Answering Questions

I only got one question so far. So please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for what I should post about.

Kathy from over at Cassel Crew asked, "Do you have trouble with your oldest one tattling on or bossing the younger ones. I'm seeing a lot of that with Jasmine toward the twins. But they are sassy so sometimes it is probably justified. Still...."

We did have a big problem with this at first. Kaylen likes to be in charge - it's just her personality - always has been, even before she had a little brother and sister. It shows up in her relationships with friends as well. She's getting better about it, but still does it quite a bit. She does know now, though, that she is not in charge of Elijah & Josephine. She knows that she has an attachment issue of her own, with not wanting mommy to be in charge of her sometimes, and we've talked about E&J needing to learn that Mommy & Daddy are in charge of them and not her. We just have to remind her of that sometimes, and she usually snaps out of it. We also sometimes have to go so far as to tell Kaylen she's not allowed to be the teacher or the mom in pretend play (putting herself in charge of them) if it gets out of hand - but not as much as we did even a few months ago - she's getting better at not being too bossy in those roles.

It is especially evident with Kaylen bossing or tattling on Elijah - as they don't get along the best. Once in a while she'll try to discipline them herself, and that gets her into big trouble. If there truly is an issue, and it's not just tattling (she's learned the difference between reporting and tattline at school/daycare), then she needs to come tell us and not try to handle it herself. But a lot of times it is simply tattling.

Many days when I pick the kids up from daycare, she'll come up and tell me that Elijah pushed her or hit her or something like that while they were out for recess. The teachers and I have both told her on multiple occasions that I cannot police what happens at daycare - if something like that happens at daycare, she needs to talk to a teacher right away, instead of telling me an hour later. Now, if a teacher tells me about Elijah's daycare behavior then Jock and I talk with him about it at home. I think she things if she tells me something than he'll get the same kind of punishment as if a teacher told us about his poor behavior that day. She still tries sometimes, but usually it gets ignored, so it's slowing down.

Recently, one day after daycare, she came up and told me that, "I don't know why (a preschool daycare teacher & Kaylen's afternoon bus driver) told me this, but she told me that Elijah's pull-up was wet after his nap." What??? She likes to ask questions and then tell me about the answers to try to get him into trouble - and this was when she knew we'd started his dry-day potty calendar. It made no sense to me that this teacher would just out of the blue tell Kaylen this piece of information, so I told her that was none of her business to be asking questions about her brother's behavior or pottying at daycare, and pretended I hadn't heard it. When Elijah told me that he'd been dry all day, I believed him, and he got his stamp - and she knew this. She hasn't told me any more things like this in a couple weeks.

Other things like, "He stuck his tongue out at me", "He tripped/pushed/hit me", etc... usually get two responses: "Elijah, don't do x", and "Kaylen, are you hurt? Then you're big enough to ignore the tongue. You're almost twice his size, and you're just fine, so ignore him." Now if someone's hurt or we see the act happen, it's a little bit different reaction - usually E getting punished.

Kaylen doesn't usually tattle on Josephine, or even boss her around very much.

Josephine is starting to become quite the little mommy, and starting to be bossy, though. She likes to repeat what I've said when I request the other two do something or when I talk to them about some misbehavior. This makes them very angry and less likely to take my correction. So I'm having to tell her quite frequently, "Josephine - that's none of your business, stay out of it. I'm in charge, not you." She sometimes pouts, but usually just stops. Sometimes she'll be in the other room and start yelling all bossy-like, but that's usually in response to something one or the other two of them are doing to pick on her. She does not take it! But sometimes her little attitude still needs to be put in check too.

Elijah sometimes will boss Josephine around, but usually only in pretend play. He will say, "Josephine, say this xxxxx", or "Josephine, do this xxxx". She will only oblige if she's having fun and in a good mood. She doesn't take bossiness from either Elijah or Kaylen if she's not having fun. She'll just flatly tell them, "No." and go on to something else, completely ignoring their requests. Elijah doesn't like it when she does this, and keeps asking over and over - sometimes I just have to say, "No, Elijah, she already said no". Kaylen usually gets the hint and moves on. Josephine doesn't take mistreatment from anyone - including other kids at daycare her age, or older. Kind of cute, and good for her! She's a tough little girl!

