Journal: school days

TODAY

Out my window:  Cloudy and warm.  I am ready for cooler weather.  I really like Fall, but I despise (for the most part) Winter, so that tempers my like for Autumn.  But still, I am ready for a change in weather.

Clothing myself in:  Sadly the same thing I've been wearing the past two weeks.  That is the other thing I dislike about winter...I like summer bum-around clothes much better than winter ones.  Sorry, I promise the rest of the post won't be a winter rant.

Around the house: We are getting ready to take all our old paint (the previously owners kindly left cans of everything they had used [ahem, lots of purple] which we promptly painted over), plus some stuff we've used plus some stuff from Aaron's office.  Ready to see it go.  OH clutter.  It's not like it was taking up space we need, but it still drives me crazy seeing it scattered around the store-room in the basement.

 

The baby/toddler: Talking so much, he has several Bob the Builder taglines he says, "yes we can, Bob-o" and "ROCK AND ROLL" that are just adorable.  He is doing great with the potty.  Still trying to not set my sights on permanence, but the awareness is there, if we regress I don't think it will be monumental.  We'll see.

 

The kiddos:  Gemma is settling into her school routine.  She still has a handful of rough mornings ("I'm sick, I have a tummy ache, I don't like school," etc.) but she is so gosh darn happy when I pick her up, it is so obvious that she is very content at school.  So on we trudge.  I like her teacher, and am happy and so grateful for the opportunities school, especially a Catholic education, affords her.  I re-worked her chore chart a bit for the school year, and we are going to start piano lessons (I'm going to teach her, at least initially) here soon.

Kolbe is back to twice-a-week speech.  It is nice to spend more focused time with him on things like mixing food-colored ice cubes and such while Gemma is away.  Can't believe he will be a "school kid" here in a year.  Wowza!

In the kitchen: We've been munching on some tasty grilled food from last weekend all week, pork enchiladas, some lettuce salads with crispy chicken, fish muffins tomorrow and I made a cucumber, tomato and onion salad with some garden produce we were given.  Just can't beat those fresh foods!

Crafting: Someone tried to tell me that craftiness is next to Godliness.  This has me worried...

Learning:  Variety of preschool stuff with Kolbe.  I ordered some wooden letter forms, and a stamp and see screen to go along with his handwriting book.  His drawing has improved drastically over the past couple weeks.  He's started drawing people, robots and pooping dino-bots.  So creative.  Gemma has a math page most days, and eventually it looks like she will bring phonics home daily as well.  It has been a nice light load, for which I am grateful.  Last year with her being half-day I felt compelled to do more at home with her in the afternoons, but with her being full-day now we pretty much just do the homework sent home and keep it at that, so that's been nice.

Reading: Still working through Beyond the Birds and the Bees, pulled Searching for and Maintaining Peace back out (love this) and I purchased a copy of Clutterfree With Kids which is interesting but nothing earth-shattering.  I need to finish The Problem of Pain before it is due...  I've been enjoying everyone's Top Ten Book Lists on Facebook.  Mine (without links, sorry):

1. I Believe in Love by Fr. Jean C. J. d'Elbée
2. Hinds Feet on High Places
3. How To Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk
4. Parenting With Grace by the Popcaks
5. Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Fr. Jacques Philippe
6. My Daily Bread
7. Little House on the Prairie series (I love those books, and am loving reading them with Gemma after reading them dozens of times as a child)
8. By Love Refined: Letters to a Young Bride by Alice von Hildebrand
9. The Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears
10. Christian Prayer/Liturgy of the Hours (that counts, right?!)

Watching: MLB.  The kids have been really into Wild Kratts lately.  Good stuff!

Bringing me joy: Morning Prayer.  Singing with Gemma.  Sleeping (more or less) through the night with only minor interruptions.  Good books.

Thinking about: Getting back to weekly Adoration.  It's time, it's high time.

Pictures to share:  

First day of school for Gemma and Speech for Kolbe.

 Feast of St. Kolbe with his new medal

First lost tooth in the new bedroom

Journal: the great bedroom switch 2014

TODAY

Out my window:  Sunny.  Hot.  Feels like summer.  Albeit late summer, but summer for sure.  We had 6/10's inch of rain last night.

Clothing myself in:  Running shorts.  T-shirt.  My flip-flops are almost busted, I'd say I got my $2.50 out of them this year.

