And a great sadness came upon the land...

Clemson lost their "golf" game yesterday, need I say more? The men of this family are in mourning today. Don't bring up the game, trust the women of this family, just don't.

Of course, Coach Bruce had the whole game figured out. If they had only listened to him.

Okay, I have to add this about the other night...

God was working when Cara busted her lip. No, He didn't make her bust her lip, but this is what happened the day of the game. Bruce thought he had a meeting after work in the next town over, and because of that he should not have been at the game.

Bruce called someone that afternoon to double check that he had a meeting and that person said, no, it wasn't that night. So, Bruce was able to go with us to the meeting. I was so relieved because trying to juggle three, especially Jonah, can be a little difficult.

On the way to the game, I was thinking about how God works and we don't even realize it sometimes. The next day I was telling Bruce about what I was thinking and that I was so glad he was at the game because I could not have taken care of Cara and Jonah at the same time. Some of the people from our community were there, but that's just not the same as a parent.

People may believe that coincidence played a role into Bruce being there, but I know differently. Thank you, Lord.

Morning After

This what Cara's lip looked like this morning. A little puffier, but not hurting as much. She did get a new Dora doodle pad from the book fair and a homemade grape Icee out of the ordeal, so she is a happy camper. And, she is loving telling everyone we see about her busted lip she received playing with the Fire Ants (that's the soccer team's name).

Second verse, same as the first

Busted lip-4, Jonah-0, Cara-0; busted head-1, Mommy-0, need I say more? Cara had a little accident at the soccer game tonight. Bruce and I don't know much about what happened because we were trying to keep an eye on Jonah while he was playing in the dirt. I turned to look back at the game, and I saw a couple of kids on the ground and one of the coaches carrying Cara off the field. She was obviously crying and I went to console her.

The closer I got to them, the more I realized she was hurt. Then, I saw the blood. Lots of blood, pouring from her mouth. Her coach gave me a wipe and I tried to clean it off, but it kept coming. I looked over at Bruce and told him I needed some paper towels. He went to go get some and some ice while I took her to the bathroom. A nice lady from the opposing team followed me and told me she was trained in First Aid (for the record, I am too, but you know how kids do better for others in situations like this). I think Cara finally let her check, but she would never let us feel of her teeth which was what I was concerned about the most. We finally got the bleeding to subside and we went back to finish watching the game where all the fans clapped for her when she returned.

I think the saddest part of the whole situation was that Cara was really playing hard tonight and enjoying the game. On the way to the restroom she said to me, "I'm not going to get to play soccer anymore", and was so sad about it.

Well, she was sad also when she was trying to go to sleep and said she couldn't because she couldn't suck her thumb. I finally convinced her we needed to be quiet so Jonah could go to sleep, and she was out within 30 seconds.

I think I am going to pack an icepack in Adriana's bookbag today just to be on the safe side. And, don't bother looking up DSS' phone number, I have it ready for you. At least this gets my head bumped down the page.

For the record, my mother took almost 24 hours to call the other night after my injury. Let's see how long before she calls about this one.

Busted lip-3, Jonah-0; Busted head-1, Mommy-0 (WARNING-not for the squeamish)

Okay, so I sit here with a slight injury due to my maddening pace of trying to go through 7 years of combined stuff in just a few days. This morning, I put together the kids' new swing set that I got for a great deal (where's Howie when you need him?). That took me about five hours total, with a couple of breaks and time to reflect on the goodness of life (okay, to be honest, at the time when I realized that I had put the bar that attaches to the slide on the wrong side, reflecting on the goodness of life was not on my mind).

Now, I had the camcorder in hand as the girls came out to see their surprise (Jonah was asleep). The girls came out, played on the swings and slide for as long as it took me to put it together. Maybe that's stretching it a little. More like 10 minutes, then they were back to the sandbox, the playhouse and their Fred Flintstone cars. Oh, well, at least the "pop paper" (bubble wrap) as Cara calls it brought a little pleasure.

While the children were enjoying playing in the yard, Bruce brought me some totes from the "repartment" (another Caraism) to go through for our colossal yard sale. I sorted through clothes to keep, sell and consign. After going through several totes, I decided to go over to the apartment and try to sort through things myself. I managed to pull out several car seats, some bigger toys and a bunch of stuffed animals. I was so motivated to get more done, that I turned on the air conditioner in the apartment and told Bruce I was going to work over there for a while. That was until the accident.

