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Jul. 5th, 2011 01:33 amI'm starting to think that outside of any religious education or spiritual value, church is important for my kids just so that they know how to sit down and take something seriously. There really seems to be a coorespondence with when we last went, and how long they can sit and pay attention to anything I or anyone else has to say to them.
I also really value it when they can attend a concert or be out to dinner or what have you without completing losing it or embarassing me (and those sorts of things are normally assumed, I get compliments often), but today what I'm specifically thinking about is how I'm ready to let Isaac, Jake and Elise HAVE. IT. because throughout our (super interesting, discussion-based, with pictures and BRIEF) lesson on the fourth of July (WHICH INCLUDED DECORATING A CAKE WITH BERRIES, that we then took to share with the kids at the bookstore) they were giggling, purposely distracting and whispering to each other, DOING SOMERSAULTS, leaving the room -
I have a hard time dealing with it when my kids act like they have no standards of behavior or attention span whatsoever. I think that in addition to going back to weekly mass, it's definitely past time to turn the tv off again.
This three day weekend has been all over the place. My favorite parts:
-potluck at Kristin's Friday night - she made these DELICIOUS fat, fresh spring rolls we were dipping in soy sauce, and Laura (MY PREGNANT SISTER DID I MENTION SHE'S PREGNANT AGAIN) brought lots of strawberries and nutella, and Grant made a big pot of jambalaya, and...it was just fun. All my boys stayed there overnight and we just brought the girls home.
-being out with just Grant, Saturday night. The outing involved three kinds of alcohol, loud music, and swimming in the warm ocean naked at 2 am. I haven't been in the ocean naked since I was, oh...three weeks old? Shrieking about seaweed on my legs, hoping nothing would eat me, laughter and floating around. Laying on a blanket wet and sandy looking at stars for a long time afterwards. Shared candlelit bath when we got home. Super awesome.
-sitting around with Grant, Shaun, Bob and the kids in camping chairs, with bottles of water, after the fireworks show tonight - lots of laughter and nonsense, lots of good talking, perfect weather. The hoardes of people all bottlenecking out of there at once were getting uncomfortably close to us until Grant got the Traffic Triangle out and made us a space bubble - then we could chill and do gymnastics and play fighting and so on until everyone else was out of there :p
Least favorite:
-I was sick all day yesterday (Sunday). Nauseus and weak. Layed around and slept until I was sore from laying around sleeping. Thought I was better this morning, and turned into a dizzy coughing sweat pile an hour into being out and about. I think I'm REALLY mostly better now, I just had to kind of take it easy and drink more fluids than normal and hopefully it's run it's course...
I'm looking at Ananda, standing there 5'2" or whatever she is now, with her very-there curves and her converse and attitude style and her bleaching kit to put streaks in her hair, and I'm thinking, what? Is that what I looked like to Jean-Paul, when he asked me out at that age? In one year, is she going to look like I looked to Grant and David and all the Riverwalk boys I hung around all the time, who all had crushes on me? It blows my mind. I just framed a couple of her latest paintings and hung them in the dining room :) She has this whole plan mapped out for the next decade of her life that involves burning through grade levels, doing dual enrollment at MDC, working at Starbucks after she graduates, and then deciding whether to go to culinary school or major in astronomy first. She did a month's worth of math last week because she wants to be totally over decimals, fractions and beginning geometry and move on to the next things, and the next, and the next. Her math and writing were the last things she was behind in a year ago, though she's advanced to grade level and is about to lap it, now, in math, and is approaching grade level in writing. For a super dyslexic chicky who was totally stuck on things like place value and spelling it's awesome to see how hard she's worked. Her reading, science and history are way ahead. And she's really set on cello with the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, we'll see how that goes.
Aaron is beside himself with obsession about the Vibram Five Fingers shoes he HAD TO HAVE that Opa (Grant Sr) got him for his birthday (I was not spending $110 on a pair of shoes he'll outgrow within the year...I was gagging about spending $80 at the Crocs store for Isaac, Jake AND Elise a couple of weeks ago and seriously thought Ananda's $45 chucks were pushing it even though her feet are almost done growing). His friends Logan and Adrian (the Ninja Dolphins) have them. We finally exchanged his birthday pair for the right size today and he's like a walking commercial for them, nonstop praise and trivia and perks and - I am so over it. He always fixates like this.
