Motherhood and Miscellany

Quirks and Updates

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Amy

One of the most fun things about having kids is watching their little personalities emerge.

I have yet to see how Baby Sis’s personality will develop, but she is already showing that she’s content, and cuddly, and funny.

Her older sisters are so different from each other.

Most of the time, Miss is my serious girl. She’s very intense and somewhat perfectionistic. She wants things just so, and can get very upset when things don’t happen the way she envisions them. She is stubborn and persistent and smart and funny. She enjoys school time and loves art and music. She’s not a big snuggler, though when she is in the mood, she can give the best hugs anywhere. Today she climbed up in my rocker with me while I was rocking Sis, and she just kissed and hugged her baby sister over and over. It was precious to watch them love on each other.

Lass on the other hand is a bit more of a free spirit. She isn’t terribly particular about most things. She’s more of a pleaser, both with my husband and me, and with her big sister. She is quite sensitive, and when she’s scolded, she often begins to cry and says, “You hurt my feelings!” She is my snuggly, lovey girl. She gives lots of spontaneous hugs and kisses. At least once a day she walks up to me, gives me a sweet little hug, and says, “I love you Mommy.” She cries when my husband leaves for work, saying, “But I love my Daddy! I don’t want you to go Daddy.” She yanks on my heartstrings all day long, that girl does.

My big girls have their funny quirks too.

Though I just described Lass as the free spirited girl who isn’t particular about things and Miss as my perfectionist, when it comes to their bedrooms, they are totally the opposite.

Lass is super picky about her bedroom when she goes to bed. She doesn’t take any toys to bed with her and she will not go to bed if her toys are not on her bookshelf in a certain way, if her Froggy isn’t sitting correctly in her chair, and if there is anything out of place on her floor.

Miss on the other hand is a total slob in her room. She goes to bed with at least half of her bed covered with various toys and books.

She often leaves toys all over her floor. I have to prompt her regularly to pick them up and put them where they belong. And she isn’t too particular about how her things get put away.

They are so different, but they are the best of friends. And Sis is playing with them more and more.

Much of the time during the day I stay near them and secretly watch and listen to them play together.

They are so imaginative. They seem so in sync as they make up games and stories together. They are so chatty with each other. They each have funny ways they pronounce words, which never fail to make me smile.

Miss says, “lasterday” instead of “yesterday,” “with-about” instead of “without,” and “breakthist” instead of “breakfast.” She is starting now to begin pronouncing these words correctly sometimes, and it makes me kind of sad. I love “lasterday.”

Lass has a hard time with some letter sounds and combinations of letters, as is common for her age of course. She can’t quite pronounce her “Rs” and “Ls” and has difficulty with the “SK” sound combination. So the word “squirrel” comes out sounding like “swoyo” and “scared” is “swared.” Like her sister, she is already starting to correct these mispronunciations on her own.

Baby Sis is starting to talk too. She signs “all done” and “milk,” and also uses the “milk” sign to mean “more.” She says “Meh-Meh” for milk, “Da-Da,” and “Mama.” She often tries to imitate other words we say. And the biggest news about my littlest girl is that she is walking!

And falling.

But walking!! Such a big girl.

One of the reasons I write this blog is to record the moments of my girls’ lives and their milestones and quirks. The funny little things they do and say. I don’t ever want to forget “lasterday” and “swoyo” and Sis signing “milk” for “more.”

I think one of my most important duties as a mom is keeping record of my girls’ moments. Our family. Our history.

These things make up my life. They form my happy place.

Posted in Family, Funny Sayings, Milestones, Sisters | Leave a comment

Nashville, a Basement Flood, and Rainy Day Play

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Amy

Well. I haven’t written a real post in over a week. Sorry.

I’ll spare you the details of why I haven’t written.

Like the fact that I’ve spent several evenings this week cleaning up the mess left behind from water than got into our basement while we were out of town.

Of the fact that I spent one evening filling out an application to adopt a puppy from a local shelter. He was the perfect puppy found on petfinders.com (a mixed lab, husky, and mastiff, blue-eyed little guy), and I was convinced that I had to fill out the application right away so we would be able to get him. Only to realize the next morning, through discussion with the husband, that this is really not a good time for us to get a PUPPY. Duh.

