October

October has been eventful!  Chad's been doing a workout video.  He hadn't been able to exercise in years b/c it seems to make his condition worse.  The kids enjoyed doing it with him.  But he's since had to quit again.

 Calvin's sad face...

 and his stretching face.

 He's gotten more responsive.  

So the kids are starting to be a bit more involved with him.

They tell me all the time how much they love him and how glad they are to have him.

He has started to smile and giggle some.  Chloe's good at getting him to smile.

I don't usually subscribe to the silly hat baby pictures.  But someone made this (and some booties) for Everett.  I don't use them, but figured I should get some pics before getting rid of them.  They turned out kinda cute.  He was grouchy though when I took them.

 Colic symptoms continue.  So he's been spending lots of time like this.  

And like this.  But...

Thankfully he likes the moby wrap now... even if he does spend most of his time like this, pushing his head away.  Just like his daddy, he hates feeling trapped.  Like he doesn't often hold my hand like most babies do.  And when I change his diaper, he's always trying to get his feet free of my hands.  So only after he falls asleep can I put his head in the wrap and go hands-free and try to get something else done.  And even in his sleep he manages to get his head free a lot of times.  Silly boy.

Also, this was my month to teach pre-k in our co-op.  I was nervous about it.  But I was blessed in SO many ways!  First, colic symptoms "happened" to subside during my 3 weeks.  After the diagnosis, I read a bit about it, just a wikipedia article.  It said that there's some reason to believe that probiotics might help.  I'd thought about that even before reading it.  So I started doing that with him.  Thankfully: 

I "happened" to read the article at this time or I might not have followed through with it;  

I "happened" to start his life trying to pump (not something I've been able to do in the past, certainly not after the milk regulated.)  I mix his probiotic into it.

Pacifiers make him mad (still), but he "happens" to not mind a bottle, just so long as he's getting fed.

And a friend "happened" to tell us about "colic ease," an herbal remedy that has also done wonders for him.  And further proof that I was being blessed to be able to survive the month is that this week (now that I'm not teaching) he's been much more grouchy again, despite these remedies that seemed to help so much.

So the Lord blessed me that he was pretty easy to manage while teaching.  I only had one day where I thought I might run away.  And that was mostly Everett's fault.  He has since improved his behavior ;)  I was glad to be done, but by the end, I actually found a few things:

the ability to plan and prep our day in about an hour,

joy in each kid's personality and love for them, 

and a bit more confidence.

Though I do still feel like I should have a degree in child development to really have a good feel for what concepts and worksheets they can handle.  But I got a bit better at that too.

 On my last day, we made spiders and decorated cookies.  It was so fun listening to them chat during snack time.

 Last weekend we had a good Saturday.  We worked outside a bit and carved pumpkins.  I got the smallest two I could.  They were all huge!  Everett really enjoyed all of the crafts we did during school.  And, trying to be like Chloe, he wanted his pumpkin to turn out really well.

 He chose a difficult pattern, helped clean it out just a little, and then traced the pattern.  I started carving the small details and gave him the big ones...

but he quickly gave up, and I carved the whole thing.

This is what he chose for me to carve. 

This is what Chloe chose.  It's supposed to be a grim reaper (which lead to an interesting discussion about Satan and hell and such, but she just made one little wrong cut, which cut off his scythe.  It still looked good, but I didn't get pictures until a few days later, after Halloween.

 And on the other side, she made a face and put some arms and a hat on him.

 And then we threw on costumes and went to the trunk or treat at church.  It was quick but fun.  They had a costume contest.  Chad dressed up as Michealangelo.  This picture is from work.  He and his assistant are the two on the right, Chad's orange.  So he wore it to the trunk or treat too.

And he won an award.  "Creepiest," apparently because it was creepy how much he knew about the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Ok, it's a reach, but fun.  Our primary president made these.  She did a great job!  Prettiest princess had a little tiara, coolest super hero had a cape, etc.  So creative!