Sleep Walking and Talking

My poor kids. They came from parents who have a history of sleep walking and/or talking and have apparently inherited the curse. We all did/do it in different ways, though...

Scott: Scott used to sleep walk as a child. As an adult, he usually just talks. On one occasion, he woke himself up because something had been funny in his dream and he began laughing out loud. The noise of his own laughing woke him up. On another occasion...my favorite...I was awakened when he sat bolt upright in the bed and began patting the bed between us. I asked him, "What are you looking for?" He replied, "A turning kitty kitty." He plopped back down into normal sleep before I could ask, "A what?!" (To be fair, Scott wants me to tell you that we used to have a cat, named Kitty, who used to turn in a circle once or twice before laying down between us to sleep.)

Me: I had sleep walking night terrors as a child. Everything you read about night terrors will tell you that the child will not remember them when they wake but I remembered them well. Many of my night terrors revolved around the theme that I had to accomplish some insane task before it was too late or else. I'd walk from my bed to the kitchen to retrieve an invisible laundry basket, go somewhere else to fill the basket with standard-sized papers, then return to my bed where I'd stand on the bed "wallpapering" the wall with these papers. Time was always close to running out. At this point I'd awake, gripped in terror and full-blown anxiety attacks. Some nights, I felt a heaviness, a foreboding right as I'd fall asleep. I knew I'd be having nightmares that night and I was terrified of falling asleep.

Mika: Mika had full-blown night terrors when she was younger. We'd awaken to her loud, terrified crying. We'd run to find her, somewhere other than her bed, crying and pointing to something unseen. We'd try to calm her, talk to her, hold her, but she'd fight us with everything she had...kicking, hitting, trying to run away. After a while (a while that seemed forever), she'd finally wake up. We'd hold her as she sobbed, gasping for breath, not knowing why she was so scared. Now that she's older, she still wakes up crying in the night. Last week was the most recent. She came sobbing into our room. I asked her, "What's wrong, Mika?" Her reply was incomprehensible, "I...uh...I...can't...I...I...uh...don't know..." I told her that she was ok and to go back to sleep. A few minutes, she returned. "I...uh...I....can't....uh...I...uh...can't..." This time Scott answered, "You are sleep walking. Go back to bed." Mika replied, "No," and immediately turned and went back to sleep. The rest of the night was uneventful.

Samuel: For the longest time, we couldn't figure out what was wrong with Sammy when he woke up crying in the middle of the night. He cry. We'd go to him asking him a thousand questions trying to find out what was wrong and all he'd give us in return was groaning and moaning. Anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour later, he'd start crying again. We'd go to him again. This cycle would repeat several times during the course of the night. After years of this, we finally figured it out. Our nights now go like this: Sammy wakes up crying, moaning, and groaning. One of us goes to him and simply tells him, "Sammy, go downstairs and go potty." Sammy then gets up and goes downstairs, pees, and returns to bed. We all sleep uninterrupted the rest of the night.

Josh: So far, Josh hasn't shown any signs of the night-time curse.

Computers 101

Following after his brother and sister, Josh is learning to use the computer even though he is not yet 2 years old. Once you help him get to his favorite website, Sesame Street, he is able to navigate and play some of his favorite games and watch videos all on his own.

By the way, notice the mouse on the left side of the keyboard. He seems to be showing preference for his left hand, a prospect that I am not happy about. I have no desire to try to teach penmanship to a lefty.

Our First Lego Build

Sammy received his first Lego set for Christmas. Seeing what's involved in putting these sets together, I'm not sure what I was thinking when I suggested it to my father. I mean, who in their right mind would suggest a 471 piece Lego set for their 7 year old son. Even the box says it's for ages 8 and up.

Now that I finally got our school table clean (again), the kids asked if we could put Sammy's Lego set together. I agreed so we started on it tonight


Here we at the beginning of our endeavor. The non-verbal, picture-only directions seemed to suggest that we should avoid putting the set together in the grass and to use a table instead. Seemed reasonable enough. Then it told us to sort the pieces. We did the best we could. We're half way done sorting in this photo.

