- I'm 26 weeks 1 day pregnant. I'm 1 week shy of when I had the boys. I cannot even fathom it.
- I am so tired and achy! With the boys & then the girls I was effectively off my feet around 23 (boys) and 24 (girls) weeks. So I've never been active this "late" into pregnancy and it's kicking my butt.
- Christmas was amazing and so much fun with Colby & the girls.
- The sicknesses that have followed have not been such fun.
- Colby came down with a horrible case of croup on Thrusday night and woke up at 1am on Friday barely able to breathe. He was so wheezy and retracting and just struggling in general. He's had croup before so I know the tricks of the steamy shower/nebulizer/humidifier/cold air, but after a few minutes I quickly decided that they wouldn't be enough. We called 911 and they came and took him to the hospital where they nebulized him 3 times in a few hours to no avail. They eventually gave him a dose of steroids that quickly did the trick. He came home after only a few hours, took it easy all of Friday and has eased back into things. Now he has a lingering cold, but the bark-y cough is gone.
- Sydney has an ear infection. She came down with a fever on CHristmas and then the next day when I got her up from her nap she pathetically said "I sick" to me. Poor babe. But her amox is already helping and she's back to herself.
- Zoe is fighting the same cold/virus that Johnny and I had, but luckily shows no signs of ear infection or croup.
- My mom got out of the hospital a few days after I posted last time. She was in for almost 2 weeks. Her levels are stilly shaky. In the first 2 weeks home her levels were low so she went in for an outpatient transfusion. They upped her potassium meds again and started the process of setting up a surgery to have a port put in for constant potassium. But of course, as happens, then her levels sky-rocketed again and she was left to play the "don't take anything" waiting game. So we'll see where that goes.
- The girls are still on bottles (I know!). My plan was to take them off the day after Christmas, but then they got sick so that seemed mean so they're still using their bubbas. And actually they used them more this week because they have been so draggy and sick.
- I passed my glucose test a few weeks ago so I'm in the clear with that. :)
Sunday, December 30
Bullet points
Let's see...
Saturday, November 24
Doing the same thing over and over
We've got a lot going on- nothing new there. But I'm kind of stuck and not doing anything.
You see, my mom's in the hospital. 5th time since February of last year. 3rd time in 1.5 months. She's been there since Monday of this week, so we spent part of Thanksgiving there. She was there for about 3 days back in mid-October. Then a week about 3 weeks ago. And now we're going on a week again. She's having mega-potassium issues. I didn't know much about potassium until her whole saga began- very abruptly and unexpectedly in September of last year. You have a normal range of 3.5 to 4.5 that you should have. 2.5 puts you in the hospital for IV potassium. Lower than 2 is rarely seen because it results in death due to the heart & breathing issues that it can cause.
Last year she was admitted to the ICU with a level of 1.8 and it took about a week to get it up to the acceptable range with bags and bags of Potassium. She was out and then she was fine from March to September again this year.
And suddenly she went down again- with heart papaltations and fatigue and general ickyness. Her levels were caught at 2.0 so she went to the regular floor instead of the ICU these times (which is nice because the kiddos can visit too). Last time she was there for a week it took all week to get the levels up then she started a new med designed to hold the potassium. And it worked great, but combined with the supplemental potassium it worked a little too good and her level sky rocketed to 6.0. High is also really bad because it can cause heart issues. Seriously, it's no win.
