An interview with Garrett

Garrett has a project for pre-school: decorate a poster with information about him. We're planning on doing that tonight, but first I thought it might be fun to interview him. I attempted this several years ago with Braden (and had absolutely no luck), so I thought I'd try again with G-man. I culled the questions from my friend Kelly's blog:

Me: What's your name? Garrett. Garrett Allen.

Me: How old are you? um, FOUR!

Me:Who are your friends? mmm. Grant, Graham, and Weston. The other one I said is Grant. So it looks like two Grahams in my classroom but it is Grant.

Me: What about any girls? Are any of your friends girls? G: ummm, yeah. Like Payton and Lauren.

Me: What's your favorite snack? mmm. Peanut butter and jelly! Mmmm. The drink is chocolate milk.

Me: What's your favorite game? um. Checkers. (to my knowledge, he has never even seen checkers!)

Me: What else do you like to do? feed Cali. Mmmm. Make some food for Cali. Go to school.

Me: What is your favorite animal? Giraffe.

Me: Why do you love mom? Because she’s pretty.

Me: Why do you love dad? Because he’s cool.

Me: What's your favorite show? Wow Wow Wubzy. Mommy, do you know how to spell Wow Wow Wubzy?

Me: Tell me about your pet? dog. Do you know how to spell dog? Girl. Boy. Girl. Boy. Girl. (giggles).

Me: Do you have any chores? Clean it. Clean my toys.

Me: What do you like about our house?? nuthin!. Are you signing nuthin!? Me: you can’t think of anything you like? G: nuthin!.

Me: What is your favorite book? Old Mac Donalds.

Me: We're almost done...What do you want to be when you grow up? Football player!! Do you know how to spell football player?

Me: What's your favorite stuffed animal? Um, Monkeys.

Me: Daddy, can you think of any questions?

D: What’s your favorite thing to do? G: nuthin! No, no, I said McDonalds!

D: Tell me about your brother. G: BRADEN!

And from then on, he would only say "Braden" and giggle and so the interview was over.

Ganoler bars

(that is Garrett's word for granola bars).

He really loves his ganoler bars as evidenced by the massive amounts of ganoler bar wrappers that I just uncovered under his bed.

Sheesh, kid. Ever heard of a trash can?

A story (or, Garrett is a big fat liar).

My birthday is coming up soon. Braden, knowing this, informed me today that I should go skydiving for my birthday, and someone should videotape it. This thought made me panic a little and wonder what on earth Kyle was up to, but thankfully, Braden explained. You see, one of his favorite Kids Klub counselors went skydiving for HER birthday. Here's the story: "She went up in a plane (but she wished it had been a helicopter) and was 2500 feet up and then she skydived. And someone videotaped it." Oh. Whew. No surprise skydiving trips for me are in the works.

Then, Garrett had a story: "Miss Courtney went skydiving for HER birthday, too. And SHE got to up in a helicopter. And when she was TWO HUNDRED feet up, she skydived. And Miss Asra videotaped it. And I saw it. And Miss Courtney landed in a hole. Like a big hole in the ground." (at this point, Braden is totally into the story--he's buying it hook, line, and sinker). "And the hole was bigger than her head and she was buried in the hole and she had to dig her way out of the hole. And she's still digging right now."

Braden, a bit incredulously: "Garrett, are you making this up?"

Garrett, proudly: "YEP!"

The kid CAN read!

Braden refuses to read to me. He simply says, "I don't read in front of people," in the same way others say, "I don't eat meat" or "I don't watch reality TV." It's almost like it is this moral choice he has made...or that if he reads to me, I will suck out his soul, his independence, and he'll be left, floundering and dependent on mommy forever.

This reading refusal is really annoying, especially because I know he CAN read. I know this because he reads stuff all the time and asks questions or informs me of important information: "Mommy, why is the elevator that way?" "Mommy, puppies are on sale at the mall." etc. etc.

Yesterday, he came home with flashcards of 100 words that he is supposed to know by the end of 1st grade. He's needs to conquer 50 of them by the end of the 3rd six weeks. I showed them to him and explained the deal. His response? "That's easy." And he began rattling off the words.

As my jaw dropped lower and lower, he continued reading the words. He was tripped up about five times: there, their, and a few others.

I guess my mom-homework is done for the year. Unless he is supposed to also spell the words, in which case we might be in trouble. I wonder if he'll spell in front of people?

I'm a terrible mother. Please don't tell God.

I realize He already know this.

I've been thinking lately that I'm doing pretty well at the mom stuff. I've been making my kids be in bed before 9; I've been packing nutritious lunches; I make the kids brush their teeth and bring in their own lunchboxes from the truck at the end of the day. I take them to church most Sundays, and they don't cry when I drop them off at "Sunday Church" (Garrett's term). I even take time to read them books many nights.

I don't, apparently, talk to them about God enough.

Tonight, Braden and I were reading chapter 2 of a space book (yes, nonfiction. The kid really prefers nonfiction). "The Universe" was the title of this chapter. Within a few pages, the book began describes The Big Bang--you know, the universe was created from a mass of matter smaller than a pinhead (yes, really, that is what the book said) until The Big Bang. Now, I get The Big Bang, but I also get the version in Genesis. So, I decided to pull out The Bible to share with Braden another version of the creation.

I grabbed my old trusty children's Bible off the shelf--the one my Dad gave me in 1982. I showed it to Braden and told him how my dad gave that Bible to me when I was his age. He thought that was pretty cool. I then opened it to Genesis and began to read.

He asked a few questions: "Why does it keep saying 'And there was evening and there was morning?'" and so forth. And then...get ready...he said, "Enough of that one mommy, let's get back to the real story," and grabbed his Space book.

Oh gosh.

I've got some work to do.

1st day of 1st grade

Today was Braden's first day of first grade. "It was cool," he says.

Here he is before we left the house in the morning. Notice his fancy new lunchbox! He is still wearing the same ol' crummy backpack, but we'll get him a new one this weekend.

Here he is in front of the school. He's really humoring me here with the picture taking--he was seriously waaaay too cool for this.

Calm, confident, collected...until we got to the door of his first grade classroom. Then, he did NOT want to go in even though he saw his bud Samuel in the classroom. There was a lot of clinging (on his part) and a lot of prying (on my part), but with the help of Mrs. Cardona, he made it in the classroom door.

Games with Grandma

Grandma Scheele spent a few nights with us at the end of May. The boys had a great time hanging out with their Grandma, and Garrett and Grandma played a particularly exciting game of I Can Do That, a Dr. Seuss game that Garrett got for his birthday.