We started trying to have children in May 2002. After pursuing fertility treatments, domestic, and international adoption, our daughter Nadia Renee was born on 6-24-08 (at 36w4d). IVF #2 resulted in Ian Alexander, who was born on 12-12-09 (at 34w3d). Oliver Elliot (IVF #3) was born on 8-7-12 (at 31w6d)! Three other pregnancies (in 2005, 2007, and 2013) ended in miscarriage. Our family is complete! We are so thankful for our three miracles!
I started babysitting when I was twelve years old. I got paid a whopping $0.65 per hour. Considering the going rate 35 years later is $10 per hour, would you say we have experienced some inflation over the past 35 years? When I was in college the highest I was paid for babysitting was $5 per hour. Nadia is looking forward to being a babysitter some day. I'm not sure if she will find anyone who will hire her when she is 12 years old. We shall see! She really wants a dog, and she said if she earns money from babysitting she will use the money to help pay for the dog's food and toys. I did hire some neighbors who were in middle school back when Nadia was a toddler. Today Nadia took a Safe Sitter class at the local hospital from 8:30-2:45. She was trained in CPR today during the class. One of her friends from church was also in the class, which was a pleasant surprise.
I did Oliver's birthday interview today - only two days after his birthday! Most of his answers didn't surprise me. The two that did were #1 that he wants to clean the windows on sky scrapers when he grows up and #2 he thought you had to be a pastor to go in a dunk tank (our pastors were in dunk tanks at an event at our church on a Friday evening in June).
This morning the boys and I just dropped Nadia off and came right back home. This afternoon we left early so we'd have time to go to a playground and pick up two books for Nadia at the library. We brought bread so we could feed the ducks as that was on our summer bucket list, and we hadn't done it yet. Thankfully it wasn't as hot out today. It makes it much easier to adjust to not having air conditioning in our house. In addition to getting the piano tuned, I'm also going to need to stain some of the windowsills as there have been times it has rained during the night without us realizing it while the windows were open, which means we've had water damage on some windowsills.
This photo at left was not posed. She was genuinely surprised when a bird landed on her shoulder, and I snapped the photo. Later she started trying to get birds to stay on her shoulders or her head. The first picture was also not posed. The kids have been playing chess quite a bit this week. Ian even was teaching Oliver how to play. I'm glad they are playing
chess more as that is certainly something Paul can help them with quite a bit. Ian usually beats Nadia.
Nadia received a letter from her new pen pal today, and then promptly wrote her second letter to her new pen pal. They were matched up through Adventures in Odyssey. They are both exactly the same age (three hours apart). Her pen pal lives in Illinois, is homeschooled, and is the second of seven children. So today Nadia was in a class at the hospital for 6 hours that included first aid, CPR training, etc. She wrote a letter and read more than 50 pages of a library book I got her today. I think that will count as a school day for her! Even though the boys might not be interested in babysitting when they are in middle school, I also want them to be trained in CPR one way or another.
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