Recovered & Christmas Play Rehearsal

I am very thankful to the Lord that we are all doing much better now and that Benjamin and Samuel both never caught the tummy bug.  Benjamin does still have the cold, but it has not dropped into his chest.  Please continue to pray that it does not.  

Church was really good yesterday morning.  I enjoyed hearing the old story of the angel coming to John the Baptist's father, telling him that he would have a son.  I always find it interesting to compare that story to when the angel told Mary she would have not just a son, but the Son of God.  Zacharias was a priest of God and was being told that something that he and his wife had prayed for years was going to happen.  Yet, he doubted the words of the angel.  Mary was a simple girl and was told that while still an unmarried virgin, she would give birth to the Son of God.  She believed.  I think that's a beautiful example of how we are to have the faith of a child.  If God says it is so, we need to believe Him.  That includes times in our lives when it appears that things are out of control, because God says He is always in control.  It also includes times in our lives when we say we can't do it, because God says we can do all things through Him.

In the afternoon, I got to our library and dropped off a big bin full of Thanksgiving resources and picked up a smaller pile of Christmas ones.  Many are still on reserve, so I hope to get those next week.  I'm hoping we can all watch "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" this evening.  That is SUCH a cute Christmas story.  Try to watch it if you haven't ever done so or read the book if you have the time.  :-)  The children had another practice of the Christmas play last night. It was their first time doing it up at the front of the church where it will be performed.  I enjoyed watching it.  I had Benjamin and Miriam with me.  It was Miriam's first time at a practice.  The Pre-K children are all sheep and they hadn't needed to come to the practices before.  She was excited as she got fitted for her sheep headband that came complete with sheep ears and lots of cotton balls to look like wool.  :-D  However, she told me repeatedly that she would NOT say "baaaaaaaa."  Alright, alright, Miriam.  Then, Ms. Vicki called all of the parents of PreK children to line up with them at the back of the church.  We were about to learn what her role entailed.  The next instruction was to all walk down the aisle saying "Baaaa" over and over.  I laughed and decided to not push it.  I didn't want to set Miriam off.  We walked down the aisle with all of the rest of the children saying it and Miriam saying she wouldn't say it.  :-D  When we got up to the front, we parents all kneeled behind our Pre-K children.  I guess Benjamin was the tiniest sheep, because he was in the sling right between me and Miriam.  lol  The children learned their sheep dance, which did include more of "baaaaa," but Miriam thought that was fine because now she was learning some action steps, too.  I think she'll do fine this Sunday when it is performed.  The sheep just needed that one rehearsal.  The other children have Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday rehearsals before the play.  Samuel was funny, too.  During the African dance, he has the role of beating the drum.  This was the first time that he brought our drum with him so that he could really do that part.  It is one of two that Aaron brought home from Liberia when we adopted our children.  It was handmade there.  This is the smaller of the two to make it easier for Samuel.  Well, having Samuel sit for that long with a drum between his knees was just too much for him.  First, he kept beating the drum at all different points during the practice.  Then, he got so antsy that he started playing with the drum in other ways.  He missed one whole song of standing up and singing, because he'd knocked the drum on its side and was using his feet to kick it back and forth.  Then, he started hopping back and forth between his seat and sitting on his drum.  Finally, he moved to sitting totally on the drum and bouncing up and down.  At this point, I was nursing Benjamin and had to send a friend up to the stage to tell him he couldn't do that or the drum would break.  He didn't hop onto the drum again, but did start picking it up by the ropes around its top and whacking it up and down.  It was just WAY too much of a temptation for the little guy!  I'm just glad it survived the rehearsal!  Ms. Vicki and I agreed after the practice that he would have the drum in front of him just for that one song and it would be tucked away the rest of the time.  ;-)

Well, Benjamin has finished his morning nursing time and I need to wake up the other children.  I am continuing to tweak the chorebusters thing.  I'm hoping that the changes that I've made so far will make this week go smoothly.  One big thing I did was color code which jobs are for morning, for afternoon, and for evening.  That should make it visually easier for me to keep track of how everyone's doing.  I also printed it off with little check boxes next to each chore so I can mark them off as completed.  It's tricky to keep track of how 9 little people are doing at getting their jobs done if you don't have a system in place, let alone how I'm doing at my own to do list!

