Just Chillin'

 Peter has been so fun lately.  His comprehension is getting better every day, although he has yet to speak any words.  He also has really taken a liking to play-doh, so we play with it every day, to everyone's delight because no matter how old my kids get, play-doh is still a favorite.  He has also developed a fetish for the fridge.  I can never open it that he doesn't rush over and want to explore inside.  He loves to sit in it and explore the contents of the fridge door.  I hate leaving it open for so long, but he's so intrigued by it that I often leave it for a little while so he can explore its mysterious contents.  Plus, when he's not in the fridge, he busies himself by emptying all my other drawers and cabinets, so this makes a lot less work for me.

He has also loved playing with Kelly's squirrel call.  Kelly bought it a few years ago as a joke to tease all the myriad of squirrels we have in our yard.  Peter found it somewhere in the basement and has loved the noises it makes.  It's so funny to see him lounging on the couch, bopping it or blowing into the tube over and over again.  I couldn't get a good example on video, but it's still cute to see his facial expressions.

The Warm Before the Storm

 A storm was coming and so it was unusually warm on Friday.  It made for a wonderful run with Peter Friday morning.  It was just perfect - the colored leaves, the warm fresh air, etc.  I love to run but some runs are simply perfect.  I love fall.  I hate knowing that winter is on its way and with it an end to running outside.  These last 8 months have been so wonderful.   Maybe I'll just have to find a stroller with sled runners attachment for the wheels! 

Fun Little Brother

 I love watching my older kids interact with Peter.  They always seem so happy to see him when they come home from school.  Benjamin will come in and Peter's the first person he greets.  He'll pick him up and hug him and walk him around.  Bella will always yell "PETER!!!" and then sit him on her lap while she has her snack. 

Christian always invites him to join him at the piano.  The two of them love to play duets together.  I love seeing the two of them sharing the bench.  It's adorable.

Final Result

Today we finished up the pumpkins.  Bella painted several and Benjamin finally got the chance to carve his.  I was happy to see that even though he's become too old for many of the things he used to love doing, he was still very excited when he saw I'd hollowed out a pumpkin for him and he could get a chance to carve.  Christian wanted to paint a pumpkin too but shortly after starting, he realized how tedious it was.  Coat after coat of paint was required to cover the color of the pumpkin and create his desired effect and he was constantly getting his fingers in the paint and ruining his work.  "It hurts to watch Christian paint," was Bella's comment.  She criticized his choice of paintbrush, the amount of paint he applied, and his over-all technique.  Her beratement combined with his natural tendency to get frustrated very quickly when he can't do something perfectly from the start, caused him to abandon the project and give all his pumpkins to Bella.  He sat down at his laptop and coded a pumpkin just as he wanted it - size, shape, and color - to his liking.  That made him much happier.

Benjamin's carved pumpkin is on the left, Christian's in the middle, and Bella's on the right.  All painted and decorated pumpkins are Bella's work.

Some Catching Up To Do

I just noticed that my last entry was 5 days ago. I didn't realize how long it had been. Time has been flying by so fast since the kids went back to school and we've been up EARLY EARLY and getting in bed so late. Bella's bus comes at 6:55am and it's killing us all. Christian has only a few minutes more and then a friend picks Benjamin up at 7:30. In other words, everyone is out of the house before we'd normally even get up in quarantine days. Getting up at 6:30 was challenging when on-line school started, but now it's even earlier. We'll get used to it eventually, but so far while the sky is pitch black and the colder fall weather is in full force, getting up early has been a challenge. Thus, I'm often too tired to post anything by the end of the day, but to recap a few recent happenings: 

Today was our first time back at the library in over 8 months. For the last 3 months we've been reserving books online and the librarians have been pulling them and placing them on a table outside for us to pick up at a scheduled time. I just wanted nothing more than to walk inside and play with puzzles or look at the fish tank or thumb through books as I chose them. Livonia's libraries are still closed, but a neighboring city opened their library so we headed over. It was bitter sweet. All the toys, puzzles, games, stuffed animals, tables, and chairs are gone. It's just floor and book shelves. It was almost entirely devoid of human life. One librarian upstairs. One down. 1 other parent with his little son. That was it. Most of the shelves had books pre-bundled with pretty pink ribbons. Essentially the libarians are saying, "Like the top one? Then you'll love these others. So take them and go and stop touching all our books." I felt sad as I walked around. I missed the old way more than ever. However, Peter wasn't sad. He loved all the pretty ribbons! So many presents just for him! He tried to untie every one. He managed to succeed on a particularly tempting bundle of tiger books. The rest I was able to save. 

