Category: Kids & Cute Stories

Jill crosses a threshold with her oldest child.

From 2006.

Grandpa likes to tell The Sweeties childhood stories using their names for the lead characters. For example last night The Three Pigs were Reid, Mack and Aidan. Since I was telling the story to Aidan he got the brick house.

Grandpa: “So the wolf huffed and puffed and huffed and puffed but he couldn’t blow the brick house down. Do you know what happened next Aidan?”

Three-year-old Aidan: “I turned into the Black Power Ranger and killed the wolf.”

Last week the elementary school three of my grandchildren attend was recognized by its district as a School of Excellence. That means the school has made “Adequate Yearly Progress” under the No Child Left Behind Act, and achieved an overall score of 90 or more out of 100 points on district Strategic Plan-based measures. It’s a big deal.

So they had a little ceremony at the school to mark the occasion and the Superintendent of Schools was there to present the banner. From the more than 1,000 students the Principal selected one girl and one boy to receive the banner for the school.

And the boy was?

Yup, Mack.

They also had an essay contest. All the students were asked to write why they thought the school was an excellent place to learn. The best essay was chosen for each grade.

And the winners were?

Yup. All three. Aidan got the medal for kindergarten (his was a poster), Kiley for first grade, and Mack for third.

Excellence R us.

Oh, BTW, this announcement is on the school website today: Escuelas cerradas, Código Rojo. El programa SAC no se ofrecerá. In Virginia. It’s a bilingual country. Excellent.

License, registration, I ain’t got none
but I got a clear conscience
‘Bout the things that I done
Mister state trooper, please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me, please don’t stop me

Bruce Springsteen, “State Trooper”

Emily, official mother of four-year-old Alex, reports:

“Twice this week, [Alex] has handed me a paper with a name written on it. He then asks me to send the name to Santa because the kid has been naughty at school.”

Mack, the oldest of The Sweeties®, turns nine tomorrow. His birthday party is today.

Here’s what we wrote five years ago:

The oldest of the Sweeties, Mack, turns four Monday, so his parents decided to host a birthday party. To their horror, nearly everyone invited accepted — and all who accepted came. That meant that Saturday afternoon 24 three- and four-year-old boys (and one two-year-old girl cousin and one little brother) took over the island that is Mack’s playroom.

Jill, official mother of Mack, reports that the swarm was amazingly well behaved, but that it did require a periodic “Freeze!” so that a census could be taken to make certain no one had escaped to some other part of the house, or worse, outside. (”Christopher? Are you sure you dropped him off? We don’t remember seeing him.”) There were moments, Jill also reported, when the boys seemed to realize that they had the adults grossly outnumbered, but she says they were easily held at bay with the cake knife.

The ice cream and cake was delayed until the last minute so that the children could be released to the custody of their parents before the sugar fully kicked in.

NewMexiKen is sad to live so far from his grandchildren; hence the prominent display of their photos on this blog. Even so, 1900 miles seemed about right while this party was on.

Brothers Mack, who will be 9 in a week, and Aidan, who was six in September, ran in the Jingle Bell Fun Run Saturday morning. The distance was a mile and during the race the rain changed to snow. Their mom, Jill, reports:

The boys came in third and fourth overall…Aidan was third.

Yep, Aidan ran a [personal best] 7:40 and Mack was right behind him at 7:41.

To be fair, Mack struggled the whole way and threw up two times after the race. He had thrown up Thursday at school, and was home sick yesterday. He has a bunch of junk in his lungs and has that cough that has passed from Aidan to Reid to him.

I know, I couldn’t believe he was out there, either (after I saw him halfway through, begging me for oxygen as he came around — like was I supposed to have a spare tank sitting by me?). I think he thought he had a chance to win overall, which is always fun. And on a normal day he probably would have. …

In typical fashion, after the race Mack was crying about doing poorly, and feeling sick, and Aidan didn’t say a word. In the car, Mack looked at me and said, “Aidan beat me (sob sob).” I looked at Aidan and Aidan softly said, “I wanted him to win.”

I took a lot of photos during my recent stint visiting and babysitting. This is probably my favorite.

There’s a larger version underneath your mouse click.

Veronica reports as Sofie recovers from a serious bout with the flu:

Me: Hey sofie. You haven’t eaten in 4 days. You can have whatever you like.

Sofie: Anything?

Me: Yup.

See photo for results.

8-year old Mack ran a 24:07 5K yesterday, taking three minutes off his previous best for that distance (3.1 miles).

He threw up after crossing the finishing line, so I guess we can conclude he gave it his all. It was good enough for second place in his age/gender.

Today, Sunday, both Mack and Aidan ran in the King George Fall Festival Mile.

Aidan took first for “Men 6 and under” with an 8:06 mile. He has improved his personal best by two minutes in less than two weeks! It was head-to-head for the finish line and Aidan pulled ahead to win by a second. It was his first “gold.”

