Having fun at camp!

He apparently called this work "Haunted Mansion."

Guess I'll keep 'em

So tonight Zack decided he "must have" most of my avocado sushi. And then Georgia decided that she "must have" my shrimp sushi (she licked it while it was on my plate! While I was sitting there! And showed no remorse!).

But then they did this. G laid on my lap and Z started snuggling. Guess they're not so bad.

Hydrangeas

A year off did these gals some good. I can't get a pic that really captures the variations in color, but they are gorgeous this year!

Stick of Awesomeness

The second graders won the Stick of Awesomeness today. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure it's good. 

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First day, last day

We have a second grader now.

One more....

Lost another one tonight!

Take Your Child to Work Day

Yesterday was Take Your Child to Work Day. Last year Zack chastised me for not taking him, so I knew I'd better plan on it this year. NIH does a really great job with this day. Most of the institutes put on activities for the kids, so there is tons to do. I pre-registered him for four things and then I figured we'd wing it from there. We started out with a presentation on bones and muscles. We left that one early so that we could meet Kelly and get a tour of the wing she works on at the Clinical Center. I thought that was pretty cool because I'd never gotten to see the hospital part of NIH. Zack was most impressed with the internal "train" system that transports supplies within the building. 

From there we took the shuttle to the National Library of Medicine for a magnet demonstration--very cool. Then we shuttled back to my office for lunch, where he tried out the Director's seat in the conference room. We all decided that he'd be an excellent candidate for our new director. 

Then it was on to the Fire Department. NIH has their own department, also something I'd known about but never seen. They did had a great program--a video on fire safety and what to do in a fire, a tour of the building, then outside for a demo. They put out a "fire" on the roof and rescued Sparkey (kind of like Smokey, but a human in a Dalmation costume and for house fires, not forest fires). It was pretty impressive to see the trucks zoom in, set up, and maneuver. Then we went back in the firehouse, where they talked some more and showed all the kids what firemen would look like if there were a fire and they were searching through the house. This was really great because their 60+ pounds of gear make them look a bit creepy. The kids learned to Stop Drop and Roll, and they got a chance to put out "fires" in a house. I have to say, the firemen were awesome about talking with the kids and answering questions. I feel safe knowing they're protecting me here at work. 

The final stop (after a quick snack) was a presentation on how they take pictures of body parts from outside the body using CT scans and MRI's. I wasn't sure how this one was going to go--scientists aren't always known for being able to bring the science down to a popular level, much less a kid's level--but this one was pretty good. They'd taken scans of a lot of non-human things (like oranges, iPhones, etc.) and got the kids to guess what they were, and the whole talk wasn't too technical. 

Once that was over, we decided to call it a day and headed back to my office to pick up our things. Zack said goodbye to everyone, and we headed out. 

He told me a few times that he liked my office and campus a lot, and that he had a really good time. I'm really glad we had a chance to spend the day together, and I'm sure we'll be doing it again in the years to come. 

Progress Report

We got his report card today. I won't bother to tell you his exact grades because they don't use ABCDF, and I'm not entirely sure I understand it all myself. That said, he's doing great. He has improved in reading so much this year and is exactly where he needs to be. We knew that he'd improved substantially just from how much more he reads voluntarily and how much better he does it. All the other metrics on the report card were really good, too. Notably, he got the very best grade possible in art. 

The chatting issue that he had in class has subsided. He no longer has a behavior plan; his teacher suggested that it wasn't necessary any longer. 

He's got a lot of friends and seems to pretty much get along with everyone. He has a lot of male friends, but his closest friend is a girl, and he often asks to have play dates with Ariana, who lives down the street. We think it's great that he has no qualms about hanging out with girls or boys. 

He's still loving KAH. I think he's gained so much confidence from being a part of that. He's made so many friends there, and gets involved in so many activities. He plays group games like dodgeball and gets involved in all the clubs and activities. It makes me so happy that he enjoys it. 

And he continues to be a really fun kid. He's funny and sweet and cares about his family and his pets. He loves hanging out with Kelly. She took him to the movies last weekend and they had a blast. He watches over the dogs, telling me if one threw up, or if they need to go out. He's picking up on sarcasm now. I have a tendency to be sarcastic (shocker, I know), which he didn't get for the longest time. Now he calls me out on it: "You're being sarcastic, Mommy." One day Kelly was going on about how much she loved JoJo, and Zack quips, "EVERYone knows how much you love JoJo." We nearly bust a gut laughing. 

