Communication

Cordelia is only saying a few words on a regular basis. She says book, here, hi, mom, daddy, baby, and meow. She says mom very clear and usually really loudly, but the rest of the words are hard to understand unless you're around her all the time. Fred and I also heard her say juice the other day, but she hasn't said it again. That word was clear and understandable too. I also heard her say cheese yesterday when we were having some cheese for a snack. Although her verbal vocabulary isn't large, she is understanding a lot of what she hears. If I tell her to do something like throw a piece of paper in the garbage, she'll do it. Also when I tell her not to do something she understands that too. She doesn't verbally say no or yes, but she knows that a nod of the head means yes and a shake means no. We had a beautiful day today and when I asked her if she wanted to go outside I got a nod. Tonight when I asked her if she was ready to go to bed I got a shake. I asked three times to make sure and it was a shake each time. It was so cute. I just can't believe how big she is getting already.

Sensitive boys

This evening Rion watched "Bolt". I wanted to watch it with him, but between Torii and Cordelia there was no way that was going to happen. I heard Rion laugh out loud quite a few times and he didn't move from the couch which is unusual for him. He really was enjoying the movie. Towards the end of the movie I sat down and watched with Rion. There is a scene at the end where the girl is trapped in a building that is on fire. Rion was really concerned and his eyes started to tear up. He told me something about what was going on and his voice was shaky. This is a Disney movie so everything turned out fine and Rion said he liked it. When I asked him about the movie he said, "I almost cried." It was the first time I have ever seen him get emotional over a movie. It was cute.

A couple of weekends ago we went out to my parent's and after visiting for awhile we noticed the boys hadn't said anything about their cat, Winnie, who they had put down earlier in the week. We didn't say anything since the kids didn't seem to notice. Then last weekend Torii asked if we could go to Grandpa and Grandma's, but I told him they were out of town. So he asked if we could go out there anyway and play with Maggie and Winnie. I explained to him that Winnie wasn't there and when he asked why, I told him Winnie had died and was in heaven. He didn't say much and I thought that was that. On Sunday, at the dinner table, I can't remember what exactly we were talking about, but out of the blue Torii announced that Winnie is dead. Rion looked at me in surprise and said "what?!" At dinner that night we had a long conversation about dying and heaven. We've talked about it some before, but not into much depth. Now that the boys are getting older they have a lot more questions. It's been almost a week and this subject is coming up a lot especially with Torii. He is concerned about when we are going to die, who's going to die first, and whether or not we come back after we go to heaven. And he also asked me if there were video games in heaven. At times he really doesn't like the idea of heaven at all, but when I told him he would have video games in heaven he seemed ok about it. At other times he wants to go to heaven so he can see Winnie again. Rion has been talking about it some, but not like Torii. Torii must be thinking about it a lot because he talks about it randomly throughout the day. We can be in the car, having dinner, getting ready for bed, or just about anything else and he'll just suddenly start talking about it. At least he doesn't seem so bothered by it that it's keeping him up at night or that he cries when we talk about dying. We are actually having good conversations about it.

River pictures

This is the bridge that is just inside the entrance at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park. The explosive blast was done in this area of the river. There are still huge ice chunks, but I guess the water is moving now. The park is closed right now and the campground is currently under water.
Today most of the kids seemed to be back in school. As one mother told me she wanted her child back in school just to get some of the normalcy back. She also had pictures of their place and the water surrounding it. They live in a trailer court and don't have flood insurance because they were told they would never need it when they bought the place. Maybe she should show the pictures to whoever told them that. We haven't talked to the boys much about the flood, but we are lucky in that we haven't been affected by it much. When I picked Rion up from school yesterday and his teacher told me about putting stuff higher up, Rion started talking about tornadoes. He said they are really scary and once he had to go to the basement. I thought this would bring on a lot of concern about the flood or weather in general, but so far it hasn't. I worked another half day today and saw lots of pictures and heard some interesting stories. Overall today was a good day. Roads are opening back up and people are going back to their homes. Now we are looking at the Red River and wondering what will happen there.

Crazy week

Flooding continues to be a concern here. I didn't go to work yesterday and today only worked a few hours. I went in after Rion was dropped off at school so I could take the Blazer to work. Then about 1:00 my boss told me to get home. They were going to set off explosions on the Missouri so they wanted me to go. As I was getting back into Mandan, they were closing off Hwy 1806 so it was good that I left so I could get home. There are a few schools in Bismarck that closed because of the flooding, but Rion's school is not one of them. There are a lot of families at our school that are being affected by the flooding which was evident when I went to pick him up. The school was so quiet. It was eerie. Rion's teacher said only six kids showed up in his class today. The school was also taking some precautions in case the worse happens and were getting things off the floor and lower shelves. Rion's teacher said the kids helped and they were very good helpers. Kirkwood was also closed today as a lot of businesses were. It's been a crazy couple of days. After '97 I didn't think I would ever see anything like that again. Especially here. If anywhere I thought Fargo would be the one to get it. But I don't think they are out of the woods yet either. I heard this year the Red River may crest higher than it did in '97. That is amazing to me. Kelly and Laurie- you would be amazed at what Bismarck looks like right now. I've never seen it like this. There are many roads closed. Businesses closed. Schools closed. People out of their homes. It's all been so surreal. The community is rallying to help everyone that needs the help which is awesome. It sounds like the explosions on the river helped to break up some of the ice jam so hopefully things will start to turn around for the better.

More birthdays

For the third straight weekend we were at a birthday party. I guess there's a lot of March birthdays. Yesterday Rion was invited to another classmates birthday, this time at the bowling lanes. A couple of other classmates were there as well. The birthday boy's mom asked if I was going to stay and I had debated this, but I decided to stay. It's not that I think Rion needs to be supervised or needs me around, it was more about me. First, I thought it would be good to get to know another mom from school. This was one of the parents I hadn't met yet and I thought it would be good to meet her and maybe get to talk to her some. Plus some of the other parents were there too. These kids may be around for many more years and it's good to know the kids and parents that my kid may be hanging around with in the future. Second, I'm trying to get out of my comfort zone. I could have easily dropped Rion off and went shopping or done something else by myself. Instead, I thought it would be better for me to be social and meet new people. We had a really good time. Rion bowled a couple of strikes. Ok, he had the bumper lanes and the slide to push the bowl off of, but still pretty good. I started my first game with two strikes and a spare. Why can't I do that when Fred is with? He always beats me, this was my chance. Actually it all went down hill after the first three frames. The kids sure enjoyed bowling. It was actually more fun watching them than actually bowling. Torii didn't fuss this time when Rion said he was going to a birthday party. Then again, we didn't tell him we were going bowling.