New Blog Address

I've decided to move my blog to a new address.  You can now read the adventures of the Villines family on my new blog, "Dancing in the Minefields" at www.dancingintheminefields.com

Nola’s 1st Haircut

Nola’s hair has been driving me crazy lately.  The front got too long and the back was about 1000 different lengths.  I finally decided it was time for her first haircut.  Here’s the before:

There’s a new place in Fayetteville called Pigtails & Crewcuts. 

It’s the only kids’ salon in the area, so I thought I’d give it a try since this is a special occasion.  We got there and there was a 30 minute wait.  We spent a little time outside enjoying the wonderfully cool temperatures.  After a while, we went back inside and the kids played with the train table.  Caleb spent a little time playing Angry Birds on my phone too.  Rudy joined us between his staff meeting and band practice. 

When it was finally Nola’s turn, she chose the police car chair.  She didn’t like the cape, but she was easily distracted by some animal crackers. The stylist did a great job and evened her hair out really well.

 

 

 

 

 

I was pleased with the outcome:

While we were there, Caleb got a little updated ‘do as well.  He chose the airplane chair and enjoyed watching 2 boys play a video game while he got his haircut.

After the haircuts, we walked over to Lenny’s Subs for dinner, then came home for a walk.  I was so glad Nola did so well for her first haircut!

HUGE milestone!

This morning, right after Rudy left for school, Nola went to the door and said,

“Bye-bye, DaDa”

I almost passed out from sheer excitement!  She had never put 2 words together before.  Big stuff, people…big stuff.

On a related note, she imitated the word “fumble” one afternoon this week when the boys were playing backyard football.  Now, we think she’s calling footballs “fumbles”.  She says, “fuh-buh”, which could be football or fumble, but she says it with the same intonation that Rudy used when he yelled, “fumble” out in the backyard.

Her new teachers are reporting to us everyday that they just love having her in class.  They tell us that she is really funny.  She dances and loves music time.  She no longer cries when I drop her off in the mornings.  She really seems happy there, which – of course – makes me happy. 

As far as being funny… the new joke is for us (Rudy, especially) to ask her, “Can I have a kiss?”  She says, “No!” and turns her head away.  We respond by making a big deal (oh, man!  come on!) and she laughs and laughs like it’s the funniest thing ever!

I can’t imagine life without my girl. She’s wearing us out with her pre-2 tantrums, but we love her more than life itself.  She makes up for the fits with her kisses, hugs and grins. 

Filling Buckets

We had a good 3rd week of school.  Everyone stayed well!  We were excited because Rudy got an extra night at home on Tuesday since he didn’t have band practice.  Wednesday night was the first night of Wednesday Night Live.  Caleb started going to the K-2 Buzz class and I started a women’s study called The Frazzled Female.  Appropriate, right?

The week ended with a wonderfully happy surprise!  Caleb was chosen by his teacher as his class bucket-filler for the month of August!!!  Our school is doing an initiative this year focusing on positive behaviors.  We are basing it on the book, How Full Is Your Bucket?  The book explains to kids that when our “bucket” is full, we are happy; when our bucket is empty, we are sad.  The book teaches kids to fill others’ buckets by doing nice things and using nice words.  It also teaches kids to avoid dipping in others’ buckets by doing actions that hurt others.

The kids (and adults) get recognized for positive behaviors.  Last week, Caleb got a “bucket note” from Mrs. Becky in the office for bringing in a lunchbox that was left on the playground.  Then, earlier this week, he got a note for picking up trash on the playground without being asked.  Finally, his teacher gave him a note for helping in the classroom.  He was SO excited because his playground note was read on the morning “mouncements” (announcements).  All of his notes are displayed in the hallway.

So, this afternoon, I opened his school folder and found a letter from Mrs. Christian saying that Caleb had been chosen as the bucket-filler of the month from his classroom.  I got tears in my eyes when I read these words:

“We are proud to announce that your child has been chosen as the classroom bucket filler for this month because they had more bucket filling actions than any other student in their class.  We want to recognize their actions by taking their picture and posting it on our website as well as submitting their picture to the paper to possibly be published in an upcoming feature.”

