Appreciation

I'm still feeling a little weak today from whatever my illness was, but getting better all the time. When 11:30 rolled around and lunch was over, I decided I would rather face doing errands with the boys than try to entertain them at home, indoors. It has gotten too hot to have them outside at noon. I had Nick out in the back yard for under five minutes yesterday and he was already sweating. He gulped down a lot of water and later I saw that he had a heat rash. Today he sported a onesie and he might do the same for bedtime. Xander's in the tank and shorts I laid out for him instead of those hot dinosaur pajamas he's been choosing and declining to take off. Time for short-sleeved pajamas, poor red-cheeked Xander!

So we got some essentials at the grocery store - coffee, diapers, toilet paper, and toothbrush, in order of importance - and picked up treats for Xander's teacher's Teacher Appreciation gift. Apparently, according to a blogger who is incredibly on top of holidays, this week is Teacher Appreciation Week. Xander really does appreciate his teacher, Ms. Nokosha, and he is old enough to be super excited about giving his teacher a gift. Even though he only sees her one morning a week. So why not? We kept the cost down thanks to some things we had at home and a really great gift idea from the same blogger (Secrets of a Super Mommy). If you look at her blog, do NOT spend too much time there. I find a peak a week is enough. Anything more and I feel like exploding from the anxiety of not keeping up with fun holidays - let alone keeping up with someone like her! Ridiculous! Yet fascinating! And she really gives people some awesome ideas. I'm just saying, be careful when you view it.

We are using her idea of a Movie Night gift. We already had a small plastic popcorn holder, which I filled with a movie candy box of Starburst, a single serving microwave popcorn, a small cylinder of M&Ms which Xander picked out all by himself, and an envelope with a Redbox logo glued on it that holds three dollars. This is of course swiped straight from Super Mommy's post. Then we have a 20-oz. Sprite (because there was a sale at Blockbuster where we bought this stuff) and a note attached to it with a gold thread tied in a bow. The only thing I changed from Super Mommy's idea (other than the cuteness factor - mine is always going to be way down there) was the size of the soda, the type of ribbon, and a couple things about the note. The words are pretty much straight from the blog post: "Superman, Batman, pick one to see. You're a Super Hero to me! I'm "soda"lighted you're my teacher." I added Ms. Nokosha on top and Xander wrote his X at the bottom. Then I cut out the words in a word balloon comic-book style. My one splash of creativity. We have yet to give it to her, so we'll see how it's received, but Xander will definitely enjoy giving it to her. I like how he was so excited to go shopping for her treats even though there was no mention of anything for him. Our Teacher Appreciation gift cost us $8.

While we were out, he got some surprise treats. He remembered to correctly identify a quarter, so I gave him one to put in a gum vending machine. He had his first chew of gum ever! I gave him instructions and he did fine with it. It is now in the trash where it should be. :) While we were at Blockbuster, I let him choose the free rental we get from returning one of our online subscription rentals to the store. With a little help from me, he chose Night at the Museum. He saw and loved the sequel during Mom's visit when she recommended it. I showed him where the movie was on the shelf and he said, "That was just what I was thinking of!!" Ahh, the magic of Mommy-mind-reading. The third treat of the day was when I said he could watch it in his room, on the portable DVD player, for rest time. I'll post a picture of him enjoying this heady treat.

It's so interesting to me that his sense of humor is maturing bit by bit. He thought the scene of Ben Stiller's character singing in to the museum's sound system was really funny. Before it was usually him fake-laughing along with the adults whenever we laughed at something, but this was something he decided was funny all on his own.

We finished The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It was perfectly on his level. I read a list somewhere that said that was a grades 2-7 book, so I looked at the other books listed at that age level. For our next chapter book, I gave him a choice between Sir Pants and Sir Reddy (the one I wrote with him and Mom illustrated), The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary, and Prince Caspian. He chose Sir Pants and Sir Reddy. Next time I may add Stuart Little to the choices. I know there are still some fantastic picture books out there for his level, so maybe we will save chapter books for bedtime and picture books for before rest time, or vice versa. Right now he is also enjoying How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? and the book I picked out for Nick, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? so his range of book interests is very wide.

As for Nick, he is much happier these days. Instead of screaming and crying out in frustration, he is down to one short yell before he starts to help himself out. He can pull himself up and walk a little ways with no problem. Like Erik and I suspected, this skill has almost eliminated his discontent.