Calming down and gearing up for Fall

It was so nice today to not have to be anywhere in the morning at all.  We were able to cruise through some school work, get focused back on what's important, and starting gearing up for our Fall Festival.  By the time 10:30 rolled around, we had finished all of our work and rearranged the house a little in case of bad weather on Sunday.  In case you haven't heard, Sunday is the Autumnal Equinox and since Rachel put it on her calendar, she thought we ought to celebrate.  So, we're having a Fall Festival with chili, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, baked apples, and candy corn.  Plus, who knows what other goodies might show up!!  We started making a big leaf pile in the back yard to play in, but now it looks like rain might turn this into an indoor party.  We moved the train/lego/multi-purpose table into the living room for the kids to use as a place to eat and play and now the playroom looks like the biggest room in the house!!  Rachel and Ford both practiced their cutting skills today and made some leaves for decorating.  We went to the dollar store and picked up a few party necessities.  I think we're going to have a great time.  First, though, we have to get through Saturday which is the Arts Festival at our church.  Rachel is playing the violin with the other violin students and she, surprisingly for the way things have been going lately, is not nervous at all.  She's pretty much all business when it comes to playing her violin which is why the anxiety she had been going through was really starting to worry me!!  Her lesson today went really well, though, despite the fact that I had to hold Ruby most of the time.  Ruby climbed up some cubbies yesterday and they fell on her and bruised her leg pretty badly, but she got over it and has been her little active self.  Today, though, she woke up from nap time and screamed for literally 15-20 minutes nonstop which is not like her.  She can usually move on pretty quickly but she finally was able to sort of tell me that her foot, not leg, hurt.  I really think what happened is that her foot must have gotten caught between the bed and the wall at nap time and was numb and hurt while the circulation was coming back, but I was so worried that it had something to do with her injury from yesterday.  Anyway, Rachel managed to have a great practice with Ms. Luci while Ruby sat with me and then Allen came to check on her foot.  She was walking by the time Rachel was done, but still limping a little.  I think she's going to be fine, but it was just another crazy Thursday occurrence!!

One more wild and crazy day

Hopefully we have made our run of all the appointments and such we need to take care for for awhile.  We've had to zoom through school work for the past couple of days and I'm ready tomorrow to buckle down and focus some more.  This morning we had to be out the door at 8:45, so we did a quick round of math review and handwriting and Rachel did some reading.  I guess you could say we're sticking to the three Rs before we go on with our day.  At 9:00 poor Ford didn't know what was coming.  On the way to the doctor's office, I told him that we didn't quite finish with his check up last time and they had called to ask us to come back.  He was so excited to go back just for him and to get some Thomas stickers, so I didn't have the heart to tell him why we were going.  Ms. Sarah came in and asked me the bajillion questions they have to ask before giving vaccinations and one of them was, "Is he allergic to anything?" I said no and then she mentioned the word shot (I can't quite remember what that question was), and Ford piped up, "I am definitely allergic to shots!"  At that point he started to catch on.  However, we read a Thomas book while she went to prepare everything and it talked about Thomas being a brave little engine, so he was quite a brave little engine.  He laid down for her and was fine when she cleaned his legs and seemed to understand what was coming...he just didn't realize how bad it would be until she actually stuck the needles in his legs.  Poor guy.  He hasn't screamed that much in a long time.  Luckily, they have condensed the four shots down to two, so it was over pretty quickly.  I think he had his feelings hurt more than anything, but he calmed down when I told him I'd carry him out and we could stop and get a Thomas sticker.  He did such a great job!!  When we left, I told him I'd take him for a smoothie for a snack today since he did so well and since the girls were so well behaved while we waited.  In the car Rachel said, "Next time I need shots, don't tell me until we get there.  That went much better than when I had shots!"  I couldn't agree more.  That girl worried for a week and then refused to lay down and then screamed and convulsed and threw a fit and she had to be still for four shots.  It was a nightmare!!  So, all in all, this was a much better experience!!  Now we just wait a little over a year until it's Ruby's turn...they may have to put her in restraints!  Of course, by then, it may come in a mist, who knows!!
Anyway, after our snack at the coffee house, we swung by the education store, then went to story time (where Rachel completed her assignment to find some mystery books and Ford made sure they had ordered the new Thomas movie for him!), went by church to drop off some things for the festival this weekend, came home and ate lunch, took a nap, and went outside until dinner.
Tomorrow we'll begin decorating for our Autumnal Equinox celebration!!!

