Why go Vegetarian?

I made a decision last week and I'm going veg. To my best friend Kim who spent a large portion of her adult life allergic to meat protein, yes I'm doing this on purpose.

I could write a long drawn out post on all the health benefits then throw in the cruelty of slaughter but the fact is, I'm not a huge meat fan.

Oh I've enjoyed a good burger, and there are a few things (ham is my fave at Christmas time) that I'll miss but overall meat grosses me out. To prepare it, I can't deal with extra bones and fat. I have to work to not completely lose my stomach while cutting those parts out. *shudder* It's always been that way and I've done it anyway because well, wasn't that what I was suppose to do?

Kent is also a big meat and potatoes person. That's how he was raised. He enjoys meat and really, I don't have a problem with that. I was thinking though, I do need to make my decisions FOR ME not because of other people. Oh I don't mean that I'll do whatever the hell I want without thinking of my family. I mean that when there's something within my control that affects me and me alone, then I need to follow my heart.

Well I guess I can't say it'll only affect me, I will be serving more veggie dishes during meals but I'll try to work in my husbands favorites as well because I love him and he feels that love when I go to the effort of making something I know he'll enjoy.

I won't be eating vegan, it would be to hard to eliminate dairy and eggs from my diet. And I'm not opposed to eating dairy although I will try to cut down.

I feel good about my decision and I feel extremely good about what I've been eating. Really isn't that what counts?

Cabbage night

Tonight is cabbage night. The night before Halloween. A night of general mischief over multiple townships. At least it's cabbage night if you live in or around the town of Bennington Vermont. Thankfully cabbage night isn't honored in Pocatello. Really who NEEDS one more night of general mischief to smash pumpkins of porches and throw eggs at your best friends car.

I will freely admit that I enjoyed walking to school on the 31st thoroughly enjoying the carnage of more eggs and pumpkins then I could have imagined. Even in grade school I marveled at the energy spent on the mayhem and as a teen I was highly amused when the local news would report that the Stewart's on Main street had been forbidden to sell eggs to anyone under the age of 25.

I mean really. You were ID'd for E G G S. *laugh*

Ahhhhh, memories.

My mom reminded me just yesterday morning that we always had applesauce with our oatmeal. I am not a huge oatmeal fan but a friend has introduced me to "germade" a cream of wheat type cereal and I really enjoy steel cut oats and I find myself reaching for the applesauce frequently, choosing that over any other additive. I hadn't realized it stemmed from my childhood.

It is funny how things come back to us. I was telling mom yesterday that I found an identical MP3 player with 12 more gigs of memory. I was sorely tempted and freely admitted that I was channeling my dad. Yes I was stupid to wash my MP3 player and it hasn't shown a spark of life, I believe it's DEAD for sure. So why not go bigger and better!!

Mom then pointed out that I was NOT channeling my dad because I was merely lusting after it, dad would have already bought it.

Good point.

As I think of my childhood and my memories, I wonder what kind of impression my children will have of our home when they're adults. I hope out of everything they bring out of their childhood, they remember first and foremost how much we love them. Each and every one of them. I hope they carry good and positive values. I hope they have a sense of humor. That they approach life knowing that nothing is as permanent or important as your family.

And maybe they'll remember their mom likes applesauce on her hot cereal. :-)

So I'm pushing Kate out the door

She's 10 minutes late. I'm telling her to RUN RUN RUN. She shuts the door. I hear the doorknob, turn to see the door open and she looks at me, smiles and says "I'm suppose to bring treats for the Halloween party".

Well sheesh honey, let me go get a bag O whatever I have lying around. Cause bags of junk are my THING and we have cupboards FULL of options.

Do you think cream of wheat would have gone over well?

In other Hill news, for some reason that I cannot fathom, when washing her little brothers off in the tub, Jane does not check the water temperature. Apparently the boys screaming isn't a clue either. She runs it ice cold.

Those poor boys.

I can't seem to get it through her head, to check the damn water and if they're screaming, SOMETHING IS WRONG.

So I washed her hair last night in the sink, in ice cold water. Mean? Probably. She sure shrieked but hopefully she remembers her brothers next time.

Oh the bus. I put the boys on the bus yesterday and within twenty minutes got a call to meet the bus at school because Greg was sick. Oh joy. So I threw on clothes and unshowered (blech) I hauled my ucky self to the school and found out Greg was fine, it was David and he was coughing. So I asked his teacher if he should stay home and she said no. I let her know I'd be home and to call if he needed to be picked up.