Love, Dawn

My turn to be sick

Well, my body held out as long as it could, but I guess one can only hold so many children as they throw up, change so many diareah diapers, mop up so much vomit off the floor with paper towels, and wash so much contaminated laundry before catching the virus.  I have been SO sick.  I'm doing a little better today, but still incredibly dehydrated.  My milk supply has gone way down as a result and Benjamin spent a huge amount of last  night crying.  That made me so sad.  I ate a piece of toast and an egg for breakfast, my first food since Thursday.  I'm going to see if it can stay put in my stomach.  I usually wait until I feel hunger before eating again, but feel like I need to try to get nutrients in so my body can make milk for him.  Until my milk started running low last night, I think that Benjamin thought we were having a dream day.  I might have been sick as a dog, but his perspective was that I was spending the entire day laying in bed with him snuggling him and nursing him.  He was the absolute happiest little guy!  That brought me some joy in the midst of everything.  He has now caught the cold that has also been going around our house and last night started coughing.  Please pray that it doesn't go into his chest.  He's just 9.5 weeks old!  Aaron stayed home again yesterday.  He was still sick himself, but in a lot better shape than me.  He did the best he could managing everything and then came up for a 4 hour nap in the afternoon.  Last night he was finally hungry and ate a full meal.  I think that's a good sign!  I'm drinking Recharge and trying to get myself hydrated again.  I did decide that this is the perfect opportunity to get off of two addictive substances, since I just did a 40 hour fast.  I'm getting off of caffeine and sugar.  Might as well get some good out of being so sick!

Kel, you left a comment about the children eating bones.  They crack them open and suck the marrow out of the bones first.  Then they start chewing the rest of the bone and they look like they have a piece of taffy in their mouth or something.  They chew and they chew and they chew and they chew.  Finally, when they've gotten every bit out of it, they spit out something about the size of a dime.  That's all that's left of the bone and I guess it's the part you aren't supposed to eat.  To make myself feel a little better about the safety of it all, though, I like for them to wait until I've used the bones to make stock.  After the bones have cooked in the liquid for 24 or more hours (I usually cook it 24-36 hours) they are incredibly soft and are safe for anyone to eat.  At that point, they just take bites, chew them up, and swallow them.  

Thomas and Stephen are going to a Tween Christmas Party up at our church today.  I think they'll have a lot of fun at that.  I'm really happy with our church and am so glad that we found it!

Thursday night I took Sarah to the church for a special practice for the Christmas play for the African dancers.  She had a great time at that.  The Christmas play, by the way, is on missionary children around the world this time.  That's how African dancers fit into a Christmas play.  ;-)  Anyway, Benjamin was sound asleep in his car seat, so I decided to just drop her off and then I drove to Starbucks and got one of their yummy hot caramel apple ciders.  I remembered those from last year and was thrilled to see they have them again this year.  I drove back to the church parking lot and enjoyed getting to drink that while waiting on Sarah's practice to finish.  I even had the chance to call one of my very best friends on the phone.  That was such a blessing!  It's incredibly hard for me to find any time at all to talk on the phone at home.

Love, Dawn

I'm testing out how to post photos, something I hope to do a lot more soon.  It looks like this worked.  These are 5 of my sweet children.  In the back row, you see Sarah (10), Hannah (6), and Stephen (11).  In the front row are Samuel (6) and Miriam (4).

Love, Dawn

Round 3

Alrighty, we're in Round 3 of this nasty stomach virus now.  Rebekah was the one who got it first.  At that point, we just thought that she'd eaten something that disagreed with her or something like that.  We didn't realize it was a virus.  Well then Round 2 was when Thomas, Stephen, Naomi Ruth, Hannah, and Susanna got it.  Yesterday we got hit with Round 3.  Miriam and Aaron got sick during the day and Susanna got hit a second time, this time starting in the middle of the night.  I am so ready for us to be done with this.  Please pray that nobody else catches it!

Aaron is upstairs sleeping now.  I've got all of the children gathered in the family room watching Anne of Green Gables.  We love this movie, but haven't watched it in a long time, probably because it's so long.  Seems just right for a day like this.  

Tonight there is another practice for the Christmas play.  I'm hoping that I can take the healthy children up for it.  If ANYONE gets new symptoms today, though, I'm not going to take anyone.  Last thing I want to do is spread this to others in the church.

Miriam has speech therapy this afternoon, but I will need to cancel that.  I know she's still contagious and she's feeling pretty lousy, too.  She hardly touched breakfast.  Usually I make the children finish their food, but I am not pushing anything at this point.  If someone says their tummy doesn't feel good or they don't want anymore I tell them that's fine and snatch away their plates or bowls before they change their minds.  lol

The appointment here with the man from the school district went well yesterday, although it was very long.  Susanna's transition meeting should take place next week.  Samuel still needs his spech evaluation and then his meeting to qualify for services should be somewhere after Susanna's and before Christmas.

