GPS=Stupid

I have been meaning to write a post for some time now about how I think that my GPS is making me stupid. I used to speak compass...fluently. While most people I know use directions of left and right and landmarks to get somewhere I have always been good at knowing where I am in relation to north, south, east and west. (I never figured out the south-by-southwest mumbo jumbo though.) I always had a little virtual map in my head with a starting and ending destination and it was easy to follow.

Then I got a van with GPS built right into the dash.



It happened gradually of course. I would use the GPS just to verify directions that I had written on a piece of paper. I already generally knew where I was going and the GPS would confirm what I already knew.

Then sometimes my GPS would give me a different route to a place that I had been before. And the new route was a little faster and maybe more convenient so I thought hmmmm I should use this more often.

Then I quit carrying the written directions and just trusted the gps to guide me to my destination. I just typed in the address and drove away.


But recently I have noticed that I often don't even have the foggiest idea which direction I am traveling. Is my destination west of my house? I have even approached an expressway and panicked when the gps hasn't caught up fast enough to tell me whether to travel east or west!?!?

How can I possibly not know if I need to go east or west?

My gps has made me stupid.

I keep telling myself that it's ok to turn over navigation to a machine because I typically have a LOT going on in the van while I am driving. It would be incredibly hard to follow directions on a piece of paper with shoes hitting you in the back of the head, people arguing loudly over what songs to play next, and needing to scream at everybody to put their seat belts back on or the police will be coming every thirty seconds.

But I am a little concerned that my navigation skills will be permanently altered. I would like to think that I am turning over navigation to my gps girl on a temporary basis while I focus on more important things. I am keeping my fingers crossed that navigation is like riding a bike... and it will come right back because if it doesn't I sure don't know which way to go to find it!?!?!

Summer Boot Camp

This morning Wyatt and I had dentist appointments for routine cleanings and check ups. John stayed home with the other three kids while we headed out alone. Then John had to go to work and we still were not finished at the dentist, so John drove over and dropped Jonah, Sam and Shane off with me and went on to work.


I can not tell you how wonderful the hygienists and dentist were with our crew. They were so nice to the boys. They fielded millions of questions and treated the boys so well despite our need to touch EVERYTHING in sight. At the end they gave each of the boys a toothbrush and let them pick out of the treasure box. Luckily Wyatt found a pink hair clip in the treasure box so he was thrilled.

Sam said "Wyatt, why are you wearing a pink clip in your hair" and Wyatt said "Sam, I like pink it's my favorite color....and I like clips"

Sadly, the clip got broken on the trip home, so it will not be going to school tomorrow.

Since things went so well at the dentist we decided to hit the grocery store next. Things went downhill from there and the kids were all asleep in their beds for a nap by 12pm (not just in bed....but asleep!!!)

After naps we headed out to the pool. I joined a local hotel pool so that the kids could get familiar with the water again before summer and it is amazing. The water is so warm and we are always the only ones there, so I have been trying to go twice a week.


Today Wyatt learned to float on his back. Jonah swam about 20 feet without his life jacket (accompanied by a siren like wail). Sam told an old guy to get out of his way so that he could jump in, and Shane let Wyatt give him a few rides in the water.


Then we headed home and played outside for an hour before dinner.

So, I was not surprised when everybody went right to sleep tonight without any fuss. The boys could barely keep their eyes open. Mom's "Gettin Ready For Summer Boot Camp" has begun!

Little Maestros

This weekend we are pretending that we only have 2 kids. Jonah and Sam are spending the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa in Michigan. Let me just say that having 2 kids is sooooo much easier than having 4 kids. John and I can each be in charge of 1 kid and we are not outnumbered. We have gone out for dinner every night that the twins are away. We never go out to eat with all 4 kids. (Actually we do, but it is to fast food types of places).

I have recently started thinking about extracurricular activities for the kids. Wyatt is 5 years old and has never been in an organized sport yet. Most of our friends that have kids his age have already done the soccer, t ball, hockey stuff. I just don't think that Wyatt is ready/interested in those sports yet. So we joined our pool again and are going to focus on swimming again before summer and then maybe check out the swim team in the fall.

