Echoes of Heaven

Apple Days snuck up on us too quickly. The girls' group always sing and they still hadn't had time to practice and prepare, so we had the girls and their families over for Sabbath evening for supper and worship.... then the girls practiced together. They had so much fun! We loved having everyone over... wow, our house is small. Cozy, but small! I don't think people cared, though.

We surprised Vanessa by bringing out a cake and singing happy birthday a WHOLE week early! She is 20 years old this week. She received a much needed stethoscope as a present. Nursing school is going very well. She loves it.

The girls were put on the spot a few times at the museum being asked to sing songs they had not prepared.... they did fine, of course. You have to be prepared for everything and anything, I guess.

Afterwards I took the twins to spend the money in their monopoly jars. Missy had exactly 1 dollar. James had 8, well, he spent some at Apple Days buying rocks :-). His class is studying rocks in school. I was quite pleased. He didn't ask me first or anything, just went and bought this bag of rocks and then the guy gave him another one. He came to find me all excited. I was glad to see this small step of confidence. He passed by the candy and the junk, and bought rocks because it is something he is interested in.

At the store the first thing Missy saw was a cheap kids watch with a kitty on it. She wanted it so bad. I pointed out the price tag of $6.95 and asked her how much she had. She just came back with, "You give me seven dollars."  Uh uh.... kiddo. This is not how it works. We are on a mission to learn about money. Anyway, she could have had that much.... She totally got the picture and nearly melted into a puddle. She then found bubbles, and then a folder, then junk food and finally settled on a pack of gum. WHEW!

James deliberated over the cars and trucks and bought himself a LOUD police car.

It's going to take awhile for this project to work with Missy. It could get expensive with James. :-)

Friday, after another morning of prodding and pushing and begging to get the kids out on time and on the bus, and I decided that was enough. I'm not doing it that way anymore. I made each of the kids a check list complete with little boxes to check off. I told them last night they wouldn't need me to push them along. There would be a row of carob chips on the counter for them and they could take a chip each time they checked something off the list. We are going to stick with this for a whole month. It's going to be super hard not to fall into the habit of pushing them because they do not like change and they do not like to be responsible, but they have come to see me as the morning enemy and that isn't working well.

This morning James was gung ho. He did everything on his list, starting with the hardest and working his way out the door and to the bus with no problems at all. I let him know I was proud of his work.

Missy is another story altogether. She stood in the kitchen with a cup of water for 1 hour.... almost taunting us to say something. I don't know if that really goes through her head or not, but that is what it looks like. She started getting frustrated that James was going to beat her to the bus and she started hitting and blocking him. I had to intervene. Yup, there goes her watch money. . . Finally she decided to get ready, but as she saw James close to being done things went SOUTH real fast. I'll spare you the details. Suffice to say that by the time she was running down the driveway in her socks and pajamas screaming bloody murder as the bus was honking I was a shaking mess. There is something majorly wrong with her brain functions.... I did all I knew to help her and it was not good enough.