The Cost of Spirit Week

4 rolls of duct tape.... $8.63

Getting your little brother to help you..... one bribe.

Being the "DUCT TAPE QUEEN".......priceless!

Saturday vacation

Sleeping in...
Cuddle time...
Coffee...
Real breakfast...
Hearing from friends- old and new...
Bedhead kids in sloppy pajamas...
Clean house...
Full pantry...
Perfect day.

Fun and Games

We are a game-playing family. But I think Parker enjoys games more than any of us. Since his first rousing round of Cootie Bug when he was three years old, he has been hooked. Games that require strategy are his favorite...he plays chess with his dad, Othello with me, Battleship with his sister. And that's no surprise because it perfectly suits his brain. He sees parts of a whole and how they fit together. He thinks "outside the box."
And while word games are harder for him, he's still usually willing to play. Like recently, when a whole group of extended family decided to play Scattergories. The first three rounds, he struggled to get a point here and there. And then it hit me...how hard this was for him. His dyslexia causes him to be a slow reader...he often confuses similar looking words...and then to think of words that must begin with the same letter - with the pressure of a timer, no less! It must've been disheartening. But he didn't even complain. He didn't cry or throw his pencil or say, "That's not fair!" He just laughed it off and kept trying, round after round. So at the risk of sounding like the overprotective mother who babies her boy too much I said, "Dyslexics get extra time." No one protested. We gave Parker about a minute to look over the word list before we started each round. And it helped. He actually got several words each time. And he smiled and laughed and good-naturedly crossed it off when we wouldn't allow him to use Zed as the name of a place, even though he swore it was a kingdom in a video game.
But if I hadn't noticed, how many rounds would he have suffered through, feeling not-quite-as-smart, struggling silently inside without anyone even knowing it. How many times in the past has he done it? Like the time he worked for an hour on a paragraph at home one night, and when he showed it to the teacher the next day, she snapped that he could do better. I only know about this because he described the incident in his daily journal: "I think the teacher is mad at me. I thought my paragraph sounded like the back of a book. My mom thought it was wonderful." And how many times in the future...when I won't be there to help.
I hate that he has to struggle. But I love that he's willing to. The creativity and determination that is part of his character makes me proud. He knows his weaknesses...but he also knows his strengths (and there are many). He faces life with courage. He's not afraid to play.

Mommy Lessons

While visiting family for Christmas, we were blessed to meet 7 week old Izzy (the newest addition to our clan) for the first time. We all cooed and gooed and passed her back and forth. Until she started crying really hard. "Uh oh. That's not a good cry," declared her mommy and mom and grandma sprang into action. The baby was constipated and had been for a few days. They had tried everything they knew and nothing was working. All of us adults ran around making phone calls and giving useless advice. It was finally decided to give the baby some corn syrup in her bottle. And we waited...while she struggled and cried and curled around her cramping tummy. I could tell it was weighing on this brand-new mommy's heart and she finally put her head down on the table. Wanting to encourage her I said, "You can do this. You are an intelligent woman...you are a strong woman...and you can do this." And she did. Baby Izzy finally "went" and all the world rejoiced! A new mom had grown just a bit, and learned something new...a little corn syrup works wonders.
Less than 24 hours later, my advice rang back in my own ears as I rubbed my "baby" girl's back as she heaved over the toilet for the 10th time in as many hours. She was getting weak and had nothing left to throw up, but it just wouldn't stop. I had tried all the tricks I knew...to no avail. I comforted her as best I could, but I felt helpless. My parents and I prayed, coaxed ice chips and crackers down her, and called everyone we knew who worked in the medical profession. Finally, after 12 hours, we reached a friend who was a nurse. She told us to try to get our hands on some Dramamine...that it had the same ingredient as the prescription drug used to curb nausea. My mom flew to the convenience store while I wiped Hillary's face with a cold cloth. I don't know if it was the medicine or just that the virus had run it's course, but she finally stopped throwing up and went to sleep. This veteran mother-of-two had grown just a bit, and learned something new...Dramamine helps nausea-not just motion sickness.
No matter how old our children get, we will always wonder if we're doing the right thing at the right time. We will often feel scared, tired, and overwhelmed. But we will do our best. We will lean on our support network of friends and family. And we will grow and learn.

