Wowza Zowza...a break does a boy good!

This Christmas break has been wonderful for Jake. He is so relaxed. Our biggest obstacle lately has been lots of arguing and we have been working hard on that this break. I have him earning checkers for not arguing and when he earns a certain number of checkers he gets to watch a movie. I know this isn't "RDIish" and is "behavioral" but sometimes you need a quick fix to save your quality of life, kwim? And, honestly, Jake has responded well to behavioral modification in the past. Otherwise some things become an obstacle to further learning. Well, it is going awesome. I am already starting to fade the checkers a bit. Not to quickly though. We are just having the best Christmas break. I'm kind of sad that he goes back to school on Monday. And, Lydia starts preschool on Tuesday. Jake says he doesn't miss school and I believe that, but I know he misses his friends. He spent much of the day at Grant's house yesterday playing. I was sooooo nervous. Jake has only had one other playdate ever and that was at our neighbor's for about an hour or so. He's spent time at cousin's houses and stuff, but never just been invited for a drop off playdate for 4 hrs like yesterday. So, he spent from 10-2 at Grant's yesterday and ate lunch there. Of course, I had to pack his lunch b/c of his allergies but that was OK. Grant's dad was there, his mom went out of town for the day. Grant's parents are great. His mom is a SpEd teacher who recently went back to work after years of being a SAHM. She is a learning disability tutor at the kids' school. His dad is a family practice doc. We went to the same residency program but he was a few years ahead of me. So, I knew of him, but didn't actually know him until the boys were in class together last year. Dad said that Jake did great yesterday and that there were no behavior problems or anything. That the boys got along well and played great....sometimes they did their own thing and other times they played together. I was so pleased. :-)

Then, Jake came home and went outside to ride his bike and veg out. Then, he went knocking on Keeton's door to have him come out and play. So, Keeton and Cale (his older brother) came out to play. Cale and Jake can kind of butt heads some. Cale can be kind of sarcastic and condescending to Jake and tries to push Jake's buttons. And, he does it quite well. Well, Jake finally had had it and came in saying that Cale wasn't playing nice. I asked him what happened and he said that Cale told him that the "starting line" had to be where he wanted it but that Jake didn't want to race with them and so he wanted to make his own starting line and that Cale said he couldn't and Jake said he could. So, Jake got sick of it and came in. I told him he was right. That he doesn't have to play what they want to play. That he can have his own starting line and he doesn't HAVE to do what they are doing. He looked so surprised and said with this Ah-ha look on his face, "You're right, mom! I don't have to do what they tell me!" Then, a few minutes later he was gone from the house. So, I went out and called his name to find him. About that time he came out of Keeton's house with Keeton and Cale. He had gone over to invite them to come over and watch the Peter Pan movie...without checking with me. LOL! So, the boys came over and watched the movie and played until about 5pm. Well, Cale got "sick of playing with the little kids" (he's 8) and just walked out of the house. (insert rolling eyes).

In the evening, Craig and Jake practiced their putting in the basement for one of our RDI objectives and I think it really clicked with Jake last night. Very cool. :-) Then, baths and jammies. Grandma had bought Jake some new Batman jammies but the pants were really big. They wouldn't stay up at all. So, he came to me and I told him that maybe he should put on some other pants and that I'd have Grandma fix them for him. Then he said, "I have an idea." See the picture for his idea....layering 4 pairs of pj pants so that the Batman ones stay up. We were so impressed with his problem solving abilities!

Here's a pic of my cutie pie in his Batman jammies. He is not feeling well and has a fever since the middle of the night, so he has a forced smile, but still a cutie nonetheless.