Friday, September 19, 2008

Boys are Nice

I took the kids to a park in our old 'hood today. Eric described it to me and exactly how to get there. I was pretty sure I knew the one he meant, but I let him navigate. He sat in the back seat and imitated the GPS.

"Turn Left!" So, I did.
"Turn Right!" (thinking to myself... He know left from right now? When did that happen. I think I was about 11 before I figured that out!)
"Now Go STRAIGHT!"

And sure enough we ended up at the park I expected. There was a group of high school boys who descended on the basketball court and played politely. I thought they were pretty awesome when they ceded the court for a group of 3 10 year olds in Patriots Jerseys so the younger boys could pretend to be the Patriots.

"I'm Teddy Bruschi!"

"I'm Randy Moss!"

"No!" Another one said firmly. "I already called Randy Moss!" And I couldn't stop giggling.

Then the would-be Randy said "No, I'm Matt Cassel!" And they tossed a football around and the older kids threw it with them a bit too. I feel a little silly for jumping on the Cassel bandwagon (I did get the jersey --which is beautiful). But whatever!

We bumped into one of the boys in Eric's PreK class which was really nice. He was there with his grandfather for the afternoon and they played together for almost 2 hours. School is going really well. I'm still worried he's going to get bored with the academic part. We got a worksheet today about the math part. They're starting with counting to 2. Eric will look at me and randomly say "Four plus four plus two plus eight equals eighteen!" I look at him surprised and say "Yes, it does!" So, counting to two and looking at things in groups of two is a bit of a step back. But he's so easy going about most things it will probably be OK.

This year isn't so much about academics, it's more about confidence. I think we need to think about it that way. He's just so ready to push the reading and explore his math. He's really working on reading all the time. He hasn't had that lightbulb moment when letters become words, but he's fairly competent at sounding things out. I just wish the school thing was a little more on his level. But he loves it so far and that's all I can hope for.

Kaylee is talking constantly and generally leaping around in her beautiful discheveled way. This morning I went in to wake her up and she asked for Eric to come into her crib with her. She showed me the spot she made for him on her hippo/pillow and I called him up. He bounced up the stairs and jumped into bed with her and at first I heard them giggling. Then I heard her yelling.

"Eric DON'T SNUGGLE ME!"

"Eric, she doesn't want to snuggle, she just wants to hang out and talk."

To which Eric responded. "Well, it's boring without the snuggling... Just talking."

That's my boy.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Busted

I am so busted.

I'm thinking of getting a Cassel Jersey to replace my ENORMOUS men's XL Flutie jersey that I could fit my entire family in. So, a backup quarterback jersey is not unprecedented for me. I picked Flutie the first time around because I'm a Boston Girl and I thought that drop-kick thingy was really cool. But it's just way too big. It goes down past my knees.

Rich is ready to order me a Cassel Jersey. But should I wait to make sure that he makes it through the next couple of games? Rich says we need to "stand behind our quarterback." And we're very superstitious about our jerseys so I don't want to make a mistake with this.

Either way, I feel like I'm jinxing him. If I get the jersey too soon, I'll jinx him. And if I don't get it, when I'm thinking about it, that might jinx him too.

Hmmmm....

-M