Owen's Art Projects at Home, Samantha's Sleep Troubles, Swim Lessons, and Owen's Last Night in a Toddler Bed

Samantha: 116 Months, Week 1

Aedan: 83 Months, Week 4

Owen: 40 Months, Week 1

Our weekend continued with more time spent with Grandpa and Grandma. Since our church is still closed, we watched church online and then spent the day hanging out. Owen always enjoys having more adults around so that way there are more people to read to him. He will bring stacks of books over for you to read and has a very long attention span when it comes to books. 

Out of the blue, I heard from our little peanut's mom on that Sunday. She said they have been doing great, and that she adores her dad, which is sweet. She said her dad has really been showing up for her and she is shocked but also happy about it. She was just enjoying being with her girls again. I was glad to hear from her and glad to find out they were doing well. I hope we can continue talking so we can be a support to her and still have some contact with our little peanut as well.

It's always hard going back to school on Mondays, especially after a weekend of family visiting, so Aedan has a hard time wanting to leave in the morning, making him act out. Grandpa and Grandma were staying at our house until Tuesday, so we had a little more time with them while Samantha and Aedan were at school. Since Owen was occupied with them, I took the chance to print out my articles for my class so that I was ready to start doing my reading for the week. It's sometimes tricky to find time to get my classwork done, but I try to take advantage of my afternoons while Owen is napping.

Here is some of Aedan's papers from that day: a couple newsletters with last week's spelling words and high frequency words, as well as the current week's words, and practice with tens and ones to 100.

Every once in aw while, as I walk around the house, I notice things that make me smile. Samantha has gotten into the Wings of Fire book series. We have been requesting all of them from the library, and the last time I picked books up, there was a stack of dragon cards included with them, a gift from the librarian, Miss Jenn. I think she has taken a liking to Samantha because of how much she loves to read and just devours book series after book series. Well, Samantha decided to build each dragon out of Legos, making them have similar features and colors to the dragons on the cards, and then she lined up each dragon with the card it matched with. When I saw them all laid out on the floor like this, it made me smile. I love their creativity in making things out of Legos.

Since Owen finally got the Christmas tree that Papa made for him that somehow got lost in the mail, we decided it would be a good time to paint it and decorate it how he wanted. We still had our Christmas decorations up, so he would be able to display it for a little while before I needed to pack everything up. Grandpa and Grandma enjoyed watching him paint so carefully and deliberately. He made it a very colorful tree as well! Notice how he's using his left hand? He definitely seems to be more comfortable using his left hand for things like this, and at least so far it appears to be his dominant hand. We will see if it continues that way. I just love his little voice. I'm going to miss this little voice as he gets older. It's nice to have videos like this to remember what his voice sounded like at different ages as he grew up.

Here is some work from Samantha: a quiz on adding and simplifying fractions that she got 50 out of 50 on, a spelling test she got 100% on, and worksheets on fact and opinion, prefixes, vocabulary, and a mid-chapter checkpoint for math. Samantha is always a very conscientious and hard-working student. She always makes me proud, but not just because of her grades.

Three times a year they do DIBELS testing in the lower grades. Here are Aedan's results from the latest test. As you can see, he is doing an extraordinary job at reading and is past the goal in every category but phonemic segmentation fluency, which is breaking apart words and saying the individual sounds heard within words. It's so cool to watch Aedan go from learning how to read, to now loving to read and picking up on new words so quickly, almost without even thinking. I'm so proud of him, and I'm so glad he gets so much enjoyment out of reading, being read to, reading aloud to us, and reading on his own.

By Tuesday morning we were all tired and ready to get back into a normal school and work routine again. We love having visitors, and it was really good to see my parents and have them come out to our house for a few days, but sometimes it makes the kids act differently and get out of their routine some. My parents flew out from the Wilkes-Barre airport that Tuesday morning, and then Owen and I stopped at a furniture store to finalize purchasing a mattress for him. Ben and I went to look at mattresses on our date on Saturday night, beginning to compare prices and decide what we wanted to get for Owen, and also just looking to see how much a new mattress for ourselves would cost. We decided our next step would be to move the bunk beds into Owen's room and have him get used to sleeping in a bigger bed before then moving Aedan into the room to sleep with him as well, before we get our names back on the list for another foster child and need our extra room available again.

