Ian has been dying to play goalie for his hockey team. At his age, they don’t really have a dedicated goalie. They just have one set of equipment and all the kids rotate and take turns playing goalie. Ian has been driving his coaches nuts asking for a turn.

He got his turn tonight. I wish I had my real camera, but I was able to snap a few photos with my phone.

He had a fun time, but I think it was harder for him than he expected. It was hard to get up after he fell down and it was next to impossible to pick up his stick if he dropped it. Still, he said he had a good time and would like to try it again sometime–just not at the next practice

This weekend was filled with hockey for all of us.

Ian had hockey practice on Thursday night. Friday night he had a scrimmage against one of the other Ice Miners house teams. Then Saturday we hosted the Jamboree where 6 teams played 5 games each. Then we added in Grizzlies games both Friday and Saturday night. To top it off Ian’s team sold chuck-a-pucks at the Grizzlies game!

I have a feeling this is a glimpse of things to come with Ian playing hockey!

Here are a few photos from his game.

Here he is taking a face off–his favorite thing to do!

The kids are all really loving our dog, Rex.

Ian is really cute with him. He always talks to him in the cutest little voice. The other day he was calling him and trying to get him to do something.

Scott and I overheard him.

“Rex, Rexy, Rex-cito”. We both burst out laughing.

Both Scott and I have repeated it and laughed over and over the last couple of weeks.

I knew I had to write it down so we would never forget

I got another phone call from Ian’s teacher today.

Apparently he visited her office TWICE today. Both times for “hitting” another child. I say hitting in quotations, only because many times when Ian hits another child it isn’t what you think. Ian is super active–he always has been. He also has very poor impulse control. An idea pops into his head and he just does it. He doesn’t stop to think of the consequences. So if he is in a crowded area and he thinks about swinging his backpack around, he just goes ahead and does it. In the process he could hit one–or more–kids that are around him. He isn’t trying to be malicious, but most kids don’t like getting hit with Ian’s backpack. So they might do something back and it just escalates from there. This kind of scenario happens pretty much on a daily basis.

Ian’s problems in his own classroom seem to be under control. He is getting his work done and not having a problem keeping his hands to himself while he is with Mrs. Johnson in his own classroom. I think he has figured our her expectations and the consequences and he seems to be doing well. The problems start when he leaves the classroom–as he walks down the hall, or in the lunchroom, or on the playground. Anywhere that is less structured and more chaotic can be a problem for Ian.

When the principal called today, I was really upset. I felt bad that he had gotten in trouble again. I just want him to keep himself under control and not have problems in school. I want the teachers to tell me how well he is doing and not how badly he is behaving every day. I wanted to do something immediately to fix it. Once I calmed down a bit, I realized that I couldn’t solve the problem right away. I talked to his teacher and the principal. Then, just to cover all my bases, I also talked to his pediatrician. All of those things helped.

Together we put together a plan of attack. The principal and his teacher are going to work on a new discipline strategy for him that centers around keeping his hand and feet to himself all day. Then, I am going to meet with the school psychologist, just to see if she had any suggestions or ways to help Ian.

Once I had that in place, I felt much better. I want Ian to do well. I want to see him focus and concentrate on his work. I want to see him happy and develop into a happy adult. I’m looking at the positive side now. We are lucky that we are dealing with this when he is 6. Hopefully we can get him on the right track so that we aren’t still dealing with it when he is 10 or 15 or 20

I just had to put up a few more photos from the Bobby Lawrence Karate Tournament.

Our studio ended up doing really well. We got 2nd place overall, and only lost by about 20 points. We also only had about 60 participants and the team in first place had closer to 100. I think that is pretty impressive!

I loved watching all the events, but the most memorable part for me was watching Ian sparring. He really came alive at the tournament and sparred better than I had ever seen him in class. Being able to kick really helped him, but I think just being at the tournament helped too. He was REALLY into it. It was cute to watch! I wanted to put up a few more pictures of him.

I have mentioned a few times on this blog that Ian has been having problems at school this year. I was thinking about this yesterday and realized I hadn’t ever really written anything about it. I just knew I had to write this one down so we could always remember it!

The red cards started the first week of school. His teacher uses a system of green, yellow, and red cards. Yellow is if you have one warning and red is if you have two. You can also get an automatic red card for touching another child. Ian has had his fair share of those But his first one wasn’t for hitting someone. It was for talking disrespectfully to a teacher in the lunch room.

Ian was in the lunch line waiting to get his lunch. It was really loud in the room. When he got up to the front, the lunch lady asked him his name. She didn’t hear him, so she asked again. He was in line with all his friends, I’m sure he thought he would get a laugh out of everyone. He looked at her and said “What are you deaf?” All his friends laughed. He told me that she laughed too. But his teacher assured me that “there was NOTHING funny about it”!

