I'd like a hole in my head, please

Emily had a cold over the weekend. Literally...over the weekend. She started sneezing on Friday, sneezed all day Saturday and was really congested, didn't sneeze much on Sunday (but had a cough) and was fine yesterday. Of course, now I've got it. I never thought I'd be thankful for Emily's cleft palate, but now I wish I had a hole in my head that would let my sinuses drain!

Last night Danielle woke up crying in the middle of the night. She either had a bad dream or fell asleep on her arm funny, because she woke up crying that her arm hurt. As soon as I had calmed her down, the first thing out of her mouth was "Go school today?" Ummm, yes, but not at 1am.

Dima's still struggling with controlling his emotions in the late afternoon/evening. As far as we can tell, he's doing great at school so I think he's mainly just worn out from working so hard at school. If we have to have behavior problems I'd much prefer we have them at home than at school. And still, the behavior problems we have are so minor I really can't complain. I wish he'd just figure out that the wailing doesn't work. And since I know he can control himself it's almost more of a matter of waiting it out until he works all of this out of his system (while being consistent in our response to it, of course). The other day he literally wailed for an hour then came in and said very matter of factly "Mama, can you help me find this picture on my puzzle?" He can turn the wailing on and off at will which is what makes it so irritating that he doesn't just stop doing it. His hands continue to heal and a couple of his fingers look almost normal now. He seems to be doing okay about not picking on them or chewing on them (at least not much) at school. At home we keep the gloves on quite a bit with ointment on underneath. It's not so much that he chews on his hands more at home as it is that it's easier to keep the medicine on and not have it smeared all over the house with his gloves on.

One of Zhenya's favorite things to do is sing. He loves music and making up his own songs. We were at church on Sunday and during worship he complained to Mark that he couldn't see. Mark told him to look over to the side and he'd be able to see the words on the screens over there (as opposed to the big screen in the middle). Zhenya looked around and then turned around and said "No, I can't see the guitar!"

I'm debating the logistics of starting music lessons with each of them (maybe not Emily just yet) one night a week for 15-20 minutes. Now that Mark will be home in the evenings, I could take one of them into the office and do some intro piano so they can start learning to read music. It may just depend on whether or not they're interested, but I have a feeling the answer would be a resounding yes for all of them!