Year 4, January 7th-11th, 2018: Back to the Grind or Merry-Go-Round

And....we're....off...to the races of normal life!  With normal attitudes and crankiness and "do I have to's?"  Yup, those, too.  All regular activities and appointments resume this week, with an extra appointment for Socks, our dog, tomorrow, and some different logistics with Benaiah's transportation.  Last Monday went way better than this Monday.  But, we will carry on and do better on Tuesday. I've learned that I can't be too heavy on Monday because we are tired and because I have a weekly appointment that I leave at 3:30pm for.  Tuesday is a our better day to hit ALL the subjects.  That means, that assignments might not be due on Friday like I hope, but rather on Monday.  Now, that's what I did this weekend and one kid got all his work done and the other kid was working on hers up until bedtime on Sunday with the help of Daddy because Mommy was at church.  And she still hadn't completed all of it.  Sigh.  I hate being the task master, but I have to light a fire under Keturah most of the day and bring Justin down out of the clouds, too.  I was telling him an assignment last week and he was literally staring out at the clouds through the window behind me!  It's his personality, not a disobedience, but it's still annoying to be the one to keep reeling him in.  Eek! Keturah has sneaked screen time today, so she's grounded from it this weekend (they are now only allowed screen time on the weekends) and if she continues this lying trend and general bad attitude, I will take it away for the rest of the month.  Thank goodness we are coming to the end of all the sugary food from Christmas, too, so that will help.  I have purposefully allowed them to eat more of it now so we can get rid of it.  I have thrown some things away, too.  I need to cut out sugar from my diet again, too.

Other than that, Benaiah and Jared had a normal day, although most of the kids were a little scatterbrained because this was their first day back from break.  Abishai was a bit clingy because he was missing Daddy and needed more touch time.  He played with his sandbox, his water coloring book, we read a story about "Little 'O' Had a Box," and he had his screentime.  He's still not interesting in coloring and cutting/pasting books.  I'll have to demonstrate for him how fun they are I guess.  Everybody is going to bed early because all of us have to leave before 7, some are taking the dog to the vet for his biopsy and some are taking Benaiah to school.  Fun stuff!  I just LOVE driving to the northeastside of Indy during BOTH rush hours!  Blech!  Lots of patience is what I need.  I've been there before, but only once.  Socks is getting the biopsy done on the growth in his mouth and it's first time under anesthesia so I'm a bit nervous.  He should be fine though.  And I don't expect it to be cancerous, but there's always a small chance.  And we won't be doing cancer treatments if it is, which will be devastating.  Anyway, let's not go there just yet.  Sigh.

Still playing Star Wars and he said, "Son, do (this or that)."  Except for guys he has are Luke Skywalker.  And he said one Luke fights the bad guy (Vader) and the other Luke flies the ship or hangs out with the good guys or something. It's in the next video clip I believe.  Point is, Jared has taken the time to answer all of Abishai's questions and he's already grasping the ins and outs of the Star Wars saga.  He doesn't understand though, how the clone troopers in Episode 1 and 2 can be good when they become the bad storm troopers in 4, 5, and 6.  It's a hard concept for sure, but he's thinking about it!

Concentrating really hard on his water coloring.  I LOVE this Melissa and Doug book series because you just use water to make the picture come to life and there's no mess!  And yes, he's a leftie!  He knows a lot of things in his head, but sitting down to do anything with his hands, like cutting, pasting, and coloring, is not what he wants to do.  I want to do all the fun preschool workbooks with him, but he's just not interested!  I didn't do much with the others either, but I have all these fun books I bought that are going unused.  If he doesn't use them, I'll pass them along to someone who will.

Hm,....reading...in his pjs....for school....

Are you studying or playing a video game, Young Miss?! At least I got her to get dressed!

Just a preschooler, eating a banana, in his pj's, on top of his garbage bin, full of balls.  Yup, that's the life!

