Prebble Family Tales

Those loose teeth are both out, the second one having been yanked by Brandy yesterday after walking Gareth home from school. Gareth, for whatever reason, refused to put it out for the tooth fairy, deciding instead to hoard it and forgo the customary $1 exchange. Instead, it now resides within one of the compartments of his voice activated R2-D2. Or, as I so wittily dubbed it, RTooth-DTooth.

If I’ve mentioned it before, forgive me, but Gareth is obsessed with Wii Sports Baseball. We usually let him play one round if his homework (yes, his kindergarten homework) is done and he hasn’t been obnoxious at school or at bedtime. While he needs a little help batting, he handles pitching pretty well by himself. Interestingly, he tends to score more runs when playing with me than he does with Brandy’s assistance. That may explain why he prefers to play with me.

Speaking of school, things continue to go well. Gareth’s teacher re-arranged the seating chart so that girls are less attached to Gareth, but then the cycle just begins again with whoever is sitting closest. Gare currently has two lady friends, one of whom lives on our street. His ability to be an excellent listener is going to serve him well in his teen and adult years, though I’m not allowed to talk about that kind of stuff since it creeps Brandy out just a little bit.

We have a meeting with Gare’s support team the second week of October to discuss how things are going and what changes/adaptations still need to be made. My #1 item would be that the wheelchair lift in the cafeteria/gym/auditorium still isn’t finished, which means Gareth has to be taken outside and around the building in order to traverse floors. My #2 item would be that Gareth should be allowed to have private time in the cubby corner with one of his girlfriends as a reward for consistent classroom participation. Oops, I went and creeped out Brandy again.

Our entire family (including the cats) have been sneezing and coughing the last few days. We’ve been generally miserable and mostly not fun to be around, but that didn’t stop us from heading out to the corn maze on Sunday for some time on hay rides, navigating the maze, getting grossly intimate with livestock, buying gourds, and feasting on overly greasy funnel cakes.

Things continue to go well for Gareth at school. He has a cadre of friends now, all female. The boy has always been a player, so this is no surprise. I’m sure he learns stuff at school, too, but mostly, he seems to be going to enjoy female companionship. Go get ‘em, tiger.

There are now two more loose teeth in that noggin of his. He won’t let anybody yank them, preferring to do that himself. We try to sneak our fingers in there when possible, but Gareth has a lot of neck strength these days and can very effectively swing his head away from us.

If you’re a regular 95.3 3WZ listener (or spend too much time tuned to Comcast channel 4), you might just hear an advertisement for the United Way that mentions Gareth by name several times. It is a radio off-shoot of the United Way promotional video mentioned in an earlier entry.

I haven’t heard it yet, but Brandy and Gareth heard it this morning. Both were pretty surprised since we had no idea Gareth was going to be used outside of the video promotion. Always read the fine print.

Today marked one of those milestone moments. Our dear child started kindergarten, which officially closes Book One of the Gareth chronicles (not that such chronicles exist, but if they did, this would close the first volume).

After five and a half years of absolute devotion, Brandy’s cumulative motherhood was rewarded in the form of a high five since Gareth refused to engage in hugs and kisses while on school grounds. He has now officially grown too old for that kid stuff.

As I’m typing this before Gareth has returned home, I don’t know how his first day went, but I’m confident that he’s enjoying himself. Just as I’m confident that Brandy, while proud of her progeny, spent the day juggling emotions ranging from terror to pride to loneliness.

I’m personally very proud of both of them: of Gareth for persevering even when everybody else talks, eats, moves, walks, and plays differently than him; of Brandy for being his most ardent teacher and advocate all these years. Without her, Gareth would not be enjoying this day as much as he surely is.