Battle Of The Wills

I spent my morning coaxing Malena to take her cough syrup. She said that she would take her tablespoon of syrup without any problems, so I poured the measuring cup onto the spoon, as in the past, and place it near her mouth. SPLAT! It went over me and the floor. The previous warning about the step (our naughty corner) obviously did not matter to her. I said as calmly as I could, "Go to the..." She was already half-way there. She knew the consequence and was willing to take it. I thought that this would be a short lived battle because the rest of us were in the kitchen doing school and she was missing out. Wrong!

I went back every three or five minutes for one hour and fifteen minutes and the same reply came out of her sweet mouth. She kept her tears to herself when she thought I was not listening, but to my face she merely stated that it did not matter if she would miss out on the rest of the day's events.

I searched the 'wisdom' of the Internet, and found a whole lot of bribing, spiking food, and force as appropriate methods to giving unwanted medicine. At one hour and sixteen minutes, I told Malena what was going to happen. I would walk into the playroom and turn on Word World and walk away. She would then take her medicine all by herself and let me know when she finished. It worked! She was happy and I was happy.

At that moment that I realized Malena, as the middle child, doesn't get to do things just for her, just by her. She is constantly having to mold into what others around are asking (Sometimes yelling) at her to do, and what others want to do to her. This was just beginning of this independence struggle. We have already moved on to the battle of bath time. That is what I will take care of right after I publish this.

Update

For those that care, check out the 'We Are In Trouble Now' entry as I have figured out how to put the better video on the post. It is brighter and minus Jesus at the end of the video.

We Are In Trouble Now

Colin continues to increase his mobility and the future looks to hold nothing but chasing, tackling, and fun!

Wisdom

There is an e-mail going around about a first grade teacher and the wisdom some of her students showed when given the first part of well-known proverbs to complete. The idea was given to me to try this with Caitlyn. The following is a few of the 27 that she did this morning.

1. Don’t bite the hand that you don’t know.
2. A miss is as good as a Mr. (This is the same one that is found in the e-mail)
3. Love all, trust God.
4. Happy the bride who has a sobbing boy.
5. Two’s company, three’s a family.
6. When the blind lead the bind, they will find a way to climb.
7. There are none so blind as me.
8. A penny saved is one penny.

9. Never underestimate the power of the principal.

10. Children should be seen and not naked.

New Do

So the haircuts were not as drastic as I thought they would be. We had a very convincing hairstylist that talked Caity out of chopping her hair all off. She decided on funky layers and bangs. Malena got some layering in the back to show off her curls while still growing out her bangs. Colin is the same, but I had to add 'little man' because he is just cute. All the pictures were taken right after a roll on the ground of sibling playtime, thus the frizzy hair. They are currently doing the same as I type and I must say that Colin is a tough little guy. He is chattering away and likes to tell his 'jokes' which we all laugh at because his laughter is infectious. He has attempted a few more steps and even a few at a time. For right now that is enough. Our whole world will change when he is on his feet.

11 Months And Not Happy

It has been an eventful few days here at home. It started the day after Valentine's Day when I woke up very sick. I went through the motions and with much help from Chris, I am finally feeling half normal today.

Colin started to get a cold this weekend and this morning it went into his chest. He celebrated his 11 month day getting his first breathing treatment at the doctors while the big sisters sat by his side trying to calm him down. He was--- shall we say--- quite vocal in his displeasure of this treatment. The good news is that it has been determined to be nothing more than a nasty chest cold.

The bad news is that big sister Malena has been hiding in corners this afternoon, and I was too busy to investigate her sudden desire to be in the corner. She has been secretly coughing. I just caught her in the act and she broke down saying that she doesn't want to go to the doctor. So Colin's breathing treatment traumatized her too. Poor thing!

We are going to go get haircuts today for our girls. No, not little man. We want dad to be with us for that momentous event next weekend. I will post pictures tomorrow of the newly coiffed big girls. Caity has said that she wants a change. Uh-oh that sounds like I did right before I got the 'Annie' do in first grade, the 'Dorothy' in third, and the boy cut in fourth. I have a feeling this is just the beginning of the hair fun with Caity.

Love You!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Bath Helpers

Happy Birthday Bro!

OK to clarify, Jason is not anywhere close to 40. Caity thought that I was 50 at one point in time, so consider the source. Colin has learned to click his tongue and it amuses him so much. Malena... oh Malena that is for another posting. Caity is the same wonderfully complicated little girl. We have just entered the "fun math" section, so it is not so bad right now. In her mind, the fun math is anything to do with geometry and problem solving.

Happy Birthday Uncle Mike

It has now become a 'cool' thing to sing happy birthday on the blog. Caity tried to make a card, but she threw it out because it was not perfect. We love you and hope you had a great brithday!

New Pictures

Here are some pictures from last week. Have a great day! Colin has taken a step and held it for a few seconds before falling, and he discovered that his knees are a nice transition from standing to sitting.

Evening Entertainment

It's been a bit since I have blogged, so I thought I would show a typical evening in our home. We had lots of excitement today with the tornadoes in the area, but it is calm once again.
The video is just a snapshot of our evenings. Usually their are many turns to perform while the other sister practices patience and good listening skills.

