Our Christmas update

First of all, I hope all of my blog friends had a good Christmas.
Here's our pretty Christmas card that I made last week: I waited really late to design the card this year, and ended up not having enough time to order in my envelopes. So, the only people who got a real card, was those who I actually saw. Everyone else got it emailed, or didn't get anything at all. I suck. I just wasn't really into things this year like other years. Maybe next year can be better.

Last Thursday I had a baking day with a friend and a bunch of kids in the house. Thursday night I started feeling kinda off, and Kristopher was not eating and asked to go to bed around 6pm. Big warning sign for me, but somehow I blew it off as he was just exhausted from playing, and full from so much snacking and a big lunch. So, I had Dennis help keep him up a little longer, while I went out and got some more last minute things. He said he put him to bed a little before 8, and at 10 he text me saying I'm needed at home. Apparently he had woken up coughing and gagging but nothing coming up. Lovely. Meanwhile, I was feeling weird, but extremely thirsty. I drank 2 huge sodas while out, and a 20oz water on my way home.
Around 2am, I woke up to that dreaded cough and splat. It's funny how you can wake from a total dead sleep to the sound of your child barfing. Luckily, it was only once, and he felt better after it happened. He has a cold, and it appeared to be pretty much just sinus drainage anyway. He went back to bed and slept the rest of the night.
I however, slept horribly. At 4am I woke up with really horrible stomach pains, and then by 5 was living in the bathroom. I'll spare you the details, but I will just say I avoided the barf side of things, but still wanted to die. Dennis came home early, and I slept the entire day away, minus several million trips to the bathroom. I was also in feverland. Talk about some crazy dreams!
To me, Christmas eve didn't exist this year. I finally felt better and got up for the day around 4:30pm. I drank some ginger ale and had my crackers, and things seemed to be better. We still stayed home though and just rushed to get the last minute wrapping done.
Kristopher wasn't feeling 100% yet, and barely ate at all. He got a fever again around 6pm and was in bed by 7:30. We rushed to finish things and did the Santa deal, and then went to bed by 9 ourselves. Everyone was fine that night.
Christmas morning was great. We were feeling a good bit better, and it was the first year that Kristopher actually woke US up for it. He ran in at 6:30 saying Santa came, and was full of that magical look. I loved it. So, we got up and let him go to town on the gifts. He took the time to read tags and make a big deal out of each thing. His favorite gifts this year appear to be his camera, and his art case. Zoey also was in her happy place with ripping into gifts. Things that were not hers even. I love that dog.

Our new tradition of breakfast after gifts, with my parents, was ruined already. We didn't trust eating real food yet, so we skipped breakfast. My parents came over around 10 and we did our exchange there, (aka round 2 of paper disaster.) I made some lunch, and everyone visited till Round 3 hit. My grandma and great grandma visited. That lasted about 10 mins because I guess people didn't want to be around us with the sickies and all. After everyone left, we rested and enjoyed watching Kristopher play with everything.
Sunday was a much better day, and we were both finally hungry again. I had to make a return, so we ventured out into the crazy after Christmas stores.
Today round 2 of the sickies has re-entered the house. The 2 little people are sick. It's not as extreme as ours, and I'm hoping it just has to do with their colds, and not the stomach flu. Everyone is resting and I'm relaxing and finally going through a weeks worth of pictures.
Oh and sarcastic news, I'm going to be an aunt, for the 3rd time in less than 3 years. Can we say yay for more welfare babies? I'm sooooooo excited for another niece or nephew that I will never get to know. Yippie. This one comes in July. My mom was so kind to hide it from me till after the holidays. I already suspected though due to my sneaky ways on facebook. Conformation still hurts though. But enough of that. Hopefully everyone had a good Christmas!

Christmas-y update

A quick post to say I'm still alive. Things have been busy here. Recap of the happier times in the past week....
Saturday evening we saw santa. Kristopher still very much believes, and I love it. The look of amazement when he saw Santa walk out was just priceless. Funny story too because we got there and there was a sign saying be back at 5:30. He was all worried that it would take "forever". A lady walks over and says how Santa was on a cookie break, and is on his way back. We were the only ones there, so she was trying to get Kristopher to go sit on his chair and when he came to sit, say "dude! where have you been?!" Well, he was shy and afraid of being put on the naughty list, so he wouldn't do it. Not even when she offered him $5. So, after Santa got back, they joked about that and he said because of how good he was, he was gettin 2 lollipops. He spent a nice amount of time talking and at the end, the nice lady handed him $5 anyway and said he was a good sport. It truly made his night.

And then we will add the Christmas concert. Here he is singing his heart out to "Must Be Santa" at his very first school concert. You could hear him in the back of the gym. Anyone who is friends with me on facebook HAS to watch the video that a friend posted. Watching them sing made me almost cry. I don't know what it is but everytime I see him interacting in the school like that, I have to fight it back. I'm crazy. I just can't believe he is truly that old already and doing all this. I wish I could have gotten more pics but I had the 2 little ones along and the baby was not impressed with me trying to take a ton of pictures. At least we have a few good ones.

Monday in review

Today in a very random review. Hopefully a real post again soon.

I quit already with the 2 extra kids. I told her it was too much with that many, and gave her a 2 week notice. Instead, she had to turn it ugly and I was "fired" as of tonight. Oh well.

Kristopher had his first set of first grade homework. He did awesome.

