What a Day!

My sweet mother came down this week to help me clean the new rental house. She got here on Wednesdaymorning, but we had complications and we didn't make it over there Wednesday. We decided that we would get up early Thursday morning and tackle it.

Thursday morning started very early...too early! Hubby accidentally woke me up at 4:21 AM and I couldn't go back to sleep. I got up and started doing laundry which disturbed my mom. So, by 5:30, she and I were both up but Hubby and the baby were still asleep. We puttered around for a while and then when Hubby got up, I went and laid back down with Superman. I got up and Sam and I were going to head on over to the other house. Then 5 or 10 other things came up (feed us, feed the baby, change the baby, pack baby toys, pack cleaning supplies, etc.)

When we finally got ready to leave around noon, we loaded up the Jeep and backed out of the driveway. CRUNK, CLUNK, CRUNK, CLUNK I looked at my mom and asked her if it sounded right to her. We got out and looked - at a flat rear tire. I called Hubby who canceled a lunch appt. and came home and fixed it.

We loaded up again and as I was shutting the door, the rear passenger window fell down into the door. Now, my Jeep is not brand new, but it is a 2004. It shouldn't be doing all these things.

We decided to go ahead to the house and work anyway, so my poor mom had to ride with her hands bracing the window up. We had to have the baby in the rear facing car seat, so she had to ride back there and keep the wind off him.

We got to the house and it turned out that none of my cleaning products were what we needed. The kitchen has greasy build-up on the cabinets, and we needed a "de-greaser". I was armed with germ killers. I had all the Clorox and such that we could possibly use. We cloroxed all the light switches and the door knobs and decided to wait on the rest. We came home and started packing up china. Fourteen boxes later, we had the china cabinet completed unloaded!

Superman, Rosy, and I are all sick. We feel rotten, but we are going to church in the morning if at all possible. It's been a while since we were all in the same service and could worship together.

Sweet Moments

Most school days we take a small break around 10:30 or 11:00 to put Superman down for a nap. Rosy loves this time because she is usually the one who rocks him to sleep. She gets to go to the nursery and climb up in the big white rocker with him. We wrap them up in his special blanket that Mrs. Jana made for him. We turn our lullaby music on and they rock. She loves when he does "baby doll" things like taking a bottle or nap.

I know these days are fleeting - I wish that we could just double each day!

Best of Days

My Mommying Mentor who writes the Pigtails and Pacifiers blog had a great idea in one of her posts last week. She recently had a baby girl and now has three little girls aged three and under. Her pediatrician recommended that they make sure there's a "fun" time each day. Maybe something as small as dancing for 5 minutes a day would be enough.

The doctor's advice reminded me of one of my favorite things we've done in HomeSchool this year. We have kept a chart all year chronicling our favorite thing from each day. It hangs in the hallway between the kids bedrooms and I update it each week to showcase their accomplishments. It covers everything - our cooking lessons, science experiments, stories we've read, poetry lessons, art projects, good grades, and good behavior.

It also serves as a great countdown for us. We have a 170 day school year. The kids' bio mom and I split the year in half and each teach 85 days. We each choose our own holidays and stuff so that the school calendar fits our family calendars. Our schedule is pretty flexible, so it's hard to keep track of just when the school year will end. I hate to say it, but it is really exciting to me each time we finish a row on the poster because I know we are that much closer to being done for the year.

Crawl Videos

I finally managed to catch him crawling and not mugging for the camera. I have a dozen videos of Superman crawling half a step and noticing the camera. As soon as he notices it, he flops onto his heiney and starts grinning and waiting on the flash to go off. Rosy and I were on the love seat having Reading Class and Twinkle was on the back of the love seat. He was desperate to get to us.

