I never wish for my kids to get sick.

But, I must say, that when a fever keeps my darling girl in her bed for the past 2 nights…I can't help but feel thankful.

Despite the fever, she is doing quite well. 

———-

For whatever reason this morning I decided to let E sit on the kitchen island countertop while watching a Thomas video and eating cereal.

He helped me make some french toast (since he was already sitting on the counter it was kind of hard to say no). He likes to say, "I be your helper", which makes it incredibly hard to resist his help.

I promised him a special treat if he kept a dry pull-up all day long at school.

He totally understands this concept. He did, indeed, stay dry and I couldn't get him his special treat fast enough after school.

I had to tend to X first who had a 102 degree fever at the time…when I came back into the kitchen he was sitting in front of the pantry saying, "I ready for special treat".

Hence, the candy.

——–

On another thankfulness note….

I lost my wedding ring at the Lifetime outdoor pool last night (I took it off to put sunscreen on the kids). I was totally panicing as I raced back to look for it.

Amazingly, someone turned it in. God bless that person.

We got back yesterday from a few days in our old hometown – Houston.

We stayed with our friends (and former next-door neighbors) Tom & Natalie. (Thanks for putting up with our madness for 3 days!)

It's been a while since we've taken a road trip….the kids did terrific though. E even went the entire way with a dry pull-up, telling me everytime he needed to use the potty (and then actually using the public restrooms with no problem!)

[E sharing X's earbuds and listening to her iPod on the drive there]

We didn't have a lot of success getting E to sleep that night though. They had a great toddler bed set up in our room for him but sadly, he is way too attached to his crib. He didn't know what to do with himself being able to get out of the bed. I think he only slept about 6-7 hours that first night.

We went to our old church, New Hope, Sunday morning. It was awesome…..we really miss that place.

After church we visited some other friends (and former neighbors) for lunch. I left with E after a short while so I could attempt to get him down for a nap at Tom & Natalie's house. It took an hour and me constantly playing Bella's Lullaby over and over on my phone but he finally fell asleep in the toddler bed. (I found it humurously ironic that I had to play Bella's Lullaby to get Edward to sleep but it was the only song I had on my phone that didn't have words!)

While E slept I got to visit with my friend Francie (whom Ry and I lived with while waiting for our house to be built here in SA).

Tom & Natalie were planning to take Natalie's cousin out to dinner that night. We said we'd come along depending if Ry could eat there and if E slept long enought to make it through a dinner.

Once they told us Maggiano's….we told them we were in – no question about it!

So there we were again – enjoying some great wine and gluten free beer.

[The Aloia family + Mel (whose birthday we were celebrating)]

E did pretty well with his first Maggaino's experience. Luckily, I had
Skittles in my purse so I was able to keep him calm while we waited
till almost 8:30pm to eat.

We went to use the potty during the dinner and I commented about one door saying "Gentleman" and the other "Ladies". For the rest of the night he kept saying, "I need to go Gentleman's room". (And, NO – I didn't take him into the Gentleman's room….he just knew he wasn't a Lady)

Monday morning we got up and went to the Fire Academy (for both Ryan and the kids enjoyment).

Ryan chatted with Brian (one of his business partners) as we went around to see all the cool things around the Academy.

Such as these train cars turned into classrooms.

And this city bus on its side.

We spent some time looking at the "Training Simulator" but the kids were way bored with that so Brian agreed to give them a ride in a fire truck.

E talks a good talk ("I want to ride on a Fire Truck") but when the time came the loud engine had him too scared. I drug him into the front seat kicking and screaming knowing he would enjoy it once we were moving. And he did. (But I had the camera and him on my lap….so no pictures to prove it.)

The girls enjoyed it.

After we left the Academy we stopped by my old Walgreens on Blackhawk to see Kaylie who was my staff pharmacist when I worked there.

Kaylie, who'd never met the kids, quickly called X out for not obeying her parents and coming out of her room (Kaylie reads the blog). It was awesome because X couldn't believe someone she never met before could know about it. She was a bit embarrassed…in a good way!  (Thanks Kaylie….I miss you!)

While E napped the rest of the afternoon the older kids went swimming in their backyard pool.

I love how this one looks like the dog pushed X in.

Matteo and Allie tried to teach X how to dive.

It pretty much ended up like this every time.

Natalie stepped in to teach her.

And before long she had it down.

After all that work it was time to be silly again.

These two were so cute all weekend. It was great to see that maturity has actually made them closer friends than just occasional playmates.

Monday night we met up with Angela and Brian for dinner at Outback.

I could get used to taking these kind of pictures.

After dinner Brian and E had a bit too much fun together and E ended up throwing up his dinner (on Angela's brand new hard wood floor missing her new rug by a centimeter).

We didnt' get to stay long and visit since they were headed out to Portland, OR for vacation the following morning. 

Tuesday morning we headed to the Kema Boardwalk. First stop, however, Starbucks. (I love this picture of X!)

We ate lunch at one of my favorite Houston restaurants, The Aquarium. They have something crazy like 50,000 gallons of water full of fish, sharks, sting ray – you name it – swimming around you while you eat. The kids loved it.

I could not get E to pose for a picture with everyone to save my life.

After Kema we settled in for the 4 hour ride home, which went quite well (mulitple potty stops and all).

I decided to use many of these pictures the next time X says she
doesn't get to do anything fun….Maybe I'll just hang them in her room
now as a reminder……

Saturday was our day to host our Small Group's playdate.

We started at 10:30am so we could enjoy some outside fun before the ridiculous afternoon heat.

