Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve was with my parents. My Grandma came over for a couple hours too. She gets anxious when she's out for a long time. We went to brunch and then opened gifts with Gigi then had dinner, finished the gifts and went to mass. We had 10 p.m. mass for midnight mass. We arrived at 9 because D was singing. He had a small solo in Ave Maria and was very nervous. The carols started at 9:30. It was a very nice service and the kids did pretty well, sitting in a pew for 2 hours since we were an hour early. Both sets of grandparents were there. The choir ended with the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. It was awesome. We didn't see a Messiah this year. Most years we try to go see one and we've seen them all over the country depending on where we were living at the time. Last year we saw one in a local church. K loved it and C slept in the stroller the entire time so it worked out pretty well. We usually go see the Nutcracker every year too but that didn't happen this year. It was a scheduling issue. Last year we saw it twice, once in NYC and once in Cincinnati so we were covered for this year. After the Cincy production, K said it was good but it wasn't New York.

Christmas Day was with D's family. Everyone was in town for it. It's fun but busy. 12 adults and 15 children ages 10 to 4 months. K and C love all the playing. It seems we are always eating, feeding, cleaning up, etc. We have to eat in shifts b/c there's not enough room for everyone to eat together. All the cousins exchanged gifts and that was fun. K and C loved their gifts. K recieved Usborne I can draw people and playtime activites. She loves to draw. C received some legos.

Now we are trying to go through rooms and make a pile to give away. D had to work today.

14 years

Yesterday was our 14 year anniversary. K and C went to Grandma's and Pap's for the night. They were so excited. We all needed a break and I needed to do some shopping without them running through the store, trying to hide and scaring me. I got a lot accomplished but still feel overwhelmed. This last week is always so crazy, I don't know how to make it better.

I just reread my last post. I don't think things are as bad as I wrote. Last week the 3 year old was not in school and K had a really good week. Plus, the head teacher has been doing a great job of giving K work and asking her to work with others so she's not always with this 3 year old. I think she's doing better. Her Math work is progressing now.

C is going to start Montessori Jan 22nd. He's excited. I think he's ready for that environment and for someone to ask him to learn all his letters/sounds. He learns so differently than Kaitlin. He really has to want to learn before he will do it. Or show you that he knows it. It's hard to know what he knows. He's definitely more math oriented than K.

I have a lot to get done this morning before Grandma drops K off at school and brings C here.

Chaos

I have not been writing because things have been so chaotic here. D and I have spent a lot of time discussing all the issues with K. Today K's teacher talked to me about her behavior at school. She's been 'mothering' one of the 3 year old girls. She talks about her all the time but I guess it is getting out of control. She's doing things for her and the 3 year old cries for K when she gets frustrated. It's such an odd dynamic and so hard as a parent to know how to handle. K doesn't want to do her work, she wants to just play like the 3 year olds. Yesterday she told her teacher that she forgot her book when it was her time to do reading. The teacher said check your bag and of course it was there. She lied so she could go play. This is not K's normal behavior. We're trying to figure out what is going on and debating all kinds of options. Is she bored? Is she trying to fit in somehow or doesn't want to stand out from the other kindergarteners? She's not playing with them anymore, she's spending all her time with this 3 year old who needs her. I need a psychologist. I knew raising her would be difficult but I wasn't prepared for this type of difficulty. It's a really odd dynamic at school this year with the kindergarteners and maybe we need to pull her out. D talked about me homeschooling her starting in January. I don't know. I don't know what to do. I can't seem to write about it either.

On top of that, she's been acting/talking like a baby. When I tried to get her to tell her teacher about buying gifts for needy gifts, she wouldn't talk. She crawled around on the floor and withdrew. Of course I pushed to get her to talk and that didn't work. So, I yelled at her on the ride home about manners and answering her teacher when asked, etc. She hates when I yell but this has been going on for a couple months and I've had it. I don't know how to handle it. I think she tuned me out.

On the positive side, the son I've been ignoring drew a wonderful picture of himself tonight and did a pretty good job of writing his name.

