Anniversaries - Happy and Sad

I meant to write on Thursday, but life was just too busy.  Thursday was both the 10 year anniversary of our engagement and the 8 year anniversary of losing my mom to her cancer battle.  Our engagement of course is a fully happy memory and I can flash back to walking down to the river by Augie and spending some time chatting on the rocks.  We carved our initials into the small dock and then hiked back up to the car and went out to dinner.  We finished that night by going to the boys' soccer game so I could show all the girls the ring.  But not having my mom is hard.  And this time of year it's really hard.  I wish she could go to the pumpkin farm, see the kids in their costumes, join us for turkey at Thanksgiving, and of course be around for the holiday baking and Christmas.  This time of year I think about the time spent looking through wedding magazines for floral arrangements, and considering a rushed wedding so she could attend.  In the end I had to settle for the few memories and knowing that she helped me choose my dress, the bridesmaid dresses, the flowers, and the reception hall.  I still wish she could be here to help me navigate these tricky years with the kids, and remind me of what I was like as I entered school.  I tried to keep myself busy this past Thursday to push the painful part away just a little.  I wore my necklace that was hers and I think of her every time I touch it.

I started the day with Carolyn's first school conference.  Her teacher focused on behavior - whether the student was functioning well in the classroom since this is Kindergarten and at this point that's what she's worried about.  Everything was marked on a scale of 1-3, and Carolyn received 3's on everything they are currently working on.  Carolyn even set a goal for herself to work on something that her teacher isn't concerned about yet.  We talked about how we can continue to challenge Carolyn, and her teacher said she would get out some poetry books for her to read during reading workshop.  It sounds like things will get more personalized as the year goes on now so Carolyn should be even more challenged.  Looking over curriculums, it looks like Carolyn currently has everything through first grade except for telling time on an analog clock.  The iPad is allowing for more personalization as they started spelling (Montessori spelling) and math (Find sums) this weekend.  We may start seeing the iPad come home each day, which would allow her to play for 15-30 minutes, the small practice that's great at this age.

James and I then went to the store to do the week's grocery shopping, picking up ingredients for some special treats.  After a usual lunch with the kids, I had a job interview on the phone.  As happened last time I interviewed for an online teaching position, I was offered a job while still on the phone.  It sounds like a much better fit and I am optimistic it will end up working well.  But only time will tell.  It may be a position I can grow into, perfect for this time in our lives and the kids are becoming more independent.  I miss teaching and developing relationships with students and I'm hoping this new job will give me that opportunity again.  I don't need more to do, especially since Jon is considering a coaching opportunity this Spring.  So we'll see how things go.

After naps the kids helped me to bake a cheesecake.  We weren't patient enough and had some for dessert after dinner.  The inside ended up quite runny, but it still tasted delicious!  I'm thinking that cheesecake is the dessert that I just can't resist.  I'm hoping to find a recipe that uses less/no sugar - but nothing artificial.  So I might play around with honey or maple syrup.  I think if I make it flavored - strawberry or chocolate or something, that those sweeteners would do just fine.  After the kids were in bed Thursday night I had a bunch of work to get done, so it was a late night.  But I did find several moments throughout the day to pray and talk to my mom.  Jon brought me flowers which are beautiful and sitting on the kitchen table.  It was great to see how much he tries to understand how much I miss my mom.

Everything else continues to go well and the kids continue to grow.  James is identifying a bunch more letters now, which is often.  At his current rate he may be identifying them all by Christmas, which would be amazing and awesome.  I'm going to activate the 5 week Reading Eggs trial in a week so it's active over Thanksgiving.  I keep debating about purchasing a subscription because I think it would be awesome for James.  But Carolyn is kind of beyond it and I don't think James is quite ready for it.  So we'll do this 5 week trial and then the craziness of the holidays will be here.  If I get a good discounted offer in January, I might sign him up then because it's likely that would take him through beginning to read.  He's less of a spurt kid and more steady growth, but I'm guessing he'll start reading around 4.5 like Carolyn.  Only time will where things are headed!

I'm looking forward to a more relaxed week and helping in Carolyn's classroom on Thursday.  Then next weekend Halloween activities start!

