Oops!

In case you think my adventures lie solely with my children.....

Of course I laughed at him and took a picture before helping our poor dog get his head out of the tissue box.  It wasn't a simple pull-off either - I had to cut it off of him!  

Pumpkin Monkey Bread

Photo by Tracy at Sugar Crafter

Doesn't this just scream "IT'S FALL!"?  This is getting made today and I am sooooo excited to eat it, it's ridiculous (I have a bit of a pumpkin obsession when it comes to baking).  You can get the recipe here from Sugar Crafter: Pumpkin Monkey Bread.  Now that I've discovered this recipe of hers, I'm looking forward to trying many, many more!

Professor Aiden

Aiden knows a lot about space, past space programs, and the manned and unmanned vehicles that have been sent into space.  In fact, he could really just be making stuff up and I wouldn't know it, but John assures me that (most of) what Aiden says is correct.  We had a very educational after dinner conversation this evening.

Aiden had gathered his clay model fridge magnets of the Space Shuttle, Saturn V, and Mercury Capsule to demonstrate for us how they worked.  He told us all about the different ignition and booster stages, when the booster rockets disconnect after all the fuel is used up, what the different vehicles did, what happened to them when they re-entered the earth's atmosphere, how heat shield tiles are used to protect the vehicle, and how the shuttle could be landed like a plane, but other vehicles had to land safely in the ocean by deploying a parachute.

Afterwards he gave Nathan a quiz:

Aiden: "Nathan, how many inches long is the Saturn V?"
Nathan: "The Saturn V is 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 pounds."
Aiden: "And how many inches long is the Space Shuttle?"
Nathan: "It was 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 pounds."

It was so cute!  Nathan obviously is a little confused about length and weight, but at least Aiden was being nice by not pointing out Nathan's mistakes (he struggles with that sometimes).

Aiden has really found something that he's passionate about.  We've taken the opportunity on clear nights (when we don't have to be up early the next morning) to get out the telescope and let Aiden be a little astronomer.  He's been thoroughly enjoying any Discovery/Science Channel programs about space that we can find and we probably have 30+ books on space from the library at any given time.  He will tell anyone who will listen that he's going to be a scientist when he grows up.  I really want this passion to continue.  Obviously he could grow out of this interest at any time, but by encouraging him to learn everything he can about this subject I hope we can show him that when he finds something he's interested in, he should go for it. That there's nothing to lose by educating yourself.  I'll never put undue pressure on him by telling him that I expect great things from him - just that I know he's fully capable of doing great things.

Tree!

After three straight days of being stuck on the couch with a horrid flu bug, I had to get back to life today.  I had just about enough energy to put something other than pajamas on and drive Aiden to school (I couldn't even walk him, although it was raining so I didn't really want to walk anyway).  I was pretty much pooped after that, so had been taking it easy.  Around 1:30pm, the dog started barking at the front door.  I didn't think much of it but decided to see if someone was here.  When I opened the door, I did not expect to see a good portion of the tree from our front yard laying all the way across the road in front of our house.  But there it was.

Now, it doesn't look THAT big and I walked over to it thinking that I could just move it out of the way.  That sucker was HEAVY. (the end of the trunk portion that's being blocked by bushes in the picture was surprisingly big - once I saw that, I figured there was no way I could move it)  Since there was no way I was moving it on my own, I called John and he couldn't come home, so I called the city since it was blocking the road.  I was told that because it was a tree from our property, it wasn't their problem......BUT since it was blocking the road, they might be able to send someone out to just move it out of the road and back onto our property.  I didn't want risk getting a bill from the city for that, so I told them I'd call them back if I needed that to happen.  Then I called our HOA.  They sent out a big burly guy and even he struggled to drag the thing out of the street.

