Samantha's Holiday Program & Getting Sick with a High Fever

Samantha: 66 Months, Week 5
Aedan: 31 Months, Week 3

Mornings in our house are always fun. Even though Ben and I may not be ready to be up and full of energy, our kids always are. Samantha usually wakes up between 7:00 and 7:15, and Aedan has been waking up before 7:00 lately. Here is Aedan in his favorite Woody and Buzz pajamas, with Sissy's wings on, singing the alphabet song into a microphone, and walking around in circles. Oh, if only I could have that much energy in the morning!

Tuesday was a busy day with kind of a hectic morning. Ben had a final and meetings later in the day, but we had some things that needed to be taken care of in the morning. For example, I made an appointment for Roscoe to be groomed. His hair was getting shaggy, his nails were getting long, and it seemed like he was having trouble standing up when he was trying to eat his dinner, so I hoped getting his nails cut and hair trimmed between his paws would help him. However, I also had MOPS that day and with Thanksgiving and Christmas, our schedule was not normal and we hadn't met in awhile, so I wanted to be sure to go on that Tuesday morning. Since Ben's schedule was more open in the morning, and since we only have one car, Ben dropped Aedan and me off at church before taking Roscoe out to the groomer who lives in the country. He was then able to go to campus for a meeting before coming back to pick us up when MOPS was over. It was a Christmas themed meeting where everyone was told to wear pajamas or an ugly sweater and bring a white elephant present for a gift exchange. It was a fun time, but I still find it difficult to really get to know people in such a large group setting. I am not good at small talk and my shyness definitely comes out more.

After Ben came back to pick Aedan and me up, we had to go drop him off on campus first before driving all the way back out to pick up Roscoe and go back home. The groomer was not able to completely groom Roscoe because he just kept turning around in circles on the table and snapping at the scissors and other instruments. She didn't want to put him under too much stress, so she decided to stop grooming him and wasn't able to trim any of his face or his nails. I was more than a little bit frustrated because his face and his feet are the two areas that really needed to be groomed. I was afraid this would happen with Roscoe, and it wasn't going to work if he never allowed anyone to groom him anymore. She suggested I contact the animal clinic for nail trimming and possible future grooming. We obviously cannot afford to be paying tons of money just to groom Roscoe every few months, so this is another one of the last straws for keeping him around. We have been considering putting him down more often lately just because he is acting so much more unsettled in the house, can't even find his food bowl to eat, knocks his water bowl over and makes a mess because he can't see, has to be carried up and down the stairs and in and out of the house, and now since it's cold, he has been going to the bathroom more in the house. We don't want to put up with too much and keep him around longer than we should, both for our sanity and for Roscoe's quality of life. It's just hard to know what that limit is, at least for me. Ben is more ready to put him down because he's tired of dealing with him and doesn't feel as much of a connection with him as I do. When I think of putting him down, it makes me sad, and sometimes I'm not sure why. Roscoe's had a long, good life with us, and we've had some good times with him, especially when he was younger. However, even though he can be cranky or snappy with me, he still seems to like me because he will cuddle with me on the couch during nap time and bed time when the kids aren't around. Plus, it's just difficult for me to make the decision to kill a living thing, dog or not. I had been going back and forth for awhile on what I thought, and I was more convinced that I wanted to put him down after his unsuccessful grooming on Tuesday morning. In fact, I made an appointment to take Roscoe into the animal hospital that afternoon to get his nails trimmed and also to talk to a doctor about Roscoe's quality of life and when we should consider putting him down. The vet basically said he is definitely in the range where it would be perfectly acceptable to put him down, and that it is obviously our decision based on how we think his quality of life is. If he continues to go to the bathroom in the house, that will definitely be one of the last straws for me because I have enough to do around the house without having to clean up after Roscoe. However, I still just felt so undecided about what decision to make. I felt pressured to make a decision before Christmas because if we were to put him down, it would make more sense to just put him down before we leave for a week and a half for Christmas and have to pay for him to be watched. It was good to talk to the vet and get his perspective, but it was really hard for me to come to a decision.

Later that afternoon once Samantha got home from school, she got changed into her Christmas dress. Her Holiday Program at school started at 5:00, so we didn't have much time before we needed to head to school. However, Samantha was not looking like her normal self and told us that she was feeling cold a lot at school that day. I took her temperature and she was running a little bit of a fever. However, she had been looking forward to her Holiday Program for a long time, so we decided to let her still go since we knew it wasn't going to last for too long anyways. They had three songs that they sang with just the kindergarten classes and then one song with the kindergarten and first grade classes all together. Here are some pictures and videos of Samantha during her program. She was so proud, and it was fun to sit in the audience and watch her perform with her class.

As the evening went on, we could tell that Samantha wasn't feeling well. You can always see it in her face when she has a fever. Her eyes are glossed over, her eyes are sunken in, and she has huge bags under her eyes as well. I felt so bad that she was coming down with something and would have to miss school the next day because of a fever.

We tried to give Samantha as much rest as possible on Wednesday, hoping that her fever would not last too long and she could get back to school. However, we did have a few errands we needed to run that morning, so I bundled the kids up and took them out for a little while. We had to try to drop off a package to be shipped back to Amazon, and we had to return some DVDs at the library. Both kids wanted to stay and play, and Samantha had a little more energy at that point, but we knew she still needed to be careful and take it easy so that she could hopefully get better soon. After making those two stops, we headed back home before making it to Walmart. It was just too cold to drag the kids to the store, especially with Samantha not feeling well. A cold front was coming through, so it was getting really windy outside and the temperature was dropping. By mid-afternoon it was snowing, and it was supposed to snow for the rest of the night and into Thursday as well.

Samantha's fever came back by lunch time that day, and she was eager to take a nap that afternoon but did not end up sleeping for very long at all, maybe half an hour, and Aedan slept only about an hour, so it was going to be an early bedtime for both of them that night. This last week especially, he hasn't been napping as well. It has been taking him longer to fall asleep and then he won't sleep for as long as usual. Ben and I have been talking a lot more lately about how we are probably reaching a new phase with Aedan fighting his naps more than usual. We have been really lucky up to this point that he hasn't fought his naps sooner like Samantha was at this point.

At one point that evening Samantha went off on her own and came back with this little note that she wrote all by herself just for us. She's very sweet and a very good little writer and speller.

Ben had to go back to campus for one more final later that afternoon but it was so nice having him home again for dinner, play time, and bed time. I hung up a couple strands of Christmas lights around our basement, so the kids decided to turn off all the lights and put on a Christmas concert for us. Then, they even gave Ben and me a turn to perform as well and Samantha took over the duty of taking pictures.

Samantha was still running a fever that evening before bed, so we told her to make sure to sleep in as long as she wanted to the next morning. We weren't going to wake her up, and we had no plans but to hang out around the house again. We were disappointed that she still wasn't feeling very well, but the good news was that the winter storm we had come through was so bad, so cold, so windy, and with so much snow that all the local schools cancelled school for Thursday, meaning Samantha didn't have to worry about missing school and I didn't have to worry about subbing either. After getting the kids to bed that night, I took this picture and video of the storm outside. It was so incredibly windy that you could hear it blowing, and you could hardly see across the street because of the amount of snow being blown around. I was grateful for our nice warm house and chance for a snow day the next day.

