1. From September 19- December 7 Nadia will have spent 9 out of 12 weekends at Camp Susque. Six of those weekends she was/will be working in the kitchen for a small stipend. This weekend she's serving as a volunteer in the kitchen, one weekend she was there for an overnight birthday party, and one weekend in November she'll be there as a participant in a youth retreat with our church's youth group. She typically leaves our home in the late afternoon on a Friday and comes back in the afternoon on Sunday. I miss her when she's gone, but I think God is using these times of separation to help me transition to when she'll be living in Virginia at Liberty University starting in August 2026. I'm thankful she has made many friends at Camp Susque, and I'm thankful she is willing to serve in this ministry by cooking, doing dishes, etc. for those attending various retreats there this fall. Now that she has her license, she can drive herself to and from Camp Susque in Paul's car.
2. On one of the rare weekends that Nadia was at home, she had coffee and lunch with a friend from camp on a Saturday afternoon. The next day she went home from church with a friend from church and spent about 3 hours at her house before it was time for her to work at the kennel.
3. Last Friday the boys served as candy runners at our church's trunk or treat event. I got Oliver's M&M costume at a thrift store. I paid what felt like a fortune for Ian's Captain Hook costume for our co-op's upcoming production of Peter Pan. While the boys were helping out at church, Nadia was at Camp Susque, and Paul and I were at a ballroom dancing lesson. Oliver has two costumes for Peter Pan (he's the crocodile and the dog), but he hates those costumes, so I doubt he'll ever wear them outside of our Peter Pan performance in three weeks.
4. The kids all had dentist appointments on Monday. I've been a mom for seventeen years, and this was the first appointment that included the words "has a cavity." If the cavity doesn't grow, they are going to wait until Oliver's braces come off to fix it. We are now trying to have him get in the habit of brushing his teeth after every meal. I'm thankful that *so far* Ian and Nadia haven't had any cavities.
5. For several years a man at our church has been playing hymns in between the first and second service and after the second service on a grand piano in the church's lobby. I was recently recruited to be one of his substitutes. He has been ill recently, and the other two women who substitute for him weren't able to play this past Sunday due to other responsibilities they had at church last week, so I was asked to play. I haven't played the piano much at all in recent years so that was a delight. Speaking of the piano, I have really been enjoying listening to Ian practice the piano the last several months. In the past there were months when none of the rest of us liked the music he chose to play. Last week he asked his teacher to choose an additional song for him to work on, and she loaned him a Christmas book by Dino, which was from the late 80's. My sisters and I used to play his music in the 80's and 90's. He's doing an excellent job preparing for the challenging classical piece he plans to play in the recital in February.
6. For the first about 4.5 years that Milo lived with us, he slept with Ian half of the time and Nadia the other half of the time. The only time he slept with Paul and me was when both Ian and Nadia were away. The first week of July all three kids were at camp, so Milo slept with us. In June he had slept with Ian for two weeks straight while Nadia was at camp. For whatever reason, Milo started to object to sleeping with Ian when he returned from camp in July. We allowed him to sleep with us thinking this would change once Nadia came home, but it didn't. Earlier this month when Cooper was with us, we asked the kids to take Milo so that we wouldn't have two dogs in our bedroom. This was a total disaster. Milo was vomiting, peeing, and pooping in their beds or on their bedroom carpets. Cleaning up messes in the middle of the night in all three of their bedrooms was much worse than having two dogs in our room so we let Milo sleep with us again. If I could go back in time, I wish we had taught Milo to sleep on a dog bed in one of our bedrooms. Although Paul also doesn't sleep as well when Milo is in our bed, he was more willing to tolerate the inconvenience. In addition to getting less sleep, when Milo curls up near our heads our allergies are affected. Earlier this week I declared I was done sleeping with a dog. Either I'd sleep on a couch or a different bed, or Milo would have to sleep elsewhere. If Milo lives to be fourteen, I'd be sleeping with him for nine more years, and I'm unwilling to lose sleep on a regular basis for that many years. The "good" nights (in which I still get a good night's sleep) are way too few and far between for me to keep this up for months and years on end. Paul has graciously offered to assist Milo in learning to sleep in a crate at night. I bought him some new dog treats that Paul is using in the process. Milo is spending part of the night in our bed, but when Paul is ready for bed (a few hours later than me) he puts Milo in his crate, and Paul sleeps on the couch next to the crate. The first night was rough, but he didn't cry that much the second night. Hopefully, it won't take that many days for Milo to adjust to the new normal of sleeping in his crate either in the kitchen or in one of our bedrooms. Paul definitely loves Milo very much!
