Sneaking into fall

I have a small window where all but the baby are out, and I thought I’d try and update our blog and write a brief letter to update everyone. I always feel so guilty when all the letters come from dad, but the latest was when he took responsibility for chronicling our visit knowing that it was likely I wouldn’t do it – that was just embarrassing for me.

School has started – we’re approaching week 5, believe it or not. I breathe a huge sigh of relief at now only having two kids at home to care for, at the same time shedding a tear that the only two capable of real conversation or game playing have left. Every week, I have tried to fine tune our schedule so that we are not frantically trying to get somewhere on time all the time, but the bottom line is that with four kids each doing their own thing, until one of them learns to drive, my life is just going to be crazy. We are still easing our way into the school year, adding a new event each week…so far so good.

Charlie is in 3^rd grade this year. We celebrated his 9^th birthday at Ginny’s house – having an August birthday continues to be a bonus when you have a relative with a pool, and Ginny has been so generous to host us. She has even offered to invite some of his school friends, but at 9, inviting his friends would mean inviting their parents and between our family, Ginny’s family and Eileen’s family, we feel like he is properly celebrated without adding any extras. I made his birthday cake this year – yet another video game theme (third year running) though I returned to a homemade cake this year, inspired by Kathleen and her homemade petshop cake for Kinneely’s bday. I even made the frosting from scratch, though I had to then make Charlie his own cake since he can’t have butter or milk. I kept it simple, made it colorful and bought Pokemon figurines from Walmart to slap on the top. DONE! He continues to be addicted to video games, and I continue to be unable to control them. But for his birthday this year, I requested all board games. He loves the game of LIFE and will even shut himself up in his room (small pieces just begging for Florence to choke on) to play by himself. I like this game, though it is complicated enough that we have yet to play without the instructions. It’s teaching him about money, though some of the actual LIFE lessons are unrealistic: automatic pay raises, going to college earns you a higher salary, houses will automatically sell for higher than you paid unless you buy a mobile home (…ok, that one is realistic), and children contribute to your retirement fund. He expressed an interest in violin at the beginning of the summer, thanks in part to some neighbors who happen to play string instruments. I tried to talk him into viola, but he insisted on being in the “dime a dozen” category of instruments…well, if you don’t count pianists. Anyhow, I started him myself, drawing on my years of playing; however, I recognized my limitations to actually teach the instrument – not knowing what skills could be polished later on verses which ones needed to be perfected from the earliest days to prevent technical problems down the road. So we have been auditioning teachers. We have found two that are great, but now we are trying to decide which to make our permanent home with. In other Charlie news, he continues with karate. He will take his test for his green belt in October – this is the next step up from the orange belt he has now. It’s not as active as soccer or baseball (actually, we got tired of standing around waiting for someone to get a hit in that sport), but I love that it is inside (AIR CONDITIONING) and I’m hoping it will teach him how to control his body so he’s not just a bundle of spontaneously flailing limbs all the time. He will make his first communion and confirmation at Church this year – here in Phoenix, they’ve reinstated the whole “8 is the age of reason” thing – whoever decided this doesn’t know an 8 year old. The only way I could get him to sit still in church and not play with the baby is to take away video games for a week until he “earned it back” by paying attention in mass. We’re still working on the participation part. However, I’m constantly getting comments from the congregation on how great my kids are during mass – they know they’re mine since Tony sits in the front with them, and they all troop up to give me kisses during peace time. Charlie recently had a checkup with his ENT and he has recommended a visit to an allergist. We’ve been doing the nasal rinse and a daily Claritan, but it just isn’t helping and the ENT is concerned with some tissue swelling and growths inside his nose. So hopefully we will get some answers that will help my little sneezy, coughy boy.

Lucy is in first grade this year. She started to learn to read last year in Kindergarten, but has really crossed a line this year from sounding out words to reading sentences. I remember this from Charlie’s 1^st grade year. It’s like, one week they can’t read, the next week they can. She’s still slow, but every day she reads a book to Alex and he is minimally patient with this. We’ve started back to gymnastics. She is older and more experienced than most of the kids in her class, but I wanted her to start slow so she could get back into shape after taking the summer off. After the Olympics, she was bound and determined to become an Olympic gymnast; however, she is not the type to put in the work required, so we just are back to going for fun. She will, hopefully, move up to a more advanced class soon. She is fun to watch at school, such a social butterfly with a slightly bully edge. In other words, she holds hands with her little girlfriend on the playground, but mostly so she can yank her around where SHE wants to go. And the first week of school, I had to talk to her about being sensitive to others’ feelings when she and her friend took a “vote” about whether or not a new girl could join their group. Shouldn’t I have another few years before I have to deal with that? At home, she’s starting to do more around the house. She loves to wash dishes and she cooks her own eggs for breakfast. I try to give her some other cooking things to do if I think she can handle it, but she also is good at setting the table and pouring milk. Occasionally, she’s a good babysitter for Florence, but it depends on Florence’s mood. A lot of times, I just hear “I think Florence wants you, Mom”. She is begging for piano lessons, and I’m trying to figure out how to fit that into our schedule. It would be easier to pay someone, but I can’t see spending money to get someone else to do what I do. I was hoping to teach some this year, but there is just not a day free to do it. Maybe next year.

