Samantha: 112 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 80 Months, Week 1
Owen: 36 Months, Week 3
It seems like in foster care things are always changing. We seemed to have a pretty good schedule worked out for visitation for our little peanut's birth parents, but Children and Youth (CYS) was approved to increase visitation time for parents by using an outside facility that was scheduling visitation. Also, with our little visitor's father recently getting his paternity confirmed and his own visitation time, they were trying to schedule 8 hours for each parent every week. They came to us with a crazy new visitation schedule which would basically require us to be driving our little peanut down for visits four days in a row with three of those days being dropping off and picking her up in the evenings when we are trying to do dinner, homework, and family time. It was just way too much, and we were feeling very cornered about the whole thing. It's an hour round trip to drop her off and another hour to pick her up. It was just too much time commitment to give both parents 8 hours a week. We were trying to decide how much to stand up for our own family time and set healthy boundaries. Week night evenings are the only time we have to spend with our kids and as a family during the week. I kept messaging back and forth with the supervisor of the separate visitation facility, expressing what our interests are and what would work for us. It was such a headache talking back and forth and trying to work out everyone's schedules. It was a Sunday when he and I were texting back and forth, and I ended up just saying we couldn't commit to anything until we talked to our caseworkers on Monday morning and got clear guidance as to what was going on and what we were allowed to say no to. We ended up having to talk to our caseworker and our little peanut's caseworker to say that we just weren't comfortable with all these evening times. Our caseworker said that they had a conference call with everyone involved and it was resolved that there would be no evening visits, but our little peanut's caseworker just kept hanging on to and suggesting these evening times. There was also talk of bio mom getting unsupervised visits on October 20th, so we weren't sure why we were trying to change everything with visitation for just a week or so of time. We were wiling to do one evening a week, but multiple evenings a week just didn't work for us. We were just wanting some flexibility coming back our way, and there wasn't any, so we were feeling very frustrated by it all. It really was such a mess, and we were going back and forth about it for most of the week.
We are loving this nice, fall weather we have been having. Samantha and Aedan spent some time outside that afternoon drawing in the driveway with chalk. I forget what everything was now, but they were able to explain it all to me. I love seeing their creativity and when they actually find something fun that they both can do together.
On Monday morning, I ended up having to take Izzy to the vet because I thought she had a UTI. She was urinating over and over again in the yard when I let her out that morning, like 15 or more times in 20 minutes. She just kept pacing, squatting, and peeing. I had to get a urine and fecal sample, so that was fun, especially the urine sample because I had to try to follow her around the yard with a bowl to catch her urine when she squatted, but she was weirded out by me following her around and would only urinate when I started to walk away. I felt bad for her because I'm sure she felt really uncomfortable. She got a 14 day antibiotic shot, and the doctor told us to come back in 14 days to have her checked again. He also gave her a pain pill to take two times a day because her stomach area was sensitive when he put pressure on it, and she got a probiotic for us to put on her food to help with any tummy trouble from the antibiotics or pain meds. If she doesn't get better, he will do more to see what caused the problem, like an x-ray or ultrasound to see if she has stones or something like that, but he could also see blood and things in her urine. We will have to let Izzy out more often and keep any eye on her so she doesn't pee in the house. Now I have two things to watch in the house to make sure they don't have accidents!
Here is some work Aedan brought home with a 100% on his sight words test and 100% on his Spelling Test.
Here is some of Aedan's math work on subtraction, a barely done coloring page (because that kind of thing is not his favorite), practice with -ag words, and writing sentences.
Here is the Weekly Math Boxes that Samantha does in her math class every day.
And here's a Mid-Chapter Checkpoint from Aedan to practice all the skills from Chapter 2. I had to talk to him about not using pen on his work since then he wouldn't be able to erase it, but his handwriting was fairly neat and legible, so that was a positive I pointed out to him.
