So many possibilities

I haven't written in a while, and things have been crazy.  Easter was last weekend and we had a nice family celebration with both sides of the family.  Jon was back to work last week and had 2 meets.  I was surprised with a full time job posting and interview.  I locked us out of the house and so we replaced the locks as we had been intending.  But today was a calmer day and we had a great afternoon at the park.

In an attempt to calm my mind, and thinking it was a warm day (it was chilly), we headed to the park this afternoon.  Both kids enjoyed the swinging, climbing, and sliding.  A group of kids were there and they played follow the leader with them for a while.  Once those kids left, we played with our kids as the leaders.  I followed James and Jon followed Carolyn.  They both seemed to really like being in charge, and everyone got some great exercise out of it.  I'll definitely be pulling this idea out when there aren't other kids to play with at the park.  It's always awesome and amazing to me how well James and Carolyn play together and with other kids.  I also commented to Jon today that I love that our kids do not need electronics to keep them occupied.  When we got home, the kids and Jon read about James Madison and Monroe while I started dinner.  After dinner, the kids went into their playroom and played nicely together.  I suspect we'll get some good sleep from them tonight as well.

Jon is of course anxiously awaiting a call from HS where he interviewed over spring break.  Other openings have popped up, or are anticipated soon, which gives him hope to escape his current school.  He just feels very beaten down and that he's not able to service kids appropriately.

Unexpectedly, about 10 days ago I received an email regarding a full time science manager position with my current company.  I submitted my cover letter and resume, hoping to get an interview.  I interviewed this last Thursday and now I sit and wait about another 10 days to see if I'm chosen.  Of course, I have mixed feelings about the position.  It's perfect, everything I would hope for, but not perfect timing.  I never envisioned going full time again until James started first grade - so 3 more years.  But this is too good of a position to pass up, especially after I found out it pays ~$60k - to work at home!  It could even give us the option of Jon taking a year of parental leave while still coaching.  We would end up having a higher total income if he even just kept his track position.  Plus our expenses would shrink without his commute.  In the meantime, we'd hope for another opening.  But that all depends on whether he finds another position this year.

There are just many possibilities of where our lives could lead right now.  And the good news is that we should have a pretty firm grasp on where we're headed by the end of the month.  We have been blessed with some amazing things over the years and pray that God continues to pour out his blessings in the coming weeks.  I'm not sure what the plan is for our family, but I anxiously await the results.

Ready for another crazy week with Carolyn turning 5 next Sunday.  It's hard to believe so much has happened since she was born.  But when I sit with her, it's hard to believe she's truly only 5.  I look forward to continuing watching her develop as well.

Life's been busy...

It's been a few weeks since I've written.  But I've really been trying to focus on the kids and truly enjoying my time with them.  Often we all get caught up in what's coming next or telling others about what we're doing.  I've been trying to watch my children, play with them, and snuggle with them.  We found out this week that Carolyn will be in morning kindergarten.  She was disappointed to find out that the other gymnastics days are full, so she will continue with one day a week.  But then we started talking and decided it will be just fine.  I've spent some time gathering ideas for places to go and science projects to do.  We'll keep working on her reading, writing, and math, as well as reading science books as well as about all of the presidents.  This is likely her last chance for a while to do what she wants without school getting in the way.  So I'm looking forward to enjoying this Spring with her.

Thursday would have been my mom's 65th birthday, so it was a tough day.  But I made my first cheesecake with the kids and they made me smile all day.  James sang happy birthday to "grandma angel" and we offered her a bite when we enjoyed some together.  I miss my mom every day, but I know she's watching us closely and keeping us safe.

James has been struggling with sleep lately and I'm not sure why.  Twice this last week he's climbed in bed with us at night and today I had to take him into our bed to get him to nap.  When I ask him why he says "because I miss you", so what do you say in response to that?  I tried to talk with him a little at nap time, wondering if the kindergarten talk has him worried.  I jokingly said something about daycare this week, so maybe that has him worried.  Just not sure, so I'll keep snuggling him and after an hour of him in our bed at night we'll shuffle him back to bed.  He won't be this little forever, but I also do horribly on interrupted sleep.