He was kinda puny and is still coughing so even though I didn't pick him up early yesterday, he's staying home today.

Hopefully someone can pick Greg up so I'm not having to bring both Ean (home from K) and Dave to school for Greg.

Throw in all the crap from work and the office that left AGAIN over a hundred pounds of pamphlet's to throw out, I'm a bit crabby.

Happy Halloween.

Just a quick post

To remind everyone to check their pockets before doing laundry.

No matter how gross your pants are because you cleaned vomit up off from the underside of the toilet bowl and had no choice but to sit on the nasty bathroom floor.

No matter how tired you are because the idiots in Blue Cross believe custodial services include the expectation of having the janitor dump over a 100 pounds of pamphlets in one night.

No matter how distracted you are because you're trying to get out the door with Ean screaming he can't find his shoes *exasperated wave of the hands* again.

Because if you fail to check your pockets you just might wash your MP3 player in the wash and then when your husband comes home to you in tears, the only good part is that he knows you're beating yourself up enough that he doesn't tease you.

So work without music. HARD! Feeling really dumb? HARDER! Enduring the jokes that are sure to come the next few weeks? IMPOSSIBLE!!!

*sigh*

MOooooooooom, you can't do that?!!

What can't I do? Apparently I am incapable of carving a pumpkin. I am worthy to scrub toilets, do laundry, can jelly and jam for her to consume but according to my eleven year old, I don't know how to carve a pumpkin.

She uh, has trouble looking outside the box. *laugh*

Well in spite of her lack of confidence in my ability, I plowed forward and carved away tonight. I bought three big pumpkins for the kids, actually food stamps bought the pumpkins, apparently because they're edible. Not that I plan on serving them after they've been sitting on front stoop rotting for a week, but commentary on the system will be saved for another time.

Right now, the kids! Kate in her usual fashion to make sure she was the most special, claimed the largest pumpkin. Jane didn't care, she was just excited to do one. The twins both took a turn pulling out pumpkin guts but neither cared for the overall experience and quickly turned the pumpkin they were working on over to Ean.

Jane relished every squishy ounce of gooey guts. I think the gutting is her favorite part. After the insides were outside enough to work on, I brought out a magic marker and we worked on the faces.

I did Ean's first. He was easy. I've noticed he shuns away from art, feeling far more capable of the concrete world of letters and numbers then the abstract "draw a face". So when he proclaimed (loudly because Ean doesn't do anything softly) he wanted his pumpkin to say BOO and BOO is spelled B O O, I wasn't surprised at his choice. I was surprised that he knew how to spell BOO. *laugh* So I managed a B carved with a straight stick line and two crescents and did just ovals for the Os. It looked very nice, even if I was proclaimed inept with large orange gourds.

Kate was a bit more of a challenge. She had a tall pumpkin and drew two tiny eyes and a tiny nose up top. The face just screamed for a large smiling mouth. Kate was determined the mouth needed lots of teeth. Lots of teeny tiny pointed teeth both at the top and the bottom. She got as far as the top when I told her she was done. There was no way I was cutting through two inches of pale pumpkin flesh to make a dozen teeth in a row.

So I quickly cut two big teeth and a big mouth.

Kate took my change in plans surprisingly well. That was a shock. However she was pleased with the results and chose to enjoy the existence of her pumpkin rather then dwell on her mother not following her directions. It was a good choice and showed a streak of maturity that I seldom see in her.

Jane had an elaborate mouth with simple eyes and nose. It turned out very cute. Er, I mean SCARY. :-)

The twins were properly impressed with all three of them and hopefully don't freak out when they realize they're not on the table. I put them on the front steps after work.

YaY for Pumpkins!

LALALALALALALALA onion LALALALALALALALA

Last night I tried a new recipe from my all time favorite vegetarian cookbook. It was a yummy corn chowder that I served with sorta homemade bread, you know, the loaves you can buy frozen in the freezer section and then raise, bake and serve as your own. Genius I tell you!

Anyway the chowder started with sauteing a whole diced onion. I had Kate get me the onion. Immediately the questions started because as far as Kate is concerned, anything with onions is borderline evil. She has actually gotten into a good deal of trouble because her little brother whom formerly couldn't give a sour pickle about onions has begun to repeat verbatim his sister's objections to the innocent vegetable.

So the scene plays out as follows.

Kate, please get me an onion.

Mooooom, you're not going to put onions in there???

Uh no honey, not a single onion.

