It’s been a while, I get it, I hate it, but I get it.

We are starting to get into the homeschooling groove and setting up stuff.  We’re chatting about science topics and experiments we’d like to do, and even what math we might be able to push through and others we’d have to pour over.  It’s been an interesting few weeks.  We planned out a special thing that both girls agreed they really wanted to do.  In their old school they had a daily helper.  I’d call it a replacement TA for the day, but I digress (and I’m completely kidding of course).  The daily helper would help out the teacher in little ways, and often got to the head of the line for things as the ‘leader’.  Our daily helper was planned out and even Punk was excited about it.  She’s my more, umm… how do I put this politically correct … screw that, it’s my blog I’ll say what I want; she’s my lazy child.  If she can get out of it, she will, if she can be as slow as possible so that someone else gets frustrated and does it, so be it (side note – both dh and Bing fall for this repeatedly, I however, am much too stubborn and am better planned for time for Punk’s idleness – side note ended).  But she was very willing to help plan and agreed whole heartedly about the ‘jobs’ for the helper.

The neat list they came up with:

• White board eraser
• Librarian – someone who keeps track of that week’s library books
• Mail fetcher – we have super-boxes for our mail
• Calendar girl – no, not pin-up girls, but we’ve decided that we’re going to have a major calendar where each day we’re going to check out the weather, see the date and each month is going to have a new theme.  These themes will be stuff like: Signing month, where we learn the signs associated with the days, weeks and months of the year (and any special holidays), French month, the same as signing but in French, etc.  Plus I’m gathering daily events, sometimes hilarious (did you know today is “National Spumoni Day”?).
• Water plants – only when needed, this isn’t a weekly occurrence so we’ll often skip it.
• Hot Lunch – something the schools did was have optional hot lunch for a decent fee pre-ordered, so the daily helper would pick a friend and go pick it up in the kitchen for their class.  Here, the helper will help make lunch, or at least pick it.
• Sweet Pea helper – through all this we have an 11 month old scootching around (literally scootching, he’s a bum scootcher, not a crawler), so we have to be cognizant at all times of his whereabouts or what he’s doing (aka what he’s into).  So we have a helper for if I’m in the middle of a ‘lesson’ per se.

Fun huh.  You wanna come be my student dontcha *snort*.

So I learned a new thing about Sweet Pea and the sibling connection this week (my thought vomit rambling onto another topic without a smooth transition – are you over it now?).  This past week the girls got to go on the annual camping trip with Grampa.  It’s a trip they look forward to every year as my dad takes his four granddaughters camping and it’s all fun, and “no stinkin rules”.  *ahem*  The only criteria my dad has for taking grandkids is they had to be potty trained during the day completely.  So of course, Sweet Pea didn’t go this year.

He picked them up on the Monday and all was fine and dandy.  Me and the kid had a pretty good day. Then came Tuesday when he was, well just awful.  He woke up super early, crabbed before breakfast, crabbed during breakfast and then screamed bloody murder when I put him down on the floor like normal with his bottle.  So I immediately scooped him up and put him back to bed.  Not a peep came from him as I laid him down, nor when I left the room and closed the door.  He had been up maybe an hour.  He laid in there and played quietly for about an hour and then fell asleep.  Fast forward a couple hours and he wakes up cooing and cutesy, so I scoop him up.  Now, I have learned from him that he needs a few moments of being held, like five minutes, immediately after he’s picked up, just a bit of a cuddle I’d say.  So I lug him around getting his bottle doing a few things and then put him down, where he proceeds again to cry and fuss and have a temper tantrum that I won’t immediately pick him back up.  He refused food, didn’t want his bottle, was clean and dry, and kept spitting out his soother so I put him back to bed … and he wanted to!  It was unreal, he was happy to be back in bed and quieted right down and played quietly again before he snoozed off again.

This went on another 2 days of that same thing.  I thought he was just teething because he is popping another tooth.  It wasn’t until Thursday when my Gramma came out that he actually stayed up more than an hour and played on his own, and she mentioned he probably misses his sisters.  I thought that of course he did, they maul him all the time, so he must miss even that, but it didn’t hit me that it truly was the source of the issue until he saw them again.

Aw man it was so cute, and he was so excited.  Squealing and flapping his arms and giggling when he spotted them coming towards him at the campsite (we meet my dad at a campground on the Friday and camp the weekend with them).  It was so cute.  Of course he wasn’t perfectly back to normal immediately because we were camping and it was stinkin hot, which threw him off a bit.

But Monday came and he was absolutely back to normal, as if the week never happened.  In fact I had to type it out here just to make sure it actually happened like that, it just seems so weird

What this made me realize is how much of a sibling connection children really have.  When we were first adopting, we applied for a sibling pair, and we learned that it is vitally important to keep sibling groups together, no matter the number.  Now I get why.  I truly get it now, yes, children love their parents, and are devastated when separated from them.  But the siblings, siblings are a closer bond, especially in more abusive or neglectful situations because those children ended up relying on each other for what the adults in their lives didn’t, or couldn’t, give them.  Amazing, amazing revelation.

Of course I had this marvelous revelation and then snuck a peek at my local government adoption website where they profile older children, especially sibling groups, and guess what I saw.  A sibling group of 4, ages 10, 8, 6 & 4.  I just cried, I actually cried.  I want to help them all.  I definitely get why Angelina Jolie has adopted three in quick succession.  I wish I could too.

Unfortunately, and I guess fortunately, I think dh is only willing to do one more, but I’ll work him down *snort*.