Grains of Gratitude

This week didn't turn out like I thought it would, with the things I thought I would be grateful for. We were supposed to go to a potluck with my MOPS table (but Kayla and I didn't wake up feeling too great on Wed). Kayla had an ENT appt on Thur that I was hoping to get good news regarding her ears (but the appt didn't happen because of a mix-up with referral paperwork). After the appt we were supposed to have a play date (but that didn't happen because the mom ended up being sick). So I wondered what I could be grateful for this week...turns out there were enough things that happened after all!

1. Once a quarter there is a "Family Night" at the club on base - this is a FREE buffet dinner for club members. Did I mention it's FREE? Who can resist a dinner out, not having to cook dinner at home, and bonus - it's FREE! Tuesday night was "Family Night" and we met up with 3 other families to have a good time. Throughout the dinner they also give away a bunch of door prizes. We won Junior Monopoly and a 3-D puzzle. One of the families won RummiCube (sp?) but they already have it so they gave it to us.

2. On Friday we had Parent-Teacher Conference with Kayla's teacher. We go over her progress working on the goals set in her IEP. When they have the progress reports they put #s 1-4 to mark how she's doing. 1 is 25% goal attained, 2 is 50%, 3 is 75% and 4 is 100%. The teacher said she is doing so well in school, following the routines, staying with her small group (usually!) as they move through the centers in the classroom, and if she needs to be reminded to go back to her group she does. She seems to know all the kids names, if she can't say them she knows who they are talking about. The teacher said she sees a big difference in her speech since school started and how much more she is talking and all the words she is saying. When we met in Oct she had a 1 down on our potty-training goal...on Friday she showed us she was a 3 for that goal! Whoo hoo!

3. There is always Bunco to be grateful for! Friday we had 16 players which was great, because we've had a lot of turnover lately and have struggled to even have 12 players. It was fun to have that big of a group again.

4. Grateful for 'couple' friends...and I don't mean couple as in no kids, I just mean where the wives get along and the husbands get along! On Sat morning Joe went for a road-bike ride with 2 other guys and I'm friends with their wives (we were all playing Bunco together the night before). Last night our 3 families all went to the Bowling Alley for dinner and a game of bowling. It was crazy with 6 adults and 4 kids (2 kids age 3 and 1 age 18 months) but we had 3 lanes and we had fun. I brought my camera to take a pic of all the kids bowling, but my battery died! Don't you hate that? I did manage to get a couple pictures of Kayla though. Another thing about that night - when we were saying our goodbyes to everyone Kayla said "pee pee!" and I ran her to the bathroom and she went - yay! I was nervous because she was in her underwear. It's not the first time she's been out in underwear, and it's not the first time she's told me she had to go (that is a whole post all by itself -the potty-training saga!) but it was big for us last night, because she doesn't always say she has to go (although she is starting to get more consistent) and because she is very easily distracted!

5. This morning I had an email saying I was a winner from The Opinionated Parent. There was a drawing for a free pair of Vincent Shoes (yes they have girl shoes too!) and I won! Go check out The Opinionated Parent...every week is a review of a product and then there are giveaways from those sponsors. Nicole is the founder and she does a great job finding these cool products to review! Now back to the shoes - what makes this neat for me is I have heard of these shoes before they were reviewed on The Opinionated Parent. I had heard of them through Christina's blog. She has a son named Vincent and was raving about these shoes and how wonderful they are, now she is starting a franchise in Austria. So to find out I won a pair of shoes for Kayla that I've heard such great things about is exciting - now the hard part is picking out a style since there are so many to choose from!

Wow, that was quite a week of things to be grateful for! Thanks to Christine for helping me to look back on the weeks and finding things to be grateful about!