Question of the Day?

Zach got a handwritten thank you note from Fleet Feet with a $25 gift card to thank him for "all his support" over the past several years.  So the question is:  What is the dollar amount that a person has to spend at a given store in order to end up on the short list of handwritten thank you notes?  And how concerned should I be that my husband has now officially made that list? 

Sleep Walking

We have experienced some of the childhood sleep issues that many parents face.  We have had infants who didn't sleep well at night.  We have had nap-time issues.  We have had kids that had difficulty falling asleep at night.  We've had night waking.  We've had night terrors.  Now we can add another sleep-time issue to our list.  We now have a sleep walker.

Over the past 2 months or so, Briggs has started sleep walking.  Thankfully this usually occurs about an hour or two after he falls asleep when Zach and I are still typically awake.  It does not happen every night, but has been about once or twice a week.  Briggs has wandered downstairs one time.  He fell partly down the stairs another time, as the thump alerted me that someone was up and I found him curled up on the landing of the stairs.  He has wandered into our room a few times. Once he walked into the girls' room, curled up on the end of Adelie's bed, and went to sleep.  Once he walked into our room, curled up on the floor, and went to sleep.  The other night I had just checked on the kids before getting myself ready for bed.  Everyone was sleeping soundly.  I went into the bathroom to use the restroom and brush my teeth.  Upon coming out, I realized that the light was on in Briggs' room.  I went into his room and Briggs was standing in the middle of his room, putting on another pajama shirt over his current pajamas.  I asked him what he was doing.  He replied in an exasperated tone, "I'm doing THIS."  I helped him take off the second shirt and walked him back to bed.  As he was climbing into bed, he murmured, "This is boring.  This is boring."  And then he fell back asleep.  Briggs never remembers these excursions in the morning.

There is a little concern over this new phase of sleep-time issues.  I worry that Briggs will fall down the stairs or walk into something or wander somewhere in the house without us realizing it.  I am thankful for our home alarm system that should alert us if Briggs goes downstairs after we are in bed or if he opens a door.  If Briggs indeed thinks sleep walking is boring, maybe this will just be a short-lived phase.  Here's hoping. 

He Says...

Last night at dinner, I told the kids that hot lunch at school for today was going to be quesadillas.  Adelie quickly informed me that she was going to be cold lunch, while Staley decided she wanted to be hot lunch.  As this was Briggs' first opportunity to make this decision, he went with Adelie's advice and determined that he, too, would be cold lunch for today.  I said, "Are you sure you want to be cold lunch?  You like quesadillas and Staley thinks the school quesadillas are good."  To which Briggs replied, "I don't trust Staley."

When it comes to school lunch decisions, I guess you have to be certain about whose opinion you trust.  Apparently Staley doesn't make Briggs' list.

Full Day

Briggs started off his Kindergarten journey as a half-day Kindergartener.  With the uncertainty of everything going into this school year coupled with some of Briggs' difficulties at home with emotional regulation, we felt that half-day Kindergarten was a nice option to bridge the difference between preschool and full day grade school.  We thought that, if things were going well at school, we might change him to full day for the second half of the year.  

That transition came a touch sooner than we had anticipated.  Briggs had a student teacher whose last day was the Friday before Thanksgiving week.  She was having a pizza party over lunch for her class and Briggs wanted to stay for the party.  We just had him stay for the rest of the school day and picked him up after school with his sisters.  As soon as he came out of the door from school that day, he said, "I want to be full day all the time!"  We said that maybe we could start that after Christmas, to which he replied, "No!  I want to start tomorrow."  Since tomorrow in that scenario happened to be Saturday and the following week was only two days long before Thanksgiving break, we checked with his teacher and school and made the determination to start after Thanksgiving break...which was today.

Briggs was so excited to get out his new lunch box and pack his lunch for his first official day of full day Kindergarten.  He is excited about getting to do music and computer lab and all the afternoon "specials" that he has missed for the first half of the year.  Although I will miss having that hour and a half of Briggs time each day, I know he is ready for this transition.  And honestly, now that the weather is getting colder, having one less walk to and from the school each day won't be all bad.  I think both Briggs and I needed these first 3 months of half-day Kindergarten to ease us into this transition to school...

...and at least one of us is ready to move on to the next phase.

Full day Kindergarten, here he comes!!

Truth

Chutes and ladders might just be my least favorite family game.  There is no decision making, the game board is confusing and chaotic, and the game goes on forever.  My favorite part of the game is when it is over.