Kaylen Feb2011 Update

Kaylen had a great 8th birthday last month. We celebrated with a slumber party Friday night (her actual birthday). She invited two of her friends to spend the night. We took them out for pizza, rented movies, and there was lots of giggling, and I don’t think much sleeping – at least until near midnight. And they were up before 7 am!Over the weekend we also celebrated with family, by going bowling and having cake and ice cream afterwards at our house. The bowling alley in town is pretty old and the lanes are pretty crooked, but I think everyone had fun anyway. Even Elijah tried rolling his own ball without the “hill” helper – so funny!Kaylen’s doing great in school. Her parent-teacher conference was Tuesday evening. As we were well aware, she is reading well above her grade level, and is doing very well in Math as well, where they’re now working on numbers up to 10,000, working on fractions, area/perimeter calculations, and multiple-digit addition and subtraction. We taught her how to do the borrowing and carrying at home, as she was always ending up 10 off in her answers. Sometimes to us parents, this new-fangled way of doing math bugs me, but at least we’re here to teach her how to do these things when she doesn’t learn it at school.

The only areas in school where Kaylen gets "Inconsistent" marks are: "Works well in a group", "Works without disturbing others", and "Controls Talking". Well, we all knew she was a talker! That, and the first one has to do with a little bit of always wanting her way, not taking turns going first, and not blowing up when things don't go just right. Ah, yes, that sounds like her.

Socially, Kaylen seems to be doing better this year getting along with friends. She has a few groups that she sort of rotates playing with – or at least that’s how she describes it. She’ll play with two friends one week, and then the next day/week, she’ll play with two different ones, or maybe the next week play with yet a third pair. It seems odd to me, but apparently there’s always one in the group that can’t get along with one in the other group. Of course, it’s never Kaylen that’s not working hard to get along with others, but I know her personality is still somewhat self-centered, so when she talks about the girls getting into “fights”, I try to talk her through how they could have resolved things peacefully instead of having it end in a, “xxx isn’t my friend anymore” situation. I know the guidance counselor works with kids in groups on some of these things also, which I think has been good for Kaylen to discuss with other kids in a group. And, is it just me, or is the “cattiness” of girls happening at a much younger age than it happened when I was young?! Oh boy, this makes me scared for her teen years. She’s only in 2nd grade!

At home, Kaylen’s typical household chores are loading/unloading the dishwasher, helping with breakfast or pouring the milk for supper, and folding hers (and sometimes Josephine’s) laundry. She loves to read books, watch movies, play video games. She loves to draw and write, and she also likes to organize tea parties or playing school or house with Elijah and Josephine – anything where she can be in charge of something is fun for her - she's a natural leader. :)We had a taste of warm weather last week, but we’re all looking forward to spring, so we can get back out on the bikes, on the trampoline, or take walks to the park.

Elijah Feb2011 Update

Elijah is still goofy and silly and a ball of energy. He’s going from the minute he gets up in the morning, until the second his head hits the pillow at naptime or bedtime. And he’s a good sleeper too!We’re continuing to work on potty-training with Elijah, but it seems we’re finally getting somewhere! We went to underwear-only last July, and he did fairly well, although he didn’t have much control to hold it very long. His teacher at daycare was good about having him go frequently until he moved up to the preschool classroom in the fall. Then he wasn’t told as much, kept having multiple accidents each day – and then it became a control issue. So we backed off to pull-ups again, and decided to wait until he was ready. We think we’re there. He is going to the bathroom at daycare without being told, and is having fewer accidents. He’s also holding it longer, which is very nice. We started a chart, where he can get a stamp at bedtime if he’s been dry all day. He’s so proud of himself when he gets a stamp (and sad when he doesn’t), so it’s definitely a motivator. He usually has to tell me whether he’s been dry all day at daycare or not, because the morning and afternoon teachers aren’t the same. I have no idea if he’s being honest, but that’s OK, because it’s motivating him. He knows he has to stay dry in the evenings, and on weekends too, and he is for the most part. Even on Presidents’ Day, when we went to the Science Center with friends from 9:30-2:30, he stayed dry – and we made only one bathroom trip. I was so surprised! I was going to wait until Spring break to switch back to underwear-only, but if he keeps this up, it may be sooner!

Elijah is doing well at daycare, although we do have to have talks to him about once (or sometimes twice) a week about his behaviors. It seems that his behavior issues are many-times either a communication issue or a behavior copied from other kids in his class. Also, many times they are behaviors we don’t see at home, so often-times we wonder if he learned them by someone picking on him and he repeated to someone else – but because they laughed he just didn’t realize it was wrong so he wasn’t smart enough to cover it up or do it while a teacher wasn’t looking. Sometimes frustrating, but we’re getting through it with a lot of communication with teachers, and talks at home too.

