So school ended three weeks ago and yesterday was my fifth day off. It seems like teaching gets fewer perks and more responsibility every year. With my position as Math Facilitator, I work an extra week after school is out and an extra week before the teachers come back in August in order to help get organized and be ready for the school year. I normally wouldn't complain about it (I do get paid for the days unlike when I was coaching!) but this year, I was sick on top of it. My last few weeks have been a little more stressful than usual.
The last day of classes was Friday May 31st. Michaela had complained the last week of not feeling well but being the last week of school I told her to go and she didn't want to stay home anyway. I felt fine all day Friday until late that evening when my throat started to feel funny. I ran a fever of 103 all weekend so I went to the doctor Sunday afternoon and found out I had strep so I stayed home Monday. Michaela stayed with me so I could make sure she didn't spike a fever too since she hadn't been feeling well but we both went to work/daycare on Tuesday. Wednesday night Jake had a fever so Ed stayed home with him on Thursday and Friday. Ed got sick too and didn't feel well all weekend with a stomach ache and low fever. Saturday morning, I had to go back to the doctor because the left side of my throat was getting worse and the glands in my neck were huge! They gave me a different antibiotic (I had to make about four phone calls and three trips to the pharmacy before I actually got them late Sunday!) and I left Monday morning for a conference in Hot Springs, AR. Sometime over the weekend, Michaela spent the night throwing up, I had a stomach ache on top of the strep, and when I got back to town on Wednesday night, Jake was throwing up. Somehow through all of our shared sickness, Joey was fine. We have also stayed busy as usual. Michaela got on the local swim team and has practice Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 3:00 to 3:30. Jake is in private lessons until he can swim well enough to be on the team. Her meets are Tuesday evenings. Next week, I have workshops Mon-Thurs 8:30 to 3:30, Jake is in a half-day soccer camp (9-12) and Michaela is all day (9-3). The first week of July will be my first week that I don't have to work any day during the week. Both big kids spent the day yesterday at church camp where they swam, did crafts, and learned about archery. Of course archery was their favorite! I had to cancel Jake's first swimming lesson and my housekeeper due to all the illness so the apartment was a mess and it certainly didn't help that I had spent several days in bed because I was too sick to get up. Hopefully this was no indication of how the rest of our summer will go!
Despite being sick the whole first weekend in June and missing work on Monday, I tried to clean up the house and then I went to the grocery store with Michaela because we were out of formula for Joey. She loves to play on my phone and I decided to take the opportunity to teach her a lesson about lying. Michaela has had a long history of telling lies. The seeds of dishonesty sprouted back before she could even put a full sentence together. When she was potty training, we would give her a piece of candy as a reward when she went to the potty. Pretty soon, she would run into the bathroom and flush the potty any time she wanted a piece of candy. She began to plan more devious schemes when she was in preK. She was the last one in her class to fill up her sticker chart to pick a prize from the treasure chest. In fact, some of the other students had filled theirs twice and she had five spaces left on hers. She had gotten several stickers in a two week time frame and we were very proud of her and told her how excited we were that she was minding her teacher in order to get the stickers. Then she had a "great idea". "Mommy, I can get my own stickers and put them on my star chart to fill it up. My teacher will say 'Now how did that happen?' and I will get my prize from the treasure chest!" We had to explain to her that while her idea was creative and a possible solution to her problem, it was cheating and cheating is not acceptable behavior. We knew at this point that we were in for trouble. Of course she told the usual lies that children tell, "I didn't hit my brother", "I don't know who ate the last cookie" (with crumbs all over her clothes), "The tv came on by itself", I'm sure you've heard these before. Then in Kindergarten, she started sneaking clothes to school so she could change after she was dropped off because she knew Mommy and Daddy wouldn't approve of what she wanted to wear. She was a teenager in a 5-year-old body. Anyway, I saw a parenting blog about a mom who decided to teach her son a lesson about lying. I wish I had thought of this years ago, I had to try it. I told Michaela she could play games on my phone in 5 minutes. She came to me a little later and said she knew that five minutes had passed because she had watched a whole TV show and could she play my phone