Red frog a-leaping...

After our wild week it was nice to have a fairly relaxing weekend. B's & my only activity outside the house on Sunday was church, which B tolerated pretty well (Sunday School has begun to meet again, so he's got something to look forward to now). C went sailing after teaching Sunday School, & I scooped B up after my class let out (I have Sr. High & C has the preschoolers) & we went home. I think B must've OD'd on the goldfish snack his class had, because he was not hungry for lunch. He played on the computer while I lay down "for a minute" on the sofa in the same room... & woke up 1/2 hour later! B was still happily playing, but I suggested that it was time to eat, so we did. After lunch he wanted to watch some Kratts' Creatures, so I said he could watch 2 episodes & then we'd play a game. I had purchased the Fruits Basket card game a few weeks ago, & although B took a look at the cards & the rules, we hadn't played yet. It's a somewhat complicated game so we played it semi-co-operatively & we both managed to win (it is a friendly game :). C came home from sailing about the time we finished, & soon we were on the way to dinner. B, however, was not hungry at all for dinner- maybe his tummy was upset? He wasn't gassy or running to the bathroom... but he did sit on the sofa while we ate in a somewhat unhappy mood. I checked-in with him half-way through the meal & that seemed to cheer him up (which was a relief because it was difficult to tell if he was heading for a meltdown or not...). After dinner he & dad went to play legos. I went up after a while & decided to take over for C because he wanted to get B's room tidied up a bit (it was becoming difficult to walk through because of all the legos). Playing legos with B has always been C's area... I don't have a lot of patience with the "...& then you say this..." type of play, which is what B really enjoys. He sets-up elabourate scenarios with his lego "rangers" & bad guys & then he & dad act them out, with lots of exploding & colliding of vehicles. So, last evening I grabbed the red frog "zord" & started haiving him hop repeatedly on each bad guy B sent his way, until they were hopped into submission. B was laughing so hard he could barely breathe :) The red frog managed to defeat every single bad guy, including the head honcho "Lord Venonite", who finally scurried away when my frog hopped his eyes off & had to be repaired :) It was an awful lot of fun, although I suspect that B was being very tolerant of my red frog's antics because I was new to it all. All that bad-guy bashing was rather cathartic, & relieved a lot of stress. Who'd have guessed?

B slept right up to the alarm again this morning. He looked so sweet still asleep, when I went to wake him up. He was a bit muzzy, but managed to get dressed & get down to breakfast without too much groaning. I had a proposal for him over breakfast concerning homework. I had been trying to figure out just when B was going to find time to write his first letter to his new penpal in Japan, Seiji (the son of a friend of our japanese teacher), particularly with homework after school. So I asked him if he thought it would be a good idea if I asked his teacher if he could write the letter as homework today. He was ok with the idea, so I asked & Jen said that would be fine. She said he could share the letter with his class tomorrow.

When I picked B up from school he was in pretty good form. He was in his classroom when I arrived, which was unusual, since most days he's too burnt out to be in there by that time of day. It was a good sign. Cherie, his consultant teacher, said he'd had a good day. He's been asked to help out with reshelving books in the 3rd-floor library & Cherie thinks that it'll be a fun job for him. I'm psyched because he'll become familiar with the library & maybe find some new books to read. On the way home I proposed to B that he watch 2 episodes of Kratts' Creatures after snack & then we would work on his letter/homework. He said ok, but when it came time he was really keen to start the next Artemis Fowl book (having finished book 3 at school). Who am I to complain that my kid wants to read? So I gave him 1/2 hour to get started, then it would be time to write. When we finally sat down with the laptop to write to Seiji, I told him that if he finished in good time we'd go our for japanese for dinner, since dad had a meeting at work. That sweetened the pot considerably, & he began with a good will :) B wrote the first part of the letter in japanese-hiragana (with a few katakana words, like "pokemon", thrown in), mostly saying hi, his name, talking about how he likes pokemon, & asking if Seiji likes pokemon movies. Then he continued in english, talking about learning japanese & about Rufus. When Tomoko spoke to his mom aboutbeing penpals, she requested that B write some in english so that Seiji would have more practise. I think it's a great idea to practise both languages, & Tomoko pointed out that both boys will be able to say more in their native languages, too. I think B did a great job & it'll be really exciting to get a letter back from Japan.

We had a nice japanese dinner together, mostly discussing Artemis Fowl. I really hope we can find another series that captures his imagination as well as Artemis has, when he's done with them...