Only Girl Syndrome, Toilet Spin Cycle, Stitches, Mother Son Date

What's another blog post without some reference to the toilet in some way?  I figured I would just start out with our toilet experience this time and get it out of the way.  The other day I was vacuuming the basement.  When I got done with the basement and stairs, I turned off the vacuum to put it away when I heard splish splash.  Seeing as that is really never a good sign I went to check things out.  Jeez I think the kids just wait until my back is turned for five seconds to get into trouble!!  I found Noah giving his Word Whammer toy a bath in the toilet.  Ewwwwwww!!!   He knew as soon as he saw me in the doorway that he was in trouble.  He quickly tried to hand me his toy, but I wasn't about to take his wet and dripping toy with toilet water from him with my bare hands.  Sadly his toy got thrown in the garbage.  Even though it got washed in the spin cycle of the toilet it still was too dirty for me.  Ewwww!!

See he knew he was in trouble.  He tried to hand me his dripping wet toy while saying, "Ewwww, Mom!  That's Ewwwww!"   The little stinker!!!

 

 Well the kids started school this past week.  Things went smoothly for Josh and Daniel, but not so much for Matthew.  Matthew for whatever reason was still listed as attending his old school.  I had to go in and register him at his new school.  After registering him we went and met with his new teacher.  That's when I asked her how blending the Learning Center and the Functional Skills classes worked.  She looked like a deer in the headlights.  No one had passed along that tidbit of information about Matthew that he was going to be receiving blended services between the Learning Center and Functional Skills.  His new teacher this year this is her first time teaching as well, so she didn't know quite what to do.  She promised she would check in to it and let me know what she found out.  Then I called up the transportation office to make sure he could get his bus route changed to his new school.  That's where I was very rudely informed that since Matthew is a special education student the request had to come from his teacher and not from me.  Well I called his teacher back and she tried in vain to get a hold of transportation and could only leave a message because no one would pick up the phones.  This went on for a while--for whatever reason the transportation department couldn't get their act together to get Matthew on the bus for the first week and a half of school.  That really was bad since Matthew's school is about 20 minutes away from our house while Josh and Daniel's school is only about 3 minutes away from our house and everyone starts school and gets out of school at the same time.  I really needed to be in two places at once, however, the places were about 20 minutes away from each other.  I would have to send Josh and Daniel out the door really early to go to school while I took Matthew to his school.  And don't even ask about what happened when it was time for everyone to get out of school.  It was just a big mess.  Well now that Matthew finally got his bus route straightened out, we are still working on the blended services part of his education.  It appears that his last year's teacher and the person at the special education department in the school district disagree on what to do with Matthew.  His last year's teacher is the one that was really pushing for a blended services between the Learning Center and Functional Skills class while the special education lady thinks that Matthew would do well with just staying in the Learning Center.  What is frustrating is that the whole reason we had Matthew change schools this year was to take advantage of the Learning Center and Functional Skills classroom.  Had I known that he wouldn't have access to the Functional Skills classroom I would have never changed schools in the first place.  Needless to say this whole experience has been very frustrating!!!  I am waiting to see what will happen after the first month or so of school and then we will look at our options...

 

As for Josh and Daniel they are doing well in their new classes.  I have been nervous about Daniel being in all day school since he would have eat lunch at school.  With all his food allergies and his pickiness of eating, packing a lunch that he would actually eat and enjoy seemed like a monumental task.  However, things have gone well so far.  I will need to get more creative as the school year goes on, but so far so good.  Daniel loves being in all day school.  Here's a note he wrote me about his first day: 

 

It says, "Dear Mom.  My first day of school was osum (awesome).  My favorite part of the day was when we rece (I think he meant to say recess).

 I met a new friend named Dallin.  I like school, because recess.  Love, Daniel."  He was pretty proud of his work and it appears that he really LIKES recess.  Don't you think?

As for Sarah she had her preschool open house last Thursday where she could go see her classroom and meet her teachers for the first time.  She was pretty excited to actually go inside to see her 'school'.  Her teachers seem really nice so hopefully the year will be good.

