4 Year Old Well Child Visit

Isaac's 4 year old well child visit was this morning. We got to see Dr. Park, who happens to be my favorite pediatrician! She asked Isaac to draw a square and to draw a picture of mommy for her, which he did, without any complaining, crying, or whining. He also answered all of her questions with correct answers instead of "booger, poop, or underpants". Wow, he might be growing into a cooperative human being after all.

Then she asked me if I had any questions for her so I pulled out my list:

Q #1. He often wakes us up crying in the middle of the night complaining of leg pain. There is no evidence of cramping and the pain can be any where from his toes to his knees.
A #1: Growing pains. These episodes tend to cluster together for a few nights over a couple of weeks and then they will go away for a while. He will get them more often on days where he is busy exerting energy. They should stop by age six and then may resume again between ages 8-10.

Q #2. He won't eat a fruit of vegetable to save his life. In fact, even when we serve him a dinner of meat and carbs, it's not a guarantee that he will eat that either. Should I be worried?
A #2: Give him a multi-vitamin every day (Flintstones Complete) and offer him the same dinner that the rest of the family eats. If he doesn't eat that, he can have a glass of milk and a piece of bread or wait until the next meal is served at breakfast time.

Q #3. He hits his siblings and has anger management issues. What can I do?
A #3: Teach him how to scream into a pillow or punch a pillow. If he continues to hit then put him in time out for 4 minutes.
(This is the only answer that I was disappointed with because I'd prefer to put him in time out until he's 18.)

He has grown a lot and here are his stats:

Height: 40.75" = 62 percentile
Weight: 36lbs = 52 percentile

Then came the moment for Isaac to receive four shots...

He tried really hard to be as brave as Juliet was last year, but it didn't really work out that way.

Homeschool Co Op

Since February, the kids have been going to a homeschooling co-op every Tuesday morning. It was a great experience for them to see the same group of kids and adults on a regular basis. They were each in their own classes and I think they enjoyed the small break from each other.

There were several times when I would peak into Juliet's class and see her sitting alone or with a group of boys. I was confused because as you can see, her class is made up of mostly five and six year old little girls. When I asked her why she wasn't playing with the other girls, she'd tell me that they talked about things that she wasn't interested in. My first reaction was to tell her that she should hang out with them anyway, don't be anti-social! But when I discussed my concern with Michele, she pointed out that Juliet is a lot like me in this regard. I would rather sit off by myself than talk with women who bore me.

My next tactic was to teach Juliet how to change the topic of conversation so that the girls could talk about what was interesting to her. To that she replied that she just didn't like them all that much and didn't want them as friends. Again, you're preaching to the choir on this one.

I should probably save my commentary on friendships for a separate blog post, but I just want to say that I'm proud of her for being so independent.

Asher's class was a Mommy & Me type thing and even though he maintained his grumpy disposition for the majority of the class, I could tell that he did have moments where he was enjoying himself. Especially when he could persuade Miss Sabrina to lead the class in Ring Around the Rosies.

Isaac loved his class, mostly because they made art projects each week and this drove Juliet crazy with jealousy. He also made a best friend, Garrett, that he talks about a lot.

I'm glad that we participated in this Co op, even if it was much more liberal than I am normally comfortable with. I guess you could say we all learned some things.

Isaac's 4th Birthday

Here's my confession, I was almost too tired to have a birthday party for Isaac, but I felt guilty so at the last minute (like the night before) I picked up some Star Wars plates, cups, napkins, and banner and then invited the neighbor kids over for donuts and juice the following morning.

After eating donuts and shooting off silly string, Isaac opened up a million birthday presents. Can you guess which were his favorites?

Then we went to Trent's work picnic, which was part 2 of his birthday party because there were lots of little boys that were thrilled that we brought all of the lightsabers with us.

I think this is going to be a great year for Isaac. He is such a sweet kid and a great brother to his siblings. He told me at two different times throughout the day, "Thank you Mama for the best birthday ever." I love this kid!

Ants

This week's theme was ants.

We read:

• Ant Cities by Arthur Dorros
• The Life and Times of Ants by Charles Micucci

I ordered another ant farm and so we got to watch them work at digging tunnels.

They were very enthusiastic ants at first, wowing us with their speedy digging skills. But after about 5 days, they pooped out and just stopped working. I can sympathize with them. I'm feeling pretty tired of "working" too so if we get through three more weeks of school it will be a miracle!

Air Head

With almost two months to go before we leave for Moscow, I had to attend the required two-day training class: Security Overseas. It was just like old times when Trent and I used to work together selling real estate. We spent each day together and even got to eat out for lunch (okay, it was cafeteria food, but it wasn't bad!)

Anyway, we had lectures on:

• Managing Your Personal Security
• Sexual Assault Awareness
• Awareness & Protection, Explosives
• Surveillance Detection
• Fire Protection
• Safety, Health & Environmental Management
• Counterintelligence Program Briefing
• WMD
• Hostage Survival
• Evacuation from Post
• Coping in a Crisis

As you can imagine, most of the Q&A sessions were very serious and I would not expect anything less of these American diplomats, afterall, they have been dubbed the "best and the brightest." That is until one woman raised her hand and shared with the rest of us that "when fighting off an attacker, it's best to be aware of how much you are yelling and screaming because you could swallow too much air and thus make it easier for the attacker to pick you up like a balloon." WHAT??? And this is probably why I am NOT a diplomat, because I looked at Trent and busted out laughing. Actually, I've been laughing about it off and on for the past two days.