Our Trip

We left Wednesday for Landenberg, PA. It is a 9 hour drive from here if you drive straight through. We did it in about 10/10.5 both ways. The kids did great. We picked up some new movies from the library on Wednesday and had things to do in the car. Plus, they slept. We left at 6 a.m. on Sunday so they slept a lot on the ride back.

We had Thanksgiving at my sister's - Landenberg is south west of Philadelphia. My parents came too so we had 10 of us. The kids loved getting together and playing.

On Friday we went to Philadelphia. We went on a DUK ride, through the streets and then on the Delaware river. Then, we went to the National Constitution Center. D and K spent the time together learning about the Constitution. She took the oath of office, etc. She loved it. We only spent 2 hours there. I wish we would have had more time. Of course I had the 2 3 year olds so maybe we didn't need more time.

On Saturday my sister's 8 month old daughter was baptized. My brother in law's family arrived for the event. It was fun to see everyone and we had a nice dinner. Here's a picture of K with her new cousin.


It was great getting out there and visiting family but we didn't have much of a break here at home. We got back last night and now starts the December whirlwind. I'd like more time to just relax, just the four of us.

Holiday cards

Today we worked on our holiday cards. They arrived while we were gone. Here's the picture we picked. It's not as good as some from the previous years.


K writes the address on certain envelopes and adds notes and pictures to some of the cards. It really helps for me to give her some penciled lines to keep her writing confined to the envelope area and not too big. She also sticks on the return stickers and the stamps. This is my working on her printing and writing. She LOVES pen pals and writing letters. We have so many now but not many people write back as frequently as she writes so she starts to get down about it. D has even told me to just fake a return letter but I can't do that. My sister (who has a 3 year old daughter) does a good job of sending things even if they aren't written by my neice. Otherwise we have enough "pen pals" that we should get enough mail.

The Parade

Saturday was the parade in our town. The town has an annual Christmas festival with a parade. This year K's French class had a float and she road in the float. I walked alongside and handed out candy/pencils/flyers.

Here's a picture of her in the float


It was fun. More work for me getting the float ready on Friday. But I met some of the Moms from her class. A couple of the kids have been taking French for years and they take another class on Saturdays for 2 hours.

We had a party on Saturday for the game. Good thing Ohio State won. The party went well, better than I expected. We had 9 kids and that can be overwhelming, especially when the parents are busy watching TV but they were great. K and C loved it.

Questions

Today at dinner (D was at choir practice), K started talking loud about silly things. What if there were no animals and no trees and no people. I said like when there were dinosaurs and she said No. There are no dinosaurs and no North America. And she's giggling and having fun. And, no water and no sun. And she kind of stops the silliness. Then it would be very dark all the time and there would be nothing. And then she says maybe God would be there. How old is God? 15? 4? but who made God? Was God there when it was dark? How did God get there?

I'm thinking of how to answer this and wishing D was home to handle this one. But then when I start with how old do you think God is? she starts giggling again and kind of moves on to other things. During this time C is being loud and silly too so it was easy to jump back into that.

This reminds me that on Sunday after church we stopped at the grocery and I ran in. While I was gone C told D that "maybe when you are at work, Mommy can explain to me who God is".

Why do I get all the God questions?

books/music/schedule

K is reading Samantha's Surprise now. It's an American Girl Doll Book. She's also reading 2 books on Picasso. She has been doing portraits lately and I thought they were looking like a Picasso. She loves reading about him. She made a book with a portrait of a lot of her family, us, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.. They are both reading
Tripper's Travels: An International Scrapbook
and they LOVE it. D reads them one country a night and they talk about the country, practice talking in the language, etc.. Even C loves it. This was just a grab at the library so it's a nice surprise.

They have been listening to Laurie Berkner a lot and a CD from K's religion class. It's a Childrens' Choir CD and K really loves it. They may start a childrens' choir at the music store near us and I'd love for her to try it. C loves Irish music. I got a CD at the library b/c I enjoy it and he loves it. K, not so much.

Math

We've been really working on math lately. Both at school and at home. I'm going to buy some math books for K for Christmas and I'm probably spending too much time trying to decide which ones to buy. I had her do a placement test for Singapore Math books yesterday. I had her do it on the computer and I kept hurrying her. She would write the question and practice writing her numbers rather than write the answer and move on. One whole section she messed up b/c I kept telling her to stop playing around and do the problem. It was taking so long we were running into her ballet class. Since she has learned Math in the Montessori setting, she hasn't really seen a lot of math worksheets or word problems etc. So, she made mistakes on things she knew b/c she didn't understand how they were being asked. I'm going to buy a couple workbooks and see how it goes.

