My Daughter the Kleptomaniac

So Brianna is starting to develop a bad habit.  She likes to take other people’s stuff or just stuff that she shouldn’t be taking.  I don’t know if it’s related to her squirrel like behavior of stashing stuff all over the house (like the random used battery I found in a drawer in the kids’ bathroom).

Earlier in the week, my mom picked up the kids and brought them home for me.  On the way home my mom called me from her car and Brianna was talking about her new DSi (hand held gaming system for those not in the know).  I didn’t think much of it at the time and then she got home.  She showed me her new DSi, which was a corner piece of a plastic castle with the door missing (see pictures below) and she turned it on its side.  She showed me which button to press to play the Scooby-Doo game and which button to press to play the Ariel mermaid game.  I asked my mom where Brianna got the toy.  Evidently Brianna told my mom it was hers.  So I asked Brianna where she got it. 

Her answer, “I got it on my field trip.”

I say, “What field trip?”

Brianna, “My field trip to the dinosaur museum.”

My mom and I just looked at each other as Greg tried really hard not to start laughing in the kitchen.  We all know there is no dinosaur museum anywhere near Monterey and there was no field trip of any kind.  It took awhile to get her to admit to the issue.  When I took the toy back to school this morning her primary teacher told me a bunch of kids where outside pretending they were playing DS games.  She also informed me they don’t call it “stealing”, they call it “borrowing without permission”.   I call it “Mommy is going to have to bail a 12 year old Brianna out of jail for shoplifting”.  I think Uncle Mike is going to have to do an intervention.

And then today I walk in to pick up Brianna and her teachers tell me that she has a chicken bone from lunch in her cubby.  They decided to let her keep it after trying to convince her to throw it away.  And sure enough she had a chicken bone wrapped up in a paper towel that she just had to bring home.  She has plans to let it dry out and then paint it.  She also made me smell it.  Yes, smell it.  The things we do for our children.  And for those of you that are curious, it smelled like BBQ sauce.

I have a feeling that I might be able to do a regular weekly post on what Brianna has “borrowed without permission” and/or what weird item our squirrel has stashed in some random place.

Oh and in case you are keeping track – I still haven’t found my blackberry and now Liam’s DS is missing.  Time to go on another treasure hunt.

The corner of a castle with the door missing

Brianna's DSi

Liam’s Learning Update

I know it’s been awhile since I blogged, but the Boyd household has been busy.  Quick general update in case you’re not on Facebook.  Both my husband and I are insane. Greg decided to coach both Liam’s U8 and Brianna’s U6 soccer teams.  I decided to go back to school and get my Master’s in Organizational Management, not for the degree, but because I felt like my brain was slowly atrophying. Brianna is doing gymnastics as well as soccer.  Her pre-school is sending weekly homework home just to get them use to it.  She absolutely loves having homework like her big brother and tends to finish it all in one night - and now on to Liam and why I’m updating my blog.  

We had a parent-teacher conference in September, about a month into the school year.  This was only for parents that the teacher wanted to meet with or if the parents really wanted to meet with the teacher, so basically not every student needed one.  Well, Mrs. Reckes was concerned about Liam’s speech.  So much so that she actually had the speech therapist in the first part of the conference.  Greg and I talked before the meeting about this possibility.  This is now the third teacher that thinks Liam has some sort of speech or auditory problem.  I got a little pissed and explained that every year this comes up and when the school evaluates Liam they say there’s nothing wrong, he’s just young.  Anyway, the meeting went really well.  The speech therapist explained the process (have to wait 6 weeks) and gave us a bunch of stuff so we could start working with Liam.  In a round about way, he said that if we did a private assessment he’d love to see the results because it might be that they would have to do something then.

My dear friend, Ashley, has a friend that works in special education at the community college level.  She got me some information.  I got information off the web.  There is a private school in the area that specializes in children with learning disabilities, so I called them to get some information.  They suggested a couple of places to go for an assessment.  We ended up making an appointment for last Friday at the Central Coast Language and Learning Center (you can Google them).

