Yellow Belt

So, Karate. Squeaker has been taking karate lessons since the beginning of the year. Some of our reasons for putting him in karate were to develop:

• strength (to sit in a chair for longer than 30 seconds)
• balance (to not fall out of said chair each time he sits down)
• discipline (to follow through with a task)
• attention (to follow directions)
• individuality (to do something that his brother is NOT)
• body awareness (to move where he intends to move without knocking stuff over)
• coordination (to move without falling over, period.)

We are now mid-March... 2.5 months into it, and the yellow belt testing was this evening.

The whole thing was about 45 min. They had to do a variety of things, including what you just saw above. In addition, there was a great deal of strikes, kicks, balancing, pushups, and kiai-ing. In the end, here is what I have learned:

• He is such a cutie patootie in his little karate uniform!
• He is a very hard worker when someone else is yelling at him!
• He does best in a 1:1 environment, no doubt.
• But, he CAN pull it together when he is having a hard time, with big tears running down his cheek, and finish up his task accurately.
• He has improved on overall balance, strength, and coordination.
• He still has trouble following auditory directions in a visually busy environment.
• He makes the funniest "mean" face.
• He makes his parents the proudest parents EVER!

It was quite a site to see this 4 year old with two older boys (perhaps 9 and 11) and an older girl (perhaps 7) all lined up doing the same thing. He did a fantastic job, better than I ever could have imagined and I hope he knows what a great job he did. Something tells me he does:

Constructing...

I can't believe it is the middle of March. And ohmygosh, we have to start on our taxes! I think last year we already had our refund/payment whatever it was (I am blocking it from my mind)... by now. Yikes. So, March. March is a long month. No holidays, no 3-day weekends. It is full of work and school and general life activities. And, to add to that, we have have been 'constructing' at our house.

Our Home
We are still working on the front yard, slowly but surely. I promise to put in a FINAL PRODUCT picture as soon as it is done. Hopefully by the end of the month? End of April? It is hard when I work on Saturdays and we have t-ball, CCD, and other activities on weekends.

Our Jobs
My business partner and I have been working hard getting our business off the ground... We are quite excited but are trying to stay on top our all the paperwork, and forms, and fees, etc. That takes up most if not all, of my free time these days. My latest project... building our website.

Our Family
We are busy trying to instill some good values in our kids... it would be nice to see something other than constant "battles" going on at our house that involve some sort of weapon (light saber, cutlass, or machine gun). SOOO, we have been talking a lot about the Easter season and what it means to 'give things up' and why we try to be good and all that. I shared with the boys that I gave up chocolate (oh boy, difficult!) and asked if they thought they could give something up for 40 days, too. Squeaker gave it some thought and then declared he'd be giving up, and I quote, "climbing up walls with rope". Little Man gave it more thought and suggested he could give up helping his brother with his chores since he didn't like to do it anyway. Um, I think he missed the point too. Maybe I did not do a very good job at explaining the Easter season. So, after a few more discussions, and a couple of days into Lent, he went between giving up dessert and giving up Legos. Legos finally won and we are sticking with it. We are about 4 days in and so far only 1 reminder that he probably should choose another toy because of his promise to give up legos. No fussing, but he suggested that perhaps he'd like to change back to dessert... Um, sorry kid, stick it out! :)