Here is what it looked like outside our house the next morning. We were living in a winter wonderland, and we still got more snow that day, although it wasn't nearly as windy as it was the day before.

We had a nice, relaxing, but productive morning together. It was so nice to have a family day where no one had to go anywhere: no school, no work. We got some things done around the house in preparation for our home visit to become foster parents, like putting in outlet plugs, setting up the gates, and figuring out that we needed a new smoke detector in order to attach it to our hallway ceiling. The kids helped Ben make Christmas cookie dough so that we could make more Christmas cookies the next day. We let the kids watch Frosty the Snowman in honor of our first snow day, and then I helped the kids make a snowman craft out of paper plates, pipe cleaners, and cotton balls. They had a lot of fun gluing on the cotton balls, using Q-tips to spread on the glue. Aedan likes any craft that involves using glue, and i think both of their snowmen turned out really cute. It was such a fun project to do with my kids.

Both kids took good naps that afternoon, which was different from the day before. However, Samantha still was not feeling well. Here she is cuddling with her Daddy after waking up from her nap that afternoon. In the past when she's had a fever, they don't usually last for this long, but it seemed like as soon as her medicine wore off, her fever would come right back. She was very cold and shivering quite a bit. In fact, she preferred to stay under a blanket to keep herself warm, and she was more lethargic than we've ever seen her before. She just had no energy and kept laying down on the couch or even in her bed under the covers. She had no interest or energy to play with Aedan, which was really hard for him to understand. He just wanted to have Sissy's attention and have fun with her, but she was not feeling well still.

Although Aedan wasn't sick like Samantha, he had developed a stuffy, runny nose, but didn't have a fever at all. However, he had a rough couple of nights with waking up crying a couple of times during the night and needing us to go up to console him. Plus, Samantha was waking up at night saying she was hot and needed more medicine, so Ben and I hadn't had very good nights either. Since we were all tired and needed to relax, we decided to continue our snow day with letting the kids watch part of The Polar Express. We moved the coffee table away and spread out sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows. You can see Samantha all bundled up in her sleeping bag because her fever was making her feel so cold.

As the evening went on, Samantha's temperature was just not going away and was above 102. We were concerned with how she was so cold with the chills and was just so lethargic. I decided to try to take her into a walk-in clinic to see if they had any more advice of what we could do for her. However, because of the bad weather that day, both walk-in clinics closed early, so Samantha and I just headed back home, she took a quick shower, and we tucked her into bed.

Since Ben was done with finals, I accepted a job at Bahweting as a paraprofessional in the special ed room on Friday, thinking that I'd be able to go to school with Samantha. However, since she still had a pretty high fever on Thursday night, there was no chance she was going to go to school on Friday either. Unfortunately, Ben had to wake Samantha up the morning in order to take me to school so that way he could keep the car in case he wanted to take her in to the doctor to get checked out. My day was pretty crazy and unusual that day. There were only four kids in the special ed room, but it was in the middle school so there were a lot of issues involved. Also, for the first hour I was there, the main teacher was not even there. In fact, I showed up and the kids were waiting outside the door to get into the classroom, but I didn't have a key to get us in. Eventually the principal let us in and said someone would be down to be with me shortly, but no one came, no plans were left, and I had no idea how to deal with the behaviors of these challenging middle school students. Eventually, I called the office to see if anyone was going to come, and the superintendent finally came down to sit with the kids and me. The day was very unstructured and slow, so it seemed to drag on and on. In fact, I feel like I spent most of the day just watching one of the boys that refused to participate in any activity, while the teacher tried to interact with the other students. The boy that I watched just played with toys that were for kids half his age and said more swear words in one day than I have heard in most my life. I figure I can do anything for one day, and I was getting paid the teacher sub pay rate, but I'm not sure I would take a job like that again.

Ben and Aedan came to pick me up after school, but Samantha chose to stay at the house. In fact, Ben had to wake Samantha up again and gave her the option of going back to sleep or coming with them to get me. I was so surprised that she had been sleeping so much, and that we had to wake her up twice that day, which I felt bad about. These are the times when it would be nice to have more than one car. Clearly her body was needing extra sleep to try to fight off this infection that was giving her such a fever for so long.

The kids had helped Ben cut and bake the Christmas cookies that morning, so after school our task was to decorate the cookies with icing and sprinkles. The kids did a really nice job of decorating the cookies and keeping their fingers out of their mouths since they were both under the weather and we were making these cookies to give out at our church for the Sock the Soo event that upcoming Sunday.

Samantha's fever went down a little bit on Friday morning, but went up again later that afternoon. It was sad that she was feeling sick for so long, especially at this time of year because there are so many fun activities to be a part of, but not when you're running a fever. In fact, on Saturday morning Samantha slept in until past 9:30 which is completely unheard of for her. The rest of us were playing in the basement so that way Aedan wouldn't disturb her sleep. We didn't want to wake her up like we had to do on Friday morning. We hoped that her fever broke overnight since she was sleeping for so long, but it was still over 102. We decided to take her to the walk-in clinic, so I dropped Ben and Samantha off at the clinic before taking Aedan to his ice skating lesson. They checked Samantha for everything at the clinic: strep throat, ear infection, the flu, and everything came back negative. They told us to just keep having her drink lots of fluid, get rest, and switch back and forth between Motrin and Tylenol, which was all stuff we were already doing. We were glad that there was nothing wrong with Samantha, but it's always frustrating when you just have to wait a virus out, especially when there are no other symptoms other than a fever and a stuffy nose.

Aedan was pretty excited to go to ice skating lessons on Saturday. He had developed a pretty stuffy nose as well, and his cheeks were bright red and chapped from a combination of the cold, dry air and wiping at his runny nose all the time. However, I was so proud of him during his lesson. He was walking all around the ice all by himself, even pushing off with one foot at a time a little bit. His teacher also said that he is able to stand up on his own if he wants to, but sometimes he will just refuse to do it on his own. I'm glad that he is getting used to the ice. We have decided to sign Aedan up for the next session of Snow Plow Sam, and then maybe after that we might consider switching him over to the Learn to Skate-Hockey classes.

After Aedan's lesson was over, we stopped at the post office to buy Christmas stamps so we could send out our Christmas cards, and then we met Daddy and Sissy back at the walk-in clinic. They were still waiting, so Daddy left with Aedan to go to his hair cut appointment, and then they met us back at the clinic again. We got home much later than we would have liked and still had to have lunch, but we felt good that we at least ruled out any possible sicknesses that could be causing Samantha to feel so crummy. The doctor basically said that if she still had a fever in three days, to we may want to consider bringing her back in again to see if anything new developed. The hardest part was just that Samantha had to miss so many special Christmas events. She already missed school on Wednesday and Friday. She missed skating lessons, and we also had plans to go to a Skate with Santa activity on Saturday night, that she couldn't go to anymore. Plus, there was an Elf Extravaganza on Sunday afternoon at her school that we signed her up for, but with her fever of above 102, there was no way she was going to go to any of those events. Also, on Sunday night there was a Sock the Soo event at our church that we wanted to go to, and Samantha had been looking forward to it for awhile now. Starting Monday, they were doing special Christmas activities at school, so if she still had a fever on Sunday, we knew she'd have to miss school on Monday as well. We hoped so much that she would start to feel better soon. Our poor little girl. :( It's hard to see your kids not feeling well. The good thing though, is that Samantha has been feeling so worn out that she has taken good, long naps most of the days that she has been home, which we hoped would help her feel better sooner.

