Migration day

Today I decided to pull Joren out of preschool.  I was a bit hesitant to put him in in the first place considering his behavior issues.  After the first few weeks it became apparent that his bad behaviors at home were definitely following him into the classroom and they were becoming a major disruption.  I guess I was hoping he would surprise me.  I went to bed thinking I was taking him to preschool this morning and when I woke up I decided we were done.  I prayed the other day that the Lord would help me see how to stop pushing my kids, rushing them and snapping at them so much.  I want to slow down and enjoy this time with my kids and this morning it hit me that preschool was too much.  I have loved my days with him at home.  I thought preschool would be so good for him and that being with the other kids would help his social skills, but I think he is just not ready and I realized that the one on one time I have the time to give him now is more important than anything else.  Yesterday we hit bad behaviors hard.  I always show my disapproval one way or the other, but yesterday I blotted out all other things (except Teig of course) and we spent the day in time out and in discussion and love.  Today we only had a few time outs and much improved behavior.  I feel a great weight lifted off of me too.  I feel like I was forcing us into a hard schedule when we can really stay home all winter and enjoy the year.  What a great time it is going to be.  Joren is so different when Eirik is not around and I feel like I am finally getting a chance to get to know him.  He still loves to fill bags with water. He also loves to paint rocks.  He picks up rocks everywhere we go so he can paint them.  He uses the hot melt glue gun to glue beads and googly eyes on them.  He also has the best eyes in the world for finding bugs and creatures.  He is so observant.  He can spot them anywhere and he loves to catch them.  He found a toad the other day and we played with it for hours. I asked him to set him loose in the pond.  Of course he did not want to and wanted to keep him in the terrarium.  I let him keep him but after a few days I told him the toad needed to be set loose so he could get some food and live.  A little while later Joren said, "mom, don't look in that drawer."   Guess what I found in that drawer!  He had put his toad in a ziplock bag and back in the ziplock bag box back in the drawer for safe keeping!  Ahh...  Well, he assured me after that that the toad had been let loose in the pond.  Today the boys found a different toad in the backyard.  Joren ran in the house in great excitement and told Eirik to wait outside.  Then he dove under our ottoman in the living room and extracted his, somehow still living toad from under a cup he had placed upside down there.  That means that for at least a day and a half that toad lived in my living room under a cup and I did not notice!  Imagine my surprise if I had found him!  They were thrilled to have two toads to play with and compare.  Joren even let his toad loose in the pond and somehow recaptured it a bit later.  I was most impressed that Eirik actually held the toad today.  He usually instructs Joren when and where and what to do with all the living creatures they find together; to which Joren always willingly obliges.  What a cute team.
After lunch I made big ice cream sundaes for the two of us and we went out and ate them on the lawn.  We noticed a bunch of birds of prey circling above our house.  As we watched them, we discovered that more and more were joining them.  We counted 50 hawks, or whatever they were, joining up and then flying very high and straight west.  As we watched, one group after another, all huge, congregated and flew west.  I counted over 150 birds flying away.  Why west? I don't know, but it was magnificent and we daydreamed about flying that high and layed happily in the sun smelling the grass and enjoying the last bit of summer.  I taught him to nibble on the white ends of grass and he showed me how he can split grass and make it curl.  He snuggled in my lap and we played thumb war in the sun over and over again.    I took Joren on a bike ride to the river today where he found a rusty old fish hook and tried to fish.  We watched tiny fish being eaten by 3" fish and we had a great time talking to each other.  We went home and got Teig, Eirik came home.  We made cookies and played outside.  Eirik was in great spirits.  Everyone was feeling so good that after dinner we went to the river again. The weather was perfect.  We got to see people turning on their Halloween decorations and smell the chill in the air and see the changing colors.  Eirik ran the whole way there.  He was so happy and enthusiastic.  They had a great time throwing rocks at the river.  Teig even had to get his feet in the water.  We loved watching the sun go down over the river and then riding back in the dark. (Eirik ran the whole way!)  We howled like coyotes and pretended they were chasing us.  Everyone had fun.  After tucking everyone in bed I laid down by Joren.  We talked about the day.  We have this great book called Sharks vs. Trains.  One one page the shark and train are playing Extreme Squirrel Zombie Motorcross videogame.  Joren asked me in all sincerity if we could get a cord and plug in Extreme Squirrel Zombie Motorcross to our Wii so we could play it.  When I told him that that would not work, he was extremely disappointed.  I assured him that we would play lots of fun games tomorrow and he said, "this is the best part of my day, snuggling and hugging and kissing you."  He said, "is that a yittle bit weird vat I just kissed you.  I fink it is.  Kissing is kind a gross, but you wike it right?  I wove you mom."