And he reads...

Now that he finally shows interest, Destroy likes to read! For a few months he has been spelling, but he has not had the desire to sit down and read. In the car, for instance, we would give him a word. Like DIG. He would figure it out in his head and spell it for us.

But we could not get him to sit down and sound out the words in a book.

But just recently he has decided that reading is fun. The other day he blew me away at Costco when I caught him sounding out the letters to "restrooms".

"Mom, that sign says 'restrooms'!" That was the day that I decided that it was time to start teaching him how to read. So, upon this highly recommended book, we have started a lesson a day. The lessons are short, they're not flashy, and it's all very simple. He starts kindergarten not this fall but the next, so I figure we can take all the time we need!

I have found that when I go to the library to look for beginner reading books, they are all way too advanced for his level. Does anyone have any recommendations for easy, early reader books? I want to find some that are simple and with few words so that it doesn't push him away from wanting to read. Any advice?

The lawyer goes to the library

Some background: My mom and I have a nickname for Destroy. We call him the lawyer. He is an impressive bargainer and manipulator and he has some serious stamina when it comes to talking his way into something that he wants. Or trying to prolong bedtime for example. He also has amazing charisma and persuasion. It also helps that he is a 4-year-old with a wide vocabulary and the ability to pull out the puppy eyes when needed. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with his mother who has long since discovered these "gifts" and will not give in.

A couple of weeks ago Destroy accidentally broke a library DVD. I reamed him about it because he knows that kids aren't supposed to touch the DVDs in our house (which is why we have a TV cabinet with a lock). I told him that they were going to charge us a lot for the broken DVD because they always jack up the prices at the library.

A few days later we took the books and the broken DVD back to the library. Interested to see what would happen, I told Destroy that he needed to give the DVD to the librarian and explain what had happened. He enthusiastically ran inside (he wasn't remorseful about the situation) and went up to the circulation desk as Search and I trailed behind him.

He pulls out the puppy eyes and charisma before he says, "Hi. I accidentally broke Kipper the other day when I was taking it out of the case. I'm really sorry and I feel really bad (lie). I'll try to be more careful next time."

The librarian looks down at him and takes the DVD. She asks me for my library card. After she pulls up my account she says,

"Well, he seemed really sorry about it and he said he would be more careful next time. I'm just going to check it in as damaged materials so you won't have to pay for it". By this time Destroy had run off so he didn't hear her. I was glad for this because I don't want him thinking he can talk his way out of every situation. But of course I was very happy that we didn't have to pay the jacked up fee.

Then again yesterday: We were at McDonalds with some friends. I got the kids some fries to share and they had chowed most them when Destroy spilled three or four of them on the floor. Moments later after Destroy had run off to play, I see a McDonald's worker approach him and give him a WHOLE NEW ORDER OF FRIES. When he brought them over to the table I asked him how the heck he got those. He told me that he simply told the McDonald's worker that he spilled his (three) french fries on the floor and that he needed more. And that was that.

Is it simply the age?
Is he already developing characteristics necessary for a law degree a few decades too early?

Either way, I'm kind of into this if it gets us free stuff.

That is, as long as he is oblivious to any contrary outcomes. Which can't be hidden from him forever. This must come to an end... there are no lawyers allowed in this family (no offense Jamieson).

Mack Attack

When Destroy finished potty training he got Mack the Truck from the Cars movie. I don't know how the things still lives after the crash testing it's been through but the boys love it. The other day while grocery shopping I saw the same truck and immediately picked it up because I haven't seen it anywhere. The current Mack truck we own has been the most played with toy in our house for the last few months, so I decided to buy a second one to reward Search for his potty training. They were both ecstatic to have another one. After they were playing for a while I noticed that Search was playing with the old Mack truck. Destroy informed me that Search likes the old one because it closes easier. ANYWAY, Destroy was happy about that. That night it was Destroy's turn for bedtime prayer. Here is how it went:

"Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the planets and thank you that Jesus made the wood for this bunk bed. And thank you for our new Mack truck. And thank you that Search doesn't like it. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

It was one of those nights when you try so hard not to laugh during the prayer because you know that if you do, they'll say the same thing the next night just to get you to laugh again.

