Instagram v. 42

1. Bret showing his ninja skills
2. Then the rain came.
3. Followed by the sun. A family that plays together stays together.
4. Chod looks for any excuse to ride the boys bikes.
5. A blue fish for the birthday boy!
6. Old Navy's newest mannequin. Right before he got yelled at.
7. Crafting Chicks survive Vegas public transportation and a downpour.
8. Our matching Donny shirts.
9. Tri School Trot. Bentley set his goal to run 12 laps, or 3 miles and he did it!

Bentley's 1st Day of 2nd Grade

 Today Bentley started 2nd grade, and Portuguese Dual Immersion.

He is kind of excited about it.

Thursday night with Grandma

Occasionally we tag along with Chod on Thursday nights to Kaysville. He teaches his class, and the kids and I get to spend time with his Grandma Luain.

I'm not sure if she or they look forward to these visits the most. I usually drag the kids to Target before we head to Grandma's and they beg to get to her house the whole time.

 They like playing on the rope swing and trampoline in her backyard.

We always seem to get there just as she is finishing up mowing the lawn or working in the yard. She's 82 and tells me stories of her friends that are so "old" and how she doesn't like to go to the senior center because the people there have walkers. She mows her own lawn, and watches her great grandkids who help keep her young.

And even though she would rather I not take pictures of her, I want the kids to be able to look back and remember our Thursday nights at Grandma's

 Picking peas.

 We love Grandma Luain!

Instagram v. 35

1. It's amazing how much fun you can have in the playroom when you aren't tripping over toys. There's a serious Nerf war going on.
2. Who is this harder on, mom or the boys?
3. Counted down the minutes until bedtime all day. And now? They are playing so well together and being stinking adorable. I think they do it on purpose..."if we're good she'll let us stay up."
4. Little dude busted out 3 miles on our bike ride tonight, sans training wheels.
5. Where's the cupholder on this thing?
6. Go ahead and count 'em. Broken eggs are an all to common occurrence.
7. Cause someone's got to supervise Dad while he changes the oil.
8. Things are getting serious. Waterfight.
9. Waterfight anyone?

Last Day of the 1st Grade

Most of our ward funnels onto our street to get to school (there's just 1 block that doesn't) so I threw together a last day of school breakfast in our yard. The kids hurried and ate and headed to schools and the mom's hung around and talked.

Both Bentley and Lincoln hung out inside the house for most of the party, saying they were nervous. So strange. They were both in grumpy moods. Especially my 1st grader.

I made him this shirt to wear on the last day and have kids sign. He didn't want to wear it and was such a stinker about the whole thing. I thought about backing off, but didn't. I really thought he would like it once the year book signing started. (Since Sept. he has insisted he didn't want a year book, until Thursday night when he was so excited for his year book. Bad timing dude.)

So when he walked in the door after school with the front and back covered in signatures and said, "Mom, will you make me a Last Day of 2nd Grade shirt?!" I knew had won!

He's so excited that he passed 1st grade and is pretty excited to be a 2nd grader. Since he's doing Portuguese dual-immersion next year he gets to go to 2 weeks of summer school. One of the weeks is all about Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest and I think he's going to love it. And he is super stoked about his English teacher next year. Apparently she's who he has always wanted.

Maiden Kayak Adventures

We spent Memorial Day weekend on the river. We rented kyaks from the ORP on campus and spent Friday, Saturday, and Monday at Benson Marina kyaking. We had never been kyaking before, and didn't know what to expect. But the most intimidating part was visiting the ORP. Friday night, Chod and I went kyaking for our date. Then on Saturday we took the boys with us. And then Monday we took everyone, including Gracie.
 

I liked it a lot, but Bentley LOVES it! He was all over the place, and as always, had no fear of the water.

He went out by himself on Saturday and on Monday, and I can't wait to tell his OT about it. We even talked about buying kayaks (that's how much he liked it), but after doing a little math decided we'll stick to renting them for now.

 

We didn't take cameras out with us because we weren't sure how steady the kayaks would be, but it was fun to paddle around the marsh and see the birds, and have fish jumping around us. Bentley said his favorite was when we went under the bridge that was covered in Swallow nests with birds flying all around. It reminded me of floating the canal next to our house growing up. 

 

 Lincoln had fun as Chod's ship mate. He's still too little to paddle on his own, but did well as skipper. And Gracie....well she did great for the first 20 or so minutes. Just long enough for us to get a good distance from the dock before she decided the sitting still business wasn't for her. I tried a lot of tricks to distract her, but settled on wrapping my legs around her to keep her from wiggling out (since both hands were needed for paddling) and paddled as fast as I could back to the dock. She seemed happy to lose the life jacket and was content to sit in the car and watch Curious George. And Bentley was more than willing to take over my kayak.

