Monday

This morning, I drove Kevin to school. As I left, he pointed out that the artwork on the window was HIS! So I took his picture with his artwork. What a sweet, precious boy. We both were sad to say "goodbye."

Mommy

When we were almost home from the Beach Sunday afternoon, we stopped at Michaels to buy some new fall flowers for Mommy's grave. Kevin helped me arrange them into the holder designed to not blow out of the vase on the marker. Actually, he was a huge help in cutting the wire stems to the right size! He was better at doing it than I! When we arrived at the cemetery with our new creation, we discovered that someone had been there and had left a little ceramic pumpkin. How sweet!!! It is so comforting to know that we are not the only ones missing Karin. Sadly, someone had yanked the summer flowers out of the vase, pulling the styrofoam off the unique webbed plastic base leaving it stuck in the vase. It was impossible for us to pull it out, so we had to abandon our project for lack of a tool.

On the way home, we made a quick stop at Target, then Kohl's to find a Halloween costume. Kevin wanted to be a ghost, but Grandma had no time to make one and no ghost was available in those two stores, plus the costumes were picked over and sparse. Among the precious few left at Kohl's was a Spiderman that fit him and made him happy. Yay!

Daddy found some tools and returned with us to the cemetery, now in the dark. Kevin held the flashlights for Daddy to work.

Mission accomplished.


After picking me up from the airport on Thursday afternoon, on our way to Kevin's after school program, Steve commented that Kevin has not mentioned Karin in a long time. Oddly, as soon as we were home, Kevin and Steve went to the mailbox and Kevin said as he wandered in the plants around the mailbox, "I miss Mommy."

While at the Beach, I was telling Steve something about my sessions and included "da-daa, da-daa." Kevin piped up, "Remember how Mommy used to say 'blah, blah, blah.' That was so cute how she said 'blah, blah, blah.'"

Monday morning while saying grace at breakfast, Kevin interrupted Daddy's prayer -- just like he used to!!! I was so happy to hear him want to be part of a prayer again. He has not been willing to pray, at least in my presence, since Karin died. He prayed, "Help Mommy to get well," and Steve said, "She is dead." I reminded Kevin that Mommy is perfectly healthy and happy in heaven. So he said, "Can we tell Mommy that she has new flowers?"
I said, "Oh, yes! I often tell God to let Mommy know that we love her and miss her."

Sunday

Friday night, Grandma went to bed before Kevin, so he slept with Daddy. Last night, he went to bed in Daddy's bed, but Daddy ended up falling asleep on the sofa. Kevin came out early this morning looking for Daddy, lay down on the sofa and fell asleep again.

My conference ended before noon. We found a pancake house, then headed for home.

Saturday

I am not sure what all Steve and Kevin did during the day. I know they went to an Aquarium and Kevin did some coloring. On the left page, Kevin told me that I am on the left, Kevin in the middle, and Daddy on the right. :)

Yep! Daddy took a picture of the balcony coloring!


I had 2 hours after my sessions before dinner, so Kevin and I walked the beach all the way to a pier. But we had no shoes and no money, so we could not walk out on the pier. :\ Kevin kept wanting to walk out too far into the ocean. I was not thrilled to be getting wet and I certainly am not capable of being a lifeguard in those tumultuous waves, so I kept making him come closer in.








When we were almost back to the hotel, we saw a turkey vulture eating a dead fish. That was fun to see one up so close!

While I was at the conference dinner meeting an agent who would welcomes a query from me, Steve and Kevin ate at the Hilton's dining room where Kevin enamored the wait staff. They said he is a born actor. That adds another potential profession/occupation/talent to his growing list:
Manager/CEO
Mathematician
Engineer
Architect
Teacher
Prayer warrior
Pastor
Politician
Counselor
Sculptor
Vocalist
Puzzler extraordinaire
Interior decorator
Actor

Friday

My days are spent in sessions/meals from 8AM to 7PM.

