Midweek Report

This is my picture of the week - David conked out on the couch Sunday night. He had asked me repeatedly for a couple of days if he could stay up late Sun. night to watch his beloved Cowboys play football. I finally told him that was fine - but I still expected him to be up and at them by 8:30 on Monday morning (when chores are supposed to commence). I went to bed before he did, but Paul caught David - sound asleep, missing his game! He's still a little boy!

I want to publicly thank those who responded to my last post - the one where I bared my heart and let you see some of the ugly parts in my life. There's so many, many emotions and different rabbit trails to follow in regards to this possibility of Ben attending school. I didn't even get into them all with that post. In so many ways, I feel like a failure as we examine this possibility for Ben - a failure as a mom, as a disciplinarian, as an educator. But I also know it really isn't about me right now. I can have all the feelings I want but what matters is what is best for Ben. I am so grateful to Laurie for telling me of her thinking in the same direction in regards to an adoption they were considering awhile ago. I appreciate so much the prayers from Joy and Kim and I know there are others out there who read but don't comment - but I know who are also praying. I don't feel as isolated. I know Paul is struggling too, in his own way. Monday he had the opportunity to meet with a friend for lunch. His friend is (I think) the VP of our state's Bible College - he's up there in the hierarchy, anyway. He's supposed to be sending us some reading material on something in regards to this situation he thought would be helpful. That'll be nice. I think it was good for Paul to have the opportunity to share with another man. As a woman, I can run at the tongue a bit and I generally have no qualms about sharing personal things with about anybody who'll listen, but men are usually not wired that way. That's why they tend to be the ones to stick their fists through drywall and throw rocks. They can only take so much, too. I'll keep you updated, of course, as things progress. My heart is still very heavy, though.

Ben said a couple of things over the weekend that I thought were pretty insightful and then made me think, "Am I really considering public school and vocational rehabilitation (as opposed to traditional education) for him?" He asked me Sunday night if anyone can ever "kill the soul." Wow! And then I think it was Monday night I took Sam up to bed and David and Ben were fussing at eachother in their room. They have bunk beds and each has their own radio. So, they have to be considerate of the other and not play their own radio too loudly. David asked me to ask Ben to turn down his so he could hear his football game better. I've shared with you before how Ben likes to listen to Family Radio with its heretical Pastor Camping. Ben loftily interjected, as David made his request, "Listening to Bible teaching about the Lord God of all creation is much more important than football!" Hah!

But then there was tonight...sigh...I shopped all day long today for Ben's birthday which is next Tuesday. It's his 13th and I am following my mom's tradition of making a "13" box for the boys - 13 individually wrapped gifts within a larger box. And this is in addition to his other regular birthday presents. So it takes more time and money, but it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so I really don't mind. David and I had a nice day alone together while Will held down the fort at home. No sooner did I cross the threshold this evening and Ben was being a beastie, inciting David to an argument. I put the bags in my room and it wasn't too much later that Will caught Ben in there, snooping. So I then was thinking, "Oh, you are SO going to school next year!"

In reality, this is a decision that has to be made apart from any emotion. Emotion will be tied up with it - there's no way around that. But ultimately, it boils down to what is best for Ben - and the rest of us.

We have a new garage roof! This is amazing to me. I posted last week about how Paul made plans to re-roof the garage because of finding shingles on sale and the promised good weather for Saturday. We had ten men and teenage boys show up at our house Saturday morning. I was blown away. I did not expect help like that! I don't know why. Our church totally pulled together and helped us so much when we had Sam and went through all the medical events afterwards. So I should not have been surprised that they came to help us put a new roof on. But I was. I am very grateful. And very humbled.

