Week Four

This week I am grateful for family. It has been particularly challenging for me because, as a parent, I have dealt with not knowing how exactly to help my children. Hurley has had a rough few weeks at school. I had noticed that she has not been "herself" at home for some time. Then, I got an email from her teacher saying that she has been having episodes of crying at school because she misses me. When I got the email, I went to the school and brought her home for the afternoon. Soon after, it became clear that the problem was getting worse and the crying episodes were more frequent and her requests for me to come to school were also more frequent. I'm not sure how to handle the situation. I want her to know that I love her and miss her so much, but I don't think she would be happy being home schooled. All-day kindergarten has proven to be really rough for her. I think she is very tired at the end of the day, and it really affects her mood. I also think she might be dealing with some sort of illness or allergies, but all of our kids don't like to tell us when they are sick. The last couple of weeks have been hard as a parent because as much as I think and pray about the situation, I don't really know how to fix it. I'm hoping that this is just a stage and I keep telling myself, "this too shall pass."

Brooklen had a pretty cool week. First, he lost his front tooth. That silly tooth has been hanging by a thread (and protruding right out of his mouth) for over a month. In fact, the big tooth behind it has been fully grown in for many weeks. Rob and I worked to loosen, tried to convince him to wiggle it, and spent lots of nights trying to convince him to let us pull it out. Finally, the tooth was starting to yellow and Rob and I decided that it needed to come out. Afraid that Rob would yank it, Brooklen would only let me touch it. Long story short, I finally was able to get my fingernail underneath it and pull it out. Brooklen was in shock when it first came out, but I think he was glad to not be bugged about it anymore (although the one next to it has been loose for a long time too). Lucky boy, he didn't even have to go around toothless, since the other tooth was already totally in! He was also lucky that then tooth fairy gave him $5 (instead of $2) for all the trouble that tooth caused.

Brooklen also got to go skiing for the first time with Rob at Caberfae. According to Rob and several friends, he did AWESOME! He loved it and is totally pumped to go again and show off his skills. I am so excited that he is learning these skills, although I am starting to get insecure that my kids are getting better at me at lots of things. I guess I'd better get used to that!