Intellectual and Emotional Mismatch

This is something that most parents don't often talk about, although there are many books written about it.  Watching Carolyn this weekend has reminded me of just how young she is.  She has the "brains" easily of and 8 or 9 year old.  But she has the emotions and ability to control those emotions, of a 5 year old.  She is struggling to assert her independence.  I believe we give her quite a bit of freedom at home.  The kids are allowed to play inside or outside, and we generally don't feel the need to supervise them.  Of course, scissors and glue are kept up high and there really are no dangerous objects around.  We provide plenty of engaging things for the kids and they have a plethora of vehicles to rid on outside.  But then Carolyn feels the need to assert what she perceives her right, to show us she can get what she wants.  Tonight was another reminder that she really is only 5.

James and Carolyn have decided recently that doing flips on the couch is fun.  We tell them not, they do it anyway.  I tell them that if they get hurt I'm not going to kiss and make it better as I usually do.  I spent part of the afternoon helping Carolyn after she was stung by a bee.  I held ice on her foot, put baking soda and vinegar on the sting and within 20-30 minutes she was feeling fine again.  If you ask her, it probably felt like hours.  But we sat on the couch and had some nice time together.  Later, after ignoring my directions to stop the flips, she bumped her cheek on the side of the couch.  I refused to give her kisses and a total meltdown ensued.  Lately these meltdowns show clear signs of feeling out of control and wanting to assert control.  She pushes furniture around, kicks the couch, and will refuse to do anything we ask.  We use the language we've read about using... "I understand you are angry because" and all that.  But really she needs a good 30-40 minutes to yell and scream.  As she gets stronger, we get concerned about her safety.  We emphasize to her that trying to hurt things/people isn't going to help.  If she didn't have these meltdowns when James was trying to get sleep, we could easily just wait her out by sitting patiently.  Tonight Jon felt the need to restrain her, sitting on the couch and holding her in his lap. 

It is clear from the episodes that she feels out of control and that her brain is working so fast that she can't control it.  She gets fixated on the one she wants and seeks to manipulate us to get it.  But her manipulations fail and she feels powerless.  This happens the most when she's tired, so has been happening more lately with a busier schedule.  But I hope and pray that as she gets older, we'll see less of this.  Otherwise, despite having a social worker as a father, she's going to end up in the social worker's office at school.  I'm going to discuss these issues with her teacher this week as well to insure there are no issues in the classroom already.  Time to try and help her feel even more independent in daily life to release some of the frustrations!

2 months in to Kindergarten

It's hard to believe it's mid-October already and Carolyn has been in kindergarten for nearly 2 months!  It seems like we've been crazy busy lately, although to most families we're don't do very much.  I'm realizing that as a family we really value time to relax and just be together.  Carolyn and James don't handle constant activity well and require a day to just be, weekly preferably.  It gets hard to manage that as kids get older though.  With soccer on Saturdays and Sunday school, we have been stuck with weeks with seemingly no rest.  Tomorrow, though, we will get a day of rest.  A day to read books, go for a walk to collect sticks, leaves, and acorns, go to the park, ride bikes, just enjoy having no plans.  And I spent tonight putting together 4 different craft projects the kids can do.  I looked through the Oriental Trading catalogue and then sat down with some construction paper.  It'll be a little trickier since we'll need to use glue to put things together, but it'll be fun to put together these projects and then hang them around the house.

Carolyn has an amazing teacher at school.  She is being exposed to some new topics, and I am able to support and enhance that learning by bringing home extra books from the library.  They do continue to plod through the alphabet and phonics sounds, which she mastered a while ago.  But they also are working through Handwriting without tears and she is learning to properly form lower case letters.  They also have the opportunity to do some writing in class.  Conferences are this week and I am looking forward to a conversation of how we can continue to challenge Carolyn and what can be done at home to support her.  We are looking forward to expanded use of the Ipads as well as the year goes on.  We received Carolyn's STAR early literacy score today, 771.  775 is the cut-off between a "transitional" and "probable" reader.  A chart I found online puts her grade level at 1.8.  However, it appears that as the score approaches 900 (the top score), the test is less reliable because the child can read.  This is a pre-reading test and Carolyn is definitely reading.  I wonder if the district switches any of the kindergartners to the STAR reading test after this first round and it's proven the student can read.  We have been exploring poetry lately, to change things up a bit.  Carolyn is enjoying Shel Silverstein and Jack Perlutsky.  I am looking forward to some suggestions from her teacher as well, as it is difficult to find books that challenge her thinking/vocabulary yet have appropriate subject matters.  I was amazed when she read a poem recently that used the word "brigade" and I asked her if she knew what it meant and she said "army".  We can not figure out how she determined this because no one taught it to her.  Amazing that she is able to decode language this early! 