I Forgot to Add That...

...Church was cancelled this last week! I'm thinking, sweet! We moved to the right place where they cancel church! But, I guess it doesn't happen all that often. Aw, nuts! We had a pretty good storm on saturday night and there was supposed to be freezing rain which would make driving to church a wee bit dangerous. So, they were looking out for our safety and decided to cancel church. I think this was the first time in my relatively short life that it's ever happened to me. So, instead we went over to our primary president's house and played the Wii. Don't worry, we kept if sunday-sensored and we didn't play anything with guns or cussing (like we would anyways). PS, next time you see our primary president, don't tell her I told you :)

On another Wii note, Destroy and I tied the other day while bowling and I wasn't trying to lose. He also kicks my patooty at baseball too. It's very humbling when your four-year-old can beat you at video games. I don't pretend to be good at them (because I'm not) but in my defense, I've had a few years more of video gaming under my belt than he has. Yesterday I came out after taking a little nap and Destroy had gotten a stool, gotten the key off the top of the TV, unlocked the cabinet, plugged into the Wii cord into the correct spot, turned on the Wii, turned on the Bose and TV, plugged in the nun chuck into the Wii remote (which neither Aaron or I have ever tried before), maneuvered his way through all the menus and was just beginning to box (which neither Aaron or I have ever done before either). On top of that, he did really well and got four knock outs in the first few rounds. I thought that maybe I was still asleep and having a strange dream. I swear this new generation was practicing computer and technology skills before they were born.

Up to Date

The past few days have been pretty busy? But, seriously, who isn't busy at this time of year? I finally finished shopping, sewing and wrapping yesterday so we are good to go for Christmas. The only other reason that I should have to go to the store is if someone spills the entire carton of milk or we run out of chewable Tylenol. On Monday we went to the zoo with our friend Alli. This is Destroy in his favorite place in the whole zoo, curled up in a ginormous pretend snake. The "Deserts" is his favorite exhibit in the whole zoo. Well, and he really likes the rhinos. Speaking of rhinos, the other day Destroy told me that he wanted a Rhinoceros (or "Nacerous", rhinoceros without the rhi, as he calls it) and a hippo for Christmas. When I asked him where he would put it, he was a bit stupefied, so he decided he'd rather have a spider instead. I told him there was no way we were going to have a spider in our house (that I knew of). He told me that he would make the spider have a happy face and he'd take out it's teeth. Well, that's great news. I'm pretty sure Santa won't be bringing us a spider this year. Or any other year. Destroy also had his preschool Christmas program. This picture is really bad because I was trying to film on the video camera and hold Jeremy in my lap at the same time (Aaron was at work). If I ever emerge from the stone age I'll learn how to post videos. They dressed up as snowmen and angels and sang a few songs. It was awesome. Destroy is the one with the orange gloves.
Search has potty trained himself this week. He doesn't need reminders from me, he can hold it for 3 hours or so and doesn't need pull-ups for his nap. He's even held it all night! I can't think of a better Christmas present. Merry Christmas to me! On the downside, he's come down with this funky virus that I can't remember the name for. Aaron could tell you but he's not here. He has a whole bunch of sore in his mouth that look like canker sores. His lymph nodes are outrageously swollen and this morning he threw up. But since these sores in his mouth are so painful that he literally hasn't eaten anything but a cookie and 2 granola bites for the last two days, the only thing he puked up was water. Makes nice for the clean up I guess. Besides not eating, he's up all night like a newborn (at least every two hours) whining about his mouth so we are both pretty tired. I feel really bad for him but I don't know how much more whining and crying I can take. This morning he woke up with red bumps on his arms. So, what's next? So this is what he's been doing: watching movies. It's the only thing that stops the whining.
He have hosted a couple of playgroups this month and made gingerbread men and sugar cookies. We did one playgroup for church and one for some of the medical resident's wives. I finally cleaned off the yellow frosting from the kitchen window yesterday after Search pointed at it and said, "That's from playgroup!" I figured if it was bad enough for one of the kids to notice, then it was really bad.
Here's Ethan and DestroySearch, Destroy, their friends Taylor and Brandon and their mom (and my friend:)) Jenni. The candies and frosting for the gingerbread men didn't quite make it to the gingerbread man. They detoured into Search and Destroy's mouths instead. Aaron has just started a month in the ICU so we won't be seeing him much. He's on call every 4th night. But somehow he got Christmas day off so we are pretty excited about that! We hope you all have a Merry Christmas!