#nevermychoice
#usuallytrytotalkthemoutofit

#somanybetteroptions

Good-Bye, November

Most months I have an accumulation of pictures of all the things we've done, places we've gone, people we've seen.  My end of the month posts lately just give a glimpse of what life looks like for us right now.  Not a lot of places to go.  Not a lot of people to see.  And the things we've done...well, they might not seem overly exciting, but they are filling our days and keeping things fun around here.

Zach has this forever-long strategy war game called Axis and Allies.  I've never had the patience to play it with him.  With nothing but time these days, Zach talked Staley into learning how to play.  They have put in a few sessions of play.  They are about 5 hours in...and still going.

We've filled our days with lots of play time.  Sometimes it is Barbies and dolls and figurines and trains and Magna Tiles.  And sometimes it is riding down the stairs in laundry baskets or bumper ghosts (which is where the kids put blankets over their heads and walk around bumping into each other.)  No matter the game, I'm glad that my kids always seem to find ways to amuse themselves.

Reading and doing crafts fills a good number of the hours of our days at home.

We play lots of family games.  And sometimes when the 5 year old gets tired of Monopoly, his game morphs into entertaining himself with all the houses and hotels and game pieces while the rest of us continue to play.

Briggs and Adelie decided they wanted to have a sleepover in Briggs' room over Thanksgiving break.  They spent a long time setting up their beds, playing sleepover games, and reading books together.  Once the lights were out, however, the sleepover portion quickly lost appeal and they decided they just wanted to sleep in their own beds.

We had 2 cousin birthdays to celebrate in November.  Although there were no parties or festivities, we stopped over to give Lucy her presents and enjoyed a little outside play time one week and then did the same thing with Elliott the next week.  The kids loved having the opportunity to be together with their cousins.

Cuddling on the couch for family movie night is something the whole family looks forward to.

Although our weeks and months look different than past years, there is beauty to be found in the every day.  And whether that beauty is a snuggly movie on the couch or the giggles of kids playing with a laundry basket or the surprise of a rainbow after a storm, it is there.  It is up to us to find it.

Thanksgiving: Covid Style

Just like almost everything this year, our Thanksgiving looked very different from most years.  With spiking COVID numbers and recommendations to keep Thanksgiving gatherings to those you live with, we opted for an at-home Thanksgiving with our little family.

We started our day with a Zoom Thanksgiving get together with cousins.  There was a puppet message from Grammie followed by some Thanksgiving trivia and a Thanksgiving scavenger hunt.  Although we couldn't all be together in person, the kids had a lot of fun getting to play with their cousins virtually.

Staley made potholders and delivered potholders with notes to our neighbors, letting them know that we are thankful for them.

Since we were making our full Thanksgiving feast on our own this year, each person was in charge of a specific dish.  I made the turkey (breast) in the crockpot, the gravy, and the ham.  Adelie made strawberry pretzel jello salad while Briggs supervised.

Staley made Uma's famous scalloped pineapple casserole.

Briggs and Zach worked together to make the rolls.

When our food was done, we delivered some of our feast to our special neighbor friend, Miss Vickie.

In return, Miss Vickie made mashed potatoes and corn casserole to share with us.  Since this was her first Thanksgiving alone with her husband in the nursing home, I hated that we couldn't share our table with her.  I was glad we could at least share our food.

We enjoyed our massive Thanksgiving feast and soon realized a perk of making a full Thanksgiving meal for our little family.  We have since enjoyed Thanksgiving leftover dinner # 2 and are looking forward to Thanksgiving leftover dinner #3 tonight.  Bonus!  We rounded out our Thanksgiving day fun with a walk to help our food settle followed by movie night and pumpkin pie (courtesy of Grammie) for dinner.

There have been moments this year where it has been a lot easier to focus on things that are cancelled, things that we have missed out on, things that are different, things that are going wrong.  It is easy to lament 2020 and all that it has brought with it, just wishing for it to be over.  However, Thanksgiving was an opportunity to focus on all we have to be grateful for.  We are healthy.  We have stable jobs.  We have wonderful family and friends who we still connect with even when we can't be together.  Our kids get to go to school.  And although this year has not been what we planned, we've explored new places, found new hobbies, embraced a slower lifestyle, and enjoyed lots of family time.  This day was not what we had planned.  This year was not what we had planned.  But in the midst of it all, there is so much to be thankful for.  It was a happy Thanksgiving indeed!