I took Friday off of work.  I let Liam’s teacher know on Monday that he’d be out on Friday for a learning assessment.  The assessment was scheduled from 8:30 to 3:00 with a lunch break.  When we first sat down with Erika, she explained to Liam a little about what was going to happen that day.  Then she said that they were going to find out how he learns best, because his teachers and family would have to change how they taught him and he didn’t have to change a thing because he was fine the way he was (or something to that effect).  I almost started crying because I was so worried that he’d feel like there was something wrong with him and I was so happy at how she explained it to him.  Mom and I left as they started the assessments. 

When we went back to pick him up for lunch, he was all excited because he had popcorn and it was made in an old fashioned popcorn machine.  It was relieving to see him relaxed and having fun.  During lunch he asked if there were brain doctors.  I said yes and asked why he was wondering.  Liam said he needed a brain doctor to get the voices out of his head.  So of course, my mind goes straight to the worst case scenario.  My mom was much more calm.  She asked him what the voices said.  Evidently they said very bad things (again my heart starts pounding) that he couldn’t repeat.  I told him that he could repeat it because we asked and he wouldn’t get in trouble.  The voices say things like . . . . SHUT UP and STUPID.  Ahhhh, relief.  My mom asks if the voices are saying those things to him or to other people.  He said both.  My mom then explained that sometimes when she’s working on something very hard and people are talking around her, she wants to yell SHUT UP too, but she knows that wouldn’t be nice so she holds it inside.  All I can say is thank God for my mom.  I’d be a complete basket case without her.

Mom also noticed that Liam’s face was dirty.  I assured her that we had in fact cleaned his face.  Liam then told us it was from him crying earlier.  Evidently he got scared during one of the breaks when he noticed we weren’t waiting for him.  He thought we weren’t coming back.  I assured him that I would never do that.  

When we dropped him off for the afternoon session, they said the testing should be done at 3pm.  So mom and I did some retail therapy.  At 3 he still wasn’t done.  It took another 30 minutes.  He had worked with a few people, who are experts in different areas, and two of them mentioned his great and active imagination and great sense of humor.  He charmed them all.  Unfortunately, Erika didn’t have time to go over the results that afternoon, so we set up a meeting for Monday (yesterday as of this writing) night, so that Greg could be there too.

We met with Erika for an hour on Monday night.  She went over every score and placed it on a bell curve that the school district uses to determine if kids are qualified for services.  His highest score was a 117 in perceptual reasoning, followed by a 113 in working memory.  These two scores are in the high average section of the bell curve.  Most of his other scores were in the average range with the lowest being a 93 in syntax (basic reading).  Erika said that this wide gap made her think that something was in fact going on with Liam.  She then went on to explain more tests and scores.  He scored in the low average in broad writing (81) and visual motor integration (82).  He scored low/boarder line in broad reading (70) and oral reading (79).  These are the scores that the school system has to do something about.

He has been diagnosed as mildly dyslexic. 

Erika said that the school system probably wouldn’t have caught it until about 3^rd grade because it is a mild case.  She said that since we are catching it so early, with intervention he will be able to build new neural pathways and be able to completely overcome it (meaning that he probably won’t qualify for extra time on tests and stuff when he’s older).  She suggested that Liam have twice weekly one hour sessions to work on his reading and speech.  He has a slight articulation problem but they think that’s because he’s missing so many teeth and it can be corrected easily.

Greg and I are so happy we spent the money to get a private assessment and now we’re planning are next steps.

Tales Of A Loose Tooth

At Liam’s last dental check-up, I overheard the dentist saying something about one of Liam’s teeth to the hygienist. I didn’t pay much attention. The next day we were talking about teeth and when Liam would start losing his teeth, etc. I went feeling around in his mouth and noticed a slightly loose tooth and then the comment the dentist made clicked in my mind – he must have been talking about that loose bottom front tooth. Anyway, Liam and I got really excited. I know that’s hard to imagine because neither one of us is excitable at all (heavy sarcasm here).

