It was our homeschool group's park day today. It was great fun. We even had a dad show up. 8-O. The boys had far too much fun. After KM left Louis was asking to be held, a strange thing at the park as it is, but then, he fell asleep. Freaky weird. It wasn't even 12. So I put him on the blanket and covered him up and he slept for two hours. Of course, once he got up he expected us to stay and play and we had to leave. He wasn't too thrilled about that. But he was so cute as we walked to the car. I thought he was whining because we were leaving. It turned out he was whining because he wanted to help carry something. So he "helped" carry the bag I had by holding onto one of the straps.
Of course, now that he had such an early nap he is so exhausted at his normal bedtime that he can't fall asleep. :-(
Well, it's hard to believe that at this time 2 yrs ago I was off to bed
after a frantic day of trying to find someone to babysit Stanley and
Kurtis on the 24th because everyone I knew was sick. It's not
easy to find a babysitter who will start at 5am on Christmas Eve but my
friend, Debbie, was so very kind to do so and she even drove out from
Anaheim to be here on time so Stan and I could get to the hospital.
A lot of people are still not thrilled with me having Louis on the
24th. I don't know why, no matter when I had him it would be too
close to Christmas for most people. We chose the 24th because it
would have been Stan's Mother's Mother's 100th birthday that day.
So far he has not been psychologically scarred by it. Neither
have my older two children whose birthdays are on Jan. 3 and 7.
Stanley actually thinks of it as one long party with loads of gifts for
him. I've never taught him to think otherwise.
When you
think about it anyone can learn to hate their birthday. If a
person is born in February, they can think it's awful because
Valentine's Day is also that month. If a person is born in March
they can complain about both St. Patrick's Day and Easter. And so
on. It's up to us as parents to instill a good attitude about
these things in our children.
As Christians we are to be content in all things. His Willing Vesselhas written some good stuff about that lately. Here's her article from the 19th. Very fitting for Christmas.
Well, time to get back to making this a normal daily blog and write about all that normal daily stuff.
Went to Target at 8am. There was hardly anyone there. Came
home, loaded everyone in the van and drove out to the "mall." We
arrived at 9:30am to find that my normal parking area was closed
off. Ugh. So off we went to find another spot. I was
hoping to still be able to park close and knew that I at least had
enough money for the valet if need be. (I'm old, k?) Of
course, I wasn't sure if the valet would know what to do with the
monster van. At the very next corner there was a sign that
indicated we should turn right for more parking. And we
discovered a place that was a secret to me. Apparently there are
parking lots behind the shops where you can park for free. So all
this time I've been dropping coins in the meter without even looking
for another spot. I'll be sure to check there first.
Before we left for the "mall" my dh said something about it taking all
day. I told him that I was sure it wouldn't because the last time
I was there buying gifts it only took me an hour. Of course, I
was only buying for three people on that day. It turned out for
the best though because the whole reason I took the kids in the first
place was so they could ride the train. The stupid train didn't
start running until 11:30. So by then we had absolutely had it
and off we went to...no, not home, another store. But it was only
B&N and I was very good. I didn't even touch a book.
OK, maybe one, but that was just to make sure I knew which one to buy
Stanley for his birthday tomorrow.
As we were leaving we
decided that it was so late we'd just drive through and get some
lunch. As we pulled into the J in the B parking lot I realized
that today was Thursday and, ee, gads, we had to leave in 15 minutes to
go to Piano. Then, on the way to Piano I remembered that this is
the last lesson before Christmas and we did not take a gift to the
teacher. I have decided that I am going to look into one of those
memory classes or seminars this year. This is getting
ridiculous. I'd blame it on the stress but what was the problem
for all the years before this?
We came home and all I wanted
to do was go to bed. (I'd wanted to do that at lunch
too...) But I had to wrap the presents for my sister to take to
San Jose. After that I did somethings on the computer. I
think I read blogs. Yeah, that's it. Then I made dinner
which took a bit longer than I expected it too. But now we are
all fed and in bed. Which is where I'm going now.
BTW,
how on earth is everyone going to keep their kids out of the presents
Sunday morning? Christmas has never been on a Sunday in Stanley's
life thanks to leap year so this should be interesting.
It rained here today. That kind of put a damper on our plans
for the park with Krav Mom (formerly known as Theology Mom) and
kids. We opted for McDonald's instead and, after an initial
problem during which I was glad to find out I'm not the only person who
gets ticked off at McDonald's, it was a pleasant afternoon. I had
been concerned from reading her blog previously that I might be forced
to carry the conversation but I was glad to see that all you really
have to do is to get her talking about something she's interested in
and you don't have to do that at all. The down side to this was
that the conversation was so interesting I was not paying attention to
what I was doing and ended up feeding Louis some chicken nuggets.
To my credit, however, I did keep him away from the chocolate
milk. I have no idea why I didn't think about the chicken.
