ROCK STAR day yesterday!!!

Do you ever have those ROCK STAR days where you feel like:

You are a ROCK STAR mom?

Your kids are ROCK STAR kids?

The stars are in perfect ROCK STAR alignment?

That was my yesterday!

We started out with a rainy morning and headed out to our usual Saturday morning gymnastics classes for both of the kids. Lydia is first from 9:45-10:45 and then Jake at 10:45. So, Craig and the kids go into gymnastics and I run down to Lydia's dance center to enroll her for fall dance classes. Her teachers have recommended that she go up a level to the 5-6 year old class b/c she does so well. She will be 4 next month. She is the only one in the class who was recommended to be in a class that has an age range higher than hers. Very cool. I don't really think she is all that much better than the other kids but she does have a good attention span and is very well behaved in there. Well, and she can do the splits! LOL!

Anyway, I go down to gymnastics and Lydia is in class and Craig is sitting there having Jake read to him. This little 4 year old boy is in the waiting area and his mom is in the parent-tot class with his sister. So, he is out there alone with us. He comes up to show Jake his Leapster L-max and Jake is in the middle of reading. When Jake is done, he goes over tells the boy that he has a cool video game. The boy is showing Jake the game, Jake is asking questions. They have a wonderful little conversation going. Jake asks to try it and the boy says no, that it is his game. You can tell that Jake doesn't love that answer but he is cool with it. A few minutes later the little boy is playing this game where you have to write numbers when you "find" them. So, he lets Jake write the numbers. Jake was so happy. LOL! This kid hated picking up a pencil a year ago! So, then Jake asks again to play his game and tells the boy that he'll only use it a little while and then he'll give it back, reassuring him that he won't keep it forever. The boy says no. Jake is disappointed, but OK. He gets bored just watching though and goes off to do something else. So, I take him in the other room and we are working on his math paper for school. He has "homework" b/c I take him out at 1/2 day and he has to make up what he's missed. So, we are in there doing his math paper and he is about to do the last problem and the little boy comes in and sets down the Leapster and says "Here, you can play. I'm done." Jake's eyes light up and he says, "Oh, thanks! I'll play it right after I'm done." and does the last problem. I was so surprised that he didn't abandon his math work and just start playing. So, he plays for a while and then the boy's sister's class is done and he has to leave. So, Jake very kindly hands him his Leapster and thanks him.

I recently read the book Lost At School by Ross Greene and re-read The Explosive Child by him also. Jake is not an explosive child at all. I really really hate the name of that book. But, I had it recommended to me years ago b/c Jake can exhibit some of the issues with weak executive functioning skills, etc. RDI helped some of those, but the new RDI really focused on too many issues at the same time and had a ton of objectives in areas that he grows well in on his own. Weeding through the objectives to find ones that pertained to areas he needed help in got cumbersome and they just weren't developed enough in the higher stages. Anyway, I really like the Collaberative Problem Solving model that Ross Greene teaches. It is a way of solving chronic problems while teaching the skills of collaboration, perspective taking, impulse control, planning and executing, social skills, etc. So, I've been playing around with it the past few days with pretty darned good success. One of the big things we tackled before gymnastics was his desire to be first in line all the time. We came up with a mutually agreeable plan and it worked! He did great! He was, however, way too silly in gymnastics.

After gymnastics, we headed to his soccer game. He is playing Parks and Rec indoor soccer on a kindy team and is doing VERY well. Much much better than when we tried team sports a few years ago. We are quite pleased. But, keeping our hands to ourselves and sometimes silliness can be a problem there. So, we went through CPS and we came up with a plan (actually it was Jake's idea) to save his sillies and hands for after his soccer game. He did awesome! We couldn't believe it. We have spent weeks telling him to "knock it off" but discussing each others concerns and having him participate in the plan worked much better (at least for yesterday LOL!)

After soccer, we went to lunch and then home. I tried CPS for another problem we have of whining when it is time to do his school work (he still a bit left) and not focusing on it and getting distracted, thus making it take forever. Well, whadda ya know! We came up with a plan together and it worked pretty darned well.....for yesterday....lol! We'll see if it sticks.

We debated going out to dinner or eating at home. Ultimately, we decided on a gourmet dinner at home of grilled cheese and fruit. Yum. By then, the rain had cleared out and we were having a beautiful evening so we decided to go on a walk. We head out the garage door and Jake wanted to ride his bike, so Craig hopped on his too. We are greeted in our driveway by Carson, the neighbor boy who is 5. We don't really know Carson all that well but he just ended up in our driveway from down the street. He started saying how cool Jake's bike is and Jake is saying how cool Carson's bike is and Carson proceeds to follow us up the street. He is riding around like a nut, whooping and hollering so Jake starts in on it too. Pretty soon they are having bike races around our cul-de-sac and Craig and I decide to cancel the walk/ride around the neighborhood and let the boys play. They end up trading bikes and riding each others bikes. Jake's bike has pedal brakes and Carson's bike has a hand brake so each boy had to learn to do something new. They are riding around like total nuts. I'm so surprised neither one of them fell b/c it's not like they've been riding around without training wheels forever! Jake has been riding without training wheels for a year. He started on his 6th birthday. But, Carson is only 5, so he can't have been doing it that long. But, they didn't. They were AOK and had a great time. They were over looking at the neighbor's dog and talking about him. Being with Carson, Jake got much closer to the dog than he usually does. (He is terrified of dogs...and allergic) Jake got right up to the dogs invisible fence line but knew that Cosmo couldn't cross it.

After a while, Carson disappeared back to his house and Jake kept asking where he went and if he was going to come back. I assured him that we would see a lot of Carson this summer. So, Craig, Jake, and Lydia are riding around the cul-de-sac and racing and having a big ol time when our new neighbor comes out. I hadn't met her yet, so I go over to meet her and her little boy, Dillon, comes out. Dillon is 4, almost 5 and will go to Kindy next year. Dillon is talking to Lydia and Jake is over with Craig and the other new neighbors talking and riding their boy's motorized tractor (their boy is 3). Eventually, at some point Dillon and Jake meet and hit it off really well. Before I know it they are riding each others pedal tractors and giving each other crazy rides on Dillon's tractor by pushing each other really fast. They had a ball. Dillon is very outgoing which is perfect for Jake b/c Jake is too.

We ended up scrapping our evening plans of walk, bath, movie night at home and stayed outside playing with the other kids until it was getting dark. We finally headed in around 8, did baths, and let them watch a little bit of Shawn the Sheep. If you aren't familiar with Shawn the Sheep, it is this wordless, silly, claymation cartoon 5 minute segment thing on Playhouse Disney. Well, it is on DVD now. It is GREAT for working on perspective taking b/c it just has lots of footage of the animals and the farmer having things going on behind their backs so to speak. And, it is wordless so the words aren't a distraction in this. So, Jake sat on my lap and we watched the first episode with me pausing it at key moments to talk about perspective. Jake somewhat gets perspective but not as strong as he needs to. Carl the Dog books are good for this too, as is a book called My Truck is Stuck.

So, that was our ROCK STAR day. It is my hope that we have many many more of those now that we will be homeschooling. Just the right amount of enriching family time, social experiences that I am there to help with if need be, and academics.