Thank You Vids!

As I rarely get thank you cards out, I often take pictures or videos of my kids playing with whatever whoever special sent them, and then of course I never get those pictures or vids shared with that special someone.  Well, today I'm being good.

 Uncle J, Aunt M, Cousins N&M . . . these are for you!

This was the last in a long stream of attempts to get a decent vid of H saying thank you.  I really should've included all the earlier attempts; they're pretty funny.  What a goof she was being! 

You know that train book you gave Lil'S forever ago that had little toy trains inside it?  Well, we put it up until he was just a bit older, and a bit older turned into a lot older.  S remembered them when I was lamenting that Lil'S didn't have a train set to play with, and a couple weeks later I finally grabbed them and pulled them out.  Were they a hit?  

Um, how about we just label them as the new obsession.  Or, more correctly, Lil'S's first obsession.  He's never been so excited about a toy before.  I mean, yeah, he loved his riding firetruck at Christmas time, but he could walk away from that.

These?  He carried them with him everywhere he went for two days straight. 

OBSESSION!

Love this

Yay, for Tsh!  Her book was published!

The worst reason to homeschool

And, back to life!  (What was I supposed to be doing online?  I still can't remember after sitting here a moment. . . .  Ah!  Now I remember.)

Knock-knock?

from an email sent to a cousin....

Last week you mentioned [her son, who shares his name with our Lil'S] saying his first knock-knock joke.  We had a funny coincidence.  Our [Lil'S] has an expressed language delay, but his "word of the week", starting a few days before you emailed just happened to be "nah-nah!" (knock-knock).  His new game was knocking on doors and saying, "nah-nah!"  

Well, on Wednesday, [H] happened to tell some not-quite-funny knock-knock jokes when sitting bored in the car while I was nursing [N] after a visit to the library, so I pulled out a couple real ones, and we had a bit of silly time together.  The next day, when [Lil'S] pointed out pictures of cars (blows raspberries: "b-b-b") or trains ("oo-oo!") in his books, he'd say, "b-b-b-b! nah-nah! b-b-b-b!"  or "oo-oo!  nah-nah! oo-oo!"  I couldn't figure out what he was trying to tell me for a couple days, but then it finally hit me: it was our [Lil'S's] turn for his first knock-knock jokes!  Lol!  After he said "nah-nah", I answered, "who's there?" and he exclaimed, "BBBB!"  thrilled that I finally got it.  ;)  I replied back to him, "Knock-knock!" and he answered something resembling "who's there?" and I said, "Train!" and we just laughed and laughed!

Summer Routine Planning Success!

Wahoo!!

Last night I got the basics of our summer routine figured out!  Phew!  It's awesome and even includes a nightly glass of chocolate milk as my reward for a job well done.  A.W.E.S.O.M.E.  Do I dare even admit that I'm officially joining the ranks of insane people who go exercising at times of day that only the insane consider and only the truly insane attempt--and continue?  Yes, it's true.  At 5:45 IN THE MORNING I am going to be rolling out of bed, praying, and going outside for a lovely walk in the gentle breezes and early lights of dawn.  Maybe someday it'll turn into a true workout, but hey, baby steps here.  Guess why the chocolate milk comes in. (see footnote...did I really just type "see footnote"?) ;)

PLUS, a friend emailed me a link to an e-book about teaching young kids to clean. It's FREE for a short time for FB fans, and really only costs $3 otherwise.  It's pretty simple, but the great part to it is that it's written for people like me!!!  (Short attention spans, little motivation to do something like scrubbing floors when they could be doing something else, etc.)  It's totally what I was looking for as well, something to get us all working on getting our house together--as a family effort.  Some things do still need to be tailored to my own home, naturally, but she's got outlines and game plans and a couple explanatory pictures for the kids and some learn-from-her-own-mistakes tips . . . and empathy. ;)  Again, wahoo!!!  I have activities for days we're home that actually contribute to our family goal!!!