My bucket is overflowing!  I am so proud of my awesome little boy who chooses to make good choices at school.  He shows God’s love to other people with the choices that he makes more often than not.  He’s growing up and showing responsibility.  I could not be prouder of him if he won a Nobel Prize.

Really? Already?

Last week was great at work.  My intern started on Monday and I really like her.  I think she’s going to be great.  My scheduling wasn’t as complicated as it has been in the past and there were only a couple of minor shifts that needed to be made.  Things were really rocking along.  I took off Wednesday for Nola’s appointment, which I hated to do in the 2nd week of school, but it was a matter of priorities.  Thursday was good, but I was really tired.  I felt run-down all day, but chalked it up to lots of interrupted sleep with the kids both having nighttime coughs.  I got a lot done at work, then went to Weight Watchers and came home.  By the time I got home, I was ready to just crawl in the bed.  I ate dinner, then sat outside watching Rudy play with the kids for a little bit.  I started feeling nauseous so I came inside because I thought it was from the heat.  Rudy took the kids to the park so they could burn off some energy and I could have some quiet time.  I fell asleep in the chair.  Before the night was over, I was SICK.  I managed to get a stomach virus that knocked me out for 2 days.  I had to call in sick to work on Friday.  We had planned to go to Frisco Festival and have dinner with Nana, but that didn’t happen either.  (The boys did go Saturday night, though.) 

It’s now Sunday night and I haven’t left the house since Thursday evening.  Rudy has gotten a milder case of the virus and has been in bed all day today while I’ve fought off a headache and fatigue just enough to take care of the kids and do a couple of loads of laundry.  Nola had a mild case too, with a few gross diapers, but no throwing up.  Caleb has been the superstar of our group (KNOCK ON WOOD) and has been so incredibly patient and well-behaved.  He was so worried about me on Thursday night when I got sick.  It was very sweet.  We’re all planning to go back to school tomorrow…back into the germ pool.  UGH!  I can’t believe we’ve started this junk already!  I was determined this was going to be a better year for us with illnesses.  We aren’t off to a very good start! 

The Strong Not-So-Silent Type

Thanks to the wonder of the internet and its networking, I have been blessed to be in a circle of parents who are weathering the ups and downs of raising kids together.  Many of these parents are women who I know from various points in my life.  Some of them I haven’t seen in over 20 years, but the sounding board and advice seeking nature of Facebook allows us to help each other even when we sometimes don’t know there’s someone out there who can help us.  I truly believe that God uses our technological developments to intersect our lives when they need to be intersected.  Such an intersection happened to me in the past couple of months that has been a true blessing.

I’ve posted on this blog a couple of times about my concern regarding Nola’s slow speech development.  I even talked about her evaluation this summer.  We had just finished the evaluation and I was pretty sure that therapy was the next step on our journey when one of my sorority sisters read my evaluation post and contacted me to tell me that she might have someone who could give me some advice.  Her mom works on a multidisciplinary team that evaluates kids from birth to three.  Emily said that she had mentioned our situation to her mom and her co-workers at a dinner party and they offered to see her.  I was absolutely blown away by her thoughtfulness to bring up our situation and by their willingness to help.  At the time, I thought we were on a pretty straight path, so I told Emily that I wanted to give therapy a shot for a little while and see what happened, but that if we didn’t see expected progress pretty quickly that I would get back with her.  As things turned out, we didn’t end up qualifying for therapy outright and I made the decision to wait. 

One night at dinner, I did a little evaluating of my own and realized that Nola doesn’t make some of the vowel sounds that she should.  My SLP intuition combined with my maternal instinct just kept nagging at me.  I completely and totally trusted the evaluation results that I got at Imagine.  The SLP who evaluated her was great and I didn’t doubt her findings at all.  But…I had the opportunity to have Nola seen by someone who truly specializes in the 0-3 population and could tell me if she needed to be assessed in other areas to encourage her speech development.  I mentioned it to Rudy and we agreed that I needed to contact Emily.  I did and she put me in contact with her mom.  (I’m not giving names or specifics because these kind and wonderful women did this service for me out of the generosity of their hearts and did not charge me anything to do it.  As much as I’d like to shout my appreciation from the rooftops, I certainly don’t want to get them in any kind of trouble.)

