End of May Update and Ready for Summer!

Hello all!

Update started May 31st about 8:00 PM.

I can’t believe another month of 2010 is over! According to the calendar, it’s not officially summer yet. Although there have been a few days it sure has felt like it, others are more seasonable and much more enjoyable. This past Memorial Day weekends started out at a comfortable 81 degrees and ended with a high of 87 and a thunder and lightening storm. In that aftermath, it’s going to be a the perfect high of 82, but too soon it'll be up there again.  Ugh. I won’t be outside of the air conditioning much, I can promise ya! LOL

There have been quite a bit of firsts in my boys’ life this past month. Two of which happened only yesterday. Every year we’re invited to the birthday party for the two boys of family friends. They were both born in the first weeks of April and then last year, a baby girl was born in the first week of May. In celebration of their births and Memorial Day, the family had a big birthday bash at their lake, which included a bounce house and a dip in the lake.

In the years past, probably because of their age, the boys didn’t go swimming in the lake. I wasn’t prepared for Hunter to want to go swimming with them; no swimming shorts bought that fit him yet and not enough life jackets with us for all the kids there. Hunter asked me again if he could join them in the lake, so I said, What the heck. Go swim in your jean shorts. I asked one of the boys to volunteer their life vest for Hunter and we strapped it on. But then, the moment of getting into the lake from the dock was facing him. First he thought he’d go backwards down the ladder. No. Then he thought he’d run in and jump like his friends had done. No go. He sat down and put his feet in the water, thinking he’d just slip in. Uh uh. Finally a boy emerged dripping from the water and offered to jump in with him. Another boy did the same and before Hunter knew it, he was in the lake, coughing up a bit of the water from his lungs. After all that worry, he had this huge smile on his face. Soon he was climbing back up on the dock and launching off the end like the other boys.

In other news , Hunter did well at the science fair. I’ll be honest with you and say I wanted to be a pain in the butt mom after the results came in! There were about 20 other science projects there and the majority of them got a first place ribbon. Hunter wasn’t one of them. It looked to me as if all the projects that had some sort of example along with the poster board presentation earned the higher ribbon. Earlier that day, Hunter told his judge about his project, The Moldy Investigation, but he doesn’t remember if he told them why he didn’t bring in any of his test subjects (I just had a shiver thinking about those tomatoes!) It wouldn’t have been healthy for anyone to open those sandwich sized plastic containers. I can bet that one of those kids would have indeed opened up a container and sent mold spores up into the air. Hunter learned allergies, respiratory problems and in serious cases, death can occur when exposed to mold spores. His poster board presentation wasn’t the neatest. The things he cut out were jagged and uneven, but it was colorful and had his two week journal on it as well as mold facts and pictures he took. This project was all his, from the subject matter (shudder) to the words, look and presentation. I’m so proud of him for what he accomplished.

We haven’t had any incidents where Hunter has hit or pushed his brother for being annoying. In the past he has done exactly that instead of telling Devin to stop or walk away. He hasn’t been walking away because Devin is Hunter’s shadow. Devin is at that age where he wants to be where Hunter is and do whatever he’s doing. Hunter is doing a great job of telling Devin when to stop and when he wants to be alone. But that hasn’t stopped Hunter from telling me how annoying Devin is and most recently he's told me that little brother’s need mute buttons.

A couple weeks ago, Hunter went with some other special education students for a field trip to the middle school. He returned again the following week with his fifth grade class. They were given a tour of the school, saw their classroom, met some teachers and did a mock drill to prepare them for the three minutes they’ll get to go from classroom to locker to classroom again. I haven’t seen that part of the school yet, but I’m told the sixth grade classrooms and lockers are all in one hallway and there won’t be any running from one end of the school to the other like I remember doing! Hunter’s current teacher has told me that all the sixth grade teachers were once elementary teachers, one actually came from Hunter’s original school that closed down. She also told me most of them have a background in special education. It helps to know this, but there’s no denying I’ll be a wreck come that first week of school in the fall!

Devin actually had two firsts to speak of over these past few weeks. Although he didn’t go far from the ladder, Devin also enjoyed a dip in the lake this past weekend. Also without swimming shorts, he eagerly put on his Tweety Bird life jacket and said he wanted to jump right in and swim out to Hunter and his friends. His dad tied a rope to the back of the life jacket and told Dev to go for it. Up until that final step, it looked like he would actually just jump in, but then he realized what he was about to do and stopped short. Tim lowered him in, but once there Devin freaked out, screaming he couldn’t swim. A fact I promise you I am very well aware of! Tim pulled him back out, but Devin really wanted to be in there. We coaxed him onto the ladder and at his own pace, he climbed down and was soon floating and bobbing in the water. He never made it out to his brother, but he was a very happy boy the whole time. I thought it was going to be a battle to get him to come out, but then the thunder rolled and he knew from the reactions of the boys swimming around him that it was time to get out.

The other first he had he’s been trying to do again! After a hard day of being almost five and almost three year olds, Dev and B were in the bath having a grand time when suddenly what should appear but an eruption of bubbles big and small. Devin moved over and said, What was that?! I smiled and said, What did you just do? He said, Um. I farted? I said, Yes, you did and that’s what happens when you fart under water. He thought that was so wonderful and kept trying to fart again until I told him to stop in case he accidentally poo’d in the bath tub!

T-ball has begun! Devin has had a few practices and one game so far. There is another tonight, but I’m hoping to get this posted before we go, but being in the company of a chatterbox and a climber, it’s always up in the air what I can get done! Devin is much more interested in playing this year than he was last. Although there’s no stopping any of the kids from playing in the dirt, Devin does it without standing back up and saying how bored he is and that he wants to go home. When a batter goes into the box, they are given a certain amount of pitches before the T is put on the plate and they hit the ball off that. Both times Devin was up to bat in his first game, he hit the pitches. No need for the T! Keep it up, Dev!

His last day of pre K is this Friday, the day after Hunter’s last day of fifth grade. Hunter and I are going to keep that a secret, though. If Dev realizes that he’s going to school, even for the half day, and finds out Hunter will be home without him…you can imagine the fuss and whining he’ll give me! I don’t have anything scheduled for Dev to do over the summer break. Hunter has his summer camp the end of July, but Dev will get plenty of playground and water park time with little bro Bryce, plus three weeks up north with the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and this year we’ve decided to go back to the beach house in Oak Island, N.C. in August, so there will plenty for him to do! I can’t forget that Dev has already been assigned homework and Hunter will be meeting with the math tutor sometime this summer, it just hasn’t yet been worked out yet.  I’m thinking Bryce will be given some fun activities to do over the summer from his speech therapist on Thursday.

Devin’s imagination is going as fast as his mouth. He’s always playing make believe or talking make believe. I posted on FB about the time I was pushing him on the swings and he said to countdown from three and blast off to Mars. Then he surprised me saying he wanted to go to Pluto. When I started counting backwards from three, he told me I had to start higher because, since Pluto was so far away, we needed a bigger count down. I’m thinking of painting his room, which has been the same since he was born, into a rocket and outer space theme and taking the glow in the dark planets hanging from Hunter’s ceiling and putting them in Devin’s with the glow in the dark stars.

This is his pre k picture.  That funny face he's making on the right?  That was the group picture sent home with every kid!  LOL

Devin is loving pre K so I have no fears about him not wanting to go to Kindergarten in the fall. He was hesitant of course, going to pre K at first, but, although shy, he wants to make friends and have fun more than anything. When he first started pre K, I had him signed up to go from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM. He was all for it, but then he wasn’t so much because cartoons were turned on for the kids until 8:30 when the rest of the children arrived. Devin wanted to play, he didn’t want to watch TV. He explained it to me this way, with emphasis and a bit of a whine on the last word, I can watch TV at home. So we moved his arrival and departure back a half hour. Some mornings he says he wants to go before he even eats breakfast, but then I remind him that the kids are watching cartoons at pre K right now. He says, Yeah, it’s not 8:30 yet. Five minutes later he’ll ask, Is it 8:30 yet? On the drive there he’ll say, Don’t drop me off until 8:30 because I want to play, not watch TV.

Bryce’s first experience to share wasn’t fun for either of us. It also happened this past weekend. For those of you who have been in Bryce’s company, he’s an eater. If there is food out of his reach, he does his best to get to it. He has a very good relationship with food; he eats all his dinner and finishes off what Devin doesn’t eat and he has a huge sweet tooth. There isn’t much difference between Bryce and Devin in regards to weight and height and they are 22 months apart! When we arrived at the BBQ this weekend, I gave him a couple cookies to settle him down before the food was laid out. Yeah, yeah, I should carry apples, carrots and bananas with me…right. Bryce does love apples and bananas, but he knew he was gonna get some goodies that day and he was soon digging in. By the time we went to bed, he had more than his share of candy, cookies and cake. We were asleep in the camper when I heard Bryce coughing and then gagging and then puking. Poor guy was whimpering and heaving, experiencing his first too many sweets tummy ache. I got him over the tile of the little kitchen before he made a mess of the bed he was sharing with Devin. All Dev did was roll over. Once poor B was done, I got him cleaned up and he layed back down on his pillow with a sigh. I wiped down the floor and climbed back into bed myself. He seemed to be OK the rest of the night and the next morning.

