Samantha's First Week of Summer School & Behavioral Challenges All Around

Samantha: 62 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 27 Months, Week 2

Samantha's summer learning camp continued this week, and on Tuesday she was still very excited, and she did not hesitate to run right out onto the playground when Daddy and Aedan dropped her off. After I finished writing out our shopping list, Aedan and I went to Walmart to get our weekly grocery shopping done. It was pretty strange having only one kid with me, and it was much easier to handle Aedan since I can keep him contained in the shopping cart seat. It was a good shopping trip, and Aedan was doing so well, but then we got in the check-out line, the computer shut down halfway through the order of the woman in front me. I already had most of my cart emptied out on the belt, so I had to put everything back in the cart and follow the woman in front of me to another lane, just to start the whole process over again. Because of all this, checking out that morning took a very long time, but Aedan did such a good job during all of it. So much so, that I let him sit in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle car outside Walmart. (I even put 50 cents in to actually make the car move. Usually we are cheapskates and let our kids sit in these but never put money in them.) He was such a happy little kid.

One of Aedan's favorite parts of the day is when Sissy is dropped off in front of our house by the school bus. Throughout the morning Aedan kept saying, "Miss Sissy." On Tuesday he was sitting on the couch, looking out the window, just waiting for her to get home. Man, it was so precious.

Samantha was pretty wiped out after getting home from school that day. In fact, she even asked to take a nap. Since she asked to nap, there was no way I was going to keep her up, but it made feel worried about Samantha's sleep, and how it seems like she needs to nap occasionally which won't be able to happen when she's in full day kindergarten. I am feeling very emotional about sending Samantha off to full day kindergarten in about four weeks. I knew this would be hard for me, but I think it makes it more challenging because I'm also a teacher. I know what goes on in schools and classrooms. I know that some teachers can be wonderful but some can be horrible. I know how much time is wasted in a school day, and I know how much of a teacher's time is taken up dealing with misbehavior or kids that will need extra help (which I doubt will be Samantha).

However, on the other hand, I don't have a desire to homeschool because I want to go back to work in the classroom myself some day and make a difference in the lives of students again. I know that Samantha will love being at school, learning new things, and being around peers all day instead of being stuck at home with her mom and pesky little brother.

Even though Samantha's camp just goes for four hours in the morning, I find that I am missing her terribly, and Aedan misses his playmate. It seems so empty at home without Samantha to talk and laugh and play. I love Aedan, and it will be great to spend some one-on-one time with him, but it is definitely strange going back down to one kid. These first five years with Samantha have gone by way too fast, and sometimes I don't know if I'm ready for a school age kid and all that entails. It's really going to be strange when she's gone all day, spending more time at school than with me each week.

During nap time on Tuesday Aedan woke up several times crying and then fell back asleep, but luckily I didn't have to go in his room at all. It seems like I always have too many things to accomplish during nap time and not enough time to do them. That evening we had dinner together as a family and just relaxed at home so that we could get the kids bathed and to bed at a decent time.

On Wednesday morning it was my turn to take Samantha to school. We are dropping her off in the morning since she doesn't need to be up earlier to take a bus to school since she eats breakfast at home. It's been kind of nice being up at ready by 8:00 a.m. When we get back home from dropping Samantha off, Ben and I actually have some time to talk with one another before he goes off to campus for the day. I try to find something for Aedan and me to do on most days, and on Wednesday, I had plans to go to an exercise time for moms at a local playground. Another mom plans a work out routine, and the kids play on the playground while the moms exercise for an hour. It really is a nice chance to get a work out in, plus meet other moms.  I was worried about how Aedan would do since when we've gone in the past Samantha was with us and could kind of keep an eye out for Aedan if he needed anything or was doing something he shouldn't. However, he actually did really well, except for the time when he was climbing up some bars that were way too high for him. He got up a lot higher than I thought he could climb, but I knew when it started curving at the top, he would start to freak out or he would lose his footing and fall down, so I had to run across the field to grab him before he fell down and got hurt. Aedan enjoyed playing on the playground, eating his snack, and even joining us in exercising every once in awhile. I was glad it was a success because now I know I can come to this more often, even without Samantha along to help me out.

When Samantha got home from school that day, she was excited to tell us all about what she did and learned. I was so glad she was enjoying it and so excited about it. I heard her reciting the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear and teaching Aedan about fiction vs. non-fiction. They have started some culture classes because Samantha came home saying, "Samantha ane (sp?)" which is Ojibway for Samantha is my name. Also, as I suspected, Samantha was not eating much of her packed lunch so I let her finish eating it once she gets home. However, all of this is such a learning process and these two weeks of summer school will help her get ready for the real start of kindergarten, taking a lot of the nervousness out of walking into a new school and a totally new school experience.