When I was on the phone with her, she asked me a lot of questions and I gave her a brief run-down of Nola’s situation and history with her ears, etc.  She told me that she and the SLP on the team were going to be in Northwest Arkansas on Wednesday (8/24) and that they would visit with me and meet Nola that morning.  I didn’t even hesitate.  I took a half day off work and made plans to be there.  It turned out that Emily’s mom didn’t get to come due to change of circumstance, but the SLP did come and we spent almost an hour with her.

Of course, Nola clammed up when we got in the room with a stranger and didn’t do much talking.  Fortunately, I had thought to shoot a little video that morning while we were eating breakfast so that the SLP would be able to see her real communication skills.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot to that either because she was so focused on eating her grapes.  But – she did talk a little bit and because I’m a pretty reliable and informed reporter, we were able to work through it. 

The conclusion was exactly what I hoped for.  More than likely, Nola’s chronic ear troubles are at the root of the speech delay, which is pretty minor.  She has lots of word approximations – just not a lot of sounds in them.  If we can keep her ears dry this year (wouldn’t THAT be a miracle in itself?), she’ll likely be able to catch up.  (She does have a cough/cold (lingering now for over 2 weeks!), but so far no ear drainage.)  Our goal is to have her caught up within 6 months – by the time she’s 2.  If not, I’m supposed to contact the SLP again. 

Here’s the funny part:  I’m supposed to stop telling her to “say” things.  How hard is that for an SLP???  I’m supposed to continue to provide a language-rich environment (which we do naturally), but not try to make her talk.  I am supposed to accept her approximations and attempts, build on them and respond appropriately (which I do naturally).  I just can’t use the word, “say” (as in, “say more” or “say please” or “say up”).  The hardest part is stopping myself from trying to get her to say things that she’s said before that I thought were cute or surprisingly well-articulated (as in, “say hey you guys”). 

Why can’t I try to get her to say stuff?  Well…it seems that Nola is a bit of strong-willed girl.  She’s pretty much only going to say what she wants to say and doesn’t really care if it impresses me that she says what I want her to say.  What we’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks is that if she does something new and we make a big deal out of it, she usually gets mad.  (For instance, her daycare teacher told her she was “shakin’ it” and Nola stopped dancing, through herself on the ground and scowled/glared at the teacher.  Attitude much???)  So, if we hear her say something cute like “hey you guys” or “oh, man” or “lemonade” and then ask her to repeat it, she might not ever say it again…just because we want her to.  For just that reason, she’s not a very good candidate for therapy at this point.  I see a LOT of reverse psychology in our future.

Since the evaluation on Wednesday, I’ve heard lots and lots of words.  Just by accepting her approximations, I think she feels more free to try to talk.  She’s imitating more words and then sometimes using them again.  The greatest thing I’ve seen lately is that she’s starting to try to sing.  This morning, she was trying to sing itsy-bitsy spider.  I couldn’t tell what she was saying or pick up the tune, but I knew she was singing and I figured it out by the hand motions.  It was awesome.  She also does “no more monkeys jumping on the bed” complete with shaking her finger.  Her dancing has gotten hilarious, though we (of course) would never mention it to her!  She shakes those hips back and forth like nobody’s business! 

So, my mind is at ease.  We’ll do what we know will help her.  We’ll continue on our path and watch those ears very closely.  I’ll pray that she catches up quickly, but know that we have a plan if she doesn’t and I’ll trust that God has a plan bigger than mine for this little pigtailed cutie:

One Week Down

Thanks so much to everyone who offered words of encouragement after Caleb’s rough day last week.  Just so you all know – I am not worried about him one iota.  He will be just fine.  It’s just a rough transition.  We are learning a new process and new roles and that’s to be expected.  It will be fun to look back at that post when he graduates and smile about his first week of kindergarten.

