Huckleberry Finn

We have a new kitten! We got him about 4 weeks ago from the Humane Sociey. Stu did end up being very ill with feline leukemia and had to be put to sleep. That was very sad and the kids wanted a new kitty right away to make them happy again. I thought that was a good idea, and sooner rather than later to have things settled again by the time the baby arrives. We named our kitty Huckleberry Finn (because we live on Sawyer St.). He has many nicknames already. I call him Little Huck, mostly, and JJ calls him Hockey Puck. He is a very good kitten. Bella is still not too happy with him, but it gets better every day. He sleeps well at night and is a good eater. Yeah, it is almost like having a very self-reliant baby in some ways. He needs to learn not to jump onto the table or climb the back of my robe. Elise likes to carry him around in a a little tote bag she has, and JJ loves playing with him with string. He is buff colored, a very pretty kitty.

And Baby Makes 5

Just in case you haven't heard, we are going to have a baby! I am now 5 months pregnant, and am due April 23. Things were pretty rough during Sept. and Oct. (hence no blogging), but I am feeling pretty normal now. Actually, as I am typing this, I can feel the baby moving! I have been feeling it for about 2 weeks now, and Jonathan and Elise have felt it too. JJ hasn't sat still enough yet to concentrate on what he's feeling:). I am looking very pregnant already - seems to be my style. We won't be finding out the gender of the baby, as that is the greatest suprise in life to me. The suspense has even helped pull me through the last stages of labor. JJ and Elise are very excited and talk about the baby all the time. Elise wants to name it Leila (a name I had considered for a while, but nixed) and JJ wants to name it Forest Fire Fighter (because I told him liked the name Forrest). At this point our girl name is Claire and the only boy name Jonathan likes is Seth. I like Dashiell (Dash) or Forrest, but Jonathan can't seem to like anything out of the ordinary. This all may change with time, but that's where we are now.
Nothing else very exciting is going on now, except that our cat Stu is very ill. I hope he pulls through, but he may have to be put down. He's been with us since a year after we were married.
Keep posted for more "baby" updates!

Little Fishy

Elise started swimming lessons on Thursday! She loved it. I wasn't sure how she was going to do because she can freeze up in situations where she feels insecure. But she was so excited from watching JJ and wanting to do everything that he does that she did great. She is in a 4-year-old class and it the youngest/littlest on there. She just turned four and the rest of the kids have been 4 and are a year ahead of her school-wise. She did great though. They all sit on the side of the pool with their floaties on (Elise was sooooo excited to get to wear floaties) and the teacher takes two at a time across the shallow end learning to doggie paddle. They also used kick boards to learn to kick across the pool. Elise was the most timid in the water, but her teacher Mr. Dave is great and just let her take her time and kept her from turning and heading into the deep end! Elise did the best during the last 5 minutes when they get free time. She had the floaties on and got a pool noodle and held it in front and under her armpits and was able to kick and swim all by herself to the other side. I think she did it 7 times. Mr. Dave had her slide into the pool on her own a couple of times and the first time she dunked under the water and came up with huge eyes and mouth in a big O, which quickly turned to a grin. Oh, and she looks so cute in her surf suit I found on-line, which is this all in one swimsuit that has shorts and long sleeves - pink and purple of course. It is hard to find a decent swim suit in October!

#2 in the Broken Bone Club

Believe it or not, JJ now has a broken arm! I guess he thought it was his turn to get all that attention. It was bout 2 weeks ago when Jonathan took him golfing. JJ was running down a hill and tripped and landed on his hands and rolled. The doctor wasn't sure if it was broken or not so we had to wait a week with this horrible, monstrous splint on. Then it was decided it was broken, so he has a cast from his palm to his elbow. All his classmates signed it and I could tell he loved being the center of attention! He gets his cast off Oct. 31. Mom has been helping a lot more with his violin playing now that he has only one hand to use. So JJ holds his violin with his chin, bows with his right hand, and mom plays the left-hand finger part. So together we can play the whole Twinkle Twinkle Little Star song as a duet! JJ has a long lesson on Monday with all the other little kids who are at his stage of playing. There will be 6 kids in the 3 to 6-year-old group. Should be entertaining! Elise is chomping at the bit to start music lessons, so I hope to have things (i.e. money:-) ready to start her in January.