Carolyn has been doing great lately.  We're almost completely through the Dolch sight words, with I think 3 left on the final list.  She has around 100 spelling words mastered, and we keep working on addition/subtraction as well as telling time.  She'll likely be at a 2nd-3rd grade level in everything by the time she starts kindergarten.  But it's simply because she loves to learn.  She's playing very nicely with James and is becoming a much more polite little girl.  It's really cool to watch her choose her words very carefully and say things like "Excuse me Mom, but when you have a minute could you..."  I look at her when that happens and marvel that she's only 4!

I've been trying to pay more attention to not yelling lately, and I'm going to commit to this a little more going forward.  I recently read a blog post about someone commiting to not yelling for a year.  I'm not ready to do that.  But, I think I can commit to a week, and from there I can extend it further.  I know the kids are better when I'm calmer, so I need to keep focusing on this so they can the best possible.  Anyone else want to join me in this?

Amazing Sibling Interaction

Among other reasons, we chose not to send Carolyn to preschool this year so that she and James would continue to have a large amount of time together.  Once they start school they won't have unending hours together very often.  We wanted to try and create the best sibling bond possible, without forcing it.  What I have witnessed over the last few weeks shows that this was definitely a good decision.  We can only hope that this bond persists over time.  But at least for now, I can declare that they are just perfect for each other.  I won't deny that they fight and I have to remind one to say "I'm sorry" and give a hug to the other.  When getting along, though, they shine.

Last week I spent the first few days reminding James that by Friday he would be wearing underwear (at least for that day).  Carolyn must have heard me reminding him.  On Thursday afternoon she asked him he wanted to use the potty.  He said no, but she pushed further.  She told him she was create an X chart (I had already hung a sticker chart to no avail).  She then proceeded to write x's on the white board easel in the living room and let him know she would circle one each time he went on the potty.  To my amazement, he went in his room and took his diaper off.  Over the next couple days she helped him pick stickers for his chart and reminded us to dispense the m&m's and chocolate balls when James was successful.  He's had 2 accidents since, directly related to being sick on Tuesday night.  Amazing sibling bond at work as she stood by and encouraged him.

I haven't worked on much development with Carolyn until this school year.  Sure, we've done A LOT of reading to our children.  But I never did any work sheets and really not many art projects.  Since we moved I've really stepped it up, mostly because she loves it.  Most of the time when I print things for Carolyn to work on, I print a copy for James so he can feel included.  Well, his writing and cutting skills have developed simply by watching.  James can already trace some letters and he's pretty close to cutting in a straight line.  So much for boys and slow fine motor skills!  He'll definitely always be a king of gross motor, but it's great to see these skills along with color identification and singing the alphabet coming right along.  I'm considering the same, very laid back approach as I had with Carolyn for James next year and then working when he's 4 and preparing for K.

The icing on the cake for sibling interactions was at swimming today.  Carolyn has been working hard the last couple weeks and overcoming some of her fears.  She can now put her face in the water and this is allowing her to work on actually swimming.  They spent the play portion of the lesson "diving" for rings on the bottom of the pool.  James was apparently watching.  During his class, he took the rings off the toy cart, drop them into the pool and then reached down to get them, putting his full face in the water.  It was really cool to watch this and even his teacher commented on it.  I'm sure she says similar things to the other parents, but each week she comments on how smart James is to make connections.  Other weeks he's recreated a game at home with the toys in the pool.  It really is awesome to see the rapid fire connections that he makes.  With him absorbing so much from Carolyn it makes me wonder if he'll learn to read and write on a more accelerated schedule or not.

Many of the benefits here are for James, but I think Carolyn is benefiting from this relationship as well.  She has a built in buddy and someone who generally is willing to listen to her read at any time.  She enjoys playing teacher and he usually will go along with whatever he's suggesting.  I also think that his development is causing Carolyn to pick up the pace a little to ensure he doesn't catch her.  The next few years are going to be a lot of fun to watch these two continue to develop at lightning speed.  I wonder what this next week has in store!

