Rebecca

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read this book for book club. I wasn't to excited to start it, because I hadn't heard of it before. But, when I got it I only had a few days to read it so I jumped right in. I thought that the first 5 chapters were to discriptive and so I sped read them, but enjoyed the rest of the book. It had a little suspense, and some twist and turns in the plot.



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Drew Splits His Head Open

Ok, that makes it sounds really bad. But here is the story:

We just got back from our wonderful parent-teacher conference.  Had late dinner and are now trying to rush the boys upstairs and into bed.  Drew has been more than uncooperative through the bedtime routine tonight, crying and fighting with everyone which make me want to hurry even more and get him in bed because it is apparent that he is tired.  I am in helping bathe Miles and Tyson, calling for Drew to come upstairs.  Troy is in the boy's room getting out pj's and calling for Drew to come up.  He is sitting on the bottom step yelling "no" and crying.  Finally he stops crying and comes upstairs and starts playing with the piggies. 

Troy walks into the boys room and yells, "Kristin!  Drew is covered in blood!"  He grabs Drew and runs him to the bathroom and he is covered from head to toe with blood.  It is running down the back of head and all over his shirt.  Then it looks like he rubbed the back of his head and then wiped his face so it all over his face and hands.  I start taking all his clothes and start cleaning to see where he is hurt.  Eventually I find the cut on the back of his head.  It is about a half an inch long.  Through the whole process Drew is not crying.  He is just asking to stop touching his head.  I clean him and then tell him that he needs to bath so that I can the rest of the blood off of him.  He jumps in and lays down in the water.  I thought that the water would sting him, but it nevered bothered him.

We get the other boys in bed and Troy and I are looking at the cut on Drew's head and decide (after a few consulting phone calls with Kelly and Linda) that we don't think it needs a stitch, we just need to glue it together. Even after we put the glue on, Drew still has no reaction to the cut on his head. This is the part that I think is scary. Up to this point, I have always thought that Drew has never really gotten hurt. The others boys when they are hurt you can tell in the cry, that they are in pain and Mom better come quick. Drew's cry was the same tonight - it never changed. Not even the sight of blood on his hands made him say anything to us and change his cry. So, now I am wondering how many times he actually gets hurt, and I don't realize it. I see bruises on him all the time and he will never remember how they got there and will always say that they don't hurt, so I haven't thought much of them. I think that Drew has a really high tolerance for pain, and I never realized it. Now I am going to be more in tune with him.

As a side note: We discover what he hit his head on. We followed the blood trail back down the stairs and I think that he must have threw his head back while he was yelling "no" and crying and hit the corner of the stairs that is wood. What can say - Drew is going to make sure that our live is never boring.

Miles' Parent Teacher Conference

We got to meet with Miles teacher tonight for our Parent-Teacher conference.  I have been able to go in and work in Miles class a couple of times this year and really like his teacher.  I love how smoothly her class flows and all the kids seem to be really nice and well behaved.  Miles loves school this year.  I don't think that we have had one morning yet of arguing and trying to convince him to go to school like we did every day last year.  So, we were both looking forward to going in and hearing what the teacher had to say.  She had nothing but nice things to say about Miles.  Miles always works well in his centers, he gets along well with all of the kids, and he is reading and doing math above grade level...and just a joy in his classroom.

I was so happy to hear this report about Miles.  I think that Miles is a really good boy, and he is just excelling this year in school and I know it is because of the structure of his classroom.  We have often described Miles as our "rules follower."  If you tell him to do something, he is going to do it.  In his classroom, they are sent to centers where the teacher describes in detail what they are to, and they have an assignment and contract to fill out each week.  Miles loves this.  He has told me several times that he really likes his centers, and it is because they are right up his alley in being a "rule follower".  We love our little Miley-Smiley and think the world of him; it is really nice to hear that others think the same.

Dallas Arboretum

Tyson spent the night at Grandma's house so it was just going to be Drew and I today. I called my friend Kathy to see if she wanted to do something with the little boys and we decided to use her pass to the Dallas Arboretum. I have never been there, but I loved it!

