Beginnings of Birthday Fun

James turned 4!  After Joseph and Grant's birthdays he's got this down.  He knew all about what to do with presents and candles.  It's the first time I've seen him excited about something somewhat abstract.

Boys...

This from a visit to the New Braunfels children's museum.  I don't usually get pictures of the boys without them being blurry from too many wiggles or an akward zoom and crop from a self-portrait.

Back on Schedule

It's school time! 

 The kids have been giddy with excitement and now it's finally here.

There were some bumpy parts, getting classes and teachers worked out.  Joseph was originally put in a Spanish class, but switched because he doesn't speak Spanish.  Then he got put back in the Spanish class and had to be switched again.  In the end, he's in a dual-language class, so he'll learn some Spanish after all.

Elena had a teacher, but got moved to make room for all the new kids, but that teacher wasn't G/T certified and Elena really needs a G/T teacher so she got switched back.  When we got to school, on Monday, we had to find out which of the three possible teachers she'd be with.  I'm glad we talked with all of them at Meet the Teacher, last week, so we already knew what to expect and she could walk right in and get settled.

 It's so nice to have my days on a schedule, again.  I know when I need to get up, when I can run errands, when to have dinner ready, and when we all need to be in bed.  Sometimes, things get hectic, but I know what's going on and I feel like I've got a handle on things.

And none of that would be possible without this:

 Right before school started (seriously--Saturday or Sunday night) Lucy decided that it would be OK if she settled down to sleep at 10 or 11pm, instead of the 1 or 2am that she'd been doing all summer.  With that, she also started sleeping through the night, most nights, then wakes up for a light breakfast and goes back to sleep.

 

 I have gotten mountains of laundry washed, folded and put away, the last two mornings.  I feel so productive for the first time in months.


Why laundry?  Well, 1: the kids were out of not-school clothes, and 2: since the house is relatively empty I decided to just stick James in underpants, apply lots of juice, hang out in the bathroom all day, and deal with whatever laundry results.  It's past time and it just needs to be done.  He kept asking for a diaper, the first day, but after his initial frustration of having Mom say No has resigned himself.  He does pretty well if he's naked, which is what did the trick for Joseph, so we'll see.

Mom Called it First

I think we have a lefty.

My mom called it three years ago, when she saw him holding his bottle.  Congratulations, Mom, you win a prize!

(I have no idea why Elena is so excited about this but she is.  Ridiculously, giddily excited.)

Bluebeard ...and Blackbeard

I'm not sure how we managed to avoid it for so long.  Sure Joseph had been there, but that's Joseph and it wasn't in the "right" place anyway.  I guess it was just time and we'd avoided it long enough.

Two split chins, on two children, with two sets of stitches, in one month.

James slipped while climbing the couch, at the end of July.

Elena bounced off a bigger kid and into a pole at the splashpad, last week.

I Swear! Other Stuff Happened, Too!

I've been a bit absent, the last couple months.  The late stages of pregnancy will do that.  Things happened, though, I promise.

I planted bulbs, and though only the paperwhites came up they were my favorites anyway.   One of then even bloomed!

We had the usual Easter party at my Mom's.  I missed having Dad there, especially with it being a new house and all.  So much change, but having family together will always be the same.

We colored and hunted our own eggs, at home.

The kids decided to film their own movie, a thrilling adaptation of Little Miss Muffet.  This would be one of the stills from the set.

The Aztex are back!  And we got tickets!  We've been to a couple games and it's always a good time.

We got a car, too.  It is a Mazda5, but not the one from the other post.  For $5k less we got 2 years newer, 50k less miles, leather seats and tinted windows.  Yeah.

A sunflower sprouted up in our back yard, fell over, then produced blossoms all up the length of the stem.  There's probably 100 or more flowers on it.

Joseph turned 6!  He asked for a square cake that was chocolate with chocolate and M&Ms.  He wore his Super Cape to the soccer game, too.

Yes, Lucy came two days later.  Several people asked me when I was due, at church.  I told them "Technically, a week and a half.  In all practicality, any day, now."  I was at that very moment having contractions that never actually went away.  Here she is at home, getting all settled in.

She makes the big kids (all 3 of them!) look enormous.

