Dragons

On Easter we saw "How to Train Your Dragon" and it was the first movie in a long time that you absolutely fell in love with. I thought it was a super cute DVD purchase worthy movie and it gave me an excuse to draw you whimsical creatures.

We went to a local farm on Saturday for their annual Easter Egg hunt (cost: $25) and I was absolutely appalled at the manners the majority of parents and children had. You are not an aggressive little boy, if you see someone picking something up, you aren't going to swoop in and steal it from them; but unfortunately, 90% of the participants at the hunt were that type of person. The parents were even worse. You walked away with five empty plastic eggs while the greedy children and their parents had baskets filled to the brim with loot. Ever the optimist, you looked up at me and said "well, at least we have some plastic eggs to put things in now!". THAT is what made it all worthwhile. I may have paid $25 for a hot dog and some empty plastic eggs, but I also got to see my baby show off what a wonderful person he is.

Turtwig

Yesterday was a sick day

You brought home a field trip permission slip today for the zoo and since I promised you I would chaperon a field trip this school year, I'm going to make good on that promise by volunteering. It's not set in stone yet, but I'm making the effort. I haven't been involved in much this school year, I admit; and I'm still working on getting my gold star in parental involvement.

That tooth of yours - the one that was pretty loose on February 2nd - is still holding on by a few threads. You were such a brave kid tonight; you took an apple and bit into it about fifty times trying to get that stubborn thing out of your mouth. I am particularly impressed because you won't even let me put peroxide on a tiny scrape. You bled, you winced, and you kept on going, but eventually the tooth won and you fell asleep on your bed with the apple in your hand. Really, after all this effort, I think an extra Tooth Fairy reward is in order, don't you?

Glameow

You thought you weren't ready for Spring Break to end, but I knew you were ready by the way you clung onto my every move. You were bored. You missed your friends and today ended up being a marvelous day because you got a "BRAVO!" which meant a trip to the prize box. You picked out a small Slinky, but when I got home, you walked up to my car with a forlorn look on your face and showed me your formerly slinky SLINKY that had, in the space of two hours, become a rather warped slinky. Of course I promised to buy you another, you worked hard for that.

You are Student of the Week this week and I got the notice on Friday, March 12th on what we needed to do to prepare. It was simple - get a brown paper bag, put three things that fit in there for "Show and Tell" and make a poster with pictures and interests. We had plenty of time to do that stuff over Spring Break, so I tucked the note back in your folder.

You know what that means; I found the note this last Sunday afternoon and rushed out to the store for poster board, forgetting all about the paper bags and made a half-rate version of the story of your life. I'm not sure how I'm going to teach you about time-management if I am a horrible example of it myself.

Penguin

Your reading is really progressing now. You are at the point where you can figure out a word, even if you sound it out wrong the first time. For instance, you may pronounce "fall" with the wrong sound in the "a", but you are able to figure out the RIGHT sound after you say it out loud. That's leaps and bounds from where you started, when hen might be sounded out like: "h..a..m...DOG!" (though, I must admit, I loved when you would sound out a word correctly, like "d o g" and then shout out something random, like "HOUSE!" with total enthusiasm).

ROOOAAARRR!!

This is, apparently, the 95th picture I've drawn for you. I think that's pretty amazing (tooting my own horn here); it means that I've drawn you a picture every day for more than half of the school year. One thing you need to know about me (and this applies to New Year's resolutions as well) is that setting my mind on something takes a little effort (motivation wise), but once I'm focused, I get tunnel vision and feel that I cannot quit. You tell me quite often that it's okay if I skip a day, and technically on the days you buy lunch, I don't HAVE to draw you a picture, but I enjoy sending something with you every day and it makes me feel like I'm showing you that I'm invested in your education; that even though I'm not with you during the school day, I still care what's going on. Does a picture really prove this? Maybe not, but the motivation behind it is genuine.

And, it's a goal for me. I like to accomplish things because I can be the world's biggest giver upper. I liked to cross-stitch when I was younger, but ask me to show you a completed project and I will come back empty handed. So, this is probably a good lesson in motivation for you too. Just don't ask me to show you how to cross-stitch.

Love,

Your Incomplete Mom