A well-visit, a conference, a confession...oh my!

Michael had his 3 year old well visit yesterday. We saw our favorite doctor again. The one who patted me on the back as I sobbed in her office 3 years ago when she told me Michael was failing to thrive on my breast milk. The one who supported my desire to nurse anyway. The one who is kind and reasonable and non-judgemental. You know, that one. She chucked as she looked at his chart and said, "Well, my failure-to-thrive baby is 75th percentile for weight and 90th for height!"

He was still a little traumatized by the whole popcorn up the nose incident and struggled to let her look in his mouth and ears. But overall he was a good boy. He has a plantar's wart on his toe that is gross. He still has speech issues. But he is a sweet, healthy little guy.

When Jeff got home from work Michael told him, "I go to dock-er. I get a SHA! I so sceer." (I go to doctor. I got a shot. I so scared.) He's really having little conversations with us now. Yesterday he called me over to his train set and handed me a fire engine freight car that he got for his birthday. He told me, "Dis train too loud for dis roo. Take it away, it annoy me." (this train is too loud for this room. take it away, it annoys me).

He's also adding more and more endings on his words. Okay, so he's putting /s/ on the end. But with plurals, that equals a lot of words. We're now 3 1/2 weeks past his IEP meeting, and I still haven't been contacted by his new speech therapist. I've been e-mailing and calling my one and only contact at the IU, and she has not responded even once. I'm a little peeved, to say the least.


Today I had a conference with Lily's teachers. Just a routine one, no major issues. As expected, she is fabulous and helpful and agreeable and will do anything they ask her. They showed me a cirle that she cut out, despite the fact that when we try to cut together, she gets frustrated and refuses to open and shut the scissors. The said she balances on one foot quite well. My child? She can barely balance on TWO feet at our house. Whatev'. We'll love her anyway...she's got to impress at school.

I am frequently overwhelmed by what a good friend she is lately, though. We had our neighbor over Tuesday afternoon, and they came inside after getting scared by a bee. Lily turned to her friend and said, "I know! Let's go...no, wait, what do YOU want to do next, Ali?" What 4 year old is that considerate? There are teenagers that don't think to ask their friends what they want to do next. Heck, adults don't always do it. Sweet little thing.


Finally, it feels like around the blogs I read I've given a few confessions lately. Like bad parenting moment confessions (isn't that what this blog is for?) and sugar addiction confessions. We all know I have bad parenting issues...but I am starting to get quite worried about my sugar addiction. Last month I was actually buying bags of those chocolate eggs and then hiding them and eating the whole bag in a day or 2. And then I'd just think about the next shopping trip where I could buy them again. And if I didn't have anything in the house, I'd be stealing kids' fruit snacks...which I don't even like. It's sad and disgusting and it's time to stop. So May 1st, I'm having an intervention. Like Lent...except just for me. I'm prepared for headaches and sleepiness and general crabbiness. Sounds like a great blogging week, for sure. ;)

Easter

We decorated eggs.

We filled baskets and plastic eggs.

We ate lots and lots of candy. At 6:30 am.

We wore winter pajamas...because it was that cold the night before. Nothing like Christmas pj's in your Easter shots.

We helped each other find eggs and were not greedy or pushy.

Our dog stayed out of the mess of jelly beans and chocolate strewn about the floor. Good dog. (also, Michael is not collapsed in a sugar coma here...he's just driving around his new cars that came in some of the eggs...)

We took dorky photos showcasing our loot.

We are apparently confused about which direction the camera is in .

We could not stop playing and frantically eating candy to look at the camera. Who knew when this blatant breaking of the rules would be stopped!?! Enjoy it while it lasts!

We finally went outside to find the eggs that the Easter bunny hid. At our house, Mommy and Daddy want to share in the fun of hiding...so we hide the plastic eggs with treats inside the house. The Easter Bunny takes the hard boiled eggs outside and hides them. Luckily the rain stopped in time.

These photos are courtesy of Jeff, who was chasing Michael around, holding his carton of found eggs and taking pictures at the same time. Impressive.

When we came inside from the second egg hunt, I turned on the oven to cook our egg souffle. The clock read 7:06. It was a whirlwind morning. And so fun. Until Lily became a sugar monster and threw an enormous temper tantrum because I wouldn't let her hold a packet of M&Ms while she pooped on the toilet.

The kids happily played all day, Jeff did yard work, I cleaned the house and cooked a bit. Then we had some people over for dinner who also live far from family (she is from Washington state and he is from Slovakia!). Jeff had never met them although I am friends with the woman. We had a lovely meal, with traditional Slovakian Easter food as an appetizer, good conversation, and moderately well-behaved children.