I love Fall time especially harvest time from the garden.  Not only have we gotten tomatoes from our own garden we even got some tomatoes, jalapenos and rhubarb from my parents garden.  I wasn't able to can anything last year because all my canning stuff was packed away from our move and I didn't have access to it.  So we just lived off our stash of bottled sauce, but we were on our last homemade jar of spaghetti sauce so we were in desperate need for some more.  That's what I did all day Friday was bottle things.  I made some raspberry rhubarb jam, some jalapeno jelly, and tons of spaghetti sauce.  However, in the middle of making it all I had turned my back on the my food processor and that's when Sarah picked up the blade to it.  Right after she picked up the sharp blade she accidentally dropped it on her bare foot.  She immediately started screaming and I saw blood.  Seeing as I was covered in splattered tomato innards I tried to wipe myself off quickly to attend to her.  I got over to her to see that she had indeed cut her toe quite deeply and would need stitches.  Now this would normally not be a problem, but Aaron had just left with Daniel and Josh to coach Daniel's soccer team leaving me with Matthew, Sarah and Noah.  He ended up taking the Suburban with all the car seats in it and he doesn't have a cell phone, either.  DOH!!  Now her foot was really bleeding and had to have pressure on it unless you wanted a pool of blood all over so she needed stitches ASAP. That meant I couldn't wait an hour or so for Aaron to get home from soccer so I had to have Matthew come hold pressure on it while I called to try and make an appointment at the pediatrician's office.  For whatever reason they couldn't get me in for at least two hours so that meant I either had to go to the ER which is a HUGE copay or the InstaCare which is still a big copay, but not as expensive as an ER visit.  Seeing as I couldn't drive Noah around without a car seat I quickly called up a neighbor who thankfully was home and could watch Noah while I took Sarah and Matthew with me to the Instacare.  I did have a spare booster car seat for Sarah, but nothing for Noah.  I loaded everyone in the car and I left a note at home for Aaron explaining where I was with Sarah and Matthew and where Noah was.  Matthew had to come with us so he could hold pressure on her wound while I drove.  Thankfully they got us right back to a room.  They came in a numbed up her toe in order to do the stitches.  After the numbing shots the bleeding greatly decreased which was nice, but then you could see how deep it really was.  OUCH!

She was all smiles when they weren't messing with her.  She also would matter of fact tell anyone and everyone who would enter the room that she needed stitches.  It was the first thing out of her mouth. It was funny.

After they numbed it up the first time I don't think they got it completely because she jumped and screamed when they stuck the needle in to start sewing it closed.  They had to renumb it a total of three times.  She fought kicked and screamed and they almost sent me to the ER to get it done where they could sedate her, but thankfully they were able to get at least three stitches in it.  She could have used a few more, but I didn't want a traumatic ER visit with a copay on top of the copay we had already paid at the InstaCare.  Besides it's a toe and who cares if there is a scar on a toe anyway?!  Here she is sporting her new stitches for the next ten days:

When we got home two hours later I picked up where I had left off in my canning and finished what I had started.  It totaled 56 spaghetti sauces, 7 1/2 pints of jalapeno jelly and 7 pints of raspberry rhubarb jam.  Yum, but by the end I was exhausted.

For Father's Day this year I found an awesome deal online for Kids' Cougar Club that came with football and basketball tickets to some of the games.  Aaron loved the present and was excited to finally be able to use them for their first game this past Saturday.  He took Josh and Daniel and they had a fun time.  They met Cosmo:

Got to climb the rock wall:

Watch the game:

Go on the field after the game:

On the way out they got to meet one of the players, too.  It was some Hawaiian dude whose name I won't even try to pronounce.  It was a nice day for some father son bonding time.

Sarah had her very first day of preschool Tuesday.  She was so excited.  She didn't fight me any step of the way in her morning routine of showering, getting dressed or doing her hair.  It was great. 

When we got to the school she hopped out of the car and ran to the doors.  She was so excited to wear her new princess backpack, too.

After dropping her off I went and spent some time with one of my main men.  We had an ice cream date and it was really fun and I had some good company.  He was surprised when I gave him his very own cone to eat.  Who knew that ice cream could spread so far so fast by the time we were done?!  We both enjoyed ourselves, though.  It seems so weird to only have one child home during the day, but it makes running errands a lot easier, though.