Day of Appointments

We had a quick little session of school time this morning before our day of crazy began.  Allen, Ford, and Rachel all had cleanings at the dentist this morning.  We live close enough to the dentist that Ruby and I decided to walk down and join them so she could get a glimpse of what it would be like when her turn comes up in the spring.  It was a great day for a walk!!!  Those appointments started at 8:30 and we were home a little after 10.  Everyone (even Ruby) came home with a new toothbrush and great teeth!  Once everyone got settled, I took off for a check up with my midwife to see how Baby Baxter is doing.  His heartbeat was great, he's measuring on the big side, and all was well.  Next month I go for the hour long glucose test and then I start checking in every two weeks!  Time is starting to fly by.  After leaving my appointment I got to go out to lunch with Lisa to talk about Daisy Scouts.  I have no idea when I last went out to lunch with another adult and no kids.  That time flew by faster than anything else!!!  I got home right at the end of nap time and the big kids were already up and playing in the yard with Allen.  We played some more and hung out in the awesome weather and then came in for dinner.  After dinner Allen was off to teach a night course and the rest of us headed to the soccer field.  Dr. Ed and Ms. Lisa came to watch Ford play soccer and he was so excited!  He gets so nervous and anxious at the end when they do a scrimmage, but he told me he'd stay in soccer "for the snacks" even if he had to play the games!  The boy loves those Doritos and Capri Suns at the end!!!  I got everyone home and bathed and teeth brushed with their new fancy toothbrushes, read stories, said prayers, sang songs, and now everyone is sleeping soundly.  It was a busy day but they had a blast being able to spend so much time with their Papa!!
Now wish us luck with Ford's shots tomorrow...

Piece of cake

What a better week we're already having!!!  We got so much school work done today with such great attitudes.  Ruby wasn't 100% perfect or entertained, but she had a much better day than she's been having!  Ford started his new math lesson today with a video from Mr. Steve (his "math teacher"!) who told him that this week's lesson would be a piece of cake.  Ford thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and sure enough, the lesson was easy peasy!  He learned about the Magic C today in his handwriting which was fascinating to him and also a piece of cake!  After we'd been doing school work for a little while, Ms. Gail called to see if she could bring us some leftovers from Will's birthday party including, what else, but four pieces of cake!!!  We were really cracking up then about things being a piece of cake!
Rachel zoomed through handwriting and math (a new lesson on squares, rectangles, and skip counting by five which she can already do, but I like her doing some review practice).  We started talking about predictions today in Language Arts.  Her favorite thing was when we got out the story paper.  I had started a story for her and let her predict what would happen next and finish the story.  She loved writing about a girl who finds pixie dust in the woods and is able to fly!  I'm pretty sure she's also decided to be a fairy for Halloween...the girl is a planner!  We did an assessment for Social Studies today where I just asked her a few basic questions about the Geography we've been doing.  She was able to easily answer all seven questions.  I was so proud!!  I really had no idea if she'd be able to answer the questions in a way that someone else could see she understood the concepts, but she did great!  For Science today we talked about rainbows.  We made our own rainbow by putting a mirror into a bowl and filling it with water.  Then we shined a flashlight on the mirror and it put a rainbow up on the wall.  It was pretty cool and all of the kids loved it.  They were amazed that all rainbows don't come in that "normal" arch shape.  We had fun drawing rainbows with the colors in the right order but not shaped like arches.  Surprisingly, though, Ford stuck to the arch.  I think he was afraid to get it "wrong".
We had a great time all together, too, exploring our new calendar that has a place to change the month, a place for day of the week labels, numbers to change every month, a special square showing where Fall begins (and lots of other holiday squares), and a place to show the season and the weather!  I think we will enjoy using that calendar together every day!
Ruby and Rachel played so nicely together after getting our school work done.  They dressed up like princesses and had their own ball in the living room with ballerina music.  Ford and I were able to build a pretty cool track for the engines while the girls danced.  I was able to finally get the laundry put away after everyone felt entertained.  Then we saw Ms. Vanessa and decided to have a picnic and ride bikes (we had to get that sugar energy out from the cake!).  Now everyone is asleep or resting.  I am so thankful for a better attitude in myself today as well as better attitudes in the kids.  We're definitely making some progress!!

