Year 3, November 5th-8th, 2018: Pesky Preschoolers! And Tempermental Teens!

Yesterday I texted Jared back when he had texted to say he was making a postal run before supper and said, "Well, hurry up because your preschooler is about to go postal!"  I think it's because the weather has turned cooler and we've been inside more, plus we've stayed home more, too.  But Abishai is just into everything!  He's smart.  He's bold.  He's not afraid to climb things.  It takes all of us to keep him out of trouble!  And all of us have other things to do!  We are to the point where we are all behind on things, so even rotating and taking turns playing with him isn't working well (the three of us, Keturah, Justin, and I.)  He's such an extrovert, too.  No, I'm not taking the time or money to put him in a preschool.  It's just him and the stage he's in.  But it's already driving us nuts!  Just got to keep at working the to do list and putting out all the "fires" of life.

Until my triggers are pulled and I'm sidetracked by another young person's suicide, or our own teenager just not having a clue about the world (and he thinks we are all wrong and hypocrites), to extended family issues and broken relationships.  Life is brutal.  And I'm not healed up enough to say "all is well" and "God's got this."  I'm still in the valley wrestling with God.  I've made more progress, so I don't stay in these thought patterns as long, and it takes more to get there, but I still have very little patience and want to understand why.  If you are looking for someone to cheer you up or give you hope or a verse from the Bible, don't turn to me.

Meanwhile, we have had two good days of school so far, I have tried to reconnect with siblings, our friends are back and working on finishing the shed, the sun is shining, we have a plan to get stuff done on Saturday, basketball practice starts this week, and Rooted finishes up this week so I'll be freer for awhile.  I can be grateful for those things.  And try to continue to plug along in my roles here, even if I don't know my real roles out in public.  I'm still "lost" at church and don't have a clear purpose or set of friends or a small group to call my/our own.  It's time to figure that out as small groups get a big push in the next few months again.  Gotta be a friend to have friends, right?  Time to get my head out of the sand and take a few risks, ever so slowly and with lots of guardrails I can hide behind when it doesn't work out.  "Keep on swimming" as Dory from Finding Nemo says.

"I said, NO PICTURES MOM!" But Boy, you are too cute in your jammies with your bag of marshmallow cereal that doesn't have any more marshmallows because you ate them all yesterday!  He did sneak in this morning and slept with us for awhile, too.  I can't keep letting him do that because it severely affects my sleep position and I honestly can't sleep.  Oh well, he's cute anyway!

Abishai loves just "watching the trees" outside the window before we get out f obed.  Gorgeous trees on our street!  I love our older neighborhood with very mature trees!

Mr. Dan and Mrs. Mary are back!  Time to get those shed doors reinforced and hopefully paint the whole thing.  Except it needs to be much warmer and less wind.  Painting might have to wait until spring at this rate.  Abishai and Socks spent a good chunk of the day outside with them.

With Mondays come my counseling appointment, and usually Grandma comes to our house, but grandparents need their leaves raked, so I took the kids over there.  They love having more time with the leaves!  They bagged up about 6 bags worth (I'm guessing it takes 30 bags to do the whole yard) before Grandma felt sore.  Justin had brought some homework DVD's with him, but not the curriculum, oi! He did walk back to our house and try to get in but didn't have a key.  Whoops!  We finally got that subject done more than 24 hrs after supper on Tuesday.  The advantage/disadvantage of having your mother as your teacher.  You still have to get it done, even if it's before bed!

Awww, I love that I got a few of these leaf tossing pictures this year.  And I love that all 3 kids love it!  Benaiah's just a young adult now that has his own brand of fun.  Sigh.

The smile says it all!

Tired much, child?  That's what you get for sleeping in our bed! But also, he just wanted to be near us all day long and when we couldn't, he managed to get into something he shouldn't every 5 minutes in order to keep our attention.  It was a very long Tuesday.  But he's mighty cute!

I saw this on an Instgram story of a vlogger.  All she did was show us that they picked up leaves, used the heavy duty super strong plastic wrap and then voila, she did this to their windows!  So, Keturah and I gave it a try!  We made sure the leaves were dry but not dried out so they wouldn't crumble.  Keturah did a lot of the arrangements.  That's my girl!

Here are some of the daytime pictures.

And then at night.  These are the windows between the kitchen and sunroom, so we get to enjoy them from both directions.  Except I added snowflakes on the other side because I have my snowman mantle lace banner hanging on the other side.  So now we have fall on one side of the windows and winter on the other.  Yeah, I'm definitely not the fanciest Home and Garden decorator, but I go for what's fun and cool looking, and full of comfort and what I like!  I think I can still get away with that being a homeschooler with kids.  Our house is our classroom!  Why shouldn't it be fun!

What?!  No, no candy! No, no TV! Now let me work!  Too cute though.

