Aedan's 1st Day of Preschool, Owen's Rough Nights, and Bush Plane Days

Samantha: 87 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 53 Months, Week 2
Owen: 11 Months, Week 4 (Week 52)

After a more relaxing weekend at home after Samantha's first week of school, we were then gearing up for Aedan's first day of preschool, as well as the first MOPS meeting of the year on Tuesday. I was doing a lot of work getting the toy bins ready with some new toys and getting all the materials ready for the lessons. I had to be at church for a couple training sessions for the MOPS childcare workers on Sunday afternoon, but I felt like everything was coming along. It was just a lot of work to get everything set up for the beginning.

On Monday, September 10th, Aedan was getting pretty excited about preschool. Ben came home from campus so that we could go together to take Aedan to preschool for the first time. Here's my little guy with his super hero backpack and water bottle, ready to go to the Sault Cooperative Preschool every afternoon Monday through Friday. His teachers names are Ms. Bonnie and Ms. Kaitlin, and he was definitely ready. I was excited for him.

Here is Aedan posing in front of the sign in front of his school. He went in with a brave face on, but you could tell it was covering up some nerves. I was glad he was getting this opportunity to get out of the house, meet some new friends, and get used to being part of a classroom. He has always been more shy and reserved than Samantha, but he has definitely come out of his shell more in even the last six months or so. When I was first thinking of putting him in preschool, I thought he might have a hard time leaving me when I dropped him off because sometimes he can still by clingy with me, but he had no trouble that first day. He went right in the room, but he chose to sit on the little couch right by door and look at books first before venturing into the classroom.

After getting Aedan dropped off at preschool, Owen and I went back home so he could take his afternoon nap. It was definitely quieter in our house that afternoon, and Owen was actually taking a good nap, which was really nice. I was able to relax a little, upload pictures on my blog, and watch a show. We were up a lot with Owen on Sunday night, so I was glad for the break, and he ended up sleeping the entire afternoon. It is my hope that we can get into this routine where we can get back home and Owen can take a good afternoon nap while Aedan is at preschool. Then, I will have time to get things done around the house or even just have some time to myself in a nice quiet house.

Even though it was Aedan's first day of preschool, we didn't have a chance to get our first day of school ice cream because I had to be at church to help set up for MOPS that evening. I got dinner started and then had to leave for church around 5:15 and didn't get back until the kids were going to bed. It's funny how much I felt anxious about MOPS starting the next day; it was almost like it was a first day of school again. I felt nervous that I was forgetting something, and I wanted to be prepared and make sure all the kids had a good first day of MOPS and that all the helpers had what they needed. I found it difficult to go to sleep that night because I had so much on my mind.

Tuesday was a super busy day with MOPS starting in the morning. We tried to get there as quickly as we could, but things always seem to take longer than I would like. After another rough night with Owen, he ended up sleeping in until 8:15, which was good, especially since he wasn't going to get a morning nap that day. However, it made our morning a little rushed because I still had to get him dressed, nurse him, and feed him breakfast.

Anyways, once at MOPS, Miss Linda took Owen for me so I could help the leadership team. I assisted with check-in, helping moms find the rooms that their children belonged in, and then I started going into the kids' rooms to take pictures with the kids holding this "First Day of MOPS Kids" sign. However, I forget how many kids do not enjoy getting their picture taken, and it became exceedingly difficult for me to get the kids to agree to taking pictures. I took a few in the 4/5 year old room, and a few in the 3 year old room before finally giving up on that endeavor. It just wasn't worth it, and too many kids didn't want to participate, so I eventually just gave up and and went into the sanctuary to get food and join my table. However, here's a cute picture of Aedan from that morning. :)

(On a side note, Aedan's choices of clothes have been funny lately. He used to not care about what he wore, and we often picked his outfits for him. Now, however, he is pretty insistent on choosing things for himself, and he often likes to pick monochromatic outfits. He also likes wearing his over-sized t-shirts, like this tee-ball shirt, that often make him look like he is wearing a dress. It's funny, but it's also pretty cute.)

After MOPS was over, I had Aedan start eating the lunch that I packed for him while I helped clean up chairs in the sanctuary, picked up the kids' rooms, moved all our bins to the storage room, and vacuumed each room. It was more work that I thought it would be, plus, I was trying to corral Aedan and Owen, which made it take longer. Then, since it was already almost 12:30, we didn't have time to go back home before I had to take Aedan to preschool, so I got the stroller from the car to put Owen in so I could feed him his baby food for lunch. It had been a long, busy, somewhat stressful morning, and I was pretty tired.

Aedan's first day of preschool went really well on Monday. His teachers had a good report about him and said he was really sweet. In fact, Ms. Bonnie even told me about how he killed two spiders for girls in a play house outside, saying, "I will take care of that for you, don't worry!" He was excited to go back again on Tuesday, and I was so glad he was adjusting well to it.