But I also thought that Wyatt might be good with music. He is old enough to start violin and I can teach that. I took advantage of having some one-on-one time with Wyatt this weekend and got out his little violin. I got it a few weeks ago and have not found time to work on it with him without the other kids around. It is 1/8 the size of my violin....super tiny. Wyatt seems really interested and seems to enjoy the idea of learning to play, so I am excited. He told me tonight that I need to stop telling him what to do because he already knows how to play the violin. He said that he watched me and now he knows. Can you say overconfident?



Somebody else was super jealous that they didn't get a little violin too. I mean JEALOUS! I know that some kids start to learn when they are 2 years old, but that seems just a bit too young for me.... although Shane disagrees....



I am hoping with 4 kids that somebody will take a liking to the violin. I mean if Michelle Duggar can teach all 19 of her kids to play the violin I should be able to get at least one of my kids to Carnegie Hall someday right?

Frogger

We scheduled the van to go into the dealership for a few min9or repairs this week. The kids (mostly Shane) have completely destroyed the built in window shades and they can not be rolled down anymore. So I drive everywhere with the shades up and have huge blind spots on both sides of the van. The shades are still under warranty so we wanted to get them fixed before we have to pay for it. Then we are planning on taping them in the down position so that the kids can't use them for a while.

We found a Honda dealership that will pick up the van from your house, fix it, and deliver the van back to your house when they are done with it! How's that for service. (I am reminded of our neighbor Todd in Ohio who used to have a tow truck come with a flatbed and pick up his car from his driveway every time that a service light came on. I am not even kidding. But I am sure that they charged him for that service...) The dealership pick up service was free.

So last night John took the car seats from the van and put them into the truck. There were three car seats across the backseat of the truck and one in the front seat. I had to go to the gym in the morning so I loaded everybody into the truck. I forgot how hard it was to get the kids securely fastened into their seats in the truck. It is such a tight fit. How did I do that for so long?

Enjoying lunch outside last week when it was warm!

The whole experience really made me appreciate my van. It is soooo convenient. The automatic sliding doors are so amazing!

This week I had a little fender bender with the van. A car stopped short in front of me and in order to avoid hitting him I swerved into the other lane and hit a guard rail. The damage wasn't too bad, but I am sure that it will cost a fortune to fix since body work always costs an arm and a leg.

The worst part is that I am going to have to be without my van while the body work is being done! I am getting stressed already thinking about it!

Letter Milestones

The boys are all starting to do really well with writing their letters. Wyatt is already doing some reading, but Jonah and Sam are really coming along with knowing and being able to write all of their letters too.

Jonah recognizes all of his letters and numbers and can write all but 5 of his letters by memory. Sam recognizes a lot of his letters and can write many of them. He can look at any letter and write it without help, but there are only a handful that he can write by memory.


I am so thrilled though, because Sam has come such a long way since Christmas in terms of improving academically. He is gaining confidence every day! I am not sure that he will ever catch up to Jonah, who is rapidly catching up to Wyatt, but Sam is doing so well.

One game that we started playing seems to have really helped Jonah and Sam. We all use a magna doodle and everybody takes turns naming a letter and then we all have to write it. It is so funny because Shane even sits there with his baby magna doodle and pretends to write letters, hold it up, clap for himself and then erase it when we move on to the next letter.

One of my greatest joys as a parent is watching Wyatt learn to read. I can't wait until it all clicks for Jonah and Sam too. Shane's next milestone.....potty training!

Working Mom

I got a part time job working for Giant Eagle Corporate Headquarters in Pittsburgh. I am doing product development/sensory work for my old boss, Jim, from Ross. It is perfect for a busy working Mom like me. I am doing projects at home at my leisure. The amount of hours that I work are flexible and can be as few as none or up to 40 hours a week if I want. I love the idea that I am using my brain and still staying in the game after 5 years of being a stay at home mom.
Most of my projects require me to purchase food at the grocery store and do various testing at home. I buy the food myself and turn in my receipts for reimbursement. Last week I bought over $450 worth of peanuts and mixed nuts in one trip. You should have seen the cashiers face when I unloaded my cart full of nuts onto the conveyor belt. She asked me if I bought every nut in the whole store.



Then she told me that the biggest grocery bill that she ever rang up was for a guy that was doing his regular grocery shopping and the total came to $640! She said that the guy winced a little bit when he saw the total bill then just handed her his credit card and started loading up his bags. Who knows with four boys that eat like ours do we may have $600 grocery bills in a few years too! Scary!!!