Still not letting me work.....this one! Oh, and this one decided to find the penny that we use to unlock the bedroom doors.  He dragged over a chair and everything.  He kept unlocking the bedroom door when we were dressing.  Then he would open it, relock it, and unlock it again to discover we had put on one more article of clothing.  It was pretty funny but now we have to find a new hiding place!  Crazy kid!

Justin's pumpkin was the first one to bite the dust.  I didn't try to use any preservation methods like spraying with vinegar and since we keep our house very warm, I'm not surprised.  Oh well, it was fun to do anyway!

Wednesday was the last night of babysitting for the Rooted class at Franklin Rd.  We have a celebration night, but it's at the Shelby St. campus on Friday.  I'm kind of glad it's over but at the same time, I've gotten to know a lot of Abishai's friends! Justin had Bible Bowl of course, and then Keturah had her very first basketball practice.  Daddy had to take her this week, but perhaps I can do all the transportation between Bible Bowl and Basketball next week.  She also has a practice in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday, invited her friend over to play in the late morning and early afternoon, and then a sleepover birthday party for a friend in the evening.  She's got a full social calendar!  Yeah!  We don't fret about socialization like some outsiders to homeschooling might, but it's always good to know that the kids do have friends that want to get together with them outside of church or church activities.  Keturah didn't have close friends on PEI, so I'm glad she's had the opportunity to do that here.  Plus, she'll have them going into her middle school and high school years.  And both friends live less than 10 minutes.  Some of her other friends live 20-30 minutes away and she does ask to get together with them, but it's just so hard when we all run busy lives and it's simply inconvenient to go that far.  Sad, but true.  My best friend growing up lived about 20 minutes away as well and we hardly got together besides church stuff.  Same goes for other kids in high school youth group.  I'd go to the youth group parties, but didn't just go and hang out with them outside of Bible study or parties because of distance.  Oh well.  It's good to see Keturah has friends.  And we don't typically use her playdates with friends as a source of punishment, i.e. taking it away, because we WANT her to have those social times and these friends are a great influence on her.  We don't take away her serving at church either because they are counting on her.  Thankfully, she's quickly maturing and has been so much better at getting work done and arguing less.  Huge changes in her this year, praise the Lord.  It's exciting to see her finally bloom!

Phew! What a day! Lots of talking with extended family about all kinds of stuff.  I've been on and off my phone a lot during the last the few weeks, playing secretary more than I play teacher.  I've got to have "office hours" and be more discipline.  And in the midst of all that, Abishai has become a nightmare.  He needs constant supervision and is into everything (I think I've mentioned that a million times already, that's the disadvantage of writing the blog post over multiple days.)  And since both other kids have their own stuff to attend to, we are finding it difficult to split up the "babysitting" duty.  We just need to find our new groove and set expectations.  I think I did that today after explaining to Justin that him figuring out how to keep Abishai entertained without a screen for 30 minutes every day is part of his schooling.  And vice versa for Keturah.  Abishai doesn't always listen to them, so he, too, needs to learn.  And then we need to be consistent.  I get very mad when others use the screen as a babysitter, especially when they are only watching Abishai for a couple of hours.  I have to have that 2 hr screen time break in order to teach school to both kids at the same time or take a shower or other important things.  Then the other 10 hrs he's awake, I have to follow Abishai around or be available to him to help him in the bathroom, clean up his messes, help him inside and outside, and make sure he doesn't eat all the snacks in the pantry! We are all so exhausted by the end of the day, including Abishai himself!  "It's just a phase!" is one saying from our kids' program at church.  And we are praying this is just a phase.  High energy is fine, but high energy with willful disobedience is another.  Tomorrow is another day and we'll try to clarify the expectations and tweak the routine more.

Our friend Mary captured this picture of Abishai yesterday and said he just wanted to be on the ladder.  Bless their hearts that they look after him and Socks (with me checking in on them from time to time) when they are outside with them.  Socks and Abishai love to be outside and especially love time with Dan and Mary.

Morning rainbows on the bedspread and wall!  You might be wondering what the toilet paper is for.  I find toilet paper cheaper, thicker, and softer than tissues.  End of story.

Nice!

Being the preschooler that it is, he asked for play dough.  We need to trim down the nasty half dried buckets of play dough and ask for new play dough for Christmas.  We have plenty of the tools, we just need the dough!  I can make some, too, of course.

Very, very busy baby feet!

Sleeping or hiding in the kitchen.

It needed more salt, but still, one of my favorites!