In thinking about whether or not we were ready to officially go back on the list and accept another foster placement, it was an ongoing conversation between Ben and me, and something I was struggling with within myself. Part of our problem had to do with the bedrooms we have available. We had Samantha and Aedan sharing a room, and it went well at first. They were excited about it, but as time went on, and as Samantha has gotten older, it was clear that they needed to be in separate rooms. It just wasn't working anymore. Our plan was to have Aedan and Owen share a room, but we were waiting for Owen to be able to handle sharing a room with Aedan and not just be silly, loud, and distracting when it was time to sleep, especially since Aedan still has to get up for school. Right now, we felt like it was important to give all our kids time in their own rooms and their own space. We also were still working on getting a twin mattress for Owen, so we can move the bunk beds, get him out of his toddler bed, and then transition him into a twin bed before moving Aedan into the room with him, then leaving a spare room open for a foster child.

Also, my inner struggle made me much more hesitant than Ben is, simply because I felt so overwhelmed with all my commitments last "semester." It was all just more than I could handle. I was wanting to take a break from opening our home again until the semester starts back up for Ben, my graduate class gets underway, and I feel like I get caught up on life a little more. I could see us being ready to open our home somewhere in early February, once we see how things are going with getting back into regular life. I just didn't want to jump into the craziness until I felt like I was ready and could handle it. I didn't want to feel the same way I did with our last placement, so I wanted to be careful and give myself the time and space to process how I was feeling and when I felt like I could handle another foster placement.

We also weren't sure what ages we would be willing to take. We wanted to stick with only one child because our experience of going from three to five kids was a little much. We thought we would be open for a baby, but one who is a little older and sleeping better at night, since our last foster baby never slept through the night while she was with us, and we desperately needed to have our nights no longer interrupted. We would consider any age up until school age, because most schools around here are still doing school all or mostly online, and I couldn't handle doing online school with a child and being "stuck" at home doing that while also having Owen to take care of and do things with. Plus, I still needed to have time in my day to do work on my graduate class and to continue subbing.

Also, honestly, I still felt pretty heartbroken about our little peanut going home, even though we knew that was going to happen. We definitely got attached to her, and it was hard to have her leave, even though we knew that was the best situation for her to be back with her mom and her sisters. I think it's additionally hard for me because her mom is not really talking to us much anymore, so it looks like we probably will not have any continued contact or relationship with her, which is hard. We were hoping we could continue to see our little peanut and have a chance to watch her grow up and continue to support her and her family. However, I'm glad that we were able to provide a loving, stable home for her in her first six months of life, and that in itself is important.

The tree that Owen painted was finally dry, so we propped it up on its stand, attached the Christmas lights, and looked to see how it turned out. He was really proud of it, and we were excited to send the picture to Ema and Papa so they could see his final product. He was excited to have a light-up Christmas tree just like Samantha and Aedan made several years ago.

Later that afternoon, Owen had another accident in the kitchen. He just stood there and peed all over the kitchen floor again. I didn't understand his problem and why he wasn't telling us that he had to go anymore. I don't want to force him to go on a schedule because he needs to be aware of when he needs to go, but it's clearly not working. And now it's not just a little pee in his underwear, but full out accidents where he can't hold it in any longer. It was definitely confusing and frustrating, and I don't know what to do to help him get better about it and help him to feel when he needs to go and get to the bathroom on time.

I also found out that morning, by a reminder message, that Samantha had an orthodontist appointment at 3:00 that afternoon that I had forgotten about. Luckily, Ben was able to come home early from campus, pick Samantha up from school, take her to the orthodontist, and then bring her back home. This appointment was just a follow-up to the one we had several months ago and to observe any changes that took place. They referred her to an oral surgeon to get two molars removed in order to make space for her two eye teeth to have room to come in. There just wasn't enough space in the top of her mouth to accommodate the size of all her teeth. They also scheduled appointments for consultation and a records appointment over the summer in preparation for getting braces of some kind before school starts back up in the fall.

Here are some papers Aedan brought home from school on Tuesday: practice with completing the sentence, practice with long e sounds, a 100% on his weekly reading test, a color by number worksheet, and two art projects.