After looking at the rest of the tree, he thinks they may have to remove the entire thing.  If they don't remove it immediately, they at least have to take off 2-3 of the larger portions that he's afraid are going to break off at any time due to the stress that's being put on them.  One of those portions could land on our neighbor's car (if it were in their driveway at the time), another portion could land on my car.  If they decide to just take the large portions off for now, they'll still remove the whole tree within the next year.  He said we obviously have a very happy tree, but it's not really meant to get as big as it has and the whole tree is under a lot of extra stress from the additional weight.

An interesting afternoon for sure.  Our front yard is going to look a little different once things are taken care of!  This wasn't something I wanted to deal with while still sick, but I appreciated the prompt response from the HOA.  They sent a guy out within 30 minutes and he had a team out here with a big truck and wood chipper within two hours.  I guess on the bright side of all of this, I got to meet a few more neighbors that I hadn't spoken to yet!  And as one of them pointed out, we'll get to show off the front of our house a lot more with the tree cut down!  What a day.

Jogathon

Aiden has his first school fundraiser and surprisingly, we don't have to try to sell anything (although I'm sure that will come later).  He's doing a Jogathon!  He's got a pretty small goal: $25, so if anyone would like donate toward his jogging, I'm sure we can make it!  There are two options: You can pledge a flat donation (say, $5) for the jog or you can pledge a certain amount per lap that he completes (like 25 cents per lap).  Such great exercise and of course Aiden loves to run, so this is the perfect fundraiser for him.  Donations aren't due until October 26th, so you have plenty of time to submit a pledge!  Leave a comment or send me an email if you're interested.

Bummed

Well, school for me is getting put off for another term.  It's definitely not my first choice, but it turns out my financial aid package won't go through in enough time (the downside of a community college, I suppose) and the fall term wouldn't be covered.  It was a hard decision, but it was the financially responsible way to go.  And in reality, I've waited this long to start so another couple of months isn't going to make a huge difference.  Plus, John is going to get much busier at work (because 45-50 hour weeks aren't busy enough!) and it would have been a challenge for him to get home in time for me to get to class, and let's face it, last minute babysitters can be extremely hard to come by.  I'm bummed, but I'm also going to assume that this is how it's supposed to go.  Maybe Aiden just really needs me to focus on making sure he's adjusting to kindergarten and not getting too bored.  So PCC, I'll see you in January.

Two Weeks

We made it two weeks into the school year before we got sick.  Ah, the joys of school germs.  Funny enough though, Aiden is actually the least sick.  I kept him home partially because he had a croupy sounding cough and I wasn't sure how long is was going to linger into the day.  It ended up disappearing about an hour after he got up, so he'll be heading back to school tomorrow.  The other reason I kept him home was because I was completely sick to my stomach and was fighting off a massive headache.  While I could have had John take him to school, he would have had no one to meet him at the bus stop after school (and as kinders, they don't get dropped off if someone isn't waiting there to meet them).  I finally perked up a little around 3pm, right as Nathan got worse with a stuffy nose and fever.  Why we're all battling three different things is beyond me.

Hopefully we'll all feel a little better tomorrow.  It's Aiden's first elementary open house tomorrow evening and we very much want to go!

What A Weekend!

This weekend was exhausting.  But in a good way.  On Saturday, we had our church fellowship group over for dinner - it was our turn to host after all and it had taken a couple months to find a weekend that worked for most of us.  John and I spent the day doing food prep together.  It was fun one-on-one time while the boys played quietly upstairs with their Legos.  We made a triple batch of our "famous" hamburger buns (we're gradually feeding them to more and more people, so they will be famous eventually - I never buy hamburger buns anymore), and I made a huge slow cooker full of vegetarian chili.  It was a new recipe that I added some of my own twists to, and it was DELICIOUS.  I'm not big on spicy, but I loved the "kick" from this chili.  So good.  It was supposed to cook on high for 6 hours, but I had to turn it down to low after 3 hours because it was so full it was boiling over!  We had enough for the people who wanted chili and probably at least 3-4 meals worth that I've put in the freezer for later.

