Day 1,003 - The One with What is Essentially Ellie's Report Card

I just finished writing (what I thought was) a clever blog opening about how much time runs together as a stay-at-home parent. I made a joke about how days and weeks and months often tend to blend together. Then I mentioned how years are exempt from this rule only because of the presence of birthdays and Christmas and Columbus Day. It's funny because no one really acknowledges or even cares about Columbus Day. Get it? 

Robert California knows what's up.

Anyway, the only thing that can add to that little story is the fact that as soon as I finished writing it, my PC flashed the blue screen of death necessitating a restart and yes, you guessed it, me getting to rewrite my opening since it wasn't saved. No worries though.

Back to the topic at hand. I bring up the idea of time running together because that's exactly what happens to me. It's especially true during those times that I neglect to write things down. Therefore, I find myself completely unable to remember if something happened on the Tuesday or this week or the Tuesday of last week. I supposed it doesn't really matter; the lack of knowing will just haunt my dreams tonight.

The topic in question is referring to Bethany and me receiving Ellie's progress report from preschool. This was actually a really exciting thing for us as Bethany and I had been eager to know how Ellie was progressing at school. While we can see certain things at home, we certainly can't accurately gauge her skills in the same way a trained teacher can.

As we looked at Ellie's progress report, we first noticed that nearly everything was perfect. Her academic progress was all at the "Mastered" level and if we had any doubts at all, her teacher had included multiple assessments taken throughout the year confirming that Ellie had indeed "Mastered"...things. There were two areas though that Ellie scored a mere "Improving" which caused us a little concern.

The first was in the area of ability to be respectful of other children's needs and feelings. What? How can that be? Not our Ellie? If those comments seem disingenuous, I assure you they are not. Bethany and I were honestly shocked about that as we've never seen anything other than the extreme love that Ellie shows for her friends and brother. The other area the teacher marked Ellie as "Improving" in was in regards to her ability to verbalize needs and feelings. According to her progress report, Ellie has been known to use her hands instead of her words in certain situations.

After talking to people in the education field that we trust, it was made evident that we don't have anything to worry about. We just need to continue to help Ellie learn to express herself in a positive manner. She also needs to continue to grow in understanding her own emotions.

The weird thing about Ellie's progress report is how I reacted to it. While I should have been unbelievably stoked about all of the areas she did well in, I instead couldn't get my mind off those two "Improving" ratings. Don't worry though as I took great care to not let Ellie know that was happening.

Honestly, I'm glad my mind responded in that fashion. For one thing, I'm sure I'll experience similar emotions the first time Ellie gets a B or C in school. Therefore, it's really important for me to figure out how to respond and deal with those emotions. It's also important to remember that I need to focus not just on the bad things but also focus on all of the things Ellie does well. After all, I want Ellie to grow up knowing that Bethany and I are proud of her and that all we ask is that she does her best.

At least that's the case until she becomes President of the United States. Then she needs to be perfect. Also, I guarantee that those will be four (or eight) years I'll remember every single day of. #DaddyWrite

A photo from Day 1,002

 

Day 993 - Home Schooled Holts

When you're a kid, there's nothing that can be more frustrating than a change in plans. It's true that some changes are ok like an impromptu trip to the zoo or an ice cream date. However, others can be painstakingly demoralizing. For Ellie, the latter was true on Tuesday and Wednesday when she found out that school was cancelled due to bad weather.

I realize that as Ellie gets older, she'll probably learn to love snow days, especially if it results in a test being postponed. I'm clearly not speaking from experience there or anything. For now though, Ellie absolutely detests snow days. She loves her teachers and friends and has an unyielding desire to learn more about the world. Therefore, any interruption in that routine is devastating to her, probably more so due to the fact that she only attends school three days a week.

While it's true that Ellie couldn't go to school this week, Bethany and I figured there was no reason why we couldn't bring school to Ellie. Therefore, we mapped out a "lesson plan" for the mornings of Tuesday and Wednesday that would allow us to best replicate Ellie's day at school.