I need wahoos today because poor H's been puking throughout the day.  Grateful that's the extent of it, though!  And tomorrow's her last day of school too. poor kid. :(

laugh for the day:
Lil'S has been eating berries all day, and I've had to lock the fridge to keep him out of them.
S: "[Lil'S] just found the blueberries and did a little happy celebration dance."
Lil'S: "Wha!!!  b-dl-b-dl-b-dl!!!"  (noise he makes with his tongue and lips indicating "berries" or "bubbles"...guess I'll have to add a vid of him....)

--
footnote: I've been reading a new book about habits and a book about marriage and ADHD, and I realized two main reasons why ADD/ADHDers have such a hard time with basic, normal things is 1) they get side-tracked away from even starting/completing an potential important habit, and 2) even when they do do something that would be a healthy habit to keep, their brains don't register the natural rewards as strongly as others do, either because it gets distracted from doing so or because their congratulatory dopamine release is lower.  Therefore, the mind doesn't develop a desire to repeat those actions that lead to the reward.

no desire = no repeat = no habit = dysfunctional lifestyle

Again, thus the chocolate milk that I get to sit back and enjoy for however long I feel like it, one little sip at a time.

Wish me luck!

Kids sleep update

Just wanted to get this posted someplace for future reference. I'm super stressed about what to do with the kids' (and thus MY) summer routines, but I know it'll work itself out somehow.  Just will it be in a good way or a bad way???  ;)

email to a friend:

Re: naps, it would be a blessing if [H] didn't fight sleep so much and we weren't so great at getting her off her sleep routine, which always means her not being able to sleep and waking at night.  She's been on melatonin for the past two years, which has helped in a miraculous way.  Full-day kindergarten has been torture until this past couple months, but I'm also not the nicest mommy when pregnant.  We had to bring her home from school once a week just to make it through each week, and bedtimes before baby was born was 6 p.m.!  Now bedtimes have been 6:30-7, so she's spiraled to not sleeping until 8/9 and waking up each night instead of just waking one night a week.  I now just let her join us in bed or on the floor instead of making her go back to her own bed so that her awakenings don't interfere as much with my sleep as they otherwise would.  I'm looking forward to her napping regularly again, although it'll just have to be temporary until we can get her caught up. Then we need to figure out how much sleep (and when) she really needs now.  I'm sure next fall will be rough, but perhaps by next spring she will only need 10 hrs at night instead of this past year's 12 hrs at night and 2 hrs during the day?? Ha, riiight....

It looks like [S] will be the same way.  He sleeps better than she does--although I had finally understood infant sleep by the time he came around, so that's more because of me.  He sleeps for 3 hrs during the day if he's had his full 12 hrs at night.  Lately with our schedules being off he's gotten only 10-11 at night, so he'll seriously take a 4-5 hour nap mid-day.  It's amazing!   But it's not his ideal sleep times, so he's still a bit cranky anyway.  :(

[N's] also been one serious sleeper, and he's topping them all!  It's been a huge blessing with the whole transition to three kids thing, especially with the oldest child being the difficult sleeper.  He probably started sleeping 6 hrs at night at 2 weeks and now he's often sleeping 9 hours at night!  At 3.5 months old!  He still sleeps most of the day--he'll have probably 2-3 awake periods that last an hour or two.  These will be during the day if we're out and about--he can't sleep if we're out and about, which is opposite of [S] and [H] until at least 5-6 months of age--or late in the evenings if we're home all day.  I think there will be no choice but to homeschool or hold him back for kindergarten if we're still in NC!  (I wanted to do one of those with H's sleep needs this past year, but with me pregnant homeschooling wasn't an option, and I still dislike the idea of holding back any of our kids unless they are a summer birthday and need it from an academic standpoint.)

I am so looking forward to summer!!! :D  Get my two older kids back on a good routine!!  Then maybe *I'll* get some good solid sleep regularly too, eh?  :) Ha, riiight.  I'm afraid [H] gets her issues from me. :P  Oh, well.  Such is life!  :)