Owen took another good nap for me on Tuesday afternoon, which was good after the busy morning we had at MOPS. Actually, he took a little 15-20 minutes snooze on Mrs. Linda's shoulder. He was asleep when I went to go pick him up after MOPS was over. She said that she went over to the toddler room to check on how things were going and when Owen saw her, he reached for her immediately, wanting to go to her instead. He loves her so much and is so comfortable with her, which makes me so happy. She was glad to take him and snuggle with him for awhile, and his little power nap helped take the edge off and get him through to nap time.

That evening, after eating dinner together as a family, we did something the kids have been wanting to do for awhile now: we rode our bikes to Dairy Queen. We put Owen in the bike trailer behind Ben's bike, and Samantha and Aedan both rode their bikes by themselves. We took a different side road this time so that we didn't have to ride on the bumpy area of the street, and other than Aedan freaking out and falling off his bike one time, it was a successful trip. Aedan got a cherry sundae, Samantha got a cherry dipped cone, Ben and I both got blizzards, and we even got a small vanilla ice cream for Owen to taste. Happy first day of preschool, Aedan! (And another thing crossed off our summer bucket list.)

I didn't want to push Aedan too much that week with preschool starting and him being busier in the afternoons, but preschool story time started at the library on Wednesday, and we decided to go. Aedan always enjoys going to the library, and Owen is starting to enjoy playing there more himself, too. After listening to the stories and doing the craft, I tried to put Owen in the Ergo to see if he would take a little bit of a nap, but he did not like being contained and he just cried and strained inside the baby carrier, so I eventually just took him out and let him wander around and play. Lindsey was there with her kids, and Telisa was was there with her kids, so Aedan had a lot of fun playing with Ruger and Josiah, and I was able to sit and talk with Lindsey and Telisa while our kids played. I was really glad we decided to go, and this will definitely become our new weekly routine, especially in the winter time when I feel like we are just holed up inside our house all the time.

This week felt particularly busy with Aedan going to preschool and just getting used to a new routine and doing a lot more driving around with picking Samantha and Aedan up from school every day. On top of that, Owen had been awake for two hours in the middle of the night three nights in a row, Sunday through Tuesday night. He would be upset and crying and need to be held, and he has actually needed me to nurse him back to sleep again a couple times a night. Ben would try to go in there and hold him and bounce him, but that wasn't working to get him back to sleep. Plus, he was waking up a couple other times in addition to those two hours, so it had been kind of rough, and I was tired and definitely feeling it by Wednesday. In fact, on Wednesday night he went down fine but then woke up crying twice in the time between when I put him down and when Ben and I were going to bed. I was hoping that it wasn't another ear infection or something, but Ben and I desperately needed some sleep that night. It had gotten to the point where I didn't even want to hold Owen anymore in the middle of the night. I just wanted to go upstairs, turn the monitor off, and just let him cry himself to sleep. It was just so hard because I knew he was getting at least three molars in because he has big lumps on his gums, so I'm sure it doesn't feel good, but I was just so worn out and sometimes would just dread night time because I had no idea what might be in store for us or how much we would be awake with Owen.

By Thursday morning I felt like Owen was making me go crazy. He was up 6 times during the night, two of those times he was up for about an hour each, and then woke up early on Thursday morning. I was hoping that would mean he would take a good morning nap for me that day, but instead I was trying for an hour to put him down for a nap and nothing I was doing was working. I was hoping for a relaxing morning at home where I could just hang out with Aedan for awhile while Owen slept, but that never happens like I want it to. I was so tired and didn't know how many more days I could function like that. Since Owen wasn't napping anyways, I actually decided to just get him up and take him to the walk-in clinic to be sure he didn't have an ear infection. His regular doctor never has open appointments, but I was actually pleased with the doctor we saw at the clinic. She actually took the time to stand there and talk to me about his symptoms and how things have been before even examining Owen. Then, she didn't just check his ears, she checked him all over to make sure everything was okay. So, I was glad that it wasn't an ear infection, but at the same time, that just meant that his sleeping problems were probably due to teething and we would just have to wait it out.

Since our morning was kind of crazy with Owen not napping and then taking him to the walk-in clinic, I decided to let Aedan go do something fun and get some energy out. There was a MOPS play date at McDonald's, and it was fun for Aedan and Owen to be able to climb around together. Aedan ate his Happy Meal and even asked for extra chicken nuggets because he just devoured the four that came with his meal. Aedan even taught Owen how to climb up the slide after him, which Owen thought was just great fun. The only bad thing about this newfound freedom is that one time Owen came crawling down the slide so fast that I couldn't catch him fast enough before he fell flat on his face and burst into tears. The boys had a good time playing, I had a great time talking with another mom, sharing our hearts about kids going back to school and mourning the end of summer, and even though I felt so tired and worn out, I left feeling refreshed.

