An interview with a 4 year old

I read in a magazine the other day how some moms interview their kids at the end of the school year and put their interviews in cute albums to save for the kids when they are grown. I'm going to half-ass this project and type my interview with Pirate in a blog. If my blog still exists when he's an adult, he can read it then.
I just Googled "end of preschool child interviews" and a bunch of different ideas came up. I took questions from a few different sites and sat down with my 4 year old to get some answers. The idea is to do this for both kids, but we'll see if I remember.

An Interview with Pirate - June 2012

What is your name?  Andrew
How old are you?  4 but I'm almost 5
Where do you live? Westminster
What does your house look like? it looks like it is painted white
Who do you live with? Mommy, Daddy, Rei, Evan, Grayson, Landon
What is your mom's name? Amy
How old is she? 32
How much does she weigh? 4
What is her favorite thing to do? feed the babies
What is something she does not like to do? clean the toilets
What does she like to eat? bagels
What does she like to drink? coffee
What do you like to do with her? snuggle with her
What is your dad's name? Buster
How old is he? 36
How much does he weigh? 4
What is his favorite thing to do? take us for a walk
What is something he does not like to do?  eat gross stuff
What does he like to eat?  Corn flakes
What does he like to drink? coffee
What do you like to do with him? Play Go Fish

What is your favorite food?  Poptarts
What is a food you do not like to eat? broccoli
Where is your favorite place to eat? Subway
What do you like to order there?  turkey sub with no gross olives
What is your favorite color? red
What makes me happy?  going to the playground
What makes me sad? not getting new Batman toys
What are you afraid of?  monsters
What is your favorite thing to do? Go to the pool
What is something you wish for? more Playmobil Pirates
Where would you like to visit? Disney World
What is your favorite holiday? Christmas
What is your favorite toy? Transformers
What is your favorite animal? dog
What is your favorite book? That Batman book we got at the library
What is your favorite song?  Row, Row, Row Your Boat
What is your favorite game? Hide & Seek
What do you want to be when you grow up? a dentist
Who do you love? Mommy & Daddy & my whole family
What did you like best about preschool? Playing with my friends

Who was your best friend? Sawyer

What did you learn at preschool? I learned words

What did you make?  that octopus on the wall

What do you think kindergarten will be like? I don’t know

What are you excited for in big school? Playing on the big playground there

What do you think you will learn there? How to read

What is something new you want to try this year? playing soccer

If you could get only one present this year, what would it be? The musical Jake boat

I'm impressed he knows the right ages for both of us! I love that we both only weigh 4. I'm not sure if that means 4 pounds or if he has another measurement. This interview clearly took place in the morning because he named the foods we had for breakfast. He just had a dentist appointment this week, so now he wants to be a dentist. He usually changes what he wants to be 3-4 times a week. Disney World is a on the "Maybe one day if we hit the lottery or grow a money tree" list of things we'd like to do with the kids one day. And he asks for the musical Jake & The Neverland Pirates ship about 10 times a day. His birthday is in a month, but that boat is expensive, and he'll love it for about 30 seconds. Not sure it's worth it! Anyway, this was a fun thing to do with my little man. Hopefully I can remember to do this with the other kids one day too!

showing off his 2nd lost tooth

Playing Sports

I have no athletic ability whatsoever. Seriously, not an athletic bone in my body. At 32, after having five kids, I decided to try running. I haven't completely given up on it, but I don't like it at all, and I'm not sticking to it the way I should. My childhood experience with sports was pretty lame. I wasn't good at any of them, and I only played a season or two of the sports I did try. My parents offered for me to play sports every time the registrations came around, but I wasn't into them. I didn't really care about sports or want to be a star or anything. I played softball for a few years, but I got a later start around fifth grade, and by then, all the other girls had been playing for years and were really good. I did swim on the swim team for three or four years. I liked swimming, and I actually have some ribbons from winning some races. That was one sport where I did ok and stuck to it for more than one season. My parents asked me every year if I wanted to play basketball for my elementary school. For some reason, I decided to play in eighth grade. Everyone else had been playing together for years. Needless to say, I didn't try out for the high school basketball team.  In high school, I played JV lacrosse freshman and sophomore years. I wasn't good by any means, but I was proud of myself for actually completing two seasons of a sport. By junior year, I knew I couldn't be on JV anymore, and I didn't have a chance in hell of playing Varsity, so I retired my stick. Actually, I think I passed it on to my superstar sister... At the same time that I started softball, my little sister was in first grade and started to play as well. She was the superstar. From that point on, she played softball, basketball, and soccer, and she was really a star. I was more of a sidelines type of girl.

