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 |  Being a stay at home mom is never as cut and dry as you think it is. |
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Originally my pregnancy blog, now continuing on as the life of a mom and her two wacky kiddos thing till I don't want to write in it anymore  . So come on in and see what's going on in my world for a bit if you like...Be careful where you step, as the kids have all their Pokemon cards out! Feel free to hug a Hello Kitty plush! Come join in the fun, Super Mario Bros. and Hello Kitty style!![Merit Badge in Parenting
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Congratulations on your pregnancy*^*Smile*^*. You already are a wonderful mom to your son and I know this baby will be very blessed also
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In the midst of how you are feeling right now, know that it can be fixed & I'm proud of you for writing the poem that reflects how you feel. The love of your children clearly shines through. *^*Heart*^*](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/genre-Family-584.gif) ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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I'm so glad to be back blogging and reading yours. The kids have grown so much! I'm so glad that you, myself and T are still here journaling together!](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Journaling-2180.gif) the wonderful badges my "Sister", silversara, graced me with. Thanks Sis, I  you! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Thanks to all of you for your support, your comments, your love, your generosity and your time! Never met a greater bunch of people then on here! Besides, who else would want to listen to a rambling crazy mom, both during and especially after pregnancy?
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| So yesterday was Journey's fifth birthday party! We had a wonderful time with all the friends and family that made it to make her day a very special one! Two of her best friends from school, Kaylee and Grace came to her party, and she was beyond thrilled! We also got to see some family friends of ours with their seven month old son, and a cousin of Don's that we haven't seen since Don's mom's memorial, which was over three years ago. It was also nice to have Don's aunt and brother there at the party as well! Our friends Carol and her daughters came along, which was great be ause we hadn't seen then since June. All in all, great friends and family made for a really great time! Journey was loaded with so much Hello Kitty stuff it's not even funny! Hats and sunglasses and dresses and shoes and art sets and coloring books and playsets, two stuffed Hello Kittys, two large Hello Kitty puzzles...she was spoiled! It was everything she could've wanted and thensome! The cake was beautiful, as usual BJ's outdid themselves, and it was quite tasty too! We didn't have a lot of leftovers in the pizza department or the cake department if you can believe it-we had a lot of guests show up! This was Journey's best turnout for a party ever! We were ecstatic about that. So all and all, it was a wonderful day for my dolly face, I'm very happy for her how everything turned out! I hope next year's party will be just as good! |
| Journey lost her first tooth today! We were just sitting on the bed in my room, and she held out her hand and said, "Mom, my tooth fell out!", and showed it to me. Then she told me "I think I'll go throw it in the trash." I told her "Don't do that, the tooth fairy is coming tonight! You put it in your tooth fairy pillow and you'll get money for it!" Ryan chimed in with "I guess she needs to borrow my tooth fairy signal tonight!" (which is a special night light that Ryan's had since he was two. We told him that it's the tooth fairy signal to let the tooth fairy know he's lost a tooth so she can come visit and give him his money.) We tucked the tooth safely inside her tooth fairy pillow for tonight. I've got a $2 bill that I'm going to put in her pillow tonight after she goes to sleep! So exciting!! I can't believe she already lost her first tooth at 4! So then I told Journey to get into panties this morning, and lo and behold, her Dora pant was dry AGAIN. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!! I didn't even know if she would get the message to not pee in it, but she did, and now she's keeping it dry! This is AWESOME news, I'm so excited and happy for her!! She's getting to be such a big girl now! |
