Catching Up

I know, I know - I'm a terrible blogger. In fact, it is quite possible that nobody checks in anymore. What with the weeks of doing so without any reward and all. I have no real excuse except that I keep thinking, "I'll blog once things 'get back to normal'..." and as we all know, normal is constantly redefined. I decided I just have to carve out the time to keep this more current.

Let's see, we'll start with LJ.

LJ has been happy to go to school every MWF morning since it started. They worked through the Rainbow Unit where the calendar dictated what color of clothing the children should try to wear each day. Red - no problem, Orange - no problem...Orange is his favorite color and his favorite shirt is his orange jeep shirt. Yellow - a bit of a challenge, but LJ remembered his Bob the Builder shirt...which is yellow, but a tad bit small. Doesn't matter...in fact, it is now tied with the orange jeep shirt in the "Mom, is my ____ shirt clean" category. Green - no problem Blue - no problem. Purple....this was a major problem. LJ has zero purple clothes. We thought about it...LJ wanted me to go buy him a purple shirt. I refused. Instead, I found a red shirt with blue trim on the neck and sleeves. The solution became obvious. I asked LJ what colors make purple. His reply, "I don't know". To which I said, "Yes you do - think about the song on the Imagination Movers CD." He thought and then sang, "Red and blue make purple - purple is blue and red"...Ta-da! Armed with this explanation, he went to school. When I picked him up that day, I noticed that lots of girls were wearing lavender clothes...so, as we were waiting on the "pick-up" side of the gate, I said, "I guess we are the only family who doesn't own purple clothes" - to which the teacher replied, "Oh - he explained it all to us!" As best as I can tell, the snack each day was the color of the day and on the last day "Rainbow Day" - LJ wore a shirt with most of the colors on it and came home with this really cute rainbow hat. PJ was very envious of this hat and kept saying, "I like your hat - can I wear your hat?"...eventually he got a turn. Farm animals is the next unit.

LJ also got to take something for "sharing" one day. His cousin Matt came to visit and brought him a guitar from Matt's trip to Africa. There are specific rules for bringing something for sharing...it can't be a toy from a toy store (?!)...really they'd prefer it not be a toy at all. When you get to school, you need to give it to the teacher so she can put it in the sharing bucket for later. LJ took the guitar (it is small) to school and showed it to Joshua and Leo before the teacher asked if it was for sharing and then put it in the bucket. When I picked him up that day, the teacher asked where LJ learned the song he sang. I don't know what song he sang...so I asked and she said, "something about North and South" - this is "Calling all Movers" - from Imagination Movers...LJ sings this song very loudly and very fast...so it is impossible to understand what he's saying. I nodded and said, "Oh - it is from a CD we have" - not wanting to admit it is also from a TV show.

PJ doesn't seem to miss LJ all that much while he's at school. Honestly, he's barely gone long enough to be missed. PJ and RJ spend time doing who knows what in the morning. I think they work outside a lot, but I can't imagine RJ gets too much done with PJ out there. PJ is 2 - for sure. Complete with not minding well and being rather defiant. He talks a lot, uses complete sentences and has too extensive of a vocabulary to count the words. He seems to be growing taller and not wider. He eats next-to-nothing...he likes to come into the kitchen and ask me what I'm making. Let's say I answer (what I answer is really irrelevant to his reply), "meatloaf" - he will say "I not like meatloaf" and that is that. He won't eat it when I put it in front of him. And, if there is something he does like on the plate(mandarin oranges, for example)...he'll howl so much about how much "he not like meatloaf" that it is likely he won't eat the oranges either. What a pill! He is showing all the signs that he is ready to use the potty - except the ability to be truly independent in it. He can't pull his pants up and down, for example. But, he will tell you when he needs to go #2 - and you can get him onto the potty for it sometimes. RJ and I agree that we are not ready to train him until he can do more of the work himself. Perhaps we are lazy.

RJ is working on trucks with plans to sell them. He continues to work on getting his "barn" in order and has plans for getting electricity out there.

I just finished my mentorship with U of Phoenix...turned in final grades on Thursday - 24 hours later, I received a solicitation to teach 2 sections starting on the 19th. So, there goes my break, but I figure I started doing this so I could make some money, so I need to accept the money-making opportunities. It really isn't so bad nor so time-consuming...once I got the hang of it.

RJ and I sat down and decided we really have to down-size. We have WAAAAY too much stuff. So, we divided the house up and this past week was the living room. The living room is probably the least offensive room in the house, so I'm really dreading the rest of the weeks. We went through the bookcase and found 2 boxes of books to take to 1/2 Price Books. I had duplicates of several books...?! This did not make much of a visual impact as we had doubled-up most of the shelves. But, we did clear one shelf at the bottom and we tooks the kids' books out of the rubbermaid container and put them on the shelf. I cleaned out the CD/video bookcase. One more box for 1/2 Price Books. I decided to get rid of my exercise videos and DVDs. Why pay for a gym membership and clog up space at home? Now, RJ needs to go through my box and make sure there is nothing he wants to keep (this is the difficult part - he not-so-secretly likes to keep).

Next week - dining room. The goal - be de-cluttered by Thanksgiving.