As we are looking at improvements we need to make on our house, besides for cleaning up more weeds outside across the front of our house, we also need to do something about the paint peeling from the soffit, which is the underhang of the roof that is made out of wood. Just for curiosity's sake, I contacted a few local painters for free quotes. One man came on Tuesday and two came on Wednesday. Two of them gave me quotes for around $3300 for everything: materials, paint, and labor. The other was a younger man, and he gave me a quote for $700, not including paint, so that was considerably less than the other quotes I received. However, one man mentioned that we need to power wash the house and most of the peeling paint might come off with the power washer anyways. The more I thought about it, the more I decided we should just wait until next summer to figure out what to do. It would be good for us to power wash the outside, get all the peeling paint scraped off, and then paint it with a white primer. Then next summer we can look more into what color we would like to change the outside of the house to, and we will have our bank account back to normal, making it easier to afford painting our house in the first place. Ben and I both have similar taste, which is good, and we both like the navy "nautical" blue look with white trim. Here are some pictures of what I was thinking as I was brainstorming colors and looking around some on the internet. We really like the color of the first house with the white trim, but it would look more like the picture of the second house since we have some tan brickwork across the front of our house.

It's so great to watch when Samantha and Aedan get along well and have fun together, and Wednesday was one of those nights. Aedan decided to put on a concert for us at the piano, singing and playing songs. After every performance, Samantha would enthusiastically run up to him and give him a hug. I was lucky enough to capture Aedan singing his songs. He really loves to sing, and it's so cute to see all the songs he knows. He was so proud of himself and really enjoyed having an audience.

Having Samantha at school all morning has certainly been different for Aedan and me. On Thursday there is usually a meet up of moms at a local playground, but no one could make it that day, so Aedan and I just spent most of the morning playing outside. He enjoys riding his tricycle around the driveway, playing in the sand box, and he even helped me in the back yard while I dug up tons of weeds right outside our garage door. We have these crazy bittersweet nightshade vines that grow and wrap around everything in it's path, like the fence, the gutter, and the trellis that probably was there for decoration at one point. Aedan helped pull weeds out and throw them in the trash can. If he wasn't helping me, then he was perfectly content going off and playing on his own. It was nice feeling like I could have a productive morning getting some much needed work done outside. Now, I just need to get more weeding done in the front as well.

Every day Aedan gets so excited to see Sissy get off the bus, and on Thursday I was able to capture his reaction on video. There's nothing better than finally being reunited with his best friend.

On Thursday afternoon, I had Samantha take a nap along with Aedan because we had plans to go to Ben's colleague, Melissa's house for dinner. They invited us over for dinner at 6:00, and Samantha was really excited to see their horses. It was very kind of them to invite us over, but it is difficult taking our kids to non-kid friendly homes. The kids don't understand why it's so exciting for adults to just sit around and talk, meaning they get bored pretty easily. We brought blocks with us for the kids to play with, but that didn't hold their attention for too long. However, Samantha and Aedan really did a good job eating their food and trying everything, even though it was new and different. (The orange jello was the biggest hit.) They even took us all out to the barn so the kids could help feed the horses some carrots. Samantha really enjoyed that, and Aedan even got brave enough to try it after a while.

Even though Samantha took a nap that afternoon, by 7:30 she was tired and just done for the night so she started melting down and acting irrationally, so we decided it was time to go. Now, Samantha had had quite a bit to drink that night, much more than usual with her two glasses of orange juice, so I could understand her needing to go more than normal, but then it just got ridiculous. She went to the bathroom right before we left their house, and immediately started moaning and whining in the car as we left their driveway, saying she had to go again. Well, they live in the middle of the country so there was no bathroom we could stop at, so we tried to get Samantha to think about other things, play, or even close her eyes to help take her mind off of needing to go. As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, I think she has pollakiuria which means she has to go to the bathroom much more frequently, especially when in places where she knows she can't go. However, it's so frustrating in situations like this where she just went, where we had been letting her go as much as she needed to at their house, where we have been trying to not make a big deal out of it or really talk about it much (hoping it will just eventually go away), but on this evening Ben and I were just at our wit's end. We were going to make her just wait the half hour until we got back home, but she was freaking out and crying so much, saying she was going to pee her pants, that I told Ben to pull over because I didn't feel like having to clean up her car seat if she indeed did have an accident. We pulled off onto a dead end road, and Ben got her out of the car to help her pee off in the grass. He said she did go quite a bit, and then we were back on the road again. As we drove, she started whining again, not saying anything, but making the noise she makes when she has to go to the bathroom, and Ben and I just had to ignore her for the rest of the drive. Aedan was very quiet, just looking at Samantha, probably wondering what was going on and why she was crying so much. This frequent urination thing has been going on for at least two weeks now, and Ben and I really hoped that it would start lessening some, especially before school starts because we know her teacher won't like her leaving class all the time to go to the bathroom. After a pretty stressful end of our evening, Ben and I needed some time to decompress and relax before going to bed ourselves.

