Another lost tooth

We went on a field trip to the Portland Zoo yesterday (Andy had to work up there so we hitched a ride). Riley lost another tooth! Now we're wondering where we'll be when he loses his next loose tooth. We hadn't been to this zoo in 3 years and it's grown so much. We hit all the big animals first thing before they started their afternoon siestas. The bears and mountain lions were walking on just the other side of the glass. The largest elephant was getting his toenails cleaned and filed right in front of us. We all had a great time and learned so much more than any other time we've been to a zoo. The boys were actually into reading the signs about the animals and discussing them. I got to relate several stories from my Afican safari trip in '93 when we were viewing several animals and those made the animals even more intriguing to them, to hear about them out in the wild. Of course, Riley was very disturbed to hear I had been charged by an elephant :).

I've been doing a lot of researching regarding Tegan's bed wetting and we think we've been approaching it all wrong. From what I've read it's just one of many symptoms (including exhaustion, ADD, lack of concentration, difficulty waking in the morning, etc) caused from abnormal sleep patterns, which we've always known Tegan has. Our solutions of cutting off liquids after dinner and waking him in the middle of the night to go seem to have been counter productive (possibly even harmful to his bladder growth). We have a one hour initial phone consultation next Wed morning with Andy, Tegan, a counselor from the center and myself. That's when we'll actually find out how much this treatment costs (which is probably not a good sign). I'll keep you updated. If we go with this treatment I have read that it takes 2-6 months to complete. Of course I hope for sooner rather than later.

We're switching homeschooling curriculum this year (initially to make it cheaper, but that doesn't seem to be possible). I've been pouring over catalogs and websites for the past month trying to paste everything together. I feel like I'm drowning in options and trying to stay organized enough to keep all 3 sets of curriculum separated is driving me nuts. The boys and I are excited about it all though. We're hoping to fit in some Oregon history this year and get on the road to all the great historical sites in the state. We're going to start Conner in Kindergarten this year which is a year early according to the school system date cutoffs (he misses it by 8 days), but we can tell he's ready and he would benefit from doing that. It would allow him to participate in the programs his brothers participate in which has been very hard for him to miss out on this year.

We finished up our Moms meetings this year. I was a bit sad to know I wouldn't be involved in the planning of it next year, but I think that was more of a sadness over my loss of control rather than a sadness of not being involved. I will miss the ladies because I will most likely not even attend Moms, but I can't wait to concentrate more on school with the boys. We always did good Mondays, but our week seemed to get so off track after we attended Moms on Tuesday mornings. The meeting will be in good hands though. Two friends have taken it over and I'm so excited to see what they do with it. We do have some fun activities planned for the summer with the group so we'll all stay in touch.

Off to do some more curriculum perusing.