Grayson update

This throwing up on the blog is getting to be a reoccurring situation.  I think the kids would agree that my work is suffering as a mom.  I am looking at a dining room table with fabric, ironing board, and sewing machine...sitting out for weeks and projects backing up.  There is also a ladder to hang the snowflakes from our tall window, but I can't seem to find the snowflakes and haven't the energy to put the ladder back until I do my due diligence search.  Matalley has a pair of shoes in every room.  It's ironic that when I tell her it's time to go, she spends 15 minutes "looking" for shoes.  I did catch up on laundry this week but only because each of the kids had a stomach bug and did their share to force me to or smell the wrath of the virus for weeks.(technically Matt did all the cleaning up...I managed to be out of the house with each situation).

Grayson had his first absence at school due to an illness.  I don't think it will affect his grades much.  He managed to score all A's for the first 12 weeks!  I am very proud.  We did have an incident with his gym teacher that still frustrates me...she gave him an 80% for 3 weeks in a row.  I was shocked considering he had no issues at all last year and scored perfect 100 for the first 6 weeks.  I asked Grayson to talk to her and he came home telling me he wasn't sure what he was doing but apparently he had a behavior problem.  I ended up emailing her to ask her what was going on and she emailed back saying he was loud and not keeping his hands to himself during gym.  I immediately said to Grayson, "Grayson, you need to keep your hands to yourself and use your inside voice during gym...it's not recess so you need to treat it like your other classes."  The next day, she wrote me that he had a perfect day.  My frustration lies in the fact that she didn't do a better job of handling the "change" in behavior in the beginning.  I know Grayson is not an angel, but if he's making perfect grades in all his other classes and all of last year and he likes to play sports, then 80's 3 weeks in a row with no communication on how to change said behavior seems a little extreme to me. 

We also had an incident with his main teacher who is very sweet but very new to teaching.  One morning before the presidential election, I was listening to a story on Mitt Romney.  Grayson told me he was voting for Mitt because Obama wasn't a Christian.  He said he learned that from his teacher.  Now I was in a precarious position because while I want him to trust what his teacher says, I was NOT happy with her opinion.  I just said, "Well, I think God is the only one who truly knows who is a Christian...it's not something that we know just by a person going to church or hanging Christmas lights on the house."  I also told him that everyone gets to vote for the person they want, so no matter who his teacher liked, he could vote for whomever he wants to...in a few years:)  The main thing is that a vote is private and then later when I showed him how to vote in the voting machine, he promptly told everyone in the polling place who I voted for.  Awesome!

Grayson gave the Old Testament reading at church last Sunday.  He did a wonderful job reading some hard words in front of the whole congregation! I missed it due to Lola and the stomach bug and hand foot and mouth virus but I saw a video and I am just in awe of how well he reads in 1st grade.  If only we could work on his table manners;)  Last week I made a fish, spinach, tomato dish.  He sat down to the dinner table, looked at the fish, and quickly said, "I'm not really hungry."

His other appreciation gestures though are quite nice.  I may have already mentioned that for his birthday party, he sent thank you's for all of his gifts and even one to a little boy that didn't bring a gift (he was appreciative of the attendance!).  The letters cracked me up.(i.e. Dear Leo, thank you for the nerf gun.  I beat my Dad's butt with it.) but he did it without me asking him to so I'm not complaining. 

I think that's about all.  He is liking chess club and hopefully will teach me to play over break.  He and Matalley are into playing restaurant right now so I've eaten lots of fake hamburgers and chicken salad sandwiches over the past few days.  Happy that they are so imaginative instead of just watching tv.