I forget when it was that Samantha and Aedan did this, but Samantha had Aedan lay down on the ground and she traced his body, then she colored him in so he would look like Iron Man. Isn't that good?! He even has rocket boots on! I took a picture of it on Thursday before it got worn or washed away.

After dropping Aedan off at preschool, I headed home with Owen, trying to keep him awake in the car so I could put him right down for his nap. However, when I opened the garage door, I saw an animal walking back and forth in our garage, back by the door to the back yard. I just froze and backed up our car to the end of the driveway so as not to startle the animal too much. I just assumed that it was a skunk since we have had so much trouble with skunks again lately. However, I decided to get out of the car to check it out, and as I inched closer to it and peeked around the corner of the garage door, I saw it more clearly, and it was definitely a porcupine. I couldn't believe there was a porcupine in our garage! I had never seen a wild one up close before. Aedan was playing outside that morning, so he must not have closed the door all the way and it blew open while we were out, letting the porcupine (that must have been in our back yard) climb into our garage.

I had to get Owen inside and down for a nap, so at that point I just closed it in the garage until I could call animal control to see what I should do with it. I didn't want it to go back into the back yard because I certainly didn't want to deal with Izzy getting porcupine quills in her nose. I called animal control and they said they don't really deal with porcupines, so I had to figure out a way to get it out of my garage. I thought about opening the garage door so that way it could go out that direction, and then I could go into the back yard and open the door from the yard to maybe scare it away from that door and have it run away the other direction. I just didn't know if that would work or not. However, when I checked on it again, it was climbing up our bike trailer and then just camped out on top our handle bars. I didn't know how I was going to get it down and out of our garage. I was hitting our broom handle against the wall and against the bikes, trying to get it down and out of our garage, but nothing was working. If anything, it was just making the porcupine more scared and wanting to crawl up somewhere to hide. Eventually it climbed down off the handlebars, but then it was hiding behind our camp chairs up against the wall in a corner. I actually ended up going over to our neighbor's house to see if they could help me, so Chelsey and Renee came over to help me out. Chelsey brought one of their moving boxes over and held it in front of where the porcupine was, then I pushed it with the broom into the box. Then, we propped the box upright and carried it out of the garage. I covered it with an old trellis that was sitting next to our garage to be sure it couldn't climb out, but also so it could breathe. Chelsey said when her husband got home from work, he could take it in the back of his truck to relocate it to an nice wooded area far from our home. I was glad we captured it, but that was not exactly how I wanted to spend my afternoon after already having a long, busy day.

As soon as I was done dealing with the porcupine that afternoon and I came back in the house, Owen was already crying on the monitor. I felt so frustrated because he hadn't slept all morning, and now I only got him to sleep half an hour. I knew that night would be rough with a tired toddler. I put him to bed early that night and for the first time in many nights, he actually wasn't up for two hours in the middle of the night. In fact, I didn't even have to get up to nurse him in the middle of the night. It's amazing what a good night of sleep can do for me. After feeling pretty pretty exhausted and emotional on Thursday, I felt like a new person on Friday morning. It was such a gift getting a good night's sleep.

On Friday, I didn't have any plans to go anywhere because I had a couple people scheduled to come to the house. At 8:30 the guy came to clean the pellet stove, and then around 11:00 the guys came to clean the fireplace and chimney. With fall coming and colder weather descending upon us, I figured it would be a good idea to get those things cleaned out for when we need to use the pellet stove and fireplace.

Aedan loves to watch people that come to our house, so he spent most of the morning downstairs while the guy cleaned the pellet stove and then also watched the guy clean the fireplace. However, while he was downstairs, he also drew this picture of some super heroes. I particularly like the one with red wings over on the right side. I love that he has become more interested in drawing and coloring lately. His pictures are so cute.

On Fridays Samantha gets papers sent home in her Friday folder. This one was a really cute one that I decided not to keep, but I wanted to take a picture of it before I threw it away. I love her pictures of her being a scientist and then of her with Owen and Aedan. Those are definitely two things that define her. She used to say she wanted to work for NASA, but now she says she definitely wants to be a scientist, but she doesn't know what kind: maybe an archaeologist, maybe an engineer, maybe someone who studies bugs. She is unsure, and we told her that is more than okay to not know for sure what she wants to be when she grows up. I hope her dreams come true and that some day she does grow up to be a scientist. She is definitely a smart enough girl and a hard enough worker. I am so proud of her, and I love to see papers like this sent home. It made me smile.