Or the fact that my youngest child is barely napping more than 30 minutes a day.

Or the fact that, becasue I finished weaning Sis last week, I spent all of last evening sitting with heating pads on my boobs, alternating sides with heat and kneading out knots from clogged ducts. Ouchie. I was sort of successful, as I ended up with two big wet circles on my shirt (clearly didn’t think that one through ahead of time), but I’m still trying to get it all worked out.

Anyway. I now have a little bit of napping from Sis, so I’m trying like heck to get this post done before she wakes up.

A quick catch-up on our happenings:

Last week, I spent the most awesome 24-hour period ever. In Nashville. Over night. With my husband. My mom watched the girls. We splurged on a fancy hotel.

Did I mention it was awesome?

We relaxed and went out for a nice dinner. Unfortunately it was slightly marred by the fact that the cab driver who took us to the restaurant was a “Too Much Cologne Wearing Man” and had apparently not only doused himself but also the seat of his cab with his chosen scent. I ended up with Eau de Bad-Man-Smell in my hair and on my dress (all I did was sit on the seat, I swear!), and my husband and I kept catching whiffs of it throughout dinner, making “ew, that stinks” faces, and then smelling ourselves, our hands, sleeves, etc., to try to figure out why the smell from the cab was still lingering. We both noticed it on our hands and made trips to the bathroom to wash, but it didn’t help. It wasn’t until we got back to the hotel that I thought to smell my hair and realized that I reeked of this guy’s cologne. And then I found that the back of my dress did too. Weird. And gross. And oddly sort of funny.

It was okay, though, since we got back to the hotel to find this lovely turn down service, complete with chocolate cookies that we were both too stuffed from dinner to eat.

I have to admit, though I love to stay in a fancy hotel sometimes, I always feel very awkward around the staff of such places. I never know when I’m supposed to tip, how much, and how to do it. I always end up averting my eyes and shoving some wadded up bills roughly in the direction of the person to whom I want to show appreciation while grumbling, “Uh, thanks a lot” or something like that. I think I was a little better this time than the last time we stayed at this place (mostly because I made my husband tip the valets and wrote all other tips on receipts), but I still always feel like a total hick in these situations.

The best part of the trip? We slept in and woke up to a room service breakfast and leisurely morning.

No one yelled, “I’m huuuuungryyyyyy!” No one spilled her milk. No one complained about the breakfast food offerings. It was lovely.

We topped off the day with a walk around downtown Nashville, some visits to art galleries, and lunch at a place called the Back Alley Diner.

It was a funky little place with a fun atmosphere and very good food. It made me feel young and hip again. Yes, I was once young and hip…

Our little side trip was an amazing perk of the visit with my parents. The girls did great while we were gone, as I knew they would, and I had some wonderful QT with my man.

It was a great visit with my parents. The girls had a great time, and they came home saying new things like “Doink” and “Big Honkin,’” as in “I doinked my head” and “Don’t take big honkin’ dragon bites [of food].” If you know my Mom, this will make perfect sense to you.

We were all sad to leave my parents’ house, but glad to be getting home.

Our travel day turned out to be a long one, with a flat tire on the way home and water in the basement once we got here.

But we’ve had a wonderful relaxing week at home.

Lass has been saving up her allowance money and finally got to order her “Rody” toy. It came in the mail the other day and she was so excited.

She has barely stopped bouncing on it and has even asked to take it to bed with her. I’m pretty easygoing about letting them take books and toys to bed, but I’ve drawn the line at that one.

So she bounces during nearly all of her waking moments.

We brought up Miss’s Rody from the basement, which she got for Christmas two years ago from my in-laws. The games they are playing with these guys and the stories they make up are priceless.

They even hold them during their special time watching “animal shows” with their Dad in the evening.

The weather is still awful here. It’s snowing as I type this, and yesterday it rained all day. I used the weather as a good excuse for a lazy jammy day. We didn’t get dressed. We didn’t go anywhere. We did school in our pajamas, which the girls think is hilarious.

And they played and played and played.

Getting back into our home routine and hoping for better weather soon.

Happy weekend!

