Is it Spring yet?

Does anyone else feel like surviving January is a bit of a milestone? I feel as though if you can make it through dreary January, Spring is right around the corner! We actually haven't had terrible weather this month, a few rainy days, yes, but several sunny, almost Spring-like days! Can't complain! February could still be nasty so we're not out of the woods yet, but I have decided to celebrate the end of winter a bit prematurely anyway.

What has been happening . . . not much. Our renovation is coming along, the tile floor is done and as of today, the shower is almost half tiled. The bathroom could be done as early as next week if Brian is feeling very motivated! Most likely it will be a few weeks yet, as Brian has to do the door, the shower door, counter top and sink mount, and toilet install. But we are so close to having a bathroom downstairs again which is super exciting! The laundry room will be a bit longer, our cabinets won't be here until the end of February and Brian has to make the cubbies, but at least it is functional with an actual floor now, so a big improvement. Definitely through the worst!

Adam has had a bit of a challenging month. I think it might be related to getting another new teacher after Christmas break. I met with her last week and we had a good chat, I think she will be good for Adam once he gets through his stress of yet another transition. Brian left for a work trip to London last Wednesday and the weekend was a bit difficult. He had some pretty highly elevated moments where he needed things repeated to him, and even if we did repeat it, it wasn't helping him. I decided on a whim to take the kids to church by myself yesterday (which I wouldn't normally do, but I was feeling good!). The parking lot was more challenging than usual and we ended up getting stuck behind several people that were vulturing for parking spots for several minutes. I thought I stayed fairly calm even though we were getting later by the minute (and seriously, with people piling up behind you you're really going to wait for several minutes for a parking spot?? Just move along please!). It was the church parking lot so I felt some pressure to stay very calm and non-road ragey haha! Unfortunately, Adam was picking up on some just-below-the-surface stress as I realized that finding any parking spot at all was going to be a challenge, and I made the mistake of saying out loud, "I guess we should have come earlier". He fixated on the word earlier, and stressed about it for 10-15 minutes inside. He was conspicuously loud but I powered through (not really sure why I didn't just go home, but I really resist doing that for many reasons, one of them being setting a precedent of him dictating everything our family does and doesn't do).  He did eventually calm himself and decide to go into the Sunday School room, and then he was completely fine through the whole service thankfully. He had another really challenging episode in the evening as well. He's been good today so far, honestly I am just doing my best not to talk to him at all. It's sad that it has come to that, but it does cut down on his repetitive episodes if people don't directly address him so I'm going with that for now.

Lynsey and Nathan are doing well, Lynsey just started her second semester at middle school. Her grades are good, she has some good friends (some of which are in her second semester option classes as well which made her very happy) and she has a pretty good attitude about school over all. She has cooking and Yearbook as her options this semester. Time to get her more involved with helping make dinner! Brian took her snowboarding last Monday which she really enjoyed, I know it really helped that they went with friends - such a social butterfly! Nathan is doing really well at school, he is doing some testing to see if he qualifies for the highly capable program at school. I'm not sure if we will put him in even if we qualifies, as I think there's a lot of homework in that class and I am strongly against homework at this age, but it would be good to know what the options are if he does qualify. Maybe he can do part time which would keep him in his regular class most of the time, but he would be pulled out I think one day a week to keep him more challenged if he needs it. His biggest struggle right now is learning how to lose at games. I get that all kids have a hard time with this, but he seems to really take it to the next level. Lots of tears, especially when he's in a group with a lot of older kids and he's more likely to lose. Poor kid, hard lessons to learn out there!

I have been busy planning our summer, which is really quite an undertaking! It's looking like we will probably go up to La Crete for my family's camp out in the beginning of July, now we just need to decide how we get up there. Fly to Edmonton and rent a car, or just drive the whole way . . . decisions decisions. Why does La Crete have to be 21 hours away anyway! We'll figure it out, it will be the only really big road trip we do this summer so maybe we can suck it up and drive.