-Yesterday picked up the eldest after a straight A freshman year at college.
-Jr in HS middle child was just accepted at a competitive engineering summer camp at U of I. He qualified for whatever the next round is in the Nat’l Merit scholarship competition, for which he needs to take the SAT. He was just inducted into the NHS, and Thespian society.
-Youngest child was chosen most valuable sophomore member of her HS band.
I’m glad they take after their mom instead of their dad!
Hmm…brag about my daughter? Yeah, I suppose I can manage a little bit of that.
Ever since we switched baby sitters about two months ago, Shayla (now almost 18 months) has really blossomed. She’s spending several hours each day with four other kids, all around 2 - 2.5 years old, so she’s learning a ton from them.
In the past month, she’s learned…
[ul]
[li]…what “give me a kiss” means. If I’m in another room and I yell “Shayla! I need a kiss!”, she’ll come tearing into the room in full pucker mode. Cute as hell. :)[/li][li]…that while Boo is a cat, not all cats are named Boo. Cats are now identified as “cat” until she learns their name, not as “Boo” anymore.[/li][li]…the full bedtime protocol. At 8:30, I say “Ok, time for bed”, and she rushes over to the staircase. We go up, brush our teeth, go to her room where we read a story, and then she gets placed in her crib without any fuss at all. Plus, it’s very rare that she’ll wake up at all during the night anymore. Ahhhh…:)[/li][li]…how to remember things she’s done. After a bath the other night, I couldn’t find her hairbrush. After searching everywhere, I turned to Shayla and asked “Do you know where your hairbrush is? Your hairbrush?”, and I pantomimed brushing hair. She scrunched up her face in thought, and then ran out to the dining room and opened a cabinet that she hadn’t been near for the past two days. Bingo…there was the hairbrush. That one really floored me.[/li][/ul]Ok, there’s more, but I don’t want to exceed any federally regulated bragging levels. So, woohoo to all the brilliant DoperKids!
I think he was erring on the side of caution. I mean, it’s an online test. How are they supposed to know you don’t have your calc book and an entire semester’s worth of notes spread out around the keyboard? They said “no notes,” and by God, he was going to do all 20 problems with no notes.
Well, eleven-year-old scored high enough on his MAP (whatever that is) test to be automatically placed in pre-algebra next year at middle school. He also got an honest-to-goodness base hit the other night (though, if the right fielder had been on top of things, he might have been able to throw hiim out at first). He also tagged a guy out at third.
The almost eight-year-old has continued to get all excellent grades and has managed to refrain from saying out loud “I can’t believe you don’t know that” to his classmates for the last half of the school year.
The eighteen-month-old has gotten very good at climbing on the playground equipment during the brothers’ baseball practice and going down the tornado slide by himself. He also is making slightly different noises for different things now, but is a far cry from his oldest brother, who you could actually hold a conversation with at that age.
Oldest (4) says to me while I’m looking up at the clouds to determine if it will rain on our picnic “Don’t fear the wind, Mommy. It’s medicine for the trees.”
Youngest (almost 3) says to the cashier and other customers waiting in line with me a the grocery store “Hello everybody. I’m here today.” That one got a big laugh from all.
Dominic is the most generous, sweet kid ever. This is a story from within the last year. I was feeling not so good and lying on the couch trying to figure out what to do for dinner but not wanting to cook anything because I felt bad. So Dominic asks if he could fix nachos. Nachos is his favorite food, and he is very good at making them. In our house, nachos is Tostitos Gold chips covered with shredded cheese, microwaved until the cheese just starts to melt, and then topped with pico de gallo. So it’s not the world’s least healthy food, but it won’t win any prizes for a great dinner, either, which is why it’s usually a Saturday afternoon snack or something and not a meal. But as I said, I felt bad and didn’t want to cook, and figured it wouldn’t hurt just this once.
So he goes into the kitchen and I hear him clanking dishes, opening the refrigerator, beeping buttons on the microwave, etc. Then I remembered we were almost out of cheese. “Honey, do we have enough cheese for two plates of nachos?” I called into the kitchen.
He calls back:
“No, only for one, so I’m going to have a sandwich.”
Yes, my 11 year old made me the nachos–his favorite food–and fixed himself a sandwich.
He also does things like this:
Me: “you need to put the clean dishes away before you can play”
Him: “ok. Oh, and don’t forget I have to scoop the litterbox, too.”
Me: “right. That too.”
Sometimes he takes out the trash because it’s full, without being told. He does his own laundry without being prompted, too.
Now if I could just get him to address HOMEWORK with the same level of responsibility…
My son, then aged 7 3/4, sang the opening verse of “Once In Royal David’s City” solo to open the Xmas Eve service at church. He got three notes from the organ as his cue and sang it unaccompanied. When the organ came in for the second verse, son wasn’t so much as a hairsbreadth out of tune. :sniffle:
Sheesh, malacandra, I got choked up reading about it! I would have been a puddle of goo if that had been my kid.
I love reading the baby and toddler stories, because of the memories they bring back. I love reading the older kid stories, because I like thinking that’s what I can look forward to.
My 11-year-old son had his piano recital last Sunday. He’s been taking piano for two years. He was not flawless (nor was anyone else), but he recovered from his bobbles with aplomb.
He played a 2nd-year-piano-student version of Brahms’ Hungarian Dance #5 (and when I learned that was what he was playing for his recital, I immediately taught him the Allen Sherman version…“If you like Hungarian food, we have a goulash that is very good!”).
He also played a piece with walking bass, and he totally nailed it!
He was good enough that an older couple, someone’s grandparents, said to us on the way out, “He played really well!”
Two years ago, we played two duets at the Christmas Eve service at our church. I was a nervous wreck. He was cool as cucumber. “I just forget about the audience and concentrate on what I’m doing,” he told me sagely afterward.
My youngest son is leaving on Sunday to do a “Research Experience for Undergraduates” in Tokyo for the summer! He will be doing research in nanotechnology. He is a physics major and just finished his sophomore year. Since last summer, he has been doing research at school on quantifying the force exerted by a laser beam (which has applications for moving nanoparticles)
His older brother is in Japan now with the U.S. Navy. He graduated from college last year -Magna Cum Laude with Distinction (Honors) in Japanese.
I’m going to Japan this summer to see both of them! I wish I did not have to struggle so much to learn Japanese.
I think he will wind up being college roommates with CeeJayTee’s kid
Spectre of Pithecanthropus, mine were also good for a quarter. Was I the only kid whose parents used to tie a string around a dangling tooth, tie the other end around a doorknob and slam the door to get the tooth out ? :eek: :eek:
I love these stories. It is really beautiful to read them. AHoosierMama I must tell you that the quote from your 4 year old has been sent to a lot of folks on my mailing list.
Those words speak volumes. Small kids, man. Before they become wary and jaded, silenced or have their worldview tinted through the filter of an overwhelming adult planet, they feel and say pure things. I want to remember this kid’s quote, because it rings with a pure tone and is heartwarming. Right on.
It bears repeating, too !
Don’t fear the wind, Mommy. It’s medicine for the trees.
I used to get a silver dollar, the big one with JFK on it. I don’t even know if they make them anymore. My father gave me a pile for the kids. It’s only a dollar, but it’s a big 'un.
I’m dealing with some spousal crap right now, and my daughter turned to me and said, “You’re the strongest person I know.” I remember then whenever I start to waver. How could I ever stand to disappoint her?