That afternoon Ben got home a little early from campus so that he could go pick Samantha and Aedan up from school as a little bit of a surprise. They didn't know he was coming, and apparently when Samantha saw him, she said, "What are you doing here?" Ms. Bonnie had another good report about Aedan when Ben picked him up, talking about how he's a good friend and a good listener and a good helper. I'm so proud of him successfully completing his first week of preschool. I know it is a lot for him to get used to being gone from home every afternoon, and it will take some time to adjust, but I'm so glad that he's doing well, making new friends, and getting some new experiences outside of the home or with me.

Owen had a much better napping day on Friday. He took a good nap that morning for about an hour, and then took another nap for close to two hours that afternoon. I was so glad he was doing better, and I was hoping that we were over this stretch of not sleeping well since he had such a good night on Thursday and then good naps on Friday. The weather was beautiful that afternoon, so I took advantage of nap time to sit outside on our patio and enjoy the warm weather before the cold fall air settles in over the next week.

It was wonderful once everyone was home that afternoon. It's fun to just spend time together, and the kids loved having Daddy around. Sometimes the week feels really long, and it's such a relief when Friday comes and everyone can just relax again. I love this video of Owen climbing all over Daddy. Laying on the floor is an invitation to be crawled on and wrestled with, especially when Owen or Aedan are around. However, it's hard to remember that this little boy is not even one year old yet! He is so physically active and not afraid to throw his little body around!

I felt like going out for pizza in Brimley that night for dinner, but they actually were really busy and had a wait for pizza, which they don't normally have, so we decided to stop at Project Playground and let the kids run around and play for awhile before going to get pizza. It was kind of funny watching Owen walk around the playground because we hadn't been to this playground since Owen learned how to walk confidently. He was having a blast exploring, climbing, and walking as fast as his little legs could go. It was pretty warm outside that evening, and it was so great to just get outside and play. Part of me is mourning the end of summer simply because of the change in weather. I have loved spending so much time outside this summer, and I am not ready for the wind and cold weather and having to stay indoors more.

Saturday, September 15th we went over to Canada for the Bush Plane Days Festival. This was the festival we went to last year the day before Owen was born. In fact, that's when my contractions started, and I was in denial for awhile that he could actually be coming into the world soon since it was only the day before his due date. So, going to this festival brought back so many memories of being pregnant, of only being a family of four, and of the great anticipation and anxiety that came with being so close to giving birth to another baby.

Samantha and Aedan were really looking forward to going to the Bush Plane Museum, and since we were just recently there with my parents, we decided not to look at the planes much, but just do the fun extra stuff that they had set up.

Our first stop was the ropes course. Samantha was excited to try it again, and Aedan was brave enough to try as well. Last year, he was pretty nervous about it and only made it halfway across before he wanted to get down. However, it's amazing what a year of growing will do for you, and he did an amazing job crossing all the way to the end! Samantha also has grown so tall in the last year, so it was much easier for her to reach from one step to the other, and she didn't show any fear at all.

After that we let the kids ride on the train. Even though we didn't have a wristband for Owen, they let him and I ride on together as well. You can't tell by the picture because he was tired and really should have been napping at this time, (he also had a rough night on Friday into Saturday, and I had to nurse him twice in order to get him back to sleep, in addition to the times Ben went in his room to help him get back to sleep when he would wake up crying), but he enjoyed going on the train ride and looking all around as we rode.

Here is one plane we decided to go up in and look at. Owen thought it was so cool to be walking around and exploring with his big sister and brother.

They had two super heroes there that day: Wonder Woman and Iron Man. Aedan was so excited to see these super heroes, especially Iron Man, because he is one of his favorites.

While Samantha and Aedan played inside one of the bounce houses, Ben took Owen over to listen to the music that the live band was playing. He was just mesmerized and stood there staring at the people playing instruments and singing.

We brought a picnic lunch with us to save us some money, so we sat down at the tables in the hangar to eat before the aerial demonstration started at noon. It was so cool to see a bush plane and helicopter close up and in action. We missed seeing this part last year because we were stuck waiting in line for face painting for over an hour, so I'm really glad we got to see this this year. I took a lot of videos so others could see how cool the demonstration was.

And look at these amazing pictures I got! The amount of water it can scoop up and drop, and the skill of these pilots being able to fly a plane that varies in weight so much, is rather incredible to me.

After the aerial demonstration, we had a few more stations to stop at the get stickers for Samantha's and Aedan's passport books, we let them use their tickets on the carnival games, and then we decided to head home because it was almost 1:30 and Owen hadn't napped all day. Here's Owen trying his hand at putt-putt golf, too. However, he was SUPER upset when I had to take the golf club out of his hand. We have definitely entered that phase where he gets upset when you take things away from him, especially when he is overtired.