Posted in Grandparents, Home, Miscellany, Travel | 1 Comment

Little Pim DVD Winner

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Amy

Just a quick post to announce the winner of the Little Pim DVD:

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:1

Commenter #1 Dianne wrote, “We would love to learn Italian.”

Congratulations Dianne!

If you still want to try out Little Pim, check out all their stuff here.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered.

P.S. I just dragged the Random.org graphic showing the result of the numbers I plugged in into this post (I couldn’t figure out any other way to get it in). There were 37 comments on the giveaway post, and I did actually use the number 37 as the maximum value. I don’t know why it doesn’t show like that when I put it in here.

Posted in Giveaways | Leave a comment

Southern Adventures

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Amy

We are visiting my parents this week. Just take a look at all the fun:

Sunday we went to the circus.

Baby Sis stayed home with Grandma and Grandpa.

The big girls had a big time.

They both said the horses were their favorite part of the show.

Monday we went to the local nature center.

We saw turtles and snakes. Owls, vultures, a hawk, an eagle (I’ll never get over how beautiful those birds are). Whitetail deer, fallow deer, wolves, a coyote, a bobcat, a groundhog, and an opossum (this one had all four of his legs and an intact tail, unlike our friend under our deck). I think these guys were the favorite:

Each time I made my (pathetic) turkey gobble call sound they would all puff up and gobble really loudly all together. They were so loud they scared the crap out of the girls, who thought it was quite hilarious.

We’ve been reading a gazillion books and going to story time with Grandma.

We’ve been flying kites and playing outside.

We’ve had lots of running outside. I love watching them run.

Being outside (without full snow suit attire) has been nice for all of us. There’s something about feeling the wind in your hair that is good for the soul.

They’re having ice storms where we live, so we’re taking full advantage.

Sun, warmth, and Grandma and Grandpa. Doesn’t get any better than that.

Posted in Adventure, Outdoors, Outings | Leave a comment

Would You Reschedule a Doctor Appointment for a Play Date?

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Amy

I have a three-word answer to this question:

In. A. Heartbeat.

I also have a longer answer to the question, which qualifies the short answer.

All play dates are not created equal.

I would not reschedule a doctor appointment for just any play date.

I had routine, well-child appointments scheduled for Sis (one-year checkup) and Miss (four-year checkup) for this morning. I rescheduled them for a play date.

Oh yes I did.

I usually try to get together with a very good friend of mine and her kids for play dates once per week or so. But she just had a new baby about two weeks ago, and though I visited her and her new sweet baby girl in the hospital briefly, we haven’t had a play date in about three weeks. She has had family visiting, so today was the first opportunity we’ve had to get together since her baby was born. And it’s the last opportunity we’ll have before we leave for a week to visit my family in Kentucky. And it’s spring break for her kids so we could all get together instead of having one of her kids not present because of being at school.

This fortuitous coming together of circumstances to allow this one morning for a play date with some special friends was too much to pass up.

I’m so glad I rescheduled the appointments.

When we have play dates with these friends, our kids read together.

They also chase each other, play dress up, and do everything else kids do during play dates, but I just love that they regularly, and for a significant portion of our play dates with them, sit down together and read books. That is just like play date heaven for me. That and pretty much everything else about our visits with these friends.

We even have had evening “jammies, movie, and pizza” play dates with them when Daddies have worked late.

I’ve been to many play dates. Some great ones. A few, um, less than awesome ones. Most would not prompt me to want to reschedule an appointment for my kids.

But today, this time, I missed my friend. I missed her kids and wanted to see her precious new little one again.

Appointment, schm-appointment.

I never really understood the treasure that is an awesome play date until I discovered this friend and her kids (and also experienced some not-so-good play dates). These play dates are no fuss, no muss, no worries. Our kids play well together, and my friend and I practically read each others’ minds as we chit chat and help each other with holding kids, making lunches, wiping mouths, pouring milks.

I love that my girls have friends like these.

I love that I do too. Every mom needs at least one awesome go-to Mom Friend. Truly, it is a must-have for maintaining sanity.

I’m so glad I have my friend.

Posted in Friends, Motherhood, Playdate | Leave a comment

Little Pim Language Learning DVD – Review and Giveaway CLOSED

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Amy

I don’t usually do product reviews on this blog. I’ve been approached to do a few, but have never wanted to spend the time to review a product that didn’t seem to me like it would really appeal to the people who tend to read here.

