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?!

Blackmail, Summer's End, Temple Trip and School

I always love me some blackmail pictures. The other day Noah came out of Sarah's room wearing her mismatched 'glass slippers' as she calls them and toting around his baby. I wonder what he will think of this picture in about 15 years---or more importantly what his girlfriend will think--mhwawawawawa (evil maniacal laughter)!! I can't wait...

Once Sarah saw me take a picture of Noah she came over and insisted I take a picture of her in her nightgown wearing her backpack. What a crazy girl.

These last two weeks have been super busy. Since it was the last two weeks of summer I tried to fill them full of fun activities. One day I took the kids to the splash pad. Of course with all the fun fountains spraying everywhere Sarah and Noah were more interested in the drinking fountain. Isn't that how it is, though?!

I finally got them away from the drinking fountain and they played in the spraying water for a while. Josh, Daniel and Matthew were off running here and there between the playground and fountains so I didn't get a good picture of them playing.

After the splash pad we had tickets to go and see the Brigham City Temple open house. We drove to the designated parking spot and then we were bussed over to the temple. The kids were excited to get on the tour bus.

The temple was so pretty. I snapped a picture through the bus window. It was a perfect day to see the temple.

When we got there we were ushered in to see a short film about the temples. G&G T came along with us, too. We were thankful for their company and for the extra set of hands to help. As you can see they were put right to work when Daniel needed his shoes tied...again and again and again.

After the tour we wandered the grounds for a bit. Here's our family in front of the doors to the temple. It was so pretty inside. Brigham City's theme is peaches so they incorporated peach trees and peach blossoms throughout the whole temple. You could see pictures of the blossoms worked into the window decorations, paintings and the carpets. My description doesn't even do it justice. Just take my word for it--it was beautiful.

The next day I took the kids bowling. Sarah found her sunglasses in the car and insisted on wearing them wherever we went. Heaven help the poor soul who tries to take them off her! I tried once and I thought I was going to get my hand bitten off. Don't come between a girl and her glasses!! She is so strong willed! It will be interesting to see how she does in preschool for the first time this year. I think I will drop her off on her first day and just wish her teachers luck...

I have to say that very rarely do I get a bit of luck. However, on this particular bowling day I got my chance. I got four strikes in a row which I have never done before. Let me just say it was not skill, but luck because even after a whole summer of bowling I am not much better than where I started from. Oh well I had to add my picture because things like this very rarely happen to me and when they do I need to celebrate!!

We had a new family move in next to us and they have kids all the same ages as my kids except Matthew. They have a little girl who is Sarah's age and really into dressing up. She has gotten Sarah really excited into dressing up as well. The other day Sarah came out of her room wearing this outfit concoction: Who knew that Snow White could pull off the Fairy Wing look?!

Last Saturday we tried out the Syracuse Farmer's Market. It was not busy at all and that was to our favor. They had lots of prize booths and that's when it pays to have a big family. Suh-weet!! Everyone got a turn at the prize wheel and won something (mostly flashlights and measuring tapes). Noah was excited when it was finally his turn to spin the wheel-o-prizes.

They also had a football toss that everyone got a turn at. We won even more flashlights and measuring tapes.

They also had a free temporary tattoo station and a face painting station as well. All the kids had to get something.

Matthew chose a tree frog tattoo on his arm. They assured us that the tattoos were temporary, but his tree frog is still on his arm two weeks later. Hmmmm either that is some strong temporary tattoo ink or Matthew is not scrubbing too hard in the shower....something I would rather not think about. Anyway, Sarah chose a princess for her face painting.

Josh chose a Captain America symbol.

Daniel who worships Josh got a Captain America symbol painted on his cheek as well.

After the Farmer's Market Matthew got to attend his very first 11 year old scout meeting. Here he is sporting his new (outrageously expensive) scout shirt. Wow scout things really add up fast!! Good thing we will be able to pass this down through the ranks of Josh, Daniel, and Noah. I am hoping that it will hold up through Noah because that will be a lot of wear and tear.