And finally, today, at about noon, Joseph lost his first tooth.  He's so excited!

Test Drive

Today makes 35 weeks.  We're tidying things up, getting ready for the little one.  One of those tasks is finding a new car.  As much as I adored my Echo, it is, sadly, no longer with us.  And, as practical and useful as Brent's Corolla is, it still has the same principle flaw the Echo did--only 5 seats.  So we need something bigger than a sedan, and we'd like to do it without going into debt.  Not having a car payment, ever, has been a huge blessing during those tight times in our life together.  We still want something that drives like a car, though, not a truck, and gets decent gas mileage--going from 32-36 mpg to ~18 mpg was just not going to cut it for us.  We've kept an eye on our options for several years and knew that with our requirements we would get to choose from the astounding total of 1 model.  (Canada and Mexico both have several more options.  I'm still kind of peeved about that.)

Finding a Mazda5 isn't all that hard, considering that the company refuses to market the poor thing, lest at any time the demand go up and they be required to actually make more of them.  Finding one with a manual transmission is a little more difficult, but still doable.  Finding a used one, though, is nigh unto impossible.  My guess would be that the sort of people who enjoy driving a stick are not the sort of people who trade in their cars "just 'cause." 

Anyway, after months of searching we found one.  We've test driven a couple of them, though not one of the older models, and I wanted to go check it out so that I could make sure my legs actually fit into the car.  I have, in my lifetime, had to rule out a car or two simply because my knee was up against the steering column.  What followed is one of those experiences that was horrifying, at the time, but caused us to laugh all the way home.

I wasn't altogether too worried when the sales guys had to make a few calls to figure out where the car was.  It's a large dealer with a patchwork collection of mini-lots.  We walked across a small side street and past a few other cars as everyone chatted.  James was enjoying the sunshine and his bottle of water that we'd grabbed from the cooler while waiting.  Our salesman went and grabbed the key and opened the front door.  He then pushed the button to unlock the rest of the car and muttered something about getting the car jumped so he could get the locks working.  What was that?  Surely I heard wrong.  He left and I figured out the manual locks for the back doors.  James and I hopped in the back and started poking around while Jonathan looked over the console up front.  Sure enough, the sales guy comes back with a battery starter, pops the hood, and gets things cranked up.  I never did figure out how the battery had died in the first place.  I couldn't quiet believe that they'd left the lights on, and yet that's somehow the impression I was given from his explanation.  Everyone piled in, with me in the driver's seat.

As I was pulling out of the lot, the lights on the dials started flickering.  Halfway through my turn, in the middle of the street, the whole thing died.  Jonathan and the salesman had to quickly hop out, wave traffic around us (we didn't have enough power to even flash the hazard lights), and push the car to the side of the road.  We jumped the battery again.  I pulled around the corner, just as the lights flickered again, and watched as it died, again, while I tried to get it in the driveway.  After yet another jump, and having driven maybe 250 ft., they took it into the shop to get a new battery.  I sincerely hope that that's the only thing wrong with it.

I could tell that our salesman was embarrassed by what had happened, but was bravely holding on and pretending that everything was great.  We played along and asked the price.  There wasn't a sticker on the car, nor had there been a price in the online listing.  His answer?  $19,995.  Excuse me?!?  I can buy a new one, for that price.  He tried to explain that that particular portion of the dealership deals with people who have really bad credit, so the price is to cover the risk, or something like that.  We didn't really let him finish.  A car that age with that sort of mileage is only worth $11k.  That's if it's in great condition, too, and this one was slightly worn with use.  We left, shaking our heads at the sheer audacity of that quote, especially after all we'd gone through at their hands.  We giggled at how awful the whole thing was, all the way home.

I did go back later, though, after they'd replaced the battery.  I still needed to know about my knees.

Scattered Thoughts

I'm having a hard time finishing things, right now. That doesn't make for exciting blog posts, though, so I thought I'd give a smattering of starts.

1. James has gone from what I'd expect of a 1-year-old to what I'd expect of a 2- or 3-year-old, speech-wise. He still doesn't use full sentences (can, just doesn't) and you have to know him to understand him ("pee-wah bupper!" "pifa!") but he's using more English, will pull out phrases he learned in therapy or hears around the house, and knows colors, numbers (1-12, out loud, and 1-10 in print), letters (all upper case and some lower case), and is working on house-hold objects. And, after a month of calling me Daddy, is starting to get Mom and Dad straightened back out.