Love, Dawn

Wednesday

Sometimes I get really frustrated by Samuel's lack of common sense/logic within his thinking skills.  Yet, Aaron and I have talked about how that is kind of like getting frustrated with a bunny because it won't bark.  If he can't do something, what's the point in being frustrated about it?  Anyway, here are two examples from yesterday.  First, his bedroom especially reeked.  As he soaks through 3 pull-ups, his pjs, and his bedding most nights, it always smells really strong in the morning, but this time it was even worse.  Turns out he'd shoved the previous night's bedding under the bed instead of taking it to the laundry room.  What was his answer when asked why?  So it could dry under there.  I explained that it would be dry and STINKY, but if he took it to the laundry room like he was supposed to, I could make it dry and CLEAN.  Later in the afternoon, he saw that in the living room someone had used the foam blocks we have to create a really big intricate castle across a big section of the floor.  He kicked it hard twice, destroying most of it.  Stephen flew at him enraged and I had to take care of both issues.  I got Samuel to apologize and for Stephen to sit down on the couch to cool down and then took Samuel to a separate room to ask him why he had done that.  He had wanted to know whose it was.  Ah!  Next time just ask, Samuel!  Life is certainly never dull around here.  I picked up 2 books from the library on helping a child who is mentally retarded/brain injured.  I'm hoping to find some things in there to help Samuel.  Someone from the school district will be over later this afternoon to hopefully get his evaluation finished.  I'm so glad that I've got the 2 teenage girls that help out once a week coming over this morning.  When the man from the school district comes, I am supposed to have a quiet peaceful atmosphere in my home.  That would NOT be an accurate description of what it would be like if I was involved in the evaluation and the other children were left to entertain themselves!

The trip to Sam's Club went well.  I took Naomi Ruth and Benjamin with me.  She has always been such a fabulous helper with the little ones since she was tiny.  I can remember her at 3 years old sitting in the rocking chair with baby Hannah in her arms, gently rocking her and singing to her.  :-)  In the store, I carried Benjamin against my body in my Maya Wrap slings.  It is one of 4 slings that I have and love.  Benjamin is such a happy little guy when he is all cozy and warm right against my chest.  The shopping time took a LOT longer than I had anticipated.  Naomi Ruth wanted to stop and see SO many things.  In addition to their regular stuff, they had a lot of Christmas shopping things available.  By the time we got back out to our van, I had to explain to her that dawdling to that extent when I keep telling her to hurry up and come on is disobedience.  She shared how she loves the special one-on-one time with me and liked looking at the things in the store.  I told her I like those things, too, but if she wants to come with me more often instead of less often, she needs to be able to move faster.  She agreed to be much quicker in the future.  We did have to make one other stop, this time at Meijer's.  Can you believe that Sam's Club was completely out of bagged cat food?  That was a first in my shopping there over the years.  I'd also wanted to buy plastic wrap and they only had containers with 3000 feet of it.  I don't use THAT much plastic wrap!  So, true to her word, we were able to get in an out of Meijer's quickly.  Oh we also got Samuel new socks while we were there.  He's had a foot growth spurt and suddenly has toes popping out of all of his socks.  That's not good any time of the year, but especially when it's COLD!  His feet will be much more comfy now.  :-)

A friend and I are trying out a new site for chores.  It's called chorebuster.net.  I am pretty excited about it.  I only got a few of the chores entered into it last night and will continue on that today.  I'll let you know what I think of it after I give it a whirl.  If any of you have ever tried it, please leave a comment giving your opinion of it.  And by the way, anybody else is free to leave comments, too.  It's fun to get comments.  :-D

Well, I'd better hop into the day.  Bye until tomorrow!  Ooh an exciting update here!  I just found out that Samuel stayed totally dry last night!  That's the very first time since he got here!  Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Samuel!  :-D