Here are all the kids posing with Smokey the Bear. Samantha and Aedan gave him high fives and were fine getting close to him. Owen, on the other hand, was giving him a very wary look out of the corner of his eye, like he wasn't quite sure what to think about this person-sized animal.

Once we got back home after the festival, I got Owen down for a nap, and Samantha and Aedan just had quiet time to play together. We took it easy the rest of the day, had leftovers for dinner, did bath time, and just spent time together as a family. I took this little video of Samantha and Aedan singing Happy Birthday to Brielle, and the reason I am including it on my blog is because of how Aedan is just watching Samantha the entire time they are singing. He LOVES his big sister so much and looks up to her so much. Their time together on the weekends is going to be so precious to them after the busyness of school during the week. His world is still so much about her, and sometimes I wish I could just freeze time so it could always be like this. I know that some day she will feel like she is too cool to play with her little brother, but my heart hopes that this bond of friendship that they have formed runs deep enough that they will always remain close friends as they grow up.

(Blog about September 9-15, 2018)

Samantha's First Week of 2nd Grade, Time With Just My Boys, and Owen's Napping Troubles

Samantha: 87 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 53 Months, Week 1
Owen: 11 Months, Week 3 (Week 51)

Sunday, September 2nd, Ben and I were traveling back from Boston to Upland. Owen had been up most of the night before, so Ben and I were exhausted and knew we had a long day of traveling ahead of us. We took a taxi to the airport at 8:00, and it was pretty easy to get through security. We found a play area in the airport to let Owen walk around and play, while Ben and I got some coffee from Dunkin' Donuts. It was so funny to watch him play because he just kept following around all the older kids, just hoping that they would play with him. You can definitely tell that he is a younger sibling and the he missed Samantha and Aedan. Owen had done pretty well considering all the dragging around we were doing to him, taking him all over the city of Boston, and expecting him to sleep in a different bed and room. He was definitely done traveling, and we knew this return flight would be more interesting, especially since we had a connection in Chicago, so we would have to be on two planes. I didn't even try to nurse Owen this time since it didn't work at all last time. He was definitely tired that morning since he had such a rough night and hadn't napped at all that morning. It took a little bit of work to get him to fall asleep on that first plane ride, but he eventually passed out on Ben's shoulder for a nice little nap.

Here's our little guy hanging out after he woke up. We tried to entertain him with toys and snacks as best we could.

After landing in Chicago, we scarfed down a quick lunch and then went back on the plane for the short, half an hour flight back to Indianapolis. Here's a cool picture Ben took of the Chicago skyline as we approached Chicago.

Once we got to Indy, we collected our luggage, took the bus back to our parking lot, and we never thought we would be so excited to see our car after pushing around stroller, taking public transportation for a few days, and wrangling a wiggly toddler. Owen fell asleep instantly as soon as we started driving, staying asleep for the entire ride back to Upland. In fact, I think I may have taken a nap for a few minutes as well.

We arrived in Upland around 5:00, and Jeni and Alaina ended up coming down for the evening so that we could see them and the cousins could spend some time together. We hadn't seen them since our family vacation in June. It was a fun evening together, although Samantha cried when Alaina had to leave and she had to get ready for bed. She was hoping she could spend the night so they would have more time to play together in the morning. Samantha loves Alaina, and she so wishes she could see her more often. I wish there was a way we could make that happen more. That's one downfall to living farther away. We don't see family nearly as much as we would like, and it just breaks my heart to see our kids get so sad when we have to leave family.

It was so good to be back in a house where Owen could walk around freely and play with toys and his siblings. He definitely missed them. We told Samantha and Aedan that anytime he saw older kids, he would go up to them and try to interact with them, hoping that they would play with him and show him attention. He loved having his big brother and sister around, that's for sure!

As we were getting ready to head back home on Monday, which was Labor Day, I so wished that we could just teleport ourselves back home. I hoped that Owen wouldn't be too grumpy having to be contained again, and I hoped that Ben and I could get more sleep that night. Owen started off the night waking up crying once before we went to bed, and it took a little bit of work to get him back to sleep. Once again, he was sleeping in a different bed and a different room, so I'm sure that was weird for him. It was so fun to experience a new city and be able to go with Ben for his conference, but I told Ben that I don't want to travel anywhere again until Owen isn't nursing anymore. It just makes it so much more difficult, especially because he won't nurse in public. Sometimes it takes him awhile to calm down when nursing too, and I feel like I'm just wrestling him to get him to settle down and start nursing. I sometimes am looking forward to when I don't have to be the only person putting him to bed, but I know I will be sad when he no longer nurses anymore. However, like I said, I really can't complain, because even though I was tired, I got to go on a trip with my husband and we love to travel together. Some day we will be able to tell Owen about when he was a baby and got to go on a trip with just Mommy and Daddy.