So they lowered her meds, but lowered them too much causing her to crash again to 2.0 and landing her back in the hospital. She is getting 8+ bags of potassium a day along with oral potassium but she can't seem to keep it in her body right now. THey can't figure out why. She went in Monday at 2.0 and now she's hovering around 2.6 depending on when they draw. It's so frustrating-- and I'm not even the one in there! They placed a PICC yesterday so at least she's not getting pricked for blood draws every 2 hours or having new IV's placed for the potassium every few days, but it's really starting to scare me. When you have a huge (HUGE) team of doctors scouring your charts and trying to figure things out for months and they can't get you to raise more than .6 in several days??? She's totally a mystery case and she's so worn out from the whole thing and I'm just plain scared. I'm hoping she can get a second opinion or move to a new hospital or something-- what's the saying about stupidity being doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? I feel like that's all we're at. They're pumping her full of meds and nothing is happening, but they just keep doing it. But at the same time, it's so scary to know that being at 2.0 (2.anything really) is so critically dangerous for your heart and she's just stuck there and there is nothing they can do. There's no magical treatment they have in their back pocket for extreme cases. She is just a total unknown.
So... just icky for now. At this point I hope they can just raise the levels, get it to stick, and then they can worry about figuring out the cause or disease or whatever it is causing this.
You see, my mom's in the hospital. 5th time since February of last year. 3rd time in 1.5 months. She's been there since Monday of this week, so we spent part of Thanksgiving there. She was there for about 3 days back in mid-October. Then a week about 3 weeks ago. And now we're going on a week again. She's having mega-potassium issues. I didn't know much about potassium until her whole saga began- very abruptly and unexpectedly in September of last year. You have a normal range of 3.5 to 4.5 that you should have. 2.5 puts you in the hospital for IV potassium. Lower than 2 is rarely seen because it results in death due to the heart & breathing issues that it can cause.
Last year she was admitted to the ICU with a level of 1.8 and it took about a week to get it up to the acceptable range with bags and bags of Potassium. She was out and then she was fine from March to September again this year.
And suddenly she went down again- with heart papaltations and fatigue and general ickyness. Her levels were caught at 2.0 so she went to the regular floor instead of the ICU these times (which is nice because the kiddos can visit too). Last time she was there for a week it took all week to get the levels up then she started a new med designed to hold the potassium. And it worked great, but combined with the supplemental potassium it worked a little too good and her level sky rocketed to 6.0. High is also really bad because it can cause heart issues. Seriously, it's no win.
So they lowered her meds, but lowered them too much causing her to crash again to 2.0 and landing her back in the hospital. She is getting 8+ bags of potassium a day along with oral potassium but she can't seem to keep it in her body right now. THey can't figure out why. She went in Monday at 2.0 and now she's hovering around 2.6 depending on when they draw. It's so frustrating-- and I'm not even the one in there! They placed a PICC yesterday so at least she's not getting pricked for blood draws every 2 hours or having new IV's placed for the potassium every few days, but it's really starting to scare me. When you have a huge (HUGE) team of doctors scouring your charts and trying to figure things out for months and they can't get you to raise more than .6 in several days??? She's totally a mystery case and she's so worn out from the whole thing and I'm just plain scared. I'm hoping she can get a second opinion or move to a new hospital or something-- what's the saying about stupidity being doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? I feel like that's all we're at. They're pumping her full of meds and nothing is happening, but they just keep doing it. But at the same time, it's so scary to know that being at 2.0 (2.anything really) is so critically dangerous for your heart and she's just stuck there and there is nothing they can do. There's no magical treatment they have in their back pocket for extreme cases. She is just a total unknown.
So... just icky for now. At this point I hope they can just raise the levels, get it to stick, and then they can worry about figuring out the cause or disease or whatever it is causing this.
Sunday, November 18
One day I won't be so busy...
We're still all alive! Just busy and up to our eye-balls in more busy. Basically, busy. And any free moment I have, I want to be sleeping. But usually I'm cutting lamination for school or writing lesson plans or doing laundry. You all get it.
