Philadelphia Zoo, Friend Trouble at School, and Ema and Papa Coming to Visit

Samantha: 99 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 65 Months, Week 1
Owen: 23 Months, Week 3

The night going into Sunday, September 1st was pretty good. Owen has been waking up a lot during the night with what we are calling his 2 year sleep regression phase. For the better part of the last month, he's been waking up at least once a night where either Ben or I have to go up to his room to hold him and get him back to sleep. This is the one area where I feel Ben and I have improved in drastically. We realize that certain behaviors are just part of a phase, and we just have to support and love the kids how they need it in that phase, knowing that one day they will grow out of that phase and move on to something different. We felt pretty good after being able to sleep through the night ourselves, too!

Aedan still was not feeling well on Sunday morning, so we had him sit with us during the service. We tried out Parker Hill one more time, just to kind of confirm in our hearts that Restored was the church we wanted to choose to make our home. Although there were many things we liked about Parker Hill, it was good to have visited one more time for comparison purposes, and Ben and I both agreed as we left that morning that we felt confident in choosing Restored.

After coming home from church, we just took it easy. Everyone was tired, and we had plans to be up late that evening, so we had everyone take naps that afternoon. In fact, I was so tired that I ended up sleeping for an hour and a half. I love Sunday afternoon rest times; they are the best.

Harvey's Lake, where we live, has fireworks on Labor Day weekend, kind of like to celebrate the end of a good summer. Since no one had school on Monday, we decided we could keep the kids up for the fireworks. After dinner, once it started getting darker out, we all got sweaters on and went outside. We decided we would be able to see the fireworks from the top of our backyard, so we got a blanket laid out, and the kids just enjoyed time running around and playing, as well as enjoying an evening snack of banana chocolate chip muffins. They were so excited that we would be able to see them from our backyard. However, as it was getting dark and we thought the fireworks would start soon, it started raining. Lightly at first, but then it got harder and harder, so much so that we all ran back inside, taking our wet clothes off at the door. It was already getting close to 9:00, and we had no idea how long the rain would last or if/when the fireworks would start, so we decided to just put the kids to bed. They were sad and disappointed that they couldn't see them, but we told them that next year we will try for it again, and hopefully we will have better weather. It was probably close to 10:00 by the time the fireworks actually started, and I did walk up to the top of the back yard to watch them. We had a perfect view over the trees, and it was fun to watch them, even if I was by myself.

Since Monday was Labor Day, we decided to take advantage of our day off of school/work and go down to Philadelphia to the zoo.  In getting ready for the zoo that morning, I realized another thing we were missing from our move: our sit and stand stroller. My sense of frustration with this moving company was renewed because it is helpful for us to have that stroller when we go places with a lot of walking so that Aedan can sit occasionally when he's tired. (He gets pretty whiny when he's tired and has to walk a lot.) Plus, once we get a foster kid, we may need a double stroller for when we are out and about. I contacted Paul about it, and I wasn't very nice and basically accused him of stealing because that is, in essence, what he did by not packing all our stuff and then not even telling me that he left things behind that we never said we didn't want or need. Part of me now wonders if there are other things we haven't even realized we are missing yet, but these big items turning up that we don't have are really frustrating to me.

Anyways, we worked with what we had, made a lunch to bring to the zoo, and headed off on our adventure. It was a pretty warm, sunny day, and we really enjoyed our first experience at this zoo. They had a really fun petting zoo that the kids spent a lot of time in. All the kids love animals, and Aedan and Owen got really into brushing the goats. Samantha had already named several of the goats before leaving that day.

Here is a picture and video of Aedan's shirt being nibbled on. He thought it was hilarious, especially because he had a goat try to eat his shirt at a petting zoo over the summer in Indiana, too. He must have yummy tasting shirts!

One of our favorite areas at the zoo was the monkey area. Here is is Aedan pretending to be a gorilla. Anytime he asks me to take a picture, I will gladly oblige. :) He's such a little cutie.

Watching these gibbons play captivated us for quite some time. There was a baby one that was swinging and jumping like crazy, even holding on to, what we could assume was the mom, while she was walking around. It was kind of funny to see that it looked like the older gibbons were kind of annoyed by the crazy baby.

We saw lot of different animals before deciding to take a break and get some ice cream for a treat to cool us off from the hot sun. Just down the way from the ice cream shop was this tractor set up, and of course, Aedan and Owen had to climb up and pretend to drive. I had to pull Owen away from the wheel in order to give another kid a turn, and he was not very happy about me doing that.

As we were on our way out of the zoo for the afternoon, we passed the penguin exhibit and had to stop. Penguins are so fun to watch because they are so active, and the kids could have stood there watching the penguins swim by them for a long time.

We passed by this polar bear made of Legos on our way out of the zoo, and the kids wanted their picture taken before we moved on.

Before we left, we decided to transfer our tickets to a season pass because it wasn't that much more expensive and going just one more time in the next year would pay for it. Everyone was tired on the way home, and the boys fell asleep quickly while Samantha had some nice quiet time to read.

