Rock-A-Bye Corey

Corey rocks himself to sleep every night. He gets up in a crawling position and rocks his entire body back and forth, humming as he does so. When he has a hard time sleeping, he can do this for up to an hour, which apparently is what he did last night. Here's what Ken and I found when we checked on Corey before hitting the hay yesterday...

Corey was sleeping like a log after he (once again) rocked his mattress clear off of the bed frame.

If you look, you'll see there isn't a dust ruffle on Corey's bed, either. That's because it's impossible to keep one in place when Corey shifts his mattress night after night.

Mass Hysteria?

Okay, so the pick-up for Riley's First Communion pictures was less than smooth, but I finally got them in. These are grainy copies, but the originals are nice and sharp.

The standard 'prayer pose.' Riley, keeping his distance from Father, as always.

He never gets too close at communion, often leading the communicant to question Ken about whether or not Riley is allowed to take it. What can I say, the CCD organizer scared the heck out of the Riley with his 'Don't-be-alone-with-or-let-any-clergy-touch-you' talk implemented by our church. You can give Riley a little shove or tell him to move closer, but he always stands at least a foot away at Mass.

1986

I have finally managed to listen to all 1986 songs on my IPod! (Yes, I am proud of myself.)

I brought this information to Ken's attention and he said, "Wow, you must have a lot of time on your hands to listen to 2000 songs on your IPod." I could see the little brain cells firing as he mentally calculated how long it would take to listen to that much music.

Before he could announce his findings, I quickly reminded him, "I only listen to my IPod when I'm mowing the lawn, vacuuming, or scrubbing bathrooms..." After a long pause, "Hmm..." was all he had to say.

(By the way, 1986 x 4 = 7944 minutes of house work. 132.4 HOURS of housework.) I should get an award or something.

Out With the Trash

When Riley first started taking his lunch to school, he kept bringing his half eaten food back home. The crust from his sandwich? Bring it home! Banana peel? Bring it home! Empty milk carton? Bring it home! It seemed like it took him forever to understand that I didn't want to see his table scraps.

Now Shannon is taking his lunch to school, and he has yet to bring me home any remnants of his lunch! Of course, yesterday he failed to bring home his spoon, and today I found his tupperware lid, but no actual container. When questioned about the missing tupperware, he said, "I didn't mean to throw it away, but then it was too late!" I'm just hoping Shannon learns proper lunch disposal quickly or I'll go broke restocking my kitchen supplies.

Socks and Stuff

Riley and Shannon are off camping with Anna, and if things go sour, she might come home with the boys for a sleep over at our house. Being that Anna is a girl, and therefore a little selective as to what she will sit on when using the potty, (IE: boys' pee, slide-offs, and the like,) I decided that it would be a good time to clean a few bathrooms and straighten up the basement. It was ugly.

It's amazing what you can find in an area of the house where only little boys dwell. For instance, lately Corey's become sufficiently obsessed with socks. He fills them up with noisy miniature toys, swings them around, or just hides them in the basement apparently. I found seven socks down there, some with toys, some without. Almost all of them are Shannon's nice Wilson brand socks (these things are impossible to destroy!) which appear to be Corey's sock of choice.

I also located two pairs of underwear, a pair of shorts, two gnawed up apple cores, two pairs of sandals we hadn't been able to find in weeks, a torn up Yahtzee game, 60 destroyed birthday balloons I'd been saving, two living room throw pillows, numerous piece of chalk, five hot wheels in the bathroom sink, and miscellaneous food wrappers scattered about. Do I need to mention that we'd cleaned the basement thoroughly less than two weeks ago?

Spaceballs

Today I have to go to the library to check out the movie Spaceballs. The edited version was on TV last night, and the boys loved the 1/2 hour they saw before bedtime reared it's ugly head. I set the DVR to record the movie, and as soon as I left the room, Ken kicked off the recording. The boys were not too happy when they discovered Daddy's error this morning...

Have any of you seen this movie? It's a hilarious take on the Star Wars movies, with a lot of subtle (and not so subtle) humor going on. I'm just hoping that the unedited version isn't as vulgar as I suspect. We'll find out tonight when the boys and I will be sitting on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn watching our movie, and Daddy; well, we'll probably have to put him in time out.