Where I Struggle

Ah, a quiet house on a Thursday night with my work email inbox empty.  Who would have thought I could accomplish on a day when Jen isn't home and I took a 30 minute nap this afternoon?  But the peace is really nice.  I even had a pretty great day with the kids, aside from almost burning down the house.  Oven mitts should not be left in the oven while baking cookies.  Note to self: don't work on a math lesson while baking.  In any case, crisis averted and the smoke has now dissipated - cookies even turned out fine!

But I learned something about myself today.  I struggle with unstructured time with the kids.  I sit and plan what they should work on learning each day, generally to not end up doing it and wondering if they're then falling behind.  Then I remind myself that my nearly 5yo can read, write, and walks around saying things like "2+2=4, 1+1=3, 5+5=10" along with "Mom, I can't read that sign, it says Do not block" and that my 2.5yo can trace letters, has memorized nursery rhymes, has great gross motor control, and amazing compassion.  So what could they possibly be falling behind on?  Yeah, that's my mind in its usual overdrive, planning what will happen next.  I'm trying to focus on the here and now, since Carolyn goes to kindergarten in <6 months and I only have 2 more years with James.  But I think that's what gets me thinking about homeschooling as well.  Then I would get to keep enjoying time with them, but that sounds awfully selfish!

I struggle though to think that school will give Carolyn (I'm not sure about James' learning style yet) what she needs to grow and thrive.  Some of what I'm noticing may simply be differences in age and ability, but I see patterns repeating.  When Carolyn was at Cary gymnastics, she was okay but not great.  Her class size was big and she didn't seem to make much progress.  We switched to Lake Zurich and she took off, quickly amassing many new skills.  Her progress seems to have slowed at Buffalo Grove with a bigger class.  Yes, I have considered switching her back to Lake Zurich, but I do think that Buffalo Grove will be better for her in the long term.  Swimming has proven to me that Carolyn makes amazing strides when she has individual attention.  There is only 1 other girl in her class, but she wasn't there today.  With the inidividual attention, Carolyn put her whole face in the water and was "swimming" (noodle under her) putting her face in the water.  This may have been a natural progression, but I think that this close attention helps her focus and work harder.  She even skipped the play portion of the class to keep working!

So I wonder how she's going to do in a school classrom with 20+ other kids her age.  I chuckle a little inside when people tell me they send their kid to preschool for the socialization.  Yes, kids need friends there age or at least similar in age.  But what is my 4 year old likely to learn from other 4 year olds, other than bad manners?  Maybe I'm missing something here, but I honestly think a room full of same-aged children for 6-7 hours a day is a bad idea for all involved. 

As I cooked dinner tonight and after we ate, I read 3 books to the kids about the nervous system.  These weren't super technical, but they also weren't simple versions.  They use the proper terminology - cerebrum, cerebellum, hypothalamus, brain stem, axons, dendrites - and be using various inflections Carolyn thought the books were exciting.  I know she's storing all the information away as well, that's just how she works.  I do think I might change up how we're working through school topics though.  I'm going to keep picking a topic each week, but I'm going to be sure and check out 7 books.  Then each morning before breakfast we'll read one.  This will spread the information (that is somewhat repetitive with slight variations between books) out over the week.  Both kids are loving reading about the human body since they can relate to it so well.  I'll likely be checking out plant books as we get later in March as well and start to think about planting our garden.  I know that's a kindergarten topic, but I love to have the kids learn real things about what we're doing.  It'll be interesting to see what they remember from last year too.

I'm enjoying working with both kids on learning related activities.  I'm not sure what will happen once they start school, although I'm sure I won't stop helping them investigate whatever they're interested in.  In my secret dreams Jon will get a job that allows me to stop working and we'll discover that the kids really do need the individual attention only an education at home can give them.  Then we'll proceed to provide them with the K-8 education only 2 highly educated parents could provide, to send them off to a high school that can provide the finishing touches before college.  But I don't know what the future will hold, so we wait and see.  For the next 6 months we'll continue the exploring through books and activities.

Kindergarten Registration!

