Celebrating Tommy's Two

Mondays are jam-packed with soccer, work, school and all other kinds of celebration interfering busyness, so we decided to celebrate Tommy's second birthday a day early.  Today!

Saturday night Adam and I diligently baked cupcakes, made a batch of buttercream frosting and kneaded marshmallow fondant to roll out to make the decorations for these awesome "build your own robot" cupcakes.  I found the idea for them here.  Adam is the most awesome sous chef a girl could ask for!  And the cupcakes?  I ADORE them!  It was my first time working with fondant, mostly because I think it always looks really pretty but tastes like/has the consistency of old ABC gum that still has its bubble gum sugary sweetness, but has developed a weird over-chewed texture that eventually disintegrates in your mouth.  Yes, I know about the gum from experience, I was one of those kids that would put my gum on a piece of paper at the end of the day before brushing my teeth and then pick it up, pop it in my mouth to chew it again in the morning.  Gross.

My feelings about the consistency and flavor of fondant aside (and I know plenty of people who really like it, so this is obviously a personal issue), it is fantastic for making cute and detailed cake decorations, so I gave it a shot.  You don't have to actually eat it anyway; I can easily pull that robot body part right off the top of the buttercream frosting and get to the good stuff below.  Although I may just have to eat it on principle considering the time involved in cutting out all those tiny robot parts!  It got pretty tedious.  When we hit hour 2 of  making the cupcakes, I said to Adam, "This is taking forever!  Why can't I just put on some sprinkles and call it good???!!"  It wasn't just the cutting that took time, the fondant was time consuming to knead and knead and knead just to make the color consistent.  But when the cupcakes were done, we gave each other a high five and I exclaimed, "Those were SO worth the effort!"  They are DARLING!! 

Enough about the cupcakes!  On to my sweet Tommy's birthday celebration day!  We started the day with some pumpkin pancakes topped with homemade buttermilk syrup.  Oh boy, were they good!  Tommy is still not feeling 100% and his appetite is down, but he got about half a pancake down before he was all done.  Sadly, he has no special plate yet!  I forgot that he didn't have one and haven't made one yet.  It's actually good, at least I know something I can give him for Christmas!

In the afternoon after church, Tommy opened his presents.  What do you get a 5th boy who doesn't need or want for anything?  A Costco-sized box of his favorite snack: fruit snacks, a pillow pet, just like his brothers, some mini Halloween marshmallows, for a special treat, and new Playdoh, because Playdoh can always use replacing.  Oh, and I can't forget the giant "Happy Birthday" helium balloon.  He loves helium balloons, really--endless fun for him!  In the afternoon, when we blew up some mini balloons to play with, Tommy kept pushing the little balloon up in the air, trying to get it to float up like the balloon filled with helium. Tommy wasn't quite sure what to do with the gift bags at first, but with a little help from his brothers, he was soon finding the prize in the packaging with gusto.  Although they were simple, he seemed pretty happy with his gifts.

After a delicious dinner of chicken pasta fagioli, we popped 2 long candles in the "T" robot, sang "Happy Birthday" and dug into the tasty cupcakes.  When we all started singing to him, Tommy was a little confused.  He was looking at us like "Why are all you weirdos looking at me and singing at me?"  And he had no idea what to do with the candles.  He ended up needing some outside assistance or the candles might have burned down to the cake!  Tommy really enjoyed the cakes, the fondant especially, go figure, and in classic kid-style finished off the fondant and frosting, leaving the cupcake whole and bald. 

The night ended skyping with Nana and Papa as he opened their gift, a pair of fleece lined Crocs.  He has LOVED wearing Crocs this summer, especially because he can get them on and off by himself.  But with cold weather coming on the Crocs were shortly going to be shelved.  I knew Tommy would not appreciate that.  So when my mom was looking for a birthday gift suggestion, the memory of fuzzy Crocs, that I must have seen at some point in my mom wanderings, popped into my head.  He loved them!  And he loved skyping.  He was fascinated by it.

Our snuggle boy was rocked to sleep by Dad, tired and feverish with no voice left, but in a cheerful mood, as always, from a special day.  Even though he never seemed to be tired or unwell, I could tell he was happy for his binky and his bed come day's end.  We love you our dear, treasured birthday boy Tommy!

