Swimming

Here is wonder boy!  We are so biased it's crazy!  Eli got swimming lessons from his grandparents this year and he is absolutely in love with swimming! He would love to go every day but 2 days will have to do, much to his frustration.  He is doing so well and we are proud of him...he could stand to listen to his instructor better but in time?  I don't know.  Last time I felt like I might have to go get him and talk to him...he was being naughty and a few times he was asked to stop. 

Doing some practicing with the instructor.

Handsome smile on my boy! 

Waiting for his turn to do something...hanging like a monkey off the stairs.  Not a great picture but

I'm pretty sure my camera is dying a slow and ugly death and so I periodically get pictures like this. 

I'm holding out for another year or two to get my dream camera...which I researched thinking it wasn't going to be much.  WRONG!!!  My dream camera is like $6-800...so in a year or two if I still want it...well we'll see.  It's a chunk of change to spend on one thing...however I have had my camera now for 6 years and it's been worth every penny we spent, I've used it well!

Well, it's time to jet off to my nice bed and get some rest and continue to get better...

For His Daddy

Aren't they handsome???

This was Dru and Frank last Sunday.  Every once in awhile Dru's preschool will have the children come and sing in front of the church for the congregation.  Dru was so excited to do this and his dad was going to be able to make it to hear him!  Over the moon this kid was!  He had his whole outfit planned out just special for his dad. 

The back story is that we have all, off and on, been sick with what I can only describe as the crud.  *shiver*  Anyway, Dru was running a slight fever that morning with it steadily going up.  The dilemma was who was going to tell Dru he couldn't go because he was sick??  Not me!!  Not Frank!! 

So we went to church and let him sing and we scooted ourselves out of there quickly.  Which I'm glad we did, because not long after that Dru's fever shot up and was that way for 2 days.  Today it finally came down and by tomorrow I'm hoping it will be gone.  He sounds horrible but so help me he's gonna go to school! 

We are still on the mend, a few of them are on meds and the rest of have just gotten over the crud.  Hopefully it just stays that way!!  I will say we are lucky in 2 areas: At least Frank and I were able to tag team this time...I got sick and now I'm on the mend and Frank is now not feeling wonderful.  Second is that at least we all got sick in relatively the same time and not spread over a month or so.  Because believe me we could have made that happen too!

Cooties be GONE!

Mothering Opinion Poll

Alright Moms...well Dad's too...although I'm pretty sure just moms/women read my blog. 

Anyway, today something happened that took me for a loop!  It all started Friday afternoon after the big kids got home. Lee got a call from a friend in his class (actually what's amusing is listening to two 8 year olds planning something) to play.  Well, Lee made plans with out talking to me first, all in the flash of a second.  This planning all happened on the phone and after Lee got off the phone I explained to him that next time he couldn't do that.  He had to check with his dad or myself before he made plans, because what if we had plans that day?  He offered to have us come get his friend and I said how do you know I had a car for tomorrow??  You have to ask first!!!  He said OK.  Time will tell.

So today we went to get his friend who isn't far from my house and when we got there Lee and I got out and went up to the apartment building he lived in.  Well before we even got to the stairs his friend came out and was ready to go.  I said no I wanted to go up to his apartment and meet his dad (I forgot to tell you the only time I've 'met' his mother was at parent/teacher conference almost 6 months ago!).  So I went upstairs and knocked on the door.  I'm almost sure he heard me but didn't want to come to the door, so I finally asked Lee's friend to go in and ask his dad to come to the door.  His friend just said oh go ahead and walk in there.  To which I really tried to not freak out and I said no I'd feel better if he just came up and went in and asked his dad to meet me at the door.  So he went in and told his dad and I could hear by the tone in his voice he was NOT impressed about this at all.  But he came anyway and shook my hand and sorta introduced himself and I introduced myself.  We made really small talk and then we said goodbye and off we went.  I walked away immediately thinking my child will not go there for a few hours but his friend is more than welcome to come to our house. 

Here's my issue and Frank is on the opposite side of this discussion as I understand it (yes, I'm totally leaving myself room to backtrack if I'm wrong...).  Would any of you have just sent your kid out to wait for someone you'd never met, for them to take your kid back to their house?  Frank said (and tell me if I'm wrong Frank) if it had been arranged for him to pick the child up that he would do it that way.  I won't mince words it kinda freaked me out the whole situation.  Who just lets their kid go with someone they've never met, just like that?  Not going out of their way to meet you and make sure you give good vibes?  I mean if I did that and the whole situation didn't feel right, there's no way in HELL I'd let my kid go anywhere!!!  Not one more inch!  