The weekend was super cold, with temperatures down in the single digits and wind chills colder than that. Plus, it snowed most of the day on Saturday, another 6-8 inches on top of the 18 inches we already had. The snow was pretty, but especially with our kids both being sick, we did not spend any time playing outside. It was pretty to look at out our front windows though! If it's going to be cold, it might as well snow!

I know I mentioned earlier in this blog that Ben and I have been considering putting Roscoe down, and I was undecided for most of the weekend. I was able to trim his tail and face on my own at home. I think he is more comfortable with me, so he let me clean him up a lot more. He was looking a little too much like a lion after his grooming appointment the last Tuesday. Part of me wondered if he would do better at his grooming appointments if I stayed with him and helped him stay calmer while the groomer did her job. Roscoe had a good few days in a row, so I told Ben that I wasn't ready to make the decision to put him down yet, but then he had two accidents on Thursday and three accidents on Friday in the house. All those accidents made me even more unsure. I didn't want to feel pressured into a decision just because of getting ready to go out town, and I'm sure that it will be hard and sad no matter when I decide to do it. Ben is already ready, so I felt bad that I was the one hesitating on making the decision. I don't feel ready, but I also don't want to keep cleaning up accidents in the house all winter because it's too cold and snowy for him to go outside. Roscoe is a very old dog and has lived a long, good, comfortable life, but he's been such a part of our family and our married life, that it will be weird when we no longer have him. In light of all our talk about putting Roscoe down, I decided to take a picture of me holding him. So here's our little furry old man.

The other interesting development from this week was that I decided to apply for the paraprofessional vacancy in Samantha's classroom. Her teacher talked to me about whether or not I would like to consider the job. I wasn't sure at first, but I decided it wouldn't hurt to apply and see what happens and how much they would pay me. The application was pretty involved, and I finally finished it on Thursday night. I was contacted pretty quickly on Friday about interviewing the following Wednesday, the last day of school before Christmas break. The paraprofessional position would be full time, but I would only be committing to it for the remainder of the school year. At first I didn't even consider it because then I would have to put Aedan in day care somewhere, and I wasn't sure if I was ready for that yet or not. However, on the flip side, we would only need day care until the middle of April when Ben is done with the semester. I was planning on trying to sub as much as I could after he was done anyways, and he was planning on staying home with Aedan at that point. Also, Ben and I could use some extra money to help us get on better financial ground since we wiped ourselves clean in moving to the U.P., owning a home which is more expensive with little costs, upkeep, and repairs, and we haven't really felt like we have caught up yet. I could potentially make enough money that we could build our bank account back up and start saving money to buy a mini-van this summer. It would be nice to make some money and to get experience in the classroom again, but not have to be the classroom teacher with all the work and outside responsibilities. But, then I also don't like the idea of leaving Aedan with someone else in a day care setting, even for a few months. I feel like if he went to a day care he probably would end up giving up his naps, which I (and he) are not ready for. Also, going back to work would make our life a lot more hectic and crazy because all the things that I get done around the house during the week would not get done until nighttime or the weekend. Plus, the other wrench in the plan is if we get a foster child, for that would make our life even crazier, and it seems silly to get a foster child and then stick them in day care with someone else for most of the day. So again, I felt really torn on what I want to do, if I were to be offered the job. My head just felt like it was spinning with all these decisions on what to do with Roscoe and what to do with working, and I didn't know what the right thing would be to do.

We thought Samantha was on the mend more on Sunday morning. She had a slight temperature that morning, and Ben gave her Tylenol at 7:30 but she didn't have any after that and didn't have a temperature in the afternoon. In fact, we decided to all go to church together and just had Samantha sit with us in the big church just to be safe and not have her around any kids until we were sure that she was officially fever free. We were really hoping she could go to school on Monday.

On Sunday afternoon Samantha napped for 2 1/2 hours and woke up very sweaty. In fact, I ended up having to wake her up so that we could eat dinner, and we were afraid if she slept for too long then she wouldn't be able to sleep that night. I was hoping her fever broke and she would feel much better when she woke up after that long nap, but she was still acting a little lethargic and not quite like herself. We ate homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner before heading to church for Sock the Soo. We arrived at 6:00 and filled up our stocking with items from the tables around the church, then we got back in the car to deliver the stocking. Ben decided it would be nice to deliver the stocking to the lady in his class who is a single mom of a three year old. It was still bitter cold out, and Samantha was cuddled up under her blanket in the car. I even mentioned that we could just go back home and not go to church for singing and cookies, but Samantha made it seem like she was feeling okay and wanted to still go. Aedan did not nap that afternoon, so he was tired as well that night. The kids got to choose their cookies, which they were excited about, but sitting around and singing Christmas carols that they don't know is not that exciting to a 5 1/2 year old and 2 1/2 year old. We stayed for a few songs, but Samantha just could not get warmed up and just curled up on Ben's lap. Aedan was being cranky about wanting more cookies. So at that point we decided it was time to go home and get our kids to bed. Samantha had a slight fever, not a really high one, but she never acts normal after we have to wake her up from a nap.

Monday morning we told Samantha to sleep in as long as she wanted because she probably would not be going to school again. I, however, had a sub job as a paraprofessional in her class on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. It was kind of sad going to school without her, but we decided that if she seemed like she was feeling better and had more energy, that maybe Ben could bring her in later that morning. We wondered if her slight increase in temperature on Sunday evening was just a fluke or as a result from being out in the cold and doing too much too soon. Because other than that time, Samantha's temperature wasn't above the magic 100.4 number that is the cut off for being going to school. After going back home, finishing breakfast, and getting ready, Ben brought her back to school, just before 10:00 so Samantha had a few minutes to join her class for P.E. I was so glad to see her at school, and the other kids in her class were so happy to see her as well.

My day as a paraprofessional went well. It was good to be able to help out Ms. Cornwell in the classroom, to get to know the students better, and to see how Samantha spends her day at school. In the afternoon all the elementary classes took a bus to the auditorium at LSSU to watch a special Christmas movie together. They brought water bottles and popcorn to eat while they watched the movie. I was glad that Samantha didn't miss out on the chance to do this with her class. While the classes were at the movie, I stayed back at the school with another paraprofessional, Ms. Corbiere, who is normally in Mr. McBride's class, but has been helping in Samantha's class in the afternoons the last couple of months. Ms. Corbiere and I spent the whole afternoon hot gluing graham crackers to milk cartons as the outside of the gingerbread houses for the kids to decorate the next day. It was good being able to chat with her for awhile, to hear about what the job of a paraprofessional entails at Bahweting, about what I could possibly be paid, and a little about the various kindergarten classes and the personalities of the teachers. She told me that she would be surprised if they allowed me to be in the same class as my daughter, so that gave me a different perspective on the job. Part of the appeal for applying for the job would be that I could at least still be with one of my kids during the day. However, Ms. Corbiere also isn't that excited about possibly being moved to Samantha's class and having me put in the class that she has been with, just because I have a daughter in the other class. It will be interesting to see how the interview goes and what they say about the job. Who knows, but working as a sub as a paraprofessional for three days that week would really help me get a good idea how it would feel to work full time again.