He's a really good kid and this seems to be a really fun age. 

Talking

This boy of ours is growing up so much. It seems like a switch flipped on when he turned 7. He'll get his things ready in the morning (getting his backpack ready, filling his water bottle) all by himself without too much reminding, if any at all. He'll take his dishes over to the sink all by himself. And just tonight he finished a book report for his homework all by himself without prompting from me. This is huge--even up to a week ago homework usually bordered on a struggle. 

He and I have such interesting conversations now. Two come to mind. 

Last Sunday he and I walked down to the park. We weren't there long when he fell in the creek and got soaked. I could tell he was embarrassed and he wanted to head home right away. I started telling him that it wasn't really a big deal, no one there knew him, and stuff like this happens to everyone. I told him that I've had some pretty embarrassing falls, too. Of course, he wanted to hear an example, so I told him about the time I was chasing geese at Lake Towhee and fell in the mud, then had to ride home on the back of my mom's bike in my underwear (I was around 3). The look on his face! He loved hearing that something like that could happen to someone else. We also talked about how the best way to deal with situations like this is to laugh them off. 

Last night I was lying with him as he was falling asleep. We'd had an off night; we were both tired and a bit grumpy and we'd gotten angry with each other. Somehow we started talking about emotions once the lights were out. I told him that I get angry and sad, too. He asked what made me sad. I told him a few things, then I asked him. Then he asked me about what made me angry, and then he told me. We talked about happy, too. It was such a sweet conversation, a great way to end the day on a good note. 

Guys' day out

Zack didn't have school or aftercare yesterday, so Rob stayed home to hang out with him. First they went swimming, then they headed over to Sligo to hit some golf balls. Rob got this shot, which might have just become my all-time favorite picture of Zack. 

I asked Zack later if he had a good day. He nodded, then perked up: "No, no, it was an AWESOME day!" 

Good impressions.

So this is apparently the first '-ine' word that Zack thought of in class.

Science club

Today in science club they made their volcano erupt and started learning about parts of their body. They traced themselves, then drew in different organs, bones, etc.

Lizards and Snakes and Turtles, Oh My!

Yesterday was Zack's birthday party, at the Brookside Nature Center. (I think our days of having it at the house are over.) My lack of organization these past few months paid off in that we had a fabulous day for a nature party. First, the naturalist (who is AWESOME! Seriously, she is so very good with the kids and clearly loves doing this.) talked to them about reptiles and amphibians, and they got to check out a real turtle, look for similarities and differences between a frog and a toad, and then, for the piece de resistance, got to check out a snake. As the birthday boy, Zack was the only one who got to hold the snake---I love his look of anticipation in the picture above! Then they went outside on a hike. The naturalist said there might be signs of wood frogs coming out and heading to the ponds--I'm not sure if she was telling the truth or a white lie, but the kids love the idea. On the way, we stopped to talk to the man making maple syrup over a fire outside (40 gallons of sap are needed for one gallon of syrup--liquid gold!), they got a few wiggles out of their system, but no frogs. No one seemed to mind, really. Then we went back inside, decorated party hats, had some frog cupcakes and goldfish crackers, and everyone went home happy! 

I really think this might have been the best party yet. It was low key, but all the kids seemed to have fun. There were no tears. And this is such a funny, fun age---they're not afraid to show off what they know, they make a lot of astute observations, but they pretty much have no filter on what they say. So we got the whole story about how one boy's dad stepped on a turtle and its shell cracked and it was bloody. And Kelsey (Zack's best bud, in the purple next to him) suddenly observed, "Zack, you have very long eyelashes for a boy!" They were all just really adorable and really good. He seems to have found a set of really good kids. 

Oh, and the coolest part of the day for Zack? After all the kids had left and we were cleaning up, the naturalist gave him a bag with a molted snake skin in it. He thought that was just fabulous! 

Fortune

This was Zack's fortune from dinner tonight.

Good night.

For the longest time, I've said this to Zack as I tuck him into bed:

"I love you, buddy. You're my bestest boy."

Just recently, he's started replying: 

"Bestest isn't a word."

 

Pause.

"But I'm still your bestest boy."  

And always will be, sweetie.  Always will be. 

