June

It's been longer than I'd like but I've been drowning in school work for this summer semester.  Matt's been growing lots of plants and taking good care of the kids.  Jane's been going to a weekly drawing class.  She hasn't loved it, but finally enjoyed the last class so hopefully she'll start to like it.  She'd just rather draw her own ideas I think.  Jack finished Coach Pitch baseball and had fun with that.  Jack and Hank took swimming lessons and really improved.  Jack can swim across the width of the pool, although it's quite inefficient.  He can even jump off the diving board and get himself to the side.  He swims in a way that looks exactly like drowning so I'm pretty much always panicked.  Pete is increasingly fully of anxiety.  Everything scares him--mostly noises.  Things go better if I just accept that I will be 100% on Pete duty any time I'm around him.  This only works out, though, when he's willing to be with me and not Matt.  Pete is very particular about who is taking care of him.  It is cute to see Pete get excited when we are both home though.   When I get him out of bed he usually says, "Daddy work" and Matt said he does the same with him when I'm at work.  But every now and then we are both home and after he comes downstairs and sees that he gets so excited.  He'll usually announce it over and over again to the person who got him out of bed.   He just points and exclaims, "Mommy!" over and over again, making Matt acknowledge the exciting situation each time.

Hank, at 4, is still cracking us up consistently.  He needed to go to the bathroom and I asked, "Did you pee your pants?" He said, "I don't know!  Let's see.  It's a mystery!"

Hank told me that he is concerned that when we are sleeping people come in our house, eat our food, and put it back.  He said, "That's what my brain says to me."  I had no idea what he was talking about but then later as he ate tortilla chips he picked up a broken one and said, "See?  Someone took a bite."

I let the kids get a sucker at the store the other day.  The kind that are the really big ball-shaped lollipops with all the fun flavors.  Hank was so happy.  After tasting it he said, "I want this to be in my mouth forever."

I was leaving to do school work and Hank asked where I was going.  I told him I was going to do school.  He asked what school was and we talked about the world of higher education.  He asked when school would be over and I told him I'd be done before Christmas.  He asked when Christmas is and I walked him through all the months and seasons and holidays that would pass before Christmas.  Then I started to walk out the door and I heard Hank explain to Jane, "Mom won't be back until Christmas."  I stayed and re-explained. 

Hank, and all my kids, don't really care for frozen corn but do like  corn-on-the-cob.  Hank always explains that he wants his corn "built-up".  So when he saw I bought corn-on-the-cob last week he was so excited.  He asked multiple times a day if we would be having the corn then.  It just worked out that we didn't have dinner together at home for a few days.  One of the days he asked me to make it, he said sweetly, "Mom, you can make corn-on-the-cob really fast, can't you?  For your best buddy?"  The sad thing is that after I made the corn-on-the-cob I realized that Hank couldn't eat it because of his recently-fixed front tooth, Jack couldn't eat it because he's missing his front teeth, and Jane said it hurt her teeth.  So I ended up cutting it all off the cob any way.

I was telling Hank how much I loved him and our family more than anything else in the world.  He said he loved his family, too, and that thing we eat with the beans.  That came out of nowhere, plus he doesn't speak super clearly, so it took several minutes to figure out he meant chili.  We haven't had it in months and I didn't even know he liked it that much.  But apparently it ranks up there with his family.  So about a week later I asked the fam what I should make for dinner that day and Hank yelled, "What's that thing with the beans?"  So we had chili and Hank was thrilled.

We had a package at our door and Hank brought it in.  He said, excitedly at first, "I hope it's a real live dog!  ...But I guess it's not because it's not going woof woof."

One night Hank explained, "When you die, only your head goes to heaven.  And you can ROOOOLLLL.  Like BB8."

Hank learned how to add beginning s-sounds on s-blend words.  The problem is that he's been overgeneralizing.  So we get a lot of, "I want spasta."  

Hank heard a police car siren and said, "It's the police!  They'll think we are robbers in human costumes!"