| Last night, or should I say earlier this morning, Journey woke up at about 5:30 in the morning, crying her eyes out. Since I've become a mother, I'm a very light sleeper, so I heard her crying, and got up to see what the problem was. When I went into her room, she told me that she really needed to go to the bathroom, so I took her to the bathroom to let her do her thing. She peed a gallon so it seemed, and was dry in her Dora pant (which is an overnight type pull up that we use on her for when she sleeps. She doesn't seem to have control of her bladder when she's asleep, and pees through the night, so in order for her to not wet the bed, we put the Dora pant on her so it will catch all the pee and the bed will be dry.). I was really surprised. When I took her back to her room, she asked me for some water. I gladly obliged, but thought to myself, "well, that's the end of that Dora pant being dry.", but I gave her water anyway. So we fast forward to this morning, when we wake up. Every morning we tell her to go to the bathroom, take off her Dora pant, and put on panties. This morning, when she took off her Dora pant, she brought it to me and told me "Look Mom, it's dry!" I was so proud of her! I told her "Good girl!! That's what we want, is a dry Dora pant every morning! If you need to go potty, wake up and call for me, and I'll take you potty no matter what, okay? We want to make it so you can sleep in panties!" She was very excited by this news, and put her Dora pant away for use tonight. Now, I can't guarantee that this is going to happen again. It may very well be that this was just a fluke, and that she won't wake up to go potty for the next four months. But it's progress. This one time that she was dry gives me hope that someday, hopefully soon, we'll be able to stop buying Dora pants, and send her to bed with just panties on, and then we'll be completely pull up/Dora pant free. |
| Guess what? The tooth fairy is coming to visit again. Not for Ryan; no no, not this time. This time, it's for Journey. I know, amazing, right? She's still only 4, and she's about to lose her first tooth! It's seriously on it's way out in a matter of days. It's very possible that she could lose her first tooth before she even turns 5. Ryan was almost 5 and a half before he lost his first tooth. It's crazy how much faster her tooth fairy experience is coming. I just can't believe that she's about to lose a tooth already. So crazy. I hope it waits till at least Friday before it comes out. We have to get a $2 bill from the bank to put out for her first tooth. Luckily, I thought of this occasion earlier, and had two tooth fairy pillows made up for this. The first one was made because I didn't think my mom could afford to make one, but she ended up finding a way to do so, so now Journey has two tooth fairy pillows. No worries, I'll just let her choose which one she wants to use when she loses her tooth. It's going to be a little trickier to get into her room in the middle of the night to get the tooth and place the dollar. She sleeps a little lightly, and her room is a disaster, so it's not like it's easy to maneuver in there. I guess we'll just have to find out when it happens, and wing it. Perhaps I should read the tooth fairy book to her too... |
Today is my 9th account birthday here on WdC! Yay!   I can't believe nine years ago, I started my account here! It hasn't been as much building on it (mostly I've stuck to writing my blog these last few years), but I'm proud to house my works here, and they do get an occasional read every once in awhile  .Ordered the cake for Journey's birthday. On Thursday, I'm going to order the pizzas. Then Saturday, we pick up the cake, the pizzas, some ice for the coolers, and some ice cream. Late Friday night, I'll be wrapping presents. She's got a lot of them too this year, considering we couldn't figure out all what to get her! I hope she loves them! They're pretty much ALL Hello Kitty, which is what her party theme is as well. She has the cutest little Hello Kitty dress to wear to her party! And the Hello Kitty cake will be a work of art! Oh, and I can't forget, Saturday we need to get the Hello Kitty balloons blown up. That's important. All school supplies are bought and ready to be delivered. We bought Ryan some new shoes to go for school. He's been wearing an old pair of 13.5s for this summer, but we didn't know if his foot had grown. Ummmm, yeah, it had. By a size and a half. He's now in size 2. Got him a haircut today as well, He needed one before school starts. Don's aunt and brother have moved up to Maryland from Florida, so we'll be seeing more of them. They're coming by tomorrow for dinner, so it'll be nice to have some time with them. Then next weekend is the birthday girl's party! I wonder when it's a perfect time to phone the party guests? Should I do it tomorrow? Or wait till the middle of the week? I'm not sure! Maybe I'll get a facebook vote... |
| Not much going on here. That's why it's been so quiet on the blog. Still working with the kids on summer school. Ryan's gotten so good at his addition facts, he's doing straight 50's in his math timed test every time, and that's out of 50 questions. On the 100 questions, he's doing 65. I'd say he's doing a pretty good job! Journey has graduated from writing letters to writing words and sentences. Every day I have her practice writing her name, and then two simple sentences that she's able to read. She's still doing really good on her reading skills. We haven't yet made that book of words that she can read. I think I'll get to it this weekend. Getting ready for Journey's birthday party a week from tomorrow. She's very excited, and I think we'll have quite a few guests. Probably the biggest turn out we've had at one of her birthday parties since her first birthday. Tomorrow we're going to go order her cake. Tonight, we're going to the store to do my favorite thing: shop for school supplies! |
