Ethan

This week I had the boys' conferences. Both kids are doing well. Noah is smart and well behaved. I'm not that impressed with his fifth grade teacher. He seems distracted and a bit of a slacker. I think he'd be a good "on-line" professor where he doesn't have to talk to the students, or teach, but instead write the assignment and play on the computer. Ethan is smart, well behaved and a loner. I was surprised, although a part of me wasn't, to hear from Ethan's teacher than he is a bit of a loner. When he can chose to work in a group, he never does- he works alone. He often draws or writes during "free time" rather than socializing. I'm not sure why this surprises me. To Noah, friends are everything. When I was in second grade I would have defiantly leaned over to the social/I wanna work in a group side. However, in college, I was the "work by myself" because I knew even if you work in a group, one person (me) would end up doing all of the work while the rest slacked off. I actually remember one time when I was paired up with two elementary ed. guys in a group. I really drew the short straw that day. Don't get me wrong- there ARE some wonderful men elementary teachers, but the majority that "start" in Elementary ed. do it because it's 95% girls. One of the guys, "Joe" was like that. The other one, "Ben" was like me, a double major- math/El.Ed. Ben and I had a deal. He'd help me decipher my notes in trigonometry and I'd do the work. We would do this as a joint effort- he'd create a "trigonometry for dummy's diagram" while I did the project at the same time in the library. Joe didn't show up or do any of the project so when I handed it in, I only put mine and Ben's name on it. When Joe found out he totally freaked out! I remember him yelling at me so close that he was spitting on me and I was sure he was going to punch me. To make my long story longer- I learned not to work in groups if given the chance. Maybe Ethan has already learned that lesson. Ethan's been so funny lately. The other day I came home and the boys were playing basketball. I was watching them and I saw a bright pink marker on the roof. I asked, "Ethan, Why is there a pink marker on the roof?" "I had to get my back pack down SOMEHOW!"

The next day we were in the house and he asked if he could go outside. I told him to put on a sweatshirt first. He skipped down to his room. An hour later he was still in his room playing. I asked him, "I thought you were going outside?" "Oh, ya. I forgot." Last week was a short week for the kids. I told him he should ask a boy in his class if he wanted to come over during the days off. On Monday Ethan forgot, Tuesday he forgot again. I told him he had to ask on Wednesday or he can't come over because we don't know his phone number. In Wednesday I asked Ethan if he asked the little boy if he wanted to come over, "I couldn't find him! He usually wears green, but he wore gray today." I said, "Really? He's in your class right?" "Yep". I guess gray is the new camouflage.

I don't want to jinx it- but my head-aches have mostly gone away. It turns out all I needed to do was keep a log of them. Huh. Now my new problem is involuntary twitching of my good thumb. I'll be holding a book or something and unless my thumb is totally straight or bent, it twitches. It freaks me out a little bit. I've just been keeping it straight.

I've decided the Swiss are lucky. They've got the army knives, cheese, Miss...