Violin lesson #1

Today JJ had his first Suzuki violin lesson with Mrs. Gontea. He was waaaay excited. Which I was glad for, because a few weeks ago JJ told me he didn't need lessons because he already knew how to play the violin. I had to explain to him that there are lots of things about the violin that he doesn't know yet. I guess to his ear his "sawing away" sounds quite musical:)
JJ learned the three stances for playing, how to bow (JJ's version looked like bowing gone hyper - updownupdownupdown), and how to hold the violin. He learned how to tighten and slacken his bow, but wasn't allowed to use it yet. He also learned 3 rhythms that he has to practice clapping, tapping, and plucking on the violin - mississippi-hot-dog, strawberry-blueberry, and peanut-butter-peanut-butter. This is a lot for Mom to remember!!! But JJ can't wait to practice, so I think it will be lots of fun for him. That's why we're starting him so young (a Suzuki method idea) so that it is fun and they learn so quick when they are young that when they are older it comes naturally. This is the same way that Jonathan and his brothers learned and it seems a good fit for JJ, too. And he looked so cute standing so straight with that little violin tucked under his chin!

1st Day of Kindergarten

Tuesday was JJ's first day of Kindergarten! He had so much fun. We walked one and a half blocks down our street to his school at 8 a.m. Elise and I walked back down to pick him up at 3. He was so excited/tired/overstimulated that I couldn't get very many details out of him. Here's what I gathered: He loved music class, where they got to sing together. The other boys were noisy during nap time (he seemed very annoyed by this - my good sleeper!). There are 16 letters in the alphabet. ?! He had a 3rd grade girl as lunch partner and JJ only managed to eat his sandwich and nothing else. Apparently the lunchroom had lots of interesting things going on and it was hard for my slow eater to get 'r done. He's improved on this in the past couple of days.
JJ's teacher is Mrs. Schoenike. For those of you not from the Shawano area this name is pronounced Shen-i-key. She is very nice and has taught at Lincoln Elementary for a long time. JJ already knew 6 kids in his class, 4 from Pre-K, one from soccer and one is our neighbor across the street. That made Mom a little more relaxed about the whole thing.
JJ is excited because tomorrow they have gym class. I'll fill in with more details the more I find out from him.
More new stuff to come, as JJ has his first Suzuki violin class on Monday and swimming lessons on Friday. Rest assured, there will be not one more thing added to our family schedule this fall!
So, in all, JJ seems to have adjusted to K pretty easily and even tells me he can just ride his bike to school by himself - I don't need to walk him. In his dreams! I told him next year he may be able to do that.

Broken Bone Club

Elise is a new member of the broken bone club! Sunday night she broke her left wrist and has a nifty cast on her arm to prove it.
Sunday night we were getting ready for bed and Elise had finished brushing her teeth and ran into her room to get in bed. We have wood floors and she had a baby doll blanket on her floor and when she ran in, she hit that blanket and it FLEW out from under her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her land on her hand. She cried and cried, but it didn't look bad and wasn't swelling. I was worried it was broken, but it didn't seem to be. I gave her Tylenol and wrapped it in an Ace. In the morning, it didn't look any different (fine) but she said it hurt. Conversely, she was playing as normal and rough-housing with JJ and not acting as if it hurt. I decided to take her in to the Dr.'s office because Jonathan and I are leaving on Thursday for San Francisco and I thought I'd rather deal with it Monday than Thursday! We had to wait for 2 hours in the waiting room and toward the end of the wait, Elise still wasn't acting as though it hurt and I kept asking her, thinking I just wanted to go home. Well, it's a good thing we waited because the first thing they did was take and x-ray and sure enough, she has a green stick (torus) fracture. Elise was so brave and stood still for the x-ray, answered all of the nurse's and doctor's questions, and held still when they were casting her arm. She is very shy around strangers still, so that was a feat for her. Elise is a very matter-of-fact little girl and having a cast on hasn't phased her. She still does almost everything for herself, like getting dressed, eating and playing just as crazy as before. She had a bath last night and she was very careful to keep her arm hanging out of the tub.
Mom and Dad and JJ signed her cast, which she liked. Then yesterday morning I came downstairs and JJ and Elise had found a marker and Elise had JJ write HER name on her cast. She though her name ought to be on it! Then JJ had drawn a big circle with a smiley face, and a "train," which was a huge blue blob on her cast. Oh, well. She liked it:) Her cast goes from just below her elbow to her hand, with a loop around her thumb. It is 6 inches long. And now "fiberglass" is her new favorite word that keeps popping up everywhere.
I guess this runs in the family. I (Megan) broke my wrist when I was 1, after falling off a couch. Jonathan broke his wrist when he was 5. I'm not sure how. It was one of his many injuries and accidents as a small child! So let's just hope JJ breaks the chain.