Weekly Review October 17 '09

Whew! This week was packed full of different activities. I felt like I just ran from one thing to the next all week.

Sunday we had our first practice for the Primary program. I expected it to be chaotic, and there definitely was some chaos going on, but not nearly as much as I anticipated. We got all 70+ kids seated in their places on the stand in record time, and they were actually quite reverent. As a matter of fact, the kids were really good for the whole first hour of practice. The second hour they got a bit wiggly (can you blame them?!), but they were still amazingly reverent, all things considered. We didn’t get through the whole program, but I expected that! My only concern about it at this point is that it’s going to be way too long. There were a few hurt feelings that day over a few of the kids who didn’t get parts (with so many kids we couldn’t give everyone a part) which I felt bad about, but I was able to talk to the ones concerned and I think everyone is ok now!

I was happy on Sunday because after 13 weeks of being Primary president--and having to call a substitute every one of those weeks—they finally sustained a teacher for the Valiant 11 class! I was even happier when I gave the new teacher his binder and he said his wife was planning to come to the class with him. She is not a member, but she comes to Sacrament Meeting most weeks with her family. They usually leave after that meeting, but now that he has a reason to stay, they will probably all stay which means his kids may be coming to Primary also. Since his wife is planning to stay with him during class, that also means he doesn’t have to teach with the door open, so that’s even better.

I left the Primary practice a little early because Scott was getting set apart as the 2nd Counselor in his Teacher’s Quorum, and I wanted to be there for that. He’s actually been the 2nd Counselor for a long time, but the president was changing so everybody got released and then he was put right back in. I’m glad I got to be there because the blessing he received was not like any blessing of that sort I’ve ever heard before. It’s hard to explain, but he was blessed to do some really great things; it was very powerful! I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Tanner is also serving in the Deacon’s Quorum as 1st Counselor. That happened about a month ago (or less).

I was anxious when I got home from church and discovered that Mom & Dad had called—it was a very unusual time for them to call, so I was worried something was really wrong—but thankfully it wasn’t anything really awful (well, not for us, anyway). They did say in the message that my niece Janna had been in a bus accident with her marching band, but they also said she was ok, so that was a relief. I still called them back as soon as I could and also talked to Amy later and found out what a miracle the whole experience really was. I’ve been feeling really grateful all week for tender mercies, and for an amazing teacher who sacrificed her own life to save everybody else!

A lot of people around here were off work on Monday since it was a federal holiday, but Frank worked as usual and for the boys, it was the only “normal” day of school the whole week. When I woke up Tanner that morning, I glanced out the window (I always open the blind to let light in and help him wake up) and I noticed that Frank’s bike was sitting out in the grass of the backyard instead of under the deck. That was suspicious, so I looked closer and discovered that both Tanner’s and Scott’s bikes were missing. The bikes are supposed to be locked up, but the boys have been lazy about doing that. I was surprised that Tanner’s was taken because it doesn’t work well, but after I took the boys to school and was coming back up our street, I noticed a bike on the sidewalk around the side of our row of town houses and when I went to investigate, it was Tanner’s bike. Whoever tried to steal it must have ditched it when he realized that the bike was not working. I didn’t see Scott’s bike anywhere, though, so I called the police to report it stolen. Scott has barely used the bike, so it’s not a huge loss; I’m more concerned about the presence of crime in my neighborhood. The lady I talked to on the phone said that bikes get turned in to them all the time and encouraged me to call back in a few days to see if a bike that fit the description of his bike had been turned in, but I haven’t remembered to do that yet. I did lock up all the rest of the bikes, though!

For family night activity that evening, we watched some home movies—from the day Seth was born through December of that year. I was expecting to be amazed at how much Seth has changed since then, but what was even more amazing was the change in the older boys, especially Scott. He still had a lot of “little boy” in him back then—not any more! For Seth, I noticed a dramatic difference between ages 5 (Halloween) and 7 (Christmas) months. At 5 months he was still in his own little world a lot of the time, but by 7 months he was so engaged in what we were all doing—making eye contact with us, and reacting to everything that was going on around him. It was fun to watch, but hard to believe how much time has gone by since he was born!

All the schools started 4 hours late on Tuesday. I had volunteered to help with the Book Fair going on at Tanner & Jared’s school that week; I did my first shift Tuesday afternoon. I also helped on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. It was a little frustrating, though—they had booked too many helpers so there really wasn’t much to do and it felt like mostly a waste of time to me.

That evening I had parent / teacher conferences for Jared and Tanner. Jared is doing great; his teacher was very impressed with his first independent project of the year (he did it on jelly fish) and he is making lots of progress in math. She thinks he will probably be placed in Algebra for 7th grade. She also mentioned that he is getting “much more social” with the girls in the class which surprised me—I haven’t heard anything about that at home!

Tanner is doing great, also. His new Language Arts / Social Studies teacher just adores him! She says he is the sweetest, nicest, kindest boy ever! (I told her he was born that way.) He is also doing great academically. She loves the unique voice he has when writing. (I am going to post a couple of his papers soon so you can all get an idea of what a great little writer he is.) Tanner’s Math / Science teacher also had great things to say about him. She had him last year, and the first thing she said to me is “Tanner has really grown up and matured from last year. I see dramatic improvement in the areas of focusing and organization.” For me, that’s the best part of all: he has NO MISSING ASSIGNMENTS!!! It’s probably hard for you all to understand why that is such a big deal to us, but it is. It’s a minor miracle, really. We are just really ecstatic that his medication for ADD seems to be making such a huge difference for him. I am not big on medicating children, but in this case I can see that it was the right thing to do. I was pretty sure that if he always knew what he was supposed to be doing that he would do it, and do it well. I’m so glad I was right. I didn’t get to meet with his Spanish teacher, but he has 100% in that class, so he is doing fantastic in that class as well.