We've completed another crazy week in our house.  The days at times are quite long, by the weeks seem to pile up rather quickly.  We had a lot of fun this week, while Carolyn tested boundaries and James battled a cold.  It was nice to have Jon home on Monday and he enjoyed attending gymnastics with us.  James is just about ready to start class on his own, but has to wait until he is 3 to do so.  That limit is a little frustrating, but it is what it is.  James got to attend his own story hour on Tuesday (with me and Carolyn) and did fantastic.  I am sure he will do awesome once he turns 3 and is able to attend that on his own as well.  They do a very good job of incorporating movement and listening into a 30-45 minute time slot.  Wednesday we went to the museum and both kids had a lot of fun as usual.  They played in the vet area, which they hadn't ventured into before.  James is working on improving his attention span and staying in one area for longer.  It's fun to see him growing in this regard.  Thursday we had swim lessons and both kids continue to improve.  Carolyn is becoming less afraid of the water and getting closer to really putting her face in.  James is getting braver as well and enjoys jumping off the side and doesn't put up a huge fuss going under.  He even asked me to dunk both of us.  I hate getting the chlorine in my hair, but want to encourage his feeling safe under the water so we went under together.  Friday we had a day of rest with James developing stuffy nose.  Only a couple days though and today he's feeling much better!

Thursday night was kindergarten registration.  It was weird to be in Westbrook to sign my own child up, after having been there as a sub so many times.  I had all the paperwork done and signed Carolyn up for a screening at the end of May.  I hope that helps put her in a classroom where the teacher will push her.  The most difficult part was meeting someone who knew my mom.  The secretary there was helping put everything together and we chatted a little, during which she said she knew my mom and loved her and missed her.  I think our file may be flagged now, but it is always great to hear stories of how my mom impacted those around her.  I do still miss her everyday and these interactions help to bring her a little closer.  I found out that we might be able to get Carolyn into a spanish class before school.  Once I know for sure whether she is morning/afternoon we'l make that decision.  I think it would help her to definitely be learning something new a couple mornings a week.  They also have an awesome program to deliver school supplies on the first day.  Great to see them offering this, and I hope they do it also to help provide for lower income families and help those kids feel not so singled out.  About 6 months before Carolyn is scheduled to start!

Carolyn has really been testing limits lately.  She is trying to give up her nap, but ends up making poor decisions in the afternoon because she's so tired.  We'll be talking about the need to sleep later in the morning if she's not going to nap.  She's also testing on responses when people are talking to her.  So we'll be working on maintaining eye contact and being sure the person knows you are listening.  This is an important skill for her before she heads off to school anyway.  But I do worry about her a bit in regards to learning new and difficult skills in a higher pressue environment.  I'm hoping this is just part of development and in a few weeks we'll be over the hump.  She's also been growing a lot taller lately, so she may just be in the middle of some huge development and having trouble managing herself.

And so we're ready for another exciting week.  It's nice to have a long stretch here where life isn't too stressful.  Hopefully we'll see some job openings pop up for Jon in the next few weeks and have an exciting Spring including job interviews for him.

What a week!

This was one crazy week and I am glad we are entering the weekend.  Although, to be honest, things don't feel like the weekend until about lunch time on Saturdays.  I'll get about half a day of rest before working nearly all day Sunday.  Jon coaching is a lot harder than I had anticipated, and we're only 3 weeks in.  The kids seem to really be missing him too.  But so goes life.

We continued with our learning activities this week.  Carolyn continues to work on writing, this week I had her work on tracing some lowercase letters because she definitely has uppercase down.  She gets the basic idea, but is reluctant to write anything lowercase.  So we'll continue to do more tracing next week.  We did another book from the Bob series, so we've completed 4 of those.  And Carolyn did some more work in her math book.  We've slowed on coloring the numbers to get up to 100.  There are so many things now to color on each page that it takes a while to do each one.  She's currently working on 32 and James has lost all interest.  We had an art day where I encouraged the kids to use different objects to paint with.  They both had fun with it.  We played out in the snow quite a bit and built snowmen for the first time.  We all enjoyed that and used Carolyn's old snow gear and scarf to dress one up.  This morning after playing outside we read all about skin.  I like how the books overlap each other but each one seems to add a new bit to the topic at hand.  They seem to be enjoying reading about body parts.  Next up is cells!  Tomorrow morning I'm thinking either obstacle course or another Bob book.