Bryce had his third birthday this month, well, last month. He’s part of the reason my update is a few days late! Every time I sit down, he sits down with me and wants to cuddle not with me really, but with my arm! The little stinker takes the closest arm and hugs it and wraps himself around it. He likes to take my hand and rub the side of his face with it. He also does it when he’s hurt or upset, a new comfort thing for him. We didn’t really have a party for his birthday.  At Hunter suggestion, the five of us went to Chuck E. Cheese and had cake when we got back.  Unlike Devin who checks in with us every few minutes at Chuckie's, Bryce goes to where ever his eye wanders. He hasn’t learned yet that a drink on a table isn’t his just because it looks like his or to not try to take over a game of skeet ball, his favorite, because he wants to play. For those reasons I’m not that far behind him and for those reasons I can still interact with the baby that’s still in him but soon will be only a memory.

I tried to enter a video along the side of the paragraph above, but it doesn't work the same in a blog as it did on my website.  Please follow the link here and turn your head sideways to watch us sing Happy Birthday to Bryce.

I posted a couple weeks back on FB that I got B into a preschool classroom. It didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. Back in November I decided to get my son evaluated because of his lack of speech. The program here in Ohio is called Help Me Grow and Bryce immediately began going to a social playgroup that was two and a half hours long and a speech playgroup for one hour. He loved it, never had a problem leaving me behind, so when I was told that the rules in Help Me Grow wouldn’t allow Bryce to continue with the groups after he turned three, even though there was only three weeks left in the school year, I started asking around for a place Bryce could continue interacting with other kids his age. He does have an IEP and I could get a speech therapist (ST) to come out to my house, but I wanted Bryce to be at a center so he could interact with other kids. First I was told, Take him to the park. I do take Bryce to the park a lot, it’s a great way for me to procrastinate, but it’s a guessing game if there will be kids there at the same time. Then I was told there weren’t any other playgroups that they knew of.

Finally the new director for the program invited me to bring B to a preschool in a town about twenty minutes from my house, only five minutes further down the road from the playgroup location. Of course I was all for it and waited impatiently for the ST who was working out of that preschool to call me. She told me what days she was there so we decided Bryce would come Tuesday’s and Thursday’s from 12:45 to 3:00. So Dev and I took B to the school and then Dev and I went and found a geocache and then got some groceries before returning to pick up Bryce. As we walked down the hall a woman I didn’t know came to greet me and introduced herself as the woman in charge of the preschool. After that, the first thing Boss Lady said was, You can’t leave Bryce here like that. I was speechless for a second before she went on to explain that Mr. Director was misinformed. Her decision was the final one and she didn’t have room for Bryce, that she was full and even if she wasn’t, Bryce couldn’t be left here without emergency medical forms and other paperwork filled out.

That was understandable, I said, let’s fill out that paperwork now. I don’t know if Boss Lady was having a bad day or what, but I swear the smile she showed me was fake. She said it was too late in the year to be accepting a new child into her program. She said Bryce was welcome to get his twenty minutes of speech two times a week as is stated in his IEP, but it would be against the law to allow him to be in the preschool classroom. She was full at this time, nothing she could do about it, but Bryce was signed up and ready to attend in the fall. If I really wanted him to attend a preschool this year, then two other locations had room for him. Those places were much too far to travel to from my house and by the time I got it setteled with them and another ST, the school year would be over.

For those of you who know me, I am a shy woman who avoids confrontations. Although I’ve gotten much better, I still tend to bite my tongue and step aside sometimes. However, we were talking about my son and I didn’t agree here, so I had to say something.

I said I understood that Mr. Director had the wrong information. He had met Bryce at the playgroup and agreed Bryce would benefit from this setting and the school year was still in session. Mr. Director went above and beyond for my son and I was very appreciative. I asked Boss Lady to talk to him so this wouldn’t happen to another parent who was just looking for a place for her child to get speech without having one of her people drive way out to our house and my not having to go way over somewhere else just to be able to have my kid interact with other kids. I asked her to reconsider this situation.  Bryce would only be there for about five sessions and he is a child with an IEP. The school year is still going on and he needs services. We talked about it some more and came to a decision. Bryce could continue to come on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s, but not for the full two and a half hours and I couldn’t leave the property. So Bryce is there for 45 minutes and Dev and I either play on the playground or watch a movie in the van until he‘s done. Hope the Boss Lady is a bit more sunny in the fall.

Although Bryce isn’t talking in sentences, he is using more and more single word and two word phrases. He is also imitating like crazy! The ST is working on pointing and identifying items that Bryce will need or do in a days activity and saying hi and bye to people he interacts with. A few things he’s done at home is wait at the door with the dog, but instead of silently hoping and staring at the door like Knight does, Bryce will stand there and say over and over, Go outside. Go outside. Go outside. Another time he was being very loud while looking directly at me. I thought he was just exercising his vocal chords for the enjoyment of my ears, but then he comes up to me, grabs my finger and puts it up to my lips and makes a slobbery Shh sound. He wanted me to tell him to hush. LOL One other thing is while we were outside blowing bubbles, Dev picked a dandelion and gave it to me and I tucked it behind my ear. Bryce saw this and maybe because there wasn’t a dandelion in his immediate area, he choose a small bubble wand and practically shoved it in my ear canal! I helped him to put it on my ear and he was happy with the result.

A few time lapsed pictures of my boys at the cook out:

Tim has been busy with three times a week softball games. We can only attend the Friday night ones as the others are too far away on school nights. After school is out though, we might attend them all. Devin likes to go and although he gets bored with the game, he’s quick to retrieve any foul balls that fall on our side of the fence. Tim has more responsibility with his job and will be traveling more. He tried to get a manager’s meeting up in Traverse City to show off his home town area, but flying twenty people in from different states ended up being too costly. So he’ll be going somewhere in New York in a couple weeks for a few days.

I was going to tell you all about what I’ve been doing around the outside of my house, but this update is already lengthy and I haven’t even put the pictures in I want to share, so I’ll save that for another post in a few days. Someone also asked me why I don’t use my geocaching blog anymore. I don’t because, by the time I do that hobby as well as my new hobby, entertain and tend to my boys, housework, errands, etc, etc, and more etc., I just don’t have the time to keep up with two blogs. So when I can sit down and write, I’ll do so all here, in one spot. That way those of you who like to read what I write will get it all in one place. I do want to share some of the cool finds I’ve made geocaching. It’s a great outdoor hobby I like to do and Hunter seems interested in going with me again!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Thanks for reading!

XOXO

Yo

Science Projects, Pre K Tests, Don't Forget the Dogs!

I don’t know what the weather was like in your neck of the woods, but here, it was the perfect day weather wise. With hardly a cloud in the sky, there was just the hint of a breeze and the sun was so warm and comfortable that Bryce and I spent almost the entire day enjoying it. We went to two different outdoor playgrounds today as well as playing in our own back yard. I even filled up the small water table we have for him outside! Tomorrow morning (May 1st) we’re going to spend the morning outdoors because the forecast goes down hill fast after the lunch hour and it‘s being said it may last three days. I’ll definitely be listening to our weather radio tomorrow.

Hunter is doing so much better in school. His latest report card came back with all grades but math above 80%, but even math, at 76, was much better than the 68 recorded for the previous grading period. Math was not my subject, but Tim and I have been helping Hunter and his determination is what brought up his math grade. We are in touch with a tutor recommended by Hunter’s teacher, but as the tutor is a senior this year, he doesn’t have the time right now to start helping Hunter. With us being gone for some of the summer and the tutor taking his own vacation, the two of them won’t be able to get together until August. After talking about possibly finding someone else or just waiting until then and doing what we can with our son over the summer, Tim and I think that Hunter meeting up with the tutor in August and have a good couple weeks with him before Hunter begins 6th grade will be a good thing. So it’s all working out.

For those of you who are my FB friends, you may remember the picture I took of Hunter while at the Arrow of Light ceremony a few weeks ago. Hunter is no longer a Cub Scout. In front of the other pack members, parents and visiting representatives from the local boy scout troop, Hunter and two other boys stood straight at the front of the room as our pack leader read a prepared speech about the different arrows of light. She lit a candle for each color and each time she started, a line of that color was drawn across each of the boys’ cheeks. Right now we’re not sure if Hunter will join the boy scouts. Some of the reasons we’re still considering is the drive to a different town for the meetings. They meet more than once a week and they do many more activities, all year round. Tim has more responsibility with his job and had to miss a few meetings so far this spring. However, I did talk with a mom of a boy who is participating in his first year of boy scouts and she tells me it’s not as much parent participation as it was in cub scouts. She tells me her son is having a blast and I think that’s because he was also enjoying cub scouts. Hunter went because we wanted him to go. Having a blast isn’t how Hunter would describe the experience. Stay tuned.

