Trying to enjoy all of the little things.

Really just trying to sit back and enjoy.  Trying not to get upset over stupid trivial things.

Here is Jaemin actually coloring.  He absolutely hates coloring.  It's part of his sensory disorder.  It's just torture, so we've been doing everything to get him to half-way enjoy it to the point he'll get through school.

Cole had a rough weekend wrestling at a pretty big tournament.  He lost all 4 matches and texted us (we couldn't go since it was 4 hours away) that he wanted to quit.  I figured he just needed to cool off, so Brian texted back to remind him that he's JV wrestling in a big Varsity tournament against state contenders with only 20 minutes between matches when you're supposed to have 45.  On top of that you have a heart condition.  He just refuses to let that be a reason for anything.  While I'm so glad he has never made excuses, sometimes you just need to say okay.  By the time he came home Saturday night we talked to him without bringing that text up and he seemed fine.  We decided not to talk about it and see if he went to practice today.  Sure enough he was back at practice.  Now, I'm praying he can place at the JV tournament.  Not for me, the team or anyone else but himself.  Just to show himself he is special and he can do it.

Chase is finally enjoying the beginning of high school football.  Yes, the 8th graders start working out with the coach this early.  They ended up calling off school tomorrow for the expected snow and he came up all bummed he was going to miss weight lifting.  Well, that's a new Chase.  Good to meet him.  I don't need him to be the best, but to put his best out there.  That's all we want from any of them.

Chelsi is all signed up for gymnastics and is wanting to do it more often after seeing the Gabby Douglas story.  She's so ready to go, but she doesn't realize she's only in tumbling.  We could never afford full on gymnastics.  It's over $100/month!

Kaelin is playing on her first modified league for volleyball.  They won't be good, but it will good for them to play good teams and she'll have fun with her friends.  Her coach from last year volunteered again and she's been trying to get that overhand serve down all Winter.  Hopefully, she'll get SOME over the net.  :)

As Cole gets closer and closer to 17 and I realize he'll soon be 18, I'm realizing the short time we have left with each of them and I want to squeeze in more talks, more cuddle time, more movie nights.  I LOVE sitting and hearing about Cole's  night in a hotel with 2 other wrestlers and the jokes they play on each other.  The sense of humors these boys have and the good stuff being part of a team brings out in Cole.  I love seeing him happy and finding a place.  I pray everyday he continues to figure things out.  I know he doesn't want mom and dad telling him what to do anymore and deep in my heart I know he knows what's good and right, I just hope he finds some good honest thing to do in his life to pay his bills and be happy.

I love these kids so much.  And they really are good kids.

Dear Tooth Fairy...

Okay, so let me start this by saying that the Tooth Fairy does a really poor job of collecting teeth around here.  She's rarely timely and the only thing she is consistent about is being late.  I would fire her if I were her boss.  Really awful at her job......really!

Poor Chelsi lost her tooth a week or so ago and waited as patiently as she could for the Tooth Fairy to arrive.  When she didn't come.....well.....you'll have to read about Chelsi's unfortunate luck of dropping her tooth.

She even dated it and put her name and address on it.  She's a very formal 8 year old, I must say.  In case you can't read it because I had to take the picture with the phone it says:

Dear Tooth Fairy,
I lost a tooth a day before yesterday.  I was excited that it had fallen out.  Then today I went to my window sill to see if you came yet.  You didn't.  I picked up my tooth and dropped it in my vent below my window sill.  Could you still give me money.
Thank you.
Love,
Chelsi

First, is that not sweet?  Second , could you hear the disappointment in her words when she said "you didn't"?  And if only we'd had a camera when we found out about the note.  Brian happened to ask about her tooth and she just casually says the tooth fairy hasn't come, but she left her a note.  Brian had to read it.  Brian, Kaelin and I were laughing  SO hard reading it.  We didn't even notice she left the room.  I found her  a few minutes later and she was in her room crying.  I asked her what was wrong and she said it upset her that we were laughing.  I told her she'd appreciate it down the road and she said "well you didn't have to get all up in my business".  Where the heck did she get that??