We borrowed our neighbor's water slide, which Ryan felt needed the enhancement of bath bubbles.

It made the slide down super slick.

And the landing pool very suds-y.

My kids loved playing in it so much that we decided we didn't need to bathe them the rest of the day.

We also had a kiddy pool set up for the little ones.

Let me just say how cute these two boys are together. They get along and play so great with one another…..sometimes we catch them looking as thick as thieves though!

[I do believe they were having E's trains take the plunge into ice cold water when they were caught here]

AND E has caved to the peer pressure of using the potty thanks to having a slightly older friend. He says, "I need wear Bob the Builder Big Boy underwear like Roland".

Love it! 

X is really looking forward to some potential older kid additions to our small group. Currently she's the oldest by 4 years. Some of our friends will be (God-willing) adopting 3 kids (ages 7, 4 & 2) very soon. (And-if it couldn't get more perferct-the 7 yo is a girl and the 2 yo is a boy!)

Let's start with the good news.

She stayed in her room last night with no tantrums.

Mainly because her room was stripped of everything but the furniture, a pillow, sheets, and a bible…..she had nothing to do besides sleep.

And when I say everything I mean all clothes, curtains, and light bulbs.

But (the bad news) it was a really bad 4 days getting to last night.

Even after receiving a promise it would never happen again  and this aplogy letter on Wednesday morning:

She still did it all over again Wednesday night.

And worse.

We had lots of long discussions yesterday about the situation. She admitted at one point that she figures if she annoys us enough – we will get frustrated enough to let her out of her room.

I told her that we would never get that frustrated….and if one of us couldn't take it anymore then the other could take over. (Kara has kindly volunteered to take over if both us lose our minds.)

I doubt we're done for good but I am praying that we are moving forward.

The worst part for me is that I have to deal with 2.5 hours of drama and then go to work for 10 hours by myself where I can think about it. 10 hours of silent angry thoughts are enough to drive anyone crazy.

And then I come home and deal with the discussions all over again.

Then I try to sleep and I dream about it.

And wake up again with 2 precious hours of her acting like Mommy's little princess (all the while plotting in her head how she can hurt me with her words.)

Then 7pm comes and we start all back over.

Like I said, hell.

that a child so reserved and lovely could scream the way she can.

All because she has to be in her bedroom at 7pm. Not because she has to go to sleep….she can read, color, listen to music, play with dolls-whatever, just not come out.

Instead of doing anything rational she again decided last night to scream about how we lie to her/how its not fair/how she wants to live somewhere else/how E gets to be a normal kid and she doesn't (which makes absolutely no sense to me because he too was in bed already trying to sleep when the screaming started).

The screaming/tantrum was so unbelievable that we decided to record it.

We let it go on for about 10 minutes before she beat on her door so hard that it: 1) woke E up 2) broke the X off of her door 3) made my blood boil.

We talked for 1.5 hours with her about a lot of stuff. In the end she said she'd still be happier anywhere else than with us. She claimed she no longer wanted to be a Newcom.

I know she doesn't know what she's saying but it still hurts.

After I left for work at 9:30pm she decided to come out of her room. Ryan chose to play the audio of her screaming back to her.

She asked, "Is that E?"

"Um, no sweetheart – that is YOU!"

Fast forward to tonight….

We told her there was just 2 simple rules: no tantrums, no getting out of your bed.

*Let me note here that she has only been averaging around 7 hours of sleep a night because of her antics.

Clearly she is exhausted and can't make a good decision to save her life. She needs to sleep tonight.

AND….so far, no tantrums and no sight of her outside her room.

I'd like to think that hearing the ridiculousness of her own screaming has made her rethink a tantrum.

And in true sibling fashion….when one is bad the other is an angel! 

Mommy & X day.

She stayed in her room, obeyed all the rules written out in her "contract", and didn't scream once. While she did stay up till nearly 10pm….the entire time was spent at her desk working on 2nd Grade workbooks. (We know this because she was allowed to have her door open as long as she was working at her desk).

When she came into our room around 8am she beemed, "It's Mommy & X day!"

So we are off to see Ice Age 3, shop at Target, and eat lunch.

Super.

Today E and I went to Sea World.

We saw 3 shows and swam in the lazy river for over an hour. He loved the lazy river because, with a life vest on, the current moves him along as though he's swimming.

It was nice to have some 1-on-1 time with him….but no so nice as to why I had 1-on-1 time.

Basically….the honeymoon is over.

X's behavior hit an all time low last night.

It's been detiorating all week (lots of lies, disrespect, and tantrums) and she had earned herself a 7pm bedtime for the rest of summer.

And while she perks back up and makes reasonable choices during the day once 7pm hits – all hell breaks loose.

Last night she screamed ("I'm being murdered in here" type of screaming) as soon as the door closed. She screamed things like, "Why are you doing this to me" and "You don't love me". All things I can generally take from a child who is being punished.

Then she said, "I wish I was back in Foster Care – I hate it here".

And that's when we knew….oh yeah, honeymoon period is definitely over.

The screaming along with constantly coming out of her room and pounding on the walls earned her a one-way ticket to her desk to do Math while E & I went to Sea World. (And yes, she did know that was the consequence before she went to bed last night)

The good news is that her Math has improved dramatically this week.

So for tonight we wrote up a contract. She told us what she wanted to do tomorrow (go see Ice Age 3 and shopping) and we told her what she had to do to earn it. Very simply: stay in your room and don't scream.

It's been about 25 minutes since I left her room and so far….no screaming!!

If you're reading this on Thursday night – please pray for her strength and self control.

And that I don't loose my mind.