On both Tuesday and Wednesday, we started our day by diving into a Preschool workbook we purchased for Ellie over the summer. We specifically targeted the numbers of 11 through 15 per her teachers, i.e. how to write them and understand them. Ellie honestly has a good handle on numbers so the idea of correctly identifying 15 objects is, dare I say, child's play. She also had the opportunity to spell out the words that correspond with Eleven through Fifteen. 

After spending some time working with numbers and writing, we then entered our art and music time. For music time, Ellie listens (and dances along) to the Months of the Year Macarena. What's fun about this is that Ethan is actually able to join in on the fun and the two spend a few minutes dancing and grooving to the music. Our art time, which follows music, consisted of painting a book of Zoo-themed pictures that Ellie has been working on. It's actually been really fun to watch her progress in her painting as time has gone on. Earlier this year, her painting could essentially be referred to as scribbling whereas now she takes great care to paint in the lines.

After music and art time, Ellie will start her center time which gives her another chance to play with Ethan. For center time, I've been having Ellie work with her magnet tiles because I know that it encourages creativity. Not only that, but after Ethan received a set for his birthday, it provides the two with a good opportunity to play together.

One last activity that needs to be mentioned is that on Tuesday, we worked a special "Baking Tuesday" into the curriculum which allowed Ellie to practice the areas of mathematics and science. At least that's what I told myself. If nothing else, we gained some yummy muffins that we didn't previously have as a result of our "studies".

I know that Ellie was definitely disappointed that she didn't get to go to school all three days this week. However, the fact that we got to have school at home and that we even dressed according to the daily themes of this week's spirit week at school have to count for something, right? If nothing else, I definitely earned my keep this week or at least I think I did. Ellie's probably the only one who can answer that question. #DaddyWrite

Day 991 - Run and Have Fun at the Fun Run a.k.a. The One Where Ethan Turns Two

It's absolutely unbelievable how fast two years can fly by. As of Friday morning around 7:00 am, Ethan is two years old! As I look back at photos of his birth, it really doesn't feel like it should be that long ago. However, when I look at Ethan running around the house, trying to keep up with his big sister while getting into all kinds of mischief, I know that it really has been two years! 

Since turning two years old is quite the achievement, I decided that for Ethan's birthday, it was only prudent to take him somewhere to run around while he could try to keep up with his big sister and that would allow him to get into all kinds of mischief. I'm talking about Fun Run.

For the unenlightened, Fun Run is a basically an indoor playground for kids. It comes complete with multiple bounce houses, a giant jungle gym/obstacle course, and oddly enough, an old-fashioned Wild West town. While we hadn't actually been to Fun Run before, I had heard plenty of first-hand testimonials from those that had been and knew Ellie and Ethan would love it.

After a busy morning of playing at home, I loaded up both kids in the Traverse and headed towards Fun Run a little before it opened at ten. When we arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find that we were the second people to arrive. That meant that not only did we get a decent parking place but it also meant that Ellie and Ethan would pretty much have the run of the place. While the first thing would continue to be true, it wasn't long before Fun Run was absolutely hopping with kids. Ellie and Ethan certainly didn't mind though.

While I was a little uncertain how Ethan would fare in some of the larger obstacles, his monkey-like climbing ability quickly put that to shame. He more than held his own in keeping up with Ellie as they explored all that Fun Run had to offer. As for me, that was another story. You see, it's relatively hard to keep tabs on two kids when one is unable to enter the play area. Therefore, I basically had to keep my head on a swivel at all times waiting for one or both kids to pop out of an area in a different place than they entered.

