of football and chipped teeth (not related!)

Things have been kind of quiet around mooncrawl lately.  Largely because I've been a bit under the weather.  I think I'm making a turn (for the better, thank goodness), so I'm back.


First of all, welcome John!  Glad to see you found my little site here.  Hope this gives you another way to try to keep up with, what did you call us?  The madhouse?  Oh yes, the wild bunch.  Yes, that name fits us (them, really) well.  


You are all too kind about your compliments regarding our Kentucky adventure.  I do feel like I accomplished something pretty good, but I certainly did it with great moral support from Mark and Aisha.  I am extremely glad we went.  I look forward to being able to seriously consider longer car trips as a family.  Good to get to that page, finallly.  


Life has continued to chug along, of course.  Here are some highlights:

• Football games have started.  One had his first official football game on Saturday.  Traveled to Belleville and didn't get our butts whupped too badly.  One was extremely nervous, poor guy.  He played well - made a spectacular tackle that brought a proud tear to this peace-lovin' mama's eye.  He opted out of playing a fairly high profile position (wide receiver?  something like that), which broke my heart a bit.  He said he was too nervous and too afraid of making a mistake (that's the part that broke my heart - not that he wasn't in a high profile position but that he was so afraid to play that he opted to sit out instead).  We've processed this with him (I hope not too much) and have encouraged him to take risks, even scary risks.  And, with our new reward system in place (see below), I'm giving credit for taking risks too.
• To finish up the football scene, Two is also back to playing - flag for him.  He's on the same-ish team he's been on for the past couple of seasons.  He's in the level where the kids will be quarterbacks.  It should be fun and wild to watch.  His first game is this Saturday, 
• which means, between One and Two, our Saturdays are mostly filled now with football.  A good friend this week (hello Th!) was saying that she has just started having sports-weekends now, 12 years in to parenting.  I personally love the sports-filled weekends, and I miss them when they're gone.  Ah, to each her own.
• As mentioned above, we've implemented a reward system chez mooncrawl.  We've had good success, generally speaking, in the past with individual behavioral charts, and with school starting and the madness that can bring, I thought it was time to reinstate something.  So, the boys get a star/day for "peacemaker" behavior (language used at school - I love recycling!) and a star/day for completing homework before 7 pm.  And I'm giving One a bonus star for taking risks in football practice/games.  After so many stars, they earn a dollar.  I'm not above going straight for the cash.  In the past, we've used the jar with the reward slips, such as "you get to pick what we have for dinner" or "movie night - you chose!" but it seems like we just need to go right for what motivates.  Money.  What works for your kids?
• School is going superb.  I couldn't hope for it to go better.  One is in love with his teacher and class (my language, not his, but you know what I mean).  Two, also, is in love with his teacher.  Alright, I'll admit, we all are.  His class seems super sweet too.  And Three! My little Three!  He goes to a speech phenology clinic 4 mornings/week at an elementary school on the west side, and he seems to really, really like it.  He has 3 lovely teachers and a nice little group of boys.  Guess it's the boys who seem to get the poor mouth-motor-skills.  I love dropping him off because it's so cute seeing him kind of brace himself for the drop off (you can almost see him think, "it's ok, she's coming back, I'm not going to cry") and the teacher leads him off and then the look turns to pride.  He's so proud to have his own school.  I never thought of him wanting it like his brothers, but makes sense.

And, because this is a madhouse or wild bunch or whatever Grandpa John used so accurately to describe us, please check out the picture below:

That's a picture of One's mouth on Friday afternoon after Three hit him in the mouth with a plastic drill (???).  Yup, chipped his permanent tooth.  Of course, couldn't be any other way, could it?  I, of course, was a bit upset and had a hell of a time sleeping that night.  There's something about tooth injuries and my children (remember the incident last Oct when Three pulled out his own tooth?) that really rattles me to my core.  Anyway, the good news is that the chip is now fixed - hard to see where it was, even.  The dentist is a little concerned that it got close to the nerve, so we have a recheck in a month or so, but for now, it's all good.  And, it sounds, covered by insurance.  Or, as much as dental insurance covers these things anyways.  

I made a delish lemon zucchini bread yesterday, which One cannot get enough of.  So glad to make something my picky boy likes.  I'm thinking it's a day for lasagne.  No practices to rush off to, so I'll have time to make it and enjoy eating together as a family.  While sitting together at the table.  (truly, we do very good at this normally, but I have found dinners a bit rushed lately while fitting in football practices.)


More to say, but no more time.  


Peace out!