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.