—
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7

We have a 7-year old now. He wanted a frog cake, so I was happy to oblige. It's blue, like blue poison dart frogs. He was pretty excited about his birthday, which was low key. Thankfully, I was late in planning an actual party this year. Had I managed to plan something for his actual birthday, we would have had to cancel it due to about 6 inches of snow, and then ice. 

He's the coolest 7 year old I know. Ok, I might be a little biased, but still. He's got such personality that he isn't afraid to show. He's funny, interested in lots of things, friendly with everyone. He has a lot of friends at school and is really comfortable with the activities that he does. 

There are times that he has a little too much attitude, manifesting as sass/backtalk/stubbornness/whatever you want to call it. Like he wasn't going to do X, Y or Z because it was his birthday weekend. Or the large quantity of selective hearing that goes on. 

But then he does something so socially aware that I think he may turn out ok. For example, the other night he and I went to pick up pizza before going over to Kelly's. He went in with me to pick up two pizza's and a salad, the latter of which was in one of those tin foil containers on top of the pizza boxes. As we were walking out, he just took the salad off the top, saying "I'll carry this because it's going to slide off." Which was exactly what I'd been thinking and likely true. 

He's still doing well in school (many fewer problems with chatting now that he's not sitting next to his "partner in crime"). His reading is progressing well, and the math they're doing is definitely higher-level than we ever did in first grade. They're essentially doing basic algebra: e.g. 8 + ___ = 12. Yikes! But he can do it. 

So, as we often tell him, we think we'll keep him. He's kind of grown on us over the past 7 years and things would be a lot less interesting without him. 

He looks so innocent when he sleeps. 

Last day of being 6

All the KAH birthdays today!

He continues to amaze me.

This boy of mine continues to amaze me. When Zack and I got home today, I told him to keep his coat on so we could run some cookies over to Cessy. He immediatley said we should take Georgia with us. I was reluctant because I saw Jorge's car there, along with one other car, so I thought she might have company. But Zack was persistant--"it'll be good because Georgia gives kisses"--and I thought the other car might belong to Jorge's girlfriend, so I relented. 

How did he know? How did Zack know to bring her? As soon as we walked in and Jorge saw Georgia, his face lit up (and Georgia's butt started wiggling as fast as possible) and he immediately got down on the floor with her, hugging and petting her. Cessy was glad to see her, too. The entire time we were there (we ended up staying for dinner), Georgia followed Jorge around, totally smitten. I told him that he's got the keys to our house, that he can come borrow her whenever he wants. 

And I told Zack that he had a very good idea. 

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Super Bowl party

At KAH, of course. They have one every year, including a turtle race to predict the winner.

Yes, a turtle race. They label two turtles with the two teams' names and let them...errrr....run. As it were. They've never been wrong. This year the reptilian bet is on the Seahawks. Vegas, take note.

Despite all this, Zack still had to ask what the Super Bowl was when Rob and I were talking about it later that night. He knew who was in it and who the turtles predicted, just not what it was.

Cooking

As part of KAH, they made Puff Puff, a traditional African dessert. Of course, I learned this from KAH's Facebook page. Not from Zack.

Zack's buddy, Kelcee, is to his right.

Christmas in CT

So let's backtrack a bit to Christmas, shall we? 

It started out with 3 adults, 2 dogs, 1 child, and a lot of gifts packed into our Ford. Remarkably, it worked out really well. At least until we got to CT, when traffic came to a screeching halt. 

Oh, and then we also had our share of ailments. Rob threw out his back. Zack had some sort of weird stomach bug (though he was totally fine on Christmas day). And I was fighting a cold. 

All that didn't stop us from having a good time, however. It's so wonderful watching Zack still believe in Santa. We've always had a PJ Elf deliver Christmas jammies to Zack on Christmas Eve. Last year he wasn't thrilled with getting pjs. This year he was totally into it. He'd made a fort in the den, which is where the PJ Elf left his packages. Zack knew they were going to be pi's, but he was really excited about it. What was funny was that earlier in the day, Grandpa Jim had gotten a Christmas Darth Vader shirt, so as soon as Zack opened his jammies, he said "Just like Grandpa Jim's!" And he was over the moon when he opened his blanket. We have two other cotton fleece blankets, and he'd been saying that he wanted this own because the blanket felt like Bear Bear, so he was just blown away that the PJ Elf knew he wanted his own blanket. 

