What have we been up to? So much stuff and nothing.

It has been awhile-- I have been totally slack in this area. Ok so what has happened?  Jack started 2nd grade!!   He has started reading chapter books by himself. He has always been a good reader, but has had a block against reading on his own. Finally, he did it. He read Esio Trot by Roald Dahl on his own and aced his AR quiz. Now he is reading Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Luke is taking an art class. It meets once a week for a month. They did printmaking-- small piece of foam that they drew on with a pencil to create a picture, then they painted over it, pressed it onto construction paper, and repeated. 

Luke and Thomas were tasked with cleaning the windows, but they used all the window cleaner so Pete made some with vinegar, rubbing alcohol and flour.  To make it look cool for the boys he added food coloring. The boys loved it and it worked well as window cleaner. We left them downstairs with it and went upstairs to get dressed. A few minutes later they bounded upstairs happy as could be because they had not only cleaned the windows, but they cleaned EVERYTHING!!!  Dismissing this slightly I said-- oh yeah, good job. Then when I left my room and walked into the hall I saw what they meant by EVERYTHING. They were so proud of themselves, and we did give it to them so we couldn't be mad.  They said-- Look we made the house like Frozen.  Yes they did. Food coloring may not have been the best idea.  

Luke starts pre-school next week. He had an open house this week and we loaded the whole family-minus Jack- into the car and off we went.  There were so many kids and parents. When you have Catholic families all going to preschool together there are a ton of little kids/siblings everywhere! Luke is pretty shy so it was a bit overwhelming. He kept his arms wrapped around my legs for a while then kept it close to the family after that, doing puzzles on the floor next to Thomas.  There will only be 15 kids in his class so that seems much more manageable.

The boys decided to collect mushrooms the other night and pile them up on our porch. These mushrooms looked a lot like penises. So the boys got a real kick out of talking about how they were collecting penises. They are still talking about it and every mushroom has become a penis to them.

One cute thing was when Jack found some mushrooms and yelled- Jackpot!! Then a few minutes later Thomas found some mushrooms and yelled- Thomaspot!!

I have been totally exhausted lately. I mean the whole fuzzy head, can't believe you didn't crash the car while driving, don't remember much of anything exhausted. I started writing this on Monday and it is Thursday. I don't even remember what I was initially going to write about, but at least our week has been busy so I have had stuff to add to it. I start to get tired around 2:30pm but there is no rest for mom because we have to pick up Jack at 3 then get his homework done, eat dinner, make Jack's lunch, and then start the bedtime process. Luckily, by 8:30 everyone is in bed and they stay there. I have been falling asleep around 9:30 or 10. Meg makes staying asleep difficult because she is the lightest sleeper in the world, and still likes to nurse multiple times at night. If she hears the floors creak she wakes up screaming, if a light turns on in the hall she cries, or if she just wants to nurse she cries, and I either let her cry which lasts about 25 minutes or I nurse her and then stick her back in her bed. This happens 3 or 4 times a night. I am starting to let her cry it out one of two of these times but that doesn't mean I am sleeping through it. We are debating moving her out of our room, but are having a problems figuring out where to put her. Right now Luke and Jack have bunk beds in one room and Thomas has the crib, with the side rail off, in his own room. Putting her with Thomas was our first thought- Meg has a pack and play that is her bed, and it can stay her bed, but Thomas is loud and likes to throw stuff at her when she is sleeping. Not the best roommate.  We thought of moving Luke into the crib bed and Thomas into bottom bunk but Luke thinks he is being punished. Right now we can't get a twin bed otherwise the best solution would be Jack with Meg because that boy sleeps through anything. Oh well. I am sure we will think of something- mostly because I just want to sleep.

I am ending the first trimester with this unexpected baby. The boys keep changing their mind on if they want a boy or girl baby. At first they said girl baby so Meg wouldn't have to just wrestle and play cars all the time. However, lately they have been saying boy baby. Luke-- who predicted this pregnancy-has been saying to me, strangers, and anyone--One more baby and then no more. We need to tell the doctor.  I agree and I did. That doctor knows we are done after this.

Jack continues wander around his classroom and etc., so his teacher plus the guidance counselor have come up with an idea of getting a large carpet square and putting it under his chair so that he can wander around within the perimeters of the square. He will even be allowed to stand up as he does his work so long as he stays on the carpet square. They even asked him what his favorite color is so that he can have a carpet square in his favorite color. I am glad that the school is so willing to help work with Jack. We hope to have a meeting with his teacher next week to see how things are going. To help at home with homework we have developed a homework chart, but we wanted to also incorporate his at school behavior chart so we think we have done it. His homework chart lists all his usual homework assignments and we have stickers that say things like: great job, good job, or try again. Attitude, actual completion of assignment, and effort put into assignment gets hime points: great job sticker is 2 pts, a good job sticker is 1pt, and try again is 0 pts. Each assignment gets it's own sticker. The behavior chart from school gets worked in because on Friday we will look to see how many greens he has received from the teacher and those will equal iPad minutes. 5 greens is 10 minutes, 4 greens is 5 minutes, 3 greens is 2 minutes, and fewer than that is currently zero minutes.  It all comes together because if he receives 5 greens then for every point on his homework chart he gets 10 minutes. He has the possibility to really rack up some weekend iPad time. He isn't allowed to play iPad during the week and the weekend is based solely his behavior/how well he completes his homework. Hopefully it works or at least helps.

Finally, Meg is starting to hang out by the stairs just trying to will herself to climb up them. With help she can get up a few, but I haven't seen her do it by herself yet. She is also starting to pull up and then let go. She is falling down every time, but I know it will be soon when she lets go and is just standing. She just wants to move and be independent.