This is a nearly averted disaster. I was so busy filming this cool side view of the crawl that I didn't notice what he was aiming for. Now, the cat toys have been relocated to higher ground. He actually screamed at me when I took them away.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Sleep has eluded me lately. Hubby and I are both night owls, but lately it has gotten out of control. During the work week, we usually go to bed around midnight On Friday nights, we are likely to stay up until 1 or 2 AM. This Friday night when we laid down at 2 AM, I wasn't sleepy. Then it was 3 AM and I wasn't sleepy. Then I remembered that I had to write a Math test for III to take on Monday. Then it was 4 AM and I still wasn't asleep. Finally I got up and wrote the test. I finally went to sleep at 6:30 AM Saturday morning. Thankfully, Superman is a late sleeper, so I got to sleep until 9:30 AM. I took a short nap Sat. afternoon, but I still couldn't sleep Saturday night. It was 2 AM before I dozed off. I feel like a baby whose schedule is off.

My mom says that she quit sleeping well in her early 40s. I'm not far from there. I'm hoping that this insomnia is just temporary. Of course, I am able to get a lot more done when I only sleep 3 hours a day. I am not a nicer person, but I do get lots done.

Vinegar and Salt

Hubby is off work today and is spending a little extra time with Superman. They were enjoying a snack of vinegar and salt potato chips!

Sorry about the continued sideways video. I'm really trying not to do it so much.

Mazurek...Missouri

Blended families are funny creations. Unless you belong in one, you can't imagine what it's like to co-ordinate your entire life with someone else's family. Dentist appts, PTA meetings, television guidelines, bedtimes, allergies, car seats, and everything else you can imagine are dealt with on a daily basis. And, then there are the biggies for us...insulin, home schooling, holidays, etc.

Here's a great story about living in a blended family.

Hubby and I are currently living in a small garden home that we rented when our house sold last year. It had been on the market for about 2 years, but when it sold we had very little time to pack up and move. We needed a house close to the church and reasonably close to where III was attending school last year. This house is small and we've never really been able to get all the way unpacked this year. There's just not enough room. Lots of our things are in a storage building that we have to visit several times each month to get things out that we need and to put other stuff back up.

Our lease is up in February, and so I looked for a bigger house. We found a house really similar to our old house in a neighborhood called Mazurek. It is a little farther from the church, but is much closer to the hospitals. (Hubby starts a lot of work days at the hospitals visiting folks or sitting with families during surgeries.) All of our stuff will fit in it, so we can give up our storage building.

I was on the phone with III and Rosy's Bio Mom the other night and mentioned that our lease is up in February and we will be moving to Mazurek. I assumed she would know where I was talking about because she and I had talked about that neighborhood before. She was very tired that night, and she thought I said that we were moving to Missouri. Talk about panic!!! There's nothing like thinking that the person you share custody of your children with is about to move to Missouri without really discussing it with you.

Of course, I immediately corrected that misunderstanding and we got a laugh out of it.

Orange You Glad...

Orange you glad this didn't happen at your house?

I was in the den playing with the baby and I heard Rosy bellowing for III from the hallway outside her room. I saw him go to her and heard her ask him to "take this to the trash for me, real quick." Of course, that piqued my curiosity. Then he saunters through the den calmly carrying a green and gray orange!!!

Now, the rest of the story...

I bribe our kids in school. We keep a giant bowl of candy with a sign on it that says, "A Sweet Treat for A Great Job". They are allowed one piece of candy for an A on a test or a quiz and two pieces for 100s. Rosy has Type 1 Diabetes, so candy that she can earn and then KNOWS that she is going to get to eat at lunch is a huge treat to her. III likes it because I let him take it to his room and snack while he studies.

Sometimes they end up with more candy than they can eat. Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Christmas always bring more candy. So, they each have a Halloween bag in that hallway between their rooms and we store surplus candy in it. Well, apparently Rosy had also stored the fruit from her Christmas stocking. I guess I should have noticed that it didn't go into the fridge, but we had other fruit in there and frankly, I'm just very busy this year. She was checking out her candy stash yesterday when she noticed the incredibly rotten orange.

I gave a mini-lecture to both the kids on fruit storage! (You other parents know how this sort of lecture sounds. "Have you ever seen me store fruit in the hallway?" "Aren't the other oranges in the fridge?" "Did you think this was a free range orange?") As I was winding done, III looked at me and said, "Well, I guess I'd better get the fruit out of my bag, too."

