Friday, May 30, 2008

"Good Workers"

After David made a real delicious, tasty prime ribs for dinner, we all sat together as if we were attending an expensive dinner. He was exhausted right after we had a dinner. Then, he ended up sleeping on a coach.

As soon after I finished cleaning the dishes up, I went right straight to shredding the papers in the living room. Dylan and Ryan, who were sitting next to me, were playing with the Lite Rite.

Ryan made a comment:

" Momma, you are good working woman. We are good working boys except for Dad!"


First, it was the longest sentences he ever made. Second, I thought it was funny he was telling me that his dad was not a good worker, though Ryan had forgotten that his dad did all of the hard working in cooking.

I even told Ryan, "No, Daddy was not lazy. He did work hard on cooking us a delicious dinner."

He sharply replied to me, "No but he is sleeping now." Sigh!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Big RED Mulch

I've been watching David like a mad husband on one full day for fixing up our property and doing some landscaping around our home and yard. He was trying to make our little backyard into beauty.

Seeing him puffing by carrying six of twenty pounds of mulch reminded of me how hard it is to carry my 73 pounds of son
sitting over my shoulder. There is no way I could do that kind of weight even carrying Dylan or Ryan. Despite of not wanting to do the yard work, he held his breath, pretended he enjoyed the hectic job, and smiled for the picture.

He made a heavy sigh when he saw the old, ugly and brown mulch that need to be
removed. Good grief, he did not surrender his destination by finishing it up despite of seeing so many black ants with eggs hidden under the brown mulch. He bravely killed the ants with our poison raids.

After doing three hours of removing the old mulch and replacing the red mulch, it looks GREAT! No more black ants
crawling outside of our brand new red mulch.

Eventually, he will need to replace all of the outdoor solar lights for our front and back yard. Who knows he will be digging a swimming pool if both boys and I demand for a lap top pool? Or creating a bird bath for us to join in our backyard.

17 More Days

I only have 17 more days left. Do you know what that means? It means the school is out in our school district. This also means I don't have to teach junior high school again. I have suffered yet survived for an entire year without a classroom!

What else is better to say good bye to Junior High School? I don't have to put it up with the smart mouth from the teenagers. Even more, I don't have to watch the boys' underwear during the school days.

Not only watching the teenagers revealing their true personalities, I sorely will miss the most, wonderful staff. They all had up with me- though there were times I could be challenging.

After 17 days, I can begin to restore all of my energy for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Pre-schoolers for the next eight weeks before the fall begins. I have heard they are VERY HIGH ENERGY. Thus, I will need to have TONS OF ENERGY VITAMINS for an entire year. Don't forget that it includes taking care of my two other high-energy sons. If you see that I end up in a mental hospital, then you will know the valid reasons for being in this placement. Or you can rescue me from going insane.

Know what is my secret plan to preserve my energies? I plan on providing T.V. shows and game times for the boys when the three of us come home from work/school. So, I could relax my sanity before I roll my sleeves up to help my sons on their homework. Let's hope my brilliant plan works.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Expectation from Tooth Fairy

Who can’t remember the thrill of putting a lost tooth under the pillow at bedtime and waking up the next day to some shiny new coins? So, what would you do if your child expect a lot more than you have it in your wallet? It happened to my older son, Dylan who expected Tooth Fairy leaves him a ten dollar bill. Leaving ten dollar is awful a lot of money for today's kids! In my time, I usually got a penny or a nickel from a tooth fairy.

Well a night before Dylan had lost his first baby tooth, he kept bugging us every other minute for an hour before it finally came out of his tooth. An hour later, he finally happily screamed, " I finally lost my baby tooth. I am so exciting !" Of course, we were so eager to take pictures of him with a hallow tooth. Another reason for being so enthusiastic was that he is the last person in his first grade to lose a baby tooth. It was in time for the class to celebrate altogether before the school 's out.The next thing, he knew he was supposed to write a letter to Tooth Fairy. In a letter, he described how and where to find his first tooth. He even mentioned that it was essential to leave the exact amount of money, $ 1.09. Don't ask me why or how did he come up with a specific amount of money?? My best guessing it probably includes tax when he buys something for a dollar.Just before he went to bed, he was hopping up and down because he was so anxious to tell everyone in school that he finally lost his tooth. But to his disappointment that the next day was a holiday, Memorial Day. With his glum looks, he kept telling me, "Oh I wish there was a school tomorrow, so I can show everyone my empty tooth." Who wouldn't blame to turn his excitement down?