I love how Owen propped himself up on this arm while he slept.

And of course my sweet little Aedan, who is looking so big lately, but when he is asleep in his car seat, I reminisce back to when he was a baby and would sleep in his car seat with his pacifier.

After having Monday off, the rest of the week went by pretty much like normal. The kids and Ben were slowly getting into the swing of the school routine. Owen and I spent time at home doing things around the house, or running errands around town. Samantha and Aedan had some homework to complete after school, but nothing that was too time consuming. Aedan brings home quite a lot of papers from school, so here's a sampling of work from school this week.

Thursday was a little bit of an emotional day for me because just last weekend I found out that my grandpa passed away. He was going to be turning 100 in November, and he has been suffering with cancer and more physical problems over the last year. In fact, we originally were going to take a family trip to see him for his 100th birthday, but we decided to move our trip up to last February because of the health issues he was experiencing. Nevertheless, losing a family member is never easy, no matter the circumstances. I got word from my dad about the funeral being the following Monday afternoon, so Ben lovingly worked on finding a flight for me to Chicago, and he found a really good deal flying out of Syracuse, New York. 

Besides the pervading sadness of my grandpa's passing, Samantha had a really rough couple of days at school. On Wednesday she had trouble with kids not letting her play at recess; the boys said she couldn't play kickball because it was a boy's game, and the girls just kept running away from her. Then, on Thursday she took a book out for recess (probably to avoid the problem she had the previous day), and then a few kids came up to her and said, "You're never going to have any friends here because you are too big of a dork," and then walked away. She confided in me after school, when she was having an extremely bad attitude and I could tell something was wrong. I sat up in her bed with her, encouraging her to talk about her feelings, and sharing with her how my feelings had been hurt that day as well. She finally told me what they said, and she just buried her head in my chest and started sobbing. I felt so bad for her, and I don't understand why kids are so mean to say and do things like that. I just hugged her and cried right along with her, my heart breaking for my little girl.

After having such a rough few days at school, I enlisted all my prayer warriors to lift Samantha up in prayer Thursday evening and throughout the day on Friday. I even prayed with her right before we left to go down to the van. I hoped that she would have a good experience at school that day, and I was so happy when she was all smiles when she got off the van. She said she had the best day ever. She played "jungle" with several girls at recess, and they started planning a sleepover together, trying to figure out whose house to go to. I almost cried tears of joy for the Lord hearing our prayers and helping my little girl in such a real and practical way. I was so grateful that she was able to end a bad week on such a positive note, and I was encouraged that this could be the start of some new friendships for Samantha.

We had exciting plans for the weekend as Ema and Papa were arriving for their visit. They arrived at our house in the middle of the afternoon on Friday, and Ema offered to stay back at the house since Owen was still napping, and Papa walked down with me to pick the kids up from the bus. Samantha and Aedan were eagerly watching to see who would be there to pick them up. One of Aedan's first questions was, "Where's Ema?" I think that was the fastest they went up the hill back home. They couldn't wait to have them stay at our house, to play with them, and just to have their attention. We spent some time outside that evening and just had fun hanging out and talking, catching up with each other.

After spending time playing at home Saturday morning, eating breakfast, and Ben going with Owen, Ema, and Papa to Home Depot to buy what we needed to fix our garage door, we had a quick lunch at home before heading out to the county fair. We decided we would check it out, and it was just $10 per person for a wristband that would get you on all the rides and to see all the shows. Even though it was nap time for Owen, we had a lot of fun. The kids really love going on little rides like these. Owen loved the carousel, and Samantha and Aedan really liked his ride that went around and around in circles, over a small hill, and then even took you around backwards.

We even got to see a circus show, which really had great acrobatics. Samantha was fascinated by all the ways they were hanging upside and spinning, but we told her not to get any ideas.

The kids also really enjoyed seeing all the fair animals, especially the horses and rabbits. In fact, seeing the rabbits inspired Samantha about wanting to have a rabbit of her own some day. We definitely have kids that are animal lovers. As of right now, Samantha says she wants to have a farm full of animals some day, and Aedan is going to live in a house right next to her so that they can work on the farm together. I love that their dream for their future includes each other, and I pray that they will always love each other that much and keep their bond close.

After seeing the animals, we went on a few more rides, like this slide, and then we let the kids pick a snack. Aedan and Owen shared cotton candy, while Samantha had a caramel apple. We were having a great time at the fair, and it was even more fun that Ema and Papa got to experience it with us!

After spending several hours at the fair, we decided it was time to get back home, order some Grotto Pizza for dinner, and then Ben and I left on our date. We decided to get out of the house and go out for dinner. We went to Texas Roadhouse because steak was sounding good to me, and Ben and I really enjoyed our time together just talking and enjoying each other's company. Date nights are so important, and we wish we could go on more dates, but for right now we will take what we can get, and we are grateful for grandparents who will watch our kids while we get a chance to go out together.

(Blog about September 1-7, 2019)