Thursday, February 25, 2010

Woah...what a week

Absolutely crazy. So much stuff has come to a head this week. And I didn't really see it coming! This was Russ's first full week of traveling, so I knew it was going to be tough. Not from not having him here, (but yes that was part of it) it was more the changing of the routine. I have been able to figure out how to do something with the kids for one night during the week. But now it was 4 nights in a row. Add to it, that I started my new quarter of school this Wednesday. Then we are trying to plan for our vacation to Florida in two weeks. Now all the summer events are being sent out, so try to figure out your summer plans, ok? School spring conferences need to be scheduled too. Don't forget about your house and auto insurance that is due. Oh heck, throw in a new tax rebate to buy an energy saving appliance. And why not try to change Gwen out of a crib to a bed this week too.

Those are just the major events that happened this week. There were much smaller things going on too. Today, I was able to have a little break for myself at a salon for a nice facial. Ahhhh....I'm ready for round two in two weeks. We have been blessed to find out that Russ will not be traveling every week, at least for the near future. It will be every other week. It has been turning out better than expected. It really is our turn for good things to be happening!

I will leave you with a troubling thought that has entered my mind this week. As I mentioned before, Gwen's ECFE class is reading the book 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting. This week, we did point 7, which is be consistent. By simply reading the chapter title, I knew I had this one down. I believe it is one of my biggest strengths as a parent. However, reading the chapter made me doubt my parenting. Primarily that it defines being consistent as very different from being rigid. I think I might be being a little more rigid than I should. But what really struck me was the first line in this chapter. Our teacher pointed it out, and mentioned how much this quote is SO true in parenting. It states:

"The single greatest contributor to children's disciplinary problems is inconsistent parenting. If your rules vary from day to day in an unpredictable fashion, or if you enforce them only intermittently, your child's misbehavior is your fault, not his."

While I may claim to be a consistent parent, I can tell you that based on this statement, I for sure could improve upon my parenting. I think I just need to pick my method and never deviate. Well, of course unless I am becoming too rigid. Arrgghhh...the joys of being a parent!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

A better week...except for

Overall, Trevor has been making a lot of progress with a little program of sticker charts that his teacher is working with him on. He can now visibly tell and know if he has completed his two goals for the day. Last week, for five days, he got a total of 3 stickers out of a possible 10. This week, he got a total of 6 out of 8.

Just one little problem this week:
This was the book that Trevor brought home from his weekly trip to the library. He right away explained that the librarian let him get it...as if that would stop me from not letting him read it.
A few weeks ago he brought home a book about disgusting foods. So he probably was looking for a similar fun book to read. Watching the Ghostbusters movies seems to have given him a brave streak.
ah well...what can you do. I guess it is better this than a playboy magazine or something now, right???

Thursday, February 18, 2010

President's Day Week

Well, the week started off with a very long Nascar race. Not that anyone except Trevor really cares, but I guess it was due to the track buckling and creating potholes. They had to stop the race a few times and repair the potholes for safety concerns. It went from noon until 7:00 or so. Trevor got to see the end of it, and has been asking about watching it again on Sunday.

On Monday, we had a few moms and their kids over for a playdate due to no school on Monday. It was great to visit with them and have my mom-time. Russ has not started traveling yet, but when he does, I'll be sure to be getting together, or trying to a lot more for my sanity.

After the playdate, and lunch we went to the grocery store. I had never tried this with the kids. Usually, I'm worried about Gwen taking a nap at some point, but she has been going without her nap more days this week than she has napped. I'm NOT looking forward to her not napping, so I will be keeping quiet time for her longer than when she is done napping. I need the time during the day to do some studying.

This Tuesday was the last day for my second quarter of school. I don't have my grade back for accounting, but I'm pretty sure I got my desired A in both classes. Next quarter I have a science class which I have a feeling will be a breeze. I was telling Russ, I felt like both Humanities and Business Law were good college-level classes, however based on the book I received for the science class, I am going to have a hard time thinking that it is anything higher than high school material. I had to take college science classes 10+ years ago, and they were tricky. But the reason they didn't transfer is because this is supposed to be a 3000 level class, not a 1000 level class like I took. But what can I do? At least I have accounting to fall back on. I'm learning a lot in those classes.

Trevor is done with this session of swimming lessons. While he didn't "graduate" I have no doubt that when he is swimming in pools this summer, he won't have any problem swimming without any floatation devices. It is a cool feeling to know that. He really has developed a huge confidence in knowing how to swim and if he gets tired, he is GREAT at floating. We'll have to see what to do this summer. Summer classes are beginning to form. And I'm HAPPY to be thinking summer in February.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

What's Tomorrow, Today?

It has been years since I heard this expression. Russ was asking about what Trevor used to say, and "What's tomorrow, today?" was the expression. Gwen has been understanding that when I talk to her about what we are doing the next day, she gets it. She has skipped over the expression that Trevor said, and is right on the "What's tomorrow?" It has happened over just this past week, and there is still some confusion over what actually happens, but this morning she was quick to remember that it was Dad's birthday today. It was the first thing I heard from the monitor this morning.

