Practicing for Legos

Sunday night, I used Andrew's markers and made a sign that says I Love You Andrew  then a heart and mommy.  When he wasn't looking, I taped it to his wall next to the light switch. I was washing my hands in my bathroom when I heard him read it outloud and then he yelled, "Mom!!" came running to me "Mom! I found something! Come see! It's beautiful and has beautiful words!"  He took me to his room and showed me the sign. He read it to me again with a big smile on his face and said, "I love you too mom. Why did you put this here?"  I told him I just wanted him to know that I love him.  I got him settled into bed and before I left he took my head and kissed my cheek, then forehead, and other cheek and gave me a hug.  He's so sweet when he wants to be.

Monday I picked Andrew up from school early - right after nap time. He was very surprised to see me and gave me a big hug. Once we got home, he pulled a toy out of his pants pocket and told me that he accidentally brought a toy home. I inquired further and he said that he found it on the floor during nap time (and because I picked him up right after, he'd forgotten and didnt get a chance to put it away.)  He asked if the teacher was going to be upset.  I told him he didn't mean to take it home and that he can just return it to it's place in the morning. He asked for a baggie to put it in and put it in his backpack. 

Tuesday Andrew told us that Elf on the Shelf believes in Santa. Daddy asked if Santa was real and Andrew said that his teacher told him Santa is real. So daddy asked, who are you going to trust - your teacher, or your mom and dad?  He said mom and dad and that Santa is not real. I have a feeling he'd like to believe he's real. He has such a great wonderous imagination, it'd be easy to believe in all of that. 

Who knew Math would get Andrew to eat his dinner?  Tuesday night he went through what is becoming a routine for him. Announcing he doesn't like dinner (even before knowing what it is) and saying, "well, I'm not going to eat it."  Once at the table with his pouty face, he'll maybe take a bite of something and then leave. I asked him if we needed to go to his room and talk and he nodded yes. We sat on the bed where he tried to play. I finally held up my hand and said to imagine you only have five minutes before bed.  You can take 1 minute to eat (as i put one finger down) and have 4 minutes left to play which is what you really want to be doing. Or, you can take one minute to pout, another minute fighting us, and spend three minutes sitting at the table and have zero time for play before bed. Which one do you want?  He got the point right away and agreeably joined the dinner table and ate his dinner. He still took a while to eat, but he got it done and was happy and still had plenty of time to play!

Wednesday - Annelise was on the couch wearing socks with a tootsie roll character. Andrew leaned against the couch and said, "I like you're socks."  Annelise asked him if he knew what a tootsie roll is and he went over to examine the socks closely and said, "Hmm, they are a cylinder with a head, arms, and feet."  We all got a chuckle over that. 

Thursday he had his final assessment at the Elementary School (next week he starts his IQ testing). Before we got started he needed to potty so I walked him across the hall and waited outside. Another boy walks in and asks him how old he is. Andrew says 4 and the boy replies,"oh that's cool."  Andrew asks the boy how old he is and he's 6.  Andrew says, "In two weeks I'll be six!"  (two years)  The boy was trying to figure out if Andrew was in Kindergarten at age 4. Then I hear Andrew tell him "you know what? In ten weeks I'll be 18!"  The boy thought for a second, "What?! No that can't be right." 
  The teacher said his assessment will be really easy for him, but it's a basic standard test for 4 year olds. She said during the test, Andrew got bored with it and started making his own game out of it. She'd ask a question and he'd say a wrong answer and then make an "eennnhh" sound like a wrong answer buzzard. Then he'd say the right answer and say, "Ding!" like a bell.  Although she found it amusing, she did tell him that they'd be done faster if he just gives her the answer, and then he complied.
  The two things he missed were that he saw a photo of a hinge and he knew it belonged on a door and allowed it to open and close, but he didn't know what to call it. And he said the compass was a clock.  She said he was unique though in that other kids get the answer wrong and don't care - Andrew wanted to know what was the right answer so he could learn it. And he asks a lot of questions and listens trying to understand everything fully.  She said he's truly an exceptional child, and so well rounded. She likes that you can carry on an adult conversation with him, and he's so personable and kind.  He scored above the 99.9 percentile again on this test.
  At bedtime, in his prayer, he thanked Jehovah for "endurance in the tummy"  which I can only guess was on his mind because his tummy hurt after dinner. I massaged his stomach in a clockwise motion and then he went running to the bathroom a minute later which helped.

Friday daddy worked from home due to expected inclement weather in Nashville. I came home from school to them playing Yahtzee!  He said Andrew was doing pretty well at it too!

Andrew was slightly upset that I wouldn't let him have a popsicle. He picked up some of the trio blocks that he'd built into some interesting form but he was making what sounded like machine gun sounds.  I asked him if he was shooting something and he said no. He then proceeded to tell me some story about how it was a spaceship and it made that sound to pick up people in space.

Andrew saw a noisy fire truck toy once that he has his heart set on. I think it was at Kohls. Anyway, we'd been giving him quarters anytime he practiced his violin, but he has since decided it's not worth it. However, this morning he asked me "if I put my socks on all by myself, can I have a quarter?"  I look at him, "you want a quarter for putting your socks on all by yourself?  How about a nickel?"  He starts bargaining, "how much is a nickel?"  I tell him it's worth 5. He decides that is acceptable and tells me excitedly he'll get five and asked me if I'll be buying him anything at Kohls. I told him no and he said something about that noisy firetruck. I told him I don't want him to have that noisy firetruck because it's loud and I don't want to listen to it. He said, "you don't have to listen to it! I can play with it in my room!"  By that time he was done putting his socks on. So I lay out five pennies and one nickel and tell him the nickel is the same as five pennies. He opted for the pennies.

We also finally told him that once he has 24 stickers on the calendar for practicing violin - we'd let him have a Lego set.  It was hard for him to understand that he'd probably still have to wait to get the prize. He only had three practice sessions left to earn a lego set (of 5 minutes each) and wanted to do them all in one day.  Yeah... he barely made it through five minutes. He doesn't want to practice the same song over and over again - he wants to play it well enough one time and move on.