Birdie Berries Bursting Bonanaza

July didn’t end on a great note, but I’m hopeful that August will trend in a more positive manner. In a nutshell, these are the highlights of this past week:

G

• He backslid on his potty training a bit, and had more poopy underwear than he has had in a few months. Now that we know WHY that happens, we are able to work on preventing that...and we had success last night! I’m hopeful that today is a good day for his underwear. Oh, and G, too.
• He’s been doing really well at daycare being nice to all of his pals..but this week he told me he hated me, so he and Puppy had a nice long break from each other. I really am the mean mom when I’ve asked him five times to go to the bathroom and get dressed in the morning. Totally worthy of the hatred...sigh...
• He had a nosebleed last night (this is becoming a common occurrence...sorry, little guy, you got that from me) so he’s now learning how to deal with that annoyance. Although, when he had a major freak out, and came running out of his room with blood all over the lower half of the face, Ava came out of her room, too, due to all of the noise. I will never forget the look of horror on her face when she saw her little brother with blood everywhere on his face. She quickly turned around and went back into her bedroom.
• He has had his bag packed for our vacation since last weekend...he is so excited to go up north!

Ava

• She found out who her teacher is for fifth grade and she is SO excited. She got the teacher that she wanted! This is a prelim placement, so I’m hoping it doesn’t change. Hooray!
• She’s been on her kindle way more than she should be, so we made her turn it over to us yesterday morning...and the result was a great day of decluttering her room (that was her idea, not mine), time spent playing with her little brother, and also playing with neighborhood friends. THAT is how we want her to be spending her days...much better than totally immersed in Roblox or Minecraft. Although, she just told us that she doesn’t like Fortnite because of the violence...and I support her in that!
• I can’t believe she’s down to the last month of her final Summer Power attendance...pretty soon she’ll be able to be at home alone for the entire day, on her own!

Lucky

• She sleeps all day and night. Sometimes she has bursts of energy to play. And then she sleeps again. That is all.

Sometimes she doesn't even sleep in her bed...just in the nearby proximity of it...

Scott

• He’s been working his butt off, as usual. He’s trying to continue working through the mess from his uncle passing away. The boat title has been transferred into Scott’s name, but we were pretty disappointed to see that his uncle didn’t take care of his brand new boat. We’re going to try to take it out next weekend and make sure that it’s still in working order. G has been so happy to play on it while it’s been parked (do you park a boat when it’s on dry land?) in our garage.
• I'm hoping that he'll take some time to chill out on vacay a bit...he's had a pretty rough past month.

Me

• I’ve also been working my butt off, but mine has been at work, to the point where it feels like our personal lives are clearly coming in last place. That’s going to change shortly, as my priorities are going to adjust, for the better. I cannot wait to go on vacation so we can get away from everything, and relax for a minute.
• I have been enthralled by the birds that we have had this year. There is a robins nest in our dwarf lilac tree, and I would check on them each day. They must be used to my face peering at them through the branches, as one of the youngsters came to visit me while I was working at home on Wednesday. He knew I was there, and had no fear! He also spit up several berries on my porch as a parting gift. Ummmm....thanks?

It looks like a mostly nice, sunny day, with some light rain showers later in the day. Seems like a good day to enjoy the family!