Accomplishing the Kindergarten Checklist

I picked up the Kindergarten Registration packet for Younger Boy and in it was a page that has a list of things that “They would like him or her to know” before your child enters school in the fall.

Younger Boy can do quite a bit of them already. He knows his colors, he knows common shapes, he knows common fruits and vegetables, he knows common animal names and he’s pretty good at knowing his different body parts. Although he’s having some trouble remembering his shoulder but that’s not a high concern on my list.

They also would like him to be able to count up to 10 objects. So I plopped down a handful of mini marshmallows in front of him. He got up to 19 because that’s all that was there. I didn’t want to give him too many because the rule is if you touch it you eat it.

Some of the things on there that I thought was a little silly was the ability to cut on a line, color inside the lines and string beads or macaroni. I figure he’ll strengthen on these on his own as he gets into his Kindergarten groove. Besides, I know people my age who have trouble coloring inside the lines. I’m not going to expect a 4-year-old to have mastered that feat just yet.

The one big thing I have been working with him on is writing. He, of course, wants to hold the pencil/pen wrong. So we’ve been trying to work daily on writing the letters and how to hold the pencil. I bought a wipe-off work book for Middle Boy when he was learning to write his letters so I’ve been using that with Younger Boy. He’s gotten pretty good at it.

I’ve also been working with him on how to spell his name. We started off using the letter magnets on the refrigerator. And this past Friday was my mom’s birthday so I thought it would be a good idea to have him practice writing his name by signing the card himself. I copied his name down on a piece of paper and had him copy the letters. He sat there and struggled a little bit. But he managed to get the letters onto the card. They were somewhat legible, different sizes, and his s was backwards. But you could read it and know whose name it was.

Yesterday I had FH sit down to work on some of these Kindergarten feats with him. He had a pencil in hand and a big piece of paper. I asked Younger Boy to practice writing his name. I also asked FH to go grab the piece of paper so he could copy it down for him. Well, low and behold, by the time FH walked over from the desk to the table Younger Boy had printed out his name if very legible letters.

FH and I looked at each other quite astonished, and proud. Younger Boy looked at me and smiled. I could swear his had a “You silly fool. Of course I can write my name” look on his face.

Baby Update: I'll be going on 17 weeks on Wednesday. We heard the heartbeat again and it's still going strong. I'm waiting for the next ultrasound on April 29th. It's the big one where I have to drink 5 1/2 glasses of water an hour and a half before so they can look for birth defects and what not. We're hoping the baby will let us know what he or she is. Please think *Girl* for me because I sure could use another female in this house of boys. Especially considering even the cat is a male.

I’m Here! I’m Here!

I realized today that it has been weeks since I’ve updated. I finally have a break so here I am with a rambling update.

Can I tell you that having a very sick FH in bed while I tend to the house chores that he usually does, taking care of the boys and trying to grow a baby are all very exhausting when done at the same time. I think last week has by far been the longest week ever.

It all started last Saturday when Older Boy had his first ever slumber party to celebrate his 10th birthday. I learned that I have no idea what 10-year-old boys enjoy doing to entertain themselves. Apparently video games, board games and movies did just fine though.

I also learned that apparently it’s at 10 years of age that the infamous and indifferent “I Don’t Care” and “I Don’t Know” start to show their ugly heads. I noticed Older Boy started with the “I Don’t Care” probably about two weeks or so ago. I had to think back to when “I Don’t Care” reared it’s ugly head when I was younger. It was about this age.

And my thoughts were confirmed by all three of the 4th grade boys that came to our house.

The smart thing we did was send Middle Boy and Younger Boy to my parents’ house. The dumb thing we did was actually expect the fourth graders to keep somewhat quiet when it got too late. I was awoken around 1am by high pitched giggling. Luckily FH got to be the parent that got up and told them to go to bed. Thank goodness because I was exhausted and cranky and likely to snap.

Then FH got a nasty, painful, energy zapping sinus infection. Luckily we got him some antibiotics; unluckily it was almost a week later (this last Saturday) so we both got drained – He from his illness and I from trying to do everything while pregnant.

I am currently being rewarded though. FH and the boys are off camping this week. That means that Nasty Cat and I have the house to ourselves. The quiet is nice and I’ve been able to sleep and relax. Although I do miss them, it’s really nice to get some time to myself to recharge and catch up.