I immediately thought the tooth would be out within a couple of weeks. I had no idea how long teeth stay loose before falling out. It’s been over 30 years since I lost a tooth and they don’t write books on What to Expect With Your Six Year Old (although I think they should, it might be a small book but I’d buy it – but I digress as usual).

A couple of weeks later, Liam is complaining about his mouth hurting, so I take a look. You all know how fascinated with the human body I am, right? I notice a small white line on his gum behind the lower front teeth. I press on it. He screams and runs off. The next day I take another look and sure enough it’s the adult tooth coming in right behind the baby loose tooth that doesn’t look like it wants to come out.

Crap, what do you do then? You call the dentists office, that’s what you do. After holding and going through my story that was probably too long, the receptionist tells me that I probably don’t need an appointment because the dentist is going to tell me not to worry about it until the adult tooth is halfway up the baby tooth and just keep wiggling that baby tooth. I apologize and again state that this is my first loose tooth and thank you so much (for putting up with the crazy, drama mama).

I tell Liam we have to keep wiggling that tooth. He doesn’t like to wiggle it because it hurts (from the adult tooth cutting through the gum I suspect). He only lets me wiggle it and sometimes I have to bribe him to do it. I’m watching that adult tooth every day. Greg and I are trying to get Liam to eat lots of apples and carrots – anything crunchy. A month goes by.

I’m starting to get worried again. The adult tooth is halfway up the baby tooth and the baby tooth is still just a little wiggly. We’re getting ready to go on vacation to Legoland. What if something horrible happens to Liam’s mouth while we’re on vacation. What if? What should I do? I call the dentists office again. This time I get an appointment for the week before we leave for vacation. I take time off of work to take Liam to see the dentist, absolutely positive that the tooth is going to have to be pulled out of his head. The dentist puts Liam in the X-ray room (it’s a separate area with just one exam chair). He leans Liam back and pokes around a bit. He is very patient and kind and explains that he doesn’t like to pull teeth unless absolutely necessary. So unless the adult tooth is completely in place and the baby tooth has stopped moving altogether, then we don’t need to worry and it could take a couple of months (MONTHS?! – Really? Who knew?). He also said that the adult tooth would move up into place once the baby tooth was gone because the tongue and stuff (I wasn’t listening all that well at this point as I was flooded with relief) would naturally push it forward. He then explained to Liam that he needed to wiggle that tooth all the time.

Liam now started wiggling his tooth on his own, so the visit wasn’t a total waste. He even let Greg wiggle it on occasion. Now it really started getting loose. We all thought it was ready to come out. I agonized over how much money the tooth fairy would bring (you may have seen that on Facebook). I was so sure it was going to come out within the week, that I had a friend at work, who can write really small, write a note from the tooth fairy to Liam. The note basically laid out the details (Liam is going to grow up to be a lawyer, so I like to lay everything out for him so he doesn’t come out with his standard, “You lied. You said …”). The jest of it was, you get $5 for the first tooth and then $1 for each additional tooth and you better keep brushing and flossing because I only take clean teeth. I got a $5 bill and made sure not to spend it (that’s no small feat for me). Liam was in a great mood, so Greg was wiggling his tooth and then the two of them thought (I’m not sure who came up with the idea) – hey let’s tie dental floss around that tooth and then tie the other end to a door and slam it shut. Personally, I couldn’t watch, but they had a great time (and did it again a few days later). The tooth got looser and it bled a little. But that tooth stayed put.