James continues to do an awesome job at home with me doing his preschool lessons.  We start each morning reading books in bed after putting Carolyn on the bus.  I love this snuggle time and I know James is getting some great things from it.  He had a rough start to the school year and some severe separation anxiety issues.  But we seem to have moved beyond this now and he is okay staying home with Jon's dad when I take Carolyn to gymnastics or volunteer in her classroom.  I am very glad that we canceled his soccer and very happy we did not enroll him in any preschool classes.  He is developing at his own pace and it's great to see his development.  He asks to do preschool several days a week, where we read Bible stories, books, trace/color letters and numbers, work on sequencing, counting, coloring, cutting, as well as do gross and fine motor activities.  We are using the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3 year old curriculum, supplemented with some other things, and it is going great.  We are currently on week 18.  Carolyn is also teaching James some of her Jolly phonics from school and he is learning some letter sounds.  He is able to trace very well when he focuses and can form nearly every letter by doing so.  He can identify J, O, C, B, Q, and probably some other letters as well.  Being 3, his biggest struggle is staying focused on the task at hand, but his concentration is pretty good considering his age. 

I sometimes sit back and think about how well my children are doing learning the basics and I wonder what sets them apart.  I never felt like I was doing anything special, just what a mom should do.  I usually put their needs before mine, and I will admit that I am sacrificing money/a career to help them get the best start possible.  We read countless books and my kids can often retell the stories because we read them so many times in one week before new books come home from the library.  I admittedly turn every day activities into learning - counting objects, describing why something happens, or asking my children to observe things around them.  Jon often reminds me that I choose the hard road.  And the main choice that I've made that makes things hard?  My children rarely watch TV or interact with technology.  They can effortlessly work an Ipad or Tablet, they love to play on Starfall or Reading Eggs.  But we put an emphasis on free play and getting outside.  Even on rainy days, they do not get more than 30 minutes of screen time.  Their imaginations are great and as they get bigger they are coming up with their own ideas of things to do.  My favorite recently is using blankets and furniture to create a hideout in Carolyn's bedroom under her desk.  I'm looking forward to what else they'll come up with this winter when I'm no longer forcing outdoor time in the afternoons because it'll be too cold.

Your kids will learn technology... if you make 2 choices to give them the best start they can have... play outside and read books.  The rest will write itself.

Fixed vs Growth Mindset: Teaching Children to Succeed

After curriculum night at Carolyn's school, I emailed the teacher.  She had mentioned the element of fear, and how that can really hold child back from learning.  Since Carolyn first started talking, we have been trying to figure why she won't try new things.  Somehow, she learned a fear of making mistakes.  When her teacher spoke about this, I felt she was talking about Carolyn.  So I emailed, asking for any advice on how we can help Carolyn overcome this at home.  He response was to suggest a couple books to read - 1 for me, 1 for Carolyn. 

The book for Carolyn is "The girl who never made a mistake."  We picked up both books from the library yesterday and Carolyn read it in the car as we went to the grocery store and then her soccer game.  I'm not quite sure she got the right message though.  She said, but the girl did make a mistake.  We asked what happened after that, did anyone get mad?  She admitted the girl ended up being fine.  She really likes the book though and we're thinking about purchasing it for her for Christmas.  We'll keep it for a couple more weeks and see how she feels about it.

I spent the last 24 hours reading "Mindset: The new psychology of Success" by Carol Dweck.  Her main focus is that we can choose which mindset we approach life with - fixed or growth.  In other words, with each thing in life we decide whether we have to rely on our talents or whether we can learn something new.  I think this is a book that every parent, teacher, and business executive need to read.  It speaks right to the latest culture of telling everyone that they are the best, and handing out trophies to every kid.  The biggest take home for parenting for me is in the type of praise to provide.  And it's very similar to what I've been reading in the books on parenting a gifted child, but applies to every single child.  Do not praise a child for being smart, for doing things quickly, or for expending little effort.  Praise the process and the effort.  If the child completes an assignment very quickly, one could even apologize for wasting the kids' time because it wasn't challenging enough.  This helps children to value the effort expended and thereby be more accepting of a challenge.  They won't feel the need to constantly show how smart they are, and will realize that it's good to work hard and it's okay to struggle. 

