5 days

We've got only 5 days left until Jeremy leaves for Paris.  Yesterday I was thinking back on the last 2 months and kind of comparing that to the two months we have ahead.  Two months may go by fast, but it's a long time!  It's just plain unsettling to think about.

Today Jeremy is presenting his project that he did to make up the one credit he needs.  He did an analysis on the advertising that the aquatic center has done and what effect their advertising has had.  It was kind of frustrating for him because they haven't been consistent with their advertising and they haven't kept great records of what they've done.  But the project is done.  I read over it yesterday, and I think he did a great job.  I'm so proud of all he's accomplished.  He's worked hard and done so well.  And I'm relieved to think that he can be done with school for a few days after today. 

The other night Jeremy and I were up late, and he was looking around Paris on Google Earth.  He found his dorm, his school, and his church.  His dorm is such a beautiful old brick building.  It sounds like he'll have a room to himself, and they provide sheets, blankets, and pillows.  We're not sure how the food situation works, but I'm sure he'll figure it out.  He promised he would. :) And he found that Notre Dame is on the way to church.  Isn't that interesting?

We've been trying to help Jill understand that Papa is going away on a plane and he will be gone long.  She understands as much as she can.  She doesn't like her Papa to leave.  I think Timmy knows something is going on too.  He just acts like he knows his world is about to change.  Yesterday as Jeremy was leaving to put some finishing touches on his project Jill hugged him tight and said, "A miss you a plane."  Sweet girly.  Whose face is she going to kick and lay on in the middle of the night?

And speaking of which, both babies have wanted me to rock them to sleep lately.  The last two nights I came downstairs and sat with them in my rocking recliner until they were asleep.  Then I had the challenge of getting them both upstairs to bed.  I left Jill on the recliner while I took Timmy, and then I took Jill.  It was a bittersweet moment because I realized that I could do this on my own, but at the same time, I didn't want to do it on my own.  I tell ya, the day Jeremy comes home will be a happy day indeed.  I believe that banners and balloons will be in order. :)

We have an appointment next Tuesday morning (the day before Jeremy leaves) to talk with people at the boys' school about Joshua.  I am so incredibly thankful!  We'll have Joshua's teacher along with 2 special ed people, the counselor, and the principal.  I hope it all works out good.  I'm trying to have faith that it will and that they won't do or say anything off the wall crazy.  I'm planning on having Joshua in there.  I don't think he needs to be shielded from this. AS doesn't mean something's wrong with him.  It's just a difference.  I like the idea of having tools to help him succeed.  Isn't that an amazing thought?  And speaking of which, yesterday he had a math section for his end-of-level tests to do, and they let him go in a lot earlier than his class to work on it.  I think it's a result of those AS tests, and I'm so thankful they would accommodate him in that way.  That is just so nice.

Blast It

I just removed the old nail polish from Jill's nails so Jeremy could put new nail polish on.  I just realized this may be the last time this happens in a couple of months.  I feel like bawling.  I love that she was giggling as he started, like she was absolutely thrilled to be getting pretty nails again.

They got talking as he was painting, about how Papa's going away on an airplane, but today he needs to go to school and get his project done.  So Jill asked him to take her both places, and just about made him bawl.

Speaking of the girly - she woke up early this morning, just as I was about to go out the door to take the boys to school.  She hung out with me while I cleaned up.  I made her some eggs and found her a movie that she wanted to watch.  It was so nice just spending a little time with just the two of us.  I was running around, but I was also taking care of her at the same time.  Her presence is lovely.  I love that girly.

In other non-blast-it news, it's our 13th anniversary today!  Happy anniversary, Jeremy!  I love you!

Good News

I talked with Jeremy yesterday, and he says his housing is indeed paid for and his registration is working out.  Hooray!  He's been working hard on his project to cover his extra 1 credit.  He may be done soon, I hope.

My book was on my doorstep yesterday!  I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one.  I quit editing earlier than I have with the other 2 books.  I just wasn't feeling it.  It felt fake.  Well, having it in my hands is quite a different experience.  I fell in love with it again. :)  I made it kind of yellow this time, and the text pages have a flower in the background.  I love it how it came out.  And it has a ton of pictures, which is even more fun.