Five Good things on Friday

1.  Rachel ACED her math test this morning.  Every single problem right the first time with no test anxiety.

2.  Ruby made some letters with blocks all by herself, no help needed.

3.  Liz and Char Char came for an impromptu early morning play date.

4.  Ford is so excited about soccer tomorrow he can hardly stand it!

5.  All three kids are sound asleep for nap time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Violin and the rest of the stuff

This morning I said a little prayer that if Rachel could go back to having a great time at violin, I could put up with anything else that could come my way today.  It's been a long three weeks of violin with Rachel having anxiety after the whole first-time-I-ever-threw-up-was-at-my-violin-lesson episode!  Well, talk about prayers being answered!!!  Violin was awesome!!  She relapsed for about two seconds and then I reminded her that she was in control (thanks to Liz for some awesome advice on dealing with childhood anxiety!).  After that she chatted up Ms. Luci, showed off her new skills, told Ms. Luci some facts she learned in her nonfiction book about violins, learned a new song, and found out she gets to play at an arts festival in a week and a half!  She's back and I couldn't be more excited!!!
But about that other half of the prayer, yeah, it got answered, too!!!  I started off the day by telling myself that we were going to have a stress-free day and I was going to do my best to not say "No" to Rachel unless it was something harmful or destructive because I really wanted her to have a good day before violin.  By the time Allen had left for work (around 7:30), she was already in time out for grabbing Ford and Ruby.  I can't let that go.  She is so rough with them and almost always someone ends up getting hurt when she grabs them.  Well, we got past that.  Then, I thought, "We'll do Play-Doh to start today.  Rachel loves that and we've cleared off the train table for lots of space."  I ended up playing Play-Doh with Ruby, just the two of us, while Rachel and Ford played trains in the living room.  Ford came to join us, then FINALLY Rachel came and had a great time.  That led into them wanting to do arts and crafts and I said, "Why not?"  The table is clear once we move the Play-Doh and I'm up for fun today!  Ha!  Rachel wanted to sit on the table and she was doing so well, that I let that slide.  Ruby and Ford were having a great time with markers, scissors, glue, paper, etc.  Somehow we ended up with paint out...that always seems to make things go badly, especially if we're not at the big table with newspaper or outside...Rachel decided she needed to put glitter glue and paint all over her hands and spread it everywhere while she's sitting on the table.  I couldn't take it any more.  When her picture was done, I picked her up and took her to the bathroom to clean up. It was on her arms and legs and on her clothes and I lost it.  She said she was just "being like Ruby".  I had to remind her that Ruby is TWO YEARS OLD!  It seems kind of silly now that we were both crying because we were mad and frustrated, but it was rough at the time!  While I was cleaning up Rachel, Ruby proceeded to get paint on the carpet and in her hair and on her clothes, too.  Once I got the girls cleaned up and changed and got rid of the paint, Ford decided he wanted to paint (after saying he didn't want to earlier).  I was like, "Are you kidding me??!?!?!?"  I asked you earlier and you said no and now I've got everything cleaned up.  NO WAY!!  So, he started crying.  This was one of those walk out of the room and take a deep breath moments.  So, what did I do?  I got out a snack (it was after 9 by this point).  Everyone cheered up with a snack and then we started our regular school work and all was well.  Seriously, except for a couple of reminders to Ruby that we could play when I finished with Ford and Rachel, the world turned around.  The big kids actually did a really good job with their work.  Rachel wrote a nonfiction story about herself and was proud of her illustration.  Ford did a super job with his writing and math.  All three of them had a great time using a thermometer and measuring the temperature of water that's been sitting out, water put in the freezer for a few minutes, and water put in the microwave for a few minutes.  Rachel read aloud to us and did a great job with her math and handwriting.  Really, I should have just started the day like normal.  This is what I get for breaking the routine by trying to ease stress!!  I'm thinking you ease stress by sticking to the norm!!