As you all probably know, Hunter is an avid bookworm, just like his mom. Actually, I think he is even more of a bookworm, but, honestly, if I wasn’t going here, there and everywhere, I’d have my nose in a book more often! Hunter always has a book in his hands and they aren’t just fictional. Most of the time he is reading facts and figures, albeit the information is mostly under a weird and crazy catagory! Some of the things I have learned, thanks to him telling me every time we drive any where, are; jellyfish eat and poo using the same hole. They are teaching elephants to use a toilet in Thailand, if you like doughnuts, thank Hanson Crockett Gregory for putting a hole in them (because he couldn't get the insides to cook without burning the outside). There was a woman who slept for 47 years (in a coma) and a dog who ate 23 golf balls...and lived. Some hero's you may not know about are: Our third president, Thomas Jefferson, is to be thanked for bring to the U.S. from Italy the first macaroni machine. If you like macaroni and cheese, thank President Jefferson! Then you can thank Augustus Jackson for experimenting with ice cream and inventing all kinds of different flavors!

Hunter will be participating in a science fair at his school in May. The final judgment will be on May 10th. I’m not sure how many ideas went in and out of his noggin, but he came out with a decision and a title. Hunter’s 5th grade science project fits him perfectly. Maybe you can guess at what it might be if you think of his personality. He is going to show his classmates and those judges what happens when you don’t take care of the dishes of food that you’re too lazy to bring back to the kitchen! Called, The Moldy Investigation, Hunter has selected some foods and placed them in sandwich sized containers and tucked them into a dark corner of the pantry. Every day after school he checks on them and writes down his observations. He’s even taken a couple pictures. Out of his six subjects, the strawberries and tomatoes are already showing mold and are smelling awful. It’s only been a few days! His other choices of bread, sliced carrots, and an orange are different in texture, but the last subject, half a Twinkie, isn’t different at all! (I’m not surprised.)

Devin is still in the run for the Happiest Boy in the World award. He’s also trying for the World’s Most Annoying Brother, having been nominated and judged only by you know who. Hunter has started to put an electronic toy lock on the knob of his door again, something I thought was long ago lost in that bottomless pit that he calls a bedroom. If he wants something in there, he can usually find it. But he has to want to find it. If it’s me wanting him to find something, he almost always comes back empty handed. Dev doesn’t quiet have the steady, careful hand that’s needed to avoid activating the alarm. I’ve had to tell Devin quite a few times to stay out of Hunter’s room. During the times I don’t catch him, Dev often puts back what he takes out.

He’s been complaining about growing pains recently. Just the other night he was putting on his PJ’s in his bedroom and was saying his legs hurt. He conned me into carrying him to the couch to watch some TV before bed, then two minutes later, he was jumping off the couch, rolling and flipping across the floor. That night, though, I could hear him whimpering in his sleep and as I massaged his calf muscles, I could feel them tighten up. Poor guy. It does seem like he’s been growing over night! He’s now about 47 pounds and I a few days back I wasn’t prepared when he came running and I about broke my back catching him!

His time at pre-K is going great! I don’t think he’s complained about going once in the past two weeks. His whining would start when I announce it’s time to go and Hunter gets to continue to watch TV. We leave less than ten minutes before the bus picks Hunter up, but to hear Devin talk about it, we’re leaving Hunter behind to watch the same cartoon for all the day! Once we get there though, he enters with a smile and he leaves with a smile (after I get a great big hug). The center has a huge playground behind it, divided into fenced off areas for the different aged kids who stay there. Some kids arrive at 6 AM and are picked up at 6 PM. I’m so thankful mine aren’t in that situation!

Devin’s enrollment in Kindergarten at the school that is only a few hundred yards behind his pre-k classroom was up in the air until last week. I choose to go the open enrollment route and requested an application at a school that is about the same distance as the one Hunter is currently going to. The biggest difference between the two is this school has Kindergarten all day, every day, while the school Devin will go to next year for 1st grade, only has two full days one week and three full days the next for Kindergarten. The other difference is school size. If you don’t remember, Hunter’s first school was closed the summer he finished his Kindergarten year. That fall, the K-5 from his closed school and the K-5 from another closed school all went to one school that already had K-5 students. This school was then downsized in class level only. It became K-3 and the older building in front of it, which had been until then the STARS program (special needs kids), was designated 4th and 5th grade. Just typing this out for all of you is making me feel better about sending Dev to a different school!

Anyway, I got a call last week that Devin has been accepted for their Kindergarten program and asked that I bring him in for what they called an interview. Since this was my first typical Kindergarten experience (Hunter had already been in the school system for three years by this time) I agreed and brought Devin into the school office after a day at pre-K. The same woman who gave me the enrollment package those weeks before took Devin to a room without me and there she asked him to write his name, showed him a list of letters and numbers and to tell her which ones he recognized and ended with him drawing the shapes of his choice from a sheet she put in front of him. Although Devin is singing the ABC song and counting the steps he takes, any animals he sees and other things, I haven’t really sat him down with worksheets. I wasn’t prepared for someone to give my son homework before he even started school!

Now to Bryce. He will be three in about two weeks! That‘s my first thought about him right now, the second I have to share would be that he hasn’t broken anything yet! At this age, Hunter was attached to my hip and wouldn’t even attempt climbing any playground equipment. Devin at three would do it, but absolutely not without the help of an adult. Bryce…Now and then he’ll stop what he’s doing and come over to you for a hug or a kiss, but other than that, he goes on any and all equipment. Nothing is too big or too high for him. If he can’t do it himself, he’ll eye it from all angels and then look at me for help. Once conquered, we share a high five and then he’s off to the next adventure. He loves being outside. Having the rear of the house made up of all windows, looking down on the fenced in back yard, is the perfect set up for Bryce and I. I can come in and make a meal or clean up a bit and he is just a look out the window away.

With Bryce turning three, it means he can no longer attend the two times a week playgroup he’s been enjoying. Help Me Grow is very strict about the age cut off. Next week I’ll be meeting with the team that recently gave Bryce his speech and language impairment diagnosis to discuss objectives and goals for his IEP and which preschool he’ll be attending. The only concern Bryce is showing is a delay in expressive communication. He’s not talking in more than just a word or two. Some of you might be wondering if there is a possible autism diagnosis in his future. I say no, as Bryce is only mirroring Hunter with the lack of speech and stimulating behavior. Then again, no child with autism is the same, but each child evaluated to be on the spectrum is put there using pretty much the same check list. Where Hunter had quite a few marks on that piece of paperwork, Bryce only has two; lack of expressive speech and slight stimming behavior. When excited, Bryce shakes his hands a bit. He doesn’t flap, he shakes. It’s like, when you’re pushing your arms to lift that barbell just one more time and your muscles shake and shiver with the exertion? That’s what B’s hands look like. Hunter’s arms flapped like a bird at this age, from his elbows to his fingers and over the years that has tapered off and is mostly gone. You might be thinking it’s still the same thing and you might be right. This is my opinion comparing my two son’s together, but it is also the opinion of the same psychologist who worked with Hunter when we first moved to Ohio and who has played and evaluated Bryce in his playgroup setting. I suppose it’s another thing to stay tuned for.

Tim has been traveling a lot so far this spring. He spent a work week in Colorado Springs, a few days in southern Florida, is right now in northern Michigan and then comes home just to drive over to Sandusky the next day for four more days. This time of year is always busy for him, but he also enjoys talking with the customers and going on a ride along with the sales people. With all this time he’s on the road added to the times the boys and I travel out of the area, I do consider myself lucky that I’ve only had to call out for a rescue twice. Once I ran out of gas after dropping Hunter off at school when we still lived in Michigan and once I blew a tire while traveling back to Ohio from Michigan. Then there was this past Wednesday and the fact that my rescuer was 1,400 miles away!

Bryce and I were on our way home from playgroup with about 45 minutes to go before picking Devin up at pre-K. On a stretch of busy road, a dashboard alarm suddenly went off. My temperature gage was all the way up to the H! I pull over without any real worries about blocking the lane of traffic because cars share this road with Amish buggies, so the shoulders are paved and wide. I didn’t want to push it so I turned off the engine and called my insurance company to see if they had a number for a tow truck. Once that was done, I dialed 411 and got what I thought was the Enterprise car rental a couple towns over that Tim uses. The number I paid to be connected to ended up being their fax machine! Then I called Tim down there in sunny Florida and told him what was going on. He had me send him pictures from under my van’s hood and had me look on the pavement underneath. At that time, I didn’t see any leakage, but when the tow truck took my van, there was radiator fluid coming out. Even being that far away, my hubby came to the rescue by having a friend contact me to see if I needed a ride. By then I had been in touch with Enterprise and had learned that they couldn’t come pick me up for two hours! To make a long story short, we picked Dev up on time, got a rental car without too much hassle and my van was fixed less than 24 hours later. Even though it all worked out, I don’t want to do it ever again!