Thursday and Friday were great.  I had kindergarten recess duty on Thursday and that was the only time I saw Caleb during the day.  When I went into the cafeteria to get the K’s, I saw that Caleb was drinking chocolate milk.  I had sent his lunch in his lunchbox and knew he didn’t have any money in his account, so I asked him how he got milk.  He said, “I asked for it.”  Sure enough, he had asked one of the cafeteria staff for some milk and they gave it to him…for 50 cents.  After recess, I went straight to my computer and put some money in his lunch account.  That afternoon, I told him that when he takes his lunch, he only gets what’s in his lunchbox.  I never thought about the fact that he wouldn’t know that.  He had never had to take a lunch before.  He told me that he drank all of his Capri Sun and was still thirsty.  That afternoon, we bought a new water bottle for him to take to school, so that he can get water if he drinks all of his Capri Sun.  When I saw him after school, he was proud to tell me that he stayed on green all day.  We left right after school to buy some new inserts for his shoes, that water bottle that I mentioned and a quick stop by the bank. 

Friday was show & tell day & Caleb was so excited!  He took his Junior Razorback lanyard and pass that had come in the mail on Thursday.  He couldn’t wait to tell his class that his LaLa and Pops had gotten him a membership to Junior Razorbacks and that he will get to go on the field before a Razorback game.  He was also excited because he was going to get a tray in the cafeteria.  Pizza Friday!  I went in the cafeteria to say hi and found that all he had was chocolate milk, his water bottle and one piece of pizza.  He said he didn’t like the other stuff they had (green beans, cucumber slices and nectarines).  I told him that *just this one time* I would go get him something from my lunchbox so he wouldn’t be starving in the afternoon.  I grabbed some applesauce and a rice krispie treat (his usual afternoon snack) and took it to him.  I sat with him while he ate.  He said, “Mama, I have to tell you something in your ear.”  I bent over and he whispered, “That girl sometimes talks in Spanish.”  I smiled big and told him that was pretty cool. 

After school, Jan spent the night at our house.  We had delicious grilled chicken and then went out for frozen yogurt and a drive.  As I write this – Nola is napping and the rest of the family is bowling.

With that, we have one week of school behind us.  Just over 170 days to go…

Caleb and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

Yesterday after school Caleb said his 2nd day of school was great and that he “ended up” on green, but he almost got a yellow card for not cleaning up when he was supposed to.  We had a little chat last night about the fact that if he gets in trouble at school, he is automatically in trouble at home.  He now knows our expectations - yellow isn't okay, but it isn't the end of the world - red and orange are unacceptable.  We use a color system at home as well and if he gets yellow at school, he gets yellow at home.  Same goes for red.  We have consequences attached to the colors and he knows what they are.  He assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem. He even went so far as to say that he “definitely” doesn’t want to ever be on red or orange! 

In his classroom, green is for good choices, yellow is for a warning, red is for bad choices and orange is when you have to go to the principal’s office.

I posted about it on Facebook last night and his teacher replied that he was “far away from yellow.”  She said that some kids at his table had thrown trash on the floor and she told them that it was against the rules.   I told her that I didn’t really think she would have trouble with Caleb because he’s such a pleaser. 

He proved me wrong.

I ate lunch with him today because my schedule allowed it.  I’ll only do that occasionally, but it was nice to have the option.  We were sitting at the table eating and I noticed that he was really quiet.  He finally looked up at me with big tears in his eyes and said, “I got yellow today.”  I tried to keep my cool and asked him why.  He explained (with a little coaxing) that he had gotten in trouble for throwing rocks on the playground.  We talked about why that was a bad choice and he admitted that he knew it was wrong, but said that someone else was doing it too.  Of course, that launched the explanation of why we don’t do something just because someone else does. 

After lunch, I e-mailed his teacher and told her that he had fessed up.  She said that he and his friend were “showering” the other kids with rocks (pea gravel) to keep them from going into a certain area of the playground.  My jaw must’ve fallen to the ground when I read that.  She told me not to worry because it’s all new and he’s trying to figure it out.  Yeah…but he knows better than to throw rocks.  It’s not like it was okay to throw them at daycare and all of a sudden it’s okay at kindergarten.  I assured her that I would follow up on it at home and he would have consequences. I also told her that I forgot to mention that he’s not only a pleaser, but he’s also a follower (much to my dismay).