Preschool-type learning is slow-going. We were told at daycare parent-teacher conferences that maybe he’d get more attention in the school system than he does at daycare. This kind of frustrated me. When we requested Elijah be moved up to a preschool classroom last fall, we chose the smaller of the two classes, with a male lead teacher, thinking that would be a better fit for him – more individual attention, etc. But apparently that is not the case, because some of the children with more problem behaviors are assigned to that class (and maybe the reason for the above?). I was disappointed to hear that he’s not getting much individual attention in a preschool class of 12-15 kids.

So we spent some time debating in the last few weeks what we should maybe do for him either at home or in a different setting for preschool next year. I struggle with knowing he’d be doing better if I were home with him, but he’d also not be socializing with other kids as much either, and me staying home is not an option right now. We’re going to keep working on preschool-type stuff at home on the weekends and some evenings. We have no plans for daycare/preschool changes right now, although other options are not completely off the table at this point yet either.At home, Elijah is mostly a joy. Elijah and Kaylen fight some – mostly of a competitive nature, which drives me nuts. Sometimes the competition is productive, and sometimes it is dangerous, so we have to try to find the balance. Elijah & Josephine fight some – mostly over teasing each other and lack of sharing toys, which most of the time earns them both a time-out. When they’re not fighting, Elijah loves to play with his cars and trucks, and also with whatever the girls have out at the time (tea sets, babies, dress-up, etc).He loves to watch movies – good luck getting his attention if the television is turned on – although that’s not very often. He loves to help out with various things – his common household chores are helping set the table, and cleaning the bathroom floors. He’s good at picking up toys too – if he knows we’re watching and he can’t get away with playing instead. :)

Josephine Feb2011 Update

Josephine is tall and skinny. It seems she grows an inch every week – but she doesn’t – just some of her clothes make her look taller than others. She’s just a bit taller than Elijah now (she was just a bit shorter than him when they came home). She’s still about 4 lbs lighter than him though.

Josephine’s doing well at daycare. She loves it, and I don’t usually hear about any behavior problems at daycare. Once in a while she’ll tell me, “I not be naughty at daycare”, and I wonder what she did that made her tell me that – but nothing that her teachers tell me usually. One day a few weeks back I walked in to see her sitting on the floor screaming – and this girl can scream! She was mad about not being able to paint at the table, because she hadn’t been obeying right before that. It took her about 5 minutes, but I finally got her to tell me what she did. She was asked to pick up, and anyone who helped pick up got to paint. She continued playing and didn’t help pick-up. Well, she wouldn’t have been able to paint anyway because I’d just arrived for pick-up, but I made her apologize to her teacher before we left.

Josephine is not afraid to stand up for herself or others – unlike Elijah who usually will shake it off and walk away. She will call someone out when they’re not being nice, and she’s got quite the feisty attitude and tone to back herself up – it’s very endearing, especially when she points at someone and says, “Be nice to my brudder!” at daycare, or “Be nice to my daddy!” when we’re teasing him at home. :) Josephine loves to sing songs and dance. She’s not much for watching movies, unless they have a LOT of music. If they don’t she’ll usually be quietly playing with something else, then as soon as the music comes on she’ll be glued to it, dancing while standing or sitting there watching. She comes home with lots of cute little songs and rhymes from daycare. It’s funny listening to her interpretation, since she usually doesn’t get all the words out quite right. (She’s a clearer speaker than Elijah, until she gets too many words put together too quickly and they get jumbled up.)

She also loves her dollies and to play with the tea-set dishes. She’s usually feeding her dolly something, or changing her clothes. The dolly clothes and accessories she got for Christmas were a HIT!

Like Elijah, Josephine knows the alphabet song, and is getting better at counting. She still only recognizes her J, but we’re working some at home on letter recognition. She doesn’t have much interest in it yet, but that’ll come when she’s moved to a preschool room at daycare this summer or fall. Her daycare parent-teacher conference is next week, but I suspect that she’ll be fairly on-target with her peers in most areas.

Where does the time go???

Since I started getting up at 4:30 am, I started going to bed much earlier also. I go to bed around 9 or 9:30, instead of delaying until 10 or 10:30 or 11:30 or even sometimes midnight like I used to have a bad habit of doing.

The time after the kids go to bed is time that I use to chat with my husband, play games, watch television, pay bills, catch up on blogs and Facebook, etc., etc., etc. Now some of these things are necessities, and I can’t delay them like I can others. Others are totally unnecessary and should just be dropped totally, since I don’t have time anymore! But I do miss blogging, and writing about the goings on of our household.