The girls will be 18 months this week. I can't believe it. Sydney is such a talker. Colby was an early talker which was a huge surprise due to his prematurity. Sydney is a twin, not the first child, and an avid passie user-- all factors that are considered to make for later talking. But she doesn't care. She can say pretty much anything and will repeat everything except her name and other people's names. Except Zoe, who we all call Bo Bo. She will yell "BO BO!" when she's trying to find her. She understands what she's saying because she's making connection between objects she sees and wants and uses words correctly. She will put more than one word together-- my favorite is when she says "Where is it?" which she will do when she can't find her passie. She also screams "Let go!" to Zoe. And will say "Hold this" when she's done with something. The other night I caught her on film yelling at Johnny saying "I want slush!" when he was eating slush and not feeding her fast enough. It's just crazy.
Zoe talks too, but not quite as much, though I noticed a big spike in her talking this weekend. She can repeat pretty much anything too, but doesn't choose to on her own as much. In general Zoe's quieter and more of studier. She'll work with little things for a long. She's also Colby's biggest fan and Colby has started to (slowly) accept her company when playing cars or trains. She's in heaven.
And Colby's Colby. Still super smart and cute. He's really "getting" things now. He can reason things out verbally to you so they actually make sense. His memory is about a trillion times better than mine (and he uses it against me regularly). He's really "getting" Connor now. We always would mention Connor when we saw pictures and when Colby would look at our stuff on the shelf in our bedroom. And we'd tell him he has a brother and all that, but now he gets it and brings it up at times that kind of blindside you. The other day he was telling me who his buddies are and he said something like : "Phoenix is my buddy. Logan is my buddy. And my angel Connor is my buddy." And he told Johnny the other night out of the blue in the car "Dada I'm not afraid of the dark, you know why? My buddy Connor is my angel and he comes down from the sky so I don't get scared in the dark sometimes. He makes me feel safe then he goes back in the sky cause he has wings."
And Baby #5 is good. I'm 20 weeks 1 day today. Everything is still going well though I'm still being monitored really closely. The best part so far is having Colby the age he is. LIke I said, he gets things and he really "gets" this pregnancy. He tried so hard to feel a kick this afternoon but kept missing them. He still thinks it's girl, but we shall see. :)
Alrighty, I'm ready for bed. Like I said. we're busy, but we're good. I have lots of cute pictures but they're on my laptop which desperately needs a charge. I'll upload them soon... maybe. :)
The girls will be 18 months this week. I can't believe it. Sydney is such a talker. Colby was an early talker which was a huge surprise due to his prematurity. Sydney is a twin, not the first child, and an avid passie user-- all factors that are considered to make for later talking. But she doesn't care. She can say pretty much anything and will repeat everything except her name and other people's names. Except Zoe, who we all call Bo Bo. She will yell "BO BO!" when she's trying to find her. She understands what she's saying because she's making connection between objects she sees and wants and uses words correctly. She will put more than one word together-- my favorite is when she says "Where is it?" which she will do when she can't find her passie. She also screams "Let go!" to Zoe. And will say "Hold this" when she's done with something. The other night I caught her on film yelling at Johnny saying "I want slush!" when he was eating slush and not feeding her fast enough. It's just crazy.
Zoe talks too, but not quite as much, though I noticed a big spike in her talking this weekend. She can repeat pretty much anything too, but doesn't choose to on her own as much. In general Zoe's quieter and more of studier. She'll work with little things for a long. She's also Colby's biggest fan and Colby has started to (slowly) accept her company when playing cars or trains. She's in heaven.
And Colby's Colby. Still super smart and cute. He's really "getting" things now. He can reason things out verbally to you so they actually make sense. His memory is about a trillion times better than mine (and he uses it against me regularly). He's really "getting" Connor now. We always would mention Connor when we saw pictures and when Colby would look at our stuff on the shelf in our bedroom. And we'd tell him he has a brother and all that, but now he gets it and brings it up at times that kind of blindside you. The other day he was telling me who his buddies are and he said something like : "Phoenix is my buddy. Logan is my buddy. And my angel Connor is my buddy." And he told Johnny the other night out of the blue in the car "Dada I'm not afraid of the dark, you know why? My buddy Connor is my angel and he comes down from the sky so I don't get scared in the dark sometimes. He makes me feel safe then he goes back in the sky cause he has wings."