There was one slight misfortune for Ethan in his visit to Fun Run. You see, Ellie has reached an age where it's a little less cool to play with her baby brother when we're in a public place. That's especially true when she's able to find a friend similar in age to her as she did on this occasion. Therefore, that left poor Ethan, on his birthday nonetheless, desperately trying to chase after her in an attempt to play with her. If the distress on his little face wasn't bad enough, his repeated cries of "Ellie, play Ethan, please" certainly upped the ante.

Overall though, our time at Fun Run was a rousing success. By the time we left, both kids pretty much found themselves completely and utterly exhausted. Nowhere was that more present than when Ethan flopped down in the middle of the floor and sadly proclaimed, "Ethan, go bed. Sleep." And you know what? He was completely serious too! Look no further than his three-hour afternoon nap for proof of that. Good times. Good times. #DaddyWrite

 

Day 985 - Adventures and Imaginations (and Don't Say "Run It Back")

Before I start, I need to take care of a little housekeeping. After the events of Sunday night, I never want to hear the words "Run", "It", and "Back" used together in a sentence ever again. Now that that's taken care of, time to start writing.

 

Something that has become extremely evident about my kids is that they love adventures. Now, in our house, adventures don't have to consist of climbing a mountain or something of that ilk. A visit to a park we've never been to can constitute an adventure for our clan. With that being the case, it means it's relatively easy to find new adventures to take part in together. Friday was no exception as the kids and I spent the morning at Union Station enjoying the Chiefs Fan Zone before Super Bowl Sunday (ugh!).

To begin our adventure, the kids and I parked at Crown Center and trekked through the link before finding ourselves at Union Station. Upon our arrival, the first thing we did was head to the very back of Union Station to get our photo taken together at the large, lighted Chiefs sign proudly proclaiming the phrase which shall not be named. From there, we then weaved our way through the Great Hall taking part in every photo opportunity we could find. My favorite though had to be when I was taking a shot of Ethan and Ellie in front of a large Chiefs wordmark and Ethan saw fit to run towards me mid-picture as fast as he could. Talk about your "Run-ning It Back". Ok, it's out of my system now.

 

Of course, the great thing about my kids is that they don't have to leave the house to have an adventure together. That is becoming more and more true the older they get. The biggest reason why that is the case is in no part due to me. Instead, it's all because of Ellie. Specifically, her vivid imagination.

Ellie has reached an age where her imagination really knows no boundaries. That's especially true when she's bored. It's not uncommon for her to spend her days playing teacher, exploring deep dark jungles, or climbing mountains. Today, the adventure of the day revolved around her and Ethan taking a trip to California.

For the record, Ellie has never been to California and I find it extremely unlikely she had any strong awareness of its existence before she and I worked on an America-themed puzzle this afternoon. After completing that puzzle though, Ellie had all of the information needed for Ethan and her to embark on a "cross-country" journey from the safety of our living room couch. My favorite part of the trip happened to be the multiple stops at the beach that she and Ethan made along the way.

On second thought, I'm probably wrong about Ellie never having heard of California before today. In fact, she's well aware of the state due to pictures of Bethany's and my 5th Anniversary trip when we drove down the Big Sur. We have shared those photos with her and explained in great detail what was happening on more than one occasion. It just goes to show that Ellie does listen to what we say from time-to-time. Who knew? #DaddyWrite

Day 978 - Ellie's Second Eye Exam

Something happened 1,344 days ago. Based upon the title of this blog, I'm guessing folks will be able to ascertain that it was the date of Ellie's first eye exam. Fast forward 1,344 days and there you have the day of Ellie's second eye exam. For the record, I didn't tabulate that difference on my own. I had to find a handy, dandy calculator on the internet that specializes in figuring out the number of days between two dates. It also calculates seconds, minutes, hours, and weeks in case you're interested.

The reason for the lengthy delay between Ellie's eye exams make sense if you think about it. For one thing, it's pretty hard to determine how well a toddler/child can see before said child is capable of taking an eye test. Second, it helps that Ellie and Ethan are now on our family's vision insurance.