I asked the librarian where the board books were and she said they got rid of them all because of Covid. That was the main reason I had come!!! I wanted Peter to explore the books so I could see what interested him. I was bummed. I proceeded to wrestle him away from the ribbons and tried to read a few books to him without him ripping the pages while the others found books for themselves. About 15 minutes later the librarian came over with a stack of board books in her arms. "I want him to have books. He breaks my heart. He needs books. Here's what I can do." She plopped the large pile on a nearby shelf and told me, "These were donated pre-Covid. We haven't cataloged and shelved them yet. I want you to have them. Take all or any that you want." My jaw dropped. That was so nice of her! A little ray of sunshine in this dreary, antiseptic, empty library. The books were wonderful and I was very happy to receive them. Such good people in the world.

Today we also carved pumpkins. I love our October tradition of pumpkin carving because every year the amount of independence, creativity, and expertise increases among my children and it's amazing to watch. Peter loved watching what his sibs were doing but when we convinced him to try putting his hand in and seeing what the inside of the pumpkin felt like, he wasn't pleased.

 Bella decided to spray-paint her pumpkin before carving it and Christian went online and found a template he liked. Benjamin was motorcycling with Kelly but I hollowed his out so it is ready to go. I think the highlight of the carving this year, though, was roasting the seeds. Christian and Bella both carefully pulled out all the seeds from the 3 combined pumpkins and then Bella made butter garlic flavor and cinnamon sugar flavor. Christin stuck with traditional salt and onion. Christian loved it. He rinsed and drained his seeds so carefully. Then he got a towel and spread it on the trampoline before pouring his seeds onto it. When they were dry, we seasoned them and put them in the oven. C's were my favorite flavor. Finally he took his baggie of seeds outside and jumped on the trampoline while throwing them in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. His aim was often off and he had very little success so he asked Bella to come out and throw them to him. She was more than happy to come out and chuck seeds at his face. It became a steady, fast rhythm of throw the seed, shout "FAIL!," throw the seed, shout "FAIL!" Christian soon tired of that game.  Now our trampoline is covered in pumpkin seeds as well as pine needles.

Marching Band has kept Benjamin very busy. I took the other kids to the high school football game yesterday to watch him perform. The bad sounded great. It was a lot of fun to see him and be at the game. I hated having to wear my mask all the time, but I enjoyed the evening. The best part is that Covid has removed the marching band uniform requirement, so he can wear his normal clothes (and a red shirt) and be fine and I save a ton of money. I love how they dance a bit while they play and in the end, the band led the fans out of the stadium.  Sorry the pics are small.  I was far away.

Every morning after my run, I stretch. Peter has started coming onto my mat and stretching with me. I just have to say, "I'm going to go stretch," and he comes right in and does this:

This is his version of the yoga stretch cat/cow.

He's far more flexible than I am. It's so fun to see him imitate my movements. As someone said the other day, "It's so fun to see him becoming a human and not just a high-maintenance special needs pet."  

Being alone with Peter every day while the kids are at school has been really nice but it can also get a little monotonous after being so used to the commotion of 4 at home. I went online for some ideas of things to do with someone his age and there were some fun ones. Here's a few I've done.

I gave him a bunch of colored pompoms and let him play and sort and dump. He really enjoyed that. Bella saw it later and couldn't help but sort all the colors. Later Peter destroyed it and then Benjamin noticed the pompoms and also "needed" to sort them. They are definitely my children. He's too young to play with playdoh in the traditional way, but I gave him some and gave him some toys to press into the doh to see what shapes they make. We walked pig and cow through the playdoh, pushed shapes into it, and ran a car through it. He only tried to eat the playdoh once and otherwise seemed to enjoy it. He was a little bothered when some doh wouldn't come off his fingers, but he definitely wasn't as bothered as he was by the paint.

Peter and I both fear the loud engine noise of the motorcycles but he and I love to ride the littlest one around the back yard. I don't turn it on. I simply push it with my feet and the two of us make motor sounds. We do loop after loop around the yard in the fall air without any noise or exhaust fumes. It's perfect. He giggles and squeals as we do it and it's a lot of fun for both of us.

Christian loves to play piano. He's the only one of the three who does. Peter loves music and so I often set him next to Christian while he practices so he sees the good example. The two of them side-by-side are adorable. Peter seems to always really enjoy that spot.

Campfires and Creativity

These beautiful warm fall days just keep coming and we've been eating dinner outside most nights to enjoy them. Kelly builds a little fire, we all carry out plates out to the patio and we enjoy the mosquito-free outdoors. I've found that the kids spend longer at the dinner table when we're outside. Inside there's too many other things to return to - their room, their devices, their homework, etc. But outside, they sit and talk and enjoy looking at the fire. Last night I wanted to keep them longer so I brought out marsmallows so they'd stay and roast them. I feel like we never have enough time together when everyone is happy and getting along, so these moments are so precious. Everyone commented how much they enjoyed the time around the fire.