The next morning, he was about to wake up as I was passing by his room. The first thing he did was to check and see if the tooth fairy had arrived. Good grief, a note from Tooth Fairy and a cash had arrived ! Dylan was bewildered, "Why didn't the Tooth Fairy bring me $1.09?" Thus, I had to think of a valid excuse. My valid excuse was, "I think the Tooth Fairy thought you were special and was being so patience to wait for another day to tell everyone at school about your first lost baby tooth. The tooth fairy thought you deserved a special to get a two dollar." He was satisfied with the reason. Dylan also read a short letter from Tooth Fairy telling him to take care of his teeth daily.

Shortly after he finished reading a letter, he ran toward to his groggy dad about getting two dollars and a letter. We just smiled and watched him being a happy seven years old boy becoming a growing-up boy.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

All About Dylan

Last Thursday, my family and I went to Dylan's school for Open House. Dylan was so excited to show his work off. Who wouldn't blame him? Not us. We were so curious about his update work.

Before we were able to go in his first grade classroom, we stopped by the cafeteria where there all of the artists' displaying on the wall. Each teacher provided all of their students' art work in cafeteria. It was REALLY neat to see the work from pre-schoolers to fifth graders. While Dylan looking for his art work, he met another so-called girlfriend, who is in Kindergarten. He and Michelle, the other girlfriend were holding their hands while looking for his art's work. Isn't that cute for puppies love?

As soon as he found his art work, he was so PROUD to show his work off. We personally thought he did excellent job on doing his own fish art work. He also had created the other sea animals in the same picture: jellyfish, starfish, and kelps. There were many Sea Animals art works in his classroom.

Shortly after we finished seeing his art work in cafeteria, we went to Book Fair. The boys were so excited to go to the Book Fair. Dylan especially was hoping to find The Magic Tree House series, book 39 as it was shown on the flyer. Dylan was disappointed that the book fair did not have a book that he was searching. Perhaps, we can find at Ryan's next week Open House where it also has Book Fair. Instead, we found Hot Wheel CD Games for their computer. Hot Wheels is another thing they are currently obsessed.

Finally, we were able to get in Dylan's classroom. The first thing, the teacher gave each student guided tour check lists for them to show off to their parents. We thought it was a marvelous idea to keep their hands and mind busy. Almost everything in this time of the trimester, they were heavily talking about The Life of Sea Animals.

One of the walls, one of his essays was about Jellyfish, his favorite sea animals. He thought it was neat because he didn't have a brain. Wasn't he trying to compete that he is smarter than the Jellyfish? On his essay, he wrote three pages about Jellyfish! His teacher scored him the top of his practice Direct Writing Assessment. For instance, he started off saying, " Let me tell you about Jellyfish. Some jellyfish are small as a penny or a dime.. We get the jelly from jellyfishes, and we should thank the jellyfish. I'm not kidding." We were pleased he was able to describe the jellyfish vividly.

As he was guiding us around the classroom, his first grade teacher was telling me few things about him. Nearly almost all of his journals, he included the numbers! That was something I did not know. For instance, " I can use the computer technology that can steal the information from someone's else house that is 14 miles away." Who knows how did he come up with the numbers? I guess he is "Arthimomonia." It would crack the teacher up whenever she read his journals. She also mentioned that he is at the end of second grade math level, even though he is only in first grade. Mrs. Lampshire, his teacher told me that she had to give him more advance math class including learning to borrowing in subtraction and some basic multiplication. Just like his dad who is also in advance in math.

It was a nice closing feeling about his work at the Open House. We were definitely proud of his hard work.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Art Assessment

When my younger son Ryan received a book, "I Love To Draw" from his grandmother for his birthday, I personally thought it was an excellent way to practice their art skills.