Our main reason for scheduling this appointment for Ellie was due to Bethany and me noticing that one of her eyes (usually her left) will occasionally trail off by itself, completely independent of what its mate is doing. Since my eye did the exact same thing as a child which necessitated surgery, Bethany and I definitely thought it was pertinent to start having Ellie's vision checked on a regular basis which brings us to yesterday.

While checking in for an appointment is normally a pretty uneventful task, it wouldn't be a #DaddyWrite post if there wasn't some kind of challenge in doing so. In this instant, the receptionist couldn't locate Ellie's name or appointment in the database no matter how hard she tried. Things got really weird when she realized that she also couldn't locate Bethany's or my information in the database either. I guess that's what happens when one's computer comes unconnected from the network though. Never fear as her coworker was able to locate our appointment although it was for Bethany, not Ellie. That was a relatively easy fix though.

Once we headed back to the exam room, Ellie took her place in the big chair with me seated across the room. From there, Ellie began her eye exam or as she referred to it, school. In her eyes, that probably wasn't far from the truth as she was essentially being tested on her knowledge of letters and numbers. Between Ellie's height and her knowledge, it seemed like the eye doctor was a little surprised to learn that Ellie was only four. 

While Ellie did pass her eye exam "test" with flying colors, our appointment wasn't all good news. We did discover that despite her solid vision, she does have a slight astigmatism which was the main reason for the somewhat lazy eye. The doctor's prescription? Eye glasses. While I now know astigmatisms are no big deal, I was not really prepared for that information in the moment. In fact, I found myself feeling bad for Ellie for having to wear glasses at what seemed like such a young age. The more I thought about it though, I realized (and Bethany told me) that Ellie already knows plenty of girls who wear glasses and it's no big deal to them. Therefore, it we don't make it a big deal, then it won't be one.

Actually, it won't be a big deal until Ellie breaks her glasses. That might be a little irritating but still not the end of the world. #DaddyWrite

Day 972 - **Insert Screaming Sounds Here**

I find that a good scream can be rather freeing. At the risk of sounding like a B-movie horror villian, will you scream with me?

Wow, that felt good, right? However, I think another one is necessary in order to truly exorcise the frustrations of this day. Ready? One, Two, Three...

Scream Shia, scream!

Now, I know I'm ready to write about today and all it took was me taking a few cues from Ethan. Who would have thought?

I feel like it goes without saying at this point that today was somewhat of a struggle. While the occasional rough day comes with the territory for being a stay-at-home dad, today was something else. Part of the reason can definitely be traced back to last night as for the first time in a couple of months, our family returned to life group. Now, I realize that's not a huge thing but when you consider that it resulted in Ellie and Ethan going to bed almost two full hours later than normal, it all starts to make sense.

Actually, on second thought, the rough patch began last night as both kids suffered through separate screaming sessions as we attempted to put them to bed. Neither was particularly fun but Ellie's was definitely worse if you're keeping score.

Today, while I started the day filled with hope anew, it became obvious pretty quickly that Ethan did not share my zeal for the day. Within ten minutes of us beginning our day, he was laying on the floor, kicking and screaming all while being totally inconsolable. The weird thing is that nothing we did really could help him. He finally just snapped out of it on his own.

From that point, I realized that rather than planning the whole day out, I was going to have to be subject to whatever was going to make Ethan and Ellie happy at any given moment. The first example of that would be Ethan taking a morning nap. Now, this wasn't just a 30-minute power nap. Instead, it was a full-fledged hour and a half snooze session. While he awoke from said nap in a decent mood, it definitely impacted the rest of his day. For starters, his afternoon nap would only last a brief while resulting in a long afternoon for the little guy.

Once both kids were awake, we loaded up and went searching for a park. I say "searching" because things didn't go quite according to plan as the first park we stopped at had a bunch of broken equipment. From there, we loaded up and headed to Smithville for a fun afternoon of park time.

