It has taken a long time, but the Magpie finally learned to ride a two wheeler.  He just came up to me and said, "Mom, can you take the training wheels off my bike?", and away he went.  Still a bit wobbly, but I'm quite impressed with how he just immediately got it.  I was starting to worry he'd be on trainers until middle school.   Watching him ride away down the sidewalk though was heartwrenching- I was just waiting for him to fall off.  What if he lost control and went in the street?  These cars are going too fast!  Slow down dammit!  I must call the police and launch a campaign for speed limit signs, and request a stakeout to trap these bastards.  This is not the California 500 old lady!  Slow DOWN!  I need a radar gun.

Catching UP

What with the birthday shindigs and the V-day, and the Nana visit, and the onslaught of Influenza, I have been absent physically, virtually, and mentally.  I'm back and let me just say that having the small family event turned out to be fabulous.  We took the Magpie to the Aquarium of the Pacific where he ooed and ahhed over jellyfish and whatnot, and could have spent the entire day touching sea rays.  He's still talking about the bat ray experience.  Also got in some time at Gameworks, and then home for presents and cake.  Lovely.  He got lots of Ben 10 and Tech Deck stuff to keep him occupado for a long time, and this made it much easier for me to relax.  

The only sucky part was following up Nana's visit by returning to work, feeling miserable, and waking up Wednesday at 2 AM with 104.6 fever, chills, and severe muscle and body aches.  I could no longer sleep due to the feeling of having someone stabbing my hip bones on either side, so I got up, took two Motrin, and debated about the emergency room for hours. Finally deciding that a $50 copay was not worth it, I coaxed myself back to sleep for an hour before getting up and bee-lining back to Urgent Care, where finally someone listened to me, saw I was feverish and weak, and diagnosed with me the flu.  Eureka!  Off to the pharmacy where I sat for 15 minutes (which incidentally seemed like a fortnight in my weakened and spacy state) to get my antibiotic part II, anti-influenza pill, 12 hour Sudafed tabs, and a replacement bottle of Motrin.  I'm on a twice a day chemical fix and am going on day 3 of being off work.  This would normally have me in a tizzie, but I've been so sick, it just didn't matter to me anymore.

I was very happy to learn that the Kids Korner daycare staff made the Magpie do his homework in the PM session and he did not one, but BOTH required stories for his Kindergarten homework.  This means less of a fight for me this evening when I'm not up to it. 

He wrote a funny story about his "favorite book":

Lady and the tramp is my favorite book.  It is about two dogs.  I like it because it is sad.  It made my mom sad to.

The second one was about a lost dog:

The lost dog got lost a loge timago.  The dog was scaerd.  The dogs name is Hans.  I like my dog because he is cowt.  I miss my lost dog.

This last one refers to our friend's dog who she lost this fall to a brain tumor.  He misses Hans, so it wasn't surprising to see him write about him.  

I'm really amazed at what he has learned this year.  We were barely writing letters in September, and here he is writing a story!  I'm excited about his progress.  He's a very phonetic speller, but 'timago' for example, is pretty cute for trying to figure it all out.  They really have done a lot of work so far this year.  All I remember from Kindergarten is making a peanut butter/bird seed pine cone, nap time, fingerpainting, and the smell of the snacktime cookies.

Lyrical Musings

The Magpie is definitely a music lover. I have already shared with you that he asks me to turn up the radio on numerous occasions. His listening skills need some work, however, as this is the library of lyrics he's come up with:

"Oomalizer. Oomalizer. You're an Oomalizer." (Spears)
"You can have whatever you like." (T.I.) - this is done with your hands together, open arms wide to beat of music until they are spread wide to indicate "whatever you like"
"I used to roo the world." (Coldplay)
"Applebottom jeans, with the boots, and the ferrrrr! ... she hit the flo!! ...Low, low, low, low low low low..." (Flo Rida)

and the latest one:

"If you like me, put a ring in it, uh oh oh" (Beyonce)

The other day in the car, he actually asked me if we were listening to KISS-FM. I'm not even sure how he knew about that, but he was adamant that we had to listen to that station. It's pretty hilarious.

Rain

* WOW! Nana certainly picked the right time to leave. I know she's going back to snow, but it started pouring here last night and we're due for 1-3 inches of rain today. I'm still debating whether or not to go to Santa Anita today in this weather. I'm going to wait it out a bit.

* What a nice weekend. For Magpie's birthday, we went to the Aquarium of the Pacific. We all touched the sea rays and had fun watching the fish. Then we went to Gameworks and let him play some games, and headed home for cake and presents. We got to see our cousins on Friday, but the traffic back from San Clemente in the rain was horrible. It took us three hours to get home from her house! But we got to see Dillon and meet baby Connor. It was fun. So it turned out to be a nice weekend, and the weather on Saturday was quite nice. We had breakfast at an outdoor cafe on the marina in Long Beach and drank lots of Mimosas.

* That's all from the COV. Hope you like the green anticipatory blog template... less than a month until St. Pat's you know!