So, Caleb was moved to yellow at home and grounded from all electronics (TV, Wii, etc).  Rudy told him that he was going to take him swimming, but he just couldn’t since he had made a bad choice at school.  He has now apologized about 25 times and has promised repeatedly that he won’t ever throw rocks again and he’ll try very hard to stay on green. 

To top it all off, he smacked his head on the metal tray of the whiteboard in the classroom this afternoon and had to go get an ice pack from the nurse.  He has a bruise on his forehead.

Yesterday afternoon after school, we were in my room and I had to leave for just a minute.  I told him to stay in the room and I’d be right back.  When I got back, he wasn’t there.  Turned out he went to the bathroom, but didn't know where the one nearest my room was, so he went to the one outside of the cafeteria. I spent almost 5 minutes in a near panic searching for him. I could just imagine him going out to the playground without an adult because it's so tempting to him. We've now had a talk about how it's not okay to leave my room without telling me.  Next week, he’ll start going to after school care on Mondays and Wednesdays.  I have meetings after school every Monday and I’ll be working in my room on Wednesdays until it’s time to go to Bible study at church.

Learning the rules of “big school” has been tough on the little man the last few days.  He’ll get there and he’ll be just fine, but he’s really struggling.  He LOVES school and I even overheard him playing school in my room this afternoon, but the rules of the game have changed.  The expectations have increased.  At the end of every day he is exhausted and hungry.  I wonder if it would be easier for him if he wasn’t in my building, but I don’t think it would be.  I just think I might not realize how tough the transition has been for him.

And another thing…

I made it to day 3 of kindergarten before I got choked up.  No tears, just a lump in my throat.  We were pulling into the parking lot this morning and Caleb said, “I think I can go to my room by myself.”  When we got in the door, he looked at me and said, “You stay here.  I can go to class by myself.”  Whew.  I didn’t fight it, just let him go.  I did check to make sure he got there, though.

Look Out, Kindergarten!

Last Tuesday was Caleb’s kindergarten orientation.  He wasn’t really sure what to think about it at first and got a little teary and clingy when we got ready to leave his classroom for the parent meeting.  His teacher said that by the time we got to the cafeteria, he was doing just fine.  He stayed in his classroom to meet all of his classmates and his teacher, Mrs. Christian.  We were excited to find out that one of his friends from daycare, Stephen, is in his class this year.  (Yay for familiar faces!) Caleb will go to Reagan, where I work, for kindergarten.  I’m excited about that because it means that we’ll be together for this transition.  He’s in a place where I know he’s safe and loved and I’ll get to see him from time-to-time during the day. 

At the end of orientation, I was in the library helping out with the self-contained students who just happened to be touring the building with Caleb’s class.  I was so blessed to be in the room at that time.  The media specialist asked the kids to say their name and their favorite thing in the world.  Caleb told his name and then said, “this school.”  I about melted into the floor.  It was just so sweet.  After orientation, we took him out to dinner to celebrate!

Last night, our bedtime stories were all about school.  The last one we read was The Kissing Hand – a beautiful story about a young raccoon going to school for the first time.  His mother kisses his hand to ease his fears about being scared and lonely.  At the end, Caleb kissed mine and Rudy’s hands and we kissed his back.  It was one of the best moments I’ve ever experienced.

This morning, Caleb had our special day pancakes (we put sprinkles on them). 

Once we were all ready to go, we took a few pictures to help us remember the big day!

We dropped Nola off at daycare and when we got back in the car, Caleb said, “Look out, kindergarten, here I come!”  I nearly spit my drink all over the windshield.

When we got to school a little before 7:15, there was already a crowd at the front door.  We went in and put my bags in my room, then went back out front for a few more pictures.  The doors were unlocked, so I was able to get some pictures without all of the extra people in them.  Caleb was surprisingly patient with me while I took them.)

 

After our pictures, we were ready to go to class.  I know this picture below is fuzzy, but I couldn’t pass it up.  Walking to kindergarten with that “imagine” sign…come on – too perfect.