Once we arrived home, that's when things got really weird. As soon as Ethan saw Bethany, his little mind seemed to break. For starters, he began screaming at her to go back to work. When that didn't work, his screaming degenerated into a full-fledged tantrum complete with him stripping. Seriously, at one point, Ethan would spend a good 15 minutes laying on the kitchen floor with no pants or diaper, screaming all the while.

Finally after nearly an hour of screaming, Ethan decided there were two things that would calm him. First, he desired some carrots to eat. Second, and more importantly, he wanted to listen to 'Pat Mahomes, Take Me Home' yet again. After all, who can resist the healing properties of Pat Mahomes to fix all that ails us? Am I right? #DaddyWrite

Day 965 - The One With the Nickelodeon Playoff Game

Here we are again. It's January and that can only mean one thing. It's time for the Kansas City Chiefs to begin their playoff push on the way to successfully defending their Super Bowl championship. I, for one, am excited. That goes without saying. However, I'm also excited to announce that Ellie and Ethan are joining me in my excitement this year. That's definitely cause for excitement if I do say so myself.

As Ellie gets older, it's actually really fun to see her excitement for watching the Chiefs grow each year. I think part of the reason is that she sees Bethany and me getting excited for games and she wants to be included in that. She's certainly doing her part to be included in all of the fun too.

At the start of each Sunday (or whatever day the game takes place), we continue our tradition of hanging our "Red Friday" flag up in the window for all of the neighbors on our street to see and/or ignore. That's not the only tradition that must take place though. We also have to listen to "Take Me Home, Pat Mahomes" at least once. 

For the record, I would go on record as saying that Ellie is likely the only four year old who knows every word to that song. In years past, we would listen to the War Chant and do the Tomahawk Chop. As time went on though, I began to feel a little bad about doing the Chop with my kids hence our move to "Take Me Home, Pat Mahomes".

Ethan for his part is getting excited too. For one thing, whenever the "Red Friday" flag is unfurled, he immediately starts jumping up and down yelling "Chiefs!". He also does the same thing whenever he sees the Chiefs, or if I'm being honest, any other football team on television. It also bears mentioning that we have already read our library copy of "The Year the Kingdom Rose Again" approximately 15 times since picking it up on Saturday. 

As you can probably guess after everything you read above, our house is very excited for Chiefs playoff football. Unfortunately, this past weekend only served to disappoint as the Chiefs had a first round bye. Actually, "disappoint" isn't the correct term. For one thing, the Chiefs had a well-earned bye week in which the team could rest up and get healthy before their first playoff game. Secondly, Ellie and I began what we hope is a new tradition and watched a NFC Wild Card game together, live on Nickelodeon.

Yes, you read that correctly; I did say Nickelodeon. As in the children's network. The home of SpongeBob SquarePants, Paw Patrol, and a number of other iconic cartoon characters. For the first time, Nickelodeon aired a kid-friendly (well, mostly kid-friendly except for one ill-timed slip of the tongue by Cordarrelle Patterson) version of the broadcast complete with new announcers, graphics, and slime cannons.

Ellie, for her part, was completely and utterly enthralled by the broadcast. Not only were there cameos from some of her favorite cartoon characters but the slime cannons were a big highlight for her as well. For the record, there weren't really slime cannons. Instead, the effect was completed via computer graphics. That didn't make it any less cool though. Ellie would spend practically the entire game begging for touchdowns just so she could see the slime "erupt" in the endzone.

Truth be told, a part of me is a little bit sad that the Chiefs' playoff game won't be broadcast on Nick. It was actually really fun to see her learning all kinds of things about the game seeing as how the broadcasters explained everything in a kid-friendly way. I also enjoyed how a game pitting the Saints and the Bears of all teams held her attention like very few do. We even cast our vote for the NVP (Nickelodeon Valuable Player) together. 

For the record though, we didn't not vote for the eventual "winner" of Mitchell Trubisky though. That just would have been cruel. #DaddyWrite