Hello again.

Wow, we have been monumentally busy!

Last week, Mike was home with a back ache for all but 2 days of the week. The boys really liked having him home, even if they couldn't "play rough" the way they like to do. And Jockey got to have sufficient naps because Daddy was here during the pick up or drop off of Caleb so Joshy could continue his naps even while getting Caleb. Therefore, the experiment for the best Jockey nap schedule begins today... and I'm crossing my fingers.

Last week I worked a bit... And thanks to my "work" we got a free pizza on Tues. Nice!

It was my first official Parent's Night last week too. That was interesting and I got all the pertinent information, but I was saddened that Caleb might miss his first field trip due to our vacation. And I was hoping for a better parent networking system, maybe that comes later. All in all, I'm very happy with the choice of school, and I can't wait for next fall when Jockey actually gets to stay as he soooooo wants to do right now.

Last Thursday, I took Caleb to the Cascade Community church and got him signed up for Awana. We switched churches to which he will attend Awana at; the Cascade church is bigger and I hope will have more chances for friends for him. Plus, when we attend on Sundays, I hope that some of the same kids in Awana will be in his Sunday school classes. Caleb was really excited for Awana. Joshy was very upset when he discovered we were leaving Caleb and he, himself, did not get to stay. Jockey threw a public fit to include sitting in the middle of the hallway arms crossed wagging his little finger saying NO when I said let's go.

Officially, Jockey has learned how to say "I'm mad", and he says that when we tell him no (fill in action.... hitting, biting (a recent big thing), kicking, or when we take away things that he shouldn't have. The only thing that brightened Jockey's mood when we were at Awana, is taking him to the park for some one-on-one time. He seemed to like that, but he also started a fit when it was time to leave the park. Hey, he's two! And he and I are locked in a power struggle. I know that I have to reign him in now, but when he is bigger than me and 17 yrs old, I need to have the respect and obedience. He is so strong willed!

We also trekked up to the Everett Children's Museum last week. It was Free Friday. So we got in right at 3pm the whole family for free, otherwise it would have been about $30! The funny thing is that Jockey at two was enraptured with the same display that captured Caleb's attention at two... of course, it involved Balls... what else! The plane display has gotten Caleb's focus on seeing Grandma and Papa Bishop. He mentions it everyday now. I tell him to put his clothes on for the day and he asks why, are we going to see Papa Bishop? Sigh, 16 days buddy. The Children's Museum was a lot of chasing the kids around as they explored. We were fortunate that the weather was decent and they opened up the roof-top exhibits. That was huge. It had an amazing climbing structure, parts of it were 50 feet in the air. We stayed a hour and a half and we still didn't see everything. We wanted to get out of Everett before the trestle got thick with traffic. I can't wait for the next free Friday!

Saturday and Sunday were Mike's football watching days. It is funny to see Caleb cheering right along with Mike for their team. Mike has to tell Caleb who to root for, and then Caleb taunts right along with Daddy. Joshy's just in it for the football watching snacks... Sports candy (aka Carrots with ranch dip) and chips.

This week has also started out busy. The boys went to Grammy and Papa Dahl's house yesterday for a visit. And that usually means I get to relax or get to overdue chores... not this time. I spent over 4 hours in a Babies'r'us helping a friend navigate the finer points of selecting all new baby gear. A long day... followed by grocery shopping. This is finally my first time to sit down and write anything, and I still have chores I should be doing.

Kudos for the Boys:
Caleb can dress himself. And usually he does so 3-4 times a day each time with a differnt outfit. I guess that would explain why one of the big chores waiting for me is laundry. He comes up with some reason to change clothes, tags itch, something is wet, etc. I'm just happy that he is doing it himself, although I do have to ask and check to see if he remembered underwear. He is showing signs of wanting to read. He is doing remarkable at learning the spanish words I'm teaching him. He doesn't remember all of the words, but when he does say them his pronuciation is surprisingly good. Better than some of his English. Caleb is getting a stronger appetite too. Caleb is learning more and more responsibilties. Picking up his toys is a BIG one. He and Jockey are really into forts and that means all of the blankets and pillows get dragged out frequently. Caleb is doing great so far in school.