Please note I'm dicing and sauteing the evil onion as this conversation is going on. As the conversation continues, I add other soup ingredients and Kate watched me add everything. Eventually soup is served.

The killer moment, Eans says "Hey, is this an onion???" very suspicious like. Kate immediately responds that NO EAN, There are NO onions in there! Ean doubtfully shows me the offending vegetable and asked what it was, I said "Vegetable" and he said "OK" and that was that.

Oh my, Kent almost spat out his soup trying not to laugh. It was a nice diversion from a dinner deemed only "edible" by my husband who is not a soup fan.

:-)

The Primary Program

Once a year the Primary (children's organization at church) puts on a program in the fall. The kids sing lots of songs, there's usually a theme and everyone has a part that they say into the mike.

Really, the parts are the best part if you're going for entertainment, especially if it's one of my kids. When Kate was four, she talked for three solid minutes. Now her actual part was maybe nine words but she took it upon herself to express herself. No one actually understood her, but she made it clear she was going to finish what she was saying.

It was great!

The twins are sunbeams this year, that's the youngest class when children graduate from the nursery. Toddlers move up the first Sunday in January after their third birthday. Since the twins were born December twenty first, boom, they were in primary the next week. Throw in their language delays then you realize what a challenge the primary workers have with the boys.

For reasons completely unclear to me, the primary rehearsed before Sacrament meeting. This means children are in their seats (except for saying parts and standing up to sing) for almost three hours when it's all said and done. That's way to much, especially for the little people. About twenty minutes before sacrament meeting started, the twins decided they were done. They hugged me, we got drinks, they hugged my in laws who came to see their grandchildren in the program.

A few minutes before starting, the Primary president came to round up the twins. Greg was up there only for a minute when an older woman (who can come across as cranky) carried Greg off the stand and delivered him to me while muttering "He can come back when he learns to control himself."

Really, there are only two choices, be upset and offended or recognize the humor at an adult being annoyed with a child for being, well, a child. I chose amusement. However I did want Greg to have the experience of saying his part, so I kept my eye out for a time to take him back up. Turns out my diligence was complete unnecessary. Greg walked up all on his own. Granted it was in the middle of Sacrament but I figured I'd cause my problems trying to catch him as he dodged young men carrying trays full of little cups of water.

Someone captured him up front and he apparently stayed amused long enough to say his part. He did fantastic! Actually all of the kids did. However Greg spent the rest of the meeting going back and forth between the stand and our row. I just let him and my MIL noted that he carefully avoided the cranky lady the rest of the service. *laugh*

The biggest surprise was Ean's absolute enthusiasm for singing! Luckily he really enjoys singing, and hopefully he can be a good influence on the men in the family that only sing "sometimes" *cough* *cough*

Yes Kent will be annoyed I called him on not singing in church but hey, it's my blog. :-)

And in all fairness, it was his mother that called him on it first today.

The Power of LANGUAGE and the ensuing arguments

As with all of our children, speech has been a struggle. Well more acurately, speech with Jane, Kate and Ean has been a struggle. David and Greg have had language problems which due the abstract nature are much harder to understand and treat. Good clean articulation problems, man, I can do that! The language just not coming, or just not comprehending, I really have been at a loss on how to help them.

Really Jane had a bit of language too and it really impacted her learning. She still struggles with comprehension, especially when reading. She can read the words but not get a drop of meaning from a text. It makes school challenging to say the least.

I hope the twins don't have oncoming issues like Jane has but if they do, we'll do everything we can to help them, just like we do Jane.

My point in all this is to state that even though the twins are almost four language is really just emerging for them. Especially for Greg, projecting his wants and desires is a whole new world for him and it's exciting!!!

Along with the excitment is the confusion that results from two boys that don't have the best comprehesion and a limited ability to understand what's spoken to them. The results, even though it's frustrating for them, it's pretty funny for everyone else observing them. So their first big argument tackled with words and not pushing, shoving, biting or other forms of personal attack was on their names.

See, David knows his name is David and Greg knows his name is Greg. This actually was a concern for more as recent as four months ago. See they used their names interchangably not recognizing themselves as seperate individuals. Yeah, they got over that.

So much so they spent Thursday night declaring their seperate identies and getting mad their brother didn't understand. The dialog went pretty much as follows.

"NO, I DAVID!"

"NOoooo!!! I am Geg!"

"No No NO! I ih (is) David!"

Repeat repeat repeat for 10 minutes with escalating tone and anger and you pretty much get the whole picture.

