Tonight was our first real movie on our new pseudo movie screen—the big 10×14 wall in our living room.
Introducing the kids to E.T.
Category Archives: Kids
We got Boo’ed!
So one night a few days ago the doorbell rang and we didn’t think much of it since Amazon always rings the bell and we get lots of deliveries. But the kids usually run out to see. Today Katie did and said she saw a kid running away—but he left a bag of Halloween goodies with a note that we had to pass it on! We looked at our camera feed and saw the kid but we have no idea who it is! Well the kids were super excited for TREATS! CANDY! SLIME! and definitely wanted to Boo other people.
Thankfully Tom stepped up and did it with them because while I did want to be a part of the neighborhood, I didn’t really want to do all of it. He took them shopping. He supervised the building of the baskets. My contribution was printing out the instruction. Then Tom took them to the houses where they successfully delivered the baskets without being seen!
Katie’s quite the watercolor artist.
Katie needed watercolor paints for art so I got her some nicer ones from Amazon. She wanted to use them before art class of course… But she’s quite the little artist and did these really neat pages and I told her I wanted all of them!
I just can’t even with the lying.
One of the kids cut this tumeric this morning. Both flat out deny it. I know it’s not a big deal but OMG I am furious that they can’t just admit it.
I didn’t even get mad. I told them they weren’t in trouble. I wanted whoever it was too help me decide how and when to use it. They both still denied it.
I told both of them that I didn’t care that it was cut but that because we had discussed the staining issue last night (when they first saw it and asked what it was, I told them how badly it could stain everything) I wished they would’ve washed the knife. They both still deny it.
Fast forward to that evening.
We talked to them both. We said no one was getting in trouble, we weren’t mad, we just want them to tell the truth. Both still deny it.
So then we told them they needed to talk to each other and then tell us together who did it. After about five minutes they both said they didn’t do it. GRRR.
The thing is that it’s ALL THE TIME about stupid and annoying stuff, nothing that’s a huge deal. Things that happen all the time?
- Peeing in the toilet and not flushing.
- Candy wrappers on the floor.
- Hidden food.
- Opened and eaten bags of candy.
- Glasses on every surface
It’s exhausting.
Sometimes they both crawl in bed with me.
A walk with mom.
This is the pile of clothes that Katie is losing.
Why? Because I’ve asked her about six times to clear all the clothes off the floor and the dresser.
I picked out everything that was too small and put it in the donate pile. The rest went in a garbage bag which I told her she could have back if she finished cleaning up her room. She liked that idea…but it never happened. (And still hasn’t happened as of 10/21.)
I took “school pics” this morning since it’s that time of year.
Owen came downstairs in a brand new blue shirt and jeans. Bestill my heart. Of course there was hair and outfit drama with Katie…so that was fun.
She was in such a state that I told her we’d try her photos another day and then headed out in the yard (I made him take one photo with the collar up)…
And then it was down the street to the park.
Where Katie finally joined us. In a different outfit and a much better mood!
I told Katie to tickle him…
Tried to get them both jumping. It was a riot.
Her turn…
Back at home…
Another baseball championship!
First games of the season were so hot you couldn’t stand it. Today? We’re in winter coats, gloves, and blankets!
They won 13-3 in six innings!
Owen getting his trophy!
We didn’t get any great team pics this season due to social distancing and temperature.
It was the last game together for these boys. Aden is transferring to a different city team and Jackson is moving to travel ball. Jackson’s dad is the head coach which means he’s moving to be with his son…so that means Tom has decided to be the head coach next season!!
Another tooth gone!
He was kinda worried about having surgery but he handled it like a champ. Tom went with him and said he had all the ladies laughing afterward. We had gotten him excited about counting down from 10 once they started the sleepy drugs…but he didn’t even get to 10. He said they told him they were putting it in and then he was waking up!
Anxiety updates.
