physical therapy update

Avery has been going to twice-weekly physical therapy appointments since Christmas Break, and I'm thrilled to say it's made a huge difference. At first, I was sure it was going to be the straw that broke the camel's back as far as my sanity went. Squeezing two hour-long appointments into our already-packed schedules was a huge challenge. But, we stuck with it and it totally paid off.

Dr. Dan (are physical therapists doctors?) has her do all sorts of exercises to strengthen her ankle... balancing on wobbly surfaces while playing catch or closing her eyes, jumping from one wobbly surface to another wobbly surface, etc. Each week her range of motion has improved and at yesterday's appointment, her left ankle tested the same as her right. Woot.

She's been instructed to only wear her brace when she is experiencing pain (so she doesn't learn to rely on the brace). She got through one basketball practice and both ballet lessons without having to put it on, and hasn't worn it to school all week. It sounds like she'll go for a few more appointments, mostly to work on pre-emptive measures like learning how to jump & land properly.

And then I'm going to regain 2 hours a week, phew!

biggest pet peeve of motherhood

If there's one thing that bugs me so much I want to scream, it's the fact that I'm expected to know where everything in this house is at all times. Regardless of whether or not it's mine, regardless of whether or not I've ever used or even seen the thing before.

Just this morning, Josie called out from the art room to ask me where her yellow stamp pad was. Frankly, I had no clue that she even had a yellow stamp pad and couldn't even begin to guess where it might be (the art room would be the obvious guess, but I've been fooled by that many times before).

When I told her that I didn't keep track of where she put every single one of her belongings, she yelled back:

"You really should start doing that."

still standing

Andrew and I ran into a guy from our high school class yesterday. Coincidentally, he is also the son of the guy from whom we bought our first house 11 years ago. This house. The one we still live in today.

Anyway, when we ran into Allen (we'll call him Allen because that's his real name) yesterday, he immediately asked where we lived. When we said that we still lived in his dad's old house, you'll never guess his response. Just wait for it...

"So, the house hasn't fallen down yet?"


I've been thinking about it all day... does he know something we don't? Is it just a matter of time before the house comes crashing down around us?

cuter and cuter by the day

portland fog

I took a little (kid-free!) jaunt into the oh-so-far-away west hills this morning to visit a friend (who was also kid-free!) and passed through some impressive fog. I am convinced that part of town is just covered with perma-fog, but at least it was daylight so I wasn't scared of driving right off the road like every other time I'm up there. There's something about fog... so quiet, so still. I just love it.

ring out the bells of freedom

This morning was the dress rehearsal (performed in front of all the other students) for the fifth grade play at Avery's school: Ring Out the Bells of Freedom. No surprise (based on the 3rd grade play from 2 years ago, put on by the same guy), the show was fabulous. I made sure to do my part and take some pictures for the yearbook. The show's 90 (long) minutes long so there's no guarantee I'll be any good for that tonight with a tired Josie on my hands.

Henry as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Fabulous!

Two patient little sisters. Don't feel too bad for them; they got a sweet reward later!

I've tried to upload the video of Avery's part, but I'll have to keep working on it. Maybe it wants its own post.

this guy just needs to go away... quickly

When I first heard Rush Limbaugh's comments below, I was so shocked I thought I must have heard him incorrectly or misunderstood. To insinuate that anyone (Nicole Kidman or any other woman) would use a gestational carrier/surrogate simply because pregnancy is "bothersome" is repulsive. It boggles my mind that people listen to his bs every day, on purpose.

the craziest thing just happened

Josie and I were just hanging out at home, having a very lazy day (her swim lesson was canceled due to the "inclement weather," which makes no sense to me because it's currently 48 and raining, but whatever). She decided to go sit on her bed to listen to music on Avery's iPod and I started attempting to make some sense of our checkbook.

Several moments of complete silence passed and that's when the crazy thing happened.

I FORGOT THAT JOSIE WAS HERE.