Aw, I like how Keturah set up her riding doll petting her horse.  She was playing with them instead of doing homework though.  And I didn't take a picture, but we showed Daddy how she took some string and mini clothespins to hang up some of her doll stuff.

Justin was curious as to how much his Indomius Rex Breakout set was worth since it is now a retired set.  It was a $120 set when it was first purchased.  But check it out!  It's now 3 times the price being sold by a second hand dealer!

And this one on eBay is going for 4x the price we bought it for!  That's nuts!

Aww, cute buddies!

What happens when you are worn out: you have a meltdown over the dog being in your way to play the "lava" game where you jump from cushion to cushion and can't touch the floor where the lava is.  Poor little guy!

Tuesday we got up SUPER EARLY at 6am because we had to take Socks to the vet for his surgery.  He had a small pea sized hard lump removed from his upper gum/jaw towards the front.  The vet had found it in August, but we didn't have the money until now to take care of it.  We had kept a careful eye on it and his behavior and nothing had changed.  He had to be at the vet, which is 30 minutes north of us, between 7 and 8am.  Ugh!  Plus, we had to drive through the one of the busiest sections of the I-465 loops in the city both ways!  Traffic was a bit bad on the way up, but when we picked him up around 4pm, rush hour had started and it was horrible.  Thankfully I had stopped by my brother's house, which is 5 minutes from the vet, to pick up some family photos he had, and so we took the VERY scenic route home and avoided a bunch of the highway.  We left the house in the darkest of dark before sunrise this morning and was just finishing up the evening run just as the sun was setting.  I wrote a couple of Facebook posts about our adventures and how grateful and blessed that this isn't our reality every day.  It's Jared's and Benaiah's reality in the morning, but not as much in the afternoon and it's on local streets.  I really didn't like being on a busy highway in the dark like that, although I am familiar enough about that stretch of road.  Jared had to take Benaiah to school at exactly the same time, otherwise I would have made him drive.  Leah couldn't babysit because she had a haircut at 7:15am!  So Jared took Abishai with him and I took the middles with me in the morning, and then I took all three younger kids with me in the afternoon.  And the lazy mommy in me hasn't forced the 4 yr old to change out of his favorite pj's in 8 hrs.  In fact, I think he went to bed in them again tonight.  Oi! We've been mostly at home, except for the vet this afternoon, so it's not like he's been all over some gross floor of a grocery store or anything.  Some battles are just not necessary.

And some battles are necessary, especially with a little girl who thinks she can wiggle out of her schoolwork by forcing herself to feel sick only when doing schoolwork but not when goofing off with her brothers, reading her pleasure books, playing with her dolls or coloring.  Hm,....I'm not buying it.  Back to work until it's done, however slowly that may be.  Justin, Keturah and I did react negatively to some taco meat we ate yesterday, so I let a couple of things slide then, but not today.  Today, they both worked until bedtime because of the trips to the vet and their own lack of focus.  I, however, try not to do any school related things past 4 pm.  I did do some last night because I knew today would be jumbled.  We also had my piano student tonight, so we got home, ate supper quickly and then she came so there was no time to go over assignments.  After picking up Socks, and heading over to my brother's house, and then coming home the science route through a wooded area with lots of expensive houses and a reservoir called Geist reservoir (all the rich people seem to live in this area), it took us nearly an hour to get home.  It was not ideal with tired kids and a groggy dog.  But they were all ok.  Socks is doing fine and I'm monitoring him closely for any medication side effects.  He doesn't seem to be in any pain and ate a little bit of food tonight.  Abishai had a long nap in the car, too, complete with his paw patrol plushies and blankie, in his pjs, after he had some granola bars for a snack.  That was pretty much his dinner.  I know, great parenting, but hey, we got it all done.  He had eaten a good lunch.  The day ended quietly after piano lesson and we were all happy to get to bed quickly.  Wednesday will be quiet until the evening, thank goodness.

Come on, little buddy, it's 6 am, time to get up. He has so many stuff animals!  And yes, I know it's a slight hazard but, no, I haven't had time to reduce the amount back there.  That's on the radar but really low on the list.  We typically move everything off the bed to the little alcove under the bed or at the foot of his bed. 

