34 week picture and big girl Abby

Background for quote of the day: About a month or so ago there was a gecko on the ceiling in Rachael's room (we have a lot of geckos around here. Rachael agrees with me - they're quite disgusting). Deren was settling Rachael into bed. She kept fretting and pointing to the ceiling. Deren finally looked up - about the time it fell to the floor. It scurried away, and Rachael fretted for days about a lizard in her room. The morning after the incident, Rachael started fussing when she saw the exposed speaker wires on the ceiling in the living room. She kept saying, "Look, lizard!" I kept telling her they were wires, not lizards. She has a hard time pronouncing "w", so she would say, "Look, there's a fire on the ceiling!" Needless to say, she surprised Deren when he came home that day and she told him we had a fire on the ceiling.

..fast forward to this morning.. She's been learning about firemen and firetrucks at school. She pointed to the wires, said "Look, there's a fire! Get the firetruck!"

Joshua update. Joshua was a happy man when school started back up Aug 14th. He has a lot of trouble dealing with unstructured/'down time.' I know, I know. Boredom is hard on all kids. But Joshua will either 1) get completely emotional for stretches of time, crying and carrying on and/or smacking himself and the walls; or 2) make up his own fun (e.g., crawling into toilets, flooding the bathroom, etc). He has clothes galore now, seeing as how Jacob is growing out of everything he has. It seems like in just the past week Jacob outgrew all his shorts. Come on, cold weather! Grandma Priscilla got Jacob some new pants for the winter, but the warm weather pickings are pretty scarce.

It rained most the day today. Joshua, a true lover of water, played outside in the rain and had a good old time. Rachael wanted to go outside, too. But when she stepped out in the rain she then ran back in the house, yelling "I'm sorry! Raindrops!"

Our annual ARD meeting with the school district for Joshua is on Oct 6th (you have an annual ARD around their birthday). Joshua's new teacher looks like she is about 18 yrs old. She seems nice enough, but Joshua is quite a challenge. He sincerely feels he does not need to use sign language when he can grab for what he wants without asking. Also, Joshua's new teacher instituted a daily nap/movie time from 2-3. I'm not too happy about this, and a couple other things. So, I will talk to her on the phone before the ARD meeting and tell her what my concerns are. NOT looking forward to all that.

Joshua's birthday is on the 10th. I have a gut feeling that the baby is not going to be a 42, 41, or 40 week baby like the last three. But I don't want them to share birthdays, either! The countdown is on, and the excitement is building! I can't wait to see if it's a boy or a girl. I'm still thinking boy..

School is out on the 9th and 10th, and Deren is hoping to take off the Tuesday the 10th for Joshua's birthday. Deren makes wonderful, wonderful gfcf cakes. I'm not allowed to bake - I have a really bad track record, especially with gfcf. I do the frostings - yum! Anyway, prayers for Joshua on his birthday would be appreciated!

Kids playing outside yesterday

Abby update. Abigail has been our little 'whirling dervish' - I think that's the term her Grandpa David uses. She's into/on top of everything. She can climb up on the kitchen table, on beds, with relative ease. She's seen her siblings use chairs as booster steps enough that she herself is a pro at it. If she wants cereal, she scoots up the step stool and gets a box from the counter. If she wants some of her siblings' juice, she climbs up on one of the chairs, gets on top of the table, and storms the contents on the table. It was comical watching her with Joshua last week. Mind you, he usually tries his hardest to ignore her very existence. He was sitting at the table, trying to eat his dinner, and Abby is right there on top his placemat, grabbing at his cup and his plate. He's trying his best to still ignore her, but how do you ignore someone who's sitting on your dinner plate?? I took pity on the poor boy and drug her off the table. Which brings me to the next observation about Abby. She, too, is honing her stubborness and her temper. After all, she has had very good role models in the tantrum department. Pound for pound, she can throw a fit that meets or exceeds the best of the them. She has learned from Jacob and Rachael to run and smack at you when she's really mad. You don't know whether to laugh or put her in time out in her crib!

She still idolizes Joshua, in terms of the mischief he gets into. The other night Joshua decided to go toilet diving again. He made one big mess, splashing toilet water across the bathroom, shredding toilet paper (now wet) in the midst of it. Rachael walked into the bathroom and said "Joshua made a BIG mess. Clean up, Joshua!" Then Abby walked in. Her eyes got big, she got a big grin on her face, and she was ready to dive in herself. She was furious when we drug her away (Are you catching another theme? She hates to be drug away from a good time!).