For the first time ever as a parent, there was a child in the house but I couldn't tell. I actually startled a bit when I finally heard her emerging from her room.

Good thing I didn't pack up and try to leave without her.*



*Totally kidding; I would never do that.**

**I don't think so, anyway.

when helping turns into not helping

The older kids are so excited to be a part of Josie's new-found ability to spell out some words. They're constantly asking her what letters make up various words, what such-and-such starts with, ends with, etc.

Cayden has taken this to a whole other level, though, by constantly trying to teach her all the "tricks" of the English language. He loves nothing more than to ask her what "knight" starts with ("knight like shining armor, not night like dark outside"), and then attempt to explain why it actually starts with a k and not an n.

Sigh.

Earlier today, the two of them were downstairs doing whatever it is they do in the basement playroom, when Josie came upstairs crying. When I inquired what was the matter, she tearfully told me that Cayden told her that "phone" starts with a p, whereas she was positive it started with an f.

Double sigh.

Part of me is amused by Cayden's precocious side. Let's face it; it's kind of fun to mess with some little kid who doesn't know any better. That same tiny part of me is quite amused by Josie's complete and total frustration when her brother tries one-up her (although she just thinks he's flat out wrong every time).

But for the most part, it's getting old real fast.

major weather gripe

Five days ago, the local TV weather forecasters, along with the National Weather Service, were warning that we were in store for a major snowstorm this week. "We could see 12-15 inches of snow!"

Just two days ago, those predictions were moderated somewhat, and we were all of a sudden only looking at 8 inches of snow on the valley floor. Normally, I'm not one to make any preparations for weather whatsoever, but if the weather folks were so sure we'd get 8 inches, I figured there would indeed be some measurable snowfall and this city virtually shuts down when it snows. So, we did what responsible parents do and stocked the pantry. I was starting to think ahead to Wednesday, and the various activities that might need to be rescheduled or shuffled to another day. Shoot, I was even thinking ahead to summer, wondering if a snow day would move the last day of school.

Silly me for trusting any of those guys! All of a sudden yesterday afternoon, all the weather models changed and we're now looking at the "possibility" of some wet snow in the air and a smidge of ice if the weather dips low enough at just the right time, which means... drum roll please... it's going to rain today.

Meanwhile, the kids have been planning out their snow day for a week now and I have more food in my cupboards than I know what to do with.

It honestly doesn't bother me that the forecast changed as much as they did. Five days out, I imagine it'd be incredibly hard to factor in all the different components to a winter storm. But if nobody knows what the weather's going to be like in five days, then I wish they'd be quiet and wait until they do know.

Same goes with more mild weather all year round. At some point I started paying attention to the seven-day forecasts that are broadcast all over the local TV stations. That mythical "seventh day" is never even close to what is initially predicted. If we're in a particularly rainy stretch, the seventh day is always going to be sunny and warm, then slowly morphs into just another rainy day.

It's become abundantly clear that weather cannot be predicted more than two or three days out. Nobody can say with any amount of certainty what's going to happen five (or seven, or ten) days from now, so I wish people would stop pretending like they can.

Arg.

< / gripe >

reading!

Josie officially read (half of) her first book tonight!

Hop on Pop, of course. No finer book for early readers, if you ask me.

She normally gets frustrated so easily when she's trying to figure out a word, something I remember so vividly when the older kids were learning to read. But she stuck with it tonight and barely got frustrated at all. I could tell she was quite proud of her little self.

As an added bonus, she used so much brain power to sound out those words that she fell sound asleep in about 2 minutes. Reading is hard work, you know.

tiny hip hoppers

Another hilariously cute dance video, this time from Josie's new hip hop class.

(Josie is second from the right in black, and Avery [friend, not sister] is second from the left in white. Henry was behind the camera sitting with his Mama. Dancing is for girls and not Spiderman, apparently.)

now hiring: nanny, chauffeur, chef... or maybe a sister wife

I just tallied it up.