Needless to say the tooth fairy came that night and wrote a note back to her to apologize for being so busy.  She was super excited about the note and that she finally came.

All that for one quarter!!!!!!!!!!!

This week....

I feel like I should be typing with pauses kinda like my internet does.  We have the slowest internet.  Sure we could pay a fortune and upgrade, but we pay is too high as it is.  So I'm stuck with a lot of reload errors.....constantly!  Good thing we don't have streaming tv, you'd constantly be in a commercial break due to the streaming pauses.  Highly annoying.  I still think 7 on one router just overloads sometimes, but then again, Brian and I are the only ones up right now, so I don't think it's that.

We have survived the first week of 6:30 am weight lifting for Chase.  He enjoys being with his friends and really only has to get up a few minutes earlier to catch a ride with his dad to school.  He gets to skip breakfast, so that saves time and then he eats granola after lifting.

Wrestling is winding down.  We're down to 1 or 2 per week and he may not even wrestle this weekend, he's just waiting to find out.  Hard when the coaches son is the one in your weight class and there's always a 'reason' not to have wrestle offs.  I think it's because Cole could beat him. He did finally lose a match this week though.

Finally decided to spend the money to get my iPod fixed.  It wasn't doing any good just holding onto it, so this guy said he would do it for $50 which is actually pretty cheap around here.  Picking it up tomorrow night and we're going to give it to Chelsi.  She's so excited to have a 4g!  She'll finally be able to get all the apps to work and we're going to give Jaemin Chelsi's pink iPod.  He's so stinkin' excited pink or not.  He can finally watch all of the versions of "What does the fox say" whenever he wants.  He's been at the mercy of his siblings.  More loud singing from Jaemin coming.  One of these I will record him singing and post on Youtube!

I gave the girls haircuts this week and Brian did NOT like them.  He was fine with Kaelins.  I really just trimmed it so she could still get it up for volleyball.  Chelsi's I cut shoulder length and layered and she looks all grown up.  He said he didn't like it and then he said 'she's gorgeous'.  She is!

And....YAY!.......the furniture store called and said our furniture in.  We will be able to really fit at the table, all 7 of us together.  Kaelin won't be squashed and sandwiched so close between Jaemin and Chelsi.  Maybe Brian will be able to sleep on our new mattress....maybe his back won't hurt.  I just pray the kitchen set fits in our tiny kitchen and it all works.  I have wanted this for so long!

I just pray life keeps going on like this.....I'm enjoying it.

Looking forward, looking back

While I love today and what it brings like a sweet little five year old who can break in with "I love you" to divert your attention from getting onto him.  I sort of look forward to years down the road when I see them all grown up and I have the water to just the two of us instead of sharing the pressure because the washing machine, dishwasher or another shower is constantly running in this family of 7.  I look forward to always having hot water when I take a shower, with pressure.  I look forward to not worrying about who's watching who while we run and get things done.  I'm not  sure I'll really have that empty nest syndrome a lot of older couples do.

But, I know to love where we're at.  Though in the tough times, not so much.  I look forward to skipping forward a few days to get through whatever it  is, or sometimes months.  I am trying to just enjoy the day, the time we're in.  Trying to enjoy each of their stages and changes.  It's kind of neat with a family this big.  You get to see the changes an almost 17 year old goes through as he approaches being an adult in one year.  Wow, I will have an adult child in one year!  You get to see the changes a 13 year old goes through as he really enters puberty and the teen years.  You get to see the scary changes an 11 year old goes through as she blossoms into a really beautiful young lady.  You get to see the innocence and fun an 8 year old still has and the little girl your 11 year old used to be.  And all while that is ALL going on at the same exact moment, you get to see a sweet little 5 year old boy just be ALL boy and so young and so sweet and just starting life as he gets ready to enter the real world school holds.

