April 23, 2011

And so the Lessards went out of Connecticut to Pennsylvania, where they sojourned for a while...

We had another fun year celebrating Passover with Susan and Jonathan (and Jeremy and Joey and even Uncle Aaron for one night).  It was super nice that this year happened to coincide with school vacation so we didn't have to cut out early and stayed an extra day on each end.  

We headed down on Sunday.  A mostly uneventful trip with the exception of too many bathroom stops (even though I swear I gave everyone like NO liquid for 24 hours!).  Josh particularly enjoyed the ride because I was playing my ipad the whole way (finally found a sudoku app I like) and so he got to listen to a book on tape.  We managed to get unpacked AND take a dip in the pool before heading over to Susan and Jonathan's for dinner and to search the house for bread crumbs to sweep into a paper bag with a feather.  The kids taught grandma and grandpa that when mommy says they are (way) below average at listening to and following directions, she's not just being humble, she actually means it.

Monday I went into the Blue Bell office for my annual visit with about 20 staff or so that I have there.  While I was gone, Josh took all 4 kids to the breakfast buffet AND swimming!  I got back in time for another swim, and then we showered and headed over for the seder.

Ok, I'm not going to lie to you, the first seder got off to a bit of a slow start.  Timothy's reading in actual hebrew this year was rather impressive of course, but the little ones were constantly up and down and up and down and up and down and I was definitely getting a bit overstimulated.  I think we caught a groove around the time dinner was served, by which time Morgan was asleep, as usual.  Jocelyn and Timothy made it through the whole seder - Jesse fell asleep in Josh's lap about 10 minutes before it was over (which was 15 seconds past midnight).

Tuesday night Josh switched my seat with the bench that Jocelyn and Jesse sit on and that was MUCH better because I didn't have to scoot my chair every time they wanted to get up or down.  We also seemed to have a somewhat better pace and certainly the kids were keeping the energy level up!  We were all having such fun at dinner that the seder actually went later than the first night, but all four kids stayed up the whole time!  (I think this may have been a first for Morgan).

After lunch on Wednesday we hung out and played basketball and sat in the sun - it was a beautiful warm day.  Susan got some great pictures, as did Jesse (who insisted on fetching his camera from my purse every time Susan got hers out).  I'm off to edit them now and will post them up later.

We made it back on Thursday with somewhat more whining but fewer bathroom stops, so we made better time.  Not sure about the trade off, it's a toss up.

April 10, 2011

Jocelyn is the tallest in her ballet class.  Doesn't really mean much right?  Well, what it means is that, in yet another example of how tall is actually a trait that biases one for success (ever met a short CEO?), she gets to be in the center for her ballet recital.  

Yesterday after her normal ballet class was the first recital rehearsal.  I really can't imagine being the teacher in charge of herding these 9 cats into something that appears to be a routine.  Makes the $20 rehearsal fee plus the $50 costume fee seem more than reasonable.

One extra cute thing from ballet class.  There was a break between the regular class and rehearsal where the girls all got to have a snack (if we brought one from home).  I had received the head's up via email earlier in the week and had thrown a granola bar into my purse.  As the teacher was excusing the girls, she explained that it was ok if they didn't have a snack because maybe their parents didn't know, and they could just bring one next week.  So Jocelyn came out to the waiting room and said to me, "Mom, next week we can bring a snack!" (insert big smile).  I whipped the granola bar out of my bag and she jumped up and down and clapped.

In other Jocelyn news, we got her report card this week.  I would summarize it as she'll be lucky to graduate kindergarten, primarily due to having the attention span of a jumping bean.  Good thing she's tall!  She just can't process anything she hears.  So she'll sit there appearing to be paying attention, and then have absolutely no recollection of what just happened and not know what she's supposed to do, so she just sits are her desk trying to remember and then doesn't finish whatever it was she was supposed to do.  I figured during my parent teacher conference I'd ask for more picture cues, but when I showed up in class there were picture schedules everywhere!  

The kids are in 4 groups and each group has its own picture schedule for the day and each kid's name is written on a clothes pin and clipped to the applicable schedule.  The there a larger picture schedule that applies to everyone in less detail.  So really, she has 2 primary ways of knowing what to do - look at the schedule, or look around and see what her friends are doing.  Also the teacher explained they pretty much do the same general things in the same general order every day.  Well geez, I can't really ask for more than that.

But the teacher was not concerned.  Despite generally being a silly heart and lolligagger, she's academically on target and keeping up fine.  I must say she's been writing a lot at home.  For example, the most recent picture of princesses that she drew had the following written on it: "I LOVE PRESASIS FurAVR AND AVR."  Yeah, the whole uppercase lowercase thing hasn't quite taken hold.

I also had Morgan's IEP meeting this week, which I was very excited about because I bought the classroom an iPad as a thank you for 6 years of wonderful service and brought it to the meeting.  They were VERY excited (several autism organizations have really gotten behind the iPad as a fantastic learning tool for kids with autism, and have even given trainings on using it and lists of which apps are the best and for what).  

He'll be moving on to the regular junior high next year, as sort of a guinea pig for a new program able to deal with his level of function.  The teacher will be one of the women that's been his para on and off over the past years and she's super, so we're pretty excited about that. 

Timothy started golf club this week, and had a dentist appt on Thursday and a school dance on Friday.  Josh, who continues to be dismayed by the skinny jean look, said he had a really hard time figuring out which kid was Timothy when picking him up from the dance because every kid was dressed exactly the same.

Jesse says he has three girlfriends.  I asked how he managed to snag 3 girlfriends, and he said he just told them they were his girlfriends.  Josh says when he picks Jesse up each day, Jesse says goodbye to each kid by name and generally plays the roll of big man on campus.

April 3, 2011

Jocelyn started combing her own hair today.  She was quite proud of herself and periodically ran off to the bathroom during the day to "freshen up".  She also watched the Kids Choice awards yesterday and kept running in to tell us who had won what.  I helped her clean her room today, which means I cleaned it myself while she picked things out of the trash and asked me why I was throwing them away.  Her room is so gorgeous when it's clean.

Jesse hasn't felt well this week.  He went to the nurse on Thursday and then Josh went and picked him up.  He had a fever which lasted until today, and became quite addicted to tylenol and advil during that time.  The saddest was during the middle of each night when he would wander either into the living room or into my bedroom. "What's wrong?" I'd ask.  "I don't know," he'd cry, and then break into tears.  He seems to be feeling better today.

I finally got around to cutting Timothy's hair today.  It had gotten quite shaggy!  Looks pretty cute I think.

And Morgan, well, Morgan managed to find and eat an entire pizza while we were sleeping.  Oy!