Adding in Avery's new twice-weekly physical therapy* appointments, my 3 kids have 32 weekly commitments, not counting all the spontaneous things that pop up. And guess what. They need a ride to and from every single one of them.

I'm overwhelmed. I'll get over it tomorrow, but for now, I'm overwhelmed.



*Avery's PT (Dan, who looks like he's about 12 and whose office is decorated with dozens of paintings of Star Wars scenes) believes that she did indeed have some sort of minor sprain a year (or was it two?) ago during the soccer season, which is what we had always assumed. He said she has lost 3cm in her range of motion for her left ankle, which is apparently quite significant for someone her age and size.

Danny Boy is confident that with targeted exercises and twice-weekly appointments, she can regain that range of motion and start to feel some relief. Even better, he sees no reason that she can't participate in ballet and basketball up to the point that she feels any pain. With her ankle taped really well, she went to ballet this evening and only had to sit out the last 5 minutes (compared to 45 minutes the past two classes). Which is great news as far as I'm concerned.

cat with a c

Josie's always been really interested in letters and the sounds that they make, but just the past few days, her interest in trying to read and spell has really exploded.

She's been pretty good at figuring out the first letter in each word for a while now, but just today she spelled several words on her own (even did pretty well with "Cinderella"--SNDRL) and wrote "cat" above, without any help.

All day she would stop mid-sentence to tell us what letters some word had in it ("I'm just teasing you... teasing is with a T"). I have absolutely no recollection of when her siblings started figuring this stuff out, and I couldn't care less how her abilities compare with her peers. That being said, I find it impossible not to feel a sense of amazement and pride to watch one of my children making such huge developmental leaps... right before my eyes.

This parenting gig just never gets old.

no secrets here

This morning Josie took a shower with me for the second time ever. I'm normally very stingy with my hot water, but she has recently decided that showering together is one of the best things ever. I'm not thrilled with it, but whatever.

In the car on the way to school, Josie told me with great excitement that she would tell her teacher about our shower... which led to an apparently awkward silence on my part.

"Oh, okay, I won't tell Teacher Amy about the shower, Mama. 'Cause that's a secret, right?"

Um...

"No, no, no secret at all. You can tell your teacher, all your classmates and their parents if you want to."


Whatever you do, just don't tell them it's a secret.

so long, 2010!

Wow, I didn't really expect on December 16th that I'd be done blogging for the whole year. I'm sure somewhere in there I intended to post some kind of holiday update, but no such luck. Instead, we were too busy eating, drinking, buying presents, wrapping presents, opening presents, playing with presents, sleeping in, spending time with family & friends, etc. to do much of anything else.

Really, now that the past 2 weeks are over & done with, it feels like we got absolutely nothing accomplished, which I guess is kind of the point of the holidays. I spent more time right here in this very spot on the couch in the last 16 days since I have since we bought the thing... and I loved every second of it. I got re-hooked on Days of Our Lives (don't judge me), I got completely, utterly and ridiculously hooked on new computer Solitaire game and spent hours upon hours "watching" Josie play with her new dollhouse. As long as "watching" doesn't involve moving my @$$ of this couch or putting the computer away, I was all for it.

Good news is, even in the midst of all the laziness, stuff magically still got done. No one had to wear dirty clothes even once, everyone showered fairly regularly and there was plenty of food to go around. Success!

Tomorrow is the official start to our new year and it's going to hit us like a ton of bricks. Avery & Cayden have to be up at 6:40 for school and Josie has to be out the door at 9 for swim lessons. Avery starts 5th grade band practice on Tuesday. She's decided to start playing the clarinet at the twice-weekly SEVEN AM practices. Yowzers, that's gonna hurt.

Later in the week Josie starts hip-hop with Henry & Avery, and Cayden starts basketball next week. Avery may or may not get to continue playing basketball this season, due to a persistently-sore ankle, but we'll await a physical therapist's ruling before any final decisions are made on that one.

And most exciting of all, it's just two shorts months until my Mexican getaway!

Full speed ahead!