A Momentous Day

Something momentous has happened this afternoon. Our church has VBS three days this week, and yesterday, I went with everyone planning to stay, as per Ryan's nervous requests. Ryan stuck pretty close to me for a little while, but when I had to change Chase's diaper at one point and asked Ryan if he would like to come with me or stay to watch the puppets, he opted for the latter. After that, I drifted in and out of wherever the kids were, and Ryan only occasionally asked me to stay with him. At one point, however, I was outside the room with a sleeping Chase, and I heard the assistant pastor interrupt his story to say pleasantly to a little someone, "Well, that's okay - you can sit there. Just don't fall off!", before going on with his story. I peeked in to see what was going on, and there was Ryan, perched happily on a high stool right in front of the room, next to the assistant pastor. I watched for the next few minutes, and every once in awhile he would whisper something or other to Pastor Jimmie, who would smile and say, "Oh, really?" It was adorable, and in short, Ryan had a great time. Today while we were eating lunch Aimee asked if I might be able to drop them off - and LEAVE, which was her main point. Ryan chimed in, "Yeah, I want you to drop me off and then go away." I agreed, thinking he may change his mind later, but when I took him to the church building, he started pushing me away. "Now GO, Mom," he insisted, as if for the past three years it's been solely my idea to be glued side-by-side at every church function. :-) So I left, and Chase I and returned home together, with me wondering what in the world I was going to do at home with just one child. It's probably going to take me it's time to pick them up to figure it out. But there's still tomorrow!

A Mystery

I want to post about our trip, but I also want to wait until I have the pictures from my mom's camera. In the meantime, I'll describe the mystery we have on our hands. On probably Friday, UPS left an Express envelope on our back porch - I say probably because we hardly ever use the back porch, and Dave only found the envelope when he went to put some trash out, and his best guess was that is must have been delivered on Friday. The package was addressed to him, and inside was a regular envelope also addressed to him; inside that was a cashier's check for a fairly significant amount of money (significant to us, anyway!). Now, when he showed all this to me, I thought immediately it must be some kind of scam. I looked to see if it was one of those checks that sign you up for something when you cash it, but it did indeed appear to be a straightforward cashier's check. Dave had looked up the bank it was drawn on, and it's a real bank with branches all over the Midwest. But that's another thing - the check came from Missouri, and we definitely don't know anyone there. I've heard of random acts of kindness where strangers give people money, but this would be REALLY random! Dave called his dad, who has the same name, to see if perhaps it was meant for his business, but his dad wasn't expecting anything like that, either. The other wierd thing about the check is that it's dated in May, but was sent on the 19th of this month. It all seems very suspicious, of course, but the fact that it's a cashier's check seems to lessen the likelihood of a scam, since it's already cleared the sender's bank account, and non-payment wouldn't be an issue - unless it's some really elaborate scheme that makes only appear that the bank the check came from is legitimate... It's all very bewildering, but I think Dave is going to talk to someone from our bank about it today. We're certainly not going to do anything with it until we've explored all the possibilities as far as we're able. Any thoughts are quite welcome!

First Trip of the Summer

I haven't gone into any detail about this - or, for that matter, even introduced it at all - but for a variety of reasons my slight natural aversion to getting out of the house (for real, an inherited family trait) has become a very pronounced aversion this year. It's also true that other related anxieties, and the therapy I'm undergoing to help with them, have revealed just how pervasive that aversion had already become. At any rate, what that means is that I haven't travelled more than 10 miles away (and usually no more than about 5) in months, and thus that the hour-long trip I've committed to today, with several excurions once we get there and then a return home tomorrow, is looming ahead of me as if it were an expedition into dangerous and unexplored territory. My mom, who for the record is definitely not the carrier of this family trait, wants to have "Grandmama Camp" with the older kids, and asked if I could just take them up there. I know I restrict my children's world to some degree with my issues, but I do try to make a deliberate effort as many times as I can to push through and overcome for their sake (the kids' I mean), and this seemed to be one of those times it would be ridiculous and unfair of me to refuse. Dave also agreed with me that I really did need to make a sacrifice simply for the sake of going to see family and friends, especially since one of my dearest friends up that way is expecting a baby at any time now and I don't know when I'll have another opportunity (forced upon me!) to go see her. The highlight of "Grandmama camp" is a trip to Carowinds tomorrow morning, and my mom asked me if I could stay and help her with that - another request I could not refuse, know will be good for me, and yet one that raises my stress level a little. So I've been preparing for this all week - and indeed, at this very minute I ought to be packing! - and we plan to leave in a few hours, first for the swimming area at the lake with our playgroup, then for my mom's. Hopefully at some point I'll be able to go see my friend, who can only be several more times desperate to deliver her 11-day "late" baby than I am for her to do so, and her crew with its new addition. Tomorrow morning is Carowinds, in another direction - take another deep breath! - then I'll return home with the little boys. It's a good deal of driving for me, and, confessing another carefully-kept secret, I have had panic attacks while driving lately, so those of you who do, please pray that I'll have calm throughout this trip. In the car with four children is no place or time to freeze and lose my head!