There's a LOT of tiny pieces there!

I quickly realized why the box says ages 8 and up. Even when the picture clearly showed this blue piece going on this exact hole facing this direction, my kids tried putting them in other locations. Clearly, they need help learning to "read" these picture directions.

As we worked on the set, I realized that it seemed to be as complicated as an engine...lots and lots of parts that have to go exactly the correct way to work. My goodness! Lego should be a required prerequisite for pursuing an engineering degree!

Can you tell I've never put together a Lego set before?


Here's the product of an hour's worth of work. Inspiring, isn't it?


Here's a photo of the table at the end of an hour. See the piece we put together in the center? Se all the pieces not yet put together? We've got a long way to go.

I wonder how many hours we'll end up putting into this thing before we're done.

Aggrevating, I Am

I have this rather fun, for me, habit of annoying my daughter when giving her spelling tests.

You know how the teacher usually says the word and then uses it in a sentence. Well, I like to use the words in a sentence, too. However, I like to have even more fun with it and use as many of the previous words in that list in the sentence as well. The sentences get quite goofy and become run-ons after a while. The goofier they get, the more she rolls her eyes at me. And I love it when she rolls her eyes at me; it just makes me want to do it more.

It goes something like this:

squirrels - Mika likes feeding the squirrels.

temperature - Mika enjoys feeding the squirrels outside unless the temperature is too cold.

suddenly - Mika was feeding the squirrels outside until the temperature suddenly became cold.

finally - Mika was finally able to feed the squirrels because the temperature suddenly become warmer.

really - Mika was really happy that she was finally able to feed the squirrels now that the temperature was suddenly warm enough.

...and so on.

My Midwife Should Be Happy

If things continue they way they've been the past two days, I would expect to see some weight gain by my next prenatal appointment. While I don't necessarily LIKE gaining weight, it is a good thing when you are 15 weeks pregnant and haven't gained a pound. And why haven't I gained a pound? It isn't because I've spent my days hanging my head over the toilet bowl; it's because I just plain haven't been interested in food. Any food. Not even my favorite sweets. It's weird when you don't want cake, cookies, ice cream, donuts, or any of those other wonderful sweet treats.

But something clicked yesterday when I dragged my children to the grocery store to find something, anything, for dinner. My lack of appetite has meant a lack of food in the house, and I really didn't have much to choose from at home.

While I was there, it seemed that suddenly everything sounded good. I came home with dinner and some other staples and meats so that there would be food in the house for at least a couple of days.

So, what was for dinner last night, you ask? It was yummy!

Marinated London broil
Baked potatoes with butter, cheddar cheese, and sour cream
Fresh green beans with sauteed onions
Peas
Wheat French bread
Caesar salad
Chocolate cake and cookie dough ice cream with hot fudge sauce

The appetite continued into today. I enjoyed a large bowl of one of my favorite cereals for breakfast since it was on sale at a good price. Then for lunch I cooked everyone steak and cheese omelets topped with more cheese and sour cream. I paired that with grapefruit which I haven't bought nor eaten in several years. Now, I'm thinking about dinner.

Old

When I was younger, I always thought I'd marry young and be done having children in my twenties. After all, that's what my parents had done. They were 21 when they had me and 24 when they had my brother. They were 39 when I graduated from high school.

Now, here I am today. My 35th birthday is just 3 weeks away. I'll be 35 when this baby, my fourth, is born. Just 4 years shy of the age my parents were when I left home. It's a bit disconcerting when I think about it. I never, in my wildest imagination, thought I'd be having children in my thirties. Never. And here I am. Not only that, but I thought about when my children will graduate. I'll be 53 when this child finally graduates high school and is ready to leave home for college. 53! Not 39, like my parents, but 53.

