Samantha: 58 Months, Week 1
Aedan: 22 Months, Week 3 (Week 98)
This week started out on a rather low note for me because after about ten months of wanting to get pregnant with our third child, I discovered that I still was not pregnant. I know I've written about this before, but it's difficult for me to not get extremely disappointed every month. So, in order to help cheer me up on Monday night, Ben stopped and got these beautiful flowers for me. It was such a sweet gesture, and I loved arranging them and placing them in a vase in the middle of our dining room table.
Throughout the day Monday and Tuesday, Ben and I were talking a lot about the type of loan we were going to get for our mortgage. We have some money for a down payment, but not the 20% that they require to avoid a $60 monthly fee for mortgage insurance. So we were looking at the differences of payments based on a lower or higher down payment and how that would impact our monthly mortgage payment. It's a little intimidating thinking about getting a loan for that large of an amount, but we are both very ready to start the adventure of being homeowners.
Tuesday was early voting in Ohio, so I decided to take the kids to vote before going to the library for story time. We didn't have to wait in line for very long, which was nice, but I didn't have an Ohio driver's license, so they weren't quite sure what to do with me. They gave me a provisional ballot, which Ben later said they didn't have to do, so I had to fill out pencil and paper rather than on the computer. The kids were doing pretty well, and I had Aedan in the stroller so that he couldn't get into too much. However, toward the end he was getting antsy and kept trying to stand up in the stroller, and I had to keep getting him to sit down. Well, as I was handing in my ballot, I took my attention off of Aedan for one minute during which he stood up, leaned against the back of the stroller, and tipped the whole stroller over onto the floor. Of course Aedan burst into tears so I had to go over to console him. Luckily, there weren't very many people there voting at the time, but I felt extremely embarrassed, and it was just the start of a very long and challenging day with the kids.
You can definitely tell that Aedan is almost two years old for his behavior is starting to reveal that. While at the library that morning, he had several temper tantrums. One was right when we got there because he wanted to play on the computer, but story time was going to be starting in a few minutes and I knew it would be difficult for him to leave the computer for story time. However, when I told him no, he just started crying and threw himself down on the floor. I tried to get him to come play with me or read a book with me, but he just wanted to cry and say, "Nooo..." in one of the most pathetic sounding little voices. Despite that tantrum, he actually did really well during most of story time. He sat next to Sissy for quite awhile listening. I think his attention span is getting longer. He got a little antsy towards the end, but once I got a few books for him to look through while the big kids were listening to stories, that made him happier and quieter so that the other kids could still hear.
All of these feelings and issues make we very worried for next fall when Samantha enters kindergarten because in Sault Ste. Marie they only have full day kindergarten. I am very concerned about how she will even be able to handle that transition of being gone at school all day and not even having the option of napping when she really needs one. Plus, being "on" all day learning and doing activities at school, which may or may not lead to meltdowns with us once she gets home for the day. I am overwhelmed with lots of feelings when I think about Samantha going to kindergarten. I want her to have a good transition, I want her to to make friends, and I want her to learn and develop as she should. I also know that despite that craziness that comes with her at times, I will really miss her when she is gone at school all day. I am used to having her around at home more, and it will be strange having her at school from 8:45 to 3:45 every day. It will be strange being with just Aedan all day every day, but it will also be fun to spend more one-on-one time with him. I know that Samantha is a smart, caring girl, and I know that it is a transition for every kid (and family) as a child starts kindergarten, but sometimes when I think about it I get a little overwhelmed both mentally and emotionally.