Our car ride back home on Monday went really well. Owen took two really good naps in the car, and Samantha and Aedan were respectful and helpful. We made our normal stop at the Lansing Mall for lunch at Chipotle and time for the kids to play in the play place before getting back in the car to drive again. The only other stop we made was at a rest area to use the bathroom and let the kids stretch their legs for a little while. After picking up Izzy, we made it home just in time for pizza to be delivered to our house at 6:30. We ate a fast dinner, got the essentials unpacked, gave the kids quick baths, and tried to get everyone (especially Samantha) in bed at a decent time since she had her first day of 2nd grade the next day. This wasn't the most ideal way to spend the last couple of days before school started, but I know the kids had a great time with Ema and Papa in Upland.

I always have bittersweet feelings when the school year starts back up again. Especially up here, we have almost three months off of school, so it's hard to transition back into waking up and getting ready quickly, busy schedules, and also just not seeing Samantha as much. We really had a great summer together, and I loved having her around. Samantha and Aedan loved playing together, and they truly are each other's best friends. I loved seeing the things they came up with when they played. My heart was mourning the fact that my little girl was going back to school and would be gone from 8:00-4:00 every day of the week again.

Anyways, Samantha was pretty excited about going to school, but she was a bit apprehensive that first day since she didn't know who her teachers were going to be since they were both new to the school, and we were out of town the night of the Meet the Teacher Night. We decided to make it a family affair in taking her to school, so we could walk her in and get her situated where she needed to be. Of course, I took her 1st day of school picture before we left home. I can't believe my little girl is already in 2nd grade! That sounds so old to me. It's hard to believe this is her third year in elementary school already. Time sure does seem to go by faster as they get older.

And here is Aedan posing with Samantha that morning. He sure was going to miss her, as his preschool didn't start for another week. However, I was looking forward to having time with just him as well.

And here are all the people I love the most in one picture. :)

I wasn't sure exactly how the day would go, but it went faster than I expected it to go. It was nice having Aedan around me more because when Samantha is home, he largely ignores me, but now that she's gone, he wanted to be near me and play with me and talk to me a lot more than usual. We spent the day just hanging out at home, getting things settled after being out of town, doing laundry, and just playing at home together.

Since Aedan hadn't started preschool yet, Samantha could take the bus home this first week of school, and I couldn't wait to hear how her day went. She had a great day and always likes school once she starts going, even if she doesn't want to admit it. Owen took good naps for me that day, for which I was extremely thankful, and then we spent the night hanging out together as a family.

Here is Owen doing one of his favorite activities as of late, putting toys back into a container. We can now get him to help us clean up!

After having chili soup for dinner, we went out for celebratory first day of school ice cream. It was a little bit too chilly to go to Dairy Queen and eat ice cream outside, so we went to Zak's instead. Everyone enjoyed their ice cream, and Ben even let Owen have a taste of his.

Wednesday was a busy day with Ben and I meeting with Samantha's teacher and principal first thing that morning to discuss the schedule we are going to try and follow for her going up a grade for math. (Miss Linda came over to our house to watch the boys for us so we didn't have to bring them along to the meeting, which was super kind of her.) They were able to find a consistent time every day, but it meant that she was going to miss P.E. once a week and Culture once a week. Plus, Ms. Allison would have to do Samantha's Guided Reading group at another time of day on the days she would miss it for math. We decided to let Samantha go to P.E. and miss math on Wednesdays, and we would try that for awhile to see if that worked okay. She just loves P.E., and it's a good time for her to be active and social, so we didn't want her to miss out on that time either. I was happy that it seemed like everyone was on the same page, and I was glad that we got it worked out so quickly so that Samantha could get started in 3rd grade math right away. Ms. Allison seems to be organized and on top of things, so I am hoping this will be a good year for Samantha to learn and grow.

Then, the busy morning continued with a MOPS leadership team meeting at church from 10-12:30. I tried to get Owen down for a nap before the meeting, but he woke up when I laid him down, and then only slept 20 minutes. Then, he was out all morning playing at church, and he did fine, but then he was just so overtired for lunch time, and I nursed him and rocked him for 25 minutes to get him to fall asleep for his afternoon nap, but again, woke up as soon as I laid him down. It was so frustrating because I knew he was tired and needed to sleep, but I just could not get him to stay asleep. One time I went down to his room, planning on just holding him and letting him sleep on me, because that would at least be better than no nap, but I couldn't even get him to sleep on my shoulder sitting down. He just kept wiggling and whimpering. I even tried nursing him again to see if he would fall asleep doing that, but he was not interested in sleeping, so I eventually just gave up and let him get up.

After a long day of little sleep, I put Owen to bed early that night, a little after 7:00. In fact, all the kids were in bed before 7:30 that night because everyone was so tired, and it was nice to be done with him and back upstairs before 7:30, giving me more of a night to myself.