Jockey is shower obsessed. He says "sha-wee". It's cute. And he says "I'm cute". And he is praying over owies etc more often. He is good at saying sorry, coke (unfortunately), hungry and several other things. Yesterday, he recognized Grammy's house and said Grammy, which is great because it has been over two months since he has been there. Jockey is doing well at potty training, still mostly for Daddy. With me he wants to be in control and say no. Jockey has been out on his tricycle, and almost went into a ditch (controlled and guarded by Daddy) but that taught him how to steer really fast. Now it is getting him to steer in the direction that the rest of us want to walk. He is still fearful of spiders. I really should take a hose to the front of the house because if he sees them through the windows, he won't eat at the kitchen table.

Both boys are really cuddly lately, and Jockey his having separation anxiety. Sigh. That's alot of work and tears. We'll get through it.
That's all for now folks.

And Fall begins...

Wednesday was "Jitters Day". Caleb was really excited about preschool starting. I was afraid that he would be resistent and a grouch to try to get into the building. However, he was very interested and excited. He saw his new room, his own cubby for papers, met his teacher (Miss Cheryl) and tried a few of the activities that they had out to play with. Caleb went right into a bead and color/pattern matching exercise. I didn't expect it to be a drop-off day, but it was. I had to drag Jockey out of the school, he really really wants to go to school (or at least be part of what Caleb is doing.)

Thursday was the official "First day". Caleb was a little sad that he didn't have a best friend. He first told me that he didn't need anymore friend because he had Tessa, Donovyn and Gavin. But when he counted on his fingers and only counted three, he got sad and said that that was ALL he had. Then he couldn't remember any of the names of the boys at school and therefore they weren't his friends. Except he could remember "the boy with the striped shirt" showed him how to puff his cheeks up with air and then punch his cheeks flat and make a spitting/zorbitz type noise. I did ask if the teacher asked him to stop, yes, and did he stop, yes. Which is good, so I had to kudos him for listening and obeying the teacher. I worry that he is the "trouble maker" of the class, but I guess he could have done something worse, and he could have disobeyed... Caleb couldn't remember anything else about the day, other than they had Goldfish crackers for snack and he told the teacher that they didn't have food coloring. "See I told you", was what he said with his pattened, dramatic lip curl.

Because of the school schedule, I'm going to have to experiment with Caleb taking or not taking naps, and what times Josh should take his naps. It will take a few weeks to try the different combinations and get it right. I do have to get it straight because Joshy fell asleep in the grocery cart seat at 12:45pm when I was trying to get a quick trip in during Caleb's Jitter's Day.

Today, Caleb and Mike went on a hike in Lord's Hill park. 7 miles later... Caleb was zonked and fell asleep before noon! Mike said he was very talkative with the strangers on the path, which is very unusual for him I hope that going to school brings him out of his shell a bit.

Good News: Joshy is really improving on his potty training. He gets really excited and says "I did" x2, and then does his little celebratory pony dance. And my little gem still only has success for Daddy! But he is having more often and more types of success than ever!

On the other hand, Joshy is in the huge phase of "separation anxiety". He doesn't want to sleep in his room anymore. He screams for long periods of time. Last night, I said uncle at 18 minutes. A couple nights before he screamed every hour on the hour. He said he was afraid, it turned out to be a crane fly buzzing around.

Which reminds me... Joshy has an honest to goodness fear of Spiders. It started with Caleb taunting him saying that the dining room light was a spider coming to get him. From that moment on, Joshy is terrified. He keeps running inside saying something that I misunderstood as "bye" which I thought was bite, really it is "spi" "spi". He really is scared. He saw a spider in a web on the outside of the window in the kitchen. I tried to pick him up and show him that it was on the outside and he cried in terror and tried to squirm away. So I got rid of it, but it took him 2 days to finally eat in the kitchen again! I try to tell him he doesn't need to be afraid. And as Caleb tried to tell Papa Bill on Monday, God is with us in our heart and doesn't want us to be afraid and God protects us and takes the spiders away. He still is upset with them, which is one animal we had to avoid at the Zoo. We ran out of time at the Zoo anyway, but it was something making me nervous about facing Joshy's fear with him.