Saturday amazed me.  Because I've been working on clearing out our home of things we don't need and simplifying our life, Saturday was the first time EVER that I have had a large group of people over and have not had to stress out about how my house looked.  Usually, by the time people get here, I'm out of breath and sweating because I've been cleaning and straightening like a mad person.  I didn't have to do that on Saturday.  On Friday, I swept, mopped, vacuumed, and dusted and that was it.  My house was ready.  All I had to do on Saturday was make sure food was ready.  It made the fellowship dinner so much more enjoyable.  If you haven't already, you can follow our journey to simplicity here: The Simplicity Challenge Blog.

So we had a great time Saturday night (and I got to snuggle with a baby).  Sunday morning was the first morning of a new Sunday School format at church - an intergenerational group, so the kids stay with us.  Aiden and Nathan weren't very interested, so they sat over to the side playing with blocks, but it was fun to really feel like part of an interactive group rather than just sitting and listening to someone talk.

Right after church, we headed out to Banks (and I mean seriously out in the boonies) to John's company picnic.  One of the bosses has a huge property (a former Christmas tree farm, we learned), so there was plenty of room to hang out and play.  One of the things I love about the company is that everyone seriously treats each other like family.  I don't see John's bosses very often, but we're able to laugh and talk together like good friends.  They had catered Dave and Busters (YUM!) and then we spent some time playing badminton and frisbee.

But playing badminton is where things went terribly wrong.  In case you weren't aware, I'm accident prone.  VERY accident prone.  And it had been a few months since I'd injured something.  About 15 minutes into a game, I swung the racquet quite vigorously and felt something pull in my upper right arm (my dominant arm) by my shoulder.  Like the very smart person that I am, I ignored it and swung again.  This time, the pulling sensation was sharp and my entire arm seized up.  I didn't want to alarm anyone, so I said that my arm was beginning to hurt and passed the racquet along to someone else.  By the time we got home, I couldn't use my arm and it was swollen.  It's still the same today, although the pain feels dull and deep rather than sharp and tight.  Oh the things I do to myself.

What a full weekend.  I was ready for bed by 9pm last night!  It reminded me how lucky we are to have such wonderful friends and coworkers.  We'll be back to the same boss's house in a few weeks for the annual pumpkin carving party!  I'll probably avoid the badminton game.

Two Funnies

Nathan is a hoot sometimes, even when he's not trying to be.  This morning, I was giving him good morning kisses.  Lots of them, all over his face (he's got cute pudgy cheeks!).  After a while, he puts his hand up in front of my face and says, "Can you just get me some milk, please?".  Fine then.

This past Sunday we were visiting John's grandparents for a little while in the evening.  They have a box of toys that the boys play with every time we visit.  There are some classic Fisher Price toys in there, including the pull-toy Chatter Telephone (in case you need a visual).  Obviously, because it's from 1962, the phone has a cord.  The cord was a little frayed at the phone end and after a good tug from Nathan, it came apart, separating the phone from the base.  Nathan looks at it and says, "Oh, now it's a normal phone".  Ah yes, the new generation not having any idea what a corded phone looks like.

He really makes us laugh!

The Wheels on the Bus

Guess who rode the school bus for the first time today?

How is my baby old enough to ride on a school bus?!

We were happy to discover that he was eligible to ride the bus home from school.  It also gives me an extra half hour before he comes home.  He had BEGGED to ride the bus and once we agreed to look into it, his whole outlook on going to school changed.  He's super happy and is very, very excited that he gets to be a "busser" now.  The bus driver and extra bus attendant are very nice and let me know that he did wonderfully. I was actually at the school at pick-up time since the teacher wasn't sure if Aiden was on the bus list yet, so I got to see him board the bus for the first time.  The smile on his face was huge.  It was a little emotional for mommy.  He's growing up!

Success!

I am happy to report that Aiden's third day of kindergarten (at least the drop-off part - he isn't home yet) went perfectly.  We worked on what we expected from him all weekend and while he did have a few moments of refusal this morning, he actually perked up fairly quickly and happily walked to school.  John went with us today and Aiden was so excited to show daddy his new classroom.  He even made John close his eyes before we went in!  He hung his backpack up by himself and proudly showed John his desk.  We had a very easy goodbye and Aiden got started on his morning work right away.  The look on the teacher's face said it all.  WOW.  She turned to me and mouthed, "SO much better!!".

