Easter

Looking Through the Easter Basket

    I had William this year for Easter. I wanted him to have fun with Easter this year and with the help of my wonderful fiancee, it was a lot of fun. She had the idea to have William follow clues to find his Easter basket. The night before we hid the eggs where they were supposed to be and waited for the morning. Each egg had a clue to find the next one. The last egg gave the location for the basket. Jen got to my house early. We were going to have breakfast and then have the Easter egg hunt. I was going to trigger the hunt by telling William to feed Lucky our dog. This would have started the chain to find the basket. William found the first egg early. I am not sure what prompted him to look in the dog food container but he found the first egg right before breakfast. We made him wait until after breakfast. He was so excited he couldn't wait. Needless to say I didn't have to tell him where the first egg was at. I am glad that he found that one first.

William with one of the toys

    The first egg clue came out and William read the clue. He didn't have to be told what to do he immediately thought about it and went to where the next egg was hidden. We had nine eggs hidden all over the house. He found every egg and was able to find them without help. I guess next time we will have to make them a little more challenging. William blazed through the clues and when he got to the last one that told him where the Easter basket was, he got stumped. I was a little surprised by this. He went to the correct room and looked around. He never got the idea to look inside the closet in his play room. He looked in toy boxes and under bags but never thought to look inside the closet. We finally had to give him some hits to get him to look inside the closet. He was very excited to see his basket and all of the toys and candy inside. It was exciting and fun for all of us. I spent some time with William making a small little Lego "X" wing fighter from Star Wars collection before helping with making dinner for Easter and Jen's mothers house. Dinner was great and William had two helpings of Jello with whipped cream on top. Jen's mom is great about buying gluten free food for William so he is not left out. For Desert she even bought him cupcakes from a local bakery. I am lucky to be part of such a thoughtful and loving family.

Happy Easter my son, I hope you had a great time,

Your Loving Dad

Field Trip

    It was time for William's second grade class to take a field trip. It is times like these that bring diabetes front and center. If a parent does not go then William and the other student with diabetes would not get go because none of the teachers have been trained to take care of them. William is in a state that does not require the school to have a school nurse or to train the teachers to take care of him. It really makes me wonder what would happen to my son if the school went into lock down and it lasted for a long time. I guess that is a blog that I have already written but it makes me wonder every time I have to take time off from work to go with the class on a field trip.

Isaac Cappon House

    The field trip was to the Cappon house and an early settler house in Holland. This house was build by the first Mayer of Holland, Isaac Cappon, after the great Holland fire in 1871. This fire burned most of Holland to the ground including Mr. Cappons house and his factory The Cappon and Bertsch Leather Company. This was the largest tannery operation in Michigan at the time. Mr. Cappon built this beautiful house to motive people to stay in Holland and rebuild. The inside of the house had all of the original furniture from when the house was constructed over one hundred years ago. Mr Cappon squeezed 16 children into this home. It is a big house but that would have still be tight. The granddaughter of  Mr. Cappon, Barbara Archer, lived there until the late 1970's. She donated the house to the city of Holland to keep as a museum. It was a real step back in time. The wood work and details were breath taking to see.

Here are some of the examples of what we saw:

Beautiful Wood Work

Wood Panels Going Up Stairs

Stair Case Banisters

Settler's House

    We also saw an early settlers house. This house was built in the 1840's. This was one of the few houses that survived the Holland fire. The family that lived here had five children. There are only two bedrooms. The upstairs bed room was very small and had no heat. I can not imagine having five children living in a house this small. It had no running water or electricity. The bed had ropes that the mattress was placed over. If you ever wondered where the saying "sleep tight" came from. This bed was the reason. The ropes were tightened often to keep the mattress supported. The kitchen was a single pot belly stove big enough for about two pots on top and was the second source of heating for the house. It makes me wonder what people will say in a hundred years from now about how we lived.

    William seemed to have a good time and asked a lot of really good questions. I was proud to see him jump in and be comfortable asking questions. Diabetes was quiet for this trip and we all had fun.

Here is to learning about the past,

Your Loving Dad 

Life This Week

    Here are some things that have happened the last few weeks. William made it to 100 days in school this year without getting kicked out of school once. We had to buy new pants for my ever growing boy. We had parent teacher conferences. We had a visit to Craig's Cruisers in Grand Rapids and we saw Zootopia yesterday. 

    100 days in school  for second grade. I was really hoping that we would make it to this point without William getting kicked out of school. He was very successful for two big reasons. The last time that he got in trouble for hitting someone I made him sit at home and write the sentence "I will not hit my friends" for the whole night. I think he wrote for about four hours and filled up every line on six pages of paper front and back. It must have gotten his attention because he did not hit anyone again. William has also started taking ADHD medication. I am not sure if this is helping but it surly isn't hurting anything at this point. He was very close to being kicked out of this school permanently.

    William is growing so fast right now. We had to go and buy him new pants last week because the pants that I got him for school this year are already too small to fit him. I had him try on different pants until we found pants that fit and pants that he also liked to wear. The new pants do not have the elastic band on the inside to make the waist tighter. They are actual big boy pants. He now has to wear a belt to keep his pants up. I could see when I told him that he got a great scene of pride from that knowledge. 

    I had my parent teacher conference on Wednesday with Williams teacher. She had nothing but good things to say about the progress William has made since Christmas. He sits still longer and seems to concentrate better. His test scores are better and he is making better friendships. I am glad to see him being successful with the things that he tries. 

    We have also finished a few more chapter books lately. William is starting to not like the time investment that it takes to read a book. We finished "The Good Dinosaur",   "The Bug Battle Book: The Lizard War", "Rick Brick and the Quest to Save Brickport", and "Night of the Living Worms". This week we moved on to "My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish: The SeaQuel". The books are fun but William really liked the book "Night of the Living Worms" he didn't wait for me to finish it.

    Life keeps ticking on. We are doing our best to have fun and be happy. William is a great son and I am glad that I am his father. 

I love you buddy,

Your Loving Dad