Not only all that, but I don't think we are necessarily done. Four just doesn't sound right. So, I may be graduating children at an even older age.

I just can't imagine having the energy to keep up with teens in my fifties.

I feel so old!

Dear Benji

Yes, I deleted all three of your scathing, attacking, mean-spirited comments. I deleted them because both the tone and language you chose to use was not appropriate nor welcome here. I may have allowed them to stay had you not found it necessary to call my readers and me names, especially names that include references to male body parts.

I find it sad, really, that you felt it necessary to attack us without bothering to get to know us. Your comments say that I am a lazy, unthinking, uneducated, out-of-control consumer who is unable to satisfied my need for an ever increasing amount of material goods. Obviously, you were blinded by your anger because you missed many of the clues pointing to the obvious fact that I am quite the opposite in so many ways. In fact, there is a good chance that my family is more "green" than yours.

It is obvious that you hate America and all Americans. It shows your lack of ability to think and reason when you take a stereotype portrayed by the biased and liberal media and apply to all people who happen to live in a certain geographic location without regard for the individual life of each person. If I followed your example, I would now hate all Australians based on your representation of your country. Only I don't, nor do I hate you. I pity you. It's sad to know that some people limit themselves to believing everything that the media tells them to believe and who let anger and hatred rule their lives.

May God soften your heart and teach you to love rather than hate.

HaPpY bIrThDaY mIkA

My first born, my dearest daughter, my drama queen...


... will be turning 9 tomorrow.

Wish her a great big happy birthday over at her blog: Confessions of a Homeschool Drama Queen.

Current Readings

School is going along smoothly. We're making faster progress than I'd like so I'm finding myself needing to order next year's curriculum this year just so the kids have something to do for "school". We are struggling to fill our required number of school hours each week.

So, one of the things I've done is upped the reading ante a bit. So, here's what the kids are reading currently:

Sammy is reading Star Wars: Jedi Apprentice The Call to Vengeance. He found it at the library himself. I didn't realize it was written at a fourth grade reading level until today. I would have never guessed he was ready for four grade reading level either. Language arts is his most difficult subject.

Mika is reading Little Women. She gave me some pretty interesting looks when I handed it to her this morning. I happen to have a beautiful, hard-bound, unabridged, copy that includes both Little Women and Little Men. She took one look at the 816 pages and wasn't so sure she could read it. She can though. It's listed as grade 8.6 and she tested at 9th grade last year. So, she set the goal of reading 1-2 chapters a day.

Our bedtime read aloud is The Hobbit. We're almost half way through it. When we are finished, we'll rent and watch the cartoon movie. Then we plan on continuing the story with all three Lord of the Rings and their movies.

I figured one way to add some time to our school day was to choose some books for them that would take more than an hour to read. We'll see how it goes.

The Problem with Having Me as a Teacher

My poor kids! They have me as a teacher. There's a problem with that. Or maybe it is a benefit.

I have a tendency to get distracted. This affects my teaching as well. You see, sometimes when I am explaining something, especially in math, it will trigger my thoughts on something else related to that which I am explaining.

For example:

Today, Mika's math involved learning to write a number in expanded notation. Don't remember what that is? It's when you write a number....say 87,436...like this:

8x10,000+7x1,000+4x100+3x10+6x1.

She wasn't quite getting it with the math-u-see video so I took her to the white board to explain it further. The primary problem was all those multiplication and addition symbols. It gets confusing. You naturally want to see it from left to right rather than as a set of multiplication problems that are then all added together. So, I threw some parenthesis in there to make it more clear.

So, what she saw was:

(8x10,000) + (7x1,000) + (4x100) + (3x10) + (6x1)

It's a little more clear written that way, isn't it? That reminded me of "order of operations" which I couldn't quite remember so I looked it up. It's do all the parenthesis first, then all the multiplication and division from left to right, then all of the addition and subtraction from left to right...if you really wanted to know.