*laugh*

I think it's pretty funny although I missed the exchange, it happened while I was work. The boys were kind enough to give me a private showing this am while waiting for the bus. This time instead of both stating facts they actually were fighting over seperate opinions! Cool, maybe they're evolving. :-) It was about the mini-van with one twin stating it was "Mommy's car" and the other saying it was "Daddy's car." As if the boys needed help, Ean tried to correct both of them. You know, cause there wasn't enough confusion that AM.

Of course the fun really begins now. As amusing as their exchanges are now, it won't take very long before they become very annoying. Throw in the their sibblings willingness to argue with three year olds, I'm wondering if I should buy more ear plugs.

The girls are both discharged from speech and have been for over a year but Ean is still in speech. So all three boys. Although the twin's language is challenging because language is a more difficult problem to deal with, Ean's speech teacher has a whole different problem even though his actual speech is very fixable.

She can't get him to stop talking long enough to correct what he says.

Life is fun. Kid do make it funner. lol

Really, why make vegetable stock in the middle of the night?

It's late, I'd rather be sleeping but I want to have some done. I'm trying a new recipe this weekend, a corn chowder that sounds just yummy but I need to have the stock done and there just won't be time tomorrow.

Oh I *could* have done it earlier, if I hadn't taken the work key to my friend, had to visit as she cleaned out her closet and I tried on clothes. What's a girl to do when a friend is willing and eager to share her wardrobe that longer fits??? And I can't be offended that they're to large for her and they fit me. See we've both been losing but since her trouble spots are different then mine, I get the clothes that no longer fit.

Then there was the trip to the store. I wanted some veggies and had brand new wic checks to use. Now I knew it'd be an experience since I haven't used the new ones yet and finally you can be fruits and veggies!! How awesome is that?! Each child is allotted six dollars per month and it has to be in one shot. No change is given, so choose wisely, any amount over needs to be paid for by the customer. So carefully picked out my veggies, with a huge pack of mixed peppers for $4.99 and a package of carrots for $.99 I figure I couldn't make it any easier. Put that on one check, and I had some grapes and a squash to put towards the other check.

Of course with the twins, I had two produce checks and planned on using them both tonight hence the careful choice of the first two veggies to simplify grocery shopping.

Well I knew checking out would be fun. Fred Meyer was swamped, lines extended well into the grocery aisles, a frantic manager trying to clear up traffic and keep the lines moving. It was really rather funny.

So I get moved into a newly opened line, I carefully put both checks down followed by my peppers and carrots, a W I D E space separating the peppers and carrots from the rest of the produce and then everything else. So the gal starts checking me out, I'm kinda spacing but then I look up and see she's run all my produce together into one order.

Okaaaaaay. I'm thinking, well that'S different but maybe you can deduct the produce from the whole order. I've never used the checks before and I flat out don't know. She then asks the neighboring cashier on what to press for the check, I'm thinking maybe she doesn't know after all? I think, well we will just have to see.

Yeah, she didn't know.

After she questions a smattering of coworkers the frantic manager comes over to help. I start to get annoyed. Not because it's crowded and she hasn't learned the ins and outs of the new check but because the checker kept saying "SHE'D like to know if SHE can run both checks through this order", like *I* was the one asking. I finally said to her "NO, Y O U are the one asking, I'm here shopping for groceries.

It's confirmed that each check needs to be it's own order (DANG, it'd be easier to subtract multiple checks!) and the manager gets a wide eyed, wild look as he tries to figure out how to fix my order. You have to keep in mind the wic check has already been processed so really the order was "set". I figure the rest of my groceries are going on food stamps anyway, so I asked for the unused check back so I can use it next week. The look of gratitude from the manager was downright embarrassing.

I did make a point of saying "Now you know you have to do each check in a separate order" while also pointing out that I had separated the veggies so she could do each check separately. She looked rather odd as she stated "that would have been easier". Really? Ya think? *laugh*

Well then there was the poor woman in the monster pick up that had stalled. She couldn't get the door open, had a child in a car seat in the car. I didn't have my phone, a nice man helped her, as we used the suburban to jump her. It didn't work and she went to find a phone to call her husband. Oh well I tried.

All this to say, yeah, fifteen minutes left to a yummy vegetable broth, that I'll still need to drain before actually getting a little shut eye. Hope this new recipe is worth it!

One Saturday, down the tubes!

The day started out fine, we went to the model train display this am. Once a month the model train club lets the public in to see the trains and well, we have boys that adore trains! With Greg on my shoulders, occasionally grabbing my face to turn my head *was not appreciated, Greg!* if I was going the wrong direction we wandered for about forty minutes.