Veterans Day

This last weekend was a complete blur. Aaron has been working a lot and he was on call sunday. Which means that we see him on saturday night and then the next time we see him is on monday afternoon. He is tired to say the least. Anyways, it rained a good chunk of the weekend and I wasn't about to go out in public with black-eyed-baby. Social services would have taken one look and I would be kid-less:) So today we went down to the post office to mail a couple of packages. It wasn't until then that I realized what day it was (monday) and that it was a holiday (Veterans Day). So on the way home Search and Destroy asked why the post office was closed. So I began to explain why we have a day called veterans day. I basically said that our country, called America has an army with soldiers who fight for our freedom. I listed a few examples of thing we enjoy with freedom; church, preschool, going to the park, etc. Then I told them that they have/had two Grandpa's who fought in past wars so that we could keep our freedom. Destroy said he was going to help the soldiers by "whacking the other soldiers with [his] lifesaver" (Star Wars never fails to wiggle it's way into every aspect of our lives). Search said he was going to help by shooting them with his guns. This discussion was not going in the direction I had hoped.

Later, when Aaron got home, Destroy began to tell him about Veteran's day.
Destroy: "The post office was closed because today is veteran's day"
Aaron: "Oh yeah?"
Destroy: "Yeah. Soldiers fight so that other countries won't come and take over our country."
Aaron: "Really".
Destroy: "Yeah. And soldiers killed lots of guys. Papa killed tons of guys!"
Meg: "No, Destroy, Papa might have killed a few guys." (Understandably, Papa doesn't like to talk about the war much so we don't know).
Destroy: "Well, I need to call Papa and thank him."
Meg: "What are you going to say to him?"
Destroy: "I'm going to tell him thank you for killing a few guys!"

I guess we can all say our thanks in different ways, huh? I know I'm grateful to have such brave,sacrificing men and women fighting for my freedom. I'm especially thankful to my Grandpa who spent two years fighting in WWII. We are so lucky to live in a country where we are able to choose our lives instead of have them chosen for us.

Darth Vader's First Prayer

The boys fight almost every night over who gets to say the dinner prayer and the bedtime prayer. Some nights we let them each say a prayer and other times they like to "help" each other, one repeating what the other has said like we do to them. And we all know that Destroy has a bit of obsession with Darth Vader. Hence the cake, the costume and the new little Darth Vader figurine that Search got him for his birthday.

So last night Destroy volunteered to say the bedtime prayer under the stipulation that he "help" Darth Vader to say it too. I realize now that we probably should have said no at the get go, but we are trying to make saying prayers fun and interesting. And we really just wanted them to go to bed. Well, at least it's blogable material, right?

So he begins, "Ok, Darth Vader, say 'Dear Heavenly Father'". Then in a much lower, mechanically enhanced voice he speaks for Darth Vader, "DEAR HEAVENLY FATHER,"

Destroy goes on, "Thank you for dinner". In his Darth Vader voice, "THANK YOU FOR DINNER."
Apparently Destroy noticed that his mother and father were visible shaking with laughter at this point and decided to stop. He informed us that he was just going to say it by himself now. So that's all we got out of Darth Vader last night and I was kind of bummed. Maybe there is still hope for Darth Vader's exaltation yet with Destroy's help. And see? He's already mastering those missionary skills!

