Year 4, August 1st-4th, 2019: Hazy Summer Days

Ah, today worked out well.  I spent 90 minutes outside with some help from Justin doing more trimming and mowing so now the outside looks decent again and we won't be bringing in chiggers and ticks.  Thankfully I didn't feel faint and my arms don't hurt too much yet.  I also fixed the pantry and put away many things that were cluttering up the floor so now I can reach my shelf again.  After lunch, the kids went to Grandma's house for Grandparent camp where they spent most of the afternoon making string art.  Then they had Bible class with Grandpa and came home for supper.  That left me with over 4 hrs of quiet time and I was able to do a lot for the blog posts from vacation, yeah! It was hard to resist the urge to sleep though.  But the piano tuner guy had texted me during dinner last night saying he would be in the area today, and I thought I did reply yes, but he never texted me today to say he was coming.  Hm,....so maybe I could have had that nap!  Oh well.  I did teach a piano lesson tonight and then Jared and Abishai goofed around for a really long time.  Abishai and I looked at the pictures in the blog post I was working on and then had some tickle fights.  Overall, it was a very productive day.  Not sure what tomorrow will bring yet, but there's lots of options!

On a side note, my brother's divorce was finalized today.  His ex wife has primary physical custody of my niece and nephew and they will attend the local school where she lives.  They have joint legal custody, so he has all access to school and health records.  He gets to keep the house and the van he drives.  He has to her pay her a little bit from the house's equity, but that's it.  Because of their unique financial situation with the kids being on Social Security Income to their disabilities, that's "enough" income and my brother won't have to pay any child support in the near future.  He can also go back to working full time because both the SSI amount and their Medicaid are based on his ex wife's income (which is nothing because she herself is disabled), not his.  That means he can pay off his own debt quicker.  So, all in all, not perfect, but not horrible either.  It almost took two full years from when she left him to now to go through the betrayal, the filing of divorce, and the actual finalization of divorce.  He lost physical custody of the kids because of the GAL report and because our state favors the mother taking care of the children.  My brother will get to see his kids every other weekend and for extended periods of time during school breaks and summer breaks, which is the standard amount of parenting time. He seemed to be in good spirits about it, although I know he was really hoping to get the kids full time.  But he's like me in that we rationalize and finally come to accept it, deal with it, and move on.  He has options now, and that's good.  And for not having a lawyer, and for all the ways both of them have messed up with parenting and financially, they ended up with a pretty decent arrangement.  Now, if only they could stick with it.  Time will tell.

It's nice to not have to drive the kids to their activities when Grandma lives right around the corner.  Bye!

Hammering nails in for their string art.

Lots of hard work.

Keturah picked a very intricate design so Everly volunteered to work on it some more this evening after Keturah came home.

Evening sword fighting time.

TGIF! Boy are we exhausted!  From an exhausting vacation right into here there and everywhere living here. Today I took Justin and Abishai to our normal Friday morning homeschool park day which was in Shelbyville, about 30 minutes away.  Gorgeous huge new park, like Southeastway, but without the nice trees. Unfortunately, the splash pad and the playground were too spread out for me to feel comfortable leaving Abishai by himself on the playground.  But they did have nice benches and canopies to sit under.  Justin went for a walk with some old and new friends on the Blue River trail which I guess is a big deal in that area because we had accidentally found the trail head when we were trying to find the park and it was about 1 mile away near some train tracks complete with it's own building.  The bathrooms were big and clean as well.  But the boys had a ton of fun for 2 hrs.  Keturah stayed with Grandma, Everly, and Nora to work on her string art.  Unfortunately, the string art project became too much for her and despite help from the others, she got frustrated and gave up.  The Grandma took the three girls to Wolf Run Park, where Keturah lost her hat, while I fed the boys lunch at home.  Justin stayed home to play video games and I met up with Grandma and the girls at Bailey's house to go swimming.  We ended up staying there nearly 2 hrs as well.  That means I was in the sun for 4 hrs after already waking up feeling exhausted.

