Samantha: 112 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 80 Months, Week 2
Owen: 36 Months, Week 4
After all of the conversation back and forth last week, this Sunday, October 11th started visits on Sundays with this week being 12-4 because that's when it could be supervised, and then changing to 10-2 because that worked better for us. Our friends Neil and MJ were still at our house for the weekend, and we enjoyed spending more time with them on Sunday morning, just hanging out and talking. It was nice that they took the time to visit us, and we enjoy having people come stay at our house. I decided to take our little peanut down for her visit so that I could go work in Ben's office on campus and work on my assignments for the week. I was having trouble logging in though. The internet was being slow, and I couldn't log into the Wilkes system to access my Google Docs, which is where all my work was saved. I was trying to log in for almost 45 minutes and still couldn't get it to work. It was like my computer wasn't responding. I felt frustrated that I was trying to use this time to get a lot of work done, and of course I couldn't get anything to work, so I was just wasting work time. I did eventually get it to work, and I got some good work done in the remainder of my time.
When I got back home that evening with our little peanut, Samantha and Aedan had gone outside and collected lots of leaves and colorful fall items that they then very carefully taped all over the walls and floor of their room. They wanted to decorate for fall, and it made me smile so much to see all the effort they put into it, that I had to take a video of their decorations.
Before the start of a new week, I went through Samantha's and Aedan's folder, clearing out the papers they brought home from school. Here is Aedan's work: an addition color by number page and practice with words in the -in family.
Here is Samantha's work: a worksheet on the book "Wonder" that they are reading as a class, her weekly math review boxes, practice with her spelling words, doing long division with remainders, and cover art for the story that she is writing called "Dragon Fruit."
With Covid closing down most of the weekly places I would take Owen, now that Samantha and Aedan are in school, our weeks aren't too exciting, and often we don't even go anywhere unless we are taking our little peanut for a visit or going grocery shopping. I feel bad that we don't get to do too much together, and it's difficult doing a lot while also trying to keep somewhat of a schedule for napping and eating for our little peanut. Owen doesn't seem to mind staying home and playing with his toys, reading books, and just largely being with me, but sometimes I feel bad and get upset that Covid is impacting so much of the normal activities I would be doing with him before he becomes preschool age. Someday things will return to normal, and he and I will be able to get out of the house and do story time again, have more play dates with other moms and kids, and experience more of the fun activities around where we live. Until then, I am trying to enjoy the simple things with him like sitting on the couch and reading books to him while I feed our little peanut a bottle, playing with him while she takes a nap, making food together, and giving him my full attention as we sit and talk together at lunch.
Here are a couple pictures I took of our little peanut after lunch that afternoon. She had such a great, happy smile!
At 3:30 that afternoon a woman from Family Services came to our house to talk about what they do for Family Finding, and how they search out family on the bio mom's and bio dad's side for every child that goes into foster care. I totally forgot about this meeting until she called to confirm with me that morning, but luckily both kids were asleep, and she was not at our house for very long. She told me information that I largely already knew, but I think it's just something they are required to do, although I think a phone call explaining what she told me would have sufficed and saved her a trip out to Harvey's Lake.
Here is some of the work that Aedan brought home from school on Monday: a worksheet practicing the short o sound and then another with practice of his spelling words for the week that contain the short o sound as well.
Here is some of the work that Samantha brought home from school on Monday: a cell parts word search, two 5 minute language review packet, a math words scramble, and her graded lesson review packet from Science on which she got 100% on each one.
Owen doesn't do much art, and he is following in the footsteps of Aedan and not being too interested in coloring yet, but here is a page of his that he did at Cubbies. He loves going to Cubbies, and it is a highlight of his week.
Here is a coloring page from Aedan that he did at Sparks. Aedan and Samantha both love going to AWANA, too. It's wonderful that we were able to get the kids involved in AWANA here after starting them in the program when we lived in Sault Ste. Marie. Especially now with our church not meeting in person and the kids not getting much Bible teaching other than what we read and talk about at home, we are glad they have the AWANA program still going on where they learn stories from the Bible and memorize verses every week.
Here is more of Aedan's work, his math lesson on practice with subtraction from 10 or less.
I gave our little peanut a bath that night while Daddy wrestled our kids in the basement. I try to take pictures and videos of her, both for our sake and memory, and also to send along to her parents. I have a cute video of her kicking around in the bath, smiling, and sticking out and playing with her tongue, but I can't include that because I don't know if I could block her face out, but here is a picture of her smiling in the bathtub that night. She enjoys the water, and she would smile anytime I would talk to her. This little girl is definitely getting big, and it's hard to believe how much she has grown in the last 3 1/2 months since I brought her home from the hospital.