The kids loved it.

Then my big plans included cleaning the kitchen and some canning. I have grape jelly to do along with applesauce. I wouldn't have finished the applesauce today but I could have put a big dent in my apples. Kent planned on some smallish chores and some good TV watching, since he's still feeling puny from his cold.

I made myself lunch after the trains. A nice salad with mushrooms, garden tomato and some shredded cheese. The salad just screamed for a little extra something, I decided beans. A little healthy protein would be great so I went to the storage room, stared at the shelves debating whether I was in the mood for Garbanzo or for black beans.

Garbanzos stood out and I reached to get the can off the shelf. My ever alert self finally realized there was water dripping from somewhere close by. I looked closely, saw one of the cardboard boxes on the shelf was wet. Started moving stuff around and realized a whole lot of the shelf was wet. Finally I reached the back of the shelf and couldn't see what was leaking but it was in the back behind two huge shelves full of food storage.

Great.

I called Kent to break the news that his plans for the day had changed. He was thrilled of course!

After Kent came home the chore of emptying the storage shelves began. This already large task was make even more cumbersome with the dodging and footwork required to step over and around five children and one dog determined to see what all the action was about. Thankfully the dog was put out and the children put to work, it only took twenty minutes or so to empty the shelves. They'll be super fun to reorganize too! Please note the sarcasm there.

The pipe that was leaking was soldered on one end, meaning some serious work and Kent doesn't own anything to solder with. He called his dad who was coming back into town after a morning at the temple. He would have to change clothes before coming down. Kent turned off the water and all the kids suddenly realized they were dying of thirst. Really, any moment they were going to keel over. Ean and Kate were the most dramatic, what a shocker!

Kent and I talked and decided that since we were going to have to take that pipe apart anyway, we might as well buy a water softener to go there. The area was already set up, there had been a softener there previously when we purchased the house, however it was a rental unit and just don't believe in renting and couldn't afford our own softener, so we've dealt with seriously hard water pretty much the whole decade we've been in the house.

I'm so tired of crappy glasses, the hard water just coats our dishes. A chance to get away from that! WOOT!

So after a very long afternoon and evening with several trips for parts, really loud children fighting over a big box and pizza from Costco (cause we had not water to cook with!) it finally got installed. YAY!!!

The day wasn't a complete loss. I did pick a whole lot of apples, and had kids pick apples at Marja's old house. Not that I know when I'll get to make applesauce!!

Completely off topic, I'll throw in that you should always check your pre-schoolers hand before letting them get on the bus, especially if you shared mini Altoids earlier in the morning during a rough spot. Do this every single time, because the one time you don't your three year old will take the Altoids to school, clutched in his fist and when his teacher sees it, she just might have a mini heart attack thinking it's a pill, cause it does look like a pill.

Don't ask me how I know this.

Yeah I know

I keep switching stuff around on the page. Notice I made nice easy to read fonts, this change was made assuming everyone reads blogs when I do, in the middle of night. This was also done assuming everyone else also has hideously poor eye sight.

But when I feel like I have no control over my life, I have to have control over *exaggerated motion with my hands* something. Changing the font and the background is also fun.

Since Kent is sick and has gone to bed, leaving me to entertain myself, I think I'll share a post I wrote on my diaper board (cloth dipes, more natural living, lovely group of individuals).

Prayer is always included in major decisions. At the same time I believe that God gave us brains to think and expects us to use our heads, so even while praying, options need to be considered, we need to educate ourselves on our choices, we need to know the pros and cons before deciding.

I had some really rough social times as well. Middle school is brutal. Just brutal.

I have a certain amount of resolve that I want to teach my children to handle the bad stuff, because bad stuff happens in real life, cushioning kids, trying to alleviate disappointment, pain, sorrow and such does a great disservice to our children. They need to know how to cope and I hope I'm teaching them those coping skills.

At the same time, there's a point where the negatives just beat a kid down and while I want growing up to be realistic, I want to intervene long before any one of beautiful children loses their sense of self worth.

Jane could easily be beaten down. Easily. I see that clearly. That's why we're doing everything we can for her (and have for a number of years, like the six years of taekwondo) to help her grow into her potential. I see that potential and it's beautiful. She's immensely kind. She's fiercely loyal. She loves people. She shows concern for others even those she barely knows. She has an interest in art, a love for music, enjoys creating, enjoys making others smile.

