...slip-n-slide...

Oh boy, readers, was I ever right!  Mister Man and I both skidded down the length of the driveway this morning with umbrellas in tow and balance not so!  Thank goodness we were holding hands...I'm fairly certain that alone kept us mostly upright!  The ground here is just soaked through, so much so that the bottom of the driveway is taking on quick-sand qualities!

We've currently got several science projects in the works going on in and around the homefront.  For Christmas I gifted Mister Man with a grow your own crystals kit, and after a few months of putting it off finally got the first stage up and running.  We're currently observing the 8-10 day growth cycle of some faux amethyst.  (Yay-Mister Man's birthstone and one of my favourites!  I'm partial to emeralds, sapphires and amethysts!)  I was telling my sister about this on the phone and her response was priceless: "Oh, and then someday he can grow his Mami a whole necklace!"  Love! Mister Man is definitely totally all in on this experiment...he checks the bowl first thing in the morning, then again when he gets home, and right before bed.  I'm kicking myself though, because I really should have set him up with a notebook to journal any changes.  Ah well, next time!  We're both eagerly awaiting the end of the allotted time...and the next few stages ahead that involve growing a geode.  So cool!  Future paperweight, here we come!  In the meantime, we're measuring daily precipitation outside and then bringing those same containers in to measure evaporation inside.    

Mister Man is a a learning rockstar!  I am, of course, being modest. *wink*  He has, despite some pretty hefty odds, this utterly amazing love of learning and insatiable curiousity.  Hitting up google for answers to offbeat questions is my daily routine.  He asks awesome questions.  Too bad I don't often have the answers!  And he loves to take everything to the next level.  So if he begins to learn about something interesting at school he will come home wanting to keep going with it.  We make weekly treks to the library and leave with bags full.  And honestly...I love every minute of it! This was exactly what I wanted our life to be!

Of course, in the back of my head is that little niggling voice cautioning me that because he is so advanced, he might get bored.  And truthfully, we've already seen a lot of that this year in first grade.  My stance so far is that I don't really care if he's bored at school.  In the long term he's fostering a love of educating himself, and that's more important in my mind than whether or not he zones out in class when the teacher is reviewing juvenile facts and figures.  The caution is, I suppose, that if he's advancing to quickly then he may backslide at school because he's to bored to complete the guided tasks.  Don't get me wrong...I want him to excell in school...definitely.  But I won't stop encouraging him to dig deeper, or stop homeschooling him in more advanced areas, just because teacher says he's bored.  I'd rather pose to them the challenge of this avid reader, eager beaver child of mine and have them figure out new ways to challenge him!

Mister Man's awesome grandparents Omi and Grandad were generous enough to gift him an early birthday present in the form of paying for his next Mad Science course.  I wasn't to thrilled with this program when he took it in the fall, but he seemed to love it.  The subject matters are completely different for the spring sessions, and I can only hope that the instructor will be also.  The fall session was a fail for me mainly because the instructor was a foreigner with such a thick accent that the students could not understand most of the material she was presenting.  I think Mister Man was so psyched about it not because of any award-winning teaching on her part, but because of the weekly experiments he got to bring home and do with either Grandad or myself. 

I've also just signed this boy of mine up for the spring session of TOPSoccer...and I have to say I'm looking forward to returning to soccer mom mode so much!  By the end of the fall season I was completely in love with every single person on that field!  Loved the coach, and the assistant and every single high-school volunteer Buddy...all these amazing people gathered together in one place to bring joy to these kids of ours.  I also met a new special-needs mom friend there...so for that alone I have fond thoughts!  I'm totally excited though for the upcoming season, and can't wait to take Mister Man in for some new cleats and shinguards!  I'm making up a little certificate printout for his birthday, with the TOPSoccer spring session and all the gear he will need as one of his birthday gifts.  Little did I ever dream that I, of all people, would ever be a soccer mom! 

Meanwhile, said birthday is but a few days away!  It's the craziest thing in the world, to think that this baby of mine will be turning 8!!!   Mister Man has had a hard time of it this year in school, with bullying incidents (in which he was the victim) and daily depression over having no school friends (his autism symptoms seem to mark him as an outcast).  So this year rather than throwing a party where all those kids who are mean to him can come and have fun and eat good food (NO WAY!), we're keeping things simple the day of and then celebrating in a big way with a weekend trip to Philly to visit my sis/his aunt!  So this weekend we'll be cashing in all his birthday rewards at Build-a-Bear, Lego, Toys-r-Us, etc...  His Omi and Grandad are taking him to see The Wizard of OZ the day before his birthday as a special treat!  And on Monday, we'll be ringing in the 8th birthday of this phenomenal miracle boy with a birthday dinner at one of his favourite restaurants!  (See I get a gift also-the gift of not having to cook!)  The big gift this year, aside from the trip to Philly and the standard Transformers, will be a gift card for Disney.  He's desperate to go, and I think if in lieu of a ton of little stuff for his birthday and other upcoming holidays, I save up for the larger gift cards (which can be redeemed towards tickets!) then I might just be able to make it happen next winter!  So now I'm just trying to figure out how to re-create the commercial vibe, where the kid opens the envelope and a whole celebration bursts out.  I'm thinking helium balloons and streamers inside a cardboard box might work well?!?

Alrighty...time to run...can't keep my espresso machine waiting...she'd think it impolite! :)