Mack also took first, running his second best mile ever in 7:03.

Mom meanwhile was moving along too. She got a speeding ticket.

UPDATE: Jill says I’m not like other moms.

No wusses on the kindergarten playgrounds in Virginia.

I don’t know what some parents are thinking, the way their kids dress and style themselves.

Oh, wait, that’s my Sweetie Aidan. He calls that style “teepee on my head.”

I’m missing The Sweeties and thinking about visits. There is this though. First posted three years ago today.

There are few downsides to visiting one’s grandchildren (as NewMexiKen is currently visiting five of his six grandchildren). One very distinct negative though, has to do with cooties. At home, not working (and not being a member of congress), I rarely hang out with children and their associated germs. Here I do little else but hang out with them.

So, as is the case more often than not, after a few days here I have a rotten cold settling very nicely, thank you, into my throat and chest. I feel so yucky this morning I wish I had a job again just so I had some place to call in sick.

Now, of course, none of The Sweeties is to blame. Kids have runny noses and germs just like they have Star Wars characters and princess gear. Grandpa just needs to figure out how to schedule these trips so that I can maintain some sort of immunities.

Easy guys, you’re on the same team. And not only that, but your moms are sisters.

Reidie got this goal but Alex scored some, too. Click for the larger version to see the determination on Reidie’s face.

Little Reidie, just 3½, completed a mile cross country race yesterday. You see him here at the start, raring to go. His official time 15:21. He also plays soccer.

He’s looking to break the 15-minute mile his next time out.

Jill reports:

So we went apple picking and then drove out to the [cross country] race.  We had to stop for gas, and ended up arriving later than planned.  Also, they seemed to be ahead of their published heat schedule.  So when we got there, the 6 and under age group was already on their second call, and lined up.  We registered quickly and got Aidan out there, but he was still in his long pants, and wearing a t-shirt, not a team jersey or shirt.  (I had put them in other shirts for the apple picking, in case it was messy.)  I felt so badly for him, looking at the line, because every other kid was in a little running suit or at least a team shirt and running shorts — it was a real x/c invitational, so he just looked kind of ridiculous.  Oh, and he’s wearing his white Target tennis shoes, not running shoes.
 
The age group had to run a 1k, which is a little more than six-tenths of a mile.  They take off, and right away Aidan veers off the wrong way because we hadn’t been there for the course walk through.  But he gets back in line, and they disappear into the woods.  About five minutes later, a kid comes in with nobody even in view behind him, and I was thinking, “Wow, these kids are good.”  Then the next kid comes out of the woods and I see red pants!  Aidan was in second and had several kids right behind him.  Of course, being Aidan, he’s running about ten steps, then slowing down and looking back over his shoulder.  Then running ten steps, slowing down and looking over his shoulder.  I could almost feel all these x/c coaches around me being horrifically damaged by the sight.  I ran out and yelled, “Do not look back one more time!”  He put his head down and kicked it in for second place overall.  He got a silver medal — only top three in each heat (m/f) got medals (there were no “thanks for trying” medals), so I never thought he would get a medal and I was so excited for him.  These kids are all on x/c teams and run all the time, so I thought it was really impressive that he beat most of them.  He does have those flashes of competitiveness every once in a while.
 
Then Mack was up in the 7-8-year-olds heat.  There were a lot of kids in the heat, and everyone in different unitards and tank tops for x/c teams.  At least Mack had a team jersey and running shoes. But he also was not stretched and didn’t know the course.
 
They took off and we had to wait a while — they were running a 2k.  We walked out to where we could see the people as they came up through the woods to the finishing loop.  I heard the host coach saying something about, “I don’t know…it’s going to be a close race.”  But then we started to see people, and we saw about four people blinking by through the trees and none of them were wearing red.  Luckily, it turns out two of them were girls (one of whom mis-ran the course) and Mack came charging out in fifth place, number three boy.  Remember, only the top three boys get any hardware.  There were two boys right on Mack’s heels as he came out into the open area, and I actually thought they were going to get him.  He looked kind of gassed.  But he played it beautifully.  He put on a little spurt and got some distance.  Then he eased it back and I think one of the boys thought he could catch up (the other one was obviously out of gas).  The boy picked it up and closed in on Mack.  Then, with about 70 yards left, Mack started his kick and the kid didn’t have enough left because of the effort he had just put into getting close.  So Mack got third easily.

“Everyone had a different reaction to the thrilling sequence. Each, I think, demonstrates well the way our brains work at different ages.”

Jill has a great new post up at Dinner without Crayons.

Sweetie Aidan is six today — he was born during Hurricane Isabel in a hospital without drinking water. Above with his mommy last month in Baltimore Harbor (complete with warpaint residue from the National Aquarium). Below, from the bus on the first day of school last week.