When Christian was Peter's age, Bella began preschool and we had some one-on-one time for the first time in his life. I remember using that time to do little projects with him like painting or building things. Christian always loved it, so today I decided to try painting with Peter. Honestly, I had my doubts about his readiness, but I figured it couldn't hurt. So I got out the paints and taped a big piece of paper to the table. I put a paint shirt of Bella's on him and began. He was fascinated as I dropped the different colors of paint on the paper and laughed when I put my finger in one of the blobs and moved it around on the paper. I encouraged him to try and that's when the happy feelings ended. He stretched out his hand, touched the paint, and shuddered. He looked at his colored hand and tried to rub it on his shirt and between his hands to get it off. I tried to help him see that the colors were fun and we'd wash later, but all my efforts were fruitless. I found this odd, because this is how he looks after every meal.

He doesn't seem to have any problem with dirty hands then. In fact, his favorite activity is to play in the dishwasher as I'm loading it, splashing all the nasty water all over himself and the floor. He's not shy about messy hands.

Nevertheless, I got him a brush and showed him how he could mix the colors with a brush instead. I demonstrated drawing letters and shapes and just swirling around. He seemd interested and took the brush from me, but after 3 seconds of swiping it back and forth, he was done. He dropped the brush on the table and refused to take it back up. I painted for him for a bit more and offered various options to him again, all to no avail. He was done. "Do you want to go wash your hands?" I asked. His affirmative grunt was his answer. Fine. We'll try painting again another day. Funny thing, though, after he was all cleaned up, he went over to the piano and 'asked' to play. I turned it on, sat him on the bench and let him play. He plinked around happily, bopping to various rythms and beats for 30 minutes. So, I guess he's more of a Mozart than a Picasso. I'm fine with that.

Warm Weather

 It's been so warm lately that I've been trying to make the most of it.  I know that the days of bundling up and shoveling snow aren't far off.  I've been running with Peter every day even though Christian can't come along anymore.  I've also been spending a lot of time outside working in the yard, playing in the park with Peter, and even doing mundane things like vacuuming out the van, just to be outside!  Peter loves to be outside and he's much easier to handle outside than in.  When he's inside his favorite places to be are at the windows.  Every morning he likes to sit on his dresser and look out his bedroom window for a while.  When I cook dinner he likes to sit and look out the kitchen sliding door.  Yesterday Bella had left her saxophone case there and it made the perfect little bench for him.  He's still not walking.  I thought he'd be walking a month ago already but he is still taking his time.  He can do about 5 steps with encouragement, but he won't walk unless prompted.  Let's hope he figures it out before the snow falls!  Crawling in deep snow won't be fun.

There's really very little else going on.  Benjamin is loving marching band and performed in his first home game on Friday now that the rules about such things have relaxed a bit.  The stadium was only allowed to be at 30% capacity, but he loved the experience.  The other two are enjoying school and are coming home with glowing reports every day about their teachers and being able to be with friends.  Bella hates having to ride the bus but she's putting up with it.  I love not having to race like a crazy woman across Livonia to drop her off at a school that starts 10 minutes before Christian's 5 miles away.

 Everyone is doing well academically.  Christian and Bella have straight As.  Benjamin has all As except a B in AP computer science and a C+ in Algebra 2, but he's always struggled in Algebra.  He's a whiz at geometry, but he struggles with the algebra concepts.  That being said, I think he's still managing very well considering how fast that class moves and how advanced the teacher expects them to be.  He's in a very select group of very intelligent kids and he's keeping up marginally well.  It's lucky that Algebra is my best math.  My help combined with Khan Academy videos and all the other online resources are seeing him through.  The thing I don't understand is that he never asks anyone else in his class for help.  There are others with 100% in there and he won't ask them.  They are his friends and he talks to them every day but never would he send a quick text and say, "Hey, how did you solve #2?"  Whenever I suggest asking, he always just says no and when I ask why, he responds, "I don't care if its wrong!"  I don't know if it's because he's a teenager or just Benjamin but he's very quick to anger and not afraid to treat me like dirt when I try to help.  So, I help where he'll let me but otherwise, he simply gets it wrong.  Thus, the C.  I wish I knew if he is embarrassed to ask or really just doesn't care about his grade.  He never talks about it.  

