Our Ethan...

Sometimes this kid makes me laugh and sometimes he makes me wanna pull my hair out. The other day a note got sent home from his teacher to all parents. During recess her whole class had been involved in a chant while two other kids were not getting along. She wanted us to talk with the children about bullying and that we do not encourage fighting or being rude to other kids. Stapled to this computer generated note was a hand written note that informed me, Mrs. Nelson, that Ethan had been the one to start the chant "fight, fight!" I read this note and didn't know what to say!?! I talked with Ethan about what him saying those things might say about his family and our home life. He didn't really get it. He didn't really see what was wrong, he didn't get into a fight, the kids were going to fight anyways... He went on and on. I explained that as a family we love each other and we never encourage each other to fight. He agreed, but I don't think he still got it, really. I told Ethan that I would discuss it with his father and we would determine his punishment after we talked. We decided to ground him from his bike and friends for a week, also an earlier bed time all week. He agreed it was a fair punishment. Although he would have loved his idea of no Wii for a week.... He hasn't played the Wii in a month... The next night was our ward Christmas party. We were waiting in line to see Santa and the kids were messing around with the other kids in line. Two brothers started pushing each other and what did my son do, with me right there? He started chanting "fight, fight!" I dragged that boy out so fast he didn't know what to do. We had a good little reminder talk about why he was grounded... That night as I was telling Chris about it, we both just stopped and laughed... What else can you do? The kids is a good kid, he is a kind kid, but he is also MY kid. I can't expect perfection when he came from ME? Can I? I laugh when I tell my friends what he did, I know he shouldn't have done it, but he did and we have talked with him about it, so now all I have left to do is laugh about it. He has never and will never see me laugh about it, but it is really kind of funny to me. The boy is just like his mother! He is a crack up, he is a lover and he is unpredictable.... I recently was notified that I passed my CRCM exam. It was exciting news so we went out to dinner that night to Applebees (it's close to the house and it was a school night!) Ethan decided he was going to have the kid's steak. When our food comes Ethan looks at his plate and goes, "what the heck do you call this?" I, thinking he might have forgotten what he ordered, told him it was the kids steak. He looks put out and says, "I guess I should have gotten the adult steak, this thing is so small!" I just started laughing, the boy is 7 and this 5 oz steak just wasn't big enough. He was about half way done and complaining that he was still hungry. Chris told him he still had half his steak left and Ethan looked at him and said, "Ya, I've only had two bites!" This boy cracks me up! He ended up eating Katelee's left over mac n cheese, so he was eventually fine! The kid is an eater, specially when he is going through a growth spurt, makes me grateful at times to only have one boy! Ethan got two "Cs" on his report card and the rest were B's. He has been working from an F in one of the subjects, so I'm fine with a C. Call me a bad parent, but we rejoiced when he got a D on his progress report and then rejoiced again when it got moved to a C. He is a smart kid, he just needs to get a little more focused... But once again, he is MY son and I can't expect him to stay too focused, I can't even do that and I'm getting pretty old and experienced! Ethan is not all that excited to have ANOTHER sister, but he isn't throwing a fit about it either. The day after we found out about the girl news, he said he had a dream he lived with Ammon, but that has been the only real negative thing he has said since. All I know is that Ethan will have three little sisters that will be grateful one day for a crazy older brother...