But, a few months ago I was starting to look into programs for teaching foreign language to my girls. I had really been slacking on including any foreign language in our homeschool, and was looking for a little help. I took three years of Spanish in high school, and have a very basic recollection of the language, but I certainly cannot speak it and didn’t feel very confident to teach much more than vocabulary to my girls. Even that I wasn’t doing regularly, so I wanted to find something to provide more structure and better instruction than I was giving.

It just so happened that, around the time I was beginning to do some research into the available programs for preschool-aged children and was having trouble finding something appealing, I was contacted by someone at Little Pim and asked to review one of their language DVDs. I checked out their website and was impressed, so I agreed to do the review.

Little Pim produces DVDs, books, flashcards, music CDs, and games to help children from ages 0-6 begin to learn a foreign language. Their method:

The Entertainment Immersion Method® integrates the latest scientific research regarding kids’ language learning and brain development. Pimsleur Levine developed the series with leading neuroscientist Dr. April Benasich, director of the Rutgers Infancy Studies Lab.

Each of our educational DVDs has a unique, child-friendly theme, such as eating, playtime and feelings. The method teaches 360 words and phrases, providing the essential building blocks for language learning. A child only needs 500 words to be considered “conversational” in a language. Babies, toddlers and kids respond enthusiastically to Little Pim’s format, which combines animated and live-action videos.

At Little Pim, we understand how children learn, so our videos are segmented into 5-minute episodes to accommodate a young child’s attention span. Simple sentences are broken down into easy-to-understand parts and reinforced through repetition by native speakers.

They offer many languages, including Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, and Italian, to name a few. I chose to have the Spanish DVD sent to us, largely because this is the language I am most comfortable with trying to teach my kids, having some background in it myself.

The DVD that was sent to us is #2 in the Spanish DVD set, “Wake Up Smiling.” I put it on for the girls the first chance I got and sat down to watch it with them. I did this at first without looking in depth into the many suggestions Little Pim offers, both on their website and in the packaging of the DVD itself, for helping kids get the most out of the DVDs.

To begin, we just sat and watched together.

My first impression? The girls loved it. They laughed out loud at Little Pim and the silly things he does throughout the video, and they were really into it, asking to watch it again and again.

Other initial thoughts were that I really liked the repetition of the words and the way the short segments alternate between animation of Little Pim and live action of children and adults engaging in the behaviors or interacting with the items that represent the Spanish words being spoken. I loved that the DVD doesn’t just show pictures and vocabulary words, but uses common phrases as well. I needed more help with teaching Spanish phrases using the correct grammar than with teaching vocabulary words, so this part is especially useful to me.

It was a good first impression.

We began watching the DVD a few times per week, as recommended. The first few times we watched it, I just sat with the girls, turned on the English subtitles, and repeated the English and Spanish words after they were said in the DVD. We talked about many of the words (those I could remember) afterwards and at random times through the day between viewings. After watching it with them a few times, I took the time to read up on the recommendations on the website and that go along with the DVD and look into some of the other great offerings on the Little Pim website.

As recommended, I increased my attempts to use the words from the DVD in conversations with the girls throughout the day. I printed out the companion guide provided on the website to help with this. I almost always sit and watch the DVD with them and repeat the words as they are said in the video, encouraging them to do the same.

I’ve also been talking with them a bit about Spain, showing them on our world map, and cooking some traditional Spanish food (paella, empanada, etc.), so they get a little bit of context for what “Spanish” means outside of just a bunch of different words we say. I used Post-Its around the house to label various items and actions, mostly to remind myself to say these words as much as possible with them.

Both of my older girls are able to repeat many of the words and phrases while watching the DVD.

Miss (my four-year-old) in particular has had lots of fun trying to say the words in conversation with me. We have been watching the video for only about five weeks, but she is really beginning to pick up words and phrases. Last night while getting ready for bed, she randomly said, “los pies,” while smiling up at me. I asked her what that means, and she (correctly) held up her foot.

Lass (age 2.5) is also beginning to remember a few of the words and phrases. Her favorite is to say, “Adios, hasta pronto!” (Goodbye, see you soon!), which Little Pim says at the end of each segment of the video.