As I said, Wednesday, in particular was just one of those extremely rough days. Ben and I had a small argument before he left for work, mostly over a miscommunication. Aedan was really whiny all morning when playing at home with Bennett. Then, when I picked Samantha up from preschool, she just flipped out on me. Andrea was waiting at the car with Bennett and Aedan while I picked up Samantha, but Samantha refused to come with me. She came out of the playground area okay, but then she just sat down on the edge by the sidewalk and refused to leave. I tried nicely to get her to come, but she still wouldn't move, so I went back to the car so that Andrea could leave, hoping that Samantha would follow me. However, she just continued to sit there, refusing to move. I tried speaking with her more sternly this time to get her to come, but she still refused to listen. Finally, I just got back in the car and turned it on, intending to just pull the car to a closer parking spot so that I could just pick her up and carry her to the car. When I turned the car on, I scared Samantha, for she thought I was leaving without her. She came running down the sidewalk so fast that she tripped and fell, and then she started crying because she hurt herself. It was so difficult for me because all this would never have happened if she would have just left with me when I first went to get her. I finally got her in the car, and she was just hyperventilating and crying. I didn't know what to do with her anymore and was feeling pretty frustrated with her behavior.
By the time we arrived at Thursday I was feeling at my wit's end with what to do with Samantha. She had not napped all, really for over a week, since before Ben and I went to visit Sault Ste. Marie, and I was tired of fighting with her every day to try to get her to nap. Ben and I decided on Wednesday night that we would try to go a week with trying quiet time and not forcing her to nap, just to see how it would go. We would try to have her in bed with lights out by 7:30, giving her enough time to calm herself down and fall asleep at a reasonable time. We can't make her sleep in in the morning as she generally wakes up around 6:45, so we will just have to start adjusting time on the other end to help her get enough sleep. I was interested to see if keeping a more consistent schedule with not napping and getting all her sleep at night would help regulate her sleep cycle and help her body adjust better than having some days of napping and some days of not napping and an earlier bedtime. Samantha was excited when we discussed our trial period as she would much prefer to have quiet time than have to nap every day. So we will see how it goes!
On Thursday afternoon we also had Samantha's parent teacher conference at school. Ben met us at the TRI so that he could attend the conference as well. It was great to hear what Miss Betsy had to say about Samantha's development and really eased my concerns about kindergarten next year. Miss Betsy said that Samantha was her only student that had mastery in every personal-social development area. She knew all her letter sounds and every letter except for V, but I know that she knows that letter as well. She could hold scissors correctly and cut perfectly straight. She knew how to complete patterns and create her own pattern. Miss Betsy also talked about how Samantha does really well entering into play with other kids and even helping them share and get along or giving up a toy that someone else wants. It was wonderful to hear how well Samantha was doing at preschool and how much she has developed over the year at preschool three mornings a week. Even Miss Betsy made a comment about how much Samantha will learn when being in kindergarten all day every day. She gave me a lot of reassurance, and it was a great conference. I felt very proud of Samantha, and it just reminded me of how every kid is so different and that I need to embrace Samantha how she is, in all her good and bad, appreciating the little girl that God created her to be.
We had fun plans for the weekend, as Chicago Grandpa and Grandma planned to visit for the weekend. So after our normal morning of Samantha going to preschool and Aedan and I grocery shopping, Ben actually just came home with the kids to feed them lunch while I went to Zumba. My parents came in the middle of the afternoon, so we got the chance to talk for awhile before the kids got up from their naps/quiet time. This was Samantha's second day in a row where we just let her have quiet time in her room right from the start. We plugged her clock back in and set the alarm for an hour and a half past when we took her to her room. It worked pretty well the first day, but on this second day I think she was a little overtired and slightly bored. She asked to take her markers and coloring book up to her room so that she could color during her quiet time, which I assumed would be fine. However, when I went in to check on her, I noticed that she had colored on the wall, on the rug, on her pants, and on her bed skirt. She got into pretty big trouble because she knew that was something she shouldn't have done. We "grounded" her from her markers for the weekend as a punishment. It's so strange the she decided to do that because it is so unlike her. She has never colored on anything before!