My addiction to geocaching has gotten better in my words, worse in my hubby’s. But on the other hand, he says he’s addiction to slow pitch softball is a good thing and I’m thinking when he travels an hour to get there and play, gets home past 11:00 on a week day and repeats that twice a week, soon to be three, although the third one will be closer, I’m saying, not so much! I’m thinking I need more time for my hobby. I can do it during the week, but only one or two if they are kid friendly and easy to get to. Tim has been having practice on Saturday’s and games on Sunday’s (and don't forget the weekday games)…when do I get to satisfy my need? If I have your vote, post a note on his FB page. LOL

The other members of our family, rat terrier Kit and black lab Knight, are doing great. Knight is showing some grey on his muzzle and is slowing down after a dozen or so retrieves. Kit is still a bundle of energy. She goes just about everywhere with us, even if she ends up staying in the van. She's my little vacuum cleaner; all I have to do is clean up the bigger things in my van and she hops in and sucks up the rest (cereal, french fries, chicken nuggets, etc.) That's why she's so eager to go with us, there's always something on the van floor! But she also gets to go walking with us in the woods when we go geocaching. Her I can let off the leash, not so much with Knight. He never really listened to me anyway because I'm not the one who takes him hunting. I guess play and food from me aren't high enough on his list next to hunting and Master Tim. Knight is also going deaf, so a leash free walk no longer works for Knight and I. I almost adopted a cat, even though the hubby was texting in the negative from another state. Unfortunatley it wasn't meant to be...right now.

I hope this update finds you all healthy, happy and stress free. Spring is the time for new growth and as we watch the trees bud and the flowers bloom, I'm wondering if any of you need a fresh start? Do something again, maybe start something over? Or maybe just try something new? My crazy, ahem, oldest sister Karyn is going sky diving. Over the past couple of years she has taken a look at herself, made some changes, accepted some things she couldn't change, and is just loving and appreciating life. She is one wonderful lady and I'm glad I can call her family.

Take care everyone and thanks for reading!

Yo

I finished this the morning of May 2nd and it still hasn't rained. It certainly does look nasty out there!

March 30, 2010 Update :)

Hello again everyone! I thought I'd type up an update before we leave for the Easter weekend.

Hunter -

For those of you who haven't read my updates in some time, my son is 12 years old! I can't believe it, but he did indeed have his twelfth birthday on December first. We didn't do anything huge to celebrate. He chose his dinner and activities and invited a friend over and they stayed up way too late!

Life seems to be going pretty good for him, but he still isn't telling me too much on his own. I've been playing 20 Questions with him for some time, trying to learn what goes on at school and inside that blond head of his. Often our conversations go like this:

Me: So, how much trouble did you get in today? Your teacher and I have been discussing how it might be helpful to hang kids by their toes...or...Did you kiss so and so yet?

Hunter: No. That's not going to happen. Mom!

But then he tells me about some of the things he did and tells his dad again over the dinner table. The teasing gets him to loosen up.

His last report card was better than the previous. He brought his grades up in social studies, science and math, but they are still below 80% (he's not failing). Remembering vocabulary words aren't easy for him and I can't always make the definitions silly or gross, which is something he's always enjoyed. I'll mention that in the next paragraph, but I wanted to tell you that we've begun looking for a math tutor for him. His dad and I aren't much help to him with math. It wasn't my best subject to begin with and now we have the school system changing around the way the kids are learning what we already know. I end up taking time to look through his math book to remember, then I have to learn the steps he's doing to be any help. One night Hunter brought his finished homework to me and I looked at the answer sheet provided by his teacher and discovered that almost half of what he had done was wrong. I called him back and we sat down to see what happened. Hunter has always had trouble doing something differently than the first time he was shown. In this instance, he was dealing with exponents, parenthesis and nesting parenthesis. Working with just exponents, he knew what he had to do first, but when you toss in parenthesis, it changes the order. I'll just say he left the table and shut himself up in his room. I gave him a bit to settle down. He doesn't like people to see him when he's upset. Finally I got him to talk to me about it and he said he doesn't understand why he got them wrong, that he did his best on his homework and how math is so hard.

I felt so bad for him. I knew I was doing my best, too, but I also knew that I could be holding him back because I wasn't confident in what I was doing, either. So Tim and I talked and decided to find him a tutor. There are no learning centers in our area like Sylvan, so we inquired at the school and his teacher provided me with the name and phone number of a high school senior who she believes would be a good fit for Hunter. The cons are that this person is a senior this year and that he'll only do it during the summer. I'll probably ask him to help Hunter over the summer, but after I'll have to look elsewhere. A home schooling mama I know also has a son on the spectrum and she suggested a tutoring company that would probably come to our house and since Hunter has an IEP (Individualized Education Program) the school will either pay for the cost or be able to help me with it. So I'm going to look more into that.

Hunter had his Pinewood Derby last Tuesday. His car, edges rounded and painted to resemble a blimp in a game he and his dad play, did OK. He didn't place in the top three, but he wasn't last. He didn't really put much effort into his car and honestly, he doesn't put much effort into scouts. This is his last year as a cub scout and we're not sure if we'll continue with boy scouts in the fall. The older boy group does much more activities and actually meets twice a week compared to the handful of events and one meeting a week the cub scouts do. Depending on the time of year, Tim sometimes has a hard time taking Hunter to the Tuesday night meetings and now Tim has even more responsibility with his job and doesn't think he can participate with Hunter in boy scouts. If Hunter was more into it than he is, I'd be more upset, but he's not. It doesn't look like scouting will be in my son's future, at least not until Devin can join when he starts first grade. I'm OK with it. No matter how much I want him to enjoy something I'd like him to do, I'm not going to force him. I will keep mentioning all the fun and awesome things he could be doing, but if he says no, what more can a parent do but ask they try? And he did.

Hunter is into anything gross, crazy, silly, weird, disgusting or shocking. He has our DVR recording shows like Dude, What Will Happen, Destroy, Build, Destroy, Monsters Inside Me, The Most Extreme, Fatal Attractions and Untamed and Uncut. The last few I mentioned are based on real life stories! One even had Hunter a bit teary eyed. You can't talk to him when he's like that, but we talked about it after. He couldn't believe that someone could make such a bad choice and have such fatal consequences. Besides agreeing it was terribly sad, I remember telling him that sharing this person's story with us educates us on what not to do and avoiding that kind of situation. One show, though, The Lost Tapes...not so real...or they could be, I suppose, if you believe in Big Foot. But I doubt a huge octopus is living in an Oklahoma lake. He was arguing with his friend Steve that it was true. When I read on Facebook that my cousin's hubby was going to be featured in an episode of MonsterQuest that was about the Dogman near Manistee, Michigan,

I recorded it for him. He enjoyed the mystery of it all...and now wants his own fake guts.

Hunter has a great sense of humor. His teacher has told me many times of his antics and teasing in the classroom. She says he gets along great with all his classmates and that his humor and interests help in that area. In the past he has scored poorly on oral assignments because of his tone of voice, but this past assignment, a poster board book report in which he advertised a book of his choice to his class, the teacher could hear him all the way at the back of the room where she purposefully put herself. I really like Ms. D and would love it if she were able to go with Hunter into middle school in the fall.

Devin -

Ohhhh...the four year old! If you ever need a reason to smile you can just think of my son. I have never seen a little kid happy so darn much! When I come into the living room at seven in the morning, he's there, "invisible" on the couch, laughing the entire time. His imagination takes me to the ocean, where's he's catching some waves on his surfboard (the soft side support from a travel bed), performing rolls, head stands and balancing acts in a recliner big top circus, he's a friendly dolphin in the bath tub.... I could go on and on. He is a very active little boy who shows love for his brothers, his dad and I and his dogs.

Devin is also loving his Pre K program. I'm thinking of paying for another day a week because he asks me every morning if he's going to Pre K and how much he likes to be at Pre K. He goes on Wednesday and Friday's. On Wednesday a woman who plays many different musical instruments comes to the center and now that it's warming up, he can play in the huge fenced in playground in the back. When we ask him the names of his friends he says he doesn't remember, but he is telling us what he does and gives us the whole lunch menu. He says he eats it all, so it appears he's eating better for them than he is for us!

Devin is the most helpful child I have ever met (but I've heard all about my niece K'ryn's recent do gooding!). On the weekends I get let out to do some grocery shopping on my own, Devin is almost always the first one to greet me and he carries the bags to the kitchen without having to be asked. When he's not causing havoc with his brothers, he's helping them by telling me what they need. For example, if Bryce needs a new diaper he tells me and also gets me the supplies I'll need. Devin also acts as the go between for Hunter and I, mostly at Hunter's request!

Devin's favorite form of communication is using Skype on the computer. He talks about calling people all the time on it, but once you get him sitting and facing that person on the screen, my little chatterbox clams up and acts all shy! I don't even listen to the radio while we're driving in my van anymore. Devin talks and asks questions constantly. One day I listened and answered, listened some more and then he said, That's all the questions right now. Of course I have to mention the day he and I were waiting with a couple other parents, watching Bryce from a one way mirror play with a little girl at playgroup. Devin turns to me and asks, Does Brycee's friend have a penis or not? So I explained very briefly that Bryce's friend did not have a penis and thankfully that answer was acceptable.