Can't seem to write

I can't seem to write in here. It's been a rough couple weeks and I'm not ready to write about it yet. We did fix C's room, we had to use a primer on the areas with permanent marker and then we painted his room blue. It's OK, I don't love it yet. We'll see, I need to hang things, buy curtains, etc.

We've not been practicing piano and K seems to have lost some interest in it. I don't want to make her practice right now because we are just trying it out. We seem to be so busy that we don't have time for piano right now.

Last night was the second meeting of book club. K read Brave Emily. She did most of the reading herself, except for the letters that were written in cursive. I have not taught her to write in cursive yet. She reread it many times so she could get all the meanings. We made a time line from about 1850-2006 with birth dates and major events so she could better understand time. Of course Brave Emily is during World War II so we had lots of discussions on war. The other day I told her someone had died and she asked "did he die or did someone make him dead?" I guess that's one way of saying murder. K is so sensitive that I'm worried about talking about evil things too much. She has nightmares. Anyway, she loves book club. It's still a little advanced for her. The game was unscrambling about 15 words and then using the numbered letters to write out the answer. We haven't done too much unscrambling but these were bigger words for her; victory, courage, etc. First one done got a prize. An older girl was helping her. Next month is movie night and a book club meeting. They are reading Samantha's Surprise and watching Samantha's Holiday movie. Of course they moved movie night to Friday the 8th which is the same night as K's cousin's 6th bday party. This is one cousin where she would definitely love to go to his bday party b/c he's her age. What to do?

Halloween & A Sharpie

I just came in here to try to calm down. I put C down for nap an hour ago and then he had to go the bathroom and then he was up playing and then... I got busy with K's piano practice. Even though I could hear him in his room talking, I decided I'd go up in a minute. Well, I came up and he had crawled on top of his dresser, found the Sharpie pen I had hidden there next to a stack of hand me downs. I was marking initials on the clothes. (The pen has been there for months, he's the 7th grandson on D's side of the family and as the seasons are changing we're getting clothes from 3 cousins and passing down to a cousin.) He marked all over himself, his dresser, his walls. I'm not sure where else b/c I lost it. He started crying and I put him to bed and closed the door. I'm just not ready to deal with it. What's the proper punishment? I left the pen there. The dresser is about 4 feet high but he can climb up on it from his bed BUT he's never done that prior to today. Tonight is Halloween, should he have to stay in? That seems extreme but he knows not to draw on the walls. It's quiet in there now. The only good thing is we're planning on painting his room in the next month or so. I'm still trying to pick out colors and sheets.

Halloween starts in an hour. I'm ready for it to be over, we've had so many parties and costume wearing occasions, I'm worn out.

Ballet and Religion

Today K's ballet class did a little Halloween show. They wore their costumes to class. It was very cute. It was nice to see that they are learning since we don't get to see in the classroom very often. K loves ballet.

We've switched to these new books at school. They have short stories and then questions at the end. They are older and the stories are more historical - about Chicago, magicians, etc. It's great for comprehension practice. I think her ability to read is fine but comprehension is the next step.

On Sunday K asked about religion. Why do we go to one church and other people go to other churches - mainly cousins. I think part of it was our discussion about religion when we went to visit the Catholic school. I tried to explain about schools attached to religions and how they work. So, I had to explain about different religions. I don't feel that strongly about Catholic school. I went to 2nd grade in Catholic school and then we moved. I loved it though. It was more challenging than the public school. And I got along with more of the kids. Those are the two main things I remember. Right now I'm leaning toward home schooling or private school. I don't like the lack of accountablity you get from the public school. (not that I've had that much experience...) But with the screening, I had to call and call and call to get things done. It took 2 months to get it resolved. It reminds me of dealing with the DMV or something. It's not really what I want to do with respect to my kids' education.