Happy Birthday Destroy (yesterday)!

Destroy celebrated his fourth birthday yesterday. He told me he wanted a Darth Vader cake with blue chocolate. I didn't exactly have the time to spend on an elaborate birthday cake for him so, with his permission, I used the mask of his Halloween costume on the cake. It was the easiest birthday cake I've ever made! We brought his cake along with us to a friend's Halloween party and sang to him there.
Pumpkin patch this year.

3 years old blowing out candles on his T-Rex cake.
3 years old at the pumpkin patch.
2 years old taking cars off of his cake. Don't ask me why this is underlined. I didn't do anything.
2 years old at pumpkin patch with new brother.
1 year old making a large amount of mess with a small amount of cake.
1 year old at pumpkin patch!
And of course, his real birthday. Wasn't he adorable?
Oh, and by the way. My new calling is Cub Master. I'm pretty excited and it's a lot of work! It will prepare me for when my rugrats are in cub scouts. So, Aisha was right. Good guess!

PretHENding

Tonight for FHE we decided to make brownies for desert. So, with a kid on each side standing on their own stools, we began reading the ingredients together. The boys took turns adding the water, the oil, the mix, and the syrup (I'm a firm believer in brownies made from the box). We came to the point of adding eggs. I usually tell them that the eggs are a "mommy job" because I don't want to deal with the messes, wasted eggs and eggshells in my food. But tonight I was feeling especially generous and compassionate so I decided that I would let them do the eggs, with a little help. I allowed them each to pick an egg from the carton and carefully hold it with two hands. As Search and I carefully crack the egg on the side of the bowl and dump it in, I hear another crack from my other side. I look over to see Destroy squatting on his stool and ask him where his egg is. He stands up and points to a squashed egg mess on the stool between his legs. I wordlessly gaze at him and try to understand. Why did my child just crack an egg on a stool under his legs? His reply? He was pretending to be a hen and sit on his egg. Good thing he's a little boy and not a hen!

I'm Blaming Bananas

See the look on his face? This is the look of constipation at it's best. Let me preface this story by saying that Destroy has a new found love of bananas. I am very happy that he has decided to include bananas on his small repertoire of foods to eat. BUT, I am blaming the fact that my son has an intense dislike of preschool on his new discovery of bananas.

Two days before preschool started Destroy asked for a banana. And then another. In my excitement for his approval of a food that does not contain high amounts of sodium, high fructose corn syrup or that doesn't come in a wrapper, I gave him a second banana. That was a mistake because he spent most of Monday night and all of Tuesday morning before school sitting on the toilet and screaming from constipation. Conveniently, I had just run out of suppositories and we didn't have any prune juice so Destroy was going to have to do this naturally. I tried counting, breathing and pushing with him but it just wasn't coming out! Man, I could totally be a midwife after this experience. Oh, except for the fact that I failed.

So, we go to school, and he is miserable, not feeling well and at this point did not want anything to do with preschool. Looking back, I shouldn't have taken him, but it was the first day and I didn't want him to miss it. So, I leave him screaming at the school, hearing him body slam the door, feeling like the worst mom. About an hour later I get a call from the office. She tells me that he's still screaming full force and that she's worried that he might break every blood vessel in his face. How comforting! I knew that they were going out to the playground soon so I told her to call me back if he didn't calm down after that. After that, he was fine.

So, this has been (is still because entering the third week of school he still cries when I leave him) quite the experience for us. Destroy has never been in as structured an environment as preschool before, except for maybe primary (which I don't count because he gets up and comes into relief society whenever he wants). He doesn't like to follow rules, he doesn't like resistance (like the teachers who won't let him do what he wants), and he doesn't like to sit still. He is an independent free-spirit and he likes to be in control. So, it's been a challenge, but I think he's getting the hang of it! Luckily the teachers are awesome and are so willing to work with us.