All in all, we had a lovely lovely Easter. How about you?

Pre-easter

Andrew was on spring break all last week. My parents were here for the beginning of the week. Despite frigid temperatures and rain, we managed to stay moderately busy.

-We went to Andrew's baseball game. It felt like the coldest worst football game you've ever been too. I've never felt so sorry for Jeff in my life.

-While I took the older two to church and to teach Sunday school, my parents and Jeff and Michael went to New Hope to eat at our favorite French bakery. They also had the bonus of seeing a historical train take off. Probably the highlight of Michael's week.

- We took a hike at the local wildflower preserve. Yes, it was warm enough just a day after that horrid baseball game. Weird weather.

- We visited the zoo.

-We went out to dinner once.

Okay, so it doesn't sound like we did that much. Not entirely our fault! The weather was unpredictable and kind of miserable. For most of the time.

My parents left on Wednesday. Thursday Jeff took off work and we went to Longwood Gardens to use our annual pass one last time before it expired April 30th. It takes over an hour to drive there...and when we finally got there and the kids were so excited to enter...they scanned our pass and told us it actually had expired March 31st. This is why they should put the expiration date on the pass! We paid for a daily pass...because there was no way we were driving back home after this. To his credit, Jeff only gave me a few withering disappointed looks... :) It was well worth the ticket. The bulbs were in full glory. And the kids had a blast. We forgot the camera, so we have no record of the trip. Losers.

Friday was a laid back lazy day. Did you guess that the weather was crappy? Yup. You'd be correct.

Saturday we drove to Jeff's cousin's house for an Easter celebration. We again forgot our camera. But we remembered all the children...so that's something, right? Ellie once again treated us to a feast and the children were so entertained. A lovely lovely Easter celebration a day early.

Then we had a nice actual Easter at home (see next post).

And now it is back to reality. And it is going to be 83 degrees and muggy today. Urgh.

Recent pictures

Uncle Chad came last month and we went to Dave and Buster's. Some photos:

Michael needs a hair cut.

Store bought birthday cupcake cake to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa while they were visiting. Michael's favorite color is green, so this was a hit!

Michael continues to take good care of his baby. Here he is "reading" a Magic Tree House book to his baby.

Michael making playdoh with his speech teacher. He has "graduated" to the next level...and already I'm underwhelmed. It's been over a week and no one has called to schedule a speech appointment. Even though they told me it had to be done by his 3rd birthday. Whatev's.

Andrew's class had another play. He was a blue bird. In case you couldn't tell.

We've been practicing bike riding. Our kids are bike-retarded. Seriously. Andrew has not a clue how to balance...and he is too big for training wheels anymore. -sigh-

Visiting the nearby historical farm. Love this place. It is baby animal time at the farm. We saw 7 day old lambs and 3 week old piglets.

Andrew also made friends with the farm cat, Patches, who was thrilled to cuddle in the sun on a warm lap. It was a bit of a struggle to get him up off Andrew's lap.

? Don't know why I took this poorly lit picture of the kids coloring.

A Recycled Birthday

Finally...a recap of Michael's 3rd birthday. It was a...well, a very earth friendly birthday. A few weeks ago, Jeff found a box in the basement filled with Andrew's toys from when he was 3. And we had thought they were lost or donated or something. Voila! Michael's birthday presents were done! And no money spent. He was thrilled. He did get new gifts from Andrew and Lily. Lily picked out a Dora backpack for him. Which was probably more for herself, but I let her get it because Michael loves Dora too. She was under strict instructions to let him play with it first. That lasted about 2 minutes. Andrew got him sidewalk chalk...which has already been used and enjoyed. We videoed the opening of gifts, so the pictures are just from the playing afterward.

Andrew's old Take and Go Thomas set. A big hit.

Seen here is Andrew's old Shake and Go Speedway. The biggest hit of the day, although we don't have pictures of Mikey playing with it. Odd.

Lily and Andrew enjoying the Tool Bench thingy...taken from a friend when she was cleaning out her child's toys. I'm telling you...all recycled gifts and Michael doesn't know the difference!

Then we had the cake. My most successful to date. And I felt bad that we weren't having any party for Mike. There is such birthday party pressure! I'm telling you! But he had a blast. He didn't have to share his new toys with anyone (except his siblings), no one else tried to snatch his presents and open them for him (except his siblings), and no one else tried to blow out his candles (except his siblings). Wait. I just realized by having a brother and sister he had a built in b-day party ;)

Three!

He arrives.

He's 1.

He's 2.

He's 3.

How in the world is this going by so fast?

