6:55am - a critical moment

6:55 is one of those moments in the day where it really makes or breaks the day for me.  It a major cross roads for how my morning will go.   It can go one of two ways.  The good way or the very bad way.

Here's the good way:
5:30 ish Calvin wakes up and doesn't get into too much trouble until I get up
6:15am - my alarm goes off and I get up to start helping Calvin get ready for school.  I help him get dressed and cook a good breakfast for him. We usually play a game - UNO,Monopoly, Blink, Guess Who - while we eat.  We put Calvin's contact in, find shoes, I pack his lunch.
6:55am- the bus arrives and Calvin hops on the bus with a hug and kiss goodbye. 
Then, I'm FREE!!! :)
7am - if Dave is home I take Tressel for a walk
7:40 - either take a quick shower or wake up the girls depending on what I have going on that morning.

The rest of the morning is so great and so easy with a few little bumps in the road as would be expected with 3 little ones needing to be dressed and fed!

I have been pretty blessed that since we got back from our trip I've had all good days until today. 9 days in a row. Today would have been the 10th day and Calvin would have earned the privilege of using the Kindle Fire on the bus. but he totally melted down this morning and we had a rough morning....

Here is the miserable way mornings sometimes go- this was today

6:15am - my alarm goes off. I go to look for Calvin and see that he has obviously been up a time or two in the night as there are wrappers of food on the counter and on the floor and graffiti on my kitchen counter, white board, calendar or any number of other places.  I find Calvin is in bed. Not sleeping but not in the mood to get up.  I know we are going downhill fast so I put on my happy mom voice and offer to make a great breakfast, play monopoly and remind him that it is the 10th DAY!! 

Calvin sort of tries to pull it together. Get's dressed, gets a contact in but doesn't eat. We play monopoly until 6:55. The bus arrives. we make it out the door, we make it up the driveway., we make it onto the bus. Buuuutttt, we do not make it into our seat. We sit at the bus and whine about how we don't want to go but don't want to go back to day 1 on our kindle fire goal. We freeze. Finally the allotted 5 minutes of waiting has passed and we go inside. I tell Calvin that if he is indeed sick he doesn't have to go to day 1 but can go inside and rest until he is feeling better. 

It is 7am. The crying fits, hysterics, swearing and tantrum begin. The girls each get woken up by the screaming. I feed the girls and get them ready amidst the awful noise.  At one point Calvin does take a 10 minute time out and comes out of his room but obviously not fully in control.  We move forward.

I have to make the decision about which one of my kids will be late. CAlvin's school starts  at 8:30. If I take him first, Clare is late. Her school starts at 8:50.  The drive to CAlvin's school is AT LEAST one hour round trip. Lately I've been taking Clare first because it takes longer to get Calvin to school and I feel bad having her sit in the car for so long in the morning and miss class.

8:25 load the car. Drop of Clare first and then head to Calvin's school. We get there at 9:15 and he says he hates second period. I "wait him out"  (meaning I don't drag him in to the school against his will but wait until he can come in on his own.) Lex and I tour the school with Calvin trailing but not wanting to go to class and start work.

9:45ish- the teachers say I can go and they will block Calvin's access to the door to keep him safe.

10:15 - we arrive home and Jo go straight to bed, she is late for her nap and cried a lot of the way in the car.

There are certainly much worse things that could happen in life but it is sure makes me appreciate my good days to have one go so wrong as it did today. And as luck would have it, I got a call at 2:30 saying Calvin was not safe getting on the bus this afternoon so I had to go get him at the end of the day also!

back to school after vacation

This week my grandpa Cal passed away so we took a trip to Salt Lake City to be with family and attend the funeral. We decided to go spend a few extra days with Grandma  and other family since we were making the trip which resulted in Calvin missing a few days of school.  Since we had a good routine and he was enjoying class we were very sorry that he would have to miss school, but weighing our options decided it would just have to be as it was most important for us to go to Salt Lake.

Great Grandpa Cal and little Calvin 2004

As many grandpas do, our Grandpa Cal has a special place in our heart, of course!  His name is Calvin -- we named our first son, Calvin after him.

Today Calvin went to school again after sleeping in the car from 9pm-1:30am and then being put in bed. His teacher called to say that he had a great day back which was very good news and a small miracle in some ways. We had worried so much that going on vacation would get him out of his good routine.