We packed a lunch to eat, and found an area that the boys could run and explore. I was so impressed with the kid friendly areas that it had. They still had their fall exhibits out and so that was fun to see also. I now want to go back to see what the Winter exhibits will look like.

There were little house around for the boys to explore in that were just there size.

Don't they look thrilled to be sitting next to the pumpkins to get their picture taken?

I think that they are both plotting something....

Can I Die Now?

Troy had to speak in church today, and honestly I think that I was more nervous about being left alone with the kids while he sat on the stand. Our little Drew turns into a demon child during Sacrament Meeting. He has no patience and can not sit through the whole meeting. Still and he is almost 3 1/2.

Thankfully our friends the Waldron's sat with me to help with the kids. To start off, when the sacrament was passed the Deacon handed the tray to my kids. Drew saw his opportunity and practically emptied the tray with one handful. He did it so fast that that I couldn't catch his hand before he was all stuffed into his mouth. Then, just about the time that Troy was ready to start his talk he really started to act up. I was ready to leave with him, but knew that Miles and Tyson would follow. So I starting to tell them that they needed to stay while I left when Katie asked me if she could take him out. I just said "yes!!" Then thought, "I bet that her parents would have rather her stay and watch the other boys while I left." Obviously I spoke before I thought.

So she grabbed Drew and he started yelling "Don't touch me!" "Put me down!" "I don't want you!" At the top of his voice, while kicking and thrashing around. Thankfully we were sitting about 3 rows from the door and Katie was pretty much on a dead run. I guess that as soon and Drew got out of the door and realized that it was Katie and not me he said, "oh hi Katie!"

So at this point I am ready to climb in a hole and die. But, I convince myself that he wasn't screaming as loud as I imaged, and that maybe not that many people noticed. Wrong! I think that everyone in the chapel noticed and all came up to me during the rest of church to let me know that they saw and heard him scream his way out of the chapel. Honestly, I don't know what to do with my overly active and can't still for 2 minutes child. I sure hope that he decides to grow out of this phase soon.

Tyson's 5th Birthday Party

Tyson has been planning and impatiently waiting for a birthday party since his birthday last year. This year he finally got his first friends birthday party. He invited 4 of his best friends and we had a Madagascar party at the zoo. We have a local zoo here and if you get there by 10:30 you can help feed the giraffes. The party started early and we got to the zoo just in time to feed the giraffes. We spent time in the "African Safari" area of the zoo.

When the kids lost interest in the zoo we finished with lunch and cupcakes at the park across the street from the zoo. I thought that it was a great day for Tyson, and he was so happy and really had a good time. I party with a few friends was so much easier than the whole class party that Miles did...I think that this is going to be the birthday party rule in our house.

Miles' Character Parade

Miles' school did a character parade today for all the parents. It was so cute! Each class got to pick a book and they all dressed up as the characters from that book. The whole first grade did the 101 Dalmatians. I went to the school one day this week to help paint the shirts. They looked so cute laying out in the hall drying I could hardly way for the parade today.

The kids look adorable. All the grades looked really cute. Even the principal was dressed up. The principals of the two elementary schools in Aubrey were having a contest on raising money for books. If they reached the goal, the principals would dress up as Sumo Wrestlers, and if which ever school won, they would come to that school. Brockett raised the most money so the principals were both at our school and did a relay race around the gym dressed as sumo wrestlers. I was laughing so hard. I really wish I would have brought my video camera to get that.

My picture is not that good. My camera was dead so I was taking pictures with my cell phone. :(
Miles was cute, but would not acknowledge me during the parade at all. He walked right past my and did even look at us. Afterwards I went up and got a picture of him, and asked if he saw us. He said, "yeah."

I said "why didn't you wave us?"

"Because I didn't feel like it."

Here I was worried that he didn't see me and would be crushed thinking that I didn't come. They started to dismiss the classes and so I left and and went and got in the carpool line. School was out in like 5 minutes so thought that he had just enough time to walk back to his class and get his bag and then they would be out. When he came out to the car he was crying. I ask he what is wrong, through the sobs and tears came out, "you didn't watch me walk out."

Honestly!! I just sat there for an hour with him ignoring me because he wanted to, and he is now crying because I didn't watch his class leave the gym. I don't think that I win.