I decided this week, that I was going to continue to work out at Farrell’s early in the mornings, beyond my initial 10 weeks. So, I need to reorganize my time – and find a few minutes for blogging more often! And probably they won’t be as long (yes, you can cheer with joy!) or nearly as well-thought-out as some of my previous posts, but I want that time back.

So, if I have any readers left, after my sluggish blogging… To start me off, and give me some interesting topics, what would you all like to hear about? Any questions you’d like answered??? Come on, I know you have some good ones out there!

I’ll try to get some answers out there next week, after I get my upcoming kid-updates posted.

Weekend to Remember

Has anyone ever been to one of these?

Jock and I had each (on our own) thought about doing something like this, so he was surprised when I asked him about it a few months ago. We'd thought about trying to squeeze it in before the holidays, but it didn't work out. So, instead we're going next month!

They're coming to our area, but it's the week of my Farrell's 10-week testing, so I didn't think I'd be able to make much of the Saturday morning sessions. We also want to make the most of the experience by actually staying at the conference hotel and making a date weekend out of it.

So we've got Grandma and Grandpa lined up to stay with the kids, and we'll be heading a few hours in the car to go have a nice weekend, just the two of us. I just got us registered today, and got the hotel reservation set up. I can't wait!

First Family Church

We missed church this past Sunday. We had company here, but really, that was no excuse – we were just lazy. Our church tends to study one book of the Bible at a time, and after Christmas, we started on Leviticus. I know; but before you start groaning with boredom and the pains of going through the sacrifices and laws, let me tell you, it’s been interesting. I remember reading through this stuff before, but reading it in depth (about one chapter per week) has been a good learning experience – and a reminder of just how fortunate we are to have Jesus!

So, back to missing church, our church records the messages on Sunday morning, and posts them on their website and/or Facebook page, so check them out! They also do live streaming on their website of the sanctuary on Sunday mornings (which we missed also) – but just in case you’re home sick or with a sick child, your car won’t start, you’re out of town, etc… you can catch the message there. I don’t think they live stream the worship music portion. If they did, more people might play hooky – but it also could be a draw, because the music is always awesome!

Anyway, here is the link to live, available at 9:00 and 11:00 CT Sunday mornings, and here is the link to info if you missed it on Sunday morning. It's no substitute for our awesome community of Christ, but a close 2nd when you can't be there.

And one more note: Our lead teaching pastor has been on sabbatical the month of February, so our other elders have stepped up to teach parts of Leviticus. Only one is currently in vocational ministry (he leads our Saturday evening service), but all of them have done an awesome job teaching us these sometimes-tough subjects. I only mention it in case you’re wondering why so many different people… that’s why. Todd will be back to teaching us in March.

Farrell's 5-week Testing

This morning was my 5-week testing. I wasn't sure how it was going to go, because I've been battling a head cold. All week I've had a dry scratchy throat in the mornings and my voice has sounded funny. I still made it to training every day, just had to take more water breaks. Yesterday I went to my regular cardio training in the morning, and had to take a nose-blowing break in addition to my additional water breaks. Then later in the morning I had a nasty headache, was very stuffed up and had a runny nose all day.

I was hoping this morning that I'd wake up feeling better than I did last night, so I could get through the testing and do fairly well. Luckily, despite a runny/stuffy nose, I was feeling OK this morning when I got up. The testing went well. It was nice to see some results of all the hard work thus far.

I shaved almost two minutes off my 1-mile run - down to 10:49! Now I'm beginning to question the time I wrote down from the pre-testing. But I do remember my legs being so sore during that first run, and they weren't really this time, so maybe it's accurate. This time it was only my breathing that made me walk a few paces about 2/3 of the way through. I did that last time, and had to walk a little bit longer than today. Hopefully it'll be a little warmer for 10-week testing, and that should help in addition to the improved fitness.

The sit-ups and push-ups went REALLY well. Push-ups went from 15 to 41 in one minute. My arms were really sore when I was done, but I could have done more if given more time. At pre-testing I had to stop and take breaks in between because I was at muscle fatigue before the minute was up. My sit-ups improved from 17 to 29 - I'm not as good on those, but again it was the time being up that stopped me not the ability.

Measurements were good too. I've lost 5 pounds, and my body fat went down 2.3 percentage points. I also lost a few inches - although no change on my arms, a little at my chest and waist, but most was from my thigh/hips. I kind of figured these, because that's where my clothes are fitting differently.

So... I'm not to where I want to be yet, but the 5-week testing shows I'm going in the right direction... Motivation for the next 5 weeks!!!

