All on his very own at the end of last year Matthew picked on of his electives to be FACTS this year. The first half of the class is sewing and the second half is cooking. After learning the basics, the sewing project they were supposed to do was this back pack. I think he did pretty good. He said he got a ‘B’ on it. I would have given him and ‘A’.
Emilee is not going to be in this stage much longer and I will miss it when she doesn’t do things like this anymore. The stage of wearing some costume around the house and turning her surroundings into whatever her imagination comes up with. She was watching the Chiefs game with Ryan while wearing her wizard cape and using a chop stick to cast her spells. It made me smile and I had to take a picture to remember it.
The next picture is also just another cute moment of the girls heading off to school. Emilee was excited she was supposed to bring a pumpkin so they could cut it open and count the seeds.
Matthew had his last couple of tournaments the past few weeks. Between football and baseball he was not able to put as much practice time into baseball as he wanted. His hitting was showing it towards the mid and end of the season. His last week before the final tournament he made sure he got in some batting practice everyday even if just for 20 minutes. It made a difference though. He had several good hits, including a line drive walk off hit that got them into the playoffs and they ended up winning the whole tournament. It was a great way for the team to end the season. Now with football being done too he isn’t going to know what to do with himself until basketball starts in January. Just kidding, I am sure he will train for baseball as much as he can.
While the boys are playing baseball there is a twitter contest that the parents have won seven times in a row. The memes are from some of the pics that we posted to twitter. Leading us to our eighth twitter win and keeping our undefeated reign in tact.
One of our games we had some really bad calls from the umpires, which happens sometimes. That’s part of baseball and you have to move on. These particular umpires were soooo bad it almost seemed blatant and comical (if it hadn’t have ended up costing us the game). They had three calls in particular that were awful. Our camera mom got one on camera. I didn’t tweet them publicly but I made a few meme’s of my own that I put on our behind the scenes team chat group.
Allison did her first season of Cheerleading this year. She was a little disenchanted with it because she had a broken arm and couldn’t do the stunts but she likes cheering at the games. When Grandma and Grandpa Terry came they came to watch her and she was the Captain that day which means she gets to pick what cheers they did. They have a few games left and then they have their dance/cheer competition.
A few weeks ago Allison walked in the Spring Hill Fall Festival Parade with her squad, and thought it was pretty fun.
The other day for Allison’s Activity Day Girls Meeting, we went to Deanna Rose Farm. It is a little park and petting zoo. We walked around and did an alphabet scavenger hunt. Each year they have 30-40 baby goats that during the day you can feed with bottle and pet them. Apparently right before closing every night the baby goats go from the bottle feeding pen they have been in all day, to their sleeping pen with hay for the night. They call it the ‘Running Of The Goats’. All the scavenger hunts ended by the baby goats so we could watch. It was pretty cute. The goats are all excited for the hay so they are all smashing up against the gait waiting for it to open. When the person opens the gait 40 little baby goats do a 100 yard dash as fast as their little legs can carry them to the next pen to get their dinner. That was pretty cute in itself. Some of the goats are ‘fainting goats’. I don’t know a lot about goats but when ‘fainting goats’ get really excited or scared or anything that gets the adrenaline going they faint. So some of these cute little goats take of running as fast as they can and then all the sudden they fall over for a few seconds then jump back up and continue on their run. I thought one had tripped but instead of falling forward with his momentum he kind of rolled over on his back with his legs up in the air, then kept rolling and jumped up and continued on when his feet landed on the other side. I wish I had gotten a good picture of one of them fainting but I wasn’t expecting it and they were really fast. Allison and I still got a good laugh though.
I was the Mystery Reader for Emilee’s class this last week. She was thrilled. I will miss it when she doesn’t jump for joy when she sees me someday. She came up and sat by me while I read “If You Give A Pig A Pancake” and six different Little Critter Books. Emilee new where every single mouse, grasshopper, and spider where hidden on each page. I stayed and had lunch with her afterwards. She ate her lunch from home and stole my cookie I got when I went through the lunch line.
