3 years ago and 1/2 a world away

3 years ago today. I was hanging about doing my thing in the minivan lane with a (then) 7 year old boy.

Spouse was 1/2 a world away picking up a package.




She drives me crazy at times (LOTS of times). She's a bundle of energy that I will never be able to keep up with. Her brother would gladly trade her for a Playstation 3. She'd trade her brother for some hair bling. There are days I claim that I'd trade the lot of them for some chocolate.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

We had our parent/teacher conferences this week. No major surprises from either kid (except of course, for the answer to the question "WHO ARE these well behaved children, and what do you do to MY kids once they walk through the door."

Yeah, sometimes either of my kids can be a pain at home, but they are both remarkably well behaved at school. I guess I'd rather have it that way round than the other.

We met with the teacher of Princess (5). Princess is in Kindergarten. She is doing spot on average in most things, she's a little behind in her reading skills. Suddenly I remembered (I really do forget this sometimes :} ) that for the first 2.5 years of her life, she NEVER heard a word of English and she very likely had nobody read to her.

I can't find any pointers to the research, but I know this bears out what the research says.

Now, I don't think this will put her 2.5 years behind -- but it does put her behind her peers.

Another issue -- and this comes as NO surprise -- her teacher mentioned that two of her classmates (male) mentioned that she kissed them on the bus.

SIGH!!!!!!!!!!

A couple of weeks ago she was talking -- she's 5 so she figured that she can have 5 boyfriends. She said that she had one boyfriend when she was one. I said "well, what about when you're 16?" If you guess that she said "16" you are CORRECT!!!!!

That's *MY* daughter.

And I'm SURE I'm in for a LOT of trouble.

bedtime issues

You'd think that a 40+ year old guy could manage to get a 5 year old into bed. But mom gets home at 11 p.m. and the kid is just getting into bed after dad let her stay up and watch tv.

And she's IMPOSSIBLE to get down when she's THAT tired.

No wonder I want to sell the business -- I can't take another season (especially now that she's in school) of getting home after 11 and putting the kid to bed.

And THIS is all I have time for to get something in by midnight.