Mother's Day and Miscellaneous

If you will recall, the day before Mother's Day was the big yard sale where the kids were so excited they were up an hour earlier than usual.  I was convinced they would sleep in on Mother's Day after such a long, busy day.  I was wrong.

I was downstairs with Luke around 6:15 when I first heard them.  All three of them were up and ready to go. Thomas was heading out the door for a run, so I thought I would try and stave them off for an hour by asking them to play in their rooms, a pretty common weekend request.  They like Sunday mornings because we let them watch cartoons and we usually have something special for breakfast (muffins or french toast).  But, they reported that the reason they were so excited was because it was Mother's Day and they absolutely, positively could not wait a minute longer to give me their gifts.  So, down they came, with a bevy of school-made presents.

Jack went first, he made an awesome book of flowers, drew a picture of me and wrote some information about me.  Then, he sang me a song he made up.  It was sung to the tune of You Are My Sunshine, but it was called "You Are my Mommy."  It was very sweet and I wish I had thought to film it.

Jack said he thought my eyes were blue.

Anna gave me a little teapot she colored and a hand print flower.

Kara also gave me a hand print flower, along with the reasons she loves me.

Luke gave me 5.5 hours of straight sleep.  Here's his most recent picture (taken less then 5 minutes ago).

I was thrilled with all my wonderful gifts.  The kids also tried their hardest to behave all day. For the most part, they succeeded; there was very little fighting or tattling.  Over breakfast, Jack had remarked to Thomas that he was going to do his best to be really good all day.  He was "going to use his manners, eat all his food, and not fight with anybody for the whole day."  Then, he paused and said, "oh, who am I kidding??  I'll just draw her a picture."  He did actually did make me another picture--it was of the Great Wall of China with an ancient battle taking place.  It was pretty awesome.  

Mother's Day is always bittersweet for me.  I still miss my own mother so much.  But, everyone worked hard to make the day special and it was. Thomas did all the cooking and cleaning, he let me choose a special dinner and we went to Rita's for treats and then a drive through Solomon's. I have a great family!

The rest of the week was uneventful.  Jack is having some trouble at school again.  His teacher told me that in her 25+ years of teaching, she has never had a kid like him.  He is very smart and very caring, but sometimes he just can't control his impulses.  She told me that despite all this she will miss him next year.  It was a relief to learn that his teachers and peers still like him, despite the issues.  The problems continually weigh on my and Thomas' mind and we wish we knew what to do to help him.  He is much (MUCH) better than he was when Thomas was deployed, so I still have hope that he will simply outgrow it.  He is such a sweet, empathetic child who is helpful, loving and kind 95% of the time; but I worry that the other 5% is going to be what defines him by others if we can't figure this stuff out.

One last story.  Thomas was out of town for work and I had all 4 kids on my own for the first time.  We decided to make cookies for some friends in the neighborhood.  I was lacking one ingredient, so I piled everyone in the car and we went to Dollar General (the closest store).  As we were walking in, Kara realized she had brought her blankie with her (the rule is to leave it in the car).  She draped it over Luke and we quickly got our stuff and left.  When we got home, I took Luke out of his car seat and noticed the blanket wasn't there.  It wasn't in the car either.  Kara said she hadn't brought it in the house.  I called Dollar General and a nice employee looked all over with no luck.  By now, Kara was crying in a somewhat hysterical manner.  So, I loaded everyone back in the car so we could check the parking lot.  As we were driving, Jack told Kara he would give her Monkey Monk if we couldn't find Chickie (Monkey Monk is his favorite stuffed animal--see what I mean about being empathetic and kind).  I started quizzing Kara again and it suddenly came out that she had taken the blanket from Luke while we were still in the store and she may have brought it home after all. Since we were in the parking lot anyway, we did a quick drive by our parking spot (not there) and I pulled in front of the store and told Jack to go in and double-check the aisles we had been on (by now, I was pretty confident that Chickie was at home, but I wanted to do all I could in case I was wrong, so that Kara would know we had really tried).  Jack quickly ran through the store and back to the car.  Of course, he didn't have the blanket, but he was followed by a store employee.  I can only imagine what she was thinking!  We went home and found Chickie in the basement.  Quite the adventure!

Also regarding Thomas being out of town, before he left, he told Jack that Jack was the man of the house while he was gone and Jack had to do a good job helping me.  Jack took this responsibility very seriously and spent his days following me around with a note pad taking notes on things that needed to be done or remembered.  Below is one of his reminder lists:

In Kindergarten they teach them to write phonetically, saying they will learn to spell in first grade.  If you can't read it, the translation is: Tomorrows chores and errands.  Clean up.  Make cookies.  Deliver cookies.  and maybe go to Ritas.

Luke did turn 2-months yesterday, but I am going to wait until after his doctor's appointment tomorrow to do his dedicated blog post.