Isaac is...really unhappy :/ We did serious elimination diets for gluten and dairy in the past months with no results. I put him in enrichment classes he really enjoyed. His arm in the sling was hard to deal with, though that's been better for awhile. I just...don't know what to do with him. He finds things to complain about all day long. He still cries about things the younger kids are long past crying over. Several times a day. At the end of a day where he got to play with his best friend at the park for hours, eat his favorite food for breakfast and go to the movies, he'll say it was the worst day ever and list things like how the quarter machines didn't work at the theater and the park was hot and he didn't get as much breakfast as others did. All day every day, that is his attitude, and sometimes we feel like we bend over backwards to make him happy and he's still totally ungrateful. Other times I feel like I'm done with it and he just has to roll with us, but it's not like that helps anything. He's just so anxious about something so often. I'm always outwardly assuming the sale but inwardly cringing, waiting for the next bout of misery. I got him a book called "14,000 things to be happy about" that is just a giant list and am reading it to him gradually, but I know that's silly. We're talking together about actually making a list he writes and I transcribe called "x number of things to grump about", which he thinks is hilarious. His reading confidence is improving and I keep wondering if maybe chapter books could open up a whole new world for him, the way they have Ananda.
Jake is...wonderful. He's gentle and patient with Elizabeth (18 month old niece) and eager to build her towers to knock down or otherwise make her happy. He volunteers to help other kids with their chores or finding clothes when they don't want to deal with those things. He wolfs down all the fruits and veggies we can sling his way and is so chill. He draws great pictures and brings me flowers and asks to do schoolwork all the time. He still has a temper and a huge appetite.
Elise is so out there, so over the top - she's the most uninhibited, confident, happy child I think I've ever beheld. She's also willful and defiant to a degree that is borderline terrifying. I'm really hoping we're going through a phase, here. This is the first kid I've had that's made me think "What am I going to do when she is a teenager?!" It's all wrapped up together in the "who she is" package, which I love dearly and think is positive overall.
Grant has taken the higher paying Ft Lauderdale job and put in his notice at the lower paying local one. So that's scary-exciting-insertothervariableshere. We'll see!
I also really value it when they can attend a concert or be out to dinner or what have you without completing losing it or embarassing me (and those sorts of things are normally assumed, I get compliments often), but today what I'm specifically thinking about is how I'm ready to let Isaac, Jake and Elise HAVE. IT. because throughout our (super interesting, discussion-based, with pictures and BRIEF) lesson on the fourth of July (WHICH INCLUDED DECORATING A CAKE WITH BERRIES, that we then took to share with the kids at the bookstore) they were giggling, purposely distracting and whispering to each other, DOING SOMERSAULTS, leaving the room -
I have a hard time dealing with it when my kids act like they have no standards of behavior or attention span whatsoever. I think that in addition to going back to weekly mass, it's definitely past time to turn the tv off again.
This three day weekend has been all over the place. My favorite parts:
-potluck at Kristin's Friday night - she made these DELICIOUS fat, fresh spring rolls we were dipping in soy sauce, and Laura (MY PREGNANT SISTER DID I MENTION SHE'S PREGNANT AGAIN) brought lots of strawberries and nutella, and Grant made a big pot of jambalaya, and...it was just fun. All my boys stayed there overnight and we just brought the girls home.
-being out with just Grant, Saturday night. The outing involved three kinds of alcohol, loud music, and swimming in the warm ocean naked at 2 am. I haven't been in the ocean naked since I was, oh...three weeks old? Shrieking about seaweed on my legs, hoping nothing would eat me, laughter and floating around. Laying on a blanket wet and sandy looking at stars for a long time afterwards. Shared candlelit bath when we got home. Super awesome.
-sitting around with Grant, Shaun, Bob and the kids in camping chairs, with bottles of water, after the fireworks show tonight - lots of laughter and nonsense, lots of good talking, perfect weather. The hoardes of people all bottlenecking out of there at once were getting uncomfortably close to us until Grant got the Traffic Triangle out and made us a space bubble - then we could chill and do gymnastics and play fighting and so on until everyone else was out of there :p
Least favorite:
-I was sick all day yesterday (Sunday). Nauseus and weak. Layed around and slept until I was sore from laying around sleeping. Thought I was better this morning, and turned into a dizzy coughing sweat pile an hour into being out and about. I think I'm REALLY mostly better now, I just had to kind of take it easy and drink more fluids than normal and hopefully it's run it's course...
