...and just like that Summer is over. And I look back at the web site and see where I left off and it's six months again!
MAY - We drove Owen out to the small town of
Normal, IL for his Young Authors Conference.
The event took most of the day. We arrived at the University and located the group Owen was in with and the rest of
us headed off to see what there is to see in Normal. Answer: not a whole heck of a lot.
And the rain didn't help much either.
Later we went back and watched the presentation where Owen received a
certificate of participation (at the reading of the title,
Superbowl Forever, there was a murmur
of approval from the dad's in the audience) and an autographed copy of the guest author's book
("
Henry and the Crazed Chicken Pirates"). He made some friends
and had a lot of fun there.
We took our time heading home, stopping off at the
Route 66
Museum and Veteran's Museum on the way. Of course all Owen cared about were the guns and seemed to think that
everyone who ever goes into the military gets killed.
Later in the month we went to a
Lego show up near St Charles. This was at a Historical Society where a history of the Boy Scouts was on
display. Owen seems to also think
everyone who was in the Boy Scouts was killed as well.
JUNE means the end of school!
Adam lost his first
two teeth this month!! The first was while he was
at summer camp, and the second was while he was out shopping with mom.
We have a pill container that we put the teeth in for under the pillow.
Adam was very meticulous in making sure the container was easily accessible,
and definitely under his pillow for the tooth fairy.
We treated the boys to their first trip to
Six Flags Great
America. It'd been around 20 years
since I'd last been there and it's changed quite a bit but it was good to see some
old favorites still lurking about.
We did have some issues getting the boys on rides. I was forced to resort to not telling them what the ride we were going on
actually did. I started the day off
with taking them on the
Demon - a classic and my personal first roller coaster. Let's just say the ride isn't as smooth as it used to be. We got slammed around quite a bit on it much to the displeasure of both
the kids. Owen later said he didn't
mind that it was a roller coaster, nor the surprise loops, but he hated how
rough it was. At the end of the day
I managed to get him to go on the Dark Knight roller coaster and THAT was a
mistake. It was quite frightening
and intense for Owen - an indoor, in-the-dark roller coaster.
The highlight of the day, however, was riding our old
friend
The Little Dipper from Kiddieland! Kiddieland closed last summer but Six Flags bought the rollercoaster and
gave it some minor upgrades and we had fun riding it again.
Of note: we were waiting to ride the self-driving cars when
around the corner came two guys dressed as the
Blues Brothers and completely in
character. They were performing
locally for the movie's 30
th Anniversary and Owen had just recently
got some Blues Brothers education.
A week later we had a treat for the boys -
Lego's
BrickWorld convention! Four
conference rooms packed with some amazing Lego creations from builders from all
over the country. Adam was
fascinated by the
giant remote control robot Lego chess set.
JULY was vacation time and we all headed off to the
UK. We spent some time in
Sunderland
(first time back since Adam was a baby). Owen got to see his first live soccer match - a pre season friendly of
Sunderland vs Darlington, and a few days later we took Owen on a tour of
Sunderland's
Stadium of Light. Owen was given autographed photos of two of his favorite players -
Darren
Bent and
Kenwyne Jones (who has since been sold by the club to another team).
Then we ALL headed down to London for a few days, where amongst other things, we took a
sightseeing tour (we had watched the UK's Junior Apprentice with Owen just
before we left and he enjoyed seeing some familiar sights from the tv show) and
later the same day Grandma and Grandpa took the boys to see the London production of
Oliver.
They were both enthralled but it was a very long day for them and they
only just made it though the show.
AUGUST was a busy month as well with Owen starting his
travelling soccer team! Earlier in
the summer we decided he was ready to get out of the in house/recreational team and he tried
out for the travelling team. Instead
of playing all local teams within the soccer club he now represents the
club at U-9 level and has games all over the area. Some games are as far as nearly 30 miles away.
The season started with a seeding tournament to determine
what teams get matched with whom. Six games in two days, in 80-90 degrees, and it didn't go very well at all. Training for this was more along the lines of conditioning rather than
coming together as a team and as a result they lost five of the matches, and
winning only one.
A few weeks later, however, there was the local
tournament and Owen's team won two of the three games, with the third being a
tie (against a dirty playing team - having an extra player on the field until
they were caught, and having a habit of kicking the ball out of bounds whenever
possible).
