BUSTED!!

Here are The Boy and The Girl this morning on The Boy's first official day of First Grade.  He has apparently come to the age where he refuses to smile and stand nicely for a photo.  So I was going through all the shots I took this morning trying to look for a decent one when I saw the one above.  Now to the naked eye I can tell you that this is a shot of both of my kids doing Ninjago moves.  I told you on my last post that my son is currently obsessed.  Well guess what?  He is about to lose ALL OF THEM.

A little back story.  So all summer long he played with his friends at camp with his Ninjagos.  If you are fortunate enough to NOT know what these evil little toys are, let me tell you that the folks over at Lego are not idiots.  So they are expensive.  They cost a lot of money.  And of course you need ALL of them to play properly (according to The Boy).  So he had quite a collection.  A few weeks into the summer I found out that he had been sneaking them to camp with him and "trading" them with the other campers.  Although half the time he didn't get anything for the trade.  So that no longer is a trade...it's giving your shit away.  Long story short...we had lots of talks and by the end of the summer he only had 3 guys left.  I figured it was a life lesson for him and since I know that his school does NOT allow any toys or anything to come to school I figured...lesson learned.

So yesterday apparently after his half-day of school my mom took him to the mall and they just "happened" to go by the Lego store where they just "happened" to find out that the green Ninja had been released a couple of weeks early.  So my mom bought it for him.  I had a little "chat" with her when they came home about this ("Why the HELL would you buy him more Ninjago's after what happened this summer?  I thought we agreed on the life lesson etc..."  Her answer, "It was his first day of school...and you should have seen his eyes when he saw the green ninja...and he's such a good boy...and now that summer camp is over he won't be trading them..." etc...).  So anyway he ended up with a few new things yesterday AGAINST my will.

When he told me about seeing his friends yesterday he told me that one of his buddies had "snuck" a Ninja into school yesterday.  We had a long talk about this and about what happened at camp, and about how last year he got in trouble for bringing toys to school and he KNOWS that he can't do that...and on and on and on...  So this morning he asked where his backpack was and then told me he was taking it into his room.  I reiterated that if he even THOUGHT about bringing or sneaking something into school that he would lose ALL of his Ninjas.  "No way Mommy...I know the rules...I am not going to do that..."  Many, many conversations about this.  The rule was very clear.

So as I am looking through his "first day of school" pictures right now for one to post on Facebook and to send to the Ex, I look closer at the picture above and see this:

I don't know if you can see in this picture on the internet or not, but that is a god-damned green ninja that he is hiding in his hand in this picture.  That little *&%^$ snuck one to school anyway.  I cannot even tell you how mad I am.  Or how disappointed rather.  He is already at the stage where he is BLATANTLY lying to me?  Really?

So I have cleaned the entire house clear of Ninjago's and when he comes home I will calmly tell him that he has lost all of his Ninjas.  And that I hope it was worth it.  And that we don't LIE to our mother. And we don't blatantly break the rules at school.  And that we need to learn the value of someone giving you a gift.  That is...if I don't kill him first.

Back from the Trenches...

Is anyone still here?  I have actually had a couple people contact me and tell me to get the hell back onto my blog, so here I am.

As the lack of posting might show, my life has been super busy lately.  Nothing earth shattering is really going on, but my work has gotten so busy that I don't have much time for leisure anymore.  The short version is that I took on a partner about a year ago (I think I might have posted about that at some point), and therefore started to expand my business.  I am very fortunate in this economy to be able to make that happen.  And I have taken on a bunch of new clients and significantly more work, so I don't have very much play time anymore.  Hence the lack of posts.  I'll try and give you all a quick update.

The Boy is 6 1/2 and getting ready to start 1st grade on Monday (I really have no idea how the hell that happened).  He spent the summer at an awesome camp and had a fantastic time.  It wasn't associated with his school so he made a whole new group of friends.  Some of the friends were a bit older than him so he has learned some new things.  Some good, some not so good.  ("A guy at camp got kicked in the balls today--it was aswesome!")  He is growing up so fast and has definitely hit the "boy" part of his childhood.  He spent the summer playing Ninjago with a group of friends.  As usual, my boy becomes quite obsessed, and that has been his latest thing.  It still somewhat surprises me that besides being super little for his age, he is quite the popular little dude.  On his last day of camp he came home with 7 notes stuck in his backpack from other parents with their information because the kids wanted to get together after camp for a play date.  He is a social little dude and happy as can be.