Hank also reasoned with Matt, "If it's bath day and you don't give me a bath the polices don't know."

I announced to the kids that I was going to make cookies and they were pretty excited.  Hank ran into the kitchen wanting to help.  I started getting out the ingredients but then realized we didn't have any sugar.  I got out the step ladder and told the kids to cross their fingers I'd find sugar on the top shelf.  Hank was working very hard at it and then asked, "How do you cross your fingers?!"

Matt and Hank were reading a book and in the book people sat on a mat.  Hank said, "That's a mat, and Matt is a human."  And then he started cracking up.

Hank was trying to play but his hair was in the way.  Matt offered to put a hat on him.  Hank said, "Well...I want a man-bun."  Matt said, "I'm just not good at man-buns."

Hank said to Matt, Jane and Jack, "You guys are smart.  I'm not smart.  I don't even know Spanish."

Hank said, "Dad, I am scared in the kitchen and the family room."  Matt said, "Yeah?"  Hank said, "Yeah, I am scared something will eat that is not even real."

Matt was driving and Hank told Matt to go faster.  Matt asked if he wanted him to go so fast that they'd crash.  Hank said yes.  After a minute Hank said, "Dad, that was really fast, did you crash?"

Hank said, "Dad only my yegs(legs)  and dis(pointing to his chest) think Captain Phasma is a bad fighter.  But my brain thinks Captain Phasma is a good fighter.  Is that weird?"

One day Hank told Matt, "Dad I don't want to be a superhero I just want to be a kid."

Matt or I lay on the floor next to Hank's and Jack's bunk beds each night until they fall asleep.  We usually just play on our phones.  I always know it's time to go when I hear a little thud from a toy dropping onto the floor after falling from Hank's now-asleep hand.  

For months I've been wearing glasses as I didn't get new contacts after my last eye appointment.  Pete does not like to see me without them.  If I take them off he gets very uncomfortable and whiney and won't quite look at me until I put them back on.  

Pete calls Grover, "Blue Elmo" or, as Pete says it, "Byoo Melmo."

When we go into Pete's room to get him from his crib, and turn on the light, he screams, "Eyes! Eyes!" He likes to let his eyes adjust slowly.

Pete has a bad habit of "W-sitting" and working with children with special needs I am familiar with the potential concerns of it affecting the muscular development and motor skill development.  I usually try to get him in a new position if he's W-sitting.  But he's become so familiar with it that now I only have to say, "Pete, don't W sit" and he'll sit in a better position.  One day he was sitting normally and I patted his back.  He said to himself, "W sit" and still changed positions.  

Jack often talks about how he doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up.  He seems to be quite concerned about it, despite my efforts to explain most people don't decide until they are much, much older.  I wrote about how he was considering something with plants, because of doing those things with Matt.  Then, when I went out with Jack on a little date, we talked about what I do at work.  I told him about how I help kids learn how to talk if they haven't learned it yet and gave an example of one client who has learned to communicate with an ipad.  He thought that was pretty cool and then said, "What if I do what you do when I grown up?"  Sometimes the kids find some of my work toys, too, which has given Jack the impression that it must be a fun job because who wouldn't want to play with light-up balls and balloons all day?

Jack got a bad cold a couple months ago.  He carried around a roll of toilet paper and a plastic sack everywhere he went.  And he was very pleased with his set-up.  He also loved throwing his full sacks out in the big trashcan outside.  He likes to pick up and throw stuff away, especially when he is getting paid with "marbles" (have I talked about our marble system where the kids earn marbles and turn them in for toys and stuff?).  Anyway, he helped me clean out the cars one day.  He was pretty excited to be earning marbles.  He told me, "This is like my job!"

Jack turned 7 on June 12.  He got to have a pool party at Sharon's.  He loved it.  What he wanted most from us was Star Wars Monopoly and plants.  He got both.  

Hank with his man-bun that his aunts helped him with.

Jane's still life drawing from her class.

Jack at his end-of-year dance festival.