A Visit to Virginia

I did say we needed to have more adventures!  Go big, or go home.  My grandfather (and last grandparent alive) recently spent some time in the hospital due to a bout with pneumonia.  And at 94 years old, that is pretty serious stuff.  He is doing better now thankfully, but considering his health overall we thought we should probably come up for a visit.  Six hours later and we were back in a very familiar place.  While I don't think that I want to move back to Virginia, it was nice to be familiar with the roads and not need to use Google Maps.

We were glad to spend time with Grandpa, but there was no way he could handle spending three days with the crazy that we bring, so we made some other plans as well.

Opa got the boys some pumpkins, so the boys worked on some designs.  

Due to rain (we seriously have issues with bringing rain wherever we go), our plans for Cox Farms were thwarted.  So, we changed it up and went to DC instead.  Parking and more rain led us to the Natural History museum.  We had a great time.

It is always fun to do some hands-on science after taking a look around.

And sometimes we find friends in unexpected places.

Isaac also scored some cowboy boots since his cousin outgrew them.   He doesn't need to be able to walk to look stylin' in his boots, right?

Saturday we abused were lucky to have our free babysitters and left the boys with Dad and Diane for the morning so we could go to the temple and then at night so we could go see The Martian.  Awesome.  We haven't been on a date in ages, so it was fabulous.

Of course, I have to finish with a picture with Grandpa.

It was a fun and quick trip.

Just Some Pics

Nothing too exciting going on here these days.  

School keeps moving forward, with or without tears and tantrums depending on the day.  And the kids are adapting better, too.  

The weather has cooled down into the bearable range, but it comes at a price since it has been raining for the better part of two weeks.  The boys are supposed to do a certain number of minutes of exercise a week.  Due to the weather, they've been getting a lot of Wii Fit Plus and Just Dance 2 time.  Isaac is very fascinated by this. 

Isaac finally has figured out that his name is Isaac (now if I could just figure that out and stop calling him Ben!) and gives us the most wonderful mischievous smiles when we call out to him as he is trying to push any and all buttons on the Wii.  

Ben lost another tooth.  Regardless of the rather dramatic reenactment picture below, it actually happened at Costco with Michael's elbow as he was doing "karate" too close to Ben's mouth.  That would be the third tooth he has knocked out of a brother's mouth to date.  Luckily, they've all been (kinda) loose baby teeth so far.

We were going to head up and see Grandpa this last weekend when fully one half of us came down with a nasty cold.  Since we are pretty miserable and don't want to expose Grandpa to something that could completely take him down after his bout with pneumonia, we've had to reschedule.

This is normally a very busy and fun time of year.  Hopefully I can get my act together and we can go have some adventures soon.

Excellent Parenting Skills

I have been a parent for over 11 years.  If I recall correctly, you have to do something for like 10,000 hours to be an expert.  Which means, I've got this.  I have excellent expert parenting skillz.  So for those of you newbies or without children, take some notes because it doesn't get better than this.


Names.
I am sorry.  Did we decide to give the kids separate names?  Well, that was clearly a mistake. Giving them their own individual names sets them up for the false expectation that we will be able to remember and call them by their name.  Ha!  Half the time we say "Ben" we mean "Isaac", which Ben finds a little insulting when we say things like "Ben only likes mushy vegetables" and "Ben is really cranky and needs a nap".  And if I have to talk to two of them at the same time?  Fuhgedaboudit.  I go through about 15-20 permutations before I hit the right combination.  I think numbering them may have been the better choice.

Empty Threats.
There is a trick to crafting a truly excellent empty threat.  Clearly, you won't follow through with it.  But, in the child's mind there needs to be something like a 1% chance that if the planets are correctly aligned and you (the parent) are in the crazy place, you might.  This has been necessary because the birth of our 4th child occurred 6 years after the other 3.  Because Isaac will be for many, many years in a completely different place than his brothers, we are going to have some problems.  I know this because we have some problems now. Problem: the older boys keep putting their feet on Isaac's toys.  You know, the ones he is constantly putting in his mouth.  Ew.  But they can't stop.  Whenever I look over at one of them, they are are rubbing their feet on a teething toy or the play house or something.  Ew. Ew. Ew.  Empty threat: if you keep putting your feet on Isaac's toys which he puts in his mouth, I will start rubbing my feet on your plates and utensils.  How does that sound?  I'd say that one has been about 50% effective.  Not bad since I don't really plan on following through.

Christmas.

The kids start asking for things for Christmas about 0.0000001 seconds after the last Christmas ended.  And it is a stream of consciousness kind of thing.  Whatever is in front of their eyeballs or in their hands is what comes out of their mouth in "Can you get me _________ for Christmas?"  Yes, the spirit of Christmas receiving is strong in our household.  I diffuse this with paper and pencil.  Write down your list, I tell them, so I can remember.  Sadly, I don't have a good home filing system, so the list gets lost about as quickly as the child moves on to the next toy obsession.  But, I haven't said no or crushed their transient dreams, so win-win.

