Auburn! (and everyone else eavesdropping on my public letter) :)
I can't tell you how much it warmed my heart when we talked 2 weeks ago and you said you wish we all blogged more. At the time I swore to myself I'd begin posting more, a lot more, and was so excited about having a refreshed purpose for LEWICKIPEDIA. But then life kept happening, and blogging didn't. So here is my attempt to catch up, since the phone thing hasn't happened either. There are a ton of things I'd love to say that aren't exactly public blog appropriate, so seriously, call me...if you have a free afternoon, or evening, or anything. And we'll play phone tag, and feel loved :)
So, this law thing is hard. It's do-able, and I actually think we are do-ing quite well, but contrary to the first few weeks, it is more than just "different" than what we're used to, its astronomically harder. Joel being gone all the time isn't even the hardest part. It's knowing how to handle the little time that he's not studying and more still, its financial stress and communal living, and loving people well back home. Its tricky for sure. But a midst the challenge, God has provided in some pretty huge ways, I'll have to tell you about them sometime :)
Benjamin grew. I think he's 3/4 inch taller than when we came. I put him in 3 pairs of pants before I found ones that were long enough for him this morning. So now he's a skinny 4T. He has never been potty trained at night, and we've recently started encouraging him to stay dry...About the same time, he started having accidents during the day. 5 accidents in 4 days. Before that he had 2 accidents since the week we potty trained him a year ago. I don't think it was related to us encouraging him to stay dry at night, just coincidental. We haven't disciplined at all because of all the emotional changes in his last 2 months. We're just making a big deal of staying dry, shopping for monster truck underwear as a reward, and asking him to go more often. We've been accident free for 3 or 4 days! yippee! He got an imagination the size of texas overnight last week. His games of pretend include complete and lengthy conversations with characters that now have different voices. He's such a love to Violet whether she wants him to or not (actually at the point where she adamantly doesn't want him near, I don't know that Love is his motive!) I need to do a better job of being careful what I'm talking about with friends or with Joel cause he's getting very perceptive (and reminds me a lot of Jonah when I see him over listening). He still goes to sleep like a champ at bed time and has given up his nap during the week. Mon-Fri quiet time consists of 1.5 hours with books, and sometimes I read to him during his quiet time, and most times he has to read "quietly" in bed...and his bottom can't move. This is very difficult for him as he deems it oh so fun to built "my special reading hole" or " my pillow slide" or my "road of books" which are all kinda dangerous and loud. This week has gone better after a week of spankings and privilege limitations!. His most imaginative play time is after quiet time, while Violet is still sleeping....I LOVE it
Violet's personality is growing, but her size isn't budging. She's a light 25 lbs and still fits into her clothes from last winter. I'm not sure if she did get a little longer mid-section or if her clothes just have been washed/dried so many times that they don't fit the same, but she's still in 18 month clothes...If I'm buying anything I get 24 month so that she can grow into it, but she's still a little peanut. She's super verbal when she wants to be, but when she gets crabby she grunts and whines. This last week I started letting her know that I wouldn't be responsive to grunts, and she could speak with words or sit on the bed. It hasn't stopped her from starting to whine, but she quits it very quickly if solitude is her consequence! I also changed my requirements for the word "please" She still has to say it, but she can't say it crabby, she has to have a happy heart. It's all I can do but burst out laughing when she comes to me and puts on the cheesiest face and tries to be as happy as she can when asking me for something. It breaks my heart when she goes to all the work, and I have to say no! Bed times & Nap times are great!!!! I probably told you how worried I was about Joel rocking her to sleep for about 3 weeks before school, and then having to figure out how I was going to get her to sleep when he was gone all day. I was not very willing to rock her EVERY day. The first week (or two) were ok, but rough. She cried a lot, and I usually ended up shushing her from the door for 5ish minutes, or sitting in there reading while she laid in her bed and Benjamin had a very loud quiet time in the spare room (Violet didn't mind if I wasn't holding her, she just wanted me in the room) or sometimes it worked to leave and have the door open....As you can see, it didn't go great. Then the third week it just so happened I noticed that a couple times I had to bring her straight from the lunch table to her bed (because of schedules, hair cuts for other people, or a friends kids that I was watching) and those days she didn't cry...So I kept doing it, and she hasn't cried since. YAY! Oh, and back to her personality growing, her new thing if she doesn't like what you are saying to her, or she doesn't want to listen, or she just wants to be silly (and usually all three) is to look at you out of the corner or her eye for a lengthy period of time while she struggles to hold back a smirk. It's stinking hilarious & naughty and makes her seem soo old!
And then there's me...I don't have much news. I'm trying to be more purposeful with my time, so even to sit down and write you is kinda hard. Our apt is small, and I can't quite decorate like I want to, but I can keep it clean, so I'm kinda obsessed with picking up. Now, I will also say that I don't mop enough, the showers are never as clean as they should/could be, and one of the bed rooms is always less than put together, but at the end of every day, living room, kitchen and dining room drive me crazy unless they are in order! Add to that, laundry, food prep/clean up, and this Bible reading in 90 days attempt and I don't have that much time. I'm having to lock ourselves in our apt more than I was in the beginning. The kids adopted some unfortunate personality traits since we've been here, and combined with Bnjmn's potty issues, we just needed a little more down time. So I'm tired and just trying to figure out how to do my job well. Thankfully Benjamin loves books so whenever I need to huddle us up I can just mention "The scary Green pants with no one inside them" and I have an attentive audience! (we got the Dr. Seuss book from the library and I think I know what one of his Christmas presents will be! Let me know if anyone finds a used copy!)
I love you, and miss you all. Especially today. I hope your fall weather is as beautiful as ours has been. I will say that I bet my temperatures have been better, but your tree leaves have probably easily won the beauty contest! Hope you have a happy day tomorrow!
ME
