1. Gutsy responds very well to lists. We took the two most stressful, meltdown-inducing times in his day - before school and bedtime - and had him write out a numbered to-do he could follow of all the steps needed to accomplish those tasks. It's been about three days and we've had no tantrums during those times. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Ergo, in honour of the almighty Greek goddess of lists (her name is Listerine, if I remember correctly) I have decided to write this post out as a list. Okay, so it's not in any particular order, but I promise not to throw myself on the floor screaming because of it. Scout's honour.
2. I was a never a Scout. Not even a Girl Guide. Not that I just realized this in the last 24 hours, but I figured it needed its own number since it's in a new paragraph. Shouldn't every paragraph be numbered? How do these things work? Maybe I should ask Gutsy. This list stuff is stressing me out a little.
3. When it started playing in my iTunes playlist a few minutes ago, I initially thought Peter Gabriel's Games Without Frontiers would be a good song to blog to. You know, nice quiet background music. I was wrong. I just had to take four minutes out of my life to figure out what kid is playing with who. Who knew socializing was so complicated? How can I possibly blog when all this drama is happening? And when he sings 'She's so popular' who is he referring to? Brit? Suki? Rita? I'm feeling overwhelmed. This might call for something greater than a list. Perhaps a flow chart.
4. Speaking of Gutsy, he has a few days off to make lists for me. I had a meeting at the school on Tuesday afternoon with the teacher and principal to talk about immediately pulling Gutsy out of grade 1 immersion and into the English stream. It was unsure whether there would be enough room in the class but the principal was going to look into it. If that wasn't an option, we would homeschool until the end of the year and put him in English in September. I walked away from the meeting feeling like everyone had his best interests at heart and we would get this sorted out one way or another.
5. Yesterday, we got a call saying he could start in English on Monday. I have to admit that, given the amount of fighting I've seen between Gutsy and Spawnling this morning, I'm a bit relieved not to be homeschooling. Sheesh.
6. Gutsy is a good planner. Like, for example, he caught his little brother's cold this week and now he has pneumonia again. And hey, if you're going to get pneumonia, why not get it when you're already home for another reason? Brilliant, I tell you.
7. We caught the pneumonia early. However, considering he's had it enough times that I've lost count (7? 8?) we're now able to recognize the very early symptoms. Six hours in the ER and a chest x-ray later, he's on antibiotics. It's moments like this that I hate being right all the time.
8. And speaking of Gutsy being brilliant, I feel the need to brag about him since I've given him so much bad press with all the recent tantrum posts. On Tuesday he also had an EVT - or Expressive Vocabulary Test - courtesy of our liason from the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf. They do a few different language tests on our two older gremlins due to their hearing loss. At 7 years old, Gutsy scored in the 95th percentile, age equivalent: 10 years, grade equivalent: 4.4. Why does this matter? Because it reminds me that just because he can't be fully immersed in a second language it doesn't mean he's not a smart little guy.
9. And with all that genius in his little brain I'm expecting a huge pay off for all the work we've put into parenting him. He'll obviously develop an amazing biofuel that will save the planet and fund our retirement home in whatever place is considered tropical after all this climate change.
10. Speaking of which, happy Earth Day. Go save the planet and quit reading my blog. It's not like I ever have anything interesting to say and I'm usually too frazzled to even try replying to all the comments (as much as I appreciate them, just so you know).
11. Wait, that wasn't something I just realized, either. I've always known April 22nd is Earth Day and that I'm a lazy blogger. I'm really sucking at this list business. Maybe I'll go stomp my feet and throw some stuff.
12. But before I go, I just need to mention that not an hour ago, Spawnling was holding a football to his crotch and singing a song about his 'giant penis.' I think there might have been a mix-up at the hospital and I got somebody else's very strange, genital-obsessed child.
2. I was a never a Scout. Not even a Girl Guide. Not that I just realized this in the last 24 hours, but I figured it needed its own number since it's in a new paragraph. Shouldn't every paragraph be numbered? How do these things work? Maybe I should ask Gutsy. This list stuff is stressing me out a little.
3. When it started playing in my iTunes playlist a few minutes ago, I initially thought Peter Gabriel's Games Without Frontiers would be a good song to blog to. You know, nice quiet background music. I was wrong. I just had to take four minutes out of my life to figure out what kid is playing with who. Who knew socializing was so complicated? How can I possibly blog when all this drama is happening? And when he sings 'She's so popular' who is he referring to? Brit? Suki? Rita? I'm feeling overwhelmed. This might call for something greater than a list. Perhaps a flow chart.
4. Speaking of Gutsy, he has a few days off to make lists for me. I had a meeting at the school on Tuesday afternoon with the teacher and principal to talk about immediately pulling Gutsy out of grade 1 immersion and into the English stream. It was unsure whether there would be enough room in the class but the principal was going to look into it. If that wasn't an option, we would homeschool until the end of the year and put him in English in September. I walked away from the meeting feeling like everyone had his best interests at heart and we would get this sorted out one way or another.
5. Yesterday, we got a call saying he could start in English on Monday. I have to admit that, given the amount of fighting I've seen between Gutsy and Spawnling this morning, I'm a bit relieved not to be homeschooling. Sheesh.
6. Gutsy is a good planner. Like, for example, he caught his little brother's cold this week and now he has pneumonia again. And hey, if you're going to get pneumonia, why not get it when you're already home for another reason? Brilliant, I tell you.
7. We caught the pneumonia early. However, considering he's had it enough times that I've lost count (7? 8?) we're now able to recognize the very early symptoms. Six hours in the ER and a chest x-ray later, he's on antibiotics. It's moments like this that I hate being right all the time.
8. And speaking of Gutsy being brilliant, I feel the need to brag about him since I've given him so much bad press with all the recent tantrum posts. On Tuesday he also had an EVT - or Expressive Vocabulary Test - courtesy of our liason from the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf. They do a few different language tests on our two older gremlins due to their hearing loss. At 7 years old, Gutsy scored in the 95th percentile, age equivalent: 10 years, grade equivalent: 4.4. Why does this matter? Because it reminds me that just because he can't be fully immersed in a second language it doesn't mean he's not a smart little guy.
9. And with all that genius in his little brain I'm expecting a huge pay off for all the work we've put into parenting him. He'll obviously develop an amazing biofuel that will save the planet and fund our retirement home in whatever place is considered tropical after all this climate change.
10. Speaking of which, happy Earth Day. Go save the planet and quit reading my blog. It's not like I ever have anything interesting to say and I'm usually too frazzled to even try replying to all the comments (as much as I appreciate them, just so you know).
11. Wait, that wasn't something I just realized, either. I've always known April 22nd is Earth Day and that I'm a lazy blogger. I'm really sucking at this list business. Maybe I'll go stomp my feet and throw some stuff.
12. But before I go, I just need to mention that not an hour ago, Spawnling was holding a football to his crotch and singing a song about his 'giant penis.' I think there might have been a mix-up at the hospital and I got somebody else's very strange, genital-obsessed child.