In which I learn about Von Steuben Day

Yesterday, as I was picking Sam up from the babysitter's, I received a phone call from the school nurse informing me that Jack was in her office with a head injury.  School was letting out, but she didn't feel comfortable putting Jack on the bus in his condition.  So, I raced up to the school to pick him up.  I pull up right as Ellie's bus is leaving, taking her home.  Nice timing.  Jack was fine, but he had a very, very large knot on his forehead.  He is going to look great in the family pictures we are taking after school today.

After dealing with that bit of drama, I was more than happy to escape for a night out with the ladies. A group of us went to see the Mockingjay premiere. I stayed out way too late for a school night, but it was worth it.  As I am typing this, my students are watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  I like to show it the day before Thanksgiving.  I figure it is fitting since Ferris danced in the Thanksgiving Day parade, right?  OK, I have always assumed it was a Thanksgiving Day parade, but I googled it just now and it is actually the Von Steuben Day Parade that takes place in mid-September.  So there goes that rationalization.  But it does talk a lot about high school...and I teach high school...so there we go.

I am really looking forward to this Thanksgiving break.  We are taking a small mini-vacation to hill country (about a 4 hours drive from our house) and staying at a rather secluded resort there.  I am ready for some rest and relaxation...although with three kids in tow, I don't know how much of either we will be getting.

Weekend recap

This was a busy weekend, as usual, but it was also relatively stress-free.  Tom is not in season so he was able to really step in and help with Sam.  It is so much easier going to things without a toddler!  He watched Sam on Friday while I helped with Ellie's after school commitment - Destination Imagination.  He also stayed home with Sam while I took the two older kids to Ellie's team party at a local burger joint.  A place with the name of The Shack should not cost $45 for 3 burgers and some fries is all I'm saying.  The kids had so much fun, though.

Saturday morning, I again left Sam home with Tom while the older two kids and I went to a friend's baptism.  Then, in the afternoon, we dropped Sam and Ellie off at my sister's so Tom, Jack, and I could go to the A&M football game.  This was Jack's first football game and he loved it.  I think he liked the food and halftime more than the actual game, but he was a great sport.

Sunday afternoon, we all went to my mother-in-law's house to celebrate Tom's sister's birthday.  It was the first time all weekend the whole family did something together.  Tom and I did have a discussion that we need to quit leaving Sam behind and start including him in more things!  Poor kid.

A big pile of poo

Sam is still in his fiercely independent phase.  He must do everything on his own.  In the morning, he wants to get his own waffles out of the freezer. Then he has to be the one to take them out of the box and put them in the toaster (he pulls a little stool up to the counter).  Any attempts on my part to do it for him results in him screaming at me, “I do it!”  He also insists on eating with a fork – that he gets out of the drawer by himself – and it has to be a regular fork. No toddler utensils for him.  This is our routine every morning.  After breakfast, it is time for shoes and backpacks.  He has to wear a backpack like the older kids, even though he doesn’t need one. Unfortunately, unlike the older kids, he has recently started refusing to wear shoes or socks.  So, those go in the backpack.  Then we go out to the van and he insists on climbing into the van and into his carseat on his own.  As someone who is always in a rush in the morning, his need to do everything by himself requires an extreme amount of patience on my part.

So, this morning, I was on my way to drop Sam off at Ms. Donika’s, when I hear the sound of a seatbelt being unbuckled.  I pull over to the side of the road and walk around the van to go buckle him back in. Oh, yeah, he insists on sitting on the back passenger side…it’s like he knows it is more inconvenient for me.  Anyway, as I was leaning into the van to buckle him, my foot stepped into something very slick and squishy.  I thought it was mud.  I thought wrong.  Apparently, I stepped in a very fresh, very large, pile of dog poo.  And because it is still dark when I leave in the morning, I didn’t see it in time.  Luckily, I always carry a travel pack of Clorox disinfectant wipes in my car.  But, still, who wants to start off their day by stepping in a giant pile of dog poop?

Soccer season is over!

Ellie's team ended up with 2nd place in their soccer tournament.  The final score was 0-2.  The girls were all just thrilled to receive trophies. The game did have to be stopped at one point due to some irresponsible parent letting their toddler wander onto the field mid-game. Ahem.

All Ellie

Ellie had a late game yesterday.  I wasn't able to go because it was way past the boys' bedtime, but Tom and my parents went to cheer her on.  They ended up winning the game so they will compete for the championship tonight tonight.  It will still be after the boys' bedtime, but I am not missing this game.  Everyone is just going to have to be tired tomorrow! We never expected Ellie's team to make it this far.  When the tournament started, they were seeded 9th.  Now, depending on tonight's game, they will finish 1st or 2nd!

Ellie came home from her game last night really emotional and moody.  I know she was just really tired, but she has been difficult to deal with a lot lately.  She used to be Mom #2 and I relied on her for so much.  I don't know what happened, but now she is always picking on her brothers and sassing back to me.  I miss my sweet Ellie.

A cold, rainy Saturday

Ellie woke up this morning feeling well enough to play in her soccer tournament. It was cold and rainy out, so I left the boys in the back of the van with snacks and the ipad while I stood outside and watched.  Ellie's team lost, but even if they lose their next game they will still place 3rd for their age group. Not too shabby.

