Tales of a Fulltime Mom: No More Binky & School Starts

Today marks two days since Brady gave up his binky which is a pretty big deal if you've met him. His binky was basically his best friend and I was very hesitant to remove that friend considering that Brady still takes long afternoon naps which I did not want to mess with. But...after a trip to the dentist (more on that later) and taking into account that this is about the age that we removed the binkies for the girls, we knew it was just a matter of pulling the plug so to speak. I just didn't expect it when it happened. Sunday evening after I put Colby to bed I had a brain splitter of a headache. I have been prone to headaches all my life and most are not THAT bad but this one was a doozy...so bad that I actually went to bed for the night at 8:15 and left Brady to put Calaubra to bed. Fast forward to about 6:20 and I hear Brady making noises through the monitor. This is a little early for him, considering it's still somewhat dark, so I went in to try to find the binky. I couldn't find it anywhere and I suddenly came to the realization that there was no binky. Since I had gone to bed before the kids, I didn't know all that went down. I got Brady out and told him to go snuggle with Daddy because I had to feed Colby but he insisted on grabbing his present on the side of the crib. So what, exactly, would entice a 3-year old to give up his beloved binky? A remote control helicopter? A guitar? Thirty new match box cars? A Lego castle? No, no, friends. A simple snack sized box of Nutella with dipping sticks. Yup, that's what sucked him in. What can I say...my boy has a massive chocolate sweet tooth (I know Nutella isn't chocolate but it looks like it to him!). And apparently it did the trick.

We've had a few challenges. The most notable is that it's reduced his nap time from 2 - 2.5 hours to about 45 minutes - 1 hour. Not good. I'm hoping that will change as he gets accustomed to his new reality. But the poor dear. I had to rub his back this afternoon to help him get to sleep. As a reformed thumb sucker, I can take pity on his plight. It's tough. But praise the Lord we seem to be over the hurdle. Now if only potty training could be as simple...(and no, we haven't started nor will we be soon, I suspect).

Yesterday was our first day of school. Gone are the days of my somewhat relaxing 1 - 1.5 hours of quiet time in the afternoons. I am the opposite of non-homeschooling parents. I love the summer and don't want school to be back in session. But that's not really a fair thing to say because I do very much enjoy the teaching and the excitement of learning but I do so miss being able to fold clothes in virtual silence at 3 pm rather than 10 pm. Ah well. It was a good run. We've had fun getting our school room organized and adding some new things like a big United States map rug. Our main curriculum this year is about the history of the US so it seemed like a fitting thing to add. Since we have a little more that we've added to our school day this year (Spelling, Language Arts) my new plan is that we will do some school in the morning, during Colby's nap, and then do the rest in the afternoon....during Colby's nap. Do you sense a theme here? Have I mentioned he can be a bit of a pill sometimes? If you've met him, you'll know that it makes perfect sense to get things done when he's not around! He can be a bit...clingy, shall we say, at times.

The first day of school was met with great exuberance on the part of Aubree. For the week or weeks leading up to it, she would ask me every day how many more days until school started. And then, at the end of the first day when I said it had concluded, she was so disappointed she declared "But I want to do more school!" Calleigh, meanwhile, kept saying "I love our schoolroom!" in the preceding days but I couldn't help but note that there weren't any comments such as "I can't wait for school to start." Nevertheless, she did appear to be pretty enthused when we got started. And then...low and behold. I found something that she seems to be engaged in. Spelling! Who would have figured? I gave her a pretest of 10 words of which she got 8 correct. She actually wrote them all down without complaining about the handwritting and was taking it all quite seriously. I'm quite thrilled with this development.

First science experiment of the year. What happens to an egg when it is put in salt water?

What I wasn't thrilled with is how things went yesterday afternoon. So we did a little school yesterday morning before needing to leave for gymnastics. That left the bulk of things for the afternoon. We're going through the work and then Brady awakes from his short nap. I immediately note that he is very grouchy, I'm sure from the short nap. We had gotten him a present - - a firetruck - - to use when he got up. This was part of his incentive for taking a nap without the binky. Now I have to open the darn thing and you know how it is to open kid's toys. It tougher to get into them than Fort Knox. It took me a good 15 minutes to get that toy opened and set up and all I'm thinking is "The clock is ticking and we are wasting precious Colby nap time on this instead of doing school." And then I couldn't get the remote on the firetruck to work and that set Brady off on a crying tantrum for the next 10 minutes. I finally got him calmed down with a snack and we got back to school. The girls each have a US notebook for their work and I had them pick one to use. There were two blue ones and Calleigh picked one of the two which left the other one for Brady (yes, he gets a notebook even though he's obviously not doing anything real with it!). Well, if that didn't set Brady off on another crying tantrum because he didn't like that blue one as much as the other blue one. Just at this time, Colby woke up and I brought him into the school room and set him down. Big mistake. He started bawling too. Now both boys were screaming and I could barely hear Calleigh saying "I can't concentrate" and THAT is when I sent Duncan the text saying "Thank you for picking the first day of school to remove the binky!" And then I thought, "One down. Only 179 more to go!" But I told Duncan last night, "I wouldn't have it any other way." Well, I wouldn't be mad if Colby was a little less crabby. But seriously...it's
challenging but I love it.

Oh, one funny thing. We are doing our "Life of Fred" book for math and today it was talking about a million. I wrote various numbers on the board like 10, 100, 1000, 100,000, 1,000,000 and then a billion and trillion. When I got to the last number, one trillion, Calleigh very seriously asked me, "Is that how much money you have in the bank?" Clearly, they have no concept of numbers yet!