When Princess was around four, we put her in a soccer lesson class at the Y. It was very basic, but she did pretty well with it. As a first time mom with no experience in children's sports, I didn't realize how early you have to register for sports. So, in the fall I looked to sign her up for soccer, and all the registrations were closed. It was ok, I'd be more on top of it the next year. Then I forgot about it again. Now she's eight and has never been on a soccer team. Oops.

When she was in kindergarten, I managed to get the registration time right and sign her up for softball. She was in the beginner league and learned the basics. She definitely didn't love it, but stuck with it that season. Her favorite part of playing softball was the participation trophy she got after the last game. Last year, in first grade, I asked if she wanted to play but she didn't want to. So, I came up with the brilliant idea of having her play lacrosse. I had visions of her playing from first grade all the way through high school, maybe even in college. Even though I wasn't great at it when I played, I could picture myself teaching her some of the basic skills and going to the park to play catch. I thought my old stick might even be in my parents' attic somewhere. Oh, this was going to be so much fun, and so bonding for us!

So, I signed her up. And I paid a lot for it. Kids' sports are freaking expensive. Maybe other people don't think the cost is too high, but I think they're too much money. But since I had a superstar in training, I spent the money. When we got the email with team assignments and the list of what was needed, we spent another small fortune on her stick, goggles, and mouth guard. Thankfully her cleats from the short-lived softball career still fit. I practiced playing catch with her a few times in the back yard before her first practice. When we got to the day of the first practice, I was definitely more excited than Princess. When we had a little over an hour until practice time, I remembered her mouth guard. We needed to mold it to her mouth. It was an excruciating experience. She was crying, gagging, looking like she was going to barf all over the place. I didn't remember it being that bad, but I was fifteen the last time I molded a mouth guard. To a seven year old, it's probably pretty scary. We kept cutting it shorter and shorter, to the point where it looked like it would barely cover her teeth. Yet she still gagged on it. We left for practice anyway, and I figured I'd ask the coach for tips on making it better for Princess. We got to practice, and I was back to being stoked about her playing. I saw lots of people I knew at the field, and I was feeling good about having a daughter playing lacrosse. The kids split into their teams, met their coaches, and started a rotation of stations introducing them to the basic skills needed to play lacrosse.

It took me about two seconds to realize Princess had inherited my athleticism. She was much taller than most of the other kids. She was much less aggressive than the other kids. When everyone ran in to scoop up the ball, she kind of hung back and let everyone else get to it. She was more interested in talking to her friends from school than actually playing lacrosse. She stopped for a drink about ten times more than everyone else. One of the times she came to me for her water bottle I realized she wasn't wearing her mouthguard. She said, "I'm supposed to wear it?". Wow. I made her put it in and she immediately started gagging. When she got back on the field I watched her take the mouthguard out and stick it in her pocket. This was not going well. The rest of the practice was just as hard to watch. My mind wandered to her playing in highschool, gagging on her mouthguard and constantly pulling at the strap on her goggles, and I realized her lacrosse career might not be what I had dreamed for her.

When the practice was over she told me she hated it. She didn't like playing, she thought she was going to throw up from gagging, and it was too much running for her. I felt my bank account laugh at me since the money was already spent. The next practice was three days later, and she spent the entire three days whining that she didn't want to go and that she didn't want to play. We practiced wearing the mouthguard at home, which didn't help at all. In the end, her lacrosse days were very short-lived. One whole practice.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of Facebook posts about kids playing sports. It's a great time of year to be active and spring sports are in full swing. So far, my only experience with kids' sports has been with Princess. I'm pretty sure that with four boys to go, I'll become a true soccer (or football, baseball, basketball, etc.) mom. But for this season, I'm on the bench.