The rest of the night went well with the grandparents in town. They read a lot of books to Samantha before Aedan woke up from his nap. The kids even got to play outside for awhile since the weather is starting to warm up now that it is spring. Ben went to a guy's night, and the rest of us decided to go out to Skyline Chili since I forgot to buy chicken at the store that morning. It was a little chaotic eating dinner with the kids because Samantha was tired, spacey, and wiggly; however, she ate all of her dinner really well without much prodding. Aedan, on the other hand, did not eat well at all. He has been in a strange mood lately of chewing and spitting out his food. Or, he will take too big of a bite or put too many bites in his mouth at the same time, not be able to chew it all, and then spit it back out again. He did not eat much of his food that evening at dinner, and my parents got to see the joys of going out to eat with two young kids. It's not so relaxing, which is why we don't go out as often and actually find it more relaxing to just eat at home.
The rest of the evening went by fairly quickly since it was time to get ready for bed after getting back home from eating out. Since Samantha is no longer napping, we are trying to get her to bed earlier so that she can get enough rest at night. That doesn't always happen, however, like on nights when grandparents are in town. I put Aedan to bed, and Samantha asked if Grandma could put her to bed, which was fine with me. It was good practice for my mom to see what our routine is for when they watch our kids at the end of May when Ben and I are out of town for the wedding.
Once the kids were in bed, my parents and I just got the chance to talk. We talked about life and about our decision to take the job at Lake Superior State University. I was able to explain a little more detail regarding the circumstances that contributed to our decision, and I think they understood a little better why we made the decision that we did. I also showed them pictures of the house we are going to buy as well as some of the town and campus. We talked more about the distance difference between travelling to Oxford versus Sault Ste. Marie, discussing how it is farther by a couple of hours; however, it is still in reasonable driving distance for a longer weekend visit. There were many schools that Ben looked at that would have been too far away to even drive to, meaning flying and spending much more money on a trip. Also, I mentioned that they could leave after my mom gets off of work one evening, drive for several hours and stay in a hotel for the night, then continue on with the rest of their trip the next day, probably still arriving at our house in mid-afternoon like they do now. My biggest concern in moving to Sault Ste. Marie is that we won't see our families as often as we have grown accustomed to over the past six years. I hope and pray that our family, especially our parents, will make it a point to plan regular trips up to see us so that our kids can still have close connections with them well into the future.
The only plans we had on Saturday were Samantha's ice skating lessons, so we spent the morning relaxing together, eating pancakes (our typical Saturday morning breakfast), and playing and reading with Grandpa and Grandma. It's always fun when grandparents come to visit because the kids get all the one-on-one attention they want.
My parents wanted to watch Samantha ice skate, so we made a family trip to Goggin. We tried to get Aedan to sit with us as long as possible, but he is just too antsy to stay in one place for forty-five minutes, so Ben and I took turns walking around with him. It is impressive to see how much Samantha improves from one week to the next in her ice skating abilities. The other big accomplishment for this day was finally finding the right size skates that fit her feet well and didn't hurt. The last couple of weeks she kept complaining about her heels hurting, but it was hard to tell what we needed to do since we didn't exactly know how her feet were feeling. I got one of the employees to come help Samantha with her skates since they have a lot more experience with how ice skates are to fit than I do. They got her a size 12 because they suspected that her feet were too wide to fit in size 11 skates. They laced her up, and Samantha said they felt much better. In fact, in previous weeks she acted like she couldn't even walk across the floor in her skates. She would need to hold on to our arm and have us help her. However, once we got her in these size 12 skates, she just took off walking like it was no big deal at all. I am so glad that we seemed to figure out what the problem was, and we hoped that this would help her skate better as well. She did really well, and she was separated into a class where they didn't use the barrels at all. They practiced lifting up their feet and squatting down, as well as walking toward their teacher across the ice. Samantha fell down quite a bit, but she was one of the only kids that actually tried to move around the ice as much as possible. You could tell that she wasn't afraid of trying something new and falling. I was so proud of her effort in learning how to skate, and she still says that she wants to keep doing lessons so that one day she can be an ice dancer. Here are some pictures and videos from her lessons.
