Cha-cha-cha-changes...

CJ has been in preschool for less than a month now. In that month I have seen so many changes in him. I'd say mostly for the good. Some things I've noticed...

1. He actually will walk up and down the stairs. In the past he would stand on the top or bottom of the stairs insisting that someone pick him up. Now he'll actually go up and down them. It takes him forever, but he's trying.

2. He no longer cries when going to school. He actually talks about going to school and can't wait to be there.

3. He attempts to read along when you're reading a book to him. He points out what's happening in the pictures and will make up his own stories.

4. He has actually peed on the potty. It has only happened twice. Once at home and once at school, but it's a start.

5. He tells stories about his day and asks questions.

6. He tries to mimic his teacher by holding up his book to read it to you like you're his class of students.

7, He insists on doing things for himself. Putting shoes on, pulling pants up, taking coat off. He says, "Me do it!"

8. He washes his hands all the time. Usually he does it without being told to, but even if you tell him to he's running into the bathroom to do it.

9. He has really gotten into a routine and tells me what we are going to do next.

All of these things have already happened within the first month of school. I can only imagine what my little sponge will be like by the time June gets here. Might just be a completely different kid by then...

Thinking of Family

I have been thinking about and missing my Florida family so much lately. I don't really know why. I feel in such a rut here I guess.

I didn't know much of my mom's siblings growing up. My mom is the oldest of five children. She has 3 sisters and one brother. And they ALL live in FL. How did we end up here in CT? Well, that's where they all are from originally. After my mom was grown and out of the house her father (her parents had split up by that time) moved with my mom's youngest sister to Florida. And eventually everyone followed. My grandparents have both since passed away so it's all aunts and uncles and tons of cousins that I have living in FL, but I miss them terribly right now.

The only aunt I really knew growing up was my mom's sister who was closest in age to her. She is the mom of two of my cousins. Her oldest is a year older than my brother and her youngest is two years younger than me. Oh the holidays and birthdays we used to have visiting with them. That made up a huge part of my childhood. We loved going over Aunt Lynn and Uncle Ray's house. They spoiled us so. And we loved playing with our two cousins. When I was about 8 years old though I think they had moved down to FL. That was difficult. Everyone was in FL and here we were the only ones left in CT. We began getting closer to my dad's side of the family at that time I guess. I have a cousin the same age as me so it was nice going through my teen years with her and she's still a huge part of my life. The godmother of Natalie and the maid of honor at my wedding and I was just the maid of honor at hers.

But I always had this draw to FL. I went to college there. I got to spend time with my other two aunts who I never really knew growing up. And I got to meet cousins I hadn't met before. And now those cousins who I will forever remember as 3, 8, 10, 10, 12, and 14 years old are all grown up.

And the cousin who I remember playing with for most of my childhood just turned 30 yesterday. She has a son who's just a few months younger than Natalie, another son a year older than CJ, and a new baby girl. I still feel such a bond and connection with her even after all of these years.

Then there are my aunts. You know growing up I always wished my parents would make that move to FL. When I went down there for college and spent time with my aunts I found out something about the "baby" of the family. The sister who was 10 years younger than my mom was just like my mom. I loved going to visit her. Not only looks wise does she bear the most resemblance to my own mom, but just everything about her was so much like my mom. Now don't get my wrong, my other two aunts are great too. They are tons of fun to be around, but I think I felt most connected to my Aunt Tammy. Still do. We've had some nice talks even recently thanks to modern technology and facebook. But like my mom she loves to bake and she loves to bowl. Never really understood why they weren't closer. I guess that 10 year age gap really made it tough.

I am just really missing each and everyone of them. My aunts, my uncles, and my cousins. I'm sure I'd miss a lot here in CT too if I left. Sometimes I wish things were like they were way back when everyone lived in the same town, same neighborhood, and same house. I hate being so far apart from family and really could use that closeness we used to have.

