Six Flags bound

We have safely arrived in Atlanta, and we're tucked in at our hotel that's walking distance from the amusement park. We are making use of some free tickets tomorrow, and Dennis is about to make his first visit to Six Flags (and do his first trick-or-treating of the season). We will be limited to kiddie rides, I believe, since he's not quite measuring the 42 inches needed to get on the less restricted roller coasters, but I believe we will have lots of fun anyway. There is a kiddie coaster and a whole kiddie section, and there are superheroes everywhere in the park. I hope we all have a great time on our little escape!

Dennis barely knows we're here. He slept for the last half of the drive and collapsed onto the bed after I carried him up to our room. We made him go to the bathroom and then change out of his jeans, and he looked out the window of our room to a view of giant roller coaster before going right back to sleep, and I'm certain we won't be far behind!

green day rocked

The preschoolers loved my green-themed day. They played with the toy garbage truck. They snapped green beans. We collected trash from the other classes and rolled it outside to the big green garbage cans and dumped it in. And they listened with rapt attention to Green Eggs and Ham, each yelling out that they would not eat it either.

Dennis earned three stripes on his Taekwondo belt tonight. He will earn one more stripe and then test to move up to his yellow belt. He's very proud. And we're proud of him! The rest of his behavior today was less than desirable. At lunch I told him to stop touching Ryan's thermos, and as he looked me in the eye (defiantly), he reached over and touched it. Infuriating! He knew how angry I was, so when it was naptime, he dragged his Kindermat over to the floor space right beside the table and chair where I'd planned to work on my lesson plans. He said "I'm going to sleep over here next to you so I won't get myself into any more trouble." It would have worked if he'd managed to keep his hands off the table legs and the trash can! He told me tonight that he thought the devil was making him act bad and he was going to pray for Jesus to help him be good from now on. Isn't that what we all struggle with?

Dr. Seuss for all

The kids at afternoon care at school today gave me the usual fits. No one wanted to play anything that didn't involve yelling or fighting (yes, all boys today). They didn't want to nap. In fact, the only time they all sat perfectly still and got completely quiet was when I read Green Eggs and Ham to them. I had already pulled it from the office bookshelf to read to my class tomorrow (it's our Green Day), and I have doubts about if they can make it all the way through it (it's a long one). But if its complete taming of the wild boys was any indication, it might go over quite well. Dennis had me read it again tonight as his bedtime story along with two other Dr. Seuss stories. And when I finished reading, he left our room and PUT HIMSELF TO BED!!! Amazing! More Seuss for Christmas, please, Santa!

money for what?

I happened to see Mrs. Nancy asking Dennis if he'd lost the dollar that was in his pocket--he said he had it, but reached in to check and said "oh--it's gone!". She handed him the dollar she'd found on the floor. This would be totally unremarkable if I hadn't known that Dennis wasn't in possession of a dollar this morning when he got to school. She told him to tell me how he'd gotten that dollar. It turns out that the dollar was a reward for correctly saying the entire Lord's Prayer in class, something she's been working on teaching them. I didn't tell her he's known it for a year. Her version is a tiny bit different than the one I taught him ("debts" rather than "trespasses", etc), so he has now learned to say it two ways. And earned a dollar for it.

I forgot to mention this little tidbit from a week ago. David brought birthday cookies to school for me at lunch, and I decided to share them with the afternoon care kids. I first asked them if they were allergic to anything. Dennis said "well, I'm allergic to monsters."

self defense and excuses

Dennis attended a special event at Taekwondo tonight. He had his class, and then he had a board-breaking class (which he loved), and after that, there was a class on how to deal with bullies. David said he did really well at all the classes, and he was eager to show me his getting-away-from-a-bully moves when they got home. I hope it's knowledge he'll never have to use.

He's just gotten out of bed for the fourth time, telling me he had a bad dream about me punishing him. I warned him that's what would happen if he got up again. So I heard this big noise coming from his room and told David it sounded like he was moving furniture in there. He said he'd heard Dennis say "I'm going to make a lot of noise, and then Mommy and Daddy will have to come and check on me!". I guess he was telling the dog. Little monster!

lessons on Moses

Dennis and his Sunday School class had a fun lesson about Moses parting the sea this morning. I had them all act out the story, using two giant sheets of blue paper as the sea. The Egyptians ("bad guys") chased the Israelites ("good guys") to the edge of the paper. The Israelites stopped and prayed (their idea), and "Moses" held out a hand. I parted the two lengths of paper, making a path for the Israelites to cross. When the Egyptians got to the center, I covered them over with one of the sheets of paper. They screamed and wiggled under it. And then they all asked to do it again, and the second time, they wanted to switch roles (good guys became bad guys and vice versa). We had so much fun! They also loved the craft, gluing a path onto blue construction paper and gluing goldfish crackers on either side of the path. They glued some and ate a bunch! Dennis was so proud of his masterpiece that he showed it to the pastors after church and told them the story behind it. I especially loved when he said "and all the fish had to stop swimming because the water just stopped--I bet they thought that was crazy!".

piñata!

Dennis went to a birthday party for his friend Marshall this morning. It was a party-in-the-backyard deal with a football theme. The kids enjoyed Marshall's new swingset and sandbox and played ball and rode on his big wheel or power wheels tractor. A good time was had by all. The highlights for Dennis were the piñata and watching Marshall open his gifts. Dennis has always wanted to hit a piñata, and he got to take several good whacks at one today. He also enjoyed sitting on Marshall's left as he opened his gifts, getting to check out each box of wonders up close ("reading the back of the box"), filing things away in his brain, possible toys to ask for in the future.

He came home from the party and got into his own sandbox, and when he finally took his nap, he tracked in a couple of sneaker loads of sand to his room and bed. He had just enough time to rest up for the next party, Gigi's house building celebration. He was the life of the party for the first half of it, telling everyone who would listen about his own birthday party that he's planning (for next March--never too early to start, I guess). He just wants to be sure he gets a piñata of his own!