Taekwondo No More

Well, I hyped Guillermo's taekwondo effort for no reason, it appears. He had three private lessons and did great. He followed instructions, listened well, and loved it.

He then went to a group lesson to see if he was ready. My poor kid was so small compared to the others. Most of them were probably between 6 and 8 years old and they towered over Guillermo. 

First, the class did a few warmup runs to one end of the gym and back. Guillermo was easily among the slowest and when the first group of kids passed him on their way back to the starting line, Guillermo just turned around and ran after them, even though he hadn't even made it to the halfway mark.  A bit later, some kids weren't listening, so the group had to do pushups and Guillermo couldn't do one, though he tried and thought he did 10. (I know the punishment is a bit extreme for a 4 year old, except Guillermo didn't care).

Later, the instructor led the group through a 20-step drill and while I am sure part of the drill was repeated at least once or maybe twice during the 20 steps, poor Guillermo couldn't keep up. When the group was facing left, he was facing right, when others were turning one way, he was turning the other way. I would have felt bad for him, except he had such a big smile on his face and he didn't care. He was just having fun. 

After the lesson, the instructor told us he thought Guillermo should wait until January or next year to join in because at 4, the instructor said, Guillermo isn't going to really be able to memorize the steps (I'm sure there is a better word than steps). He thought Guillermo would just be going through the motions.  He did say we could work out some deal with him so Guillermo could go once a week just so he keeps learning the discipline and respect part (and so he continues having fun). Will is all for that, but I'm not so sure. The good thing about us being told to wait is it saves us a ton of money. Taekwondo is expensive and I don't think this once a week special is going to be too cheap either. 

Fleagle the Beagle

Guillermo was feeling lonely tonight when I put him to bed. Really, I think he was just stalling, but I didn't have time to deal with it because I didn't want to miss the debate. So, I rounded up all of his stuffed animals (he calls them his buddies) and sat them next to his pillow. There's sock monkey, Bevo, shark, a poison dart frog (called froggy), and a bear. You'd think that would be enough, but Guillermo was wimpy so I told him about the stuffed animals I used to sleep with when I was a kid. There was Bear and Fleagle the Beagle and I told Guillermo how they would cheer me up when I was feeling sad and lonely. Bear is still at my parent's house, but it turns out, Fleagle the Beagle, given to me by my friend Bryan for my eighth birthday, traveled with me to college, to St. Louis and Kansas City, to Louisiana and Texas and even to Chapel Hill. I found him under my bed tonight and gave him to Guillermo. My son's face lit up and after a few minutes of playing, he placed Fleagle the Beagle on top of his pile of stuffed animals and fell asleep. I barely missed a minute of the debate. 

The Cutest Little Ninja

Ok, ninja isn't the right word, but I'm not sure what you call someone who is studying Taekwondo. 

Guillermo had his first lesson on Thursday and doesn't he look adorable? He was so excited and loved every minute of it, but he told me his favorite part was kicking. We'll take him back for another extra small class and then he'll join the rest of the white belts for practice next week. If he likes it after two weeks, we'll sign him up.

I had to pick him up from preschool early so he could go to his first lesson. When Maya and I went into his classroom, nap time was just ending but Guillermo was still asleep. His teacher patted his back to wake him while I got down on the ground so he could see me. When he woke up and saw me he smiled, grabbed my hand, kissed it and then laid his head on it and closed his eyes again. I think I'll pick him up early from school every day. 

"I love swords"

Guillermo's not smiling because he's sitting next to two princesses at a birthday party for his best friend. He's smiling because he has a sword in his hand. 

You can see why Maya is happy. Who doesn't love melted chocolate cupcakes?

Guillermo and Maya goofing off after a ventriloquist kids show at the Carrboro Century Center. When they started getting restless toward the end of the show, they both got up and started dancing. Guillermo was performing some impressive break dancing moves, while Maya was dancing so fast I thought she would fall over. 

Star Wars

Guillermo is obsessed with Star Wars. Really obsessed. His obsession probably started a few months ago when his best friend in the whole wide world started feeding him information about The Clone Wars. Since then, we play Star Wars nonstop, fighting the bad guys that hang out between our house and our neighbor's. Our ship is the garden between the two homes.  At first, Guillermo liked to be Luke, but now he likes to be Boba Fett most of the time, though the other day he was Jedi No. 2. Maya is always Princess Leia (though Guillermo calls her Lei-yo). These days, I'm usually R2D2. Guillermo says he likes R2D2 because he has a lot of weapons. Will is always Yoda. In fact, Guillermo rarely calls Will papa anymore. He calls him Yoda. "Hey Yoda, are you ready for dinner?" 

