Very Long Post - TMI?

Wednesdays are not so much fun right now, but they should be!

Each Wednesday we have library summer reading program in Valley. (We chose that one since it’s fairly close and we are usually over there at least once a week anyway!) Today it was a magician and he was really good (for kids anyway). Jax was really into the show and Car had his moments, but the only time Ed wanted to pay attention was when the pup-pup or bird was out “on stage.” (I should really take a pic some time so you can see how much trouble the library ahs to go to in order to have the program each week. They have to move almost every bookshelf in the place before and after the programs. The kids have to sit on the floor (which isn’t that big a deal, but it’s just so crazy). The really need a bigger place and I hope that they can get a bond passed to do it!)

Anyway, back to may point. The program doesn’t start until 11am (although there is one at 9am, but Jax doesn’t usually get up until after that and I don’t really want to have to start waking him up just to go to the summer reading program). I have to be at work by 1:30 this week and next – after that we’ll just have to see what happens. It lasts between 30 minutes and an hour which is beyond any 18 month olds’ attention span. The program last week was an African story teller and she did a great job, BUT she was too long winded and not really interactive enough (for such little ones anyway). Today’s program was only 30 minutes and really, who doesn’t love a magic show?!

I also know that the program is geared for all ages from pre-school to middle school, but I wonder if they should break it out a little more even. The older kids would probably enjoy not having to deal with the pesky little ones and the pesky little ones would probably enjoy it more if it was a little less time. (Even Jax had a hard time last week with the hour long program.) Just my opinion and that’s not worth much.

I remember going to the library in the summer when I was a kid. I don’t remember much about what went on or even how I got there, but I remember wanting to participate. That was the great thing about the library in Ark City. It was big enough for everyone to find a place. They had the huge basement for the summer program activities (later for the afterschool program I helped get started when I was an AmeriCorps member at Cowley). The children’s section of the library covered the entire upper level and was full of great books for all ages. I wish every town could have such a great library (and that people who had such a great library would appreciate it).

Sometimes it feels like the library system is not getting the support it needs…I’ve even heard ads on the radio asking people to support their local library. I know that there is soooooo much information on the internet and that you can even read entire books online now, but isn’t the library still a good place to go? Can’t we all still learn from the librarians and the books found there. The one in Valley even has videos you can check out – cartoons, movies, informational, everything!

I feel like this simple post about how Wednesdays are not going very well right now turned into more of a rant about libraries…maybe that’s what I’ll write my next column for my dad’s paper on. Now on to more important information…updates on the boys!

Ed really has a lot of teeth coming through right now. He already has his frist set of molars (all four and he isn’t even a year and a half yet) and today I noticed that his eye teeth on the bottom are almost all the way through. It’s not wonder he has been a little irritable lately. If I had all that going on in my mouth, I would be irritable, too. He is also becoming quite the talker. He tries to say almost everything and I would guess that he probably has at least 75 words in his vocabulary that he can say and he understands almost everything.

I wonder what is normal for little ones. How many words should he be able to say and what should he understand? He can definitely follow simple commands – even complex ones! (He will go get a diaper, bring it to me and lay down on the floor if I ask. He knows that he has to be sitting in his high chair to have food. Maybe it’s not so amazing, but he really seems to be growing so quickly!!!) The only issue is his temper. Man, when he gets angry, you better watch out. Even today at the library, he laid on the floor and wouldn’t look at me…thank goodness though that he didn’t start a real tantrum like he does at home sometimes!

Car has to be the most sensitive of my boys. He gets very upset if he is incorrect about something. The other night at dinner, he put too much salt on his plate and he put his head under the table and wouldn’t talk to any of us. He will cry if you correct him when he’s doing something wrong…unless of course, he’s being ornery which he likes to be and then he just laughs and carries on!

Jax is also very sensitive and gets upset about nothing very easily. Last night for instance, he got mad at me because I told him he couldn’t watch a movie when we came in from our fire-pit cookout. It was already 9:30 and we still had to do baths before we went to bed. He laid down on the kitchen floor and started throwing a huge fit. He said that I was the worstest mom ever. I simply told him that wasn’t the case and went on upstairs for baths. I don’t’ know what to do about these outbreaks. I don’t feel like I am a bad mom and that I deserve this kind of treatment, but where did I go wrong and how do I correct it? I hope that all of our time together with the homeschooling thing will help, but what if it doesn’t? I don’t want to have one of those teenagers that won’t talk to his parents or does stuff just for spite. I guess it’s just one of those things you have to work on daily!

The move is still happening, but it’s concerning as to how much stuff we have an how little space we have for all of it…and then compound that with all the stuff my parents have and we still have no place to put it. I tried to get rid of as much of my scrapbooking stuff as I could, but Mark said that isn’t going to really help. He says we need to get rid of large items (like some of the 9 dressers we have – yeah, 9 dressers for 5 people, crazy, huh?). We also have a bunch of junk from the home-based biz that we had the last few years, but his brother is coming to pick that up on July 3rd and taking it back to Ulysses to Mark’s mom…who I’m sure won’t have a clue with what to do with it, but there it goes anyway!

After the garage sale this weekend, we have to get everything out of our basement so that we can paint the walls and have the carpets cleaned. (The people that owned it before us were smokers and sometimes you can still smell it down there…I think they pretty much lived in the basement.) We are also going to have the a/c vents and ducts cleaned before my parents move in. Where will all the stuff from the basement go? That’s a good question because most of it won’t be coming back after the cleaning is done because we’ll have to move the stuff from our bedroom down there. Then the question comes to what is all down there anyway? Well, there are clothes that Jax has outgrown, but that Car and Ed will still be able to wear someday. There are lots of craft supplies – all of my scrapbook stuff, some of the boys’ stuff and then Mark’s paper-based craft supplies, too. The computer is down there, but it’s coming back. There are two dressers down there and one of them is going into the sale (maybe both, I can’t remember!). We have several bookshelves full of all of this stuff, but we just don’t’ know what to do with it. It’ll find a home, it’s just going to take a lot of thought.

Thank goodness a week from today is my last day of work!!! (at least for awhile) I am not sure what my parents have packed up yet, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t much! I know my dad has been working on the garage, but that leaves a huge house full of stuff yet to pack! My goal is to help them at least two days a week thereby giving Mark some time to do other repairs to our house (like finishing the molding, tiling the kitchen, installing a new shower (maybe) and much more!).

This post is now 2 ½ pages in MS word so I should probably quit, but if you made it this far – WOWZA! Thanks! Have a great rest of the week!!!