Today's Happenings

• Carson woke up the house singing Jesus came to John the Baptist in Judiah long ago and was baptised in the river Jordans flow.

• At least it wasn't a Christmas song this morning.

• Good job ALA girls 7th grade basketball team. 21/5 ALA. We played Wasatch

• Quynsie's term two GPA 3.963 with an overall GPA for the year as 3.853

• I know that the honeymoon period was over a long time ago with our 12 year old, but man oh man, her back talking is getting out of control.

I know that our life is not perfect by any means and I am not about to portray that it is. We are real and we do deal with real life difficulties. Our children are just normal kids who have dealt with trauma in their life, but for the most part they are normal kids with normal kid behavior. As you can see above Quynsie is very capable of getting straight A's, but today I was informed by the school that she had let her grades drop just a bit. We didn't yell at her, but we did question what happened and why. Apparently that to her is lecturing her. Which ok, yes it probably is, but that is our job as her parents. We are here to teach her right from wrong and how to be responsible and reliable. Anyway, later on in the evening Joe was making a noise that I could not stand and I asked him to stop. Quynsie, in a very rude manner says, well now you know how I feel when you lecture me. I was just dumbfounded. It came so out of the blue that I was shocked. And no this is not the first time her mouth has gotten out of control or all of the kids for that matter. We worked through it and discussed why we felt that that was back talking and it better not happen again.

January 16

Carson on his skateboard. He can finally stay on it with both feet for a second

January 16: Nadia's hair

Here is the process of Nadias hair today.

January 16: Being schooled by a six year old

This morning Carson was having a crazy hard time listening and following directions.

I just got schooled by my six year old. I asked him why he wasn't listening and he said because you got me up on the wrong side of the bed. Well ok then!

January 15: Carson's Testing

Today during Carson's testing at school he had to answer a question by writing it in a complete sentence. The question was what is your favorite food and why? His answer: baskete (spaghetti) becuz (because) I like to ete (eat).

January 14: 1st Karate class

Joe has finally made teaching karate a reality after years of talking about it. So far the class includes a couple of our kids and a niece and nephew.

 

January 14: Conversation between Carson and Grandma Nancy

So the other day Carson had a conversation with one of the grandparents about a poop shoe. I'm not sure how the conversation started but it was comical. Then they argued about the alphabet and whether it said y and z our just y, z and then they were making up words to the rest of the alphabet song.

January 14th: Thought on Trauma

Heather Talbert Forbes

 

Trauma impacts the left hemisphere - the language, logic, listening, focus, and judgment of a child. When "misbehaving," consider that it could be that the brain isn't processing correctly.

January 12: Husband

I truly have the most amazing husband in the world. I couldn't think of a better man to have children with. He is a great daddy and he teaches Carson how to respect women and he teaches the girls how a true man should act and treat them. I love you babe!



January 12: Mental Illness, Emergancy Room Visit and Basketball Game

What a day. Kids are in bed late because of some stuff we had to deal with but Quynsie's basketball game was a joke as far as half the team didn't show and neither did the coach so it was forfeited but they still got to play the other team it just didn't count. Quynsie got to play the entire game. There was so much team work going on it was amazing. Best game so far girls. Quynsie had a blast. Thanks to Joe's parents for helping keep me sane at the game with helping with Nadia and Raven and thanks to our friend Michael for helping Joe with Carson while Joe was busy with his mom.

It has been a crazy day filled with dealing with Joe's biological mom and her mental illness. This all started when she kept calling Joe asking for a ride home. She would not even tell him where she was, but Joe told her to ride the bus home because he was at work and would not be able to help her. She kept calling and calling so I finally said, I will go get her as soon as the kids are out of school. I had not idea where she was but I took a guess. It was pouring rain like crazy. I decided to take my chances and went to her caseworkers office first and thankfully she was there. We get in the car, I asked her why she didn't call me and she lost all control of her temper. I called Joe and asked him what he wanted me to do. He said to take her home so that is what I did. I told her that Joe would be home around 6 and he would call her. He did try to call her when he got home but she did not answer the phone. We waited a little while and next thing you know, the EMT's are calling us. Apparently she walked to some care facility and caused a scene and they called the cops. The cops took her home and called the EMT's to come check her out. They did and then called us. They said that she was fine as far as medically, but they had contacted the crisis center and they suggested that a family member take her to the emergency room for a mental evaluation so that is what we did.

God bless this woman! We love her to death and our kids love their grandma, but from time to time, her medication just needs some tweaking. We have noticed for about the last six months that she has been going downhill at a steady slow decline, but we finally decided that something needed to be done. She has been mentally ill for as long as Joe can remember. She was not capable of raising him or his brothers so they were raised by their dad and step-mom.

Anyway they ended up admitting her to the hospital for low sodium and once they get her stable medically they will transfer her to the psychiatric floor to level out her medication.