Even though Owen was giving me such a hard time at staying asleep for nap time, he was doing somewhat better at night, at least better than what he was doing in Boston, which I guess doesn't say much. He had actually slept from when we go to bed until the morning a couple times, but he also started waking up 2-3 times in the time between when I put him down and when we go to bed, for some reason, which is frustrating because it interrupts Ben and my time together or the work that we are trying to get done.

As Ben and I were getting ready to go to bed ourselves that night, Ben let Izzy out to go the bathroom, as he always does, and there was a skunk on the other side of our fence by our play set. Izzy ran right for it and got sprayed before Ben could call her back. We were both so annoyed that she got sprayed again and that we were going to have to spend all this time cleaning her off again when she, and our house, was finally smelling better. We were smart enough to not let her in the house this time, but Ben did let her in the garage in order to get her away from the skunk. She got sprayed across her chest again, and we decided to get the baby pool out, put Izzy in it, and clean her outside with the hose. The water was cold, and we felt bad that we had to do that to her, but we did not want her in the house until she was cleaned. Luckily, we had some hydrogen peroxide still, so we were able to use the effective solution right away. I scrubbed her as best as I could and got as much of the smell off her as I could. However, we still moved her kennel into the laundry room so we could keep her out of the main part of the house. It was definitely better than the last time she got sprayed, but it still smelled in our house. It was coming in from the garage and sinking down into the basement, and I think Ben and I probably smelled too from being outside with Izzy. It was so disgusting and annoying. Our neighbors had even caught a skunk in a trap the day before, so we thought maybe we were good to go, but then they told us that they had seen a mom and two babies walking around outside, and once Izzy got sprayed, we realized there was definitely more than one skunk. The other thing we realized the next day, is that we probably should have moved the car out of the garage because the whole inside of the car smelled like skunk from the odor permeating it all night long. I tried to air out the garage and the car as much as possible for the rest of the week, but it's amazing how long the skunk smell can linger.

I struggled with this week because I wanted to be doing fun things with Aedan and spend more time with him before he started preschool the next week and our schedule was more limited, but with the trouble I was having trying to get Owen to sleep, I felt like I was spending all my time with him, down in his room, trying to get him to sleep and to stay asleep. Thursday was another one of those days. I tried to get him down for a morning nap, as he was up before 7:00 that morning, but once again, he cried as soon as I laid him down. I was holding him and patting him for over 20 minutes, but it wasn't doing any good, and after struggling with him all day on Wednesday, I just felt like I couldn't do it again. I felt so tired of him not being able to ever fall asleep on his own. In fact, I ended up just leaving him in his bed that morning so that I could actually spend time with Aedan. Plus, I was just too upset about it and needed a break, for his sake and mine. So, Aedan and I played board games together, like I Can Do That! and Clue Jr. It was so fun to be able to give Aedan that one-on-one attention and just do whatever he wanted to for awhile. An hour and ten minutes later, around 11:15, Owen finally gave up and fell asleep. Then, he ended up sleeping until 12:45, which was strange and pushed our lunch time way back, but I didn't care, I was just glad he was finally sleeping.

On a more positive note, even though Owen has trouble sleeping, he is almost always happy and easygoing when he's awake. Here's Aedan playing a fun game of throwing this soft, inflatable ball at Owen's head. Owen did not seem to care at all, and I probably shouldn't have let it go on so long, but it was just fun to watch. Aedan thought it was great fun, and it's a good thing he didn't always have the greatest aim. It's amazing what little brothers can put up with. :)

I have been trying to not talk about and obsess over Owen's sleep, but I feel like we were back in a bad place with him again. Before going to Boston, I feel like he was starting to find a new normal and settle into a little bit of a routine. However, Thursday night was a rough night after an already rough day. He was up 5 times during the night, and one of those times it took us an hour and a half to get him back to sleep, with both of us having to go into his room to try and help him back to sleep. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I was pretty sure he was getting a molar in on the bottom left side of his mouth because there was a large bump on his gums. We have been giving him medicine before putting him to bed, and I also gave him more around 3:00 a.m., but it didn't seem to be helping him much.

There was a play date at McDonald's that Thursday morning, and I thought about taking the boys, but I didn't want to go if there wasn't going to be anyone for Aedan to play with there. One boy that he likes to play with that I thought might be there ended up not being able to go, but when I messaged his mom about it, she invited us to come to their house instead, so we headed over there. Owen only slept half an hour for his morning nap, which I guess is better than nothing, but didn't seem long enough after the rough night he had. I felt bad for Aedan because I was spending so much time down with Owen trying to get him to sleep, and that definitely didn't help Aedan's adjustment to having Samantha back in school. He was definitely much more listless and bored, wanting me to play with him all the time, and not being patient when I had to try and get things done around the house. It will be nice when Aedan gets to go to preschool in the afternoons starting next week because it will give him something to do instead of being stuck at the house having to be quiet while his baby brother naps (hopefully). However, I was glad that Aedan was able to go over to a friend's house and play. We built train tracks together, colored pictures, and they even had mac and cheese for lunch before we had to go back home so I could put Owen down for his afternoon nap. He ended up going down pretty easily for that nap, so that was good. I also had Aedan nap because he was just acting so tired. He was already fast asleep by the time I came back up from putting Owen to bed.