So what changed it?  I think it was a combination of things.  John hadn't been to the school yet, so I think being able to show daddy where he was going to school was a big deal for Aiden.  We're going to have John either accompany us or be the one to take Aiden to school 1-2 mornings per week.  It's early enough, it doesn't delay his workday much.
Also, Aiden had been upset that he wasn't taking a bus.  We live just 3-4 blocks away, so a bus makes no sense; plus they don't have a route that goes by our house in the morning, but it looks like they do for kindergarten release.  I'm not sure if we qualify due to our location, but I told Aiden that I would look into it for him.
We also set up (thanks to a suggestion from one of the ladies from the mommy group - and an additional suggestion from my mother in law) an incentive program for him.  In case you didn't know, Aiden is (slowly) saving up to buy an iPad.  We agreed that for every morning he gets up, ready, and into school with NO problems (complaining, fits, crying, etc), we will donate 25 cents into his iPad fund.  If he does complain, throw a fit, etc, we will take back 25 cents.  So not only does he not get the 25 cents for that day, he will lose money from the previous good behavior day.  You could see the look of intrigue come over his face when I told him about it.
The combination of these things seemed to make a huge difference.  We did find out some good news regarding the school's Talented and Gifted Program (or TAG).  The school is actually one of the schools in the district that gets extra targeted funding for their programs for kids with additional needs (whether it's behavioral, special ed, or TAG).  It sounds like Aiden will qualify no problem for the Exceptional Readers part of TAG (and possibly for some more), but we would have to consent to testing.  We're going to wait until after his first parent/teacher conference and obviously wait to see how he's handling things.  It did make me feel better about the potential to ease his boredom.  And could be why his class is so small (at 18) - if they get extra funding, they may be able to limit class sizes because of it instead of cramming 40 kids into one room.

Thank you to everyone who checked in with us to see how he was doing and for the prayers.  Those first two days were certainly a huge struggle, but I think we may have turned the corner.  Let's hope it continues!

The Proposal

Aiden has always been an extreme lover of animals.  Even when he was under a year old, he attached himself to my grandfather's dog - which was part wolf and HUGE.  Luckily the dog was a big old teddy bear and adored Aiden's attention.  Because of this love and Aiden's zookeeper-like mentality, we are constantly getting requests for more pets.  Did you know that we're currently at six?  Three cats (who are all indoor), two guinea pigs, and one dog.  It's a full house!

Since January, he's been asking to get Buster a doggy friend.  A bigger doggy friend.  We've considered it off and on because Buster is a very social breed and tends to get bored easily.  He is always massively better behaved after he's been in boarding/doggy daycare for a few days and has been super socialized.  But we've never agreed to it because of the amount of animals already in our house.

Today after school, Aiden came up with a proposal all by himself and presented it to John and I.  His proposal went as follows:

"I think Buster needs a dog friend.  I would like to have a big dog along with our small dog.  I would also like a fish like Aunt Laura has.  We have a lot of animals, so we would need to send the cats outside and get rid of the guinea pigs.  This is my idea."

The proposal is being considered.

First Day of Kindergarten

A big thanks to everyone who kept Aiden in prayer this morning.  He's not home yet, so I have no update on what he thinks or how it went, but this is how our morning went. (11:39am: Update at bottom of post)

We got up at 6:30.  Well, everyone but Aiden got up at 6:30.  He refused to get out from under his covers.  The downside of a bunk bed is that it's hard for a parent to climb up there and get him down.  We finally got him out of bed and dressed.  He refused to eat breakfast.  I told him that there were no snacks at school (can you believe that they don't give them snacks??) and he wouldn't be able to eat until lunch.  He still wouldn't eat.  After a long hug and some reassurances from daddy, Aiden and I (with Nathan) headed off to walk to school.  We got into the classroom, hung up his backpack, and put his school supplies away.  Aiden asked me to stay with him.  I told him that I could stay for a few minutes, but that I wasn't allowed to stay all day.  He started to cry.  His crying was momentarily interrupted by the other child crying so hard he was vomiting.  That poor teacher.

