I ate lunch with the three youngest at school. I only remembered to take a picture of Harvey. 
Harvey came home “sick” Monday and then promptly got to work making a book with letters and numbers. He didn’t seem too sick… 
Bev and her friends have started a cheer club at their school. 
Max built a homemade magnet. 
Harvey got to join activity days and build some legos. 
Mav and his friend, Brett won the master builder competition they had for activity days 
Afton was a life saver for me Saturday and spent the whole day with Bev. They did each other’s nails. 
Harvey and I went to Sam’s club for our date. 
Followed by his pick: ice cream at the “place by the church” 
He was a really good date. He even held my hand. 
Andy’s weekly selfie.
For the sake of honesty and transparency, I’ll tell you, this week was hard. I’ve had harder things happen since Andy’s been gone, so I’m not sure if it was because the exhaustion of it all finally caught up to me, or hormones are out of whack, or the length of time he’s been gone is only 2/9th’s of the way done… And we’ve been fine and done ok, but we still have 7/9ths to go… we’re not even halfway. The kids are feeling it, which makes me have to feel it even more. Bev isn’t crying before bed every night… but she does seem to have epic meltdowns at least once a day. Sometimes before school, sometimes before bed, and sometimes both. Harvey is scared to pee in the bathroom even if I’m a room away. Not sure what that’s about. Then his whining sounds like his pain screaming and his play screaming… so I’m constantly guessing if this current fit is something I should take care of or let it resolve itself. I had more kids home sick this week. First, Monday, the school nurse called me and basically told me to come get him. Once he was home, he seemed fine. Thursday night, Mav wasn’t feeling great. I gave him some meds, but by the morning he was worse. I checked his throat and thought it was strep. Andy looked and concurred and called in a prescription. One day on the meds and he’s back to his normal self. Harvey acted sick along with Mav, so I figured he probably had whatever Mav had. I was wrong. He was fine. He’s so dang good at faking it. I should get him into acting.
Because the kids have been struggling, I decided to eat lunch with them at school. I think they enjoyed it, but I’m not sure it made much of a difference. The fits continued. I have an idea for this week to let each one of them have a turn helping me make dinner. That way they’re getting one on one attention and learning a life skill, I’ll report back if it made a difference in their behavior. Fortunately, their fits are restricted to home. Their teachers love them and have no problems with them. They’re all doing fairly well in school. I read a child development book a while ago that said that a kid should act better at school than with their parents, this shows that they feel safe with their parents. Sometimes I am not sure I enjoy being their safe place, but I’m working on it. I know that the angels are still with us, but I have definitely had to dig deeper for patience. After kind of losing it one night from some awful behaviors, Mav (who was not the guilty party) came up and hugged me. That response in a time of major frustration for me gave me the pause I needed to reset. I told Mav that I really appreciated that hug and it had really helped me, and he said, “It helped me too.” Man. These kids. Just when you think you’re going to lose it and then you’re reminded how amazing they are.