Also, Calvin did pretty well on vacation which was also a huge blessing. (our vacation to DC in October was much more difficult).  I think the pace of the vacation was easier for Calvin since all we did was sit around and visit. We did do a short tour of BYU and one short tour of temple square but other than that it was very low key which was good for Calvin.

All in all, I am feeling blessed and happy that things are going forward. I can't say things are smooth. It is still kind of crazy, but at least it is survivable and seems to be getting stable.

We have a few goals we are working on.
1. The bus - After Calvin gets 10 days in a row of riding the bus to and from school (so far he has 3), he will get a kindle fire.
2. not swearing - I think we have had a swearing goal ongoing for a couple of years. Currently Calvin works about a week at a time to earn various rewards. Right now he's trying to get a star wars piano book. There was a lot of swearing on the trip so we will probably start fresh and hope to get the swearing under control.   His favorite swear word right now is the H word.  This is preferable to the F and B words which were his favorite for many months!!

one step forward and two backwards

This has been a super tough week! I am not sure if Calvin is tired, stressed or what is going on but boy have we been struggling at home.

We have missed the morning bus 2 times this week. In years past I used to feel really guilty, dumb and wonder what the heck was wrong with me that I couldn't get my child dressed and to school like the rest of the kids there. Now I realize that it isn't always my fault. I definitely have to put on my best game to have things go smoothly, sometimes things still go south.

Yesterday I set my alarm, as always for 6:15. Made breakfast as scheduled but Calvin refused to eat, he wasn't ready when the bus came so we missed that at 7am. Then he cried and yelled and threw a fit becuase it was so sad to miss the bus and it was Mom's fault! I got the girls ready and we hit the road at 8:25 so that Clare could be dropped off and not have to be late to her school. We arrived at his school at 9:15 where he was still throwing a fit. His teachers weren't going to physically drag him in so we just waited. I finally hit the road again at 10:15 after Calvin turned himself around and went to school for the day. Jo took a 15 minute cat nap on the way home and so since she wasn't getting a good nap anyway we went to COSTCO on the way home.

This morning he threw an hour long fit and then turned himself around and got ready so I could take him to school. He did a good job getting himself ready and stayed in a good mood until we arrived at school where he was happy to start his day!! Who knows what makes the difference between a really good day, one like yesterday and one like today.

One of the things that had been helping our morning routine, most of the time, is to have a breakfast schedule. ONe of the major/common causes of morning breakdowns for Calvin is not having what he wants to eat for breakfat. So, I let him make a schedule for our breakfast menu. Tuesday- oatmeal. Wed- pancakes. Th- waffles Fri-eggs and toast. Sat- oven pancake. Sun-crepes. Monday - cereal or leftover crepes. For Calvin it really helps to know what to expect and it helps me too so that I can have breakfast going without having to talk to him about what he wants and wait for him to decide, argue or change his mind.

How's Calvin's new school?

I get asked this at least once a day! We've been at Calvin's new school for 3 weeks. I think things are going well so far. Calvin loves going to school which is great. I am still getting used to not having details about his day sent home for me to see! The only time I have to hear from the school about an incident is if there is a manual restraint (if they lay a hand on my child, they are required to tell me about it and as part of their training, teachers learn how to hold a child without hurting them if it is necessary for the safety of the child or others around that child). There have been a few instances where Calvin has had to be restrianed. Last week he had a bad day where he started hitting a teacher and had to be restrained and then tried to run away and had to be restrained. It sounds like it was a very rough morning but once he turned himself around he had a good day. He has had a couple of other incedents but they tell me that overall he is doing well and learning and following directions. When he does have a rough time, once the bell rings and he moves to the next class he is able to start fresh and get back on track. We have our 30 (school) day IEP scheduled for the end of MAY. At that time I will get more information about how he has been doing so far and what his strengths and weaknesses are. We will set our goals for the year. I am looking forward to the meeting so that I can learn more about how things are going at school. Usually I dread these types of meetings so I guess it is one more good change to count that I am looking forward to this meeting. We are still having a few struggles with the bus -- mostly that it is too long. 90 min in the morning and 90-120 minutes in the afternoon depending on # of kids on the bus, traffic, etc. Everytime I get a phone call from the school dave says, "how many more phone calls do you think we will get before they kick Calvin out of their school?" The school tells us that they can handle Calvin but we still have our doubts/concern that he will be too difficult for them.