Teething, coughing, and other fun things:)

Well, I can't believe I am saying this, but I am STILL coughing!! Good grief! It's subsided a lot over the last week or so, but tonight I had a huge hacking fit again. I am so sick of this! Luckily the kids seem to be healed up, although Adam still coughs now and again (often at 10:30 at night, which has caused him to start a habit of waking up and screaming every night at that time!). Hopefully completely restored health will be upon us soon!

Adam is continuing to do so well at preschool. He consistently joins them in Circle Time, even joining them all on his own! In the beginning, they would get him to join them for a few minutes sometimes if they put him in a chair and pushed him into the circle, but apparently he now joins them for the whole thing by walking into the circle and sitting down when it's time. I have such a hard time picturing it! The teacher, Kyla, said she would try and get one of the students helping in the class on Thursday to take a video of it so we can see. I'm so proud of him! She said he's been noticing what the other kids are doing and trying to follow along. It gives us a lot of hope:). We still have struggles with communication at home, but I am hopeful that these will continue to improve as he gains more skills and words. On the bad days it's hard to be optimistic, but I try to remind myself that the bad days are not as bad as they used to be, and not as frequent, so that in itself is reason to hope!

Nathan has been teething like crazy, which means that he is still not completely back to his happy self. In the last two weeks, he has cut/almost cut 5 teeth. When it rains it pours around here! He's going to have a mouthful of teeth in a few weeks when they all grow in:). Bye bye toothless grin! He is a little squirmer, and has started wanting to stand everywhere. Still no proper crawl, and I'm starting to wonder if he will ever crawl on his hands and knees. I think he will just be an early walker like my other two. There's something about being completely upright I guess! He's babbling like crazy:). I've noticed he's been a bit happier the last few days, and am hopeful that when he's done cutting this batch of teeth that we'll have the return of my happy boy:).

I want to write an encouraging follow-up to my last post on Lynsey's reluctance to give. I sort of gave it a rest for a few days, and on Sunday brought the OCC shoebox with me to church so we could hand it in. I gave it to her and she walked it over to the pile and plopped it on the top, saying, "Good bye toys". I tend to under estimate her sometimes. At some point, she must have decided that it was okay to give this away, and just like that she was able to let it go. She is a special girl all right! She has a mind of her own and while Brian and I have concluded this will likely mean she'll never be a teacher's pet and probably always have some trouble with submitting to authority, I know this will serve her well in her life.

Too much of a good thing . . .

I am, as all parents are, concerned about how my kids see life, and what they believe they are entitled to in this life. We try to take good care of them, making sure all their physical, emotional and spiritual needs are met, but how much is too much to give them? Lynsey just had her 5th birthday party, and it was the first "real" party we've had for her where her friends came over and gave her gifts. I was a bit resistant to this idea, because I worry about her getting too much "stuff" and what that will make her think she "needs". I toyed with the idea of making her give her gifts from her friends to Salvation Army's "Toy Mountain", but Brian didn't think that was fair to make a 5 year old do (and after some thought, I agreed).

This brings me to the reason for this post, which is a bit different from most of my posts. I have been feeling a bit like Lynsey has been getting quite caught up in the whole "gimme gimme" spirit that comes along with getting a bunch of stuff for her birthday and then having Christmas coming right up after it. So, I told her on Sunday that we were going to pick up some shoe boxes and make up a few presents for a little girl and a little boy from a poor country that wouldn't be getting much for Christmas this year. I naively thought that she would be thrilled to go shopping for a poor little girl, especially since she loves to pray for and make pictures for our sponsored child in Mexico that's her age.

I was wrong.

She whined the whole time we were shopping about how she didn't want to give any "fun things" away, she just wanted to keep them. I was a bit caught off guard by this blatantly "ungrateful" attitude, but I thought that she would see the light soon enough. Every time I have tried to bring up giving this gift away, she has turned pouty and upset, saying she doesn't want to give any toys to anyone. I don't understand! She seems okay to give birthday gifts away - why is this so different?? I have explained to her that she will still be getting Christmas gifts and this is just something extra we are doing to make another little girl happy, but it seems nothing I can say gets through to her.

Am I overreacting? Is this normal for a 5 year old? Brian certainly isn't as concerned as I am, so maybe I am overreacting and she'll be fine. I have never thought that we spoiled her unnecessarily - she has nice things, but I hardly ever buy her anything "just because", and I never buy any candy or anything she asks for at the grocery store (they do always get a free cookie from the bakery, so maybe that's why this isn't an issue??). I have tried really hard to make sure she's not spoiled, but maybe I've failed.