And Baby #5 is good. I'm 20 weeks 1 day today. Everything is still going well though I'm still being monitored really closely. The best part so far is having Colby the age he is. LIke I said, he gets things and he really "gets" this pregnancy. He tried so hard to feel a kick this afternoon but kept missing them. He still thinks it's girl, but we shall see. :)
Alrighty, I'm ready for bed. Like I said. we're busy, but we're good. I have lots of cute pictures but they're on my laptop which desperately needs a charge. I'll upload them soon... maybe. :)
Sunday, October 7
High Risk
We had our first high risk appointment at the end of September along with our genetic testing. The NT scan came back at 1.7 and overall the genetic tests were all good.
But high risk... with the boys we saw the evil Dr. C. He's gone from the practice- though still around somewhere because we've seen him at the hospital- and from the beginning Dr. K has had very strong negative feelings about him.
Then with the girls we saw Dr. R- the one we had to constantly remind her of everything about why we were there and had to fight her for the cerclage with the girls. (We went 7 weeks longer- I'm thinking we did the right thing despite her textbook opinions) She's gone from the practice as well.
So, with pregnancy #3 we're still seeing high risk, but we were a little hesitant to meet another doctor. This time we were hooked up with Dr. A- the head of the MFM practice and also the head of something big at Harvard. He's kind of a big deal. And, well, third time is a charm. We love him. Not only did he agree with Dr. K that the cerclage was the way to go, but he obviously read our chart and talked to Dr. K about us before we got there. He had us run down our history, but he already knew it and was able to ask about important things. We just felt so comfortable with him and really felt that, for once, we were in the best high risk care.
Now, I'm all but convinced that Dr. K combined with Dr. A puts me in the best possible position we could be in. Full term baby? For the first time, I am finding myself daydreaming about having this baby and holding it in the recovery room and keeping it in my room and nursing from the start. I really think that they will both do their best in to keeping this baby where it belongs as long as possible. And this is the first time I've felt that way. :)
But high risk... with the boys we saw the evil Dr. C. He's gone from the practice- though still around somewhere because we've seen him at the hospital- and from the beginning Dr. K has had very strong negative feelings about him.
Then with the girls we saw Dr. R- the one we had to constantly remind her of everything about why we were there and had to fight her for the cerclage with the girls. (We went 7 weeks longer- I'm thinking we did the right thing despite her textbook opinions) She's gone from the practice as well.
So, with pregnancy #3 we're still seeing high risk, but we were a little hesitant to meet another doctor. This time we were hooked up with Dr. A- the head of the MFM practice and also the head of something big at Harvard. He's kind of a big deal. And, well, third time is a charm. We love him. Not only did he agree with Dr. K that the cerclage was the way to go, but he obviously read our chart and talked to Dr. K about us before we got there. He had us run down our history, but he already knew it and was able to ask about important things. We just felt so comfortable with him and really felt that, for once, we were in the best high risk care.
Now, I'm all but convinced that Dr. K combined with Dr. A puts me in the best possible position we could be in. Full term baby? For the first time, I am finding myself daydreaming about having this baby and holding it in the recovery room and keeping it in my room and nursing from the start. I really think that they will both do their best in to keeping this baby where it belongs as long as possible. And this is the first time I've felt that way. :)
Saturday, October 6
Tied Up
Thursday morning I went in for my cerclage. I went in incredibly nervous- but only for the spinal. I know I've mentioned it before, but I love my doctor. He just seems to really care about what happens with this baby and me and our family. And he was able to calm me down enough, so the spinal ended up going perfectly.