One other thing we've been doing in the warm weather is playing on the trampoline in the evenings after Peter is in bed. Peter is at that stage in life where he has no sense but a ton of mobiility. So I spend much of my day keeping him from harm. Christian got frustrated about this recently because he said that he hates how he wants to play with me but I'm always having to watch Peter and keep him safe. So, every night that I've had the chance, I go play with Christian without Peter. It's been a highlight of our day, especially since we no longer have our runs. I'm so glad the weather has made it possible. Last night after we'd been jumping and playing for a while, the two of us laid down and tried to see some stars. There is so much light pollution in our area that the horizon nearl always glows and stars are hard to see, but we found a few and enjoyed the time relaxing together without having to be constantly on guard over Peter.

First Day of Real School

 The schools have finally reopened and so the kids are back in class.  When school started online at the beginning of September, I was very pessimistic about it.  I saw it as endless wasted hours online and a terrible disruption to our happy summer routine.  However, the teachers were exemplary and things went far better than I could have ever hoped.  The excellent teaching combined with my careful scheduling resulted in some very pleasant days.  I made sure to always have lunch ready to go during the small 30 minute window that all three kids were free and I made sure we often found fun things to do together in the afternoon.  I especially loved being able to see each child after each class and talk to them about how it went, help with homework, check over assignments before they were turned in, and otherwise just spend time with them one-on-one during the day.  Then the schools made good on their promise to reopen in October.  I never thought they'd do that.  I thought they were just postponing the inevitable.  Strangely, now I'm sad to be losing the online plan that I so hated only 4 weeks ago.  However, I know that in person schooling is best for the kids and after 2 days of it so far, they seem happy with it.  Everyone was so nervous about it on their first day that everyone left without the breakfast I'd made claiming they weren't hungry. 

I can't believe I have a high schooler!  He was rushing out to his friend's car so I didn't make him take a picture, but I got ones of the other two on their first real day of school.  It was too dark out still to do it in the back yard as usual, so the kitchen/mudroom had to suffice.  They say that keeping the mask on all day hasn't been an issue.  They are used to it.  The teachers seem to hate it more than they do, Bella said.  

It is definitely fall here in Michigan now and with that comes the pine needles.  It looked like it was snowing the needles all day today and so I tried to rake them up a bit and especially to get them off Barb's yard because it drives her crazy every year that they fall on her yard and hurt her grass.  However, despite my efforts, it was like shoveling in a snowstorm.  They cascaded around me as I raked and by the time I was worn out, it looked as if I'd done nothing at all.  I introduced Peter to our family tradition of filling the baby pool with pine needles and playing around in them, but he didn't like it at all.  This was always the other kids' favorite part of yard work, but he wanted nothing to do with it.  I tried to get him to smile, but he wouldn't.  So, I snapped the picture in time before he crawled out.  To each his own.  Not having him throwing the needled around made it easier to rake them than it was when the others were little.

As Tall As I Am

 This morning I gave Bella a hug and it struck me that she felt taller.  "Are you as tall as I am?!?" I asked in shock.  We went over to the wall where we have recorded the kids' height measurements and measured her.  Her height mark came parallel to mine.  The day she'd been waiting for had arrived.  She whooped and cheered and declared, "Let's go get pizza!"  When Benjamin grew to be my height he had asked for a large ice cream as a celebratory treat.  Bella has been saying for months that what she wants is a pizza all to herself.  She and I went to Costco and bought her a 1/2 cheese, 1/2 pepperoni pizza just for her.  She also wanted a churro but they don't sell those during covid, so we also stopped at Wendy's and got her a frosty.  She was thrilled.  I don't know why she loves the fatty food so much, but she really, really does.  Luckily, she didn't eat all that by herself.  We now have a lot of left-over pizza in the fridge that she has carefully labeled with her name and won't let anyone touch.  I guess because she's a middle child, but she is extremely possesive of her things.  She guards her things militantly and very rarely lets anyone borrow anything.  She has had to really learn to stand her ground as a middle child and only girl.  She hates to lose, hates to admit she's wrong, and hates to share.  She will lie, cheat, and steal to get the upper hand, if necessary.  It used to be worse when she was younger.  It's getting better, but she will still never back down in an argument and never admit defeat.  It's going to serve her well as an adult, I'm sure, but it's hard to live with.  In any case, I knew that she'd be so careful about her pizza, so I bought the boys a pizza to eat as well.

                                        

After our pizza lunch, the kids and I went to another cider mill and had fun in the corn maze.  Bella is the navigation champ and got all the clues first, but the rest of us did pretty well.   Plus, considering that I was pushing a stroller the whole time, I did quite well too.  Then the kids wanted donuts, but I insisted that since they'd just porked out on pizza, we should skip that this time.  Plus, I said, we could use that money on go karts if they wanted.  They were all in agreement.  We had ridden them on the last day of summer and so it seemed fitting that we'd ride them again on the last day of online school....at least until someone at school gets Covid and they shut the place down again.