Brief update-continued

Drew has had speech class once a week at the same school as Ivy & Collin. That will change this fall, thanks to the school disctrict's reorganization. He is starting to learn to recognize letters & Tom frequently does magnet letters on the fridge to help him to learn rhyming words. He took a swimming class this summer too, just one session. From my experience, kids either love or hate being in beginner swim class (with no parents), there is no in between. Since I didn't know which way he'd go, I just signed him up for one. Apparently he really likes it. He's terrible, but he enjoys himself and that's all that matters. He's starting to get a little bored at home, even with Brent. I may look into a 2 or 3 days per week preschool for him once school starts back up.

Collin has made language progress this year, learning to comment about things he sees. He did a mommy & me swim class this summer--I signed him up after he was jealous of Drew having class, but not him. He's used to doing pretty much everything with Drew. The class is only meant for 6 month olds to 4 years old, but we inherently don't trust Collin in the typical swim class--for the second half of each class, they go to the deep water. I'm afraid of Collin not listening & letting go of the wall. We may try to work something out with the instructors next year to just have him do the 1st half and I take him out the second half. He is now 46" tall and 49.5 lbs--he was really giving me quite the workout in the Mommy & Me class.

Collin's got an excellent memory, but sometimes doesn't know when to stop telling you something. Example, the kids(minus Brent, of course) are currently in ice skating lessons. Last week, Tom took them. Ivy fell 30+ times, Drew quite a few, and Collin only once--while Tom was holding his hands during the free-skate/practice. So, all week, Collin has told me "Drew slipped down 2 times," multiple times per day. He is wanting more independence which is good, but I'm having a hard time letting go because I worry about him a lot. Still lagging in other areas. Case in point, yesterday Brent woke me up at 6:30 a.m., went back to sleep, and I didn't get back to bed till 7:30. Well, sometime between 7:30 & 9:30, Collin got a movie out for himself and put it in the portable dvd player. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but Tom had just started watching a Netflix dvd the night before. We spent all morning, and a good part of the afternoon trying to find it. I was thankful it didn't end up in the trash or any of the bathrooms. But it was soo frustrating when I'd ask Collin where he put the movie, he couldn't answer me. If I asked him if it was in any number of spots, he'd just answer "yes."

Tom & I. Well, we are FINALLY able to start having regular date nights again, and Brent is starting to be babysat with the other kids instead of being taken with us. Thanks to many friends & family's suggestions we found a website called http://www.thedatingdivas.com/ that has TONS of ideas--which was one of our biggest struggles. Tom seems to be enjoying it. So far, we've made a couple's journal, origami night, dollar store night, a walk on the beach at night(for our 11th anniversary, July 8th--by the way, even though it was a hot day, it was totally freezing!! We had a head-on wind), and writing candy bar love notes(first time I'd done that).

I will be going in at the end of the month for outpatient surgery. The short of it is that my body functions are not what they were after the other 3 kids, and it's been destroying my quality of life. I've been meeting with a urologist and doing testing off & on the past couple months. We both agree that this surgery is the best solution. A 30 year old should not be dealing with an 80 year old's problems. Hard part will be that I won't be able to lift Brent for 6 weeks! This is the kid who wants up & down ALL day long. I had tried to schedule for the beginning of this month, and then thought Ivy could help me out for the 1st 3 weeks before school starts. But no, the hospital didn't have any openings until the end of the month, 2 days after school starts. So, half the day I will be on my own until school is out.