now. I said, "No, I lied. You can't play on my phone now. But lets go to the grocery store." She was mad but she likes to go shopping so we left. She asked if she could play my phone on the way there. I told her no, but if she was good at the store, I would let her play on the way home. I had to remind her a couple of times in the store but she did pretty well. We got in the car to leave and she asked again if she could play because she had earned it. I said, "No, I lied. You can't play on my phone today." She was SO mad! I explained to her that this is how it feels to be lied to and she agreed that it was no fun. She cried so hard and it wasn't the screaming and wailing of perceived injustice (i.e. temper tantrum) but her heart was broken because I had lied to her. It was painful to listen to. When we got home, I sat her in my lap and explained to her how hurtful lies were. I asked her if I told her she could play my phone that night would she believe me. She said no and I pointed out how easily trust is broken by lying. I told her that I only lied to her to teach her a lesson. And it was a very small lesson. I promised her that I would not lie to her again unless she continued to lie and I had to teach her a bigger lesson. That evening, she started to lie and immediately changed her mind and told the truth (I was SO excited!). Since then, she has been MUCH more truthful and I am optimistic about being able to trust her. Even this morning, she told her brother she doesn't lie anymore because she doesn't want to have to learn another lesson and he shouldn't either. Score one (or ten!) for me.
I complain a lot about Michaela's behavior but she is super helpful too. She has SO much fun with baby Joey and is (usually) so good to him! She plays with him and fixes his bottle sometimes. He adores his big sister. He smiles and laughs when she walks by and holds his little arms out for her to pick him up. Joey is crazy about Jake too. He crawls after Jake and they make faces and funny noises at each other and laugh and laugh! It's too cute. I get mad at Jake though because he seems to have a weird obsession with putting his feet on the baby. Another frequent phrase I never thought would use, "Get your feet off of your baby brother!" I can't figure out what goes on in their crazy little heads. We call Jake and Michaela the bigs. Joey loves his bigs and loves to watch their craziness. I'm sure "bigs" will be one of his first words! He's getting close to words but mostly he just blows raspberries. We had to put a gate across the back of the living room to keep Joey from getting into the cat food, or litter, or falling down the stairs. Michaela likes to get him out of his crib in the morning and play with him. But then she gets involved in a tv show and forgets to watch the baby. Ed woke up to him banging on the bathroom floor in our room one morning so he got dressed and went to get the gate. Joey is growing so fast. If you say "yay!" Joey claps his hands and smiles. He can roll a tennis ball (though his aim is not very good) and he pulls up on stuff now so he is standing. Joey likes to play with cords and the remote controls for the tv and video games. Daddy is proud but gets very angry when his character accidentally jumps of a cliff because Joey grabbed the controller at an inopportune time. Baby's current favorite game is "Can I have that? Thank you." "You want it? You're welcome." We hand a toy back and forth. He gets mad if you try to end the game when he still wants to play and he screams at you and flaps his arms. Just another indication that he is one of the family.
I promised the crazies I would take them to the pool this afternoon so I was going to have to wrap up for now. Unfortunately for the children, they decided to throw a ball at each other just now so we are not going. Michaela threw it first and hit Jake in the back so Jake threw it at her and hit her in the face. She started crying and complaining that she only hit him in the back. She apparently didn't think it was fair that Jake had better aim. They have been working on getting along and playing nicely together and they have been better (with some obvious slip ups). We even made sticker charts for them to keep track of days that they don't hit or yell at each other and do their chores. We had to include a spot for bathing too, they were starting to stink and I had to cut an inch off of Michaela's hair because she wouldn't wash and comb it. I don't understand why I would have to bribe my children to take a bath. We are going to try to make brownies later. I'm supposed to have the bigs practice working together so Jake will hold the bowl while Michaela cracks the eggs and adds the oil. Then Michaela will hold the bowl while Jake pours in the mix and stirs. If they can get through this without brownie mix all over the kitchen it will be a miracle. I just don't want to have to fight them to take a bath after the chocolate fight that Michaela swears she didn't start...wish me luck!
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