Summer in April!

We had a little taste of summer this week! Temps hit the high-20's, which is very unusual for the Seattle area in April. It was kind of nice to break out the shorts and tank tops already, although it's cooled off now and I'm wearing jeans again:-/. It was a nice hint of what's to come anyway!

What have we been up to . . . Lynsey had her piano recital on Sunday, and she did a great job on "Let it Go"! I really am impressed with how far she's come in her piano lessons. I'm glad she is still enthused about it and wants to keep going, now she is learning "In Summer" so we'll see how that goes:). Her swimming is also improving a lot, perhaps she will be ready for a competitive swim team in the fall (if she wants, I will not push it). I do think she might do well on a competitive team, she is always jostling to be first in her lane and I think she gets really motivated by someone swimming beside her, pushing her to go faster. We'll see what happens:).

We have been going to a behavior specialist at the Seattle Children's Autism Center for the last several weeks, and she is going to help us come up with a plan to deal with some of Adam's ranting. We are going to focus in on him overhearing conversations and fixating on the fact that he thinks we are going somewhere, so frustrating. I really hope they can help us get to the root of what he is so concerned about and find a consistent strategy to help him calm down. This isn't the only thing we are hoping to combat, Brian was gone to Menlo Park for the day yesterday and Adam was NOT a happy camper when he learned that Dad would not be home until after bedtime. We really need to be better about pre-warning him when this will happen (Brian forgot to prepare him the day before), but even when we do it's not a guarantee that I won't have a heck of a time dealing with him when the day arrives and Dad doesn't come home. Brian is going away for 11 days to London in less than two weeks, and I am already praying that I will not lose my mind. Please join me! It could be a very rough time for me! It might also be just fine, it's hard to know how he will react until the time comes. We will do our best to prepare him, but I don't think he has any concept for how long 11 days is - and it will feel like an eternity for him, I know. Fingers crossed that it will all go okay!

Not much else to report! Nathan is doing really well, just growing up and becoming more interesting every day:). I did a lot of planning the last week or so for the summer, and I think we have it all figured out finally! Brian and I are even going on a little trip by ourselves this summer! We will take off to Montreal for 3 nights and leave the kids in Edmonton with his parents, should be a really fun trip! We already know we are going to eat poutine and go to a jazz club, and that's all we know for sure:).

Easter fun, Spring Break

Okay my blogging every 10 days has turned into every 3 weeks lately! Must be better! What have we been up to . . . Brian's parents came to visit on Easter weekend! It was kind of a weird weekend because we were on the brink of buying a new construction house (as in, we had written up an offer and were considering the tiny tweaks they put in the counter offer). Brian just wasn't sure about it, then I wasn't sure about it . . . it was quite overwhelming! In the end, we did not buy the house and that is totally okay with us at this point. We will keep looking and if just the right house comes along in our price range then we will try for it (along with 50 other people I'm sure). Being a buyer in this market literally makes you sick to your stomach:-S.

Anyway! It was really nice to have them here! We did an egg hunt of course, made a delicious Easter dinner, hung around the house a lot. Next time they come we will hopefully be in a better frame of mind (and the weather will hopefully be better as well) and we can do more stuff:). I did my 10K 520 bridge run last Saturday! It was a pretty cool experience, only 13,000 other people doing it:-/. It was a bit crowded but still a fun experience. Lynsey had her Spring Break this past week. She spent a lot of time at the neighbor girl's house. We did take a trip up to Whidbey Island on Thursday afternoon! I met up with my friend Courtney who I did Y-1 with 15 years ago! She is from Whidbey and has been gone to Australia most of the time that we've been living here, but now she is finally back and we were able to connect:). So cool to chat with her again! Took me back to another lifetime! Adam had some trouble with some of the transitions, but once we got to Double Bluff beach, he recovered fairly quickly and we ended up having a great afternoon there.

Lynsey has become a BOOKWORM! So neat to see! I went to some second hand stores this week and bought her a pile of books, a lot of classics from when I was growing up (I am shamelessly reliving my childhood, so what!). She has been reading non-stop! She read an adapted version of Anne of Green Gables, prompting me of course to buy the movies on Amazon! We will be watching the first one later today:-D. She basically has been going through one chapter book a day. I was suspicious at the beginning whether or not she was properly reading all the pages, but she could answer all kinds of questions about the plot so I think she is. She has become quite a great little reader! It has helped make this Spring Break a lot less painful. That and all the time she has spent playing at her friends house as well haha!

Adam had his first of 10 appointments at the Childrens Autism Center a few weeks ago. We are meeting with a behavior expert that will hopefully help us deal with his anxiety, and specifically right now we need help figuring out how to deal with him interrupting us every time we talk, needing reassurance that we aren't going somewhere. He picks out random phrases that he hears us say and is convinced that we are now taking him somewhere very undesirable. It can be very frustrating. On Thursday, when Courtney and I were trying to catch up on 15 years of not seeing each other, he was interrupting me every 5 seconds. It got very old, very quickly. He isn't usually quite that bad, but when he is already agitated it does get to be quite incessant. The woman we talked to suggested we use more schedules, with the theory being that if he definitely knows what is going to happen, he will not live in fear about us taking him somewhere, but I am not 100% convinced that this will work for Adam. We did get a schedule app on the iPad which he is mildly interested in, but the other kids have taken to it more than he has. One of my issues with these set-in-stone visual schedules is that sometimes I don't know exactly what we are doing all day, and I really hesitate to enslave him to a schedule which will only make him less flexible than he already is. Hopefully after spending some more time with us, and me being able to give her some more examples of what is happening, she will be able to give us some more insights as to how we can try and minimize this behavior.

Tomorrow is our 12 year anniversary! We have absolutely no plans to do anything, maybe we'll go out to eat as a family. We had a nice date night while Brian's parents were here so I guess that was our anniversary date:).