In that awful age of "tween", her peers don't see these wonderful qualities. They only see the awkward girl that doesn't fit in. That laughs a little to loud, finds odd things funny, doesn't always follow the conversation.

*sigh*

I had a very strong impression when pregnant that this child would have challenges and honestly I wouldn't have ever put my finger that they'd be this non-descript and yet so painfully real.


Please note it starts off in the middle of a sentence, out of context because I've only included the information pertinent to my family. It was a discussion on switching schools for Jane, a suggestion given to us by her grandmother. It's not something I believe would be in Jane's best interest but the suggestion did evoke a lot of thought on my part on how to continue to help her.

Jane is currently reconnecting with a friend she's having over in the form of a sleepover. A sweet and gentle girl being raised in awful circumstances. We would never allow Jane to spend the night over there, so I was thrilled that she called to ask if she could come here.

In other Hill news, Ean spent the morning with my mother. Apparently he now knows the contents of her every closet. I cannot seem to get it drilled into his head that's it's not appropriate to snoop!! At least it was my mom, who has a sense of humor about his curious nature. Ean has also discovered the amazing technology known as a GPS. He drove around town with my mom using it, had to go to Kent's store to show his daddy. Pretty funny!

Ean's IEP had him getting special services into Kindergarten. They've realized really quickly that he is not resource room material. After a terrible morning yesterday of never finding his shoes (I'm almost prophetic in Wednesday night's posting) I went to his school with a new pair of shoes after a quick run to Walmart. He was being tested and the teacher said to me "He's really smart." Why yes, yes he is.

She looks at me "No REALLY, he's VERY smart." Apparently Ean was telling her that N O spells NO while O N spells ON. Keep in mind the child is only into his second month of Kindergarten. Oh my, the challenges with this one are so very different then the challenges I had with his sisters!

I don't know what the twins will do, it's to early to tell, we still have to many struggles with language. David I suspect will be more like Ean, just taking off in school. Greg has some more struggles. His comprehension is very poor right now and he still gets so frustrated when he thinks you don't understand him because you're telling him no on something. It's still very early in the year for Greg, there's plenty of time for him to do amazing things!

Kate, what can I say on Kate. Really who wants to know the world almost ended because she didn't get to play with a friend today? Seriously, I have got to figure out how to get the girl to talk in a regular voice without. the. whine. She's terrible about whining!!!! I've never allowed it, we've always stopped her and made her talk normal but she still does it! FRUSTRATING!!!

She's matured in so many other ways. However, this one issue, we're really going to have to ride her about it. I may go crazy otherwise!

So that's us, new format, new background, new font a little updating as well.

Questions I'd like to ask.

I work a part time job (janitorial) four nights a week, three of those nights are late so sometimes I come home and everyone is in bed soooooo family, some answers please.

Why is the dirty bowl (from tonights dinner) that had mashed potatoes whipped in on the dryer?

Even more puzzling, is there a reason there is a pair of dirty undies inside that bowl?

Why we're talking about misplaced items, is there a reason Ean's toothbrush is being stored on the kitchen counter?

Jane, when you went to the gym with Daphne when did raquetball and basketball turn into "hide and go seek" and the perrinal favorite "shut our friend in the gym locker" game?

Kate how was dinner?
Kate did you eat dinner?
Kate if you knew I put onion powder in the mashed potatoes, would that have decreased their ediblility? This of course is assuming you deemed them edible at all!

Ean did you put your shoes on the shoe rack?
How about near the shoe rack?
How about in the front room? Kitchen? Under your bed? Daddy's side of our bed? My side? Under my bed? Bathroom? Twinsroom? Backyard?????? Son, they're here somewhere!!

Oh yeah, I'll get to have *T*H*A*T* conversation with Ean in the morning before sending him off to school. I'm fairly certain that if I walked around my house I could find more puzzling things but I need to go to bed. Morning comes way to early, and I need my energy to find Ean's shoes.

We're considering home schooling Jane

Not anyone else. The destructo genius boy and his whiney pink clad cohort would continue in public school. Those two need someone else to be the bad guy.

So far Kent and I have discussed this with each other and discussed this with Jane. I've also checked out resources and found a great online program that I believe Jane would enjoy that be an excellent supplement program to anything we did but no decision has been made yet. Of course there is nothing that says we have to make a decision quickly. More important is helping Jane understand that there is another option out there.