2. All three of the kids are taking turns reading during scripture time. Elena can plow right through a half-dozen verses, Joseph can sound out enough big words to make it through a verse or two, and James identifies all the capital letters.

3. I've finished at least 9 knitting projects, this year. Some of them are very small and simple, like booties for the baby, while other take more time and significantly more brain-power, like the stranded mittens I set aside while Dad was in the hospital. Other projects are stalled in their fifth incarnation because I can't get the pattern to work. Socks are coming, starting next month.

4. The baby is measuring right on for her age. Everything is still pointing to mid-June.

5. My hip isn't hurting as much as last time. I think walking to school twice a day, combined with our Ward's twice-weekly yoga group and my concerted effort to use my hand to lift the bad leg (instead of straining something trying to lift it with the usual muscles) has helped. In any case, it only hurts when I do something to it, rather than hurting all the time no matter what.

6. I say "hip" or "back," even though it isn't either of those, because they somehow feel more genteel than "rear" or "pelvis."

7. Breathing is getting harder, though. Positions that are comfortable for my hip tend to crush my lungs, and positions that loosen up my lungs hurt my hip. The only thing that works for both is to lie on my stomach, but that's starting to require more and more elaborate setups to accommodate the belly.

8. Is it normal to be absolutely exhausted, all day every day? I wasn't this tired in the first trimester, but now I'm dragging around all the time.

A Year of Knitting

(WARNING: This post is picture heavy. But so pretty...)

Remember this picture from last year?


Those were my plans for the year, knitting-wise. As usually happens in life, some got done, others didn't, and a bunch of other stuff found it's way in, too.

There were tall socks to keep my feet from freezing at the Temple.


Fingerless gloves to keep my hands warm but still functional. (I hate it when I can't feel what it is I'm touching. It makes me feel all fumbley.)

Socks for James.


And Jonathan.


A small shawl to keep the chill off. I've actually got this one wrapped around my neck right this moment.


Socks for me, too.

There were gifts, too. For Craig's graduation.


Regan's birthday.


Richard's first baby. (A boy. The headband is because I had extra yarn and it pays to be prepared for future possibilities.)

(and an actual view of the sweater.)

More socks. (It was a sock club, after all.) Mine...


and Jonathan again.


Costume help for some nieces and their friends.


New stockings for Mom and Dad.



Sweaters for Elena and Joseph. (James just likes to say cheese for the camera.)


Socks for Mom and Dad, too.




And then there's these. Ready and waiting for their Owner's arrival, in June.


(I know June is hot. Hospitals are cold, though, and my baby absolutely deserves cashmere.)

Quiet but not Still

I've been feeling very passive, lately, letting life wash over me. I spend a lot of my time curled up with yarn and some needles watching movies or, shockingly enough, listening to the rain. I like the slower pace that comes with deep fall setting in. You can never tell, here, if winter will ever come, but the muffled and chilly aspects of late fall are sure to catch up with you eventually. The newness of it all is getting to me, as well. New house, new routines. New furnace, new being a relative term. Now that we've gotten that sorted out and it's functional the cold weather isn't as grumble-inducing. We had to figure out where to put the stockings, too. While we do have a fireplace, it didn't come with a mantle. We ended up making one out of a curtain rod and strung it with the stockings and a garland. It actually worked out really well.

I do get out, though--quite frequently, too. James has speech therapy twice a week. It's a lot like nursery, really. We sing songs, read books, play with toys, look out the window, and color pictures. While we do that, we kind of talk about what we're doing, repeating pertinent words so that he'll pick up on them, too. He's picked up a few and uses them at home every now and then. And of course, being James, he has IDEAS about how he does things. He'll only let you sing the peanut butter song if you're making him a peanut butter sandwich. This means you can't sing it at therapy, anymore. He's also the only one who's put Frosty's arms on his head, like antlers, and was quite adamant that they had to stay right there, like that. He loves the train set and discovered the Little Engine That Could pop-up book. It's now his most favorite thing ever and he goes straight to his favorite page so he can spin the wheel and make the train go over the mountain again and again and again.

