WDTG?

Seriously, where does time go?  And why is it always in a hurry? It's November 1st.  NOVEMBER.  Wow.  This phenomenon is perplexing.

Many good blog topics have come and gone.  Many small events in the lives of my children have certainly passed without being documented.  Well, in my work world of Human Resources we have a little theme that if it's not documented, it didn't happen.  So, I kind of feel that way at home.  Stuff has happened and soon I'll forget about it because I didn't blog it.  I suppose I need to get better.  Since I quit the time-sucking evil that is Facebook several months ago, I thought I would spend more time doing more important things. I am not sure I've gotten there yet, but I did start reading a book called "Getting Things Done".  So, I am working on it. :)

So, let's back up the train a little bit . . . first, School.

Gunnar started a new school this year as he entered 4th grade.  He is now a Wolf instead of a Bucaneer.  He seems to be doing very well thus far.  He started the year with a substitute teacher though.  I realize that women are free to have babies whenever they please, but it's a little annoying that his teacher is going to miss the entire first quarter of school.  She supposedly coming back on the 13th of November.  We were happy with who Gunnar got for  teacher, we didn't know until the first day of school that she wasn't going to be there.  At any rate, Gunnar doesn't have to deal with his brother at school anymore so that seems to be good for him.  Paden still silently worships Gunnar, but Gunnar was really ready to have a break.  At the elementary school because Paden was in a 1st/2nd grade split class last year, he was in the 2nd/3rd grade hallway and same lunch/recess schedule as Gunnar.  Needless to say, a big brother just needs a little space sometimes.  We figured that from here on out, they won't run into each other very much, so I am hopeful they will love each other again someday.  We missed conferences due to a football game that we had to leave like at 4pm.  I was going to send a substitute parent to talk to the substitute teacher, but I thought that might have been a little much.  Gunnar does have perfect attendance so far.  I really think that's important.

Gunnar played football for the first year.  It was a fun experience to get into football.  There were 20 kids on the team, only 5 of which had ever played before and there were about 9 fourth graders.  We don't have enough kids in our town to make a 3rd/4th team and a separate 5th/6th team, so it's one team and we had to play the older teams.  We got crushed.  Hard.  I think second game ended about 51 to 0.   The team only scored one touchdown all year.  They did however make improvements from game to game.  They started to get the hang of it.  It's pretty fun to watch them - Neil may disagree. 

Paden is in second grade, although I was seriously confused the other day and had to ask him if he was in 2nd or 3rd.  Because he was in the 1st/2nd split last year and did all 2nd grade work last year, I keep forgetting what grade he is in.  So, he's still testing in the 97th and 99th percentile in Reading and Math.  He got some ridiculous percent of his goal for the first quarter AR reading - like 134% or 145% or something like that at a 3.9 level average (so 3rd grade 9th month average).  And he got that like a month before the quarter ended.  So, that's Paden.  He is somewhat like the absent-minded professor.  He's not a neat, organized kid.  He's a little sloppy, clumsy and just all over the place.  His teacher said that sometimes she has to watch or he'll be on her lap.  She has Paden helping with getting other kids logged into the computer, of course.  He's a little needy still, but he does have a few friends.  We've been trying to work with him quite a bit with his social interaction with people his own age.  The teacher said there was one time where a girl got upset at something Paden said because she didn't understand.  The teacher understood what he was trying to say, but it came out wrong to another 7-year old. Good times.  Paden also has perfect attendance.

Paden played soccer and starts a little basketball camp on Monday.  He had a good time with soccer even though I had to bribe him to play.  He's OK with basketball because it's only a 5-day camp.  He doesn't want to do wrestling, which I am alright with.  I am sure he'll be playing quite a few video games during the winter.  He did state he needed a new game because he's bored with the ones we have.

Then there's Fischer. We elected not to put Fischer in Preschool this year because he'll have to go two years anyway.  So, next year he can go.  I hope that goes over well.  He's very similar to Paden in that he doesn't do change well and anything out of the ordinary he freaks out.  When our babysitter wasn't available, he had to go to my friend Jessica's and the second day he refused to go to the bathroom at her house.  She had to just make him sit down and cry until he went.  So yeah . . . hopefully he doesn't do what Paden did when he was 4 with the preschool thing.  Paden would have a meltdown about going to the sitter too.  Fischer throws a fit if he can't go to Sarah's, so he's used to that.

Fischer does work on his letters at Sarah's.  They just finished "F".  He knows how to write an F and an E.  He can count to about 23.  He is pretty dang witty.  He likes to joke around.  He knows he's funny.  He had to take some pictures to Sarah's for a project.  So, we quickly had to look through pics one morning.  Later that day when she showed me the project, she said that she thought the pictures Fischer brought were of Paden.  After further inspection, it appears that is the case.  Fischer thinks they are him, so whatever.  But, yeah, I think they are Paden.  They all look similar to one another in different stages of their life.  Fischer is actually very athletic and intelligent.       He's pretty dang cute.

I think I'll have to finish recapping another day - only so much energy available . . .