Well, the last couple of days have been pretty good. My Sunday night group provided a sort of soul cleansing, so to speak, and I've been feeling wonderful the last few days. Not to see I haven't gotten upset over anything, but I have been willing to actually interact with my children instead of just sharing a house with the. If that makes any sense at all. :D And I haven't lost my temper at all and done stupid things like I've been prone to doing.

Yesterday was appointment day. James had both of his speech therapies and he did great. I did think were were going to be late but we managed to get there right on time. The kids woke me up at 7.30, we left the house a little after 10 and in those 2.5 hours, I never got a chance to eat. Bleh, typical day. So on our walk to James first appointment, we hit the Co Op so I could get something for my breakfast, one Green Machine from Naked's superfood family of smoothies. Yes, it's actually green. Yes, it did take a bit getting used to but it doesn't actually taste too bad although it does leave an interesting after taste. James did great with Kathy and cooperated with everything (for the most part). He also did with Betsy. While James was with Betsy, Charles and I had a small excursion to the local yarn store. It didn't go the greatest although Charles was actually pretty good. He was just a typical three year old. He did fall in love with some peach colored yarn and was disappointed we couldn't get it but he was excited that he got to buy a small skein of embroidery yarn. He gave the cashier the money, and then received the change back. He even had to help count the change. No, I didn't think the cashier had messed up but why pass up a great opportunity for a counting lesson?

We had fun when we went back to get James. We were a few minutes early, so I played with Charles on the playground for a few minutes. I actually managed to startle Charles on the slide and the look on his face was so funny. When it was time to get James, James very excitedly told me about his time with Betsy and several times he mentioned skate boards. He even got to do a little page about what he had done that day, and it had several skateboards on it. Apparently, he got to pick out the pictures on a computer program and stuff. Hrmmm........ a cool birthday present, perhaps?

It didn't go bad until my mommy/knitting group though. James really went down hill and I'm not sure what really happened. To surmise though, I finally called his father to come and get him. When James got home, he got to sit in the little rocking chair for the next hour and a half until I got home. He was not allowed to play with toys, he was not allowed to watch TV, and he wasn't aloud to get out of the chair unless to go the bathroom. He did get to look at books if he wished though. He did not get yelled at of any kind and he actually responded pretty well. So maybe we found something that might work with him.

Today was beautiful. I kicked the kids outside at 8.30 this morning to get some excercise and fresh air in their lungs. For the next half hour, I had fun with them on the swings and stuff. Here are a few cute pics. Yes, they were actually moving although you can't tell that in the pic.

Charles being my little rebel and refusing to wear his boots. You can see he kicked them off in the previous pic as well.

Deedee doing awesome on a big girl swing. She's so proud of herself.

Kitty had a blast in this swing and was going crazy flapping her little arms around.

At 9, I put Charles down for a nap so he would be fresh for his first day of preschool. I then attempted get the conversion kit put on the bike trailer so I could also use it as a stroller. I spent 30 minutes looking for our tool kit that had the ratchet in it. (Yes, our vehicles need a spring cleaning pretty bad.) I finally find it, settle down to get it done, only to find out that I didn't need it after all. :( Grrr....... waste of time. But I figured it out, and I got it done. I rounded up the kids and brought Charles down for his nap to leave for his preschool only to find out that I didn't have time to walk like I had planned after all. He was a few minutes late, but that was ok. Here he is in his new class room:

Charles was instructed to bring a friend, so he picked out his bright green Monkey that's almost as big as he is. There are velcro on the paws too so it can "hug" him. He loves it. He did have an awesome cheesy grin, but the delay on the camera picked this up instead. :(

Charles did great and I'm so proud of him. He was a little shy, but I had no problem leaving him in the room by himself. He was perfectly comfortable to sit down with the three other children and waved to me as I left. Then again, he's been in this building a lot since we're there every Monday for the mommy group. And I was only a couple of rooms away if something went wrong.

After class, he wanted to go and tell Grandpa Stu about it, he was so proud of himself. After that, Charles gave me a huge scare. I turned around to put him in the van after loading up the other three and I couldn't find him anywhere. Grrr......... I went back to his grandparents, I checked back in his classroom, and he was finally found hiding behind a pile of wood. Argh, he scared several people. The building is next to a busy street and he could have gotten hurt so easily. I didn't know whether to tan his hide or hug him. He wound up getting hugged.

This afternoon, it was so beautiful that we all took a bike ride. I think all in all, it was about 2 miles round trip. James did an awesome job although we had to have an impromptu brake lesson. He almost ran someone over. So after that, every so many feet, we would have him brake. We let the kids play outside some more when we got back. It was just so gorgeous that I had to take advantage of it. Especially since rain is coming in. :( While they ran around an played, I talked to some other mom's that were out there. But, Charles ran off again. Sigh...... that boy has always had a wandering streak in him. This time he disappeared when I was helping Reverend Kayle put some boxes of food in her car. I had donated it to the Church and she had finally found the time to stop by. I meant to drop it off myself, but never really seemed to have the time. I finally found him several buildings away playing in a little play house with another child. So he was marched home (complaining the while way that his bare feet were cold) and taken inside to take his time in the rocking chair. He wanted to play some more, but not after that. He needs to understand boundaries.