A few September outings...

September has been a whirlwind. Seriously, with starting school for the boys, a new job/ position for me, being the PTA president instead of vice president, working part time for a photographer friend of mine and trying to start up chess clubs again- its been crazy overwhelming.

But in spite of all that, we did manage to get out a little bit this September.

My niece Addie turned four this fall and she had her birthday party at a local playground. We went to play with family. It was a sunny and wonderful day.

We went roller skating on a Friday evening with some school friends. The boys quite enjoyed themselves.

At REI in Bloomington Oliver decided to go rock climbing cause it was free. He made it half way up this rock face and then froze and wanted to come down. I'm proud of him for trying. Lucius did not feel comfortable enough to even put the harness on.

Lucius was totally pumped to grow pumpkins this year in the garden. He planted a pumpkin seed at school in second grade and we bought a few more plants at the farmers market. We planted them in the spring and have watched them slowly grow and change from green to orange. They were finally ready to pick. Somehow we only managed to grow two pumpkins from four plants, curious. But that one for each boy so all is well.

Lucius continues to practice his unicycle whenever he remembers or gets the chance. It's fun to see him trying even though he has yet to find the right balance.

Our 5th annual glow ride happened right before school started. This year we had a few sparklers left over that we lit off before decorating the boys bikes with glow sticks. A bunch of the glow sticks didn't work so Jerimy was kind enough to make a last minute run to the dollar store to grab the big, bright glow sticks. We know before for next year.

Getting Organized...

Lucius's room is almost always a mess. Little things all over his floor make it super hard to walk about or tuck him in at night. I decided to try to fix it with a trip to Ikea. We bought a few tubs and a storage rack to put the tubs, then went home to put them together and organized his little things. He helped to assemble the shelf and then decided what to keep and what he no longer needed.

He arranged all his chess trophies all in a nice row by size...

For about two weeks his room stayed super duper tidy. The new rule was only two tubs out at a time. Of course, we didn't have a rule about books so those have now become the clutter on his floor, but it's nice to see all the really painful little things that hurt when you step on them, are tucked away safe and sound.

Simple Pleasures: Chalk...

Oliver had a friend over and all they wanted to do was be in front of a screen. To distract them, I told them we were going to have a chalk drawing contest- except they only got the boring colors. Which left me with all the bright, awesome colors.

But they went with it and probably were still far more creative with boring colors than I could ever be with all the cool colors.

Stolen moments...

When the boys find my phone charging or laying around the house, they steal it. The only thing they can do without my password is take random photos and videos. Eventually I clean the photos off my phone and find all these random photos. None of them are totally worth keeping other than they are stolen moments I wasn't a part of and they make me smile.

 This was the night he borrowed my phone to make a make-up tutorial with his friend. Of course he was super happy to have fancy make up to play around with.

Sometimes he finds my phone when he's upset, so I get real honest emotions.

Lucius, a third grader...

So the second week of school was a real tough one for Lucius. On Monday he came home and was pretty much in tears most of the night. He was so upset about something he couldn't put into words that he told us he didn't want to go to soccer practice. For the kid who loves sports, this was a big deal. At some point during the late afternoon he mentioned how he hated school cause math was too easy. I think his exact words were something to the effect of "I just want to do Multiplication!"

Then much later when he was supposed to be sleeping, he told me he was sad because his friend got to leave the class to go do 4th grade math and that day was the first day his friend left the classroom to do that. I emailed his teacher (we had this problem in Kindergarten as well- because Lucius' favorite subject is Math and he loves challenging math problems). She talked with his second grade teacher and figured out a plan to help him get the challenge he wants.

See his second grade teacher let Lucius and his best friend work independently on advanced math work, as long as they could demonstrate that they understood the second grade standards she was teaching everyone else in the class. They worked so well together that the two of them finished most of the third grade math curriculum while still in second grade. We had no idea till conferences in the spring that he was so far ahead.

All this to say that his new teacher is looking for ways to help him be challenged and one way they are going to do that is by having the gifted and talented person in our school district come to the school and evaluate Lucius, have him take a math test in both 3rd grade and 4th grade level to see where he is at. The data they have on him so far show him in the 94-99 percentile for third grade math and the 82 percentile against 4th graders at the same level. So yeah- this kid loves his math!

I always seem to document more about Oliver, so I just wanted to get this down in my documenting for Lucius. It'll be interesting to see what happens. As long as he is happy and having fun learning, I think it'll all be fine. 

This is Lucius and his buddy. They have been in the same class since kindergarten and are adorable together. They have a super healthy relationship where they can work together without getting super competitive. The school almost put these two in separate classes so that Lucius could be with Oliver's old third grade teacher, but I asked them to move Lucius back so he could stay with his friend. We're getting to know a new teacher, and she seems amazing too. It was more important to keep these two fellows together.

Oliver's first 5th grade project: Soy Yo...

Oliver says this piece of art was to draw the shape of you and fill it with things that reflect you.

His teacher picked Oliver for the "Soy Yo" (translation: I am me) board in their classroom. He was the second student to hang things on the board. The sheet that came home said he was to collect objects from his home that reflected who he was and to let people know a little bit more about him without giving himself away. See, on Monday of the week its your turn you have to sneak into the classroom unnoticed by the other students, hang your objects and then not tell anyone that you hung the objects till Friday of the same week. On Friday he got to explain all the objects and why he choose them. His teacher sent me this photo of him telling the class about himself.