Anyways, here are some funny bits of conversation that we have had with Destroy about preschool:

Mom: "Destroy, you'll have so much more fun at school. Jeremy and I are going home to clean. Honestly, do you really want to clean the toilets?"
Destroy: "But I don't want to go!"
Then as we are walking up to school going against parent traffic walking the other way who had already dropped their kids off he shouts,
"But, Mom! I want to go clean toilets! I want to clean toilets!"


Mom: "So, Destroy are you pumped for preschool tomorrow?"
Destroy: "Can you come with me?"
Mom: "No, they won't let me." (And they really won't)
Destroy: "Could you grow down into a little girl and come with me?"


I thought maybe recounting my experiences at preschool when I was a little girl would help him feel better. So I told him about a time I had trouble during singing time at preschool. His reaction:
"If I was Nana, I would never have made you go."


One day when I picked him up the teacher said:
"We've had quite a day with Destroy. He just hides under the table, he's slapping kids, he's run out of the building a couple of times, locked himself in the bathroom stall, you know stuff like that. He was a real handful today." My kid? Handful? Those words don't belong in the same sentence!


Mom: "Destroy, your teacher told me that you were hitting kids today."
Destroy: "Yeah, I wanted you to call the school."
Mom: "So why were you hitting?"
Destroy: "Because I wanted the school to call you."
Mom: "Ah."


After starting preschool, he hasn't wanted to go to sunbeams either. Last week I told him he could either go to sunbeams and have fun or come to my boring class, not talk, not play with toys, sit on my lap and not move.
Destroy: "I want to be boring".

Yesterday:
Destroy: "Mom, do I have preschool today?"
Mom: "No, not until next week."
Destroy: "But, Mom! I want to go to preschool!"
Mom: "Buddy, I think you're confused."

Some good has come of this, though! He has learned how to write his name already, sing the hokey pokey, and demonstrate words that rhyme. And he even knows how to spill his entire juicebox in his lunch bag and not tell anyone! And of course Search and I get 4 hours, Destroy free, three times a week to ourselves. Those four hours go really fast when your worried sick and Search can't figure out what to do when Destroy isn't there so he follows you around like a dog. In those four hours two things are always within reach. My phone and my son whose only playmate has gone off to school.

Puke Happens

You know the part in "The Sandlot" where the kids go on that ride at the fair and start puking all over the place? Now imagine that instead of orange puke, it was pink puke and imagine that I was under the ride getting puked on. Because, aside from being on the ride and all the kids, that's what happened last night. I have been puked on a lot in my life, and any of you who know Destroy knows that he has a puking habit, but this was by far the worst that I've ever witnessed. The picture doesn't even do it justice.

So there we are, Search and Destroy and I (Aaron was at work), me sitting next to Destroy who was standing above me. He tells me nonchalantly that he's feeling sick. Right as I was about to suggest going into the bathroom, he gets the I'm-not-feeling-so-well look on his face which is followed by a large amount of projectile vomit all over me. Then on the floor, then on the floor again. Of course he had consumed a bucket load of red and orange juice drinks and Popsicles today at the park so the puke stained the carpet. I sat there stunned, not knowing what to do first because the vomit was all over my face, arms, legs and clothes and Destroy was crying. I had to hurry and shower off while yelling at the kids not to get near the puke area. I really wished Aaron had been there to help, but mostly so that he could have taken a picture of me.

Reverently, Quietly

Last Sunday Destroy was asked to be a reverence child during sacrament meeting. Basically a reverence child is supposed to stand very still up in front of the congregation before the meeting starts with his arms folded. The intention here is to motivate others to be reverent. I guess we think that if a child can do it, we can too. Anywhoo... Aaron and I thought that they had maybe been mistaken in the child they picked. But, they weren't. So we explained to Destroy what he was supposed to do and he sounded ready and excited. So with Daddy sitting behind him up at the stand, Destroy reverently folded his arms and stood there for others to see him. He did an awesome job with the exception of waving and saying hi to everyone he knew. We were pleasantly surprised. Maybe he really is growing up!?

Now, if Destroy can sit still and be reverent, anyone can. GOOD JOB, BUDDY!