Thanksgiving -> Advent Calendar

One of my very favorite Thanksgiving traditions is making our advent calendar.  We started doing this years ago and the kids have enjoyed it at every age, from toddler to teen.  We adults are pretty fond of it, too.

We make a paper chain to count down to Christmas.

I cut pieces of 8.5" x 11" paper in half, hot dog style. Those strips will be folded in half again, long ways. But before we link them together, each family member gets a stack of paper strips. We each write strips about the other people in the family. We write what we like about them, or something we enjoy doing with them, or just something nice about them.

 
So each strip has something about one member of the family, written by someone else in the family.  Ideally each person can write about every other person in the family.  We've gotten a *little* bigger than that, so I usually assign who each kid will write about by writing a name at the top of each strip - that's who you're supposed to write about.  Even when the kids were little we did this, either writing down what they told us, or, as we do with David, guessing at what they would tell us if they could talk!

The the strips get folded so the message is hidden inside and given to me.  I assemble the chain, which is, of course, red/green/red/green in pattern, because a random placement would drive me crazy!  (I staple the links together.) Then each night we pick one kid to pull a link off and read it to the rest of the family.  It's an amazing feel good moment and my favorite holiday tradition!

Forbidden Fruit

D had his surgery yesterday. Previous experience had me expecting that he would be groggy and take 12-24 hours to recover. I talked with the nurses about this, and they agreed that he should be admitted as an inpatient. The surgery doctor had a different opinion, though, so we had to "wait and see". So, after he was still sleeping 2+ hours after surgery, and still needing oxygen... they admitted him and we stayed overnight. He's recovered well and we were able to come home this morning. I was glad to be at the hospital overnight.

But... that left T home with the other kids. And he was about to pull his hair out! At work he has missed a lot of time this week so that I could take D to the various "car mechanic" appointments. And this on the week following his vacation, when things are backed up. And the kids at home... sheesh! At least knowing they are driving him crazy makes me feel not so bad! It's not just me!

I guess up until this past week they have been very busy with one camp or another. Now all we have going on are swimming lessons (and, apparently, fighting). I bet this is what my sister and I did to our mom, and I really regret it now!

So, with both of us at our wits' end, it was time to pull out the big guns! I promised a trip to the pool and then threatened not to take them if they didn't shape up! :) We actually made it to the pool pretty fast, but were only there less than an hour before we heard a loud rumble of thunder and they closed the pool! This absolutely was not long enough for T to get work done at home, not long enough for me to read at the pool, and certainly not long enough to wear them out! Plus they whined at *me* about the pool closing! Like I can control the weather! And all this while making snotty comments to each other and trying to make each other cry.

So I got creative... I forbid them to play with each other. Let them know that I'd bring them each up a box of toys from the basement, but they had to play by themselves for the rest of the day. And... it worked! The house was so quiet!! And by supper time they were begging to play together! (and I didn't give in!) After supper we played some cards together and had a good goofy time - and they were less hateful to each other!

So, now we have another tool in our parenting tool box. And another great memory was made, too. H has a habit of repeating lines from movies or tv shows. The thing is, they are often mispronounced or have words switched, and they are never spoken at an appropriate time. For example... tonight we were playing go fish. When H told T to go fish and he sighed at her she snapped back "Don't look at me! I'm a chicken wing!" And laughing with her about it just makes it a household phrase... it was used several times before the night was over!

New News - Life Goes On

I agree with my friend, H, that every blog post should have a picture, so I give you this one, even though it's from back in March. It's silliness makes me smile, just like my girls do every day! :)

So you may have read my post about bringing D home from the hospital. Yep, pretty much a few hours after I posted it, I was driving back to the Children's Hospital with him. He'd slept all day and been kind of cranky. After a nice long nap I decided I should wake him up so he'd sleep at bedtime. I picked him up and he was hot, hot, hot. Sure enough he had a fever, so back to the hospital we went. He was admitted and has been fighting an infection since then. So, not counting the 29 hours he was home, he's been in the hospital since March 25 - nearly two weeks.

As before, we've learned things this hospitalization. Friends ROCK. We put our league of grandma's to work and were able to tend to things at home in the afternoons, confident that D was well entertained. The staff at the hospital is wonderful. The parent's bed at the hospital, not so comfortable, but ok. And above all, life goes on.

Our poor little guy is stuck in the hospital where they can monitor his infection and stay on top of his meds, but he is feeling great. We've fallen into a schedule that is working pretty well. T and I take turns staying nights at the hospital. The kids at home have gotten used to a one parent bedtime. J has really pitched in and helped out with the kids. Our routine is such that D is only alone for a few hours each day, during a common naptime for him. And we all check in together at the house, eating dinner together about half the time, before one of us parents heads in to the hospital. We're trying to be smart about it, and come up with a routine that we can stick with and not be exhausted. And hopefully it will be a routine that we can drop into whenever D is hospitalized.

And in line of thinking, we decided that tonight, for the first time, neither T nor I will stay at the hospital. We just miss each other, and in meeting everyone else's needs, we're down to talking over the kids at supper time and text messages or whispered calls after all the kids are asleep. So T will be home later tonight, and I'll go in early tomorrow morning. With luck, D will be asleep the whole time we're gone, and from experience we know that even if he's awake, he's very sleepy and isn't awake for long.

Finally, the good things that have been happening:

• The docs report that D is responding well to the treatments he has for his long term disease! And we're even noticing signs of this. Hooray!
• The girls are acting like... SISTERS! Playing really well together, fighting intensely, but then playing really well together again. Very fun! We've come a long way from the days when we couldn't have H in the room with another child without an adult being there, too. Again, Hooray!
• J, the same young man we had to force to leave his room and join us for meals a few years ago, now is such a vital part of our family! We find dishes done without being asked. He entertains kids when he sees we're tired. It's been wonderful.

So, I know it's crazy, and probably hard to understand, but we still have no regrets in taking D in! I'm looking forward to him coming home (though that's probably at least a week away...) but even stretched out like we are with him 30 minutes away... I just feel like we're so lucky. Bizarre. Just meant to be, I guess! Thank God!

Vacation

Here is my try at posting a picture. We recently took a 2 week vacation. We spent one day and two nights in Chicago.

Highlights included the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, as well as successful dining experiences at a few different restaurants! Especially impressive was that we all enjoyed the Thai restaurant, even though it was the first time for any of the kids to eat Thai, and they did NOT serve chicken nuggets! :)

Lowlights were 3 significant PTSD episodes for H. :( Once we were even approached by a security guard concerned to see my dragging H out of the museum! That had my heart racing, but we did ok, and chasing seagulls on the museum lawn helped H to calm down.

This picture shows us "shunken" to the size of an ant in an underground portion of the museum. I am leaning my hand on a worm. G really thought she WAS shrunk, and was uncomfortable until I explained it to her. H was freaked out by the bugs, but still enjoyed herself, holding firmly to an adult's hand! J was pleasantly surprised that he enjoyed it, too!