Every other night, I have encouraged both boys to use their art skills on a white board in the garage. This was a purpose of using a picture for their homework assignments or writing assessment test. Dylan often has a homework packet with drawing. He is able to use more details in his drawing. Ryan was on the other hand. He often uses during the class time. I have seen their art works when they bring home on Fridays.

Ryan was the ones who needed the most to practice his art in order to keep his age level up. After I had done the research, I see that he is at the age appropriate level, "Pre-Schematic" stage. It means that the kids at his age (4-7) usually may draw a human figure with a circle and two dangling lines for legs. Sometimes they include a rectangular shape for trunks of bodies, and often little marks inside the circle to represent facial features. But this excellent book I got it from my mother was the BEST! He was able to represent a spider, and caterpillar clearly. He tried his best on making a butterfly. His "Bugs" pictures interpreted that he loves to look for insects which matches his personality.Not only working with Ryan in art, I even included Dylan. I sometimes gave him the ideas on adding pictures or coloring the pictures. Dylan, who is at Schematic stage, is the son that would rather to write a book more than just drawing a picture. Who knows he would become an author like my cousin, Cheryl? But my cousin also includes her pictures in her "The Commuters" book. But, I found his picture interesting because he always asked for sweet. I often told him to wait until after dinner, or have any sweet once in a while, too.

I just was amazed that even drawing a picture from " I Love to Draw" does reveal a lot about the person's personality. Frankly, I would love to see them drawing more pictures before they reach up to age 9-10 where the art therapy says that they often lose their interests in Art. While I have an open window to work with them in art, I would love to collect more art books from the author, Jennifer Lipsey Edwards.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Water Gun

You won't believe all comes with that hot water gun game! It is every kid dream playing with the water gun game. Both Dylan and Ryan started playing against each other at 7 P.M. due having the weather at above 80 degrees. I thought it was a perfect way to cool themselves and burn their energy off before hitting the sack.

In the beginning of the game, both boys wanted to test their water guy by watering the plants. Wasn't that nice of Ryan watering the poor plants who desperately needed it? This did not last long. Dylan,the brave warrior, decided to start the game while Ryan was trying to figure it out how to shoot the gun. It surprised Ryan. As soon he figured it out, he ran and shot the 30 feet water gun. From there, there was a war game, yet a lot of giggling going on.

They had used a lot of energies from running back and forth in our tiny back yard. They stopped for a little bit. Dylan was the ones who wanted to drink the cold water from the water gun. Good grief, it did not shoot through his nose!
Later, Dylan copied Ryan for wanting to shoot the spider from our patio. Wouldn't they make a fabulous team maker? It did scare and killed the spider who had their spider web hanging on our patio. It saved us from cleaning the cobwebs out.

At the end of the water gun game, I have decided to ambush the boys. Of course, I stole their water guns and shot straight toward them. Boy, it was fun watching their disbelief faces. They ran toward to the dead end. That was my greatest advantage to get them REALLY SOAKED!

Dylan gave me a surrender signal .
Ryan signed "I'm cold!"

Know what is my next plan? It is to do the shoot at my husband! I would LOVE to see him yelping and pleading me to stop getting him soaked.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Creepy Stranger

Yesterday at the front of Wal-Mart parking lots, a daring, creepy stranger approached to me if I could help her taking her home because her car was locked. She was carrying a small bag of medication from the Wal-Mart.

While the boys and I were in the van, she approached and asked me, "I need your help. Can you take me home? I'm confused. My car is locked."

I had an immediate suspicion. Without making it too obvious, I replied to her, " I suggest you to go inside of Wal-mart and find the worker to help you unlock your car. Or to call your family to get you."

She then tried to seclude me, " I don't have the money. Can you lend me a dollar?" I did reply the same comment. She walked away and asked another couple who was also at the parking lots. The couple, who was in a front of my van, also turned her down.

At the end, she surrendered. Know what she did? She was able to get inside of her and drove it off. I knew she was up to something. It didn't matter if she was up to something, or not. I had to protect myself and my kids. The best part was that I showed my role-model to my sons by not accepting any kind of offers. Dylan had learned his lesson from me. I surely hope he remembers for what I had done by rejecting for helping the creepy stranger.

Have you had any kind of creepy stranger? If so, what happened and what did you do?

