Saturday, May 23, 2015

Happy Birthday Claire

We took the kids to Super Bounce this afternoon. It's basically a building full of bounce houses. The rule is that kids must wear socks while playing, no shoes or bare feet allowed. Judah refused to keep his socks on. He kept ripping them off his feet & throwing them. He raced away many times, trying to get through kids and up the gigantic slide.. he made it up once.. then slid down all of the 1000 steps he had just climbed to get up there.. then made it up again and tried to go down the slide with Willow (must be one kid at a time). She raced to the huge slide on the other side and flew down before he even realized she was gone.

Poor kid. He's been there many times and we've never had a problem. They go, they jump, they get worn out.. we leave. Today he was set on being barefoot though. He typically wants to be either barefoot or with shoes & socks on... but not just socks. However, wearing socks with no shoes has never been a problem for him there.. until today.

The owner came out pretty quickly (we'd been there MAYBE 10 minutes) and told us Judah could keep his socks off if that was going to keep him calm. I let go of Judah. I had been holding him on the floor, trying to help him calm down. At one point I couldn't hold him any longer and Scott held him. Thankfully the other 2 kids didn't go far!! Judah was punching me and slamming his arm on top of my head repeatedly as I held him down. People were staring. When Judah would get away from me, parents would grab their kids if Judah was close by.

The owner had asked me if Judah was "special needs" when he was letting me know that Judah could keep his socks off. Would my answer to his question have really mattered? What was he going to say if I said that he wasn't special needs? "Sorry, he isn't allowed to behave this way if he doesn't have a diagnosis.. sorry, only special needs kids can have a meltdown here..." ??

Judah raced off and climbed up their gigantic slide in his bare feet the minute I set him free. That's when the owner told us that we had to leave. Climbing up the slide is not allowed. Climbing up the slide is not possible anyway.. or so we had thought. I've never seen a kid make it up that thing. I've never seen a kid make it HALFWAY up that thing. It took Judah about 10 seconds to make it to the top. Judah continued to run up the slide until Scott could catch him. He ran up it at least 3 times. Scott knew he wasn't going to be able to run up the slide. All he could do was wait at the bottom for Judah to come back down and try to catch him before he headed back up the slide.

Super Bounce had bounced us out.

In the van, Willow was crying. Sebastian was complaining that we were only there for a few minutes and that he didn't get to do anything. Scott and I were pretty much speechless in the front seat.. I was holding back tears. Scott grabbed my hand and then the tears came. The kids didn't see.

From there, of course, we had to do something super special.. we drove through McDonald's for ice cream, went home to pick up Sebastian's bike and Willow's basketball and headed to the park. We all had a nice jog at the park, chasing Sebastian down forest trails as he raced off on his bike. I pushed Willow in the swing for quite some time. That girl could swing for hours (the boys went through this stage as well). We ran into one of Sebastian's best friends from school. His friend was playing tennis with his dad & siblings. I got their number, so we can hopefully have a play date soon. Then we played basketball. Judah & Willow each threw the ball straight up in the air and then chased it as it rolled away... and then fought over it. Judah was doing well taking turns.. Willow, not so much.

Willow has a princess basketball. She seems to like basketball and is already learning to dribble at the age of 3. I've also taught her how to fold clothes, wash & put away dishes. Sebastian is learning how to do his own laundry and has recently learned how to clean toilets, clean up dog poop & sweep. :) Judah is now able to put on his own socks and shoes. He's also learned to build train track (and does it well!). He hardly ever screams "Mom-meeee!!" for help with toys anymore. He's learned to wipe down the table, fill Pixie's water & food bowl & put his dishes in the sink after eating (he does this better than anyone). It's tough keeping them motivated to do chores. Willow is the only one who remembers her chore. She never refuses to do it (the boys often refuse). Willow usually asks for more chores in addition to her daily chore. They all have a daily chore, which changes daily.

There was a 6 year old having a birthday party while we were at Super Bounce. Happy Birthday Claire. I hope Judah didn't steal your turn on the slide.

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