A Visit From the Police

Well, the police visit was the most interesting thing that's happened these last couple of weeks, anyway! Apparently Clari was trying to get Joe to do something he didn't want to do (eat his dinner or do his homework? Not sure which ...) He told her that if she didn't leave him alone about it he was going to call the police. And sure enough, he dialed 911!

Apparently 911 called back to verify the call, at which point Clari realized what had happened. Although there was no real emergency, a couple of officers still visited us at the Compound. Gabe was so excited about it! He loves to strike up a conversation with any adult that comes around (including the UPS and Fed-Ex men -- he always has a story for them)! He was following the officers around saying, "I was the one who told my cousin about 911, but I didn't think he'd really call!"

Another cute story from next door: Clari was walking around in the grocery store with Maya, and they came upon an obese woman. Maya proclaimed loudly, "Look, Mama, that lady is FAT!" Clari was embarrassed and explained to Maya that we must not call people fat because it hurts their feelings. So the next time they passed the same woman in the store, Maya tried to make amends. She made sure the woman could hear her when she happily announced, "Look, Mama, that lady is NOT FAT!"

All is fine here ... Gabe had a barium swallow a week ago to check for acid reflux, but the test was negative. Max is still teething and just started biting me while breastfeeding ... pleasant! Everyone is healthy and happy for the most part. Gabe seems to get mild to moderate enjoyment from attending his new school, and he's actually becoming more cooperative in doing the work at home. His rotten baby tooth still lingers ...

I am planning for Halloween like mad ... a lot of planning but not a lot of doing. It will all come together before party time, though, one month from today!

Dan got news that his next conference will be in San Diego this March, and suddenly I have a new obsession: going to San Diego! They always put him up in the fanciest hotel/conference center and pay for his meals. I want to bring the fam and tag along! San Diego has definitely been on my list -- home of Legoland, the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, beaches, and an hour or two from Disneyland. I already have this year's official San Diego tour guide, acquired during a recent stint of ordering every free tour guide I could get my hands on. You can tell it's been a year since our last vacation. I've been doing a lot of sitting around at home, and I am not a good sit-around-at-home person!

Another new development is that we've enrolled Gabe in soccer! Since his Lighthouse classes conflict with homeschool PE at the Y, he's been missing a physical outlet. Soccer is the only sport he has ever really enjoyed, so we're going to try it out! Joe has also signed up, and I've requested that they be on the same team. They'll have games on Saturdays starting in the beginning of October.

That's all I have time to write at the moment! All is well in our corner of the world. I will add pics to this post later.

Feels like fall

I've been working on so many other projects that it's been hard to find time to blog lately! Although fall hasn't officially started yet, I'm already in the Halloween mood, and things are changing!

Gabe started school at The Lighthouse. So far so good, I guess. The teacher says he's doing fine academically and making friends ... she only occasionally has to remind him to pay attention in class. Somehow this report seems unrealistically rosy to me. I guess she has a lot of patience ... I'm sure it also helps that there are only four or five kids in her class!

It's still like pulling teeth to get Gabe to do homeschool for us. And speaking of pulling teeth, he also went to the dentist on Friday! They didn't pull any of his teeth, but they did recommend we get one of his baby teeth out. It's wiggly, and they had told me it was ready to come out the last time we were in the office 8 months ago! The enamel is partially worn off on the front of it. Oh, how I hate that tooth! I've been pressuring him to wiggle it and work with it often. He doesn't want anyone to pull it out for him.

Gabe's biggest hobbies are collecting toys and drawing. The former can get really expensive for us ... I encourage the latter whenever I can! He loves to sit down with adults, get them to draw pictures, and copy them. I wish I had more time to sit with him but seem to be carrying Max around all day all the time ...

Max is teething like crazy lately and whining about it most of the time. Poor Max! Also, poor everyone else! He's very adept at spitting out Tylenol, and he hates Orajel too. Other than the irritation caused by teething and some nasal stuffiness at night he is doing fine and keeping up with his milestones. I can't wait to see some actual teeth.

Since the swine flu is going around I am, of course, worried about that. I also question whether we all might have already had it, since we had some kind of virus sweep our compound last month. I hope so. Gabe is tired of my worrying about it. I continue to read the bulletins about it online, and Gabe has asked me to "please just stop reading about it!" I made a sentence out of his spelling words last week, and it went: The big, fat, sick pig ate cake in the rain for ten days. Gabe said that maybe the big, fat, sick pig had the swine flu.

I've started a major project in preparing for our yearly Halloween blowout. I have 11 monsters planned for the Cookie Witch hunt, and I also want to have a smaller, less scary Pumpkin Goblin hunt for the littler kids. I didn't realize how many crates full of Halloween stuff I had till Mom started pulling them down for me ... They are taking up a major part of storage. Dan pulled the dummies out of the attic for me too. He says he hopes that if the police ever search our house that they are the kind who ask questions first, since we keep bodies in the attic.

Gabe and Joe got GI Joe costumes. For once Joe is wearing black and Gabe is wearing white ... but it's because in this case, the good guy wears black and the bad guy wears white! Gabe's costume is Storm Shadow, and apparently he's a bad guy. I'll try to have some pics of them next week. Maya has a Snow White costume, and it's funny to see her walking around wearing it with a witch's hat on. She always want to play a game with Mom where Mom has to play the role of the "mean tiger."

We've started attending church lately, although we missed today ... It's a Baptist church called Life Bridge that's only a couple minutes' drive from our house.

Well, that's all for now!

Gabe's Art

Gabe's drawing of Luke Cage from the Marvel universe.
"Battle Damage" SpongeBob and Patrick.
This is Slimer from Ghostbusters.
Invisible Galaxy is a character from Gabe's nightmares.
Gabe has started drawing action pictures. I especially like this one of Humungousaur falling backwards!