We were in Atlanta this weekend, visiting family. I bought Guillermo a Clone Wars coloring book for the car. Guillermo loved it and it kept him occupied for a good part of the trip (the rest of which, we kept him occupied with videos). I think he colored nearly ever picture as well. You could tell he was pleased because he wouldn't stop talking. "Yoda, what colors are the good guys' lightsabers?" "Yoda, what planet do the good guys live on?" "Yoda, why are there more bad guys than good guys?" "Mom, can I have another crayon, please?" On and on and on it went. 

Guillermo so badly wants to watch Star Wars. I think he is too young. We've convinced him that Will didn't see his first Star Wars movie until he was 8 years old, which may be the truth, Will doesn't really remember, and so Guillermo needs to wait until he is 8 years old, too (four years away). But if Will had his way, he'd let him watch right now. So, that leads me to my question. When is the appropriate age to show your kids Star Wars? And, the next question, in which order do you show your kids the Star Wars movies. In chronological order, 1-6, though I'm not sure where the Clone Wars fits in, or 4-6 and then 1-3? We've had a few friends weigh in on this? What do you think? As you can see, the viewing is expected to be a big production at our house. 

Super kids, super heroes

So the other day, when I posted about Guillermo driving me crazy, well, I take it all back, at least for a few days. 

We had a wonderful day yesterday and it proves that a little organization before the day starts can make such a huge difference. I used to spend a lot of time coming up with activities for Guillermo and Maya in case they started getting restless. I've neglected that lately because of a lot of other things going on in my life right now, but over the weekend I came up with some new ideas. At the top of the list was making kid-size superheroes. 

Armed with markers, yarn, felt in all different colors, colored pencils, glitter glue and regular glue and butcher paper given to us from a friend, we went to work. I traced their bodies (Guillermo giggled so much and Maya kept his laughter going by repeatedly asking "Does it tickle, Memo? Tickle, Memo?") and then let them fill in the rest, sort of. 

Guillermo created Star Man with a weapon belt, sort of like Batman's utility belt, and tattoos up and down his arms and stomach. One of Star Man's hands is filled with stars to give him extra power. The other hand can create fire. I think Star Man can also shoot a laser from his forehead. Watch Out!

Maya created Super Maya. By the time we started decorating Super Maya, she wasn't so interested, but she did add glitter glue to Super Maya's clothes, fingernails and one foot. she also picked out the color pink for Super Maya's tank top. Plus, she took a red stamp to Super Maya's face. Regardless, she was pleased with the end result, especially the hair. "Ponytails!" she squealed when they were finished.

My next project: Getting Guillermo to make up a story about Star Man. Will keeps tellling me to write a book. Maybe I can get Guillermo to do it for me. Then we'll all be rich, rich, rich!

Don't call it Taekwondo

Guillermo broke our hearts a few weeks ago when he told us he didn't want to play soccer this fall. At first he said he didn't want to play because his games would interfere with Spider Man on Saturday mornings.  Later, he said it was just too hard. We held our heads high, remembering he is only four and there are still plenty of years for him to train for World Cup 2022. 

But his decision comes at a particularly difficult time for me as a mom because he is driving me CRAZY. He is in preschool two full days a week and on the days that he is home, he only wants to play with friends. Unfortunately, the friends he played with last year are either in kindergarten or have moved or are in preschool more frequently than he is. When no one is around for him to play with, he gets cranky and uninterested in most of my suggestions. My solution was to find a few more scheduled activities to keep him busy during the week. 

He loves play fighting and somehow he and Will started watching Ninja videos. Instantly, we had a solution. Will took him on Saturday to check out a few martial arts schools. I thought Will would pick the gym that offers Ninjutsu because Guillermo insisted he wanted to learn Kung Fu. That gym, however, is 18 minutes away. A much closer one offers Taekwondo and Guillermo choose that one, which makes me only slightly frustrated because when I told him earlier in the week that we were going to sign him up for classes there, be burst into tears and said something about how he would never be my friend again. (Whatever dude, you told me that just yesterday and then five minutes later, you asked me to be R2D2 to your Boba Fett!)

They key, Will told me later, was not to let Guillermo know he is taking Taekwondo. We call it Ninjutsu, and so will all of you! So, starting next week, Guillermo will be taking Ninjutsu lessons at Taekwondo school, got it?