Max asked if he could have friends at his birthday party this year. Especially since we might be moving this year we said yes. Tj wanted to invite all of his friends (from Church, Awana, Homeschool Co-op, the neighborhood, etc.), but I didn’t want us to be the ones stuck in the middle making conversation between several groups of friends. I suggested we just invite the neighborhood kids. Tj had suggested we go to the Fun Factory which is full of bouncy castles, but when I cut the list of kids down to the ones who live on our street he nixed that idea. We’ve sent out invites to Noah, Trinity, Austin, Aidan, and Jaxon. That seem like a good number to me I really didn’t want to try to make the kids play specific games. It took me a couple of days but then I figured we’d invite them over Saturday for lunch and let them make their own pizzas, and then decorate their own cake. Make them do the work. Ha!

We’ll see how well I pull it off.

He’s been ‘helping’ me with the dishes lately. I hand him the silverware and he names it and puts it in the right place in the drawer. I tell him whether they’re big spoons or little spoons and he often knows the difference. It’s so sweet to see the huge smile on his face at being a helper. If only kids always stayed so eager to please This morning he handed me each plate (which he calls ‘clate’) and bowl and I put them up. What a sweet time.

I often catch glimpses of how ‘not-of-my-world’ Jack is. I think all babies are like this, they’re just not usually still like this at 4 years old.

Tj and I bought ourselves a Vitamix blender for Christmas. The day it came in the only thing I had the ingredients for was carrot juice. Carrots and a splash of lemon juice. I like carrots, I figured I’d like that. And I had some ginger in the freezer, I’d heard about putting some of that in there, too. So I whipped it up and took a swig…blegh! The consistency was so dry, yucky! Jack came along and drank some and didn’t seem to have a problem with it. That’s what brought this to mind. I’m so full of 30-something years of preconceived notions/opinions/likes/dislikes…everything is seen through a filter. Jack’s filter is pretty clean

Dec 29th Tj, Jack and I were watching TV on the couch. J had his magnadoodle there and was drawing. He’s been recognizing his own name for a while now, several months at least. I decided on a whim to write ‘Max’ and tell him what that spelled. I drew it twice on the board and he seemed to understand it. A little while later I spelled it with magnets on the fridge and again he answered correctly. The next evening, almost 24 hours later, I spelled it on  a piece of paper and asked him what it was…and he said ‘Max’!!! I think he can read two words now! What a trooper

The other day I watched a video I made before Tj returned home…it was Jack putting on his shirt and shorts by himself. That’s convicted me to be better at making him do it himself. He has a few pants he can’t manage over his diaper by himself, and long-sleeve shirts can be tricky, but he does pretty well.

was our week in review. Turns out I got a full post today and it’s only 11:55am!! Let’s see…

I only slept 3 hours…I was worried about my big toe. A chair fell on it yesterday; it’s swollen and blue and extremely painful. The doc told me to just stick a nail file under the nail to let the blood out and it would relieve the pressure and pain…isn’t that his job???!!!
At 6:30am I got the courage to stick a needle under there. Turns out you have to do it more than once. Maybe with a file it would only be once, but I really don’t think I can do that.
At 7:20am I went upstairs and was met by Max coming out of their room saying Jack had poop all over his bed. It was liquid, and it was on Max’s too.
I put Jack in the tub and all bedding in the wash.
Jack pooped in the tub. It wasn’t solid.
While I showered (and bleached out the [separate] tub) Jack poured out a gallon of colored (uncooked) pasta on the kitchen floor. He then stepped on and broke half of them. I got these from Wendy to use as math manipulatives.
After telling him every handful to pick up and put in the bag he went into another room and threw a couple of handfuls of legos and little Christmas decorations on the floor. I made him clean those up, too.
An hour or so later he broke the delicate glass ornament Kelly made for us. As far as I know he hasn’t touched the tree since we put it up a week ago…I guess today was the day!
I started working on a pie for tonight’s party. After mixing the ingredients by hand so the powdered sugar wouldn’t fly up I got out the hand mixer; I think the gears are now stripped. I guess you shouldn’t use that on crunchy peanut butter? Second hand-mixer down this year!

I’m ready for lunch and a nap. And maybe public school.

Just walked into the living room to check on Jack and found him using his jump rope like a whip and whipping the tree! Three more ornaments on the floor including a glass ball, but nothing broken. Jump rope out of his reach. That’s why his hand wasn’t cut! Thank goodness.

