Getting more real by the day

Last night, I attended a parents orientation meeting for Aiden's new preschool. It was mandatory for at least one parent to attend, and John didn't feel like going since he was all numb from dental work (and his brother was coming over to do guy stuff). Oh well, it gave me about 2 hours out of the house without kids.
I turned in all Aiden's registration paperwork, paid his tuition, briefly met a few other parents, and then sat through an hour-long presentation on how the school operates and what a typical day looks like for the kids. While this sounds a little boring all written out, the presentation was very informative. It became very apparent to me that these people are extremely passionate about what they do and it's all about the kids. Their approach is based on the belief that children are not citizens in waiting, but that they are already capable people, deserving of respect and if you give them that respect, they will surprise you with what they can do. What's great about this is that it's basically the whole way of parenting written about in Grace Based Parenting. I've been trying to follow that book in my approach to parenting and so I'm very happy to have found a preschool that approaches learning in basically the same way.

I'm getting excited for Aiden and I've been trying to talk to him about it some. I don't think he quite gets what I'm talking about yet, but last night he did tell me that now he would have some best friends when he went to his new school. It's not only a new opportunity for him, but also for me. During the presentation, the director talked about ways to turn the process of getting ready for school into a big old learning opportunity. I'm looking forward to giving myself the challenge of doing the things she suggested.

Aiden starts on the 3rd. The first day of leaving my baby might be a little hard for me, so please keep us in your thoughts that day. If you'd like to learn more about the preschool, you can check out their website: http://creativechildrenscenter.com

School time!

It was very last minute and my head is still spinning, but Aiden will be an official preschooler this fall! We found a preschool that, amazingly, still had openings in the 2-3 year olds groups (Aiden's birthday falls too late for the 3-4 year olds group and he's not yet potty trained, which most preschools require for that age group). It's small private preschool in Beaverton/Aloha and it's owned by a very nice lady who is the director and also the kindergarten teacher. Her daughter will be Aiden's teacher and she is very sweet and friendly. All of the teachers there have Masters degrees in Teaching and they showed us typical projects for the different age groups. By kindergarten, they have them doing geography! They are very big on fundraising and parent volunteers, so they are able to keep their costs down and very reasonable. They even give discounts if a parent or grandparent volunteers twice a month. I even found my perfect volunteer job during our tour today! Organizing the craft supplies shed! The director said I could even use their label maker. :^) Fun!

I'm so excited for Aiden. He was so excited to check out the place and just immersed himself into all the toys and activity stations within minutes of arriving. He will be attending twice a week in the afternoons. I can tell that he's going to love having the interaction with other kids on a very regular basis and I'm going to enjoy having some one on one time with Nathan. Lately, it had gotten to the point where I could tell that I wasn't able to do enough for Aiden during the day. He was getting bored with regular activities quickly, he wasn't wanting to play by himself very much, and he would begin to act out whenever I needed to focus my attention on the baby. This is great opportunity for us and I'm so glad that the door was opened to us. It's truly a miracle that we found a place with openings one week before school starts! It will be an adjustment for us, but I'm looking forward to how he will benefit from this new chapter of his life. My little baby is growing up....

Prayer please

For my readers who pray, I have a request:

My mother is in need of serious prayer. I won't (and really can't due to time and space) go into all the details of the past few years, but she has some serious mental issues. She is paranoid, vengeful, secretive, and a compulsive liar. She will say anything if she thinks it will get her something. She divorced my step-father, a loving Christian father, a couple of years ago and has ended up with an immature, abusive younger man who has serious anger issues and has even hit her on a few occasions. She has been spending the past few years trying to convince the courts that my step-father is the abusive one and she is at it again. He is the only steady source of love and devotion in my siblings' lives and she is trying to get it so that he isn't allowed to see the children and possibly even arrested for child abuse. Please pray that the courts and agents from Child Protection Services will see him for who he truly is.

I have tried all I can to tell the courts and CPS that she is the one who has issues and is putting the children in danger by being the man she is currently with. I can only do so much and at times it's so frustrating that it hurts. I have prayed on many occasions that she will see the light and realize how many people she has hurt, but I'm beginning to believe that this is just who she is and that she will never change. I've tried speaking to her about her behavior on a few occasions and I just ended up being verbally abused.

This is a very serious ongoing issue that my family has and we could use all the prayer we can get. Even though I am at a distance from my family, it still affects me deeply and pulls me away emotionally from dealing with my own children as I try to work through it. I have offered my testimony to CPS if they wish to speak with me regarding my step-father, so hopefully they will take me up on that and hear me out. I have spoken with them before and ended up with some good results because of it. There are also many people who know my mother well and have offered to back up my step-father against her claims.

I will update if any significant news comes to my attention.

The person I am

I'm far from perfect and I'm fully aware of this. However, I do feel like I have improved myself greatly over the past few years. I am constantly searching for the best way to approach parenting issues and to improve the quality of my marriage. I want to contribute all I can to make our way of life as fulfilling as possible. This means that I am continually challenged to give up pieces of myself to care for my husband and my children. In virtually everything I do, I try to ask myself if that is the best decision for my family. It is important to me to give my children a calm, steady, productive home life while giving them the love and respect that they deserve. I do this because I want them to be loving, respectful, and happy individuals.

I have to work on these things every day. There are some days that I feel like I have it all down, and other days I feel like I've screwed up somewhere along the way. But all in all, I am happy with the decisions that John and I have made for our family and I am encouraged to continue to improve upon myself. I can confidently say that I am a better person that I used to be.

But no matter how much you work on yourself, there can always be something to throw it off. Something to make you feel very discouraged. There will always be someone who wants you to feel like you've screwed up for one reason or another. Maybe they aren't happy with the choices they've made, so they have to make themselves feel better by bringing you down. Maybe they don't like that they don't have control over your life, so they try to get that control by messing with your emotions. If you fight back, they've won that control and you've shown them that they can do it. Most times, things like this aren't personal; it's just how they improve how they feel about themselves.
Because I have changed myself, I can deal with these things in a much different way than I used to. I wait until the raw emotions have passed and then I think through it like an intelligent adult. I don't scream, I don't yell, I don't fight back. I just realize that people like this need someone to pick on. People like this are always going to assume that they know more about you than you do. And I can shrug it off and know that people like this are just embarrassing themselves by acting the way that they do. And I feel bad for them.

I can't say that things like that don't get to me at all, because I'm only human and it's only natural that it will effect me at least a little bit. But I choose to take things like this as a challenge to improve myself even further and hope that someday the people who feel badly about themselves can find an opportunity to improve themselves too.

"People of purpose annoy - even infuriate - those who want to coast through life." - Tim Kimmel