Fathers Day 2012

When Fathers Day actually arrived, I think it started in the best way possible for the father of a newborn... with a nice, long night's sleep and a wake-up past 9am.  Having a newborn is kind of counter to the idea of relaxation, but I tried to give Andy as much of a break as possible.

He took a trip outside by himself, which is something he rarely is able to do now.  I made him one of his favorite foods for dinner, something I haven't made since before we were married.  Lasagne.  It was really good.  Sure, I burned my wrist in the process, but it was nice to watch Andy and the family devour it.

Andy requested Coconut Cream Pie for dessert.  I bought one for him... that is a pie I have never before made, and I knew that I'd be lucky to get enough of a break from Macie to make just the lasagne.  I wasn't going to push my luck and end up with no dessert to give Andy on his Fathers Day.  Andy said that the pie was really good, and Charlie enjoyed it too.  Ephram takes after me and prefers not to eat things filled with coconut.

We gave Andy his ties, door hangers the kids made at the farmers market, a present Charlie made at school and a couple of cards.  His frame came in two days later and then we gave that to him too.

We love Andy so much.  He's the best dad I could wish for my children.

Fathers Day Ties

Ephram and Charlie wanted to make something for Andy for Fathers Day too.  So they did a craft to make a paper tie for their dad.  They both had a lot of fun.  Ephram has been working on his scissor skills.  He had a great time cutting his own paper and using his own glue, just like his big brother.  Charlie had a lot of fun making different shapes with his paper and putting it all together.

Both of their ties turned out pretty cute in the end - and they were both proud of their creations and excited to give them to their dad.

All Three, Framed

For Fathers Day this year, I knew exactly what we should give Andy.  For a couple of years now he has commented that he wished he had pictures of the kids for his office.  I decided, before Macie was even born, that this year we would deliver.  I would magically photograph all three kids.  They would be angelic and do exactly as I asked.  My autistic son would not mind the flash and would not get hyper because of all of the contact with his siblings.  My two year old would forget that he was supposed to be terrible and would sit and smile long enough for me to get all of the shots I needed.  And my baby?  She wouldn't be hungry.  She wouldn't want to sleep.  She would be patient and wouldn't mind being held by the smaller and less experienced hands of her brothers.  Oh, and I would of course be able to pose the kids, keep them from dropping Macie and step back far enough to take the pictures all without the aid of my trusty spouse.

Yeah.  I knew that it wasn't going to be so easy.

But I didn't think that it would take two weeks to have the opportunity to even attempt the shoot.  Yeah.  It took two weeks.  Two weeks for Charlie to be in a conforming state of mind at the same time that Ephram was not sick and Macie was not sleeping or eating or hungry or spitting up every five minutes.

The Monday before Fathers Day, the planets Charlie, Ephram and Macie finally aligned.  I grabbed my opportunity and threw their shirts on them as fast as I could.  And we got busy.  You know, it may have taken two weeks for the opportunity to present itself.  But once it did, it actually did go really well.

The secret to getting some good shots of my kids is just to take a LOT of pictures.  I took 82 pictures in 24 minutes and 39 seconds.  I moved them to three different places to keep them engaged, and to try different lighting in my home.  And I got quite a few pictures that I love.  Here are my favorites.

Yes, that last picture was 22.5 minutes after the first picture.  She was done.  She was hungry.  Charlie was so hyper that he was yelling about everything and practically wiggling out of his skin.  And Ephram just wanted to jump on the bed, not pose.  So, even though I hadn't gotten the last three pictures I'd originally hoped for, we called it a wrap.  After all, I think 24 minutes is pretty darn good for these three kids.

In the end I had to chose four pictures to put together a collage for Andy.  I hoped that I had at least four acceptable pictures.  I ended up having a very hard time selecting from many that I loved.  But then again, these are my kids, so I think just about every picture of them is cute.

Shutterfly Desktop Plaque

Shutterfly custom Valentines Day and Mother's Day cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

And since this is my blog, I hope you'll all oblige me in that belief.

Charlie's Kindergarten Concert

Charlie's school held their annual Kindergarten concert at the end of the school year, on June 6th.  This gave the kindergartners all year to prepare.  The theme for the concert was "A Night of Patriotic Music".  Each month, Charlie came home singing one-liners from well known songs.

Because his class was a half-day class, and due to budgetary constraints, he did not go to music throughout the year.  Instead, their teacher taught the songs to them.  I'm impressed with how well she did.  Then, for the last two months before the concert, Charlie's class went to music with the full day Kindergarten class so that they could learn the hand motions and practice all together.