Last Tuesday was our adventure to the dentist. Yes, it was an adventure thanks for Aubree. After she ate some grapes for breakfast she started complaining that her belly hurt. She has a flair for the dramatic so I told her to go lie down on the couch. A bit later, it turns out she wasn't being dramatic. She vomited all over the couch. I won't say where in case it scares people away from sitting on it. Actually, it wasn't that bad because it was just grapes. She seemed better but then about 30 or 40 minutes later we had a repeat. Now, the girls kind of have a history with this. They will have no other symptoms except vomiting. It's probably happened three or four times to each of them and I figured this was another of those times. We had a dentist appointment at 10:40 and I did not want to miss the appointment as we had already rescheduled once and also because Calleigh needs some major help with her upper teeth coming in all crooked. Plus, this was Brady's first appointment and we had hyped it all up. When we loaded up, Aubree hadn't vomited in awhile so I was hoping it was all over but brought a bowl just in case. I figured she didn't have to do her appointment but at least the other two could.

We get to the front desk and I'm explaining to the receptionist about Aubree not having her appointment and what do you know but Aubree starts vomiting right then and there. I whipped the bowl out of my diaper bag and got most of it (it was just watery looking liquid at this point, thankfully) but some landed on the floor. I am certain that the lady was judging me, "What kind of mother brings her sick kid the dentist like this?" But I forged on. I told her I could wait in the car with Aubree while the Calleigh and Brady had their appointments (since we don't go back with the kids anyway). I said I REALLY wanted Calleigh to have her appointment because of my concerns. She went and talked to the doctor who said that he would see Calleigh but not Brady but only if I could get someone to be with Aubree so she wouldn't have to stay in the waiting room. I put in an emergency call to Elaine who dropped everything and came. Bless her. I finally talked them in to seeing Brady too. For whatever reason, they wouldn't let them start their appointment until Elaine was there with Aubree even though I could have just waited outside with her while they were in their appointment. Kind of silly but I do appreciate their willingness to let us still have the appointment even though it was starting considerably late.

Brady did great. He had no problems with going without me...I'm sure in great part because big sister was there with him. When the doctor came to meet with me to discuss Brady he said "So Brady doesn't use a binky any more? He threw them away?" I was like "Ah, no. He definitely still uses them." The doctor said "Well, he was VERY convincing." As I suspected, the doctor said he needed to get rid of them because they were doing a number on his teeth and "he will definitely need a corrective device." Duncan basically thinks it's hogwash because he was told the same thing and he never got braces or anything and his teeth are perfect. On the plus side, Brady didn't have any cavities or an extra tooth like Calleigh.

Yes, that extra tooth that Calleigh had is causing all sorts of problems. Her front left tooth is coming in, or has mostly come in, completely turned thanks to the extra tooth (that was removed last year) jacking it all up. Her adult tooth next to it doesn't have enough room to come in so it's at a weird angle too. We have now scheduled her an appointment to have two upper baby teeth removed to help alleviate the problem and then they are going to take panoramic pictures of the bottom since they suspect the same issue down there. Sorry kid! But, at least she's cavity free too.

Meanwhile, on our way home from the dentist, Aubree takes a little snooze. We get inside to have lunch and Aubree tells me she feels great and wants to eat. And it's like she never had a thing wrong. All is well and I feel partially vindicated from the judgey dental receptionist. See, I told you she wasn't really sick!

Gymnastics has being going very well. The girls had their second class on Thursday evening which is SO different than being there at 11 am on a Monday morning. In the mornings, there are five - seven kids in the class and they are literally the only ones in the gym whereas in the evenings, there are kids everywhere, as you can imagine, since school is out. I took them to the Thursday evening one but Duncan was kind enough to pick them up which they were thrilled about. They really wanted daddy to see them in action. Yesterday at their Monday class, a boy about Calleigh's age was added to the mix. He didn't seem particularly athletic (nothing wrong with that) and at one point when they were having a relay race and it was his turn to run, Calleigh remarked to him "You're slow." She didn't mean it to be mean, just said it in a matter-of-fact way. Nonetheless, I was appalled and quickly had a discussion with her that it wasn't appropriate.

One of the things they learn is to do a hand stand. Now, I noticed that some of the other girls, some that are quite good at gymnastics from the look of things, do these hand stands but they don't actually stand on their hands. It's more like they get into the position for the merest of moments and then drop back down the way they came up. Of course, the girls had never done anything like this before and could barely make it partially into the position. Naturally, they've been practicing it like crazy at home especially in our gym because we have mats on the floor. Aubree, in particular, has been doing it over and over again and she told me last night, "I really like do to hand stands. It's my thing." On the other hand, Calleigh, seems to be more cautious with it and told me that a girl, Mia, in their class told her that if you flipped over while doing it, you should try to get in position to do a somersault so you don't break your neck. I've noticed that Calleigh can be a little bit of a worrier and I don't think learning this information about how to avoid breaking your neck has helped at all. She's still been trying but probably not with quite the enthusiasm as Aubree. Aubree was watching her work on it at one point last night and told her "Just believe in yourself!" I had to laugh. Turns out this was another juicy tidbit courtesy of Mia.

Teacher helping Aubree with a cartwheel.

Since they've started gymnastics, I think I've heard "Look at me, Mom" about a thousand times and I"m sure that will continue. One of those times was Aubree this evening doing more hand stands and low and behold, she went all the way up and over, landing hard on her back. At least, I thought it was hard but she was unfazed. I need to ask the teacher what they're supposed to do to avoid going over. How do they balance themselves to stay in an upright position?

Before I close, here is a quote from Calleigh. On Thursday we had a ton of errands to do which took us from getting gas - to the libray - to the bank - to Michaels - to Target - to Costco.
Me: "Here we are at Costco."
Calleigh: "Do we really have to go here? I am sick of doing errands. I just want to go home."
Me: "But they have samples!"
Calleigh: "Honestly, I could live without them!"

A couple more pictures.