Velcro Boy and Silly Girl

Back at the first of November we signed Owen up for gymnastics lessons. He enjoyed watching Cackie at her lessons for months and a couple of times he tried to sneak into class with her, so we figured it was time to get him involved in his own activities.


The only problem was that we wanted to have the kids in separate classes to eliminate fighting and give them each an opportunity for "alone time". Unfortuntately that meant that Owen would have to take lessons on Thursday nights at 5:30 and Cackie would continue her lessons on Tuesdays at 6:30.


Trying to get into a routine we planned things so that I would take the kids to their lessons and Michael would spend time with whichever one didn't have a lesson. This was working well until a few weeks ago when Cackie and I were about to leave the house and Owen attached himself to my leg and started crying. Michael freed me from Owen's grips so we could leave and says that within a few minutes Owen was fine.


Of course, this concerned Cackie and we had a long discussion in the car about Owen crying and how she didn't want him to cry, etc.


This happened a couple more times, but nothing big. Then last week Owen and I were at his lesson, he ran his 2 warmup laps around the track but when it was time to go off with his coach and take his lesson he suddenly became attached to my leg again.He started screaming "I want my Mommy" (this always freaks me out and makes me afraid that someone will think I'm abducting him). I begged and pleaded with him to calm down and go do his gymnastics, his coach even begged and pleaded with him but no luck. We went and got dressed despite the fact that I kept telling him that he was going home to go to bed. We had one brief minute where he wanted to go and join the class, but that was quickly over when he actually had to detach himself from my leg!

We went home and I didn't quite know what to do. I was worried that something was wrong, but he had really enjoyed the lessons before and couldn't figure out what happened. It was certainly becoming apparant that Owen needed some time away from Mommy, though.

So, this week when Cackie went to her lesson on Tuesday we made a big deal about her going to gymnastics and how much fun it was, etc. To help things even more I had Michael take Owen to his lesson last night. My not being there helped a lot! He enjoyed his lesson and was excited to show off his smiley face stamps to Cackie when he came home!


Since Michael & Owen were off at the gym together I took advantage of the opportunity to spend some time with Cackie. I picked her up from school and we headed out to do a little Christmas shopping and then to the dreaded grocery store.

On the way to the store I explained to her that we were looking for presents for other people and at first she didn't like that at all, but it didn't take long for her to understand how nice it was to give presents to other people. She very thoughtfully picked out a present for Owen and was very excited. It's something that she can enjoy as well, but she was adamant that Owen will really like it and she wanted him to have it.

I had a lot of fun out with her and I think she enjoyed it, too. At the grocery store she didn't want to get in the cart and tried to convince me that she's too big to ride in the seat. She's got a good point there, she almost doesn't fit in the seat anymore! But, I made her squeeze in because I didn't need to worry about her wandering off. As we were walking around she kept putting her hands on either side of my face, squeezing my cheeks and saying "OOH Mommy, you're soo CUTE!" It's really funny when she decides to get silly like that! We also had a good round of a game where we call each others names in silly voices back and forth. I'm sure the other shoppers didn't appreciate it, but we had a good time!

Tonight is Parent's Night Out at school, so the kids will have a little pajama party while Michael and I go out and get some shopping done.

Tomorrow will be a busy day for us... We have breakfast with Santa in the cafeteria at St. Jude (this will be Owen's first opportunity to see Santa) and then in the evening we're going with friends to a Christmas Village at a local church. Cackie loved it last year and we're all anxious to see if Owen enjoys it, too. I'm hoping to see more of Silly Girl this weekend and a little less of Velcro Boy!