Determined

Mike was delighted to see that Matthew is "determined to learn how to play guitar"!

New Toy

 Matthew was cleared to go back to school and activities this week.  And just in time for spring, we made a new addition to their play equipment out back -- the monkey bars at the bottom (and the periscope in the middle).  Mattie really wanted the "bubble" at the top, too, but it wouldn't have fit on the playset and was very expensive besides.

Recovering

So far, Mattie's recovery from his tonsil removal is going pretty well.  He's gotten some energy back, so the challenge is keeping him from doing too much physical activity, and trying to keep him from being too bored with being at home all day!  He's been eating and sleeping well enough, but he's still on a pretty regular schedule of pain medicine (the downside of that is it includes nighttimes -- which means we aren't getting the best sleep in the world!  Oh well!)

He has been a super-good boy about it all, though.  He's great about taking his medicine (except sometimes in the middle of the night), and although he's a little bummed that he can't eat pretzels or jump on the trampoline, he's not complaining about it. (We've had a couple of gorgeous spring days, so the boys' friends have been over, and of course James wants to do the trampoline! The kids have been good about doing other stuff that Mattie can join in on, too.)

I don't remember too much about James's recovery, but I do remember him spiking a scary fever and also just not eating at all for something like three days.  Glad we didn't have a repeat of that!

Brave Boy

 Matthew had his tonsils out yesterday.  Unfortunately, he was scheduled for an afternoon surgery slot, so he had to go a long time without eating!  He was a super-good boy, though. The kids' waiting rooms had lots of things to do -- video games, foozball hockey, coloring -- which was good, because we were there for quite a while!

He brought Snowy (his snowflake pillow) with him, and Snowy went back into the OR with him. Mattie was very brave the whole time, and the procedure went well.

Afterwards, he had couple of popsicles and some apple juice.  He said he felt like he was famous because the nurses were being so nice to him.  :)

He was even feeling well enough on the way out for a stop at the gift shop.  He got a stuffed Scooby, and he and Scooby have been watching movies together on the couch today.

He had spaghetti for dinner last night (and breakfast this morning), and has been doing well about drinking sips of water and taking his medicine.  So, I think his throat is feeling a bit sore, but so far it has been manageable (and we've been staying on schedule with his meds -- we learned our lesson last time not to go too long between doses!)

Ninja Semantics

On Sunday, the coach said something to James along the lines of "You're fast, strong, and fearless."  James was on the rings, and he paused mid-swing and said, "I'm not fearless.  I'm just not fearful."  :)

And after Mattie was recovering from his fall, the other coach said, "We call that a ninja-ry!"  (Ninja injury, get it?)

Yellow Band

 (Scroll down for this to make sense -- there are three posts today!)

The boys did their test today for their yellow bands.  There were only four kids testing for yellow (the first level) -- the other kids were mostly older and trying for the higher levels.  The boys did great!  There were ten obstacles, and they had to pass eight of them to earn the band.  It was a competition-type scenario -- one person at a time, one chance (except for the warped wall, where they get three tries), and everyone watching.  Some of the challenges were completely new to them, so we thought they had a good chance, but it definitely wasn't a sure thing!

The first girl to go failed on the first obstacle (the quintuple steps), and didn't continue on.  (It's possible she somehow hurt herself, but I think she was just disappointed.  The kids were allowed to try all the challenges even if they'd failed previous ones.)  James and Matthew zoomed through that one.

The next one was getting up to the first rung on the warped wall.  Matthew did it (on the first try, if I remember correctly), but James just wasn't quite tall enough (although it was pretty fun to have the entire gym chanting "beat that wall!" for him.)

The other ones included climbing the cargo net, doing the "kids' body prop" on two cylinders, a balance beam, a rope swing, and the kids' cliff hanger.  Both of them passed all of them except the cliff hanger (and James could have done it if he'd just gotten his hand a little farther along -- he didn't realize he had to do that).  But they both passed and got their yellow bands!  Very exciting!  We are very proud of them!

(The other little girl testing with them looked younger -- maybe five? -- and she did really well for her age, but only cleared seven obstacles.)

These pictures are mostly from the practice beforehand.  Early on in the practice, Mattie's shoe came off on the Sonic Curve, and he fell and hit his back and head on the wood.  Ouch!  He got right back in there, though, and had a good time the rest of the practice.

ROC Redux

 We managed to leave the boys' winter coats at the Museum of Play last time when we were there, so we had to make another trip.  Too cold for the outside playground this time, but everyone had fun anyhow.

None of us were any good at Dance Dance Revolution (which I now want to call Pup Pup Boogie because of Paw Patrol), but there was a Japanese guy there who was amazing at it -- his feet were flying!

White Band

 The Ninja gym has just created a "band" system of challenges, along the lines of the different color belts that martial arts practitioners can earn.  Like drug dealers, they give you the first one for free.  :)  So on Saturday, all the kids got their white bands (wristbands).

One of the later levels is orange, so Matthew decided he wanted to do ninja training as well to earn his orange band.  :)  He seemed to have a really good time, which was nice to see!

Seasonal Confusion

Robin says, "Get out of here, snow, it's my turn now!"

First Lessons

 Matthew had his first guitar lesson on Thursday, and James went to his first ninja warrior class today.  Matthew was excited about what he'd learned, and James rocked the course and didn't want to leave the gym!  (They have kids' ninja classes on Saturday and Sunday, so we'll probably take him tomorrow unless the weather is too bad -- nature is playing an unfunny April Fools joke by possibly giving us 1-3 inches of snow tonight.)