Date Night

Last Tuesday night right before going to Caucus I realized I missed Jaden so much!  It was an odd feeling since I see him everyday but I never spend one-on-one time with him.  There's always someone else around.  At that point I tried to convince him he wanted to go to caucus with me.  He wasn't convinced it was a good idea...neither was I for that matter but I wanted to spend some time with him.

So while I was at caucus for hours I decided I was going to take him on a date.  We never do that.

So for the remainder of the week I told him we were going to go on a date, just him and me, and he was so excited.  I kept trying to think of brilliant ideas of things I could take him to do but realized there really isn't much here in our little town.  I do have some fun ideas when it warms up a little but I figured we needed to find indoor entertainment.  I decided that he'd never been rock climbing so I found one of two locations in Idaho Falls to go. 

As he got high he would get nervous and come down but he had a lot of fun and we paid for several climbs so he could keep going.  They had an arcade there too so we couldn't escape playing a few games (not my favorite part of the night.)

As we left the parking lot I asked him where he wanted to go to for dinner.  He said he wanted to go to Denny's and that he wanted us to share a dessert.  So off we went.  He was so funny as he talked to the waiter all grown up.  I think he really enjoyed a night out without the distractions of the others.  For dessert he picked Oreo Cream Pie.  I think when he said he wanted to share it that he meant he wanted it all to himself....he was sweet enough to save the last bite for me:) 

I think another date night is in order soon.

Last week was also parent teacher conference.  I feel like I know Jaden's skills pretty well so I'm not ever really caught off guard....it also helped when I worked in the classroom. 

Jaden is such a smart kid.  He has so many things he loves about school and so many things that he doesn't love.  Those things that he loves he does awesome at.  He did well enough to get all 3's but he has a couple of S (satisfactory) marks instead of E (excellent) on neatness.  He doesn't enjoy writing and his work reflects that.

As punishment when he says a bad word I make him write the word over and over and over.  Yesterday he used the word "stupid" over and over so he got up to having to write it 220 times.  As a compromise we knocked it down to 30 if he'd go clean out the van.  I hope this doesn't backfire and embed the bad word into his brain but I know how much he hates to write so I'm hoping that it'll teach him not to say it.  When he starts to learn swear words I'll probably have to come up with a different plan:)

They also are starting to write stories in class.  They draw their web with the main idea and then branch off different ideas they want in the story.  They write it and then they've been going to the computer lab to type it.  Here's one of Jaden's stories his teacher shared with me.

When I read his story I got a little worried because Max died last fall and I was worried he some how forgot.  After we left I said "Jaden, you do know Max is no longer alive, right?" He replied "yep" like it was no big deal.

I'm glad that he enjoys school so much and has a great teacher that has high expectations for her students but does it in a kind of loving way.