UPDATE: They have finally gotten her stable as far as medically so they have moved her to get her mental evaluation done. She seems to be doing a bit better, but only time will tell.

January 10: Karate Tea Party

Joe and I went to his karate tea party. I only managed to take one picture the entire night.



January 10: Smart or dumb

We were sitting in the emergency room with Joe's mom this morning and this guy that was sitting there told Carson he was dumb. Carson's response: I'm not dumb I'm smart I'm skipping a grade.

By the way Joe's mom is fine.

January 9: Drums

So Raven comes into my room and says mom it sounds like there is drums playing in my ear. Joe walks up to her and sticks his ear right up against hers and says I can't hear it. Me laughing: Joe your ridiculous. Joe: I was trying to be funny. Me: I thought it was extremely funny. Raven then says no really it sounds like a drum in my ear. Don't worry by the time we laughed about it she had forgotten about it and was fine. But watching Joe put his ear up to hers trying to hear the drums was priceless.

January 9: Nadia's hair again

Nadia is the only one that will let me do fun cool stuff with her hair willingly. I have to fight with Raven and Quynsie, well she does her own hair.



January 8: Nadia's Hair

I love when her hair is curly

 

January 8: Meeting with Carson's teacher

So Carson has been getting in a bit of trouble at school because he can't stop being disruptive in class. I asked him about it and why he was being that way. His response was because mom, I already know this stuff and I am board.

This prompted me to go in and talk with his teacher about possibly giving him more work to do or at least challenge him in some way. His teacher let me know that he is on at least a 2nd grade reading level, but she suspects that he is even higher than that but by the time they got to that part of his testing before Christmas break, he was just completely done with the testing and he just shut down and wouldn't do more. He can read big huge words like Chiropractor and excavator. I mean come on people this boy is one smart kid.

I also stuck around and watched what exactly they are being taught in the hopes of figuring out why he is so board and it left me really frustrated. They were doing math and it was about grouping objects into groups by their shape, size, color, etc. and this is the stuff that he learned in homeschool last year. I now see why he is so board. He can do simple adding and subtracting as long as he has a picture or objects to work with.

After talking to my mother in law who teaches school and getting some feed back from her last night, I went to the school today and started asking more questions about possibly having him tested to move up to the first grade in reading, but they don't just do a subject. It is all in or not at all. We came up with a plan and I am hoping that it works out. We are going to have him tested in reading, writing and math and if he qualifies to move up a grade then we will do a trial run for about a week to see how he handles it. I was very forceful in my request that if we agree to this move, I want him to have Nadia's old first grade teacher. I love her teaching style and I am comfortable with her and feel that she would be a great fit for Carson.

I just don't want to be the mom that held her kid back from being all that he can be. If he is able to succeed in first grade for the rest of the school year, he will move on to being a second grader next year.

So here is to Carson's very successful kindergarten career.

Jaunary 5: Jesus

Carson woke up around 6 A.M. and hollered:

Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Jesus wants to talk to you!!!

And then he fell back to sleep.

I asked Carson when I was getting him ready for school what he thought Jesus wanted to talk to daddy about and I asked if he was in trouble. Carson says, no mommy, he isn't in trouble, I think it is because he is being good.

I have been thinking a lot about my conversation with Carson this morning before school about Jesus. My kids may not have much innocence left in them but at least they are close to our heavenly father and Jesus. It gives me hope that one day they will be ok and not have to struggle with addiction because they will be on the right path in the gospel. I have also been feeling like a failure as a mom the last couple of weeks and Today I'm feeling like an accomplished mom. I feel blessed to be their mom.

January 4th: Bridal Vail Falls

We took the kids for a ride up Provo Canyon so they could see the frozen water falls. It was pretty cool.

January 4: Decorating sugar cookies

January 3rd: Quynsie's basketball game

Quynsie's team has won two games and lost one. At this game they played the American Fork Cavemen. It was a brutal game. Lots of bumping and knocking to the ground moves.

  
 

Valuable lesson's learned at the Davis Home

Well our kids learned a very valuable lesson today. We were at Wal-Mart and the girls wanted knee high boots so Joe told them that they have money and that they could buy their own. (We would have paid if they absolutely needed them but it was a want not need) We told them that we could look online because they would have a better selection. Well then they decided that they needed taller socks to go with the boots. I wasn't going to buy socks either because I just bought ...them some for school so again Joe says if you want them then you buy them. I knew Quynsie didn't have the money for both because she keeps spending it and I tried to remind her of that fact but she insisted she had the money. We got home went through their piggy banks and come to find out Quynsie only had enough for her socks where the other girls had enough for both plus some left over. Carson even bought himself a pair of shoes with his money. Well I went on line and let Raven and Nadia pick out boots and Quynsie got upset and wanted to borrow money from Raven. I put my foot down and said no because that is teaching her it's ok to go into debt and I'm not willing to say it's ok to go into debt for a pair a boots. A house yes but not boots. In the end she is still getting boots but they are for her birthday that is in March.