Day Date!

My hubby and I had a day out with no kids this weekend, for the first time since 5 was born. It was so much fun! We were gone for most of the day, and it was so incredibly nice to be able to have an entire conversation with each other without being interrupted with "Mommy!" or "Daddy!" a million times. We went to Wine in the Woods and had a great time!

Although we were getting a day out to ourselves, it was still a lot of work to get things together for the kids for the day. We planned on leaving by 11:30, so getting ready started right after breakfast. I don't like leaving my house a mess when other people are coming over, so I wanted to clean up the breakfast dishes and straighten up a little. I had to get myself ready, which included the inner battle with myself over what to wear while criticising my body in everything I put on it. I guess that's the problem with not every really having to go anywhere - I'm fine with wearing yoga pants or old lacrosse shorts and tee shirts every day. When I have to get dressed in something else, it is always ugly. My husband reminds me, "You've had 5 kids, and given birth three times in the past three years. Give yourself a break.". One of the many endless reasons why I love him. I settled on a sundress that I felt only slightly whalish in and flip flops because I knew we'd be walking a lot. Then I started my list of 'instructions' for the kids. They aren't really instructions, but sort of a guide to who needs what and when. I filled three juice cups and three milk cups, one for each of the middle boys, lined and put together the bottles for 5, and listed what everyone would eat for lunch. I also listed whose diapers are where and when to change them, give them naps, etc. It's funny how much you take your own routine for granted until you have to list out everything you do in order for someone else to take over. I'm not worried about things not getting done right or anything like that. It's just that I know how much work it is to take care of all five of them at the same time. I like to try to make things easier for anyone helping us.

Once we gave my dad the low-down on what to do for everyone, we hit the road. Princess and Pirate were excited to have someone else to play with them all day. My husband and I were both really surprised to see Trouble standing at the front door crying when we were driving away. I never really think of him getting emotional about stuff like that, but he was really sad that we left.

When we got to the festival, we felt special because my aunt had hooked us up with VIP passes, so we got to go into the VIP tent. We were given gift bags with some awesome cooking supplies from Wegmans. The VIP section was catered, so we could go to the food tables and get anything and not have to wait in line. The wine sampling table also didn't have lines like the tents throughout the other parts of the festival. So, we got free food, free wine samples, free giveaway bags, tables to sit at to eat and drink, and we didn't have to stand in line for food, wine, or the bathrooms. Yes, VIP is the way to go! We also walked around the festival and checked out all the vendors. We were able to sit and talk, eat, drink, and really enjoy ourselves. Is it bad that I didn't miss the kids or call to check in on them? Is it wrong that we were watching other parents chase their kids around and calling them suckers? It doesn't mean that we don't love our kids. We just knew that we get these opportunities very rarely, so we should have fun. For the record, way back when we only had two kids, we did take them to festivals and stuff. I think we even took three kids to a couple events like that. Donkey hasn't been to anything fun, and 5 doesn't stand a chance. Going places for the entire day to something like a festival is just too tough with five kids. And if we have the chance to go alone, we're taking it!

We aren't really wine drinkers, so we just had a few samples. (A beer festival would have been a different story!) Plus, whenever I go somewhere and I can have drinks, it's always in the back of my mind that I have kids at home I'm going to have to take care of when I get back, so I know I can't get all wasted. That would have been fun though! When we got done at the festival, we went to a nearby restaurant and got a little something to eat. Clearly we're more into food than wine! When we got home, the kids were just finishing dinner. Princess and Pirate came running out to the car all excited to see us. Donkey and Trouble were just as excited when we got in the house. It was a nice feeling to be missed. We must have been on a high from being gone all day because we had the genius idea to load everyone up and take them out for ice cream. The kids were very excited, and actually very well behaved! It ended up being a great day all around!