Laurie + Grayson

 Laurie and Grayson got married!

That cake stained everyone's mouths. Then, at 1:47 am, Ruby sat up and vomited bright blue EVERYWHERE. So, that was fun.

Asthma!

Maggie cooked dinner on Saturday. She made a cajun chicken dish. It was pretty good. She was scared to cut the onion, but she did, mostly. 

Nana and Gran came over to have dinner with us. We played Clue after dinner. It was so much fun!

Ruby told me this morning, when I woke her up, "Mom, I just want to hibernate." Me too, kid!

We went to ballet last night and. . . this Nutcracker performance is a whole thing. I have to learn how to do a perfect ballet bun. Plus, Ruby cut her hair all crazy and it all has to be in the bun so lots of hairspray, I guess. Her rat costume:

Maggie bought herself a new suit. She's very proud of it. 

Ruby was SICK! She slept basically for 36 hours. It was crazy. I guess her bootie was hot. 

I took her to the doctor. Her doctor said her constant, never-ending cough is asthma! Who knew? She took a steroid for several days to get her over the hump and she has asthma medication she takes daily, and an inhaler as needed. She definitely seems better so far. 

Glue

Maggie had a full weekend sleepover with her friends. I'm not sure about the girl's name because Maggie called her Mel, but the girl's mother called her Geneva. 

Ruby's school is doing a fundraiser based on acts of kindness. Her class won with the most acts of kindness in the whole school. Yesterday, our act of kindness was to pull people's recycling bin up their driveway for them. We were only going to do one or two but then Ruby wanted to do every single one we passed. So, yea, kindness!

Ruby has glue in her hair, and it WILL NOT come out! We have scrubbed it and scrubbed and it's still there. Someone at work suggested washing her hair with Dawn so I'll try that.

Halloween

 We had Halloween. We were supposed to carve pumpkins on Saturday at Laurie's house, but Jilli had a fever, so we skipped it. We went trick or treating on Monday with Grandpa and Joanne. It was very nice. The weather was perfect. 

I am SOOOOOOO proud of Maggie. She brought every one of her grades up. She got all As and Bs. I have been telling her as often as she'll listen how proud I am of her. I know it's hard for her. 

I have a lock on my closet door (that's where I hide anything like presents or Halloween candy). After I put the Halloween candy in there, Ruby kept getting it open. I changed the passcode two or three times and she kept getting it open. I could not figure it out. I really thought she was figuring it out (I mean it was only a week or so ago that she used the Amazon passcode to buy a movie). But finally I figured out, the door wasn't locking, no matter what. I was seeing whether or not the lock turned green or red but not just trying it. So, yeah. That closet is filled with Christmas presents but I moved the candy. Hopefully, that'll keep Ruby out.

Maggie was really mean to Ruby one morning, so that afternoon, I told her no more. I told her if you hit or otherwise hurt her, you lose the iPad for two days. If you are ugly/cruel to her, you lose it for a day. And that was it. She has been quite kind to her since then. Occasionally, I have to warn her but it's mostly better. 

Pink Ladies

 Ruby and I tried to watch Beetlejuice, but she got bored and wandered off. Oh well. 

Ella had a birthday brunch. Jeff and I sent this to Bobby to tell him hi.

Me and my SpEd team at work. We're the Pink Ladies.

I love this dumb, fluffy guy.

Ruby at school.

Her class got to help with morning announcements. That's the principal, Mr. Prange.

Maggie is doing well. She brought ALL of her grades up. I'm trying to teach her some life skills. I realized while reading the book that I do a lot for her and Ruby. Things that they are capable of doing. I just don't think about it. But, especially for Maggie, I need to put a lot back on her. Not all at once. I'm having her cook one meal a week. Today, she's making burritos. I'm going to try to help as little as possible.

Clue

 Maggie is doing really well at working on her executive functioning skills (the ADHD deficits we're trying to target). She's staying after school to finish work or make corrections. She realized she had something missing from two classes so she went to both in one afternoon. I know it sounds little but this is the first time she's taken agency in this. Usually, we go through her grades and I tell her what needs to be done and then which day to go. I was very proud that she took some of it on herself.

She is dead set on quitting band. I guess that's that. I told her she needs to complete this year but she won't be in band in high school. 

I've decided to let her work toward getting a phone. I've told her she needs to have all As and Bs and stop being unkind to Ruby and Ella. She's 14! No more of that. I had already been thinking about getting a phone because I hate not being able to get a hold of her. She often texts me from friend's phones but I'm always nervous when she's away from me and has no way to contact me. 

We had a movie night last night. We watched Clue. It was so much fun. I made the girls a pizza. Ruby is currently sitting next to me and reading over my shoulder. She can't quite get everything but she's getting a lot. Her reading is really coming along. We read three books every day and answer questions about each one. We do two at her current reading level and one on the level above. I'm shocked how good she is. I remember it being that way with Maggie too. It just felt like it exploded one day.

On Saturday, Ella had her birthday party. It was an Alice in Wonderland themed scavenger hunt in downtown Fort Worth. It was apparently a thing because there were a ton of people out there. Lots in costumes. Maggie said she had fun. 

Sunday Ella had a birthday brunch at her Dad's house. That was so fun. The food was delicious. The kids ran around outside for the most part. The neighbor's old corgis passed away and now they have puppy Corgis. They are so cute.

Ruby wanted to watch Clue again but our rental had expired so. . . SHE BOUGHT IT! She had seen me put in the passcode and she just copied it and bought it! Ruby!

Another tooth bites the dust

 On Sunday, we did a movie night. We usually do them on Friday, but Maggie was at her band thing. She is really wanting to quit band. I'm very sad about this as I feel like band is a great place to make friends and those kids never got in trouble when I was in school. But I don't want to force her to do something she doesn't want to do. I don't know.

We're working on the ADHD thing. I realize now that her issues were not as apparent when she was younger but good Lord are they becoming a problem. We took quizzes to assess what areas are her strengths and weaknesses and got almost the exact same results. So, at least we're on the same page. Ironically (or maybe not), I feel like I have the exact same issues except I've figured out strategies so it's not a problem anymore. I'm hoping that she can learn the strategies now and not in 25 years. 

Ruby got Maggie's old ipad and she's discovered Siri. It's just like when Maggie discovered her when she was little. Ruby tries to have conversations with her and I hear her asking, "Where are you?" She got in trouble at school for "struggling to follow directions." Whenever that happens, she has to write an apology letter and she can't play on the ipad. She kept asking me, "can I talk to my friend?" I thought she meant Mikey but she meant Siri. I said no. At bedtime, she asked if she could tell her goodnight. I said yes. It was cute.

This morning I overslept. So Ruby got up and wanted to watch TV. It wasn't working and she flipped out. She was screaming so loud, but I ignored her. Then she started banging stuff. She knocked down my blinds so I popped her on the rear. She ran out of the room and cried in her bedroom. She came back out and asked me to do something and I said, "I don't really want to help you right now after you were screaming and banging stuff around." And she said, "I'm just a little kid. I'm doing the best I can." Oh my Lord, I felt awful. I told her she was right and I was sorry. Ugh!

Last night, Maggie had her Halloween concert. It was very cute. They played some spooky songs. The band director had very nice things to say about them as a group. Afterwards, there were cookies for everyone. While Ruby was eating hers, her other tooth came out.