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I had been sleeping in the same room as Zack that night, so I heard him get up around 7 Christmas morning and tiptoe out to the living room. I heard him find the note that Santa left him (see above), and then take it out to Nonni to read (I found out later that he read the whole thing by himself). Then he came back in to me, pure joy and amazement on his face: "Mommy! Santa said I was a good boy! Look!" And then he had to go in and show Rob the same thing. The rest of the day, if anyone asked about Santa, he told them that Santa thought he was a good boy. 

All in all, it was a really good trip. We got to see a lot of family, Zack got a lot of love. He got to spend time with Ella, and with his older cousins, too (many thanks to Taryn, Terysa, and Tyler for spending hours with him, putting Lego sets together!!!).  

Snow day.

Have I mentioned how much I love his aftercare program? No school today, but KAH was open and outside they went!

I'm pretty sure he's the one on the far right making the snow man.

This boy of ours

I know I haven't been posting as much lately. It seems like the older he gets, the faster everything moves. I don't mean that he's growing faster (though he is, and judging by how much he ate over the weekend, he's working on another growth spurt), just that there is more to do, more to pack into less time. There's homework and reading, and taking him to a class here and there. So I'm going to try to catch up on a few highlights from the past few months, and I'll try to do smaller posts here and there. 

I'll focus on school today. We learned during the parent-teacher conference in the fall that he was friends with everyone in class, and didn't have any trouble socially. In fact, his teacher told us that she would never have guessed he was an only child (I swear Rob and I nearly high-fived when she said that). She did say he had a little trouble focusing--nothing to worry about, but not something we should totally ignore. 

His teacher sends home updates every Friday, and we kept getting notes saying that Zack was very chatty and that it interfered with him getting his work done, and also other kids getting their work done. I emailed with his teacher, asking what we could do. I told her that on one hand, having been a painfully shy child, I was glad to see that he had a lot of friends and was social. But on the other hand, he needed to learn when to be social, and I didn't like that his behavior was affecting others. She suggested that she set up a behavior contract with Zack; this way we'd get feedback daily on how he was doing in class. This actually ended up being enlightening for us and for his teacher because we discovered that he has the most trouble when they have centers---when the teacher is working with a smaller group of students and the rest of the class has a list of tasks they need to complete independently. 

He's taken to this pretty well, and is very proud when he comes home with a lot of smiley faces (he can get smiley faces, straight faces, or frowns). The feedback also seems to have improved now that the class rearranged seats. He had been sitting next to one of his best buds, who he told me was the one that he chatted with. Now they're at separate tables. 

Last Thursday he came home ecstatic--he'd gotten a lot of smiley faces and only a few straight faces (no frowns), he'd gotten tested on a reading level and got a 99%, and his class was having an ice cream party the following day. It was so exciting to see him so excited! He even told me that he was getting tested on the next reading level the following day and he was going to do great on that, too! (It ended up being postponed and happened today.) Both his teacher and we have noticed a huge improvement in his reading over the past month or so, and I think he's getting that he can read to himself. 

Of all the problems that we could have with him, I don't think this one is such a bad one to have. It makes me so happy to see him with his friends, being able to interact with everyone both at school and in the neighborhood. I don't want to blame it all on being a nearly-7-year-old boy, either, but I suspect that has something to do with it. 

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About those pictures.  He got his face painted at KAH during the last snow day. 

He's in International Club this month at KAH. All of them made a passport and they "go to" different countries twice a week. This is a shot of them in the kitchen when they were making fried rice for their visit to China. 

He and I were snuggling on the couch. He'll still snuggle with me. I love it! 

Rob and Zack during a walk around the neighborhood. Somewhere I have a similar picture from when Zack wasn't quite walking by himself. I've got to juxtapose them. 

Down time

The other afternoon I was upstairs in the bathroom doing my hair. All of a sudden I heard a rustle, and I looked into the bedroom to see this: 

Even though Rob and Kelly were downstairs, Zack had quietly come upstairs, found some of his magazines, and was engrossed in reading them. 

This just warmed my heart. One thing I hope for him is that he finds the magic of reading and books, so I just love that he sought them out all by himself. I'm not sure how much he was actually reading as opposed to just looking, but its a start. 

PJ Elf

The PJ Elf brought new jammies, slippers, and a blanket for Zack. He was so excited!

Buds

Someone's happy Daddy's back!

Grammy Leslie.

Zack did a good job of laying on the guilt before Rob and I left for NOLA. But I think things are going OK. 

(that's a Klondike bar he's wielding). 

—
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He's decided to be in astronomy club in aftercare this month.