Lesson Learned

Last night was a night we'll not forget for a long time.  Many lessons learned all around.  It all started last night.  We thought it would be okay to head down the street (about 5 blocks away) to my brother's house.  We waited until our youngest 2 were in bed for the night and were sleeping.  We weren't planning on being gone a real long time, but right as we were thinking about heading home, about an hour later, dinner was ready.  We decided we'd stay a bit longer but 9:30 was our time limit.  We've done this before without incident, once every couple months or so and we aren't gone more than 2-3 hours and our kids can call us at anytime.

H had a friend over last night and we thought that between the 3 of them (ages 12, 11, and 9) could handle things and be responsible.  We were right, but we also learned a very important lesson as did the kids.  We eating dinner when H called and said they heard some noise.  I asked if they were fine and she said yes.  I asked if she minded if we stayed until 9:30 (20 more minutes) and she said yes.  Lesson one:  Be completely honest.  If you're scared and want or need us to come home tell us that and we will be home in less than 2 minutes.  So we finished up our dinner and just when we were wrapping up, H called us again and told us the fire department was on their way over to our house.  Needless to say, we dropped everything and rushed home.  Turns out, the kids let their imaginations get the best of them, got scared of noises and called 911 when they kept hearing them.  2 squads were there and one officer was walking through the house checking things out, while the other officer was talking to the kids and calming them down.

This is the story that unfolded: The kids were watching Harry Potter when they heard a noise upstairs.  They went to check it out and T thought it would be hilarious to try and trick the girls.  He told them he saw leather boots outside and once the girls freaked he said, "just kidding"  Lesson 2: there is a time for everything.  A time to joke and a time not to.  This was a time not to joke around.  T thought it was so funny that he did it again.  He ended up convincing them he really did see someone with leather boots, scaring himself in the process.  The girls were scared and called 911.  When the operator answered they were more scared and hung up.  The operator tried calling back and the kids wouldn't answer the phone.  T was all freaked out that they would get a ticket for hanging up on them.  Sure enough, minutes later 2 officers showed up and knocked on the door, which further freaked the kids out.  They let the officers in and they all started crying.  This is where Hubby and I show up.  We see an officer talking to the kids and 3 crying kids.  We talked with the officer and they were both on their way.

Lesson 3 and 4: The kids learned that they did the right thing by calling 911 because they were scared and were convinced they heard footsteps upstairs.  We told the kids that they should have been more honest with us about needing us to come home and we learned to be more clear about our phrasing when giving out instructions when home alone.  One we will be sure to clarify is tell us anytime you need or want us to come home.  We will come.  We've always said call us if you need anything, and just assumed that they understood what that meant.

Lesson 5:  We do need to test the maturity level of our children at times to see how can handle stuff on their own.  We've done this before without incident and while they have been fine, it's obvious that this time they really were scared.  It might have been because of their imaginations but we also can't have them calling 911 every time their imagination gets the best of them.

There is no law in our state regarding an age to be legally left home alone, especially when caring for other kids.  It's basically left up to the parents and their better judgement.  We don't feel we as parents did anything wrong, but we will definitely not leave them home by themselves for a long while.  Lesson learned.

Busted!

I stayed home from church today with M and H because H and I aren't feeling well.  M and I were in the basement watching his favorite movie of all time - Elmo visits the Fire house.  Actually I don't know if that's the name of it.  You'd think since he's watched millions of times I'd know the name of it.  Alas, I do not.  Anyway, M went upstairs while I was distracted.  I heard some noise in the kitchen and then.  Quiet.  I went to check on him and this is what I saw:

Where there's a will, there's a way

A few weeks ago, K was having a rough evening.  He was in his room taking a break when he got the bright idea to ask Papa if he could have a sleepover with T.  He was told no, not tonight.  Well, K isn't one to take no for answer - especially when it's something he wants badly!  He came out of his room, found a pencil and a piece of paper and came up to me and said, "mommy will you please help write a note to T?"

In Kindergarten when the kids write words they do their best to stretch the words out and write the sounds that they hear.  It might not be spelled correctly, but that's not the point in Kindergarten.  This is what he came up with:

Needless to say, he was allowed a sleepover with his big brother.  The sweetness and the effort just melted our hearts.

Just last week, K came home from school and he had learned about the saying "where there's a will, there's a way."  He colored a picture to go along with the saying.  When I asked him to tell me about the picture, he said, "that's me riding my bike through a fence."

Me Me Me!!

That's what I heard this morning from this precious little face ↓ ↓ ↓

This morning I slept in, trying to sleep off a migraine.  It worked.  M had woken up around 6 and I put him back to bed and he actually fell asleep.  I never did sleep, per se, but I did rest and that helped.  The best part was when K came into bed and snuggled right up next to me and he fell asleep again! So it's time to wake up get ready for the day and M is still asleep!  Usually M is the first one to the table eating breakfast since he's up first.  Not today.  H and T were eating breakfast, I poured K's cereal.  Then M comes running out of his room with a great big grin on his face and says "up!"  Which means look at me! I'm up!  We snuggled on the couch for a moment and then he wanted to eat. I put him in his booster seat and go out intending to get his oatmeal.  Instead, I pour my own bowl of cereal and sit down at the table with the kids.  M yells, "Me! Me! Me!" I then realize, I forgot to get him his breakfast.  Poor kid.  Usually he picks out his oatmeal and climbs up in his chair all by himself, so of course I was all mixed up.

