Later that same day.........

I've made some changes to the blog. Okay, one change -- the template color. I'm not completely happy with it but I needed a change and since I haven't figured out how to do a customized background I'm stuck with what they have available. I might decide to change it back tomorrow.......

This afternoon Philip and I walked the track up at the school for about 30 minutes. We went around 5 times before I told him we were done. Why did we do this? Because he has become a slug. He pokes along when we have to go some place unless he's acting goofy. Then he starts looking for places to sit down. He's been known to sit on the floor if there wasn't a bench or chair near by. He's 10! It's been bugging me for a while but this weekend when his grandparents were here they expressed concerns about how fit he was, or rather wasn't. Talked to James about it and decided that he needs to walk with me in the afternoons. So starting today, Monday, August 31 he was going to be walking for 30 minutes every single day.

He wasn't very happy about it when I told him at pick up. He was already in a snotty mood when he met me at Lindsay's classroom and then heard that we were going home to drop off the backpacks before going for a walk pushed him over into full blown brat mode towards his sister. We walked home, checked to make sure he had all his homework (he didn't but he ran back to the school to get it rather than freaking out about it), once he was back, off we headed. It was a good walk. He felt better about it before we even left the house and then we had a good talk while we walked. Not a lecture, not about his moodiness but just stuff. He didn't whine about having to walk and didn't make a fuss when we started our 5 lap. Lindsay played on the playground equipment and then with a little boy who was up at the school while his sister had soccer practice.

The walk seems to have helped with the attitude and his moodiness. He was nicer both in what he was saying and how he was saying it to both his sister and me. He did his homework, quickly and fairly neatly. It was nice to see. The only glitch came when he was not going to discuss his POW with me because "I'll just wait for Dad, or do it tomorrow in class." Ah, no. Lets look it over and see if you are on the right track. Why waste time? He pulled it out but you could tell he was just humoring me. He didn't think I would understand it, much less be able to discuss his thinking on the problem. The look on his face when he saw I could was priceless. He has the problem all worked out but was waiting to finish writing it up because he claims his teacher said not to do it all in one night or she would take it away and he'd have nothing to do for the next two days. The problem was pretty straight forward algebra which sounds weird when you are talking about math in the beginning part of 5th grade. I think she is trying to see who can do it or how far they can get with the problem rather than expecting everyone to get it. There are a couple of kids in that class who are not even going to know where to begin and a few like Philip who will have already figured it out. I think that is true in all three classes.