So from here we'll avoid saying things like "You're so smart", "That came so easy for you," or anything that compares children.  Instead we'll say "I'm so glad you kept trying", "What did you learn today?", or "That was tough, what could we do differently next time?"  I hope it will encourage Carolyn to take on more challenges.  I had begun to consciously make this change after reading the other books, and I think I've started to see small changes already.  She figured out how to spell "girl" yesterday, trying out a bunch of different letters before getting it right, and we celebrated the effort she made to figured it out.  And tonight she tried a hula hoop and kept trying more, even though she wasn't a super star right away.  She also walked on a "high wire" (2ft off the ground). 

I suggest you check this book out, it might just change how you view what you say to your child and how you view the challenges and set back you encounter in your own life.

Kindergarten begins

I'm not sure who was most anxious this morning for Carolyn to start school.  I had a horrible time sleeping last night and James was up at 6:15.  Carolyn got up just before 7.  I made her a special breakfast of strawberry soufflé, which Carolyn put cheese on top of and had a glass of milk.  She took a banana as a snack.  Jon stayed home to put her on the bus, which was tougher than we anticipated.  We took many pictures and had to fight back tears.  She was just fine though and climbed onto the bus and sat right down.

While Carolyn was at school, I had time with James.  One of Carolyn's classmates came and played with him for a little while, allowing me time to put together a few more folders for preschool.  Once she left he asked to work on preschool right away, so we got down to work.  He can identify nearly every letter of his name and order them correctly.  We put together a 10 commandments train and then worked on some of his sequencing pages.  Once he reaches capacity for that, we gathered up all the pillows in the house and he crawled over them.  Then he made new patterns and crawled, jumped, and flopped around the room.  We were silly, pretending to hide from a monster, and just enjoyed our time together.  We went outside so he could pick berries to leave out for the birds.  And we read a book before heading to the bus stop.

James gave Carolyn a huge hug once she was off the bus and told her he missed her.  It was really cool to see.  We hurried inside since it was raining and went straight to make lunch.  As I was making lunch, Carolyn suddenly got upset.  Then she told me something "horrible" happened at school.  She had trouble finding the correct line to get into to go inside.  We talked about this for a few minutes and discussed how tomorrow if she has trouble she can look for some of her classmates.  It sounds like they didn't do much today, but she did get to meet the class guinea pigs named Cookie and Brownie.  So day 1 is over and she'll meet everyone in her class tomorrow. 

My little girl is getting big!

Overcoming Perfectionism

We noticed when Carolyn was very young that she had a tendency towards perfectionism.  She doesn't want to try new things and is constantly nervous that she's going to get something wrong.  We often think that the reason she didn't speak until 18 months was she was afraid to say something improperly.  Where did this come from?  We really don't know, and I don't think it could be learned at such a young age. 

I read a book this past week with ideas for how to help your child overcome these tendencies and a big part of it is to identify an perfectionist tendencies in yourself.  I've never considered myself a perfectionist.  Yes, if I'm going to do something I think it should (needs to) be done well.  But since reading this book I've been keeping an eye on my own actions to see if I am forcing any perfectionist ways onto the children.

Lo and behold, we set out to make cheese crackers this last Friday and I found myself needing to hold back.  I let the kids help with grating the cheese, although they struggled to do it very well.  I used the mixer to put everything together.  And then we started to form the crackers.  To avoid the mess of last time, we decided to just make balls.  They should all be similar in size and smooth balls, in my mind.  But allow a 3 and 5yo to participate and they will not come out that way.  I had to resist picking them up and rolling the balls just a touch more to be smooth.  After all, lumpiness wasn't going to affect the final taste.  I let the kids just put their work down on the pan, moving them only to assure they didn't bake together.  When Carolyn decided to move on to cheese sticks, we had some issues with the appropriate thickness and I did step in to assure they were thin enough to cook properly.  But in the end, the kids got in some great fine motor work and we have a wonderful finished product that is very yummy and healthy.

I will keep watching for my own innate perfectionist ways.  It can be hard with kids this age to not correct mistakes, since I like to use them as learning opportunities.  But I did learn from the book how to word my responses to their accomplishments to diminish the drive toward perfectionism.  I think this was a useful book to read just before Carolyn starts kindergarten.  I hope that by carefully crafting my responses I can diminish Carolyn's drive towards perfection and foster a new desire to try new things.  I encourage anyone reading this with small children to take a look at themselves and see if you are conveying hidden perfectionist messages toward your child.  There's enough competition in this world, let's make sure we are showing our children that as long as they try their best, it's good enough for us.

Summer 2013 is ending

It's been a long time since I've written, and quite a busy summer!  We started the summer with painting the kids' bedrooms.  After finishing those, we headed to Blue Harbor for 3 nights with Jon's parents for vacation.  It was pretty nice and fairly relaxing.  The kids had a blast at the waterpark.  When we got home we continued to paint the rest of the house - master bedroom, living room, kitchen, and playroom/hallway.  It feels really nice to have the house feel more like ours.  There's still a long list of changes we'd like to make, but finances will determine that as we go forward.  We're growing some tomato plants out front, which are huge.  We went to some sporting events, played at parks, and just enjoyed being together as a family.

The last 2 weeks Carolyn attended Safety City through the park district.  It's a program my mom was part of starting and teaching when I was little.  Carolyn had a lot of fun and enjoyed telling us all the new things she learned each day about how to be safe.  I let the staff know today who my mom was, and almost cried as the director remembered her.  I miss my mom a lot, but having the kids get to experience some of the things she helped create makes it a little easier.  Carolyn did an awesome job at camp and her teacher was amazed that this was her first drop-off experience.  Bodes very well for starting kindergarten.  They even took a field trip on a school bus, so that won't be a foreign idea for her.

Jon started his new job this week with new staff training.  He seems to really be enjoying himself and those around him are very nice.  He has a great big office and we're discovering some nice perks along the way.  We got free microsoft office for our new desktop computer.  And the insurance, although we're selecting the HMO, is about $200/month cheaper than his old school.  Looking forward to seeing his new paycheck at the end of the month.

I have been given a raise, which means I don't have to work as many hours this school year.  I'm looking forward to being able to spend more time with the kids and not tied to my computer.  They're also starting a 401k matching program.  It's the typical 50% of your contributions up to 6%.  So I'm putting in 7% to end up with 10% in there.  If Jon switches his stuff away from fidelity, I might do the same and move all my stuff to CharlesSchwabb.  But we'll what happens.  The guy he was using wasn't very helpful and rarely, if ever, actually responds to our inquiries.  It took him over a month when I wanted to increase contributions... you'd think he'd be right on that.

Carolyn starts school in 10 days.  I still have mixed feelings about whether public school is the best option for her.  Everyone that sees/hears her read is amazed.  Whenever we use any of the online tests she ends up at a 4th grade level.  We continue to work on her math and that I would put about half way through 1st grade.  We've spent less time on it, so she isn't as far as I think she could be.  I'm going to give this a whole hearted attempt though, and we'll see how it goes.  I'm hoping that the Ipads will provide her with the opportunity to excel beyond her grade level.  I looked over the curriculum last night and she has every item listed mastered.  There are 3-4 things not yet mastered for 1st grade only.  And those are things we haven't spent much time with - clock reading, money counting, numbers beyond 100, and parts of a sentence.  So we'll definitely work on those in the next couple months and then start tackling the 2nd grade curriculum which does have more for her to work on.

James is really enjoying the preschool work we've been doing.  We're through the first 7 weeks and will start on week 8 soon.  He likes how varied it is and I think he enjoys that he gets to sit in my lap for a lot of it.  He can sing his alphabet, count to 10, identify all the standard colors, and knows his shapes (square, triangle, rectangle, circle).  We're working on identifying the letters and numbers, of which he does know a few.  So he's trucking right along.  I'm interested to see where he is just before entering kindergarten himself.  I'm looking forward to spending time with just him when we don't have to go anywhere as well.  He starts soccer in September and then story hour isn't until October.  I figure we'll still go to the library once a week though.

I'm looking forward to enjoying this next week with just the 2 of them.  We don't have a ton planned and that is going to be nice.  Tomorrow we have no plans and will just enjoy time as a family, since from here Saturdays will likely involve grocery shopping.