On Tuesday, October 6th I subbed again, this time at Lehman-Jackson. I was supposed to be Mrs. Welby's sub, who is Samantha's math teacher, and she was really excited about having me for her math teacher that day. Aedan was sad and asked why I couldn't be a substitute for his teacher, too. However, I think because I had never really subbed at Lehman-Jackson, and they didn't really know me or what my abilities are, they didn't want to have me be a classroom teacher, so instead I spent the morning helping different teachers with copying, and then did pull-out reading groups in the afternoon. It was a good day, and I enjoyed working with different classes and getting to know different students.
Here is Ben hanging out with Owen and our little peanut while I was working. You can see our little peanut and how much she is growing and filling out, as well as the back of her head where she has so much of her hair worn off from laying on her back.
Owen had to get in on the picture taking as well. Such a silly boy!
I took a picture of this list of sight words while I was subbing because I was testing a few kids from the other first grade class, and I was interested to know how Aedan would do on these words. Some of the kids I tested hardly knew any of these words, and I was really surprised. I think the only one Aedan got wrong was saying "where" instead of "were". I'm so glad that he's doing so well in school and learning how to read so well. I love hearing him read and will have to post a video of him reading sometime.
As I walked the halls at Lehman-Jackson, I noticed some of Samantha's and Aedan's artwork hanging on the walls. Parents aren't allowed to come in the school as much as they were before Covid, so I haven't had a chance to see thing things they have been working on in art. Here is Samantha's name with designs drawn in between the letters.
Here is a rainbow octopus and apple done by Aedan.
And here is a self-portrait done by Samantha, with her two favorite colors of blue and purple in the background, as well as a list of three of her goals for the year: Be kind. Be helpful. Be a good friend.
Here is some of Aedan's subtraction math work.
Sometimes evenings go by quickly, and Tuesday night was one of those nights with doing homework, making, eating, and cleaning up dinner, and then giving everyone a bath. I was also pretty tired after my day at school. It will definitely be a transition when I go back to work full time. It's not like staying home and taking care of kids is easy, but it's different than being out of the house all day, working and teaching kids. Plus, our little peanut is still waking us up quite a bit at night, making us pretty tired the next day. It's also different being a substitute because it's not your class, the kids don't know you, and things are harder sometimes.
Other things I worked on that evening were looking up where to order coal for our coal stove as we are getting closer to fall and colder weather. We decided not to bother with cleaning the chimney or buying coal last year because we honestly didn't have the money for it after moving, but this year we were wanting to clean the chimney and try using the coal stove to see what we thought of it and how it helped with heating our house. Also, after talking with Ben over the last week or so, we decided to book a plane ticket for me to go to Chicago to visit my grandma because I was going to go in May before Covid hit. I just figured it would be nice to do because I don't get to see her much when we visit Chicago for holidays and visits. In looking toward the end of the week, I desperately needed to clean the house because we have friends, Neil and MJ, coming over the weekend. We had plans on Wednesday, so it meant I would have to take Thursday and part of Friday to get the house cleaned up and ready for guests.
Samantha and Aedan had the day off on Wednesday, October 7th, so I made plans to take them for a fun day out together. I arranged for our friend Mandy to watch our little peanut for us, so that I could spend time with just my three kids, and I was so grateful for this time. The farm I planned to take the kids to wasn't open until noon, so after dropping off our little peanut, we drove over to Frances Slocum State Park for time to play on the playground and for the kids to ride bikes. Here are Samantha and Aedan riding bikes around together. Aedan is still doing such a great job! He can start himself and get going all by himself, and I think he likes being able to feel like he can keep up with Samantha more now. We need to definitely get him a new bike, maybe for his next birthday, now that he doesn't need to use training wheels and instead needs a bike with a kickstand.
I like this video because Samantha and Aedan are riding their bikes around, and then Owen goes running after them, trying desperately to catch up.
Before leaving the state park, we stopped to use the restroom, and then the kids found a nice pile of leaves to play in and throw at each other. Here they are throwing leaves at each other, as well as Aedan shoving Owen over twice (I know, such a kind older brother, right?). They were having a great time together, and I loved watching them laugh and play.
It was such a beautiful, sunny fall day, and the leaves were so colorful at Frances Slocum, so I had the kids sit under this tree for a few pictures together. They all wore plaid, button-up shirts and jeans so they could match each other for going to the farm that afternoon. Here are my cute, silly, wonderful children.