Monday, May 12, 2008

Bills

A couple of months ago, we asked AT &T company to stop serving us because we were not pleased with their services. We even wrote a check to pay the bills off. Just tonight, my husband got an email from AT & T company that we owe them four cents!

Can you image the representative looks when he or she sees my husband presents the copy of an email and give them four pennies? I thought it would be FUN to see their faces. Also, can you image if they would not approve him to hand them four cents, and require him to write a check?

What would you do if you were in our shoes?

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Mother's Day Gifts

Did you know that on May 11th was marked one hundred year anniversary for Mother's Day? It was Anna Jarvis' idea, who never had been married nor had children. She started giving the white carnation because she felt it signified the purity of a mother's love. But it didn't start three years after her mother's death. What a blessing for her to have a heart for all mothers from all over the world, who deserved to be special.

On Mother's Day, I got three separate gifts. They were from my two sons and a dear husband of mine.

Dylan wrote me a letter about thanking me for letting him to cook the scrambled eggs. In the letter, he described that he appreciated me for letting him to the cooking procedures: break the shells of the eggs, pour the milk, and cooked the eggs. He also made a hand painted magnet for the refrigerator. On the little note, it says, " Here is the hand. You used to hold. When I was only 7 years old." He painted pink because he thought it was a feminine color.

Ryan also made two darling purple plastic flowers in a green weave plastic basket. I thought it was a clever way for not me to worry about watering the beautiful flowers. He even wrote clear and loud words, "Happy Mother's Day. Love, Ryan." It melt my heart that he did his best in his writing.

David, my dear husband surprised me. I thought he only would let me do whatever I wanted for Mother's Day. I did was getting my hair cut, getting my toe nails done, and working on the garden. While I was working on the front yard, he brought me a dozen of beautiful red roses. I sure was pleased to see that it was really important for me to get the flowers from him sometimes despite of his comment, "It is a waste to buy flowers because it dies!" That made me feel very good for being a wonderful wife to him!

What did you get for Mother's Day? What did you do for Mother's Day?

Go, Speed Racer !

On May 10th, my family and I went out to see "Speed Racer" IMAX movie for Ryan's 6th birthday in the afternoon. It took us two hours and a half to watch this movie. I honesty could tell you that it was wonderful to watch, even without closed captioned.

We had our eyes sticking out to the movie for an entire time. Ryan did not seem wanting to leave the movie like he did at Ice Age 2. I could see the reason. The filmmaker from Matrix used a lot of High Effect Technology and three dimensions. The filmmaker from Matrix also lay it on thick in "Speed Racer," a jangled, densely layered, narratively scrambled blob of movie making that will leave viewers alternately baffled and sensorially stunned.

While the scenes were unbelievable, I honesty could say that there were some disappointments. It is rated PG for sequences of action, violence, profanity and brief smoking. I just hoped that the boys would not learn to use the proficiency from the movie. However, there were also a good part of the movie that Speed's little brother and his pet chimp provide nothing by way of comic relief.

All we had wanted to take Ryan out to the movie as per his request. It turned out that it didn't waste our money, though the prices had gone awful expensive.

Our Times with Ginger and Danae

Last weekend, we had two wonderful relatives came to stay the night at our pad. I can tell you that we are the luckiest in the world that they are part of our family. They are fun to hang around.

On their first night at our place, we just relaxed after we celebrated Ryan's early sixth birthday party. Mostly, Danae and the boys spend their time playing with their obsessed toys: Gameboy and playing with the Hot Wheels. They got along quite well. Good grief, there were lots of giggles all evening.

After they had enough of giggling, they decided to play with our guinea pig, Fluffy. Danae was the ones who was curious to hold the Fluffy. It was fun watching her being surprised that Fluffy made lots of "tweeting" noises. It translated, "Thanks Danae!" The boys were used with our pet, so they gave her the privilege to pet our lovely animal.

Shortly after petting Fluffy, Danae and the boys went upstairs to watch the Disney while we, the adults, were watching "Golden Compass. " We also learned that there are books written about Golden Compass. Even more, we did not know that there were movie series. It was almost like watching, "Lord of Rings" or "Harry Porter." By the time our movies ended, we hit the sack for the night.

