Two months ago, I made one of the best parenting decisions I have ever made. I was so exhausted on figuring out different ways Scout could exceed in school, that I finally said, “These are the grades you are capable of, and what I expect. I don’t care how you achieve those grades — except cheating — but you need to solve your own problem…and GET THEM!”
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The next day I picked him up from school, and he was ecstatic, saying, “i solved my own problem!”
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He found Grace, the smartest girl in the class, and asked her to tutor him two days a week during lunch. He said he would pay her $1 of his own money, a session. She was stoked and agreed. When I later asked her mom if that was okay with her, Beth said, “Grace is so excited, and has already put together a folder for him, and made him flashcards!”
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Since that decision, Scout has done amazingly well!
And the ultimate proof came today, when I got…
Can you believe it???
SCOUT IS STUDENT OF THE MONTH!!!
Because he is “excellent in math, displays leadership qualities, smart, teacher’s helper, willing to take a challenge, good listener, and an amazing Chinese speaker!”
Did you catch the last part?
“Amazing Chinese Speaker!”
Pippi is really into drawing lately. Today she drew a “Halloween Picture”. It featured Mom, Nonnie, Pippi, A Crazy Skeleton and a Bat.
Naturally.
I finally caught up on my sleep from Pippi’s flu all nighter a few days ago, and Dash’s mini flu all nighter two nights ago — so it has been just enough time for another all nighter.
So goes the role of mom.
Dash went to bed in perfect shape. But suddenly at 2:20am, he woke up screaming and crying. He was inconsolable for 20 minutes.
When I finally got him to tell and show me what was going on, he showed me a really swollen front tooth, that had discolored over the previous four hours. Because he lost a tooth just a few days ago, we checked to see if there were any other loose teeth. There weren’t. But upon inspection, this one was really loose. Like pull-it-out loose. No wonder Dash was inconsolable. Going to bed with a perfect tooth, and having it go bad in four hours is insane!
Needless to say — it was a long night.
I kept him upright and tuned in. Good thing the Super Blue Moon Eclipse kept us entertained for a bit of the night.
He was in good spirits by the time we got to the dentist. But sadly for me — this is the last picture of him with his full top set of baby teeth.
Dr. Hada said that he thinks it was ready to come out, but that sometime in the night he either grinded his teeth/bit down/sucked his fingers in a weird position..and agitated the nerves while breaking some of the connections.
When he pulled his tooth, he said that in just that short time, it became infected and wanted out!
And so my boy is officially big.
And on the way home, I looked back to see my boy looking the way I felt.
Do you know what is even cooler than the Super Blue Moon that only shows up every hundredish years?
The fact that my kids know that when there is an astronomical thing to see — obviously we wake up in the middle of the night to check these things out.
Pippi just got over a horrible 24 hr. flu, so it looks like it was time for the domino effect. Dash ran into our room at 3:30am this morning. He said “I just threw up”. I hopped up, grabbed Pippi’s leftover throw-up bowl that had just been cleaned out. We ran upstairs so I could inspect the damage. But like a true Denison — no damage. He made it to the toilet in time, and then even wiped up the seat that a little got on. Isn’t he the best! I went out to the couch to make a “sick bed”. I got it all ready for him to get in, when he said, “Oh Mom!!! i forgot to check if the tooth fairy came last night!” (Thank goodness she had!) He went back into his room to get the $2 bill, walked right over to his sick bed pillow, and stuck that bill under it. I smiled at him, and he said, “When I wake up in the morning…I can get it again.” How sweet is Dash — THE SWEETEST!
I slept next to him, and thankfully he didn’t throw up again, and we got a few hours of rest in before morning.
I’d show pictures — but the sudden run upstairs left my camera behind — and I was 100% in to cuddling my sick boy.
Honestly…Pippi was on a roll all day long today. Some kids do things for laughs — but Pippi literally does things the way she wants to live life. One byproduct is that she gets a lot of laughs.
For example — she put these stickers on her eyes from the grocery store.
Some kids would do it for laughs — she did it because, “I wanted to walk with no eyes”.
And when we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner, some kids would run over to a random table to play their online games to get a chuckle.
Pippi was nowhere to be found — until I spotted her at this random table, “Because I don’t want to share the games with Scout, Navy and Dash”!
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This girl runs her own world, and for the rest of us…we’re lucky we are invited in!
It only seems fitting, that after a 24 hour flu, where I took care of the Pips, she has turned into “Dr. Pippi”.
Two nights ago, I stayed up with her all night. It turned out to only be the 24 hour flu (amongst our current flu epidemic in the U.S.), but it was the most violent thing I have ever seen a young child experience. Starting at 10:30 pm, her body bent in half, as she threw up every 20 minutes….ALL NIGHT LONG! It wasn’t until 7:20am that her body finally settled down for some sleep. And the most amazing part, was that she never missed the bowl! She is a stud!
The two of us “slept” near each other in the Family Night Room. When her body finally settled down, we both got some real sleep. I got a full 1 hour and 40 minutes, before the other kids were waking me up for their Saturday morning chore assignments. Luckily, she slept for a while.
That was two days ago. Last night, I finally got a real sleep. That is, until Dr. Pip needed me to wake up for some really important things…like taking my temp, checking my ears, and lecturing me on eating healthy!
For the last year, as I have driven past the old folk’s home, I think about getting my kids down there to play piano for them. Today, it finally happened. We asked the lady if we could play. She was thrilled, and asked if we could come at the dinner service. We got there at 4:30, and each of us played a few pieces — even me! The cute oldies just clapped and clapped for us! It was really awesome to see my kids be brave, and very personable to these people they didn’t know. I was very proud and impressed.
As we left, the activity lady handed this paper to us.
Apparently, we’ve got ourselves a gig!
When it is 88 degrees on a January, Sunday afternoon, we thought being one with nature seemed appropriate. We headed to the shores of Capo Beach, and walked around to collect heart rocks and sea glass. We only had a 45 minute window, but something is always right about hearing the rocks jumble around under the waves. Our finds were meager, but our Vitamin D was plentiful.
From out of nowhere…Pippi caught the flu.
This was the scene from 10:30pm to 7:20am.
I’m too tired to tell the story.
But I’ll sum it up with … Pippi was the most good-natured sick girl during the most horrific case of the flu any of my children have ever had.
Any girl who repeatedly thanks her mom for wiping off her drool, holding the throw-up bowl, and allowing her to sip a bit of water gets the award.
But since she did all of these things, never missed the bowl one time (of the 30+ times), and said, “Mama…try to get some sleep”, she wins the Grand Award!
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