Snoring

Everyone in this family snores (except me, and Dave has verified it!). There's often a veritable snoring chorus in the back of our house at night, and while my Mom has mentioned once or twice that she doesn't know how I actually sleep with all of it going on, I've grown accustomed to it to some degree. I am, however, awake now because Ryan had awakened me then gone back to sleep himself, snoring loudly in my face, and sometimes it's just impossible to tune it out. :-) But Ryan's snoring in particular is what I've been getting at. (Bad grammar, yes, I know, although I've actually read that there's some debate about that, and rules aside, sometimes it just works, so I leave my preposition where it is!) As I've said, Dave and all the kids snore, so it's nothing out of the ordinary here, but for some reason - whether it was from reading about the results of Henry's Jedi Sleep Test, or because things have grown noticeably worse suddenly - I've paid more attention to Ryan's snoring at night lately and have observed with some alarm that he really struggles with his breathing and definitely has apnea. He slept in our bed for the first couple years of his life, and more often than not still climbs in at some point in the night or early morning, and I never knew his snoring to be quite so laborious and disruptive, so I feel pretty sure it must have grown worse in recent weeks. Also, while never our best sleeper by far, he's been much more...let's say, intensely emotional lately. He wakes up tired and cranky in the mornings and leaves me wanting to run and hide even earlier in the day than usual. :-) Yesterday morning was so rough, and his snoring the night before so definitely disturbing, that I was prompted to call his new pediatrician for an appointment. There was an opening that morning, so we went and the ped said Ryan certainly has large tonsils and especially given the apnea we've heard, probably needs to have a sleep study, which is now being scheduled. I looked back at Jenny's posts about Henry, and it seems that there are possibly big time gaps between the study and diagnosis, and then the diagnosis and the final treatment. If Ryan's sleep, and subsequently his mood, is being affected as dramatically as it appears by this, how in the world could we go months before improvement? The doctor said that if if were going to be a couple months before we could get a sleep study scheduled, he would prescribe Flonase as a temporary fix - but it seems to me we might need to do that even sooner if it takes a long to get the results and then embark on the appropriate course of treatment. So, Jenny, I'm interested in knowing what you guys are doing for Henry in the meantime. I feel sorry for Ryan, who must feel miserable for so much of the day, and at the same time, everyone else is sharing in the suffering, which sometimes wears down some of our empathetic feelings for the little guy!

Sharing Sleep

All my children love to be near someone while sleeping, but Aimee and Ryan are rather particular about the who and the how. Drew, however, craves intense snuggling, and it appears he's finally found a sibling who at least doesn't mind it. :-) In the early morning Drew often climbs into my bed and this is what happens when the crowd of bodies finally forces me out (these are from two different mornings):

Happy Birthday, Aimee!

On Sunday, Aimee Perrine Meester turned 8. Eight! I can't believe it's been that long already. Now I'm going to borrow liberally from Courtney and share our own birth story on this occasion.