After all of this talking about Samantha's issues and behavior, I feel like I have to add some in about Aedan as well. His personality is definitely coming out lately. He wants what he wants, and he gets mad when we don't let him do whatever he wants which then has resulted in very loud screams. He sticks both of his little arms up in the air and screams at the top of his lungs. Screaming is an automatic time out, and he knows that now since he has screamed so much in the last week. Sometimes you can even tell that a look comes across his face, like okay, I'm going to scream now, even if I know I'm not supposed to. I don't know if it's just because he's the second child so we know that everything is just a phase or if it's because he is so cute (yes, even when he's screaming), but sometimes it's difficult for us not to just smile and laugh at him when he does it. However, in all seriousness, some days he does spend quite a lot of time in time out either from screaming, hitting, or throwing things. He is certainly a two year old, and you always know how he's feeling, whether he is happy, sad, excited, or mad.

On Friday morning we invited our friends, the Sayers, over to play. It was a rainy somewhat chilly morning, the perfect morning for playing inside. Samantha was so excited to have friends over, especially girls because it seemed like all our friends in Oxford had boys her age and not girls. All the kids immediately ran off to play, playing upstairs in Samantha's room for awhile and then making their way downstairs. While the kids played, Jill and I were able to talk and enjoy our coffee upstairs. It was really nice to talk one-on-one with another mom, to share our struggles with our kids and to share about our troubles with infertility. I have missed this connection with other moms, and it's always so nice to know that you are not alone in your problems, for many other moms have gone through the same thing as you.

Later that evening after dinner, we decided to take a bike ride over to campus. It was actually Samantha's suggestion, and it was fun to take advantage of our close location to campus. Plus, both kids love the freedom of being able to ride anywhere they want on the sidewalks, while Ben and I follow behind them. As we crossed onto campus, I thought it would be nice to take a picture of the kids by the sign of Ben's new university. School starts in just a couple weeks and this campus will be full of students again, and Ben will get back into the classroom to be the great professor that he is. I am so proud of him getting his position here, and I am so excited for him to start, to get a feel for the students, and to hear how it's going in his first tenure track faculty position.

We made many stops along the way around campus to climb trees, smell flowers, and climb on rocks. But that's okay because the kids were having a great time just wandering around and exploring. It's these simple family evenings that are some of my favorites. :)

On Saturday morning we didn't have any plans so we just hung around the house, let the kids play together, and had pancakes for breakfast (our traditional Saturday morning breakfast). It rained most of the morning, and Ben did not feel very well that day so we laid low, let the kids watch a movie during the morning, and just played in the house with the Olympics on in the background.

That evening from 3-7 there was a neighborhood barbecue that we were invited to. Ben and Samantha headed over once she woke up from her nap, and I waited until about 4:15 and then just woke Aedan up from his nap so that we could head over as well. (We decided that even when kindergarten starts, Samantha will probably have to nap on Saturdays and Sundays because she will be so exhausted from the week and will probably need that time to catch up on sleep. Plus, she was pretty willing to take a nap on Saturday afternoon.) It was really nice of our neighbors to plan the neighborhood barbecue since there are several new families on the block. Everyone brought their own meat to grill out and a side to share, and we mostly just sat around and talked, introduced everyone, shared a little bit about ourselves, and then just hung out. Our kids and the neighbor kids played together, and it was a fun time of officially meeting most of the neighbors that live around us. They mentioned doing these everyone once in awhile, even throughout the fall and winter, so that will be good. You can tell the people that live here take a lot of pride in their neighborhood, and they like that responsible families have moved in that will take good care of their property and get along well with each other.

Sunday was a pretty typical day with getting up and being ready well before we had to leave for church at 10:15. We had lunch ready in the crock pot, and the kids even played outside for awhile. Ben eventually decided that it would be good for the kids to relax and calm down some before leaving for church, so he put some worship music videos on the TV for the kids to listen to, sing with, and dance to. 

