Kite Flying

I found miniature kites on sale at the grocery store this week and I got of the boys their own kite. It was quite windy yesterday after school, so we attempted to kite fly in our back yard. We were only moderately successful. The wind stopped gusting once we wanted it to, but the boys did get their kites to fly, just not as long as they would have liked.




Story on Luke:
Luke is a very intense little boy. He is also incredibly intelligent and creative; as a result, he can also be very emotional at times. Lately, he has become a Negative Nellie with a lot of things. He can have a great day, but if one bad thing happens (i.e. Ryan looks at him funny), he dwells on that and blocks out all of the good stuff. He has started asking Ryan several times a day, "Bro, are you my friend?" Ryan is rather tired of hearing and answering this question, so he doesn't always respond with a "yes." When this happens, Luke gets all sad and mopey. I've started to work with him some on his emotions and recognizing things that make him happy and sad. We end the day talking about 5 good things that have happened - sometimes it is hard for him and sometimes it is easy. I have also tried to help him funnel some of his feelings in a journal. So the the 2 of us went to Barnes and Noble last weekend and he picked out his very own journal so he can draw about his feelings. His first entry was about a boy at school poking him in the back and how that made him sad. His last entry was a picture with flowers and a bumble bee, because it makes him feel happy. Hopefully he can learn to work through his feelings and understand that it is ok to be sad sometimes but it is also important to remember and think about the good things during the day.

An example of his unique creativeness below: He found the box of toilet bowl cleaner that was sitting by the trash to go outside. He wanted to turn it into a backpack and become a robot. He asked for my help to take his karate belts to tie it to his back. Later, he created gloves out of old socks and taped buttons to his "gloves" and his shirt.


Story on Ryan:
Ryan is a very sensitive boy. He can get really sad about movies and stories, but he confuses being sad sometimes with being mad. We watched the movie My Dog Skip last week and he has cried several times since then when he thinks about the movie. The first day he cried he said he was so mad and started acting up. But once we talked about why he was mad, it become clear that he was actually sad because of the story in the movie (which is sad, the boy grows up and goes to college and the dog dies of old age). He is still our little performer and jokester. He loves to make people laugh and he is the first to recognize when somebody else is unhappy or needs some extra help.


I love my unique little boys - it would be boring if they were exactly the same.