Samantha: 113 Months, Week 4
Aedan: 81 Months, Week 2
Owen: 37 Months, Week 4
The weather has been so wonderful lately, and with it being almost the middle of November, we know this weather won't last for too much longer, so we decided to take advantage of it and go enjoy some time hiking at Rickett's Glen State Park. We went on the trail around the forest area, seeing the waterfall first and then exploring the woods. Here are some pictures and videos of our time there that morning. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and this path is just the right length for our kids to enjoy themselves and have fun, without pushing them too far.
I love watching the boys play and discover things in nature. In this video they are picking dirt from the roots of a tree that fell down. This hike is about walking, but also just letting the kids explore.
They love climbing on the fallen tree trunks, finding sticks that double as swords, and posing for fun pictures. Aedan is still resistant to us taking his picture, so he didn't pose for too many.
Owen is always game for posing for pictures, especially if he can make sily faces.
Samantha enjoys getting her picture taken as well, gives us great, sophisticated poses, and always looks so beautiful. I love her smile.
We had a great morning at the state park, spending time outside, then we stopped at a family restaurant for lunch before coming back home for the afternoon.
After Halloween, we let the kids eat candy for dessert after dinner, and Aedan is very particular about what he chooses to eat. He has to look at all his options first.
I know I keep saying this, but Monday was another beautiful day. Owen and I spent time playing outside that morning, and we even ate lunch outside. I almost didn't include this video because I didn't know if it showed too much of our little peanut, but her head his mostly turned to the side, so I thought it would be okay. Also, Owen gets a little too strong in how he is bouncing her in the chair, so I have to tell him to be more gentle, which he listens to. I loved watching him interact with our little peanut. He loves her and is so good with her. Plus, I loved hearing him sing his AWANA Cubbies song. He really enjoys going there, and I'm glad it's one thing that is still taking place during these weird times of Covid.
That afternoon once Ben got home from campus, I headed out to do an interview to become a substitute for Dallas Schools. As of right now, I am getting enough jobs through Lake Lehman, but at some point, especially next year and into the future when I am subbing more, I will be interested in working more consistently and would enjoy having more options of two different districts for sub jobs. I didn't know what to expect going into the interview, but it was actually more like a real interview with the intermediate school principal, and I have to admit that I was a little nervous. I hoped that I answered the questions sufficiently, and then I had to just work on getting all the paperwork turned in to finish the application process.
Here is some work the kids brought home from school that day. Aedan had a Thanksgiving pattern worksheet, practice with beginning blends, adding -ing to the end of words, a large ninja turtle that he was going to cut out and assemble, math practice with addition strategies, ordering numbers, the beginning of a ninja drawing, practice with words with the short u sound, and a chapter 3 math review test.
On Tuesday, November 10th, I took a sub job co-teaching 1st grade at Lake Noxen. It was my first time at this school, so it was kind of nice being a co-teacher and not having all the responsibility myself. It was also fun to see a 1st grade room in action. It helped me not to feel so intimidated to take sub jobs in the lower grades after my day there. The kids were so sweet and excited to talk to me, which is something you definitely don't get in the upper grades when they are more concerned about talking to their friends than their teacher.
While I subbed that day, Ben took one for the team and went grocery shopping. The Aldi in Tunkhannock just recently opened, and it's right across the street from Walmart which makes the whole shopping experience more convenient. Aldi is a wonderful place to shop and has been saving us a lot of money, but they never have everything we need, so we always have to make a trip to Walmart as well. Having Walmart right across the street makes it so much easier and quicker. Ben said the Aldi was a lot nicer than the one in Kingston, and cleaner since it was just built. However, shopping with a newly potty trained three year old and 4 1/2 month old baby is not always the easiest experience. Luckily, Owen does really well and is respectful and helpful at the store. He honestly seems to enjoy going grocery shopping with us (unlike Aedan did when he was this age), but our little peanut is getting to the point where she isn't able to sleep wherever she is anymore, which makes the morning nap difficult. Ben said our little peanut didn't nap enough and was awake for most of the shopping trip that morning.
Here is work Aedan brought home from school that day: a spelling test he got 90% on, a reading test he got 100% on, a chapter 3 math test he got an 80% on, a couple of coloring pages one in response to reading "The Giving Tree" and another being a color by number. Good job, Aedan!
Wednesday morning was an event that I had been looking forward to for a long time. There is a mom's group that meets at Fellowship Church called JAM, which stands for Just Among Moms. They meet once a month, and this was the first meeting I was able to go to due to visits and other things going on. I had really been missing connection and community with other moms since the pandemic started, so I was really excited about meeting more moms that live in the Back Mountain area to hopefully make some new friends that live closer to me than people we know from Restored that live in Wilkes-Barre or places even further away. JAM met from 9:30-11:30, and they provided childcare, too. I was a little worried that Owen wouldn't want to go into the childcare room just because it was some place different that we had never been, and he isn't used to being away from me since we haven't really been doing anything for the last eight months. However, he did fine being dropped off. I informed them of how they might need to ask him if he needs to go potty, and I brought a change of clothes for him, just in case. I kept our little peanut with me because she was asleep in her car seat, and I figured I would keep her with me as long as she was sleeping and was easy to manage while still being a part of the meeting. (She ended up napping in her car seat for the whole meeting!) I had no idea what the meeting was going to be like, and I was a little nervous being new to the group and not knowing anyone, but it was worth it to me to be able to meet other moms. We started off with eating snacks and drinking coffee while we talked casually in smaller groups. Then, we joined together in a circle to discuss the week's topic of how to teach your children about the Bible and prayer. It was nice to hear what other moms do with their kids, and to hear about some different resources for devotionals and kids' worship music. I find myself feeling shy and untalkative in settings like this where I don't know anyone, but it felt good to be a part of a group again. I have really missed the MOPS group in Michigan that I felt so involved in and connected to, and the MOPS group that met at Restored last year has now disbanded, so there really isn't much in the line of mom's groups, which is sad to me. I will
definitely go to the next meeting, and I'm glad I was able to attend this one.
