I just want....

To be warm.

I understand that I live in New England, but I see snowflakes.

It's October. This is sooooooo unbelievably far from okay with me. My fingers are freezing. Might be looking up a crochet pattern for gloves soon. I can't crochet in gloves. This is going to be a problem.  =(

Anyways, cracked rib is healing. Today is the first decent day since Monday. I'm not fooling myself though, I have a long time left to heal. I'm just making sure to keep myself medicated and not do too much.

As for my beloveds....

Jolie's learning to read! She loves it so much and its so exciting for her! She went apple picking with her class last week and loved that too. She adores school and everything about it. She's also been a HUGE help since I  was added to the injured players list. She's my "little mama". Her hair is finally long enough for a pony tail again... I'm praying we're done with the "cut my own hair" phase.

Peter is a monster. No, really. He runs around yelling "RAWR". A lot. He gives great "yummy kisses", amazing snuggles, and is fun to share a blanket with while watching cartoons. He doesn't always make sense though. Like right now. He just told me he wants "rainbow fish". No idea what he's trying to get at.

Beth is far too old to only be 7. She's a near constant drama queen. Someone needs to be the drama queen. I mean its just not right not to have a drama queen in the family. And she's damn good at her chosen role. She's in love with science, so I think we're going to start doing some simple science experiments on the weekends. She'll love that!

Monkey is my giggler. Right now he's at the stage in life where everything is so funny. And his laugh is infectious. I can't help but giggle with him. He's not really in a snuggling stage and that sucks because I love snuggling with him, but watching him explore everything is crazy fun too. He's talking up a storm... and trying new foods constantly.

That's my update. Now I'm off to decide what I'm crocheting tonight. I think I'll work more on my flower. I really love the flower cushion and can't wait to see how mine comes out!

A post in pictures....

What I've been up to this week....

Let me start by saying that on Monday afternoon I found myself in extreme pain after coughing.... diagnosis.... cracked rib. NOT fun. As a matter of fact, incredibly painful.

Before that (and after, when I can actually function on the pain meds...) I've been crocheting. All of my ideas have come from various places on the internet... so far I can't seem to come up with my own patterns but I think I may in the future.  =)

So I started with this : 

I'll help you out here... it's a unicorn. It doesn't photograph well but its cute as hell! I made one for each of my girls and they absolutely adore them! They're quick and easy to make, and the pattern was free, which makes me happy!  =)

Well that was fun, but I wanted to do something different. A quick search for free patterns turned up this:

I made it (that's my neighbor's house in the background there..lol) and loved it. It is way too cute. But the kids wanted it and it didn't seem fun enough.... so ^ that turned into this :

 The face was all my idea and all my creation. I was quite proud of myself...lol. But there was a problem. I had one adorable pumpkin and four adorable children. I solved that pretty easily....

 There. Kids happy, problem solved. What to do now?

I decided to look around and see what I could come up with. I stumbled upon this: http://crochetingthedayaway.blogspot.com/2011/10/tunisian-crochet-how-to-basic-tunisian.html and decided to give it a try! The results were :

It was way too much fun! I really loved doing it. I could have done it all day, but I bore easily. On to the next project, but I didn't know what to do. Some clicking around here http://crochetingthedayaway.blogspot.com/ led to here http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/ and I discovered this http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/blooming-flower-cushion.html. This was a MUST do. It's in progress :

So that about covers my recent crochet journey. Kids are doing well... They're loving my crochet journey because they get cool stuff!

Cold!

According to weatherbug it was 32 degrees out this morning.

I hate this!

I know, I know. Winter is coming, same as last year, blah blah blah.... I still dream of living somewhere where the coldest it gets is 60 and the warmest it gets is 70.

Anyways, I crocheted the kids all pumpkins yesterday. They LOVE them! Made Holly a butterfly... it's ummm... interesting.

Did I mention that I'm freezing?

Monkey and Bubba are coughing and have runny noses. Poor boys.

On a good note... they're actually playing together this morning. Totally functional play, and nicely too!

Finished!

It's finally done! 

It took over a year, and right now I'm snuggled up on the couch with my masterpiece. I was going to wash it but right now its keeping me sooooo warm! 

Guess its time to make more stuff animals. The kids LOVE the dragon I made last week.

Today was supposed to be a karate day.... but my lower back and my knee are not in any shape to go anywhere. I'm still waiting on the MRI to be scheduled. My back is more than likely arthritis and the bulging discs but my knee is seeming to be more serious. I went through 6 weeks of PT and made great progress but the evaluator says it is most likely a cartilage/meniscus injury. I was referred to an ortho who confirmed that those are her suspicions too and now I'm waiting on the MRI to confirm. My primary care said if it is in fact some time of injury I'm going to be looking at knee surgery. Not at all looking forward to that but trying not to get ahead of myself.