Over the weekend I had developed quite a cold, given to me by the boys, and I was finally feeling somewhat better on Monday night, which I was grateful for. Head colds are miserable things, but at least it didn't get any worse than that, and it didn't last for too long.
On Tuesday, Ben and I were discussing with our foster baby's caseworker about the court hearing that we heard from bio mom was scheduled for the following week. We wanted to make sure we could be a part of the hearing. We heard that bio mom was going to be asking for unsupervised visits. However, the caseworker was making it seem like we didn't have a right to be present at the hearing, which we knew wasn't true. Ben even had to bring out the law to show that we did in fact have a right to be at all hearings. We didn't understand why we were being pushed against every step of the way, and why she was acting like we were strange or wrong to want to be part of the court hearing that would have to do with the care of our foster baby. We had mentioned this court date and how bio mom wanted to ask for unsupervised visits, but the caseworker never said anything about not knowing about this court hearing. Ben and I were going back and forth most of the afternoon, talking to each other and the caseworkers, to try and figure out what was going on. Eventually, she decided that we were able to be a part of the hearing, after talking to her supervisor and the lawyer, and our caseworker said that Ben was right in pulling out the law regarding the hearing, and we were finally given the call in information so we could join in the call.
That morning, while our little peanut was taking her nap, Owen and I got out the pumpkin that he got in the mail from Papa. We got out the paints and brushes, and he had a great time painting his pumpkin exactly how he wanted it to look.
I forget why I didn't take any pictures of him painting the pumpkin, but he enjoyed coloring the rainbow on his stand for his pumpkin. He described it as, "Good! Perfect!"
I've been trying to remember all the little words that Owen still says in his own unique way. I took a little recording of him saying "gahpatos" and "gahmatos," which is what he called potatoes and tomatoes. He also calls bananas "banas," and I'm sure there are lots of other words he says with his cute preschool voice and way of pronouncing things.
After putting Owen down for his nap, it was time for our little peanut to go down for her nap. Here are a couple pictures of her that afternoon after I changed her diaper. She was very happy and smiley, and she looked super cute in her pink pants and blue flowered shirt. Her little legs are getting so cute and chunky, and they look even bigger because of her wearing cloth diapers as well. She is getting so big, so fast, and it's amazing to watch these changes unfold before our eyes. She is such a cute baby and things are going pretty well with her overall. (Although, I definitely look forward to nap time when both kids are sleeping and the house is quiet for a couple hours every afternoon.)
Here is a math worksheet that Samantha brought home that day, practicing with order of operations. She does such an awesome job with writing neatly and showing her work. She is doing a wonderful job in 5th grade math this year.
That evening as we were eating dinner, I noticed the sky out our front window was just so beautiful. I had to get up and take pictures of the brilliant colors in the sky. Also, you can see the tree on the right side, the one at the bottom of our driveway, was the first tree to lose its leaves. The sky was just so breathtaking with how the sun was reflecting off the clouds.
It was my turn to read with Aedan that night, and we have been trying to encourage him to read a book to us at night, and we read to him as well. Well, here is the book he chose to read to me on Tuesday night, called "Stop That Ball." He did such an awesome job reading all the words in this book, and I was so proud of him. He has grown so much in his reading ability over the summer and into these first months of first grade. I can't wait to see where he is at when we get to the end of first grade.
Wednesday was our grocery shopping day, which went about like it usually does, but even though Owen used the bathroom before we left the store, I still had to make an emergency bathroom stop at Weis on the way home because Owen just couldn't hold it any longer. We ran in the store as quickly as we could to make it back to the bathroom. By the time we made it back home, it was after 1:00, and I still had to put all the groceries away, get lunch for Owen and me, feed our little peanut a bottle, and get both kids down for naps. It was a stressful morning running around. Plus, afternoons haven't been fun with Owen lately anyways with trying to actually get him to lay down, calm down, and take a nap. He's been fighting it a lot lately, and I usually have to talk to him through the monitor a couple times and take away his monkey and blankie before he will finally give up and fall asleep over an hour after I put him down.
Here are some more pictures of the lake and trees around our house slowly changing colors. The oranges, yellows, and reds are really starting to pop now. It's just beautiful, especially on these gorgeous, sunny days with clear blue skies. There's a lot of pictures below, but they were just all so lovely that I couldn't choose. I love being surrounded by nature and living where we get the full experience of all four seasons.