Tom wasn't faring much better with the weather in Austin.  The team ran through med and rain to place 10th, same place as last year. Top 10 in Texas is pretty impressive!

Me time? What's that?

I took a half day from work today. I'd requested it two weeks ago when I thought we would be going to Austin for the state cross country meet and I never cancelled it when I realized we wouldn't be able to go.  I envisioned a lovely afternoon in my quiet house, binge-watching Scandal on Netflix. No sooner had I collapsed on the recliner with my bowl of popcorn when I got a call from the school nurse informing me that Ellie had a fever and wasn't feeling well. This is the universe's way of ensuring that mothers never feel rested or sane.

Long days

The past two days I have had mandatory dyslexia training from 4-7pm. That means I leave my house at 6:30am and don't return until 7:30pm. Maybe I wouldn't mind if I was getting some sort of compensation, but I'm not. Oh well, I think it is good for Tom to take over some of the evening duties.  Although my evening duties usually involve making dinner, doing laundry, unloading/loading dishwasher, etc.  Last night Tom ordered Chinese and tonight he is ordering pizza.  At least he sends me cute pics to let me know they are alive and well!

Sports, sports, sports

Tom's cross country team is competing at state this weekend.  I know after last year I said I would never bring Sam again, but I am forgetful and was planning on the kids and I crashing Tom's hotel room in Austin this weekend.  I really do love going to the state meet and watching Tom and his team in action.  Unfortunately, Ellie has a soccer tournament on Saturday.  After a pretty disappointing season, her team actually won the first two games of their tournament.  So, they play on Saturday.  I was so tempted to just skip it and take the kids to the state meet anyway, but I figure that would not send a good message to Ellie about being a team player and the team counting on her and blah, blah, blah.  As someone who is nonathletic, sports sure do rule my life.

Just Jack

As my blogging has become more sporadic, I feel that I have stopped capturing the stages my children are in and instead am just documenting things that we do.  Since I am blogging every day this month, I think I will spend time just writing about my kids as they are right now.

Jack and I have been working on his sight words each night.  I found some small, beginner-reader books and he was so excited to discover he could read a whole book all by himself!  I am loving this.  Ellie learned to read at Montessori so I missed this stage with her.  It is so fun to watch those connections being made and to see him evolving from a non-reader to a reader.

Jack also loves to draw.  When he was 4, he would get mad at us and then go draw pictures of us with angry faces.  He would then show us the picture and tell us the story of why he was so mad.  Tom and I referred to it as his art therapy.  Now he just likes to draw all the time, not just when he is angry.  I bought a little desk and stocked it for him.  He will go there almost every day to furiously draw and color whatever his little heart desires.  Yesterday, he drew a picture of all the things that make him happy.  The day before he drew a picture of Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat.

We have had three incidents this year with Jack and physical violence.  The first was the first week of school when a boy in the before-school program with him punched him.  The second was on the bus when two boys were teasing Jack.  He told them if they didn't stop he would punch them in the face.  They didn't stop so he punched one of them in the face.  The third incident was last week at his before-school program.  The same boy from the first incident pushed Jack in line.  Jack pushed him back and then the boy punched Jack in the arm.  The boy ended up getting suspended from the program because of hitting other kids, as well.  This is all very new to me.  I never had to sign any incident reports with Ellie about physical altercations.  I don't know if it is just a boy thing or a Jack thing, but I am leaning towards the former.

Halloween and NaBloPoMo

I remembered at 11:58 last night that it was November 1 and thus the start of NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) so I tried to hurry up and post a Sunday Best picture, but the clock switched to midnight right as I hit post.  I am still counting it!  I am hoping NaBloPoMo will get me back into the habit of blogging. Ellie loves to read my blog books and I love reading about when they were little.  There is so much that I forget.

This past weekend was Halloween.  We did Trunk-or-Treat at the church on Wednesday.  Ellie dressed up as an American Indian and the boys were cowboys.  I was able to borrow whatever I didn't already have, so I was pretty proud of myself for not spending any money on costumes this year!

Halloween fell on Saturday which is our cleaning day.  The kids tried to tell me that they didn't have to do any chores because it was a holiday and you are supposed to rest on holidays.  I then cancelled Halloween.  They changed their minds and Halloween was back on.  I set out their costumes on the dining room table, but when I called the kids down to get dressed, Ellie and Jack appeared in nerd costumes of their own devising. Since they weren't going with the original theme, I decided not to try to wrangle Sam into his cowboys boots and instead put him into Jack's old Power Ranger costume.  He looked adorable.  I love the year that the kids first get the hang of Halloween.  That was Sam this year.  He would run up to the door and yell "trick or treat!" and then grab a big handful of candy.  I had to tell Ellie to tell the homeowner not to let Sam get his own candy.  Who just holds out a bucket anyway? Don't give them options!  At one house, Sam walked right on in to go play with the owner's dog.  Toward the end of the night, he started asking people at the door to open the candy for him.  He was in his element.

We came home with so much candy.  I usually take the majority of my kids' candy to school to use as incentives for my students.  Ellie and Jack love candy, but they usually forget about it after a week of getting 1 to 2 pieces a day.

Sunday Best