Let Me Tell You Where My Children's Tongues Have Been

The husband has flown the coop.  Mark is in Edmonton right now with his family.  They went to a hockey game last night and he is spending the day there today and will be back home tomorrow.  If I'm honest I could sit here and right a post ranting about how left out and lonely I feel, but it's really not so bad.  And I hate being a downer, so no rant today!

Instead I will ramble on about nonsense so I can avoid the productive tasks that I should be doing, like cleaning out our pets' cages and cleaning out the deep freezer so that my fridge freezer doesn't pop open at the least provocation.

Or I could even unpack more boxes in the hopes that my printer power cord will be found because as of this minute, it is still missing.  I never realized before I lost it how important it is to my life.  I'm starting to feel a little panicky about it.  Because, I mean, it's been three weeks I think since we've been here and it still hasn't surfaced.  That can't be a good sign.

Yesterday was a beautiful day.  In the sun it was just plain hot!  I love spring.  It's such a happy feeling when things warm up.  Yes, it is supposed to snow again (so I've heard) but I console myself with the fact that the snow usually melts by afternoon.  And my kids love to eat snow, so that makes them happy.

Actually, let me tell you about my snow-eating kids.  They love snow so much that they will eat it from anywhere: the ground, from the bottoms of their boots, from cars.  They eat clean snow and muddy snow, they don't discriminate.  I cannot get them to stop licking cars that have snow on them.  Or even cars that are just wet.  Lick, lick, lick.

Maybe I should ask my Mom-in-law if Mark had a penchant for licking cars when he was younger because I sure don't remember doing that.

School in September

I just put Leigh down for a time-out/nap and she is crying at the top of the stairs.  I am too lazy to go put her back in her bedroom.  I probably should though.  She is being sooooo incredibly cranky today.  I'm wondering if I am letting her play too many "video games."  Lately while I do school work with Abby, I let Leigh play on my iPhone.  Ideally I don't want to do this every day, but I feel like it's just so much easier.

I'm hoping that once the house gets more organized, I'll have more stuff for her to do.  I have lots of ideas, just none really implemented.  And maybe I should be taking more time with her.  Even while she was playing games on the phone today she wanted to stay cuddled with me.  I think that I don't take more time because I'm selfish and just want to get through the "work" as soon as possible, so that I can sit on the computer wasting my time and mind away.

Last week was a really difficult school week.  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, oh my, it was just rough.  Leigh was fussy and Abby wanted nothing to do with school.  I was stressed out.  I have ladies' Biblestudy on Thursdays, and I asked for prayer for help with school.  We didn't do any school on Friday because, well because I just didn't want to.  But we did some on Saturday, and it was seriously way better.  And so far this week it has gone much better as well.  I am so very excited.

I think that it's not that Abby is any different, well, maybe a little, but I have just more patience.  An that makes a huge difference.

Cute and Sometimes Embarrassing Things Kids Say

Setting: Boston Pizza Bathroom, wheelchair accessible stall so Abby, Leigh and I can all fit in together.

Scene: Abby went pee, and Leigh went second (YAY).  Then it was my turn.  After I was done Leigh loudly says "Good Job Mama!!"

My Kids Are Featherless Birds

I got crafty last month.  I saw these wings a few months ago at Ordinary Time, and decided I wanted to make them for my girls.  I didn't do it right away but started earlier this year.  I finished them a little while ago and was quite pleased with the results.

My hubs suggested adding the streamers on the bottom, and I think it makes it that much more fun.  And actually, they differ a fair bit from the original original design, which is found here at All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go.

Abby and Leigh had been playing Baby Bird quite a bit lately, making nests from blankets and pretending to hatch and be a baby bird.  So I figured that they would love these wings and had visions of them wearing them constantly and flapping their way through life.

Turns out reality is not so much what I though it would be. They refuse to wear them.  I think we managed to get Abby to wear them twice, for periods of time no longer than 5 minutes.  Leigh wore them once, and only just long enough to get them on before she demanded them off.

Mark was very upset that they didn't like the wings and was almost ready to forcefully make them wear them.  I am sad that they didn't want them, but I won't make them do something they really really REALLY don't want to do.  So my wings that I slaved hours and hours over are relegated to the dress-up box.  But I am still holding out hope that they will discover them there one day and think "Wow, I should be a bird today!"

It could happen.

Someone Remind Me Why I Have Kids?

