Hannah's First Year!

Hannah has been a true blessing to me. Her sweet spirit and smile has brightened my life immensely. She is instantly loved by her brother and two sisters. Just like a favored toy they fight over who gets her attention. This has been a wonderful first year, and I feel very blessed that I have the opportunity to be with this little beauty for all time and eternity.

Happy Birthday Hannah Banana!

My Second Grader

Look at my handsome little man! School started last week, but I just found my USB cord and I just downloaded all my pictures. I was sitting on the fence as to whether I liked the idea of having a uniform or not. After seeing Tobie all dressed up I thought he looked pretty darn spiffy if I do say so myself.

Unfortunately good looks don't get you everywhere in this world. By Wednesday the teacher came out to my car when I came to pick him up to ask if he was on medication back in California. I told her that he had been checked by his pediatrician and was told that he was just a normal active boy. Personally I think he has a form of turrets. That poor boy just can't seem to control his outbursts. Seriously, I still wonder about him sometimes.

I am loving his school already though. For drop off and pick-up all you have to do is sit in line and then the teachers pull the cars up in waves. Once as many cars that can pulls up the teachers yell, "Load Up!", that's at pick up. I just sit there and wait for Tobie to come to me. Before at Hamilton I had to unload all my girls, get the double stroller out, push it all the way to his class room and then pick him up at his class door. Then walk out to the car load and buckle all my girls back into their seats, load up the stroller and then try to pull out of a very congested parking lot. I have been ecstatic at the fluidity of their system.

Also, when Tobie started the first grade at Hamilton his stuttering started getting really bad. I was constantly asking his teacher about getting him into Speech Therapy. It was like an act of congress to get him in there and it wasn't until after the Christmas holidays before they finally got the ball rolling for his therapy. That only gave him half a school year to work on his speech. I was not thrilled about this, so when we moved here I was a little nervous about how they would go about handling his therapy. But then last Thursday Tobie comes home and tells me he had his first Speech Therapy class! I was so excited and grateful. I didn't even have to tell them about his obvious stutter, I didn't have to have 50 meetings just to get him in speech. They saw a need and they got it done. I was actually in Speech therapy when I went there in my youth and I LOVED it, so I really hope this is going to work for him also.

I'm really loving this school and I really hope he creates as many happy memories here as I have.

My Soapbox

I tend to get on my little soapbox a lot. There are several postings I would like to make based on my soapbox, but I didn't feel like using my family blog ALL the time to post my issues. I have let some seep out like "Drivers Ed 101", but that is just the tip of the iceberg. I decided it would be a good idea to start another blog completely devoted to my opinions on how I feel about certain issues.

I already had my first posting planned out, "The Disillusion that Topless Women Equals a Feminist Milestone.".

I tried "mysoapbox.blogspot.com" and "thesoapbox.blogspot.com" to get the venting started. But unfortunately both were taken. At first I was just a little disappointed, then curious. I typed the names into the address field and found out that "thesoapbox.blogspot.com" was completely blank. Maybe the whimsical thought from someone who was going to have a lot to say and then decided against it, leaving that poor blog to sit there unamusing.

I tried "mysoapbox.blogspot.com" and found that some young thing was going to use it to rediscover herself.....back in 2007. One posting and then the whole self discovery thing was abandoned. Perhaps she already found herself, wow, all after just one posting. Blogs can do miracles apparently.

So now I am on my soapbox about people who take very good blog titles and then completely waste them by not using them. Do they not know how to delete that blog? Come on! Share the love by not hogging all the cool blog names.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Technical Difficuties

I know I haven't posted in a while, but there is a reasonable explanation. I have all these photos that I was wanting to post, but with the move into our new home I can't find my camera's USB cord. Also we have just been connected to the world wide web again. Every time I have gotten online the connection was so weak from a neighboring wi-fi I haven't been able to stay on. Now that I have been able to get back on I have been doing my blog updates. I usually get sidetracked writing on my blog because I have spent my free time reading up on all my favorite blogs.

Speaking of, I was on my friend Annie's blog. She is currently in S. Korea now (her husband is in the Army) and she has 2 kids with one on the way. I have always admired her energy and ability to do things. She was talking about stay-at-home mothering and she made a comment that really hit home for me.

"Stay-at-homing is so unstructured that it's too easy to underachieve. Where there is no accountability, there is no progress."

I completely agree with this statement. Unfortunately I tend to take the low road because there is no accountability. I get good ideas for fun and education, but I usually get sidetracked by either laziness or dread. Dread because we all know the stories of taking the family out for a fun outing that turned into a whine fest and nothing worked out. I get stressed out easily so I tend to avoid things that may cause some sort of panic.

I realize that I need to try more and get over this annoyance I have. I get agitated that they all want something, and it's usually something different all at the same time. Sometimes I just want to read a book, or watch the news, or go to the bathroom without being bothered with someone hitting the other. I mean really, what can I do about it while sitting on the toilet???

But I only have them for such a short time and this won't be forever. I don't want my kids to grow up and I have regrets for not taking advantage of the time I have with them.

I'm going to work on it first thing tomorrow. That is...if I'm not too tired.

How Do They Know?

How do kids know when there is an important day the next day? Is there some static in the air that something that requires me to wake up early is going to occur? Therefore sending them into a late night adrenaline rush? I don't get it?! It never fails, when I have to get up in the morning and my sleep is vital to my success for the following day they stay up and cry and whine and demand things;

"Drink!"
"Songs"
"Book"
"Pee"
"Lay with Me."
"I don't like these PJ's."
"I'm hungry."
"I can't sleep."
"I hurt myself."
"Cut my nails."

On and on, over and over, they say the same things and fight sleep tooth and nail. Why can't they just lay in their beds and slowly drift off into dreamland? WHY???