Devin is very excited about spending the weekend at his Aunt Amanda's house. On the way back to our house just this morning I said to him, We need to start getting our clothes and toys ready because we're leaving for Michigan Friday morning. He asked, What we will be doing there?, to which I replied, We'll be staying at Aunt Amanda's house with Rayne, Randi, Emma, Landon and Aunt Tiffany. Dev threw his arms and legs up in the air as much as he could while being strapped into a car seat and explained, Yeah! I like them!

Bryce -

As I type this, my almost three year old angel is doing what he loves to do best, drawing. My husband mentioned something about painting the walls while the boys and I are gone. I think it might be too early for that, but maybe not as I, in a frustrating day, threw away all the crayons, markers, colored pencils and banished all the pens and pencils to a secret place little hands don't know about. Hunter has his own supply and I warned him that if any of his writing and drawing stuff comes out of his room, they will be thrown away! Bryce has left his artwork on the walls, windows, TV's, counters, table tops, doors, furniture and even bed sheets! Where Devin prefers to continue his pretend play until his coloring or painting resembles chaos in color, Bryce prefers to cover his paper in circles, squares, rain clouds and now letters. Thanks to an episode of Blue's Clue's where Joe (Steve's friend who replaced him) goes on an alphabet hunt, Bryce wrote the word JOE! He also can say J, O and E and he can count to ten!

Two days a week Bryce attends a playgroup at a clinic built for special needs kids. Although Bryce hasn't been evaluated for anything, I do have him working with a speech therapist because he isn't talking as much as I think he should for an almost three year old. For those of you who remember Hunter's earlier years and the concern then, Bryce is his opposite. Where Hunter didn't want to let go of me in a social environment, Bryce can't get away from me quick enough. Where Hunter had tantrums and would hit in frustration because he couldn't communicate his needs, Bryce just tries to do it all himself.

Bryce does have some of the same stimulating behavior that Hunter had at this age. Bryce does flap his hands when he's excited. I don't know if he learned this from Hunter or if it's his way of showing excitement, but he is doing it. I probably will have Bryce evaluated for autism when he gets a bit older. It's in the family and he's not talking. I don't think I'd be doing right by him if I didn't.

Life in NE Ohio is going pretty good. I finished my new flower beds and now just need to go get some flowers to put back in there. This year we may actually pave our driveway so we can put up a basketball hoop. My plants survived the winter, hooray!, and I'm going to get more for the indoors. Our small pond though isn't doing so well. The neighbor's ducks have been living there. It wouldn't be such a big concern if it wasn't pretty much just a big mud puddle. There is no natural flow or spring so the duck poo is making for a pretty ugly scene. Tim called the neighbor and they talked about it, but it's been three days now and the ducks are still at the pond.

My addiction to geocaching is growing! I have found 16 caches since the snow has melted, bringing my count to 114 found. Dev and Bryce are usually with me, Kit almost always. I took out the hide I did back in October and changed out the container. I was inspired by Hunter to create a more surprising find, one I hope to read comments about as other geocachers find it. With this hobby I've met three other ladies who also geocache. I've been out quite a few times with one and plan on finally meeting up with the other two and possibly my first cacher friend as well on April 10th for a geocaching marathon!

Tim has a busy month in April. It looks like we'll be seeing him on some Fridays and just on the weekends. He has to go to Sandusky, Colorado (without me this year. Sigh.), Florida and Michigan. We're looking forward to watching him play in the first slow pitch softball tournament on the 17th and 18th. If any of you would like to come and visit while he's gone, maybe change a few diapers, definitely share in the laughter, then come on out! :)

My email, yoandkids@hunterweekly.com does not work. My website doesn't exist anymore. Feel free to send me an email at yolandag@sippycupcorner.com or text me at 440-781-5151. I can also be found on Facebook. Search for Yolanda McPherson Gallagher.

Have a great Easter!

Back at it!

Hi all. It's been way too long in-between posts. I decided not to fret about it and just write on a day worthy of being written about. Doesn't mean I'll get to writing about it right away, but I'm hoping to make it happen. Here it is Wednesday and I'm going to talk mostly Monday. I"m also going to delete my Cache Checkers blog and just talk about those adventures here.

First off, I hope everyone is doing well. If you keep up with my Facebooks posts you'll know that Dev, B and I recently returned from bringing our rat terrier Kit to the vet. She cut herself pretty bad on our woodland adventure yesterday. It had been a partly cloudy day, but knowing today was going to be rain, rain and more rain, the younger boys, Kit and I went to a park in the making.

A park in the making is most definitely what it is! It has one pavilion, a porta potty and lots of mowed grass. Right now the trails aren't really trails so we spent most of our time walking through the woods. B had one bumpy ride in the padded seat of our all terrain wagon. He was OK with it, laughing most of the way. We were there for a geocache, I am addicted, but also just a walk in the woods with colors all around us and dried up, crunchy leaves on the ground. So crunchy, Dev and I had to stop walking so we could hear ourselves speak! The more and more I hunt for these things, the more I dislike caches in the woods! Especially when there is no hint given! With the cloudy skies and leaves still on the trees, my GPS was slow to update. A find or no find, we enjoyed our time on that walk and Kit seemed fine, appearing from all sides, keeping us in sight, although she could definitely locate where we were by sound!

Monday started off rough. While my morning coffee was brewing I turned on my computer and as I sat down to check my email I heard a click and then the sound of a machine humming down to silence. A push of the button on the tower front and a flick of the switch at the back did nothing, like I knew it wouldn't. I called for my hubby who was thirty seconds away from leaving for work and he confirmed with an annoying smirk that, Yup, your power supply is capoot and I'm going out of town for two days, ha, ha, ha!

We have another computer in the house, the one I'm currently typing on (feel free to suggest Tim get me a laptop). He built it for my online store use and I'm not allowed to have any fun on it. I can check my email, update my FB status and type on my blog, but no games for me and most definitely not for the boys. Since Dev can't read yet, he clicks on anything and everything and that equals trouble.

So, I took my coffee down here in the finished basement where it's at least 10 degrees cooler. In the summer it's a great place to be, not so much so during the colder months. I actually did have some store work to do, so I turned the power on, sat down here and reached for my wireless mouse...but it was gone. Bryce loves to come here and spin in my desk chair. Wide, soft and with raised arms to keep him from falling off, he crawls into it and kicks off my desk, spinning so fast my stomach turns sometimes just watching him. In his excitement, he often kicks the mouse onto the floor or once I found it upstairs. It wasn't under the table, it wasn't upstairs and I spent a good 30 minutes looking for it. Finally I gave up and came back down here and tried to update my FB status using the Tab button. Oh, that was time consuming and so very annoying.

After suffering through that, I decided to continue to try and find it under more and saw how dusty and dirty my house is. I haven't done an in depth cleaning since the spring and realizing that was like sitting all healthy in a doctor's office during flu season. It's something I don't do because I'd probably get sick. So, like the flu bug, I tend to avoid such situations where I might catch myself the cleaning bug, but there are times that it can't be helped and looking for that computer mouse was the start of one of those times!

Since I was searching in the family room, I started the fight there. Tim had already moved the board games and the like from the fireplace mantle to Hunter's closet. With that done, the room already looked less cluttered. I continued by boxing up the old VHS and cassette tapes we hadn't used in years and also packed away the empty music CD cases. I cleaned up the DVD collection, de-cluttered the top of the big screen, wiped down the fireplace and surrounding area, moved in and out some toys between there and the boys' bedrooms. There aren't a lot of rooms in my house I can rearrange, but the family room is one of them so I moved the couch and treadmill around

Oh, the couch. I hadn't cleaned underneath the couch since the spring. My boys play in this room a lot. They jump up and down on that couch, they eat on that couch.... I wasn't quite sure I wanted to look under that couch. With a quick breath I toughened my You're already half way resolve and lifted the back of the couch forward and over onto itself. Hmmm. I won't go into all that was under there, but three kids and six months time....Yeah. I grabbed two Wal-Mart bags, one for garbage and one for salvageable items, and got into it. During this time, both Devin and Bryce were upstairs, keeping themselves occupied with just a little direction from me. Each time I went upstairs to check on them I switched off all the lights Bryce had turned on. Returning back downstairs it was a good bet I'd be switching them off again. Then suddenly, as I start to sort thru all that mess underneath the couch, Bryce appears and wants the intact but grimy Goldfish cracker underneath a dryer sheet and demands the hair balled and melted to the floor sucker. I had to carry him kicking and screaming from the room and bribe him with Blue's Clue's and a cookie.

