Monthly update

Once again, I'm not really sure when my life became a constant merry-go-round ride, but I am confident that the ride started spinning faster the day I became a mom of five. And the fact that I truly thought it would be no different to have five than it was to have three just proves the fact that I am certifiable. I mean, really, not a day goes by that I don't think back to my thoughts of "what's the big deal about five kids?" No, I'm not very smart at all.

Hmm, where to start with the latest edition of "What's happening in Melindaland?"...

Well, we had our first soccer games of the season today. Noah's was at 9:20 and since we remembered to bring our beach umbrella, we were actually relatively comfortable in our portable shade. Sadly Noah's team lost--but there was a controversial goal that they scored but the referee declared it to "not have crossed the line" or some such thing. Our boys vigorously declared it had crossed said line. So in their minds it was a tie. They'll be talking about how they were robbed for weeks.

Rachel's game was at 12:50. Yes, you read that right. Soccer at the peak of the afternoon in 100+ weather in Phoenix. I don't know who the genius was that thought of that schedule. The parents were melting on the sidelines and it is a wonder that the girls were able to remain standing let alone run up and down the field. At each break the parents were dousing the girls with water and getting them to drink as much as was humanly possible. Apparently our team was better hydrated because we won in the end. We should have had a kiddie pool for them to jump in and splash around between quarters. Maybe next week. I'll put in a call to the team mom. Which is most definitely not me. She is a lovely, very organized woman with only two children. She probably takes naps every afternoon and remembers her own name all of the time. But my life is "richer," and remembering your name is highly overrated.

The current state of hecticness (is that a word? not that I wouldn't use it if it isn't, I was just asking) in our home is caused by the frequent soccer practices that have occurred over the last few weeks leading up to today's opening games. We waited quite a few years before allowing our kids to join organized sports and now I remember why. They both love soccer though and seem to be pretty good at it, so this might be our lot in life for a while. Tommy would like to play football someday as soccer doesn't really interest him. He is going to have to take a number though because he'll need to wait a couple more years til I get the hang of this 3 nights a week of practice business. He plays one-on-one with Sam in the backyard so that will have to suffice for a while. We'll have to start having him watch games on weekends so he can learn by observation.

I'm certain the fact that I have substituted 8 out of the last 9 school days has contributed to the feeling of hecticness (hectarity? hectivity?) as well. The problem was that I had committed to covering for a teacher who was gone for a week to go get married (at the Graceland wedding chapel in Vegas no less--two Elvis impersonators sang at the wedding--ah, to each his own...) long before we knew when soccer practice would start and what days it would be on. Needless to say I will be scaling back on my subbing during soccer season. For my sanity and the sanity of those around me.

This week I had to teach a group of 1st graders the concept of contractions. It wasn't pretty. I mean I had it all going on--the apostrophe "eats" the 'wi' in will and we are left with 'I'll' kind of thing--or so I thought. When I asked them what the contraction of 'I will' is (after going over this ad nauseum) I got a variety of answers: I'wi, I'will, I'wll. Yeah, nevermind. Your teacher will be back later to deal with this mess. I've given you all I've got. So we moved on to our next worksheet which confused about 1/2 of the class as well. Clearly I am not called to be a first grade teacher because I don't have the patience for that much confusion. Sadly, several of them didn't seem qualified to be first graders!!

We went camping over Labor Day weekend up near Payson. We went with four other families and it was a lot of fun even though it rained--downpoured actually--the first night. Thankfully our friends had an extra tarp that we could hang over our tent that was filling with water. And thankfully our friends had campers so a couple of our kids could sleep with them so they didn't have to sleep on the wet floor. We only had two air mattresses so that would have left the floor people floating--not to mention very wet. Rain always makes a camping trip interesting--and memorable. Oh, and I think the entire metropolitan Phoenix area was in or near Payson for the weekend because it took us a whopping 4 1/2 hours to get home. It does tend to take a while to anywhere when you are in bumper to bumper traffic moving at a whopping 15 miles an hour. Thankfully we had a cd set of Chronicles of Narnia and we listened to The Horse and His Boy and Prince Caspian and as a result could have cared less how long it was taking because we were so into the stories.

Katya's birthday was also Labor Day weekend. She is now 13. She wasn't overly excited to celebrate her birthday while camping, but we made her food requests (mashed potatoes and corn--her annual starch fest) and had a gummy worm/bear/bug "cake" (a 9x13 pan filled with gummies that was a real crowd pleaser with the kids) and so I think she was ok with it.

She is actually having her birthday party tonight. She has some friends sleeping over. They've had dinner, painted their nails, played Dance Dance Revolution and a karaoke type game on Playstation, watched a movie, eaten junk food and giggled until they fell asleep. I'm certain some of those activities will be repeated in the morning when they awake. Thankfully we moved the playstation downstairs so we won't have to hear them if they decide to start very early.

We discovered last week that Tommy is intolerant to gluten and so he is now on a gluten-free diet. Sugar is also like crack to him so we have taken him off of that as well. He eats carrots and water now. Well, not really. There are a lot of foods he can eat, we just have to choose more carefully. This new diet should help alleviate the problems he has with his lack of focus and impulsiveness. He has been doing a great job in school since we took him off of his "crack" so I am hopeful that this may have been an underlying cause to some of his problems. He had a post-birthday party sugar high one Monday and his teacher was ready to throttle him by lunch time. Once we learned about the sugar-crack connection it made sense as to what caused the erratic and incredibly frustrating behavior that day!! Sugar binging on Saturday!! The doctor said that gluten intolerance is genetic and so we have put Katya on the same diet, much to her chagrin (she has some of the same focus problems that Tommy has).

I am taking Katya to Yuma this week for some testing for dyslexia. A tester down there is going to test her for free in order to get certified as a dyslexia specialist. The testing would normally cost $1000 or more so that would explain our willingness to drive to Yuma for it. I'm looking forward to having some hang out time with Katya as well. We'll be listening to the remaining Chronicles of Narnia cds so the drive will be over in no time.

I think that's all I can think of for right now. So I'm going to bed. Apparently this is now a once a month blog so I'wi...I'will...I'll see you in October.