 

 

 Pretty sure it will be something we do again.

2013 Soccer

Bentley was so excited to start soccer this spring. What he didn't know was that last year he was one of the oldest on the team, to this year he was one of the youngest. Which means he wasn't nearly as awesome as he remembers being.

He was a good head shorter than most of the players, and he spent most of his time playing defender. So on the way home after his last game he broke into tears because he hadn't scored a goal the whole season and never earned a root-beer float. Chod decided to pay up since defenders don't have many chances of scoring, but Bentley had taken a ball to the stomach and another to the face during the game.

There's always next year.

Selective Hearing

Bentley has had a loose tooth forever. Like it has been loose for the last two 6 month appts. so at least 8 months. It kept getting shorter and he refused to let anyone touch it. So off to the dentist we went.

Dr. Doug said that he just needed to wiggle it, or it would have to be pulled. And if he was going to pull that one, he would pull the one next to it at the same time. He asked if I thought him telling Bentley would get the wiggling started. I answered that honestly I really didn't think it would help, but he could try.

So he took the headphones off Bentley's ears and said, "Bentley you need to wiggle these teeth. I'm giving you 2 weeks to wiggle them out and then I'm pulling them."

Bentley stared blankly, and Dr. Doug said again, "You have 2 weeks to get these teeth out and then I'm pulling them."

Again Bentley stared blankly.

So Dr. Doug wrapped his arm around Bentley's head and got right in his face and told him, for the 3rd time, "In 2 weeks I am pulling these teeth if you don't wiggle them out."

"I heard you the first 2 times!" Bentley shot back.

"There was no indication you had heard me." Dr. Doug replied.

They sent us home with instructions to wiggle, a price sheet of what tooth extractions cost, and an appointment in 2 weeks.

For 12 days we reminded Bentley to wiggle, he said he was with his tongue. We offered him $10 a tooth he would get them out himself. And finally Chod laid him on the couch, handed him his phone and pulled the tooth out himself.

Crime Fighter

We checked Bentley out of school early Friday and took a little drive with Chod to Draper so he could deliver samples.

When we got back in the valley we dropped Chod off at the university. The kids and I drove home during "magic hour" when the sun is perfect and the light in the valley is beautiful. We took the upper road home between North Logan and Smithfield and as we looked down into the valley I kept telling the kids how much I loved where we lived.

We stopped by the school so Bentley could ride his bike home. Only his bike wasn't there.

His helmet had been thrown off to the side, but there was no bike.

Seriously, someone had stole his bike!

Suddenly our beautiful little town wasn't so quite so beautiful.

I was mad.

And Bentley was in tears.

We piled back in the car and said a prayer that we could find his bike. When we were leaving I saw two kids riding bikes. "Ah hah!" Our suspects I thought. But the first kid was riding a yellow bike and the second was on a bike with white strips I was pretty sure Bentley's bike didn't have. I told myself to calm down and quit assuming that just because they were on bikes didn't mean they had stolen them.

We came home and I started looking for the bike's serial number so we could call and report it missing. During the search I decided to make up some missing posters and offer a reward to go with it. Chances were someone would feel guilty and we'd get the bike back, if not, maybe $50 would be enough for someone to rat their friend out.

I pulled up a picture of Bentley's bike to put on the flier and low and behold it did have the exact same white stripes on the chain guard.

I confirmed with Bentley that these were the same marks on the bike we saw. And like there was a fire, I had the kids out of the house and back in the car and we raced to the school.

Never mind that I had no idea what I was going to do. The kids were leaving the school, heading south when I saw them. My hope was that the girls on the playground would still be there and know who they were. Or we would scan all yards south of the school. Or something.

I pulled up right at the swings  (drove on the sidewalk) and there were quite a few kids playing. As well as the boy on the yellow bike and a kid popping wheelies on the other bike. I pulled up to the wheelie popper and rolled down the window.

"Is that your bike?"

"Uh..."

"Is that your bike?"

"Ummm."

"It's not, you took it from the front of the school?"

"Yeah."

"Can we have it back?"

He handed it over.

As I was putting it in the back of the Yukon, I said

"Man I'm sure glad I got it back before I called the police."

His eyes got really big and he asked "Why would you call the police?"

"Because you stole this bike."

"No I didn't."

"You took something that wasn't yours, that's stealing."

"I was just borrowing it."

Which was probably true. And me going to call the cops was just as true.