Caleb was excited to get to his classroom, hang up his backpack and find Stephen.  He immediately went to the table where Stephen was playing with Legos and started playing.  I snapped one quick picture of them and then one of Caleb and Mrs. Christian.

I was really fortunate to be able to see Caleb a lot today.  I spent my day helping with the five new kindergarten students in the self-contained classroom.  It just so happened that they had music and PE with Mrs. Christian’s class, so I got to be with Caleb in those classes as well.  I made sure to keep my distance and didn’t let him distract me from my purpose there, but there was no reason to pretend I didn’t know him either.  He enjoyed dancing in PE and singing in music.  He leaned over to me in music class with a big grin on his face and said, “I am having so much fun!”  I also had kindergarten recess duty, so I was outside for that too.  I loved watching his face in the cafeteria when he discovered that Rudy had drawn a smiley face on his napkin. You would’ve thought he’d won the lottery!

At the end of the day, Caleb hung out in my room watching PBS kids and having a snack while I wrapped up my work for the day.  We came home and had spaghetti for supper and then hung out outside for a while.  I had to go to Target to buy Caleb a new lunchbox because the handle on his already broke. 

After school, we called LaLa to tell her about his day and this evening we called Grandma.  Caleb was bewildered about why everyone wanted to talk to him today.  I told him it was a very special day when a kiddo starts school.

I asked Caleb his favorite part of the day and he said, “Mrs. Christian.”  Rudy asked him later and he said, “recess.”  I think both of those are perfectly good answers for the first day of kindergarten.

Cowboy Up

I’m not sure what got into Caleb this weekend, but he decided to Cowboy Up.  I couldn’t help myself.  I had to take pictures.  I’m going to miss these days when he’s too cool for playing dress-up…

Nola @ 18 months

Nola turned 18 months old on July 27th.  Here's what she's up to these days...

• At her well visit on 8/4/11, she weighed 26 lbs, 14.5 oz (79th percentile) and was 31.5” tall (40th percentile). She had head circumference of 48.25 cm. She didn’t need any shots!
• Nola eats all table food now.  She’ll eat almost anything except for most kinds of meat.  She loves sandwich meat and hot dogs, but won’t eat hamburger meat, or the other meat that we eat.  Her favorites are broccoli, applesauce, pancakes, mac & cheese, spaghetti and anything sweet.  She drinks 2% milk, juice and water.  She also loves to take a big drink of whatever we have – coke, tea, etc. 
• She wears size 5 diapers, 18-24 month clothes and size 5 shoes.
• She walks, runs, jumps, crawls and pretty much moves however she wants to.  Gross motor is definitely a strength for her!  She has no fear and will climb on things, go down slides and LOVES to be in the pool or any other kind of water. 
• Nola signs “more” and “please.”  She loves to give kisses and recently learned to give big bear hugs. 

• She still sucks her thumb, especially when she’s tired or upset.  She is attached to her yellow blanket.  We have two – one at home and one at daycare.  On the first day of daycare, the teacher told me that the only problem they had was after nap when she was supposed to put her blanket in her cubby.  Well, that started blankie rehab at our house.  We now let her have it only in her bed.  That was tough at first, but now she’s okay with it.  She’ll still sneak it if she can get by with it, but she doesn’t scream anymore when we leave it there and get her out of her bed.