To me it's like (if you have this sort of thing to relate to) letting you daughter out of the house to go on a date with a man you've never met.  Letting him honk the horn at his arrival and letting your daughter walk right out the door saying I'll see you at midnight!  HELL NO!!! Not in this lifetime! 

Does anyone not watch the news anymore?  For Pete's sakes, earlier this week the kids had a note sent home letting us know about a child at her stop having some man approach her in a truck asking if she was OK!  It happened, I'm 99% sure, on our bus route!! HELLO!?!  That would be the second time in 4 years that something like this has happened on their bus stop!!  I might be WAY to protective but honestly let's look at the creepy, pervert man that I know that is somewhere out there in the shadows...waiting...biding his time...time...it's not on my side I don't think.  I'm not sure in this kind of situation that I can be too careful or too trusting of people! 

I don't know...so I ask you guys.  What do you think?  Am I being too weird? What would you have done differently? 
On a side note I did ask Frank to not let some person he's never met to take our children like that, arranged or not.  I'm still a tad weirded out by this whole situation to be honest with you. I knew that things like this would come up  but of course it still caught me off guard in a big way!

Special Day

So today was a pretty big day here at our house! Today was Dru's special day at preschool and boy howdy it was epic! I know you are thinking his birthday is in September, but when preschool starts after your birthday we go with our special day in the winter. Works out just fine. Just like at regular school they get to bring treats for their day. Dru wanted to bring Easter Eggs filled with candy (it is almost Easter you know...like a month away!) So we got the eggs out of storage (I know you all have about 100 or so eggs stashed away for Easter egg hunts! I'm not the only one!) and filled them with Starburst Jelly beans. I'm not a fan of jelly beans, I could think of SO many other yummy things to eat! But it's what Dru wanted so there you go.

There is another reason today was so big, well really this year has been a pretty big deal in general. I've had 3 kids through this preschool (Dru's in his second year) and I've not been able to swing going to special days or parties at preschool or school for that matter! Today or rather this year has been different! Today the teachers (wonderful ladies and I'm blessed to know them) said they'd give me a hand with my 'extra' kids I have during the week if I needed and I said OK. Turns out though I'm blessed to watch some wonderfully behaved 'extra' kids and they were very compliant. So Dru was my first ever experience with a Special day and he was the one that also invited me to come to Parents Day this year!! It took 3 kids to get through but one of them finally asked me to come. I was the shiny new toy for once!!! It's a big year for me I tell you!

So at preschool they have a special hat they get to wear and here is Dru wearing it and the wonderful smile of his greeted us!

Here he is handing out his treat to his classmates, they were all so excited to see what was in those eggs!  Bet they were thinking they were gonna be stuff with yumminess...well they had yummy things,just not stuffed to the gills...they had 5 jellybeans in them, because he's 5 this year. 

Here Dru is eating his treat...notice the orange shirt and orange egg (no there wasn't all orange beans in there! ) his favorite color is still Orange.

Every child who has a special day gets a special book all about them.  It has what their favorite color is, or their favorite thing to do or eat is.  The teacher shares the book with the class and the child helps.  Very fun!

They also tell the parents they can send in up to 6 pictures of said child to share with the class and then they make a small poster of all the pictures on it so everyone can look through out the month at it.  Here Dru is showing his pictures to each and every classmate.  They were so funny, some seemed bored by it all until he showed them a picture of his with Buzz Lightyear or a picture of him as a baby.  They all seemed to like the picture of his as a baby. I had forgotten until his teacher mentioned it, that the baby picture was how she remembered first meeting Dru...has it really been that long?  Sheesh!  Ian started at this preschool the week that Dru was born and that was her first year as Director of the school!  My kids have all had her and she's so good with them! I know I say it a lot but time has really flown!

I'm so glad I was finally able to do something like this before it was just Eli and only being able to do things with him.  I feel so bad when I miss out on things like this and parties for the bigger boys, but I just couldn't fathom, at the time anyway, carting 2-3 kids to a classroom function and actually getting something accomplished and for us to not be distracting!  I always feel like we are distracting or taking away from the moment for the bigger boys!  I probably need to just let that go...in time...work in progress here!

Have a good Friday evening!