Little guy got the third Paw Patrol stuffed animal, Rubble!  And he got his fist Lego magazine in his own name.  Yeah!

Early morning vibes at the animal vet around 7:30am.

Early evening vibes n the way home (around Washington St. and I-465) at 5:30pm.

His friends are watching him watch a movie.  Or maybe they are scared of that movie and had to turn away?

Abishai insisted on finding the instruction manual for the transport vehicle because he wanted to fix his truck!

Sleepy puppy also got his teeth cleaned (moderate tartar buildup; he's never had that done before and I'm glad they went ahead and did it.), his nails trimmed, his ears leaned, and they also brushed him.  Aww.  He's a brand new pup!  No sutures in the mouth to worry about.  Pain meds and antibiotics were sent home.  We'll see how he eats them.  The lump will be sent out for biopsy which will let us know if it's anything to worry about.  I'm pretty anxious about that though.  I've never been in charge of an animal's life like this before.  It's a bit scary making these big decisions.  But for now, he's home and healthy as far as we know.  We all missed you buddy! 

 Wednesday was all about hustling.  I felt like I spent all morning in the kitchen because by the time I finished one thing, something else needed done or someone else was hungry.  We read a long picture book on Saladin in the afternoon for history, and got 3/4 of our schoolwork done before it was time for basketball and Bible Bowl.  That was about it.  Abishai read his Hippos go Berserk book to me and knew the first half very, very well.  Then he had me read this Pumpkin Patch book to him, which led me to look for pictures of our impromptu pumpkin patch we had that grew from some discarded carved pumpkins.  The funny thing with those pumpkins is that we bought only regular orange pumpkins, and the vines produced white, orange, and green(?).  I remember watching the huge flowers grow and the vine following along the neighbor's fence line.  I'll try to post the pictures here, too.  And of course then I found a bunch of older pictures on that Facebook photo album of baby Socks, and 2 yr old Keturah, and 5 year old Justin, and baby Nora, etc.  THEN we got out at of bed, lol.  We had to catch up from the day before, as well as try to forge ahead.  I think I'll describe other funny moments in the comments below.

It was very, very windy last night, and in fact, it scared me a bit.  Before I went to bed, I made sure everything was secure.

Here are some of the photos I pulled from 2009/2010.  This is Justin and I!  And the motorcycle shirt Abishai had on the other day!

My mom "ringing the bell" after her last official chemo treatment.  This was before the brain tumor, and before the cancer spread.  She passed away 11 months later.  I look so skinny! Ah!

Aw, the smiles on my mom's face and this picture was before she lost her hair.  Keturah gets her thicker hair from my mom.  My dad is holding Keturah, whom he adored, and then that's my brother.  This was 10 years ago so my brother was 22.

Aww, such precious memories.

My oldest babies.  Pretty sure Justin is still in a diaper here from overnight.  He was later in potty training like Abishai. 

7 year old Benaiah and 1 year old Keturah.

Then you jump down to Abishai and he doesn't look that different than Justin, and in fact, he thought the younger pictures of Justin was himself!

So why are they running outside in their pj's when it's 20 degrees?  Because it's snowing!  These kids never hesitate to go out and enjoy it.  You should have seen how Abishai described how he went out and cupped his hands to catch the snow.  So cute!

Leah had texted to tell us it was snowing, but that was after I randomly decided to try and get rid of all the sugar in the house from Christmas.  That meant I needed to let the kids have the hot cocoa mix that had been in a jar in her pantry.  THEN it started snowing.  Bwahahahaha.  The hot cocoa mix isn't that great the kids said.  It has crushed up peppermint candies and stale marshmallows.  Blech.

