PB&J and Pee

Miles favorite food is a pea-ut-butter-jewwy-samWICH.  He'll often wake me at 6:30 demanding that I make him one.  Yesterday he was asking for one as I was just leaving to take the kids to school.  Its 20 minutes over to Wylie in the mornings and school starts at 7:30 so we have to hustle.  I told him he'd have to wait and he started shouting, "no...nO...NO...NOOO!!!!"  But I left anyway.  And then he cried for 40 minutes straight.  He was so offended that I would just leave him pb&j-less that there was no calming him down until I made it back and could do it myself.

Also, you might notice that he is eating his sandwich with a special pal--his PowerFUL Ranger.

Also...speaking of pee...Its that time.  Day three of no diapers.  Not one accident today!  We're still putting on pull-ups at night.  Not trying to rush that.  I have enough loads of laundry to do as it is.  Wish us luck!

Six Weeks

There are 6 six-week periods that make up the school year for my kids.  At the ends of each 6 weeks there is a little awards ceremony.  Grades K & 1 don't receive letter grades but kids can get awards for attendance, being on time ("Never Later Gator"), for working extra hard in class, or for one of the "character counts" awards.  Grace and Andre are absolutely sick to their stomachs if they are ever late or have to miss a day of school.  So, they have always had awards.  They have also been chosen through out the year for their good character qualities, hard work, and in Grace's case, her grades.  She has always at least received "All 'A' Honor Roll" or often the coveted "Principal's Award" which is reserved for children with grades above 95% in all subjects (not average, but ALL).  I make it to these assemblies, always at 7:30am on Friday mornings, but am usually somewhat disheveled with the babes and don't have a camera--so I just snap a few terrible shots on my phone so the kids know I see them and am proud of them.

The week I pulled Addie out of school there was just such an assembly. And I actually did bring a camera.  I was worried about how Addie might feel coming to the school with me, but she was happy as can be.  We had already missed the second grade portion and she had  been the only one in her class to receive Principal's Award.  The Principal, whom I really love, saved the certificate for her and gave it to her in the office along with a big hug, a congratulations, and a few tears that Addie was no longer attending the school.  Sweet, right?   Addie was very happy and her role as sole big-sister in the house for the majority of the day with some responsibilities for caring for the babies has really given her a lot of confidence.

Andre received the award from his class for being Trustworthy.  I think he could have won the character counts every time--but they gotta let other kids have a turn, right?

 Grace received the Principal's Award.  Ms. Blaha is the teacher handing her the award.  Grace ADORES her teacher.  She is truly wonderful and loved by all of the kids.  Next year will be difficult even if she has a great teacher because there just doesn't seem to be many Ms. Blaha's around (oh, and I thought the kids were joking when they first told me her name is pronounced "Blah-Hah". But it is.

I know this sounds like a lot of bragging, but I am so proud of my children and the effort they make in school to always do their very best work, to be obedient, and for being good friends to the children around them.  And even though they may sometimes save their best behavior for school and then have to let loose to back talk a bit or fight with their siblings at home, they really do love each other!

The Arboretum

I wrote this post in October and somehow it never got published.














Before Deedle's baptism we went with Allison, Olivia, and Josie to the Arboretum. I took lots of photos and chose one for a baptism announcement. I must share a few of the other photos. Or maybe more than a few. Maybe several.

The arboretum is so super cool. We could have spent all day there. I could hardly get a photo of Finn's face, he was so busy. It is amazing!

This Girl

Its funny that I haven't spent much of any time blogging about this girl lately.  Its strange that I haven't because I am with her all day every day.  I have done some blogging in the past about a few of the issues Addie faces.  Maybe I haven't talked so much about her "issues".  I think I've talked about her behavior.  Very angry.  Socially very young.  She would often fight with Miles and the way they would talk to each other was as if they were the same age--though she was 8 and he not even 3.  Lots of sadness and unjust-ness came from Addie.  And then around Christmas time I felt like we really started to find some answers.  We started to figure out what her "issues" actually were and some new tools to help deal with those things and help improve her behavior and overall feelings about daily life.   I felt things were beginning to improve.  However she seemed extremely emotionally vulnerable and sometimes when people are like that then mean people seem to feel it and gravitate towards that vulnerability.  Some things were happening with kids at school that were really bothering me.