The boys are enjoying their jumpy house near daily. I feel like a good parent when they get to play in something so great at the jumpy house, and I know that they will have years more of fun to come bouncing to their hearts delight.

We are trying to make the most of the rest of summer. Walks, hikes, swingset playing, parks, fair, zoo, bouncy house etc. I'm even hoping to get out in the trailer at least once more. We'll see.

Happy weekend.

We went to the ZOO today!!!!!!!!!

We are all very tired after a very fun day, we were there at 9:30 and weren't leaving in the car until 3:45pm!!!

It started out rainy, pouring really pouring. However, we visited a few exhibits and a very neat visit to the ZOOmasium which was indoors. The kids had a great time exploring the climb-on features: boulders, slides, and a "tree". They got out a lot of extra raw energy, and when I peeked outside, it had stopped raining. So we came out of "hibernation" and went off and running. We were lucky to catch the historic carousel during it's open hours (in the past it's been closed for various reasons). Of course, the boys really like it. Tessa is a obvious pony lover. Then it was off to the rest of the exhibits. The highlights were the Grizzly bears, one of bears brushed up against the glass directly in front of the kids. They were literally inches from the bear! Amazing. Also, the Slow Laris was a neat animal because it came right up to the glass and matched up our hands with his. He really took interest in us, and we of course, were even more intrigued.

Jockey obviously was drenched in fun, and he had the wet and filthy pants to prove it. During lunch I had to take them in and dry them via the hand dryer so that they were even tolerable to wear. Though his pants were damp his spirits were in no way dampened. It was so nice to see the cousins play and really discover the animals and the neat animals and information together. Their enthusiam to share and make sure that the other cousin saw something they found interesting was heart-warming.

I'm so tired, I can't even type the rest of the details, I'll just try to post some pictures and let them fill in the thousand words....

Yes, the bear got even CLOSER than the next picture......

So that is our Zoo-tale.

Tomorrow is Caleb's "Jitter's day", a short orientation to prepare for his first day of Pre-K school on Thursday.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA BISHOP!!!!!!!!!

Since so many people have been asking here is the Zuma Update:


She had gotten the splint/cast off: Obviously the foot on the right is the injured foot.
A close up of the foot.
Excessive redness and extremely swollen and lumpy, I don't know if this will go away or if this is how it will always be from now on.
Scabbing, I have hope that this will heal.
The foot on the Right is the injured foot. The incision was made on the inside of her foot. It is extremely swollen, lumpy etc.


Her foot is really bothering her.

The report from the doctor is that they are happy with the way that it is healing. But FOUR more weeks of inactivity ... that means CRATE ISOLATION. She's been HATING the crate. She desperately feels lonely, she cries and paws at the door anytime we leave the room. Her personality is really being affected by the isolation. She is depressed. Being sedated and placed in "Stress x-rays" again caused Zuma a huge amount of pain. For 3 days her leg quivered in pain and she wouldn't put it down on the floor and she didn't want to move out of the crate. As soon as the pain eases a bit she'll be back to hating the crate again and we will be heavily sedating her, of course.


We have to go in again for a check up in 4 weeks where they will once again sedate her and do the "stress xrays" and bend her foot in all sorts of directions to assure that the surgery is holding everything together. Remember, all of her tendons were torn away and all the tarsals (toes) dislocated, and that means that after all the cartilage was stripped out, the joint was fused, then two screws were put in and a figure-8 wire (called a collateral ligament) was put in and that is all that is supporting her foot. It is really important that it heals correctly because otherwise she won't have use of her foot.

Zuma has a long road of recovery. After the next check up, if she is approved for activity, they will be prescribing an activity regiment/routine to theraputically get her back into shape. She has had drastic muscle loss, in her thigh it is most noticeable, but it is all the way down the leg. See picture.