Matthew had a tournament the other weekend. I didn’t go because I got to watch Allison cheer. One of the moms took some pictures for me though. They didn’t win the tournament, they didn’t play at their top abilities but there were some good plays including a few double plays that Matthew helped with.
I mentioned in a recent post that Allison had been picking a few fights with Matthew. She started the first one by making the statement that cheerleading is harder than football. Shortly after that she picked another fight by claiming she new more about Harry Potter than Matthew did. The next morning at breakfast Matthew was sitting at the table eating and Allison skipped down the stairs placed a piece of paper in front of Matthew, smiled, and sat down to start eating her own breakfast. Matthew leaned over to see what it said.
To clarify the meaning of this note, I will explain a few things. Last year for Valentine’s Day Allison made a huge Valentine’s box with a giant rooster on the front with the help of her Grandpa Jones. A few kids in her class called her Rooster and she decided to adopt the nickname. None of us call her rooster at home but she refers to herself often as ‘The Rooster’. Matthew’s nickname on his baseball team is Cheetah. A lot of the parents will say ‘Go Cheetah’ to cheer him on. Allison decided to say ‘Go Cheetoh’ instead of cheetah when she cheers for him. She gets a kick out of Matthew shaking his head or rolling his eyes at her while he walk up to the plate. So, she decided to leave this note for him next to his breakfast with all nicknames covered. Matthew took the bait and immediately started arguing with her that cheetahs would eat a rooster in a second. Allison had her responses ready to go and kept them coming no matter how crazy Matthew claimed they were. I think she accomplished her mission to get some attention from Matthew.
Later that day I picked Matthew up for an eye appointment. I reviewed the last three arguments him and Allison have had and asked what he thought she might be trying to accomplish by attacking three of the biggest hobbies in Matthew’s life right now. I saw a little light bulb go off and we brainstormed some ways for him to make her attention seeking more positive. I have noticed several time that he has gone out of his way to give her positive attention and acknowledge her accomplishments. He told me he is an Allison Whisperer now. I told him he is on his way but still needs to practice.
Ryan and I both remind him a lot how much his sisters look up to him and try and be like him. It is a little easier for him and Emilee to get along. I think the bigger age difference decreases the competitiveness between them. Matthew and Allison argue more but I see glimpses of a good relationship between them. It is really important to me that they take care of each other and enjoy each other. I am close with my siblings, especially my sisters. I feel like in a lot of ways we got closer when we were older after we didn’t live at home anymore. I am grateful for that but one of my regrets is that I didn’t develop that more when we were growing up. I tell my kids all the time to take advantage of the years that they live together now and enjoy each other because when they grow up it won’t be like it is now, and they won’t see each other as much, even if they live by each other. I don’t know how much they understand that now, its kind of hard to imagine an adult life when you are a kid but hopefully it will sink in a little.
There have been a few things this week that made me smile and show Allison’s determination. I know that her determination can sometimes drive be bananas, but I love that quality in her. She has a drive to accomplish her goals and desires. It will take her far.
She has recently decided that she wants to get another guinea pig so Peanut Butter isn’t lonely. Ryan and I are not on board with this in anyway and have made no effort to hide our thoughts on the matter. She has just pushed our reasons aside and said she will let us know when she has saved up enough money. She has somehow come up with the amount of $300 to save and then ‘we can’t say no’ even though we told her we have already said no and will continue to say no, regardless of how much money she saves.
Her getting guinea pig number two desire has reinvigorated her dog walking business. Her friend and her were out doing this earlier this week. As they were walking a dog down a street they noticed a sign taped up to the light pole that a couple 2nd grade girls had posted advertising to walk people’s dogs for them. Allison started looking around and noticed that there were several of these signs taped up to mailboxes and other light poles. She finished walking the dog then came straight home to report that some ‘little second graders were trying to steal her business’ and she was not having it, ‘not on my watch’. Her and her friend then spent the next two hours, making their own signs and taping them up right next to all the signs the 2nd graders had put up. She felt quite confident that no one in their right mind would pick a 2nd grader to walk their dog when there was a ‘more experienced’ 4th grader available.