Then in March, Jason and I came back from the his work trip to Cancun.  Jason's mom had been babysitting and wrote down all that Addie had told her after a particularly bad day at school.   It was a Sunday night and Addie begged not to go to school the next day.  S I told her she could stay home and then...I didn't send her back.  We hadn't even discussed Homeschooling her and then, suddenly, there was the answer right in front of my face.

I love having Addie by my side.  It brings me so much peace.  She is learning a lot with out tons of direction.  With only a few months left in the school year, I didn't go crazy with setting up a big curriculum.  We're focusing on reading, writing, and Math.  I keep waiting to feel so overwhelmed by it.  But then I don't.  She is by my side and safe and that makes me so happy.  I am overwhelmed by a lot of other things, of course, but having Addie home with me eases my anxiety rather than adding to it.  I do not know what the future holds and sometimes THAT gives me anxiety.  We do have her registered, along with Grace and Andre, to start at our new local elementary school next fall.  I've visited the school and spoke with the principal.  A bus will come pick the kids up at my front door!  I think that she will go to school in the Fall and that everything will be normal and fine.  But maybe not.  Maybe I'll have to truly figure out this home school thing rather than just "winging it" as I feel I've done these last couple of months.  But I'm not even going to think about it because right now I am happy with the decision.  Thinking about homeschooling beyond the rest of this year scares me.

But back to this girl.  She is doing very well.  I don't know if others around us recognize it.  But she is happier.  I see it every day.

A few more little things...

I just found these little notes I'd written down from Miles a couple of months ago.  His speech has already changed so much!

Me: "Hey Miles, come snuggle with me."
Miles: "Just a second.  I forgot my gun."

Miles:  "Dad, you forgot to change my diaper."
J: "I forgot? Do you need it changed?"
M:  "Yeah, you forgot."
J: "I think Mom forgot." (trying to pawn it off on me)
M:  "No.  You forgot...Every time you change my diaper, I going give you something special."

Reading one of Andre's Star Wars books:  "Here's Manakin.  Here's Darth Gator.  Here's C-3per."

Lunchtime Miles: "These peaches are deWISHous. I have guinea and meatballs? (spaghetios and meatballs)"

Miles

Miles is growing like a weed.  In just the past two months he has grown at least a couple of inches taller and is fitting into his head quite nicely.  Intellectually he has really taken off.  He loves to learn things--his ABCs, counting, singing songs, reciting phone numbers, and spelling several of family members.  His patterns have really become so mature.  He amazes me every day.  Here are a few of the funny things he's said recently:

While getting into bed and being interrupted by one of his siblings:  "What's your pwoblem?  I'm trying to take a nap!"
While doing his hopping/running after picking up the kids from school, "Get inside!  Quick!  I don't want the tornado to die us!"

After asking me to turn on some "wok n whoa" on Pandora, "Are you ready to rock?  Let's do this!"

Upon discovering that Lila has woken from her nap, "Mommy!!!  Cute Little Angel is crying!"

After Addie began complaining about Grace playing on her phone and Andre playing on his Gameboy in the car, "I not have nothing either.  I not have leapster even.  My leapster is all broken."

And then just a week later, he's adding all kinds of phrases:
"I think I have to take these shoes off now.  Because there is some blood right here. I'll take my shoes off now.  I can put them back on later."

He's super cool about getting his photo taken.  He wasn't mad in these photos.  He just wanted to make this face and these fists when Addie told him she was going to snap the shot.