| Journey surprised me today. Usually, I only work her sight word flashcards every 4-5 days. I don't want it becoming a route memorization thing. I always shuffle the cards, so they're in no particular order, to see if she's really reading them or not. There's also a pile for the cards that she hasn't quite mastered yet; the ones that she can't seem to read. That pile grows smaller and smaller every time. Today was no exception. I always bring out the pile that she can't (or so I think she can't) read from first. The first word, "do", she read like she'd been reading it this whole time. Surprised, I flipped the card and brought another one out: "say". That one tends to give her trouble sometimes. She read it without a second glance. She also read off "are", "need", "to", "home", and "an". Believe me, some are not easy words to read. You can't exactly phonetically sound out the word "home". But she read it, as if she'd been reading it this whole time. Again, we haven't looked off the pile in about 5 days. I was blown away. Then she surprised me even more, when I introduced the idea of subtraction. We've been working on addition and word problems with addition lately. She's going to do these math problems called CGI math. I don't recall what CGI stands for (cognitive something or other), but they're all word problems. I explained to her that "more" means to add, and "take away" is to subtract. After I showed her on her fingers that five take away two is three, she got the hang of it. Four take away one is three. Five take away four is one. She got it, just like that. No questions asked, no problems. Shocked me. She also surprised me by doing perfect W's all on her writing tablet, or "field journal". She's definitely ready for kindergarten. All this work has paid off. She's going to go in a little wiser than her kindergarten counterparts, as I've heard that many of them don't come in with the ability to write their names let alone words, or can add or subtract, or can read. Journey may not know how to read a whole book by herself yet, but she can read most of them, as she can read nearly 53 sight words now. In fact, if we wanted to, we could write a book ourselves with the sight words she knows. We just might do that. Academically, she's done very well. Academically was all I could work with her on. I don't know the techniques that the Special Ed teacher works on her with. I've never been told. So instead, I took it upon myself to teach her as much as I could for her to excel academically. She's going to do great things in kindergarten, I can feel it!  |
| The visit with my friend went quite well. It was a pleasure to have her around the house for the remainder of the week, going with us to places. She's a very easy going person, so she was good with whatever we did or didn't do. We stayed in a couple of nights, and went out a couple of nights-all in all, nothing too serious, but a lot of fun to have her here with us. She spoiled us rotten while she was here! But what I miss most is her company, having someone else in the house with me and the kids during the day, just enjoying the day. She says she'll come back soon; I hope soon is sooner than a year! But even if it IS in a year, I will be ecstatic, which means we'll get annual visits from her, which is awesome to me! But if we get to see her before then, I will be thrilled beyond belief! I love having her over. So do the kids. (Of course, so does Don as well!) Journey, in fact, was so attached to my friend, that she nearly bawled herself sick over watching her leave. Since I'm in my monthly hormonal state, I began to cry seeing Journey cry. So we shed a few tears over my friend's departure. I hope she can come back soon, so Journey won't miss her so much. Ryan, on the other hand, was okay with my friend going back home, though he is going to miss her as well. He knows she'll come back, and he'll see her again soon. Journey is just very emotional, and gets attached very easily. Today we went to Journey's friend's birthday party. Journey was ecstatic that she got to see her friends from school! Three of the girls that she invited to her birthday party, she got to see today. It was a wonderful party, very family oriented, and the little girl's parents are the nicest people you'll ever meet. They have a swimming pool in their backyard, so all the kids were able to go swimming. Ryan decided to go in the pool without any assistance and nearly went under; I ran and yanked him by his hand back to the steps before he could nearly drown. He swam just fine with a foam noodle under his arms the rest of the time though. Journey, who also doesn't know how to swim, was glued to Don most of the time. We had an episode where she was riding on a raft, it tipped over and she fell straight in, but Don