I cannot take credit for the following picture, but it was posted on a Harvey's Lake Facebook page that I am a part of. It took my breath away with the amazing colors of the trees and the reflection in the water, so I had to copy it to keep.
Ben and I have been talking a lot lately about selling/getting rid of the pool table that the previous owners left in our house. It was never part of the deal to leave it there, so we have been stuck with it ever since. We put the ping pong table topper on it, and it ended up just always being piled with toys, Legos, and other junk, which drove me crazy. It just took up too much space for something that we don't need and don't anticipate ever using. I asked around at local churches and Christian camps to see if we could donate it anywhere, but everyone said they didn't have the space for it, so I decided to take pictures of it on Wednesday night and post them on Facebook Marketplace to see if I could sell it. We just wanted it out of our basement! It was amazing the response I got of people interested in the table. I'm sure I priced it way too low for something solid and in good condition, but I honestly just wanted it gone, and we were unwilling to do any work of disassembling or transporting it. So after making a deal with the first person who would actually continue to respond to me, we ended up selling it, and the guys came to pick it up a few days later when I got back from my trip. Here are pictures of the table that I posted when I sold it.
As I thought about my childhood and missing my grandma, I was feeling sad just thinking about how my siblings and I grew up around Grandma and our cousins and doing things with them fairly often, especially when we were younger. It made me think about how my kids don't have that experience of being close to any family at all. We have wanted to get back closer to family, but it has just never worked out with jobs that Ben has applied for. He has gotten close in several job searches, but it has been clear to us that that is not where God wants us to be. We love where we live now in Pennsylvania, and we very clearly felt God leading us and providing for us as we moved there, so there's no doubt about that, but it still makes me sad to think about never living close enough to have frequent experiences for our kids with family. Now, I know a lot of people that live far away from family end up kind of creating their own family-friend groups and things like that, but I don't feel like we even have anything like that because we've moved so much. We haven't stayed anywhere long enough to make long-term friends that feel like family. We don't have anyone that we're close to yet in Pennsylvania especially because Covid has made building relationships with people so much harder, so I've just been feeling sad about the isolation we feel sometimes with no family around and no local friends that really know us. We have a few solid, forever friends scattered around the country (and world), but we really long to have those local connections of friends that we bond with, that know us and support us, that have kids that our kids can be friends with and play with, and that we can do life with. I know it takes time to build friendships, and Ben and I have been trying to be more intentional in inviting people over to our house and reaching out to people rather than waiting for people to reach out to us, but that truly is my biggest prayer. Especially if we are going to be living in Harvey's Lake, Pennsylvania for the foreseeable future, we want to set down roots, get connected, and really feel like we are known and loved here, even though our closest family is nine hours away.
Thursday, October 15th was the day I was heading to Chicago for two nights to visit my Grandma. Ben got me plane tickets for under $100, and they were going to be able to pick me up at the airport and I could stay at their condo, so it was a relatively inexpensive way for me to visit her. I felt bad because I was leaving Ben with all four kids while I was away, as well as dealing with visits to transport our little peanut to and end of the season soccer games for Samantha and Aedan.
Even though Ben didn't ask for it, I was trying to help him out and I arranged for Owen to stay with my friend Kaili on Thursday from 11:30-3:30 during our little peanut's visit time with her dad and grandma so that Ben could go work on campus for a few hours. Kaili said he did really well playing there, but apparently Owen broke a tea set plate on accident while he was there, and he was so worried that Reu wouldn't want to play with him again or invite him back to her house ever again. Ben said Owen was almost crying when they got into the car because of it. Not surprisingly, Owen didn't nap at her house, so he fell asleep in the car after Ben picked him up. After picking up Owen, he picked up our little peanut, and both kids were asleep for the whole drive back home.
I drove down to Philly that morning and then left Philadelphia at 12:30 to fly to the Chicago/O'Hare airport. I was excited to go see my grandma and to get away for the weekend, but I felt bad about leaving Ben with four kids and lots of things going on with soccer and visits for our little peanut. In order for me to go out of town, he had to record and post all his lectures that he would be doing on Friday. Plus, he had tons of grading to do since it was that time of the semester where he was giving tests and papers. I knew he would be busy taking care of everything himself. Ben and I are a team in parenting and household duties when we are both home, so when one of us is gone, the other feels the burden of a lot more responsibility.