I started to think that tooth was never going to come out. It had been about two months at this point. The tooth was getting a little more wiggly every day. Typically once I picked him up from the Youth Center and buckled him in the car, I would take a look at the tooth and give it a little wiggle and ask him how much he wiggled it that day. Well, he opens his mouth on Monday to show me and that tooth was lying horizontally instead of vertically. I told him the tooth was going to come out that night. He was excited. I was excited. We got home, did homework, I wiggled the tooth a little more, but it was still hanging on in one spot. I made dinner. Greg got home. We were sitting down to eat and Liam starts eating his carrot. I look at Greg and Greg looked at me. We got worried that he’d eat that tooth. So Greg pops up in the middle of dinner and get’s Liam to let him try to pull it. The next thing I know, Liam has run from the table screaming (not unusual mind you). Greg is laughing and I’m thinking “He’s mean” about the time Greg opens his hand to me to show me the tooth. I jump up, which causes Brianna to jump up. We all go looking for Liam to tell him the tooth is out. Then we all get excited and he runs to the bathroom to look at his mouth. Finally we all get back to eating dinner.

After dinner, Liam finds his Tooth Pirate (you may have seen the pictures on Facebook) and we put the tooth in the treasure chest the pirate carries. I’m amazed at how small the tooth looks outside of his mouth. In his mouth, his teeth seem a normal size and out of his mouth they suddenly get tiny. Anyway, after taking pictures and putting them on Facebook, he’s ready to go to bed and thinks everyone else needs to go to bed too, so the tooth fairy will come (must be like Santa right?!). I stay up late (10:00 pm) to make sure he’s asleep when I do the switch-a-roo. Greg decides he’s going to come with me.

We tip toe in the room and I reach ever so carefully under Liam’s pillow for the pirate. I look over my left should at Greg. Greg then in a single motion begins to laugh and runs out of the room with his hand over his mouth. I run out after him and ask what he thought he was doing. He said something like, “That was so funny, sorry.” I make the exchange out in the kitchen and decide to put the tooth in a ziplock and take it over to my mom’s for her to hide/keep. I then put the pirate back under the pillow and he’s now holding the $5 and the note from the tooth fairy.

The next morning, Greg and I get ready for work as usual. I’m ready to go and Liam is still sleeping. I ask Greg if we should wake him up. So we both go in his room and I wake him up gently.

He does the usual growl, “I don’t want to go to school! I’m tired.”

So I say, “I guess you don’t want to see if the tooth fairy came last night.”

He literally shot straight up and in one fluid motion reaches under the pillow and pulls out the pirate. As he’s taking out the money wrapped in the note and throwing it on the bed, he says, “The tooth fairy left me a note.”

He then sees nothing else in the treasure chest and exclaims, “And my tooth is GONE!!”

I ask him if he wants me to read the note. He nods and I take the note off the money. Before I can hand him the money, he says, “It’s five dollars! She gave me FIVE dollars!”

Needless to say he was excited to go to school and tell all his friends and teacher that he lost that tooth. When I picked him up, as we were leaving the youth center, he was telling the front office staff that he lost his first tooth and got $5 but that he’d only get $1 for each additional tooth cuz that’s what the tooth fairy said in the note. He then repeated the same story at the child development center when we picked up Brianna.

And now I know that a tooth can be loose for a very, very, very long time before the tooth fairy actually has to show up.

Girls vs Boys

Brianna has not had any accidents at 'school' for well over a week and has been doing great at home going potty as well. On Saturday, I walked by the bathroom to find Greg asking Brianna about the puddle on the bathroom floor and saying that everyone has accidents sometimes. Later that afternoon, I walk into the bathroom while Brianna is standing in front of the toilet with her underwear around her ankles and pushing her . . . ah . . . 'mid-section' toward the potty. I quickly ask her what she's doing as I go over to pick her up and put her on the potty.

She said, "I pee standing up like Liam."

Then I asked if she had tried that earlier that day and when she said yes, I had to explain that only boys can pee standing up and she needs to pee sitting down just like mommy. We then got into a lengthy discussion about the difference between boys and girls and pee and poop - which I won't bore/gross you out with.

Oh and she also doesn't have any accidents during nap time. Now to get her to stay dry through the night and we're done with this phase.

The Best Kids in the World

Quick update on the latest antics and accomplishments of the two best kids in the world.