We had a bit of a regression with our ongoing eating issues this summer.  Probably due to the fact that the camp I sent him to had food included so it was totally up to him to feed himself throughout the day.  This did not go so well.  For the first couple of weeks he told me that he ate a bowl of pasta during the day (decent as far as I am concerned), but by about the third week he decided that his food of the day was going to be a hot dog bun.  NO hot dog inside the bun, mind you.  Just the bun.  And for the rest of the summer that's basically all he put in his body all day long.  When I picked him up every day he would literally be weak from lack of food.  The kid just kills me with this issue.  And because of that he lost more weight.  While at the end of the school year I was thrilled to learn he had finally hit the 40 pound mark (yes, he's 6 1/2--I KNOW!!!), but we recently weighed him and he was back down to 37 pounds.  Sigh.  So I have put him back on his medicine (he couldn't take it during the summer because his camp couldn't give it to him during the day) to stimulate his appetite.  He is eating like a champ now, but I am still super stressed out about how little he is.  I know he will gain back some weight now that he's back on the medicine, but I feel a less than thrilled about that because I know once he stops the medication he will lose it again.  I could go on and on about this issue with him, but just know that it causes me GREAT stress.  But it doesn't seem to bother him in the slightest as he has no concept of the fact that he is little and he is the happiest little dude around, so I guess there's that...

Then there's The Girl.  I honestly don't really know how to update you all on her.  She's...hysterically funny, ridiculously smart and mature for her age (comparing where her brother was at her age...not sure if it's just a girl thing, or a second child thing), the life of the party, fun and happy...and also incredibly defiant and stubborn, indifferent to the concept of rules or anything I tell her, throws temper tantrums like no one has ever seen before and sometimes makes me question my ability to parent anyone.  That girl knows how to push my buttons more than anyone else.  She is challenging for sure, but she is also the sweetest and funniest little person I know.  My feelings for her are always very strong.  I am either so enamored with her cuteness and sweetness, or else I want to throw her out a window.  I am trying VERY HARD to set boundaries and be consistent with her, but it seems to be her goal in life to challenge me.  She is also in the super argumentative stage.  Example?  "Please come sit down for dinner..."  Her:  "No.  I want the green fork, not the pink one!"  "Just use what is in front of you...we don't make to order our silverware...!"  {obscene fit screaming ensues telling me she can't POSSIBLY eat with the pink fork....me finally choosing the "pick your battles" concept and giving her the green fork just so we can all possibly have a normal dinner...}  At which point she smiles over the green fork and then looks down at her plate...  "No Mommy, I didn't want fish for dinner I wanted chicken...!!!"  Someone just shoot me.  I try and let her make the majority of the decisions that are appropriate for a three year old to make to give her that power, but sometimes it just plain doesn't matter.  Everything becomes the wrong outfit, the wrong pair of shoes, the wrong toy, the wrong car seat, the wrong...EVERYTHING.  She exhausts me.  But I love that little girl with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

She left her "daycare" and started in her brother's old preschool for summer school.  It took The Boy about three months to feel comfortable at this new school and to adjust...and The Girl?  It took her a day.  Seriously.  I had planned to stay with her until the bell rang, but after about 5 minutes of me there she looked at me and said, "Mommy?  Why you still here?  Go to work!"  And so I did.  And that was the extent of the transition.  I'm sure it helped that it was Brother's old school and therefore she was familiar with it.  But still...sometimes she just amazes me.

I will try and be better about updating the blog...but I make no promises!  :)  We just got home from a week at our family cabin before school starts.  And as I blog currently I am sitting in a house that has not been unpacked at all...there are 64 new emails (after I deleted all the ones I don't need to deal with) in my inbox that need to be read and dealt with, there are dishes in the sink AND the dishwasher...and I haven't showered.  So I guess it's back to real life...  Hope all is well with everyone!