Miss Cordelia

I think all the kids are going through a growth spurt, (I don't think Torii ever stopped eating today), but Cordelia seems to be growing the most. It just seems in this last month she has done so many new things and I'm getting to know her personality a lot better. Two days before the new year she started walking on her own. Which is great because now my back can have a break from helping her walk around all the time. The day she started walking I was so sick. I was laying on the floor, not wanting to move, and suddenly Cordelia got up and started walking. She walked around all day. Maybe she knew I was in no shape to hold her hands while she walked so she just gave up and took off on her own. Now she can get going pretty fast. I can't remember what Torii was doing today, but Cordelia wanted to get away fast. It's so cute to see those little legs go. I've also noticed some words or at least attempts at words. I know she is understanding a lot more that I say. Today she got the batteries out of one of our remotes and I asked her where the missing one was and she pointed right at it. As far as personality, Cordelia has a temper. I hope this is a passing phase. She mostly gets upset when I don't know what she is pointing and grunting at. She has fell on the floor and laid on her tummy and had a few minor tantrums. It is way too early for terrible twos! Cordelia also seems to be independent. She tries to put on her socks and shoes. I don't remember the boys doing that on their own until they were much older. The other day she also laid down on her own when I took a diaper out. I thought that was awesome, but it turned out to be a one time deal. Now we are back to rodeo diaper changes. There were more reasons I thought she might be an independent girl, but can't think of what those were at the moment. And she's just been funny lately. She loves to do Auntie Vicki's bumblebee game. She's usually the one that starts it. She likes to put on adult shoes. She pretends to drink from the cups of her new tea set. And her favorite thing to do is climb into Rion's big Tonka dump trunk and sit in the back. She loves it when we push her around in it too.

Meeting at school

On Thursday I had the meeting at school to discuss Rion's speech and fine motor skills. It was a bit much to take in everything, but in the end it was decided to give Rion some help. Although he has some trouble saying some letters, he doesn't really need help with speech. He does need help with his fine motor skills and apparently you can't have help with that unless you're in speech too. They kind of went back and forth on whether to wait with help if needed or go ahead with the help now. I told them I would like it if they helped because I can't get him to practice his handwriting at home and he would be more willing to work with them. So it was decided to help him. He has bad handwriting, can't cut with scissors very well and doesn't color inside the lines. I do feel like this is partly my fault for not preparing him for school. Then again, since he's my oldest, I really had no idea. We weren't expected to know all that when I started school. On the more positive side, Rion is doing really well academically. That played a factor in him getting help. From what I understand, they don't usually worry about speech therapy until kids are in first or second grade because they understand letter sounds and words better. They think he will do good in speech because Rion is doing so well in those areas. The reading teacher said he is in the higher reading group in his class. I am glad he is getting help because I do worry about what others may think of him when they see his coloring or handwriting. I worry that kids make fun of him or others may think he's dumb. I probably shouldn't worry about that because it probably isn't a concern, but I still do. And I know I shouldn't worry about what others think because I know he's smart, but it's hard. It will take some time for him to improve these skills, but I 'm glad he's on the road to get it resolved. I'd rather take care of it now and not have to worry about it later.

A busy day

Today was a busy day, but altogether good. We had a MOPS steering team meeting so I did not work today. I dropped Rion off at school and since we had some time before the meeting we went to Target. I still needed to return two things from Christmas that were duplicate presents. One for Torii and one for Cordelia. So they each picked something new. Torii picked a new movie. I had never heard of it, but he said I'll see it when we watch it. It is some anime TV series. A Pokeman type show. Cordelia (actually Torii and I) picked out a talking tea set. It's really cute. It was that or the anniversary Little People set. It's a bigger version (no possible way of choking on these) of the Little People I played with as a kid. After Target Torii wanted to play on the coin operated cars in the mall.

Then we headed to the MOPS meeting. I missed half of the meeting because Cordelia was not in a good mood. I think she was tired, but it is still unusual for her to be so upset like that. I really wanted to stop and get milk after the meeting, but I took Cordelia home for a nap right away instead.

After laying Cordelia down for a nap and having lunch I went out for milk. After I got home with the milk I left again because Fred let me have some much needed me time. First I went to the Civic Center to get some tickets. Torii and I are going to see Playhouse Disney live. I asked Rion if he wanted to go, but he said he was too big for that. I will probably treat him to a Wizards game sometime. He keeps talking about seeing another basketball game, but he wants to see the Nuggets again. After I got the Disney tickets I told the ticket guy I also needed tickets for the Bob and Tom comedy show. He kind of looked at me funny. I should have told him I had a different date for that show. I guess it was kind of funny to be buying tickets for two completely different shows.