The living room of the apartment does not have an overhead light, and I went to plug in a lamp so I could have some light since it was late afternoon. I found an outlet by this metal bookcase we have over there. It has glass metal doors on the shelves, and we have always left those open because we are never over there. I reached down to plug in the lamp and started to raise up. I hit my head on the corner of one of the doors. I have to say, I was not reflecting on the goodness of life at the time. I reached up and discovered that I was bleeding. I went back over to the house and rang the doorbell since I locked the door behind me and didn't take my keys. I know as a mother you are not supposed to let your children see you upset, but by the time Bruce came to the door, I was in tears. (And we wonder where Adriana gets it from?)

Bruce evaluated it, said it was a good gash, but no stitches would be needed. (I am always telling him he needs to go ahead and hang a shingle outside our door.) A few checks from the children and a hug from the oldest, and I was much better, although I did feel like I was going to pass out when I stood up.

Needless to say, that was the end of our clearing and cleaning today. I took a nice hot bath while Bruce played Mommy for the evening.

Now, if this had happened to one of the children, pictures would be taken, of course, so here's one of my head. And, do you know how hard it is to take a picture of your own head? Let's see how long before I hear from my mommy after she sees this.

Student of the week and not so student of the week

Adriana came home from school yesterday with two books from the book fair that she purchased with her own money. One is a High School Musical 2 book, of course, and one is a Tinkerbell fairy book to go along with the one she bought last year. Bruce said she was chosen student of the week for this week. Now, we have yet to figure out how student of the week is chosen, but we celebrate it the same.

Isn't it amazing how they are chosen student of the week after you have had a challenging week with them at home with homework and such? I wonder if we implemented a student of the week system at home we would get some results. Hmmm.

Cara, on the other hand, did not have a student of the week moment yesterday as I was informed by the teacher assistant for her class. The TA said Cara did not have a good day. At first, I thought she may have been whiny because she coughed a good bit the night before while she tried to sleep. Apparently, that was not it. The TA said that Cara was bothering other students, throwing papers on the floor and other disruptive actions. On the positive, she did say Cara did her own work fine. Cara was placed in the watching chair, which I am not sure she has realized is not a good thing. I think we need a little work.

Oh, yeah, now Jonah has a busted lip and a bruised chin. Seems he hit his chin last night while trying to climb onto the changing table. We may need to pad the whole house down.

If all goes well today, the children will get a nice surprise. I will update on that when it happens.

Busted lip-3, Jonah-0

Jonah has now busted his lip for the third time in a month. The first time was a real doozy. It was Sunday afternoon and he fell on the edge of the fireplace, splitting the little piece of skin that connects his lip to his gum. He also bumped his teeth, but they seem okay. Why don't we have the fireplace covered, you ask? We did for about five years, and have you met Cara, our destroyer? Enough said. Now I realize we need to buy another one.

When he busted his lip that day, I called the ped.'s office because I thought at first he may need more attention, and since the office was closed, I figured by the time they got back to me we would know a little more. Called the ped.'s office, heard a message to call the local E.R. and a triage nurse would help. Called the local E.R., they told me to call the nearest Children's Hospital number and they would contact the nurse on call for our ped.'s office. ??? Color me confused, shouldn't the ped.'s office say that on their recording instead? Anyway, I digress. By the time the nurse called me back, I had applied a cold compress, the bleeding had stopped, Jonah had calmed down and he was downing Spiderman popsicles like a mad man. He was content and fine. By the way, they can't do anything for that little flap of skin I was told.

The second busted lip, I can't remember much about, but I remember he had one since the first one and before the one yesterday.

Yesterday, he received one that I have yet to figure out what happened. I was helping Adriana with her homework in the kitchen and he went into the den. I heard him crying a painful cry and I went to check on him. He had not been in there for long at all. He was sprawled by his rocking chair, which was on its side, but it had been that way for a while. I picked him up and looked in his mouth. His lip was bleeding and he had a pretty good cut on it.

Between that and Adriana's resistance to homework yesterday, I sent out the white flag to Bruce to come home a little early (it was about 4:45 at the time). I needed to go to a meeting at 6 p.m. and I was trying to get dinner cooked before I went. He said he would come.

Another Spiderman popsicle, and Jonah was good to go. I told Bruce that he will probably be our first broken bone, and I am not so sure it won't be too far in the future. He is climbing everywhere these days and jumping on everything.

Here's a couple of pics. from his adventures yesterday. I promise Bruce was not trying to choke him, he is just trying to help show his lip. Don't call DSS on us, please.

Random sayings from the Cool kids

Okay, here's some random sayings from the kids for your entertainment:

Adriana: Remember when Uncle Chris cut Jonah's hair and he had a bowhawk?
She also enjoyed eating fruit cottontail (cocktail) with her Uncle Chris one time.

Cara: Ribbett. (As she is trying to get the "frog" out of her throat.) She has to look in the mirrow every once in a while.

