crying hysterically. She thought she'd swallowed the tooth, but we asked if she felt it go down and she didn't think so...we headed outside with very little hope of actually finding the teeny tiny tooth, but there it was! It was on the edge of the trampoline, sooo very close to falling down into the mess of fallen leaves, never to be seen again. Whew, what a relief! She tucked it under her pillow and the Tooth Fairy brought her another shiny gold dollar.

Over the last couple of weeks, Reed has taken to waking up extra early. He turns on his music, grabs a book, and just hangs out reading. He says some days he wakes up at 5:30 a.m., other times 6 or a bit later. But instead of trodding down the hall to our room like he used to, he's content to spend some quiet time on his own. Or he takes a book into the bathroom for a morning constitutional. Today when I went in his room at about 6:20, I asked what he was up to. The response: "I'm multi-tasking – I'm reading and I'm listening to music!".

Tonight Tod and the kids were playing a game and Amy was such a rotten sport. Fortunately we now have the benefit of having seen Reed go through the same process and eventually make it to where he's a good sport almost all of the time. So no worries, just ignore it. She'll grow up all too soon.

The theme of second grade for Reed, as evidenced by the previous post, seems to be "Excellent, but sloppy." Reed's work is consistently good, but he rushes through. His teacher wants all the students to get an Accelerated Reader from the library each week, then take the test about the book. Last week he took the test on a book he hadn't even finished (he lost interest in it) – he still got 6 out of 10 right, but it was a drop-off from his usual scores, of course. His teacher guessed that he's just trying to be the one in the class who takes the most AR tests.

Amy can now read some Level 2 books on her own, and is even reading to us at bedtime sometimes. It's so great to see her grow in that way, and I can't wait 'til she's able to sit and really read books and enjoy it. She does both the regular homework and the challenge homework every day at her Quantum Leaps in-home day care program, without complaint or incident. Such a huge difference from Reed's kindergarten homework days!! Just about every single day of kindergarten was a fight with him, but Amy seems to enjoy doing the work, and receiving feedback on it – her teacher is great about making notes on her work. Reed's homework this year is going a lot easier, except the much-dreaded Thursday homework – word search. These are generic, computer-generated word searches based on his spelling words and they are 100% torturous. The words are very hard to find, they go backwards and upside down, and it's just ridiculous. We've had some success recently with encouraging Reed to find a few words one day before finishing the word search up on Thursdays – that's helped him to be less frustrated with it. But what a ridiculous, pointless exercise.

We had a nice Winter Break and Christmas/New Year. Tod's Dad came for a weeklong visit, which was wonderful – it had been a while since he was able to visit and we all enjoyed having him here. Things were definitely not the same without my Mom, but we all did the best we could, and took a moment when we needed to. Life does go on, for the living. This winter break we refrained from trying to pack in a million activities...we really didn't do anything except visit with family in various configurations. This year was our first to host our family's Christmas Eve Eve dinner, which was something Mom used to do. We had a nice meal, then played some cards, kept it low-key. We had our usual Christmas Eve at the Wenzells, went to church with Poppy, had Christmas morning at our house, then Christmas dinner at the Mitchells. Christmas dinner leftovers at the Mitchells the following day, too. We started a new tradition, doing a 3K walk/run on New Year's Eve afternoon, which was an adventure. Reed thought he wanted to run it, but that was a bit beyond his abilities – he ended up skipping a good portion of the race, leaving his Aunt Jennifer in the dust, in favor of running with our friend Wendi. Oops! Amy walked the entire thing, which was great. We had our usual New Year's day chili dinner at the Mitchells as well, which was quite tasty. All our family gatherings included lots of board games, card games and puzzles.

The big news at our house was two new additions – on December 12 we got not one but two dogs! Clearly we lost our minds to do such a nutty thing. Shelby is a now 7-month old Beagle mix (maybe with pit bull?), and Bobby is a now 2-year old Bassett hound/Beagle mix. We got them from a rescue group, and boy did that decision happen quickly. More on them later...right now it's past my bed time!