Day, Interrupted

We had another weird day today, but we made it.  We had to be out of our house from 11-2 for a Realtors' Open House (keep your fingers crossed that something comes of it!).  That meant, we had to clean the house last night, but not clean everything because, let's face it, three small children brushing their teeth are going to destroy the bathroom counter again in the morning!  Oh, and of course, there's breakfast to clean up and not pulling out every toy...
Anyway, we made it.  We managed to all hang out in our little bitty play room and do some school work and play with only so many toys at one time.  Everybody actually did a pretty good job in the playroom all together.  Ford did his handwriting and math.  Rachel did her handwriting and math.  She also read aloud for us and we all did her Language Arts together.  We read a nonfiction book about weather and talked about some facts that we learned.  After that, everyone went nuts while I finished cleaning up all the final things (like removing things to the car that were in the way, vacuuming one last time, etc.)  I think we left the house in pretty good shape and got out of the house by 9:30.  I couldn't stand the thought of messing things up too much, so we went ahead and ate a snack in the car, went through the drop off at the library with some books, drove around town for a little while, watched a train go by, and then went to my mother's house.  While we were there, we tried to not leave the TV on the entire time (since they think TV and eating are the only two activities allowed at Baba's house!).  Mom was at a meeting, so I pulled out the crayons, coloring books, puzzles, and assorted toys and we had a fun time playing with new things.  Ford found some dot-to-dots in a couple of the books.  Rachel found some color by number (or letter) and Ruby found some stickers.  They did such a good job playing, I let them watch a show while I got lunch ready.  Then we turned the TV off again and finished lunch (they started eating while watching, but there wasn't much eating going on!).  We played and took potty breaks and cleaned up all the toys.  Then we all got settled on the couch with blankets and turned on a Tinkerbell movie.  I was hoping Rachel and Ford would rest and Ruby would sleep.  I think I was the only one to actually close my eyes!!  After Tinkerbell, Ford watched one Thomas episode and Ruby watched some Tickety Toc thing.  We had a popsicle and then it was time to come home.  Rachel and I finished up her school work.  We made different types of clouds with glue sticks and cotton, we looked at clouds in a weather book, and we recorded our weather information on our chart for the day.  Then we talked about oceans on maps and on globes.  She added the Atlantic Ocean to her map of our state and felt pretty good about all she had accomplished today.  (FYI Ruby fell asleep on the way home and slept through Science and Social Studies.  Ford was so happy to see his trains again, that we didn't see him for a good 45 minutes!).  Then we went outside for some soccer once Ruby woke up.  She was a grouch for the rest of the day and after eating dinner with Allen and sending him on his way, I told the kids we would have a dance party and then it was time for bed!  We started bedtime at 6:00 since no one had gotten a good nap or rest.  Ford was asleep by 6:45.  At 7:45 I was still fighting with Ruby to lay still and trying to convince Rachel that she should stop thinking about how horrible last week's violin lesson was.  She's terrified that she's never going to have a good lesson again and it's keeping her awake!!!  Help!!  I told her to picture all the clouds in her mind that we talked about and to cuddle up with her stuffed animals and I think she finally went to sleep.  I haven't been back in to check on Ruby because I don't want to start all over again if she's not asleep yet, but I guess I'll go in there in a little while and hope that everyone's snoozing.  It's been quiet, at least, for the last 30 minutes, so that's a start!