After I was already all IV'd up and numbed up from the spinal Dr. K decided to have me dopplered to check the heartbeat. Beth Israel is a Harvard teaching hospital so he had a resident with him who set about getting the heartbeat while he got all set. The resident tried for 5 minutes to get the heartbeat. 5 MINUTES. And couldn't do it, so then Dr. K came over and tried helping her listen while she still moved the wand. After a minute Dr. K took over the doppler and tried his hand at finding the heartbeat. After a few minutes on his own- and me panicking- he sent the resident to find an ultrasound to check. Almost as soon as she left Dr. K was able to find the heartbeat. Turns out it was a lot higher than expected- thanks to being so stretched from 2 sets of twins. :) But he found it and it was strong and that was all that mattered. I did tell him it wasn't funny at all.
In the end, the stitch went on well and almost exactly in the same place as last time. He said things looked good and it's nice to have this hurdle done. Next time I'm in the hospital I'm hoping I'm there to have a baby. :)
When I was leaving the OR he offered to call Johnny and let him know how it went. Have I mentioned how much I love him?
Anyways, recovery went well. I was just uncomfortable from the tingling and my back was hurting so I was just itching to get un-numb and out of there as soon as possible. Almost 4 hours later I was finally ready to go home.
All in all, I've felt pretty good the past few days. A little sore all around, but good.
But about my doctor. I wonder sometimes (a lot lately) what would have happened with Connor & Colby had I used him with them. Instead I had another doctor who went on maternity leave just months into the pregnancy and I was sent to see Dr. C- the evil high risk. I know there is no use in wondering. And there is no use in playing "what if". But knowing how Dr. K has been from the beginning of the girls pregnancy and on I just feel like it would have all be different.
But for now I guess I can just be happy that he's here to care for this baby and he was there to help get the girls to 34 weeks. :)
After I was already all IV'd up and numbed up from the spinal Dr. K decided to have me dopplered to check the heartbeat. Beth Israel is a Harvard teaching hospital so he had a resident with him who set about getting the heartbeat while he got all set. The resident tried for 5 minutes to get the heartbeat. 5 MINUTES. And couldn't do it, so then Dr. K came over and tried helping her listen while she still moved the wand. After a minute Dr. K took over the doppler and tried his hand at finding the heartbeat. After a few minutes on his own- and me panicking- he sent the resident to find an ultrasound to check. Almost as soon as she left Dr. K was able to find the heartbeat. Turns out it was a lot higher than expected- thanks to being so stretched from 2 sets of twins. :) But he found it and it was strong and that was all that mattered. I did tell him it wasn't funny at all.
In the end, the stitch went on well and almost exactly in the same place as last time. He said things looked good and it's nice to have this hurdle done. Next time I'm in the hospital I'm hoping I'm there to have a baby. :)
When I was leaving the OR he offered to call Johnny and let him know how it went. Have I mentioned how much I love him?
Anyways, recovery went well. I was just uncomfortable from the tingling and my back was hurting so I was just itching to get un-numb and out of there as soon as possible. Almost 4 hours later I was finally ready to go home.
All in all, I've felt pretty good the past few days. A little sore all around, but good.
But about my doctor. I wonder sometimes (a lot lately) what would have happened with Connor & Colby had I used him with them. Instead I had another doctor who went on maternity leave just months into the pregnancy and I was sent to see Dr. C- the evil high risk. I know there is no use in wondering. And there is no use in playing "what if". But knowing how Dr. K has been from the beginning of the girls pregnancy and on I just feel like it would have all be different.
But for now I guess I can just be happy that he's here to care for this baby and he was there to help get the girls to 34 weeks. :)
Sunday, September 16
What would you do?
We have a babysitter/nanny who we like. She loves our kiddos, is willing to come ridiculously early, and we pay her peanuts. It still ends up be a lot every month, but it's better than some alternatives.
Anyways, lately a few things have been coming up, but honestly I don't know how to bring everything up. Some of it isn't even big deal stuff, just stuff that'd make my life easier. But since she's here with 4 kiddos (my three and her 2 year old boy) I hesitate to bring anything up because it'd all just be more work.