Aedan and Daddy ran a lot of errands that Monday morning and got to hang out and play together quite a bit. Here is a picture of Aedan at lunch time, eating his mac and cheese, and then a little video that Ben recorded of him for a friend.

(Blog about December 13-19, 2016)

Snow, Sledding, and Christmas Cookies: Our First Winter in Sault Ste. Marie

Samantha: 66 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 31 Months, Week 2

In the middle of the night on Monday, I woke up with really bad pain in my foot. It was so bad that I had to get up to take medicine and then it took me awhile to fall back asleep again. I must have pulled it somehow playing in the snow on Monday with Aedan and then both kids in the evening. The area where my little toe meets the joint below hurt really bad, so much that I couldn't put any weight on it, and it even hurt when I was trying to rest it. I had no idea what happened and didn't even remember when it got hurt. Since my foot was hurting me so much, Aedan and I just hung around the house on Tuesday morning, and I tried to stay off my foot as much as possible. I got a few things done, but I was feeling pretty miserable.

As I was putting clothes away in Aedan's room, we decided to get out Aedan's big boy underwear that Daddy bought for him recently. Aedan really wanted to try them on, so after I changed his diaper, I let him pick some to put on. He picked Buzz Lightyear underwear and was super excited to wear them. (I blurred out the picture a little bit since I am posting this on the internet.) He really loves Woody and Buzz right now. I would have loved to leave him in his big boy underwear, but he just shows very little interest in using the potty. He never asks to sit on it and never tells me if/when he has to go. Some days I do a better job than others in remembering to put him on the toilet a few times a day, just to get him used to it, and in hopes that sometime he will just accidentally go in the potty and see what it feels like. So, after letting him run around for awhile in his new underwear, I put him back into a diaper.

It's always amazing how different each kid is. We potty trained Samantha at 25 months, and she was daytime potty trained in one weekend. It took her a little longer to stay dry during nap and bed time and to learn how to go number two in the toilet, but she was pretty easy to teach. She showed interest in sitting on the potty even before she was two years old. Aedan, on the other hand, shows very little interest in becoming potty trained. He would rather hide in the corner when he needs to poop, and he doesn't even show much interest in wanting to sit on the toilet and try. Most people say that boys take longer to learn than girls, but I also don't know how much I should be "pushing" it more, or even just making him go cold turkey by taking his diapers away. It's hard to know what to do, and I feel like he's not showing signs that he's ready. I don't want to push him before he's ready, but I also would be so happy not to have to clean up his poopy diapers every day. I'm going to have to talk to some more people with boys to see how they approached potty training with them. Anyone that reads this and has any suggestions, I am certainly open!

I tried to relax as much as possible after putting Aedan down for his nap that afternoon. He fell asleep in my arms like normal but then woke up when I stood up to put him in his crib. He never ended up going back to sleep, which I felt bad about. He has been a lot more finicky lately with falling asleep at nap time. It isn't as easy as it used to be to rock him to sleep. He plays around a lot more and sometimes I have to be pretty stern with him to lay still and go to sleep. However, most days he does still fall asleep in my arms. Only occasionally does he not fall asleep or wake up after falling asleep in my arms. I really enjoy cuddling with him and watching him fall asleep, but I'm hoping that doing this with him doesn't come back to bite me and make him stop napping earlier because he isn't used to falling asleep on his own. I am always hesitant to just lay him down in his crib because I don't know if he would go to sleep on his own, or it might take him a long time to fall asleep and then I'd have to wake him up so that he wouldn't sleep too late. But, maybe I need to start training him to fall asleep on his own at nap time, just like he does at bed time.

Elevating my foot during nap time didn't make it feel much better, so I asked Ben if he would come home when he was done with his obligations for the day so that I could go to the walk-in clinic to get it checked out. I hate going to the doctor and don't want to spend money for no reason, but I was in a considerable amount of pain. I was at the doctor's office for close to two hours and unfortunately, they said it was just a sprain/strain, so all I could do was take ibuprofen, ice it, and elevate it several times a day. I was glad it wasn't anything worse, and after the kids were in bed, I decided to lay on the couch with my foot propped up and use ice on and off for the rest of the evening.

Since my foot was still hurting some on Wednesday morning, Ben volunteered to take my place in Samantha's class that day. Aedan and I went to Walmart to pick up a few things and then spent some time at the library playing and checking out some new books and movies before going back to pick up Ben from Samantha's school. They didn't have story time, but Aedan enjoys playing educational games on the tablets as well as playing with some of the toys in the library. It's fun for him to get out of the house and play in a different environment.

On Wednesday afternoon Aedan actually napped which was much better than on Tuesday afternoon. In fact, he was even asleep past when Samantha got home from school. I was able to use my free time in the afternoon to design possibilities for our Christmas card since they were 70% off on Snapfish. Samantha even helped me pick the design and told me which pictures she liked the best. Wednesday was a big day for Ben because it was the day of his last two late classes. At dinner that night, the kids and I talked about how glad we are that Daddy won't be gone in the evenings anymore. He will be home for dinner and bedtime every night from now on, and that makes everyone in the family much happier. :)

My foot was feeling almost back to normal by Thursday morning, so I decided to go ahead with my plan for the day of cleaning the house. It's not a very exciting day for Aedan, but it's just something that I have to get done, so he has to tag along with me. In fact, I must have started earlier in the morning than I usually do because I was done by the time Samantha got home from school. I don't necessarily enjoy cleaning, but I love it at the end of the day when the whole house is clean, picked up, and smells good.

It snowed for most of the day on Thursday, so I took this little video that morning of the snow falling outside our front window.

Sometimes it's difficult for me to get Aedan to play by himself on days when I am trying to get cleaning and work done around the house. Sometimes he just follows me around and plays with things in each room, but lately, he has been causing more trouble and making more messes because he is bored. So on Thursday while I cleaned, I tried to get him interested in playing with different toys. For example, we cleaned off this table, and I set up train tracks for him. He played with this for quite some time while I cleaned downstairs in the basement. He had never shown this much interest in playing with trains before, even though Samantha loved trains when she was this age. It was great watching him playing and engaging in something fun on his own without having to have someone else with him.

Thursday was Ben's last day of classes for the semester, and we both had long days so we decided to go out to eat that evening at Zorbas, a local Greek restaurant that both Ben and I like. We decided that even though we are doing Weight Watchers, we can allow ourselves to go out to eat every once in awhile, and when we do, we won't count our points and just enjoy our meal out. The kids did pretty well at the restaurant that night, and it was a nice way to relax and not have to make food or clean up dinner and still come home to a clean house.

