My new favorite Bible verse: “A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fuly trained will be like his teacher.”

I’m going to have to pound that one into a few heads this week…if only I could ensure it would make it into their hearts, as well.

First, welcome to my very first Works for Me Wednesday post:

Need carpet cleaner for a spot that won’t come out?  Grab the purple window cleaner instead.  Peyton spit a blueberry into the white carpet so I gave up hope it would come out.  James, on the other hand, thanks to his custodial training, handed me the purple generic brand window cleaner and all is well with the world.  Clean carpet works for me!

Now on to complaining about the day.  In Canadianspeak, Hump Day (Canadians are so strange!) is over, and it couldn’t have happened too quickly.  Grades were due this morning and I passed back their final reports so they could be prepared for their report cards to come home, but it seemed that gave them the license to do as they pleased rather than learn.  One student had to move to another chair, four kicked out, one of those four kicked out twice.  I also had to sub during my off period, and though the students worked, it was change.  Finally, in the last fifteen minutes five or six students left the lab to go back to the classroom (as the teacher had directed).  In the last five minutes I left the lab to check the classroom…which was empty.  I took names of those left in the lab, and the rest will have to answer to their teacher tomorrow.

Bring on Spring Break!

It rains here a lot.  The streets drain properly (unlike LA county), though, so you wouldn’t realize.  Some areas do flood – as we drove the Hannegan to Target we noticed several gigantic lakes in the fields meant for farming.  It didn’t rain as we drove, but after we came out of Target into the sunshine, it was raining…rather, misting.  But sunshine and rain is such an awesome combination!

Sunday was beautiful in Lynden – the sun was out all day, and the temperatures were in the mid 50s (sounds cold to people in CA, but up here when the sun’s out, jeans and a long sleeve shirt are enough to keep one quite comfortable). James and I even kicked the ball around, playing keep away from Jack and Sandy, for an hour during Peyton’s nap.  Today was just as beautiful, the sun shining and the temperature hovering around 60*.  Tonight after dinner (potato soup – great pampered chef recipe to come) we did the same, but this time Peyton came to play with us.  He and Jack don’t always see eye to eye…or perhaps that’s the problem – they literally see eye to eye.  Peyton is afraid of Jack, who loves Peyton so much he wants to smell in his face and all over the rest of him to make sure Peyton’s okay.  He also follows Peyton around everywhere, which, rather than making Peyton feel loved, makes him feel chased.  Occasionally Jack trips Peyton up a bit (like once tonight), but not purposely (at least it wasn’t tonight).  Sandy jumps a little bit, but she’s still smaller than Peyton so it doesn’t bother him than she isn’t completely trained yet.  Anyway, Peyton loved running fence to fence, dribbling the ball while the dogs dribble on the ball.  Jack is a great opponent, always getting in the way, so James and I are forced to do more than just kick the ball back and forth.  Sandy just loves us being outside by her.

Yes, it rains here.  A lot.  But without the rain, we would not appreciate the sunshine so much!  Did we ever kick the ball around in Lakewood?  A handful of times.  But when the sun comes out here, everyone comes outside to enjoy it.  Did I mention sunset – it doesn’t happen until 7:00!  In the summer, the sun doesn’t give up until close to 10!   

This week Peyton has been doing very well.  I’ve been waking him up earlier in the mornings, so he’s been napping earlier and longer in the afternoons.  I thought that had solved his tantrum issues because I haven’t seen one in several days.

Until today.  After Mrs. Jen’s we went back to school for a few minutes so I could clean up the lounge (my week on KP).  He happily colored on the white board.  He even asked me how to write “Mommy,” so I showed him and he tried to copy it, line for line, but it didn’t quite come out.  After we finished cleaning up, since James had to stay at work late tonight, we were going to go to McDonald’s so Peyton could play for a while before bed.  I ordered, he played.  Then the food showed up.  I told him he could keep playing, but he kept whining and crying from inside the playplace, so I gave him a warning – stop or we’re going home; if you stop listening, then it’s time to leave.  He didn’t stop, so we left.  He wasn’t very happy about it.

He recovered not long after we got home.  He ate a huge dinner – all of his mighty kids meal, complete with apples and milk, plus some of my fries.  He apologized a few times while we ate, and we talked about why we had to leave McDonald’s.  He felt bad – hopefully this sticks in his memory.  If not, we’re going to be doing some listening skills/no whining boot camp over spring break.

