Lunch

We put Owen in school two full days and three half days.  He loves the full day (although I am still trying to determine if that is a result of being able to spend the entire day with his new friend – Riley, or should I say, new girlfriend, I think he may have a small crush on her).

On his full days he gets to take lunch.  Today was a full day.  I was upstairs getting ready and heard some ruckus downstairs.  I came down to see what they were up too and found Owen making them both a lunch.  I left him to finish.

Before we left for school I opened the lunch box and found this neatly packed lunch: 

The cookies stayed home (even though I so wanted to let him take them) and every bad thing he has done lately was erased.  

And We Wait

5 days remain. 

We are to the part where everyone keeps their cell phones close by and I feel really important when everyone ALWAYS takes my call.  The part of the pregnancy where after working all day my feet look like they have been stung by bees and I can barely move my toes.  The part where I actually wear the exact same thing for two days in a row and I don’t even care or mind who saw me both days.  The part where I lost two pounds from my last dr. visit (I like that part).  The single digits, the last Friday to be pregnant, the last weekend, the last few nights that I pull the sheets off the bed with my seal like movements as I turn from side to side, the last few days of having 2 kids. 

Dr. said I was a 3 and 60% on Monday.  

5 more days and our new life begins (but I wouldn’t mind less than 5 days).

Kindergarten (take two)

We started school last week and the decision about what to do with Owen was not taken lightly or without anguish on my part. 

Owen has a summer birthday, he makes the cutoff by 26 days.  From the time he was 0 – 2 I figured he would start school when he was five, well, cause that is what you do.  Those two years were blissfully simple and lovely.  Then, we joined the co-op preschool and the assumption by all (including a highly respected and knowledgeable parent educator from the community college) was that he would start school when he was six.  This started the ball rolling for a lot of questioning and worrying for the next 4 years. 

And so the research (and insanity) began.  Greg and I have read books, researched on the Internet, read personal accounts of people who started school at 5 vs. 6, called up old friends from high school for their opinion (of which those that were young all replied they wished they were old and those that were old all said they loved it), asked the doctor at yearly visits, discussed our own personal experiences (me being young and Greg being old), and sought the opinions of family members (which I am sure they are tired of hearing and talking about).   

Our extensive research led us to believe that we would wait until Owen was 6 for kindergarten; however, being unable to commit to such a big decision, we made sure to leave our options open until the VERY end.  We put him in a one day a week preschool when he was 2 until he turned 4.  Then we did a three day a week preschool when he was 4 until he turned 5.   Then last year, when he turned 5, we put him in a private Montessori kindergarten/preschool 5 days a week.  This was done with the idea that we could move on to 1st grade if we felt he was ready, or stay there for one more year if we wanted to wait.  Or in other words, we could delay the decision one more year. 

He turned 6 this summer and there was no more delaying the decision.  The time had come and we did what we knew we were going to do deep down all along.  We put him back in the same private school to do Kindergarten.  He will move on to 1st grade next year when he turns 7. 

For so many reasons we kept him back, one of the strongest being my little brother and the words of my step-mom saying if she could take back 13 seconds of her life, it would be the ones where she decided to put him in school early.  We figure, what is the harm in holding him back.  He gets to be little one more year, he gets the edge in sports, he has one more year to work on his reading/writing, he will drive before his friends, and (heaven help me) when he starts to date, the girls he goes to school with will be younger than him (according to Ben, this was very important).  We found countless more reasons to hold him back, these are just a few. 

And so the decision is made, things are what they are, Owen is happy, and young or old in school, I suppose nothing else really matters!

Not the Night We Planned

You know those nights where kids have reached their limits, which in turn pushes you past your own limits? We had/are having one of those right now.  Call it starting school again, call it days away from having a new sister, call it a mom who is tired of being pregnant, call it all of the above, but whatever it is, Owen is having a rough night!!

It all began on the way home from the office.  He suddenly looked at his shoes and informed me in a not so nice way that he needed new shoes and then starting crying that he needed them now.  I offered to take him to the mall as soon as his dad got home, mind you it was ten minutes after we were set to get home.  That was unacceptable and it started the downward spiral of our night. 

Going to the mall was a necessity but all of a sudden it was not for new shoes, but for Ursula at the Disney Store.  He started yelling at me telling me he wanted and NEEDED Ursula and I needed to get her today and he wasn’t waiting for his dad, and then Ivy started to yell Mama Mama to which every time I answered her she wouldn’t say anything.  All the while I am talking to Angie about a client about to receive $180,000 of proceeds from a property settlement in which he wants to keep and not pay to his creditors and is convinced I have misrepresented him by not allowing him to keep it. Whatever client.  Oh, and my feet are so swollen from sitting at my desk and the heat that I am convinced they may explode. It was a lot going on during a short time and this car ride home sort of set the tone for things to get worse. 