Multi-tasking

It's been a wild day!!!  We had a lot of things to cover in school this morning and somehow we managed to get to them all, but I wasn't sure we were going to make it!!
Ford did a great job with writing the letter E and drawing on the chalkboard and writing words.  Then he did some counting for math.  When we got to his train book, though, that has little preschool and kindergarten-type activities, I didn't know if he'd ever stop!!  He's become obsessed with dot-to-dots, but he can't quite get them done all by himself.  So, every minute or so, he'd call out, "Where's number 19?" and I'd have to leave Rachel or Ruby and help him find the next number.  Some of his final pictures are hysterical, but he's getting there.  He must have done 20 of them today!
Ruby couldn't quite get herself together today.  She wasn't bad, but she just needed a lot of help.  She'd say she wanted to do one thing, then get started and I'd move on to help Rachel and then as soon as we got started, Ruby would call to say she needed something or wanted to do something different.  I finally told Rachel just to do her handwriting and math sheet (since she can do those with very little, if any, help) and then we'd wait on everything else until Ford and Rachel were settled (as in, not doing dot-to-dots for Ford and finding something that would finally keep Ruby's attention!).
So, finally, Rachel and I were able to talk about the difference between fiction and nonfiction.  She read an entire nonfiction book about weather to me that she'd never seen before.  We talked about weather, precipitation, clouds, and temperature.  We started a weather chart for the week.  We looked at mountains on maps and the globe.  We added mountains to a map of our state with a key at the bottom as well as a compass showing NSEW.  We practiced all of her bow patterns on her violin and then we finished up by reading Max Found Two Sticks and going back to our music discussion of rhythm.  Everyone joined in by getting two Kapla blocks and we did a rhythm parade.  It was pretty fun and these kids have more rhythm than I thought!!  I made them a special lunch of pigs in a blanket (something they never get, but love!) and now everyone is sleeping or resting.
Sometimes it amazes me how quickly the time can go by!!!

TGIF

I feel like yesterday's post was complaining, but really it was more venting.  Today was an awesome day with great weather!
When I taught public school, I used Friday as a day for me to check that the kids had paid attention all week, to help the kids who had been out to catch up, and to give me a chance to finalize the week before leaving it all behind for the weekend.  Fridays were the best!  I feel like here at home our kids are still so young that there's no reason to spend all day every day doing school work just to say we did school work, so as long as we're caught up with what I want to accomplish for the week (or realize we may need to re-group for next week), I want Friday to be a quick review or assessment with some good old play time!  So today we did just that.  Ford and Rachel each did math and handwriting then Rachel did some reading.  We proceeded from there to playing in the yard, playing in the playroom, and having a dance party in the living room.  It was a nice stress reliever for all of us.  Kristin and Wyatt came to play for the rest of the morning. After nap time we went back outside and played some soccer and dug in the dirt.  Vanessa and the boys stopped by to play and Sherri and Ryan came out to play.  It was a fun afternoon.
Now if I could just get Ruby to go to sleep...

Thursdays might just put me over the edge

Our life is not normal and I realize that.  I like not being normal, but sometimes it takes its toll.  I went walking with a friend last night and she was saying how she doesn't know how I get through the day without a TV on.  I'll admit, when my kids watch TV, they are still and quiet and I can do just about anything I want to, but they truly turn into zombies and I don't like it.  Most people I know get to go back to the "real world" when school starts.  They can send their kids off for the day and then go to their jobs and talk to adults and go to the bathroom without an audience or a screaming match in the other room.  A lot of people get their kids to bed and then can unwind for the night.  Granted, there are nights that I can do that, but if no one took a nap or rested during the day, this is when my work of laundry, planning for school the next day, and just catching up in general starts.  Thursdays have become the hardest days around here.  We do school all morning, try to get in a quick nap, head to Rachel's violin lesson, and then I'm on my own until bedtime.  (Allen teaches a night course on Thursdays and has to go straight there from the middle school in order to be on time.)  Today really just about put me over the edge!  We threw in two over-due well visits (for Ford and Rachel) plus all of the errands I needed to get done while in town.  We kind of had to rush through math and handwriting this morning, then shove some science and social studies in during nap time.  Then Rachel had a meltdown at violin...she's terrified she's going to throw up again and has kind of a mini-panic attack when we get there.   Then once we got back home, Ruby has one of her evenings of being absolutely crazy while I'm in the middle of trying to talk to our realtor on the phone.  The one shining moment in our evening was that everyone actually ate their dinner (Ruby had three bowls!) and didn't complain at all.  I didn't actually have any moments of throwing in the towel completely today, but all of it added together, plus that feeling of rushing from one place to the other with no down time in between was a lot.  I think I just need to remember in the future not to plan anything for Thursday mornings.  It was just too much!  I also told Rachel that she is absolutely required to rest as long as Ruby is napping on Thursdays so that she doesn't go into meltdown mode again at violin which used to be her favorite thing in the world to do!
It was a wild ride today and we're taking a little longer than I thought to adjust to this whole school schedule thing, but in the end, I can sit here and type this and think of just as many good things that happened today:
Rachel and Ford are absolutely healthy!
All three kids behaved at the doctor's office and didn't tear anything up!
When Rachel started playing violin, she did a great job!!
Ruby and Ford and Rachel all entertained themselves at the education store while I talked to Mr. Toby, then we came home with some cool reusable stickers from the store and they actually all entertained themselves without fighting while I made lunch (that's a serious high point of the day!)
Ruby didn't have any accidents today and pretty much went to the bathroom by herself all day!
Rachel could tell me facts about the Polar Zone, Tropical Zone, and Temperate Zone as well as show me the equator and talk about what lines of latitude are.
Nobody got hurt...even though I must have said 100 times, "You're going to hurt yourself!"
Allen has a job (well, jobs) and at least one of them makes him happy.  Hopefully this will all lead to an awesome career for him!
We're doing it, we're making it, I just need to keep focusing on the positives :)