I'm looking at Ananda, standing there 5'2" or whatever she is now, with her very-there curves and her converse and attitude style and her bleaching kit to put streaks in her hair, and I'm thinking, what? Is that what I looked like to Jean-Paul, when he asked me out at that age? In one year, is she going to look like I looked to Grant and David and all the Riverwalk boys I hung around all the time, who all had crushes on me? It blows my mind. I just framed a couple of her latest paintings and hung them in the dining room :) She has this whole plan mapped out for the next decade of her life that involves burning through grade levels, doing dual enrollment at MDC, working at Starbucks after she graduates, and then deciding whether to go to culinary school or major in astronomy first. She did a month's worth of math last week because she wants to be totally over decimals, fractions and beginning geometry and move on to the next things, and the next, and the next. Her math and writing were the last things she was behind in a year ago, though she's advanced to grade level and is about to lap it, now, in math, and is approaching grade level in writing. For a super dyslexic chicky who was totally stuck on things like place value and spelling it's awesome to see how hard she's worked. Her reading, science and history are way ahead. And she's really set on cello with the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, we'll see how that goes.
Aaron is beside himself with obsession about the Vibram Five Fingers shoes he HAD TO HAVE that Opa (Grant Sr) got him for his birthday (I was not spending $110 on a pair of shoes he'll outgrow within the year...I was gagging about spending $80 at the Crocs store for Isaac, Jake AND Elise a couple of weeks ago and seriously thought Ananda's $45 chucks were pushing it even though her feet are almost done growing). His friends Logan and Adrian (the Ninja Dolphins) have them. We finally exchanged his birthday pair for the right size today and he's like a walking commercial for them, nonstop praise and trivia and perks and - I am so over it. He always fixates like this.
Isaac is...really unhappy :/ We did serious elimination diets for gluten and dairy in the past months with no results. I put him in enrichment classes he really enjoyed. His arm in the sling was hard to deal with, though that's been better for awhile. I just...don't know what to do with him. He finds things to complain about all day long. He still cries about things the younger kids are long past crying over. Several times a day. At the end of a day where he got to play with his best friend at the park for hours, eat his favorite food for breakfast and go to the movies, he'll say it was the worst day ever and list things like how the quarter machines didn't work at the theater and the park was hot and he didn't get as much breakfast as others did. All day every day, that is his attitude, and sometimes we feel like we bend over backwards to make him happy and he's still totally ungrateful. Other times I feel like I'm done with it and he just has to roll with us, but it's not like that helps anything. He's just so anxious about something so often. I'm always outwardly assuming the sale but inwardly cringing, waiting for the next bout of misery. I got him a book called "14,000 things to be happy about" that is just a giant list and am reading it to him gradually, but I know that's silly. We're talking together about actually making a list he writes and I transcribe called "x number of things to grump about", which he thinks is hilarious. His reading confidence is improving and I keep wondering if maybe chapter books could open up a whole new world for him, the way they have Ananda.
Jake is...wonderful. He's gentle and patient with Elizabeth (18 month old niece) and eager to build her towers to knock down or otherwise make her happy. He volunteers to help other kids with their chores or finding clothes when they don't want to deal with those things. He wolfs down all the fruits and veggies we can sling his way and is so chill. He draws great pictures and brings me flowers and asks to do schoolwork all the time. He still has a temper and a huge appetite.
Elise is so out there, so over the top - she's the most uninhibited, confident, happy child I think I've ever beheld. She's also willful and defiant to a degree that is borderline terrifying. I'm really hoping we're going through a phase, here. This is the first kid I've had that's made me think "What am I going to do when she is a teenager?!" It's all wrapped up together in the "who she is" package, which I love dearly and think is positive overall.
Grant has taken the higher paying Ft Lauderdale job and put in his notice at the lower paying local one. So that's scary-exciting-insertothervariableshere. We'll see!