The older kids are humming along, too. Elena has settled down a lot since her teacher has started giving her jobs and she joined the after-school Recorder Club (for 3rd?, 4th & 5th graders). The music teacher says she's picking up the music quickly and doing a good job. She was nominated and then tested for Gifted/Talented, this year. The nomination form was interesting because you had to rate your kid based on various questions (Does your child like to build things? do puzzles? play with words?) and then you give examples of their interests and times their intelligence "has surprised you" (she has learned to do Sudoku puzzles, likes puns, and both taught herself to read and could do a Perfection-style geography puzzle of all 50 US states when she was 3). She got an acceptance letter, the other day, for the Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies programs and has even started a few of the classes.

Joseph also got nominated (all his favorite TV shows are science-themed; and he asked me, last year, while I was discussing how babies grow and basic female anatomy with Elena, if he had a urethra in his penis--bonus points to him for connecting dots across differences in sex), despite Kindergarten kids not normally getting tested, and got accepted for Language Arts and Science. I don't know if he's started his new classes, yet, but I hope he does soon. He has not only not settled down, he's, um... a bit of a handful. He loves Kindergarten, he really does, but every few days I hear about how he ran through the lunch room, painted on someone in art, broke the teacher's headphones, or hit a kid for going to say something mean. It's never the same thing twice, thank goodness, but that means he keeps coming up with more weird stuff to do. We've had lots of Family Time lessons on being polite, paying attention, and following rules and directions, lately. Strangely enough, he listens while Elena rolls around on the floor. It's no wonder I'm starting to go gray.

I KNEW it!

I've been worried about James for a while, now. He's 3 years old, but doesn't have much of a vocabulary. He doesn't ask for things, he doesn't comment on what he sees, and he doesn't ask questions. Ever. Only this last summer did he learn animal names and sounds, and parts of his body. I don't think he understands colors, yet. Today I discovered that he will put things in the trash when you ask him to. If he were 1 this would be normal, but he's not.

On the other hand, he's very observant and watches everything around him. He loves to play and whoops and hollers with the best of them. He loves to be tickled, can climb anything, and has joined his siblings' games on (almost) their level. He loves music, too, always has, and sings beautifully. In fact, he can pick up the tune of anything he hears and will hum along. It's humming, though. No words.

I talked to his pediatrician at his well-check, in September. He definitely has a speech delay --he should be using pronouns in 4-word sentences but I can't get him to use nouns in 1-word statements--and we got a referral to speech therapy. Part of the evaluation for that turned out to include a hearing test and I could not have been happier. I knew he could hear, but if he had just enough of a loss that things were muffled, then he wouldn't be picking up much and every word out of his mouth would be slightly garbled. Right? After all, what do you do with the hum of conversation in a crowded room? You tune it out because it doesn't quite make sense. And then when someone tries to talk to you? It's hard to make out what they're saying.

So today was his visit to the ear, nose, throat doctor, with a special trip inside the audiologist's booth. I had been wondering how they would be able to do a hearing screen on him, since he can't communicate well enough to understand that he's supposed to say something when he hears a beep, but they've got it all covered. In opposite corners of the booth are speakers, and on top of the speakers are a Pooh or Tigger figurine that lights up, dances and has flashing lights as a reward for looking that direction. James thought it was a funny game, listening for the squawks, buzzes and beeps so that he could find the dancing toys. He got his ear drums measured, too (how, I don't know, beyond them putting a rubber thing in each of his ears) and they're slightly "depressed", meaning they don't move quite the way they should. It's small enough that it could be from an ear infection (they've been checked twice in the last month and a half and no infection in sight) or congestion (slight allergies, but that's it), but the end diognosis is that he's hearing the world as though through ears full of cotton balls.

Oh, Vindication, you are bitter-sweet indeed.

Still, the ENT says James should definitely do speech therapy, but also that he should be talking just fine when he comes back for a checkup in 6 months. We have hope. And just in case, I've got 3 years of ASL under my belt.