So-so school and Soccer Madness

Nothing overly exciting happened during our school time today.  I guess the biggest news is that Ruby actually "worked" the whole time Ford and Rachel were doing handwriting and math.  She actually kept herself entertained at the table with us!  Rachel and I had a hard time connecting today on things.  She kept getting confused about weather and climate and I finally said, "We'll try again tomorrow."  Then I introduced the word fiction to her and we talked about books that have made up characters and TV shows that are made up.  I asked her to write a short (as in three sentences) fictional story.  Holy Cannoli!  She could not think of a thing to make up.  She ended up writing about a girl named Rachel who had a nature class and her class did leaf rubbings and then took them all home.  Did I mention that tomorrow she's actually "teaching" a nature class and having the kids do leaf rubbings and then they can take them home?  Well, it hasn't happened yet, so technically it was fiction!  We've got to work on her creativity!!
We went to story time today and Ruby actually participated today and let Mr. Drew (the new guy) stamp both of her hands.  We're making progress!  It's so funny how the most outgoing girl in the house (and she's got some competition!) goes into a shell around new people.  I keep telling Mr. Drew that one day he'll wish she was shy and quiet again because he won't be able to get a word in!!
I have to say the most exciting event of the day, today, though, was Ford's first day at soccer!  Just to give you a little background info...we tried to send Ford to preschool when he was 2.  It did not go well.  He went twice and I gave up.  Rachel made such an easy transition into preschool.  She had some tears every now and then, but she loved school and she loved her teachers, so she made it through the day.  Ford, however, literally hyperventilated for 2 hours both times he tried to go to preschool.  Poor Ms. Karen, his teacher, would carry him around and he would cry and cry.  She probably weighed about 60 pounds to his 30 pounds so it was interesting to see (I peeked at them through the window onto the playground one day and she walked around with him the whole time.)  It broke my heart and I just didn't see any reason to keep trying that when there was no need for preschool at the time.  So, when Ford said he wanted to sign up for soccer, I was a little apprehensive.  I was very excited that he wanted to do something on his own and that he would be around other kids his age, but I just wasn't sure that he'd actually go through with it.  He was so excited tonight with his cleats and his little bitty shin guards and his tall blue socks.  We got to the soccer field and went right out there with Coach Greg and kicked that ball like a champ.  He jogged around the field, he stopped the ball with his foot, he even kicked the ball into play when it was his turn.  I'm not sure he would have even known I was still there if it weren't for the fact that I had his water bottle and it was HOT so I got to see him a couple of times for water breaks.  He was so proud of himself and I was so proud of him.  Even Rachel wanted to take pictures and videos of him because she was so impressed!  He answered the coach's questions and made my heart swell.  He is definitely turning the corner on his neediness and I love that he's feeling some independence.  It just makes me a little sad that he might not live in our basement forever like Allen and I thought...