This last Tuesday I wanted to do something we hadn't done before. I heard about Thanksgiving Point's $2 Tuesdays through the month of August so we thought we would go down and check it out. Wow, it seemed like everyone else had that great idea, too. The place was mobbed! We only got a chance to check out the petting zoo/animal section because there were so many people. What we did see was fun, though. We got to learn about cows, milk, chicken and eggs.

Then we got to go around and pet the different animals.

The kids all got a chance to ride horses as well. Noah thought he was pretty big stuff when he got to crawl on the horse just like all his other siblings. Josh even got to ride a horse instead of a pony this time so he actually enjoyed it unlike what happened at the Davis County Fair.

Noah just like touching anything and everything. This computer kept him occupied for a bit.

After being there for a bit Grandma T came over to see it with us. I was thankful for the company and the help. We got to go on a wagon ride around the fields surrounding Thanksgiving Point.

Then they had a few fun buildings set up for everyone to see. They had a mock jail set up and all the kids thought it was fun to hang out behind bars. Hopefully this is the only time they find it fun to hang out behind bars.

Afterward we headed over to the Highland City splash pad the let the kids play for a few hours. Then we headed home. All the kids fell asleep on the way home except Matthew who had to keep an eye out for trains. He even brought his train calendar along so he could know the names of any trains he saw.

Last week Sarah found her long lost Snow White purse and hasn't put it down since. She made me let her wear it bowling and she refused to take it off her shoulder no matter what. She bowled with it, walked around with it, climbed all over the chairs with it.... She was pretty funny.

The next day we had to go to pick up school supplies for the boys and she even wore her purse into the store. However, after a little while she got tired of carrying her purse and walking so she gave her purse to Aaron and requested loves. Aaron, who can't turn down any request from his little girl ever, gave in. Good thing Aaron is comfortable enough with his manliness to be able to carry a sparkly red Snow White purse all around Walmart. Good thing he loves his little girl!

I can't believe this summer is over already!! To celebrate our last day of freedom we had a BBQ at our house. We set up the big blow up water slide that we borrowed from G&G T and invited all of my family over. All the cousins had fun playing with each other and the adults had fun talking and eating. It was a nice ending to a fun summer.

The first day of school was yesterday and the house seemed so quiet without the three oldest kiddos hanging around. Here's Daniel getting ready for his first ALL DAY day of school. The house was so quiet without my little chatter box following me around the house. I still can't believe he is old enough to be in first grade. You can tell because when I was getting some shirts for school clothes I ended up buying a shirt that was size 4/5. DOH!! I guess I will hold on to that one for Noah to wear in a few years. Whoops! I still think of my Daniel boy as a small 4 year old boy, but he is almost 7 years old. Makes me a little sad to see him getting so big!

Josh the big fourth grader was excited to start up school again and to see his friends. Before school started we did our measurements of all the kids and Josh and Matthew only are about a 1/2 inch apart in height. Josh is such a tall boy! He is all the way up to my chin. He is growing way too fast! In speaking of Josh we have been slowly decreasing his Topomax medication to wean him off of it. He is doing great so far and stayed seizure free. We are keeping our fingers crossed it stays that way. Also Josh requested tie shoes for school this year. Seeing as I have been a slacker mom, I still have not taught my kids how to tie their shoes. I just take the easy way out and buy Z tie shoes or velcro every year. Well Aaron spent an hour with Josh patiently trying to teach him how to tie shoe a few weeks ago. Josh learned how so he got some tie shoes. However, once he actually got to wear the shoes he confessed he had forgotten how to tie them. DOH!! I guess he will have to learn fast or I will need to be tying his shoes for him every morning which does not sound appealing....Sigh...

Matthew was excited to get going in school again. I still can't believe I have a 6th grader!! He is at a whole new school this year so we will wait and see how things progress these next few weeks.

This picture about sums up my feelings about the first day---WAHOO!! We all survived the summer!! Now on to homework, schedules, and relearning how to tie shoes....