Man, I’m not sure what I’ve done lately to make God angry, but I’d better figure it out soon! I haven’t been able to blog about this (or anything) cause my life is so crazy-hectic these days. More on that later. Now, the vacation tale:

Three weeks ago we went camping with our church. It’s an annual event (we missed the first one due to Jack’s breaking his leg the week before) and we’d been looking forward to it for a while. Max started coughing Thursday as we were packing the (rented) camper. I noticed him wheezing, too, but figured it would go away on its own. I’ve heard that in him before, but it usually never lasted more than a couple of hours, and was never accompanied by any other symptoms. We drove out to Petit Jean mountain and set up camp next to our real-life neighbors and started having lots of fun. I noticed Max was still breathing hard as we went to bed. The next morning I really wanted to check him out…I figured he’d be well rested. Oh, the night before he went to bed without a smore and without watching a movie Tj was setting up with his new projector. I figured something was up if he willingly missed those things. I could still hear a wheeze in his chest, and at breakfast I could see his shoulders move up and down with each breath. Not good. I called the AFB and a nurse called back; she said if we see that movement he needs to go to an ER. Really??!! I said his lips nor fingernails were blue and she told me those were late symptoms and we didn’t want to wait for those So we started packing up. The camper was an all-in-one unit. We weren’t in a hurry, though, I made sure Max got a smore before we left. I figured we might just go home if they kept us too long at the ER and I didn’t want him to miss out. Crystal said we could use their car so we wouldn’t have to pack up, but after our second-to-last ER trip I hated to take a chance on a quick visit.

While Max and I were in the ER Tj and Jack went to Wal-Mart across the street to beef up our supplies. Max got an x-ray and got to ride in the ‘green cadillac’ (a 70′s-green wheelchair). He got a breathing treatment and was sent home with an inhaler and some antibiotics; I was told he had bronchitis and his doctor should check for asthma. This being the first time something like this has brought him to the ER in his 6.5 years of living I don’t think he has asthma; Max’s doc agreed with me. Tj picked us up and we drove back to WM to drop off the prescription. I made sandwiches in the parking lot, LOL. All in all we were gone just a couple of hours. Not bad.

We got back to the campsite where more of our friends were unloading/setting up and we had a good story to tell. I was really surprised the stress we felt, Tj and I had a rough couple of days there. Fortunately we didn’t let it ruin our trip. We got back on track by Saturday. After that bump we had a good time; there were 28 other families from our church there. I think it was Saturday afternoon when I saw Jack playing by the back of the truck with our water bottles. All of a sudden I saw him start to shove one up our tailpipe! I called out ‘No, Jack’ a few times, each time getting more stern until I was yelling, but that son-of-a-gun just pushed it as far up there as he could reach! I was so stunned! Little punk! I spanked him for disobeying and Tj had to pull that bottle out with a pair of pliers.

All of the other campers left Sunday, we stayed till Monday. We packed up and were about ready to head out. Tj started the engine and wouldn’t you know it 2 more water bottles shot out of the tailpipe!!! I had looked up in there and not seen anything. I think that crazy kid is trying to kill us!

During that trip I (without realizing it) missed two pills in a row. I’m pretty sure that’s what caused most of my stress last week. I just kept feeling so awful emotionally. The kicker came Monday. Backstory: Jack has about the crappiest timeslot for therapy: 11:15-1:30 Monday and Wednesday. All the kids in daycare get the prime slots. [Seems to me they should get the crappy slots since they stay in one place all day...guess this is what I get for actually wanting to raise my own child. End childish rant.] I feed Jack ‘lunch’ at 10:30, and he goes down for a nap as soon as we get home around 1:45. This schedule is also making it harder for me to remember his lunch dose of benadryl. If I miss a dose his nose starts to run like crazy, but I can’t give him one at 10:30 because it’s too soon. The Wednesday before this the OT said she got a new kid and could she push J’s schedule forward 1/2 an hour (so he’d get done at 2pm instead of 1:30)? I had her number, would I please call her when I decided? End of backstory. Monday morning as I’m walking out the door to go to Homeschool Co-op the DT (who sees Jack first) called to confirm the schedule change. I said no, I’d decided to keep the crappy schedule instead of moving to a crappier schedule. 5 minutes later as I’m pulling into the church the OT calls to say, oh, well, really I’ve changed the schedule. If you want Jack to see me you’ll have to stay later. !! I was very calm, but I told her that Jack was the one she was hurting, and I was really annoyed that she presented it as an option and now that I’m driving and going into school she’s telling me the real story. I sounded so much better on the phone But really, I have no power in this situation.