Trying out the hot cocoa.  Abishai and I also discussed his birthday party plants since he found last year's birthday plates.  He wants a Paw Patrol/Minion pajama party! Sweet!  We might even get a pull string pinata this year.  We'll see!  You can get the flat piece made of sugar with the theme on it from Party City online, so I might do that and make the cake.  Or see how much Kroger's would cost.  I'm also thinking about one of those pull apart cupcake cakes.  We'll see!  His actual birthday is 5 weeks away, so there isn't a lot of time left!

The kids added those coffee flavored flaky roll things to their hot cocoa.

Using it like a straw.

Abishai wouldn't go outside when it was 50 degrees, but he'll go outside at 20 degrees thinking he needs to play with his trucks, mow the lawn, and write with sidewalk chalk.  Go figure!

He lasted 1 minute, but he brought the chalk out by himself and brought it in by himself.

It snowed!

"Mommy, can I have caffeine in my hot chocolate?"  Wait a minute, how do you know that bottle has caffeine in it?  And no, you, sir, never need more sugar or caffeine.  Otherwise you'll be like Hammey on Over the Hedge.  And you don't add pop to hot cocoa.  Nope.  Later at Daddy's office, he thought he lifted a Mountain Dew from the fridge and ran off with a can of Sprite.  Sneaky! 

A little eye shine, but cuties with their puppy, who I let on the couch just because.  And since his nails are nicely trimmed, he can't damage it! 

Again, what is it with these two?  Two peas in a pod.  Always hot, blonde hair when they are young, late potty trainers, late to give up the paci, skinny minis.  Too cute!  In the car ride to drop off Keturah and Justin, Abishai brought his BB-8 stuffed animal and made the little chirping sounds that the droids make in the Star Wars movies.  He also told me to put on the cold air because he and BB-8 were hot.  I lied and told him it was cold when in fact, a little bit of warm air was on for Justin and Keturah.  I did have to force him to wear his winter coat.  It is 20 degrees after all and windy.  He wears a lightweight jacket until it's right about freezing temperature. 

Abishai has found all the special hiding places and secret passageways under the desks at Daddy's work.  I lifted him up to peek through the hole and Daddy covered the hole with a post it note.  Abishai kept punching it down and laughing uproariously!

Baby Keturah in a bucket!  She was 2 years old.

Abishai? or Justin?  Definitely Justin, but still, the resemblance is so uncanny!

Keturah was going to ask Daddy to build her a training ring but I suggested she make her own out of cardboard from cereal boxes.  It looks like she took some Amazon boxes that were leftover from Christmas, but that's ok.  She made her own paddock! Complete with an entrance!

And she made a roof for her "stable."  She's already rearranging her doll stuff, lol.

Thursday was cold and a day of hustling.  We only went out to go to the library, but I felt like we had to stay on top of things all day.  Not sure why this week's load of schoolwork seems heavier than last week's, but we are adding our other daytime activities to the week, so maybe that's it.  The day went ok, but I felt I never could relax.  Normal day for Benaiah and Jared, and Benaiah had worship team practice again tonight.  Abishai said his tummy hurt and he thought he had too many tortilla chips.  He was a bit lethargic, too, so I hope he's not truly getting ill.  We have gym day on Friday, but nothing on Saturday until Keturah's 4pm basketball game.  I take that back.  Benaiah has work and we have to pick him up earlier in the afternoon and Justin has a Bible Bowl competition but there are extra teams so it's going to run later than it normally does.  PLUS, it's supposed to SNOW 4-6 inches! So we'll see if we go anywhere at all!  We are so ready for some snow!  Bring it on!

Still partying like it's 2018....I was trying to put the "Happy Birthday Jesus" party hat away for next year and Abishai spotted it and put it on himself!

Abishai ASKED me how to hold his crayon so he could color!  Now, I've never been good at teaching proper technique, plus he IS left handed, so this will be interesting.  I did try though!  I've never had a kid ASK me to show them something like that!  We'll see if this continues into other aspects of "preschoolness"....

We forgot to take a picture but Justin was coloring Marshall from Paw Patrol and called it ______ because he colored it the color of Unspeakable, his favorite YT channel.