Obsession

Yesterday I was cleaning up dishes as Lily sat and ate some chocolate Cheerios. The boys were not around...one being at school and one sleeping upstairs. I started singing a silly song to her...making up the words and tune as I sang. It went something like,

Lily loves chocolate. She loves to drink chocolate, and eat chocolate, and dream about chocolate. She thinks about chocolate day and night. It is her favorite thing.etc etc.

She was a bit indignant at first that I would dare make up a song about her, but she quickly got over it because a) it was all true and b) I make up songs all the time. She requested a song about Andrew. It went something like,

Andrew loves football. He loves to play football and look at football and read about football and dream about football. He thinks about football day and night. It is his favorite thing.

And then the inevitable request for Michael's song:

Michael loves cars. He loves to play with cars, eat off cars, dream about cars, and be a car. He thinks about cars all day and all night. It is his favorite thing.

Lily is giggling by this point. She announces that she has a song about Mommy. I got a little nervous. What has Lily observed about what I like? About what I'm obsessed with? I was cringing thinking of her singing a song about Mommy liking her computer or books or eating junk food. And then Lily sang,

Mommy loves Daddy. She loves to hug him and kiss him and make him laugh. She thinks about Daddy all day and all night. He is her favorite thing.

At least they're growing up knowing we love each other ;)

Prejudiced

Thank you all for going along with my April Fool's Day joke. I didn't think you'd buy a surprise pregnancy, but it has been almost 4 1/2 years since we last moved...so it's kind of due, right? Of course, now if we ever do move, you won't believe me until I post pictures of my new house and all of us breaking down into tears, right?

Moving on...

Friday was a very busy morning for me. Drop Lily off at school, kill an hour of time, watch Andrew's class do a cute little play, race to pick up Lily on time, race to our neighbors to drop off Lily and Michael, and then race back to Andrew's school to have a GIEP (Gifted IEP) meeting with that teacher.

First off, let me say that I am very impressed with this whole program. It is not called the "gifted program" but I will continue to call it that to disguise a bit what school district we are in. I really liked the teacher, and she will be Andrew's gifted teacher until he reaches 7th grade. 1st and 2nd grade they do a variety of subjects, science, math, reading, etc. For example, she said next week they are starting a Tangrams unit. The 2nd grade just finished a spy code decoding challenge. But starting in 3rd grade, it is all Social Studies. The kids simply take social studies in the "gifted" class rather than the "normal" class. And they do all kids of brain busting, accelerated thinking type activities with maps, governments, geography, etc. Throughout, one of the things they stress is that all people have gifts...these kids have a gift for learning easily, and the point of the class is to get them to push past the stuff that comes easily to them and really use those brains. I love that. The teacher also said it is a very humbling experience for kids who are used to being the superstars in their regular classes...they come and are suddenly surrounded by other kids who are also superstars.

Anyway, I'm pleased. That this much time and energy is going into adapting the curriculum and experiences of the children whom school is "easy" for. Andrew will start going 3 times a week starting next week. I'm excited for him.

But I've begun to realize through this whole process that I am a bit prejudiced against gifted people.

This teacher kept stressing to me how amazing Andrew's scores were. She would point and say, "Do you understand how high this score is?" and, "We're talking top of the class material here.", etc. etc. And after each comment about how gifted he is, I felt the need to say, "Yes, but he's really kind too." or "Yes, but he is such a good friend too." As if they are mutually exclusive. I had to pinch myself and remember that she was not actually insulting my child. ;)

I guess I just have such negative memories of some kids I went to high school and college with. The ones who were gifted and let you know that they were better than you. That told you their IQ or SAT scores 2 seconds after you met them. The ones who bragged about how big their scholarship was or what ranking they were in comparison to others. The ones who gloated during Trivial Pursuit about "how easy" every question was and "how could you not know this one?"

I have issues.

To be fair, I am married to a very gifted man. So my prejudice is not all encompassing. He is simply not a braggart. He understands that not everyone can comprehend the things he can and he never judges you for it. He does not use his intelligence as a weapon in arguments unless it is respectful and matter of fact. He does not lord his brains over anyone.

So I need to relax. Andrew can certainly be a highly intelligent and gifted individual and still be kind and empathetic and personable. I know this because I'm married to one. And hopefully Jeff can lead by example. And help him with his homework ;)

The more to follow

APRIL FOOLS!

Another year, another state

Well, it's official. We've been waiting for the final details to get worked out between Jeff and his new boss(es).

So, Minneapolis, MN...I guess...here we come.

I don't know how I'm feeling. I guess it is good that we won't actually be there until the snow is gone. Jeff's start date is May 15. But I'll stay here until Andrew finishes out the school year.

Ugh. Selling a house. Explaining to the kids. Saying goodbye...again.

More on this later...