We went on to Co-op, I was fine. I had to lead the Reading Fluency class that day I found out after I arrived, but it was no big deal. Then I found out J’s teachers gave him the nice looking banana I had packed for myself instead of the snack I’d put in his diaper bag, or the only ok-looking banana I’d meant to give him. Whatever. Then we drove to therapy. Jack ate the rest of his lunch in the truck spilling lots of crumbs on his belly. Then he proceeded to deliberately dump his water right into his lap. I pulled him out of the truck and he looked like he’d vomited all over himself. I didn’t even explain to the numerous parents walking by that he hadn’t. I went in to calmly talk to the therapists about the schedule change and tears started running down my face. I kept saying I’m annoyed about the schedule, but that’s not why I’m crying. Honest. Lovely. I hate crying in front of other people! It’s humiliating! But there was nothing I could do to stop. I cried till the tears stopped all the while trying to find a better solution to the schedule. Long and short: there’s not really anything better. Sigh. All that crying for nothing

Anyway, this week nothing has changed. We’re still on the new schedule, I still homeschool as much, led the Wed night Bible study, etc that I did last week. But this week I’m so much calmer. I can only surmise that it was all hormones from the missed pills. I don’t even kid myself that I’ve matured enough to handle life’s little crap piles with grace. Heh. Lesson: Don’t Miss a Pill!!

I have more to tell but I also have a poopy diaper awaiting me. Ciao.

it was not! I guess I was lulled by last year’s homecoming, but this year’s was much harder. I think last year was really easy…pretty smooth except for half of one day (sadly, it was Tj’s birthday!).

We planned well, but things never go as planned, do they? Tj really thought he was coming home on Saturday (the 17th), so he planned for us to drive to Branson (about 3.5 hours away) the following Thursday. Shortly before then they changed his return to Tuesday and said we should be at the base by 6:30am. Tj planned to inprocess that day, so we’d have all day Wednesday, and leave Thursday. It was tight, but doable. When it came down to it, he arrived Tuesday night at 9pm. We got home around 11pm. Tj got up early the next morning and went to work, but came home in time to have lunch with Max and me while Jack was at therapy. Thursday morning we packed and left for Branson at noon. So, that part of the homecoming was really tight, and then Tj hadn’t slept in a bed for 50-something hours before that, and had been halfway around the world when he did…he was super jet-lagged! I kept reminding myself of that every time we had a tiff, but it started to get old. I was also reminding myself that he hadn’t lived with a woman for 5 months (he was gone 9 days short of 5 months), hadn’t lived with kids, etc etc etc.

So, we had a pretty uneventful drive and found the hotel. We unpacked and called for a pizza. As soon as the delivery guy rang the doorbell Max started crying about his ear! In his six years every time he’s cried (I’d say 4 or so times) he’s had an ear infection. Tj was pretty put out, but left without eating and went to Walgreens to buy ear drops and Tylenol. He asked why we were traveling w/o children’s tylenol, but I’ve never brought it on a trip before unless the kids were using it at the time we started a trip…I’d just never thought of it! I guess I’ll put it on the list from now on!

After doping Max up, eating, and settling in Max slept all night. We spent the next day at Silver Dollar City. We didn’t bring in a stroller or a sippy cup…Jack is really growing up! He walked almost the whole time, and we all took our time and enjoyed being together. We probably got there around 10 and left around 4pm. In the middle of the night that night Jack woke up with a croupy cough. Tj took him into the steamy bathroom. After 10 mins or so he stuck his head out to see if that was enough and the fire alarm went off because of all the steam! We all went back to sleep after that. Another day at SDC, then Max threw a biiiiiiiiiig fit that night about his ear again. He hadn’t said another word about his ear for two days and a night…and then screaming. Tj gave him a spanking after I couldn’t calm him down. It’s rough having a sick kid in a motel! The next morning I took him to an urgent care and they said his ear was infected. He started antibiotics and hasn’t complained about it since.

For the rest of the nights in that hotel the boys and I slept fine, but Tj started getting sick and didn’t sleep well. Between the sickness and the jet lag it was a really rough homecoming, but by the time we drove back home we had it all pretty much worked out. I’m so glad to have him home!

Well, Jack has reverted to ‘Bax’ and there’s no persuading him. He’s done his business on the potty several times, but still doesn’t quite have the hang of it. The other day after he pooped on the toilet he asked for ‘na nee’. It took a couple of times for me to realize he wanted candy! I’m hoping he only asked because he knew he should get it. He’s never asked for it w/o pooping/peeing. We’ll see.

I was running myself ragged about homeschool. I was trying to fit so much in. I don’t think I have too many subjects, but I was really stressed about the amount we were getting done. I kept comparing Max to the other 1st graders in public school, and I think that’s the wrong way to do things. He’s not in public school, and that’s the way I like it. I shouldn’t be doing the same thing as them. Late Wednesday I finally started to think something was wrong, and Thursday I realized what I was doing. I decided to talk to the homeschooling moms that night at karate to get their opinion. When I told a seasoned homeschooler what subjects we were doing she said I’m doing more with Max than she is with her several older children. Then they told me since he’s such a voracious reader to go to the library and find books on subjects I think he needs (history, science, whatever) and have him read them, then get him to tell me what they said. Another idea was for him to use his ‘invention notebook’ to chronicle the books he’s reading with either me or him doing the writing. I really felt like a load was lifted. I had been waking up around 5am, and not having any free time, and just generally making myself miserable! I’m glad it was only a week, and now I’m back on track. Now I think we’ll do concentrated work when J’s in therapy/WeeCare and we’ll call that all the school we need! Yipee! The crazy thing is I knew all this before we got started. I guess I just got caught up in comparing, and feeling inadequate; I’m so glad I have a homeschool co-op as a resource!

