Stripping Wallpaper...Again

Today I spent another hour stripping wallpaper and cleaning the glue off the wall. It's partly mundane, and partly refreshing, and partly fulfilling. I've decided that I need to do something that stays finished, every day. Then when flour is strewn over the just detail-cleaned kitchen (hopefully you think that happens more than it does, which makes it that much worse), at least there is something else that stays done and doesn't get "messed up" by anyone else. A measure of completion. I need to decide what paint to put on the wall, though. And maybe if I can finish in the next couple days I can win the stripping wallpaper race that the Robinson's never said they'd join that I thought would be fun.

Early Childhood

Today Susan (our case worker from Birth to Three) and Theresa (our case worker from the school district) came by to help ease us into transitioning to the school system. When Jeremiah turns three, he is no longer eligible for services from Birth to Three. Luckily, his birthday is the week before school starts, so he doesn't have a "summer vacation" from speech therapy.

Jeremiah will be entering Early Childhood in the fall. He'll be one of six students in a class; there is a teacher, a teacher's assistant, as well as other helpers for the children (including a speech-language pathologist and an occupational therapist) who come in for parts of days. We get to choose how often he'll attend preschool, whether we'll put him on the bus (in a car seat, with other children attending his same school who are also in car seats), and what exactly we wish for him to learn while he's at school. I'm excited for more people to love him and be involved in his life.

I will be signing Isaac up for preschool in the fall as well. I think Jeremiah will go in the morning and Isaac in the afternoon, so I can spend time with each of them individually every day. And hopefully they'll get along better spending less time together, and learning that the rules we have for their behavior towards each other are consistent with their behavior to other children.

A Romantic Evening

Alison and I had a date night tonight (and I mean night; it started after I had fallen asleep at around midnight). We ate way too much chocolate, had a salad to make up for it, and made this
The programming "language" we used is called scratch designed by educators at MIT to teach programming. I put language in quotes because you don't actually type any words, all the coding is done with colorful lego blocks that say "if touches " and "change direction".
So we made a fun game for our date night; sharing the mouse pad on the laptop was the best part ;)

A Summer Storm

Tonight John and I took our kids to Wal-Mart. We needed to stock up on some things (mostly diapers), spontaneously bought Isaac a new car seat and pajamas and toilet paper, and a basket of plastic fruit for Jeremiah. I guess the toilet paper was for all of us.

We checked to see whether it was raining before we exited the store. It wasn't. I think we covered up Danielle with a blanket anyway. As we got to our car, a huge blast of storm hit. Carts were driving through the parking lot unattended, the kids got wet after they were inside our car because the hatchback door was open and the wind made the rain fly instead of fall, we kept chasing after our carts as we were getting the kids in because we thought getting the kids in was our first priority and didn't think about our "stuff."

It was a blast! John and I got soaked.Isaac was talking about "the rain and the wind and the lightning and it was scary and it was fun and it was wet" the entire way home. Jeremiah was laughing. And Danielle was so cute: she looked surprised when the wind blew her blanket off of her and she got wet, but she was happy about it.

Popsicle Sticks

When I came back from Oregon and gave Jeremiah a popsicle, I was impressed that he knew to put the popsicle stick into the garbage. But then I bought popsicle molds. And the first time, Jeremiah put the popsicle stick into the garbage. So I showed him to put the plastic stick into the sink. Now, whenever he has a popsicle, he puts the stick into the sink.

He generalized this "sink instead of garbage" for his apple cores, fruit snack wrappers, and other "garbage."

He tried a piece of raw broccoli today and didn't particularly like it. So he took it out of is mouth, thought about it, and got a cute smile, ran into the kitchen, and came back empty-handed. Then he took another piece of broccoli into the kitchen... He was so proud of himself for putting the "yucky broccoli" into the sink.

While I was making dinner, Jeremiah came into the kitchen with a huge grin and reached up to put a plate from snack-time into the sink, and then went to get the other plate to put it into the sink as well.

Everything goes into the sink. And he's so happy about it.

The Mating Dance

You know how some birds or other animals have a sort of mating dance ritual to woo a mate? Jeremiah sort of does the same thing.

The Colton's came over to help us eat pie on Sunday, and Jeremiah went up to Emily (she's 7) and danced his mating dance for her. It's a cute little dance, but he's just so serious when he does it. He stood directly in front of her, stared into her eyes, and started moving his feet in an intricate pattern.

Isaac likes to dance for Danielle, and Jeremiah does too. And Danielle will crack up when the boys dance for her (good positive reinforcement). So I think that's where this started.

Jeremiah seemed to really like Emily, which is why his dancing seemed more like a mating dance than an ordinary dance. He took her hand and led her to his room to play. He gave her long, long hugs (seriously more than 30 seconds long). And he was sad when she had to go.

Happy Birthday to John!

Today's John's birthday! Woohoo! The big 2-7!

We had salmon for his birthday dinner, with a couple friends. And then we had pie (homemade, of course...but this time the crust wasn't light and flaky...I'd honestly have to say it was...like cardboard...the crust, that is) with some other friends.

And he received a couple birthday presents that he's way super excited about, so I'll let him share that later...

And Isaac almost sang "Happy Birthday" but then he changed his mind. Unfortunate.