After an announcement from the teacher that all parents needed to leave, I gave Aiden a hug and said goodbye.  He began screaming and sobbing, saying, "Please, please, let me go home!!".  I had to hand him off to the teacher and I left.  I hated walking out, but I knew if I didn't, I was going to burst into tears.  Now, the majority of mothers I know who have had kids go to kindergarten have admitted that they cried on the first day, so I know I'm not the only one.  But I had to hold it in until we walked back home, so I wasn't the lady sobbing as she walks down the street.  I really let the tears go once we got home.  He's normally so outgoing and social.  He's never been clingy like this.  He's gone to preschool for three years with no separation issues at all!  I feel horrible.  I can only hope that he settled in after a good cry.

But we'll forever remember the sadness of this morning by looking at his "first day of kindergarten" picture.

The look on his face just really sums everything up.

Update: I picked him up and the first thing he says is, "I missed you soooooooo much!!  But it was really fun and I knew ALL the songs from preschool!".  He assured me that he did stop crying and that it wasn't quite so boring after all, but he's still not sure that he likes it as much as he should.  Hey, it's a start and he doesn't seem heartbroken about going back tomorrow.  Hopefully he'll transition a little easier tomorrow morning.

No, No, No!

We had a long discussion with Aiden tonight about going to school in the morning.  He didn't get super upset and afterwards, him and Nathan set up a school for bears.  They lined up all of their stuffed teddy bears and Aiden proceeded to walk back and forth in front of them, giving them the run down of the school rules.  This is how it went:

"Listen up, bears!  We've got rules here and you're going to have to obey them!  There will be no hitting, no punching, no kicking, no spitting, no screaming, no yelling, no fighting, no being naughty, and most important....NO LAUGHING."

We were definitely laughing!

Well, Darn

We attended Aiden's kindergarten orientation this morning and lucky for us, we had met his teacher at the placement test, so she knew Aiden already.  We saw Aiden's desk, his cubby, where his birthday is listed on the wall, the classroom computers, and how they have buckets and buckets of super cool learning things.  Things were going ok until I mentioned to him that school starts tomorrow.  He then burst into tears and hid under a desk.

Thankfully, his teacher was very sweet and understanding.  She said she could tell he was nervous and spent some time reassuring him (and me) that the whole first week would be spent getting used to going to school and easing into becoming a class.  She told Aiden that she was sure he wasn't the only one who was scared and that there would be other kids who were nervous and would need a friend.  While it didn't seem to help him at all (when he got back out the car, he proclaimed that he would not be attending school tomorrow), it helped me a bit to know that she's aware of how he's feeling.  Because I'm sure he'll show up to school tomorrow quite ticked off that I made him go anyway.

We're not used to Aiden bursting into tears every couple of hours and that's been part of the daily routine for the past few days.  Hopefully the fear will pass soon after the start of school and he'll remember the excitement that he felt when we toured the school.  He has been very excited about the huge playground, basketball court, and baseball field.  He saw the gym today and thought that it looked like a cool place.  It's just going to take some adjustment to a new, and much bigger, school.

On the Last Day of Summer (Break)

Even though tomorrow is technically just orientation for Aiden and not an actual school day, this was our last day to do whatever we wanted.  And we didn't do much.  Maybe that sounds bad, but it was really relaxing for all of us.

This morning was a test morning to see if we could easily get up on time and get ready in a timely manner.  It went really well and with no fights or tears!  We may be able to switch our wake-up time to 6:30 instead of 6.  The only thing that needs to be fixed is somehow getting Aiden to eat breakfast before he goes to school.  He's like me and doesn't get hungry for quite a while after he wakes up, so we'll need to figure something out.  I don't want to wake him up at 5am just so he can get hungry before he leaves.  I'm thinking that I'll have him pick out a couple of his favorite cereals to have on hand for the first few weeks of school.  If he's excited about the breakfast, maybe he'll actually eat it.

