I'm typing this from the deck, sitting up to our new patio furniture (that was on end of summer clearance at Home Depot with free shipping!). The younger 3 kids are actually outside playing - what a novel idea! The set got delivered this week and I had planned to put it together this weekend. When I got home from work on Friday, Jesse was jumping up and down with his lips pressed shut. I wondered if he was having seizure. He started to say something that I couldn't quite make out, but the others shushed him. Then, with quite a dramatic flare, Jocelyn pulled the curtain to the deck open and everyone starting jumping up and down! Josh and Joey and the kids had put almost everything together already and it was all set up. Everyone helped and was very proud of themselves.
I've now been asked 500 times if I love my surprise, each time with the asker practically exploding from excitement. It's nice out here now though, and I brought all the work I had to do yesterday out here and sat most of the day listening to the kids play, so it was barely even like working! Well, almost...
This week was my first official week in the new job, and apparently just in time as it scored me an invitation to the Aetna Leaders Forum on Thursday and Friday. 28 tables set up in the auditorium, 7 rows of 4, 7 people per table (so about 200 of us I guess), and from what I could tell, your importance was generally correlated with your proximity to the front of the room. I was in the back row. My boss was in the front, my peers were in between. It was actually a pretty good agenda - lots of outside speakers. The key note address was from the CEO of Xerox - she was hysterical!
Timothy has to make an 8x8 quilt square to bring for the first day of school. Since I don't really sew, he picked out some pictures yesterday and we designed it in photoshop, so today I just need to print it out and iron it on to a fabric square. We started to make it last weekend but after an hour of searching, could not locate an iron. I know there is one somewhere in this house, but I guess one of the closets ate it. Downside of a big house. Or maybe it's just a statement as to my organizational skills. In any case, Josh went out this week and purchased a new one, and we've managed to keep track of it since Tuesday.
While getting the iron at Target, Josh also finished most of the school supply shopping - and what a list. Timothy needed a 2 inch binder for every subject (which also means filler paper, tabs etc). Morgan needed one binder and folders. Everyone needed colored pencils. Etc etc. He had to elbow an assortment of other stay at home parents, but came home with everything except a pencil box and erasable pens. One more trip to CVS by Wednesday ought to do it. Jocelyn's tag to wear the first week, with her name, classroom, bus number, etc, came this week. I think I'm more nervous about the kids going to school than I ever was about myself going. I just hope Jocelyn listens...
Morgan said hi to me yesterday. Sounds like a small thing, I know. But it was the first time it ever happened without me prompting him. Usually the way it works is something like this:
me: Hi Morgan
M: Hi Morgan
me: Hi MORGAN
M: Hi Miss MOMMY
Yesterday I was sitting out on the deck (reading through 600 pages of comments from the employee survey). Morgan opened the door and stood there for a minute. He took a step outside. I kept reading. He closed the door behind him, I kept reading. He walked over in front of me, I kept reading. "Hi," he said. I looked up. He looked me in the eye and smiled. "Yes, you can come out and play", I said. He walked over to the loveseat swing thing to swing. I fought back some tears and then returned to my reading.
Josh took the 3 youngest to a play date at Shelby's house this week. Shelby is Jocelyn's friend from preschool, and she has a 2 1/2 year old brother and an 8 year old brother. Her older brother has a rare affliction that causes him to pass out for random periods of time, generally sparked by some kind of smell. I'm not exactly sure of the details, but what it means is he doesn't walk very well and has some other delays with speech and such, but is generally aware and intelligent when he's awake.
Apparently he was quite smitten with Jocelyn. Jocelyn had gone down to their finished basement to play and he was sitting at the top of the stairs trying to get someone's attention. Josh stooped down to see what he wanted. "Jocelyn" he said, pointing. So Josh put him on his back and carried him downstairs. When Jocelyn came up, Josh went down and got him and brought him back up. But the sweetest part of the story is that Jocelyn played with him and included him and was chatting him up, filling in some of his parts of the conversation. She left his side a few times to go play with Shelby, but generally returned quickly, and he was so happy to see her. Too cute!
While at Shelby's, Shelby's mom made the mistake of opening their very well stocked freezer in Morgan's presence. Waffles, gogurts, you name it. Morgan practically exploded from excitement and started asking for food. Shelby's mom asked if she could give him something. "No no," Josh said. "Don't feed the bear. If he starts he'll never stop and we'll have to move in." On a related note, our efforts to slim Morgan down a little have not been successful.
Let's see, I guess that means I need a Jesse story. Well, not a very glorious story, but Jesse wet the bed 3 times this week. In the 18 or 20 months since he's been wearing underwear to bed, he's only wet the bed maybe 3 or 4 times before this week, and now 3 times in the same week? No idea what's going on there. Maybe a growth spurt? He does seem to be getting taller by the minute, but then that's always true. I can't think of any other Jesse stories. Oh, he ate another stick of my chapstick this week, but then that's not really news. Luckily I found about 25 chapsticks at Walgreens a year ago on clearance for 24 cents each. He hasn't quick eaten all of them yet. I think they have vitamins in them...
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