False Alarm

Last Tuesday, Seth got a call from his recruiter that there was possibly an opening to leave for boot camp 6 days later (would have made it Monday).  Did Seth want to give it a try?  Oh yeah!  Monday morning came around, and he still did not know anything.  Then he got a call that said to show up at the office asap.  He did.  So, while he was gone for 2 days, I cleaned out his drawers, organized his stuff, threw other things away.

He traveled to the MEPS station with high hopes of leaving for book camp on Tuesday.  But, he did not go.  He was on stand-by that whole time.  So, he is still on the wait list...still hoping.  My feelings are very mixed.  I'm glad to still have him with me, driving me crazy, but I know how badly he is ready to leave.

I Don't Want To Wear A Dress

When I came home with her in 2006, I thought for sure I had a girly girl.  She spoke in a small, sweet, voice.  There was nothing loud or obnoxious about Eva. 

Her room was pink.  Her bedding was floral.  Her closet was full of dresses. She loved all things shiny.  She even loved her princess shoes.

She enjoyed her girly movies and Barbie's The Princess and the Pauper.  Now, she informed me that her favorite movie is the exciting one called The Buccaneer, starring Yul Brenner and Charlton Heston!
She hated bugs and getting dirty.  She was a girly!  Or so I thought.  Today before church, she informed me, "I don't want to wear a dress."  What?  Today, she wore brown pants with a white butterfly shirt.  At least it was a butterfly.  That is still kind of girly.  But, then again, it is a bug.  Almost like these that she carried around in her pockets, dead or alive.

And these.

Oh, well.  I tried.  She's not as girly as I thought.  But, my oh my, how I love my non-girly girl.

An Early Christmas Present

Jordan gave Seth an early Christmas gift (just in case he leaves on Monday...but that's another post).  Can you guess what this is?

 

I thought it looked like an egg beater.  Any guesses?

It is a head scratcher.  Ivy, Eva, and Joy were all scratching Seth's head one day, so Jordan thought it would be the perfect gift.  Jordan and I actually walked around the store scratching our heads with this thing.  It feels incredibly good.  I cannot even describe the sensation.  I used it so much I got a terribly knot in my hair.

Just Because I Have These Pictures

Last night, Jordan's Navy recruiter came over for some official document signing.  It was a good time with questions asked and answered.  Less than 6 months until Jordan leaves for the Navy.

She is very, very excited.  That is really an understatement.  She'll have boot camp in Illinois then head to school in Pensacola.  Not too shabby.  I'm sure we will be heading down to enjoy some time with her after she's been at school for a while.  After school?  Who knows?  Her job is usually shore duty, not on a ship.  She is really hoping for somewhere in another country.

And, we have this guy, Seth. 

 
He is not scheduled to leave until August, but he is in a holding pattern at the moment.  He is on a wait list to ship out.  It is possible the Marines can call one day, and he leave the next.  There is a lot on his mind.  And mine. 

So, I'm finished talking about my kids leaving.  That is, until they actually leave.

Look What I Found! (Math)

I happened to be going through some school books, and came across this Math house that I used with Jack around 8 years ago.  It had a quarter inch of dust on it because it was sitting on the top of a big book shelf.  So I dusted it off for Eva and Joy.  They were quite excited to play with the felt numbers and sticks.  I really like it because the girls get a visual of the number houses that cannot have more than 9 in each house.  They seemed to catch on pretty quickly.  So, in this picture I asked Joy to "do" the number 46.

As you can see, Joy has the 4 bunches of 10 in the Ten House, and she is counting out 6 sticks for the Ones House.

Joy was successful, so we gave Eva a turn for the number 30.  See the problem?  She did not realize it until she actually put the sticks in the house and could see that they did not make 30.

Eva is very good at transposing numbers and letters.  If I ask her to pick out the number 76 on the chart, she'll usually pick out 67 instead.  Now that she realizes she makes this error regularly, I can see her mind working overtime when I ask her a question.  She's a little slower to answer, but I'd rather she get it right than get it fast.  She has come a long way from not even being able to combine a consonant with a short vowel just this time last year.

Never Allow...

...your clumsy 5 year old and wild 6 year old to race down the hallway.  If you do, this could happen to the clumsy one that gets shoved into the wall by the wild one:

She may or may not need to be driven to the doctor by the big brother while sitting on her mother's lap who is holding a bloody cloth to her daughter's head that might need to be glued together with dermabond by her nice doctor.