I usually try to write posts that are more on the cheerful, optimistic kind of side because I know that I could easily just sit here day after day and complain about anything and everything.  But unfortunately this is not a post like that.  It is a venting post.  Please excuse it.  It's been a bit of a trying week.

My kids are driving me nuts!  And right now it's mostly Leigh, dear that she is.  She has been sick the last few days with a fever, so I've given grace to her crankiness because I get cranky when I'm sick too.  But today, she threw the biggest fit I have ever seen her have.

She was inconsolable.  Seriously, nothing was making her happy.  Not food, not her monkey (blanket), not even a tv show.  She was hyperventilating a bit and just keep screaming and crying.  We began to worry that she had something wrong with her, like a sickness or who knows what.

I finally got her bundled to take to emerg and Mark took her outside to put in the car.  I came out shortly after and she was playing on our little ship/slide in the yard.  Not crying.  Hmmmmm, that's suspicious.  Maybe she isn't sick.

She was fine outside until I told her she couldn't ride her bike on the road.  That started the fit again.  So I figured that it was just an attitude thing, and she was not ill.  At least that worry is gone.  But how am I supposed to deal with the rest of it?

We got the painting easel set up for the girls, and Abby happily started painting a cow, of course.  Everytime she paints, she says she's painting a cow.

Leigh started to get ready but then started freaking out again.  But after she saw Abby painting for awhile she quietly got on her painting smock and wanted some paint.  And she was fine again.

She didn't throw another fit until right now when I put her to bed.  I am currently listening to her cry at her bedroom door.  Today is the first day in her "big girl bed."  It is just her crib, lowered and with the railing taken off.  But apparently it is not acceptable.  Or maybe it's just the whole bed time that is not acceptable.

Some days I feel like God is gracious and gives me lots of strength to make it, and other days I feel so stretched that I don't think I will make it through the next ten minutes without doing something I regret.

Cast Your Burdens (clap clap clap) Unto Jesus (clap clap clap)

Now I am singing that kids' song in my head.  Oh well.  It's a good and true message!

Yesterday I was going to come on here and gripe about people and speech pathologists in particular and how they know nothing and just make your life miserable and what am I to do now and why can't life just be simple with easy-to-follow directions?  But as I was getting ready to type I remembered that I have been trying to take my problems to God before I go to human wisdom, so I went and prayed instead.

Not that I don't love getting advice and encouragement from you!  Because that is very important in itself.  God places people in our lives who are there to help and encourage us.  They can remind us of His truthes.  But I know that I can tend to rely on only them, not even bothering to glance at God.  That is when I need to just turn to Him and pour out my woes, so to speak.

So I did, and had a very encouraging time in prayer.  Encouraging in the fact that God revealed an area that I neeed to pray over in my life, so I did.  And I felt energized by my time spent in prayer.

I did get my Biblestudy ladies to pray for me today though, just because I wanted some extra support as well.  I needed to have it reaffirmed to me that God is in control, not govermental employees.

The reason I was so upset yesterday was because we had Abby's first speech appointment. 

It went HORRIBLE.

I can't even stress how bad it went.  She was screaming and crying at the end of it.  But personally I don't think it was all her fault.  I think it was theirs (the speech pathologists, or whatever they are called).  Well, actually at first I thought it might be her, a bit, but as I've taken a step back and thought about it, I see it a little differently. 

They don't know her, or how she works or learns.   They let her walk all over them, and expected her to do what they wanted.  But she's speech delayed, not stupid.  You don't need to be able to talk to figure out that you can get your way by whining.  And that's what happened.  They had a little fishing/magnet game that they let her play a little.  Then they put it aside to try to get her to shape a sound.  She just kept saying no, no, NO, and whining and such, so they let her have another fish! 

Parenting rule #37 - Don't give into your child when they are whining to get their way

A kid will not respect you if they see that they can trample you.  Don't be a wimp.

Anyways. I don't need to rant about that.  So the end result of this is that they don't want to see her until September, and maybe she'll be ready by then.  Riiight.  Mayeb you'll be ready then.  But as we were chatting a bit about it at the end, the speech pathologist managed to throw into my mind some remarks that made me doubt myself and everything I believe about my girls and parenting and homeschooling and life!  Argh!

But she isn't God.  God is God.  (Yes, I know, what an obvious statement, haha.  But I need to hear it!)  And God is who I follow and listen to.  So if He says that I need to do something, then yes I need to do it.  But if the speech lady says I need to do something, I don't have to.  I can if I decide it's best, but I am not obligated to follow her every whim.

So that's that!