On Friday I took a sub job at Lincoln Elementary in fourth grade. Ben ended up dropping me off at school before taking Samantha to school so that way he could use the car that day with Aedan. Starting recently, a local place called Jump UP has something called Tot Time where they can go jump and play at a lower price than what they normally charge. I wasn't sure how Aedan would like being there without Samantha to play with, and I hoped that there would be other kids his age that he could interact with instead. Ben said that he had a great time playing. There was a new toddler bounce house there that Aedan really enjoyed. Plus, Ben was able to show him how to get through the obstacle course on his own. Ben would go in and bounce with him some, but also allow him to play on his own. They played air hockey for quite awhile together and really had a fun time, playing for almost an hour and a half at Jump UP. We will definitely have to take Aedan back there again some day for Tot Time.

My day subbing in fourth grade went pretty well. The man I subbed for left me pretty detailed directions of what I was supposed to do with them throughout the day, and the kids were pretty respectful and attentive. I enjoyed getting to know them, talking with them, and teaching them while I was there.

As the week went on, I got my hopes up way too much that this month I could possibly be pregnant. With tracking my cycle, I am pretty in tune with things, and this cycle was different than many of the previous ones. I was trying really hard to not assume anything, but it's so hard to not get excited and wonder if I miraculously got pregnant after so many months of trying. In fact, on Friday it was day thirty of my cycle, so I decided to take a pregnancy test to check and see. I had one test left from a previous occasion, but unfortunately, as I should have expected, it came back negative. I was really disappointed because I was really hoping that it might just happen when I least expected it to.

The biggest event of the week for Aedan happened on Friday. About a week ago he went down to one paci because he chewed his regular one up so much that it had holes in the sides. Well, his extra paci was also beginning to break on the sides, so on Friday Ben decided that he would try to put Aedan down for his nap without his paci. Aedan got his blue elephant blankie to cuddle with, but no paci, Ben followed their normal nap time routine of reading books, singing songs, praying, and rocking him to sleep. He said that he whimpered a few times before calming down, but he did calm down and fell asleep, taking a pretty good nap. It was a little shorter than it normally was, but we were both so surprised that it was so easy for Aedan to sleep without his paci for the first time. We were curious how he would do at bed time, but again, he went to sleep just fine with no crying or whining about it. He went to sleep like a champ, and we made a big deal about how he is such a big boy now. Ben and I couldn't believe that he basically stopped using his paci "cold turkey" and didn't seem to be that impacted by it. It's one more important step in growing up, and I'm glad that it seemed to be easier than we expected.

As I thought about Aedan growing up and giving up his paci, I realized that I think I have been holding on to him being younger and more baby-like. I don't know if it's because I am assuming that I will never have another little baby of my own or what, but I realized that I have been perfectly content with Aedan still wearing diapers, still using a paci, and still being rocked to sleep at nap time. I haven't felt the urge or desire to push him to give these things up that would make him act more like a big boy and less like a baby. I think I may be clinging to him because I'm afraid he will be my last baby, and I want to cherish and linger in each phase, not wanting him to grow up too quickly.

On Saturday we had a fun day planned for the kiddos. The kids helped us make cookie dough on Friday evening so that it could sit in the fridge overnight. Then, after breakfast on Saturday we rolled out the cookie dough and the kids helped us cut out and decorate the cookies. They were eager to be a part of process, and we love having them help us in the kitchen.

We got all the cookies cut out and baked before ice skating lessons that morning. Then, we stopped our cookie making process to take the kids to their lessons. Here are a couple videos from the morning. Do you see how well Aedan is walking across the ice? He was doing it with no assistance, and he was even bending down, picking up ball, and throwing them at pins on the ice. Samantha has really improved on her speed, her confidence on the ice and not falling down as much, and her swizzles. We are proud of how much both kids have learned over the last several months of Saturday lessons. Now, if we can try to find more times to practice other times during the week, I'm sure their skills will improve even more.

When we came home from ice skating, we had a quick lunch before letting the kids help us decorate the cookies. Ben iced them all, the kids decorated them with sprinkles how they wanted (sometimes with some assistance from me, especially for Aedan), and then Ben I wrapped them in plastic wrap. Both kids decorated a special cookie for themselves and one for Ben and me. The kids really enjoyed decorating the cookies this year, more than they ever have in the past, and it was really fun to watch the creative ways they came up with decorating. Overall, they did a pretty good job of spreading the sprinkles out and not always putting them in the same place. They turned out really well, and of course, they were very yummy.

The other fun plan we had for Saturday evening was a trip to the pool in Canada. The kids didn't nap how we would have liked, Samantha not really napping at all, but I was tired of always having to change or cancel our plans because our kids didn't nap or were cranky. We weren't going to have many more chances to go swimming in Canada for awhile, and we had been looking forward to going for quite some time, so we decided to go anyways. We probably started swimming around 6:30, and the kids had a blast. Samantha spent the first twenty minutes or so just going down the slide over and over again. Aedan went down the toddler slide and floated around in the middle sized pool with his floatie on for awhile, then we went back into the pool with the zero depth entrance and the kids played with the water toys and water features while Ben and I enjoyed the ninty-four degree water while we sat, talked, relaxed, and watched our kids. It was a really fun evening together, and for awhile afterward Aedan kept talking about wanting to go back to the pool in Canada again. It's definitely a fun family outing, especially during these cold winter months.

Saturday and Sunday were really hard days for me because I found out for sure that I was indeed not pregnant. I really should just expect for it to not happen at this point, but with my cycle lasting longer than usual, I hoped and prayed that I would be pregnant and got ahead of myself thinking about wonderful a Christmas present that would be for me. I found myself just crying at the drop of a hat Saturday night and most of the day on Sunday. I still just don't understand how nothing can be wrong with Ben or me, and we can be trying for so long and not get pregnant. It is disappointing and frustrating, and this infertility is really taking a toll on myself and my family. So, I decided that from now on I am going try my hardest to stop thinking about it. I'm going to stop charting my basal temperature, which I have been doing for almost a year now. I am going to try to stop keeping track of my cycle and just go about life as if we weren't trying to conceive. All our efforts for the past 20 months have not done any good, so I need to let go of my hope and desire to become pregnant. If it happens at some point, it will be a total surprise, but I need to stop wishing and hoping and being consistently disappointed each month.

Ben and I took advantage of some of our time together at home over the weekend to begin prepping for our home visit and our eventual taking in of a foster child. Ben did much of the work in moving our guest bed downstairs into the office room and getting it set back up again. Then, on Sunday afternoon Samantha and Aedan helped us put together the crib in the third bedroom upstairs, since we need to have that set up for our home visit. It was a productive weekend, and I felt good about the progress that we made.