So, I taught her order of operations and we did a few practice questions. She got it.

Then we went back to the expanded notation she was suppose to learn in the first place. I ended up telling her to write the number in place value notation first (something she's already learned and mastered) and then convert that to expanded notation.

It worked...except now she also knows a little pre-algebra...which she isn't suppose to learn for three more years still. Ooops!

Tidbits About Josh

Have you ever had a bunch of one sentence little bits of things you wanted to share but nothing long enough for a post? Well, my thoughts about Josh have been this way lately. So, I thought I'd just post a series of "popcorn thoughts" about Josh to give you an idea of what we are up against.

He's 22 1/2 months old now.

He loves every "elyun" he comes across. See picture above.

He loves to climb and doesn't seem to care if he's going to hurt himself. Remember the nearly black eye recently?

We have this one amusing and reoccurring conversation with Josh. It goes like this:
M pointing to a book: That's a dog.
J: Dog.
M: That's a tree. Can you say tree?
J: Yeah.
M: Ok, ummm. That's a sheep. Can you say sheep?
J: Yeah.
The funny thing is that it sounds so much like he's confirming that he, of course, can say that word. It's cute and it happens often.

You already know he's my Personal Potty Assistant.

He's clever. When I'm cooking dinner and he just wants to be in the way, Scott will tell him to stay out of the kitchen. Josh will proceed to lay down and stretch his body across the kitchen floor while making sure his feet never enter the kitchen.

He absolutely has to "do school" with us. If you ask him, "Do you want to do school?" He'll answer with a very enthusiastic and loud, "Yeah!" He isn't happy until you give him a worksheet and pencil. It has to be a paper that looks like school work and it has to be a pencil.

Speaking of doing school...the other day I gave him a preschool worksheet on which you were suppose to color the triangles one color and the squares another color. I handed him a crayon and asked him if he could find a triangle and color it. He did. We proceeded one triangle at a time until he had colored them all. Then I gave him a different color and asked him to color the squares. He found them all correctly too. I put the paper in a safe place so I could scan it later to show you but "in a safe place" translates into "somewhere where I won't be able to find it again for several months." So, you'll have to just take my word on it.

He loves books, especially Little People lift the flap books. We have the farm one and the field trip one. They work great for teaching colors, counting, shapes, animal names, and some other basic skills. He also likes Winnie the Pooh books, this one color/counting/find book, and some Suess books.

He loves babies. He carries a baby doll around sometimes, refers to himself as "baby", and called any child 3 and under "baby".

He knows what he wants and what he doesn't want and don't try to convince him otherwise.

Being the strong-willed, active child that he is, he knows and understands time out. All it takes is for you to tell him to go sit in the corner and he'll immediately do so...crying all the way, of course.

If you ask him if what he is eating is yummy, he'll tell you "no" as he continues to shovel it in.

He likes to play, "Bum!" Which means, he wants to either back up as far as he can and run at you so he can knock you down and land on you, or he wants to hold your "hum" (thumbs) while he jumps on you.

He's ready to begin taekwondo. He has to wait at least two more years before he can start though. As soon as Sammy tried on his new sparring gear, Josh walked up to him, balled up his hands into fists, and began punching him. He'll also ax kick you in the head if you're lying on the floor and aren't careful. He loves to shout "Aiya" while kicking you.


All toothbrushes and all tubes of toothpaste belong to him.

He thinks the letter "D" is called "Daddy". He refuses to be corrected and thinks it's a game to argue about it.

He calls Scott "Daddy" instead of "Dada" but calls me "Mama" and refuses to call me "Mommy".

He likes to drop his spoon or fork and demand you pick it up for him. He's very put out when you tell him, "You dropped it. You get down and pick it up."

He must spend time outside even if it is freezing outside. He gets cabin fever really easily.

He thinks the dog is a step stool.

He cannot hear the word "night" without repeating, "nigh". Cannot. It's impossible.