And Now...Let's Give a Big Chaos Welcome to the Cold and Flu Season!

Wednesday morning Luke arose for the day grumpy and grouchy, and refused to walk down the stairs because his legs hurt.  Being the {in}sensitive mother I am, I told him that he was just feeling tired because he had taken so long to fall asleep the night before and he just needed to wake up a little more by coming downstairs for breakfast.  He was not happy, but slowly dragged himself down the stairs and then proceeded to eat four bites of cereal before collapsing onto the couch for his morning PBS show. 

I went upstairs to clean a couple of bathrooms while Luke watched.  When his show ended I heard him head upstairs to his bedroom.  After completing the first bathroom, I moved to the second bathroom and discovered Luke tucked back under his blankets, eyes closed, nearly asleep on his bed.  That was when I realized there was something very off.  Yep, fever.  A high one, over 102.  I felt terrible!  I tucked him in tight and gave him a lot of snuggles to try to make up for my insensitivity to his plight.

The flushed cheeks and hurting legs should have alerted me that he was not feeling well, but he was in warm jammies under a bunch of blankets when I woke him up, so I figured he was just pink-cheeked and warm from sleep.  And I hate to say it, but Luke has plenty of mornings where he wakes up a little less than pleasantly, and when he's grumpy he can whine about a lot of different things, so the hurting legs weren't a huge red flag. 

Poor Luke has now spent the last three days battling this inexplicable high fever with no other symptoms, like cough, earache or anything.  He's falling asleep in weird places all day long, isn't hungry at all, even for ice cream {gasp!}, and can muster up just enough energy to move from his bed to the couch and back again.  It's so sad!  This fever added an unwelcome kink to Adam's traveling week (thank goodness he's home now!) and we have about 1,000 other things going on.  This October is perhaps the busiest (a lot of fun busy, but busy still) October I have ever lived through.  That is saying something because October is ALWAYS a busy month for us.

Don't worry about us getting off too easily from this, the first whopper illness of the cold and flu season, it appears that it just may be a plague that will eventually take down the entire Chaos family.  Now Tommy has it.  Not surprising since the first day of Luke's fever I made Luke some ramen noodles for dinner and after he ate about 1/8 of the bowl he abandoned them on the counter.  My little scavenger, Tommy, didn't miss a beat scuttling himself around to Luke's seat and diving into the heaping bowl of noodles. 

I was taking Luke's temperature just before lunch today, using a thermometer in his armpit because our ear thermometer doesn't seem to get a good reading in our two littlest boys' tiny ear canals.  Tommy, who had been acting perfectly normal all morning, pleasant as can be, saw what I was doing, lifted his shirt up and pointed to his armpit.  He wanted his temperature taken too.  He's so darn cute, I had to oblige, thinking I'd just take a quick reading to make him happy, but after I pushed the button on the thermometer to start the reading the numbers were jumping up so fast I thought I better keep it in there to see what his temperature really was.  101.4!  Tommy is now sleeping away the afternoon in his bed.  I'm hoping for a quicker recovery for him than his brother seems to be having, this fever would not make for a fun way to celebrate a birthday!

The Chaos has now dived head-first into the cold and flu season.  Drat.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad

As we muddle through this phase of dishonesty, it is nice to notice the effort Zac is making to do the right thing.  It is important to recognize that while bad choices are made, they are not who my Zac is.  Maybe what we are doing to help him work through this phase IS working bit by bit, there are just good days and bad days as with any learning experience.  I keep thinking of the song from the opening credits to that old TV show "The Facts of Life."  It goes: You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life.  We're taking some bad right now, but there is good to take too. 

Tuesday night at the boys' Cub Scout Pack Meeting Zac was awarded his Webelos badge.  It was an exciting night and a great reward for a lot of hard work completed.  As I thought about the effort Zac had put forth to earn his Webelos badge, my heart softened toward him.  I was reminded of how much Zac really does care about doing the best he can, about being the best Zac he can be and making right choices even when it's not the popular thing to do or even the thing he WANTS to do.  He was also given a compass badge and two compass points for all the activity badges he's earned.  If you aren't familiar with the world of Scouting, that is pretty amazing.  He's not been a slacker in the attainment of his goal to do all the activity badges, and has learned a lot from doing them.  Our Pack Master told him that in his 4 years as Pack Master he's never awarded any compass points before for Webelos work.  Zac is three activity badges away from his goal of completing all 20, and has a few small activities to complete before earning his Arrow of Light.  With two months before his birthday when he becomes an 11-year-old Scout and joins the Boy Scouts, I think he's going to do it!

