Flying Solo

Well, Jessy isn’t here today, since there seems to be something pressing going on in the world of rocket science in Poland, of all places (not really, just a meeting). He’s just about getting there after 23 hours on several planes with some layovers in between (Singapore and Paris). And, within hours of arriving in Warsaw, they’ve got him scheduled to go to the Hard Rock Café with all his cronies. YEA!!! I’m hoping he remembers to get me a shirt…

Well, this past week has not been dull. On Tuesday, I took the kids to school and Savannah asked if she and Collin could head across the bridge instead of waiting for me to load Hunter in his stroller. Since I’d be two minutes behind, I said yes. They took off running happily. Then when I got across the bridge, there was Collin, holding his kindy teacher’s hand with this confused look on his face. Leanne (the teacher) said that another mom had found Collin standing by himself outside the kindy gate and asked him if he was in kindy. When Collin said yes, she took him into the kindy to find out if someone knew who he was. So, here Leanne was, returning our abandoned child. I wasn’t happy with Savannah and she now knows that leaving Collin by himself isn’t okay, even if you’re really excited to get to Chinese class. Then, when I went to pick Collin up from kindy, he was standing there in his jacket, socks, and shoes, but no pants!! Apparently, he’d had an accident (he was in the bathroom but couldn’t get on the toilet in time—he says it was those “stupid toilets’ fault”), but he wanted to put his wet clothes back on. Leanne had to really persuade him that the other kids wouldn’t appreciate him smelling like pee in the class. So, then he wanted to just go completely nude from the waist down. She was finally able to talk him into wearing “jocks” (boys’ underwear), but not pants. He was telling her that mom would be “really upset” about washing the soiled clothes. In truth, he was really upset that the clothes had to go into the wash—he doesn’t like it when the clothes he likes are in the hamper, waiting to be washed. Luckily, Leanne knows us well enough to know I’m not a terrible mother who abandons her child at the gate and beats him when he has an accident!!

And while we were wondering if we were going to be reported to child services on Wednesday, Collin fell down at our friends’ house and got a huge goose egg that they covered with two super sticky bandaids right in the middle of his forehead. Then, at swimming that night, Hunter got restless and started wandering further and further from Jessy and I. He finally rounded the corner and Jessy got up to go after him, but when Hunter saw him coming, it turned into a game and he got so excited he spun around and ran straight into the pool (a little over a meter deep where he went in). Luckily Jessy wasn’t far behind and grabbed his arm fast enough to pull him out just before his diaper went in. So, Hunter had dripping wet pants, shoes, and socks, which meant that Jessy also had dripping wet pants after he pulled him out and brought him to me. After seeing the looks on the faces of the people at the pool, I’m quite surprised the family services people haven’t paid us a visit.

So, we’ve had a few laughs this week with the kids. Savannah did get a few late birthday packages—who wants a birthday when you can have a birthmonth?—from Grandma and Grandpa Jones and Jenny, Oliver and Rachel, and Travis. She immediately made a bed for Apples, the hedgehog and Peep, the bunny out of a cardboard box and washcloths (thanks for suggesting she give them a good home, Travis!!). I have had to put them down for a nap or two, when she was too busy playing to do so. With these new friends and her tamagatchi (I always am trying to figure out what the heck the thing wants or needs), I feel like I have three more children!! She also decorated her new “dream journal”—I don’t really know what exactly a dream journal is, but she decorated it with the word “dream” and told me she hasn’t had a dream for a while, so she’s making some up to put in the new journal. I guess her old journal will be reality-based and this will be more of a fantasy-type journal.

Other than that, we’re doing well. Savannah’s netball team suffered their first loss, but it was a learning experience and nothing that a few gummy snakes couldn’t fix. Collin is still obsessed with potty language. He also put his arm around me in church just like the newlywed husband in front of us did to his wife. We heard a few giggles behind us, but he didn’t seem to care and took his role of man of the house quite seriously. Hunter is starting to talk much better. He gets lots of sounds in there and even when he just mumbles, his gestures and the tone of his voice make you understand what he’s trying to say. He is cute and I’m so glad he goes to nursery next Sunday—he is EVERYWHERE and into everything!! But he’s cute. He’s also my little door monitor—whenever the screen door is open, he rushes over and closes it. Even when the other kids leave it open, when I yell for someone to close it, Hunter is always the first to respond. Before Jessy took off to travel the world, he played some tennis with me and Collin, which was fun. All the kids got their hair cut in varying degrees last night before their showers. After we got up this morning, I realized we’ll probably have to fix them before their next showers. And that’s about as exciting as things get around here… We’re very excited to be coming home at the end of October—we were surprised to find a more affordable airfare, and convinced the kids they could do it (since it’s two night flights with a trip to the beach in Hawaii in between). Hopefully we can see everyone on that trip!