After a lengthy conversation this morning about poor people and how they often don't even have enough food or a proper house to live in, she concluded that we should be buying them all houses and food for sure.

But she STILL does NOT want to give away that shoe box with $35 - $40 worth of fun stuff in it. Go figure.

What do you think?

My Princess turned 5!

Well, the last few weeks have been busy and filled with fun and dealing with yucky colds all at the same time! All of us have been hit with varying intensities, and this time, my super-immunity did not hold up and I am hacking up a storm! Lynsey seems to be fine now, and both Adam and Nathan have had symptoms come and go over the last few weeks. Not a lot of fun! Nathan has been quite needy and miserable a lot of the time, which I attributed to his cold, but today Brian noticed that he has a new tooth on the top! It's not one of the front ones either - a side one. Odd. Anyway, good to know we got a tooth for all the misery! He has also been moving all over the place, exploring the main floor with his army crawl. I am starting to wonder if he will ever figure out crawling on his hands and knees! I guess I read him wrong:).

Lynsey had a big week! On Wednesday, she went trick-or-treating for the first time:). And on Saturday, we had her big 5th birthday bash! It was a lot of fun, but quite a lot of work for me. I don't think we'll do such big shindigs every year. I'm glad she had fun, though! She was apparently quite tired of being 4, so turning 5 was a big relief:).

Adam is doing really well in preschool! They are even getting him to join them for circle time sometimes, which is something I have a hard time imagining. He has also made it through Sunday School without me for two weeks in a row! I attribute this success to preschool - it has helped him a lot with transitions.

I am going to tell a story of something that happened to me today, even though it was a bit of an embarrassing moment. I learned something and it made me think, which is why I will share it! We had a big dump of snow here today, and roads were not the best. I took Lynsey to Kindergarten with the toboggan, but that was a lot of work so I decided when I picked her up, I would drive. I had both boys with me (we kept Adam home from preschool today because he's been a bit sick). I left so that I would be there 25 minutes before the bell rang in hopes to get a spot where I could see Lynsey's door and just leave the boys in the van when I went to get her. When I got there, the only spot left was halfway into the bus zone. I decided to take it anyway because I was desperate. I parked really close to the van in front of me (I did not realize how close at the time!). I took Nathan out of the car seat and gave him his bottle and let Adam play in the driver's seat while we waited. He was "driving" away, turning the wheel, which must have inched us forward ever so slightly in these very slippery conditions. The woman in front of us got out of her van and looked at the space between our vans and started waving her arms. I was still giving Nathan his bottle but I got out and she was gesturing at the bumper and I looked and sure enough, our bumpers were indeed touching. She said she had felt a bump (which is what lead me to the conclusion that something Adam was doing must have moved the van forward ever so slightly because she felt it long after I parked). I apologized profusely and told her I would back up so we could see if there was any damage. I was pretty flustered as you can imagine, trying to get the boys back in their car seats so I could deal with this, and when I backed up, we observed that there was indeed no damage (PHEW!). I apologized again and explained what must have happened and that I was trying to get as far out of the bus zone as I could (I was rambling a bit - I do that when I'm flustered or nervous) but I said I was sorry several times.

The reason I write about this is because of how this whole thing made me feel. When she first got out and saw that our bumpers were touching, she looked so disgusted with me - I felt like the world's biggest idiot (to be fair, I did just "hit" a parked car, so maybe that's what I was!). She waved her arms at Adam sitting in the driver's seat, adding to that feeling, "world's worst mother". She did lighten up considerably when she saw that there was no damage (although she did try to point out some black mark way over on the side where I clearly did not hit her, but she didn't pursue it when I pointed out where the bumpers touched). By the end she wasn't as mad anymore, although when I apologized for the last time, she just said, "well, be careful" or something like that.

This experience taught me something. I felt sick for about 2 hours after this happened (it didn't help that Adam had a grade A tantrum when we got home for who knows what). I was humiliated, and to make matters worse, I see her every day because her kid is in Lynsey's class! It made me think of how much grace I give to people. How do I make other people feel when they make mistakes? Do I humiliate people unknowingly because of my reaction (or most often over-reaction)? How much grace do I give my own family?

I do want to cut this lady some slack - like I said, I did hit her parked car so she had every right to be annoyed about it. I will say that back when I had that accident when the van was new over three years ago, the lady I dealt with was so gracious, and I will never forget how much easier her grace made that whole awful experience. I want to be the person that makes someone feel better not worse when they make a mistake. The last thing someone who's made a mistake needs is someone else to make them feel like crap - they probably already feel that way. I know I did today.