Try to enjoy every step of the way. That's my lifelong goal......and as I write that and say that my 16 year old is out with friends and I'm hoping what we've taught him and what he knows stays with him every second he's away from us and he makes good decisions.  So yes, while I enjoy it and try really hard to enjoy every second I'm scared to death at moments with worry of what I know other kids do hoping mine won't.   The joys of parenting come with a lot of worries.  But, I guess, nothing great is without risk.

No better compliment

than to hear an older mother (mom older than you and with grown kids) tell you you're doing a great job of raising your kids and how genuinely she can tell I love them and that she loves our family.  Now, my family does not know her, but I work with her.  Today was her last day and though we rarely talked I would talk about the kids from time-to-time.  I told her we were going to miss her at work and she hugged me and told me that because of the way I spoke about my kids she could tell how deeply I loved them and that our family will always be in her heart and prayers.  So sweet!  I will miss J.

Good Lens

Great subject.

I finally got to use the lens I bought last year for the purpose I bought it  for anyways.  I wanted to check it out on indoor sports pictures.  Specifically, Cole's wrestling.

He pinned the kid and did great.  It's amazing that this is only his 3rd year wrestling ever and has a heart condition.  He really does do well.  I know a lot of parents think a junior in high school isn't very good if they're on JV, but I think it's great.  Most of these kids have been wrestling for 3-5 years by the time they're freshman and that was his first year.  He's winning every JV match and has really improved.  I'm very proud of how strong he is and I mean that in more than one way.

I'm telling you

growing up IS hard!  Raising kids who are trying to grow up is REALLY hard.

We've had a couple things slam us this week with kids.  One was just something that is fairly common with teens, but I promised I wouldn't share with anyone, so I have to keep my promise.  The the kid asked to go to a cousin's house for a bonfire.  All sounds fine, but I know this cousin is 21+ and likes his alcohol.  This is not something, whether you trust your teenager or not, your teenager needs to be around with no responsible adults there.  We talked to a cop friend about MIPs and know as long as he does nothing all is well, but the longer we can keep him unexposed the better.  We asked where all his friends were and he said some were over at another friend's hanging out.  We had to switch gears because we've always taught the kids not to invite themselves over.  We told him at this age you have to speak up or you can get left behind and if you want to hangout it's okay.  He's never really gone out, so he has to let them know he's allowed to.  He texted them and then went over.  By 10pm I had a phone call that they were playing pool and wanted to spend the night.  Deal was he had to be home by 8am to do chores and he had to work tonight.

He said they stayed up to 3am (typical) and was really tired.  We told him just to take a shower, do his chores and take a nap.  I think he was feeling better after that. Some kids do really well at this point, but other have a harder time finding their  place.  I can see a lot of me in him too.  I'm always afraid of  overstepping and asking to hangout thinking someone will feel the need to say yes when they really want to say no.  I'm almost 40 and still feel that way.  The friend thing doesn't exactly get easier as you get older with this sort of personality complex.  I guess we're both just too unsure of ourselves.  I wish we were more confident people.  It would  do both of us a lot of good.

For now, I'm just happy that though he wasn't happy with me for not letting him go to the bonfire, I explained why and came up with the solution of him going with his friends, he talked calmly with me about it.  It's nice to see these moments when he can sit to find the way through or around something instead of just assuming it's a barricade and nothing can be done but get angry.  He seems to do well if you can just get him to talk.  I don't think that's always or often that easy with teenager boys.

I think the one thing for parents of teenagers to keep in mind, now remember there's  always the exception, is  to keep the line of communication open.  Tell them exactly what you expect and what the consequences are and follow through on them.  Sort of like a younger child. Then, with each day, week, month and year that you get through, count your blessings and consider the accomplishments.

And deep down when I see the behavior of other kids I realize I have some pretty good kids.