IOU

I love to read how my friends & family are doing on their blogs. I have really tried to keep mine updated for friends & family as well. Unfortunately, things are changing for us. The blog is getting a bit harder to update due to an increasing number of appointments. Nate has his regular appts for a social worker & psychiatrist for the ADD, plus school things and karate. Gabby takes gymnastics and tends to take up a lot of time with all of her dramatic licence. James has gymnastics, preschool 2 days a week and a special Friday lunch class to prepare him for school next year. In addition to his demanding personality, Andrew now has a Thursday class through the Early Intervention program for the girls. They want to make sure that he progresses also, but he has to attend with the twins. The girls have PT at the hospital on Mondays, a Wednesday visit with the physical, occupational and speech therapists (all at once), and the Thursday classes with Andrew where they have their own teacher there. In addition to that, we have things like regular doctor and dental appts., hearing tests, eye exams, parent teacher conferences, play dates and regular dates with our kids. I volunteer at the schools on Friday mornings for 2 hours. Josh is usually gone studying 12 hours a day during the week and about 8-10 on Saturdays. He is also gone on Wed. for Young Mens and every 3rd Sunday for most of the day for meetings and Bishop's Youth Discussion. I am so glad I have my Sat. water aerobics class and an occasional girl's night. My mother-in-law recently moved in with us and it has been so valuable to have help with the kids. I am so glad I am not chasing down baby sitters for all these activities. I would never leave my car or the phone. When I just had a few toddlers I never really appreciated how people would tell me they were so busy with their older kids. Driving around to activities never seemed quite as chaotic as chasing little ones. Now I just do both, and I have to get up at 6 if I want to shower before noon! Consider this my I.O.U. for the next few weeks until I can get better at juggling things. I am already up way past my bedtime just to type this.

On another note, Gabby & I went on a date to the play Rapunzel on Sat. The theatre "modernized" it and I think we were both quite a bit disappointed. Luckily it was only 45 min long and the ice cream we went for afterward was good.

Funny: Nate had a friend over from his class on Saturday. It was like a "Pat" thing because this child wore boys clothes, but had the name of Anna (pronounced "AH-na"). The family was Italian and when Gabby said it was a girl's name, the child replied, "not everywhere". The hair was long and shaggy for a boy but lacked any style at all for a girl. The face and voice were generic. We spent an hour arguing whether Anna was a girl (me & Connie) or a boy (Josh & Gabby). I am sure Nate and Anna knew she was a girl but I finally settled the argument by chatting for a while with Anna's mom over the phone and listening carefully until I heard the pronoun "she". Gabby will be keeping her long hair with pretty bows for a while. It was kind of a disturbing event. I wish I could have taken a photo so you wouldn't think I was nuts. She was a sweet and very quiet little girl. I can see how she & Naters get along. I hope this story doesn't come across as me being rude. We liked her, we just had a hard time defining her gender. It was so odd.