I DO IT MYSELF!

These are words that are heard around the house from the angelic faced Malena. I put them all in caps, because that is how she says it. No one better get in her way of experimenting with whatever newly discovered skill she wants to demonstrate. This is difficult for big sister to understand. Up until this week, Caity has been able to treat Malena like a mini me life-sized doll of sorts. The screamed, " I do it myself!" is followed by an even louder, "Fine, I was just trying to help!" bellowed into the ears of little sister. We have tried to explain that help is only help when it is wanted by the one you are trying to help. Wow, that is convoluted! I guess I can see how that is a hard concept to grasp.

Malena is embracing her 'big girl'. She picks out her clothes, dresses herself, potties, helps make her lunch, pours her milk, and whatever else Malena wants to do. She absolutely refuses help. At her first dentist appointment yesterday, the dentist kept asking her if she wanted to hold a hand, doll, or anything to comfort her. She was obviously scared as there were tears welled up in her eyes. She would not have anything or anyone comfort her. It was probably a good look into the future with our Malena. We can't figure out where she gets that stubbornness. OK, stop laughing. I guess Chris and I had it coming.

Compare/Contrast Paragraph

Caity had an assignment this week to compare and contrast something in a 10 sentence paragraph. She chose to do it on the fictional characters found in the popular Junie. B. Jones book series. This is what she wrote.




Junie B. Jones and Lucille are best friends, but they are different.
They both love Grace as a friend. They go to the same school and class. There is more to say. Lucille looks good when she goes to school. She wears expensive clothes. When her school picture came back, she looked like a star model. Junie looks funky. She has funny clothes and messed up hair even on a picture day. Lucille is rich and Junie B. is not. They are best friends, but they are not the same.

Little Man's Trick

Colin rarely gets single camera time without the competition of his sisters in the background. When we had a few minutes today, I took the opportunity to capture his new stunts. He has been waving for about a week, but I guess he doesn't do well with command performances.

Crusing, Writing, and Regrouping

We had a fun weekend with a long overdue get together with our new neighbor friends. The girls had such a good time playing upstairs while the adult-kids played Guitar Hero. Chris is still champion, but I am gaining on him.

Colin has been busy figuring out the cruising phase of his exploration. He keeps falling, but stays determined none-the-less.

Malena has completed her Kumon tracing book which means she has demonstrated the appropriate pencil skills to begin writing her letters. She is very excited at this new prospect and is beginning to see that being a 'big girl' has some advantages. Let's hope that encourages her to complete the ultimate big girl step... fingers crossed.

Caity is back in full swing with the new addition of piano lessons. She is loving her new teacher and Malena and Colin enjoy playing with the teacher's children during the lesson. This gives Mom a much appreciated mental break. Caity is now regrouping in her subtraction math problems. The best thing I have heard in along time is when she said, "That's it? That's easy." I guess all the pre-regrouping skills we have been working on actually helped. Thank you Horizon Math.

This week is crazy busy and I am loving every bit of it. I won't bore you with the details, I will just say that I feel incredibly blessed these days with the people that God has brought into all of our lives.

Story by Caitlyn

In Caity's English class she was given a picture to write a 10 sentence story. This is what she wrote and typed by herself. She would like to share this with all of you. Comments are always welcome!

There was a geek from school called Leny. Timmy The Bottlehead was trying to crush Leny. The Bottlehead was mad because Leny got 100% all the time. The Bottlehead was missing class because he throws people in the garbage a lot.

The fight started on Sunday morning. Timmy tied Leny to the church bell. Because Leny was smart, he got out of the bell. A woman saw him and called 911. The firefighters had a nice warm blanket. They check him out and Leny went home. Timmy got in trouble.

Happy Belated Birthday to Aunt Natalie!!!!!!!!!!

For some reason the video we did is not uploading correctly. Bummer. We hope you had a good birthday.

Back at it!

We started the third quarter in homeschooling. Much to my surprise, the first day was not met with trepidation but excitement. She sat down and made goals for this semester and talked about what she would like to do. ( More on those adventures later.) All the while, Malena was at my side BEGGING for some school stuff to do. Caity kept informing her how lucky she was doing her "baby stuff". Colin's new skills made the day a bit more challenging as he was not happy to just sit and watch. He wanted to pull up and see the world from his new perspective and inquired for his dad by his repetitive "DA,DA,DA" cuteness. Now that he has discovered the joy of this percussive syllable, he no longer will say "Ma,Ma,Ma--- Well, at 4:00 am the "Ma,Ma,Ma's" come out just fine. Figures!

New Year's Resolutions

From the nine-month old: learn to walk and continue capturing hearts.

From the 3 year-old: "Color things for Santa." I'm guessing Christmas had a huge impact on her. She still thinks there is more coming.

From the 7 and a half year-old: "I think I will not just say O.K. Mom, but I will actually do it." I am guessing this one will have a short life-span.

From the 30 year old-Stop thinking things out so much, that they never get done.

From the 32 year-old-Take his wife away somewhere...I think this is my favorite resolution.

Here's to a great 2008--Leave anxiety, frustrations, and sorrow in 2007; have joy, laughter, and love through out and beyond 2008!

Look Ma, no hands! (well almost)