Jonah: Saying his blessing over and over. Plus, he is whistling now. And, he has been known to call Bruce, "Daddy Bruce" and "honey" when I am calling Bruce. He is also looking forward to watching the Clemson "golf" game this weekend. (We know it better as football.)

One I forgot to add about Jonah that my mother loves: Oh, man. (Said in his best Swiper voice. Think someone watches too much T.V.?)

Long time, no post

Yeah, yeah, I know, all our legions of fans out there (okay, Mama and the random lurker here and there) are dying to know what the CoolHouse has been up to the last two weeks or so. Well, Mama Bear has been swamped, that's what.

We have been trying to clean the house out to have a yard sale to help subsudize our rite of passage trip to that fair land in Orlando in January. (On a side note, how sad is that that you need to have a yard sale to be able to afford a trip?) We also were trying to get the house cleaned out to impress our mothers (okay, one of our mothers) who were coming for a visit. It may not have impressed her, but I sure felt better about it all than I did a week before the visit.

As I mentioned, the mothers came for a visit to attend Grandparents' Day with Adriana at school and to watch the girls play soccer. Grandparents were invited to have lunch with their grandchild and visit their classroom. Each class had a different day, starting with kindergarten on Friday.

A quick funny-Cara is in a classroom with kindergarteners. On Friday, when I went to pick her up she was the only one that was being picked up. One three-year-old didn't show up, and the other one Kathryn was staying with her sister who is a kindergartener because their grandparents were having lunch with her. Cara was telling me about Kathryn's grandparents and she was calling them by name. She mentioned Kathryn's grandfather Mr. ______ (I can't remember his name). She matter of factly said, "He didn't die." I repeated what she said to make sure I heard her correctly. I was sitting there wondering if he had been sick or something, when it hit me. She was saying that because both of her grandfathers are dead. I had to chuckle. It was so sad, but so funny at the same time.

Well, Adriana ended up having both of her grandmothers, her sister, her brother and me at the grandparents' lunch. We were a little crowded, to say the least. Adriana enjoyed it, even though she tried to act like she was annoyed at the picture taking. Sorry, kid, you are just going to have to get used to it. She did enjoy playing big sister to her brother and making sure he ate enough.

Here's a couple of pics. Enjoy!

Another first day of school

Yesterday was Cara's very first day of school. She is in a Montessori program, the same one Adriana was in for three years. It is set up for three to five year olds and is a self-paced learning environment. The three year olds meet for two hours and 45 minutes every day.

We started the day out much like we did with Adriana's first day. Cara has wavered over the last few weeks about going to school. We worried this summer that she would not be potty-trained in time, but she overcame that hurdle a while back. In the last week or so she said she didn't want to go because she was not ready. We are not quite sure where she came up with that one.

Yesterday morning she did pretty well about getting up, except she headed straight for the den like she does every morning. She likes to watch a little T.V.-oops, I mean work on physics, read a novel and come up with a solution to world peace-before she eats her breakfast. She quickly learned yesterday that was not going to happen on school days.

After breakfast, Cara dressed from head to toe in Dora the Explorer, including shoes and bookbag. She had a few mintues to relax, and seemed to be a little apprehensive. I think Jonah could also figure out something was going on, because he seemed a little clingy to Cara.

Off to school we all went again. Adriana went on into her classroom when we arrived, even though I thought she was going to walk Cara to her class. She told me that we could walk Cara to her class on the first day, but after that, she would do it. I think Adriana is tired of the camera crew.

We walked Cara down to her class and stayed with her a few minutes. She put her bookbag in her cubby and sat down with her breakfast the school provides everyone. We gave her a kiss, except Jonah didn't want to give her one. I think he didn't want to leave her. Off we went, back up the hall with one. I can't say on the ride home a few tears were not shed, but let's say not as many as the day we dropped Adriana off for the first time.

After finally figuring out the pick up location (they have changed it since Adriana was a part of the program), I picked her up. She seemed very excited about her day, told me she worked on a puzzle and she put something back where it belonged. I asked her if she had a snack and her reply was, yeah, I had breakfast and lunch. (At 10 in the morning.) She also named some of her new friends. She was kind of confused because I did not pick Adriana up at the same time. "Wait! You didn't get Sissy!" I think is what she said as I drove off.

Now, today is her second day and she wasn't quite as thrilled with it. She did come to the van excited and told me she had been to the library where someone read to her. She enjoyed that. Then, she told me she was not going back tomorrow because Ms. S. (her teacher) would not help her with her puzzle. (Remember, Montessori is a self-paced learning environment.) We shall see. I am sure she will change her mind before in the morning. (Or she will be influenced to change her mind.)

Enjoy the pictures.