(Let's dwell on how we got the bike back and not how I beat up scared the daylights out of a 2nd grader.)

When we got home Bentley said, "Hey the kid that was on my bike is on my soccer team."

Awkward.
 

Bentley and SPD

In December, Bentley came home from school and pronounced it as the "WORST DAY EVER!

He couldn't jump rope.

He couldn't play on the monkey bars.

He couldn't pump himself on the swings.

"This worst day ever business" was becoming a regular occurrence and I didn't know what to do. But I did know that life as a first grader shouldn't be so hard. And life seemed really hard for him. The number of "I hate yous" scrawled on the stair wall kept increasing and we knew something wasn't right, but we had no idea what.

Chod was out of town at meetings. So I called Deidra and told her our frustration.

We know that Bentley has hardly any muscle (which could be from never eating protein or iron). So she suggested finding exercises for him to do.

I went back dealing with things here and she continued her search for exercises. The next day she called to tell me she thought he might have Sensory Processing Disorder. Most of the sites she found for exercises were occupational therapy sites, which led her in that direction. She then talked to her OT friend that suggested we read The Out of Sync Child.

Chod and I read it, and it seemed like they were describing our child. Suddenly, his quirks were making sense. SPD has 2 spectrums, the sensory avoider and the sensory seeker. Out of the symptoms we read it seemed like exactly half of them were Bentley.

I talked to his teacher, who gave out a huge sigh of relief and started telling me about the tests she had requested, because she couldn't figure out what was going on either, but that he was passing them all.

We ended up finding an OT on campus and we have been working with him for the last 5 months. There have been lots of tests, in fact we are still testing, and have learned that out of the 7 senses (auditory, olfactory, touch, taste, sight, proprioception, and vestibular) Bentley has some to definite dysfunction in all of them.

Which explains that when he is invited over to a friend house he often asks, "Does your house stink? Cause I don't like going to houses that stink." It also explains why he is selective in his foods (texture), why he hates fire drills (the pushing in and out of the building), why he stands in the back of the line (so he isn't bumped into), why heights and open rise stairs freak him out (gravitational insecurity), why he would spin and spin in circles (he did it to regulate his body), why certain music scares him, and why he is so darn stubborn. Kids with SPD have to adapt and find ways to cope because there isn't a cure. Being in control is one of the ways he can ensure he is safe.


It has been a huge relief to have answers to things that we knew just weren't quite right. Bentley falls in the sensory avoider category, and there are still tests to be taken and answers to find, because as the audiologist said, we're still peeling off layers and discovering lots about this guy.

It's a new road we are traveling down and I feel like we've come a long way. He no longer spins, doesn't chew on his sleeves nearly as often, and he ate an entire hamburger a couple weeks ago-his 1st ever!

Bentley's 7th Birthday

 It's become tradition that we celebrate Bentley's birthday in Island Park.

This year there wasn't a pinata, so we improvised by filling balloons with candy and letting the kids pop them.

Which proved to be a lot more difficult than expected. This picture sums it up. Bentley popping Lincoln's balloon-with his eyes closed, Lincoln covering his ears, and Hudson helping too.

 There was a snow cave.

 And hills to sled.

 And two 7 year olds!

 And a birthday scooter....which is kind of hard to enjoy in the middle of winter.

 And our own little Elves on a Shelf. The rule is they can't talk and you can't touch them.

Art Mom

I had heard that Art Mom was the best. So I signed up.

 My first lesson was on Seurat and pointillism.

 Lesson learned: 1st graders have no patience for dots.

Not Just a Mom

Last night Chod brought me home flowers. Sweet, yes, but not the point of this story. As I was arranging them in a vase, Bentley and Lincoln were questioning my every move.

"Why are you cutting them?" (So they'll be able to drink the water.)

"Why are you doing that?" (These are called guard petals and they're ugly so I'm peeling them off.)

Chod told them to calm down, that I was a plant scientist, and knew what I was doing. Bentley looked at me in shock and asked, "Wait, did you graduate?"

I told him that I had, indeed, graduated and then he turned to Chod to see if I was telling the truth.

Later, he curled up to me on the couch and told me that he never even knew that I was smart.

I'm not sure what graduating means to him, or even what he thinks that I have graduated from (high school? kindergarten? college?). But no matter. Whatever it is, it's enough for me to be more than just a mom in his eyes.

Tri School Trot

Smithfield has 3 elementary schools, and every year they have a Tri-School Trot fundraiser. The kids set a goal of how many laps they will do and then collect pledges. It was Bentley's first year participating and when we asked him how many laps he wanted to do he said 3, cause 4 would make him too tired. Chod thought that was pretty weak and insisted he could do 10. So he bumped his goal up to 10 and hit the grandparents up for pledges.