Sis (age 1) isn’t speaking much yet (in English), but she does attend to the DVD for short periods when her sisters are watching.

Overall, I really like the DVD we are using.

But, I don’t love the idea of just using a DVD and nothing else. I want a program that is more interactive, for two reasons:

One is simply that I believe providing interactive experiences is a better way to learn anything than by just staring at a screen.

The other is that, after the first few viewings, the DVD has failed to hold my girls’ attention really well for very long. They still enjoy sitting down to watch it, and will pay close attention and repeat the words back for a couple of the segments (about 5 minutes each), but they don’t sit and enjoy the whole video anymore like they did the first few times they watched it. It’s just not that sort of video.

That said, I realize that the”interactive” piece with a DVD like this has to come from me, which is why I watch it with them and try to incorporate the words and phrases in conversation throughout the day. Though the DVD is somewhat interactive (Little Pim asks questions here and there such as, “Que es esto?” – What is this?), the video seems to me to be more of a tool to get parents engaged in speaking a foreign language with their children rather than expecting that a child will learn Spanish purely from watching this DVD (or the set of DVDs) over and over. I’m sure simply watching the DVDs repeatedly would produce some learning of the language, but doing the additional activities recommended by the Little Pim folks are what is really going to make the experience beneficial.

And fortunately, Little Pim has several other, more interactive, products available as well. For the past five weeks I have only been using the DVD that was sent to me, because I wanted my review to mostly focus on that. But, recently I also downloaded some free Little Pim games on my phone, which Miss loves. These seem to have boosted her comprehension and interest quite a bit very quickly, and they’re free. Additionally, I am planning to get the Spanish Word and Phrase Cards, a few additional videos, and maybe the Little Pim music CD, as well as a few children’s books written in Spanish to increase the methods we have for presenting the language in our home.

Bottom line? The DVD is great. In short viewings, my girls really enjoy it and benefit from it. It helps me to remember and add to my old Spanish knowledge so that I can use it to teach them what’s on the DVDs and also some other things I remember. Add to the DVD the helpful tips Little Pim provides, the word and phrase cards, CD, books, and downloadable games, and I think the Little Pim program is really well-rounded for providing foreign language instruction for very young children, which is hard to find. It is also very reasonably priced, with each DVD costing only $17.95 and several different packaged deals from which to choose.

We will be watching our DVD plenty during our 10-hour drive to my parent’s house on Saturday to provide breaks between Disney movies!

I recommend the Little Pim DVDs and games to anyone who wants to expose a young child to learning a foreign language. I will also be purchasing the flashcards and music CD to try in our house as well***

Now, for the fun part. The folks at Little Pim have agreed to provide another DVD for one reader to win. To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment below telling me which language you would want to try.

For two additional chances to win:

1. Like Motherhood and Miscellany on Facebook (you can click this link or just use the “Like” button on the sidebar >>). Leave a separate comment and let me know that you’ve done so.

2. Like Little Pim on Facebook. Again, leave a separate comment telling me that you did.

Be sure I have a way to contact you if you win (email, FB, etc). The giveaway will be open until Monday, April 15th at 8 PM CST. When it ends I’ll use Random.org to pick a winner. Good luck!

*** Little Pim sent me the DVD I reviewed for free and is providing the second DVD for this giveaway. I did not receive any other compensation for writing this, and all opinions contained in this post are my own.

Posted in Giveaways, Product Reviews | 40 Comments

Easter. A Birthday. I. Am. Blessed.

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Amy

We had a fun-filled Easter.

We woke up to yarn trails leading to Easter baskets and an egg hunt.

We tried a new recipe for Easter breakfast. I had seen “Resurrection Rolls” mentioned on other blogs and probably on Pinterest too. I didn’t really consider making them until a good friend suggested it, mentioning that it is a fun way for kids to get a visual/hands on learning experience of the whole Jesus-in-the-tomb-and-then-not-in-the-tomb/Resurrection thing. Though we read several books about it, I’m still not very good at explaining this stuff to my kids (this is all very new, here), so I decided to give it a try (and make our traditional Easter breakfast of creamed eggs for lunch or dinner).

The girls had a lot of fun rolling the marshmallow “Jesuses” in the butter and cinnamon sugar and wrapping them up in the crescent roll “tombs.”