Another thing that happened yesterday was that we finally heard something from the school about Joshua's tests for Asperger's Syndrome.  The guy apologized up and down about how long it's taken.  It's funny because the last time I asked the school about the tests turned out to be like the day before the tests happened.  And this call I got yesterday came right after Jeremy contacted the school asking if they knew anything about the test results.  Anyway, the guy asked when we're available to come and have a conference with the school psychologist and the special ed teacher.  I want to be sure that Joshua's included in that conference, but I think they said he will be.  And he said something about getting him classified in autism or something.  That meant to me that they've definitely figured something out.  I just hope that they don't just put him in special ed. or something.  He needs to be in regular classes.  He's a smart guy.  I'm not sure how it will all work out, but I'm sure praying!


And the last bit of news for now - I just wanted to record that the other day Timmy was in the kitchen with me, and he started fussing like he does when he wants water.  I put the cup up to the fridge to get water and said, "Oh, do you want more?"  He responded by saying, "Mo, mo, mo, mo," and trying to sign it too.  His sign ended up being just his little fists bonking together, but it was so cute!  Yea, Timmy!

And in not-so-happy news, last night the boys begged and begged to go play with their friends outside when all their assignments were done.  We finally let them out, and not 5 minutes later Hyrum came in crying.  He'd fallen down and landed on his arm.  His wrist was hurting pretty badly.  I'm not sure what to think of that.  I've been letting Jeremy kind of take care of it because that's his department.  Hopefully it's not broken!  I suppose we'll see.

Just When You Thought It Couldn't Get Worse

Timmy loves outside.  He can't get enough.  Every now and then when his brothers come home from school he tries to slip out the door too.  Today a few minutes after the boys got home I realized I didn't know where Timmy was.  Hyrum and I frantically searched all over in the house and one the back patio.  I looked out the front door and didn't see him.  I was scared to death.  Then I looked way down at the end of the town home complex and finally spied his little red shirt.  I sprinted over there to see him crying at the last door in the complex, hoping somebody would rescue him.  He was gripping the pencil he'd escaped with and was just so sad.  It broke my heart.  I scooped him up and held him close, so thankful that he hadn't run into the road.  I think that he ran out as his brothers trooped in, and then when they shut the door he didn't know what to do.  Poor fella.  I sat and held him tight and he fell asleep.  I'd better watch extra close.

Jill has been so hard to deal with lately.  One of her favorite things to do lately is to run into my bedroom and lock the door.  She gets into so many random things that she knows she shouldn't.  And then when she gets scolded she gets so sad and says, "Sowy, Mommy."  How am I supposed to stay mad? ;)

Well, this evening we were watching something together when Joshua suddenly came downstairs to report that Jill was doing something she shouldn't.  I ran upstairs to our bathroom where she was and found probably the most expensive mess any of our children have ever made.  Jeremy has lots of vitamins and minerals that he keeps in the bathroom.  Well, he doesn't have any anymore.  Every single thing from every single one of those bottles had been dumped in the sink.  She must have tried to wash it all down because some of the pills were already dissolved.  And not only that, but she took the box of finger bandaids and stuffed it full of wet pills, and then she gave the whole mess a good coating of that pretty lotion that people like to give me that I never use. (Sorry, guys.  I'm a gal who needs serious moisturizers.)

And, blast it all, one of these days I will be that mother who grabs the camera instead of crying.  There goes one more moment that we will only relive in our memories.  But it will still make for good blackmail someday. ;)

A Few Orders of Business

Yesterday we had a busy evening.  There was a chess tournament for Hyrum and Joshua, 2 separate scout meetings for Joshua and Benji, and on top of it Jeremy was gone all day working on his project and studying for his final. I dropped Benji off at scouts at 5:00 and went to the school to catch the last of the tournament.  Then we went home for a few minutes before I had to take Joshua to scouts.  I didn't get dinner done until after Joshua was home, but we made it!  Phew!  It doesn't sound like much, but I am no soccer mom.  Days like that make my head swim.

The good news is that Jeremy thinks he did well on his final.  He won't find out for sure until next week, but hooray for Jeremy!  And check out this other good news:

That's right!  Hyrum won a trophy from the chess tournament!  He didn't place in his grade, but he placed 2nd overall.  Don't aske me how that works, but hooray for Hyrum! :D  The trophy says, "Fiddlersburg Invitational Chess Tournament - 2012, 2nd Place Over All."