Farrell's Update

Well, I’m almost half-done with my 10-week Extreme Body Shaping course at Farrell’s. I started feeling some results myself around week 3, in how my clothes are fitting and even a little bit on the bathroom scale. The 5-week testing is coming up this Saturday, where I hope to see those results on paper. After which, I’ll be working towards more improvement by the end of the 10th week. If things continue to go well, I actually hope to continue on with the FIT classes (for 10-week graduates) – and also meet that goal of running a 5K this summer… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m doing well sticking to the nutrition plan. The “free day” each week helps me have something to look forward to, and motivates me to keep up the good diet the other 6 days of the week. Last weekend, I enjoyed a bowl of ice cream with caramel and chocolate syrup, in addition to having some yummy appetizers and desserts at a Super Bowl party. :)

I’m also doing well sticking with the 5:15 am morning workouts. Some days I have to drag myself out of bed, but most days I’m waking up just before my alarm is set to go off at 4:30 am. I quick get dressed, grab a bite to eat to sustain me through the workout, and head across town. The only 5:15 class I've missed was during the blizzard last week. Actually Farrell’s was closed that morning, so I attended an afternoon class. The instructor for that class worked us HARD!!! Then with only a 12-hour rest before the next morning’s workout, I was kind of thrown off, and sore for the rest of the week – but somehow I survived. Otherwise, I generally have some tired muscles and maybe a sore spot or two every couple days, but that means I’m working hard, right? Usually, though, the soreness doesn’t last long and I’m ready to go for the next day’s workout.

There are still parts of the workouts that I can’t do very well, but I can keep up better than when I first started started. The worst are the shoulders exercises on upper-body resistance training days, and the lunges (quad exercise) and step-back lunges (ham exercise) on lower-body resistance training days. Those seem to be the most difficult ones for most everyone, so I’m not alone, but I can’t even finish the second set on these – with the lowest resistance bands (or dropping the bands altogether on the shoulders)! Sit-ups are difficult too, but I'm getting better at those too, depending on the day. The cardio days are getting tougher with each week. Every day I walk out stinky, sweaty, and worn-out from a tough work-out, and that's a good feeling (well, except for the stinky/sweaty :).

Shovel that Snow!

We had a blizzard earlier in the week. It wasn't as bad here as it was in Eastern Iowa, but still a blizzard. This time, our driveway was mostly clear except for a drift right in front of our garage door, and some snow on the side of our garage where we don't park our vehicles, so we didn't do much shoveling. Then we got another couple inches overnight last night.

So after church, Jock went out to fire up the snow blower. Elijah went out to help. Kaylen and I were upstairs working on laundry, and Josephine was downstairs playing until she must have realized she was all alone. When I came downstairs she was crying, trying to get on her snow gear. She had her boots half on, and her snowpants on backwards. So I helped her finish getting ready and took her out with Elijah, before heading back inside. Next thing I know, I hear Josephine out there screaming bloody murder. She's afraid of loud, noisy things, and the snowblower was no exception.

So I grabbed my coat and went out to calm her down. She just stood there and clung to my leg and watched. After a bit, I told her that she should make loud noises too - so she growled right back at the snowblower when it came near, which made her laugh. She eventually just stood by me and watched, or if I wasn't right next to her, she'd run for me whent the Jock got up close to the garage with the snowblower.
It was just too cute watching Elijah helping shovel! We have a very small shovel that we keep in the van, and he was using that - perfect for him, and he was doing a great job - knew just how to throw the snow off of it - although it didn't always land where it was supposed to. :)
When Jock was snowblowing the part Elijah had been working on, Elijah went over to the other side, but then somehow ended up shoveling the yard. That've been an endless job if he continued on with that!
Kaylen came out when she was done putting away her laundry. (Well, almost - she actually came out when she realized she was the only one still inside. :) Jock had made a path through the huge drift to our front porch by then, so she took the bigger shovel and worked up there.
Elijah soon got bored with his little shovel and came and declared to me that he was done. He reluctantly passed the shovel on to Josephine so she could try. She wasn't quite as coordinated as he was, but I could see how proud of herself she was to help. (And Jock was on the other side of the driveway by then, so being outside the safety of the garage wasn't so scary.)
Then Jock grabbed the scraper to work breaking up the hardened snow/ice we'd been driving over all week, and the girls shoveled off the chunks.
Elijah was tired by then, and hollered at me to look how clever he was that he'd found such a perfect-sized seat! :)
And I just realized, the snow would have been perfect for making a snowman, but we didn't even think of it! Maybe next time...