Bad Days and Good Days

I stole the title from Bubba. That is the title of his journal and the story of our lives...

So to recap the past few weeks...

Bad:
Huck ate ant poison. Yup. He found a small square of cardboard with Tarro behind the oven that I had placed there at least a year ago. At least. Fortunately, the main ingredient in Tarro Ant Killer is Borax. According to Poison Control, the worst effects would most likely be an upset stomach but seeing as it was not fresh he would probably be fine. He was.

Good:
I saw the new Twilight movie with a friend. We went to Studio Movie Grill and had dinner while watching it. I enjoyed it. Yes it is unrealistic, no the acting is not great, but it was a night out with a good friend, so I'll take it!

Bad:
Bubba threw up at school the Monday before Thanksgiving. Fortunately it was not in the middle of the classroom or he may have died of embarrassment. It did cause him to miss both the Thanksgiving Feast that afternoon and the Turkey Trot the following day. (Not the annual Dallas marathon, a "trot" around the neighborhood to collect can goods with the whole school.) He was fine after that one incident.

Good:
I got to meet the sweet newborn of a close friend the next day! I didn't get to snuggle due to aforementioned vomiting...

Bad: We had an emergency visit to the dentist for Duch. She did some type of spinning maneuver that resulted in a face plant on the kitchen floor. Lots of blood. She fractured the tooth root of her "bad" front tooth (the one she hit when she was two and was already grey) The other was loose but should firm back up.

Good:
The tooth did not need to be pulled.

Good:
We left for my mom's in Indiana on Thanksgiving day and the trip was uneventful. The Hubby stayed home for work. And to go to the Cowboys-Dolphins game.

Bad:
The Dolphins lost.

Bad:
Early Saturday morning Duch threw up. All over the carpet in the bedroom. Thanks, Mom, for cleaning up after her!

Good:
She only got sick once.

Good:
Hanging with 2 out of 3 of my brothers, sister-in-law and nephews. Watching the kids play together!

Bad:
Late Sat night Bubba had mysterious stomach pain. No vomiting, no constipation, no opposite of constipation, just severe pain around his belly button and on his right side. I was convinced he had appendicitis. I was seriously considering taking him to the hospital in the middle of the night. I called the Hubby at 2:30 AM to see if I was crazy. But he fell asleep so I hovered near him on the couch until morning when he woke up fine as ever.

Good:
He did not, apparently, have appendicitis.

Good:
My mom made a yummy turkey dinner and we managed to get everyone seated at the table at the same time. 5 adults, 3 kids and 2 babies. Wonderful!

Good:
No one else got sick or hurt! We made it home safely! The two big kids slept on the plane ride home! Everyone is back to school and back into routine.

Good:
We are staying home for Christmas!

Parent-Teacher conferences

We've had parent-teacher conferences for both the kiddos in the past weeks. Both got great reports. Monday we met with Duchess's teachers. They said she is a great kid, behaves well in class, gets along well with the other children, takes turns, shares, etc. She did well on her "academic" testing- identifying letters, numbers, shapes, letter sounds, etc. She had some trouble with rhyming words because she wants to use words that have the same beginning sounds instead of ending sounds. We also discussed her speech. She has an extensive vocabulary and has no problems with receptive or expressive language, but she does have some trouble forming some of the letter sounds- in particular blends. "Chr" sounds more like "k" so Christmas = kissmas, "or" sounds like "er" so horse sounds like herse, "th" sounds like"f" so think sounds like fink. So I went ahead and called the school system to see about getting her evaluated by a speech therapist. I think she'll pick it up quickly, but that it would help to have someone who knows more about speech teach her how to form those sounds. She really enjoys school so we are happy about that. As far as I am concerned, the most important part of preschool is socialization and she seems to have that down.


Last night we met with Bubba's teacher. She also gave a great report. She said he is "very smart" and doing well. He got straight As on his report card again. She said she is going to start giving him more independent work, like a research-type project so that he can work at his own pace. He is in the "target group" for Targeted Instruction (TI) which means he is working on advanced work with other first graders who are at a similar level. His ability to keep calm when frustrated has improved and she really has not seen any difficulties lately. When he gets frustrated, she gave him the freedom to stop what he is doing, go get a drink of water, take a minute and then try again. I was so glad to hear that. We've been working on increasing his self-coping skills at home as well. We usually see the frustration peek either when he is not "perfect" in his view or when he is tired. There were two things to work on. One is making a greater distinction in capital and lower case letters- he makes them the same height often. The other is letting other kids have a chance to answer questions and recognizing that he won't always get to share his thoughts with the class. She loves that he is so enthusiastic though.

So overall, great reports we felt. We are happy that they are doing well academically, but more pleased that they are good kids who display good character.

In other news, Huck pulled himself to a stand! He is crawling all over, pushes himself from his tummy to a sitting position, pulls up onto his knees and once up to his feet. He LOVES to stand and grins from ear to ear when you help him do so.

I got a promotion at work. I am now a Senior Child Life Specialist. It is a newly created position that I had to apply for. They leadership team is not really sure what the job all will entail, but I will remain mostly clinical.

We are headed to MomMom's for Thanksgiving next week. I'm taking all 3 kiddos on my own because the Hubby needs to work and is going to the Dolphins- Cowboys game on Thanksgiving. All my brothers, sister-in-law and my nephews will be there as well so lots of family fun!

Fall Fun

We had a nice visit from Grandma with the Spiky Hair. We did some some fun fall activities like visit the pumpkin patch, go to a Trunk-or-Treat event and the real deal trick-or-treating. She played lots of board games with the Duchess and read Jack and Annie books with Bubba. She also tried her best at calming Huck but found that he really is a Mamas boy and that the Hubby is right- it's not that easy :-) Huck did show off his crawling skills and she couldn't believe how he has grown since she saw him in May. Unfortunately, I had to work quite a bit because Halloween was my assigned "minor holiday" to work at Children's.

















We attempted to get the required pumpkin patch pictures with moderate success. The hay on the ground was much more interesting that looking at the camera... On our way out the lady told us that the hay was treated with chemicals to keep the bugs away. Thanks.


























We went to the Trunk-or-Treat event at a near-by church again this year. It was a fun, easy hour. We saw lots of little lions and lots of ninjas, but Duch was the one and only Strawberry Shortcake (although her best friend Lemon Merange was there.)



















Halloween was fun. We started the night at a friends house for dinner and then headed back home for trick-or-treating. Our street was pretty active- lots of lights on and lots of kids out and about. The first house we went to was a bit traumatic for one member of the party. A little friend, Zoe, lives 2 doors down and her dad answered the door with a scary mask...

















Luckily, she recovered after about 5 minutes of sobbing and soldered on to collect some good treats. I am impressed with our neighbors. No junk candy on Estate Lane! Lots peanut butter cups, chocolate and Skittles. Banana Daddy was a big hit. Everyone commented on it. Grandma with the Spiky Hair stayed home to pass out treats.



















Late that night I was called out to the birth of a doula client. It was a long, hard one (22 hours for me, 27 hours for the mom) but a beautiful baby boy joined us in the world. And a few nights latter I got to snuggle that sweet little one and marvel at the miracle all over again.