Monday was back to our normal routine, but Ben's schedule was a bit different that week because it was finals week at school. He had a late final on Monday night, so it pretty much just felt like a normal Monday during the semester. Samantha went to school, Aedan and I went grocery shopping, and then there was nap time for Aedan and time for me to get some work done around the house. That afternoon I decided to take the kids sledding at a small hill near Project Playground. The weather was going to be the warmest it would be in awhile, and we had several inches of snow on the ground, making it a perfect amount of snow to play in. So as soon as Samantha got home from school, we got ready to go sledding. The hill was the perfect size for them to climb up without getting too tired out and steep enough that we got some good speed going down the hill. Samantha was super excited to try it out and had no fear going down the hill over and over again. Aedan, on the other hand, wasn't so sure at first. I finally convinced him to go down on the sled with me, and he seemed to like it okay, but didn't want to go again for awhile. Instead, he preferred to push Sissy and me down the hill from the top. Samantha was trying out different paths and even went down just riding on her knees a few times. She didn't care if the sled tipped over; she was having a blast, squealing and laughing the whole way down the hill. Towards the end, I convinced Aedan to go with me again down the hill. He didn't really want to go, and I kind of forced him because I knew he would like it, and I didn't want him to have an irrational fear of going down hills on the sled. We got going pretty fast and pretty far, and he really enjoyed it. After that, he decided on his own to go down with me a few more times.

Samantha suggested that they sit on this stump for a picture, which was a great idea, because they pictures turned out great of the two of them together. We are blessed with some pretty special, adorable kids.

Once the kids had their fill sledding on the hill, I asked if they wanted to play on the playground for a few minutes before heading home for dinner. It was fun to see them climbing around on the playground covered with snow, but the best part was when they slid down the slide. They went down so fast because it was wet and slippery from the snow, plus their snow suits made them slide even faster. I love the little video I got of Aedan going down the slide. In fact, he went down so quickly that I hardly got it on video, but he just slides down and plops into the snow. Once it started getting dark, we headed back home after an hour of playing outside in the snow and sledding down the hill. I'm glad we were able to get out and have a fun time together while Daddy had his late final. We will definitely have to do it again sometime, or even better, go ride tubes down the tubing hill when it opens.

(Blog about December 6-12, 2016)

Samantha's Amazing Heart & Aedan Learning How to Walk on Ice, Making Mommy Proud

Samantha: 66 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 31 Months, Week 1

This week Aedan and I spent the beginning of the week getting caught back up after being gone for a week, and hanging out at home, as we didn't have too many plans to be anywhere in particular.

I have been blessed with how good of a sleeper Aedan has been for most of his life. Ever since he was an infant, he has fallen asleep at nap time while being rocked. We get to watch him fall asleep and then lay him gently down in his bed. Well, on Tuesday he did not sleep very long which is very unlike him. It took me awhile to get him to sleep and he only slept about an hour. I know the time will come when he won't nap as well anymore, and I know I am lucky because at 2 1/2 Samantha was already fighting naps on a pretty consistent basis, so I will enjoy the naps and quiet afternoons to myself while I can.

Some days when Samantha comes from school she doesn't have much to say about how her day went, or if we directly ask her questions she won't remember. However, often, as the night goes on, she remembers stories that are sparked in her memory by something that happens throughout our evening. On Tuesday evening Samantha told us about how she was telling Stephanie, a girl in her class, the story about Jesus being born. She said that she didn't think Stephanie had ever heard the story before. I asked her when she was talking to her about this, and Samantha said it was at recess on the playground. I love that it comes to naturally to Samantha to talk to others about Jesus. I wish that I could only have half of her bravery in talking to others. I hope that she will always feel free and open to share about Jesus with her friends. The other story Ben told me about that night when we went to sleep. There is a little girl in Samantha's class that is a little overweight, and apparently there are some girls that pick on this girl and tell her that she can't play with them. Well, one day when the girl was being left out, Samantha told them it wasn't nice for them to say and do things like that, and she told this little girl something that we always tell Samantha, "It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, but only what you are like on the inside." When I heard that story, I couldn't help but tear up. I was so proud of Samantha for reaching out to a little girl that was left out, for standing up for her, and for helping her to feel loved and noticed, even for just one minute. Who knows how much Samantha's words meant to this little girl, but I'd like to think that it made her feel so much better, and that she has a friend in Samantha. Both these stories show how great of a heart Samantha has for other people. She can make connections, think deeper, and relate on a more personal level than probably most kids her age. I am so proud of my little girl.

I volunteered in Samantha's class in the morning on Wednesday, and I was lucky enough to be there at a time when it was Samantha's turn to do the calendar. They have their calendar all through their Smart Board, and it included counting the number of students present and absent, matching shapes and colors with their word, and writing letters. Samantha knew exactly what she was doing, knew what buttons to press to reset and change the pages, and was quick to do her job on the board. At one point, she was able to call on a couple friends to write the letters for the day as well. Of course, every one raised their hand, eagerly saying, "Pick me, pick me!" Samantha said to her classmates, "I'm only going to pick you if you are sitting down quietly, and not raising your hand or pointing at yourself." This made me laugh because you can certainly tell that she is the daughter of two teachers. When she said this, the class instantly became quiet. Then, she was very encouraging to her classmates as they wrote their letters. Again, this was another moment that I beamed with pride as I watched my daughter interact with her teacher and classmates. She is a pretty wonderful little girl.

I got to go around the classroom and help with Writer's Workshop as the students began telling stories as their new writing topic. Samantha chose to write about the time in Upland when her and Aedan were playing downstairs with Daddy, and Aedan accidentally closed the door on Samantha's finger. I thought it was funny that she chose that story to tell. She sat write down and got to work on her story, whereas some kids needed a lot of direction and guidance. I am so glad that she is doing so well and being so respectful at school.

The rest of our Wednesday was a bit of a busy day with what felt like a lot of running around. After dropping Ben off on campus, Aedan and I had to return some books to the library, pick up our pictures from church, drop off the air mattress we borrowed, go to the bank, and drop off our mound of paperwork for Lauri at DHHS. Luckily, Aedan is a pretty amenable little boy and didn't mind too much being dragged all over town to complete our errands. It felt so good to get all of our foster parent paperwork turned in. Now, we just have to wait for Lauri to type up the report and then come for our final home visit to make sure everything is in order before she sends our application off for our official license from the state. She anticipates sending it out at the beginning of January, and they can take a full thirty days to process it, so we will see when we will become official foster parents. Exciting, but nerve-wracking at the same time. It will be fun to see who our first placement is.

For all the positive stories and experiences I had with Samantha, on Wednesday evening she just lost it with me. These Monday and Wednesday evenings on our own while Daddy teaches his late classes have certainly taken their toll on our family this semester, and I am so glad they are almost over. Samantha was tired and hungry, and she just couldn't handle her behavior anymore. She screamed, threw a fit, and right now I can't even remember what it was about, but she got sent to her room for awhile to calm down. The time right before dinner is always the hardest because both kids want attention, but I have to make dinner, so they are left to play on their own. However, when they are tired, they don't always get along the best, meaning they fight and argue more, and I have to stop what I'm doing to help them resolve their differences, meaning it's actually delaying the meal that will help them act less cranky. Nights on my own are always more hectic in preparing, cleaning up, and often giving the kids baths and, of course, putting them to bed on my own. It will be so nice to be back to normal next semester, to have Ben home for dinner and bed time every night. That will help us give more time together and more attention for the kids.