Wednesday, January 20th I subbed. They ended up moving me and having me cover different classes, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon, which actually worked out well. Here is one of Samantha's beautiful drawings that I saw hanging in the hallway at school. They were learning about playing with lines in their drawing, and I really like the colors that she chose for her drawing.

Here is some work the kids brought home from school that day. Samantha did a practice spelling page using words with long a and i sounds. Aedan practiced showing two different ways to make numbers using tens and ones, completing the sentence with science words, practice with long e sounds in spelling words, and practice problem solving and showing numbers in different ways with tens and ones. I also included some papers that Owen had worked on at AWANA as well, as a record to show what he has been working on. He is always proud to come home and show us his papers and tell us about the stories that he learned about.

In an attempt to make sure I was being intentional about inviting people to our home and getting to know people better, I invited Grace and her three kids to come over for a play date on Thursday morning. Sometimes Owen doesn't seem to know how to play with kids sometimes, especially with kids that are slightly younger than him because he is used to carrying on conversations and playing with older kids like Samantha and Aedan. However, it was good to have other kids around, and I enjoyed having another mom to talk to for a couple hours. I don't get that opportunity very often.

On Wednesday night I took down all our indoor Christmas decorations since the kids were at AWANA and I had some extra time to get things done. I was able to get everything put away in the bins, and it was much quicker to do while I was home without kids running around. I hoped that the coming weekend I would be able to take the outside lights down and get all the Christmas decorations put away. I always enjoy having our Christmas decorations up, and it's sad to put them away when I enjoy having the lights and happy decorations to brighten the winter blues. However, I usually reach a point where I just get tired of it. This house isn't too bad because we have plenty of space and don't have to rearrange things just to fit our Christmas tree in somewhere, but it obviously wouldn't be as special anymore if we had it up all the time. It was already mid-January, so it was time.

Since I was already putting away and Christmas decorations and putting up our regular decorations, I decided it would be a good time to find a place for our new Ireland clock from Aunt Jeni. It looked really good on the wall in our front play room, which was designed to be the more formal living room, but we don't need to use it as that right now. The clock was a nice thing to add to our collection of Ireland memorabilia and decorations, commemorating were Ben and I first met.

Here is some more work from Aedan: a 100% on his spelling test, more practice with modeling tens and ones with base-ten blocks, and practice writing numbers from 100 to 120.

Here is some more work from Samantha: practice with long a and i in her spelling words and some review pages from her science packet.

One of my favorite times of day has always been sitting and reading to my kids before bed. I love cuddling with them, feeling close to them, and sharing these close moments together. Ben was able to capture these pictures of me reading to Owen that night, and I love them. I wish I had more pictures of my time with the kids, because I am often the one who is taking the pictures and not in the pictures. I love how he fits on my lap, even though he is getting bigger and bigger by the day. I love how he's totally relaxed in my lap, and that my arms still wrap around him and can hold them book for him to see. I am so glad that we have kept up this tradition of reading to our kids before bed, and it makes me sad sometimes to think that Owen is my last baby, at least for right now. I don't feel ready to move away from these times of having young kids who need me and want to be with me so much. It has been my greatest joy to be able to be with with my children while they are young, to share these special moments with them often, and I am often overcome with sadness as I think about Owen going to preschool and then kindergarten, and my days of being a mom staying home with young kids will be over. So, for now, I will embrace and soak up these moments where I can still have Owen sit on my lap, where I can still feel his body resting into mine, and where he still wants to be this close to me. I want to remember the weight of his body, the feel of his soft hair and cheeks, and the way he laughs and enjoys the books that we read together. Oh how I love this sweet little boy of mine.

Here is a math coloring page that Samantha was working on with coloring areas of the figures according to what the fractions simplified to, making a beautifully colored picture.