I finally got everything separated and vacuumed up the mess and put the couch back down. Cleaning goes faster when you listen to music. That day, however, I turned on a recorded episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show I had saved. On it was the story of a stay at home mom who had survived a terrible plane crash but was horribly burned and scarred. It was a terrifying story of her struggle and survival while her family admits to considering taking her off life support during her three month, medically induced coma. My reason for bringing this up is this: Oprah had gotten a letter from another stay at home mom who wrote about being bored and mostly bothered by being at home with her kids all day. Oprah not only invited this woman onto her show, but asked her to spend the day with the burned stay at home mom and then come meet her, Oprah and talk about the experience on TV.

The mom who didn't appreciate the opportunity that staying at home brings a parent, the joys of seeing her children grow, of hugging and holding them whenever they needed to be, was humbled. She didn't see for herself, but she heard from the burned mama's own lips how her children 9, 7 and 4, were scared of their own mama's appearance and wouldn't go near her for weeks. She also heard of the grief and agony the burned mama's husband had for his wife as she lay covered in so many bandages that only her red painted toenails showed. She saw firsthand her new mama friend struggling behind her smile as she went through seemingly mundane tasks like making her kids breakfast and taking them to the park. This mama has to wear rubber gloves on her hands to give her children a bath and still, months after her accident, can't pick them up and out of the tub.

I don't mean to stand up on any soapbox for stay at home mom's. I am proud to be one, but I have to admit that I sometimes have the same feelings as my fellow stay at homer did when she wrote that letter to Oprah. For some reason or another, I decided to watch that episode instead of listening to music while I cleaned. I would have gotten the job done faster, but instead I cleaned, I listened and I appreciated.

But then I went back upstairs. Devin was screaming down at me how thirsty he was and that I needed to get him a drink. My once soft spoken and well mannered three year old had turned into a bossy and bratty four year old. I took the straw bottle he was shaking in my face and asked him to come into the kitchen with me. Once there, I implemented some tough love. With Devin watching me, I took his much loved blue straw bottle and I dropped it right into the garbage. He immediately started crying and when he settled down, I pulled it out, showed it to him and said that was exactly how I felt when he behaves the way he does when he wants something. What I did had been spontaneous and as he broke into tears I thought, Oh, my gosh! What have I done?? I have talked and talked about this all before and didn't want to say it again right then. Actions can speak louder than words and it looks like my possible overreaction, depending on your point of view, worked. Devin is using Please and Thank you's once again!

One more thing I'd like to add.... When Tim cleaned the games off the mantle downstairs and put them on the top shelf of Hunter's closet, he found something surprising. For some time now, Hunter has been doing great with his toileting habits, or so we thought. Apparently he's not. He's been hiding his accidents in a box on that shelf in his closet. I haven't noticed up till now because Hunter keeps the closet door shut and the bedroom door as well to keep Bryce out of there. Hunter hoards small items that are still a possible choking hazard to his little brother and they are all over the bedroom. So, it's back to putting Hunter on a schedule with certain must do's to get this back on track.

Thanks for reading all this and I hope it gives you a little insight into our lives! :) I do have pictures to share and hopefully can get them up for you to see when I get my other computer back.

Till I type again, take care!

Yo

More words to write than pictures to show!

I blame it on my lovable hubby. I don't have many pictures to show because he took my camera with him on a four day trip...or maybe it's that Devin has been taking so many pictures that not only does it fill my 1.0 GB memory card but he drains the two AA batteries...or maybe it's because I take it away from my curious two year old and forget where I hide it.... Or maybe it's just me being lazy and missing photo opportunities.

Right now, I should go take a snap of what Bryce is doing. He let himself out the sunroom/computer room door to the back yard. We've just had a thunderstorm that poured rain down on us so hard, the splatter of the drops reached as high as my knee as we looked out from the cover of our garage. Bryce is out there, going back and forth between the fresh, cool, fun wetness in his water table and on the top of the closed plastic outside toy bin. He doesn't know where to begin, but the end result will be a soaking wet, happy boy!

I'm hoping the clouds that bruised the sky have passed on to drop their much needed water in someone else's yard. I'm glad we've had two good down pours in two days because we haven't had a single drop in two weeks! My grass is dead in spots, a first for us at this house since we moved here in early 2003. But, rain, rain, go away because Devin has his first T-ball game today!

Technically, he's not old enough to play but we know one of the coaches and it's all for fun at this age anyway. He's been to a few practices in which he only actually played ball for the first fifteen minutes. The rest of the time he joined in the fun with the kids on the bleachers. Tim has a good attitude about it all, but I admit I'm being pushy! I want him to get in there and play already, but I understand the need to follow his, Devin's, lead. Hunter has never been into sports, although he loves to watch, so I'm eager to get the ball throwing for Devin. We've been working with both Hunter and Dev in catching and using a bat and a ball on a T. Devin is being stubborn when it comes to wearing the dark blue helmet with the the grid like mask over the face. This helmet is made to be adjusted to grow with him by a nifty dial on the back that clicks with each new size. Much better than the helmets I used during summer softball that shifted just about every time I swung the bat!

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I just took a break for a couple hours and it's back to pouring down rain. During this time away from the computer, I took a great photo of what Bryce was doing at the moment and sent it to all who are in my email address book. If you want to be included in my mailings, please send your email to me at yoandkids@hunterweekly.com. :) You'll get email notices when I update either of my blogs, too.


I spoke of Dev first, so I'll continue with him. It's great having conversations with him and seeing him talk along with other people. We were in the store just today when he approached two little girls in a shopping cart and told them about the blue light saber he was carrying. Then he turned and gestured to the blue and white backyard bouncing ball in the cart and explained solemnly that he had to get a new one because his dad popped the old. After small chat with the mom about how those big balls come and go, we said goodbye and Devin turned to me and announced he had made some new friends.

The other night Devin insisted on having his light left on for bedtime so he could play a certain game on his bed. I agreed to ten minutes and set the digital timer. I closed the door behind me so the light wouldn't sneak under Hunter's door across the hall and joined my hubby in the living room. A few minutes later, I heard Devin's door open. I assumed he was going to appear with some excuse or another, but instead of thinking I'd meet him in the hall, I found he was shutting his door again from the inside and there on the floor in front of the door is a teddy bear. I took the teddy bear out to Tim and told him what Dev had done. We were both very curious, so I went back to Devin's room and asked him why his teddy bear was outside alone in the dark hallway. He said, I just don't want to play with him anymore. I said, OK. That's fine. How about I put him here, on the floor by your bed, so that you'll find him when you need him next. Without looking at me, he replied with a frown, No, thanks. Take him away. I don't want to be his friend right now. I did what he asked with thoughts bouncing around in my head of what a teddy bear could do to a 3 1/2 year old to be banished.

This past weekend he discovered that the Jeep Santa had left for him under the tree has a faster speed then any of us had thought. No longer can we just causally walk along side him as he goes, but now we must pick up the pace or Dev will leave us behind. A couple weeks ago he was refusing to give Bryce a ride in the passenger seat. When I told him he was then done riding in his Jeep, he hopped out and said OK as he ran the other way! I don't know if that rule finally soaked into that cute head of his, but now he lets B ride with him every time and when his younger brother isn't interested, Dev stays close until B changes his mind (which is pretty quick usually).

Our lawn tractor is another thing that Dev has gotten good at driving. He knows where the key is, how to turn the throttle up and how to activate the blades. He insists on wearing the ear muffs that Hunter once needed to attend parades or hockey games and often prefers to stand at the wheel instead of sitting between mine or his dad's legs. If he's inside the house when the tractor starts, he comes running out with those ear muffs and if he hears another lawn mower running, he goes to every window wondering if his dad is home and doing the grass cutting without him. The steering wheel is twice the size of his Jeep and much tighter to maneuver. Dev gets his hands on there and really turns with his arms to get the machine to go where he wants. I told him he must eat more meat and veggies so he can grow bigger and weigh more, than he won't need his dad or I to sit on the seat with him. He says he's OK with that, but I don't know. He's eating habits aren't very good!

Last Wednesday late afternoon, Devin traveled with his dad to an away baseball game his dad played in and then the two of them went from there to a hotel in Pennsylvania to stay the night before continuing on to my brother in law's second college graduation in Maryland. The only pictures they brought back with them was a whole lot of audience shots, some blurred some not, some crooked, some I couldn't tell. Dev was the proud cameraman of the day. By cell phone picture updates Tim showed me Dev eating a big waffle with an even bigger amount of whip cream on it and Dev posing happily on a smooth and sandy beach off the boardwalk in Ocean City, MD. Phone conversations told me of delicious BBQ's and fun birthday parties (Jamie's son turned one year old while they were there). It sounded like it was a good time all around and I am sorry that Hunter, Bryce and I didn't come along.

I seriously considered all of us attending, but there were a few factors I had to consider. One was, where we would all stay? There are five of us and two dogs. We would have had to rent a hotel room and leave the dogs at Jamie's? No, so we'd have to either bring them with us, put them in a kennel or pay someone to tend to them at the house while we were gone. But the biggest decision maker was the fact that Hunter is still in school. Sure, most kids would celebrate being able to miss three days of forced attendance, and believe me, Hunter would be first in line for his very own noisemaker...or three...but these are the last few weeks of school. There is no more homework and more fun days than work. They had a pizza party once with a small carnival after one day, they went and listened to the older kids play band instruments another, and they went to a wax museum. I know there's more I'm not remembering, but Hunter was actually looking forward to going to school and I didn't want to take him away from it. So, that's why we stayed behind and I terribly missed the two loudest people in my house!