Even though it was almost lunchtime and it was rainy and getting colder outside, we decided to go to Graeter's for ice cream after Samantha's ice skating lessons. Grandpa and Grandma had never been there before, and since we are moving away from Oxford soon, we had to take the chance to get some delicious ice cream. It is definitely my favorite ice cream place in Oxford, and Grandpa and Grandma enjoyed their black cherry chocolate chip ice cream. The kids even got kid's cups that had candy for eyes and a nose. When we got back home, we just had a small lunch of crackers, cheese, lunch meat, vegetables, and fruit since we just ate ice cream.
After two days of not napping, Samantha was pretty tired out and was acting pretty disrespectful on Saturday morning. Even though Ben and I wanted to try not having Samantha nap for a week, we just didn't think she would be able to make it through the rest of the day without getting some rest, so we decided to try and have her nap. She actually ended up napping for about an hour and a half, so clearly her body needed the sleep and we were glad that she would be in a better mood for Grandpa and Grandma that evening.
I am always grateful when my parents come to visit for a weekend because in addition to spending good time with the kids, they always offer to watch the kids for us so that Ben and I can go on a date. We decided to head towards Cincinnati to look at a Carmax for mini-vans. We know that our next vehicle purchase will be a mini-van, so we figured Carmax would be a good place to look for multiple makes of mini-van so that we could compare and see what we like the best. We are not going to purchase a mini-van until the fall at the earliest, once we get settled into Sault Ste. Marie and start receiving a paycheck from Lake State. Plus, until I get pregnant with baby #3, our Santa Fe suits our family's needs just fine. However, it's good to begin our preliminary looking so then we know what type of mini-van to keep our eye out for at local dealerships once we move. It was fun looking at mini-vans together, discussing what options we would like on it, and thinking about how much more space it will allow for us, especially when we hopefully become a family of five. After looking at mini-vans, we went out to eat at The Cheesecake Factory. Again, this is another place that will not be anywhere near where we will live in Michigan, so we will take advantage of it while we can. Ben and I had a nice meal together, talking, relaxing, and discussing life. We always appreciate these times to get away and reconnect. This is another thing I will miss in being farther away from family because we can still go on dates, but they will be limited to how many hours we feel like paying for a babysitter.
Sunday morning was Palm Sunday and the kids were scheduled to sing at the beginning of the service. We decided to go to second service in order to make our morning more relaxing in hanging out with Grandpa and Grandma. After the kids were up and ready, Grandpa took these good pictures of Samantha and Aedan dressed up and ready for church. Samantha was a very good model that morning, and I love her in that dress and sweater. Ben and I always say that she looks so good in purple.
Samantha is always very excited about singing in church in front of all the adults. She is never apprehensive about it. In fact, she often knows the songs better than some of the elementary kids who can actually read the words on the screen in the back. We had been practicing the songs pretty consistently throughout the week, and she couldn't wait for Sunday morning to come. She did an amazing job singing and you can hear her little voice pretty clearly on the chorus of "Amazing Grace." It's so fun to watch her perform, but it's even more exciting to hear her singing about Jesus. Here are some videos and pictures from Palm Sunday morning.
I wasn't sure what to do about nap time on Monday because we let Samantha have quiet time on Sunday, but I knew it was going to be a long few days on our trip so I decided to have her try and take a nap that afternoon. I explained to her why we needed her to nap, and she fought it a little bit, but then she actually fell asleep with me in the room with her, snoring away. However, she woke up when I opened her bedroom door and then never went back to to sleep. Silly girl.
On Monday afternoon I just had to take pictures of Samantha's art that she makes while at home and at schools. She's been enjoying drawing mermaids, and she has been learning about transportation at preschool. Her drawings have really progressed from always drawing people, to now drawing other objects, plus coloring them in and coloring the background. It's fun to see what her creative imagination comes up with.
(Blog about March 15-21. 2015)
