The differences between kids.

I know your not supposed to compare you kids, but it sure is fun sometimes to see how different God can make people even with the same genetic make-up. Ainsley and Hudson both going to the same school has highlighted these differences lately.

Our little first-born, rule-follower has NEVER in her entire school career gone to the nurses office. She has come home from school two times, ones in first grade and once in second actually crying because she was so sick but wouldn't tell her teacher because she was too freaked out to go through the trauma of being sent out of the room to go to the office and health room.

Our little second-born adventure seeker has managed to make his way to the nurses office twice already in 6 weeks of half-day school. The first time he evidently witnessed another child getting to get an ice pack because he had a headache. So the very next day Hudson convinced his teacher he needed to go get a ice pack. When he told me about it he explained that he did have a headache, "remember, back when I got my tonsils out." Yes sweetie, but that was in August. His second time he saw that someone else got a neon yellow band-aid and he thought that was cool. So he picked out one of the numerous wounds on his leg that are always around and suddenly needed a band-aid for it. What is especially funny about that is he wouldn't actually put it on the abrasion, he just wanted the band-aid. Ainsley has discovered, and shared the information with Hudson, that band-aids do not actually do anything to help the pain of a wound, and eventually inflict more pain when the band-aid must be removed. Consequently, they both would rather let blood gush out of a cut for hours rather than apply a band-aid.

Camden is not yet capable of understanding of this reasoning and would love to have his entire body covered in band-aids at all times. The problem with this is he is super sensitive to the adhesive in band-aids, so a week after the sore has healed he still has huge red marks where the band-aid was stuck. Figures doesn't it?

I drop Hudson off at school every afternoon. He recently revealed to me his little routine when he goes into the building. It turns out rather than go directly into his classroom, my little adventurer heads down the hall, then the wrong direction to take a stroll through the cafeteria. His drop off time is between the first and second lunch times so there aren't any kids in there yet, but he wanders through to see what is going on in there, see what is for hot lunch, and sometimes talk to the lunch lady. He said he also looks down the long hall to look for Ainsley, and then sometimes walks through the library. Ainsley would go directly from point A to point B, Hudson is on his own little self-guided school tour.

Ainsley has had hot lunch at school exactly one time, in kindergarten. She vowed she would rather not eat than ever have hot lunch again. It is gross, and even worse, it takes too long to get so you don't get to chat at the table as long or go to recess as early. The first long Wednesday when Hudson got to eat at school he of course wanted to try hot lunch. He of course has asked for it every time since. I've explained that he can have it every once in a while, but I'm not paying $2 routinely for him to eat a sandwich on white bread and chocolate milk. Fortunately he ran his new little plan by me before actually executing it (I hope). He told me that no one would notice if he just went and got a chocolate milk, and he thinks it is okay to just go and get one because it is "just like getting a drink out of the drinking fountain." Uhhh... no honey, you have to pay for the milk and your not having chocolate milk. It was like talking to a wall for a little while to try and convince him he couldn't go and just help himself to milk. He honestly couldn't quite grasp that it would be stealing to do so.

Ainsley lost a tooth at school once and it was a traumatic event. So traumatic that it turns out the tooth fairy will leave you $2 for a tooth that falls out at school rather than the $1 that you get for a tooth lost at home. Hudson has his first wiggly tooth, and our little capitalist-attention seeker has decided that he is ONLY going to wiggle it at school so it will fall out there where all his friends will see and he will get more money. Can't argue with that logic!

It is so fun to watch kids grow-up.

So if we just give lessons to the first ones...

...then they will teach the little ones, right? These pictures are from a couple of months ago, but I just found them. Makes me ready for summer again. Hudson and Camden are in our backyard and Hudson was actually trying to give Camden a tennis lesson. How cute is that? Look at him in the middle picture showing him how to have the right grip. :) They figured out if they hit the ball on the roof it would come back down and they could then try and hit it again. Consequently there are probably now lots of interesting things on our roof I don't know about.

Too funny...

I know consistency does eventually lead to sanity- but this is just sometimes too true!

Conversations with a 2-year-old.

Sometimes conversations with Camden leave you scratching your head.

Examples:

Daddy: Do you have to go potty?
Camden: I already did.
Daddy: When?
Camden: Halloween. (today is October 18th)

Mommy: We got you some books at the library. (said in a nice voice by the way)
Camden: Okay, Okay, you don't have to be so mean.

Driving in the car, at about 10am
Camden: go left and we will drive to the dark time.

Camden: Mommy, is the baby in your tummy getting bigger than the baby in my tummy?
Mommy: Yes
Camden: NO IT IS NOT! IT IS NOT! (very mad)

A couple of Ainsley's punchlines

Two funny things Ainsley said this weekend:

We were out to dinner at Red Robin (overstimulating restaurant, lovely because kids can be loud and no one can hear them over the other noise) and they had this advertisement in the middle of the table that was shaped to be like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Andrew explains to the kids what the real Leaning Tower of Pisa is and tells them about when he walked up the stairs inside of the building. He then tells them how engineers are trying to keep it from continuing to lean more because if they don't eventually it's center of gravity will be too far off and it will fall over. Ainsley pipes up with, "The news people will love it when that happens."

My parents were here this weekend and when ever they leave it is TRAUMATIC for the kids. Camden screamed, and screamed, and screamed when they left. As Ainsley and Hudson were telling them goodbye and Camden was freaking out Ainsley says, "This is going to take me years of therapy to get over."

No drama around here.

Mouth Jewelry

As if poor Ainsley didn't have enough trauma to her little mouth lately (tonsillectomy) she got braces this week. She loves how they look, but is not enjoying the way they feel. Fortunately, the attention at school for having braces might make up for the pain.