This morning, Kevin was eating some Halloween candy I brought for him and look what happened! The weather was much nicer (in the 70s!) than Daddy had expected, thus he didn't bring bathing suits. They went to the beach and had fun in the water anyway! They had dinner at Medieval Times and really enjoyed that.


Tonight, I gave Kevin a magnetic dinosaur "puzzle." Strangely, the magnets would not stick to the stainless steel applicances in the kitchen. Steve thinks they must be aluminum with a stainless steel finish. But the magnets did stick to the side of the fridge!

He had to sit/stand on the counter to accomplish this. BTW, it wasn't as easy as it might look, plus the names were in three pieces and he assembled them properly too! Of course, any normal little boy is then going to explore the rest of the counter while up there and find mischief.

I stuck him in the bathtub with a small bottle of my body shampoo. He made good use of it! LOL

Myrtle Beach

I decided to attend the South Carolina Writers' Workshop in Myrtle Beach again this year. It was $200 cheaper to fly into Raleigh and rent a car than to fly to Myrtle Beach directly! Plus, that way I could see Kevin before and after the conference! Then I had an even better idea: I invited Steve and Kevin to come play at the beach while I was in sessions, and they accepted! Thus, I had a free ride and even a chauffeur!


We had a two bedroom/two bath condo with washer and dryer! Very lovely!!!

The first night, Kevin slept in the extra bed in my room.

We didn't have much of an "oceanview," as billed, from the windows, but we had a semi-decent view of the ocean from the balcony. I think that Kevin spent quite a bit of time coloring on the balcony when I was in sessions. Unfortunately, you can take that sentence literally as Daddy told me that he fortuitously stopped Kevin from coloring on the stucco walls on the outside of the building! :-0

Baby Gabe is growing!

Here he is at 2 months! He is now into 3-6 mos. clothing and weighs 14.6 lbs. His Daddy weighed 14.10 lbs at 2 mos., but Daddy started 1.5 lbs. heavier too.



Can you see Grandma' widow's peak? Of course, you can't see it on me because I keep it covered with bangs! But it looks handsome on a boy! Greg used to have one. LOL

Monday at School

Today Grandma had to go home, but first, I took Kevin to school and stayed for about 1.5 hours. I had never observed the Montessori method in action, but was happy to get a glimpse of their system. There are twenty-eight kids in Kevin's class with three teachers.

First, the children choose an activity to do singly or collectively with friends. When the bell rings, everyone is to assume a nameste hand position (I wonder if the kids know what that means or if it is simply a quieting activity to begin group time), all sing a song together; then it is circle time.

They talk about things related to the day including the date. Kevin is returning to his seat from having placed the number 5 on the calendar.

Following circle time, they are to find their portfolio at a table. Kevin is receiving instructions on what he is to do with his portfolio.

He had numbers (85 to 92) to trace, words to copy from a book, and then write something in his journal for the day. I showed him how to draw the number 8 which immeasurably improved his 8 tracing. The book had a picture with each word, but he was unable to read the word even with a picture of the item in many cases -- such as a picture of a vase-type of container with the word j-u-g. The words were all in lower case, but he wrote them in upper case. I wish I could have stayed all day to see how follow up happens!

This is his journal entry for today:

It is a desert, he said. First he drew the mountain, then a camel, the sun, me, and himself with a crescent moon over his head. Then he was to identify what he had drawn. On previous days, the words seemed to be short forms, so I told him to write "mtn" for mountain and "Gma" for grandma (the G is upside down ;-) ).

We forgot to bring his lunch, and he has a huge mosquito bite on his big toe, so I went home and returned later with his lunch and bite meds. Then Grandma had to be on her way with lots of hugs and kisses and an awesome art project! :)

Sweet Sunday

Today started with rolling out the sugar cookies we made yesterday. WHAT A MESS!!!! I love this recipe -- they are yummy and the dough is easy to work with, but NOT today! It was soooo sticky!!! Someone at church asked if I used any ingredients that were a different brand than usual. That had to be it! I bought the cheapest flour! Never again!