We have really been enjoying attending Sault Wesleyan Church, and I'm glad we've decided to make that our church home. Aedan and Samantha are always excited about going to their classrooms. In fact, when we pick Aedan up he will often comment, "No crying!" because now he is comfortable there and walks right in with no problem. Samantha is learning the songs they sing during big group time, and she always does a good job of telling us all about the story they learned that day. We love how this church has a solid children's ministry. I know I have really enjoyed the service as well. We just finished up a series on the Bible, explaining some of the history of it, as well as just practical steps for how to read it every day. Now we are beginning a sermon series on prayer, and although talking about reading the Bible and praying are such basic things, it has been challenging to me because I have not put it as a priority in my life much lately. I let work around the house and entertainment take precedent sometimes, when really I have so many things backwards. It's good to have a reminder like this and to be called to accountability because as Pastor Chad said, we schedule things that are important to us. And of course the Bible and time with God is important to me, so why don't I schedule it into my day? Why do I so easily let it get pushed to the side? I appreciate the pastor's vulnerability and the way they relate to people. I think we found a good church to attend, a place where our whole family can grow.

The rest of our Sunday was spent together as a family, eating lunch, and getting the kids down for their naps before heading out to Sherman Park for a gathering of people from church. Here is Samantha cuddling on Daddy's lap while watching a show that afternoon. She loves her Daddy so much, preferring to cuddle and wrestle with him over anything else.

Sunday evening there was a get together at Sherman Park with other people from church, but for some reason our kids were in strange moods and didn't really feel like playing with anyone, so we ended up down on the beach near the water, far from anyone that was affiliated with the church. We only stayed for about an hour because our kids were tired and we needed to get the kids back home for bath time and an earlier bedtime since Samantha started back at her camp at school the next morning. Here's a little video of our time at the beach. Normally Aedan doesn't like to go in the water much, for he prefers to dig in the sand, but after awhile he actually waded in the water with Samantha for a little while.

We make it our goal to leave the house by 7:55 to get Samantha to school, and most days Aedan likes to go along with whoever is dropping her off. On Monday Ben planned to stay home with Aedan for awhile so that I could go to an enrollment meeting for becoming a substitute teacher. This is one of my last steps, as I have all my online training modules complete already. I signed up for Brimley, Bahweting, and Sault Ste. Marie schools. The man leading the meeting said that I should have no problem staying busy just with the Sault Ste. Marie schools, so hopefully once I get in the system for Fridays I can start lining up sub jobs. It was more work than I anticipated getting everything done, but I'm glad that I was able to finish up everything before Ben starts teaching and his schedule isn't as flexible to be able to stay home with Aedan.

As soon as I got back home, Aedan and I headed out to the playground so that I could exercise with other moms and he could play with kids. Then, we were off to the bank to deposit the check we had been waiting on from Ben's retirement account from Miami. Moving up here and not getting paid for the last three months pretty much wiped out our bank accounts, so we are glad to finally get money in our account and look forward to Ben getting paid for the first time from Lake State this Friday. Then finally we will be able to get back into a better financial position.

Even with Samantha going back to school this week, Ben going to campus, and Aedan and I following a little routine, life felt a lot more organized and manageable. The school year will be a big change with getting out the door before 8:00 in the morning, Samantha not getting home on the bus until 4:00, and Ben having late classes until 6:00 two nights a week and until 8:00 two nights a week, but I hope that things will get into a routine then as well.

And to end this blog post, I will share a funny story about Samantha. We have let her buy lunch at school a few times to get used to going through the line and carrying her food tray because we will probably let her buy lunch one or two times a week during the school year. Well, on Monday the lunch was a cheese omelet, hashbrown stars, pineapple, and a blueberry muffin. Samantha was super excited about eating the blueberry muffin, but we told her we wanted her to eat the rest of of her lunch as well, not just the blueberry muffin. Since Samantha is such a rule follower, she listened to what we said and ate all of her lunch, leaving her blueberry muffin for last. However, lunch was over before she had a chance to eat her muffin so she had to throw it all away. As soon as she walked in the door from getting off the bus, she started crying, telling me that she didn't get to eat her muffin. She said that she didn't cry at school, but she let it all out once she got home with her Mommy. I had her sit down with me on the couch and let her cry for a little while while I hugged her. Then, we made a new plan. If there is a dessert that she really wants to eat, it's fine for her to eat it, she just has to eat some of her other food as well. But we don't want her to leave it until last and then run out of time to eat it. It really was so cute that that happened to her, making me realize just how little she still is and how even though she acts independent and tough, she still needs her Mommy and Daddy.

(Blog about August 9-15, 2016)