I discovered I was pregnant just about four months after Dave and I were married. After our whirlwind romance, my mom was a little worried that a pregnancy so soon after the wedding was too much too fast, but I wasn't concerned. Perhaps if it were my own daughter I very well might think differently, but things worked out, and anyway, I've always had very strong opinions - not shared by everyone in my family, or, for that matter, by many other people at all - about marriage and children. I had one of those typically naive first pregnancies, in which I read What to Expect When You're Expecting and believed it as well everything the doctors told me, all of which made for a rather bewildering and stressful combination - in hindsight, anyway. I believed at the time that I suffered from a fair amount of morning sickness and gained all the weight I could possibly have gained (a whopping 22 pounds). My due date was June 12, and as it approached I worried what would happen if that day came and went with no baby, but it turned out I didn't need to worry on that score. On the evening of June 7th, I began to have a series of regular contractions that seemed to indicate (according to the book!) that I might be in labor. I wasn't sure if I should go to the hospital or not and spent all evening worrying about it. By around 11pm, Dave suggested we just go and see what was what, because he knew we wouldn't be getting any sleep anyway, so we drove over to Greenville Memorial and were escorted to a triage area of OB. The nurse who checked me said I was 1cm but having regular contractions, and she concluded her examination by thoughtfully remarking that I certainly had small pelvis and might have a difficult time during delivery. She suggested that I stay around for a couple of hours and see if anything happened - a sure-fire way to stall a first labor! I was nervous and stressed, but after a little while another nurse suggested I stay overnight. They gave me some medication to help me sleep, which only made me groggy and restless all night, and by the morning, predictably, I hadn't progressed sufficiently, so they sent me home, although a kind nurse did say she believed I would be back very soon. She recommended I go home and get some rest, which of course I didn't do. I went home and had an unhappy breakfast and fretted some more, before more intense contractions suggested I visit the doctor's office for another look at things. The doctor gave me the good news that I was truly in labor at this point, so we drove back to the hospital, called everyone in the family -who all began the trek to Greenville - and awaited delivery. I weathered a few relatively hard contractions before happily agreeing to some medication, which "took the edge off," as they say, but really just made me feel very out of it. A short while later, I agreed to the epidural, and as soon as it took effect, I drifted off into a long and much-needed nap. When I woke up, it was early in the evening, and I chatted with everyone in the room for awhile before observing calmly to my mom that I felt "some pressure." The nurse came in and checked me, discovering that I was complete and ready to push - cue the bright lights, rolling table, blue sheets, etc. The rest that followed was very dream-like, but I do remember pushing briefly, the doctor telling me casually that she was "just going to make a little cut," and Aimee emerging all at once, at just a little after 7:30. Of course there were raptures of joy at seeing my first baby, so small (6lbs. 10 oz.) so beautiful and - it was Aimee after all - perfect! She was perfectly clean, had a perfectly round head, and did everything a newborn baby ought to do. :-) Unfortunately, all the drugs swirling around in my system left me feeling somewhat disconnected from the whole experience - or so I learned later. Over the my next three births, I learned much more about birth, in fact, causing me to regret things like that "little cut," as well as the fact that since Aimee was my smallest baby by at least a pound and a half, I'll probably never again have the opportunity to fully experience delivering a six-pounder, rather than those agonizing eight pound-plus boys! But in spite of the fact that I would have done things differently had I known better, I still cherish dearly the memory of my first birth, that of my beautiful daughter, who taught me how to be a mother.. and who is teaching me still.

To celebrate her birthday this year, we had a party on Sunday, followed by a sleepover with any girls who wanted to stay. I am not a great party-goer, and not any better a party-giver, but my mom had come for the weekend and so was enormously helpful in keeping things going. We had ten girls, not counting Aimee, and some of their parents, and things were crowded and noisy, but I think the girls had a good time. Aimee behaved as well as any parent could wish for during present-opening, opening each card before each gift, then thanking the gift-giver with a hug before proceeding to the next gift. After the last present, she announced she wanted to make a speech, then stood on the couch and thanked everyone once more. Priceless!

Six girls stayed for the sleepover - a rather ambitious endeavor on our part, but it turned out well. :-) I didn't anticipate, however, that it would take me all week to recover and put the house back in order! It was worth it...although maybe next year we'll do something on a slightly smaller scale.