Around the house: We got our basement carpet laid this past Thursday and it looks great!  The house seems so much bigger now that Gemma's bedroom is down there, and she is also using the bathroom down there.  It is great having our play-space/basement living space back as well.  Nothing like going without something to realize how much you appreciate it.  Mornings have been much less stressful, with Gemma doing most of her readying downstairs, it makes the upstairs bedroom/hallway/bathroom much less crowded, with much less potential for all the little spats that seemed to come up over every.little.thing.

 

The baby/toddler:  Is officially moved into his big boy room (with Kolbe) and big boy bed.  He is doing pretty good.  He is still nursing to sleep.  I am kind of ambivalent about it, part of me is ready to be done, part of me knows it is my "secret weapon" to help get him to sleep easily at nights and naps.  He naps about 30 minutes in the late mornings.  Nights have been decent, he wakes up once or twice but resettles easily and now that he has his big boy bed he feels pretty strongly about staying in there vs. coming in our bed.

He is showing some major interest in the potty too.  After weighing my options (cloth diapers, disposable diapers, cloth trainers, pull ups) I have him in disposable pull-ups and a disposable dipe at night.  He is telling me about 1/2 the time he has to potty, and is pretty acquiescent to trying when I ask him to.  He can stay dry for such a long time that we just weren't generating enough diaper laundry to make it worthwhile, but he has enough accidents that cloth trainers aren't super practical either.  We'll see how he does the next few months in the pull-ups and if he's still making forward progress I might try some pants-free days later in the fall and see if we can get the rest of the way there.  Not opposed to going back to dipes if he's not ready though.

The kiddos:  Clement is in Kolbe's old bed, with Kolbe's old bedding, and Kolbe got to move up to Gemma's bed (with new bedding, pink owls weren't quite his thing).  He is pretty proud of his dump-truck bed and he and Gemma's relationship already seems better now that they have some space from each other.  In fact, she spent $6.75 on a Minion t-shirt for Kolbe that she saw at Target and wanted so badly to go back and buy for him.  No reason, just wanted to get it for him because she knew he would like it.  That was the majority of the money in her spend jar too.  And even after seeing a My Little Pony t-shirt and asking if I'd buy it for her (no) she still got a shirt for him.  I need to remember these things when I want to explode at her.

Gemma has her own room, her own space, and can shower herself!  I was hoping we'd have her showering on her own by Christmas, but it took walking her through things like twice (she normally showered with me) and she had the hang of it and has been showering in the basement stall since she moved down.  

School has started and first grade seems to be off to a great start.  No separation-anxiety tears at drop-off, and full day school seems to be suiting Gemma (and us left at home) quite well.  I tell you, give that girl a bit of autonomy and independence and the change in her personality is remarkable (in a good way).  Summer was getting too long in the tooth, we are glad to be back at our Fall schedule.  And speaking of teeth, Kolbe sat on her head and she lost her seventh tooth on Saturday.  She actually really lost it for awhile (in the new basement carpet), and had even written a heart-felt letter to the tooth fairy when we ended up finding it, so the tooth fairy had her first visit to the new bedroom.

In the kitchen: Homemade supreme pizza, BBQ chicken and Black Bean Quinoa Salad, family dinner, grilling out (probably), and baked fish (cod or salmon) on the menu for this week.

Crafting: I consider putting two bedrooms together to be quite crafty enough thank you.

Learning:  I have been thinking about a reasonable preschool schedule for Kolbe for this year.  He just isn't quite as into school-work as Gemma was, which is fine, but I'd still like to have him writing his letters (with a correct pencil grip) by kindergarten.  Here is the tentative schedule I've come up with:
MONDAY: Practical Life (helping with chores, he likes to load the wash  machine and sweep the kitchen) and trip to the library.  I also have the most energy on Mondays, so we will probably do things like play-doh and watercolors when my patience is still abundant (ish). 

TUESDAY: Handwriting work (working with his workbook, the magnadoodle, and the HWT wooden letter forms) and Speech with his speech teacher

WEDNESDAY: Kumon-type work books (cutting/gluing and coloring namely)

THURSDAY: Science experiment (Gemma's godmother gave him this science experiment book that he absolutely adores, and Aaron is off on Thursdays so I told him we'd find special time just him and me to do a science experiment then.  This also helps curb the constant begging to do one.) and Speech with his speech teacher.

FRIDAY: preschool co-op with his friend Levi.  I am going to do a book each week, using the alphabet as a guide (A, B, C, etc.) and some sort of literacy extension activity.  Our first book will be An Ant's Day Off.  It's been a fave around here for years, and I'm excited I found a used ex-library copy on Amazon for around $5.  I love the ex-library books, with their attached mylar dust-jackets.  Book nerd much?