After JAM was over, I met up with our little peanut's mom in the Weis parking lot to drop her off for her visit. It's nice that the visits are unsupervised now because she can now meet us places to help transport her which eases the burden on us to drive her all the way down and then come back up again. That afternoon I was talking to a friend and explained a little about what was going on with our foster baby. We are still waiting on a court date for her to possibly be moved to her paternal grandma, so who knows if that will happen. So as of right now we will be keeping her until she is returned to her mom on December 22nd, when the next status hearing is.
I still have been feeling really overwhelmed, like there is too much going on, and that I can't keep up, and that I have no time to really do the things I want/need to do. People keep suggesting that I try to drop something or let something go to give myself a little more breathing room, but it's hard to know what I could even let go of at this point. I always struggle with knowing if this feeling of overwhelm is my mind's/body's way of telling me I need to slow down, that I have reached my capacity, or if this is an area I need to grow in and push myself because I can feel overwhelmed easily sometimes. It's been hard finding time to do work for my class, and I feel like it takes up most of my "free" time. I know I need to do less scrolling and wasting time looking at Facebook when I could be doing something more productive or more relaxing. I want to be doing Pilates, eating better, sleeping more, making time to ready my Bible and pray, keep working on my blog (because I just keep getting further and further behind, but it's something that I really enjoy doing and want to keep doing), spend time with Ben, and actually play with my kids. However, I just can't keep up on the things I know are good and healthy, and I don't know how to find time to prioritize things when I just feel so busy and overwhelmed with having to do one thing after the other all day long.
Here is some work the kids brought home from school: Aedan has practice with spelling words, initial blends, filling in the correct word to make a sentence, math practice with subtraction, ending blends, sight word practice, more practice with addition and subtraction, choosing pictures to describe why something happened, using addition to help subtract, and a record of the eight Accelerated Reader quizzes he has taken so far this year on which he got one 80% and all the rest 100%/. His teacher wrote, "Keep up the good work!" He is the only student in his class who is taking AR quizzes, and we are very proud of him and the hard work he is putting into his reading.
The work for Samantha included questions on the book "Wonder," a chapter 3 practice test for math, a language review packet, and all her work shown for the math work that she does. Samantha is such a diligent, considerate student. She picks up on math so easily, and she is definitely gifted in that area. Although, she also is enjoying creative writing by coming up with her own stories. She has a wonderful imagination, and school is definitely her thing. I love seeing how successful she is and how much she thrives under the expectations of her teachers. I love that she gets to go up a grade for math and goes to the gifted program every day. Lehman Jackson has been a great school for her.
Thursday morning was a little busier than I had originally planned because I had to get a urine test done for subbing in Dallas. I had to do it in a certain timeframe after my interview on Tuesday afternoon. Ben planned to meet me there so he could take over with Owen and our little peanut. However, I got there later than I planned, and I had to wait longer than I thought to get the test done. Our little peanut had a visit with her dad, so Ben ended up just driving her the ten minutes over to the visit and then coming back to me, and I met him on campus to get Owen from him before heading back home. It wasn't exactly what I thought the morning would be like, and I was appreciative of Ben being able to help me out when I was in a pinch, but I felt bad that I took him away from his work on campus for a good chunk of the morning.
That afternoon, with not having to take care of our little peanut, I tried to make the most of my afternoon by submitting my story summary, doing laundry, reading an article for my class, and writing a response to that.
Friday morning Owen, our little peanut, and I stayed home and did things together around the house, having a more relaxed day at home since we had nowhere to go. While our little peanut took her morning nap, Owen and I made pumpkin pie together. He enjoyed cutting the shortening into the flour, helping me roll out the pie crust, as well as mixing all the ingredients for the inside of the pie. It's fun having this time together where we can spend time together, just the two of us, and he loves to help out in the kitchen.
I took this video because it made me laugh to see the aftermath of the kitchen after the pie went into the oven, and I sent it to Ben because I knew it would make him chuckle. I am more of a clean the mess when you are all done making the mess type person, and Ben is more of a clean as you go type person. Either way the kitchen is clean in the end, but it shows the difference in our personalities and how we do things in the kitchen.
We don't do a lot of screen time or TV watching, especially during the week because Samantha and Aedan get home from school a little before 4:00, and then they have homework to do, followed by dinner, sometimes bath time, and then bedtime. I just prefer them to just have free time to play with each other, so watching shows just isn't a normal routine of our day like it used to be in the past. (We used to let the kids watch a show pretty regularly when they got up from their afternoon nap.) However, since it was a Friday and there was no homework to do, it was the perfect chance to have a special candy treat while watching a show. I love how Owen snuggled up right next to Samantha on the couch. I'm not sure why, but this is her spot on the couch. She always chooses to sit there, and Aedan always curls up in the corner of the couch. That is definitely his spot, and he gets upset if someone else sits there. We certainly have some cute kids!
I forget what the kids were doing in this picture, but Ben took these of the three kiddos all sitting in a line on the floor, watching something on TV. Again, they don't watch TV very often, so when they do they are definitely mesmerized. I love that they still enjoy spending time together, and I hope they can always find something in common that they can enjoy together.
(Blog about November 8-14, 2020)
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