The next day, it was a big day for all of us. First, we went out to Broken Yolk Cafe. Don't forget to come out and try it whenever you are in San Diego, it was delicious. Before we took them out to the Grand Opening "Children Museum" in San Diego Downtown, we walked in and outside of Border's. The kids especially enjoyed looking at Koi fishes. Danae thought we could have Koi for lunch. Isn't she funny? While looking at the fishes, we got to know each other a lot more. That was one of the cherish moments to spend with these two wonderful people.

Another thing we have done was going inside of our favorite time: Border's. Ginger bought the boys few books: The Frog and Toad Series for Ryan and two books written by Ronald Dahl for Dylan. I did the same thing for Danae by getting her Horse book, bookmark and horse pen. It was fun to watch their smiling faces.

Finally we were heading for downtown to see the Grand Opening "Children's Museum." By the time we got there, we were disappointed because the parking lots were awful FULL! I meant FULL ! There were no way we could find it because there were so many special events at the same time: Grand Open Children's Museum, Cinco de Mayo and Red Bull Air Show. I personally thought it was not wise to schedule all three events at the same time.

Instead we ended up going to a nearby Balboa Park for a little while, the kids had fun playing on the playground for a little while. Danae was the role model by showing Dylan, my older son on how to do the swing higher without our assistance. Still, he is stubborned to even try it! I was proud of Danae. Ryan was exploring on the monkey bar. He kept asking me to stand nearby him because he thought it was dangerous.


At the end, we got another round of getting ourselves treat: to Cheesecake Factory. Oh boy, we had our stomach bigger than our eyes. But, who would argue that it was fun getting together with them? I wouldn't. I would go for to any where whom I haven't gotten together in a long while.

We do look forward to getting together with them when we go on our next trip to Oregon and Washington.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Six Things about Ryan

Today is Ryan's sixth birthday.

The six things we love about him are:

1. He makes us laugh a lot with his senses of humors.
2. He enjoys giving us raspberry kisses. It makes feel good. Sometimes, it tickles.
3. He so often likes to jump and cuddle between us in the middle of the night.
4. He strives being independence when learning new things.
5. Most of all, he continues to amaze us on little things daily.

We are lucky to have you entering in our world. We love you very much. May your 6th birthday brings you lots of memories especially going to "Speed Racer" IMAX movie that you have always wanted to see.

Happy Birthday to you !

Spooky Lights

In the middle of mid-morning, we were woken up by having our bedroom light on. We thought it was our older son, Dylan accidentally turned the light on as if he was coming in our bedroom. It wasn't. He was sound asleep in his own room. Ryan was already in our bed before the light came on.

After the bedroom light had interrupted us, we inspected in our upstairs rooms. We also saw our living room light went on. Why did two lights go on ? I thought it was bizarre because I was the ones who turned the entire house lights off and locked the doors before I hit the sack.

Don't you think it might be any of us had been sleep walking? David denied that he didn't do it. I was already dead tired. So, what do you think it caused the lights to go on?

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

McClellan's Turning to One

Believe it or not, I started my blog after I was being convinced by my two sister in laws, Deby and Mandee. I remember that I had mixed feelings about about creating my own blog. One was I admitted I was afraid I would be "retarded" (That s my sister in law, Mandee's favorite quote) whenever I posted my news. The other reason I went ahead to do it was that I would not have to worry about paying extra stamps, paying long distance phone bills, or taking my extra miles to send e-mails.

I had an opportunity to reflect what happened during my first year of my blog. There were several of my personal posts I enjoyed re-reading.

My favorite posts this year:

The first of many comments about debating whether my husband David should grow goatee or not, "Desperately Needs your Vote." Unfortunately, the votes turned out to be equal. Thus, I did not have a choice to force my husband to grow goatee that I always adore in MEN. Despite of my wishes, David did not keep his promises.

I like this one about those crazy times I have had on, "Crazy Friday." It was the day I had to change my clothes three times a day in order to show my spirits: my school's team, Mother/Son's 1950's event at Ryan's Pre-school, and Hawaiian outfits for all of us at Dyan's school while my husband was out for a scuba diving. Amazing I managed myself throughout the Crazy Friday.