was there to grab her after she went under and pull her back up to safety. We had a good lunch there, and the cake was delicious! Journey was so excited for her friend to open her present from her, but her friend was anxious to open everything on the table as quickly as possible! Can't blame the girl for efficiency! When we left, we reminded the three girls when Journey's birthday party would be, and assured them we would call to remind them. Journey got a nifty little color me backpack as a party favor that she will use to carry her books from the library in. So all in all, not a bad visit or a bad party. We had a pretty good week! I don't think any other weeks will be as enjoyable as this week was (because of having my friend over), but I'm sure we'll get by just fine until Journey's party, and then till school starts. |
| So good news! I am officially excused from jury duty. I told them I didn't have a sitter to watch my kids during the time they were asking for me, and they let me go. I don't know how long that's going to last; for instance, I don't know what the cycles between jury duty callings is. If I'm out of it for now, I don't know if they'll try to call me into again in the next 3-5 years. All I know at this point is, I've been officially excused from jury duty. Now I can focus on spending time with my friend while she's here, and continuing with the kids' summer schooling. I'm very excited for my friend to come. The kids love her, they enjoy her company as well. She usually brings them books as "birthday presents". Last night Ryan asked me what books she was bringing for them, I told him I wasn't sure, but I think she's bringing Fancy Nancy books for Journey and Magic Tree House books for Ryan. I always tell her she doesn't have to bring anything while she's here, we just enjoy her company, but she always brings something! We got most of the party supplies for Journey's birthday party yesterday. Now we just have to order a cake and some pizza, get some juice boxes, and some soda and ice, maybe some ice cream, and we'll be good to go! The last thing we have to pick up for the goodie bags is Hello Kitty silly bands, hopefully Toys R Us has some. I couldn't really find many party favors sadly, but I guess what I have will do. Not much else going on. Just thought I'd let you all in on the jury duty development. |
| I'm supposed to go in for jury duty on Monday. I REALLY don't want to. I'm probably going to tell them that the baby sitter I had lined up is having surgery (which is true) but that she can't watch them anymore. I hope that gets me out of it. I also have two more appointments that I forgot to ask off for, and I don't know if they'll give them to me, especially when one is on Tuesday and it's at such short notice. If they don't let me out of it, I'll be trapped in a courtroom from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm every weekday. Yeah, like I want to do THAT. Sure sure, I know it's my "civic duty", but man, I have kids I need to take care of! I have health issues that need to be addressed with doctors appointments and therapy appointments! My daughter has an appointment to get the rest of her shots so she can go to school, on her birthday. I need time like that off. I don't know what to do about all of this, but it's making my insides churn, and I feel sick at the very thought of it. I'd offer to come back and do it during the school year, but I'd have to be assured that I would be able to start at 9 am and end at 3 pm, so I can get the kids on the bus and get them off the bus after school ends. I don't have anyone to watch my kids after school. This is a crock. It's interfering with all the things I need to do. So frustrating. Anyway. Having a friend from Connecticut come out and stay with us from Wednesday to Sunday. I haven't seen her in about a year, so it will be good to catch up with her again...unless I have stupid jury duty in which case I won't be seeing much of her at all, and I'll be spending all my time in stupid court. And I didn't even do anything to have to be stuck there. Either way, it will be good to see her again. I just hope I have time to do school with the kids still. We're working really hard on Journey's writing skills. We're currently up to "Q" in her "field journal" as she calls it. All it is is a writing tablet that I purchased from Walmart specifically designed for kindergarten to 2nd grade writing. It has raised lines on the top and bottom to show where the letters should start and end. She's getting a lot better about staying in the lines. I hope I can continue on our work before they head back to school.  Ryan's getting better every day at his math website! He's hitting the high 40's, low 50's range out of 50-100 problems. We've also been to the library again. This time Ryan got two longer chapter books, and Journey's doing more early reader books. That's about it in these parts. I'll come back and tell you if they let me out of jury duty, or if I was forced into it. I hope the former, not the latter. |
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