For one, clean up. We have 2 toy boxes w/ shelves on top, a 9-cube bin organizer, 4 or 5 separate plastic bins of Colby's stuff, and then several larger toys (play tables, walker, ball pit, etc) all in our living room. We have things separated pretty well. The girls toys are in their toy box, Colby's are in his. Then in the 9 bins we have smaller toys & I have made hanging picture labels for all those bins to help Colby put things away. His plastic bins are the same way with picture cards on them to help him. The shelves above the toy boxes are filled with books. My point is that everything has pretty much been in the same place for the whole time she's been with us (since Feb. last year) and everything is picture-labled. Colby can tell you where something goes and he's amazing (and maybe a little OCD like Daddy) about putting things only where they go (and getting annoyed if cars and up with trains and so on).
But every single day I come home and everything is completely mixed around. Now the larger toys don't bother me, but when I find tiny Legos in the bottom of the toy box, or puzzle pieces hanging out in the block bins I get a little frustrated. I know things can get put places accidentally but it's an every day thing. It's like at the end of the day she just quickly scoops things up and then throws them in the nearest bin, so everything is completely random and every night I feel like I have to go through everything to separate the blocks again and the small baby toys and the balls and so on. I guess my main issues with this are that I know Colby knows how to put things away because we worked SO hard on that this summer so I feel like yes, she's the nanny, but she should be helping to teach him the right way. (Or continuing it in this case) My other issue is the small pieces. We have special bins for legos and puzzles and small cars to keep tiny pieces out of the way of the babies. They're getting much better at not eating everything, but I'm not aways home so it makes me really, really nervous.
Another thing that's bothering me is broken toys. There are always broken toys. I know (KNOW) my kids aren't perfect, but toys rarely get broken. If they do Colby brings it to me immediately (in general, I'm sure some have gotten past me). But almost weekly we find a broken toy somewhere-- lately they've been hidden behind the couch. But I think what bothers me the most is that she doesn't tell us about them or take care of the pieces. Which I guess leaves the chance that she doesn't know, but that raises the whole issue of why doesn't she know what's going on? And there are always chewed on books and DVD cases, too.
And meal times. She has a little boy who is just younger than Colby so I think she feels very experienced with raising kiddos- which she is. But I think that translates into her thinking she knows best. After the summer I had the kiddos on a pretty amazing routine which we needed with the girls. They'd eat around 8. They're down to 1 nap, so I keep them up in the AM- sometimes they get a little whiny, but they can be pretty easily distracted. Around 12/12:30 they'd eat lunch. Around 1/1:30 the girls would go down. They'd be up around 3/3:30 and then that'd be the afternoon. I explained this all to her when she came back in September, but every day lately I'm coming home and she's feeding them lunch at 3:30. And of course that means they don't really eat at dinner. And I'm pretty sure she doesn't really feel Colby meals. Instead he eats a lot of bread and cheese (which he likes)... but it's not a meal. With fruit and veggies. And they're (Colby and her son) always eating on the couch so we always have milk and squished cheese and broken crackers on the couch. I've mentioned that we're really trying to keep Colby to the table, but it hasn't seemed to change.
Lastly is something I know I can't control, but it's her son's behavior. If you're trying to get him to do something he doesn't want, he screams in your face & tries to hit you. If you pick him up, he will try to bite you. These are things I see him do all the time and Colby had never once done any of them. Until the end of August when I had the nanny and her son here for a few days while I set up my classroom. We're working on it and I know he'll pick up bad habits (and hopefully good) from other kids as he moves on to preschool and school in general. I know it goes with the territory, but right now with him in our house it kills me that he's picking these things up. It's just so frustrating when you can target where it's coming from and you're powerless to stop it. Colby realizes now after he says something he shouldn't and will usually give a quick "Sorry, Mama," but still.
