Hurricane Babbling

We're hunkering down in anticipation of Hurricane Sandy, which is due to hit here sometime this evening with furious winds and excessive rainfall amounts.  Grocery stores were exceptionally busy this morning during our early morning grocery shopping trip with people buying canned goods and bottled water in anticipation of an extended power outage.  We've already had 45-50 mm of rain, not connected to the hurricane system, in the last three days, several mm of which have unfortunately found their way through the chimney cleanout into our workshop.  Thankfully it's the only part of the basement without flooring, so at least we can see what's going on and we can dry it up again fairly successfully.  It seems that an additional length of drainage tile on one of our downspouts has fixed the problem, at least temporarily.  Basements + water = frustration!  Perhaps all the crazy wind gusts will dry up the rain before it makes everything too soggy?  Probably not.  We'll be parking the van in the carport tonight, although I think most of the vulnerable trees in this city were downed in the windstorm last spring.  The wind is coming from a different direction this time, so that might make a difference.  We're hoping that if the power goes out, it's not out for too long, or we'll be crashing Danielle and Timothy's place to huddle around their gas stove :)    
I have a number of little stories or anecdotes that I've written down in the last little while that really need to be put into a post, but I'm not feeling terribly eloquent at the moment.  I'm just going to post this in all it's literary un-glory and if it's not up to snuff, you can leave a comment to complain.  Or leave a comment to encourage, whatever you like.  Believe it or not, I prefer encouragement. 
Peter is really enjoying himself at school and is developing confidence in his interactions with other kids.  He wakes up eager for school and hops on the bus ready to take on the day.  We've had a few meltdowns on mornings when there is no school, and although that can be challenging, it's great to see that he likes being at school and learning new things.  They were learning about the letter U today and Peter proclaimed to his teacher that he already knew that it was the letter U, and that the animal with one horn and wings is called a uniform. He also saw a "snack" today in the urinal which he thankfully didn't try to touch since someone had peed on it.  Haha!!  We've had a few issues with the bus which hopefully will not occur again, and it seems that he gets along well with the other students he rides with.  A few of these students told Mike a few weeks ago that they really like Peter because he's cute.  They also really like his accent.  Accent?  We weren't aware he had one, so we were amused by that comment.  He also has informed us that he doesn't need to eat his vegetables or his spinach because he already has enough energy to do all the playing he needs to do.  Nice try kid.  
The older two boys pick up a lot more than you might give them credit for, and there is one thing in particular that they heard in a sermon about two months ago that has been repeated many times since.  Rev. Bouwers was preaching about the Lord's Supper, and how just as we need physical food to survive, so also we need spiritual food or we will die.  Well, this made a huge difference in the speed to which they respond to the call "lunchtime!" They just about trip over each other running up the stairs, because "The minister told us if we don't eat, we will DIE!"  Kind of handy, actually, except when they use it in the early morning.  They were up early the other day, and I was still in bed, listening to them talking.  Aaron came into our room, and he said to me "Mommy, we need to have breakfast.  Do you want us to die?"  There's a good motivator to get out of bed. 
A few weeks ago after the boys had been playing on the driveway we noticed a whole bunch of scratches on the side of the van.  As we were fairly confident who the culprit was, Mike confronted Aaron about it.  Aaron suggested, "I think maybe a bird pecker did it."  Good try there, Aaron.
Aaron does a lot of thinking about God, heaven, Jesus, blood, and other spiritual things.  The questions that he comes up with are intriguing and I am often impressed by the way that he thinks.  Some of the things he has asked me recently include:
"When we die, we go to heaven, right Mom?  How will God get our blood back into us so we will be alive again?"
"How does Jesus' blood make us clean? Grown ups are washed with Jesus' blood, but kids are washed with juice, right Mom?"
"Mommy, did Solomon buy gold for the temple from the store, or did Jesus give it to him?"
He is also picking up on words that sound the same and he is quite excited when he finds a match.  Two weeks ago, he was snuggling with Oma first thing in the morning.  After quietly laying there for a few minutes, he pipes up, "Hey Oma, 'let us' and 'lettuce' sound the same, eh?"
Other words that he's noticed are similar include (bye / buy), (sea / see), (too / two), (BiBLE / bull), (calcium / Mrs. Mechelse).  He is so very ready and excited for school, poor guy has another two years to go.  We've been working on a pre-K letters/phonics book at home, and he enjoys his "little school" lessons.
Nate is starting to pick up on a few more words lately.  He's still struggling with pronounciation of a number of different sounds, but he's made good use of the sounds he can master, and it's fun to hear him talking.  He's had "Mommy" and "Aaron" for quite a while, and the occasional garbled "Dad" comes out.  Other words/phrases include: go away, go home, home again, amen, (s)ky, moon, (s)tar, owie, eye/I, (yo)uuuu, yea.  I also hear a lot of arguing between him and Aaron that goes something like this: 
Yes! Mo! Yes! Mo!  And a lot of screaming and "go away"s.  They don't get along all that well right now, which has been a wee bit of a challenge.  Anyways, I'm waiting for a follow-up call from Speech Services for therapy for Nate, as well as a referral call from an ENT specialist to get his adenoids checked out in case that is what's causing trouble for him with his pronounciation (and also what may have been the trouble with his drinking issues as an infant).
So there you go, a non-eloquent update on how things are going over here.  Just a heads up - ever since I changed the way that commenting is done (you no longer have to enter in the cryptic letters to have your comment approved) I have gotten quite a few SPAM comments that kind of creep me out.  I will probably be adding a password to this blog in the near future to keep creepy people away.  If you're not a creepy people, let me know that you'd like to keep following and I can send you the password once it exists.  I imagine there are a few of you out there that don't know me well at all, or perhaps we haven't had contact in quite a few years - I'm thinking people who read from Alberta, Halifax, Tottenham, Perth AUS, or the mysterious Moutainview, California reader... I'd be tickled to hear from you!  You can leave a comment with your email or email me to be on the password list at rmussche at hotmail dot com. 
That's all for now!
Mike and I signed up for the One Match program to be on the list for stem cell donation.   We know now very personally how big a difference a stem cell match can make to someone, and if we can be that match for someone else, how amazing would that be?  It's very easy to sign up - a short questionaire online, and then a swab kit mailed to your home that you complete and mail back postage paid. 

The back corner of our yard... PRE-hurricane Sandy.  I think we'll have a swimming pool back there by the end of the week.  I made some paper boats with Aaron today, but convinced him to float them in the bathtub instead of outside because it's awfully cold and miserable out there right now!