The Night Before Kindergarten

This year our school got a new principal. She is full of new, fun, and exciting ideas. This year she did "The Night Before Kindergarten". All of the kids showed up in their pajamas and she read them "The Night Before Kindergarten" book and then they had milk and cookies. Gerrit was so excited he got to be a part of it. He acted just as big as the others did. My good friend, Sarah, came with her girls: Rylee and Olivia.

New Pictures

I finally got around to taking the kids pictures. Gerrit and Kameni's I should have taken in May and decided to take Kaymin's since her birthday is in a couple of weeks. I took them at my parents house and I completely forgot that they had that neat looking, old wooden door. The pictures turned out so cute. I am just so glad that be able to mark that off of my to-do list.

Urologist Trip

For quite some time now (years) Kameni has been having urination problems. She constantly has to go potty (as much as 3 times per hour). She wets her bed frequently and sometimes within 30 minutes of putting her to bed. We limit what she drinks after 6pm and make her go potty before bed, but nothing seems to work. All day long she runs to the bathroom and most of the time doesn't make it before a little leaks out in her panties. The poor thing always smells of urine. I have to carry the baby potty seat in the back of our van, because Kameni can't hold it and she has never driven to Salt Lake (40 minute drive) without having to pull over and go potty. Having the toilet has saved us SO many times. So I got tired of it and knew she was starting school so I made an appointment with the urologist to see if something was wrong. I am SO glad that I did. She has what they call "spastic bladder", which is a neurological defect that will usually correct itself by the time she reaches 7 or 8. Basically all day long her brain tells her bladder that it needs to pee and begins peeing. Kameni doesn't realize it until she is wetting her pants. She doesn't feel the urge to go. So basically her body is making pee as fast as it can and her brain is telling her bladder to pee. So they put her on medication that will block the neurological signal telling her bladder to pee so she will be able to feel the urge to go potty. By her holding it (which she never has before), her bladder will stretch out on it's own. The side effects include diarrhea and throwing up, which she has done now twice in 7 days. If she does it again, I will have to call and see if they can prescribe her something different. With this medicine, I have already seen a difference. She goes potty like a normal kid now. She doesn't run to the bathroom and leak in her panties. She hasn't done that once since starting it and she hasn't wet the bed either. I am SO excited for her. It just had to be miserable going potty that often and not even know when it was coming.

First Day of 4th Grade

This year Kaymin is in 4th grade. I can't believe it! I am so excited this is the first year in 3 years that she will be with her friends. The last 2 years all of her friends have been in the same class except for her. She has really struggled and it has been hard on her. So I am so relieved that they are together and I am sure it will make the school year more fun for her. She was not excited to go back to school and to be honest I wasn't excited for her to go either. She is SO much help to me. I have no idea what I will do without her.

She actually let me walk her into school this year so I could take some pictures. As soon as I walked around the side of the school, Taylor, Kiley, and Madison came running up to her for hugs. She was SO excited.

The "Lasts" Before School

I always take the kids somewhere fun before school starts. This year they wanted to go to Kangaroo Zoo again. They had so much fun...well except for Gerrit. He still had the splint on his leg and it still hurt so he mostly sat on my lap. They other kids had a great time and my mom, Jen and her kids came with us. We had a blast and of course I forgot my camera.
Next, we had to have a "last" day of swimming. So we had one more swimming party with some of the neighbor kids before we emptied our pool. It is always bitter sweet because I know the kids love it, but I am happy to not have to take care and worry about it anymore.

We went up to my mom's house one last time and my mom was babysitting my brother's (Brody) kids. Jen brought over her little pool and the kids all had fun swimming and hanging out with their cousins. My mom always had new kittens. Kameni was in heaven.

Getting Ready for School

So that week, August 15-21st was a busy one. I had the first PTA meeting for the upcoming school year, put together Back-to-School packets, BBQ with our friends the Mildons, and Kameni and Deilen had a little graduation party with Waterford Institute. They are the ones that run the preschool program they have been doing for the last 9 months on the computer. They had to go and take their final test and then they got a certificate, candy bars, a goodie bag, and a juice box. They were very excited for the stuff, but more excited that they didn't have to do their preschool program anymore. However, that program really helped them learn and grow. I would love to do it again with Gerrit.

Foot Problems

Okay, so I have been falling behind AGAIN. I keep telling myself that I am going to stay caught up, but yet it never happens. On Tuesday, August 17th Kaymin went to the podiatrist to get a wart cut out and one froze. She was a brave, little soul and did really well. The one on her heal hurt her every time she would walk on it so I was really happy that it is now gone. We never even knew it was there. She thought it was a blister and never showed us it. She would just put on a bandaid and move on. At the time she was wearing a pair of Sketchers that were too small for her until her feet basically squished out of the sides of the shoes. So to me it made sense why she would have a blister. I even threw the shoes away twice in the garbage and she would find out and get them out. After we came back, Gerrit jumped off of my bed (which he has done a million times) and begin screaming. Now he is not a cry baby...well at least when he gets hurt. Of course he cries for everything else: dirty hands, someone touches his blanket..so on and so on. He wouldn't even walk on it. So I ran him into the doctor and they took 12 x-rays of his foot. Apparently when they are that little all of their bones look broken because of their growth plates. So we had to wait until the following morning for the radiologist to read them. So they put him in a splint and called me the next morning to say that his x-rays looked normal, but to have him wear the splint for 7-10 days and then bring him back in. That was an expensive day for us. Just in office co-pays I paid $100. Now we will just wait for the rest of the bills. Lucky for us, 9 days later I took him in and there wasn't any breaks. Hooray...I am SO happy. It did take him some time to walk and run normal, but he is doing much better. They are just guessing it was a bad sprain.