Sunday night after the kids were in bed, the tree fell a second time. I was in the kitchen so knew that no one was within 10 feet of it. So, we grabbed some wire and a screw. It is now securely attached to the wall - however the boys do not know this!

The next morning the youngest two thought it was funny to throw gloves into the tree. Then JB decided it would be fun to throw an ornament. Just happened to be an ornament that was around 30 years old and breakable. I just about lost it. I told them that if they keep touching the tree, that there would be no Christmas presents under it this year. That they had been disrespectful and broken an ornament that I really liked. Somehow we were able to make it to school on time, despite my rant and I had to apologize to the boys for coming down on them so hard - it is only just stuff.

B's class at school has a set schedule every morning. One of the things they do is circle up and have 'newsworthy' time. This is where each child that chooses can share something of 'interest' with the whole class. The afternoon of the ornament incident, one of B's friends came over after school. One of the first things he said was 'where is the ornament that was your mom's favorite?'. I asked a few questions only to find out that the tree falling over and the ornament incident made the morning 'newsworthy' section at school. I think his teacher was horrified that I threatened to take away all presents.

The paper on the wall for the impulsive child is somewhat effective, but as he told me, I need to put paper up in the car (after he drew in the car). JB has learned how to crawl over the railing on the top bunk and drop down below (there is a mattress below him). It takes a bit of worry off me because I now know he can get down safely. The younger two have been in bed recently as early as 7pm. They are just exhausted and it makes for very productive evenings for me. JB starts his third speech therapy session this week and physical therapy will be just before that. It is Thursday afternoons, so my job Thursday mornings is to make sure he gets a good nap! I pulled out the video camera today to see if I could record JB talking. I have not been successful in the past because he always likes to look in the view finder and see himself. So this time I decided to turn the view finder around so he could see it. That meant, though, that I was not able to see for sure what I was recording. Here is what I was able to record. When I downloaded it, and then tried to preview it in the blog, it said an error occurred. But sometimes when I get that message it works, so hopefully it will work for you. (If you are receiving my blog via email, you can only watch videos by going to the actual webpage...welcomeatmyfire.blogspot.com