K is for Kindergarten

K is for Kindergarten. Sweet little Apollo has started Kindergarten!  He was super excited to go to school with his big brother and so far, so good.  I took both boys to school on the first day to help make sure they could find everything and that they knew where to go.  Orion went to Pre-K, so he was a little more prepared when he started Kindergarten, but Apollo actually handled it like an old pro.  The boys ate breakfast, I walked Apollo down to class, he sat down at his desk and basically told me to go after less than 5 minutes.  I had expected him to want me to hang around for a little bit so that he could transition to the new surroundings.  But he seamlessly transitioned over without a single tear, no meltdown and a simple kiss goodbye and it was done.  I left before 8:20 and he made it to his classroom at 8:10.  I kept expecting the school to call to tell me that he was in meltdown mode and couldn't be calmed down, but nothing.  I worried for WEEKS for nothing.  I don't know how well he is getting along with his classmates, but he really likes his teachers and is bringing home mostly green faces, with a few yellows.  He even memorized his lunch number by day two and can tell me the names of the his classmates that sit beside him (Amorette) and across from him (Chase) which is an amazing improvement already over his normal social skills.  Maybe this won't be such a rough adjustment for him after all.

K is for Kickoff.  Along with the start of school, I have begun a new rewards system to try to curtail some of the chaos in the house.  I am over doing every single chore that needs to be done, and the boys are big enough to help.  I have implemented a ticketing system where the boys earn tickets for good behavior and doing tasks around the house.  Then at the end of the month, they can either turn their tickets in for cash or for an outing somewhere - like Pete's Party Castle, Skating, Chuck E Cheese, Laser Tag, etc.  There are some that are easy - doing their homework earns them 1, getting a good behavior grade at school earns them 2, checking the mail earns 1, etc.  Some are more difficult and pay at a much higher rate - 5 tickets for a load of laundry or cleaning the toilet, 3 for bringing up the trash cans, 4 for helping to cut the grass, etc.  It isn't a perfect system, but the boys do ask what they can do around the house to earn tickets.  Yes, they are being rewarded for doing something that has to be done, but at their age... it's just nice to have them asking to help out.  And they DO go out of their way to ask to do chores, so I am going to call this one a win.

K is for Ketchup.  Seriously.  Apollo wants ketchup for everything - hot dog, hamburger, french fries, chicken nuggets, grilled cheese... I guess it could be far worse, but it's just a little weird.  If it comes down to it, he might even start asking for ketchup on his spaghetti instead of pasta sauce.  We do not serve 'Sketti' in this household and I just can't bring myself to do it.  The real downside is how much he uses.  This child can use an insane amount of ketchup on anything.

K is for Karma. So the other night, I was laughing to my mom that I have made it 6.5 years with 3 boys and no serious injuries requiring an emergency room visit.  I should have known better because the day after saying this, my oldest son kicked an old picture frame and lacerated his shin.  His wasn't too serious, but it shattered our streak and off we went to the ER where, after 4 hours and 5 stitches later, we were repaired and on our way home.  While there, I mentioned to the nurse how glad I was that it wasn't Apollo in the ER because he goes into full meltdown mode over the littlest scrape.  Flash forward 3 days to Friday night.  I am helping Orion do homework he forgot to do, Phoenix was taking a nap, and Apollo was in the office with my mom, playing on the tablet.  Orion and I are getting down to the final questions and I hear my mom call me from the office.  As I turned the corner to go back there, I see her half-carrying Apollo out of the office, saying, "Apollo did it too... I don't know how, but he cut himself..."  I looked down at Apollo and saw lots of blood and asked, "Is it bad?"  And my mom just nods, "Very..."  My stomach dropped to the floor and I ran straight for the phone to call 911.  The whole phone call is a bit of a blur now and I have no idea how I held it together.  My mom is the real hero though as she threw Apollo on the couch and held the huge cut on his inner thigh together with a towel until the paramedics arrived.  Thankfully, the cut occurred in a place on his thigh with no major arteries and it looked much worse than it was.  Well, that's not necessarily true because it was a VERY bad cut - 7 inches long and about an inch deep.  Apollo was taken by ambulance to the ER and I met them at the hospital.  My child was a freaking rock-star.  He was calm, quiet and content the ENTIRE time - almost.  He screamed bloody murder loud enough for the whole hospital to hear when they were injecting the numbing drugs to stitch him up.  It took 19 stitches to repair his leg, but nothing internal which is flabbergasting to me - you could see his bone! They had to put two different drugs into his leg to get it somewhat numb, but he felt most of the stitches.  Hopefully, he will never do anything like that again!  We are not totally sure, but seeing as he cut himself on the SAME picture frame Orion did, we suspect that to a degree he was trying to be like his big brother and get some extra attention.  Needless to say, that picture frame is gone. He is healing up well and is out of PE for 10 days, but otherwise you'd never be able to tell he's seriously injured.  He is back in rock-star mode. He hasn't needed Ibuprofen since Saturday morning and he is trying to get up and convince us to let him play Mario Kart Wii - with 19 stitches.  *sigh*  Boys... I am HAWKING Phoenix to make sure he doesn't get any bright ideas - at least everything in the house is bolted to something else... I do have pictures of the wound pre-fix but it is graphic, so I will only post the fixed version...