Peyton is growing up.  I submit to you two events from today as proof:

1: Delay of Gratification.  As we pulled into the grocery store parking lot after school, Peyton saw McDonalds and asked for a “hangaburger” (my favorite Peyton-ism).  McDonalds’ burgers are small, so I told him we’d get one after we bought our groceries.  Several times in the grocery store Peyton asked for various c’s – candy, cookies, chocolate.  Each time I told him that if he bought the treat, he wouldn’t get a hangaburger, and each time, he put the treat away and chose McDonalds.  How mature!  Little ones usually prefer one immediate treat over waiting 10 minutes for 10 treats – kids don’t understand the passage of time and the delay of gratification.  I feel like we’ve been working on waiting for what seems like forever (catch the irony? ), so it was nice to see some growth here.  I was very proud to reward him with his hangaburger after shopping, and even more proud when he again acted in love and patience – “I want to wait for Daddy to come home before I eat my hangaburger.”

2:  Understanding and Accepting Consequences.  At LC, teachers treat for others on Thursdays.  My principal and I have the same birthday, so I treat for him this week.  Tomorrow.  I made blueberry and poppyseed muffins and key lime bars.

Peyton helped.  He stirred, he poured, he demanded that I use a few elmo paper liners.  After dinner, after the muffins were done, I unwrapped one of Peyton’s elmo muffins for him, and he took a bite.

He never swallowed the bite.  We went to bed and started to read Peter Pan, but Peyton kept “mmm!”ing at me to wordlessly ask his questions or show me his thoughts.  After a couple pages, I was tired of his gesticulations, so I told him to swallow.  We did the swallow-before-I-count-to-three-or-you’re-going-to-bed thing, and he didn’t cooperate, so I left the room and closed the door.  He threw his fit, getting so worked up he spit his blueberry-muffin saliva all over his pajamas and *gasp* our white carpet. 

After getting washed up with an ice-cold rag, all the while apologizing for his spitting, Peyton got clean pajamas and went to bed. 

“Why aren’t we reading a story tonight, Peyton?”

“Because I didn’t listen.”

“You go to sleep while I clean the blueberry out of the carpet.” (James’ brilliant solution: purple or blue window cleaner.  It gets anything out of the carpet)

“Okay.”

And that was it.  He usually protests loudly and violently when he doesn’t get a story before bed, but tonight he didn’t.  He’s growing up – he understood that he had done wrong, and he understood that this was the consequence.  Despite this last hangup, today was a good day.

The #1 Command You Never Expect to Give:

 ”No!  You may NOT come to the dinner table without your pants on!”

Peyton’s art has been improving.  Our church is preparing for an art sale to raise money to buy another well in Africa, so Peyton and his peers have been doing a lot of painting lately, but we haven’t been able to take any of it home.  This morning’s painting was a careful arrangement of various colors of vertical lines.  Tonight he elected to draw on his aquadoodle instead of reading a book.  His particular version of the aquadoodle includes an attached alphabet and directions for how to draw each letter and illustrations that correspond with the shapes and sounds of the letters.  After drawing a Ladder and a Mouse, Peyton wanted to draw Mickey Mouse.  I drew the outline, then Peyton carefully added eyes, nose and mouth.  Then he realized that Mickey needed a bottom.  And arms and fingers.  And legs.  And foots.  The only part that wasn’t connected to Mickey’s head was his rear; legs and arms protruded from his grinning cheeks, and fingers and foots extended from those.  As Peyton added legs (many pairs, by the way), he realized that the legs squooshed together looked more like Mickey’s clothes, so he finished coloring them in.  I suppose its somewhat Picasso – rearrange the parts and you’ve got one whole Mickey (plus several extra legs, fingers and foots).

Someone please visit my blog!  I was just checking and we’re on six hundred & sixty six hits.  I tried to visit myself to get rid of this number, but it doesn’t count hits from my own computers!  Help!

Sidenote:  Peyton has really enjoyed returning to Miss Jen’s house and playing with Jorren & Caden, and he loves baby Dylan, too.  Also, his breeching banshee abilities (see previous posts for more info) seem to have been forgotten – he’s been getting in and out of the carseat without trouble this week.

Here are the promised bowling pictures, plus a few others:

Lisa and Peyton, from two weekends ago

Biola student in training (thanks for the shirt, Auntie Ruth)…but which is most fitting to Biola?

Check out Peyton’s great form

The celebration:

Peyton has learned a few new words and he has been almost successful in incorporating them into his vocabulary.

Peyton showed Uncle Tyler his nake rear end via the webcam, thus the word “Nasty” (pron. “Miasty!”).  Its synonym ”disgusting” (pronounced “a-skusting”) is also frequently used.

Blame this on Mommy and the remnants of her K-12 education – “Totally” made its vocal appearance several times in the last few days.

At lunch today, James or I remarked that something the other said was “disturbing,” and Peyton was fain to echo the sentiments.