The Lost Month

January is almost gone and I am left feeling like I have lost a whole month somewhere in here. It took me days after the surgery to feel as if all the pain killers and anesthesia had left my system. Since then I have slowly been building back up to some 'normal' level of activity. By the middle of the day I find myself exhausted, counting the hours until DH can come home. I still can only bend over and pick up so much so the house has been in a constant state of chaos and by the time I need to fix dinner I'm so tired I'm not even hungry, so DH has been basically working two jobs this week. Went back to the surgeon for a follow-up this week and all is fine. The tiredness is normal and should slowly clear up of the next couple of weeks. I just hate not having the energy.

Of course it isn't just the surgery making me feel tired. Walking and climbing 16month olds are exhausting just by themselves. We have been working on teaching Robbie what "NO" means. He has been giving us lots of opportunities for these teaching moments. His two favorite activities right now are climbing up the computer desk to get to the items on top of the hutch - you know those items we purposely put away up there so no little hands can get to them; and climbing on top of the kitchen table.

When he gets tired of those games he and Emily team up as the destructive duo. The other day while I was fixing lunch and they were supposed to be playing in Robbie's room, I found them in the bathroom with a container of baby powder.
Emily was making powder soup - all over the bathroom floor.

On to better news, it does appear Emily has climbed over the potty training hump. Emily loves my mother so much that she will do anything for her - including finally using the potty. She is now in underwear during the day, and although she still has the odd accident, she is using the potty mainly. Can I just say how happy I am that this day has finally come to our house. Three down and one to go. How early can I start training Robbie????

School has been going okay. We have been getting our work done and reading lots of magazines and library books. But crafts and science projects have been put on hold lately. Playing outside has been hit-and-miss and only lasting short periods of time as the weather has been cold, or wet, or cold and wet. Our days are often so little about the workbooks and more often the other things, so I feel like a lot has been missing since we started back at the beginning of the month.

We have finally gotten our timeline made and hung on the wall. We are using some dot matrix printer paper that Mom had given me and made an approximately 13ft. long run of the paper along the wall. We added the dates for the ancient history that we have already covered. Now, we will be able to just add all the things we come across in reading, math, science and so forth.

And, I have pulled together the information for our big winter/spring project of creating an official backyard habitat. Mary is supposed to do the design and we will work together to finish the manual labor. When it is all done we can apply for a certificate and a sign for the yard.

My computer time is up - sounds like Robbie is somewhere he doesn't need to be.

Peace,
Amy