Hallie and Travis

Spending the morning at the Honda dealer is conducive to catch-up posting.

Hallie, who had virtually given up sucking her thumb about 6 months ago, is back at it with a vengeance. It’s in her mouth during most waking hours now. It’s driving me nuts!!! I’m not sure why she’s doing it again. We’ve talked about it once or twice. She says she’d like to quit but that it’s just “so comforting” and that when she “gets that feeling in her thumb” she really wants to suck it.

Her sucking doesn’t seem to be creating dental issues, at least not yet. And everything I’ve read and her pediatrician all say “Don’t talk about – she’ll quit on her own and giving attention makes it worse.” I do ask her to take it out when it keeps me from understanding what she’s saying. And we’ve had talks about germs and how she shouldn’t do it at school or when we’re out and about. I guess I’ll just continue biting my tongue and hope I don’t bite so hard I need stitches!

Over the last few weeks I’d been feeling a little concerned that Hallie wasn’t getting the kind of instruction she needs in her classroom. Things have been fairly chaotic during some of my volunteer sessions and the instruction I’ve observed hasn’t seemed very challenging. I set up a conference with her teacher and left it feeling much better about things. Read the rest of this entry »

In the weeks since Travis’s birthday I’ve been patting myself on the back. I did a pretty good job with suggestions for his birthday gifts, and his friends and family obviously know him pretty well, too. He plays his new guitar almost every day. His fingers need to get a bit longer before he can actually play chords (even on his half-size guitar), but he loves his strumming, especially when he plays duets with his Daddy. Read the rest of this entry »

We had an incident last week that showed me how much my Hallie is growing up. About this time last year, she was reprimanded for something that happened in kindergarten. She knew there was a note sent home, and she tried to hide it from me and then got very defensive.

Last week, she and a friend had notes sent home for acting out in music class. In sharp contrast to last year’s event, Hallie told me about this one immediately. Before she was even buckled into her booster seat she said, “Something happened in music today. There’s a note in my bag about it.” I don’t think she was consciously feeding off what happened last year, but she’d clearly internalized what she’d learned. Read the rest of this entry »

Mark has identified the silver lining of his unemployment – getting to spend more time around his family. Travis is clearly enjoying this, too. He made a comment about how it was nice having his daddy around more. I explained that (hopefully) it wouldn’t last long and that soon Daddy would be going back to work during the day. This clearly didn’t compute with Travis. “I don’t think that should happen,” he said. And then, very enthusiastically, “Wouldn’t it be great if Daddy never got a new job?!”

Um, no. It wouldn’t. Though I know Mark appreciates the sentiment.

It’s been weeks now since we’ve heard anything about Travis’s baby. I’m a bit sad to think that T has moved on, leaving his imaginary friend behind. I loved his stories about his baby — his baby was often the launching pad for his far-fetched anecdotes or explanations. Read the rest of this entry »

I had a very entertaining conversation at last night’s meeting of the parent council for Travis’s school. One of the moms there has a daughter in Travis’s class, and she has subbed a few times when one or the other of his teachers has been out. Read the rest of this entry »

Kelly and I danced with glee when we discovered this morning that Wake County School System’s proposed reassignment will have the kids going to nearby Enloe High School rather than across town to Leesville High. Its nothing against Leesville itself, of course. Its just that the distance to travel to and from Leeesville would cut considerably into the kids’ free time.

Enloe is an award-winning high school roughly a mile away. It is ranked by Newsweek as one of the top 100 high schools in the country. And Ligon Middle School is a fantastic school as well. We’re all very excited about the proposed changes.

If all that wasn’t enough to cheer about, the reassignment webserver runs Linux! Too cool.

This evening we had a delightful family playtime and dinner. The kids were in great moods and got a huge charge out of wrestling their daddy. It was the first full-family wrestling episode since Rocket joined us and he participated with gusto. No one escaped lick-free. Read the rest of this entry »