• Nola now has lots of teeth – including some molars!
• Of course, speech is still our big concern.  Nola is definitely delayed in that area.  I posted previously about how she was going to get therapy, but that ended up not being the case.  After the therapist who evaluated her got all of the results together, she called me and told me that her scores on two of the three tests were in the average range.  The third one was definitely below average, but the therapist didn’t have enough hard evidence to really warrant therapy.  I know that’s hard to understand, but I also know how it works and I didn’t have a problem with it.  I really thought that starting daycare would boost her communication skills and it wouldn’t be that big of a problem.  I started her on Omega-3 and DHA supplements and then she started daycare.  Her language has exploded.  She tries to say everything we say.  She imitates like a parrot, but it’s all unintelligible.  She imitates the intonation of everything and will carry on a conversation complete with facial expressions and hand gestures, but we usually have no idea what she’s saying. She only produces a few sounds (mostly m, b, k, g, n) and a few vowels.  She calls everything “mama”.  She can change the intonation of “mama” a million different ways to mean a million different things.  Occasionally, she’ll imitate something so perfectly that it catches us off-guard.  She has copied Caleb saying “Hey, you guys!” by saying, “Ay, oo gah!”  She also says “ah, mah” for “aw, man!”  She grunts when we ask her what a dog says and she says “kakak” for quack-quack.  Sometimes she’ll say “ow” for meow.  Her other words: bow, go, baa (bath), no, dada, bubbo (bubble), muh (milk), mo (more), ha (hot), ka (car), uh-oh, bahbah (backpack), buh-bub (Caleb), bah (ball), uh (up), eh-oh (hello), ah (hi).  None of these are very consistent.  Some days she’ll do it and some days she won’t. She has quite an opinion about repeating things when we ask her to.  The good news is that she seems to understand everything we say to her.  She can follow directions and point to things when we name them.  She’s learning body parts and her vocabulary is growing.  I’m planning to call this week to get her reevaluated for speech.  We may have to take her to Children’s in LR to get her evaluated, but we’ll do whatever we need to do to get her up to speed.  I’ll update here as we go through the process. 

The Last Days of Summer

Technically, summer still lasts for another month, but things are winding down around here. School starts tomorrow. We made the most of our last days of summer:

Saturday (7/30) – Rudy and I spent the day shopping in Branson and then came home (without the kids) for a date night.  We had dinner at Café Rue Orleans in Fayetteville and then went to see Horrible Bosses.  It was so much fun to have adult conversation and see a grown-up movie in the theater!

Sunday (7/31) – I drove to Hot Springs to spend a few days there with the kids while Rudy started summer band. The kids and I stayed with Mom and MrL.  It was unbelievably hot (over 100* every day).  We stayed inside as much as possible!

Wednesday (8/3) – The kids and I said our goodbyes to Lala and Pops and drove over to Sherwood to spend the day with Memmie and Poppie.  They rode over to Little Rock with us so I could get Nola a napmat for her new daycare. We enjoyed visiting with them! 

Thursday (8/4) – I took Nola to her 18-month checkup with Dr. Schaefer. (more in a separate post)  After that, we met the boys for lunch and then took both kids to the new daycare.  Caleb went there for a week while I was in meetings.  Nola cried when we dropped her off, but apparently calmed down pretty quickly.  Caleb wasn’t too keen on going to new place where he didn’t know anyone, but he handled it pretty well.  While they were at daycare on Thursday, I got my hair cut and colored. Rudy had band that night, so the kids and I were on our own.  We met Caleb’s friend Isabel and her mom and brother at JumpZone.  The kids had a great time playing and Kristie and I enjoyed getting to know each other a little better.  Afterwards, we had dinner at Bariola’s.  By the time we got home, the kids were worn out! 

Friday (8/5) – Rudy took Nola to her last day of Gymboree.  The kids would’ve gone to daycare, but it was closed for promotion preparation.  We had a lazy day at home for the most part, but ran some errands and played as well. 

Saturday (8/6) – We wanted to do something fun to celebrate our last weekend of freedom, but it was SO HOT (106*!!!), so we needed to do something indoors.  We decided to go to Fast Lanes to bowl. It was a lot of fun. Caleb used the ramp and the bumpers, so he did pretty well.  After bowling, the boys rode the go karts.  Nola and I wandered around until it was their turn. 

Nola pulled my wristlet and phone out of my purse and strolled through the place like this:

Oh. My.

Sunday (8/7) – AAAGGGHHH!  The last day of freedom!!!  We spent the morning at church, had lunch at the new Five Guys burgers and then had a usual Sunday afternoon.  Rudy took the kids to Tanyard Creek in the evening while I met my old friend Leslie for dinner at Las Fajitas.

This past week, Rudy and I have had meetings every day.  The kids have gone to daycare.  Nola still fusses at me when I drop her off, but she’s settling in well.  She has one teacher that she has really taken to.  That makes me happy.  I know she’s doing well when I’m not with her.  Every day when we pick her up, we hear what a great day she’s had and how much fun she is.  Caleb did well there too, but he’s ready to get the show on the road and go to his real school. 