We arrive home with a firm statement that I am not going taking him to the mall. 

I cut him an apple and told him to watch a show and rest for a minute while I figured out what to make him for dinner.  He turned into himself again (briefly) and he showed me how he swings so high, munched on his apple, watched a show and laughed away. 

Then he sees his spaghetti and starts to cry that he doesn’t want noodles.  He makes himself a sandwich instead.  Then he wants to watch another show and cries because he can’t.  Then as I am resting my weary feet I tell Owen to ask Greg in his nicest voice to make us a peanut butter chocolate banana snack.  Owen says, “Dad, do it”.  I ask him to try another way, “Dad, do it please.”  Greg says he will as soon as he is done sweeping.  Then the worst of it begins and I am getting to the really good part.

Owen starts yelling that he needs to make it, he starts to tell me that he wants it now.  I had already said that the way he was asking was not going to get us a snack and maybe tomorrow would be a better day for it.  He starts to yell that he is having his snack.  I say we are done and getting ready for bed.  He looks at my poor puffy feet and hits them.  That was sad both for my feet and my feelings.  Then he stomped away.  I asked him please to go to his room to get ready for bed, he spit at me.  I then told him to please go to his room to get ready for bed and I needed him to stay there because he was being so mean.  He said no.  Greg picked him up and took him away.  He threw all his covers off his bed, threw some books at his door, I said goodnight and gave him some pajamas and told him this was not ok in our family.  He threw the pajamas at me.  I calmly explained that we can be mad, but getting what you want this way can not happen. 

And here is where it gets really good.  We kiss his head, give him a big hug and head downstairs.  In the distance we hear him crying and yelling for me and crying some more.   Suddenly there is a knock on the door.  Greg is greeted by a STRANGER asking if everything was ok.  He said he could hear Owen crying down the street (from the open windows in Owen’s room).  Greg explained that he was a tired 6 year-old in his room.  At first I was annoyed, but then I wasn’t annoyed at all!  How many people now days do something like that.  Not a lot of people hear a small child crying and come to the child’s aide.  So, in the end I liked this guy (I think), although, I hope he believes us and Child Protective Services isn’t on their way. 

I feel sad about the whole thing.  We really don’t put him in his room much, unless he is evil and hurting people, but, I can’t stop rehearsing the events in my head as to what I could have done differently, how could I have prevented things from getting so out of hand, so much so that a neighbor came by to check on him.  

At least now he is calm, he is calling to me from his room, asking me to please come see him.  So I am going.  I am still not going to buy Ursula just because he wants it, and I am not giving him a peanut butter chocolate banana tonight.   But, if I know myself, I am  going to go upstairs and not only see him, but bring him out of his room and snuggle together in my bed while we watch “the clothes show” (Project Runway) and love him a little before he falls asleep. 

Because right or wrong in the teaching department, that is what I do and I don’t question doing that.      

Gross!

Owen was outside playing this evening and came in to eat dinner.  On his way in he took off his shoes by the back door like a good son should.  A little while later he was instructed to put on his shoes to go to the store with Greg.  A few minutes later Owen ran over to me to tell me that he went to put his shoe on and felt something slimy, he took off his shoe and looked inside to find a slug.  (Slugs here are big in case you don’t know).  

It was one of those episodes where you sort of find it funny, but that is only because it is so gross and unbearable and it clearly only remains to be funny because it wasn’t you. 

And furthermore, call me what you will, but you know how as a parent you always say you would do anything for your kids, or you would take the bad things happening to you to save them the heartache, etc., etc.  Nope.  Not this time.   I don’t feel that at all.  In fact, if a slug was going to crawl in any of our shoes, I am quite thrilled it was Owen’s and not mine.

2, 6, and 33 1/2 weeks

Ivy turned 2 on June 30th.  Owen turned 6 on August 5th.  Little baby turned 33 1/2 weeks today.

IVY:

Ivy had a party for her birthday. Emilee was in town and we stole an idea from a friend and had an ice cream party.  She knew she was getting a bike as she told my dad to buy it for her.  She also knew she was getting a helmet as she tried it on in the store and leaving it there would have been equivalent (or maybe even worse) to leaving her alone at the store.  She loves that she is two, she shows everyone by using the first two fingers on each hand and putting both hands up by her face.

She still loves her binky (she calls it a mimi), she will rarely wear anything other than a pink shirt and leggings (whether they match or not), she adores her cousin Evan and Owen, she loves pushing things around the house in a stroller (in fact, at this very instant she just came down the stairs with the double stroller she got for her birthday, pushing her jammies in it), she acts out a lot of what she says instead of using words, she is obsessed with my stomach and it has nothing to do with it being big, she loves to rub it while she sleeps, she growls when she wants a drink, and her hair often looks like a cross between Doc from Back to the Future, Einstein and Willy Wonka (and she refuses to let me do it).  