I walked into his room this morning and the first word he said to me was ‘downstairs’!!! I told him we could go downstairs but he had to have a clean diaper first. Then he talked about ‘Max’ instead of ‘Bax’!!! Nice! Think I’ll start correcting him on that more consistently. He said it correctly several times this morning instead of the once per 2 months he usually does. When I was ready to go downstairs I had my hands full of clothes and diapers so I told him he’d have to come down by himself and he fussed at me. I couldn’t figure out what he was saying so I went to put up the things I had in my hands. I wrapped up his dirty diaper while at the foot of the stairs and told him to come down again and he said something I finally understood to be ‘come here’!!! I finished up with the diaper and came back and asked if that was what he was saying and then he yelled it at me! I laughed all the way up the stairs and tickled him. My boy is finally talking!!!

His ‘come here’ sometimes sounds like ‘much’, or something along those lines. Tough to figure out sometimes, but we’ll work with what we’ve got.

We started 1st grade the day after Labor Day, so last Tuesday. Jack’s schedule really has us tied down, so I’ve tried to use the hours he’s gone to our best homeschool advantage. We have HS Co-op for 2.25 hrs Monday morning, and drive straight from there to J’s therapy of 2.25 hours (J eats lunch at 10:30am). Tuesday and Thursday he has Wee-care for 3 hours, lunch is an hour, then Jennifer comes for ABA therapy for an hour. Wednesday the HIPPY chick comes for 20 minutes, then he goes to therapy for 2.25 hrs while Max and I go to the library. Friday Jennifer comes for 3 hours before lunch. I drew this up last week and filled in all the subjects I want to teach Max (reading, writing, math, Spanish, geography, music, Bible and art). I then filled in such things as grocery shopping, laundry, which days should be crock pot meals, etc. And most importantly for me, I wrote down what time we should walk out the door each day! Breakthrough! LOL I also figured out what time Max needed to be up to dress and make his bed and then to be down for breakfast. I got him an alarm clock and taught him how to use it, and wrote those two chores down with the completion time, and stuck that list up in his room. So far so good on that front! Every day this week he’s completed his chores before we’ve left. Yipee! I have time built in every day for him to play outside with his friends, though today was the first day I told him he couldn’t go into anyone’s house, he had to play outside. The weather took a turn for the better this week…it’s fall here! (At least for this week.)

But Max butted heads with me so hard the first time we had actual sit-down school on Tuesday. I stewed/fretted about it the rest of that day/night…and then decided I just had to lay down the law to him. I stopped lecturing him and told him he had to do the work, and moreover he had to do it with a good attitude. The next day was better in the same subject (math), but handwriting was a real pill today. I’m really working hard to figure out how to make hw a less tortuous subject. Even while I’m doing that I’m still requiring him to do his work cheerfully (as much as I can require it). The really exciting thing was that even when Rosetta Stone crapped out on me (though I’ve used it on this computer before now it’s not working…waiting for Tj’s help on this), Max and I had a wonderful time working on Spanish today! We worked on colors and numbers, and we had fun! I’m so excited, it’ll be so much fun when we can really converse. I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s passing me and my pitiful Spanish by! The other wonderful thing about homeschooling Max is his love of reading. He reminds me so much of myself when I was younger…he reads while walking to/from Jack’s appointments.

Today we had a milestone with Jack. He slipped off his chair and bit his lip and for the first time he told me where he was hurt! He sat on my lap holding his mouth and said over and over ‘mouf, mouf, mouf’! What a sweet sad little boy! A month or two ago I heard a big thump in the living room and ran in to find him crying, but I had no idea what had happened/where he’d hurt himself. The next day he had a lump on his head and that’s the only way I knew he’d hit his head the day before.

I’m trying to be somewhat consistent with him and the toilet. I put him on my toilet (as opposed to his portable one) tonight and poured water on his belly and he peed. I gave him two jelly beans, one for each time I saw him pee. I don’t think he gets it just yet.

Just a few minutes ago Jack ran into the bathroom, flushed the toilet (a no-no for him) and ran out. I guess he figured that even with Max at the neighbors (so it’s just Jack and me here) I wouldn’t ever figure out who it was! I did though