Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Happenings

Here's the Cliff Notes version of what's been going on around here:
  • Travis is rocking first grade.  I love hearing him use "$10 words" as my friend calls them.  And he is getting so much quicker with math facts and retelling the stories we are reading.  My mom taught him the names of the Great Lakes and he learned the Fifty Nifty United States song so now we are working on the states' location.  We finished his handwriting book so he is writing get-well and encouragement cards to friends and family.  He is loving this and Justin wants to do it too, so some people are getting a two-fer!
  • Justin is making some great progress potty training.  Without going into the dirty details, he is now doing ALL his business on the potty.  With no help from us!  (He still is taking medicine, and he probably will for a while, but we are not having to do any major clean outs after not going for days and days.)  When he started going every day he still wasn't quite making it to the potty, so he had a couple of days of decorating his room with the contents of his underwear.  Randy and I debated pulling the rest of the carpet out of his room to make clean ups easier after the second episode.  But truly, I cannot complain.  He has not worn diapers for over a month and today for the first time since we began this journey I did not have to do a load to smelly laundry at the end of the day.  Woo-hoo!
  • Another mom and I were lamenting boys and their ability to spray a bathroom while pottying and she expressed frustration with having to wash the shower curtain after her boys watered it from the outside of the shower.  Then I came home and Travis said, "Hey mommy, how come there is dried poop on the shower curtain?"  Sigh.
  • I get Justin up to go to the bathroom before we go to bed at night in an effort to avoid accidents in bed.  Poor Justin is so sleepy when I get him that I have to carry him to the bathroom.  When he walks back to his bed he is so disoriented and clumsy he looks like a little pinball bouncing off the walls.  It's good thing he very rubbery!
  • My foot is healing!  Yeah!  So it looks like I avoided surgery.  Only a couple more weeks of the boot.  Good thing since the thick plastic sole somehow broke in half.  The doctor said I could "limp" along for another couple weeks, but then I have to throw it away.  Can't save it for the next time.  Too bad.  :)
  • Alaina is growing up!  She had her first "professional" pictures this past week to celebrate her third month.  She managed to roll over and he smiles with her whole body!  Travis is so good at soothing her.  He sings and gets in her face and she adores him.  I don't get it but she calms down so who am I to question it!
  • Justin is fascinated with breast feeding.  He feeds his bears and then wipes of their faces with a burp cloth and then burps them.  It's too cute.  I am impressed with how he notices all the little details.
  • The kids just moved up to their new Bible classes.  Justin is in the three-year-old class because I held him back last year.  He did great in the two's class and now he is ready for the three's.  In this class he has memory verses.  The verses have hand motions to go with the words to help the kids remember.  Justin does the motions and tries the words as best as he can.  He did so awesome with his first verse!  He recited it for everyone at therapy.  Watching him recite it gives me that same warm mommy feeling as watching Travis ride his bike.  I love it!
  •  We started a new chore/allowance system based on the MoneySmart Family System.  The kids had their first payday this past weekend and they loved it!  I enjoyed the help and the enthusiasm for their tasks, mostly from Travis, but Justin still needs some help.  It's difficult to find tasks that Justin can do by himself so that he is motivated to succeed.  What surprised me is how quickly Travis jumps in to help Justin.  All the time.  While that is often very good, he doesn't give Justin any room to learn to do it himself.  I am struggling to teach Travis when to help and when to let Justin be.  Not very easy for me to know!
  • The boys have had to learn patience since there is only one mommy to three kids.  We had a discussion about what qualifies as an "emergency" to get priority.  Asking to watch TV while I am trying to get Alaina to sleep does not qualify.  We did some brainstorming and we came up with a few requirements including fire, blood, or broken bones.  After recent events we decided to add "poop" to the list.
  • Justin passed his hearing test with flying colors.  The audiologist is one of the very favorite "doctors" we visit.  She has done almost all of Justin's tests and she makes him feel so comfortable.  He does really well for her.
  • It's football season!  My very favorite season of all.  Randy is trying to repeat his rookie season victory in fantasy football.  He won his first match-up!  Of our four teams (Texas A & M, Wisconsin, Packers, Cowboys) only the Cowboys managed a win.

That's our life these days! 

No comments: