January 2009

Well, January was another busy month for us! We just got back from our Coleman Family Reunion in Shaver Lake where we had a wonderful time sledding, hot tubbing, and playing with cousins, aunts, uncles, and Grandma and Grandpa Coleman!! So FUN!! The girls were very sad to have to come home, but Jerry and I are loving getting back on our schedule and not having to share a room with all three of our kids anymore!

Nathan started in the nursery at church last week and he did pretty well with it! He isn’t exactly thrilled to go in, but doesn’t cry or scream, and we are pretty sure he will adjust quickly and start to really like it! Jerry definitely likes having him go to nursery, since I am in primary Jerry usually ends up having to walk the halls with Nathan all through church every week. Nathan’s other big news is that he is finally weaned off the bottle. Lindsay and Emma were weaned at exactly a year, but we didn’t really feel the need to wean Nathan at all until he turned 18 months and we decided it was pretty ridiculous that he was still drinking 3-4 bottles a day. So we took the bottle away “cold turkey” and he has been doing great ever since! I really think we have mellowed out a lot since our first kid. It’s amazing the things I have decided I don’t care about at all that seemed so imperative with Lindsay.

Emma is trying to set a record for the most “ouch reports” from her preschool. (I’m sure she has got to be getting close and the school year is only about half way over.) Ouch reports are the slip of paper the teacher fills out and I have to sign whenever they have to administer any kind of first aid to the kids. Lindsay went to this same preschool for a full year and I didn’t even know they had “ouch reports” but Emma had only been there about a week when I got my first report for her. She has walked right into a swinging jump rope and ended up with an enormous welt across her face, and run into other kids, walls, toys etc. I’ve even been called down to the preschool once because she fell down the slide ladder and bit her tongue, and it was bleeding so badly they were worried she would have to go to the doctor. We have really become veterans at the injury thing, but this month she got her worst injury yet. She was evidently running along the asphalt bike path they have in the back yard and tripped over her feet. She landed hard on her chin and then slid along her cheek. I came to get her at school and she had a band aid on the cheek and the chin and I didn’t realize how bad it was until I got her home and went to replace the band aids. One side of her chin was about the size of a small plum and that exact same color, and her cheek was very skinned up as well. So, everywhere we went for about 3 weeks everyone thought we just beat her. In fact, I was planning on taking her to the park for a playgroup about a week later after school and her teacher was begging me not to, since it was such bad advertising for her preschool! Anyway, now she is back to normal and her face is a beautiful as ever!! As I’m remembering all the stories I’ve heard about my mom walking into walls when she was a kid, I think Emma must come by it naturally!!

Lindsay has made a forever friend in her kindergarten. Her name is Myranda and they do everything at school together. Lindsay adores her, and it would appear that the feeling is mutual. Every day after school we get to hear long lists of things that Myranda did and said that day . . . she and Lindsay even copy off each other’s quiet time papers (which is not actually cheating as they are just coloring pictures). Some days we wish Myranda wasn’t so fascinating as we do get a little tired of hearing about her. But most of the time we are just very glad Lindsay has made such a good friend!!

Jerry and I are keeping very busy as well. We have decided to start doing foster care. We have thought about it for years and never actually done anything about it. But we finally decided that it was time to at least try it. We both feel like it is a way that we can help kids who need it (who knows, maybe we’ll even save the world while we are at it). We had a long family home evening discussion about it with the kids and they agree that we have enough room and enough love to take care of some kids for a little while when their mommies and daddies can’t take care of them. Jerry and I are pretty nervous about the whole thing, but feel like we really need to do this, and we are consoling ourselves with the idea that if it really doesn’t work, at least we will have tried. We won’t have any kids until May or later, but we have been spending a lot of time filling out a mountain of paperwork, and since we plan to take kids under the age of five, I have to take 60+ hours of classes instead of the normal 27 hours. (So that we know how to take care of drug exposed babies). We have been reading books/taking the classes/ and talking to everyone we know who has had anything to do with it (trying to be sure we know what we’re getting in to), so we would love to hear any input/advice/opinions you have.
Well, that is about all the news for us. Hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Love, The Coleman Clan