There was some question about how Charlie would do.  In practice sessions, he was neither singing nor participating in the motions.  His teacher mentioned a concern about how he would do, and I am so glad she did.  It allowed me to have a conversation in advance with Charlie.  We talked about his preschool program from last year and how good he felt when he was able to sing every song.  We watched a few of the videos that I had recorded so that he could see his smiling face and remember that feeling.  I also asked Charlie why he didn't want to sing.  He typically is a ham that loves to make people smile and laugh.  It took some prodding, but he finally shared that the noise from all of the kids singing and the music made him feel "tingly".  He described it as a bad feeling that he wanted to get away from.  It was one of the only times that I have heard him be able to describe the effects of sensory overload to me.  We have long known that Charlie is very sensitive to noise, and we know that he shuts down because of it.  I never knew before how it felt to him, so I was really happy that he was able to verbalize and share.  Then we talked about solutions.  He said that the headphones didn't work good enough because it was too loud.  So then I practiced singing really loud next to him with him being quiet.  I stopped and asked him how it felt.  The next time I asked him to sing really loud with me.  He had a huge smile on his face afterward and said that he could barely hear me, and could only hear himself.  So, to make sure that my point had come across, I stated the obvious by telling him that he would actually hear less noise if he sang himself.

He started signing with the class the next time they rehearsed.  And he slowly started learning the motions too.

When the night of the concert came, Charlie was so excited.  They had performed in school for the other classes that day, and Charlie had a positive experience.  He put on his red shirt and let me take a picture of him.

Then we put Ephram and Macie in the stroller and walked to the school.  We got there just in time to drop Charlie off at his classroom with his teacher, and then walked over to the gym.  We took our seats in the very back row because that was the easiest place to park Macie and leave her in the stroller.  Ephram wanted to sit in a big seat with his Mom and Dad.  He was super excited to watch Charlie perform.

Here is a look at the front of the program, and the inside too.  Charlie had a speaking part near the beginning.  He got to say, "Please join us in the Star Spangled Banner."  He did a really good job - spoke clearly, and with an appropriate volume.  We were very proud of him.

Charlie continued to do his best through the entire program.  He was a little sad when he didn't get to hold a letter to help spell out "America" in "Oh I Love America", but he recovered and got over it nicely.  That's not an easy thing for Charlie to do!

Here are some pictures of the kids from the show.  I was so happy as I reviewed these to confirm that Charlie was doing what he was supposed to almost every time.  (All of the kids goofed up sometimes!)

I also uploaded videos from Charlie's two favorite songs to You Tube.  I apologize for the shakiness of the recording.  We were all the way in the back row, so I was using a pretty big lens to be able to get good pictures.  Pretty big lens = very heavy lens = very hard to hold the camera steady.

This Land is Your Land
Thankful for the USA

The kids sang:

• There's a Beat
• The Star Spangled Banner
• Oh I Love America
• You're a Grand Old Flag
• This Land is Your Land
• Yankee Doodle
• I Love My Country
• America
• Thankful for the USA

When all the songs were done the music teacher, Ms. Smallwood, and the principal, Mr. Cosgrove, spoke to the audience.

I was pretty impressed with this concert, and very impressed with Charlie.  He was beaming afterward and I had to take one last picture.

I love to capture these true happy moments with Charlie.  His smile is always a little bigger, a lot brighter.

We headed home and listened to Charlie babble about how good the concert was.  We told him endlessly that we were very proud of him.  It was a great night for our family.

Tummy Trouble

Poor little Ephram had his first stomach bug last week.  There is nothing more sad than a little kid that is confused by the sensations of tummy troubles.

Ephram woke up super sick on Sunday from the get go.  It took several hours for things to settle down. And then he started sleeping.

Charlie's thing lately has been to draw pictures for everyone in the family when they are sad.  Macie gets a lot of pictures since she cries often, like a typical newborn.  Charlie made a sweet picture for Ephram when he got sick.

We offered Ephram Pedialyte, Gatorade, Sierra Mist, gingerale, popsicles, broth and jello.  He refused to have anything but water.  And wouldn't even take very much water.  At one point we tried to trick him into drinking some Pedialyte.  He was so upset about it that he stopped taking anything from us for several hours.   And he was running a fever of 102.5.  I was really close to taking him into the walk-in clinic because I was worried about dehydration with how sick he'd been.  And then he woke up and happily took a popsicle.

And after that popsicle was gone, he had a second.  And then a third.  Finally, we started to see some wet diapers again.  He still refused everything else except for the occasional popsicle and the occasional sip of water.

And he slept.

In fact, he rivaled Macie in how much he slept those first two days.  Finally, 24 hours from his last episode had passed and we offered him food.  He happily ate some crackers.  In fact, he was so happy about it he ate quite a few.  I was worried it was too many, but he did good.

And at the end of the night, he just woke up.  And started being Ephram again.  My little multitasker that can color with one hand, read a book with another, balance his water in his lap and occasionally stuff a cracker in his mouth.

But it didn't last long, and then we found him passed out again, with his coloring book in his lap.

In fact, for the next two days Ephram remained dilapidated.  He would have little energy bursts for 10 or 15 minutes and then go back to sleep.  I knew that he was really not feeling well, because he couldn't even stay awake to watch Cars 2.

I felt so bad for my little monkey.  But, on Thursday night he returned to me.  I was standing in the kitchen at the counter working on something.  I heard the sound of a chair being pushed from the table and then turned around to see this.

He had to stay on the BRAT diet until Saturday.  The poor boy was so sick of bananas, crackers, rice and applesauce.  I think it will be awhile before he wants to eat any of those things again!

I'm so glad that he's feeling better.  And that none of the rest of us got as sick as he did.  And, for his sake, I hope we can wait another 2.5 years until that happens again!