That afternoon I got a message from Aedan's teacher with his STAR test score. It's hard to see in this picture, but he got a 90 PR (Percentile Rank) and 218 SS (Scaled Score). His ZPD Range was 2.1-3.1, meaning he could read and understand books from a 2nd grade 1st month level to a 3rd grade 1st month level. I couldn't believe how well he did! It's amazing how much this little boy has grown and learned in such a short amount of time. I'm so glad that he loves reading, and it will be so fun to challenge him to read books at a higher reading level. His teacher is even going to allow him to start taking AR quizzes on books since his reading ability is so advanced, as an extra way to challenge himself. Way to go, Aedan! I'm so proud of you!
Our little peanut only woke up once overnight while Ben was on his own with the kids, so that was good. However, Ben was having a hard time getting our little peanut to nap on Friday. She woke up before 7:45 that morning, which is early for her, then only napped for an hour for her morning nap. He said he got Owen down for his nap and then she was just screaming and crying because she was overtired from having a bad napping day. Visits are really starting to mess with her, I think, because they don't let her nap when they have visits. When he left to take her down for the visit, she had already been awake since 2:15, and had taken 3 one hour naps that day, which is unusual for her.
I hoped that he could get Owen down for an earlier nap on Friday so that way he could get one in before Ben had to leave to take our little peanut down for her two hour afternoon visit. We arranged for our neighbors up the hill to bring Samantha and Aedan home from school since Ben wasn't going to be back in time to pick them up from the van in time. So after dropping our little peanut off, he turned right back around to drive back to Harvey's Lake to pick up Samantha and Aedan, and then pretty much turned right back around to get a quick dinner at Five Guys in Wilkes-Barre before going back to pick up our little peanut again from her visit. It was a busy evening of driving back and forth, and poor Owen was stuck in the car all this time, too. Transportation for visits is challenging sometimes!
Meanwhile, I arrived in Chicago mid-afternoon on Thursday. My grandma and Don picked me up from the airport, and then we stopped at a family restaurant for lunch since they hadn't eaten yet. It was nice to be able to sit and talk to them without having the distraction of kids or other obligations. After we ate we went back to their condo to hang out and talk. They both rested some that afternoon, so I actually had some free time to work on my blog and do work for my graduate class, too. I don't know what to do with free time to myself these days!
Thursday evening we had a simple meal of sandwiches and leftovers from lunch, which was just fine with me. Then, we played Skip-Bo together which was fun. Friday morning I was able to sleep in, which was wonderful, and I got to sleep through the night which I hadn't done since getting our little peanut at the beginning of July. We had a relaxed morning of eating breakfast together, then I took a shower and just spent time talking with Grandma and Don. Here's a couple cute pictures I took of them cuddling up next to each other on the couch.
My grandma showed me some old photo albums of me when I was in high school, and then they both napped that afternoon in preparation for a evening of family coming over for dinner. While they napped, I continued to do more work and actually did a Pilates workout because I was feeling really tired (probably from actually being able to relax and not having a million things to be doing), and the workout helped give me more energy and wake me up. My parents, sister, and brother all came over that evening to hang out, eat pizza, and play a game together. It felt so strange to all be together, just like we were hundreds of times as we grew up, but this time, we were all adults. It was good to spend this time in Chicago, and I was glad that I was able to make this work, and that Ben was willing to hold the fort down at home while I was gone.
Saturday, October 17th was the last soccer game day of the season. Aedan had a soccer game at 10:30, and Samantha had a soccer game at 1:00. Ben was able to drop our little peanut off with our friend, Mandy, for the morning so that way he wouldn't have to do all that running around and trying to coach Aedan's soccer team, while also caring for Owen and a little baby. A mom from Samantha's team brought pink spray in hair dye for the girls to wear for their last game. Ben took a picture of it and sent it to me so I could see what it looked like. That was a neat idea!
While Ben was staying busy taking care of the kids, I had a relaxed morning again at my grandma's place. I got to sleep in, have a relaxed breakfast, take my time getting showered and ready, and then just spent the morning in the kitchen talking to my grandma and reminiscing before it was time to head out to the airport a little after noon. As Don drove me to the airport, he thanked me for taking the time to come out to see Grandma and how much it meant to her. As I expressed how much she meant to me as well, I found tears welling up in my eyes. I love my grandma, and being close to her physically and personally while growing up was a lifeline for me at times. I have so many fond, special memories of sleepovers at her house, camping, trips together, as well as every holiday and birthday, even watching fireworks for the 4th of July. A lot of my childhood memories have her as a part of them. Here are a couple pictures Don took of the two of us before I left for the airport.
(Blog about October 11-17, 2020)
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