Abby's favorite song is "If you're happy and you know it", followed by "Twinkle Twinkle little star." She loves to run errands. I know this is a good thing. Instead of throwing fits, she's all giggles and smiles when I take her to the grocery store. But the thing is, I do not like to go to the grocery store! Every day she's standing by the door waiting to go on an errand. With the cooler weather, I've been taking her on stroller rides and walks around the block, but it doesn't even compare to a good 'ole car ride and grocery run.

We were at the pediatrician's office yesterday. She is 12 lbs, 13 oz with a diaper on. So she is still quite petite. But goodness, is she ever a bundle of life!

Rachael posing for Grandma Priscilla

Rachael update. Rachael has been using more and more language. She has also gained more and more stubborness and willfullness (are those the same things?). I was describing her to another mom today as God's little challenge for us. As I see it now, the biggest challenge for us as parents is to figure out how to get through to her. I've read part of 5 Love Languages, and Love and Logic. I ordered a new child discipline book yesterday. Just don't know how to get through to her. For example, she is way older than Joshua was when he potty trained, and he didn't have the slightest clue what we were doing to him at the time! One morning he's using is diapers, the next he's peeing all over himself and being marched back and forth to the bathroom. There were no "is he ready for potty training signs" you hear about - we just did it without his consent. Miss Rachael Mae, on the other hand, will tell you when she's wet. She'll walk up and ask you to change her poopy pants, but try to get her on the potty.. it's a battle.

She will pound on other kids (siblings or not) at will. She knows what time out is. She will tell you she would rather go to bed than do a time out. As I said above, she's a little challenge from God! My mom says I'm getting payback, but I have no memory of being like Rachael (and if you can detect lies through typed text you're probably on high alert now!). It seems like each new 'bad' behavior the kids pick up, Deren looks at me and says "I wonder where they got THAT from..?" hmmpfh!

Anyway, on to cute Rachael stuff. Grandma Priscilla ordered Rachael some very cute skorts (skirts with shorts underneath) from Lands End. Rachael had seen the skorts in the catalog. There was one with a horse, one with a cat, and one with a dog. We got the package in the mail today. Rachael got the horse and cat one. Our appreciative little miss immediately exclaimed "Where's the Dog??!!" It's been over a month since she's seen the catalog, but we're learning she has a very good memory.

She also uses her good memory to hold grudges. When Grandma and Grandpa were here over the Labor Day weekend they took Jacob to see the movie Cars. Each and every day, at some point, she comes to me and says "Jacob stay home. Rachael go and watch Cars movie and eat popcorn." Hopefully Grandma and Grandpa will be up for another trip to the movies when they come next. Otherwise, Rachael will never forgive us all!

As for her speech, it has been so neat to hear her use more word combinations. Last spring it was rare for her to say more than one word at a time. Now she's holding conversations, making up her own songs. We still see a delay compared to other kids her age, but we're tickled with all her progress. She loves to watch her "horsie movie." And when the horse jemps into the river, she says tells us how the horsie is in the water with the dolphins and the sea turtles!

All and all, I guess she is a lot like me. When she's in the mood for it, she's a complete hoot - she's affectionate, she's funny, she's cuddly. When she's NOT in the mood - stand back!!

Goodness, it's been awhile. I got to the point where I started procrastinating, because to catch up I'm going to have to write out a mini-novel. So I'll start with babysteps and do a short posting. The kids are passing around a stomach bug. Sound familiar? Joshua over the weekend, then Abby, now Jacob. Rachael is the the last one standing. I've emailed her teacher to give her a heads up - looking on the bright side, I am! That reminds me, I need to make sure the washer is empty, the clorox wipes, trash bags, barf bucket, and disposable gloves are laid out before going to bed tonight. I have a load of wash going now - that's just asking for it - having the washing machine tied up and all.

We're getting off and on breaks from the heat. It rained all day on Labor Day, and was cooler last week. Granted, "cooler" in Texas this time of year is in the upper 80's, but it's a good 20 degrees cooler than what we were having. The kids have been going outside in the evening and having a blast. And Rachael has been showing everyone her bug bites. She really likes to talk about her 'owies'. Throughout the day I find myself telling her "I'm so sorry about your owie," "Poor baby", etc. It goes on and on - but on the other hand, it is cute to be having the conversation with her. For instance, Joshua has been having some major mood swings. One minute he's cackling like a maniac, the next he's bawling away. His teacher sent a note home about it today. And since the little guy doesn't say a word, I have no clue. So here I am responding to his teacher, saying that I haven't the slightest idea what's going on. Makes me feel pretty useless..

So.. what with the lack of sleep (the halmark of this particular bug is an onset of symptoms around 3 a.m.), and being hormonal and moody, I've been feeling pretty up and down myself this week. ..think I'll go join Joshua, who's pounding on the wall in his room and screaming (ugh!).