L is Leaves, Pumpkins and Cool Air, Oh My!

L is for Leaves, Pumpkins and Cool Air, Oh My!  It is finally fall!  It still gets hot from time to time (we're talking spikes into the 90s still), but for the last couple of weeks, we have been fairly mild and our highs have generally been in the 80s and some mornings, we have even woken up to 50s! With it being October, it was time to visit the pumpkin patch as we do every single year.  This is where I always snap their fall pictures and I haven't missed a year yet - except when my oldest was 2 weeks old, but yeah... that just wasn't going to work out.  So we snagged my niece and we hopped on down to the local church pumpkin patch.  We went for an old-time farm feel this year and I think they turned out nicely!  I even managed to get one of all 3 of my boys and my niece looking at the camera! Success!  There are SO many wonderful events we do in the month of October (and November, so be on the lookout for all the Harvest celebration then!) and I always end up with an onslaught of pictures this time of year.  Aside from the pumpkin patch, we also visited Bellingrath Gardens for their Annual Balloon Glow in the Gardens, something we have done for 3 years now.  It was a crazy mess, but we will continue to go because the boys enjoy it so much.   It's a giant trunk or treat inside the gorgeous grounds of Bellingrath Gardens, which is a large, year-round botanical garden.  We are hopefully going for their Christmas in Lights this year too!  We hit a few snags this year, though - traffic was terrible.  We waited in traffic for over an hour, we had to park at the entrance and walk a mile each way... and there was lots of whining, out of all 4 kids (I have taken to grabbing my niece and taking her along whenever I can since her dad works long hours and is exhausted on the weekends.  It's the least I can do to help out - my boys love her and she gets to go, it's a win-win all around.) so by the end, I was just done.  All 3 of my boys ended up grounded for their behavior at the restaurant following the excursion and they are just now getting ungrounded by cleaning their rooms - which is no small task.  We have more events coming up this week, but I will likely include them with the Halloween post.

L is for Laser Tag.  Report cards came in this week and to my relief, I found two perfect report cards from my two kids.  Apollo had straight A's and S's in PE and Behavior.  So off we went to go play laser tag as our local laser tag place offers a free session for straight A's.  It was just Apollo versus Orion and though he lost (Orion has played lots of times before), Apollo had a ton of fun!  Afterwards, we headed off to Moe's Southwest Grill for a celebratory dinner (LOTS of queso and chips were consumed by the boys!) and then to Kripsy Kreme to redeem their report card rewards there - a free doughnut for every A!  Needless to say, the family had dessert and then the boys had doughnuts for breakfast the next morning!  I love that our local businesses offer these rewards - it really pushes the kids to succeed!

L is for Laundry, as in the dirty kind.  I am not normally one to blast my personal struggles and annoyances.  Sure, I allude to the situations enough for those close to me to correlate the publicly stated frustrations back to a private occurrence, but this time... this time the dirty laundry is flying.  Because this time... it directly affected Apollo and very deeply.  Deeply enough that it took nearly an hour to pull him out of the emotional shut down that was caused by his father.  His largely absent father.  I won't comment on what I really think, but his "parenting" (and largely, his lack thereof) has always irritated me and caused me to not trust him.  But his poor decisions this time drove the final nail in the coffin of Apollo ever having a meaningful relationship with him.  My oldest just had his 7th birthday and it went very well - he got lots of fun things that he has been graciously sharing with his brothers, we went out to eat, there was lots of cake... it was overall enjoyable.  Then it arrived.  The overnighted package from his father.  A box full of crumpled up wrapping paper, a torn card and a birthday gift for Orion - with only a matching cup for Apollo and Phoenix.  Why is this an issue, you ask?  Because their father didn't send Phoenix anything in March for his birthday, nor did he send Apollo anything for his birthday in May.  He didn't even acknowledge they existed.  At the time, there was no contact between my kids and their father (same father for all 3 of my boys), but their birthdays came and went and nothing.  They haven't seen him in person in 18 months and have been talking on the phone with him since July for around 30 minutes a week - it's all they can handle.  Apollo will sometimes talk to him and sometimes he won't.  So a month ago, when he asked my oldest what he wanted for his birthday, I sent along a message to him that he needed to also send something for Phoenix and Apollo's birthdays that he missed.  He chose not to and when my oldest (my sweet, blond headed little ball of empathy) questioned his father on why he didn't send them something too when he wanted him to, their father replied that Phoenix and Apollo didn't get gifts because they didn't talk to him on the phone.  A harsh enough blatant statement of manipulation, but even worse?  Apollo was standing in the doorway and heard it... so then when his father didn't ask to talk to him and hung up without even acknowledging he was there (Apollo usually doesn't speak to his father... he's not good on the phone with anyone, especially people he doesn't know), Apollo burst. This was his most dramatic meltdown in MONTHS - he was screaming hysterically, tears were flowing everywhere and I couldn't even get him to tell me what was wrong.  My mother had to pull him out of it this time... that's when you know it's bad.  He usually comes out for me... so I don't know what is going to come of this going forward as it just happened yesterday, but when the weather clears (we're getting remnants of Patricia here...) I am going to contact Apollo's therapist because we may need an emergency session to make sure that Apollo realizes that there isn't a single thing he did wrong, because right now, his little heart is shattered that he doesn't seem to matter as much as his brother.  Which couldn't be father from the truth... not to people who love him and certainly not to his brother.  Orion is pretty upset over the whole thing too...