Martinez Family Journal

We had just come back from Natalie and Matthew's for dinner, when we got home late and all I was interested in was getting Matty ready and into bed. John and Drew are at Jeanne's visiting so all the kid care is mine, and Matty and I are both tired. I did not know it but his mood was going downhill fast, being tired. But I had no idea. I tossed his clothes at him to hang up and shouted into his bedroom reminding him to dress for bed, while I scurried around cleaning up the house. I came down the hall a few minutes later and found him in the playroom quite disappointed in me. "Mom, I had something to tell you", he said. "Well, out with it, Matty, you need to be in bed. " "Well, during the night, I might sneak out and run away" he said slowly and sadly. When I asked why he might leave, he told me it hurt his feelings to have his clothes thrown at him, when he is so tired. We had a long hug and set matters straight. I am hopeful he will be here in the morning. He promised to always tell me when his feelings are hurt.~mary

Well, the day came after hearing about this for over a year now, and Drew received braces. it was painless. It is just amazing how painless they make it these days. Dr. Kim Anderson is so great, so good with the kids and with the adults. i am just thrilled that we found her. Kimsey is her given name, I keep thinking it sounds like a childhood nickname, "Kimsey". We got an amazing price with her, many thaousands less, and I have since that day wondered if it is because of our friendship with some close family friends of hers, or is she jstu has more reasonable prices, or what. Anyhow, we are so happy with her all the way around and that she communicates well andb respectfully and so does her staff so far. They ahve aobut 30 different colors for the braces that they let the children pick out each time they visit. I got the impression the kids get the colored part removed each month at the follow up visit of four weeks then they get a new color of choice put on. Many at this time at picking red or green. Drew's first color picked was kelly green. It is jtu ont he upper front center four teeth. he had no problem accepting his braces. I went to turn int he note to his drama teacher Julie Case when he ahd gone in already and they asked him why he was late. He told them and they demanded to see his new smile. Someone shouted out 'join the club!' for nearly all the drama students have braces, for some reason. They are all 6-8th graders. I was jstu thrilled he took to it so well. I was really fearful that he would become even more self conscious than he was, and he was already terribly self conscious. Seems not to be affecting him badly at all. In fact, I would almost swear he has more self confidence now, maybe he feels more grown up???.......

We picked up the kids from the friends' house tonight at 5, the Mileskis home where the kids play with Leigh who is a year older than Matty and Sean who is Drew's age. WE swap kids with Mileskis so we can go out on date nights or date days, as we did today, having our time int he daytime. matty was told on pickup to stop eating his snack, for we were headed to dinner. he said okay then proceeded to eat it. I think he was forgetting to stop eating hte granola bar. So John took away his dessert privilege. We ended up at Sweet Tomatoes and the kids know they are expected to eat three veggies in order to be eligible for dessert. So there we were in line, and Matty was in front of me and I noticed he only had one veggie. I asked him wehre were the other veggies and he replied 'Well, that is the point, since I cannot have dessert?" ever so calmly.

Matty was at home with me while John took Drew to the bookstore to redeem his gift certificate given him for his birthday.  he spied some soda bottles on the counter waiting to be put in the cupboards and exclaimed to me excitedly "You know, Mom, whenever I ask Dad for some soda he gets me a cup and pours me some of his!  He really tries to honor the Lord and be nice!"  Matty does not usually speak this way, so I jumped right up and wrote it down.  

Matty insisted that he have a new name today, and he has told me this for two days now, consistently.  he says he prefers the name 'Sean' to Matty.  Finally it occurred to me to ask why.  I assumed it was because he admires Drew's friend Sean, who is nice to Matty.  he said a child at school has been teasing him about his name.   I talked to him about all kids getting their names teased at some point in  time.   I will have to tell John.  he asked today if I remember that he wants to be called Sean.  I replied 'of course, Sean'.  Sean martinez.  I asked him if it would be okay if we just called him Sean and left his actual name Matty.  he said no, not enough.  I suppose we will be visiting downtown soon to make it official.  

Recently we all found ourselves huddled around my bathroom in the middle of the night: Drew, Matty and myself (Mary).  I think what happened was that the kids went to bed and later o in the middle of the night they had come to me one at a time and said they felt sick to their stomachs.  So I let them sleep[ on my floor in their sleeping bags so I could be nearby in case they needed me or John.   Well, we managed to get by okay without incident that night!  Just felt a stomach upset.