Not As Bad

Well, it was warm today, but not as bad as yesterday. We've been patiently waiting for a cold front and some rain to close in, but it just looked like it was never going to happen. I asked the boys if they wanted me to fill up the kiddie pool since they were so hot, and they said sure. Before playing, we went in to eat real quick, and by the time we came back outside, the cold front had arrived. Too cold to play in water, that was for sure.

The water from the kiddie pool didn't go to waste, however, because since the rain never showed up (surprise, surprise,) I was able to water a portion of my lawn with it.

108.7

108.7 DEGREES. On my front porch. Today. The hottest day of the summer, literally.

Granted, the porch retains heat throughout the day, so the actual temperature is 103.7 degrees. 103.7 degrees on the kids first (long, hot) day of school. The boys were soaking wet and beet red after their one hour bus ride with no air conditioner. Uck.

Oh Happy Day...

Back to school time in Michigan! Here's how the bus stop went:

The boys were nice enough to pose together (I fear this might be the last year for this type of cooperation...) As soon as the picture was taken, Riley and Shannon went off to trade Pokemon cards.

We were able to get most of the kindergartners together for a picture (one wouldn't get in the shot, one was driven in to school,) and all of these kids are from just our little neighborhood. Sadly, the bus boarding picture didn't do justice to just how many children actually boarded the bus.

All the kindergarten moms were heading up to school to follow their kids in, and I felt like a bad Mommy for plotting my morning of solitude. Giving in to the guilt, I headed up to school to watch the buses unload. Sure enough, the Aide that was supposed to greet Corey at the bus was there and walked him into school. She paused to introduce Corey to the music teacher (Corey is very adamant that he does NOT want to go to music class,) and Riley was right there to ensure that everything was okay. (So proud of him!) Shannon... he was off in his own world marching toward his hallway.

There was a mom watching nearby, and she was new to the school and upset that she couldn't get closer to the bus. She explained her situation and convinced me to go into the school with her to check on the kids. (I was in the first thing I threw on- no shower, no make-up; just HOW did I end up in a school full of people who know me???) Anyhow, it turned out that my presence was a good thing after all.

I went to check on Shannon first, and he'd made it to his classroom. I was impressed, because neither Shannon nor I can ever remember the name of his First Grade teacher. However, Shannon was at his desk talking to the teacher and he looked completely baffled. He started for the door, where I was standing, and I caught his attention. "Mom, you're here? My teacher said you sent in stuff but I don't have it. I just brought my backpack!"

Hmm... suppose if he'd have looked IN his backpack, he may have found it? Especially after I'd drilled into his head what he needed to do with all of his stuff? We walked to his locker to get everything unloaded, and there was Shannon's fully loaded backpack. On the hallway floor in front of his locker. Huh?

So I took everything out of the backpack, showed Shannon where his lunch would be, reminded him where his snack would be, asked him to make sure to put his backpack IN his locker, and sent him back into his classroom. He was still looking a little baffled but also a bit relieved, so I moved on to Corey's classroom.

In no time, the Kindergarten teacher and 20+ children arrived and started piling into the classroom. Corey didn't even notice me as he parted ways with his Aide. (She won't be with Corey all the time, she will just monitor Corey's needs and help when needed.) Mrs. Gordon, the aide, said that Corey was doing just fine, told me about the introductions she made with Corey, and of course reminded me that he was such a sweet little boy. He has them all fooled.

Riley of course knew the ropes, and after seeing him follow up on Corey, I knew he didn't need me to check up on him. Unfortunately, Riley is resigned to the fact that school is a necessary evil and that Mom will not home school under any circumstances. I'm sure this was on his mind as he grudgingly headed on into the school. I'm hoping he gets over his anti-school attitude and starts to like school again soon.

As soon as I could get out of there, I headed to the grocery store to make some quick prints of my pictures I had taken. I've already distributed some to other parents, and now I'm contemplating my next scrapbook layout. But wait a minute... I think I'm getting sleepy. Maybe I'll take a quick nap instead?

Pictures AT School

Riley heading into school after checking on Corey.

Shannon worried and confused about that stuff his mom should have sent in.

Shannon, after I helped him find his stuff, returning to his teacher for further instruction.