Today I had the opportunity to drive the soccer carpool which includes Zac and three of his good friends from school.  It wasn't ideal that I had to drive today because Adam is out of town and I had to get our sitter Krystal to watch the other kids so I could drive.  But I needed to do that drive today, not because another mom couldn't have done it, but because I needed to be in the car with Zac to see him at his best. 

The boys got on a run of telling jokes to one another, such as, "A guy walks into a bar...OW!"  {chuckle}.  One of the boys told this one: "How do you make a blond laugh on Saturday?  Tell her a joke on Monday."  One boy gave a chuckle but I think it was gratuitous; the other two didn't get it at all {crickets chirping}...still a little young for blond jokes I guess.  So I told them it was one of many "blond" jokes where the punchline alludes to people with blond hair being dumb.  The boys kind of guffawed a bit and the one blond boy in the car said, "I don't really care that much."  But then Zac, really cool and casual so as not to sound bossy, but to make sure he didn't keep quiet against an injustice, said, "That's the kind of joke that could hurt someone's feelings though."   There were some assents and then the subject changed and they carried on with their merry chatter.  I know it was a simple statement, but I felt really proud of Zac for his honesty, even while he was surrounded by his peers and friends, who I know he wants to impress.  He stood up for the right.  I didn't prompt him, I hadn't said anything about them being mean jokes, I just explained what they were, nor did I give him any significant "looks" in the rear-view mirror.  It was a shining moment, a victory for my boy, and so much more typical to his character.  My heart is still warmed by the memory of it tonight. 

Thinking about the courage it took to mention the meanness of the joke to his pals opened my eyes to Zac's behavior since Sunday.  Over the past few days Zac has really been jumping in to help where he can if he sees a need.  He volunteers to help with his siblings if I have my hands full, which I really do right now because Adam is in Atlanta.  When he's asked to do something, he gets to it immediately, instead of making me ask him over and over, and he encourages his brothers to do the same.  We haven't had any lies since the homework incident Sunday.  I know three days might not sound like a lot of time, but I am thankful for every day that goes by without one.  And he did face the return of the money with determination to set things right and without even a tiny bit of fuss.  He's working hard to earn back the trust he's lost. 


I am grateful that my eyes have been opened the past two days to Zac's anxious efforts to get back on track.  Zac has a good heart, he's just young and he's learning right now.  That highlights one of my most important jobs: to teach, and make sure what he's learning are right principles so that he is steered back to the way of light when he heads down a dark path.  I was so eager to have a quick fix that I forgot that learning is a process and not always smooth and easy.  I need patience and perseverance, and I can't forget to look past the bad moments and see how hard Zac is trying, see all the good moments.

As the oldest Zac has nobody's footsteps to follow.  We avoid some of the pitfalls we experienced with Zac with the younger boys, because they see Zac go through things, good and bad.  I believe the younger boys make many of their choices based on what they've seen from him, either to do what he's done because he's succeeded or to go a different route because he's been in trouble.  And Adam and I are constantly learning from Zac too.  Zac is our guinea pig child.  Things we experience with him are usually brand new and require different and experimental approaches, some successful, some not so much.  When a younger brother enters a similar phase we know better what to do at the first sign of trouble, so success comes more quickly.  It's cheesy, I know, but I can't help quoting another 1980's sitcom tagline, we all experience Zac's "Growing Pains" and we all learn from them. 

