Trick or Treat!

Here is the one and only picture I got before the boys started trick or treating last night.  They were so excited that they couldn't sit still and I am actually impressed that I got them all to look at me at the same time.
Justin is the chicken on the left, Nathan is the cowboy in the middle and Darren is Spiderman on the right.

Poking fun at political commercials

As everyone knows, Ohio is considered a swing state for the presidential election. With that said, about every other commercial is a political commercial….from presidential to senate to the state Supreme Court judge.

Darren, my ham, has starting add-libbing at the beginning and/or end of every commercial. It can be a political commercial or it can be a commercial for Taco Bell or Chevy trucks. He doesn’t discriminate against commercials. He’ll go, “Hi my name is ______________ (Mitt Romney or Barak Obama) and I approve this message.” It’s just sounds funny coming from his mouth with his little speech impediment.

Darren's bliss

“I’m reading!  I’m really reading!”  You should have seen the look of sheer wonder, of amazement and excitement on Darren’s face when he said these words.  He had brought home a book from his reading intervention class and was expected to read it.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he wasn’t actually reading it as much as he was reciting from memory and the pictures what it said.  The book was titled “I have…” and a page in the book was “I have a red apple.”  Between underlining the word red with a red crayon and looking at the picture to determine what object he had, he wasn’t really reading.  If only he can keep up that excitement when it comes time to reading homework for the rest of his school career….

Darren's parent-teacher conference

As promised (but a little late) I am going to start talking about the parent teacher conferences I had nine days ago.

I have been having some serious second thoughts about sending Darren and after speaking with the teacher, I really wish I did not send him.  She said that he is acting like a normal 5 1/2 year old, but with kids six months to over a year older than him, he does not have the maturity level as most of his classmates. 

He still flips his numbers and some letters and I am being told not to worry about it as that is common.  I am not taking that statement at face value because I let them tell me that with Nathan and we are having all kinds of problems with Nathan and reading.  Nathan will still flip his numbers sometimes.

I asked if she had noticed that he had a speech problem.  She said that she did not want to say anything in case it did not result in anything, but she was having him tested that very next day.  In Darren's school paperwork last night, there was an envelope addressed the parents of Darren.  The note inside basically said that he did not test well and would like to have speech intervention performed at school and we had to sign a permission slip.

She also asked if I minded that she had sent him down to Mrs. W.  Darren's teacher said that she had a few open spots and stuck him in it because he is having trouble with the phonics of letters.  When doing his popcorn flash cards and came across a word he did not know, I would tell him to sound it out.  Suddenly the word 'have' became 'like'.  I told him that was incorrect and what sound does 'H' make?  He couldn't answer me.

With everything that he is struggling with already, I am seriously thinking about holding him back next year.  There is so much pressure to achieve at that young age already.  It was explained to me at Nathan's conference that if he (or any kid) is tested for a learning disability that chances are it would not show up when compared to the national average.  But because the standards are so much higher at our school, he struggles compared to his classmates, when he is right on target with the national average.

Not liking school

When Darren got home from school on Tuesday, I asked him how school was.  He never answered me.  I asked him again.  He did not answer again.  Because it was our normal crazy, just walk in the door hectic, I thought that maybe he did not hear me.  I pulled him to the side and asked again how school was.  He did not want to answer me.  I finally asked if he got his name on the board, and he admitted that he did. 

I asked him what he did to get his name on the board.  He said that he was not listening.  Nathan walked by to hear the last parts and started picking on Darren for getting his name on the board.  Darren then goes, "I've only got my name on twice.  You have had yours on the board a lot more!"  What???  You have had your name on the board before?  When I ask Darren about it, he said that he had.  When I ask why, he tells me that it was for not listening.

I talked briefly with his teacher about it last night at the parent-teacher conference, and she said he acts like the rules do not apply to him.  I agree with that assessment.  There will be more on the parent-teacher conference in another post.

Some pics

Here is a picture that my aunt Patty recently took.  It shows Dylan (the tallest one) with his 'brothers' (my kids).  The twins are my first cousins' boys. 

This is a picture of Justin wearing his Grandpa Mark's hat on Father's Day.  He can be quite the ham.

This is a favorite of mine.  This was taken about a week after Darren had his tonsils out and he would just have moments of pure grumpiness because he was in pain. 

Easy-peasy

I have been doing popcorn flashcards with Darren almost every night.  There are several he knows very well and a few he still struggles with.  When he gets to the ones he knows, I usually say something like, "That was easy-peasy."  Darren then pipes up and adds to the end of my quote by saying, "lemon-squeezy."  It is too cute.

First goal!

Nathan is not an athletic boy although he tries hard and he has two strikes against him as neither of his parents are athletic.  This past weekend, at his last soccer game of the year, he scored his first goal.  This was the second year that he played.  He was playing guard/fullback/goal defender (whatever the technical soccer term is).  A kid kicked the ball high and it was heading to the goal.  Nathan decides that he is going to try and stop it with his head.  The ball bounced off his head, and went backwards.....into the goal.  Very bittersweet that his first goal was for the opposing team!