My letter to this month's Orton Family Newsletter:  Thought it was a good little note about some goings on around here--


How lucky I feel that I finally thought about writing to the family newsletter today and it just happens to be the extended deadline! So serendipitous that I thought I should get up from my resting place (naptime around here is serious business) and write a quick note to say hello from the Clives.




We are happy and mostly healthy around here, school is in full swing and emotions of little ones are being tried as their schedules have been shocked and rocked. But they are loving it. Spencer is totally overwhelmed and worried sick about having teenage daughters because the conversation on the way to kindergarten between he and Cadence (our eldest) revolves nearly entirely around if she is beautiful enough and which boys at school judge her beauty to be sufficient and which ones do not. We are trying to convince her that it is NOT the most important thing, and she seems to already be of the opinion that we know nothing because we are parents. How did this happen so soon!?! But I try to reassure him that she will someday think this through a little and if we keep reinforcing the character>beauty thing, it will hit her one day. We hope. I suggested turning in all our barbie movies for the Anne of Green Gables cartoon, but Spencer said no, she's too ugly. We laughed and then wondered how our child got this way...



Campbell just started preschool and has been merciful enough on all of us to act potty trained while there. At home, though, it's a free-for-all again. How looooong is this going to take!?! She is bright eyed and excited to learn though, and has even been a little easier to manage in most senses. I thought it was because she sprained her foot really bad and so couldn't walk very well, but as it's finally healing, she's coming out a more...calm (relative, of course, to before) child.

Layla talks in full sentences now and my favorites are things like "Mommy, cheese! Yeah, cheese, okay, yeah!" She and I are enjoying some time together with her sisters at school. Unlike her sister, she's been growing MORE difficult. She was my angel baby and now is my terrorist toddler. When Cadence went through this phase, I called a child psychologist because I was sure she was crazy. Now Layla is just the same and I take a deep breath and lower my head and get ready because I know it's going to be a long, tiring, entertaining couple of years. But at least this time I can relax a little knowing she doesn't need therapy and there's not a whole lot I can do, except enjoy it while it lasts :)




For those of you who know I've not been feeling well, just a quick update: I am slowly improving. My enery is pretty good for about half of most days, and then I need to slow down and rest. The headaches and pain are improved but not gone. I'm monitoring my glucose levels now since the current thought is that I have hypoglycemia which is complicating something else. The lyme and other tick-borne panels came back negative yet again but I'm still holding on to that possibility because I do think the antibiotic helped. I'll be seeing an endocrinologist next. In general, I'm feeling really optimistic about this. I don't feel like it's as big of a deal as it could be, whatever it is. As in, I doubt there is a tumor somewhere causing it or some life-altering problem, just something that needs to be fixed or tweeked and then I can move on. Meanwhile, I'm really grateful for all the support and love and thoughts and prayers. And don't worry about it. I'm telling you- I feel really peaceful about it, in spite of wanting to have answers.

And in other news, our dog almost killed the neighbors' cat on Monday and that was a total drag. Thank goodness the neighbors are really understanding and forgiving. Although I'm scared to death to see the vet bills that we will be paying! Luckily the dog is just cute enough to be worth keeping. Barely.


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Hopefully I'll blog soon about birthdays as well as the wonderful visit from Mignon and Joel!