Tuesday, August 21, 2012

A random assortment of activities

Well, we certainly aren't wasting our last few days of summer vacation! 

The other day Brookelyn was asleep and the other kids were downstairs.  After it getting quiet for a bit they all came upstairs to show me this:
Apparently 1 sister is not enough for Samantha these days!  Good thing I know she did this to Nash too and he turned out fine!


Brookelyn is still following her big brother around everywhere!  He has been so good to help her find things to play with, to play with her and to just let her follow him around.







Little sister has loved this little dirt pile on the driveway.  She was so filthy after I pulled her away!  I should have taken a photo of the dirt ring that was left in my bathtub!

Last week I took Caleb and Samantha to the ENT.  Samantha had a follow up appointment because she finished her first vile of her allergy shot medicine.  Caleb I took in because the week prior he had a double ear infection.  I wanted to find out if he still had tubes in or not and what exactly we needed to do.  Turns out his ears still had a bunch of fluid behind them and his nose was pretty yucky still too.  They have put him on a nasal spray and a chewable Singular tablet for the next month.  We need to go back in a month to see if his ears and nose look better.  If they do, we're good and don't need to do anything else.  If they still look yucky then the ENT said that he would recommend possibly doing allergy testing.  The reason behind doing allergy testing rather than jump to another set of tubes is that he hasn't had a set of tubes since he was 10 months old.  He's done quite well with his ears so it's possible that he's got a case of allergic rhineitis which could be fixed with allergy shots.  While we were sitting around during the 20 minute wait period after Sam's allergy shot, we ventured over to the pharmacy and got each of the kids a prize for being so good for the dr.  Sam choose a sticker book where you put the stickers on different faces to create silly faces.  When we got home she detoured from putting them only on the paper to putting the stickers on her brothers' faces and then the faces in the book!



The other day I peeked outside to check on the kids and Nash and Brookelyn had sticks and were sword fighting!  It was too cute.



Friday was my dad's birthday but we had his party on Saturday.  My brother recently got 3 new ferrets.  I took Brookelyn down to check them out and she absolutely loved them!  I wish I could have gotten a shot of her face because she was in absolute heaven!



After dad's party on Saturday night I had Nash remind me he had a loose tooth he was wanting me to pull.  Well, we were able to yank it out fairly easily.  I'm so glad I have at least one kid that isn't a total drama queen about losing a tooth!  The tooth fairy brought him a whole $2 for it too!



And in other news, we had Back to School night tonight.  It's so weird for me to think I have a FOURTH grader this year!  Holy cow!  Wasn't she just born like yesterday?  Nash is going into SECOND grade this year.  What?!  When did this happen?  I did not give permission for my children to grow up so quickly!  Before I know it we're going to be entering middle school and then high school.  And yes, I'm already freaking out about the maturation program I will have to endure next year with Samantha!  I am SO not ready for that!  She's still too young for that!  Right?

Samantha is excited about who her teacher is, my opinion remains to be seen.  That, however, is because of how I was treated as a teacher at the school by him last year.  I told Travis this is likely going to go one of two ways.  Either #1 he's going to find out Sam's an SEM (gifted & talented) student and become a HUGE proponent of my program or #2 he's going to find out Sam's an SEM student and hate me and direct it towards her!  We shall see.

Nash is fairly indifferent towards school.  I wish I could get him to love school the way Sam & I do.  He does not like it at all though.  I know it's because he has struggled with reading and because he is becoming more and more ADHD with every school year.  I am hoping we can find a solution that makes a happy compromise for all.  This year his teacher is new to the school.  My understanding is that this is her first year teaching.  I know I should be more tolerant of first year teachers (considering I've been one too).  As a parent though, I just have a really hard time with it.  She seemed to have it together tonight so we'll see, maybe it won't be too bad.
I
I had my first training of the year on Monday.  It wasn't even too torturous for me!  Turns out that our curriculum will stay the same this year with the exception of one program we're adding in.  That's a relief!  I was wondering if I was going to have to do everything new again this year or if I'd have the advantage of having done it all once!  I don't start working with students until after Labor Day, but apparently I'm going to have to start visiting schools sooner than that because none of my principals are returning my emails!  So.  FRUSTRATING!  I just have to remember "Goose-fra-ba!"

One more day of summer vacation until it's back to reality!