Last month when we started talking about homeschooling, i was thinking that we'd have to wait until she was in seventh grade. With Ean's rotating day schedule and the twins both in head start requiring a lot of volunteer time, I just couldn't see how we could pull off having her home this year. However I talked with my mom and she said she could help, either by providing her home like a "study hall" if Jane needed some quite time and I had one or three of the boys home or taking Ean so I could work with Jane.

It would be a huge help this year, if we decide to pull her. I couldn't even consider pulling her without knowing that kind of help would be available. Actually my mom said "that would be fun!" I love my mom!!!!

Jane's two biggest concerns are not having access to the school's library. Kent assured her that the library is an easy obsticle to overcome. He told her about he public library and we talked about taking regular trips (my children lose or destroy everything, so I am admittedly bad at the library right now) She asked if the public library has Harry Potter. Why yes Jane it does.

I admit to rolling my eyes when she asked, you see, I own the complete collection but she prefers to read the books from the Library, apparently the series is more fun if it's a library book!

Her other concern is friends, which Kent validated and then we talked about who she could get together with and when we could arrange play dates.

I think at this point it's best not to think in terms of are we going to or not but just provide Jane with support and love her as we help her through this difficult time.

Growing pains

My eleven year old's best friend since first grade has declared she no longer wants to be Jane's friend.

Why are kids so mean?

Jane is the kindest, sweetest kid around and she's loyal. She will stand by her friends and support them through anything, that's just the kind of person she is. But she's not cool. She's socially awkward. She has a hard time staying in regular conversations. She's a little slow to figure out new things.

But where it counts, she's the best type of person imaginable.

I actually went over to talk to this girl. She was so closed down. She wouldn't look at me. I think she knows how incredibly crappy she's being to Jane. However Jane's been a friend of convenence for a while. She calls when she's bored, wants Jane to spend the night and then runs away from her so she doesn't have to walk home from school with her.

It's crappy all around.

I let this girl know that I was disappointed in her. I let her know that good friends are hard to come by. I don't know how much what I said sunk in, but I said a lot.

Then I had to talk to Jane, see this girls birthday is in a week and a half and Jane wants to buy her a present.

Bless my child's giving heart.

I told her that if she did indeed get a present for this girl it has to be without expectations. She would need to get something without expecting anything in return. Buying a present wouldn't make this girl be nice, wouldn't make them friends. I also told her that I wanted her to wait a week before deciding. If this girl was mean this week, she just might not want to do anything for her.

I brought up her good friends and told her that we could make sure that we remembered their birthdays.

I reminded Jane several times how to act around this girl. Be nice, be kind but don't stick around. Say hi, and then go about your business. I don't know how well my advice sunk in, Jane's so over eager at times but I tried. I suspect we'll have a lot of these talks over the coming years.

My hell it's been a hard day to be a mother. Girls are especially nasty and I remember sixth, seventh and eighth grade being particularly bad.

Yeah, you're in the right place.

I changed the pictures to more recent stuff. Actually the yellowstone pictures at the side are all from our trip about 10 days ago, sooooooo pretty recent. The boys snoozing in the car may be almost a year old, I can't remember, but it's dang cute!

I was torn on keeping the mud picture of David up top. I mean really, nothing depicted our lives better then that picture. In the end I decided that we must evolve, and that includes blog pictures too.

So there you have it. The kids, a bit more recent. *smile*

Update on school for the kids.

We'll just go from top to bottom on this.

Jane-the sixth grader was moved to middle school as part of a plan by the school district to make room in over crowded elementary schools. Originally we were promised by the middle school that sixth graders would not be switching classes like the seventh and eighth graders. They would have a sixth grade curriculum. They would make it work.

Then the middle schools decided to do whatever they wanted and made schedules with class periods just like the upper grades. Throw in the four solid weeks we spent trying to track down who to get help from for this kid that has spent her entire school career in resource room. I felt like they were throwing her to the wolves with material that she'd never seen before, she still wasn't at grade level with.

I contacted her math teacher, explained she'd been a resource room kid and bless this wonderful teachers heart, she said she'd help her after school for 20 minutes or so when needed. It really was helping Jane. Also Jane had this fantastic science teacher that she adored and was having a blast in science.

Well the school figures out that they weren't fulfilling the states requirements for sixth graders, you know, the requirements the teachers would have done if the kids had been placed in regular classrooms instead of putting them in periods. Soooooo the school in it's infinite wisdom switched the sixth graders schedules. Four weeks into school Jane had new teachers, all new with the exception of one. Yes, that's ONE teacher. She's lost the science teacher she adored, the math teacher that was willing to help her after school.

