Big changes around here...

The biggest one is that little Loren is going to preschool after all. I took him in last week to be evaluated for speech because I wasn't sure where he was in relation to his peers. They screen for speech, OT, and another one (I forget what), and they said that he was fine for speech, but that he qualified for OT.

I thought it was just because I'm his mom and he's 4.5 that he doesn't pay attention and doesn't follow directions, and I thought he's just being shy when we're in strange places. He's really not all that shy, but he does get very easily overwhelmed if too many new people pay attention to him all at once. Once he knows you though, you have a friend for life. My husband's whole family is "type-A" personalities and LL is already struggling with perfectionism- I discovered this when I was trying to teach him how to write his name and he got frustrated when he couldn't write the letters perfectly every time.

I'm nervous about sending him off, but it's only afternoons for less than 3 hours and I know they'll be helping him learn what he needs to do to cope. I'm still hoping to homeschool him starting next year, and I am planning on continuing to work with him on K stuff this year. But for now, we're waiting to have an IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting with his teacher(s?) and occupational therapist(s) to see what goals we have for him. The school district started this week so they're trying to get settled with what they have and then get the new students in. So it will be about another week or two before he actually starts. I asked him today if he wanted to ride the bus (he has the option) or if he wanted me to drive him, and he said he wants me to drive him. I'm perfectly okay with that!

The other big change is that Loren (hubby) is leaving his job at Job Corps. The management there leaves MUCH to be desired and they're just getting worse instead of better. I told Loren a couple weeks ago that I was tempted to tell him to just quit and focus on building up his judo club. At the time he told me "no, I have to stay at Job Corps." A couple days later he called me and told me he was going to turn in his 2-weeks notice. Friday is his last day. Right now, he's working on several leads for part-time work in the mornings and is going to work on building up the Roswell Judo Club in the afternoons. I'm not really as freaked out about the sudden change in income as I thought I would be. We've been through worse and we know what we can live without and what we can cut back on. He's also working on a couple other things, but right now I'm not at liberty to disclose that information.

Fall is a busy season for us no matter what, and these next few months will definitely be crazy with our new changes, but I know we'll come out the other end doing just fine. God always takes care of us.

If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies. ~Author Unknown

We saw a toad today!

We've gotten a lot of rain since the beginning of July, so the creatures are taking advantage of the extra moisture and coming out to play. Loren has been working on fixing everyone's vehicles (finishing Michelle's truck, replacing my brakes AGAIN) all weekend at his mom's house and when we were playing "musical cars," he decided to sweep up a little bit of the dust and debris that had accumulated under Michelle's truck. When he did that, a toad (we thought it was a frog at first) hopped out from the grass by the fence. He chased it with a broom to the other side of the carport area where he was working so I wouldn't run over it. When I parked my car, I went around the side to see if I could see the toad.

He* was just sitting out in the open all fat and happy, so I went to go get the boys from inside the house. When we got out there, I couldn't find the toad. I was pretty bummed that the boys didn't get to see him and little Loren went back inside. Justin and I were just hanging around watching Daddy and I decided to look a little harder for the toad since I figured he was hiding in the vines on the other side of the fence. Sure enough, I found him hiding under the vines and showed Justin, who thought he was pretty cool. Then we went and got little Loren back from inside the house. I used a stick to gently nudge the toad to see if I could get him out into the open but he just jumped further back into the vines. I found him again and it was actually a better view of him where we could see his whole body. The boys thought he was pretty neat. I would have tried to catch him but he was already scared, and I didn't have anything to put him in. Then I decided it was time to leave him alone, so we all went back inside. The ONE day where I didn't have my camera with me, we find something cool. Oh well, such is life.

I figured since there probably aren't very many amphibians in New Mexico, I could probably find him on a list of NM frogs/toads somewhere on the internet. Sure enough, there was an almost identical picture of the toad on Wikipedia. I'm fairly certain our little friend is called Bufo speciosus or Texas Toad**. Loren (hubby) said he must be a little lost to be in New Mexico instead of Texas, but I found that the species does not limit it's range to within the Texas border *wink*. Little Loren decided to name our little friend Megatron (after the Transformer, of course) even though we didn't keep him.

*I have no idea if the toad was a boy or girl. I just figured using masculine forms would be easier.

**It is quite possible that "Megatron" could also have been a Bufo woodhousii (Woodhouse's Toad) because they appear to have very similar markings. The toad we saw was fairly large (about the size of my fist) and the Woodhouse's Toad is at least an inch larger than the Texas Toad. I guess that will teach me to have my camera with me so that we can take pictures in order to correctly identify our finds. I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting adventure of identifying creatures from here on out.

I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals"
(so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man.
I find the result humiliating to me.
~Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, 1907