Every week after I clean the bathrooms, I write up a quote from the scriptures or from a church leader, past or present, in dry erase marker on the mirror.  I call them "Mom Messages."  The quote I put up after today's cleaning is from President Monson's Priesthood Session talk from last October's General Conference.  It popped into my mind as I was considering what I should put on the mirror this week.  Having that quote come to me reminded me that Adam and I are not alone in this parenting journey.  God is right there beside us and has heard my pleadings for help and guidance over the past few weeks.  I know He was the one who gave me the urge to fulfill my end of the carpool today, when I could have asked another of the moms to switch.  And the quote for my "Mom Message" that was planted into my mind was PERFECT for where Zac is right now and just what I think he needs to hear.  "Decisions are constantly before us. To make them wisely, courage is needed: the courage to say 'No,' the courage to say 'Yes.' For decisions do determine destiny."

I have total confidence in Zac's ability to make the right decisions and believe firmly in his desire to do so.  He is not always going to be perfect, boy I wish he was!  That would save me a lot of money on wrinkle cream and hair dye!  For now, when he falls down I am here to help him get back up again, to find his correct footing, just like I did when he was first walking.  Isn't that what growing up, growing older and becoming independent is all about?  Every day we are learning to walk.  It's just that these days the way we are learning to walk is metaphorical rather than literal.    Hopefully as Zac grows he will need me less and less to pick him up and point him back in the right direction, because he will know how to do so himself.  And I know, and I know he is beginning to know, that God is there too, to help him along that path, more than I will ever be able to.

I am so happy I have been able to see Zac again this week, because in my frustration with our situation I wasn't seeing him, not all of him, just the parts that were bugging me.  Zac's is a boy of courage.  His decisions will determine his destiny and I know his will be a great one.  We just have to keep plowing through these tough times, together.  But I need to remember that these times will shape him as much as, or even more so, than the easy times.  And that even when there are bad choices being made, if we can tackle those bad choices and send them packing, they will not define him, they will not touch the goodness and light that lives within.

The Lying Stage

The advice I got for Luke's bedtime problems was so great from you all, we incorporated and interwove a few different suggestions, and they seem to be working more often than not.  So I thought I'd try again with another recently popped-up problem of ours.  

We've been having a bit of trouble with Zac recently.  Let me say first that I think that he is such an incredible kid.  The pride I feel in the boy he is bursts my buttons.  He is an amazing big brother and I am always grateful that he is our first because he leads his brothers well.  Adam and I think the world of him.  Yet right now he is in this lying phase and it feels like he can't seem to stop the little lies from popping out.  But the deceit is not all small, he has also made some pretty big deceitful decisions recently.  It's aggravating and wearying.  He and I have such a close relationship, and when he tells a lie it feels like he's betrayed me.  I feel like our friendship has suffered.  And they are almost always about really stupid things!  Not that any lie is about a good thing, but sometimes I want to say, "Really?  That's what you chose to lie about?  Your __________ (insert: lack of changed underwear, time you turned off the light at bedtime, teeth brushing, or any other ridiculous reason for lying here)!  Was that even worth it?!"

I know this is a typical phase for kids this age.  Many kids go through a period of testing the limits of lies about Zac's age, which is 10.  Heck, I know I was a little liar about this age too.  I remember the lie that turned me around.  I told my mom something about making donuts at Girl Scouts because I had taken a leftover "extra" donut for myself and hidden it in my backpack to eat when I got home (we were only supposed to have one).  My mom had asked me where I got it as I was eating it after Girl Scouts had ended, and I didn't want to get in trouble, so I lied.  I felt so awful about it and I was SURE my mom was going to find out the truth because she would surely say something to my Girl Scout leader about making donuts, although now I doubt that she would have given it a second thought.  Plus, I am sure she knew I was lying in the first place because a homemade Girl Scout donut would not have looked like the store-bought donut I was eating.  But I wasn't looking at the situation from an adult perspective, which just makes it all sound ludicrous now, and at the time she didn't call me out on my lie, and I was sick with guilt all afternoon and evening.  After worrying myself into a craze while trying to go to bed that night, I couldn't take my shame any longer and confessed all to my mom that night.  I don't remember ever telling a "big" lie like that again.     

