"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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.