The other interesting thing that happened over night into Friday was that we caught something in our trap that I had gotten from animal control on Thursday. We had it covered with a blanket, per the suggestion of the animal control workers, so we couldn't see in it, and I was afraid to look. However, I figured I should probably check and make sure it was actually a skunk before calling and having them come get the trap. I took a long metal pole over by the trap and lifted a corner of the blanket. I saw grey fur and knew it was not a skunk, but I couldn't tell what it actually was. I then lifted the rest of the blanket off, and the animal stirred from it's sleep, and that's when I saw it was just a cat. I carefully opened the trap door and held it open until the cat realized it could get out, and then it ran away from me, down the street, as fast as it could possibly go. I wonder whose cat we trapped for the night!

When Friday came we all gave a sigh of relief. Samantha had a great first week of school. She seems to enjoy her class and her teachers, and she has gotten over the nerves of going up for 3rd grade math. She told us about a new girl that she made friends with and fun games she was playing on the playground and at P.E. She said her favorite subjects are Writer's Workshop and Science. We went to her Back to School BBQ on Wednesday night, and it was fun to see her interacting with different kids and teachers and getting excited for being back in school again. It's a transition, for sure, but we will get there. I am so proud of Samantha and how well she does at school. She is a hard worker, she is respectful to her teachers, and she is a good friend. I love watching her personality develop as she gets older and comes into her own more and more.

After a first week of school and trying to get used to new routines and schedules, we didn't have any grand plans for the weekend. We had a relaxing morning at home on Saturday and just enjoyed giving Samantha and Aedan time to play together. I know they really missed each other that week after having the whole summer to play with each other. The only thing we did was run to Meijer so the kids could pick out presents for Owen for his birthday, so Aedan could pick out a present for Gavin, and so that I could buy my materials fro MOPS.

Aedan has become much more interesting in drawing lately, and he spent a lot of time drawing these people on the white board easel in our basement. It's a family portrait, and I know he said that Ben, Samantha, Owen, Aunt Jeni, Uncle Tim, Alaina, and I were in it (along with a couple others), but I don't remember who was who. I love when kids start drawing stick figure people with the legs that come out of the head and the arms that come out of the legs. He spent so much time on this and was very insistent that no one erased it or messed it up, so I wanted to be sure to take a picture of it and the proud artist standing next to it.

Saturday afternoon was another frustrating time with Owen. I got him down just fine, which is what usually happens, and then Ben left with Samantha and Aedan to take them on a bike ride around campus, and pretty much right after they left, Owen woke up crying. I was just so tired of him doing this during nap time, and I just felt done dealing with it. I knew he can take better naps (even in Boston he was napping better than this), and I knew he was probably teething and that was bothering him, but I just felt at my limit for handling him. I went back into his room, even though I didn't want to, and attempted to get him back to sleep, but nothing I was doing was working. I even tried nursing him again to see if that would work, since that is what he has been wanting to do more at night, but he was not interested in falling back asleep.

That evening Aedan was invited to a birthday party for his friend, Gavin. Since he rarely gets invited to parties, I figured he might have fun going to this one. I took him there, since I know the mom through MOPS, and it was a difficult thing for Aedan. He didn't know anyone there, except for Gavin, and Gavin was playing with his other friends, neighbors, and cousins, so Aedan was a bit left out. The party was in the gym at Big Bear, and it basically is just a large gym with a bounce house, balls, scooters, and hula hoops to play with, and lots of space to run around. Aedan stuck pretty close to me the whole time, and I was more than happy to play with him, pull him on the scooter, bat the balloon back and forth with him, and give him some one-on-one attention. With Owen being so mobile now, he takes a lot of my attention when I am home with the boys. Aedan started to warm up after a little while, but he still didn't branch out too far from me. He was excited about the cake and presents. In fact, Aedan was very helpful and carried all the presents from the present table over to where Gavin was sitting to open them. He really is such a sweet and helpful boy. I am proud of who he is, and I am proud to be his mom. :)

Here are Samantha and Owen playing together in the bath tub that night. :) Normally Aedan and Owen take baths together, so Samantha loved this chance to be able to play with Owen in the water. I think he was having a blast with her as well.

(Blog about September 2-8, 2018)