I got a letter last weekend from our school district's nurse. Apparently, Iowa has passed a law requiring proof of regular dental care to be filed with the local schools. This is just for kindergartners, 9th graders, and transfer students. This baffles me - the school? Why? And it irritates me to no end - this is totally "big brother." It is nobody's business if I take my kids to the dentist (which I do, by the way - in fact, they were all there just a week ago!). So I called the Home School Legal Defense Assoc. to see if we could wiggle out of this one. No such luck - the state does offer two exemptions. If you have a religious objection to going to the dentist (???) or if you can't afford to take your children to the dentist (which is senseless, because if that's the case then they will just refer you to the state's Medicaid or Hawk-I program which will then pay for the visits). Grrr...so I have one more thing to add to my to-do list. I feel like returning the form with a highlighted message on top, "Not That's it's Any of Your Business...!"

Sam got an eyeful of education yesterday. I have these motion-sensor Glade spray thingies in several rooms of my house. I think they are the coolest invention and do a lot to help cover up the smells of having 5 males living in a too-small house. Well, Sam recently figured out that if you push the button on the front of the unit, it will dispense spray. Yesterday, unfortunately for him, he was pointing one right at his face when he pushed the button. He got a shot of Glade right in the eyeball! Oh, he was one unhappy boy! Poor kid! But I bet my dispensers are safe now! For the rest of the day he kept pointing at them and saying, "owie, eye!"

Sam has developed an interest in his letters and numbers. A week ago every letter was "r" to him, but now he's expanded that to included d, b, and o. Every number is "2" though. I remember Will getting very interested in letters and numbers the summer before he turned 3. In fact, I remember that summer Paul bought this $50 orange book from a door to door salesman. I was aghast! But Will loved the book. It was all about letters, numbers, and early reading type things. So, several years later when another salesman showed up hawking the same book, I bought another one to replace our worn-out original copy! Maybe it's time to pull it out once again. Sam seems a little young yet to be learning these things, but maybe I have a prodigy on my hands!

Oh, speaking of prodigies...well, not really. But I got a "shot in the arm" yesterday. We have a senior education student from Faith (Bible college) coming to our house now to work with David. She's fulfilling a requirement for a class and it helps David. Teaching him to read was traumatic for me. I could write a lot more on that, but I'll simply say for now that it was hard. The reason was that he wasn't ready to read, but I thought because he was school aged and he wasn't that I was doing something wrong as his teacher. He finally started reading almost a year ago, at the age of 9 1/2. Well, I haven't really had any idea how he was doing. I knew he was reading, but I'm not sure where he measures in comparison to other students or how proficient his skills really are. She told me that she was impressed with his "reading fluency" - yes! (arm pumping action). My boy can read! It's just good to hear. I'm grateful he has this opportunity to work with the student, though. She really seems to be going out of her way to make things interesting for David. But we had to phrase it to him so that he thought he's helping her. He was a bit miffed when I first told him someone was going to come work with him - "Mom! I don't need any help!"

We'll be out of town this weekend, until Monday night, actually. We'll be in Council Bluffs and Paul wanted to stay through Monday so he can do some furnace work for some friends. I think the boys and I will hang out at the in-law's. I'm going to rent some movies so they don't die of boredom (or so they would inform me that that was an actual possibility). Actually, I'm going to get "Twilight" for myself. My girlfriend and I are going to see "New Moon" on the 23rd, so I have to get "Twilight" seen before seeing the sequel! I won't be on the computer, I don't think. It's hard to believe, but there is actually a computer out there that is slower than mine. And it belongs to my mother in law. We'll get back Monday night and Tuesday will be jam-packed. It's Ben's birthday but he also sees his psychiatrist that day, has allergy shots and his social skills class. Somewhere in there I have to fit in grocery shopping and Walmarting, too! I'm going to be one exhausted pup by Wednesday (which won't matter because that's my morning to work in Moppets). Pray for me! I may end up collapsing sometime next Wednesday.

Well, gotta scoot. Paul and the boys will be home soon from church and therein will end my quiet solitude. I suppose I should do something useful like pick up the kitchen. Maybe I'll take a bath. I hit the library yesterday so now I have a slew of new reading material...the bubbles are calling my name!