So I was telling Russ about it, and then he mentioned to Gwen that it was Tracy's birthday today too. And she was going to have none of it. "No, it's Daddy's birthday." Again, and again, and again. Likewise, when I told her yesterday that her friend Ellen was going to come over, she thought that meant she was going to her house. Because that was what happened last week. Every time she asked about Ellen, I kept saying she was coming over. And Gwen kept asking if we were going over to her house.

Also, last night was Trevor's first friend sleep-over. He had a great time, as I knew he would although I don't know how much of his bad behavior was related to the excitement of it, or his school party, or what. But lately he has been pretty challenging. I'm wondering if sleepovers are going to be his new motivating factor in his behavior. If I could have, I would have taken his sleepover away from him, but it got to be too late. So I have already explained that he needs some major behavior changes if he wants to have another sleepover. And he already asked when the next sleepover will be. ARGH.

Finally, there is this impending winter to get over. It is much harder to take time for myself in the winter than it is in the summer. In the summer I have golf. Add to it a nice wine dinner, most of the time nice weather to add a little Vitamin D to my system and it make the days that much easier. But in the winter, we always have a lot going on, and less time for me to take care of me. Now I have school work to add to the mix. I went back and counted 3 times in the past 3 months that I have had alone time. Not so good for my well-being. And what makes it hard is that, like I said, it's hard to even find anything comparable to my golf night. Bingo is fun. Poker is fun. I just don't know what would be the best use of my time and money. How about a quick zap to Hawaii? THAT would do wonders for me. Unrealistic? Yes.

Such is the life of a busy mom. We'll see what can be done soon....

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Believe it or not

I thought Trevor's interest in Nascar was waning after last year. We didn't watch nearly as many races as we did last year. I figured that he found other interests, namely baseball and watching the Twins and those games were more interesting than watching cars go in an oval for 500 miles or so.

Perhaps it is the fact that hockey is getting long, and baseball isn't here really, until late April. Now that football is done, there is another reason to look for something to do. So here comes Nascar again. Trevor asked me to go to the Nascar website to look up all the photographs of the drivers. In prior years he had a hard time understanding that you weren't actually cheering for a car, but the driver of the car. So he's interested in seeing all of the driver's faces that he knows by name. Clint Boyer, Kevin Harvick, Mark Martin, Carl Edwards, Tony Stewart, Kyle Bush, Kurt Bush, along with the more well known Jeff Gordon, Jimmy Johnson, and "Dale Heart Junior".

The Nascar website lists the drivers next to their numbers on one of the pages. Trevor couldn't do many of them, because he associates the colorful cars with names, not necessarily the number on the car. But if you go to the drivers page, then you could see the pictures of the car.

Needless to say, he's been setting up a few Nascar races over the past two weeks or so. Oh, and a Nascar book that he received over his birthday, we started to read. He learned about the crash that "Dale Heart Senior" died at. He was NOT happy to hear that one. He actually said that he doesn't want to drive Nascars anymore. I'm not sure I handled it correctly, but I explained to him that they have made the cars a lot safer since that crash, and that different people die every day doing different things. It is more important to do what you love than be scared you are going to die doing something. I know he has a need to feel protected right now, which we are always talking about and working towards, but I also don't want to overprotect him either. It's another one of those fine lines.

So, it looks like we may be checking out Nascar for a while, at least until baseball season starts. It sure would be nice to be able to be warm outside so we could play baseball.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

The strangest thing

I feel like I'm getting a lot done. Cleaning, bills, taxes, school, plus random errands or other things that are going on. Yet here I am, a week into wanting to blog about a bunch of things and I cannot find the time to do it. And now that I'm doing it, I know I'm going to leave out a bunch of stuff that I meant to say.

We've had a pretty major events week this week for our family. Trevor lost his second tooth. He was chewing on a string from the kids camera we have and he got it caught around the tooth, and pulled it out. It was much less traumatic than the first tooth, so hopefully it'll keep on getting easier from here.

Trevor got his first report card on Wednesday. To me, it wasn't a surprise. But what was hard to discern was if he had improved upon the areas we were trying to work on since conference time. So I talked to his teacher again, and we even are going to focus more on a few areas and use some sticker charts to see if that helps Trevor gain some confidence that he is doing a good job.

On Friday, Trevor got his first bee award. The class focuses on three "Bee's": Bee Responsible, Bee Respectful, and Bee Safe. He has been trying to earn an award since the beginning of school, and was SO excited to finally get one.

Friday night, Russ and I, Kevin and Kelsey went to watch the group Hairball perform at a nearby hotel. It was nice that it was so close to our house, and got to see the cool stuff that Brian gets to do.

Saturday, our church has an annual Cana Dinner around this time every year. I decided to sign us up for it. Thankfully, we were not the youngest couple there, and I knew three other couples there. They had dancing, a nice dinner, renewal of vows, door prizes, a fun survey game, and plenty of alcohol (hey, we're Catholic, what can I say?). Next year I'm going to try to convince some of my mom friends to come along with.

This week, it was made public that Russ is going to be changing jobs. He will be working for a company that he has previously worked for, however he will be traveling for most of his job. We are both very positive about this change and thankful that we are in the situation that we are in, because without the support of our family and friends, our family wouldn't be what it is today.

That is as much as I can remember for now. Hopefully I can get more down soon.