Bribes.

I vowed I would never bribe my children.  Then I had some (children, not bribes).  And then I realized that a good bribe is to a child what the prestige is to a magic trick.  You've got to make it good or the whole thing falls flat.  I learned early on that food is a great bribe.  I learned this mainly from the fact that everyone on planet earth was giving my kids food for good behavior.  There was a period of time when my kids would do anything for a little bag of fruit snacks, because I rarely gave them any.  Then they went to school and started coming home with entire bags of jolly ranchers (extreme example, but no lie Josh came home with an entire bag of jolly ranchers once) and lots of other candy.  And that is how food was ruined as a bribe for my kids.  So now we have moved on to gum.  We don't have it all the time and they go through it quickly, so as a scarce but desired commodity, it is an excellent bribe.  And while the schools don't seem to have any problem sugaring up the kids, they seem (so far) reluctant to have hundreds of gum chewing (and then possibly spitting or dropping or randomly sticking it places) kids.


Yeah, I totally got this.

9 months or 3/4 of a year

Curls and teeth and standing and cruising are the story for this little man at 9 months.  

So many, many curls.  

Just two teeth.  But we all paid for those teeth.

Standing and cruising?  It's like there is some tiny little demon inside this baby cracking a whip forcing him move more and more and faster and faster and higher and higher. I've even caught him trying to climb up on the ottoman.  

WHY??????? 

He is in such a rush to be as mobile as humanly possible.  Josh was walking at 9 months and I think Isaac is trying to match that record.

But he is so cute that we can't hold any of that against him.  Also, he has an incredibly infectious laugh.  And he loves us sooo much.  He shows us this love mostly by trying to eat all of us.  Chins, elbows, arms, toes...he loves to eat all of us!  I really hope it is a sign of affection and not the early signs of future cannibalism.  Only time will tell.

In the meantime, our tiny little dictator loves people, hates naps, loves electrical cords/devices, hates the baby gate, loves his brothers' toys, and hates being left out on any fun.  We haven't had much success with solid foods as several of them have caused his eczema to get worse or some unpleasant bowel issues.  We started Nutramigen this week (aka liquid gold) to see if that helps with the eczema and some of this other issues.  

Below are some pictures of our itty bitty 9-month-old man.

School Update

We have now finished week 3 of online charter school.  

This last week was the first week that I did not regret the decision every minute of the school day.  

That is a win in my book.  Not a big win, but I will take what I can get.

Part of our problem lies in the fact that this is the first year that this option has been offered in NC.  The teachers are all new to the process and seem pretty unfamiliar with the programs and pacing of the curriculum.  We've had mixed results in getting help from them.  I was completely unimpressed by the principal's handling of the crisis we had in the first week (A/C went out in the building that houses the servers - 1 1/2 days of no access to the website - not NCCA's fault, but the lack of communication was rather unprofessional).

Part of our problem is that getting the boys through their lessons can be like pulling teeth.  And not the wiggly, just-about-to-fall-out kind.  The deeply embedded in the jawbone kind.

But, I think it will get better.  Well, I hope it will get better.  Some days are better and some make me want to bang my head on something really hard over and over again.  I don't think that the boys are particularly big fans, but I think that is mostly because they have to do work.  Except for Josh who was really, really looking forward to going to middle school this year.  

I am grateful that we have this option at a time when I really don't want to send the kids to school where we live.  Jason thinks that this is where all public schools are headed.  I have to say I think that is tragic.  These teachers are really for the most part now just supervisors who step in periodically.  They don't have any control over the daily coursework or lesson plans.  They don't get to interact with the kids very often and the only one-on-one interaction has been over the phone.  I know the kids love me, but they have also loved their teachers.  Most of the teaching is now replaced by little video clips and me reading from a script.

I guess we were very lucky, but if I could kidnap Ben and Michael's teachers from last year, I totally would.  But, they have kids and families and stuff so that might be awkward.  Oh, and illegal.  So we'll keep going and hope for the best.

Ben attending story time online.

Josh listening to his math lesson with his eye shut.  That may have been for the benefit of the camera.

Michael studying Language Arts with my Coke hanging out in the background.

Labor Day

We had a very fun Labor Day weekend during which I took practically no pictures.  But I promise, it was great.  

Well, except for the part when Doug got a stomach bug and the pipes in our house sprung a leak.  

But other than that, it was great.

Nana was here.  We hung out with Uncle Doug and Dave and the kids.  There was a 3D dinosaur movie.  And a BBQ and pool time on the top of a 32 story building.  And there were leftovers from the BBQ.  And miniature golf and bumper boats with water cannons.  And then another BBQ.  And (for those without food issues) a big chocolate cake.

But the only pictures I took were of the bumper boats.

Say Hello to our Little Friend