Summer Reading Program

Yesterday I took the kids to the library's summer reading kick-off party and signed them all up for the summer reading program. Now, we LOVE summer reading programs in our house, and I'm sure this year will be no exception, but one thing that really bugs me every year is the reading chart. Sometimes the programs ask you to record the number of books or chapters read, which seems simple enough, except that it always annoys me that the charts don't actually have enough spaces for listing the number of required books. Often the lines for listing the books don't even correspond with how many sections of incentives there are in the program. Last year, for instance, there were four sections of lines for listing the books - but only three incentive levels. And there were something like eight lines per section, but the number of required books was 10 for the first level, 15 for the next, and 25 for the final level. This actually caused me a certain amount of discomfort and stress, as it has every time we've done similar programs. It seems no one thinks to actually provide the correct amount of lines for the books the kids are supposed to read (and I'm not even talking having enough lines for the books we actually read - even though extras would be nice!). I suppose that the kids are only supposed to list their favorities, but last year, they couldn't get their incentives unless they had the book chart in addition to the chart with the colored boxes, which I thought was insane. In the first place, am I really going to lie and let the kids color in more boxes than they actually read books for - just for an ice-cream cone? In the second place, if the charts don't give us enough room to list the books they read, how could the charts prove they read the books? Last year I wrote the book titles in every available space on the chart, but it bothered me all summer. This year the kids have to color boxes for every fifteen minutes of reading time, which is better, but still imprecise. I'm going to have to estimate, because I'm not going to sit down with a timer every time we read - unlike some people I know. :-) When we brought home the charts, Aimee began asking HOW she was going to read in fifteen -minute increments so that she could accurately record her time. She pondered this all afternoon, and really did begin recording her start and stop times. But wait - it was going to confuse her if she read, say, twenty minutes in one sitting, because that was one bug (on the coloring chart), plus five minutes toward the next one. When I finally explained to her that she reads WAY more than the number of hours on the chart, and she was going to fill it up with no problem at all, she was distressed about the fact that there weren't going to be enough bugs on the chart to color. Would she get the incentives if it was all filled up at once? It was almost 10 last night when I suggested that she just plan to color in a certain number of bugs a day, to represent her bedtime reading time, and just consider that a sample of her overall reading time - thus fulfilling the library's requirement, and at the same time settling her own mind by creating a "rule" to define the recorded reading time in the context of the whole.

So it's settled, and this year we both feel a little better about the summer reading program :-)

Winning and Losing

For this post, I am looking for some feedback, so please do submit your thoughtful comments! :-)

Drew has always been...let's see...sensitive to emotions created by winning and losing games and other competitions. I admit at times I have been alarmed by what seemed to me to be the behavior of a sore loser, and I have tried to instruct and correct when I thought neccessary - but it's really been in one ear and out the other. When he starts a game, or even just a fun family comeptition (such as, "let's see how fast you can put away your bikes"), whether he wins or loses becomes THE most important thing in the world. He has reasonable reactions when he wins, but when he loses...let's just say it's way over the top. Recently this has carried over even into computer games - he will end up screaming in frustration at the computer, ultimately losing his computer time, not to mention, of course, any sense of fun in playing. Now, in all fairness to him, I do understand that Aimee is somewhere at the heart of this. She is older, taller, and faster, and this usually means that right now she comes out on top in whatever game they play. She also realizes this, and uses it boost her self-confidence, engaging him in competitions she knows she'll win. She also constantly lets him know in various little ways how much better she is at just about everything than he is - she is usually very casual and matter-of-fact, rather than just mean-spirited, about this, but I still try to explain to her how it is not very kind. At any rate, surely this contributes to Drew's emotions on this subject at least in part. That said, he does need to learn how to play games nicely, and to lose with grace, and l put it to you, friends and readers, to lend your suggestions!

Finis!

Even though it was slightly delayed and required an hour of our Saturday, we did reach the end of our school year! The kids have behaved as though I released them from jail, but in all honestly, I admit I share a good deal of their excitement and sense of freedom. I know we enjoyed learning together for the most part, so I won't take it personally that everyone is so glad to be done for now. This might be a good time for reflection on what we've learned this school year and for a re- affirmation of our philosophy and mission for our homeschool...however, I think I'll save that for the beginning of the next school year, which is scheduled for mid-July. For the time being I think I'll just revel in our school-free days myself, and look forward to the possibility of actually having a clean house again for a few weeks.