Boys Will Be Boys

We've been on a pretty good run of getting "asked" or "persuaded" to leave places lately. First we were at Dairy Queen and the kids were playing. I should premise by the fact that we had entered with a crowd but the crowd had long since left and we were just visiting. The kids were playing and one picked up another and the employee told them they needed to leave because that is a liability. We packed up and left. No big deal. Another incident puts us at Chipotles. Once again, in with a crowd and staying until the place had died down. An employee walked over to the children - who were NOT playing at all but sitting nicely and chatting with each other and told them that the garbage cans were placed by the exit doors. Sort of an "encouragement" to leave. We were annoyed so we did just that.

Now, yesterday, back at the DQ the oldest child was outside hanging out with some of his friends from school. I look over just as he is about to leap frog the "thank you" sign for the drive thru - as I get up and race to the door to stop him he goes over and the sign? Well, it is offset on a cement pole. The pole stayed where it was supposed to while the sign bent under his weight - and the fact it is offset from it's support. I continued to go out and yell at him. An employee out there looked at him and then turned back to her book.

Fast forward a few minutes to where it occurs to me that the inside employee MIGHT just be on the phone with the police. I raised my voice and told her the child that bent the sign was mine. Do you see here how I did not volunteer the information when it actually occurred? Anyway, she tells the person on the phone that the child's mother is here and that she will call the owner again and call them back if he want them too. So, I get to have a chat with the owner. For some reason he is impressed with my honesty. Um, the alternative was explaining it to the police and I don't think we want to go there yet. He tells me he will come out and look at the sign and I tell him I will leave all of my contact information at the counter. Once again he is shocked I'm volunteering information.

About an hour later I got a phone call from the owner once again. He has been to his store and fixed the sign. He then says "I'm not sure how often you come in...." I tell him almost every Friday, without admitting any prior offense. He then tells me that the next time I am there to ask if he is around because he would like to buy me a Blizzard.

The moral of this story? If your kid breaks something you might just end up getting free dessert out of it. Wait, is that right?

Top 10 Reason's I'm Thankful for Jackson

Yep, I'm running out of time and I need to spread the love. I'm also exhausted from 4 days of late nights and early mornings. We'll see what I can produce.

1. He is my first baby. I won't deny that there IS something special about that first baby. Experiencing all those 1sts. I'll even forgive him for being 10 days late!

2. He has a great sense of humor. He takes his dad's dry whit and my sarcasm and uses the combination to his advantage. After parent teacher conferences once I asked him why all of his teachers think he's so great. He simply turned to me and said "well obviously they see in me things you don't". Hahaha. If you didn't know him you would think he was backtalking - the sarcasm is a gift.

3. He takes his responsibilities to heart. At his age I probably would have blown off half the things that are asked of him. He does his best to do what is expected.

4. He doesn't quit. He's a pretty hard worker when he has to be. He is also able to see more of the benefits of working.

5. His best friend is a girl. I love that. I hope it lasts because they have been friends since they were 5.

6. He is a good babysitter. Not that I haven't gotten reports that he was mean or forced them to watch tv in the other room so he didn't have to listen to them but for the most part I feel very comfortable leaving him in charge.

7. He is very open and honest. There isn't a conversation we've had that he didn't just ask what he wanted to know. This doesn't mean that as the immature mom I didn't have to run in to the other room and LAUGH AND LAUGH AND LAUGH and then come back with a straight face and answer his questions.

8. He has taken guitar lessons for 4 years. I'm thankful that he's stuck with it at times he thought he wanted to quit and I love to listen to him play. My kids have been lucky to pick up their dad's ear for music. I was in band in highschool but it wasn't a natural talent and I really can't HEAR it like they do.

9. He is frugal when spending my money. I know I said when he has his own money he tends to spend just to spend but he's learned how to shop when I'm buying and it has worked in his benefit. He picked up on what "clearance" meant pretty quickly.

10. He has a tender soul. There have been times I've said something and realized that it just cut a bit too much. He wants to please and when he realizes you are disappointed you can see how sad it makes him. I love that he cares. I love that he will still cuddle on the couch. I could go on and on but I am just thankful he is a part of our family.

Hidden Talents

Today was the gym competition at the kid's school. This means gymnastics and they have class, group and solo competitions. Apparantly Jackson signed up a while ago and then forgot about it. They called his name up today and he had nothing - no music, no routine - nothing. He just put in a cd someone else brought and made up his routine as he went. Somehow he then walked away with the bronze medal. A girl got the gold, then his friend Gabriel won silver and he won the bronze. Out of the entire year 6 - about 30 kids - and he wins bronze? Apparantly I need to get this kid signed up for gymnastics because we might have another Peter Vidmar on our hands. HAHA.

Speech Day

Last Friday was speech day at the kid's school. What is speech day? Good question. LOL It is actually very similar to a graduation ceremony. They focus on the kids who are in Year 6 that are moving up to secondary schools next year. Since it is a small school every single year 6 child leaves the school with some sort of an award. They even can win a Cup/trophy but the funny thing is that they can only keep it for a year. Then the cup has to be engraved (at the winner's expense) with their information and sent back to school to be passed on to the next year's winner.

I almost didn't attend speech day this year. It's usually an hour and a half of speeches by the Board of Governors, the Head Mistress, and a guest speaker. I decided at the last minute to go and I'm glad I did. My Jackson got an award - and I actually had the camera to take a picture. What a good mom I am. He is in year 5 and he received the award for progress. There are 2 awards given to each year 3-6 class, achievement and progress. Achievement is rewarding the top student and progress is for most improved. Woohoo!

The picture is of Jackson receiving his award from Peter J Murray the guest speaker. If you click on the link you will see he is an author of children's books. Jackson has read a few of them so this was pretty cool. (We're inside a marquise that they have to rent because the school doesn't have a large enough room for all of the students and parents. They also use it for the school's summer pta ball but we chose not to attend since the price is 55pounds a person - my hubby and I are NOT spending $200 just to go to a dance with people who don't talk to us. LOL)

Oh - and of course our little American contingent sat together and at the end complained again that they hadn't provided us with the words to God Save the Queen. As tempted as we were to sing My Country Tis of Thee we resisted.

Starring Jackson as........

This week Jackson was in a musical at his school. Their class did a very short rendition of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat where Jackson played Judah. He did try out for the part of Joseph but he isn't much of a singer and he needs to work on his stage presence. The part of Joseph actually went to a girl. I think they did a fantastic job. We were treated to 3 productions. All of year 5 did Joseph, one of the year 6 classes did a short bit of Grease. And let me tell you we were all pleased that Greased Lighting makes the chicks scream. It's still a bit weird to hear 11 year olds singing about getting friendly down in the sand. The last group of year 6's did a bit from The Boyfriend.
While the last 2 were good Joseph REALLY outdid them. Jackson's class year is full of girls with very nice voices. The year 6 girls are just average. I took a video with my digital camera but it just doesn't do any of it justice.

Had we figured out that our video camera wasn't working BEFORE the lights went out we could have taken a decent video. Lesson learned and next time we'll give it a test shot before the play begins.

A group of the teachers also performed in the middle. It was quite comical as they all came out dressed as nuns and sang My Favorite Things. Which of course include when the bell rings, our children go home, and a bottle of wine. LOL

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Saw this on another blog - hmm I think I have a spelling problem. Now if I could get my sentence structure back up. LOL

I Scored a 100%!