All of this growing up has not been easy.  I have allowed him to keep a bottle for much longer than I did his siblings.  I always had an excuse--too much change!  That, and because I was lazy.  All I had to do was get him his 3 B's--blanket, bunny, and bottle--put him in his bed and he would go to sleep himself sans complaint.  When we decided to move we knew we wanted bunkbeds for the boys room.  So, we talked to him about it and we sold his crib on Craig's list for enough money to buy bunkbeds from the same site.  I knew that and moving would be tons of change to deal with so I wasn't eager to get rid of his bottle just yet. He only drank water from it at night and he never slept with it in his mouth.  I saw no harm.  Alas, his father one day put his foot down and said, "NO MORE."  Thus is was said.  And thus it is written.  And all this change has been kinda hard for the little fella.  Two Sundays ago he began to cry as we were searching for Sunday shoes at the new house.
"I want to go home!"  He cried.
"I'm sorry sweet boy,"  I tried to soothe.  "We ARE home."  Through out the next week, almost every time we left the house he'd ask, "Are we going to the new house?"  Luckily he soon only wanted to go to the new house.  I think it was a good idea we had him with us all day on the last Saturday of cleaning out the rental house and getting it sparkly clean.  He was able to see that none of our belongings were there and said, as we left, "I want to always stay at the new house."  So...that was good.   But now he's here and he has a big boy bed and we're trying to encourage him to use a little potty rather than his diapers and he is no longer allowed to drink from a bottle.  We've tried a sippy cup but it has only frustrated him.  So, now, each nap time and night he asks me,
"Will you way (lay) by me?" and I do.  I read him some stories and tickle his back and try to get him comfortable in his new surroundings.
Last night he suddenly grabbed my face and asked, "Where's my cwib?"
"We sold it."
"What?"
"Remember we gave it to another Mommy so she could have it for her baby and we got you your BUNK BED!"
"Yeah...I want my cwib.  I want my bottle milk.  And my cwib!"  At that he scrunched up his eyes and pounded down his fist.  "And you took my CWIB!  You TOOK IT AWAY FROM ME!"
"I'm sorry buddy.  Remember how you get to be a big boy now?  You get to be here in this awesome bunk bed!  Its so cool."
His lip began to quiver and I saw tears forming in his big blue eyes. "No.  I don't want to be bigger.  I'm still small."
"Its okay, sweet heart.  Its good to get bigger.  You're such a big strong boy!"
"No," tears welling up now. "I want to be a baby."  And a soft sob escaped from his throat.  I hold him tight and say, "Its hard to be growing bigger.  You can't have a bottle and crib, but I can still rock you.  Would you like that?"
"Yeahhh...." he rubbed his little fist into his right eye.
"Here, see?  This is how I used to hold you.  And we rock back and forth like this.  Is that nice?"  He snuggles his face into the soft space between my chest and armpit and we rock and rock until my sweet baby boy falls to sleep.

Oh...and on top of it all, he had to have his finger poked at his 3 year well-child visit.

A Little More

This street has the same name as our subdivision.  It is what drew me here and soothed me last summer when we broke all kinds of records for number of days over 100 degrees.  I feel happy every time I drive on this street.

Sisters are asking for photos.  Here is the first before and after.  I don't know that it looks much different in the photo, but this exterior change of painting all of the trim (including siding, garage, dormers, all trim, front door, and shutters) was my one big wish on my list before moving in.  When the previous owner bought the house to flip it, he did some things really well (the wood floors downstairs are beautiful, the carpet is really high quality and soft, the counters and appliances are so nice). He also did somethings not well--obviously just cutting corners to get it to look decent and sell but not caring enough to spend the money to do it right.  He had the house painted but the paint was really a yellowish color (doesn't look like that so much in the photos).  They'd painted right over rotted boards, had oversprayed onto the bricks, and much of it, especially on the shutters, was already chipping off.  I'm very happy we decided to have this done.

BEFORE:

AFTER: