It Rained and it Poured!

You all know the saying, "When it rains, it pours." Well, that pretty much sums up our last few weeks in terms of interesting/exciting/new/terrible things happening around here: we've been endowed with a whole potluck of adventures. It all started with Ellie's first day of Kindergarten:

I'm still not sure who was more excited/nervous - me or her. I loved school so much as a kid I just wanted sneak in with her. She held (and still holds) my hand until the bell rang, but then she disappeared without so much as a glance backwards! And as she walked through those doors...I cried. I would have wailed if there weren't hundreds of students and parents all around me. I'm glad Rob was there. "Amateur!" was his solitary word of teasing comfort as he wrapped his arm around me. :)

Ellie came out those same doors that day BOUNCING with joy and continues to every day. I can hardly wait for my first volunteer shift.

Think they'll notice if I play dress up for a bit?

Well, the following week was Joshy's first day of preschool. Home-preschool-at-the-church, to be exact, but it makes no difference to him! Here's how he felt about it:

So this year we have a group of 6 moms, 6 preschoolers, and 5 babies at the church. We've decorated one small room all bright and preschool-like and so far both us and the kids are loving it! Josh tends to sit front and centre and eat up every bit of information he can. I absolutely LOVE this alternative to regular preschool (not that I have any beefs with regular preschool!)...and it's way less stressful than homeschooling the older grades. It's a perfect fit for where we're at right now as a family.

Their first day heading off together:

Well shortly thereafter, the moment Ellie had been anxiously longing for finally arrived:

she lost her first tooth!...

...and showed/told anyone and everyone who would listen. She kept asking, "So, will you be my tooth fairy tonight, Mommy?" and I told her "Yup! As long as I remember!"

And...I forgot.

She was very gracious.

The next night I remembered, and she bought a little toy pony with her prize money.  

At the same time as Ellie entered the world of losing teeth, Micah was hardcore in the world of growing teeth...so I thought.

Grumpy, miserable, and feverish for 5 days, I finally took him to the doctor!

 Only to find out that he actually had tonsillitis. Whoops! Sorry Micah!

He turned into a brand new kid the very next day.

Speaking of the next day, Josh woke up the next day with a fever...so I jumped right on it and brought him to the walk-in before it closed for the weekend. Strep throat for him! I don't think it affected him too badly, however, because we caught it so soon. Plus he's a super trooper when sick. More on this later.

Well, during this same week Ellie had her very first ever music lesson! We've enrolled her in a program called 'Music for Young Children' that's already blowing my mind - it's a genius program! And this time, I DO get to go with for the whole hour!
Our only problem that week was that we didn't have a proper keyboard at home for Ellie to practice on. Her and I prayed about it.

That evening on our local classifieds I found an ad for a used, upright (beautiful!) old piano...for a steal of a deal -the same price as a good keyboard! Rob and I prayed that if it was an unwise investment, God would slam the door in our faces (someone else would buy it, etc.).  But He didn't. The next evening our very musical friend Nyk came with us to see the piano, sat down to play and whispered, "Oh...I like it!"

And that settled that. Totally unexpectedly, we bought....

 Here's my main man, impersonating a...travelling serenader?

So anxious to see their new treasure!

 Love these kids. I wonder if they'll love music? I hope so. I've begun to play again in the evenings and it feels sooo good to stretch out my un-practiced fingers!

 Trying it out...there was no way there was turn-taking at first!

 I love this look on Ellie's face...like something inside her just came to life.

She really loves practicing...so far. :)

Well, the glory of that moment lasted about an hour.

While waiting for his turn at the piano, Josh (for whatever reason) decided to jump on/off the couch, slipped, and slammed face-first onto the corner of our coffee table. Blood pooled out of his mouth and nose as we ran to the kitchen sink, where it just GUSHED for a long time. When it slowed down a bit we were able to see that his lip was split open on the bottom, BIT open on the top (of the bottom lip), his teeth were pushed backwards, and his frenulum was ripped (might have to google that one). It was so nasty. My whole body ached as I saw the agony he was in.

Rob ran him over to the hospital (about a one and a half minute walk) while I waited for my mom to show up to watch the other two. By the time I got to the emergency room he was almost asleep on Rob's lap.

Then the evil doctors came!

Okay, they weren't entirely evil...but what they did was!

They wrapped Josh up in a sheet (smart move - he's a fighter) and sewed him up while I paced the hallways, praying. Praise Jesus for a tough husband, because boy did Josh scream! A nice man about my dad's age saw me and smiled a kind smile. "Is that your kid (screaming)?"

"First time we've had stitches," was my reply. He nodded, knowingly, and kindly kept me preoccupied with his stories until the doctors were done. They were quite pumped about 'how well it came together'. I was pumped that Josh wasn't being tortured anymore. 

After that, Josh was a complete trooper. We tried taking him to McDonalds for some ice-cream for supper, thinking it would feel good...but he couldn't eat it (the temperature was too extreme). So for the rest of the week Josh existed on pudding, yogourt, fruit purees, and oatmeal. But especially pudding. :)

He seldom complained...unless he got bumped in the mouth, in which case he'd often start to bleed again. Poor guy. What a mess. On Friday he got the stitches out by our (much friendlier) family doctor - didn't cry this time - and it's all healing nicely. His teeth are a bit crooked and higher up than they used to be, and we'll have to get them checked by a dentist, but his regular huge old Josh smile is back, which brings me so much joy!! 

(An added blessing in all this was that Josh was on antibiotics for his strep throat, so we didn't need to worry about infection setting in!)

When we got back from the hospital that night, Micah decided it was a good time to learn to walk.

All on his own. 

With no encouragement from anyone.

That makes him my fastest walker at 15 3/4 months. :)

All he does is practice, all day long, pointing to everything he sees and asking, "Uh Daaaaaaa?" (what's that?) in a sing song voice. Cute, until he says it while he pokes your glasses as hard as he can with a twinkle in his eye, knowing he's being BAD. And does it repeatedly.

He also decided, perhaps in lieu of Joshy's temporarily missing smile, to start seeing 'Eeeeee!' (for cheese) when I take a picture of him. A camera-loving mom's delight!

 Right after all this Rob's brother Tom came for an excellent visit (no photos of this uploaded yet)...and the night before he was to leave (which was last night) everyone started puking. 

Josh took the 11:30pm - 2:30am puke shift (was a total super trooper). Rob took the 12:00am till 12:30pm (this afternoon! poor guy) puke shift. And Ellie took the 2:45am-6:30am shift. I'm super thankful I went to bed at 10pm and got 1.5 hours of sleep in before it all began! The sickies all stayed on their respective couches all day long. Micah fussed and burped a lot. I'm hoping that was his version of the flu. Really really hoping! 

So that's all for now, and in closing, I will leave you with two pictures from less adventurous times that make me really happy to go through hills and valleys with these kids of mine. Here's Micah, finishing off the summer with a good, wholesome, mouthful of dirt:

And the other two, who...well, I'm not exactly sure what they were that day.

Except pretty great and wonderful.