Anyhow, back to Zac, within the past 2 weeks it feels like he went from a kid who told a little white lie here and there to becoming a bold-faced liar.  And I hate labeling kids, but there you have it!  After a couple small lies he was grounded from video games.  Then, before last weekend I found some money in his pocket that I knew did not belong to him.  I gave him every chance to tell the truth, knowing he didn't get the $5 as a "sure you can have it" gift from his friend as his story went, but he lied again and again before I finally got the truth out of him.  He had to return the money, which turned out to be money he found it on the ground at his friend's house and chose to keep instead of handing it over to his friend's parents.  We required him to return the money with an apology note as well as give a face-to-face explanation of the situation to his friend's mom.  We also extended the video games ban.  It was not fun for him, and I thought he had learned a good lesson.  Then, the same night he returned the money, he decided to tell Adam he had completed his homework when he hadn't.  So now he's grounded from playing with friends as well.

Honestly (haha, no pun intended), I don't know what to do about it anymore.  He's lost a lot of privileges.  We aren't allowing him to have the freedoms he usually gets when we feel that we can trust him, like staying home alone if I have to zip to the grocery, or putting his homework away without me checking it first.  But what it seems that he isn't feeling is real remorse over his lies.  He says he's sorry and seems upset over the situation, but he keeps doing it, so that tells me he's not really all that sorry.  Maybe just sorry he was caught!  He needs that pit-of-your-gut achy feeling that lets you know you're in the wrong and you need to fix it and quit doing what you are doing.  And I don't know how to help him get there.  Trust me: the lectures have been as plentiful as the consequences, but that is obviously not doing any good.  And Zac is hard to read because he's really good at looking past his frustrations and cheering himself up, or at least putting on a brave face. 

Although it's a common stage, it is a stage that needs to be over.  My trust in Zac is wounded and I need it back.  I need my honest, trustworthy son back!  We've been lie free for a day, yes, he actually DID brush his teeth this morning when he said he did, but with the track record of the past week, I'm not getting my hopes up.  Any advice from the wide world out there would be welcome! 

The Chaos Family's October 8th, 2011: By The Numbers

Cups of hot cocoa consumed: 9
Bowls of hot crock-pot baked potato soup eaten: 9
Heaping piles of snow gear soaking wet and ready for the dryer: 1 (ginormous)
Tomato plants droopy with half-ripened, semi-frozen tomatoes: 3
Wilted and mushy zucchini plants that are now done for: 8
Yellow and red peppers that will never be anything but green: 11
Snow forts built: 1
Snow angels made: 3
Sledding/snowboarding runs down the neighbors' snow-covered grass slope: 19
Solar-powered pathway lights broken by sledding boys: 1
Movies watched while snuggling close: 1
Hot baths taken: 3 (possibly 4 before night's end!)
Cakes baked: 2
Muffins baked: 12
Pages read while tucked under cozy blankets: 104
Soccer games canceled: 3
Snowballs thrown: 80
Toddlers filled with wonder at the white-covered world: 1
Glorious snow-capped peaks visible when the sun came out for a bit in the afternoon: 3
Inches of snow: 4
High temperature: 45
Low temperature: 29
Days since last time the heater was on: 170
Days earlier in the autumn than we've seen snow in Colorado before today: 9
Moms a little concerned that we are in for a long brown winter: 1
Hours spent being blissfully unproductive: 8
Parents happy for some precious time at home with their boys: 2
Boys happy to be romping in the snow: 5
Dogs happy to be romping in the snow: 1
Boys who prayed at bedtime for more snow tomorrow: 3
Expected high temperature for Friday, October 14th, 2011: 75

Silhouettes

Another of my General Conference weekend projects was to make silhouette cut-outs of each of the boys.  I was inspired back in May when one of Josh's primary teachers, a fabulously creative and artistic woman (you can find her blog here), gave each of us moms a silhouette she had done of the kids in her class.  It was a wonderful gift and I called her to thank her for her time and effort.  She told me it was actually quite easy and she would help me do the other kids if I wanted her to.  Well, I knew she was incredibly busy getting ready to launch her first home decor line on Etsy, along with her duties as mother to five children, so I didn't want to impose on her already packed-full schedule.  But I REALLY wanted to!

