We have been so proud of Zane...he's done very well at school every day! In his classroom they have a colored behavior system...a way to let us know what kind of day he had, and the best color to get is green, meaning you followed the directions, didn't need warnings or reminders, just did what you were supposed to. Up until Tuesday...Zane had all greens. When I picked him up on Tuesday he immediately looked upset. Right away he said "I got yellow. I don't want yellow!" He seemed pretty upset about it so I let it go at that time and waited until later to bring it up again.
When I asked Zane what happened, he told me that when he and some other kids were getting their backpacks, and they started talking about their Halloween costumes. My guess is...they were supposed to get their backpacks and come back to their seats...instead they were back there talking and goofing off, so she had them move their color. Remember...the story I'm hearing is from a 6 year old...and as a teacher of the same aged kids...I know how stories go home different than they truly happened quite often...
Anyway, he was very upset because Matt had told him that if he got greens the whole month of September that he would get to go do something special with Matt. So he was pretty upset that he didn't get to do that now. Not sure we thought through how hard it would be for a 6 year old to have an entire month and a half of near-perfect behavior...I mean come on...could we do that? And ironically, the night before this all happened I had just told Matt that Zane had done really well at school and we should reward him for his efforts...so the new goal was to finish the week with green and he could do something with Matt...then we'll set a new goal.
I'm happy to report that he had a green end of the week...so he got to pick something to do! We were also celebrating with Zane because we got his first quarter progress report and it was really good! He knew all of his letters (minus lowercase q...which he really does know but it is a tricky one for many kids), sounds, numbers, and can count to 100. His teacher wrote that he is a leader in the classroom and a joy to have in class. It was kind of fun to read those things about your child! He had a hard time choosing, but went with a project from Lowe's that he and Matt bought and did together Friday evening. He chose an air hockey table.
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| Working on their "project" |
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| Trying it out...it works! |
And of course our child is no different than any other...he can turn on you pretty quickly... Lately he gets excited for the weekends because he likes to sleep in our room...camped out on the floor...since it's "no school" days. This weekend we said he needed to sleep in his room Friday night and he did NOT want to! So he told Matt to check the floor for a note, and this is what we found:
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| "Zane wants to not sleep in his room. I don't like you Dad. I hate you Dad." |
First it had the "I don't like you Dad" part, and when we still said no, he changed it to "I hate you Dad." When Matt saw that and asked him why he'd say that, and told him it hurt his feelings, he all of a sudden realized that it wasn't as funny as he thought, so he began crying and tore up the note. But I rescued it from the trash and taped it back together becuase that's something I'm going to keep for "someday..."
Saturday my parents were here, actually they were here since Thursday at a hardware show, but came to our house on Saturday. Our 9th anniversary is next week, so they stayed with the boys so we could have a "date night." We took them up on that!!! We ended up eating at Bravo, I got some frozen custard on the way home, and then we came home after that. Nothing too fancy, but it was nice to have a relaxing dinner!!!
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| 9 years later... |
When we got home that night, Zane told us to go upstairs and read the note he left for us. So we found this note on a paper towel:
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| "Look on the table. There is something. And where look under the table." |
He had ordered "craft time" after supper...so he found some craft sticks and created some arrows with them. He was anxious for us to see his handiwork!
Today we woke up, had some breakfast, went to church, watched some football, had some lunch and dessert, then hung out at home planting flowers, cleaning and organizing, and doing odd jobs. Kind of a dreary day weather-wise, but it was nice to be together and not really have much we "had" to do!
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| The boys watching Papa's coffee...it's the simple things! |
