Owen

Owen, Owen, Owen, where do I start with this little story.  Hmmmm let's start by going back to last winter when it was bitterly cold.

Last winter I got an e-mail from Owen's teacher at school.  It was an e-mail sent out to his entire class, but I'm pretty sure it was directed toward me.  She very politely told parents to please make sure our child was wearing appropriate winter clothing to school.  Yup, totally for me.

You see, Owen has a deep aversion to pants.  Hates them with a passion.  All he wants to wear is athletic shorts and a t-shirt.  Doesn't matter what is going on outside.  I won't even go into what I have done to convince him to wear season appropriate clothing.  It would take pages.  But trust me, I have.

It doesn't help that his older brother also has an aversion to pants as well.  However, I have told Owen that when he is in middle school he can wear whatever he wants.  But in elementary school I still get a say.  So that did it.  I put my foot down and told Owen that he would not be wearing shorts to school anymore when it was bitterly cold.  We had a little more peace in the clothing department for the remainder of the winter.

Now we go to this year.  Last Fall I knew the battle was looming, so I decided to tackle it head on.  I bought him some athletic pants and told him this was the deal.  If it was in the thirties or above he could wear either pants with a short sleeve shirt or shorts with a long sleeve shirt.  In other words, half of his appendages had to be covered at one time.  If it was below freezing during the day he had to wear pants.  Period, no exceptions.  After school and on weekends he could wear whatever he wanted.  He wined, he complained, but I held firm and he finally relented.  This winter has been cold, so the battles have been far fewer.  He has been wearing athletic pants and a short sleeve t-shirt everyday. 

Last week, he approached me and asked if he could wear shorts to school.  It had been warming up, so I agreed but I told him he had to wear a long sleeve shirt.  He was totally fine with that.

He went down to change and this is what he came up with.  Shorts on, with his long sleeved shirt rolled up into short sleeves.  I give up.

Typical Bennett

I snapped this picture of Bennett the other day right before bedtime.  There are many things in this picture that describe Ben Ben.

Stuffed Animals - Bennett has always loved stuffed animals.  He has a ton of them and until about 4 months ago would sleep with all of them in his bed.  It got to the point where there was no room for him.  We have since put his collection elsewhere in his room, but he still keeps a few on his bed.  You can see a Wampa and Chewie keeping watch.

Blankets - Ben Ben is also a blanket boy.  He loves the blanket that his Aunt Emily gave to him on his 8th birthday.  But if you look closely you will see a smaller blue blanket on top of that.  That is from his original baby blanket that he used to carry around with him years ago.  He still has a small square that he sleeps with.

Legos on the nightstand - Bennett is our Lego master.  He loves to create all sorts of buildings and vehicles with our enormous collection.  There are always some on his nightstand.

Army guy on the nightstand - Bennett also loves anything army.  He loves to read books about planes and he also likes his army men.  Right now he is building a model A-10 Warthog with Scott.

Drawing - Bennett enjoys drawing.  You can see a black plane on the top right hand corner of the picture.  He drew a bunch of these planes, cut them out and taped them to his wall.  A nice battle scene.

Green polka dot monster - This was a Christmas gift to Bennett from his best friend Max.  They love to play with each other and they get along very well.  Bennett is a very social guy.

Books - Bennett was a little slow to enjoy reading, but last Fall he discovered the original Hardy Boy books and then he was hooked.  He loves to read before bed. 

Sunflower Seeds on the nightstand - Bennett has also discovered his love of Sunflower seeds.  More likely, he loves salty foods.   He loves to take a cup down with him and eat away while he reads.

The Beauty of the Bandage

A few months ago, Owen came upstairs from playing and started complaining that his knee hurt.  His complaints quickly turned into tears and he started crying and crying and crying.  This isn't like Owen.  He is a tough kid and rarely gets hurt enough to cry about it.  After trying to figure out what was wrong we decided to take him to the InstaCare.  Why is it, that these things ALWAYS happen either on the weekend or in the evening?  And if you are really lucky like us, it happens on the weekend in the evening.  

The only InstaCare open at this point was one clear up in Orem.  Scott drove him up there and before they even arrived Owen had stopped crying.  Scott knew he should have just turned around and come home, but since he was almost there he kept going.  $50.00 bucks later, the Dr. said he maybe strained something, wrapped his knee with an Ace bandage and sent him on his way.  Owen was quite content with the wrap and within 24 hours, his knee felt just fine.

Fast forward to today.  Owen comes home from school with no complaints. About 20 minutes later, the whole episode starts again, except this time it is his upper thigh.  He complains and then starts to cry and then won't stop.  The good mother that I am, try to figure out what is wrong with his upper thigh.  We hot pack it, then cold pack it.  I give him some Tylenol.  See if he can walk on it, which he claims he can't. Question him repeatedly on what he could have done to hurt his upper thigh.  An hour goes by and he won't stop crying. The only thing that I can get out of him is that he wants to eat a hot dog.  Really?  That's what you are thinking of when you are acting like your leg is going to fall off?  How can he walk home from school just fine only to have major problems 20 minutes later?  It just doesn't make sense.

Of course, at this point it is 4:45.  Like I said, it never happens during office hours.  Then the big debate starts.  Do I take him to the InstaCare when I know full well they will claim he probably pulled a muscle and to just take it easy for a few days.  Then the doubt starts.  What if something really is wrong and he is suffering terribly?

Then I got a great idea.  The wrap worked last time, I wonder if it will work this time.  So I dug one out of the first aide kit and told Owen that he probably pulled a muscle and it might help if we wrapped it.  He was gung ho on the wrapping.  Sure enough, as soon as it was wrapped he stopped crying and within an hour he was walking around on it with barely a limp.  By bedtime I caught him running on it. He would suddenly stop when he "remembered" it was supposed to be hurting.  Who knows if he pulled something down there or not, but he is happy and I just saved $50.00 and at least an hour of my time.  I would call that a good ending.

Entering Unfamiliar Water

Last Fall, one of my neighbors mentioned to me that a group of boys that are Chase's age from the neighborhood were taking a hip hop class together.  I was intrigued because Chasey loves to sing and dance at home.  Plus he has the personality to love that kind of thing.  I knew that he would like to do something like that.

But I didn't ask him for awhile.  Me entering a dance studio?  With 4 boys I never thought in a million years that I would do so.  I was actually quite happy to stay away to be honest.  But, it also never occurred to me in a million years that I would have a boy that likes to play organ.  You never know what your kids will like.

After a few months of thinking about it, I asked him and he was all over it.  I don't know if it was the dancing part or that his friends were in it, that he was so excited about.  I called over to the studio and sure enough the class was full.  So I put his name on a list and forgot about it.

Well, sure enough at the beginning of the year a few kids dropped out and so Chase was added to the class.  He went for the first time today.  Let me tell you, that kid LOVED it!  He danced his little heart out even though he had no idea what he was doing. I asked him if he liked it when he was done and he said, "No Mom, I loved it."

One thing's for sure.  Kids will always keep you on your toes.