January. Again.

Christmas was great.  Sane as always.  And now another brand-new year has come around and I have nothing to say to wrap up an entire year of our lives.

So, let's jump right in to another year!

Boy One started the first week of school learning that he's made of sterner stuff than he thought.  Things went "Outstanding!"-ly smoothly on Monday, but by Tuesday his teacher stayed home ill and there remained for the rest of the week.  Ugh.  Boy One does not tolerate changes to his routine well, and rarely behaves for substitute teachers, but Tuesday and Wednesday went by in relative calm.  Unfortunately, on Thursday his full-time aid also remained home due to illness so he now had two substitutes with whom to contend.

Not hearing a word from the school, I assumed he was functioning just fine until I received a call from the school after lunch that he was in the nurse's office, telling them he was ill (yeah, right).  Indulging the school, I hurried down to appraise him where he informed me through tears that, not only were his teachers gone, but that the worst had occurred: there had been an unscheduled fire drill, too.  Rats.  There's no way he'll be able to cope in class, now.  I'll have to take him home.

Once at home, he recovered shockingly fast!

The next day he tried the tactic again, even going so far as to take all his things to the office after lunch and tell them that I said he could come home early.  What?!

Girl and I entered the office a little winded, having just come from dropping Boy Two off at school, and Boy One put on his I'm-trying-to-convince-you-I-don't-feel-good face.  Too bad for him, Mama knows him too well to be fooled by that!

I spent ten minutes asking about how the day had gone, what were the plans for the afternoon (music class and art projects!  You don't want to miss out on that!), testing his various limbs for ailments, etc.  He finally came around to the fact that *sigh* I can do this, and went back to class where he made it through until dismissal.  (Aided, no doubt, by his substitute aid's ipad that very awesomely played BATTLESHIP.)

I was actually very impressed.  Not having anyone familiar to turn to, he refrained from having a fit or causing a disturbance and instead had to office call me to come and help him come around.  That is phenomenal progress in problem solving for him!   Truly, I was amazed.  In addition, we received a progress report from his speech pathologist and he has exceeded the goals that she set for him to complete by June!  Hurray!!  This boy is so difficult for me; sometimes I feel like I'm parenting him blind.  But he's making the progress I knew he could in spite of that.  Such relief. 

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Boy Two, having received a set of National Geographic wild animal DVDs for Christmas from Grandma, has taken to acting out the gruesome scenes with his plastic animals while narrating the action.  I usually try to tune this out, but couldn't help but hear him exclaim as his tiger chased the zebra, "The tiger GOT the baby zebra!  He takes a bite, and there's meat inside!"  I had the strange urge to laugh and throw up at the same time.  Needless to say, he's not watching that particular video anymore!

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I couldn't help but notice that the other blogs I read have all posted something about New Year's resolutions, but I have little to report on that front.  However, I do have several things that I'm anticipating this coming year with great relish:

* My husband's brother and his wife are expecting another baby, and I'm hoping for a girl!  Yes, she will be five years younger than my own daughter, but I'll just say it: I'm partial to sweet little girls!

* This next fall I will have all three children in school - hurray!!  I'm excited to use the time to volunteer in the kid's classrooms (I haven't gotten to volunteer at all this year) and other things that may come up.  All my kids in school!  I'm getting so old!

* We decided that the kids are old enough to start going on family vacations this summer.  Husband and I made a list of places fairly close to us that we'd like to take them: mostly places that I went with my family growing up.  My husband adores long, cross-country driving vacations and wants to make a loop through to Mount Rushmore.  I've never been there!  I can't help getting excited!  Though I think this year we'll probably start with something small, like a week in Sunriver or camping along the coast with a day in Bandon at the animal sanctuary.  We're waiting a few years before we tackle the traditional Disneyland exodus.

* I'm making progress on treating my epilepsy naturally and am guardedly hopeful that they may diminish over the next year to become a much smaller factor in my life.

* Husband will have finished all of his mandatory seminary courses and that may cause us to make changes with our church situation - welcome changes, frankly.



Anyway, that's the summation of what we've been up to these last two silent blog weeks.  But really, what's the point of writing if one doesn't really have anything to say?  Which, often, I don't!