week ending sept 13, 2009:

Week ending Sept 13, 2009: This week the shine wore off of school. Alex decided he hates school and doesn’t want to go anymore. Even Chloe started having some complaints. It turns out that Alex got in trouble for not paying attention. The teacher has clothes pins with one child’s name on each. If the child gets a warning their clothes pin gets put in “red” and if they have trouble again, they go into “sit and think” (the school’s version of time out). Chloe’s been in “sit and think” before, but she doesn’t really mind. I’ve said before that she has a more “fluid” vision of rules than Alex’s very rigid view. Alex, however, was crushed when he was put in “sit and think”. He was mad at the teacher and ready to give up on school. He said it was “too hard”. It so happened that later that day was “back to school” night and I got to go to the school and meet the teacher. She said that most of the kids were settling in and getting relaxed and that part of the “getting relaxed” process was that many of them are forgetting to follow the rules. The next day neither Alex nor Chloe had to go in “sit and think”, so I congratulated them on accomplishing something that was so hard and we went to the dollar store to pick out a treat each.

I’ve been taking advantage of the time that the kids are at school to go through their toys and get rid of some things to make room for the goodies they are likely to get for their birthdays. I went through Alex’s desk drawers, 4 of them, that are each filled to the brim with each and every paper airplane that he has ever made. I decided that getting rid of half was fair and picked through to find the ones that looked least likely to fly or most similar to the others in the same drawer (and therefore least likely to be missed). When I finished there was a HUGE pile of paper airplanes on the bedroom floor so I decided to count them. It turns out that HALF of Alex’s paper airplane collection consists of 64 airplanes. SIXTY FOUR!

We went to Deleware to visit Great Granddad because Uncle Bob, Aunt Liz, Cousin Ginny, and Cousin Samantha were also visiting. Grammy Carole, Granddad, Dan, Danielle, Natalie, and Aiden also joined us. The kids decided to go the neighborhood creek and wade while looking for minnows. The kids had a great time with their cousins. The older girls are 12 and 13, but they really make the effort to pay attention to the little ones and the little ones just eat up the attention. pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/SmithFamilyReunion2009#