Reading: Haven't read much this past week, but have been flipping through Parenting With Grace some.

Watching: A few shark-week things (have I mentioned how much I hate docu-fiction?) and some MLB, always fun watching the Royals win.

Bringing me joy: Time with family.  Having the basement back.  Upcoming day-trip date with my hubby!!

Thinking about: hmmm, not much really.

Pictures to share:  

Gemma's new room.  Yep, that's a bedrail at the bottom of the bed.  Had to have somewhere for the ponies to lean.

The boys' room.

Journal: basement/bedroom renovation part I

TODAY - I am going to do this in twenty minutes.  I even set a timer.

Out my window:  Rainy.  Thunder rumbles.  Warm.  Perfect weather to not send the kids outdoors to play.

Clothing myself in:  A college basketball t-shirt and some new running shorts I got from Target and have (literally, not figuratively) lived in the past week.  

Around the house: Sigh.  We were going to re-carpet the basement in time to get Gemma moved down to her new bedroom before school starts (this coming Wednesday).  The carpet was scheduled to be laid on July 31.  We moved all the furniture (haphazardly I might add, since we'd be moving it back the next day) into the storage room, they came out (I will give you the Reader's Digest version), did the demo, installed the pad, unrolled the carpet...and it was the wrong color.  They (I won't name the store right now, I don't want to bad-mouth them as they have actually been very accommodating, and the mistake was not their, but the manufacturer's, fault)  sent a sales rep out to convince us that that was the color we had chosen and we were simply having buyer's remorse.  The rep took one look at it and said, "that's not the right carpet."  Sigh.  So here we sit, hottest part of summer, all three kids home all day, without our basement (which is coincidentally also our playroom/we allow the kids to be crazy and run and jump and throw balls room).  Nevermind the fact that we were really hoping to make the bedroom transition before school started.  The new order of carpet is currently in (as of Thursday or yesterday), but we have yet to confirm the correctness (or lack-thereof) of the color, and have not heard from the installers yet, which is making me more irate by the minute because WHY IS MY CARPET, THE CARPET THAT I HAVE PAID FOR IN FULL AND WAS TO BE INSTALLED OVER A WEEK AGO, SITTING IN A WAREHOUSE WHEN IT SHOULD BE IN MY BASEMENT?????????  OK.  I'm done sounding pathetic.  Suffice it to say it's been a rough week-and-a-half.  

 

The baby/toddler: So many words.  Sentences even!  He has some strong opinions, particularly lately about the color of his diaper cover, and his clothing.  He has one pair of pajamas he prefers (blue fish), and two shirts (baseball and blue) and if they are dirty getting him dressed is a chore (understatement of the year). 

 

The kiddos:  Gemma has been having a rough go.  I am hoping she is just nervous about school and acting out (we had issues with this last August).  She had such a great stretch from about early spring-ish to mid-summer, and I feel like we've lost all ground we gained.  Hoping that once we settle into the school-year things moderate out a bit.  Bickering, sass, lying, hitting, pushing.  It is stressing me out.  The basement situation doesn't help the personal space issues.

In the kitchen: Meatloaf, salads, family dinner, baked cod, lasagna, honey chicken, breakfast casserole on the menu last week and this.  Lots of fresh fruit.  Fasting as a family from treats and praying together about the Black Mass scheduled in OKC.  Trying to think of fast easy snacks I can prepare ahead of time and put in baggies to bring in the car when I pick G up from school, that way we can hit the ground running when we get home for the rest of our day.  Full day school will be an adjustment for all of us.

Crafting: oh please.

Learning:  Just enjoying the rest of the Summer.  We have made some good trips to the library, and "Work" is our family virtue for August. 

Reading: I have a big pile on my end-table, but the two that are on top now are (my first timer just rang, five minutes to go!!!) The Rest of her Life (a very thought-provoking fiction, I'm almost finished) and Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids (fantastic).

Watching: Royals MLB baseball mainly (I have always thought MLB baseball was very redundant, anyone else think this?), a bit of channel surfing after kids are in bed.

Bringing me joy: Prayer time.  Pool time with the family.  My hubby, he's so wonderful.  Tooling around Lowe's and Academy Sports with the family last Saturday.  We didn't buy a thing but boy we had fun.

Thinking about: School.  Carpet.  Relationships.  

I made it to the end of the post and the timer is just ringing!!!

Pictures to share:  

Water balloons.  Clement's face in this picture makes my day every time  I look at it.