Playing soccer, his favorite!  I was thinking about how just a couple of years ago he didn't know how to use a mouse and how to exit out of a program and now, he knows exactly what to do despite not knowing how to read!

We ended up not getting this book from the library but it was about setting up some crazy Star Wars Lego scenes and how it took a few weeks for each photoshoot! The guy used BAKING POWDER for some of the snow scenes! And he put a couple of figures and a space vehicle in a tank of water and then used a sifter to sift plaster dust into the water so it would SLOWLY fall down and he could capture it on camera!  Crazy!

Cool magnet puzzles.

Abishai on his throne! He's got water, a snack, blanket, and his Paw Patrol buddies and all his books from the library.  He and I are the only ones who sit in this chair because it hurts Jared's back.  Sometimes we think Abishai IS the king of the house!

Then he decided it was time for bed because it was dark outside.  It was only 6pm and Daddy hadn't come home yet.  But he went and got his pull up and his pj's to put on.  Gathered up his books and blankie and made himself a bed.  He said he was going to sleep on the couch, too.  I wonder if the other kids were this intelligent and we just didn't notice because we were naive and young and very busy so we didn't take the time to notice.  Or is Abishai just a step above us?

He's got all his friends tucket in next to him.  He actually was disappointed when a new friend didn't show up this morning.  I have the rest of the set and am surprising him with one every week until his birthday, which is less than 5 weeks away!  He won't be able to carry them all, so maybe we'll set aside a special bag for them.  Or use his Paw Patrol buckets! Hm,...

Daddy said on Twitter that Abishai said he needed all these books to read later.  We found the Lego book sections at the library and took home way too many, plus all the books I ordered on the Vikings.  Oi! I was afraid we were going to hit the limit on my card!  Oh well, books are books!

Friday was another "hustle" day.  Gym day, which Abishai and Keturah aren't fond of, but Justin loves, was today, and I think by the end of the time, they all enjoyed themselves.  I wrote my crosstitch with me to work on for a bit and talked a tiny bit with friends.  And that's ok.  I just was sitting in a place that wasn't conducive for conversations.  Then we hit up Aldi's on the way home because we have been without milk for two days.  NOT because there's a "major" snowstorm coming tomorrow where 4-7 inches of snow will be dumped in roughly 24hrs.  I was in a snit this morning, so I put it out on FB that it's not that big of a deal and if you just do the regular precautions, there's no need to panic.  But I was in a rush writing it and it probably didn't come out well.  I can have such an attitude sometimes.  And then I was mad at kids and how they just talk and talk (especially asking for extra things) in the grocery store with me, but are absolutely silent when Daddy is with us.  I can't think with all the chatter.  Plus they've been rolling their eyes and "do we have to?" about school and chores all week, too.  So, I posted that as well.  Dumb again.  Then we came home, put groceries away, Jared and Benaiah came home, Benaiah went out to a movie, we hustled to finish Justin's school work for the week (the advantage/disadvantage of homeschooling is that you can homeschool on a Friday night! We are SO FUN to be around, right?)

Tomorrow is the snowstorm and Jared will take Benaiah to work and Justin to Bible Bowl.  I'm supposed to pick up Benaiah at 2pm and take Keturah to basketball at 4pm.  If Keturah's game gets canceled, then I know the roads are bad and I might have Gary pick up Benaiah.  We will see!  Meanwhile, I'll finish putting away the Christmas decor (except the ornaments and tree) and spend time on wrapping up Keturah's homework for the week.  She came home after groceries today and said she just couldn't get her brain to work.  I left her alone for awhile, but then made her do one subject.  I honestly wasn't in the frame of mind to help her with the toughest subjects, like writing, so I gave up and said we'll do it tomorrow.  I'm really trying to just let go and if we don't finish, we don't finish and it will get done next week first thing.  Then we will do the new stuff.  There's only so much you can do in a given day, and I think I'm finally content that as long as we try to stay active, hustle a bit (not to the point of not doing our work well), and put one foot in front of the other doing the next best thing, we will get enough done.  Cutting ourselves off at 4pm, for example, if we've been home all day, is a good marker to change gears to being parent/child instead of teacher/child.  If they have slacked off, then I "send homework home" and the other parent oversees some of the work, just like in a public school.  But if we've worked hard, then I will push it off to the next day.  Then we should have time to focus on being a family and working on hobbies.  The other issue is our late starts to the day, which is all my fault as usual.  There's no excuse.

