I missed writing a post last Sunday so I’ll have to update two weeks’ worth of news in this post.
Nora has had her first two Preschool Days and has had a lot of fun with her friends. I am so grateful she has the opportunity to spend these couple of hours with other kids doing activities. It’s like a playgroup except one mom takes all five kids and does craft and a series of learning activities. This week is my turn and I am pretty lucky I have three older helpers to make things easier for me. (we’ll see)
Friday a week ago I took my 1hr. glucose test and didn’t pass, but the OB said it wasn’t bad enough to do anything about except for telling me to eat better. I was also low on my blood count so I have to take Iron (nothing new) and was told again to eat better. I’ll talk about what I’m doing to change things in my next letter.
Lily has begun rehearsals for the Nutcracker Ballet. She is having a little bit of a struggle because she was the only girl in her level that was given an angel part, matching her to smaller and also younger girls. She feels left out of her group and sad about being small for the first time. I’ve talked to her about the importance of conformity in some aspects of ballet. I think she understands why she was put where she is but it’s hard sometimes. She is still having a lot of fun doing the Party Scene with many more of the kids.
I had my monthly book group meeting at my house last Saturday. We discussed a book about a boy dealing with the loss of his father on 9/11, so it was well timed. Most of us really liked the book and felt it had a good message, despite it’s being extremely weird and incredibly strange.
Riis started his soccer season and has the same color (turquoise) and name as last time(Sharks), but completely different boys and coach. Their first game was Saturday and they did really great. It was a tie but they kept the ball in the other team’s half most of the game.
I did some extra cleaning work this week in addition to school. Before book group last week I’d worked really hard cleaning the house. (I always use people coming over as a motivator to get extra cleaning done!) I had the kids help and they washed floors and scrubbed the cupboards in the kitchen, plus other things. Sunday my body hurt and I had to recover. That day the kids got out paper and crafts and then left a huge mess. I was getting really upset telling them to take care of things but no one was taking accountability for the messes and things only got worse. I said on Thursday morning we’d take an hour out of our schedule to do extra straightening. When that hour was up and things were still a disaster I went into Commando Parenting mode. I was so disheartened by their messes and my inability to train them, as well as keep up with all of it that I decided to act on one of my favorite threats. I have in the past put many of the kids toys in the garage. I constantly comb through and get rid of old things we don’t need, but this time I took every single toy out of the girls’ room and put them in the garage. I felt bad doing it, but after the day was over and I had picked up a half a trash bag full of trash out of their room and still had to constantly ask them to put shoes away, pick up towels and blankets, etc. I didn’t feel bad anymore. Riis didn’t get any toys taken away because he always takes care of his toys and keeps his bed made and room straightened. I will just have to keep the girls out of his room now! The girls have very little hope of getting their toys back in their current state.
This past weekend it also rained a lot which was wonderful! It was almost amazing to see the rain and Casey said he was distracted by all of the rain washing away down gutters and into storm drains, wishing it could’ve been saved somehow. Unfortunately it’s going to take a lot more rain to recover from this drought!
On Saturday Casey ran a two-fifths marathon, which equals out to about 10.5 miles. He finished with a time of 1:25 which is about 8:11 a mile. He ended up getting really bad reflux during the race but felt good otherwise. He also got first for his age division. It is great to see how happy he gets when he runs races.