I've enjoyed my silhouette of Josh for the past few months, wishing I had one of each of the kids, but not doing much about making my wishes come true.  Then a couple of weeks ago I was cutting some dinosaurs out of felt for my preschool class felt board.  I was just cutting them free hand, without following a tracing or a pattern, when Zac and Ben both came in the back door from school.  Noticing what I was doing they exclaimed excitedly about my incredible cutting abilities, "How do you do that, mom, without even following a line?!"  "You are an awesome cutter!"  I appreciated their encouragement and told them so.  My cutting skills are pretty sweet.  :)  Then I chuckled to myself about how nice it would be if cutting talent was actually marketable.  That is just about how it is with me, a lot of fun but useless skills!

Unfortunately I didn't come up with a great idea for how to put my mad cutting skillz to work, but the boys' excitement DID get me thinking about those silhouettes.  I could do them, no problem.  And I would even be following the outline of a photo, so it would be super easy.  As I worked on the silhouettes on Sunday, I found that they were, in fact, super easy.  What took me so long?!  It was a perfect Conference-listening project.  I am SO happy with how they came out!  We are going to put them up on the wall in the family room where we have this weird little space surrounded by moulding that needed something just like this.

Just in case you are interested in doing something like this, here's what I did:

I started by taking a profile photo of each of the boys.  Make sure they are wearing the clothes that you want to have a silhouette of.  Collars on boys look great for this.  I don't know what looks great for girls...sorry! :)  You'll just have to experiment.  Next, I printed the pictures off on the printer in a very low quality black and white (because all I needed was the outline really), in the size I wanted, which was 8x10.  I carefully taped the picture to some acid-free black scrapbook paper with just a couple of rolled pieces of tape, to keep the picture in place as I cut around it.  Then I used my "good" scrapbooking scissors (sharp, sharp scissors with a very sharp tip, able to make small and clean cuts) and cut around the outline of the photo.  Get all the little bumps and lumps of the clothes and hair, don't smooth it out.  It looks more "alive" with the lumpies.  I gently pulled the original picture and the tape off so I wouldn't tear the black paper, and voila!  I had my silhouette!  Then I just mounted them on another piece of acid-free paper, cut to 8x10 size for framing, and wrote the boys' names on each one with the year.  I can easily do this again as time goes by.   

One of the pitfalls I found was that you need to make sure the pictures you take of the kids are all from the same distance (should be pretty close up--a head and shoulders shot).  I didn't do this at first and my first round of silhouettes had good sizes of Ben and Tommy, but the other three were smaller and it looked weird that they weren't all the same size.  Just frame the camera around their profile exactly how you want it to look in the silhouette, top of chest to top of head with only an inch or so around the uppermost and lowest points you want in the silhouette (I hope that makes sense).  Adam valiantly (although he didn't want to do it at all) took the too-small silhouettes down to the printer in the basement and adjusted the size until they matched Ben and Tommy's and then I had to cut them out all over again.  So watch your distance unless you want to do extra cutting like I had to!  And the scissors really do make a difference, I use Cutter Bee brand.  This project was much easier with a good pair than it would be with regular old Fiskars.

The Second Fastest Third Grader in the City of Colorado Springs

Last night Ben ran in the Landsharks Citywide Celebration run.  It includes kids from two different Colorado Springs school districts who have qualified by running the mile-and-a-half in less than 15 minutes.  It was at Bear Creek Regional Park, which is not close to our house, and we failed to give ourselves enough driving time, so in classic Chaos style, we arrived minutes before Ben's start time.  But he was ready to run, and after a few stretches, he found his place at the starting line.  He had a great race! We could tell he was having a fantastic time and worked so hard throughout the run.  Because they ran the grades in heats it was hard to know where he was placed because he was catching up to the slower 6th, 5th and 4th graders, but we did see the first place third grade finisher as he streaked by in a blur, with Ben not too far behind him, grinning ear to ear.  

Ben finished the mile-and-a-half course in 10 minutes, 19 seconds, placing second in the third grade boys race.  Ben, Adam and I decided that not only is the third grade kid who placed first a rock star and incredibly fast, but we believe he is also part robot.  :)  Ben, who is not cyborg at all, although one of the other moms of a kid on Ben's team keeps asking me if he's bionic, was amazing and we are so proud of him and his running accomplishments.  He felt fantastic, although tired, and was jived up the rest of the night over his success and the joy of the race!  YOU are the rock star, Benny!  Congratulations!