All of the schools started 4 hours late on Wednesday as well except for the high schools (how’s that for complicated?). The high school students went all day because the 10th and 11th graders had to take the PSAT. Scott said it was a hard test, so I don’t expect to see really great scores for him. It was only a practice this year for him, at least. In between school and scouts, we babysat for a friend in the ward so that she could go to her son’s parent / teacher conference. Wednesday evening the boys all had scouts and I had a Primary presidency meeting so we could discuss the program and work out a lot of details.

The weather has been cooler this week and on Wednesday it started raining. It’s been raining pretty much ever since and the temperatures have stayed in the 40’s which feels pretty cold when it’s also wet.

On Thursday I got Scott to Seminary and then to school. All of the schools got out 3 ½ hours early. I picked up Scott at his school while I was on my way to help with the book fair. Seth came too and he was supposed to watch a movie I had brought along, but he wasn’t very cooperative so I spent most of the time chasing him around. (Scott helped me with him, though.) Shortly after we all got home from school, Scott and I went to his parent / teacher conferences. I was glad I was able to meet with all his teachers this week so I could find out specifically what else he needs to do to get caught up from all the school he missed. All his teachers are pretty laid back and said he just needs to get everything in by the end of the term, which is in two weeks. He has quite a bit to do, but it doesn’t look too overwhelming. He’ll be staying after a lot next week, though, to make up some tests and quizzes that he missed. In his business class, he missed the whole unit on accounting—lucky for him, his mom can help him with that homework! Overall he is doing really well and his behavior is great, he just needs to put forth more effort on homework. His test scores are great; his homework is the area that is turning A’s into B’s. It was nice to have a couple of teachers comment on that—at least he’s not hearing it just from us!!

Thursday evening we had the sister missionaries over for dinner. It is always nice to have them over, and we haven’t had them for quite a while; we’ve missed that! They gave a great inspirational message to us. Seth didn’t take a nap that day (for the first time ever he woke up when I put him down—twice!) so he was tired and not very cooperative while I was making dinner. He went to bed right after the sisters left. The other boys stayed up to watch a movie because there was no school at all on Friday. Yes, crazy week! I have no idea what the school board is thinking when they work out the calendar; it’s really ridiculous sometimes.

I spent a lot of time on Friday helping the boys get things done for scouts and helping Scott get some of his homework done. Frank worked in the morning and then spent the afternoon and evening helping to cook food for a wedding reception for a girl in our ward. Tanner was at his friend Ryan’s house most of the day. I left Seth with Scott and Jared so that I could go to the wedding reception that evening. It was nice; I thought the bride chose a unique color scheme—black, white, and lime green. (They used granny smith apples for some of the table centerpieces—that color of green.) I know that probably doesn’t sound very pretty, but it actually looked pretty classy. I got there just in time for a short program, which included her dad eating a pickle because years ago when all the kids were small, he promised them that he would eat a pickle on their wedding days if they got married in the temple. (He doesn’t like pickles!) That was pretty funny. She did not have nice weather for her wedding and the temple actually closed down the day before because of a water main break which I know caused great consternation! But the temple opened back up for sealing ceremonies only, so she was still able to get married and she looked really happy, so I’m sure it was a wonderful day for them even though the weather was nasty. (Cold, rainy, even a little bit of snow coming down at one point!)

Jared’s soccer practice was cancelled that evening, which didn’t upset me much, and his game was also cancelled today because the rain is STILL coming down non-stop. Frank and I didn’t sleep too well last night because our sleep was interrupted at about 1:00 am by a phone call. The person on the line said she was trying to track down a Frank Cleveland and wanted to know what year he graduated and what high school he went to. Unfortunately, since Frank was still half asleep, he gave her that information and she said he wasn’t the one she was looking for. After he hung up, he woke up enough to realize how suspicious that was, so he had to get up and go change passwords on all of his e-mail accounts and other online accounts. Neither of us went back to sleep for a couple of hours. We are still racking our brains trying to think if we missed anything important. Hopefully, nothing will come of it, but you always have to worry about identity theft and computer hacking these days.

Tanner’s friend Ryan came over to play for several hours today. This afternoon Frank went to help cook again—this time for a stake youth activity. It was supposed to be a barn dance, but because of all the rain (and mud) the location was moved to the stake center instead of being held at a farm, as originally planned. Frank and Scott are still at that activity now. I spent the afternoon working on Seth’s quiet book, which is not coming together nearly as quickly as I’d hoped—but I keep working at it! The younger three boys and I have been relaxing at home this evening. I had beef stew cooking in the crock pot all day—it was yummy! We certainly could use some “comfort food” on a night like tonight!

Somehow in between all that craziness I managed to finish reading The Help. It got very interesting and it was hard to put down. I really enjoyed it. Lots of things to think about! If you get a chance, I recommend you read it.

Seth is expanding his vocabulary all the time. Two words he’s started using recently: disgusting and delicious. He is also figuring out possessives. It’s really cute because he’ll say things like “I’m in yours room, Mom” or “It’s raining on ours house”. He hasn’t figured out to drop the “s” off yet. The other day when I was changing a messy diaper, he told me that he had chocolate in his diaper! I had to set him straight on that one, for his own protection!

I hope some nice fall weather comes back before winter sets in for good. I got a “pumpkin spice” candle a few days ago, and it is making my house smell delicious—just like pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream! I love the sights and smells of fall. The last few days it has been miserable to go outside at all. I feel very thankful for my warm, dry house!