After our morning routine, I wanted to get through some stuff in the garage.  So the boys played in the driveway with bikes, scooters, bubbles, and whatever else they could find while I sorted through boxes.  They found some inflatable pool thingies from our last California trip and inflated those.  Once they were fully inflated, Aiden announced that they were Mola Molas (click here to see a Mola Mola) and he was going to use them as hula hoops.  A couple hours of entertainment right there!

We also played with Legos, played "Whose Feet are Stinkiest?" (hey, I have boys), and colored together.  Aiden stole my water later in the evening and when I pointed out that it was my water and asked him why he'd taken it, he says, "Well, I licked my own foot and it tasted stinky".  Maybe we'll lay off the stinky feet games for a while.

He's still feeling a little apprehensive about tomorrow (we did find out that a set of twins from his preschool from the 2009-2010 school year will be in 1st grade at the same school as Aiden, so he'll know someone there, even if they don't get to see each other much).  I told him that we should celebrate him starting kindergarten by going out to lunch after his orientation, so he's looking forward to having some special time out with mommy and Nathan.  Here's hoping for a smooth introduction to his new teacher tomorrow!

Prayers for Aiden

Please send good thoughts/prayers Aiden's way this week.  Today we had a long talk about school starting and he is extremely nervous.  He spent a good 20 minutes in tears, telling us that he was afraid of feeling alone and not having any friends at his new school.  This will be a big change for him.  He's spent the past three years at a small school with the same friends year after year.  We're doing our best to reassure him, but he's understandably scared about this new situation.  We go in Wednesday morning to meet his teacher and see his classroom, then the first day of school is Thursday.

Summer Recap

This has been a very full summer.  In some ways, the events seem long gone.  But at the same time, some of them were so anticipated, it's hard to believe that they've happened already.  I know I'll miss some things, but here's a quick summer recap.  Feel free to click on any collage to see it in a larger format.

May: Maybe not summer exactly, but it sure kicked things off.  I had the honor of working with my sister-in-law (aka The Other Carrie) to put together a bridal shower for our sister-in-law Laura.  Just in case you need the family connection between us three sisters-in-law, there are three Minthorne children: John, Brady, and Laura.  I am married to John, Carrie Marie is married to Brady, and Laura is their little sister and the last one to get married (to Kevin Brown).  We threw Laura a gorgeous tea party in her wedding colors (green and yellow) and it was pretty amazing, if I do say so.

Because of the shower, there were lots of cousins in town.  I am very blessed to get along so well with John's cousins (it helps that I've known them for 10+ years!) and we all have kids around the same age.  We chose a very warm and busy day to all head to the zoo for an extended family outing.  It's too bad we all can't be around each other more often, but I'm so glad we took the time to have fun together.

June:

June started out with John graduating (finally!).  You can read all about it here.

Then the boys had their preschool graduations.  Aiden was really graduating from preschool, while Nathan just graduated from his class.  Read about that here.

Towards the end of June, it was time for Laura's bachelorette party!!  Her maid of honor, Jenny, did an amazing job putting together an entire weekend of girly things for us to do.  We definitely got to know each other better!  It was different for me to spend a night away from my family, but it was so relaxing.  We had a wonderful tour around Oregon wine country and then headed to a beachfront hotel at the coast.  And we took Laura out to dinner at her favorite restaurant!  Such a good time and the weather was absolutely perfect!

July:

July was the big one!!  It was time for Laura and Kevin's wedding.  Everything felt non-stop from the start of rehearsal the day before to the very end of the wedding day.  Wedding day started at the salon with the rest of the bridal party at 8am sharp!  It was a long day, but everything flowed smoothly and all was gorgeous.