Baby Update: As of Wednesday, April 7th I’ll be 15 weeks in my pregnancy. The all-day-morning sickness has been traded in for nasty headaches. I guess I’d rather get a nasty headache once in a while though compared to feeling sick to my stomach every day all day. I'm still waiting for the moment that I just might enjoy being pregnant like so many of my friends. However, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm maybe a part of that other group that does not enjoy it. Because I honestly am not enjoying it. But, I'm excited and happy as the weeks go on.

Trying To Relax

It’s no lie that I lead a high-stress life. At work I handle customer service with pet owners and multiple projects daily. At home I have my instant family. And now in life my body is 100% of the time working to create a baby and I have to make sure to eat the right things, get enough sleep and not over do it. Needless to say I am also a Type A personality. (I should probably add a + or 2 after that “A” there.)

So my mother comes over this weekend and she and FH get into how stress can reflect on the baby’s personality and temperament. Great! Let’s add some more things to stress me out. So I’ve been working on a few ways to not stress or to at least calm myself more. Which isn’t easy.

Luckily Jane has been on best behavior as of late. By that I mean she has actually kept her dinner dates with the boys the last month or so and is actually sticking to the holiday agreement that she gets the boys for the weekend this Easter. (I’m secretly hoping this means we can start sending them over there for the weekends again.)

However, Middle Boy and Younger Boy have not been on best behavior. In order to deal with this I’ve been trying to let FH go in there and lay down the law of the land. However, apparently I’m the big boss in the house so I only try to intervene when it gets crazy hair pulling out of control. (That’s a great blog I’ll save for later too.) But I’m hoping that they’ll start to show a bit more respect for FH when he’s being the authorative parent. Personally I think he just needs to just be more consistent in stepping in.

Back to me, I’ve found that the Winnie-The-Pooh movie, classical music, baby lullabies, ice cream and chocolate pudding cups are my best means of relaxing – And of course catching any moment of quiet that I can.

I’m curious to see what types of things you’ve found to help yourself relax from the crazy stepmomma or momma life. I know it’s only going to get more crazy once the baby is born but I figure now is a good time as any to start practicing ways to relax and recharge.

BTW – I’ll be 13 weeks on Wednesday. Yay for the recent decrease in morning sickness as the second trimester creeps into the picture!

Eleven Weeks

Eleven Weeks – that is how far along I am in my pregnancy.

I’m still trying to grasp it although seeing the ultrasound made it more real for me. I’m a mix of emotions. I’m excited, and terrified, and flat out amazed. I’m also hating on the first trimester. Morning sickness blows, and if I don’t eat something small every 30-40 minutes I feel nauseous.

I’m also exhausted. As excited as I am, I really was looking forward to some downtime between the wedding and getting to be a wife. It still seems weird calling FH my husband in casual conversation. It sounds almost unbelievable telling everyone that I’m pregnant. It was quite a surprise that not even a week after the wedding I’m peeing on a stick that is telling me I’m pregnant. Not just pregnant, but six or so weeks pregnant.

But that is life, and we’re going to open our next chapter with open arms.

If anything the boys are very, very excited. I’m not sure how involved they got to be in Jane’s last pregnancy. But we’ve been having them take part in helping me out now. I’m glad that they’re as excited as they are. It’s helping me adjust to it all much easier.

Older Boy has taken on the duty of litter box patrol. It’s been great because he hasn’t complained about it and he does it every night as if he’s been doing it for years.

Younger Boy and Middle Boy actually got to be there for the first ultra sound. We made sure there was a heart beat before we brought them and FH in, but they were really excited and fascinated by the experience. We’re hoping that Older Boy will be able to accompany us one of these times once summer comes.

So here he or she is!

It Rhymes!

Younger Boy has really been excelling in the spelling words area. He has learned about compound words; although I can’t say that he understand the exact word “Compound Word.” But he’s learned that he can put little words together to make bigger words. He’s mastered such words as “cupcake,” “subway,” and “cat food.”

In addition to these bigger words he has also been learning about words that rhyme. Many times throughout the day I hear excitement in:

“Crys! Bed, Shed! They rhyme!”

“Mouse, House! They rhyme!”