1. On the drive home, while stopped at a red light, Liam started making letter sounds. tttt iiii rrrr ssss. Then he said, "Twist. Mommy I just read that sign." I looked around and saw a sign that read "TIRES". I said, "Good job, Liam. It says tires and you did a very good job sounding it out." He's finally trying to read stuff by sounding it out and then putting the sounds together. This is a big accomplishment considering that before Christmas he 'hated' reading. I'm on the look out for comic books for early readers because he loves comic books.

2. Brianna was finally moved to the pre-school room at day care at the beginning of February. Unfortunately, Greg went on a business trip the first week of Feb and then I went on a business trip the next week. Brianna had many set backs in the potty area. One day she had four accidents. Because of this they were thinking about moving her back to the toddler room. Over the holiday weekend, she did perfectly at home. Going potty by herself and also going poop by herself. She's a darn good wiper too. This week there have been no accidents at 'school' and things are really (finally) looking up in the potty department.

3. Now that Brianna is potty trained, I've told her she can start doing gymnastics. She's very excited.

4. Liam cleaned his room this weekend all by himself and is 'enjoying' doing chores for an allowance. I know it won't last but I'm enjoying his joy of working for $3 a week. And he's quite the little saver. He's got a nice little stash of money that he's saving for something "really big".

5. Yesterday, the kids were asking why it was so light out on the way home. I said it's because winter is almost over. Liam immediately got excited and started talking about how that means it's going to be summer and we'll get to go to Kansas City and we'll see Kolby (and Brianna said, "And baby Jaxon") and we'll swim and mom, I want to do the big jump and the plunge and when are we going to do more swim lessons. As he took a breath, Brianna started . . I want to swim with baby Jaxon . . I like to swim . . I love my baby Jaxon . . where's baby Jaxon . . why he not here . . I want a baby . . I want to marry Liam and smooch him. It was one of those conversations where I just listen because I can't get a word in edgewise. I was also thankful it didn't turn into a screaming match (as sometimes happens) with them yelling at each other "No, I talking to mommy, no talking" "I was talking first. I'm not done talking to mommy. It's my turn." You get the idea. So while it was hard to keep up with all that was being said without taking a breath, it was pleasant.

6. It's that time of year, where I start freaking out about whether to put Liam in a private school. We tried to get into a charter school, but they use a lottery system and Liam is number 71 on the waiting list. Now I'm looking at Catholic schools, which I'm having an internal debate about. I just really want Liam to have art, music, computer, and P.E. classes which you can't get in public school anymore (at least in CA). I've also serious thought about moving to a state with a better education system, but I haven't talked to Greg about that and it's not a serious option considering we can't get jobs that pay as well and that we like as much as what we have here. It's so stressful. Maybe if I felt like I could supplement his public education, but I don't think I can. Urg!

7. We got an organizational system from IKEA for Brianna's room and it looks great. I need to take pictures and post them.

8. I love catching the kids say thank you and your welcome to each other when they don't know we're around. All that drilling I've done is paying off.

9. Brianna was a holy terror the first day after Greg got home from his trip and then she did the same thing when I got back from my trip. She was making us pay for leaving her. One day Greg had enough and put her to bed without dinner. The next day was much better, but man are those hell days hard. It completely exhausts you both physically and mentally. Luckily those days are few and far between anymore. Before Christmas she was that way all the time and I constantly felt like a bad mom because I just didn't want to be around her. We've turned the corner and now the two of us have a lot of fun together. Yes, miracles do happen.

10. Not entirely kid related, but since coming home from Christmas vacation my life seems to be running so smoothly. Things appear to be balanced and I'm not letting stress get to me as much or as often. This means that I'm also enjoying my family much more and I'm more fun to be around (although you'd have to ask Greg to be sure on that last part).

Looks like 2010 is going to be a fabulous year!

So much to do so little time

I realized today that I haven't blogged in awhile and I really wanted to be better about blogging. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot to write about so this is just going to be free form Erin thoughts. I won't feel bad if you stop reading now. . .

OK, still here?!