He also had kindergarten homework. Again, awesome.

I don't remember home work when I was in lower grades like that. Weird.

I finally got ink for my printer and more photo paper.

Attempted Christmas pictures of all the kids today.

The littles did great.

Kristopher did not.

Zoey was in on the action.

I don't know if I'm going to do a card this year.

It's very stressful and I feel like I NEED to do one.

We got our first electric bill since turning the heat on.

I think I need a full time job and new underwear.

It was that scary.

I'm ready for bed.

Goodnight.

I've lost my mind

I made a big decision over the past week, and I am starting to second guess myself. I think I may have totally lost my mind.
Sunday I saw a person I went to school with had posted that they were looking for child care. Part time, and the kids were almost the same ages as the 2 I watch now. I've been looking for a little to see if I could find a regular playmate for the 2 yr old, and decided to respond. The girls are only a month apart and both have little brothers. The boys are 4 months apart, with the newest being only 8 months old. I figured I'd give things a try, and it can't be THAT bad. They will only be 3 days a week, and 4-5 hours at most per day. 10ish till 2:15. I do lunch time at 11:30-12ish, and nap time after till about 2-2:30. It sounded really good right??
I was wrong.
Little 2 yr old #2 is totally loud and out of control. It's going to take some time, and I've let her know I'll give it till the end of next week. Day one was horrible, and day 2 was nice improvement but the kid is so loud and wild. I need to see how a few more days would go before giving up, but I can honestly say I know why they've had really bad luck with babysitters.
And another thing that I am kind of annoyed with is the mom drops them off, and acts very concerned over the behavior and loudness. Claims that she has NO problems at all at home, so she has no advice on how to help here. The dad does pick up, and he says yes, she is wild at home, has no volume control, has same issues I'm describing, etc. I feel like I'm being played....
But, since I know it's really important for the other 2 to have more interaction, I'm going to see how next week goes, if she calls back. It's probably just something that will take a few days for her to settle in. Day 2 was definitely a lot better than day 1. She's basically the opposite of most kids. Most kids are shy at first till they warm up to people, and act up when the parents are here. She is good while the parents are here, and really tests the limits when they are not. And she is not shy at all.
But anyway....That's what's new here. I do have something else I've been wanting to get off my mind and just have not had the time to sit down and do it. Look for that in a day or 2.

Kindergarten Conference Time!

Today was our first parent/teacher conference. It went AWESOME!!! I just have to say that I'm very reassured now that our move was definitely the right decision for him, and he has a great teacher and school. They push to make sure his needs are met, and I know the other district would have just let him be bored and push him through no matter what.

So, report cards came and he only had 2 "needs improvement" subjects.
The first was "using high frequency words in kid writing." The reason behind that is because they just started Kid Writing very recently so she gave all the kids the same grade on that. The Second thing was his fine motor skills. She gave him needs improvement because he needs practice with the scissors. And I seriously laughed when she said that, and explained how they told us that before, and we had the big scissor incident where he cut his shirt, hair and beloved simba's mane and tail hair. So we've discussed that yes, he can use them, weirdly enough in the wrong hold. So they want him to push to use them in the proper hold, and if it is worse that way over time, he can go back to whatever way is easier for him. Same with holding the pencil. He can do a really nice job writing, but he holds it somewhat weird with all 4 fingers on the side of it, instead of that thumb/finger hold that they want. Again, push to hold it right and if the writing gets all crazy again, let him do whatever way will work for him.
He is doing above and beyond with his sounding things out and trying to write what he is thinking. When she translates it into real spellings, he remembers it immediately. My kid has a sponge brain apparently. When he learns a new word, he insists on writing it multiple times on the backs of his worksheets. New things he is obsessed with recently is blurbs and he has been making pictures that they are "talking". And exclamation marks. She recently explained those and he is all about "excited writing" and uses them everywhere.
Reading wise, he was assessed as advanced and as far as they are allowed to do for a Kindergarten child. I spied on the form and it showed him at a mid 2nd grade level, but they are not allowed to put him that far. He is going to be in an advanced reading group in 1st grade, starting next Tuesday. He will go for a half hour every day for this, and the books he will be reading will be level 10. I told him about it earlier and he is beyond excited. The books he reads here are level 1's and 2's, and they are very simple to him. I'm getting him a bunch of level 3's for christmas, but these are a different type of level books that he will be using at school. So when he hears the level 10, he is super excited because he's "never seen level 10's before!"
She says not only is he reading without mistakes at the level they are putting him, but he fully comprehends it as well. I'm very excited for him to start next week and to hear how he does.
I also met with the 1st grade teacher that will be working with him, and the principal to discuss the reading group switch. Everyone was really great and act like they truly care.
So overall, she says he is very social, listens without any drama at all, and is a "very cool kid" and she loves to work with him. So I'm finally reassured that waiting was best because last year would have been harder for him to sit and listen like this. He has calmed down a lot and truly loves school.
AND, the counselor is going to be contacting me because they can talk to him and try to figure out what is stressing him out or making him have these sleep issues. He still has the sleepwalking/night terrors a few times a week. I explained that it didn't start after our move right away. It was within a few weeks of school starting that it started and I just feel like he needs to talk to someone so we can see how to help with this. If that can be done with the one from school that he already knows, then great. Otherwise, he has an appt in December for his 6 year check up, and we can talk about a referral to someone then.
All of this was great news and I can finally feel happy about school.