20051130

Last year I wrote that we had assumed that Ben would terrorize our tree, but that he totally ignored it. It appears that our prediction simply came a year early.

I love that I can listen to the Classic Blues Radio station at Live365.com. Prior to the Internet and broadband, listening to Skip James on the radio was not an option in Mayberry.

Following the alphabet, number, and color word flash cards, Jackson started bringing word packs home. Each pack consisted of ten sight words, words that are handy to recognize by sight without having to sound them out. He had to be able to read all ten words in each pack before he could start on the next pack. He also had small books of just a few pages each that he had to be able to read before he could move on to the next book. Today Jackson finished his ninth word pack and 12th book, which means that he will no longer be bringing either home. He has now moved on to the Dick and Jane books that I remember reading in 1st Grade. We are very proud of how hard he worked on each word pack. So yes I feel pretty silly for freaking out at the start of the school year when we found out everything that Jackson was supposed to be able to do by the end of the year. He has knocked all that stuff out and more in just three months. I'm still in shock that he can read. That we can be sitting at a stop light and he will read the street sign or a billboard. That also means that we can no longer spell words out and assume he won't figure it out. Jackson's teacher told her assistant "I've got a head full of s-n-o-t this morning." Jackson asked "you've got a head full of snot?" Now if anyone has any suggestions on how to teach a kid to tie his shoes when kids don't even wear shoes with laces anymore, I'm all ears.

My brother-in-law, Martin, gave the boys an old school chord organ and an old guitar. Both are fantastic gifts. I'm really particular about my guitars, yet would love for the boys to enjoy them. So they now have a guitar that they can have all on their own and don't have to worry about scratching it. The organ is cool because after you turn it on you have to wait for the tubes to warm up. I love that.

Jackson came home from school with a set of keychains and ornaments adorned with his school photo. How about that for a mafia scheme to raise money? If you don't send ten dollars back, then the kid has to take everything back and give it to the teacher. Do you know how excited a five year old is about having their face on a keychain that they get to give to their mom? So they leave you with the super duper options of either buying trinkets that you would never spend ten dollars on or sending your child back to school to tell his teacher that his parents didn't want it. Now that may be a great way to increase fundraising profits, but it's also a great way to hurt the feelings of lots of little boys and girls along the way. And that's pretty crappy in my opinion.