I have to have hope that Zuma will eventually be restored physically and emotionally to her pre-injury condition.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the relationships in the family. Don Small (and the Small family) have completely refused to respond to our many attempts to communicate with them. We have emailed multiple times and Mike has called, they have not responded at all to our attempts to resolve this matter regarding Zuma's care/costs AND the family relationships. It deeply saddens (and confuses) me why they would choose not to be part of the family and choose not to respond to our efforts to resolve this situation. I feel disappointment and a sense of loss of the treasured relationships with them because of what their apparent choice is. I don't understand. I thought family was more than this. Especially Christian family.

At least Zuma's prognosis is optimistic, even if now if VERY unpleasant for her to live through.

This last week was full of running around.

Monday, Caleb finally got to see his BFF Donovyn. He was so excited that he wanted to sleep in his clothes the night before so that he would be ready in the morning to get going fast. We met at the park and it was a beautiful sunny day. The boys ran and ran and had lots of pretend play, hiding from aliens etc. It was so great to see Caleb have a good time. I had been afraid to take him to the park because he would look for a new best friend every time and was crushed and sad when he couldn't find one... But this was great because I knew and he knew his friend was going to be there! Joshy had a wonderful time too. He did his best at keeping up. He is learning the ladders, give him 2 months and I'm sure that nothing will stop him! And once he can do it all by himself, I will finally be able to sit on a park bench and watch the fun rather than being just as active as the kids and have to help with every effort of climbing, sliding, swinging etc. But I suppose I should just enjoy being needed and the "slow" pace they are at now, because later they will be such daredevils I'll be worried.

Tuesday, we had the patience testing 2-year old picture taking session. I think the age of 2 is the hardest to photograph because they don't want to hold still and they want to say NO to everything. But I think we ended up with just a couple, which is really all we need anyways. I even did my due dilligence and took the boys to the kids play area at the mall to work the wiggles out. They really played nice with the other kids, Joshy of course wanted to be like big brother and jump off of everything. They might have gotten the wiggles out, but they certainly also got tired... not so great for the cooperation aspect of pictures. But we survived.

Cousin Tessa came out to our house on Wednesday with Grammy and Papa Dahl. Caleb was really excited. The kids played in the bouncy house and on the swing set the majority of the time. Tessa also got to hunt for raspberries on our bush, a favorite past time of my little guys. And yes, the raspberry season is still going strong for our small patch of bushes. It was great to see the kids have such a great time playing with each other.

Thursday and Friday Mommy worked. Thursday Joshy went with mommy to work, Friday both boys stayed with Mike. Then Mike took off for the weekend. Saturday, the boys and I went to surprise GG at her house for an afternoon walk. The day had turned out nice and sunny and just cool enough to make the walk pleasant. Joshy and Caleb were very happy to see GG, Caleb talked all the way down to her house that he didn't want a hug but instead wanted to hold her hand and walk to the park. Which he did just that. Both boys walked nicely next to the busy street, and both were relieved to run into the safety of the park and play heartily on the play equipment. They shocked me at how quickly they learned to watch out and get out of the way of the bikes on the Burke-Gilman trail (which runs through the park). GG kept a good eye out for Joshy while I made a quick run to the restroom with Caleb. Caleb and Joshy showed off for GG with all their confident stunts. She quite generously took us to dinner. Caleb chose Chinese food. I'll admit that I'm not practiced at Chinese food, and I was very afraid to go to the restaurant with two boys by myself. I don't generally like to go to restaurants with the boys, and I have NEVER dared to do it by myself... but they did 95% great and I kept holding my breath waiting for the behaviour to get bad, which it never did to my relief. I guess being seated next to the aquarium helps! I think Caleb impressed GG with how much he ate, and he had to explain that it was so that he would get big muscles and grow strong and healthy... then he flexed his muscles for her to see. At the end of the evening, GG said that being around my silly boys made her feel happy and silly too, I think this is great, isn't that was the young unfettered joy of children is for... to remind us of happy, uncomplicated simple joy.

Daddy came back early from camping/scouting. And we are off to the fair with our free admission coupon.

TTFN. I'll get the Zuma update posted soon.