He loves "nanas". We cannot go to the store without giving him a bunch to carry all throughout the store. He'll eat 3-4 a day if you let him.

He won't drink chocolate milk or hot chocolate. I have no idea where that came from.

He loves plain milk and CHEESE!

He's ready to take on the chore of feeding the dog. He'll go get the dog's bowl and fill it with a handful or two of cat food (he can't open the dog food container so he figures cat food is good enough) and then deliver it to the dog.

He insists on helping to fold the laundry. We've given him the job of putting away socks...with assistance to ensure they get to the right people.

He often wants "hel" (help) with dinner but refuses to eat if you wield the spoon. You must scoop the food on the spoon and then put it down for him to pick up and feed himself.

He gets very needy and acts like he needs a nap EVERY time I try to play Dance Dance Revolution (it's my new daily exercise) regardless of what time I play it.

He thinks tables are for sitting upon.

Ok, that's enough for now. If you want more, you can see my previous Joshua post titled "Birth Control".

I Know I Named Him That But...

Now that Sammy has reached the ripe, old age of seven, he insists that we call him Samuel. He no longer wants to be called Sammy or even Sam. It must be Samuel.

Here's the problem. I HATE the name Samuel. Yes, I know it is the name I gave him but I never intended to called him by his given name. I had every intention of calling him Sammy until he got too old (and seven is certainly not too old yet). Then I'd switch to Sam.

Last night when I slipped and called him Sammy, he vehemently reminded me that his name is Samuel. I suggested we go to court to have his birth certificate changed to Sammy.

So, don't be surprised if this next baby ends up with a common nickname on his/her birth certificate rather than a real name.

Signed,

The Mom Who Doesn't Call Her Children By Their Given Names

My Personal Potty Attendant

Do you have a personal potty attendant? I do.

You know how moms of littles can't use the restroom without being followed or at least without someone banging on the locked door? Well, Joshua has taken his role even further.

He follows me in there and closes the door for me.

If the cats or dog want to come in, too, he lets them in as well.

Then he hands me the roll of toilet paper because he knows I'm going to need it.

When I am finished, he flushes the toilet for me.

Then he drops the toilet seat cover down with a crash.

Finally, he opens the door to let me out.

He's my personal potty attendant! Isn't that nice?

Samuel's Birthday

Samuel, formerly known as Sammy, turned 7 on New Year's Eve and had a great birthday party. We invited some friends (4 siblings) to spend the night and had a blast. To start the evening, we shared pizza and apple juice. Once the kids all ate, most of them ran upstairs to play while a few of the youngest watched The Huffalump Movie.

After a while, everyone got restless so we opened presents to give our tummies more time to make room for cake. His friends gave him a nice chapter book and children's devotional. Mom and Dad gave him sparring gear for his taekwondo. He immediately wanted to try it on.


Having watched many classes, Josh knew just what to do and began beating on his older brother.


Then everyone else lined up to take shots at him, including Daddy.


After everyone had their fill beating up Samuel, we moved to cake. He loved his Star Wars Episode 3 cake. We had the store modify a Madagascar cake and then we added Obi Wan and Anakin action figures that were received as Christmas presents.


After cake, we spent the rest of the night (several hours) playing games on the Wii. Table tennis on Mario and Sonic at the Olympics and Dance Dance Revolution were the hits of the evening. Here's Samuel hitting a perfect on DDR while all the girls line dance along with him.

At midnight, we greeted the New Year and settled down for another showing of The Heffalump Movie to help the youngest settle down to sleep. He wanted to go home to his mommy until we suggested the movie.

We woke up the next morning entirely too tired and enjoyed homemade cinnamon rolls. Samuel loved his birthday party!

Josh's New Owwie

Josh has a new owwie. He was goofing off with a large ball and ended up taking a header into the corner of our coffee table. Good thing our coffee table has rounded corners. I'd hate to see what his eye would look like if they were squared corners. It actually looks worse in person.