Tuesday afternoon was our semiannual kids' dentist appointments.  I had to brave it alone since Aaron was so busy at work to come and help out.  I had to check all the kids out of all their schools and head over to the dentist's office.  Then they came out and got all five of the kids to do X-rays.  I let the older kids go first and then talked to Noah about how neat it was to get X-rays done.  After watching all his siblings get their X-rays done he had to have his turn, too.  He hopped right up in the chair and let them do whatever to him very willingly.  I was quite surprised. 

 After X-rays they headed over to get their teeth cleaned.   I let the older kids go first and talked about how neat it was to let them count/brush/floss their teeth.  Noah was more than excited to hop up and take his turn in the chair.  Here he is patiently waiting and watching Sarah get worked on:

 Finally it was Noah's turn.  They let him wear a pair of sunglasses and he thought he was pretty big stuff.  It was funny.  He actually let them brush, floss and pick at his teeth without moving or crying.  They were surprised that he was only two years old.

After everyone had gotten their teeth cleaned Aaron came for backup since he had finished his workday.  It was nice to see him and to have a second set of hands to help.  Unfortunately, Sarah and Noah have cavities.  Noah has three if you can believe that.  They will have to sedate him with Ketamine to get them fixed--something I am not looking forward to.  Sarah only has one to fix so no sedation for her--phew!  I still have to schedule that appointment so we will see when that gets done...

In other happenings we are still battling with Sarah and the potty.  She does pretty well for the most part, but only while she is at home.  If she is somewhere else she doesn't do quite as well.  However, not to give out too much information, she has finally mastered #2 in the potty.  She only has problems with peeing her pants at different places.  Take for instance two days ago she was playing at a friend's house;  when the friend's mom went to check on them she found Sarah had changed into Daphne's underwear, pants and shirt from her drawers and found out why when she went and picked up Sarah's old clothes which were wet.  Ewwww.  For this very reason I was nervous to send her to preschool, but I do pack a change of clothes for her in her back pack just in case.  I was thankful to see her still wearing her original clothes I had dressed her in after picking her up from preschool on her first day.  Today, her second official day, she waited until I was loading her up into the car to come home to inform me that her underwear was wet and she needed to change them.  **Sigh**  I do have a dream that someday she will be fully potty trained.  If not by kindergarten maybe by the time she is 16 because I don't think having wet pants is a very desirable trait in a date...

However, after she does got stinky in the potty she gets rewarded with a soda and 'pretty lips' (lip gloss).  She went today and then screamed out for me to come and see.  Don't you just love that part as a mother--you have to act excited while you are looking at the stinky contents of the toilet?!  Anyway, afterward I told her to go and get my 'pretty lips' from my bathroom.  She brought them to me to put them on her and then she went and put them back, but was gone for a while.  When she came back out of my bathroom she came and showed me how she had tweaked her 'pretty lips' with more 'pretty lips' which happened to be my base or foundation which she had smeared all over her lips.  She thought she was pretty gorgeous.  She wasn't very happy at me when I started laughing at what she had done.

Seeing as how my little girl has the Only Girl Syndrome (which means she is horribly spoiled and gets splurged upon more often than the boys because little girl stuff is so cute) she got spoiled the other day while we were at Costco.  They had their Halloween costumes out and they were Disney princesses.  She saw them and was immediately in love.  She picked out a Cinderella costume and would not put it down.  If you came near her and even pretended to take it from her she would go into immediate tantrum mode.  Seeing as she was probably going to be a princess for Halloween anyway and the costume wasn't too expensive I let her keep a hold of it.  However, she started dragging it on the ground all over the store.  I tried to pick it up to keep it from getting dirty, but she would either run away from me or start screaming.  I finally convinced her that I was not going to take it from her, but just fold it up so she wasn't dragging it across the floor and getting it dirty.  That lasted until she saw a sample stand  and ran over to get one.  Unfortunately it was a really messy tomato sauce sample.  I stopped her and said she could either carry her costume and get no samples or she could give her costume to me and get samples--that way her costume would not get stained before she even had a chance to wear it.  It took her a few moments to decide what was most important to her--food or the costume and the food won out.  She handed me the costume and ran over and picked up her tomatoey saucy goodness and everyone was happy.  I can't wait to see my little Cinderella for Halloween.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE having a girl even if she is a little (or a lot) spoiled and has The Only Girl Syndrome?!