And the last thing her son does is throw toys at Colby. I got home on Thursday and I was on the floor talking to Colby when L came over with a car in his hand raised over his head and looking at Colby. These two love each other, but Colby got hysterical. He started crying and yelling "No no no. Don't throw!" and tried to hide behind my back. His mom told him not to throw it, but didn't do anything. I ended up taking the car away from him and telling him that he can't throw things because Colby was so upset. Later on after they left Colby told me that L throws things at him. I can only guess that it's fairly often by Colby's reaction.
I'll stop there because I really do like her, but I'm nervous to approach her because I don't want her to feel like I'm attacking her and because I am nervous that she'll say "Fine, you don't like what I'm doing? I'm gone."
Anyways, lately a few things have been coming up, but honestly I don't know how to bring everything up. Some of it isn't even big deal stuff, just stuff that'd make my life easier. But since she's here with 4 kiddos (my three and her 2 year old boy) I hesitate to bring anything up because it'd all just be more work.
For one, clean up. We have 2 toy boxes w/ shelves on top, a 9-cube bin organizer, 4 or 5 separate plastic bins of Colby's stuff, and then several larger toys (play tables, walker, ball pit, etc) all in our living room. We have things separated pretty well. The girls toys are in their toy box, Colby's are in his. Then in the 9 bins we have smaller toys & I have made hanging picture labels for all those bins to help Colby put things away. His plastic bins are the same way with picture cards on them to help him. The shelves above the toy boxes are filled with books. My point is that everything has pretty much been in the same place for the whole time she's been with us (since Feb. last year) and everything is picture-labled. Colby can tell you where something goes and he's amazing (and maybe a little OCD like Daddy) about putting things only where they go (and getting annoyed if cars and up with trains and so on).
But every single day I come home and everything is completely mixed around. Now the larger toys don't bother me, but when I find tiny Legos in the bottom of the toy box, or puzzle pieces hanging out in the block bins I get a little frustrated. I know things can get put places accidentally but it's an every day thing. It's like at the end of the day she just quickly scoops things up and then throws them in the nearest bin, so everything is completely random and every night I feel like I have to go through everything to separate the blocks again and the small baby toys and the balls and so on. I guess my main issues with this are that I know Colby knows how to put things away because we worked SO hard on that this summer so I feel like yes, she's the nanny, but she should be helping to teach him the right way. (Or continuing it in this case) My other issue is the small pieces. We have special bins for legos and puzzles and small cars to keep tiny pieces out of the way of the babies. They're getting much better at not eating everything, but I'm not aways home so it makes me really, really nervous.
Another thing that's bothering me is broken toys. There are always broken toys. I know (KNOW) my kids aren't perfect, but toys rarely get broken. If they do Colby brings it to me immediately (in general, I'm sure some have gotten past me). But almost weekly we find a broken toy somewhere-- lately they've been hidden behind the couch. But I think what bothers me the most is that she doesn't tell us about them or take care of the pieces. Which I guess leaves the chance that she doesn't know, but that raises the whole issue of why doesn't she know what's going on? And there are always chewed on books and DVD cases, too.
And meal times. She has a little boy who is just younger than Colby so I think she feels very experienced with raising kiddos- which she is. But I think that translates into her thinking she knows best. After the summer I had the kiddos on a pretty amazing routine which we needed with the girls. They'd eat around 8. They're down to 1 nap, so I keep them up in the AM- sometimes they get a little whiny, but they can be pretty easily distracted. Around 12/12:30 they'd eat lunch. Around 1/1:30 the girls would go down. They'd be up around 3/3:30 and then that'd be the afternoon. I explained this all to her when she came back in September, but every day lately I'm coming home and she's feeding them lunch at 3:30. And of course that means they don't really eat at dinner. And I'm pretty sure she doesn't really feel Colby meals. Instead he eats a lot of bread and cheese (which he likes)... but it's not a meal. With fruit and veggies. And they're (Colby and her son) always eating on the couch so we always have milk and squished cheese and broken crackers on the couch. I've mentioned that we're really trying to keep Colby to the table, but it hasn't seemed to change.