After I left for church, Jared texted, "baby is metling already.  He's moping through the house for his keypaaaahhhsee (i.e. blankie and paci)."  This was at 7:15.  Keturah's basketball practice was from 8-9 (who has practice that late at night on a school night?!).  A little bit after 8, he texts that Abishai said, "Duh guy wif wed has snaaaaaaaaacks!!!" I.e. someone was selling snack  and "I'm a baby cwawin. Yes I am a baby. I cwawin."  Yikes! Next week will be interesting, too, if I stay at church for a parent meeting with the high school small groups because they are talking about suicide.  I hate to have Abishai out so late.  We'll see.

Justin finishes Bible Bowl at 8 and we get out of Rooted at 8:45.  Lots of time to kill in the waiting area of the nursery area.  Lots of drawing and talking about silly stuff.

Thursday was straight forward, with lots of school, but at the same time, I hit a mental/emotional/physical wall.  It probably was a fibromyalgia flare brought on by the weather pattern changing and the emotional/mental toll this week as been with another young adult we know committing suicide and Shauna's mother becoming very ill.  Plus Abishai's behavior and then watching other 3 yr olds at church the night before.  I felt achy, tired, and my stomach was giving me fits.  So I laid down and got a short nap in.  I was also cold.  I think I rested for 1 1/2 hrs.  I got up, had some stew, took my oils and tea, took some excedrin migraine (I had a headache, too), and soon I felt a lot better.  I'm glad I rested.  We have a wicked busy next 3 days ahead.  Abishai watched his tv shows, and so did Keturah watch whatever Abishai was watching.  She was done with her homework though and when I checked it later that evening, it was fine.  She's not supposed to have screen time during the week, but since Justin has access to a screen (just not his video games) during the week, I let it slide.  Then after Benaiah got home for school, we took advantage of the sunshine and time together to go back to an old park near our home in Beech Grove to get a few pictures to compare with some older pictures.  The particular playground I want the pictures on might be torn down next year if the city got the grant they want to build a new one.  A lot of the park is still intact, but there have been some changes.  We had a fun time walking down memory lane and getting some of our wiggles out.  Benaiah even drove us to the park and back!  Just 16 years ago I was walking to that park with him in a stroller.  That's nuts!  And the advantage of moving back to an area you know well and have lots of fond memories with.  The trees were gorgeous of course, too.  We wrapped up the evening with lots of laughter and screaming from all 4 kids.  It ended up being a great day!  Praise the Lord!

Now, tomorrow is a wrap up of the week and then I will go babysit for church one last time for the Rooted Bible study. Benaiah might go to a concert after work.  We might hit up the library as well.  Then Saturday is a heavy home project work day with Justin at Grandpa's and Jared and I finishing up putting boxes back in the shed.  I have several boxes in 3 different areas that are simply in my way and it's adding to the chaos in my brain!  I can't decorate for Christmas and such if they aren't moved.  So, it will be 35 degrees on Saturday, but sunny, so we are getting it done!  Keturah will have a friend over, then basketball practice, then a sleepover.  Benaiah of course has work.  Then we have normal Sunday with a twist.  Aaron and Shauna and the girls might join us, but we also have very special guests from the Maritimes who had itnerned at Manchester Christian Church in NH, that are visiting.  They were supposed to go to reChurch, which was canceled, and then visit friends and family this week.  So we had planned this lunch on Sunday a long time ago.  Crazy busy life we lead!  So I'm glad we've stayed home most of this week and I've rested up, saving my "spoons" for this weekend.  Exciting times!

Snow in the forecast!

Time to put the trampoline away!  Can you find the camouflaged boy in this picture?  They are rarely using the trampoline now because it's too cold.

Can you find him?

There he is!  It's too cold!  And I know he doesn't have a jacket or socks/shoes on.  Goof keeps running outside before I can get him bundled up!  Then he regrets his decision and comes right back in!

Got 'er done!  This is the picture I wanted.  Now, if I could just find the picture that matches it from years ago!  I'm trying to find it but I'm taking a walk down memory lane and keep getting distracted.

Leaves had fallen on the slide by themselves! Nice!

This is the only place where I've seen the triple slide.  They all had fun running around for 45 minutes!

Abishai!

Uh, you're too big, Benaiah!

Let's race!

It wasn't that long ago that we only had Benaiah and I would walk down here to swing him.  I can remember him and Justin being swung.  Sigh. Time flies!  And these are different swings, too.

They took out the old metal spiral slide and put this in.  The kids loved it!

Playing "Pooh sticks!"  You drop the stick on one side, and then watch it go downstream.

They are getting too big.

The oldest driving us around the old area we used to live in.  SMH (shaking my head), how can that be?  I walked these streets 100's of times with him when we was little.  And now he's driving and nearly grown.  Sigh.  At least he came with us today with a great attitude and had fun.  I love this boy!

Daddy and Keturah made a Lego cheeseburger!

Daddy came up with the ketchup dots and hamburger piece.  Keturah added lettuce and cheese with the bun.  Nice!