On Thursday night, Samantha was having a hard time sleeping again. She got up three or four times to go to the bathroom, and then came downstairs at 9:30 crying because she couldn't fall asleep. She was complaining about not being able to fall asleep at night, so then she started dreading going to bed because she wasn't going to be able to fall asleep. Then, she started getting out of bed more to go to the bathroom, and now she is coming downstairs more often than not, especially in the last week or so. It was so frustrating and sad because we didn't know what to do to help her. We could tell that she wasn't getting enough sleep, but we obviously can't make her sleep. In the past we have talked to a doctor about the bathroom issue that she has had on and off over the years. It's called pollakiuria, but with her it happens at night, not during the day. I think it's mostly because she can't sleep, so then she thinks maybe she needs to go to the bathroom. Or, she moves around in bed so much for so long that she has to go again. There's basically nothing we can do about it, and they said it's mostly tied to nervousness or anxiety about something going on in her life, and that it's just a phase, something that she will experience at different points of time, and then grow out of eventually. We have given her melatonin sometimes when we go on trips because she always has such a hard time calming down in new places, but we haven't given it to her regularly at home because we want her to learn how to fall asleep without it. There are occasional times where it gets so late that I just want her to be able to go to sleep, so I will give her some melatonin, but we don't want it to become something she has to have in order to fall asleep. In addition to the times I already mentioned that she had been up going to the bathroom, she was up another two or three times, so Ben went upstairs to talk to her. He asked her what was wrong, and she said there was nothing. He tried to explain to her that she's just getting in her head too much, and that it's making it worse to keep getting out of bed, that she has to stay in bed in order fall asleep. We didn't hear her walking around anymore that night, but that didn't necessarily mean that she was actually asleep. Poor girl, she was going to be super tired the next day from being up so late not being able to fall asleep. The more she struggled with this problem the more I was feeling concerned because if she already has this much anxiety and trouble with sleeping as a nine year old, what are things going to be like for her as she grows up? I want to be able to help her find some coping strategies now and to try to get a handle on some of her anxious feelings and process them in healthy ways so that they don't impact her ability to sleep as much. I was definitely feeling worried about her, how late she was staying up unable to sleep, and how frequently this was starting to happen.

On Friday morning I wasn't feeling great. I kept feeling really dizzy and lightheaded. That morning I had to sit on our bed for a few minutes while I was trying to get dressed because it felt like my heart was racing. I was okay and didn't think I was coming down with anything. I was just hoping it was from staying up too late and being worried about Samantha, and that throughout the day it would eventually pass.

As I looked toward the weekend, the kids had swim lessons on Saturday morning, and then we were having the first meeting of our small group for church at our house on Sunday afternoon. Because of Covid and our church not meeting, as well as the restrictions on groups getting together, we hadn't been going to a small group for quite some time. However, as the winter went on, we have felt more and more isolated. We figured that we couldn't really complain about feeling isolated if we weren't taking any initiative in getting involved and getting to know people. However, most of the small groups that were meeting up were either too late on a school night or too far away where we didn't want to have to drive that distance every week. So considering all those factors, we decided we would start our own group with a few other families who were also looking for a similar group. We wanted to have one that met in the afternoon where we could have dinner together and still get our kids to bed at a decent time. We also didn't want to have group on a weeknight because they already get so busy with activities. We were also looking for a group that had kids about the same age as our kids so that everyone would have someone to play with. We were excited about getting this group together, and we couldn't wait to see how God would work in and through our group.

As we looking toward putting the bunk beds in Owen's room and transitioning him to a twin size mattress, we decided to wait for a while before switching Aedan over. Owen was up kicking around and sitting up in bed until 9:15 that night, so we definitely need him to get a little more mature and better able to handle sharing a room so that they don't just goof around together. My suspicion was that maybe Owen is getting ready to be done with napping because on days he takes a longer nap, he takes longer to fall asleep. I'm trying to get him down earlier for his nap, but sometimes he will still play around for an hour before finally falling asleep. The little stinker! I'm just not ready to prematurely cut naps out for Owen, just so he can fall asleep faster so he and Aedan can share a room. He still needs naps most days. It's hard to know when to cut out naps, especially because I have to use nap time to get my classwork done, so I don't want him just up and around the house playing all afternoon, so I would at least have to have him have quiet time in his room or something if he stopped napping.

Friday morning Owen and I watched story time online, hearing another couple French stories. Then, we went to the kitchen to make our crafts: small plates with stickers to represent two different elements and a small Eiffel Tower craft. He had a great time coloring and putting together the crafts, and it was a fun morning activity for the two of us to work on together. Here are some pictures of our story time crafting that morning. I just love his cute smile and dimples!