Unfortunately, there was a chance of rain that afternoon, but since the farm wasn't open in the morning, we didn't really have a choice about when we could go. Plus, I wanted to go on a day when Samantha and Aedan had a day off of school so we could all go together. The morning was so beautiful, and I wish it would have stayed that way, but as we traveled out to the farm while eating our Wendy's in the car, we were driving closer and closer to the clouds and rain.
I bought tickets online, so all I had to do was show them the tickets on my phone, and we were exploring the farm. We started off with a big jumping pillow in the shape of a pumpkin. I even got out there and jumped with them!
There was an area with large black slides coming down from haystacks, which the kids thought were pretty fun, as well as this smaller hay bale maze that they ran through together.
We were able to go on a tractor hay ride, as well as another tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch. In this video we were waiting for the tractor, and the kids came up with this fun game. You can tell how different the weather was in this video. It had been lightly raining and fairly windy most of the afternoon, and we were all pretty wet. Luckily, the kids were good sports, and I tried to go with the flow myself and not complain about it too much. Their little dancing is pretty cute in this video!
Luckily, after going to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins and then walking through the storybook corn maze, the skies started to clear up a little bit, and we were able to finally dry off. One of our last activities for the day was shooting off potato cannons and sling shotting pumpkins at targets. The boys couldn't quite do the sling shots on their own, and the potato cannon was hard to aim and push the button, but they thought it was a fun experience.
Before leaving the farm, we stopped to feed the goats some food, although we did have an incident where Owen somehow cut his finger on something and was bleeding enough that we had to go into the gift shop to ask for a band-aid. That made him feel better though, and he was able to go back out to feed the goats. The kids decided the big goats were mean and kept stealing food from the little goats, so they decided to try to trick the big goats so they could only feed the little goats.
Once we got back up to the front of the farm, we picked up the kids' pumpkins, and I got them to sit on a hay bale for me so I could take some pictures of them together. We had such a fun day together: playing at the playground, riding bikes, and then enjoying all the fall activities at the farm. I was so glad I was able to take them to do this, and that our little peanut was being watched by Mandy, so I could focus on just spending time with my kids.
While we were at the farm, Ben was able to pick up our little peanut and take her to her visit, which worked out well. After a busy day out playing all day, Owen was really tired and fell asleep in the car pretty quickly on the way home, even staying asleep when I stopped to buy dog food at Tractor Supply.
After having a busy day with being out playing and at the farm all day, plus having AWANA that night for the kids, Thursday had a lot going on as well. Our little peanut had a visit starting at 11:30. We were off to go grocery shopping, but when I got to Dallas I realized I left our shopping list at home, so I had to turn around and go back to get it. Then, after we got all our shopping done at Aldi, there was a really long line to check out, so I ended up being late for dropping of our little peanut for a visit. I felt like I was running around and trying to go as fast as I could, but I still couldn't get it all done in time.
Here is a view of the changing colors on the trees as you leave Harvey's Lake.
I know I've been posting a lot of pictures of the fall colors in our back yard lately, but I enjoyed watching Spring unfold before my eyes during the beginning of Covid quarantine time, and I wanted to pay attention to how things changed in the fall as well. Our back yard is so pretty, especially in the afternoon when the sun travels lower across the sky and shines beautifully through the trees.
After the chaos of the morning and still talking back and forth to figure out a new visitation schedule for our little peanut, I was feeling really overwhelmed, like I never have enough time for anything. And this feeling has come up quite often lately. I didn't know what to do about it. But I didn't feel like I had the freedom to enjoy my life and family because there was just always something to do. I was left wondering if that was a normal feeling that most people have, and if I should stop expecting life to be easier or calmer. I felt like I had no friends to talk to about my feelings, so I felt like I just kept trying to minimize them or explain them away.
Fridays are usually our day to just stay home, get things done around the house, and play together. It was a beautiful, sunny day, so Owen and I were able to go outside and play together while our little peanut took a nap. That afternoon after lunch I was once again struck by how beautiful it was with the sun shining through the trees, so here are some more pictures of our back yard.