While I was struggling with the cookies, Kevin ate a cupcake for breakfast. His sin gave him away.

The three of us went to church today. It was the first time Kevin and Steve have been there in a while. Steve was dreading the questions on how he was doing, but, once he was there, all was well and he enjoyed seeing so many old friends again! I was prepared with pictures in purse of Kien and Aria, as I knew there would be many questions about how they are doing.

Someone gave Kevin these flowers decorating the snack table to give to Grandma. They never quite made it home, but he had a lot of fun with them.

We had lunch at a favorite breakfast/brunch restaurant. Kevin insisted he was not hungry, but the last time we were there, he ate half of my waffle with strawberries and whipped cream, so I ordered a side of scrambled eggs to prevent starvation for either of us. He consumed all the eggs and part of my waffle and strawberries.

Mid-afternoon, Kevin attended a birthday party at The Little Gym for his neighbor across the street. Great place for a party!




Arriving home, we had a disaster: Grandma accidentally released Kevin's helium balloon. Oops! He was quite devastated in spite of assuring him we could get another one and trying to teach him the joy of watching a balloon float out of sight. But he recovered quickly, yet did not want to run right out for a new balloon. So we went inside and tackled one more culinary project: applesauce! I peeled the apples while he sliced and diced them! What a helper! And look how neat he was about lining up all the wedges before slicing them one more time!


After dinner on the sunporch, before the sun set, we made a quick hike to the frog pond to see our friends. None of them sang for us, but we saw several peek their eyes out of the green slime.

Busy Saturday

As soon as I knew I was coming, I decided that we had to make Halloween cookies, and cupcakes, and some main dishes that could be frozen for Daddy to serve later. He nixed the chili idea right away. Can you imagine not liking chili?? Fortunately, Kevin enjoys helping in the kitchen, because we spent a good part of the day there!

First we placed the ingredients for beef stroganoff in the slow cooker. I gave Kevin the job of peeling the onion. I thought he would accomplish most of that job before the tears would start streaming. It only took one pull of onion skin to sense that there was a back bite to this job! Then we discovered that Daddy had thrown out the lid to the slow cooker since he couldn't figure out what pot it went to. :\ But another lid sufficed, fortunately. We made some Easy Chicken Noodle Soup with the remains of the rotisserie chicken from last night. Next we whipped up the sugar cookie dough and colored it orange. He did a fine job of counting out the drops of food coloring to create orange. Even though he is experienced at breaking eggs open, he managed to squirt a couple of them today. Out of practice, I guess. He liked the beaters.



While the cookie dough was chilling, we proceeded with making some orange cupcakes. That batter was a bit more moist and dripped on a shirtless boy. ha!

Daddy joined us for lunch outside, but the males didn't like the bugs and we ended up eating in the sunroom. Poor Kevin had 5 mosquito bites after being outside for 5 minutes. He is his mother's son! She also attracted the little critters.
After lunch, we tackled another job: the cemetery has not done well at establishing the grass on Mommy's grave. This time, we took some soil as well as grass seed and sprinkling cans.

But there was no water in the fountain, so we had to make a second trip back bringing our own water.

We sorted through most of Kevin's clothes and set aside the outgrown size 4s for Kien. We even took apart Kevin's little indoor trampoline to send to Kien along with the clothes, but the mailing store was closed.

We never did finish the cookies today. There is always tomorrow. We did frost the cupcakes,

then completed them with faces, though Kevin didn't want to use the candy corns I had purchased for the project.

And we ended the day with a trip to Target to be prepared for neighbor Gavin's birthday party tomorrow! Kevin scored a couple of prizes from Grandma too at Target.

Arrived in NC

I arrived in time to go with Steve to pick up Kevin from his after school program where I received a Grandma's hero welcome -- running and jumping into my arms yelling "I love you, Grandma!" :)
Daddy went out for the evening, and we had a rotisserie chicken dinner, then played hide-the-thimble and more of Grandma's old fashioned games.