The morning of the Trot, as we were coordinating plans for the day, Chod realized they would be running laps around the high school track. And not inside the elementary gym like he had thought. All of a sudden the 10 laps he was sure Bentley could do got much, much longer. Bentley was so excited to run his first "race".

He started out strong and did his 4 laps. Whitney and Katelin came to cheer him on and Katelin did a fantastic job of making sure he got a drink with every lap.

After lap 4, Chod joined him. With a little support and encouragement from Dad Bentley finished all 10 laps or 2.5 miles! Chod's not really dragging him like it looks like, Bentley was just heading over to his hydration station. It was fun for the whole family and there's already talk of 12 laps for next year.

Trip to the Principal's

On the 2nd day of the first grade, I got a phone call from the secretary saying Bentley was in the principal's office and needed to be picked up.

Not the Bentley you thought you knew?

Here's the story. He rode his bike to school that morning and that afternoon I was outside waiting for him to come home. Kids in the ward and some moms passed by. I asked if they had seen my Bentley and only Kason, the neighbor boy, had seen him "he was talking to some girl after school."

So I waited and finally saw an orange bike rider heading our direction. Only it wasn't Bentley. So about 20 minutes after school had gotten out I loaded the other 2 in the car and drove down to the school and found Bentley's bike still there.

A teacher told me to check the front office cause there were some kids in there waiting to be picked up. My Bentley was the only one still there and he looked relieved when he saw me, until I asked if he had forgotten his bike? Before we made it to the hall he was in tears and saying it was all his teachers fault.

Not a good way to end the 2nd day of school.

His teacher came out and talked to me. She said it was so early in the year she didn't know who walked and who got picked up, or even which direction kids lived and that when she had asked him he said I was picking him up. So she made him stay even though all the other neighbor kids had asked him to go home with them. He was mad, but I thanked his teacher and told him that all that really matters is that he's safe. And really that's the most important thing.

The message from the secretary was on my phone when I got home.

On the 1st Day of the 1st Grade

Bentley is a 1st Grader!

Stephens Games

The Stephens family gathered in Island Park last weekend for the family reunion.

Almost everyone was there (we were missing Kensey's family) including 81 year old Grandma Luain.

  Gracie and I didn't join the river rats that floated/canoed the river. It sounds like they had fun, the boys ended up in a raft being towed by Chod's canoe. The boys may have "fallen in" a few times and needed rescuing by dad. One of those rescues resulted in in a tipped canoe and a drowned iPhone. I told him not to take it. And Amy told him to at least double the ziploc bags if he was going to take it. He didn't listen to either of us.

 We went to Mack's Inn theater for Home School Musical 2.

 Chod was picked from the audience to be part of the show. They had him hula hoop. He did great. Rumor has it, that it was his dad that threw him under the bus.

We were divided into 3 teams and got to chose our team name and paint our team flag.
Lincoln and I were Killer Teddy Bears. Ricky and Michaela jumped right in designing our flag.

Bentley was a Sharguar--a combination of sharks and jaguars. They aimed to please everyone.

Chod and JJ were left in charge of the Killer Bee flag. Then Chod abandoned JJ partway through to help Lincoln with his problems. Poor Linky was sick on Sunday.

There were pinatas to celebrate the summer birthdays. The under 8 crowd had a pull string pinata and the over 8 were provided a traditional one. Bentley was string puller #2 and he opened the thing up. When I asked him how he did it he said, "Oh that was easy. I looked and there were 3 strings that could open it, so I just pulled one of them." Next year he may get promoted to the traditional pinata.

We roasted marshmallows in the fireplace and had fun hearing family stories.

Monday morning the family Olympics began.

Chod in the javelin throw.

Here's the Angry Bird archery set up. Bentley killed all the birds on his try. He's had a lot of practice it seems. Bentley kept checking the scores to see which team was ahead. But he was in good company as he isn't the only competitive Stephens boy in the bunch.

Lincoln soccer ball bowling.

Looking for the big fish at Big Springs.

We never saw the fish but the kids had fun dipping their toes in the cold water.

After the scores were tallied medals were giving out. Chod's team took 3rd, Bentley's team 2nd (and he was okay with that)

And Linky and I placed 1st.

 After the medal ceremonies, the reunion auction began. It's become tradition that Larry Loot is given out during the reunion and then we use that Loot to buy goods that we all contribute.

It was fun to spend 4 days hanging out with the Stephens family.