Our Family – Page 124 – Andelin Adventures

Blue and Gold

Ethan had his first Blue and Gold dinner for cub scouts tonight. He was mad when I told him that the other kids and I were going too, then Daddy showed up and we went as a family and Ethan was ok with that then. We got there and picked a table to sit at, and when Ethan’s friend Jacob arrived he came over to tell Ethan that he looks great in his uniform. We had dinner, and then they started passing out awards for the boys achievements. The very first boy called was Ethan. He had earned his bobcat. So Ethan went up there to claim that, then they asked for Ethan’s mother to come up. I was NOT expecting that. I was handed a pin and I was like what do I do with this? Sis Ball happened to be sitting at a table nearby and said it was for me, and that Ethan was supposed to pin it on me. Talk about being totally embarrassed. I am not one that likes being in the spotlight. Especially when I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing there. I handed Ethan the pin and told him to pin it on my shirt and he just looked at me like “what?” But he pressed it to my shirt and I finished pinning it on for him.

So here I am after being pinned looking embarrassed, but glad that that was over.

And here’s Ethan with his new patch for his uniform, now I get to figure out where it goes and put it on. (Yes Ethan did go up in front of everyone with food on his face….) And now it’s time to start working with him on some of his wolf requirements. 🙂

Baby #6

A friend of ours offered to watch the kids for us tonight so Kyle and I could go out, so we decided to go have a ‘just for fun’ ultrasound at the place in the mall. Seeing the baby in the womb has always fascinated me. I just LOVE to watch the screen and SEE the baby move when I’m feeling the baby move. Tonight we also got to watch the baby opening and closing it’s mouth, which was so cool. We didn’t get any spectacular pictures of the baby’s face, as the baby’s hands were right there in front of it’s face the whole time. But of all the pictures we got I think I like this one the best:

Here you can see the baby peeking at you. Cute little forehead, the left eye, cute little button nose, a very round cheek and a set of lips, with the arm/hand right there under the face.

And here is a picture of the bottom of a foot:

Tyra’s New Look

Monday I took Tyra to her eye appointment, and after testing her eyes, the doctor says that she is farsighted. And that means that she can see things that are far away better than she can see things close up. So she can see the board just fine but had difficulties seeing the book in front of her. SO she now has glasses for reading and close-up work.

This is so foreign to me. I’ve never had glasses (granted I’ve never had my eyes checked, but that’s because I feel I see just fine and have never felt a need to get my eyes checked), and it’s so weird for me to look at her and think, she needs glasses! I REALLY hope they help with her reading difficulties. The lady and the office was showing her all kinds of frames that were cute and different colors, and when I saw that they were picking frames I walked up and said “Where are the flexy frames?” I mean really I don’t need Tyra having a pair of glasses that one rough bonk will snap in half! She’s a kid! And she has several siblings! And she’ll be taking these too and from school. So I insisted that she pick from the flexible frames they had available, and when making out the final details Kyle decided to upgrade the lenses to the scratch resistant ones. 🙂 Of course we’ll teach her how to take care of her glasses, but you never can be too careful when you’re talking about a young forgetful kid!

SEP’s

Tonight we had SEP’s with Ethan’s and Tyra teachers. Ethan’s was first, he’s doing very well in his reading and in his math. Reading at this point in the second grade year the kids are supposed to be reading at a DRA level 24 and Ethan is reading at a level 28 (which is where he’s supposed to be by the end of the year). Mrs Washburn really had no problems to report and feels he is doing really well.

Tyra on the other hand….At this point of the year in first grade they are supposed to be reading at a DRA level 10. Tyra, when her teacher assessed her is at a level THREE! Mrs Jaque had her tested for placement in a remedial reading program, but Tyra’s placement was turned down because (according to whoever assessed her) she was reading just fine and scored to high to need a reading remedial program. So now we are wondering if Tyra is faking her reading difficulties or WHAT? I know she has a focus problem. She’s so social that she’s always paying more attention to what’s going on around her than the words on the page. She also has internal focus issues. I can control what’s going on around her when she’s at home (send the other kiddos outside or down the hall) but I can’t control what’s going on in her head. She will just be going along reading the book in front of her then all of a sudden she will stop and throw out some RANDOM comment. I can’t really control what’s going on inside her head to help her focus more. She also seems to have difficulties remembering difference between a ‘d’ and a ‘b’, and she confuses ‘p’ with ‘q’. It’s also very obvious when she is reading when she is actually trying, and when she’s just guessing at the words. I get really annoyed when she is just guessing because I feel like she’s just wasting her time and mine. I have made an appointment with the eye doctor next week to rule out any vision problems contributing to her reading difficulties, so we’ll see how that goes.