On a not-so-happy note, after 3 days of daycare, Nola got her first cold. She has coughed and had a runny nose like crazy.  On Thursday night at 11:30, I sent Rudy to WalMart to buy some Vicks Vaporub.  I read the craziest thing online about putting it on her feet and covering them with socks.  I was very doubtful, but gave it a try and was shocked that she was asleep – not coughing – in a matter of minutes. I don’t know why it works, I just know it works.  She smells like I remember my Papa smelling, which makes me smile and laugh, but she’s not coughing, so I’m happy.

Branson (yes, really)

Last spring, Mom called and asked if we would like to book a trip to Branson with them at the end of the summer.  I’m not a big Branson person.  I’m not interested in the shows and the town is a little, well, um -- conservative for me.  The only restaurant that we ever really liked there has closed down.  But – I do love the outlet malls and I do love to take the kids to Silver Dollar City, so I decided that it sounded like a great way to wrap up the summer.  It seemed so far away at the time.  Well, the time went by quickly as always and sure enough, before we knew it, the trip had arrived.  We stayed at a fabulous resort complex called Marriott Vacation Resorts.  It was absolutely wonderful. (Thanks, Jenn!!!) It had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  Caleb slept in the king bed with Lala and Pops.  The other bedroom had 2 queen beds, so Nola slept in one of them bolstered by pillows and Rudy and I got the other one.  It worked out perfectly.

Our trip started last Tuesday (7/26).  Our condo was right by the amazing pool.  Caleb wasted no time getting in the pool and Nola followed right along behind him.  They both love the water.  Because I’m still recovering from my Novasure procedure, I wasn’t able to get in the pool with them, which was a bummer.  It was so HOT and all I wanted to do was get in the water!  Rudy graciously offered to plan and cook our meals for us. The first night, he grilled whole chickens and stuffed peppers that he had prepared before we left home. We had the peach delight dessert that I brought.

On Wednesday, we braved the soaring temperatures and went to Silver Dollar City.  With our season passes and some coupons that we had, it only cost us an additional $30 for Mom and Mr. L to go with us.  Because they were with us, we got to do some things that we don’t usually do.  Rudy and I actually got to ride the Wildfire and the Powderkeg…twice…while they took the kids on the train ride and to the new Half Dollar Holler.  It was a fun day and we were TIRED when it was over.  (Scroll over pictures for descriptions.)

Here’s a (sideways) video of Caleb dancing in the creek to the cajun band.  That child is a mess.

 

Wednesday night, the kids swam and we had burgers for dinner.  Then, we took advantage of the resort activities menu and joined in the fun of making s’mores at the firepit.  It was really cool that they had all of these things you could choose from to do.  That was the only one we were able to participate in and it was so much fun.

Thursday was our shopping day.  The boys went to Springfield to the big Bass Pro Shop and out for a BBQ lunch.  Mom, Nola and I hit the outlet malls looking for deals!  Nola’s ready to move up to 24 month clothes and we were hoping to find some things for her to carry her over until the weather gets cooler.  We didn’t have much luck.  They already had winter sweaters in the stores!  It was 102 degrees outside!!!  We did find a few things for Caleb’s back-to-school clothes and a couple of things for each of us.  We had lunch at Panera and then took Nola back to the condo to nap with the boys while Mom and I finished making our rounds.  We really enjoyed our day.  When we got back, the boys and Nola were in the pool.  We joined them poolside for a while and then came in for dinner.  Rudy grilled steaks for us that night.  He was quite the chef!  We spent the rest of the night getting our stuff together for our trip home on Friday.

 

Friday morning, we loaded up the cars.  The kids went to Hot Springs with Lala and Pops.  Rudy and I did a little kid-free shopping and then drove home in a very quiet car.  I didn’t have to fish anything out of the backseat floorboard, figure out why the DVD wasn’t working, clean up any spills or calm any crying and nobody once had to pull over on the side of the road to go to the bathroom.