After an incredibly busy Saturday I went out with my sisters. Aslinn planned the fun as part of her birthday present. First we ate dinner at a place called Simply Fondue. We had the cheese fondue appetizer and chocolate dessert fondue. It was delicious! Then we went to see a comedy improve group called Four Day Weekend. They were hilarious! They talk to people in the audience and have funny conversations with them and then act out skits about the people as part of their show. Marina got chosen out of the audience to go down on stage and be part of a skit. She was supposed to be going on a police “ride-along” for “citizens on patrol.” The officer/comedian sat next to her and asked her name and then said, “Marina? I once knew a girl named Marina. I asked her out in Jr. High but she wouldn’t go out with me.” Then he continued and said, “Your maiden name wouldn’t be Washburn, would it?” AT this point we were floored. Marina was laughing and nodding, but she didn’t know who he was. He said, “Are you from Farmington, NM?” (nod) “You went to Hermosa Jr. High?” (nodding and laughing) And it continued this way while he remembered things and asked her more questions. The comedian (Josh) was so funny and he and the rest of the group continued to bring up their “acquaintance” for the rest of the evening. Luckily Marina finally remembered who he was. She said he was really funny as a kid so I guess he picked the right career!
Well, that about covers the past two weeks. School is going great. We’ve finished 7 weeks of school and done 192 hours total, averaging 28 hours a week. We’ve also averaged over 10 hours a week of extracurricular activities, not including driving time, trips to the library, errands, etc. I track weeks, but I calculate days of school completed based on hours done so we’ve done 32 days of school so far this year. I hope I can keep it up as I’m now in my 3rd trimester of pregnancy!
Thanks for reading!
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
More About the Kids
The best news here is that a cold front will relieve us of our 100* degree temperatures this week for the first time since early May! I am so excited to feel what an 80* day feels like, and hopefully our electric bill won’t be quite as shocking next month! I plan to take the kids to the zoo to celebrate! We haven’t been to our zoo here since Leonora was about 18 mo. old!
Lily got her parts for the Nutcracker Ballet this week. She is going to be a Party Girl and an Angel. The rehearsals call for her to be at ballet for three hours every Saturday until the performance in November! This year there will also be 3 performances! This will keep Lily very busy and she is so excited!
Nothing else out of the ordinary happened this week. We had some playdates, various lessons, and Casey got to take the kids to the park.
More about the kids:
Lily is very motivated in doing her science and works through all of her lessons and experiments with very little help from me. She is also having a better time at math this year since moving out of the workbook phase of Saxon Math and into the Text Book phase. Lily has been reading at her usual pace and so far this school year has read The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, The Five Little Peppers Midway, The Big Wave, A Single Shard, and The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus (which by itself is over 600 pages). She also reads every story book and history book I bring home from the library (average 30 per week), and even many of the simple readers I check out for Riis and Evelyn. She tends to like most everything she reads and only occasionally will say she didn’t like a certain book.
Evelyn is trying to find her place in our little school. It is surprising to me sometimes that it would be her that is stubborn and also competitive. She is doing much better in reading and is reading more books in her free time which is really great to see. She has taken up drawing and lately we’ve been practicing drawing birds. She likes to trace and color birds out of books, but I checked out drawing books from the library so we’re working on drawing freehand as well. Evelyn has also begun to speak up more when she knows an answer to something which she hasn’t done very much of in the past.
I hate to label Riis, but I’m beginning to see in him a bit of all-or-nothing mentality. He swings on either end of a broad spectrum of emotions and motivation. He works really hard and focused at his work, usually, but sometimes he decides he’s overwhelmed and it takes encouragement to get over his mental hurdle. A messy room for him is very overwhelming so I think he is much happier when it stays neat and clean and no one plays with his toys! In general if he stays fed and gets regular breaks, he is so great to be around. He also loves gymnastics and talks about the skills he learns and how important it is for him to be strong.
Leonora has been a “super-colorer” and a massive producer. Unfortunately I think it’s gotten old for her. Instead of darkly coloring in page after page and staying in the lines, she has moved on to scribble. She loves to use pencils and trace lines and also use scissors. I think she is growing up in so many ways, and she’s moved out of the cute baby phase in her siblings minds, and on to the annoying little sister phase. During our school day she gets out her own activities to do (shapes, play doh, lite brite, puzzles, coloring, etc.) and puts them all away when she’s done.