Piano Recital

C has been very into having his piano lesson too. D did a lesson with him this weekend since he was so insistent. So, today he insisted on doing piano practice like K too. Well, maybe I should have him at the recital because he can play the C scale! I was shocked. He was very focused, practicing doing the scale without mistakes. I taught him Stepping up but he is so independent he refuses to learn from you.

He learns SO differently than K. He has to see and assimilate it himself and just about master something (although you never hear him working at it) and then he'll do it for you. The alphabet, colors, numbers, the piano. I'm figuring out that he is teaching himself to read. He recognizes certain words - Ohio State, stop, his name. But he's not interested in his letters or the sounds of letters like K. But I know one day he'll just know all his letters. When K and I were counting by ones, tens, hundreds, thousands she was getting confused. I was asking her what comes after 1000 counting by thousands and she was saying 1001 or 1100. Finally, C says two thousand. He's going to be a challenge.

Visit to the Catholic School

On Thursday I took K to visit the Catholic school while C was at preschool. We had a good visit. She liked it which is a good sign. They seemed better set up to handle kids who are ahead of their grade level. It's a small school about 3 1st grade classes with 20 kids each. The school is just K-3rd and then 4th through 8th is at a different building 10 minutes away (2 different churches combined for the school). I have to get moving on visiting other schools in the area.

Great Grandma

Wednesday we went to visit my Grandma, the kids' Great Grandma (GiGi). We went in the evening, our first mistake. The kids brought Halloween art that they made. We went to her apartment and I realized that she was confused. As the day goes on, she gets more confused and I know this but there I was. We ended up going back to the lobby because she had guests in her living room we had to entertain. But, back in the lobby a resident was playing the piano. Kaitlin watched and then she climbed up next to her and played about 3 songs - Jingle Bells, Mary had a little lamb and Stepping Up. She was very confident, I was surprised she went and sat up there and played. She LOVED it. So, now I'm realizing the one problem with doing piano at home is no formal recital. I'm thinking of just putting together a recital and invite some family members to come over. We'll see.

Book Club

Last night was the first night for book club. I decided to put K in it instead of Girl Scouts or American Heritage girls because of the time (C naps in the afternoon when the others meet). She loves to read and most of these girls attend a mixed age school that I'm debating sending K to next fall. The club was nice but K was so shy! She clings to me and doesn't open up at all. I probably should have left her there but I told her I would stay the first time. The other girls all know each other since they are in school together so that can be initimidating. There were 11 girls there. The book they read was Kirsten Learns a Lesson (see my link under K's current reading). First they discussed the book and the 2 Moms running the club did a good job. There is one other 5 year old, about 5 6-7 year olds and 4 older girls 8 and up. When I called there was only one 8+ girl. Of course the 4 older girls dominated the conversation but the other girls talked too. K didn't but she did listen. Then they did a craft, a book bag for the year and a snack similar to what Kirsten would have had for lunch at her school. Then they played a game about all the different American girl dolls. Of course K does not know them at all. But thankfully, she got up, they put the name of the doll on her back and then she had to ask yes or no questions to figure out which doll it would be.
She liked it and was sad it only meets once a month. Her shyness is hard on me. I feel like I've been involving her in so much and doing preschool so she is used to socialization and other kids and it seems like it has not worked. I was shy as a girl so I know what it is but I was hoping to have her not be painfully shy. She has started this habit of sucking on her fingers or the end of her shirt. It was way out of control last night. I'm not sure how to fight that.

Piano & the Park

K has been doing piano practice for 30 minutes each day this week. It's going surprisingly well. On Wednesday she composed her own song.

E E F F E E F F G G
Apple, apple, apple apple, yes, yes
C D E F G
I don't like oranges
C G A G C
But grapes are your friends
C D E F G A B C
And, strawberries are your friends too

It's silly but I was impressed she wanted to try to do it and figure out the words and notes. Especially since she's only just started piano lessons. I think it's a good sign that she's enjoying it. I try to keep her on target for practicing but also give her time to do some creative things. Since I know next to nothing about piano, it's hard for me to help with her practice (and unfortunately she knows this).