Why is it that at Christmas time there is so much to do and so little time? Like take the lights on the house - you have to put them up when it's light outside and by the time you get home from work it's dark, so you have to take a weekend day to do it. Then there's the tree. You have to go pick one out, trim it and get it in the stand and keep it watered. This is normally the domain of the man of the house. After a couple of days of relaxing you can put on the lights (again the man's domain) and decorate it. Of course you have to decorate the house too. And the kids are old enough to want to help, which creates it's own stress (broken glass ornaments anyone?). Well, we've got all that done and then there's the Christmas shopping. I tried to do as much online this year as possible. I also took a day off of work because it's easier to shop in the middle of the week than during the crowded weekends. After you buy the presents then you have to wrap them all. Before kids I took a great deal of time picking the perfect gift for everyone and wrapping in the most beautiful way possible. Now I grab the first thing I see and if you're lucky you might get a press on bow. Time management is a bitch.

And my favorite thing to do and the most dreaded is the christmas cookie extravaganza. I've discovered this year that I must do this with my mom. I can't do it alone and no one else can work with me when I'm in the cookie zone. This year I set up all the ingredients on one half of the island. Mom measured the dry stuff, I measured the wet stuff. I then had the mixer on the counter next to the island. We'd get one dough done and put it in a ziploc bag with the cooking instructions on it (so I didn't have to break out the cookbook again) and move on to the next dough. I figured I'd cook the cookies during the week, but then it would take every night, so I decided to start cooking them after we finished cleaning up from dough making. We made chocolate crinkles, snickerdoodles, gingersnaps, hazelnut rounds, peanut blossoms, and gingerbread cutouts. The kids helped with decorating the gingerbread cutouts and it actually was fun and I didn't stress about it. So from noon on Sunday until 7:00 that night I made Christmas cookies. And it was the least stressful year ever. Go figure.

Wow, it looks like I did have something to say after all. Now all I have to do is finish the laundry and start packing the kids for the trip to KC for Christmas. Oh and I want to give a shout out to President Obama for giving me four hours of leave on Christmas Eve. I was scraping leave days together to have enough for our vacation. Now there are no worries. Can't wait for vacation to start so I can sit back and relax and not be responsible and have a ton of babysitters and see my nephew Jaxon for the first time and hang out with my in-laws whom I love and hopefully play in the snow and I could keep going but I'll stop now so you can take a breath from this super long run on sentence.

Oh I also noticed that I haven't uploaded photos in a while, so here's some Christmas photos of the kids. Most were taken after visiting Santa. Santa gave them the candy canes and the deer antlers. Enjoy!

I hope your holiday season is as stressLESS as possible!!!!

Brianna

I think Brianna skipped the terrible twos and is now in the torturous threes. She is a pistol, a handful, spirited, um . . . a pain in the behind. Here are just a few examples:

We were at Bed, Bath, and Beyond today. Liam was walking along minding his own business when Brianna just goes up to him and pinches his arm.

That afternoon she had hit me with a plastic golf club. When I told her to stop, she just smiled and hit me again.

Her favorite object to torture is her brother. She hits, pushes, kicks, and pinches him.

We do time outs, which work while she's in the time out and lasts about an hour after she gets out. We take things away and she throws a temper tantrum - typically throwing herself on the ground and crying and screaming (occasionally she throws things during these tantrums too).

No means do it again to her. And she'll scream at the top of her lungs if you tell her anything she doesn't want to hear. She's always been a bit of a spit fire, but now she has moments of complete unruliness.

The worst part is that when she knows she's doing something wrong, she looks up at you with her beautiful big eyes and just smiles the sweetest smile ever.

Now, I don't want you to get the wrong idea. She's not like this all the time, actually most of the time she's very sweet. It's just those times when she's not sweet, she's down right sour.

Some of the sweet things she does:

She loves to run her fingers through Liam's hair while they are watching cartoons.

She loves to help out in the kitchen

She is a very good back rubber/scratcher

She loves to take care of Liam and pretend he is a baby

She sings and dances in the cutest/sweetest way

She grabs the sides of your face when she wants to give you a big smooch