Alexander is my favorite little boy ever. Not that he doesn’t have his moments, he can throw a pout like no one I know, but overall he is the sweetest, most accommodating, easiest to get along with kid I’ve ever known. He is addicted to all things Spiderman. In fact, as we speak Tony is with the kids at Party City to see if the costumes are out yet because Alex just CAN’T WAIT until October to get his costume and mask. He likes to play games – “Will you play a game with me?” – like I could ever tell him no when he asks that. He likes Battleship…never mind he doesn’t know his letters or numbers. Last time we played, we made pictures of sailboats on the grid. He also is starting to get into computer games. Humongous Entertainment has two characters (Putt-Putt and Freddie Fish) that are geared towards his age group. The first go-round through the game, I help him, but after he’s played a few times, he can totally do those games himself. I love that when Florence is being difficult, or I need a shower or need to take care of a few chores around the house. He’s really starting to blossom socially. He used to be painfully shy, and he is still a little shy, but he’s starting to reach out to other kids and even calls them “my boyfriends”. I met a lady at school one morning who had a 3 year old with her and I told her I was going to try and bring Alex with me one morning to play with him. I told Alex about him, and one day he got up and got dressed to walk to school with me so he could meet “that boy”. Unfortunately, they haven’t connected yet, but I love that he’s looking forward to that. He will also start “church school” with the other kids this year. He’s really excited, mostly because he thinks he will get to have a Spiderman backpack, but also because it’s what big kids do. He has always been very articulate…not so much in the speech sense but how he can communicate his thoughts…and he says the funniest things. He loves to look at the fish at Walmart when we go shopping and I suggested that maybe Santa would bring him a tank this year. He says… “I don’t know, mom, maybe when I’m older”. When he was wanting to go golfing with his boyfriends, I said, “When JoeLeo was here, you kind of hid out in your room instead of playing with him” and he said “Sometimes I just need to go in here and think”. And he likes to try and articulate Florence’s thoughts as well: “I think Florence wants to get a drink” or “I think Florence likes me” and the never ending “I think Florence wants you, Mom”.

Florence, of course, is making the most progress. When you start out as a flimsy blob, there’s no way but up. At nine months, she is starting to pull up on things and she is crawling EVERYWHERE. She’s getting quick too. If she sees an open door to the outside or even worse, the laundry room, you can hear her little hands and knees slapping the floor as she puts her head down and tries to get there before you spot her. She has pretty much given up on baby food. Her favorite food is Spanish rice and spaghetti, though she doesn’t like to have it for every meal I found out. You know how it is, they eat something well, you give it to them for every meal? She does prefer to feed herself. She loves nectarines and peaches, but won’t eat a banana chunk if her life depended on it. She will eat pretty much any vegetable. This morning she had a waffle and some yogurt. We’re starting to work on signs with her – I’m trying to teach her “drink” and “all done”. She’s almost got the “all done” – well, when she’s finished, she swipes the entire meal off her tray to the floor. I guess the most important thing is that she is communicating. She is still nursing, but she’s getting bored with it in the daytime…unfortunately, this means we’re still up a lot at night. I’m finding it difficult to ignore her, which I know is the answer, but between the ear infections and the teething and the head surgery from way back, I’m having a hard time making her cry it out. She is going to be SO ROTTEN! Eileen gave me Jordan’s old crib and I now have it set up in Lucy’s room which I painted last weekend (ok, two weekends ago). Hopefully when we transition her into there, she’ll adjust to Lucy’s schedule of sleeping through the night (which could still use some improvement, frankly) instead of keeping Lucy up all night. We’ll have to see how it goes. I take some comfort in knowing that SOMEHOW I got my older kids to sleep through and that SOMEDAY she will too. She is definitely developing her personality. She is actually pretty good to play by herself for short stints and with Alexander. She loves our musical toys and the blocks and she takes great pleasure in destroying whatever someone else might be playing with. She appears to have a good sense of humor – she’s a very smiley baby. I try to take pictures of her, but whenever she sees the camera, she starts crawling quickly toward me – like she already knows she can see herself in the viewfinder after the flash. She loves the water – we’ve taken her swimming at Ginny’s as well as this cool pool that is down near Eileen that has a whirlpool, a kids area, a spray pad, and a lazy river (ok, she hates the lazy river).

Her scar is barely visible these days. You almost have to know to look for it. As for the shape of her head, most people can’t tell anything has happened to her. I still see her little bump on the side of her forehead (where they moved her ridge), but I believe it’s actually becoming smoother. As I spend time on my web support group site and relive it all through their surgeries, I can’t believe we ever went through that – but it’s been five months now.

We’re starting to feel the effects of the fading summer. The weather is noticeably cooler – not quite cool yet, but not in the 110+ level it was this summer. We all went hiking to the top of Hayden’s Butte a few weeks back, even Florence. Granted, she rode up in her stroller, but this was the first time she and Mom had been there.