And various other rhyming word combinations. He’s also starting to learn new words from rhyming words. For example we were in the car one day trying to think of all the different words that rhyme with bug. He started switching the “b” out with other letters.

From switching out single letters, he started switching in letter combinations like “ch,” sh,” “st,” etc. He learned that chug rhymes with bug, but that stug isn’t really a word –

Even though it rhymed. Which brings us to tonight’s experience.

There we were. In the middle of a restaurant. He was happily eating his ice cream. He had spelled the word “hat” for us multiple times. Hat by the way is his most favorite word ever. When out of no where he announces out loud:

“I can spell shat! S-H-A-T!”

FH and I looked at each other.

“He didn’t learn that from me.” I mumbled as my face dove into my hands to try and contain the laughter that wanted to bust out. FH just shook his head as he mumbled “We’ll, it is past tense.” Can I just say that we were both dying from holding in the laughter.

I think I shall wait to see if he spells it again in which I’ll let him know that “shat” isn’t really a word. And instead we should try the word “shut” or even better we can stray away from substituting that vowel and make the word “shout.”

You have to love the things that come out of those little, rapidly growing brains.

Grasping “Manners”

We babysat our nephew and niece this past Saturday and on the way back to their house we heard the funniest conversation between our nephew and Middle Boy.

For some background info:

• Middle Boy is two months older than Nephew J.
• Middle Boy and Nephew J are very competitive with each other. They’re always trying to get the one up on the other.
• Nephew J is a really sweet kid but definitely doesn’t have the structure that Middle Boy has been introduced to.

Back to inside the car. Nephew J and Middle Boy are in the back seat talking about things they do at home.

NJ: I can play my video games whenever I want. Can you?

MB: We don’t get to play video games every day.

NJ: I never ask my mom or dad if I can play video games. I play them whenever I want.

MB: You must have bad manners!

I had to keep my chuckling under wraps, luckily I was in the front seat of the mini van and there was a row of seats in-between us. I was both amused and proud of Middle Boy. At least he’s starting to get a grasp on the whole “manners” thing.

We Got Married!

We endured much wedding preparation chaos but we overcame all. It even came down to the chaos of needing an extra $400 five hours before it was due, however with the help of my parents and getting FH’s taxes filed early we pulled it all off.

Our wedding day was a really joyous and amazing day! We made sure to include the boys were we could in the ceremony and the smiles on their faces and their excitement really paid off for it.

I wanted to share my wedding vows with you. I don’t normally cry and I didn’t think I would. In fact for the whole first part of my vows I was doing pretty well. Then I got to the part where I made promises to the boys and I looked over at them as I said their names. As soon as I said Older Boy’s name he got the biggest smile on his face and his eyes widened and he just glowed. And that did it. Tears swelled in my eyes and my heart just about stopped beating in happiness. I somehow choked out the rest of my vows but I did it.

Of all the boys I think I was worried most about being accepted by Older Boy since he’s the oldest of course. Although he’s the one who has been asking for months and months now when we’d be getting married he’s been saying little things that have made me feel welcomed both as a family member and a parent to him. For one he named me as his parent in an essay he wrote while on the other hand he named Jane’s guy as his stepdad. I’ve very much accepted that he has accepted me as a parental figure in his life. He also vocally gives me much credit for many things and that has made me feel even more welcomed.

Anyway, here are my wedding vows:

FH, I promise to love you, to hold you and to honor you, in good times and in bad, to enjoy you, to communicate with you always, and to console you when you need consoling. I will give thanks for you each and every day, and cherish you with all of my heart. And I promise to be a patient, loving mother to Older Boy, Middle Boy, and Younger Boy; caring for them and providing for them as my own. I promise to be their strength and their emotional support, loving them with all my heart forever.

We also did a family sand ceremony. I ended up going to a craft store and buying small vases, sea salt and coloring. I also got a glass etching kit and put the first letter of our first name on each of our vases. We also let the boys pick out the color they'd like. It came out really nice and all of the boys were really excited to be able to have a role in the wedding.

Here is a photo of the sand ceremony set up before the ceremony.

Here is a photo of afterward. And as an added bonus there’s my hand-made bouquet and our yummy cake.

I’m hoping now that things have been settling back down I’ll be able to post more frequently again.