Seriously, they were delicious (recipe here).

The girls got a huge kick out of breaking open the rolls looking for Jesus and finding them empty. Lass kept saying, “But Jesus isn’t in here!” each time she took a bite.

Thanks for the tip, C.

We got all dressed up in our Easter finery and went to church. We even got there 30 minutes early so we could get a seat. It was packed.

When we got home I insisted on a few photos of the girls in their Easter dresses before everyone changed and had lunch.

How many photos does it take to get a good one when a four-year-old decides she will. not. smile.?

Not too many once we start telling her not to smile (but still several more than what you see here!).

Finally!

It was a little easier to get a decent one of just the girls, since we didn’t have to coax smiles and just had to try to get them all to be at least sort of facing in the direction of the camera. They were looking at me instead of at my husband with the camera, but I still love this photo.

After lunch and naps (I even had a wonderful, long nap myself), we watched some basketball (yay Michigan wins, boo Duke loses; I know, I went to U of L!) and I made creamed eggs.

Creamed eggs is the traditional Christmas and Easter morning breakfast from my childhood. I enjoyed having the Resurrection Rolls for breakfast this morning, but could not have Easter without creamed eggs, so we had them for dinner.

I’m even going to share our secret family recipe with you (now that I’m finally able to make it myself without calling my Mom to ask how).

Creamed eggs:

You need butter, flour, milk, hard boiled eggs, and salt and pepper (and bread for toast).

Melt a stick of butter over low – medium low heat. Add about 1/2 cup of flour (give or take), stirring it in gradually until you have a nice, paste-like roux. Then add milk a little at a time, stirring it until all lumps are gone with each pour, until you have a good creamy consistency for your base. Cut about 6 hard-boiled eggs into small chunks and add to base. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over toast.

It doesn’t look that awesome, but it is so, so yummy. And it’s a good way to use up Easter eggs.

Miss and Lass weren’t all that into it tonight (though they loved it on Christmas), but I think that’s because they filled up on Easter candy at snack time. Sis went to town eating it up.

And finally, to top off a wonderful Easter, we had another birthday party.

Yep, I turned 37 today.

It was a really wonderful birthday with my favorite people. My little family of 5.

My big girls helped me to blow out my candles, open my cards, and open my birthday gift.

At bedtime, when I was chatting with my older girls I told them “thank you” for helping me to have a wonderful, happy birthday. Miss said, “Are you happy because you got a present?” I said, “I love my present. But the very best part of today was being with you girls and your Daddy. You are the best present I could ever have.” She smiled her big four-year-old smile at me and said, “Yeah, we are.”

Posted in Cooking, Family, recipes, Religion, Spring, Traditions | 1 Comment

Ready for Easter

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Amy

We have been talking about Easter all week in school.

We’ve read books about the Easter Bunny. About Easter Eggs. About where both of these traditions originated. And about Jesus and the Resurrection, of course.

It has been a good week. We’ve all learned a lot. I found lots of fun activities to do addition and counting using plastic Easter eggs and small candies (like M&Ms and Jelly Bellies), and I added in a bit of number and shape recognition to some of them.

We used up some left-over-from-St.-Patrick’s-Day poster board to make Easter bunnies.

I often get out textural elements for the girls to add to their crafts, like cotton balls to make the bunnies fluffy (or puffy paint made with shaving cream and glue). Miss often rejects these outright. She knows what she wants, and in this case the cotton balls were not part of her vision. Lass thought it was fun to add the cotton balls. Until it wasn’t. I love their different approaches to things.

Today we dyed eggs.

We talk about measuring and color mixing and all sorts of fun stuff when we do this one.

* Note: Last year I thought it was a great idea to use whisks to dunk the eggs in the dye. I even bought a second whisk this year since one of the ones I used last year didn’t work for this purpose very well. At the last minute I decided the whisks were sort of a pain (getting the eggs in and out of them was kind of messy, it was a little bit hard to get the eggs far enough into the dye, we could only do one egg at a time for each girl, etc.) and that the girls were old enough to do just fine getting the eggs out with spoons. I was right, and am glad I skipped the whisks this year.

