Weekly Update 10/20/08

Another week down and fall seems to be closer to being upon us.  The weather has cooled down to a tolerable level and the calendar says it is October.  This yankee girl still gets lost in time here in the south where there are no seasons (compared to those up north).  The kids even went out in the back yard to run through the sprinklers this morning (Sunday).  Of course that ended badly.  O decided it would be fun to get his metal baseball bat out and swing at the water.  C and I were chasing the dog down the street and M got a bit too close to the swinging bat.  She took it on the right cheek.  It left a little mark.  We iced it so we'll see how it looks in the morning.  There doesn't appear to be anything broken though so all is well now.

O lost his second tooth while I was out of town.  Now he has a big gap on the bottom front of his smile and has a bit of a lisp when he talks.  It is super cute.  He also received a great 9 week report from school.  He is "steadily developing" in Language Arts and Writing, Math, Science and Social Studies.  He "independently applies" his behavior.  Translation:  he is doing fine in all of his subjects and his behavior is excellent.  Much better than the 3rd option:  "needs support."  I guess the good old "U", "S" or "E" is outdated language?  Anyhoo, that is what is going on with O.  I am very proud of him.

M is still doing fantastic with the potty.  She has only had 2-3 accidents in the past 3 weeks and is very enthusiastic about the whole process.  It is amazing what kids can and will accomplish once they decide to do it.  She is fun and doing an amazing job of finding out who she is.  What a challenge she can be though!  Very defiant often just out of the blue.  O, C and I have been working with her on her letters and she is picking up a few.  She can sing the alphabet but cannot identify/recognize letters on their own.  O seemed to be able to recognize many letters by 3 years old.  Then again, he had much more one-on-one attention at that age than she does.  On the other hand, her language is much more advanced than his was at this age.  They have had much different experiences in their early years.  I guess any child after the oldest is going to have a much different experience and develop at a different rate.  But, despite the fact that she is already displaying a 3 year old version of teenage attitude, I'm so proud of her.

My semester is going smoothly at school.  I'm starting to work into a groove with balancing family, work and school.  It is about time since I have midterms coming up next week!  Hopefully this groove will continue over the next several years until I graduate.  It seems way too far in the future.

C had a frustrating week at work last week.  I know I can't go into detail so let me just say he had to convince the higher ups that they needed to follow a maintenance schedule for one of his pieces of hardware.  They said no and he had to chase them down to find out why.  Yes, this process took the bulk of the week.  While he can see their reason for choosing what they did, he is still nervous about the choice and will be the one responsible if their choice was the wrong one.  Stress.  Isn't it fun?!

Anyway, those are the highlights of the past week.  I know I've missed some things and I try to write a list as I remember things but, sometimes, my brain just shuts down and memories are stored away to (hopefully) pop up at a later date.  I'll fill you all in if I remember something major that I forgot to mention.