Luke V. Dentistry

Three visits in a row (three trips every 6 months since Luke turned 3) we have TRIED to get Luke to open his mouth for the dentist.  Even just to take a peek, not to touch or clean.  Nope.  Let's be honest here, for three visits in a row we have tried to simply get Luke to TALK to the dentist!  Nope.  Not a word.  Three visits in a row we have been shot down. 

Until today. 

Today Luke, my sweet, brave boy, let the hygienist clean his teeth, even with the noisy, tickly polishing brush/air sucker combo, and then let the dentist "count" each tooth (while secretly checking for soft spots that might be cavities).

This is kind of a big deal.  Luke's sensory alarms are majorly triggered in his mouth.  "Alert!  Intruder!  This is a level 4 invasion.  Something strange in the immediate vicinity!  Do not cooperate.  Do not engage.  Run!  Alarm!  Alert!  Attack if you must!"  This is why eating was (and still can be) such an issue for him.  His sense of taste, texture and temperature in his mouth is hyper-acute and he refuses to have anything to do with unfamiliar people, food or objects near or in his mouth.  I was starting to think we'd have to take Luke to a specialty dentist who works with special needs kids, who could drug him up a bit to get him to relax enough to get his teeth checked.  I know, awful, but true!  His teeth seemed fine, but I didn't want to find out that they weren't fine by discovering one was rotting in his mouth.  Gross.

I was wrong!  No specialist required!  I am SO glad I was wrong!  Luke did it all on his own.  Yes, yes.  There was a little incentive from Mom.  I don't use bribery regularly, and it is rare when I use it with any of my children but Luke, but I'm definitely not above bribery with him, especially if the bribe can prove to him that he CAN do things that are scary or hard for him to do.  He was told that if he cooperated he would be able to pick out a small toy at the store afterward.

With that incentive (read: bribe) in his back pocket, he was brave and did everything he was supposed to do.  I could tell he was uncomfortable and a little afraid, but he didn't cry, he didn't whimper, he didn't pull away or freak out.  He didn't talk to the dentist this time either.  But he DID open up and let the cleaning and checking be done.  After we were all finished with the appointment, Luke and I talked about how he felt before, during and after the cleaning.  I listened as he talked about his feelings, the good and the bad, and then I told him about how things might feel scary or unfamiliar, but we can be brave and do what we need to even when it is hard.  And we can feel so good about conquering our fears afterward.  I love when he has a clear, obvious success like this.  I think it helps him leaps and bounds more than any other thing we do with him. 

Now that he's been through it once, next time I think the cool prizes the dentist's office gives will be incentive enough.  Good job, Luke!  I'm a proud mama today!  And look at those sparkling pearly whites!

Spookified!

October is here!  And the house is now adorned in its full spoooooky regalia!  On Saturday we cranked up the volume on the speakers and listened to another wonderful General Conference session while putting up our Halloween decor.  It makes me happy, it's so fun!

For its second year as the star attraction of our living room, I added a few items to our haunted house apothecary table.  It was tough, but I went out into the deep woods and found a hovel made of sticks, home to one warty old hag, and bottled up some steam from her cook fire.  Useful for all kinds of great wart cures and wart curses.  And we went for the real deal this year and replaced Love Potion No. 4, the dangerous loved-to-death variety, with the more useful, but just as dangerous, Love Potion No. 9.  It is the potion you need if you are looking for someone to fall crazy in love, note the emphasis on the CRAZY!

 Luke and Josh really got into the spirit this past week and made an entire wall full of paper skeletons.  And then spent their Conference Sunday diligently sitting at the counter making paper monsters of all sorts: warewolves, Frankenstein and the Shadow Monster. 

Aside from our cute little felt ball monsters that we made last Sunday, our new addition to this year's Halloween decor is this cute yarn-wrapped chipboard "BOO" decoration, hanging just above the little line of monsters.  It was not my idea, but I don't remember what crafty blog I found it on a few weeks ago, one of the ones on my sidebar I am sure, but I loved it the moment I saw it and had to have one.  It was pretty easy, except for the B that required a lot of creative gluing.  I'm really happy with it! 

Happy October!