"She's blowing up like a balloon!"

You can be sure that the next time one of my children goes into full on tantrum mode, I will be desperately hoping that they take in too much air and simply float off. Problem solved.

Really though, I thought I would really enjoy being away from the kids all day, but it turned out that I missed them right around lunch time. It made me second guess my decision to look for work, but it also motivated me to work harder on my newest business plan... stay tuned.

Happy Mother's Day

Juliet and Isaac came up with their ideas for Mother's Day gifts at the last minute. Isaac used three of our spoons to make me a catapult...

and Juliet used three additional spoons to make me a wind chime. Gifts that every mom needs.

We only had one snafu in the day. Juliet burst into inconsolable tears because Happy Feet (her baby) didn't get her anything for Mother's Day. I was at a loss for words, when I reminder her that one year olds do not usually get their mothers any gifts until they are a little older. That seemed to work and all was good with the world again.

I was in the mood for Red Robin, so we ate there for dinner. Sometimes I still can't believe that I am the mother of three kids! They sure keep me busy. So busy lately that would you believe I didn't have a chance to get any gifts or cards for my own mother and mother-in-law. Lame! I hope they know how much I love and appreciate them all year round. xoxo

Five and A Quarter

It's been three months since Juliet's 5th birthday and I feel like time is flying by way too fast. Keep in mind that I held it together on her last birthday, but when her first two teeth fell out last month at the same time, I cried almost every time I'd think about it. Ironically, she sounds so grown up when she talks now, not that she ever sounded baby-ish, but I feel like she's moved on from being a preschooler...

One funny comment that she made recently was when we took the whole family to Tyson's Mall. It was a Sunday and pretty crowded. She looked at all the people and said, "Mama! Look, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's dream came true!" I guess we don't take the kids out in public much.

She can tell time now, tie a shoe, and she's practicing braiding her dolls and ponies' hair. This summer I plan to finally teach her how to ride a bike and to roller skate and we'll work on counting money. She begs me every day to have her own lemonade stand (I should teach her about supply and demand because it just wouldn't be worth the trouble in our little neighborhood.)

She loves to listen to Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle on the iPad while the boys nap. It suits her, because she has a wild imagination of her own.

A Week in Missouri

So, after a week at Disney World, we took another week's vacation and spent it with Trent's parents in Missouri. We had a great time, but the kids especially enjoyed running around on 3 acres without any schedules of any sort.

They also got to play with pet dogs and cats until their little hearts were content. I tried my best not to panic around these unreliable creatures, but I'm sure I embarrassed myself several times throughout the week.

Memaw likes to catch us up on all the holidays that we miss being together for so she cooked a Thanksgiving dinner, birthday dinner, and had a 4th of July cook out. The kids got a real kick out of the trick birthday candles that she put in their cupcakes!

She also took Juliet to her first garage sale. Don't they look cute in their fanny packs? They brought home all sorts of Stars Wars stuff for the boys.

The kids were able to finally meet their cousin, David, who is three years old and came over to play almost every day. At one point I had the kids line up next to each other and David exclaimed that he and Isaac were "almost the same size!" He is such a little cutie, although Isaac didn't think it was cute when David announced that he was going to marry Juliet. After hanging out with this crew, I realized my problem-- I need to have more first-born children in my family. They are so well-behaved!

Papaw helped the kids fly their kites, drive go-carts and ride mowers, make weapons, and do anything else that the kids wanted to do.

The kids stayed up late every night and were exhausted by bed time.

On Saturday, our last day in town, we had another Kentucky Derby Party with all of Trent's family that were able to make it (almost 40 people!)

We lined up the little cousins for a picture

and then lined up the bigger cousins for more pictures.

Anyone who wanted to could pay a dollar and draw the name of a horse out of the basket. We were pretty excited to watch the horse race. Well, Asher didn't care about it much.

Aunt Connie brought herself good luck when she declared that if she won, she would give the kids their money back. What do you know? She won! And the kids were so glad that she did because she kept her word.

It'll be another two years before we visit again so we tried to take as many pictures as we could to remember everyone! Of course, I did get side tracked a lot so I didn't get as many as I wanted to.

Trent with some of his cousins.

26 Months Old

 Asher is 26 months old now and still as grouchy as ever. I kid you not, there are times when he yells "bird brain!" and he is sound asleep! There are a few minutes each day where this kid is happy so I'll try to talk about those...

He will spontaneously come up to us and whisper "you're the best." I try to tell each kid, each day that they are the best. Sometimes I mean it more than others. Oh yeah, the good stuff.

We lost Juliet's precious Happy Feet doll for a couple of days and guess who found it for her? The same little guy that hid it in the first place. ha ha. He had stuffed it in a big box of diaper wipes that I have stored in the boys' closet. Here's a picture of him feeling quite proud of himself for coming to Juliet's rescue.

Asher also likes to clown around a lot and he cracks us up by randomly walking and talking like a robot, or standing on his head for no reason.

When he's in a GREAT mood, he'll sing a made up song, "happy day.... sunny day."

I threaten to sell this child every day, but for some reason Isaac always yells in protest so I guess we'll keep him a while longer and see if he sweeten up. In the meantime, we're still working on counting and singing the ABC's. It's hit or miss, depending on his mood.