All in all, it was a good day, but I always recommend that you check on it when your kids are working on something and one says, "Take this to the trash for me, really quickly!"

Road Hog!

This is what it looks like when Superman is flying towards you in his walker! We think it's very cute. I know it's sideways. I'll try to get a better version later.

This is what he looks like when he is refusing to let me video his new crawling skill.

Injuries from the Walker

In yesterday's post, I blogged sarcastically about how "the experts" say that baby walkers cause injuries. Well, it turns out they are right! I always thought they meant that the baby would get hurt, but it turns out that the baby can now really hurt the rest of us.

Superman has raced over our toes and whapped our ankles so many times that we are considering investing in steel-toed boots for the whole family! He is a menace to our overall foot and leg health. He is relentless with that thing and will back us into corners and charge at us like a raging bull.

He's also got road rage. If that walker gets stuck or his toy falls off the little tray, he throws a fit. He has displayed more bad temper in the past 48 hours that in his entire life prior to that.

Mobility

Superman has attained mobility. He learned to crawl yesterday afternoon. He has been rocking, sliding, scooting, falling, stretching, crawling backwards and generally wallowing for weeks now. Yesterday afternoon he finally made forward progress!!! My mom says that she gave him a lesson on crawling and a pep talk before we left her house yesterday, so she is claiming that she is the reason he got it.

While we were at her house, we got a walker. I know that all the experts say not to let your child have a walker. I promise not to let him fall down the stairs in it. (We don't have any stairs.) I promise not to let him grab a burner on the stove. (They are about 2 feet taller than him.) Anyway, he can now scoot all over the kitchen, foyer, and school room area. This is the view from my desk chair as I try to type.

Now, he can get where he wants to be. There will be no peace for any of us. Poor Twinkle!

Jealousy

Rosy got a new small sized Baby Alive from Santa this year. It is a little boy. He is now the "twin" of the girl one she got last year. They are Samantha and Jake. She is really enjoying playing with them. Superman really likes Jake. He imitates him and likes to hold him. Today, Rosy let Superman have Jake in his high chair.

Not to be outdone, Twinkle found Samantha taking a nap by the couch and laid down with her. I guess Twinkle figured that if borrowing a doll was good enough for Superman, it was good enough for her.

Visitor Count

I am obsessed with my Visitor Count at the bottom of my blog. I noticed over the holidays that our friend Bro. Steve had a visitor count on his blog. I am very competitive, so I was immediately jealous of his visitor stats. Then I started to worry that maybe I don't have very many readers. Then I started to worry that I would never know how many readers I had. (Y'all do know that I'm obsessive-compulsive and little things like that can drive me crazy!) So, on the day after Christmas I installed a visitor counter on my blog.

Now I get a free weekly report that tells me how many visitors I've had and what times of day they are visiting and how long they are visiting. Of coursee, it does not tell me who is visiting. So, you are safe if you are one of the relatives who is "supposed" to be reading the blog. I'll never know if you are or not.

Do feel free however to visit the blog as many times as you want to each day. I get really excited when my visitor count is high for the day! I feel like I've really accomplished something. (That probably means I need to get out of the house more!)

And the Bombs Keep Coming

I forgot that blogs post the most recent thing that you write as the top thing on the blog. This post will only make sense if you read the post below it.

... Superman peed the bed. Not his bed, mind you, but my bed. Add more laundry to today's chore list.

... III reported to me that he thought we had skipped one of his Science lessons before Christmas break because he was missing some notes that he needed to study for a quiz. After checking the records, it turns out that he was assigned the lesson and that he checked it off on his daily assignment card. The computer shows no record of him doing it. He now remembers that he lied to his mom about that assignment and didn't actually do it. Of course, this is a major problem on a variety of fronts.

Please pray for us as we strive to thrive!

Under Attack!

This is my new desktop image for my computer.