So we’ve been noticing some questionable behavior from Owen lately—blowing up more than usual, getting agitated more easily, etc. We thought maybe his meds needed adjusting or maybe just something else was going on. He takes his pills on his own and we’ve been asking him if he’s still taking them and he always says yes. We knew he needed to get a new counselor so after some of the major blowups I finally worked through that and got an appointment set up…
And then. After like a week of seemingly daily issues (that result in us talking to him for an hour at a time and us going out of our minds with his attitude) we discovered he has not been taking his pills for a long time. We found all the pill bottles and they were FULL. (We get auto delivery so he should have had one almost empty bottle. We have two full 90-day bottles.) Ugh.
Needless to say that explained everything.
So we talked about that. And he said he just thought he might not need them anymore because things had been going well. So we could then tell him that things had been going well (better) because of the pills. So now we are taking them together at the same time every morning.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you… I’ve started taking an anti-anxiety med, too. I’ve just been overly stressed with the new house, remote learning, work, Covid, etc… Plus moreso I was just sooooo tired of yelling at the kids all. the. time. for everything that I thought maybe I needed something to take me down a notch. It’s been two weeks and I think it’s helping—so we’ll see. I don’t anticipate it being long-term but for right now I think it’s a good thing. Plus I think it helps Owen to see that even if you think someone has it all together you never know what’s going on behind the scenes. And if Mom does it, he can, too.
Owen’s first pulled tooth!
His orthodontist recommended getting two teeth pulled so after a few delays here we are. He was nervous but handled it like a champ. This was about 15 minutes in while he was numb before they actually started—he just wanted to come out and say hi.
Unfortunately, one of the teeth gave her some problems and she couldn’t remove it so she referred us to an oral surgeon. She seems to think maybe the roots of the baby tooth are wrapped around the adult tooth. Yikes.
Owen was not thrilled with that prospect so we’re trying to talk up how cool it is to be knocked out and we think he’s okay now. Thankfully we are getting in next week so he doesn’t have much time to think about it.
I don’t think my room was ever this bad.
I know I’m not supposed to care what their rooms look like but I CANNOT handle this. I am ready to clean it all out myself. As in empty it.
There were basically two schools of thought on Facebook:
- It’s her room. Let her live with it.
- OH HELL NO.
It’s just so frustrating. We’ve tried random and various rewards and prizes and money and everything is glorious for 2-3 days and then it stops. We’ve tried chore charts and boards and tokens and iPhone apps. Nothing works. Part of it is we just don’t have the energy to police everything. We also do it strong for a few days and then we miss a day and then it all goes to hell.
We do make them pick up their rooms every so often—they are supposed to do at least 5 minutes a day but they don’t even do that. Her room was decently picked up less than a week ago. 🙁
I have also bought a nice kid book that tells HOW to clean it. I have walked her through it (and done it with her) multiple times. She knows. And every time I try to help her or guide her, I get “I KNOOOOOOW MOM” but she doesn’t do it.
She did recently have a totally clean slate as we just moved in two month ago. But it’s pretty much looked like this since Day 3. I have told her she will not get a nice pretty new girly room (we are prepped to totally Pinterest her room) unless it gets and stays clean. And again, it works for 2-3 days and then…this. We moved at least five garbage bags of stuff we removed from her room already that she literally SOBBED over but hasn’t given a second thought to since.
Owen HAS lost everything in his room one time already (at the last house) and his isn’t quite this bad but it’s bad enough. But they know I’m serious when I say I WILL do it.
Cuddling during class.
She assured me she was listening to her teacher even though she was playing with her doll during class. GRRR. It’s so hard because you want them to be comfy but it’s also school. And you wouldn’t do that at school. But this is also unprecedented. You pick your battles…
6th grade physical
The required sixth grade physicals were still required even though they aren’t technically at school…so off we went. It was really almost eerie walking through an empty hospital. Especially since the parking garage was as full as usual—where was everyone?!
Owen also had to get three shots which he wasn’t thrilled about but at least he just sucks it up and does it without issue.
Let’s remember how sweet she can be.
I took this picture so on an upcoming day when she’s being a little brat, I can point out to Tom that there was a point at which she was being cute and sweet.
We did have Anna take a family photo later on the walk to prove we actually got out of the house.
Going off trail to explore the lake. They were so excited you’d think they’d never seen water before.
His turn…and now he gets it.
