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Margaret had her big kindergarten field trip yesterday.  It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun.  I didn’t volunteer to chaperone, since I wasn’t sure if I could manage Will, plus a group of kids, but I just used our zoo pass & just showed up to spend the day with her.  Yes, it was our 3rd trip to the zoo in a month, but still totally fun!

The kids didn’t have much homework, so we got to swim a bit again after school.  Then the we realized the lid had blown off the sandbox in a storm the night before.  The sand had turned to a soupy froth – just right for making an incredibly fun mess.  Jack and Margaret lost interest after a while, but I couldn’t get Will out of it!  Gross!  He had to go straight to the shower — and then I couldn’t get him out of the shower.  You can see where this is going . . .

Will and I are leaving tomorrow for a short visit up north.  Please pray for us to have a safe flight & for our time with family to be blessed.  We’ll be back next Tuesday.  Please remember to pray for Brad, Jack, and Margaret, as well.  They have a very busy weekend & some schedule juggling to do while I am gone.

“Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go.”

Proverbs 3:6, The Message Bible

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Jack’s 2nd grade musical was today.  Actually there are 3 presentations – 2 in the AM for the school, and 1 tonight for the parents.  I snuck into the 8:15 performance, since morning is a good time for Will, and I was having nightmares about dragging him to the 7:15 performance with an audience packed full of 100’s of pushy parents who tend to shove little kids aside so they can get a good photo op.  (Can you tell this has been a stress for us in the past?)  Anyway, what a brilliant idea.  There were about 12 parents, along with the K,1, & 3rd graders.  Will was a dream & had fun dancing along to the cute, catchy songs.  He might have distracted a few 9 year olds, but a success overall. 

More importantly, Jack did a wonderful job.  His music teacher put together a very cute show about the weeds taking over the garden & farmer (H)erb trying to take care of his plants.  Jack was a farmer & was featured in a little square dance with about 12 boys.  I’ll ask Brad to post a little video later, since my specialty is just in photographs

Here’s a shot of the whole auditorium, taken from our seats.  In the 2nd photo, Jack is just right of center.  He’s got a blue shirt & light blue bandana with a cowboy hat.  He’s to the right of the boy with both hands on his hat.

Here’s the square dance.  Jack is at the very back (duh, shortest kid?)  but in the very center. 

And since it’s been in the 80’s pretty consistently, we got to swim again after dinner last night.  Brad was a hero & surprised us with some new goggles – Yay Daddy!!!  Will still doesn’t LOVE swimming.  I’m not sure he likes it much at all, but he did let me hold him in the pool again.  Jack kept cannonballing him, so that didn’t go over so well.  It got pretty chilly once the sun went behind the trees, but the big kids were fairly comfy in their cool wetsuits.  Will, on the other hand, was freezing near the end of the evening – all 23 pounds of him – poor lil guy.

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We’ve had some beautiful opportunities to enjoy the amazing spring weather that has come our way.  It’s been in the 80’s for several days, and forecasted to reach 88 F tomorrow!  These pictures are from Friday.  On Saturday, we were too busy swimming to take any pics!  Will is coming around to the idea of swimming.  He stands on the tanning ledge or plays on the deck mostly, but he did let me take him into the water & walk the length of the pool a few times.  After an hour or so, he got brave enough to jump in if I was holding on to him VERY tightly.

Will had a follow up appointment with the ENT today.  Can you believe it’s been 3 weeks since his surgery?  He is healing really well, and only occasionally needing some Motrin for his sore mouth.  There is still a tiny hole about the size of a grain of rice near the back of his palate.  We’re watching it closely to see if it will close on its own or if another surgery will be needed to repair it.  We are praying daily for the hole to close & for the repair to continue to heal as beautifully as it has been.  At his dr. visit today, Will’s hearing was tested.  Right now, he’s borderline normal for hearing.  It seems there may be some damage from years of chronic ear infections, but the dr. is confident this will resolve itself in time.  I think the testing process is also skewed by typical toddler behavior, as well as the expected language gap.  We will be back in 2 months for another hearing evaluation & to be released  by the ENT.  Our follow up with the craniofacial surgeon will be in 3 weeks.

Will’s speech is still pretty unrecognizable, even to me.  He uses his signs regularly, but I’ve been a bit lazy about introducing new ones lately.  I was so excited, though, when Will used a string of words together for the 1st time today.  We were arguing about what to do with his shoes when he went down for his nap.  He wanted to sleep play with his shoes on his pillow.  Um, no.  With all of the sleep issues we deal with, I was insistent that the shoes either needed to be on the nightstand or on the floor.  Will finally agreed to compromise and placed his shoes on the floor right next to his bed.  He gave me his socks then, and said, “shoes in socks” as clear as day!  I am so happy for this language progress.  It’s a huge deal, and hopefully a sign of more progress right around the corner.

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Brad came home from work today with some great free tickets to see the local AA baseball team.  Even better than free, the tickets included drinks, food, and dessert & were right behind home plate!  Oh, and did I mention they were free for all 5 of us???   Right when we walked in, a girl approached us to see if Margaret would be interested in coming onto the field between innings for a contest.  Um, yes!  Margaret still talks about how she got to walk out on the ice in her princess halloween costume at a hockey game two years ago.  Margaret got to play tug-of-war girls v. boys after the 3rd inning.  She even got to stand next to Daisy, the goofy prairie dog mascot and be on the jumbo-tron!

Margaret is the one in black sweater & skirt with pink pants underneath.  Both her shoes fell off during the contest!

On the Jumbo-Tron!

The boys had fun, too!

Brad & his team

Will loves sports.  He kept pointing at the pitcher & waiting for the noise of the bat hitting the ball.  If I wasn’t watching, he’d tap me and give me heck to pay attention.  We laughed when he took his football chant “oo aw, oo aw” and applied it to the baseball game.  He freaked out at the 1st set of fireworks when the home team hit a home run, then used his signs to ask for more, more!  It’s funny, too, how he dances at almost every music clip they play for the batters.  Since it’s a school night, we had to leave after the 6th inning, but we had a great time. 

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 . . . so we went to the zoo.  It was a beautiful, sunny day with temperatures in the 60’s.  Everyone was pretty healthy, so we took advantage of our new zoo membership.  We were surprised to see a new play area in the children’s zoo.  Will saw a pig for the first time ever and loved it!  While they rushed in to pet the guinea pig & rabbit, no one would pet the pig when the keeper brought it out.

Jack took this picture from the monorail ride.  He’s surprisingly good with the camera!

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