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School, Travel, Home, Repeat

It’s been since the first day of this year that you’ve heard from me. Yikes!!! But, there’s actually a good reason. Many good reasons. Let me fill you in.

Once the holiday season wound down, big M started Pre-school, I mean “Pre-K” (sorry, big M). Apparently, there’s a big difference and he is quite specific when he tells me that his class is not Pre-school. 

First Day of Pre-school K!

 And that very night...he ended up in the Emergency Room with 4 stitches resulting from bedtime wrestling. Boys...

Then a few days later, he sabotaged the school haircut I paid good money for. Apparently, he has his own ideas of a good hairstyle. We're supposed to encourage our kids to be creative, right?

 He started school January 8 and it was NOT the easiest transition. He started out excited, for the first day, and then all he talked about was that he didn’t want to go. I spent a lot of time agonizing over the decision of whether to send him or not, but ultimately I decided it was time. Then came his anxiety. He would resist going the whole evening before, all morning, all the way to school, and then once we got to his classroom and got him settled in his chair, he would look up at me and smile and say, “Bye!” I knew he was having fun when he was there, but when your child is hurting or anxious, a parent feels it too, so I had a hard time as well. Then, of course, I went through the whole “Am I doing the right thing?”, “Am I wounding my child for the rest of his life?”, “Am I a terrible stay-at-home mom by sending him to school when I’m sure the “best” parents would homeschool?”, "Or, should I have sent him sooner so this transition would have been easier?", etc...seriously, you can't win these arguments with yourself. I went through a lot of other scenarios in my mind, talked to a lot of people, prayed about it, and ultimately listened to my gut. We decided he needed to stick with it and get through the transition. In the end, I couldn’t be happier with our decision. Sure, it took him several months to adjust, but there were good reasons that are now no longer an issue (I’m glad he likes being home with me so much). And now he loves school. He doesn't want to leave when I come to pick him up at the end of the day. He goes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each week. He tells me all about his “best friend”, and has had the opportunity to play Pee-Wee basketball,

 and baseball, 

 on Friday mornings which he LOVES. He comes home everyday and literally dumps two piles of sand from his shoes on the carpet, but I know how much he loves playing outside with his friends, so I don’t mind my daily vacuuming job. He is so proud of his crafts and shows me all the school work he’s completed after each week is over. He’s more self-assured in social interactions, and actually seems more mature and confident in general. I’m so proud of him. I’m so sure of our decision to send him there, and so, so proud of how he’s come through his uncertainty and begun to thrive in his school environment. A life lesson, I’m sure.

We found some puddles. Mommy finally gave in to the splashing. We got very muddy. And we liked it.

Now, little M and I have special time together and I get to run errands, clean the house, and do my “stuff” with only one child with me. It’s amazing how much more productive I am and how much less tense and stressful grocery shopping is. You know what I mean?!! Everyone told me (or maybe I just unknowingly lied to myself) that once the boys were a little older, I would be able to reason with them better and they would understand how to behave for a grocery store or Target trip. NOT TRUE!!! They just have MORE energy and physically can’t sit still. There is so much fighting, pushing, whining, complaining about who gets to sit on which side of the car-cart, that I don’t know what I’m even putting in my cart. I just want to walk down the aisle, stick my arm out and pull everything off the row and let it fall into my cart as I pass by just so I can say I’m done and go to the checkout counter. It’s funny how the two of them together almost team up against me, but when I have just one, either of them, we talk about what we’re doing, working like teammates, and I can actually think about what’s going in the cart.

Waiting on a car repair. :)

Mason with his "best friend" (in the green shirt), and another buddy

Another thing that made big M’s school adjustment take a little longer, as well as a reason my blog has been so silent, is that we were gone. A lot. Here’s what our schedule was for February and March:

Week 1: We all went to visit my family in Washington State

Week 2: Home, weekend overnight trip for a wedding

Week 3: Mike and I went to Orlando, FL where he had meetings (and we snuck in a few extra days to celebrate our anniversary)

Week 4: Home

Week 5: We all went to Park City, UT (more meetings for Mike) and went skiing

Week 6, 7: Home, whew

Week 8: We all went to Nashville, TN to meet up with my mom for spring break

The cousins in Washington!

 Park City, UT

 2nd year skiers!

 Hanging in pajamas at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, TN

 My little buddies

 The whole family at President Andrew Jacksons Estate, The Hermitage

 Me and my mother (who has fewer wrinkles than I do...argh)

Each week between trips when we were home, all I did was laundry, grocery shopping, and then packing again for the next trip, and during this time we were also enrolled in Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, so we had weekly meetings to attend (highly recommend this class). I didn’t have time to do much else, so since we’ve been back from Nashville, I’ve been trying to do some spring-cleaning and get some final organizing projects completed before summer hits. 

Random: You may think I'm weird, but I loved these white glasses so much that I got them as prescription glasses. Now I wear them all the time. At home. They are so bright white, they kind of make my teeth look yellow. But I don't care. I'm still a little shy to wear them in public because they kind of say, "Look at me". I'm working on being brave about that. I'll let you know how it goes.

I want to be able to sit and enjoy my summer as much as possible. I have started some long-overdue décor projects, which I can share more with you another time. Those are fun, though. Going through old junk - not so fun, but necessary…I know this summer will be busy enough with family visits, beach trips to Lake Michigan and swimming lessons, but so far we have no plans to travel. And right now, I wouldn’t want it any other way.