A week in the life...

It has almost been a year since Emily's brain decompression surgery. She has really done well and her headaches have really decreased. They haven't totally gone away, though, as we were reminded of again tonight. We went out to dinner with my parents and with Grandma. While there, Emily got one of her "shunt headaches" and had to lay her head down on the table. After a little bit, she jumped up and said that she was going to throw up and she and I took off running through the restaurant for the bathroom. Emily's maturity just amazes me at times like this. Once she was finished throwing up, she just looked at me and told me that she was finished now and asked me to wipe off her face and we got her cleaned up. She was just so matter of fact about it all. Her head was still hurting her and so I carried her back to our table and we left the restaurant. The kids were planning on spending the night with my parents and Emily said she still wanted to. Her headache was almost gone by the time we got to my parents house and she did end up staying at their house. She is quite a trouper.

Earlier today, Rob and I went and volunteered at the new elementary school. The kids will be starting their first day in the new school on Monday, but they were needing volunteers to finish up some last minute stuff this weekend. Rob helped move and build the Kindergarten playground. I think he may have done too much because his body is just really worn out tonight. Either that or old age is just catching up to him. :) The kids think it is really awesome that their daddy helped build the playground, though. We drove them by it tonight to see how cool it looks. While Rob was doing all of that physical labor, I was inside the school sweeping hallways and helping Mrs. McFarland in her classroom. Everything will be up and running on Monday and I should be able to start back helping the kindergartners on Monday, too, with their AR reading. It is just all so exciting to be in the new building.

And speaking of school, I have to tell about what happens when you try to teach southern children about the short "e" sound. It is VERY difficult! The teacher sent home some homework that had various pictures on it and the instructions said to color the picture yellow if the item in the picture made a short "e" sound, and color it red if it didn't make that sound. The pictures were of things like a pen, tent, the number ten, hen, etc, and then pictures of things that were not short "e" sounds. Well, I was sitting down with my children while they were doing their homework and I heard Emily say to herself "pin" and then get the red crayon. I immediately stopped her and this was the conversation that took place...

Me: Emily, how do you say that word?

Emily: Pin

Me: No, it's a P-E-N, PEN

Emily: No it's not, Mama. It's a PIN.

Me: No, Emily. Actually, it's a P-E-N.
(Then we moved on to the next picture of the tent and I asked her what that was.)

Emily: That is a tint.

Me: No, Emily. It is a T-E-N-T.

Anyway, you get the idea how this went on and on and on. Ethan sat there listening to this whole thing. He finally just looked at the homework page and said, "Emily, look, the part that is supposed to be colored yellow makes a moon. Just color the moon yellow and the rest red." Well, that's my boy!

Emily came home from school the other day and informed me that all of the kids at school are making fun of the scar under her nose. The whole bottom side of her nose was damaged by the CPAP she had to wear in the NICU when she was born. She has a little scar that goes from one nostril to the other at the base of her nose. When she told me this I asked her if she was really being teased or if the kids were just asking about it. I tried to explain that there is a difference between being teased for something and kids just being curious about something. I said, "Well, did you tell them what it was?" She looked at me like I had grown another head and said NO WAY! I told her that she should tell them what it is. They are probably just wondering what it is and that it is no big deal. Some of them probably have scars, too.

One of Ethan's new things right now is his love of the Looney Tunes. I found an old copy of a Looney Tunes movie and Ethan watches it all the time. This is the first time that they have ever been exposed to many of the Looney Tune characters because those cartoons just aren't on anymore. Well, the other day while we were driving to school, Ethan starts telling me about this really awesome cartoon where this "wolf" chases this roadrunner (LOL) and he keeps trying and trying to get him and the roadrunner is just too smart for him. I started laughing and told him that it wasn't a wolf, but a coyote. Ethan just wouldn't quit talking about it. He was just so animated when telling me about it and said it was the best cartoon ever!!!! He just made my day listening to him talk about it. I have got to find some old Looney Tunes DVDs for the kids.