New Neighbors

We had some new neighbors move into the little corner house at the edge of our subdivision right next door to us. They came over the other day and introduced themselves. It turns out that they have a little boy the is 3 years old and another boy that will be 2 in august! The older boy, Jack, drove over on his power wheels 4wheeler and my boys were so excited. Then the baby boy, Tristan, drove over on his baby 4wheeler! Shane took the baby 4 wheeler for a spin and was so thrilled to be able to drive himself around. He wasn't too great at steering, but he had a huge smile plastered on his face for hours.


The husband and wife were friendly and we talked about putting in a joint fire pit and putting our heads together to tackle our garden challenges. It will be nice to have some young friendly neighbors now that spring is here! I am looking forward to seeing our boys have a few new playmates this summer too!

Almost spring

We have been loving the warm weather. The kids have spent so many hours outside the last few days that they are exhausted by dinner. Yesterday the boys went up to the garden area with snow shovels and started "digging for worms". They were probably up there for an hour and I figured that they would come up empty handed.


Imagine my surprise when the boys came down the hill with a wagon full of worms. They parked their wagon in the garage and tucked their worms in with a nice thin layer of dirt and told us that they were going fishing on Friday.

How amazing is the 4 and 5 year old mind?

We ate burgers on the grill tonight for dinner and Shane tried his first hamburger. He wasn't a fan, but we will keep trying. We are all looking forward to the first official day of spring on Monday.

Test

Typing on the new iPad. This is a test.

Funnyman Sam

My little Samuel. He is a funny little guy. He is so simple minded that even the routine becomes funny when he is around.

Yesterday night as everyone was getting undressed to take a shower I noticed that Sam was wearing a bathing suit instead of underwear. Apparently he had been wearing the suit all day and I didn't even notice. So I asked him "Sam why are you wearing a bathing suit instead of undies?" and he replied "because I wanted to go swimming today!"

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Sam knows how to write S-A-M, but we haven't worked on S-A-M-U-E-L yet, so tonight at dinner Jonah said "Sam, I know how to spell your name... S-A-M-U-E-L"

Then Sam got the most amazed look on his face and said "Jonah how did you do that? Was it magic?"

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This week Sam started speech therapy. Jonah has been going for about a year and loves his therapist Miss Robin. To get Sam prepared I have been talking about how Sam is going to see Miss Robin now too and how that is going to be sooo exciting. Today Jonah went in for speech therapy and spent a half hour with Robin and then she came out to get Sam. "Come on back Sam" she said. Sam looked at her and said "No, I don't want Jonah's Miss Robin. I want my own Miss Robin!"

Teasing his big brother Jonah...I wonder who he is going to take after!!!!!

Girls weekend

we all made it to our weekend geyaway. john got the ipad. everyone is happy.

Kindergarted Registration

This afternoon I brought Wyatt to his kindergarten registration. It was scheduled by the school for the the date and time without any input from me. So I was suprised to find out that Wyatt had to be there a mere 6 days after his surgery in the middle of nap time. This required John to leave work to stay home with the other napping boys. Great timing all around!

I had to bring a suitcase of documentation for Wyatt to be able to start kindergarten in the fall.... including proof of residency information (2 separate forms) , a birth certificate for Wyatt, and his current vaccine history. I also had to fill out a slew of forms about Wyatt and his skills and habits.

Then Wyatt had to participate in some testing at the school to determine his level of readiness for kindergarten... numbers, letters, gross motor skills, language, and vision and hearing screenings. Despite the post-surgical situation and nap time issue, I expected this part to go very smoothly. What I didn't expect was for my 5 year old to walk into the testing room and start CRYING and sobbing! Holy cow! It took a solid 5 minutes for Wyatt to pull it together and meet with the required people!



Now I am thinking that I should have marked "yes" on the form that says does your child suffer from separation anxiety.... cuz I guess that he does!

As we left Wyatt and I had a little talk about school. He reiterated his position again to me about how he doesn't want to ride the school bus. He wants me to drive him to school. Then lost his mind when I told him that school was going to be 5 days a week instead of 3!

"What? I have to go to school EVERY DAY and Jonah and Sam don't???!?!?!?!?!"
"That is NOT fair!!!!!!"
"Why do I always have to do everything around here?"

He is just such a barrel of fun and joy this week. Between the mood swings and whining I can barely see the light at the end of the tunnel! I might start taking his Tylenol with codeine if Wyatt doesn't turn the corner soon!