They've been sending warnings for days! And I had had enough of them this morning.  We get it!  And if my peers don't know how to handle a snowstorm by now, get a grip! CALMLY make sure everything is taken care of and roads will be clear soon enough.  With the dollar store and CVS just up the street, really, we aren't lacking in supplies even if we have to walk there.  The lines were ridiculous at the stores today.  Sensulization and mass hysteria are not needed.  Plus, don't name snowstorms.  Just don't.  The funny thing is that Jared tweeted about this same thing on Twitter today!  This was after his mom texted us to ask if we had our "storm chips" yet.  Then he tweeted pictures after the February 2015 storm after Abishai was born.  We had 2 ft drop before he was born and another 2-3 ft drop right after, all within 7-8 days.  4-7 INCHES is nothing.  We still managed to dig out, have a baby, get him to the hospital and get home in between it all and we live 15 minutes from the hospital.  Surely those in town can deal.  It's all about perspective. And it's nothing new.  I've always eye rolled at Hoosiers and their lack of ability to deal with snow.  Send me north where people understand and accommodate it.  Rant over.

Bed head.

Abishai said he didn't want to go play with others.  He just wanted to sit with Mommy and play with his cars.  And yes, I'm still working on that darn lighthouse!  I'll finish it eventually!

He won't play 9 square at our church with his youth group because they are way better than him (maybe because they've been playing it weekly for 3 years) but he'll play it at this church with his new friends because he can beat them?  He also said that he played it because there's no Smash Brothers video game to play, and where he's the champion.  Oi!  He had a grand time though!

Then Abishai wanted to actually play the game.  I'm not sure he had understood before what the big kids do it with the 9 square frame.  I tried to keep him from going out there, but Justin let him stand in line with him and then let him stand in the square with him.  Abishai didn't hit the ball, Justin did, but they managed to stay in the game forever.  It was the cutest thing!

Justin guiding Abishai to the next square.

Justin "pat-patting" Abishai's head, protecting him.

So cute!

Ready?! Jump!

Keturah found a couple of girls to play a board game with.

Back at home, the R2-D2's are keeping the lookout tower under control.

Benaiah brought home a surprise for his siblings! "Storm nuggets!" we called them!  We didn't have proper lunch, so they gobbled them up quickly!

Yes, Benaiah bought himself 30 chicken nuggets! Bwahahaha! But he left him on his table open like this and before I knew it, a chicken nugget thief at stolen one!  Yes, when I went into the kitchen for a second, Abishai ran over and grabbed one!  I had to put the lid on so he couldn't get anymore.  Benaiah was in the shower and couldn't protect his nuggets.  He worked 7-2ish today (got sent early because work was slow for once!) and he'll work 7-2 tomorrow.

King of the House on his throne with his chicken nuggets!

Benaiah's loot he bought himself to get through the snowstorm.  I had no idea Haagan-Daas made single serve ice cream containers.  Energy drinks, Reese's, ice cream....

At Aldi's, more energy drink, tea, and fruit strips?  Oh and sparkling water because we are already out of CO2 on the sodastream.  I bought the other kids knock off pringles, snowmen ice cream bars, and snowstorm doughnuts for breakfast.

I cleared the bench of all the Christmas books (probably should put some of the library books here) and Abishai made it into a bed!

Reading what Snowmen do at night!

Kids say the funniest things, Abishai edition!  And he said it in an adult tone of voice.  My word that kid!  Then because he was so tired, he laughed hysterically zooming through the house in his diaper with his dump truck.  He's crazy!

 The End