I used more food coloring in the dye this year. We used brown eggs that I buy from a friend who has her own chickens, so I wanted to dye to be extra vibrant. I love how they turned out.

We got a bit messy. Some fingers got dyed. Especially Lass’s, since she kept sticking her fingers into the cups to get her eggs out.

She was so eager to get her eggs in and out of the cups. She dyed four eggs green (her favorite color) before Miss pulled one of hers out of the dye, I think.

They had a lot of fun. Miss said, “I think the Easter Bunny with love these eggs.”

Speaking of the Easter Bunny, he has been here tonight. He tied yarn to the older girls’ door knobs, which will lead them to their baskets in the morning.

We have their baskets and eggs hidden in separate rooms so they will each have a chance to find the same number of eggs. Miss is a little bit more focused in her searching and finding, so we didn’t want Lass to miss out on eggs (and their contents) if Miss found most of them. Daddy hid Miss’s in the office.

We are ready for tomorrow.

I was all flustered for a few days earlier this week trying to figure out the logistics of doing Easter Bunny stuff with the girls and making it to church on time at 9. I considered doing the Easter Bunny stuff all on Saturday, hiding the eggs/baskets during nap time, or somehow running in to get it done while my husband stayed out in the car with them after church. Ultimately, I decided to take advantage of the fact that the church holds Mass at several different times during the day. We’re going at 11, so we’ll have plenty of time to get everything done and be ready to go on time tomorrow. Easy.

Happy Easter!

Posted in Arts and Crafts, Homeschool, Religion, Spring, Traditions | 2 Comments

A Birthday

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Amy

How is it possible that this was a whole year ago?

My littlest sweet girl turned one today. My tiny, my youngest, my baby.

We had a big day, starting with a special pancake breakfast.

We played and played and climbed and played and sang “Happy Birthday” about 49 times.

Presents were a bit tricky as we had to re-pack them each several times with reminders to the big sisters to let Sis pull out the paper herself. Miss and Lass were just so excited to see it all.

We had pizza for dinner.

And then the main event.

My favorite part.

She initially just smooshed the cupcake in her hands, not sure what to do with it.

So I helped her out.

It didn’t take much.

Her sisters got just as messy as she did. Miss was even more of a mess since she decided to experiment with using the chocolate fudge frosting from her cupcake as hand lotion after she finished eating what she wanted.

We had one tired girl at the end of the day.

Happy Birthday to our Baby Sis.

Posted in Family, Sis | Leave a comment

Wednesday – Not My Favorite Day of the Week

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Amy

Wednesdays are my least favorite day of the week. They are “swimming lesson day.” The day I have to make sure we’re all fed and dressed and ready to go by 8:30 (we are so spoiled now that Miss doesn’t go to preschool anymore). The day I have to break it to Lass over breakfast that we have to hurry and get ready because Miss has swimming lessons. The day she cries because her sister’s swimming lesson means she and Sis get dropped off at the drop-in childcare at our YMCA for an hour (she loves it there when Miss goes in with her, but can’t stand that she can’t come to swimming lessons). The day I am most likely to act like a crabby jerk of a mom because we are in a hurry and Lass changes her outfit three times and Miss has a fit when getting in the car because she forgot to grab the six thousand toys she wants to bring with her.

Man, I hate Wednesdays.

I was not my best mom self today. Hate that feeling. Blech.

Happily, Miss is doing great in her swimming lessons.

She doesn’t like getting her face wet much, and she won’t jump in by herself. But she can swim and float with a float belt on. She’s great at kicking. And she does put her face in the water and blow bubbles, when she has to.

I got really spoiled in the summer when she took lessons from an awesome teacher. Since then I have been really frustrated with her instructors. I don’t want to be that mom who complains to her kid’s teacher about every little thing or tries to tell the teacher how to teach the class. But it is really annoying to spend six weeks taking my kid to lessons with a teacher who is just not really helping her learn that much.

For example, in her last session of swimming, the instructor tried to get her to jump into the water, but he wouldn’t let her grab his hand. Even in the first class, on the first day she met him, when she has no rapport or trust established with this random guy, he wouldn’t let her grab his hand to jump in the pool. She never did seem to feel very comfortable with this guy, and she didn’t learn much during the six-week class.