It's been a long week and poor Keturah hasn't had any downtime it seems.  When she's begging to come home instead of playing with even Bailey, I know something is up.  But she doesn't want to miss out on cousin time either, so I have to push and give her boundaries.  It's not easy, but I have to protect her when she can't protect herself.  Abishai on the other hand is never done.  He wanted to go play at Wolf Run Park when we went back to retrieve Keturah's hat.  And THEN when I said no, he wanted to go there after supper with Daddy.  He did end up walking "around the block" with Daddy (and Socks, whom he got his leash down all by himself) and ended up staying at Grandpa's house for an hour playing and eating ice cream.  Now it's 8:50pm and he STILL wants to play the Star Wars video game with Daddy.  Does Abishai ever quit?  Not voluntarily!  He's "too busy to go to bed."  "One more thing, one more thing, one more thing."  Oi!  I did finally get a 30 minutes nap in before making dinner.  Otherwise, I wouldn't make it through my evening things.  I told Jared that he was in charge of parenting on Saturday because I hadn't anticipated being out of the house for so long today.  I need to "work" i.e. catch up on the blog (both Washington D.C. ones and the two days after that) and figure out what I did with our Quicken account as well as fix my password on FB and the FSSA/Medicaid site so I can download our qualifying letter so we can apply for the Access Pass again. Plus laundry, plus showering, plus maybe some book sorting? I won't look at homeschool books for the new year until the blog is caught up.   But I have several appointments next week again and the girls are with us still, so who knows.

I'm actually pretty frustrated still at the state of our house.  I think because I'm tired and more impatient with the dog hair and general lifestyle and the fact that I take on most of the responsiblity for deep cleaning and organizing.  Jared takes care of a little bit of the outside, and then child care things.  But I still have to do all the cleaning up behind him.  Whereas on vacation, Michelle, or Leah, or Aaron actually cleaned the floor and countertops.  It helped that Michelle's house is like a house in a magazine.  But she doesn't homeschool, she doesn't have kids or grandkids at home, she does have fibromyaglia though, and her husband doesn't even live there during the week because his business is in Baltimore 2 hrs away and she sometimes goes with him.  I don't know what their apartment looks like, but it sounds like she's excellent at getting rid of things.  I am not.  I will never be.  It's paralyzing to me.  And I hate that about myself.  And being physically tired doesn't help.  Making all the decisions about meals and activities is also fatiguing.  And the reality that I came home to my own health problems that still need resolving also don't help.  I'm sure I'll have those health things figured out by Christmastime and I will be more stable healthwise again.  Surgery does scare me.  I almost cried again clutching my stomach because having the ability to have kids so easily means a ton to me.  It's part of what defines who I am.  Not every woman can easily have 4 kids, and possibly 10 or more if we had decided to.  I just don't want that choice to be ripped from me if something goes wrong in surgery.  I want God to determine when we are done. So, it hurts mentally and emotionally.  And knowing Shauna is dealing with her own struggles with breast cancer and surgery.  And how both of our moms had cancer.  It's definitely scary and a challenge, even when you do trust God to work it all out.  We are human with human feelings.

Anyway, hopefully my pictures and videos from today have downloaded by now because Abishai did some very big things today.  But between my very full computer memory (again) and slow internet because it's Friday and the whole neighborhood is taking up bandwidth, it took me the good part of an hour just to watch a couple of short videos and start typing.  Eek!  Anyway, here goes!

Ooo, a new playground design I haven't seen before!  I've been around for several new builds in the Indy area and some have the same exact playset.  This one is totally new!

Good thing he has a tiny butt!  Abishai also got up on this spring loaded seat by himself, which was difficult for him because it was high off the ground.  In fact, a lot of the elements were a bit too high for him to reach or use safely.

Watch me, Mom!

Boing, boing!

They had this neat musical garden type area.  The notes did NOT make sense with the normal musical scale though.

The boys played at the splashpad early on but only lasted 20 minutes because it was about 75 degrees out.  Abishai then completely changed and played on the playground the rest of the time.  Justin decided not to wear his swimsuit, which is fine, but then he went on an hr long hike with other teens and his clothes eventually completely dried out for the ride home.

I love these bouncy elements!  Although, Abishai tried to grab the front bar with his feet and I had to warn him that if he let go with his hands, his private area would get really hurt on the bar underneath.  Eeek!

This was his big brave element today.  It actually makes me a little sad when the kids play on the rope pyramids because we had one at the playground behind our house in Charlottetown that they loved and I know that Abishai would have easily conquered it.  Well, today, he easily conquered this one exclaiming, "I'm not afraid! Look at me! I'm not afraid." to the kids around him.