Leader of the Pack(ing)

After celebrating "our" Christmas morning with the opening of stockings and cups of spiced tea, I was reading aloud to the family from a short, funny Christmas novel. I paused at the end of a chapter to see if they were bored or wanted to hear more. "More! More!" cheered the kids, who were stinky and bed-headed, and reveling in their laziness. But my husband looked at the clock. We were leaving later to make the trek home to be with our families for Christmas.
"How long will it take you all to pack?" he inquired.
"I usually just stick my whole closet in the suitcase," Hillary chirped. "That way I always have whatever I need."
But Dad was already shaking his head. "We'll be there four days...which means every person needs four shirts, two pair of pants, and four pairs of underwear. And if you sleep in your underwear, you don't even need to pack pajamas."
Hillary looked horrified. Sleep in your underwear?
But she shouldn't be surprised. In an effort to keep me from having a nervous breakdown as I'm getting the family ready for a trip, my loving husband has been overseeing the packing of clothes for lots of years now. Like a general, he barks specifics...length of trip, expected weather, and planned activities. He arranges suitcases on the bed and carefully sorts socks and underwear into specific and secret zipped pockets. The kids dutifully bring him their armloads of articles, and he folds and refolds, determined to fit each person into their personal rolling suitcase. He's tried various methods and seems to like the "each person in his own suitcase" one the best. This stands in sharp contrast to the one ENORMOUS suitcase he purchased when he and I went to Mexico for our 10 year wedding anniversary. I thought for a moment he was going to save money on airfare by packing ME in the suitcase with the clothes. But, of course, after I shoved it full of the 20 different outfits I imagined I might need for 7 days on the beach, it was so heavy he could barely wrestle it into the trunk of the car. I'm surprised the airline didn't charge us extra for adding to the weight of the plane. And, as usual, I didn't need half of the stuff I'd brought, as we mostly wore the same two swimsuits everyday. And he swore that from that day forward, we would be more frugal packers.
I am thankful that he takes on this job. For, inevitably, when we reach our destination, Parker has no socks and Hillary can't find the bra she likes to wear with that one shirt. And I get to say, "Talk to your dad. He packed us." And for once something is not my fault.
I'm sure this is what God had in mind when he said in the bible that the man was to be the head, or leader, of the family. So if I have to make sure the bills get paid, the teachers get emailed, the underwear gets washed, and the tender emotions of teenagers are protected, that's ok. At least in this one area, my husband is the Leader of Our Pack!

The New York Elf

This is too funny not to post.

Apparently the middle school was having a "Dress Like an Elf" day. When I saw Parker, I said, "You look...nice." To which he replied, "I'm a New York Elf!"

Of course I grabbed the camera. He just rolled his eyes, said, "Well, this is making the blog," and posed for me.

Thanks, Elf...for granting my wish!

Father K'nex with Son

After a busy Sunday afternoon, our family sat down for "Family Meeting." We try to do this every week...just look at the calendar and touch base about ball games, lunch money, and school progress reports. When the "business" was done, Parker casually asked, "Hey dad, do you know where my K'nex stuff went that was down in the basement?" Parker and I had found several bags of pieces but hadn't been able to find the part he had already put together. We had looked for quite a while that afternoon. His dad replied, "Yeah, I took that apart a long time ago."

My first reaction was to laugh, thinking of my husband spending an extra hour painstakinly taking the thing apart piece by piece and putting it in bags so he could store something else on that shelf, instead of just setting the whole thing on the floor. After all, isn't that why we have a large, unfinished storage room? To leave bulky stuff like that sitting around. No wonder it took him so long to clean the basement.

But Parker wasn't laughing. He shot down the hall to his room, angry tears rolling down his face.

My befuddled husband looked around at Hillary and I. "What's wrong with him?"

My husband's logic (that Parker hadn't touched that toy the whole year it had been downstairs) was right, but his tone was wrong. Parker felt betrayed and unimportant. He had spent a long time and a lot of work putting that together, and his dad had uncerimoniously destroyed it without even ASKING!

When I tried to explain that, a conversation ensued that resulted in my trying to get him to see where he went wrong, and him implying that I had raised the kids "my" way, which was obviously the "wrong" way. Finally, in tears, I suggested that he just say something to make Hillary cry and his work would be done for the night!

We did get over it before bedtime. Dad appologized, Parker grudginly forgave, and we all went to bed. And when we woke up this morning...God gave us a snow day!

It was so nice to relax...the four of us tucked into our cozy warm house. As I was stirring the chocolate gravy, I asked Parker, "So you wanna talk about last night?" "Not really," he admitted as he bounced a small ball off the wall just inches above my head. "I wrote Dad last night and he wrote me back." Whew..okay, taken care of. Thank God I instituted that special journal thing a couple of years ago. Just some of that parenting "my" way, I guess.

Anyway...Parker and Dad worked together to rebuild the K'nex Carousel.

They spent hours.

The little boy from next door even got in on the action. Now Dad is really racking up bonus points with me!

So today, all is well. And once again we've proved that no matter what gets destroyed in our family...together we can put the pieces back together.