Emilee and Allison share a bathroom and it is always disgusting. Clothes and toothpaste everywhere, play makeup, towels, orbees, soap, made up chemistry projects, and hair stuff is always all over the place. It drives me crazy. It is a constant battle to get them to clean it up or keep it clean. The other day I was grossed out by the bathroom and both girls kept claiming they had ‘cleaned’ it. I was annoyed with it and didn’t want to clean it myself but felt like if I wanted it to actually be clean I would have to have them help me do it, which is basically doing it for them and I didn’t want to do that. I decided to motivate Allison with one of her biggest motivators-money- to clean it. I told her if she cleaned it and did a REALLY good job I would pay her $3. She thought for a minute and counter offered with $3 but not the shower. We compromised at $2 and she didn’t have to clean the shower this time. She came and got me a little while later to have me come check and make sure she did a good job. She had done an amazing job. It was spotless (except the shower of course 😊). I was shocked!! I told her she did amazing and I was proud of her. I didn’t tell her that now that I know her true capabilities the jig is up and she will be cleaning her bathroom a lot more. If I have to pay her two dollars to do it, that is totally worth it to me.
Earlier today Matthew and Allison were progressively raising the volume of their voices as they yelled insulting ‘but true’ things to each other. It was started by Allison telling Matthew that cheerleading is harder than playing football. He was momentarily dumbfounded and stared at her in complete shock until he told her that was the ‘most dumb’ thing she had ever said. Of course Allison was then dumbfounded herself because she was truly shocked that Matthew didn’t totally confirm her statement. They then proceeded to yell at each other different ways that one was better than the other. One that made me chuckle in particular was when Allison was explaining that football players get to run around so the wind cools them off. Cheerleaders stay in pretty much the same spot and don’t create wind so they are hotter. It continued to progress to who gets to drink more water and then sputtered out when I started dancing around the room to music from Aladdin.
Their next argument started not to much later when Allison, who has started reading the Harry Potter books for the first time and is about half way through the series, tried to challenge Matthew who has read all the books three times and watched all the movies at least twice, on some Harry Potter trivia. It progressed much like the argument before until they noticed that Emilee and I had sat down and were getting ready to eat dinner, then they joined us.
The reason I am sharing these little tidbits of sibling interaction is because this past weekend Lauren and I went to a parenting class called ‘Simply on Purpose’. It was a good conference. The presenter was fun to listen to and had some good information to share. It included lunch too which is always nice. I have been trying to practice some of the things she said the past few days. Some of it I have already heard or know but it is nice to have a reminder and reset sometimes. I also learned how to do somethings in a better way. Some of the main points I took away from her conference in no particular order was;
So, the past few days when someone starts whining or fighting I try and remember some of these tactics. I try and change the momentum, stay calm, stay positive, and ignore the attention seeking inconsequential behaviors, however obnoxious they may be. I don’t always do it, or execute it perfectly, but I have noticed that it works when I do. When Emilee starts whining I do something else, or talk with someone else. Then as soon as she stops I make sure to give her positive attention. When the kids start fighting I will try and change the momentum by doing something silly or distracting them. In the case of the two arguments I started this post with, I didn’t interact with Matthew or Allison and within the minute and forty five seconds their fight had died out and they both had moved on, or noticed that Emilee was getting positive attention and came over to join us instead.
The kids fight fairly often but I have a little different perspective on it this week. I try to see how they are learning and practicing the things that sibling rivalry teaches them. It is almost interesting now to listen or watch them interact. I’m sure that will not always be the case, but for now it is a nice change from feeling irritation and anger at them for fighting a lot.
I thought I was ignoring behavior before but I actually wasn’t. Most of the time I would inadvertently acknowledge it and then ignore it, so I was actually reinforcing the behavior. It is a lot harder to purposefully ignore something than you think. It takes a lot more concentration then addressing the situation does.