I feel like Aedan and I didn't do many interesting things this week because as I write this I can't even remember what we did. We played outside some in the little bit of snow we got, and I was able to finish hanging up our icicle lights around the roof of our house. Other than that, we really just hung out around the house together. I have been trying to get exercise in every day, sometimes while he is with me and sometimes at night. Now that winter is here, I need to start rethinking how Aedan and I are going to spend our time. I want to make my time count with him, and playing at home is fun, but it's hard not having many places to take him, especially where he can interact with other kids. However, I would also really like to start doing more preschool-type activities with Aedan, like I did with Samantha when she was his age. I still have all my lesson plans typed up that I could refer back to, and I think it would be interesting to see how he enjoyed the same type of activities. I know back when I was home with Samantha, doing preschool two to three days a week helped give purpose and structure to our week. Aedan knows all his numbers through ten and is beginning to learn letters as well, so I need to put preschool with Mommy into our weekly time together soon, maybe we can start that after Christmas break.

Since Aedan had not  been napping quite as well lately, I decided to take this picture of him after he fell asleep on Thursday afternoon. He is just too precious falling asleep on my lap every day, rubbing his little paci with his right hand, his head propped up in the crook of my elbow, and his left hand eventually falling limp to his side. The other reason I took this picture is because we are now letting Aedan sleep with his little blue elephant blankie, just like the pink blankie that Samantha has slept with since she was a baby. We know that he will eventually have to give up his paci, and we came up with the idea to let him sleep with both his blankie and paci as a way to help him transition. Maybe he can think of the blankie as his comfort object and not be as upset to sleep without his paci. This was his first time sleeping with his blankie, and you can see it tucked right up under his arm. When I laid him down in his bed, he cuddled right up with it as well. We'll see if our strategy works!

Since Samantha is getting older and needs more privacy than she used to, we have started bathing the kids separately. In fact, we give Samantha the choice between taking a bath or a shower, and she often chooses to take a shower. We are working on teaching her how to shampoo and rinse her hair, and she's pretty good at washing her body. So after she was done in the shower, I gave Aedan a bath and figured I don't have many videos or pictures of how he plays in the bath. (I'm sure it's already true that we have less pictures and videos of him since he is the second kid.) At first I thought that he would miss not having Samantha to play with in the bath, but I think he's actually enjoying having the tub to himself, playing with any toy he wants, and just having some time one-on-one with us. He enjoyed playing the cups, splashing it up in the air like a volcano (something Sissy taught him how to do), and pouring water onto his tummy. He's such a cute kid.

On Friday I took a sub job in a second grade class at Lincoln Elementary. I was excited to be in an elementary classroom as the main teacher, and it was the first time I was solely in charge of a classroom of kids besides for my day in junior high/high school. Every other job I have either had an aide to help me, or I was the aide. Second grade is a good grade, and I felt confident in my ability to take charge in the classroom. The teacher left me really organized and detailed plans that were easy to follow. The kids were a little chatty at times, but I used their behavior chart to move their clips up or down based on their behavior. The teacher didn't know who I was or my experience with teaching in the past, so she didn't leave too complicated of work for me to have the kids do, which sometimes makes it more difficult, I think, because their schedule and workload is different than what they usually do with their regular teacher. They did some work and games on their iPads, we did some math and some social studies. I didn't have much of a break for most of the day because their only special time was in the morning during which we had an assembly instead, and I had afternoon recess duty. The day went by so much faster when I was solely responsible for the class, and I really enjoyed being there and getting to know the students. For a half an hour in the afternoon, we went over to a third grade class for reading buddies, and I got a chance to talk to that teacher for a little while about her experience getting a job in Sault Ste. Marie. Then, at the end of the day she told me that the teacher I was subbing for wanted me to leave my name and number in case they or anyone else at Lincoln needed a sub on another Friday. I took that as a good sign because they thought I did a good job, and they would be willing to have me back. I am really enjoying my time getting back into the classroom, and I'm so glad that Ben can stay home with Aedan while I get a chance to get out and work one day a week.

Friday night we had plans to go on a couples date with some friends. Brooks and Jill invited us to go to a Madrigal Dinner at Kewadin Casino that was a fundraiser for EUP Hospice. They had an extra ticket, so we essentially only had to pay for one of us to go. We were able to find a babysitter at the last minute, and we were excited to be able to go out on a date with some other couples as a way to be together and to meet other people. Moving to a new place is always difficult, and neither Ben nor I really feel like we know many people or have many friends yet. The babysitter, Hannah, came over about 5:30, and we had just started the kids on eating some homemade pizza. I showed her around and told her the bedtime routine before Ben and I headed out to meet people at the casino at 6:00. As we were leaving the house, Hannah told Samantha to sit down in her chair in a little bit of a sterner voice, since she had already been reminded several times by us, and you could tell Samantha was not happy to be reprimanded by the babysitter. The next day Samantha said that she liked our previous babysitter, Katie, better than Hannah, and I think the reason why is because of that moment when she was reprimanded. She didn't want a babysitter that would actually follow through and hold her to a certain expectation, which of course was fine by us for Hannah to do that with Samantha. Kids are so funny in what they find to be a big deal.

At the casino we met up with Brooks, Jill, and another couple, Todd and Carolyn, who are actually the parents of Luke from Samantha's kindergarten class. For the first hour, we had cheese, crackers, and wassail in the lobby area, giving us all a chance to talk, catch up, and get to know one another. It was fun talking with other adults, and I was so glad that Ben had the chance to talk with some other men that his personality meshed well with. I enjoyed talking with Carolyn about our experiences having children in kindergarten at Bahweting. At 7:00, the program started with trumpets, music, and dancing, and we were allowed to enter the room to find our table. We were all very hungry, especially since none of us are used to eating this late in the evening. Plus, Ben and I signed up for Weight Watchers on Black Friday, so we are really trying to be conscious of what and how much we're eating. Knowing that we were going to be eating more than usual on Friday night, we at a very light salad for lunch so that we could save our points for that night. There was quite a bit of the show first before they started serving the food, and it was all a little bit cheesy, but it was a fun experience. Part of a madrigal dinner included eating all of our food with our fingers. We had a stuffed Cornish hen, cooked carrots, small potatoes, and rolls. Then, we had a bread pudding type dish for dessert. The show lasted until about 9:15, and then we came back home to relieve our babysitter and see how the evening went. She said that the kids were really good, and that she wasn't used to kids being so respectful for the first time watching them. We were glad to be able to entrust our kids to a babysitter so that we could have a unique night out with friends. After a day of working and then being out in a social situation, I was exhausted on Friday night and ready to tuck myself into bed.

