Eric and Dad left in the morning to watch some car racing. Mom came over for the day. Lili had to work. The rest of the day was keeping up with meals, dishes and prepping for Dad's dinner. Kids and I had Saturday bubble baths. Cards were made for Grampa and a whole lot of lego happened. The boys showed off their reading skills. Jia had a knitting lesson with Gramma. I'm in bed early. Lili is at a party so Eric is waiting up for her call to be picked up. He's a good Dad.
The boys brought home their first reading homework today. Extremely repetitive. Only a few pages. One sentence each page. Only one word changes. Luk had his book mastered. No surprise. I sat with Kai and did a picture walk, read the book a couple times and did finger placement for five more tries while getting him to copy my words one by one. After seven times of going through the book he started 'getting' the changing words. Then he sat and read the book. With some prompting to keep going and turn pages but he read the words!! I didn’t believe there was any chance of that happening any time soon or ever. He cried. I cried. Eric left us...I suspect to cry ;)
Kai just wanted back to his lego and tv. Luk then came and mastered Kai's book too.
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Disneystrology
How fun.
Shelley - Lilo
Fei - Maurice
Lili - Snow White
Eric - Charlotte La Bouff
Kai - Nita (Brother Bear 2)
Luk - Jasmine
Jia - Jiminy Cricket
The flood remains a big deal. Renovations are on going. We are no where near moving back into our basement. We have stuff squirrelled away all over the place. Eric's shop is full and his tools are spilling out as he works here and there. I'm gathering for our trip but my little areas are spilling over so now I'm moving onto the dining room table. It's really four trips in one. Road trip, Disney, Halloween and a cruise. All requiring different wardrobes. I'm almost finished Christmas shopping and it's all shoved into my glory hole with suitcases and travel supplies. Eek. It's not pretty. Tonight Lili needed a clothing item from a clean laundry basket and I wouldn't let her dig because she routinely makes a massive mess requiring a whole lot of refolding. So while I'm too busy already I had to sort and put away laundry. I really should take a picture. It's amazing how big a pile from one week is. The boys go through double the rest of us. The pain is real. We do so much laundry. Our machines are heavily over worked.
I told Eric I was feeling over burdened by my to do list. We went over the list and where will the house sitter sleep came up (guest room from basement is gone). Today Eric solved it. He made a bed in our living room. Of course now kids want on it ;)
Having a house sitter is wonderful and a lot of work. The house needs to be nice for her otherwise why would she want to come here!
The big girls are starting to let their teachers know they need to get ahead of their work for the holiday. There's no chance there will be time on the holiday for projects.
Lili got a lead role in a school play. She's pretty happy about that.
Kai has begun eating all of his lunch at snack time. Ugh. So now some one has to dole out snack to him. He also can not remember to close his water bottle and his new agenda came home drenched. Made it one day. It's all warbly. Agenda is in a zip lock now. A day too late. I was told this morning that he is making progress with his pencil work. Perhaps the new glasses are helping. He has started going to a play group for special kids through Clements after school on Tuesday. He's gone twice now and he likes going. Eric takes him after school and I pick him up after work. There is a tv and lego there ;)
Luk is doing great at school. He's ready to read any minute. I love watching the moment it clicks for kids. He was beginning to read last year and then lost interest when he was so fatigued. He's making progress with physio. His therapist told me today he's significantly stronger and able to balance more.
Not much new for Fei and Jia. No news is good news. Jia's teacher is using fresh grade and sending lots of lovely updates, pictures and copies of her projects. I'm used to not hearing anything so it's quite refreshing.
It was a quiet affair with only five families. Sad to see the huge group disband as the kids get older. Still great to see friends. It was cold but we enjoyed the outing and the company.
We went to Value Village to find Kai some bigger jean shorts. He needs size 8. Yikes. Shopping for the holiday out of season. Thank goodness for the VV Boutique. Then to meet friends at Spaghetti Factory for dinner. Still a family favorite.
I finished the crowns this morning. Fitting for our little Prince on his Birthday.
We celebrated all day. Luk went with Eric to pick up his cake. It wasn't as ordered but he loved it. We left at noon for the raptor center. It was a perfect fall day. We enjoyed our time there. The flying demonstration was cool. Kai missed the point and made our time there about jostling for position on the benches. Oh how I wish we could use reasoning with him.
We came home to make dumplings. Once I was set up stuffing them Eric took Luk, Fei and Jia with him to drop Lili at work. They stopped at the library on the way home. Jia is all about Magic Treehouse books and she wanted one to read at home. I thought she didn't care for them and passed ours all on. Lili and Fei used to love them. Now as I type this Jia is curled behind me reading out loud to me. We didn’t think Kai could manage the library today so he stayed with me at home.
We did face paints, tattoos and had fun with TMNT masks(Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).
It was a great day.
Friday feels a bit like a celebration after surviving the week! We're all getting over sniffles.
The boys are EXHAUSTED. Yesterday morning Luk was sitting naked (diapered) and playing. I asked him if he was ready for school. He said yes. Yikes. Yesterday Kai had three meltdowns at school. One of them so bad that he had to be removed from the class then it escalated in the hallway and the principal came to see what the howling was. They were preparing for a code red drill so Kai had to be removed from the school. His EA took him for a walk down the road. Poor kid. He could never, ever understand 'be quiet' there is a shooter in the school. And that's a whole other thing...practicing what the frig to do if there is danger. Lots of big conversations here. Kai threw his whole lunch out at school. No one knows why. Believe me, of all kids Kai is the least likely to skip a meal. Luk says Kai wouldn't write an A so he missed snack redoing his work. Kai concurred with tears. I asked this morning and was assured he got snack. I wonder if there was a lag and he maybe wasn't first. For Kai seeing all the kids eat before him would be TORTURE.
Lili worked three evening shifts and the girls have a new piano schedule. So every night this week was more complicated than usual. Their piano has moved to two hours and shifted to 5:15 to 7:15. Messes with dinner. Last night we grocery shopped with the littles while they had their lesson. We ended up rushing. Shopping with little kids is trying. Then we were home late. Had groceries to put away. Boys to get to bed. Paperwork of the day. Three girls with lots to say. We need to fine tune the schedule more. We can't keep up this pace.
Eric has been busier than usual so we're behind on house work and laundry too. Luk's 6th Birthday tomorrow. He's asked for dumplings. If there is no rain we're going to go to the raptor center. He ordered his cake last night. Vanilla cake, cream cheese icing with all colors of roses. So sweet. He was thrilled and took it very seriously. The lady taking the order was delighted with Luk. I'm curious to see what she creates for him.
So tonight I looked around at the houses needs and decided to make crowns for the boys instead. Jia wanted one too. They're for Disney and Jia has two tiaras to pick from! Both boys were happy sitting and watching before bed.
Together again. First time in many years!
We went to uptown. Light lunch in a coffee shop and then they took off for a few hours.
I wandered around on my own and got the lay of the land. Uptown has redeemed itself for me.
