This morning, James made treasure maps for both Gracie and Ryan.  He saved his post-soccer game treat for them to use as the treasure at the end of the map.  I love it when they play together like this.

The other week I was tucking James in and he told me he was embarrassed to tell me something but he was going to tell me anyway.  After mustering up the courage he told me that he likes it when I sing and thinks my voice is pretty.   Last week, James’ teacher sent home a test he had taken in school.  He was instructed to write one perfect complete sentence with correct capitalization and punctuation, drawing a line between the subject and predicate with added details.  He wrote:  The nice looking teacher (Mrs. Keb) taught the class about the landforms amazingly in the class before lunchtime.  She gave him 100%, a smiley face and wrote “charmer” on the test.  If he keeps this up, he’ll make a girl really happy someday.

I co-teach Jonathan’s class at church now and get to observe him in a different environment from home. When learning about Samuel the prophet I was thinking along the lines of what he was telling the people while Jonathan calculated how many years ago it occurred.  It’s just a different way of thinking about things but it’s probably good to have a different perspective.  He told me that this year he isn’t going to do Reading Counts to give other kids a chance.  It’s nice to see him maturing and starting to think about other people.  The hard part of him growing up is he doesn’t want me to hug him or cuddle with him saying he is getting too old for that.  He’s happy to wrestle with me though.  I should get that kid in wrestling because he enjoys it so much.

Ryan had a play date with his friend who has a baby sister.  He said he really liked the baby but she cried unless he clicked his tongue.  Then she stopped crying.  Grandpa and Grandma stopped by a few weeks ago and he asked Grandma, “Can you run?”  She replied, “No”.  He continued, “Can you jump?”  She replied, “No”.  He said, “Well, I can run and jump.”  I’m glad he figures these things out.  He’s very attached to his siblings and misses them a lot when they’re gone.  We made a cake the other day and he insisted that we stop eating so they could have some after school.  He thought we were just going to sit there together and eat the entire cake.  

Last week I was tucking Gracie into bed and she said obviously concerned, “I just can’t stop thinking about something”.  I asked what and she replied, “I can’t tell you”.  I said I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know what was wrong.  She replied, “OK, you can guess.  The first letters of the words start with I, S, M, T.”  I guessed until I finally figured it out.  “I suck my thumb”.  I had forgotten she sucked her thumb before bed since I haven’t seen her do it for a while and it hasn’t ruined her teeth.  I told her not to worry about it but she obviously was quite concerned.  She regularly gives me little love notes and likes to organize her clothes and “tidy up” her room.  I’m not sure if all little girls are like this but it’s kind of nice.

A few weeks ago Gracie told me she had something to tell me but the boys probably wouldn’t want her to.  I told her she could tell me anyway.  She said, “The other night, the boys were jumping around their rooms from bed to bed in their underwear pretending to be Tarzan.”  I can just imagine her shock.  They recently watched Jungle Book.  Maybe the freedom of swinging from vines uninhibited by clothes was just too tempting to resist.