Aedan and Owen can be so sweet together, and it melted my heart when I turned the corner and saw Aedan reading to Owen on his bed. Aedan has gotten so good at reading that now he can be the one to read to others, just like Samantha always read to him once she learned how to read. Owen loves this special attention from his big brother, and he is always willing to listen to books. Aedan is such a good reader, and I love that he is choosing to read out loud to Owen. The two of them are so cute and sweet together. I love their brotherly love that is forming.

I don't know why, but I have been having a hard time with myself lately. I can't get out of bed when I want to in the morning, can't go to bed earlier, can't make time to exercise and read my Bible and do other things I know would help me. I get so frustrated because I want to get control of or instill these things in my life, but I just can't seem to muster the willpower or self-control to do them. I can feel my lack of taking care of myself and doing things that help to fill me up impacting my life in a negative way.

It was my turn to take the boys to swim lessons on Saturday morning, so here are some videos and pictures from the day. Owen practiced holding on to the kickboard and floating on his back as he kicked. Then, they worked on him switching from front to back in the water. He even got to float around on a pool noodle around the pool, which he thought was a lot of fun. He loves swimming, and I'm excited to watch him gain more confidence in the water.

After Owen it was Aedan's swim lesson. He also got to practice holding the kickboard and kicking his legs while floating around on his back. He also swam back and forth while being held up by the pool noodle. I was excited for him to be able to begin gaining confidence in the water without a floatie on and to learn how to keep himself afloat even in water where he cannot touch. Both boys enjoyed their lessons, listened well to their teacher, and did a great job.

Ben and I had been talking recently about how we hadn't taken our kids on dates in a while. With having our little peanut and the busyness of the end of our time with her, coupled with the Christmas season and indoor things being closed due to Covid, we just hadn't gotten around to taking them places one on one. Well, Ben decided he would take Samantha on a date that Saturday. They went out to eat at Texas Roadhouse, and then he took her to Barnes and Noble where she was able to browse the shelves of books and look at the Harry Potter section to pick out something special for herself. I know Daddy likes spending this time individually with each kid, and I know Samantha was excited to be able to pick where she wanted to eat, what she wanted to do, and have undivided attention and time to talk about whatever came to her mind. Here are some pictures he took on their date that day.

With both Samantha and Aedan, we had moving to a twin bed and getting a new mattress and bed set be a tradition for their fourth birthday. However, with looking to move the bunk beds into Owen's room and not wanting to wait until September to foster again just because of waiting for his birthday, we decided that Owen would make the transition sooner. We had ordered and picked up his new mattress that week, so we were ready to take down the crib and changing table furniture, take apart the bunk beds and move them into Owen's room, and then put up a new twin bed frame for Samantha in her room. I felt a little sentimental that my little boy was done using a crib or toddler bed, and that we would now have all our kids sleeping in regular twin sized beds. But at the same time, that makes many things a lot easier, especially with traveling and bed accommodations. In honor of Owen's last night sleeping in his toddler bed, I took some pictures of him in his bed before we planned to take it apart the next day. Here he is all cuddled up with monkey, with his blanket tucked underneath his arm, which is how he cuddles up to sleep.

I was trying to get him to talk and tell me a story that he had already told me because it was cute, but he didn't want to retell it for me to record.

One of Owen's favorite things to do when he was supposed to be sleeping, especially when his bed was still together like a crib, was to do somersaults across his bed, hitting his feet against the bars, or to throw his body up in the corner of his bed to do a headstand. He was quite the acrobat in his bed when he wasn't sleeping. You could hear him banging around, and he often had to be told to stop and go to sleep. Here he is demonstrating things for me.

Here he is definitely showing off for the video. Something tells me this was not the first time he jumped around in his bed like that! I know he still technically fits in this toddler bed. He's not too big for it yet, but he will look so small laying on a twin size mattress. He was really looking forward to getting the bunk beds in his room and eventually having Aedan share a room with him, where Aedan would sleep on the top and Owen would sleep on the bottom. Sweet dreams little boy, the last night before you get a big boy bed!

(Blog about January 17-23, 2021)