So this morning while I was trying like hell to entertain them while not hurting myself I decided to play the episodes of Sid the Science Kid that I had recorded on our DVR. The three older kids were engrossed in a matter of minutes. The episodes we watched were on inertia and elasticity. The girls really learned and are able to explain back to their daddy what they learned. This led to me printing out worksheets for the kids to do. Joelene did almost 10 math worksheets in less than an hour at a first grade level with only 1 wrong answer. And she was working by herself. She did some letters worksheets too but she doesn't like letters as well as she likes numbers.

We're having a good day.

Friday night.....

As one son screams, two girls yell, and the second son looks on patiently..... I realize that this might be a great weekend to do some picture taking. And maybe some crochet animals. And finish the book I'm reading. And work on the afghan I've been crocheting for a year now. And... well, you get the point.

How does chaos bring about these thoughts? No clue, I thought maybe you'd have the answer.

This has been an insanely long and busy week! Beth started her after school program and she absolutely loves it! The girls are still going to karate and I'm slowly seeing some real improvements. They are building back the confidence they lost two weeks ago. Monkey-doodle has been chatting up a storm and running around like a crazy person.... and I'm loving every minute of it!

Peter had a rough week in school. Something (no clue what) happened at the end of last week. Something at school scared him horribly. Like to the point that he was simply never going back, in his opinion. All he could tell me was that school is scary, but no details. I called his teacher, I talked to the special ed coordinator, and came close to talking to the principal. No one could pinpoint what it was. A week later he still insists he's not going, but has a good day once he gets there.

Princess Jolie went apple picking with school today and had so much fun! I was seriously starting to consider the possibility of homeschooling but when I asked the girls if they'd rather learn at home or at school and they were quick to answer that they'd rather go to school.

This weekend we're doing karate and then we're going to spend the weekend hanging out together. Some yard work, movies maybe, and just celebrating each other and the strengths we all bring to this family. They're buttheads sometimes but I adore them.

Disappointments

Probably one of the hardest lessons a child can learn is how to deal with disappointment.

Last night at karate both girls were gently told that they weren't ready to test. In the year we've been going to karate this has never happened to them... so needless to say they were shattered.

I wasn't there. I was at home considering getting ready for Peter's Open House (which I did not make it to) and nursing a massive migraine. My sister was there with them. I hate that I wasn't there... but I know I wasn't in a position where I could have handled that. I handled it as best I could by phone.

Let me be clear about something before I go on.
The karate studio made the right decision. I firmly believe that a child should not be promoted until they can handle the material. My children are no exception to that. At no point was anyone at the studio mean or harsh with my girls. They handled everything with the grace I have come to expect from them.

When I first talked to Beth on the phone she was hysterical and kept sobbing "I'm so upset, Mommy" and "I'll never get my confidence back, Mom". (The fact that she could, and did, express that pleased me to no end). I wasn't going to put her through this... we weren't going to quit karate but I was going to have Holly take them home but my brave girl didn't want to go home. She wanted to stay and I was leaving that choice totally in her lap. I think just knowing that I was going to support her decision either way helped her be strong.

I talked to Jolie on the phone too and although upset she was calm and she wanted to stay too. Holly had told me that she cried a lot but did calm down (it didn't hurt that one of the staff gave her Cheez-its). They decided to stay and one of our favorite teachers, Mr. B, worked with Beth for a little bit on her material.

When they got home I was greeted by two little girls with puffy and red eyes. I hugged them both tight and Beth was still disappointed but she understood. Jolie, on the other hand, lost it. She started sobbing and yelling, slamming doors, and swearing she was done with karate and never going back... just downright hysterical. I called the girls therapist to let her know what was going on and she asked me to have them draw a picture of how they were feeling about the events of the evening.

The results of that activity:

{image removed due to child's name on it}

Beth identified her emotion all by herself. She said she felt better after drawing it, which I know was part of the reason for the exercise. I know it was to help them get the emotion out. 

When I asked Jolie what feelings her picture was showing she said "mad". She isn't much better today. It's her 6th birthday and she's been complaining of a stomach ache. She said she's still sad and that her heart hurts because she just wants to be good at karate. She doesn't want to quit anymore.

My heart breaks for my babygirl. Beth handled this so well and I told her how proud I am of her for sharing her emotions, for talking it out, and for not giving up. She seemed to glow under my praise and I'm positive that helped her understand that it's perfectly alright to be upset and that we are here for her to help her through these hard moments in life.

Joelene is still struggling. She said she doesn't want to quit anymore, which is a good thing considering that I wasn't going to allow her to. I don't want my children thinking its alright to quit something when it gets hard or doesn't go the way you want it to. As hard as this is for them, and for me, I want them to remember that it hurt but they overcame it. I want them to be proud of the work they put into it and to know that they may not succeed on the first attempt at something but that they can succeed if they don't give up.

The girls are off to school now. 

Jolie's parting words as she walked out the door....

"Hopefully I don't get hurt today."