I had all I could do not to laugh when he told me the story. I could totally see how it happened. I know Ian’s sense of humor–he gets that from his dad. I could see Scott saying that! But his teacher definitely didn’t appreciate his humor.

Still, we had a talk with him about what was appropriate to say to adults and what wasn’t. I think he understood, though I am sure it won’t be the last time we have to have that talk!

First, I have to make a disclaimer. I rented a special lens to use for this tournament. I am SOOOO disappointed at how these pictures turned out. I think there was a problem with the lens–I can see a strange reddish bar running through all my photos. I’m happy to have the photos because they really captured the emotions at the tournament, but I really wish they were better quality.

This years tournament was a big success. This was Emma and Nora’s first time participating. It was Ian’s second time. They all had fun and competed well.

Nora was the first one to compete. I signed her up to do forms for this tournament. She was supposed to perform tay keo ku sho don. She had a little speech she was supposed to say:

Hello Judges. My name is Nora. My style is kwon shu. Today I will show you tay keo ku sho don.

Except, she didn’t say it. She just walked up and stood in front of them looking very shy. They asked her if she was going to do star block–another form she could have done. She got all flustered and confused because that wasn’t the form she had practiced. Instead of doing her form, she started crying. Luckily the judge was nice and went out and consoled her. She ended up not doing any form, but all her tears were erased when she saw that she got a medal for participation anyway!

Next, we got to watch Emma. She participated in forms as well and did the same form as Nora. She did awesome. There were about 20 kids in her white belt group. She was thrilled to have a friend from our studio in our group. She and Bella sat together and I think it helped calm both girls nerves because they both did great. Emma ended up getting first place and Bella got second! They don’t actually give out medals to the white belts for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place. But Emma and I went to look at the results and she was thrilled to find out she had gotten first place in her group!

Ian was the last one to go. Since he is a purple belt he participated in forms, self defense and sparring. He did forms first and he did really well. There are so many moves that usually I can’t tell if he does it all right or not It helped to have the judges so I could see the scores. I knew when I saw his scores that he had done well. He ended up getting a second place in forms. Then he did self defense. He got a little confused when he went up to talk to the judges. He started to get really worked up and I think there were a few tears. But he held it together and did pretty well. He got third place in self defense.

The most entertaining thing to watch was his sparring. Up until now, he hasn’t been able to kick in sparring. In our studio, purple belts just focus on punching. In other studios the purple belts are allowed to kick. So for this tournament Ian was allowed to kick. It totally transformed his sparring! He went from mostly blocking and dodging without ever getting any points to scoring a lot of points with kicks. He still didn’t punch, but the kicking saved him. He won his first match 5-0. His last match was for 1st and 2nd place. He gave it a good fight, but ended up losing that match 5-3. But he was so cute to watch. He was so into it and so animated. I loved seeing his face light up when he found out that he had scored a point. Now he just needs to work on controlling the kicks and adding some punches for the next time.

It was a fun tournament. I was proud of all three of them for participating and doing their best. I’m looking forward to the next one in the Spring!

Today was the official first day of school for Emma and Ian. It was a big one because they were both starting a new school. The opening was delayed a little bit because of construction, and I was a bit worried that they still wouldn’t be ready, but they made it. The school still looks like a big construction zone, but the classrooms are done and look nice.

Ian started first grade with Mrs. Johnson and Emma started third grade with Ms. Taylor.

Emma was the first one up. She was all dressed and ready when I got up. She couldn’t wait to wear her new dress! Ian was a little later and I had to wake him to start getting ready. We took a few quick photos at home and then we were off to school.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they both have a great day!

I took Ian out for a mini photo shoot this morning. Tomorrow it is Emma’s turn

This past week Ian has been attending Karate camp at Bobby Lawrence Karate. Earlier in the summer he moved up from Little Ninja’s and became a Junior. When he did that he earned his solid yellow belt. Earning belts as a junior is quite a bit harder than earning them as a Little Ninja. There is a lot more to learn, and they seem to focus more on what you know rather than how many classes you have attended.

Summer camp is a great way to learn a lot all at once and to try to earn a new belt. When he attended the first week of camp earlier in the summer, he had just become a yellow belt. When he earned his yellow belt he skipped 2 Little Ninja striped belts. It was a big jump for him. I figured that at the end of the camp week, he wouldn’t be ready to promote. Turns out, he wasn’t quite ready. Since then he has been going to class twice a week and this week he attended camp again. I was really impressed with how much he learned this week at camp.

Today was promotion, and he was ready to promote to an orange belt. He worked hard at camp this week and he was really proud of himself.

Here he is getting his new belt.