Lastly is something I know I can't control, but it's her son's behavior. If you're trying to get him to do something he doesn't want, he screams in your face & tries to hit you. If you pick him up, he will try to bite you. These are things I see him do all the time and Colby had never once done any of them. Until the end of August when I had the nanny and her son here for a few days while I set up my classroom. We're working on it and I know he'll pick up bad habits (and hopefully good) from other kids as he moves on to preschool and school in general. I know it goes with the territory, but right now with him in our house it kills me that he's picking these things up. It's just so frustrating when you can target where it's coming from and you're powerless to stop it. Colby realizes now after he says something he shouldn't and will usually give a quick "Sorry, Mama," but still.
And the last thing her son does is throw toys at Colby. I got home on Thursday and I was on the floor talking to Colby when L came over with a car in his hand raised over his head and looking at Colby. These two love each other, but Colby got hysterical. He started crying and yelling "No no no. Don't throw!" and tried to hide behind my back. His mom told him not to throw it, but didn't do anything. I ended up taking the car away from him and telling him that he can't throw things because Colby was so upset. Later on after they left Colby told me that L throws things at him. I can only guess that it's fairly often by Colby's reaction.
I'll stop there because I really do like her, but I'm nervous to approach her because I don't want her to feel like I'm attacking her and because I am nervous that she'll say "Fine, you don't like what I'm doing? I'm gone."
Friday, September 7
Back to the grind! and 10 weeks!
This week we had 4 days of school - 2 teacher days and 2 days with the kiddos.
I have 21 first graders, though only 19 were there this week. One comes Monday and the other comes in October after her month long trip to India (! the first month of school?). It's been a pretty good "week" with the kiddos. They're chatty, but they're 6. And they're cute. I think we'll have a good year once I can get the constant talking under wraps.
But I caught a cold, so I struggled today. Colby & Syd had it Tuesday night when I got home. Zoe caught it Wednesday. And I started to feel it Thursday. I just want to feel better because I'm already tired enough without sickness thrown in!
Speaking of tired... I am so exhausted! I'm itchingly close to the second trimester... and I don't want to rush this because I do love being pregnant, BUT some extra energy would be amazing. I was a little chicken to tell my principal this week, but I really have to because my appointments are coming up fast and I'm already showing. A lot. Like in lunch line I was talking to my old first graders (now big second graders!) and one little boy touched my belly and said "How's your baby doing Mrs. J?" I played it off that he was talking about the girls, but he long since stopped calling them babies last year! And they're babies not baby.
This week I'll do it! :)
Cerclage is booked for October 4th. Bonus-- I'll take the 4th and 5th off which are Thursday and Friday. Then Monday is Columbus Day! Extra long weekend!
I have 21 first graders, though only 19 were there this week. One comes Monday and the other comes in October after her month long trip to India (! the first month of school?). It's been a pretty good "week" with the kiddos. They're chatty, but they're 6. And they're cute. I think we'll have a good year once I can get the constant talking under wraps.
But I caught a cold, so I struggled today. Colby & Syd had it Tuesday night when I got home. Zoe caught it Wednesday. And I started to feel it Thursday. I just want to feel better because I'm already tired enough without sickness thrown in!
Speaking of tired... I am so exhausted! I'm itchingly close to the second trimester... and I don't want to rush this because I do love being pregnant, BUT some extra energy would be amazing. I was a little chicken to tell my principal this week, but I really have to because my appointments are coming up fast and I'm already showing. A lot. Like in lunch line I was talking to my old first graders (now big second graders!) and one little boy touched my belly and said "How's your baby doing Mrs. J?" I played it off that he was talking about the girls, but he long since stopped calling them babies last year! And they're babies not baby.
This week I'll do it! :)
Cerclage is booked for October 4th. Bonus-- I'll take the 4th and 5th off which are Thursday and Friday. Then Monday is Columbus Day! Extra long weekend!
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