OWEN:

Owen didn’t have a party for his birthday, but he had something he loved even more – 2 full days with his uncle Rob.  Robee agreed to be the one guest at Owen’s party.  (The only other option this year was a party with Owen and 6 girls, I just couldn’t do it).  Rob came over and they played, went swimming, ate at the Olive Garden, watched a movie until they fell asleep, went to a movie the next day, played on the slip-n-slide, and played all night with toys.  I cannot thank Robee enough for making Owen’s party perfect.

He loves to play, I can name what he eats on one hand, he loves his day with Kiki (so much in fact that he almost gave up on a birthday party the other day), he needs to be asked to do something at least 4 times before it ever gets done, he is still working really hard on saying his “s” sounds, he still has a food phobia and is very stern with Greg eats something he doesn’t like, he gets frustrated easily when he can’t do something (but he gets that from his dad – that is a story for another day), he would rather sleep in my bed than his own cause he gets lonely otherwise, he loves watching Martha Speaks, he always likes the villain in all the shows he watches, he claims the new baby is his, and he likes to hold my hand when he falls asleep.

LITTLE BABY:

Little baby is on the home stretch and we are both surviving.  It seems as though she moves much more than these other two ever did.  I ate snacks popsicles all the time to make them move, this one is always moving.  I failed my one hour diabetes test and PASSED my 3 hour test.  Pregnancy wise things are uneventful which means all is well. 

This last little while is the part of the pregnancy that I actually start to enjoy – so much for living in the moment, I have 6 weeks left to enjoy being pregnant. 

Can’t wait to talk about this one’s birthday and post pictures of her!

The new floors

They are in and I am in love!  My floors were installed all day on Monday and all day on Tuesday.  I could not love them more, but here is a list of the surprising things I learned about laying hardwood.

1. It takes way longer to glue hardwood than nail it.  My dad’s job was bigger but he had wood floor rather than concrete on the bottom.  The whole thing was done in a matter of 6 hours.  Mine took closer to 24 hours of actual work.

2. Transitions, stair noses, the padding for underneath, and the glue are VERY EXPENSIVE.  I needed 25 feet of transitions to put between the doors down the hall and in the room where we were separating the carpet and the flooring.  I also needed three of the front of the stairs to make the stair edge.  I was totally expecting these few boards to cost oh say around $100.00 – $420.00 later, I was trying to decide if I had lost my mind in this project.  Then, I knew I had after  it was too late to turn back and I needed a 5 gallon bucket of glue for $150.00 and a roll of padding for $109.00.  So much for the good deal on the actual wood. 

3.  Hardwood laying guys don’t tack the carpet back down (at least my guy didn’t, and I couldn’t be mad, cause he did an AMAZING job and I am not even sure he ate or drank anything during the 24 hours he was at my house).  So, here I am with this amazing wood floor and carpet that is able to be lifted up and is fraying all over the place.  Now, the only reason I could see this as a good thing is to be able to lift up the carpet to sweep all the dirt under, but since I didn’t think this really should be left this way, I realized it must be fixed.  I thought I would just do it myself until my dad informed me that I needed to find a carpet guy to do it.  Greg and I have a rule: if my dad will do it himself, we may think about it and may actually do it; if my dad would outsource the task, we won’t dream of doing it.

To Craigslist I went and found an ad for a guy that does carpet repair and stated no job was too small.  I called him and he said he could come out that night to do the job.  I called Greg to assure he would be home before us as I was sure I was going to be killed that night.  I said my final goodbyes to everyone just in case, and went home to wait.  I kept the kids close and right on time the car pulled up and out jumped Rick.  I recited that saying in my head – Don’t judge a book by its cover, and let him in.  Rick looked a little scary and I kept thinking maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.  We agreed on a price, well, he told me his price and I didn’t argue as something about him screamed out that he could use the money.  So, an hour and $150.00 later, the carpet in the living room and at the end of the hall was secured down tight.  A half an hour after that, he was back to do the door I forgot about.  On my own choice, I paid him an extra $20.00 for coming back he told me that he really appreciated it and that he could really use the money and work has been very slow.  He looked so happy as he told Greg and I that this particular day was a “blessed day” as he had a job with a friend in the day and then I called for this job.  Ok, scruffy or not, I was so happy and every cent was worth the cost. 

4. The room doesn’t feel less cozy, smaller, like two rooms, etc.  All my fears were unfounded.

5.  And the final surprising thing about the floors is that Greg and I actually love it so much.