Hunter did bring home a small piece of homework the other day. For many assignments he's allowed to type out his words instead of writing them. He brought home part of his work and had to finish typing out the rest. The assignment was to write directions on something and he chose the task of teaching someone how to clean their bedroom. Here is what he had to share on the subject:

Here is how to clean your room: First, you pick up your toys and put them back in your toy box. Next, you pick up your books and put them away. Then, you get your vacuum and vacuum the floor. Next, you watch out for ants. If you find an ant, kill it. If it is dead, get rid of it. If it's alive, kill it some more. Finally, you flush it down the toilet. Make sure the ant doesn't bite you and then you show your parents your clean room and they might give you $5.00.

It was only one ant! Tim read through it and had a good laugh and said Hunter made it sound as if we're infested! I was actually on the phone with Tim downstairs when I heard this pounding over and over again from above my head. I went upstairs to investigate and found Hunter beating at the floor with what I don't recall, but I did see the ant he pointed out, two black dots separated from each other. I haven't felt the house shake with anymore hits to the floor, so I think it was one unlucky scout ant who's disappearance was a signal to his fellow ants to keep away!

I'm going to end it here for now so I can give the boys an early dinner before leaving for the T-ball game. I haven't heard anything yet, but I have my doubts about it being played in this weather.

-------------------------------

No T-ball game. The rain continues and the boys play the Wii with a holler from me now and then to knock off whatever they're doing that allows me to hear them all the way upstairs.

My youngest rug rat still isn't talking, but he's doing his best to sing along to Blue's Clues. I need to get a video of it, but every time I try his only interest becomes being the one WITH the camera, not the SUBJECT of the camera. That's the only time he seems to forgot his favorite cartoon! Tim can't help but joke about Bryce's big ears, and now the joke is if those ears really work! B only listens when he wants to listen. When he's focused on something, he's like Knight is when he sees even the smallest of his master's pick up his ball. Nothing else exists to him except for that ball. In Bryce's case it's Blue Clue's, the dog water bowl, the dog food, a pen, the toilet, the buttons on all electronics.... No matter how many times you say no or how many high octaves your voice can reach, Bryce has a set goal to create whatever trouble he can with whatever object he can. The closer you are to him, the faster he will do his job.

Let's not forget the Two Year Old's Temper. I think it deserves to be capitalized so I can express how much a big deal it is! I feel pretty confident other mothers who have been there and done that will agree. Neither of my older boys ever really had a tantrum or a screaming fit. Devin would throw himself to the floor, but that was it. No sound really came out of his mouth except for his cries that were made even softer by the muffling of the carpet. If I was able to catch Bryce in the act of doing something, or before he could attempt to make trouble for himself or me, he would simply stand there, feet rooted to the ground and his hands would go down to his sides. Where his body is still and normal though, his head is tilted up to the ceiling like he's asking, Why me? and then his mouth opens wide, it's in an expression that could have been the model for that Edvard Munch's painting called The Scream. Then, he really does scream. He screams so loud your hands flinch toward your ears and it's so long you wonder if the neighbors can hear through the open window and are considering calling the authorities. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does you might think, Glad that's not my kid!

He has silent fits as well. The other day I needed to get the lawn mowed so when Hunter got home, I closed all the bedroom doors (bathroom is always closed after the flushing of a washcloth and the bathing in that ceramic basin) and latched the stairway gate closed. I told Hunter I needed his help for about twenty minutes to mow the lawn. It takes much longer to do our lawn, even when I divide it into sections and do it over two days time. Though Hunter is quickly approaching 12, I can't trust him to care for Bryce. So I turn on Blue for B, suggest Hunter read a book in the recliner and I head out to the back lawn to check on them all in twenty minutes. If somethings up, Hunter will come out to the back porch and wave his arms. I was outside maybe three minutes, picking up the toys so they don't turn into plastic chewed on chunks, when I hear a crash through the open sunroom windows.

I rush up the back steps and through the closed sunroom door and find Hunter climbing back up the stairs. In his hands was the ceramic bowl I had put a snack in for Bryce earlier, broken into three pieces. Hunter was quick to say he didn't do it, that Bryce suddenly threw it over the stair rails to the landing below. I believed him, I knew Bryce did it and realized he was probably very upset with my denying him access to the stairs, his other brother and other potential trouble below.

Tim wasn't sure if I should share this next piece with you. I see nothing wrong with it, but there are many different attitudes out there, as we all have experienced or seen I'm sure. I may not have mentioned it here before but I know I've shared it in phone calls with many of you. Bryce gets his knee and thighs stuck in the space between his crib slats. The brat did this every night! If it didn't happen between the time we put him down and he fell asleep, it happened at three or four AM when he realizes he's stuck and lets out a painful cry that sends me running to his bedroom. A couple times I got myself a bit worked up too because I couldn't get his knee out by just turning his body with the leg or gently working it up and down. Something had to be done.

Crib pads were not going to work. We've watched what he does. He starts by lifting his leg above him to flex like a dancer stretching, toes down, then he lowers his leg inbetween two slats, back or front of the crib, where ever he happens to be, and it falls in perfectly between the smooth wood. Suddenly he's wedged in there above the knee like a piece of building material lowered into a pre-cut fitting. He can't lift his leg up nor can he move from side to side. He's stuck, scared and crying out in pain as he struggles to get his leg out. We come a runnin' and help him get free, hush the cries and soothe the tears while whispering complaints to each other about how the heck we are gonna solve this.

Since he first started doing it, many months ago, we began attaching a blanket to the front of his crib and securing it with the top part that flips up and down to make it easier to reach a bigger baby on the lowest mattress setting. Sure, that worked to prevent his leg from getting stuck on the front side but the back and even the sides sometimes, the threat was still there, ready to grab and hold him tight. We had some left over tongue and groove pine paneling left over, so we pieced it together and secured it to the crib slats on the back and sides. It doesn't sound all that great and most definitely doesn't look all that great, but now he can't get jammed between the slats and the blanket is still working for the front. Now and then his leg sneaks under the blanket and we rush upstairs and repeat steps one, two and three, but overall it's working and there are no more bruises on his legs, from the crib anyway!

I am finally finishing the flower beds I started when I found out I was pregnant with Devin. Thanks to those of you who gave me home improvement gifts cards for Christmas. Because of your generosity I was able to purchase red retaining wall bricks to match the red in my roof and the shutters by the windows. My plan was to transport the out of control purple ground cover that I can't remember the name of. My once bright green thumb has faded to a pale shadow of its former self . When I first put in the original bed when I moved here, I was good at it, loved doing it and it looked great! Then I got big and pregnant and didn't tend to it, then didn't make it out with a newborn, when I finally could again, I was repeating that cycle. Now I've done a lot of spring cleaning and work on the house all around. It's not finished so I won't be sharing a photo until it's done.

What I started to say was I transported that ground cover to the second bed I never finished because it was now ready to be finished so I could redo the original bed, still with me?...but something went wrong. Two days after I replanted them, they were dried up and dead. They were hard to move around because they were overgrown and the roots were spread out, but I was confident I had tucked the root balls into the ground and topped it off with some steaming mushroom mulch with an aroma that I'm sure drifted off to attract Peppy la Pew. After another day it was clear the petite flowers weren't just out of bloom, they were dead. I pulled them out and evenly spread the black mass inside my small wall and am still contemplating getting new flowers this season or waiting until next year. ??

While outside with and without my boys, Kit made her canine breed proud. I wrote on my Face Book page about the bunny nest she found in our abandoned dog kennel. Unlike last spring where she just dropped the dying baby at my feet, this year she practically tossed it ten feet to land in front of Devin and I. Then the darn dog killed a chipmunk two days after I took a picture of one while it sat on its back legs on my front step. I had seen the cute critter there five mornings in a row, like he was waiting for me to make a memory out of him. Kit brought me its punctured body. While mowing the lawn I almost chopped up another carcass but turned away in time to just squish it under a wheel. You can use your own imagination of what it looked like after that. The last one she caught in front of all five of us as we walked into our garage through the big door. The poor thing had no escape route as the back door of the garage was closed. It turned one way, then the other before accepting its fate. I was mad at her for a long time when she first killed the baby bunny and then kept killing chipmunks because she kills just to kill. I didn't yell or smack at her because that's what she's supposed to do. I think though, after that first kill, she could tell by my tone that I didn't really like it because she kept following me and putting her front paws up on me while outside. Inside, she would watch me from where she lay and then want to snuggle down in my lap. She's a good dog and a great addition to our family, even though she drives me as crazy as my boys do!

That's it! You can carry on with your day. I'm sure I haven't taken up too much of your time! :P

Be safe!

XOXO

Yo

My boys in one word each and then some more!

