John and Dan are wrapping up the end of school. Yes, they are still in school. Their last day will be next Thursday, the 26th, and we are all getting excited for the change of pace. Slower mornings, more flexibility... and yes, more chaos, I'm sure. But I'll take it. I did a trial run with John on Saturday, and had him be in charge of everyone while I took Sam to the store with me to buy a few essentials we were low on (Pete was asleep in bed after a late night of work). I let the kids watch a show and told John this was a test to see if he could manage without me. I put German pancakes in the oven right before I left and told John to take them out if I wasn't back before the buzzer went off. Well... he passed with flying colors! The table was all set for breakfast, pancakes were out, and everyone was in good spirits, especially John. He seems to thrive when given extra responsibilities. So... maybe I won't be taking all 5 boys with me grocery shopping every week this summer, we'll see :)
Daniel and John are sharing a room and are currently sharing a queen bed. They don't usually complain because there simply isn't another option right now (except the floor... which sometimes Dan prefers), but there is occasional fighting about one of them being on the other one's side. We finally put some pool noodles down the center underneath the fitted sheet to help with this problem. They've helped. But the bigger problem is Daniel not falling asleep at night. Every night... EVERY night, about 5 or 10 minutes after we say good night, I'll hear a long, drawn out, "Moooooom?" And there's a variety of problems he claims... "I'm not tired... I don't know what book to read... John's leg is on my side... I'm too hot... I'm thirsty... My leg hurts... What are we having for breakfast?" It goes on and on. Really, on and on. Until at least 9:30 or 10, long after everyone else is asleep. Apparently he doesn't like closing his eyes and he's a little bit afraid of the dark and bad dreams, so he doesn't end up falling asleep until his eyelids grow too heavy to keep open. I'm hoping this is a phase.
Joe tried his very first sport this spring, tee ball, and is super excited to start Kindergarten in the Fall. He still plunks away on the piano in all his free time. We went to a cabin a few weekends ago and on Sunday found a church to go to. On the way back to the cabin Joe said, "I want to go home." Pete asked, "Back to the cabin?" "No, back to our REAL home. I just want a piano, I REALLY want to play the piano. I just like to play it." And truly he does.
Will. Dear Will. He had a doctor appt. this week and was 80% for height and 50% for weight. If there was a percentile for facial features I'm pretty sure he'd be about 5% for lips and 95% for cheeks. Will probably gets into the most trouble (well, there's no "probably" about it), but is the hardest to get mad at. I came upstairs yesterday morning to find Will peeking out of my bedroom door. His lips were orange and he had an orange mustache. Apparently he had gotten John's Gatorade out of the fridge, had snuck upstairs to my room, closed the door, and drank the entire thing. It was really hard not to laugh, I don't know why. Why is everything he does so cute? I did make him say sorry to John. He also likes to use words his older brothers use, in the tone they use as well. He'll cry out, "Stop it! Meanie!" With the angriest face and voice he can muster. Not ok. But it's still so hard for me not to smile.
And Sam is growing right up! He has mastered the Bear Crawl (or elephant crawl, whatever you want to call it) so he doesn't scratch his knees if he's crawling with shorts on. He LOVES playing in the toilet and is always sure to check to see if the lids are up as he makes his rounds through the house. I was making dinner a few nights ago and the older kids wanted to play the computer upstairs and were followed by everyone younger, including Sam. It was nice and quiet in the kitchen, I was quite enjoying myself, so I didn't bother on checking on them. I finished dinner and even got the family room picked up before calling everyone down. Sam eventually made his way down too and we all ate dinner. We finally headed upstairs when it was time for bed and, to my disgust, I found a toilet lid open and a dirty toilet that hadn't been flushed. I won't go into too many details... I hadn't washed Sam's hands before dinner, so they got a good scrub right then. No wonder he had been so quiet and content for so long. But I'm happy to report, he's still alive and well!
And as for me and Pete, we are also still alive and well (most of the time). Living far from family and in this crazy city is still kind of killing us, but we are slowly adjusting and have enjoyed exploring new places.
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