Kindergarten!

It was a very long week and a half after Ainsley started for Hudson to wait to start Kindergarten. Finally on Tuesday he got to go to his "gradual entry" day and yesterday was his first official day and now we are on the every day schedule. He is in afternoon so waiting all morning is a bit long too, but I like only getting one ready in the morning. (and I'm also going to enjoy the next 8 weeks before I have the baby of the afternoons with both big kids in school and Camden taking a nap!) Here he is before school:

Camden needed to be in a picture too (he is doing "potty school"- happily that has been really easy. Talk about a blessing for me!)

How cute is he?! He had a great day and loved his teacher. A funny coincidence is that both A & H have student teachers in their class, and both of the student teachers at one point had Andrew for a teacher at Barlow! Small world.

Here he is in his classroom:

Here he is coming off the bus THE FIRST DAY! Riding the bus home with Ainsley is the part of school he has been anticipating the most. So cute!

Third Grade

Today we sent Ainsley off to third grade. When I picked her up after school I could tell before she even said a word that she was not happy. As we were walking across the parking lot she said her day was horrible and she would tell me about it in the car. I responded with, "I'm sorry it wasn't great, but I'm glad your done for the day because I missed you." She then said, "Well, you'll never have to miss me again because I'm never going back."

Don't worry, she is going back. Happily Ainsley didn't just learn school work today. We had the opportunity to process the difference between expectations and reality. By the time she went to bed tonight we were to the point that she was willing to go back, had determined that her teacher might actually be nice, and she has flowers ready to take to her in the morning. Who knew you needed the skills of a hostage negotiator to parent?

A watched pot may never boil...

...but watched cookies do bake.

Double the pleasure, double the fun... right?

A resounding no. Two kids getting their tonsils out was more like double the misery, double the pain. It sounded like such a good idea...they both need it done, so just do it at the same time, right?

How did it go? Not. Fun. In fact, notfunnotfunnotfunnotfun.

But now, 8 days later, we are getting close to back to normal. I have had repeated requests for a blog post, similar to when I posted about Hudson's tubes. The thing is, I haven't slept through the night since the night before, I've been playing nurse to two uncomfortable children, and I'm 7 months pregnant. On top of that the tubes were a few hour event, this has been a week plus event, so it is just not going to happen.

The best I can do is tell you that Ainsley is doing well. She wouldn't talk from Saturday to Wednesday, (that was a strange event) and still complains that her throat hurts. But for the most part she is fine. Hudson is not so okay still. His adenoids evidently caused some damage when they came out so his little sinus system is a swollen mess which has led to labored breathing, hurting ears, and a sinus headache that makes his sore throat the least of his concerns. The biggest of my concerns is that he is having a really hard time sleeping, and so I am too.

And while I am not up to a blow by blow account of the ordeal, I will answer the other question I keep getting, "Why did they both need them out?" Evidently our genetic make-up has created children with insanely ginormous tonsils and adenoids. All three of our kids (well- the three that we can hear sleeping currently- good chance little yet-to-be named in-utero baby is currently growing giant worthless parts as well) snore. I was told by our primary care doctor, "snoring isn't something that we treat, especially with a surgery like a tonsillectomy." Our kids have been for the most part pretty healthy, and have never had strept throat or any bad throat issues. But after Hudson started for the first time getting all the ear infections last fall I started noticing even louder snoring and that his voice really started taking on a nasal quality. So me and my medical degree decided that since Andrew and I had both had ours taken out, mine because they were so big, I needed to investigate if our kids needed theirs out. In fact, my actual words were, "I'm going to just start taking them to ENT's until someone can solve this problem."

Well, the first (very nice) doctor we went to I sat down across from with Hudson and explained that I thought he had big tonsils, he snored, and I thought he needed his tonsils out. Before looking at Hudson the doctor started into a very rehearsed speech about how they just don't do tonsillectomies very often any more, and really never unless there is lots of documented evidence of multiple infections. But he would take a look. Hudson opened his mouth and although I have the ability to exaggerate, I'm not here, the doctor says loudly, "WOW! These are real whoppers!" I'm pretty sure whoppers is a medical term. Anyway- he goes on to determine that his sinus and ears are a mess because his adenoids also are huge and the doctor says he is actually worried that his tonsils even pose a choking hazard for him. He immediately explains that he thinks that there is no doubt that he really needs to have them removed. Score one for my medical degree. I then go on to explain that my daughter and other son are in a similar situation, and this man who started out saying basically there was no way he was taking out tonsils, actually set up Ainsley to have hers out at the same time, even though he hadn't seen her yet. He agreed to see her and confirm that she needed them removed, but said he wouldn't even look at Camden because he wouldn't ever do the surgery on a child under 3. (at that crazy time I thought doing all three at the time would be a good idea- haha!)

Anyway- I brought in Ainsley and there was no question she needed hers out as well. I took Camden with me to this appointment, even though he had said there was no chance with him. I asked him to just check his to see when and if he wanted me to bring him back. Again, not exaggerating, the doctor looks in Camden's mouth and says, "these are the biggest tonsils I have ever seen on a two-year-old in my entire career. He actually said he would take them out at the same time as the other kids, but there wasn't time in the hospital schedule to take all three of them (thank you Lord for sparing me that nightmare). So whenever it is convenient for us we will have Camden's out.

I'm considering waiting until after he gets married so his wife can take care of him. Let's just say that I made the right decision in not choosing nursing as a career. I don't have the patience.

There you go, I planned on a two or three sentence "not fun, but were okay" post and ended up with this little disertation. Overall we are very blessed to have this over with and no big complications. Thanks for asking... (oh you didn't, sorry!)