Our Kids

Lately all of the girls have made something clear to me… I have just a few routines in my life. Just a few. (I can see Mystique rolling her eyes as I type this!)

Ok, so I may have more than a few… but I never really realized the impact of those routines until Landis graciously and unknowingly pointed them out to me. Let’s start with the morning routine:

Landis wakes up, ignores the fact that Mystique is RIGHT NEXT TO ME, walks over to my bedside table and starts handing me my stuff. I sleep with my phone next to me (I listen to it when I go to sleep), so she immediately hands me that since apparently I can’t go anywhere without it (true). Then she’ll reach for my glasses which are sitting on my alarm clock. This one really annoys me because she hasn’t grasped the fact that they can be smudged by grubby little fingers. Nope, that doesn’t seem to bother her. And finally, if my bottle of water is there (which, of course, it usually is), she’ll sort of struggle with it and drag it towards me. Then she’ll stand there and “yell” at me (really it’s a few grunts) and grab my hand to try and lead me out of the room. As I type this it sounds very cute. But it’s not so cute at 5:45am. Trust me.

Ok, so that’s one routine and Landis is stuck on it. Obviously she saw my actual routine every morning and decided that the odds were good that I’d get up if I had everything together, so now she’s helping.

The next routine that Landis has made me aware of is when I get home from work. I like to come in, get my hugs, and then go change… get out of my fancy work attire (jeans + shirt) and get into my grubbies (shorts + t-shirt).

Landis is on to me with that routine, too… she loves “helping” me get dressed. She’ll pull down a t-shirt (or two), and hold it for me as I change. So the minute I make a move towards the bedroom to change — she’s running ahead of me straight for our closet making cute squeeky noises. She’s a riot.

Not one to be left out, Lela has a few routines I can talk about. Her morning routine is that she has to have some sort of breakfast (toast, cereal, possibly waffles) pretty much within the first 5 minutes of her waking up. We’ll be out in the family room, me still groggy and cleaning my glasses, and Lela will singsong, “Dad! I’m hungry!”

Lela also has somewhat of a routine where she needs to know when she’ll be able to watch her TV. She has to know… and if she doesn’t know, she’ll be asking about it. All. Day. She is a nut.

Piper… ahh, free spirit Piper. I honestly can’t think of anything similar for Piper… she just goes with whatever is there. She seems to be a little more flexible with her daily routine. Not sure how she does it!

Jason and I were chatting about how interesting it is to see the girls interests and abilities emerge. For example, Lela loves to write letters. Lela will sit at the table and copy words from a picture on to a paper, sometimes she just sits and writes rows of letters across a page. Lela loves to write letters but does not always recognize the letters. Piper does not like to write letters but she can recognize each one of them in upper and lower case and she sounds out words and has begun to read. Lela loves to look at books and will do so quietly to herself for long periods of time but shows less interest in reading. Their interests and abilities are so right and left brained centered it is fascinating (I am sure only to me, lol).

Lela CRACKS me up! She hordes little things in little boxes underneath her bed. It is a little like the old lady with the shopping cart on the corner. The other day I was searching for a small animal that could go in this little house and I instinctively went to the boxes under her bed. I did in fact find a tiny stuffed hippo that she could use along with a scrap of a highlights magazine, a barbie, a marble, a bouncy ball, a baby sling, a flashlight and a whole host of odds and ends. Every once in a while I empty out the little boxes and she slowly fills them back up again with her odd bits of yarn, pennies and bird feathers:)

Little Landis is going through a rough patch. Not with her personality but with her short little life. In just a few weeks she has weaned (which was easier than I expected), moved to the girls room for most of the night, she is sleeping through the night and her intellect far exceeds her verbal ability. All that together leaves for a pretty frustrated little almost two year old.

Well my dad came in from San Antonio and he and I attended the AFHE (Arizona Families for Home Education) conference in downtown Phoenix. It was totally overwhelming but good info none the less. We took the lightrail down on Friday and that was cool and so easy. The ride home Friday night was a bit crowded and we had to stand but it was still super easy and better than driving and parking downtown.

Saturday Jason and the girls ventured downtown with us and we found (well Jason found) an all day breakfast place for us to eat at. The girls really got a kick out of the train. Jason and Landis went in to the convention hall with me to check things out and then they headed back up to the lightrail. They had to stand most of the way back and that is a loooong ride/stand for 4 year olds but they did well. Landis seems to be still recovering from her loss of sleep on that day, or she is coming down with a cold.

Saturday I had had about enough of the convention and wanted just to get home and relax. So we left in the afternoon but not before hearing a really good speaker who talked about how we learn. It was very interesting. The one thing that she said that stuck with me the most was that the very thing that drives you crazy about your kid (figeting, not listening, constantly singing, being really organized) is the very essence of who they are and what they will become. So instead of saying be quiet, stop moving, why can’t you just relax we should realize it is the way they are wired and in the end it is the thing that will make them successful. She said many other things that resonated with me but that was kind of an ah ha moment.

I am still on the fence about what to do about education. I am less than impressed with the public school system and how our teacher are asked to manage their classrooms rather than teach them and in most cases private schools are not much better. We are still in the research phase and thankfully we do have lots of options.

Yeah, my dad is coming out for a few days to visit. The girls are pretty excited which is awesome, they are finally getting the hang of this grandparent thing:)

It is a short visit but we get to spend the weekend together. I think we may venture out to the Children’s Museum tomorrow but if that is too adventurous we may just hit the AMY.

I did forget that we took a trip to the MCC Planetarium last night. It was fun. We picked up Jason and headed over for the 6PM showing. The MCC is the Mesa Community College and they put in a fancy dancy 53 seat planetarium this past year. As a service to the community they do free shows the first friday of every month.

It was quite an experience, you really leave there feeling pretty small and insignificant in comparison to the vastness of space. The girls got a kick out of all the planets and stars. Landis was a little less impressed but enjoyed the treats I brought her to snack on:)

Well I am focused these days on getting through the summer. It is finally hot, although summer has been kind to us this year, and we are feeling cooped up on some days and sweating our buns off on the days we get outside.

We have a trip planned that should help and this week my dad is going to be here for a visit. I am expecting August to fly by with music class starting and the girls getting ready to officially start preschool (yikes). Then it will be September and Landis will be TWO, can you believe it? Then comes Halloween, Thanksgiving, Holidays, New Years and Valentines! See how I am jumping ahead:)