Just Tired

Have you ever felt like you just can't catch a break? Like everything that could possibly go wrong does go wrong? I have been feeling that way too often lately and I don't know how I got here. Don't get me wrong. I love my life as a stay at home mom. I love my kids more than life itself. And really I know I am very fortunate. I have three healthy thriving children. I mean who could ask for anything more? I don't want to sound selfish or anything, but really lately I am worried constantly. There is just so much going on in my life right now and I don't see a way out. It's mostly financial worries. I can't contribute to our finances because we couldn't afford child care and Joe's work schedule changes so much that I couldn't even work opposite shifts of him. Not that there are any jobs out there to be had or anything. I am sick to my stomach most days now. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Seriously feel like we're just hanging on by a thread. I do not know what to do. And I feel so alone with no one able to help us out of this jam. I wish we could make a fresh start. Wipe the slate clean and have a do over. I just want to stop looking over my shoulder wondering what's going to happen next.

Monica's Musings #9

Just a bunch of random stuff from me...

For the most part school is going well. After 9 days of school CJ finally has stopped crying before he goes in. As a matter of fact today we pulled into the parking lot and he started to clap and say, "Yay school!" Always good to hear. Not sure how much more I could take of that and was thinking that maybe he was just too young.

Kaitlyn's teacher this year LOVES her! Feelings seem pretty mutual. I have come to the conclusion that the reason she gives me trouble with her Math homework (her best subject) is because she just wants that one on one attention with Mr. T. It used to be her writing/reading homework we had trouble with and she'd breeze through the math worksheets. And in all honesty I know she understands this stuff in math. Well, now she doesn't fight with me so much on the writing/reading homework, but without fail we fight about math. I gave up the other day and said you know what fine if you don't know how to do this or understand it then you just leave those problems the way you have them and tell your teacher you don't get it. Then I spoke to her teachers and he told me that he sat with her for a few and she was fine with it. He told me how he was teaching it to her (I said pretty much the same thing) and she got it right off the bat. Then yesterday she purposely didn't answer something on her homework because she wanted to get help from Mr. T. Guess what? She figured out the answer with very little help from me. Go figure. So basically my theory is that she is trying to frustrate me so much that I say oh just get help from your teacher and then she gets to spend one on one time with him and show her what she's got. She knows she can do it so that's why she's fighting me so hard on it because she wants to impress Mr. T with her knowledge.

Natalie hates middle school. Okay, I hated middle school too. But Natalie does not understand that it has to be different from elementary school. I knew this would be a tough adjustment for her. She hates change. I have no doubt she can pull this off and do well, but she needs to push herself to do it. And my controlling ways are fighting the urge everyday to just jump in there and intervene with her teachers. Seriously, I think I will feel much better once they call me with my username and password so I can get onto the parents site and view her grades and assignments handed in. Nothing comes home anymore.

I'm thinking about another picnic lunch today with CJ. It's a nice day out again and we had such a nice time last week. I don't feel like I spend enough time with him now that he's in school. He goes to school, comes home, eats lunch, and takes a nap until around the time Natalie gets home from school. So we don't get much time just me and him. So maybe we should just make this a weekly thing. Well, at least until the freezing cold weather gets here.

I guess that's about all I have on my mind now.

Picnic Date with My Little Man

Today I had planned a picnic lunch date with CJ. After picking him up from school I thought it would be fun mommy son time to go have a picnic. We had been talking about it for a few days so I think he was just as excited about this as I was. So at 11:30 I picked him up from school with our homemade sandwiches and some drinks in a bag. As soon as he saw me he said, "Picnic!" I told him that yes we were going on a picnic. The whole way to the park he was talking about our picnic. We got there and I thought he would want to eat by the playground and then play after, but I asked him if he wanted to sit by the playground or the water. He chose the water. So over to the pond we went. We set up the blanket and sat down and got our sandwiches out and CJ just watched the ducks. This is what I mostly saw of him throughout our picnic...

