Silly Little Family

There are so many silly little moments that I often don't bother to share, but I decided to show you what Dominick and I were treated to last night. We celebrated it being the last day of summer by going swimming with friends and then out for ice cream. We had a double whammy to be joyful about, as yesterday Joshie also lost his first tooth!! Much to his surprise, as he was munching on macaroni and cheese, his lower front tooth finally gave up and out it came, and the surprised look on his face was a riot! Of course, he had to show everyone the rest of the day :-)

We came home and as a "last supper" for summer I made the boys' favorite that they always beg for...potato soup. Don't ask me why, but they love the stuff! Joshie got his bowl put on his "special plate" and while I was in the kitchen cooking, the boys excitedly planned a surprise for us in our family room. Every time I glanced in their direction I was exhorted to PLEASE not look there until they were finished. Finally, dinner was ready to be served and we were going to eat in front of the TV and watch a couple of old episodes of "Happy Days". Yea, we are a boring family...hahahaha!

As we made our way downstairs, we found that they had laid blankets to make a special pathway for us, and had made signs and taped them all over the place. Hearts...yea...hearts. You folks who think only girls leave hearts written everywhere need to see this! Ha! They had draped a blanket on the couch, placed a long body pillow on the coffee table for our feet, and were all grinning from ear to ear as they saluted and hand trumpeted us. A finer reception was never had!!! So, I guess our last day celebration of summer was also for us as well! Here are some photos of the "event", corny though they may be:








Today was the first day of school for Matthew and Kenny, with Josh going tomorrow for one day this week and then starting full day Kindergarten on Monday. I tried to get a less-than-goofy picture out of the boys this morning, but in "silly mode" it just wasn't happening:




If any of you are praying folk out there, please keep Josh in your thoughts as he starts school tomorrow. We had some pretty serious concerns come out of him last night all of a sudden with a few tears shed, and while I know in the long run he will do fine, I think the transition to the real world for him might be very, very tough the first couple of weeks. He is extremely worried that I will disappear on him while he is at school. There is that part of his brain that is still working hard at protecting his heart and it sometimes over rules his reasoning brain. He has seen me come and go for years dropping the boys off, and irrational or not he worries that something bad might happen to me if he is not with me. It is always hard to take your last child to their first day of Kindergarten, but this might be exceptionally so if we are faced with the kinds of things that came out last night. On the plus side, despite the voiced worries there were no nightmares and we had a dry bed, so maybe it was a one time thing or we were able to adequately reassure him. I spent last evening writing a long email to his sweet new teacher, explaining a little about his background and struggles so that she might better understand it if he has some problems or if things flare up. I hesitated before doing so as I don't want him "marked" as a kid with issues, but felt it was only fair that she have the information she might need to more effectively teach him. If he expresses a need to be reassured, she might be more willing to let him go see one of his brothers for a moment to help him regain confidence or something, and if certain things come up in conversation with him she will have the background to perhaps understand what he is trying to express.

We had one last summer project yesterday, and that was to find a way to make the boys' room look neater. We had the idea of hanging curtains of some sort to enclose the area beneath their bed and hide the chaos from view. This creates a great "clubhouse" effect as well as neatening things up a bit. We tied some cord from one side to the other and got some discontinued curtains at WalMart that we lucked out with and were a perfect match with the red and tan colors and were really marked down! Matthew helped me select them and he, in particular, was amazed at how much better it looks and said "Mom, it transforms the room!". Maybe I have a designer on my hands?



And for those of you considering older child adoption who worry about missing all the firsts, let me remind you that you get other, equally meaningful moments with your children. Last night Kenny prayed "God, thank you for the best summer I ever had my whole life...thank you for my loving family...thank you for hear me pray all that long time for good family...I have best family in whole world!"

Back to school and back on schedule...while I hate to have the boys go (I am not one of those mom's who counts down the days until summer is over!) I will admit I could use the break from all the activities! Time for my silly little family to get back to business.