Now Where Was I?

Ok. There’s a birthday coming up and that would be for my oldest. This is his third Lego-themed birthday and I need to figure out some games the kids can play. Easy ones. He says all they need to do is go play soccer. Okay. Good thing the boys from the soccer team are invited.

Women’s bible study: did I mention we’re doing 1Peter? We are. The focus is “a quiet and gentle spirit.” You know those ladies who you admire because they never complain about other people? The ones whose voices never go up octaves when they’re upset? The ones who never discuss what they dislike about other people and make you wonder what they discuss about you when you’re not around? The ones whose speak in languages heavily peppered with scripture? While I know of no one lady who can attest to a consistently quiet and gentle spirit, I know of enough to know that I want to try to model myself after them. Here’s how I know God is working through this bible study: all day today, when I thought of something stressful or was in a difficult bind I just kept asking God for “quiet and gentle” enough to make it through. Maybe I wasn’t either, but at least He was there to remind me.

I should really post some of J’s drawings and scribbles for you. He surprised me a while back by writing his name on a sheet of paper for me. He gets his S and H backwards, but everything else looks great. We work on verbally counting but now I’m trying to help him connect the visual numerals with what they represent. I got him a set of five cups and little plastic bears in matching colors to help us learn counting. We play some games but he’s bored of that now. I have to learn how to help him with his pattern recognition, too, but I’m not sure where to begin. When the budget lets up I’ll probably look for beads and string to help with that. He’s dying to learn to read but I haven’t found any workbooks I like to introduce letters yet. He’s having fun doing “homework” like his big brother and he gets impatient when it takes too long for his dad to print him things to do.

At soccer practice today, J and I hung out at the playground like we usually do. A neat thing happened this evening, though. He went up to a little boy who was almost exactly his height and told him, “My name is J. My shoes have spikes for good grip.” And off he went, following his new friend as they hopped along the rocks that marked the park boundaries. He’d come back to me and my knitting and tell me “That’s my friend. He’s J. Now I have two J’s!” Funny how they have the exact same name. This is big for him since this is the little boy who hides behind my skirt when someone says hi to him. He decided making friends besides mommy is a good thing!

NM is doing ok with his diet at home, but apparently things haven’t been changing at school. I suspect that he’s coming down with something lately. However, hubby concurs that there is a pattern and his rough days are usually Tuesday and Wednesday. So maybe there are environmental causes for this? We’re not sure. I emailed his teacher about what happens on those days. Her concerns are his hearing and his eyesight. I asked her to see if the school ever did a follow-up hearing check for him (he failed the first). But I took him to the pediatrician the first time she raised the hearing issue and he got a very good test result.

On knitting: I haven’t enough yarn to finish the clapotis so I started a different project, a stocking. It’s my first felt project ever and I think it will be fun. It’s huge for now, so I guess it will hold a ton of loot even after it’s felted. Thing is, I have no idea how it will turn out in the washer. It’s a front-loader so I can’t stop mid-spin to check how much it shrinks.

I think that’s it for now.