They've had two more proper games since that - winning one
and drawing on the other. One of the teams they lost to at the seeding tournament
they played at the local tournament and in a normal game and they beat them both
times.
SEPTEMBER brings us a new school year. Owen is starting third grade and Adam is starting Kindergarten.
As mentioned previously we decided to pull Adam from
Montessori for kindergarten because we wanted to do as we did for Owen -
Montessori in the morning, public school in the afternoon. However Montessori wouldn't allow us to do this again so we pulled him
completely. Right now he is only
attending mornings and he is enjoying it. It's very different for him. He's not used to all the commotion around him after several years of peaceful,
quiet, subdued Montessori ways.
OCTOBER and
NOVEMBER : We had our
parent/teacher conferences for each of the boys. Much easier now that
they are at the same school. Adam's teacher commented that she likes
to call on him because he always takes the lesson into interesting
directions. He might make a comment that wasn't where she was heading
but still connected to the lesson... somehow. Owen has been placed in the top
reading group for his class. He's doing quite well this year, with his
only issue being in the area of Ideas. That is, having to explain
himself in his writings. He tends to do the minimal writing when
giving an answer.
Owen's travelling soccer season came to a close at the end of October.
They had a great season, losing only one game. The final standings
finally came out and, for his division, Owen's team came out in FIRST PLACE! After the final game
Owen's coach came over to tell him he's the player who has improved the most
over the course of the season. Indeed. By the end of the season
Owen was right in there and came close a number of times to scoring a goal,
a feat which, in the end, eluded him. But it's just a few short weeks
off before the winter/indoor soccer season begins... although they are still
doing their once a week 3 mile run!
For Halloween this year Owen shunned the superheroes and Star Wars
characters and instead requested to be a zombie. And Adam, once again,
decided he wanted to wear one of Owen's old costumes - a Star Wars Clone
Trooper. Mom tried to get him to wear the Batman costume but he wasn't
having it.
And, finally, our Adam turned SIX! He got to have a birthday
celebration at school, then came home to open his presents. The
following weekend was his birthday party and we decided to have it someplace
new, a place called
Jump Zone.
It's really just a big room filled with inflatable slides and bounce houses
but he and his friends had a ball. And a number of Adam's friends
wound up having older brothers who knew Owen so they came too and Owen had
friends to play with.
About 90% of Adam's gifts this year were of the Lego variety and every time
he opened another one you could see the disappointment and jealousy in
Owen's eyes...
Added:
- Seven pages of photos! (dated 10.23 and 11.09)
- Updated Monty's page
- Adam Art Club (1 image)
05.01.10 - Six Months Later... - Day 2981 / 2005
Well. Six months! I had fully
intended to do more frequent yet smaller updates but as the boys get older
free time to sit in front of the computer (and actually be able to
concentrate on something) gets shorter and shorter! And, frankly, not a whole
lot happens over the course of four weeks to warrant an update.
So let's pick up where we left off:
November means Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving means the
circus is in town! As soon as
Adam heard the circus was coming he knew he was going because we go every
year and immediately he said he wanted one of those light up toys that they
sell at these things. He wanted
one last year but we said no. This year we gave in and he was ridiculously happy when the vendor handed it
to him. I'm writing this five
months later and he still plays with it.
December comes and with it comes Uncle Mike from England.
And it doesn't matter how cold it is outside Owen was determined to take him
to the park to play soccer. December also means winter concerts at the
schools. Both were exercises in patience for us. Owen goofed
with his friends throughout his, and, Adam, well... Adam's took place at the
high school auditorium. As soon as Adam walked out on stage and he saw
the packed house full of people he went into full Clown mode. He
started posing and hamming it up which amused the audience and
only encouraged him more. Then, just before the class was about to
sing their first song the lights in the auditorium went out! At first we
figured it was a mistake, but once we saw the glow-in-the-dark t-shirts we
realized it was intentional. In
fact two of the three songs they sang were performed in the dark -
absolutely useless for photos or video.