One set of "drums" and several xylophone type "instruments."  Pretty neat stuff!

Always more slides!

Abishai held on tight and sometimes had to try several different angles to find his next footing or handheld.  But he was careful when he came down, and only hopped off of the apparatus when his hands reached the lowest ropes.  Yeah!

Wait a minute, I remember taking photos like this of the other three when they started climbing like this in Charlottetown! How arey you only 4 1/2 yrs old and already doing this?

Ta da!  He reached the girls sitting on the top!

Very tall ladder and playground.

I was sitting at a picnic table under a canopy when he reached the top.  I told him to sit still and he did.

Uh, woah, baby! Stop growing up so fast!

Just hanging out at the top with no fear!

Always making music!  In fact, this evening, he kept singing the song that goes with Lego Friends videos about "Me and my girls, always together."  I love that he's so musical.

There's the big kids!  I told Abishai to run towards them to show Justin how much he loves and misses him.  Justin did give him a pat on the head and kept walking.  I'm glad my kids can make friends wherever they go.

Never ever say homeschoolers aren't socialized.  All of these teens are homeschooled.  All of them can hold a conversation about anything with each other.  And they can get along. 

At Dawn's house, Abishai found the pink jeep! It didn't have much power, but he tried it out anyway.  He even told me, "Get in, ma'am." and opened the car door for me.  I got in, he closed the door, then got in his side.  But I wouldn't let him let it go because I knew we were too heavy for it.  However, he got out and then went around to my side and opened my door.  He must have picked that up on YouTube because Jared never opens the car door for me.  He just never has and now we are usually juggling kids and bags and such, so it's just not something we deem necessary.  But at least Abishai knows how to.

Only two out of four of Dawn's kids wanted to go swimming.  Actually Dawn wasn't there, but her mom was babysitting.  We've know her parents for a long time, so Leah had a nice conversation with Terri.  I did get in as the parental backup for Abishai because I knew he was already tired from the playground this morning.  He certainly didn't last as long as he did in Delaware with Daddy.  It was harder for him to get to the sides and get up out of the pool in order to dive back in.

Bailey, Keturah, Everly and Nora.

Abishai watched Colton as he did all his fancy dives, so Abishai decided to try.  Watch the video below but basically, he can spin a full 360 degrees as he dives in feet first.

Splash down!

"Can I go home now, Mom?  I just want to chill and watch Heartland."  Ok, introverted girlie, here we go.

Lock me in the doggie cage mom!  Luna (the dog) says, wait a minute, that's MY cage! Lol.

Dad, DAD, dad, DADDY.  Yes, buddy.  Blah, blah, blah, and I can lock the gate, blah, blah, blah, I did this today......I could hear Abishai trying to get Daddy's attention when I was inside in the fireside room on the opposite side of the wall they were on.  That's how loud and cute it was.  No windows were open either.

He's so tired that he leaned over his trike as he put it away.  We had to warn him not to go out into the street because of all the extra traffic from the construction of the new roundabout at Franklin and Thompson Rds right outside our neighborhood.  It's already been a nightmare with people blowing through the stop signs, not stopping for the buses, and going around each other.  There has been a patrol car during rush hour and it has caught several people.  Mr. Jim even put out big signs spray painted in black "stop" with an upward arrow to help people recognize the stop sign.  Eek!

Back to normal Saturdays.  Jared kept track of Abishai all day so I could work.  We all woke up after 9am! Woot! Woot!  Ok, Abishai was up, but no one else got out of bed.  Keturah and I cleaned out the bottom of the pantry because it smelled like something had peed in there.  There's an open bag of dog food, too, but I know it wasn't just that.  We didn't find anything major, but at least all the mouse poo is cleaned up and fresh peppermint oil is put down in order to deter the mice.  Everybody did their chores, had showers, ate, read, had electronic time, etc.  We even had Everly and Nora over for a little bit for dinner.  I did a load of laundry and type on the computer most of the day.  It was a pretty typical Saturday!

Preschoolers are the new adults perhaps?

The before shot of the pantry floor.

The after shot.  Not much changed except we took out three big boxes of rice milk I bought off of someone and then didn't like.  I think they were expired and although they are shelf stable, I think the they were the culprit of the smell.  We were able to stack a few things a bit better and put away muffin tins as well as organize the paper goods.  Benaiah and I do have a thing for canned drinks though.