I laughed when I re-read about Dylan writing "Unexcused Absence" to his teacher. It was the the weekend that my mom and her husband, Bruce were in town for a couple of days. In the note, he was telling his teacher that he had gone out to the beach for three days. Going out to the beach did not occurred except we went to Mission Bay where it had a bay and a park for the kids to play.

The proudest moments I have had were:

1. Dylan was getting the " Most Outstanding Award" last Fall. He was so proud to show everyone off.

2. "Ryan's Annual I.E.P" was a positive ones. It turned out that he shifted toward more being in mainstream classes than being in a Special Education Class. Also, he had met all of his first benchmarks within 5 months after he enrolled his Kindergarten year.

3. I felt so good that "David's new Toy" which he got his Stainless BBQ. He was so delighted that he was able to do the BBQ more often. I honesty could tell you that I could not compare David than my own cooking. There was no need to complain because I enjoyed being spoiled.

4. Last was the most recent ones, "The New Ownership." That was getting a BRAND NEW van after my husband and I had traded our old van. It was worth for getting all of the awesome technology.

This was my favorite picture of 2007:

Looking Back it was a full year. Lots of memories there.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Ready, Get Set, Party!

May 10th is Ryan's 6th birthday. The family and I celebrated Ryan's birthday a week early for two reasons. One was one of the family members from another state came down to visit us. Next weekend is a Mother's Day. It would conflict the celebration.

At dawn, I was half recovering from having a bad sinus a day before the party. I was all ready to get the party ready! While I was preparing for the party, I did encourage the boys to help me setting the party up. They especially like putting the candies and small toy items in a "Hot Wheels " Pinata.

Not too long after I finally got all set for the party, one of my friends and her three children were the first visitors. The boys were all excited to get it started, but they knew they had to wait for more visitors at our home. While waiting for more people to bring the delicious food, the kids went upstairs to play with "Hot Wheels " stuff! Oh brother, it was in the boys' world!

Once everyone was in our home, we all had full of delicious potluck food on our kitchen island. It was enough to make our eyes bigger than our stomach. The children were rather to take their time by coloring the table. Of course, I had butcher paper covering the table. Otherwise, I would be screaming at the top of my lungs. After we had a buffet lunch, it left us little room for our stomach especially for the cake.

While waiting for our stomaches to settle ourselves down, the children had the privilege to bat the "Hot Wheels" Pinata. Using the blindfold didn't succeed because the kids could see through with my scarf and was slippery enough to go down their neck. We gave up. So, we let the kids see the Pinata without scarf. Ryan was supposed to start batting the Pinata, but he was not confident. He was not ready until he saw the other kids doing the same thing. (He tended to be a follower.) Everything was good at the end especially getting their treats: candies.

Hope it would not cause me too much trouble for sending them ending up to the dentist office. That also included catching Aunt Pam had a sweet tooth.

However, there were more sweet came along the party; singing the birthday song to Ryan. It turned out that Ryan had a melt down. He screamed, cried and ran upstairs to his bedroom. This disappointment really impacted me because I had hoped he would be happy that everyone showed the love for him. But soon after I comforted Ryan down from his bedroom for a few minutes, I realized at any special events along with too many people focusing on Ryan was too much for him. It overwhelmed him. We just let him go and let others eating the cake and presents without him.

However, an hour after a few people leaving from the party, Ryan started wanting to eat the cake and opening the presents. Right after opening the gifts, he immediately wanted to start playing with the toys he had received. The remaining kids joined the gifts he got for another hour.

At the end of Ryan's early birthday, he was very fortunately everyone had showed their love for him. It made him very happy especially getting the toys, food, and breaking the Hot Wheels Pinata!

Friday, May 2, 2008

Why Now?

I have asked myself a question, "Why now?" This is a matter of a wrong time to get a bad migraine. I have too much to do before giving my younger son, Ryan's early 6th birthday party.

Hopefully after I get a few hours of sleep, I will be able to regain by energy by catching my errands up before having a family coming over to our home tomorrow.

After grabbing sleep, let's hope I will have some energy this evening before the big event comes.