Our weekend

This is really nothing interesting.  Just some endless ramblings about our weekend.  Read on if you want to.  Let's see...this weekend was pretty busy.  It wasn't busy with anything in particular, just life with kids and household chores.  Oh and that pesky little job known as installing a new toilet.  Friday was good.  H went to the oral surgeon for a consultation on a white spot on an x-ray, and for 4 extractions.  The white spot is nothing - very normal, and her teeth will be pulled in February.  I'm very impressed with how brave H is.  She decided to go with nitrous oxide (a.k.a laughing gas) and numbing agents, instead of being put to sleep for the procedure.  I could not have done that.  I actually attempted the laughing gas when I was going to have my teeth pulled and I ended up freaking out so bad that they had to reschedule my appointment so that I could have general anesthesia.  We stopped at the store and went home.  Later, the hubby and I watched the new Star Trek movie.  It was a good movie.  Interesting to see how each character comes into play.  If you like action - this movie was full of action!

Saturday started out good but then the toilet clogged for the last time.  The hubby decided it was time to get a new toilet, one that clogs less so we did.  With four kids, it was a long time in coming.  So the hubby spent all day installing the new toilet amidst facial pain and a migraine and four, three very loud kidlets.  I spent the day catching up on laundry and chasing and corralling, and cleaning up after kids.  T and I trekked out to Michaels around 4 or so and gathered items he needs for his medieval castle project.  I can't wait to post pics of his castle when it's finished.  He's done such a good job with it. It really shows in his work how much he loves this project.

Sunday we went to church and came home.  The rest of the day was spent finishing up laundry, and chasing, corralling, and cleaning up after kids.  The hubby still had a migraine so that was rough too - especially for him.  We also spent a lot of the day getting the kids to finish homework they should've done over the past 21 days or so.  But no, they waited until the weekend before school to finish up everything.  At least it all got finished.  H learned to never do that again, though I'm sure she will :)  I say that lovingly.  We all procrastinate don't we?

So that was my weekend.  Busy and full of normal life stuff.  I'd say boring but it was far from boring.  :)

Change of heart

Hubby and I teach the K-2 boys on Wednesday nights at church.  We've been on winter break but Wednesday night church (known as K-WAM) resumed tonight.  We have an excited bunch of boys to say the least.  They are rambunctious and full of energy and they make me smile.  This picture is our entire class, minus one boy who wasn't there that night.  

So, all day I'm gearing up for church tonight.  It takes a lot of energy with these boys and when I say we teach them, I use that word loosely because we kinda just wing it.  They are too rowdy to listen a whole lesson so we kinda just do what we can and make the best of it.  They are each special and worthy of our time so we try to have fun and learn about God and his world  at the same time.  I'm excited because we have a new curriculum that is more hands on too so I think that will help keep attention spans engaged as well.  

Anyway... back to my change of heart.  Hubby came home and he just was miserable.  He isn't feeling well and he needed to stay home and rest.  I didn't want to do Wednesday night with the boys by myself, but I couldn't cancel so I began to dread going.  I was dreading the energy  these boys have and having them all.  by. myself.  K wanted to stay home with Papa so that was fine, but I wanted to be home too.  It's cold and I didn't want to go out in the cold, and I didn't want to do church by myself.  Oh, sorry.  Did I mention that already?  Basically I was pouting.  By the time I left the house, I was already looking forward to getting home and that was 2 hours away.  

At the beginning of each night, we have a little worship time together.  The kids sing songs, we have a story or a skit, we memorize a Bible verse, and we have an offering.  At some point during that time, ( I don't know if it was seeing all the kids engaged in singing, or the sharing they did or just that they were all having fun) I had a change of heart.  I felt bad for dreading going and spending time with these boys and for my attitude about the whole night.  I asked God to forgive me for my bad attitude and thanked him for changing my heart.  The rest of the night was easy.  I ended up with only 4 boys and we watched a movie and had snacks.  They were all quiet and listened and the night flew by.  And our class gets a pizza party next week!  

Before and after

I know it's January, but I've been meaning to post these pictures  of our Christmas tree before and after.  So here it is, healthy and fresh smelling and not very many needles dropping on the ground.

This one has lights on it but if you want to see a picture of the tree before with no lights on it click here and scroll down to the end.

As you can see this tree was more than ready come down!  There was one day we forgot to water the tree and not long after that it only sipped the water and started dropping lots of needles and it got worse.  We took the tree down the day after Christmas.  This was what was all over the floor after all the lights and decorations came off the tree.