Getting some more of his sandwich

Back to watching the ducks

Finally he was sitting next to me

He ate the meat and cheese out of his sandwich, but not the bread. So we broke up the bread to feed to the ducks. I didn't get any pictures of feeding the ducks because there was this one sort of aggressive goose that was coming right up to us which was bothering CJ a little. This goose would not leave us alone either when we had no more bread left. We cleaned up everything from our picnic and decided to get out of there since this goose would not leave us alone. We went down to the playground where CJ was off. All those worries about his gross motor are quickly slipping away as I watched him run and climb all over the playground. He did insist that I take his picture at one point though, so here's my little jailbird...


It was a beautiful day for a picnic and it was nice spending time with just CJ. He's been making so many improvements recently. Growing up very quickly. I really love our time together. After running around on the playground we went to see daddy and then came home for a much needed nap. He should nap good this afternoon.

Am I the meanest Mom in the world?

Sometimes I think I must be the meanest mom. I mean okay I did get my 11 year old a cell phone. I swore I would never do that until she could pay for it herself. After all I did just fine without a cell phone. But now that she's in middle school I started thinking pay phones were easily accessible when I was her age. So if there's a problem she'd have a hard time calling me. So I broke down and got her a phone. It's a free phone and no extra money on our plan and she can only call our cell phones or my parents because that wouldn't use any of our minutes. So the phone has not really been used.

But yesterday Kaitlyn got off the bus with papers from her backpack in her hand and her backpack open and in her other hand. I asked her if she did her homework on the bus. She said she did. I told her homework is to be done at home not on the bus. She said okay and I even reminded her again this morning that homework is called homework not buswork for a reason. So I thought we were good.

She got off the bus with her backpack closed today and it appeared she hadn't done her work on the bus. Then I discovered her papers were all just thrown in her backpack and not in her folder so everything was wrinkled. She says she didn't have time. I thought she only had one math sheet for homework which she had gone through pretty quickly. I had to make her correct a few things and then all of a sudden she comes out with this fill in the blank paper that she found that she had for homework. Now reading is tough for her and these fill in the blank sheets tend to cause much anxiety for her. So as I was going through it I was pretty amazed as how easily she managed to do this particular homework. So at first I thought Natalie helped her with it. She did not. So I asked Kaitlyn about it and how she managed to do it so quickly. She claimed it was easy. I kept pushing though and the story changed to she started it on the bus, but she only did one problem when she remembered what I said, but I could tell she wasn't telling the truth. So I pushed more and it changed to she did a few and then it was the whole thing and a couple on the math paper. So then I questioned her about getting help with it because I know she couldn't have done this on her own. She said her friends only helped her with a few. I do not believe her though. But apparently everyone does their homework on the bus and she doesn't want to be the only one that doesn't. Sorry, I don't think I'm wrong in thinking that homework should be done at home. Not on the bus.

So anyways, mean mom that I am I emailed her teacher. I have requested another worksheet like the one she did on the bus for her for homework tomorrow as punishment. If she does her homework on the bus again tomorrow then she is not going to be able to participate in Bingo at school Friday night or have her ice cream. Yes, maybe I am a mean mom, but I do not want her taking shortcuts in life. Hopefully her teacher is receptive to my punishment of her and supplies the extra homework.

Monica's Musings #8

Back to school and things are getting pretty busy around here. So just a few things that have been on my mind...

Having 3 kids in 3 different schools has already proven to be difficult with planning. Already I have found events are occurring on the same day.

For the most part CJ is enjoying school. He's not enjoying the leaving me so much which has been tough, but he is making friends. He seems to be a class favorite already.

I'm having a hard time understanding why the school picture company charges more for different schools. I contacted them to find out why, but their answer didn't make much sense to me. They said something about offering different things, but it seems they offer more to the elementary school than the middle school, but yet the middle school pictures are pricier. Go figure.

For some reason Kaitlyn's school doesn't use the same school picture company as the other kids do. There goes my family discount.

I'm not sure how well Natalie is adjusting to middle school. It has only been a week, but she really doesn't seem to like it much. She has never been very good at handling change though so I'll have to keep an eye on her.

I'm going to my first PTO meeting at Kaitlyn's school tonight. I'm excited to see some of the things they do.

Kaitlyn's school offers a chance to be a room mother. Never had that before so I'm hoping I get chosen for it.

Time is going by way too quickly.