Abishai found a new spot to play peek a boo with.  He can stand on a stool and look us in the eye when we are at the sink.

This young lady was bored, so what did she do? Fiddle fingered the pool net Jared just bought an hour earlier.  And in doing so, she got her finger stuck in the mechanism that would attach it to a poll.  It was an ordeal to get it out.

Loads of screaming and crying.  Her finger was numb for awhile.  I was actually getting pretty concered because the mechanism was slowly cutting off the circulation.  She had hooked the tip of her finger around it.  She definitely was panicking.  But it's an incident she will never forget.  And a lesson to stop fiddle fingering everything that doesn't belong to her.  We did laugh at first, but then I had to go make dinner and didn't have time to help her.  So when Daddy got back from getting milk, he, with much prodding from me, helped her.  Poor girl, but now she'll always remember it.

Dinner with the cousins was eggs, waffles (regular and gluten free), and bacon or turkey sausage.  Simple yet time consuming when making waffles from scratch and you are out of milk and have to wait for someone to pick up some.  Plus we were dealing with Keturah's finger being stuck.  Crazy town over here!

Not a terrific way to end the blog post/weekend and start the week but it happened.  Well, everybody else had a decent day.  Justin went over to Bryce's house for the afternoon and evening. Benaiah played drums at church and then spent the rest of the evening with Ava.  (Crave starts next week).  Keturah was at church all morning and then had KP worship this afternoon.  Abishai got plenty of screen time and Daddy time.  I won't mention them here, but I've written them down for my counseling appointment.  I had several of my triggers pushed today, and after the first two were pushed, I had zero mental and emotional energy to deal with the rest, so I slept it off.  I've been in more of an overall depressed mood rather than an angry one, which is a welcome change actually, because I'm always angry and aggressive when things are bothering me.  It's just how I have learned how to express myself.  So, I clammed up instead.  I'm sure the issues will work themselves out the rest of the week.

Church was fine.  Sermon was on being a Christian employee/employer, nothing really new there.  We had a new lead person again today, which always makes me wonder if they are auditioning for the worship minister role that is still open at the Creek.  Benaiah was too tired to really care who it was.  He had had a long day yesterday cutting out 7 large root balls from a part of Gary's front garden bed before working a 10 hr shift in the evening.  His forearms ached last night, and then he played for 3 services and one song was pretty intense drumwise.  He seemed to be enjoying it though.  Middle school Crave was up and running this morning, but they don't have small groups until later in August/early September.  Same with the older kids, too.  This week I will catch up with the blog, and start back on the book sorting and pull together books for our school year.  That's what I hope to do.  But Monday we have a field trip to a popcorn making business, Tuesday we have my nieces all day, Wednesday I have two appointments and a meeting, and somewhere along the lines I need to help Benaiah pull together his school supplies because he starts the following Wednesday.

So, I'm zonked.  I think I will try to work on the last vacation blog since it's only 9pm and I'm somewhat awake thanks to the nap I had.

Back to the normal routine at church.

I walked down to collect Keturah and fund her doing the church clap song with the rest of the middle schoolers! She is n the back with a blue "amped" shirt on.

My girlie is in the blue hat!  Caught on camera!

Ava was caught on camera as well today!  I'm so glad that are kids are very involved at church and love to volunteer.

When Leah went to the KP prayer time before service, she said Mrs. Alison was super excited to see her!  She's been gone for nearly two months, and while there are many capable volunteers, I know that the consistency and longevity of their service is greatly appreciated by staff especially.  Plus, that's one of Bailey's brothers!

Baby bunny is still alive and eating well I see! Socks was going ballistic because it was so close to the house.

Glad to see you're alive and well!

And then he was back out for an evening snack.

Facebook showed me one of my favorite flashback pictures and Abishai was sitting just right on the stool near the kitchen window and the evening light was coming in just right, so I had to grab some pics of his beautiful eye color!

Facebook showed me this picture of Justin from 9 years ago.  These two definitely resemble each other from their mostly blue eyes to their sunkissed brown hair that needs a haircut.  And in this case, no smile, but both of them smile just fine.  So cute!

Hurting Daddy on Minecraft battles.  How does he laugh at himself hurting Daddy but he can't stand the tension in feature length movies?  I will never know.

The End