Love, Dawn

Well child checkups

We went to our family doctor this morning.  Naomi Ruth, Susanna, and Benjamin had well child check-ups.  Naomi Ruth is growing, but staying petite at 57.4 inches (10th %) and 52.5 lb (25th %).  Susanna has had huge growth this last year and is now exactly 37 inches and 37lb.  I thought that was pretty funny.  :-D  That puts her at 90th % for weight and 40th% for height.  Last year she was 15% for height and 50% for weight.  Benjamin is thriving on my breast milk.  He's now 11lb 14.2oz (50%) and 23.75 inches(75%).  Aaron and I have been concerned about his vision and our doctor agreed with us.  We are going to get him seen by a Pediatric Opthamologist.  Please pray that he's just delayed but will catch up fine.  Thank you to those few of you who have known and have been praying for him.  Other than that, they are all doing great.  While there, I checked to see when everyone else was last seen.  I've given up on having appointments with birthdays and just try to get each child in for a well-child checkup annually.  Miriam is now the only one who hasn't been seen in 2008, so I got her scheduled for next week.  Then in February, I coordinated other appointments around Benjamin's 4mo checkup.  Thomas, Rebekah, and Hannah will all be seen at that same time.  Our adopted children have been with us since March 11th of this year.  Once they've been here a full year, we're going to switch them over to our family doctor.  For now, they are seeing a pediatrician who is actually from Africa herself and therefore familiar with the medical issues associated with that area of the world.

I am looking forward to going to Sam's Club this evening.  I was going to go last night, but it was snowing and the temperature dropped below freezing, so we were concerned about the roads being slippery.  I like to go to Sam's Club at the beginning of each month.  On today's list I have things like toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, laundry detergent, kleenex, cat food, frozen fruit, and more.  It's a great place for our family!  

Yesterday the children were a funny mixture of the ones laying sprawled on the furniture because while their tummies were now fine, they had very low energy AND the ones bouncing off the walls because they hadn't gotten sick and needed to get their energy out!  Today everyone is back to their usual high energy.  In other words, they're all bouncing off the walls.  :-D  I'll see if I can get them bundled and out to the trampoline for a while to help with that before naptime rolls around.

I've been thinking about our cleaning jobs around here.  I think it's time to revamp all of the chore lists.  I'll post the new ones as soon as I've got them together.  A lot of people ask me how I do it all.  I don't!!!  Our children all get chores from as soon as they can do them.

Love, Dawn

Monday

Yesterday was really rough.  I'm hoping today goes WAY better.  I've got a lot of stinky laundry to get through today.  Good thing Monday is my main laundry day anyway!  I've taught most of the children to do their own laundry, so our system for who gets the machines is:

Monday -  me

Tuesday - Thomas (he washes his and Benjamin's)

Wednesday - Stephen (he washes his and Samuel's)

Thursday - Naomi Ruth and Sarah (they wash theirs and Miriam's)

Friday - me, with Rebekah and Hannah as my helpers, I'm trying to teach them how to do it

Saturday - me

The children sort, wash, dry, fold, hang, and put away all of their laundry on their days.  They also strip their beds, wash their sheets, and put on clean sheets.  It's a great system.  :-)  The only person struggling to keep up with their part right now is me.  That's just one of those aspects to having a newborn.  If we suddenly add in hours of me sitting down and nursing during the day, there are things that are going to have to slide for a while.  

The snow is coming down and looks just beautiful right now.  It's not sticking at all, just swirling through the air.  All of our children love snow, but the Liberians find it just absolutely amazing!  Liberia has a tropical climate.

My plan with homeschooling had been to finish up our Thanksgiving unit study by Thanksgiving and start our Christmas unit study today.  We didn't get as much done as I'd wanted to with our Thanksgiving one, though, so I've decided to extend it through this week.  Thomas and Naomi Ruth are really doing a LOT of independent reading as part of this unit study.  Aaron and I had talked about starting to give them an allowance and then we came up with a better idea.  We give them $1 for every 100 pages they do of independent reading related to our current homeschool unit study.  I went to the library and checked out a big bin of books related to Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims, and the Early Settlers. They've learned SO much through those books and are really loving them!  We will definitely keep that up!  We'll start our Christmas study next Monday.  Our Christmas study is an ongoing one that we do each year.  Each child has a Christmas notebook that they are steadily adding to.  It's a lot of fun.

For Susanna's birthday, we decided to go ahead and have her open her presents, but we are waiting on the cake and ice cream part.  We were able to gather everyone down to the family room last night.  We all sang "Happy Birthday" to her and then she sat in her little stuffed rocking chair and opened her presents one by one.  I'd taken the children to the thrift store a little over a week ago so that they could buy presents for her and they were so excited as she opened all of the presents, but especially the ones from them.  :-)  I like that they are learning the joy of giving!

Love, Dawn