On Saturday, probably against my better judgment, we took the kids to this elf breakfast at a local church of a mom from MOPS. In fact, we all slept in until almost 8:00 that morning which is typically unheard of in our house. We must have all been tired from our busy Friday night. They were serving breakfast there, so we didn't eat breakfast before we left, but the kids were super hungry and had a hard time waiting patiently for breakfast to be served at 9:30. More people came than they expected, so everyone was crowding around tables. I don't know if I was just tired or overly sensitive, but being at this event made me even more aware of the fact that I don't really know anyone here. We were in a room surrounded by other families, but we just sat with our own family together. I saw other moms and their families from MOPS, and they smiled and said hello, but they had people they knew and plans with other families, so no one we knew chose to sit with us or include us at their table. I felt so lonely and friendless that morning. Moving to a community where you don't know anyone is so isolating. This is the first place we moved where we had no previous connection with anyone before moving here. It's difficult to break through and meet new people. Our kids enjoyed their breakfast of sausage wrapped in pancake on a stick, fruit on a stick to look like the grinch, a marshmallow snowman, and some yogurt. Then, we did some crafts like tracing their hands to make a Christmas tree and decorating it with sparkly stickers, making a reindeer candy cane, and decorating a cookie. It was pretty packed in the room and difficult to get around, making Ben feel a little overwhelmed and claustrophobic. They had story time and songs at 10:40, but we had to leave for ice skating, so we didn't get to go to that. It was a fun event, but it probably would have been a more relaxing morning if I would have chosen to just stay home and spend time with Ben and the kids. I just felt like they don't have many family friendly community events, so we should take advantage of the ones that do come up.

By the time we got to ice skating, the kids had already had a busy morning, and they must have had a rough night with the babysitter because they were both acting very tired and grumpy. Aedan didn't want to listen to his teacher and just sat on the ice and said, "No." Samantha was a bit spacey, wasn't concentrating, and needed a lot of reminders to keep going during the free skate part of her lesson. However, the best outcome of the day was that Aedan learned how to walk on the ice because he didn't want to be with the guy teacher. He wanted to be with the lady teacher that was pulled to teach Samantha's class since her teacher was gone for the day. Trying to get to this teacher gave him the motivation to walk across the ice to get to her. It was so great to see him walking on the ice. I was so proud of him and all he has accomplished during his first ever session of ice skating, going from sitting on the ice crying during his first lesson to now standing and walking all on his own. It's so awesome to see your kids learn new skills.

We had tickets to the LSSU hockey game on Saturday night, so we told the kids they needed to take a good nap that afternoon so that we could stay out late that night. They were both really tired and must not have slept well on Friday night. Ben put Samantha down, and I put Aedan down. Samantha went right to sleep and had a good nap. Aedan took awhile to calm down, but ended up falling asleep just like he usually does. However, he suddenly woke up, almost like he thought he had already woken up from his nap. I tried to keep rocking him to see if he would fall back asleep, but he just started wiggling and playing around so I decided to just lay him down in his bed. Well, he isn't used to falling asleep for nap time on his own, so he just laid in his bed talking and making noise for quite some time. It was making me really frustrated because he was so tired but wasn't sleeping which would then impact our plans for that night. I didn't want one of us to have to stay home with Aedan that night. Both Ben and I went into his room a couple times to tell him to go to sleep, even taking his paci away as a threat one time. Eventually he fell asleep, but it was probably almost 3:00 by the time he did. At that point Samantha was already waking up after a good nap, and we ended up having to wake Aedan up at 5:00 so that he didn't sleep too long into the evening.

Ben and I were craving some good pizza, so we ordered ahead of time for Superior Pizza out in Brimley and drove the 20 minutes out to the restaurant to eat. The pizza is really good and definitely satisfied our craving. From there, we drove back home, parked the car at home, and walked down the street to the Norris Center for the hockey game. We went up to a special area that was designated for the political science club so that Ben could make an appearance, and the kids enjoyed seeing the game from a different perspective. The pep band played nearby and Aedan really enjoyed standing up on my lap so he could see them as well as hear them. After spending one period in the special area, we decided to walk around for a little while before going back to our own seats down near the ice. We watched the game for the rest of the period, but toward the end the kids were starting to get restless in their seats. We kept having to remind them to sit down, and we tried to discuss the game with them to keep up their interest, but they were getting tired. So after throwing their pucks on the ice, I took the kids home to put them to bed while Ben stayed to relax and watch the rest of the game. I don't think our kids are quite ready to be going to sports games regularly, especially when it is past their bed time. I was glad that Ben was able to stay and enjoy the game though.

On Sunday morning we all slept in longer than we intended to, but we were all pretty tired from being out at the hockey game the night before. Ben and I are back to volunteering in teaching the small groups for Kids Connection, so we went to both services so that we could attend church and teach the kids. Samantha and Aedan do pretty well when we stay there for both services, which is nice, but it does make for a long morning sometimes.

I forget exactly when this happened over the past week, but I'm thinking it was sometime over the weekend. Anyways, we put Aedan to bed, and he kept waking up crying. We couldn't figure out what was wrong, and Aedan didn't give us much of an explanation when we went into his room. Finally, I went into his room again after Ben and I had already gotten into bed ourselves. Aedan didn't have his paci, so I helped him find it and when I touched it, I realized that it was broken on both sides because he had been biting and chewing on it too much lately. He kept saying, "No want that paci," probably because it felt weird to suck on it with holes in the sides. Regardless of that, it wasn't safe anymore for him to use that paci, so I told Aedan we had to throw it away. I got his extra paci out of his diaper bag for him to use that night, but I knew that we were down to one paci now, so the days of him falling asleep with a paci would probably be coming to an end sometime soon. Back when we bought this set of pacis, we decided we wouldn't buy any more, and that when these broke we would wean Aedan off from using a paci when he sleeps. I was glad that we already started letting him sleep with his blankie in hopes that it would be a good transitional object between having a paci and then not having a paci. Who knows how often he even uses his paci during the night while he sleeps, but he certainly uses it to fall asleep, so we will see how this transition goes when we get there.

After dinner on Sunday night, we made hot chocolate with marshmallows since it had been snowing all day and was going to continue snowing all night, the perfect time to enjoy hot chocolate. Aedan had never really had hot chocolate before, so he was super excited. Samantha and I shared hot chocolate quite a bit in Oxford after we played in the snow together. Aedan was very intent on eating all of his marshmallows before drinking any of the hot chocolate. Samantha spread her marshmallows out throughout her drink. They really enjoyed their special dessert.

On Monday Aedan and I did our normal routine of grocery shopping, but he was begging to play in the snow, so after finishing our lunch, we got all bundled up and went outside to play for awhile before nap time. He loved the snow, and just ran around in it for quite awhile. We made snow balls, I tried to make a snow man but Aedan just wanted to knock it over, and I even pulled him around the back yard on our old, broken sled for a little while. We bought new sleds and snow brick making tools, so it will be fun when we can all go out and play in the snow together. I'm sure we will have plenty more opportunities to play in the snow this winter. :)

I asked Aedan if I could take his picture, and he stopped to give me the cutest, cheesiest grin I've ever seen. I love when he smiles and I can see all his teeth. He is an adorable kid, and it was fun watching him enjoy the first time he's really played in snow this year. 

That evening before we had dinner, I thought it would be fun to let the kids go out and play in the snow together for awhile, but it's so hard because it gets so dark so early, so they were basically playing in the dark at 5:15. I tried to take some pictures and videos of them together, but it was too dark and the flash just caught them off guard. Nevertheless, they were having a fun time in the snow together, and Samantha made this mound of snow that they stuck sticks into and decided to call Annabelle. I know this is just the beginning of the snow for us newbies to the U.P. It will be interesting to see how the winter progresses and how much snow we actually get. The kids are enjoying it, and I have to admit that it is pretty to much snow fall from the sky and blanket the ground in soft, white powder.

(Blog about November 29-December 5, 2016)