Fear and Shopping

What with needing an entirely new wardrobe for the kids, I made an exhaustive--and exhausting--list and hit the stores with kids and Grandma in tow. I think we're set. I have about two weeks' worth of clothes for each kid (no matter what you say, Joseph can not survive with only 4 pairs of pants/shorts--I'd be doing laundry every day) and while we don't have a full compliment of colors it's a good mix. Once I stare at their closets I might return one or two things, but if I know me at all I probably won't.

We took a break in the middle of shopping and dropped off Grandma so we could go meet our teachers at our new school. Both Ms. B (2nd) and Ms. W (Kinder) are young, attentive and organized. The library isn't quite as big as our old one, but the librarian is cheerful and enthusiastic and we (the parents) will still be able to check out our own books. We each got a popsicle for coming, too. James sported a blue mouth for the rest of the day.

After the school, we visited two other stores and I began to wonder if, between children with wandering attention and stagnant checkout lines, I'd get dinner ready on time. We pulled it off with time to spare, though. Despite the grueling schedule, I would have called the day a triumph but for one thing, a literal pain in the rear.

When I was pregnant with James, three years ago, I somehow twisted my right sacroiliac joint out of alignment. I was in pain for months on end. After birth, things settled down and I've been fine, but the joint never went back together. I can actually feel a good 1/4 inch of elevation change (for lack of a better metaphor) at the top of my pelvis. Then, almost exactly two weeks ago, I turned to look at something as we drove past it and I could feel my tail snap and scream out in pain. I don't think there was actual screaming involved, but it was a close thing. Ever since then, though, I've spent nearly every evening lying on my back and wishing I didn't have to move ever again.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'll survive school. My mornings are pretty good but every step I take grates and jars, and the oddest things can aggravate the problem. I consider the ability to feel and hear your pelvis click and pop to be A Bad Thing. I don't want to drive the three blocks to school, though, and I really don't want to wait in the torturously long pick-up line, wasting gas. But will I be able to walk it? And if I can, will I be able to do anything else, afterward?

Sunset

This evening was just about perfect. We made dinner, saw Daddy off to work, then the kids and I went for a walk. I pulled out the big stroller, for the boys, and Elena borrowed a scooter from the neighbor. We set out to find letters--on signs, cars, houses, anywhere we could find them. It's a favorite game when we're in the car, but it was nice to be able to slow down and give Joseph more time to spot things. Plus, the weather was perfect. Blue sky, no clouds, a light breeze, not too hot and not too cold. We managed to get up to Q before we lost a bit of drive. The rarer letters can be pretty tricky. The school was on the way home so we stopped in at the playground for some play time. The kids ran ahead, but I held back, wanting to take it all in. I wanted to savor what may be our last trip there together. I took a seat on a swing--I always seem to gravitate there--and James came over for a ride. I watched lacy branches arch over us, lightly flocked with delicate bunches of new leaves, as James and I floated back and forth, laughter and the children's voices washing over me. Elena joined us and I told her all about the summer we first moved here and I would sit on those very swings, waiting for her to join us in our family. Playtime beckoned, though. A game of hide and seek began and we all took turns counting to fifteen then looking for the others. Even James played. "Wun, dwo, fee, fou, fie, 'leven... come!" He chased Elena up the playscape and down the twirly slide. He caught her as she tried to climb back up. I hid behind trees because I'm too tall to properly hide in the tunnels, the way Elena and Joseph do, and too old to run pell mell across the tanbark. In one last game, we all ran up the steps and across the bridge to the tallest slide and went down, one after the other, over and over again, until we were breathless and giggling. As we made our way home I watched the sun slide below the horizon, marking the end of another day. Elena returned the scooter and thanked the neighbor. And then she threw a massive fit because she hadn't realized she was missing Wipeout. I sent her to bed. So close. Good enough, though.

Snow Day

There was something about the fresh snow that made me want to work on my photography skills.


It's easy to see ordinary things in a new way when dusted with a fresh layer of snow.


The whole world is ready for a new start.


Even if we've done it before, everything around us is a new discovery.


And then, if we're really ready to enjoy the wonders before us, we ditch the camera, flop down on the ground, and make snow angels in the parking lot...


or grab a laundry hamper lid and go sledding on the hill by the laundry room.








Most of it is already gone, melted by the sun's return. It was a fun morning, worth getting woken up some time before 6am so the superintendent can tell us to sleep in. Only just, though.