Brotherly Love

Brothers make the best pillows

Where does the time go?

So, the boys have been in school for almost two weeks and I've accomplished nothing. Ugh. I'd like to blame it on my twisted ankle, and that has been a lot of it, but so has the internet. The computer is a terrible thing. I've mostly kept up on laundry and we finally got to the bottom of our kitchen sink this week. But, there's still over 100 messages in my inbox waiting on me to respond to and I've still got 10 VBS cds to deliver. So, in the hopes of getting a little commitment on my part and some encouragement (guilt?) from from friends, I'm going to post my goals for this semester while the boys are at school. The baby should be here sometime during the last week of school before Christmas, so I've got until then.

1. Sew the curtains that my mom ironed and pinned for me
2. Finish Xavier's baby album
3. Start and hopefully complete Ezekiel's baby album
4. Get the last box of Crocodile Dock stuff out of the house!
5. Resort and organize the toy/art buckets and shelves with baby toys in mind
6. Get our room clean and organized so the Moses basket can fit and the baby has somewhere to sleep.
7. Keep on top of laundry especially before the radiators turn on so I have maternity clothes to wear (last week was not fun - it takes at least two days for things to dry with the current weather and I discovered one morning ALL of my maternity clothes were in the laundry.)

I think those are the main things. If you see me on Facebook, feel free to ask me how any of them are going.

School Update!

Xavier is still loving it! He's gotten over losing two of his good friends to the International school this year and is making new friends. Every day he points out a new friend. He doesn't know their names, but at least he's got playmates. He's a little disappointed about all of the extra classroom time that he has this year. He gets less time outside and no rest time after lunch. They are preparing him for Primary school next year, but he's a little jealous of Ezekiel's nap time.

Ezekiel is still having a rough time, but I think it's getting better. The highlight of his day is getting to play with Xavier and Aidan (Xavier's best friend) on the playground. All of the kids are outside together for part of the morning and part of the afternoon. Xavier heads inside before Ezekiel and it seems Ezekiel just stands and the fence watching for me after that happens. In the mornings, Ezekiel has a good friend from church that is in his class. They stick together like glue. I'm happy they have each other, but I hope Ezekiel makes some friends for the afternoons soon.

Monday was a turning a point day for Ezekiel. I had my first French lesson at CERN so Ulysses was in charge. After lunch, Ezekiel wanted to stay with me, but Ulysses took him to school. He was dropped off crying and proceeded to cry the entire afternoon to the point where he made himself sick as we were heading home. Of course, as soon as we got home, he was perfectly normal jumping and flipping off of everything in sight. He was sent back to school on Tuesday and has had no tears. We think he just needed to know he wasn't getting out of going to school, no matter what tricks he tried.

There is something going on his poor, sweet mind though because he's starting having accidents overnight again and refuses to sleep in his own bed. At bedtime every night, he asks Xavier if he can sleep in his bed and Xavier always lets him (Xavier tells me he likes to be nice). This morning when he woke up wet, he told Ulysses he had his accident on his end of Xavier's bed. It took Xavier about a month last year to get used to school, so we're hoping Ezekiel will be doing better by October.

I haven't really taken many pictures. Our camera is on the fritz again and there really isn't a lot "picture-worthy" going on. We're just getting back into a normal routine. It's very nice. We are letting the boys help in the kitchen some more. Ezekiel helped me cook dinner last night while Xavier was at gymnastics and Xavier makes his PB&J on the weekends.

Baby Girl!

With all of the excitement of visitors for the month of August, I forgot to post that we're having a girl! We're not really that surprised. This has been a VERY different pregnancy than the first two, but I was hoping it was just because of the new lifestyle and diet. In the US (and Switzerland), my due date would be the 21st of December with a c-section around the 7th. In France, my due date is the 28th. I have a French doctor, but will be having the c-section in Switzerland, so the birth day will probably be somewhere in between. I will have another scan in November around 32 weeks and the surgery date will be scheduled shortly after that.

But, right now we need names! We found out so early with the boys that they were going to be boys, we've never come up with a girl's name that we like. So, what do you got for me?

First Day of School!

Update: Sorry, I forgot to update how the boys did. Xavier's doing great. Ezekiel told me this morning that he's "not a fan of school." But, I was able to drop him off this morning with no tears! Unfortunately this afternoon he was taken away from me screaming again. The petites take an afternoon nap and yesterday I took him to the sleeping room and he walked right in and jumped into his bed without so much as a whine. Today, the teacher told me I had to drop him off in her classroom and she would take him to the sleeping room. Change does not go over well with my son. Hopefully we'll have two days the same soon and he'll get used to the new routine. The past two days, the boys have gotten to play together outside and that has been a big highlight in their days.

Original Post:
So, I have about 30 more minutes of my first morning alone. I wish I could say I was super productive, but I am listening to my French Immersion CDs since I'm going to be expected to communicate in French again. Here's the pictures from this morning!

Ulysses rode his bike with the boys to school


Outside of the school. Xavier can't wait to get inside, Ezekiel is still saying he's coming home with me.


Xavier was pretty nervous in the hall because of all of the people (~100 kids plus all their parents and no one knowing there they're going) but, once he got inside he was perfectly happy to play with his friends.


Ezekiel would only take his picture with me, but you can tell we're being scammed about him not wanting to go to school


He's just not too sure about this. I'm not too sure about his little sister sticking out of my belly...


Ulysses is much stronger than I am, so I left the classroom in hopes that Ezekiel would stay and calm down. It didn't go well.

Eventually, Ulysses brought him out in the hall to calm down and we marched back in with our brave faces on. I told his teacher he was very scared of all the French, but would be fine as soon as I was gone. She pried him off of me and I walked out of the school to the sound of him screaming. I'll update this evening on how the rest of the morning went.

I did much better this year though. Not even one kleenex for mommy! I figured with all of the pregnancy hormones, I'd be even worse than last year, but I was able to stay strong for Ezekiel. :-) We'll see how Monday goes...