Next I went to a thrift store which I haven't been to in awhile. I go through withdrawals. I wish I would have had more time because they had digger's delight which I love. But I had to get going for a meeting at Rion's school. The meeting was about his speech and fine motor skills, but I'll post more about the meeting later as this post is long enough already. After the meeting I had about an hour to spare before school let out so I did some shopping. I'm glad I had a meal in the crockpot today which at least made supper easy tonight. I continued to be busy tonight, working on a custom onesie order that someone requested. I also had to sort through 25 bids I received for a custom request I made. I was not expecting that many bids. It was a good day in that I got a lot done, but I'm looking forward to the weekend and just relaxing.

Be my "friend"

Recently I read that 30 somethings are the fastest growing demographic on Facebook. You can add me into that growth as I signed up for Facebook last year. And most of my friends there are thirty somethings as well. I really didn't know what Facebook was all about until I got started on it and since then I've become addicted. The other day I also read something by a mom whose kids are also on Facebook. The main point of the article was whether parents and their kids should be "friends" on Facebook. This subject came up over Christmas. I told my mom that I wouldn't want to be "friends" with her or my dad. Not that I have anything to hide, it's just I need some space from my parents. It wasn't until I read this article that I thought about my own kids on Facebook. Luckily, they are too young that I don't have to deal with this yet, but when I thought about it I realized I would feel rejected if my kids didn't want to be my "friend." I would be left to wonder what they are doing on Facebook and what could they be hiding there? Additionally, I could have an inside look on their lives if I was their "friend." Although I'm told you can bar certain people from certain information on your Facebook page. I'm old and haven't figured that out yet. I need Rion to get a little older so he can tell me how to do it. So in the future when my kids reject my friends request and I get a little peeved, just remind me that I wouldn't my own parents to be my "friend" either.

Tis the season

Cold and flu season that is. Torii and Cordelia are still somewhat battling the flu. They seem to get over it, then it's a race to the bathroom to throw up. Torii took a nap again today and Cordelia had two naps today which is rare for both of them so they must still be sick. This afternoon Rion mentioned his ear hurt. He's only had one ear infection before so I didn't really think much of it. He didn't say anything about it again until late tonight and he said it really hurt. He kept complaining about it so we rushed off to the walk-in before Fred had to leave for work. He does have an ear infection in the ear that hurt and his other ear is really red so it may start to hurt as well. I hope the other two kids don't get ear infections too. After we got his medicine we ran down to Target for some chewable Tylenol. I'm not very good at keeping a well stocked medicine cabinet so I usually have to go to the store when someone is sick. I tried to keep the medicine cabinet stocked once and most everything expired before it got used. Oh well, Target isn't far from our house. This weekend we will continue to sit around the house and take it easy. We've been playing video games and watching movies. As a treat for my sick kids we ordered Wall E on Pay Per View earlier today. We rarely do that so it was a nice treat for everyone.

Happy New Year

I am hoping our new year will start a lot better than this one is ending. Yesterday I stayed home from work because Cordelia wasn't feeling well. Later that morning I started to feel real sick and didn't feel good again until late that night. I just felt nauseous all day and didn't each much at all. This morning I was feeling much better, but Cordelia threw up again so I stayed home again. I needed the extra rest anyway. This afternoon Torii and I went to Wal-Mart and when we got home I started making supper. By the time I was done Torii had fallen asleep. That's unusual for him so I suspected he wasn't feeling good either even though he was perfectly fine at Wal-Mart. While I was making supper, Rion threw up and shortly after we were done eating Torii had gotten up and thrown up as well. Both boys continued to throw up for the next couple of hours until they finally fell asleep. Hopefully a good night's rest will help. It seems Cordelia and I only had the bug for a day so I hope it's the same for the boys. I hate it when the kids are sick.

Unforgettable Christmas

Over the past few days the kids have said and did many things that had everyone laughing. I kept thinking, "I have to put that on the blog," but now that I'm sitting here typing, I can't think of a single thing. They'll come to me later so I may post some of those funny stories later.

We had a very good Christmas. This Christmas will always be referred to "the one that Torii hit his head". We let the boys loose and they opened their gifts first. They went so fast that I didn't even see all the gifts they got until we were loading them into the car. After the boys were done everyone else opened their gifts. Rion was already at the table putting together a Lego set even though I told him to wait until we got home. I think someone said Grandpa let him open the Lego set. That bad Grandpa! Torii was being good and taking every one's wrapping paper and throwing it in the garbage. Towards the end he was getting a little too wild and fell off a stool and hit his head on the side of a chair. It made a loud thud, but he got up and seemed fine. Then his head started bleeding really good. Rion didn't like seeing the blood at all. He said he didn't want to talk about it. Grandpa got him cleaned up and after a consultation with a firefighter it was determined that he didn't need stitches. He did get a really good cut on his head and I thought for sure we would be going to the emergency room on Christmas. That night I let him sleep with me. I thought it would make him feel a little better, but really it made me feel much better.