Getaway

This coming Friday I am going away on a girls only weekend spa getaway with 5 girlfriends. We all have twins around the same age. We are all in desperate need of alone time. We are hoping to gain back our sanity and get some peace and quiet. It is going to be so much fun sleeping in, reading, exercising, getting massages, going out to dinner, and hanging out together without any kids hanging off us! I can’t wait! John will be home with the boys for the weekend. It should be interesting to see all of the fun stuff that the guys do together too!

Ipad2

The new ipad 2 comes out this Friday March 11. We are going to get one. We are going to become die hard apple fans and line up to get one as soon as they go on sale at 5pm too!

We have never been one of those people who wait in line and set up tents in order to get the best deals on Black Friday. We have never eagerly awaited the release of anything with great anticipation… except for the birth of our children.

We have no idea what to expect. Stampedes? Trampling? Shoving? It is kind of exciting!

Our plan is to use it for “the kids”. Educational kids games only. We are not going to use it ourselves. That would be wrong. It is strictly for them. Repeat to self…..

I took Sam with me to the Apple store to check them out and see how kid-friendly the ipad actually is and could not believe it! Sam sat down on the floor and started playing a game on the ipad like he has been doing it his whole life. He got to level 10 while I was talking to the salesman and then didn’t want to leave when it was time to go! That was definitely the deal clincher for me. We have to have one!

I’m thinking about taking the cattle prod with me on Friday….I really do have one!

Recovery

There are a few important things that make recovering from tonsil surgery go smoothly....

#1 You can have Tylenol with Codeine every 4 hours, but try and make it so that your dosing time doesn't coincide with meal time. It works well to have medicine about 1 hour before meals because then your throat doesn't hurt and you will eat more.


#2 It is also important to make sure that you have SOMETHING in your stomach before taking medicine even if it is a piece of bread because otherwise it will come right back up.

#3 Although popsicles and jello were great for the first 2 days, pudding (that is slightly warm) has been a life saver for days 3 and 4. Soft warm bread is also good.


#4 All food should be cut up into tiny bite sized pieces after day 2. The smaller the better.

#5 Jealousy is a BIG problem when someone is getting special treatment, so extra hands make a world of difference

#6 Be prepared for mood swings.... whiny, irritated, and mean are all part of the recovery process


#7 Set an alarm to wake up every 4 hours even during the night. If pain meds wear completely off it will take almost an entire hour for them to start working again.

#8 On Day 4 your appetite and energy will return and you will not need to nap...even though you really do! You will still also be really moody. And prone to hitting. You will also hit babies. And your Mom.


#9 By Day 4 your parents will be ready to kill you. Practice running!

#10 By Day 4 your parents will also be ready to kill each other. Run away.

Tonsillectomy and Adenoidectomy

Several weeks ago I took Wyatt to the pediatric ENT to have his tonsils evaluated. He was exhibiting the classic signs of someone with large tonsil induced sleep apnea i.e. mouth breathing, tired upon waking, and high palate for the roof of his mouth. The doctor said that his tonsils were very large and scheduled him for surgery.

The surgery was today. We told Wyatt about it last night hoping to minimize the anxiety that he would feel about the surgery. (I, on the other hand, have been anxious about his surgery for weeks). I simply said "tomorrow morning you are going to go to the doctor and they are going to work on your throat to make it easier to breathe". Wyatt replied "will it hurt?" I said "yes, for a while, but when you get home you can have as many popsicles and jello as you want" And he said "OK."

That could not have gone better.

John took Wyatt inn for surgery this morning and they were home again by noon! John said that Wyatt did great! He didn't get scared about going back by himself. When he woke up in recovery he drank an entire slush. He got some stickers, a book, and a tattoo and came home famished!

This picture was taken 20 minutes after he got home from the hospital!

As soon as John and Wyatt walked in the door Wyatt said "Mom, I want a sandwich for lunch. And I want some jello and a popsicle too." After all was said and done Wyatt ate a whole sandwich, an 8x8 pan of blue finger jello and 4 popsicles for lunch!

The he told me that he didn't need to take a nap today because he took "a power nap at the doctor's office".

He ran around and acted just like normal all afternoon. Then he ate a big dinner and went to bed. So far things are looking good. I can't believe how brave and mature he acted today. My little guy is getting so big... I am so proud of him. Let's hope that tomorrow will be smooth sailing for my little patient too!