Several weeks ago, my Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Mary, used Galatians 5:22 (Fruits of the Spirit) as an additional scripture to make a point in our lesson. Something about what she said really grabbed me.

I began thinking about how we rear our children. We often tell them the areas of their life that we think they need to improve. "Sit up straight." "Don't chew with your mouth open." "Pay attention." "Do your best." "Be diligent." "Did you study for this quiz?" "Why is there toothpaste in the sink?" We spend our time correcting their path. Well, who's doing this for us? Like Paul, we "have not attained." There's still a lot of work to do in most of us.

I can flick III if he's not paying attention during the sermon. But, who's going to flick me if I start drifting? If Rosy is rude to her brother, I can put her in timeout and make her apologize. If I talk badly about my brother (not that I do - he's a remarkably great guy), who's going to make me apologize. For most of us, the only voice speaking to us on these matters is the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, most of us aren't listening very well.

After Mrs. Mary talked about the Fruits of the Spirit, I started evaluating my life. Are the fruits (love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control) more abundant or less abundant than they were a year ago? two years ago? three years ago? I determined that I've been so busy improving the behavior of my children the last few years that I haven't allowed the Holy Spirit to improve my behavior.

This might would have been a passing notion with no real commitment, but the next week we unpacked our Christmas ornaments. A dear friend of ours passed away unexpectedly in January 2008. Each year she gave us Hallmark ornaments to celebrate Christmas. As I unpacked our ornaments, I found the ornament that Mrs. Mickey had given me last year. It was a gold pear that said "Fruits of the Spirit - Love, Joy, Peace". I was so amazed that God sent me the same scripture twice, and so I've chosen it for my 2009 verse. I can think of no better tribute to Mrs. Mickey than to improve my walk with the Lord and to be a better wife, mother, and servant to the Lord.

I say all this to let you know that I am under attack! School started this morning, and I knew this would be a terrible test of my new commitment to nurturing the Fruits in my life. Yep, Satan was ready for us. Hubby overslept! So, therefore, III started his computer lessons an hour late! III's printer no longer works! We've got a lot to do and we are already an hour behind!!!!! But, I did well with this first challenge. I prayed about it (and, now, I'm blogging it to release my frustration) and I didn't lose my cool with anybody.

Please pray for me as I work on my Fruits this year!

"Ammon-gator" face

This is Superman's big, "I'm overexcited!" grin. It is new. He has developed lots of expressions in the last week or so. This one is usually accompanied by flapping arms and "eh-eh-eh". Trust me, it's cute in person.

This is the "Ammon-gator" face.

When I was a little girl, I made a snorting face that we called "Ammon-gator" face. I'm thinking that probably meant "Alligator" face in baby talk. I don't know why a snorting face was an alligator face. I'll have to check with my mom on all this.

Last night, Superman was helping his Daddy do some research on the computer. Computer time involves Superman in his high chair pullled up right beside Daddy while Daddy works on his laptop. Hubby called me over to see a new thing that Superman was doing. I was very excited because Superman has started making my "Ammon-gator" face.

Maybe this is something that all babies do. If so, you can just ignore how excited I am about this. If not, it is really neat to me that something in him makes him do the same things I used to do. It amazes me how God has created us.

Family Resemblance

Hubby's oldest brother and his wife and 3 1/2 year old son visited with us last week. Hubby and his brother are half brothers on their Dad's side, but they look a great deal alike. They look and sound so much alike that Superman was confused when he first met Uncle Stephen. Hubby was not home from work yet, and Superman was taking a nap when Stephen, Terri, and Carson got to the house. When Superman woke up, he went to Aunt Terri for a minute then wanted to check out Uncle Stephen. He was very happy with his Uncle Stephen until his Daddy came home. He looked back and forth for a minute as if to ask how Daddy could be in two places at once. Carson had no trouble telling the guys apart, but he couldn't sort out why all the guys at our house are named the same thing.

Superman and his cousin Carson really favor one another. It's not as obvious in these pictures as it is in person, but I could really get a glimpse of what Superman is going to look like. Check out those eyes, mouth, and that blond hair sticking up!