Today we went to a park class about monarch butterflies. It was interesting, aimed at a little older crowd. My two were moving around a lot so I thought they weren't listening. Then we got nets and went to catch some butterflies. K was sad she couldn't catch one. On the way home, C tells me all about the life cycle of a butterfly (he can't say chrysallis but tells me c..something) and K tells me about the monarch migrating to Mexico. I guess they were listening. It was a beautiful fall day so it was great to just be outside enjoying it.

Busy week

I have myself so busy with kids stuff that I rarely have time to do any house stuff, like grocery shopping. We're doing OK with our one field trip a week.

The other day Kaitlin came downstairs and asked me do I have to die to go to heaven? I was on the phone so it was hard to answer but I said yes. And she said And I'll never come back? and started crying. I'm not sure where she even got this idea but after I hung up I tried to talk to her about it. The only thing would be Dave's 95 year old Grandmother visiting us. Maybe she overheard me say something.

Math

Well so far, our schedule is working OK. Ballet is going well and K says she has fun in French class but doesn't like it. When I press the issue, she says, it's fine Mom. Piano lessons with Dad are going great. They do them once a week on Saturdays and she's moving right along. He teaches completely different than I would but she enjoys it. She practices during the week and even that is going well. She likes to play. Math class with me has been going OK too. We have the kindergarten math book from the public school so we do that and I usually take it to another level. I've been trying to incorporate more manipulating numbers and fun with numbers. I've realized that math is so very different from reading. I really have to take more time to teach her some math concepts instead of her just getting things. It's going to be a challenge to instill a love of math in her but that's my goal.

We missed our first Spanish lesson this week but I wasn't quite ready. We did a great art lesson. We signed up for American Girl Doll Book Club. We don't start until mid October. I think it could go either way so I'm anxious to see. We're reading Kirsten Learns a Lesson for October. It's a slow process, there's so much new stuff to explain. It's been great for learning history but I have to explain a lot. She reads some and then I just read her a chapter. We have to work on both sides, comprehension and reading. We decided not to do Chinese right now. It was too much having it right before her French class. Plus, we may start that as a family at home, I have to see if the library has rosetta stone available.

Gymnastics and ice skating start mid to late October so that's my next question. I'm really trying to decide about homeschooling her next semester. I could pull her out of Montessori and not start C in it. It would definitely save us money but I'm really torn on it. She loves school.

Week in review

I have not had time to write that much. This was the first full week (9:15-11:45) at K's Montessori school. She is reading her book from the library at school. The Green Toenails Gang (Olivia Sharp Agent for Secrets) She reads 2 chapters a day. I talked to the teacher about her reading. She tends to skips words and not sound out words she doesn't know. Instead she guesses what word it might be, says that and keeps reading. So, if you are just listening you may miss that she isn't reading the right words. D and I have been wondering if she is speed reading some. She skips the little words. Who knows? She's also been reading some good Scholastic books. She started French class on Thursday and she seemed to like that. There were 5 girls and they are all older. I'm not sure why French is OK but she doesn't want to do Spanish. I think she's just doing it to bug me. I have to start the Spanish at home next week. I need a good lesson plan for that. D did piano lessons with her today as part of his teaching music at home. It went pretty well. Now we just have to get her to practice on a daily basis. We have our Friday playdate and this time the girls were at our house. K loves this so I'm going to try to stick with it every Friday. I wish they lived in our neighborhood. We have a little girl the same age as K and her 3 year old sister come to play. We just lost the other 4.5 year old because of her preschool schedule. They ride bikes and play. I've been trying to find more little girl friends in our neighborhood but we seem to be surrounded by boys. We tried a playdate on Wednesday with a boy in our neighborhood that is the same age. He's been riding his bike without training wheels for a year so he made fun of K and her training wheels and they just play different. It went OK. K really needs to feel comfortable, lots of time with the kid and his Mom until she comes out of her shell. I don't know if I should pursue it or not. The Mom mentioned that her first grade daughter (who was in school at the time) might be a better fit. Just because they are both girls.

I'm still working on her schedule and it is almost October. I don't know why I'm struggling so much. I called about Daisy's (Girl Scouts) and they meet 2x a month and do a craft and talk. It would about 8 little girls. The meeting up is the hard part for me b/c of C's nap schedule. I'm not that excited about it.

C is such a crazy man.