SUCK!!!

Our good news, Jane is finally (long exaggerated sigh) getting help in the resource room.

Her report card, five A's, two C's and one F. The F is in homeroom, which is really a study hall type of class for the kids to do homework and stuff. I asked her how she got an F and she said she didn't know, so I told her she better ask so she can change that.

The C's are in science and math of course.

So that's Jane.

Now I just had parent teacher conference for Kate and surprise! Kate is a joy to have a class. Kate is a model student. Well, if we could get the girls reading up to grade and her spelling grade up, she'd be a model student!

She always tries, she takes part in discussions, she's a joy to be around (obviously this is because you don't have to fold laundry at school).

Kate does need to put in a bit more effort with her RA goals, she hasn't tried at all and heavens that girl has a 57% in spelling, so yes we must work on that but everything else is dynomite.

Ean Ean Ean. What to say on Ean. The standard for counting at the end of the school year is 31, Ean currently counts to 49. To be profficient in reading students must recognize 11 letters in a minute, Ean recognizes 17 in a minute but he knows all 26 capitals and 18 lower case letters.

Ean's biggest problem is blowing in his friends faces during circle time. Maturity is obviously a development that he's a little behind on. We'll have to work on it.

There's not much to say on the twins. They're loving head start, it does wear them out, see blog post on "Fred and George?" to fully appreciate their minds. Communication is getting better, we'll just keep working on it.

Not very exciting material but I wanted to document what the kids are doing in school.

Fred and George?

Our son Ean has flaming red hair. From the moment he came out we swore his hair couldn't get any redder and. yet. it. did. So while pregnant with the twins we joked that if we had identical red headed twin boys we'd name then Fred and George, in reference to the magical identical jokesters in "Harry Potter", one of our most favorite book series.

At 19 weeks we confirmed they were boys and we knew they were identical, due to the specific pregnancy syndrome caused only by a shared placenta. Fred and George seemed destined to be.

Then they came out, in their red headed glory and really, we knew their names weren't Fred and George. Great joke that it was, these boys had different names, names chosen from deceased family members that we loved and respected. In retrospect we may have been wrong on their names. Really, maybe they should have been Fred and George.

The humor of these too is amazing. Even with the language delays, they manage to crack us up, often. On a recent trip to Yellowstone, we stopped along a river to watch a beautiful herd of elk just on the other side. The twins both admired the animals while Ean chose to be antisocial in the car. Eventually however Greg grew bored and "fell" down a slight slope.

He was very dramatic as he called for help. "OH NO, HELP ME" It was hysterical. Just when we thought the show wouldn't amount to much, David ran over "I HELP YOU GEG!!!" Dave then proceeded to lean forward and grab Greg's hand and he "saved" him!

Oh, I have picture proof.



So was saving your brother from a steep precipice enough drama when your a three year old red headed identical twin? Hardly!

The guys switched places on their head start teachers. What? Oh yes, they
switched places on their teachers.

You see, the guys go to different classes at head start. This is intentional, Greg's language delay is greater then his brothers and when together Greg doesn't talk as much because Dave talks for him. This does cause confusion when they're both in lunch and I've put them in the same shirts because their classmates see the twin and think someone was naughty and left.

Well a three year old mixing up the guys in the cafeteria while all the classes are having lunch is one thing. The twins trading backpacks on the bus, and then running to the wrong teachers during line up is another matter entirely.

And the teachers are busy, there are multiple buses with a few kids from every class on every bus. It's a little chaotic to say the least. So when the boys ran to the teachers, the teachers assumed they had the right kids plus both teachers looked at their backpacks to confirm they had the right kids. Little devils almost pulled it off but Greg's teacher said to Dave "HI Greg" and Dave looked up at her and smiled with his lips glued shut.

You see, Greg is missing a front tooth. He bumped it at about a year and it went bad and had to be pulled. We always tell people, use that missing tooth to be sure. David hiding his teeth so his teacher wouldn't see? A devious little detail I hadn't realized David had put together.

Who woulda thunk the three year old monkey knew that people could tell them apart from their smiles?????

Pam wasn't born yesterday, she knew from that tight lipped smile that it was David and that he was trying to pull a fast one on her. So Pam told Dawn (David's teacher) that the guys had switched places and the teachers switched them back.

I'd be impressed with any three year old identicals putting it together that they could switch but with the guys language delays, I'm completely bowled over! Holy cow, are we in trouble or what?
I am also highly amused.

Until they do it again, that is. :-)