According to Mrs Jaque, she’s doing pretty well in math, but when I sit down to do math homework, she has NO CLUE how to do it. I talked to Mrs Jaque about that, but the two math activities that I mentioned that we had done the week before, were things that she hadn’t actually taught in class yet. Somehow she got behind the other first grade classes in math and she’s trying to get her class caught back up. So we’ll see if that’s part of the difficulties I was seeing at home. In short, Ethan’s doing GREAT, and I really worry about Tyra.

Adoption!

Last week we went to the pet store to pick up some pet supplies and to buy some new fish for our tank. With a 20 gallon tank and only 3 small fish and one medium sized fish that hides during the day, our tank was looking rather empty. Every time we go the kids like to look at the cats that are there waiting to be adopted, and they always want to adopt them all. We already have 3 cats, and that’s PLENTY. But this time there were actually some dogs there for adoptions too. So we went to check them out and the kids were having loads of fun petting them and giving them treats. They had several puppies, and 3 older dogs available for adoption today. One of them I liked the look of her. She was pretty (a german shepard, collie mix), and the kids really liked her too. I talked Kyle into fostering her for the week to see if we liked her and if we could handle having another dog. And since we were fostering, if it didn’t work out we could just give her back the next weekend.

The week went smoothly. Being about a year old, she’s already house broken and goes to the back door when she needs to relieve herself. And the one accident she did have in the house was partially my fault. I saw her at the back door, and being in the middle of making dinner, helping kids finish up homework and trying to keep Chloe out of this and that and everything else, I didn’t go open the door for her and ended up forgetting that she had gone to the door. She really enjoys spending time outside, and since she’s too big to fit under the fence I can just let her out and not worry about her getting out of the yard. We only had trouble with her chewing one or two toys (but hey the kids were told to pick them up when they were done with them anyways!) And I did need to tell this dog multiple times that she’s not allowed on the couches or my bed. She also doesn’t bark very much. Someone had come to the door, and Chewy was barking like crazy. She got excited of course and was following Chewy to the door but she didn’t once bark at the doorbell.

So today it was the day that we needed to take her back and make a final decision. Kyle didn’t know if adding another dog to our current family was a good idea right now. He seemed to like that she had just the right coloring that Nana would have liked. And he felt like she’s a really good dog, but that’s just another responsibility, and since he’s never home that’s a responsibility that would most likely fall on me. I felt that she is a really good dog as well, but I was somewhat concerned that during the week she seemed rather depressed and had developed a cough. Of course her being depressed could be linked to the fact that the shelter only had her for a couple of weeks before we took her and she’s probably really uncertain about what’s going on. And the cough could totally be linked to the fact that she really enjoys to be outside, and it’s REALLY cold out there this time of year. The kids all just love her and of course thought we should keep her. Well after talking about it and walking around the store forever, and taking the family back out to the car so we could talk about it some more we decided to just get the dog and give her a good home!

The people at the shelter had given her the name of Annie, but I want to call her Jango. I think I’ve got most of the kids convinced, except Ethan. He wants to keep her name Annie. Kyle told him that if we keep her name Annie it would have to be short for Anakin. But they have a cousin named Annaleah (too similar), and we have two movies with the name Annie in the title (Annie, and Annie Get Your Gun). So I really don’t want to keep her name as Annie. The kids and I had a discussion about naming her Jango one night when Kyle was at work, and I told them that we can name her Jango, and then after Chewy dies we can get another dog and name it Boba (Notice how they are all Star Wars related names?). Then maybe we can get a bunny and name it Dooku (Ethan was trying to hide a smirk at that, he did think it a funny idea). Then he said that we should call a bunny Yoda, because Yoda is small and so is a bunny (and hey they both have long ears). Then Jeremy piped in “Ya because bunny poop is small!” I don’t know where he was going with that, aside from further pointing out that a bunny is small like Yoda, but it was really funny anyway.

Chewy seems to like her ONLY when she’s not trying to play with him, which is really funny. 🙂