Our Kids

Well last night Landis needed/wanted to go to bed early since she opted out of naptime. Trying to stick to our new routine I put her down in her big girl bed in the girls room. That was all well and good except that I could not then put the big girls down in said room because they are NOISY when they go down, especially Piper who often wails a bit. Also Piper only has one volume, ON (I think she gets that from me). So they had to go down in our room which went as well as you imagine (hopefully you are imagining not well, lol). By 8:30 it was the get in bed now and don’t come out again same ol’ shtick. By the time I turned in they were asleep and we transported them back to their room where they stayed for some time before returning to our room. Does this sound like progress? I can’t tell anymore:)

Tonight Landis is again exhausted from day two with no nap. She is already asleep and happy to be so. The only downer is that she is in our room asleep since the girls won’t even begin to start going down for another hour or so. This does not sound like progress:)

Jason is feeling puny lately (but on the mend) AND I had committed him to do a website for a fundraiser (OOPS) so we had to rearrange the evening routine. We have tried unsuccessfully in the past to have Landis sleep in her toddler bed in the girls room (we had not tried really hard because I was a negative nancy and did not think it would ever work). But last night Jason needed to work on the website so he could get to bed earlier and start getting better so I took all the girls to their room.

It took much longer than normal for Landis, an extra 30 min, but she went to bed in her toddler bed! I sat right by her bed and alternated holding her and having her lay down, she wanted to get up a few times but I offered her the choice of sitting with me or laying down and she would choose to sit with me. Piper was of course protesting bedtime but that is her usual M.O., and I had stacked the deck in my favor by removing the ladder to her bed (I know bad mom). But I was sitting in there and I put the ladder back when everyone was asleep.

I would love to report that she stayed in her bed all night but that is such a rare if non existent scenario at our house that I won’t even try to convince you of it. At 11:30 she came out and went in to our room, which is great because she did not just get up and cry she actually struck out on her own to find a new spot. She got in bed with me, Lela joined us shortly in her bed on Jason’s side and finally in the wee hours of the morning Piper arrived to get on her folding mat in our room. We woke up as we always do all in the same room BUT it is progress:)

We had our first teacher conference today for the girls. I was both nervous and excited and I kept having to tell myself to just listen, take it in and not to say a word. I think I did a good job of keeping it to myself until the end:)

Nothing earth shattering came out of the meeting. We know where the girls are above their age level and where they are at their age level. For example they have fine motor skills above their age but we have been crafting forever, they are at their age and have room for improvement in the vocalizing their needs/wants to adults in complete sentences.

The one thing that was interesting to note is that the girls roles are exactly opposite at school. For example,

At home Lela is not self directed and does not self intitiate but Piper always does (Lela is starting to a bit at home). At school Piper does not self direct or self initiate and stands in the room wondering what to do while Lela considers all options and then goes for it.

Lela is very empathetic at school and we don’t see that so much at home, we do see it some but maybe because Piper is SO empathetic at home. Both of the girls show empathy at school comforting friends who are sad, Lela will go to the teacher and call attention to sad children, Piper often defends children who are hurt or sad.

I am very happy to see that they girls are opposite at school than they are at home because that means all the things are there even though we don’t see them all at home.

I am glad we chose to send them to Desert Sun.

The girls are developing their own little quirks which are quite entertaining. Just a few that I can remember are:

Landis – loves to sing to herself, she sings the ABCs, she sings the Hello song from the girls school and seems to be transported when she sings happy as a clam in her own little world

Lela – she has gotten in to the habit of skipping everywhere she goes, it is so cute and so hilarious, you can see her skipping everywhere when you are watching and when she doesn’t know you are watching, just happily skipping along to life

Piper – we put a hopscotch rug in the hall on the way to the girls room, Piper cannot walk across it and is compelled to hopscotch across the rug each time she goes to and fro from her room.

I am not sure “pay it forward” was the true spirit in the cold/virus passing that is happening and has been happening at our house. The girls and I are on version 4.0 of the virus at least and I think Jason is taking all 4 at once and feeling pretty puny (or maybe he is a wuss, lol). We are working to increase the nutrient density of our foods, take our vitamins and wash, wash, wash our hands. Hopefully we will survive our winter without anything worse than a simple virus.

We have been so busy with all our extracurricular activites, I even missed my doctor’s appt this week! Argh! Thankfully they rescheduled and we went in on Friday. Then we spent Friday cleaning up the garage, cleaning out the car and basically decluttering as best we could. It felt very productive. We were due to have a garage sale this morning but we decided against it.

So we headed out this morning and went to the garage sales in our neighborhood and got a few good finds for the girls (mostly books and a few “treasures”). Then we headed to their school for their Fall Festival. Boy was that a good time. They had pony rides, face painting, games, bounce houses, snow cones, crafts and so much more. The girls had a blast. We took Noa with us and I think they all got wore out. Landis fell asleep on the way home and is resting. Tonight we are headed up to early dinner with the gparents. It has been a busy but rewarding day. Look for pics!

The girls were so excited for Halloween. The main reason is the Great Pumpkin! We managed to get through another year with the tale of the Great Pumpkin and how he exchanges a toy of your choice for all of your Halloween candy. I say all but in reality Lela ate a Snickers (mini) and Piper ate a mini bag of candy corn (yuck). But the rest of the candy, happily and a bit sadly (for me) went away. I am glad it is long gone and it was a ridiculous amount of candy anyway. Did you know that people actually give out whole candy bars these days? Yipes! Who does that.

Anyhoo, the evening went well and the girls were braver than last year going up to doors and saying trick or treat, thank you and Happy halloween. Landis got a fright right out of the gate in our driveway with a scary ghoul with red blinking eyes which kept her right in her stroller the whole time. She opted out of dressing up anyway and I managed to get her through with only 2 dum dums, a mini snickers and a bag of fruit snacks. People wanted to give her candy even though I asked them not to, I swear a moment in her hands and it is down the hatch. The snickers had to be retrieved from her jaws with paper still on it! LOL! Odd thing is that she doesn’t like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies??? What’s up with that?

Gah! We got egged. How annoying is that! Jason’s car, a bit of the house and the garage door all got egged. We got it all off but it wasn’t a very nice post Halloween treat I tell ya. That is what I get for handing out toys instead of candy.