Hello everyone. I know it's been about a month, but life and all that! :) I'm happy to report that my website is up and running! At this moment it's missing some colors and such and I haven't posted any new pictures yet, but one thing at a time!

Before my boys and I went north for Hunter's spring break, I had planned on posting a blog update that used a single word to describe each of my boys lately. Now, it's only a one word introduction because my blogs will never be that short. Ever! :)

I'll start with Hunter. His describing word is AWESOME! When I saw his report card this grading period, I actually went into a cheer. Natalie (my cheerleading coach) would be so proud! 'A-W-E...S-O-M-E! Awesome, awesome. TOTALLY!' You might remember how upsetting his last grading sheet was. He had gone down a lot in math, from an 83 to a 60. He had just started double digit multiplication, but part of his problem is his printing. He can't keep his columns straight and everything gets mushed together and he ends up computing the wrong numbers. I also felt the need to contact his teacher to ask her why we weren't warned of his falling grade. We very well may have been able to turn it around before that report card.

I wasn't really given an answer to my question, but at home I put Hunter to work with more math problems. You can imagine his reaction; sighs, grumbles, comments. But he sat down to it and this report card was the result. I had to celebrate and it did make Hunter smile, although he tried to hide it.

But on the other hand.... He's been having bathroom accidents again. Only three, but they've all happened in the past month or so. I'm not sure what's going on there. He says he's just forgetting, but we're talking about it. He's always made comments under his breath about things, but now his comments are louder and he's giving his opinion, which is good and all, but he's doing it during times when he should keep his mouth shut. For example, we were at a friends house and he told the mom, 'But you should have...'. The woman knew she should have, but she doesn't need someone else's 11 year old kid telling her that.

Someone asked me how Hunter did during the annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. I don't remember if I shared anything with you all about it. If I did, I'll be brief. Both Tim and I were very proud that Hunter chose not only the design of his car on his own, but he was out there in the garage and with his dad's help, if needed. He sanded down his car the way he wanted and prepared everything for the wheels. He drew out a color design for it and painted it. It was all him. He didn't win any awards except a ribbon for his participation, but he was OK with that. Dev was old enough this year to have his own car. While Hunter was doing his, Tim shaped out a Wii remote control out of Dev's block of wood. Devin painted it white and I used a color pencil to create the buttons. His car was a hit and he eagerly accepted races against the older scouts.

Hunter showed A LOT of patience with Bryce just today (4/25). Hunter's door is always closed during the day. He has many small toys and other things in his room that would spell trouble if Bryce were to find them. So when the door is open, it's like Bryce can tell the difference by the sound between it and the the other three doors in that hallway. Tonight B made a break for it and eagerly dove into the wooden chest Hunter uses for his toys, passed on down from my younger years . Hunter talked sweetly to him and coaxed him out with a bribe of a squishy ball. It worked. Bryce followed like a horse to water and Hunter was able to close his door without creating a tantrum.

Devin's one word is Stubborn, and definitely with a capital S! He puts up a huge fuss about using the potty and absolutely refuses to do number two. If you were to tell him no to something, or heaven forbid, if you were to turn off the Wii, he can be ear shattering sometimes. He's also telling me he wants one thing for dinner, I make it, but no, he wants something else to eat. He's gone to bed hungry a few times because of this. He loves his original style Sunny D so much that he cried and cried when his dad brought home the "smooth" kind. Dev recognized the difference because the usual gallon jug we have has an orange cap and this one had a yellow. I had to send him his room to finish his fit. I finally got him to give it a taste, and ya know what? He liked it, the brat! :) He's still annoying Hunter non stop and taking things from Bryce at every turn, but then my middle child tells me he loves me, gives me a sloppy kiss and says he'll make me happy by doing a head stand.

Bryce can be described with a simple but powerful word; terror. He is the cutest little monster in bare feet. I've shared some of the things he's done with a few of you, but here they are again, and more! He poo'd and took off his dipe and scooted his dirty bum across his bedroom floor. He poo'd during nap time, took the dipe off...enough said.

We have to keep the bathroom door closed at all times now - he flushed a washcloth and we have a septic tank. Thankfully all seems well, but leads me to wonder what else he may have flushed?? He walks around with his finger in his nose more than he does without it. I have overcooked many things in the microwave because I assume the digital timer is showing the time, but actually, all four spaces are full courtesy of his small fingers and I end up burning popcorn or blowing up a hot dog because I'm adding the time needed to a screen that says something like 7052 already! But, before I can overcook anything, I have to find the missing microwave turntable.

Is there a career out there that inspects chewed up food?? Every meal Bryce will partially chew his food then take it out and place it in front of him and push it around with his finger before pulling it apart. Gross! And his latest surprise was discovering what we call creepy crawlers, a very slow brownish red bug that attempts crossing the great terrain of Mt. Laundry. Usually I vacuum them up or relocate them outside, but some have starved to death, or, as what happened just the other day, have had their legs pulled off by Bryce. Oh, that was sad. The poor bug couldn't do anything but lay there and wave its two long antennas....

It's been too long to remember what we did in the couple weeks before we headed north for Hunter's spring break, so I'll just get to that.

The 440 mile drive up to my hometown was uneventful. My boys are good travelers! A DVD player, snacks, toys and Magnadoodles help pass the time. I don't remember what time we got there, or what we did that Friday night, but I do remember my sister, Tiffany, sending me a text during the long drive north asking where I was and what time I thought I might arrive. I replied back my answer and thought her text was odd because I knew she was jealous I was going home and she wasn't.

About 20 minutes after we arrived I heard a car door slam and Tiffany appeared outside the window of my parents house. She had tricked me! She drove down from Marquette (five hours) to spend a quick Easter weekend with us! We were all very happy to see her.

On Saturday Hunter, Tiffany and my mother-in-law Linda went geocaching together. Read more about that in my The Cache Checkers blog (as of now, 4/26/09, 9:30 P.M., it hasn't been written). That night we had an early Easter dinner of a juicy pork tenderloin with a tasty strawberry rhubarb sauce. I remember the asparagus with hollindaise sauce and deviled eggs, but I can't remember what the other good fixings Kathy made were. We had the holiday dinner that night because Tiffany had to head back home Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning the Easter Bunny left a letter for Hunter, Devin and Bryce. It said there were nine eggs of a different color for each boy. Once found they would find inside some one or five dollar Bunny Bucks. Once collected, they could use them to buy things from the Easter Bunny Store. All they had to do was find it. Hunter looked right at the door with the sign Easter Bunny Store hanging from the knob, but he walked right on by! Eventually he came back and opened the door to a whole lot of good stuff for him and his brothers. The Easter Bunny out did himself, well, herself, this year. Thanks, Grandma! :)

I don't know in what order we did these things, but my parents took Hunter and Dev to Monsters vs Aliens. It was a hit with all four of them! We met my father in law for lunch during the opening day of the local dairy twist. After that he joined us at the park during one of many trips we took there (my parents live a stones throw away).

We visited my sister Amanda in Charlevoix. I can't believe how big her baby has gotten! He'll be a year old next month! She kept Dev and B for me while I took Hunter, Rayne and Randi geocaching (you know where to go) and they all had fun jumping on the girls' Easter present; a full size trampoline with safety net. She cooked me my all time fave dinner of yummy spaghetti with garlic bread! I don't get that meal at home because my hubby doesn't like it anymore (what's wrong with him??).

We also had dinner with my mother in law, who often eats alone because her hubby works nights. She made the boys their favorite dish of fish sticks and french fries while she and I had some tasty shrimp. The boys enjoyed the bubbles their grandma gave them and jumped on her bed, well, Devin did anyway!

There was a P.S. on that Easter Bunny letter. It said that their favorite fuzzy creature had given their mom some money for a new Wii game for Hunter and Devin and that they could pick them out when she took them to Traverse City. (I left out Bryce! What a bad bunny! LOL)

I remember it was our last day there when we went to the city. We went to the mall in hopes of riding the carousal, but luck wasn't with us that day. The colorful horses were shut down for maintenance. We did stop at JC Penny for Grandma. We also went to Petsmart and brought Kit along with us. Her retractable leash wasn't returning to its housing, it was out all the way and staying out. Hunter carried her inside the store while I found a leash and opened it up, then Devin enjoyed himself walking around the store with her. While sniffing dogs her size or just a bit bigger, Kit got mean. Then a Great Dane appeared around the corner and she stopped and went the other way! I also picked her up a simple bed to put in the front passenger seat of my van. That's her usual perch and now the bed will collect her hair and not the seat to pass onto the bums of my passengers! Grandma got her kitty something as well, and then we did some geocaching there.

We also dug for buried treasure! I'm going to write about that in a separate entry so I can include pictures.

We had a great time up north with family. I tried to meet up with a couple of friends, but unfortunately, that fell through. I'm told they will get together with us this summer. We did have a bit of a hiccup on the drive back down to Ohio. The DVD player that keeps me sane died. We had to find a Walmart and pick up a new one. We also came home to a house with no groceries...but that isn't anything new!