The day after the wedding, we headed to the coast with the rest of John's family (minus Laura and Kevin of course!) to have some downtime together.  The hot tub and pool table at the beach house were very much enjoyed.  The rest of July was pretty low-key, as we definitely needed some time without anything planned.  Aiden had been taking swimming lessons, but we ended up taking him out early after he made it clear that he wasn't enjoying them.  I wasn't going to force him to do something he didn't want to do - it wasn't fair to the teacher.  I think this last year of preschool burnt him out a little.  July was also the time I took the opportunity to get myself signed up to go back to school this fall.

August: August was more low-key as well, but we definitely took time out to enjoy ourselves.  We went down to Newberg one Sunday to visit with John's grandparents and had a fun time at a few of the parks in the area.  

My dad came into town for a week and we took a trip to the zoo, finally going through the dinosaur exhibit.  It was fun and different, and some of the dinosaurs spit at passers-by!  

We also went with John's dad and Kevin to the Annual Oregon Steam Up.  There were lots of different steam tractors and many, many things that I would not be able to describe for you.  We got to ride on a working model railroad!  The boys had fun, but it was warm and Nathan doesn't handle heat very well, so we couldn't stay super long.

We went to a birthday party at the coast for John's cousin Hannah, which gives the boys beach time and me time to have conversations with other adults.  Aiden found a dead jellyfish and wanted to bring it home, but I said no.

The last week of August, we attended the wedding of a friend of ours.  Later that evening, we dropped the boys off at John's parents and headed off to celebrate John's birthday, which you can read all about (including me nearly stumbling over a bear in the wild) here.

And of course the summer was filled with the normal stuff - the library, parks trips, going to parks with fountains and not remembering swim trunks (which meant clothes were soaked), having friends over, taking time to enjoy the sandbox in the backyard, and covering our driveway with sidewalk chalk.  Aiden attempted riding his bike without training wheels multiple times throughout the summer, but can't quite get past the fear of falling over.

As we begin September, things are changing.  Aiden starts kindergarten later this week and I start school in just three weeks.  How exciting and scary all at the same time!  The summer ending sadness hasn't been quite so obvious in prior years as it is this year.  Thank goodness this summer was wild, fun, and definitely memorable.

Good Morning Sunshine

Back in the spring when I registered Aiden for kindergarten, I requested afternoon kindergarten. Every piece of information we've gotten from the school district indicated that afternoon kindergarten was a go. Until yesterday. We got his teacher assignment, but there was no mention of whether it was morning or afternoon kindergarten. I called the school to clarify the information and was told that there would be no afternoon kindergarten. Oh joy.

You see, not a single person in this house is a morning person. The closest one to a morning person is Nathan and his natural wake up time is 7:30-8. Aiden's natural wake up time is 9:30. School starts at 8am. That means that we have one week to train ourselves to get up at 6am.

It didn't occur to me for the entire summer that he wouldn't be in afternoon kindergarten. I don't really know why that didn't register in my brain as a possibility, but oh well. This is going to be quite tough. But on the other hand, it's going to be helpful for keeping us on track schedule-wise for our new simplicity plan. We will HAVE to get up on time. We will HAVE to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I'm not super excited, but it was either this year or next year when 1st grade starts. So it happened a year earlier than we really anticipated, but it won't kill us.

Yesterday I bought the boys new alarm clocks to assist with waking them up. Last night, I started putting my alarm (my phone) across the room from me instead of right next to my bed - forcing myself to get up. I was in bed at 11pm last night and very proud of myself. And then I couldn't fall asleep for two hours. The boys had both taken naps (unusual for them), so they were still bouncing off the walls at midnight. Once I finally did fall asleep, I kept waking up every hour. Alarms went off at 6am and I felt like death. Not a good start. So it wasn't the early start that we had planned on, but we were still up by 8am. Not in time for a school day, but hey, it's our first day trying this and I'd been up for most of the night. We'll try again tomorrow.

Did I mention we're not morning people? Thank goodness Costco sells coffee in bulk.