December also brings Christmas and one of the things we
got Owen was tickets to see the
Harlem Globetrotters. This was Owen's first live 'sport' event and he wasn't really sure
what to expect. He'd seen the
Globetrotters on tv in the past but he didn't remember it. While he was unsure before the game, once the Globetrotters came out
and started their
Magic Circle warm-up he was
wow-ing and laughing along. Afterwards we got some autographs, including
legend
Curly Neal, a player
from the 70s. While Adam got a lot of gifts as well, probably the best
part of Christmas for him wasn't even a present - it was going to see
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The
Squeakquel! Adam has been a Chipmunk fanatic for over a year.
For at least seven months the only cd he listened to in his room was the
Chipmunks' Christmas
album. Earlier in the year, when we saw the trailer in the theater
Adam sat there with a look of pure disbelief.
January was uneventful. The boys (finally!) returned to school after an exhausting winter
break.
February: At the start of the school year Owen
participated in his school's Young Authors program in which all students are
encouraged to write their own book. As football season was starting up around this time Owen chose for
his subject matter the Super Bowl and the never-ending rivalry between the
Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers. It was this month when we got the news that Owen's book,
Super Bowl
Forever!, was chosen to represent his school's second grade at the
State conference in May! Everyone around him was excited and congratulated him on this honor, but he's
not really sure what it means.
February was also Dad and Me day at Adam's school. This brought another frustrating performance from the class. The dad's were ushered in to the class room as the class was singing
a song. Adam's teacher announced
the kids were just warming up so we all got settled in and I set up my
camera. The kids sang a couple
of song and suddenly each child's name was called out so they could show
their dad what they do all day.
There was no introduction or dialog from the teacher. We were all a bit confused. Again. Adam demonstrated
word building (where they are given an object and have to spell it out with
cardboard letters. Each object
has a specific word sound - like 'oy' in toy). He also demonstrated a giant world
map puzzle that he likes to do. He's also been working very hard
tracing each piece and making a giant world map.
March: Owen turned 8! Once again Owen passed on the idea of having a birthday party. Since he was off school the day before (while Adam
wasn't) we treated Owen to two of his favorite things - we took him out for
breakfast, and then bowling! On
his actual birthday we took the boys to their favorite restaurant
Red Robin.
In
April we took the boys to the
Museum of Science and
Industry, primarily to take Owen to see his first IMAX film:
Hubble.
Both the boys have been taking Young Artist classes at school. Adam
seems to really be into it. While the work he brings home are mostly
well done, it's his drawings he's doing at home which are really impressive.
Unfortunately most of them are done on dry erase boards (the latest fad in
the house) and if I don't take a picture right away they disappear forever.
Owen is taking Young Artists classes as well for the second year in a row.
In the past he's never shown a lot of interest in drawing but this is the
year of
Diary of a
Wimpy Kid - a book series that all the kids are into right now.
The book contains a number of cartoonish drawings that Owen started
imitating, and then transformed into doing his own stuff.
Adam has also started taking chess classes at school. He's really
enjoying it, even though he gets some of the pieces movements wrong.
Both boys, at nearly the same time, have completely gotten into reading.
Owen can usually be found reading in his bed a good hour after bedtime and
goes through several books a week.
Adam is only halfway through his last set of
Now I'm
Reading books, but I don't think we'll bother finishing them. He,
too, has started reading heavily on his own and just recently started
reading through the
Henry and Mudge
series of books - a series Owen was reading in first grade! There has
been discussions on if we should, or could, see if we could get Adam
straight into first grade but his maturity isn't there. He still goes
into crying fits when something doesn't go his way, or if he believes
something to be true that isn't.
Other items of note: Soccer season started! Owen is now on one of the
more advanced teams and a few more rules have been added to his games.
He loves soccer but he's still a little afraid to go after the ball
vigorously. Adam's in soccer as well but isn't nearly as interested.
He spends most of his games goofing off and not paying attention to what's
going on.
Finally, after almost a year, we've nearly cured Owen of his nail
biting. We put little pieces of paper tape on his nails after school.
When he'd stick his fingers in his mouth the tape reminded him and he took
them out. He still gets at them occasionally but we actually get to
cut them now.
Added:
- Five pages of photos!
- Adam's Art Club!
-
Read Owen's book Super Bowl Forever! here
(pdf)
-
New video! (Adam Sings Christmas)