Joshua won the round that I watched, but I don't think he won any others.  He's learning, though!  The tournament included 2 other schools, but they didn't have very many players.  In all there were about 24 participants, and more than half were from our school, so, of course, our school kept the traveling trophy.

And in other news, on Saturday afternoon I had Benji make me some toast.  What we didn't realize was that somebody had made a puddle of dish soap on the counter, right where he set my toast down to butter it.  Oh, my goodness.  I about died.  I felt grossed out for a good 20 minutes until I could get the taste out of my mouth and the gagginess out of my body.  And the next day, look what Jill did (yes, I do think she was the one who made the mess on the counter too):

Yes, she did dump the dish soap all over the kitchen floor.  Argh!  I was without dish soap until yesterday when I finally got to the store, and, yes, my kitchen is a disaster.  I'll be tackling that again today with a vengeance.

And just for fun, here's a story that Michael wrote for a school assignment.  I gave him a sheet of copy paper folded in half so he could have 4 pages to write on, and this is what he came up with. (I added words with Paint just for clarity.)

Not bad, not bad. :) I love this age where they're just learning to read and write. :)

Oh, and one other bit of fun that happened the day before yesterday: Jeremy brought home a pile of Euros.  He got enough to cover his expenses.  Glad to have that taken care of!  It looks like play money, and each bill is a different size.  The less money it's worth, the smaller the bill is.  It was kind of fun to look at. :) Things are working out.  He's had some trouble getting registered, but it sounds like that's clearing up.  He's found a place to live, and I believe the payment for that is already sent.  I'm excited for him and I hope he'll have a great experience.  I'm scared to death, but I think it will be a good experience and I'm excited for all of us as well.  I do think that Jill is going to miss her Papa terribly.  Poor girly.  We're trying to prepare her for it, but how do you prepare a 2-year-old for this?  She cannot understand.  Still, we both know this is what we are supposed to do, so we are doing it.

Time is Short

Jeremy is leaving for Paris 2 weeks from today.  That is coming up fast.  I'm sure going to feel short-handed without him.  What do you do when you lose a pair of hands, especially when they belong to your best friend, the one you cannot do without?  You pray, that's what!  That's a good thing to do anyway.

In other news, this morning as we drove past the high school Joshua said, "Mommy, I want to go to high school so I can run away from jerks."  What?  Where did that come from?  Ha, ha!  I asked him why he said that and he said, "I don't know I just feel like I'd like to do that."

More Update, I Guess

One of the peculiarities I've noticed about Joshua is that he takes a long, long time to process things that happen that are out of the ordinary.  A good example of this comes from when Hyrum likes to pick on people in the morning, and often that person he chooses to pick on is Joshua.  Sometimes he does it because he's in a hurry to get out the door, but what he doesn't realize is that this often makes things worse.  When Hyrum does him wrong he needs time to process it.  That means that he physically cannot get his shoes and coat on quickly.  And then he may talk through it over and over all the way to school.  Either way, he sits and talks through it for at least 5 minutes before he can get out of the car.  "Hyrum shouldn't do that.  I don't like it when Hyrum does that.  He's careless when he does that.  He shouldn't do that."  All I can do is patiently try to reassure him and just listen.  And heaven forbid we should be running late already like we were this morning!  By the time he got out of the car he only had 5 minutes for breakfast.

I forgot to mention in my weekly email update yesterday that Jeremy still has one project left.  A few weeks ago I mentioned that there was a discrepancy because the school in France decided their courses this summer would only cover 11 credits.  But Jeremy needed 12 to graduate.  So he has to make up the one credit with a project that has been approved by SUU.  He'll be working with the Aquatic Center, where he worked when we first moved here.  He's going to go over their numbers to try to see what advertising worked best, and he'll write up a proposal for them.  The problem he's found is that they haven't been consistent in their advertising.  That will make it hard.  But this is a project he's really interested in, and I can tell that he wants to help.  I'm sure he'll do fine.  He has to have it done by the end of the summer, but it would be best to have it done before he leaves for France.  Busy, busy.