We haven't started French lessons yet and hope to do so by next week. I used to save French for the last thing of the day on the schedule. It's not recommended to do that since subjects that require more concentration are supposed to be done first in the day. But I never had time to do the French at the end of the day anyway. So I made the kids all their own 3 ring binder with French lessons in it. I keep the binders in the car and we do French in the car as we're driving to our various activities. They can follow along in their notebooks or just listen. This gives them the opportunity to hear French in short bursts of time, but it adds up to about 3 hours during a school week. (And that's not even our total driving time!) It's actually a huge sacrifice for me to do this. I really would prefer to listen to adults talking on the radio and not kid stuff. I have the French Power Glide junior, Lyrical Language French songs, and Baron's French cds. I have another song tape we listen to in the kitchen occassionally, story books, flash cards, etc.
Lily got her parts for the Nutcracker Ballet this week. She is going to be a Party Girl and an Angel. The rehearsals call for her to be at ballet for three hours every Saturday until the performance in November! This year there will also be 3 performances! This will keep Lily very busy and she is so excited!
Nothing else out of the ordinary happened this week. We had some playdates, various lessons, and Casey got to take the kids to the park.
More about the kids:
Lily is very motivated in doing her science and works through all of her lessons and experiments with very little help from me. She is also having a better time at math this year since moving out of the workbook phase of Saxon Math and into the Text Book phase. Lily has been reading at her usual pace and so far this school year has read The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, The Five Little Peppers Midway, The Big Wave, A Single Shard, and The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus (which by itself is over 600 pages). She also reads every story book and history book I bring home from the library (average 30 per week), and even many of the simple readers I check out for Riis and Evelyn. She tends to like most everything she reads and only occasionally will say she didn’t like a certain book.
Evelyn is trying to find her place in our little school. It is surprising to me sometimes that it would be her that is stubborn and also competitive. She is doing much better in reading and is reading more books in her free time which is really great to see. She has taken up drawing and lately we’ve been practicing drawing birds. She likes to trace and color birds out of books, but I checked out drawing books from the library so we’re working on drawing freehand as well. Evelyn has also begun to speak up more when she knows an answer to something which she hasn’t done very much of in the past.
I hate to label Riis, but I’m beginning to see in him a bit of all-or-nothing mentality. He swings on either end of a broad spectrum of emotions and motivation. He works really hard and focused at his work, usually, but sometimes he decides he’s overwhelmed and it takes encouragement to get over his mental hurdle. A messy room for him is very overwhelming so I think he is much happier when it stays neat and clean and no one plays with his toys! In general if he stays fed and gets regular breaks, he is so great to be around. He also loves gymnastics and talks about the skills he learns and how important it is for him to be strong.
Leonora has been a “super-colorer” and a massive producer. Unfortunately I think it’s gotten old for her. Instead of darkly coloring in page after page and staying in the lines, she has moved on to scribble. She loves to use pencils and trace lines and also use scissors. I think she is growing up in so many ways, and she’s moved out of the cute baby phase in her siblings minds, and on to the annoying little sister phase. During our school day she gets out her own activities to do (shapes, play doh, lite brite, puzzles, coloring, etc.) and puts them all away when she’s done.
We haven't started French lessons yet and hope to do so by next week. I used to save French for the last thing of the day on the schedule. It's not recommended to do that since subjects that require more concentration are supposed to be done first in the day. But I never had time to do the French at the end of the day anyway. So I made the kids all their own 3 ring binder with French lessons in it. I keep the binders in the car and we do French in the car as we're driving to our various activities. They can follow along in their notebooks or just listen. This gives them the opportunity to hear French in short bursts of time, but it adds up to about 3 hours during a school week. (And that's not even our total driving time!) It's actually a huge sacrifice for me to do this. I really would prefer to listen to adults talking on the radio and not kid stuff. I have the French Power Glide junior, Lyrical Language French songs, and Baron's French cds. I have another song tape we listen to in the kitchen occassionally, story books, flash cards, etc.
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