I hope I do better over the next two days.
After
that we were headed to the car when I suddenly remembered that Stanley
was supposed to be at church at 5pm. It was now 5:30.
(Earlier in the day I realized that yesterday was Thursday and I had
forgotten to take Kurtis to dance...I really need help here.) So
off we went to church. It was fine since it was only the
babysitting patch for the GEMS group. They didn't lock down the
place at 5. ;-) Louis ended up staying as well and we had a quiet
evening with Kurtis. Having only Kurtis is almost like not having
a child because he's so mellow. I sure feel sorry for people who
have only one mellow child. They never get to truly appreciate
the quiet. hehehe.
We
went to Target to buy a basketball for Stanley and to get a few other
things and we saw K's old speech therapist. She's been to our
house since he ended therapy and he's recognized her then but he didn't
quite get it at Target. I guess he thinks she only exists at our
house. :-D
Well, this
rain does not do me any good and I've been cold, achy and exhausted all
day. If you could pray for KM's oldest daughter. She
woke this morning with a kink in her neck and it looked very
uncomfortable. We are praying she'll wake up feeling much better
in the morning.
Spent the whole morning at the park. It was toasty warm. I do love SoCal.
Needed a nap by the time I came home though. We had walked around
the park, which is fairly large by Ontario standards, twice. It's
on the SouthWest side of the city where there is still a lot of horse
property and some farms. The kids had to go visit and check out
what the farmers were doing. I love living out here. Since
we have no choice but to live in the city at least we can live
somewhere they can see open space that isn't a park or golf
course. In our old neighborhood all the open space was in the
hills and it can get boring for kids to just drive by and see it.
Spent the rest of the day sitting around. I can't believe it's
7pm already. The meds are still making me tired, on top of the
heat and Louis deciding he needed to get up and eat at 3am, I'll be
ready for bed as soon as we are done buying Stanley some new white
t-shirts for tomorrows ballet class. His are kind of spotty so I
thought he might like some clean ones. OK, he probably doesn't
care, but I do.
Please continue to pray for my friend. It sounds as if the doctor
is trying to make things difficult for them. I'll do more
research on standard proceedure (sp?) for PROM before I gripe on the
socialized medicine in Canada. Of course, I can still gripe on it
but I'd like to make sure I have my specifics correct for this case.
I was going to say something else but it has completely slipped my
mind. It's sad to be old. It's even more sad when you were
like this even when you were young.
Now I'm going to bed. It was a great day. Stanley got all
his school work done, including two Grammar lessons. He is
improving greatly on his recital pieces. Now he is cleaning the
family room as he is required to do each night before he goes to
bed. (Not that we always get that far but it is on his
list...maybe after reading the above blog it will be more of a nightly
thing.)
Kurtis did better on the potty today.
Louis will be going back on the celiac diet after tomorrow's blood test.
Weather of the Day: 83 F when I checked around 2pm. Clear
and sunny. In other words a typical, perfect, SoCal day.
Louis was up very late. He woke me up at midnight and I couldn't
fall to sleep again until almost 4am. I decided then that we'd
not be at the lab at 8am like I planned.
Later, when I was
swimming, I had an epiphany of sorts. It suddenly ocurred to me
that the other food that had been cut out when Louis was taken off the
gluten was junk food. We used to always have cookies and stuff
around here but we didn't buy those (or eat them...blech) while we were
gluten free. Since we are going to the allergist tomorrow I
thought it might be a good idea to get some junk and feed him that so
we could see his reaction.
Stanley was so thrilled. His
comment as we walked toward the check out stand with a cart full of
donuts, cookies, and coffee cake was "I've never had this many snacks
in my whole life." I loudly
reitterated that I'd never bought so many snacks in my whole
life. (It's truly embarrassing to get into the check out line
with nothing but crud and a bunch of bananas in your cart.)
By
the time we got home it was time to make lunch then it was 1pm.
It was obvious that we weren't going to make it to the lab today at all
because by then Louis really needed a nap. He's been really tired
since we put him back on the gluten. At least he's not as fussy
as before. I'm pretty convinced it was the juice that was causing
his pain and making him fussy.
We finally got our papers from
Stanley's Ballet School today. It really was no surprise to us
but they want him in 1A. I told him that was incentive to work
hard so he could go back to the boys' class in January. I don't
know if he'll be ready for it by then, though. He will only be
going once a week since he has other commitments. We make the
kids finish their stuff so he'll be in this for at least a year.
Of course, piano is a different story. He'll be in that for the
rest of his life...lol.
Stanley is now, this late in the day,
finally getting around to Grammar. He complained during his piano
practice about being so tired (use the whiny voice to read that) so I
let him lay down for 1/2 hour. I told him he'd probably be doing
school late into the night. This is fine for the end of the
school year but it won't work once January gets here and he's back to
doing all his subjects daily.