Tom was home for the long weekend so I told him he got ALL tech questions and school issues today. He kind of said WHATEVS and planted himself on the couch playing video games.
School starts at 9.
8:55—Owen discovers he has no power on his entire workstation. No lights, no Chromebook charging, nothing. Katie (across the room) is fine. Whaaaaat?! Tom looked at me like AYFKM? I just smiled, chuckled, and said welcome to my Life.
While he was troubleshooting, I was getting Owen set up on my laptop (I kinda wanted to make Tom do that as well so he could truly experience what my days are like, but I didn’t want to be that cruel). Then, because he was messing around with the breaker box, he cut power to Katie’s station (and Chromebook!) so the WiFi went out and she was dropped from her class. And of course could not reconnect. SO PANIC AND DRAMA ENSUED.
Time? 9:03am
Me: Yep. That’s about right.
Hubby: ——
Turns out one half of the wall outlet Owen was plugged into just up and died. Completely random. You can’t make this shit up.
Then there was drama with Katie’s headphones (every damn day) and Owen was caught watching YouTube. 臘♀️
Needless to say Tom has newfound respect for me and promises not to complain about my daily texts I send him when he’s not here.
Trying to fly a kite.
Anna and David came over to attempt flying kites at the park. The kids were kinda excited until they realized it was harder than they thought. We all gave it a good college try for about an hour then called it quits.
Social distancing walk with friends!
There are lots of parks and nature preserve around so we’ve started checking out some of them with our friends. I need to take more pics—this was one Anna managed to get.
This is getting old.
We discovered this destroyed Xbox controller this morning—little orange pieces of Nerf foam that had been picked off the controller the previous night when they were all playing. So it was Owen, Katie, Aiden, or Evan…yet every single one of them flat out denied it. Because of course.
We are in trouble.
She was all sorts of sassy in her new garage-sale-find princess ball cap with attached long hair.
The story of the day.
So this was the tech issue I had to deal with today. Katie connected just fine in the morning but after lunch… nope. Long story short, I ended up putting her on my laptop. Turns out Google is having some unknown issue plus these school-provided Chromebooks aren’t great…so this happens. And is happening across the country. Good times.
Hopefully this is a sign.
We had a quick rainshower and Katie always runs out to see if there’s a rainbow. There rarely is but there was today. I’m hoping it’s a sign that things are going to get better.
Then the kids went out on their bikes to look for the end of the rainbow.
It took just four minutes.
Well today started out okay with me waking up before my alarm and I got to have some nice leisurely quiet time before the kids got up.
And they showered without much drama and they ate breakfast without much drama and we took school pictures without much drama… And then the shitshow started.
Owen had some technical difficulties dealing with an external monitor and Bluetooth headphones and Google meets and when I asked him if these were the same headphones that he used last year he said yes but they didn’t work for Google meets then either.
YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE TOLD US THAT AT SOME POINT BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL?! (What I was screaming in my head—not what I said to him.) But he was completely losing it and this was him just four minutes in to Remote Learning. /cry/ Even though I wanted them home to be safe…THIS. JUST. SUCKS.
But things have gotten a little better since 9:04 AM when it was the worst and I think we might make it through this day without me needing to drink a gallon of margaritas.
I went outside to enjoy the weather in my egg chair…and Owen came out on a break and he seemed much better.
The first day of Remote Learning school!
Even though the kids weren’t going to school buildings, we still dressed for first day of school pictures!! (I made them shower and make their lunches, too!)
Random Baseball Pics
Sometimes random pics turn out better than you expected. I kinda love this one in black and white.
And sometimes they’re just okay.
A little pre-game batting practice!
It’s so awesome that this field is across the street at the park! Tom just carries down the pitching machine and a bucket of balls…
Owen’s a good sport!
I decided to use a mask recipe this morning and I made too much so I called Owen in. He’s such a good sport!!
Look mom, one handed!
Walking to a friend’s outdoor karaoke night… She’s doing one-handed cartwheels. I think she needs to get back into gymnastics. If only we weren’t in a pandemic…
It’s the Friday before school starts so why not margaritas?