Here is some of the work the kids brought home from school that week. A bear that looks like Corduroy painted by Aedan, a first day feelings poster that says, "I feel happy and nervous," a list of his weekly spelling words, practice with short i sounds, and more practice with subtraction.
This was my favorite thing that Aedan brought home from school. I love his ninja turtle drawing and his kind words. I love thinking about the fact that he was thinking about us while he was at school and wanted to make this for us.
Here is some more practice for Aedan on the short Ii sound and practice with writing the parts of sentences that he didn't complete, but I liked how nice his handwriting looked, as well as his answers saying: "Orange is my favorite color," "Gummy bears is my favorite food," and "SATURDAY is my favorite day." He has consistently said that orange is his favorite color for a long time. Gummy bears, or really anything gummy and even more particularly sour gummy things, are definitely his favorite type of candy. I think Saturday is probably his favorite day of the week because he doesn't have to go to school and can play however he wants to.
Our local library hasn't had their weekly story time because of Covid, but they they did have a fall story time bag you could pick up with coloring pages and craft activities that would go along with the stories they would record and post each week. We watched a story time this week, and this was the coloring page that went along with it that Owen did.
And here is Samantha's Chapter 1 Math Test that she got a 93% on, which is great, even though she was disappointed that she didn't get a better score. I thought it was cute to see how she highlighted different parts of the question, but we also talked about how she ran out of time to spend a lot of time thinking about the multi-step problem at the end of the test. I recommended that she do a little less highlighting so that she doesn't take up a lot of her time doing that. I said she could just use one color and focus on highlighting key words and numbers and leaving it at that. I also recommended that maybe she start at the end of the test and do the multi-step problem first when her brain is fresh and focused, and then go back to the beginning of the test and work through the rest of the problems that are usually easier for her. Hopefully these test taking strategies will help her, but we are really proud of her and how well she is doing in 5th grade math as a 4th grader.
Here is Aedan's weekly reading newsletter with his spelling words and sight words.
When we put up our fall decorations, Owen was sad that he didn't have his own painted pumpkin, so Papa was kind enough to make one for Owen and send it to him in the mail. Here he is opening his package and then saying thank you and talking about what color he is planning on painting it.
Our friends Neil and MJ came to visit us from Philadelphia for the weekend, arriving on Friday evening. They wanted to hang out with us, although we wondered why they would want to come to our crazy home full of noise and four kids. However, they brought their dog, Beignet, along, and our kids really enjoy having them here. We got carry out pizza for dinner on Friday night and just enjoyed catching up with each other, hanging out, and playing games after the kids were in bed.
Saturday morning is soccer morning. We have just a couple weeks left until the end of the season, so Neil and MJ said it would be fun to come along to watch the games as well. The first video is of Aedan's soccer team playing. I didn't take a video of Samantha playing because I was busy taking care of Owen and our little peanut, but we were able to enjoy a nice fall morning outside watching soccer, and the kids enjoyed having guests there to watch them.
That afternoon, once Owen got up from his nap, we went over to Frances Slocum State Park to enjoy a hike through the woods and down to the lake, to give Neil and MJ a chance to see the beautiful fall colors surrounding us on the mountains. It was very pretty and peaceful there. Here are some pictures I took as we walked around and enjoyed the outdoors and the mild fall weather. It was a a great way to spend our afternoon with our friends, and it was fun to show them around our area a little more.
Here are some pictures of our sweet Samantha, sitting on a bench and looking out at the lake.
Samantha found this really cool leaf bug at the lake, and she was so happy to carry it with her the rest of the hike. I also really love her outfit in this picture. She is starting to develop her own sense of style, and she likes to wear sweaters or loose shirts like this over another shirt underneath, and I think the layered look looks really cute on her. She looks so grown-up in his picture with her hair pulled back and her sunglasses up on the top of her head. I love her beautiful smile and happy eyes. I hope she never loses this love for exploring and learning about nature. I love to see what they find when they play outside, and it's so wonderful living in a place where there are so many great outdoor places to explore. I sure do love this little girl of mine!
(Blog about October 4-10, 2020)
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