This time around, her teacher has been pretty much the same about the jumping-in-the-water thing. Today she let Miss grab her hand (pic above), but typically she hasn’t. Not only did she not let her grab her hand in previous classes, but she actually grabbed Miss’s float belt several times and jerked her into the water when she hesitated. I am not a fan. But, though Miss didn’t really like this, she didn’t seem to be too freaked out by it. She enjoys swimming and she liked her teacher well enough, so I never said anything about it. Again, I don’t want to be that mom.

But now we’ve finished six more weeks of lessons and Miss has barely learned any more than what she was doing at the end of last summer. Today she got her “report card,” and there were tons of things on it that she did not “pass.”

Now, I have to say, I truly don’t care if she moves to the next class. I don’t care if there are things she hasn’t learned to do yet, as long as she is learning and progressing and having fun. I’m not one of those parents who sits on the sidelines watching one of my child’s activities and getting all flustered if she makes a mistake or doesn’t execute a skill perfectly. Usually I just smile and nod, give some encouragement, or acknowledge that I’m watching her.

BUT it really frustrates me when her teacher says that she hasn’t learned to do essential skills for the class, but the teacher never attempted to teach those skills. Especially when they’re skills that Miss learned to do, and passed, on her “report card” from last summer.

This time around, she didn’t pass bobbing three times under water. The teacher never tried to get her to do this. She did it last summer.

She didn’t pass learning to dive from a seated position. They were never taught this during this session of classes. Last summer, with authority:

This time she didn’t even pass floating on her back by herself for five seconds with a float belt. She certainly did that last summer, and I think in the fall as well. This time her teacher never attempted to have her do this, until today. Before today they spent way too much time floating around the pool lying on their backs on these ridiculously huge “kick boards” with just their feet dangling off the ends so they couldn’t really even kick effectively.

Today when Miss’ teacher finally tried to get her to float on her back by herself, of course she did it, and her teacher looked at me with this proud smile and said, “We have a floater!” I just smiled back and gave a thumbs up, while what I really wanted to say was, “You think you taught her that??? She’s been doing that for nine months!”

She didn’t pass “jump in pool and swim back to the side, unassisted.” This is probably her very least favorite thing to do, and I’m not sure if she would have passed it this time, no matter who was teaching her. But last summer she was really making progress on it and becoming more comfortable, instead of getting super nervous because of being expected to jump in, with no help, with a person who was essentially a stranger, at least at first.

One of her old teachers helping her learn to jump in and swim back to the side:

I know, even with all my protesting that I’m trying not to be “that mom,” by writing this post, I’m kind of being “that mom.” And I’m really not saying that her teacher this time around (or in the fall) was a bad teacher. She connected with the kids and Miss had a lot of fun with her. She was extremely encouraging. In her defense, she didn’t know that Miss had previously competed these skills successfully. I’m sure she had her reasons for doing things the way she did.

And the thing is, as I said above, I’m not frustrated that Miss didn’t pass to the next level or that there were things on her report card that she isn’t able to do yet. I’m not trying to say that my child is an amazing swimmer and should be moved to the “Eel” class right away. I’m not saying (or thinking) that her teacher is an idiot for not recognizing her skill.

What frustrates me is that I truly don’t know what her skill level is, or could be, at this point. Her teacher did not help her to reach her potential, so I don’t know what she can do. I do know that there are things she was never challenged to do, that her teacher said she did not pass, but that she has passed in previous classes. I want my kids to have the experience of being around people who bring out the best in them and challenge them to reach their limits, so they can expand those limits.

In the grand scheme of things, I know this is not a big deal. Miss doesn’t know the difference, because I’ve never even talked to her about “passing” to the next class. She doesn’t care. She loves the water. She enjoyed her class and is probably becoming a stronger swimmer simply through more exposure to swimming. She’ll take the same class again, and that’s okay.

And I’ll sleep better tonight for having vented all this ridiculous “swimming lesson drama” here.

One thing Miss did get from this class that she was too scared to do in the summer was a trip down the water slide.

She was terrified of that thing in the summer. This time she was a little bit nervous the first time, but then practically dragged her teacher back up the stairs for another turn. She told me at bed time it was her favorite part of her day.

I’m happy someone loves Wednesdays.