We attempted bread this afternoon.  I'm not sure my oven is reaching the proper temperature and so while the outside cooked very nicely, the inside was still doughy.  I tried to cook it a bit longer, but it really didn't work out.  I bought an oven thermometer and now I'm going to give it a try to see if temperatures are off or something else wacky is going on.  I really liked the part of the bread that cooked well though.  I'm wondering if this is something that I could make in the breadmaker that we have as that would make it much easier and more likely to make more often.  Could be a great way to get the last wheat hold out in the house out if I can bake fresh bread for sandwhiches each week.  We'll see how it goes.

I've become concerned about Carolyn's level of anxiety this week as she has been asking some interesting questions.  Add in the nail biting, swimming fears, and fear of heights and I become worried that her anxiety is more than just passing curiosity.  I will be keeping a close eye on her over the next few weeks and we'll see how things progress.  She seemed interested in the idea of painting her nails tonight, but I told her they need to get longer.  She was intrigued when I was tapping my finger on the counter this afternoon, and I explained that only works if they're long.  So if the nail biting is not anxiety related, I'm hoping I've found a good way to get her to stop.

Early to be tonight, for I'm simply burned out.  Ready for spring and trips to the park and watching the kids ride their bikes in the yard!

Life is just beginning... 30!

I read a post on facebook this week that talked about someone who wrote a famous book at 40, I can't remember who that famous person was.  Yesterday I turned 30 and I honestly feel like I'm just getting to the best part of life.  My kids are now old enough to truly interact and going places is getting to be more fun.  We still have to work around nap schedules, but I cherish this part of the day as a time to refresh.  I am gaining a bit more independence and over the next couple years I will have more time to focus on me and getting to where I want to be physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Sometimes I actually think that my 40s will be the prime of my life since James will be 12 and Carolyn 14 so very much so independent and when I turn 45 he'll be graduating from high school!  But life seems to truly be falling into place at this point and we're getting rewarded for our willingness to try and follow God's plan.  I'm ready to take on the challenges of being 30 and can't wait to see what God has in store for this year!

Carolyn had a powerhouse of a learning week.  We did reading and writing earlier the week and math towards the end.  She is really enjoying the math workbook that we gave as a Christmas present and starting to memorize some of the math facts.  She seems to have down the idea of adding 0 means you keep the original number and has some random facts such as 5+5 down pat.  It's so cool to see her love working and understanding.  I pulled out the easel this week and the kids spent some time painting with watercolors as well, for their artistic side.  I left it out with the dry erase markers and chalk for them to draw on as well.  Carolyn has started to write sentences on the board at random.  Last night she wrote "The cat has a hat" without any help.  So awesome to see the connections firing away in her brain.

This explosion of learning keeps me a bit worried about kindergarten.  If she's reading, writing, and doing math well above kindergarten level before she starts school, I wonder how it will go.  I'm not crazy concerned about kindergarten since it's only half day and we can of course continue to work at home, but what happens as she gets older?  If she's continuously ahead of her grade how bored will she be until she hits high school?  Will she never really learn to learn difficult concepts and push herself?  This is something I have forever struggled with myself and so it really concerns me.  There are definitely some things I think Carolyn will learn from being in kindergarten, but it's a pretty short list.  The 6-8 months are going to be a bit nerve-wrecking for me as we await the beginning of school.  I'm interested to see if the registration packet will ask about the abilities of the child at all, but I'll be picking that up on Tuesday morning so not too long to wait to find out.

James is finally back to eating a bit more as he had a banana, 2 eggs, blueberries, spinach, and a strawberry for breakfast.  He really struggles to sit down and eat and Carolyn seems to truly try to distract him from eating.  He got on the scale today and I think he may have actually lost weight.  I'm going to be keeping a close eye on how much he eats and how much milk he drinks.  I'm wondering if the milk is what is bothering his stomach and causing a mild case of eczema (sp?)  While I think getting rid of all dairy would be hard, we might be able to replace milk with another form of milk like goat or almond (definitely not soy!)  I'll be keeping close tabs on this and see how things progress over the next few weeks.