Speaking of that...I am trying
to put his schedule together now. I had worked on it here and on
my PDA but forgot to sync them. When I got around to it I
realized that on one I had left off Latin and on another
Geography. Somewhere I wrote a blog about this. I'll have to go
look it up so I can see what else I need to remember, like texts and
such. Just kidding. I know what books we are using, now I
just need to figure out the "when" of it all.
Today was not a day of rest for me. I had a migraine most of
yesterday so I had to make up for it today. I think the meds are
bugging me. I'm almost certain that's what's making me so
tired. Well, it's either take the meds or die so I'll deal.
Stan and Stanley went to church this morning. Louis is sleeping a
lot since we put him back on the gluten for tomorrow's blood tests so
he was just getting up when they were leaving. We all went this
evening but it's not the same when you don't get the Lord's
Supper. I'm glad we have finally switched to weekly, although
there are some confused people who think that we are becoming Catholic.
*sigh*
Don't forget to check out Stanley's Star Wars Blog. He put one of his own drawings there tonight.
At the last minute I made my dh go with me to the doctor. I'm glad I did since it was much less overwhelming that way.
We
tried out the toll roads since that would take nearly 30 miles and
about 40 minutes off of our drive. I am now a pro-toll road
person. I think all roads should be toll roads, especially the
freeways in CA. Think of what it would do for them.
Considering how people dislike them it would clear them right up.
I'm not cheap. I'm willing to pay the toll so I can drive
somewhere via a shorter or faster route. I'd offer the suggestion
to the governor but he's not exactly popular right now.
At
the doctor we found many exciting toys to play with. It kept them
occupied until it was time for the appt. Unfortunately someone,
somewhere, decided it would be a good idea to have toys in the examing
room too. This is a bad idea. Children + Toys =
Noise. Stan finally had to take the kids out because I couldn't
hear the doctor.
The
doctor is leaning toward a food allergy. That means we get to do
the elimination tests. We must not let him have any liquid except
water and milk and no fruit but apples (no peal) and bananas.
Then we will have to collect another fun sample from him. After
about a week we will reintroduce the other fluids, starting with things
like Gatorade, until we hit something that triggers a reaction.
She
is also having another celiac panel run. (We'll do that Monday.)
Apparently there was another part of the test that was not run the
first round which she thinks would help rule it out for sure
considering his positive response to the diet. This means we have
to put him back on glutinous foods. I'm not looking forward to
this weekend .
She has referred us to an allergist and we go
back in a month to the GI. That appt will be with Kurtis' old
doc, Dr. Grant.
Afterwards the kids were hungry so we went to
Burger King. They had a humongous slide. I've never seen
such a big slide. I was a bit nervous but they all did well on
it, even Louis.
Then we had the fun of taking non-toll roads
to my parents' house. We took a lot of side streets and it didn't
take the two hours I expected. Only an hour and a half.
Gee, I'm glad we don't have to drive in that every day. I don't
want to know HOW people do it, I want to know WHY. lol.
The kids had fun playing with Hailey. They really miss her. She'll be over on Friday too.
We got our camera back but I think it just drove off in the van with my
husband. He'll be back in a minute though so I can finally get
the pictures I took on Saturday up.
Louis is still recovering from his
encounter with gluten laced milk. Never again...ugh. Each
day he desires to be more and more like his older brothers. He
has acquired the habit of "needing" a bottle when he goes to bed just
like Kurtis and he follows Stanley around everywhere copying his every
movement. He is also repeating everything that is said to
him. That can be frustrating. ;-)
Kurtis is continuing
to improve in his talking. He still won't talk to strangers or in
front of them but at home his speech is quite clear. He's
memorizing the first several lines of Heidelberg Q&A 1 and he has a new verse every other week from Sunday School.
Stanley continues to be Stanley. Today he was "sweet."
After his piano practice I told him we were going to have
Phonics. (I needed to get to the grocery store since I didn't
yesterday so I thought we'd just do the "core" requirements.) He
just about had a fit. "But Mom," he howled. "What about
Bible? Don't you know that Bible is the most important
thing? Don't you want me to learn that?" Now, I'm not sure
how to read this...either he is a budding theologian or he really
didn't want to do Phonics. Either way would definitely fit. lol.
As for me...I'm continuing on the antibiotics. I'm much better
since I started eating when I take it. I guess it would have been
helpful to know that ahead of time, eh? Oy.
I have loaded Firefox and am pleased for the most part. We'll see how it goes.
Tomorrow we go to see the GI doc for Louis. Stanley and I were
joking at the grocery store today when I picked up a box of gluten free
cookies for $6.00 that Louis will end up, ultimately, being more expensive that our $6 milllion dollar baby, Kurtis.
Now playing: The Fiddler on the Roof (what else?)
that Louis will end up, ultimately, being more expensive that our $6 milllion dollar baby, Kurtis.
