Is It Naptime Yet

In my homeschooling quest I’ve joined two online groups that have regular meet ups. One group, Life Learners, got back to me right away and have regular meet ups at parks every Wednesday. They take more of the learn what you want how you want and just live life. The other group I’ve joined is a little more of the traditional homeschooling, with parents using curriculum to teach their children.

The second group, or the Las Vegas homeschool meetup group, just got back to me about signing up this week. It turns out they were having a local weatherperson do a small assembly this week.  A station in town does these assemblies regularly around the valley’s school’s. I thought it would be fun for the girls since Lilah has a fascination with television and I would be able to meet some of the other parents and families in the group.

Wrong. It turns out it was a number of homeschooling groups, which lead to no good way to find out who was in the group I had joined. The girls still had fun and there’s a chance they’ll be on the news Saturday or Sunday morning, though they were kinda behind some bigger boys for the short tapping.

So I’m not sure if this was useful or useless, though I think it was a little of both.

The next two errands I ran came about this morning. Before we left I received two separate phone calls telling me my contacts had come in and my glasses were ready to be picked up also. I thought score, I get to run all the necessary Henderson errands in one day.

I went to my doctor’s office first. I picked up the contacts and the prescription and got the girls right back into the car. I headed towards Costco and at the first light I had the thought that I should check the prescription. It turned out to be -4.75, but I need -5.00. The doctor had tried the lesser strength but after wearing -5.00 for a year or two, my eyes were not handling it when I drove and that’s when I need my contacts the most. So, I turned around to correct the mistake. The doctor wasn’t there so I just left and had the receptionist call me since I knew I was correct. So they’re ordering more contacts which will be ready to be picked up next week sometime.

Useful or useless? I think useless.

I then headed to Carolyn’s work. I saw her car wasn’t there but decided to go in anyways. She was gone. So that was definitely useless.

I then packed the girls into the car for the fourth time in twenty minutes and headed to Costco. I got there and a woman adjusted the glasses to fit my face. While she was cleaning them she noticed some streaks. The anti glare had been put on improperly. Ugh. So those too will be ordered again.
Also useless.

I am happy that the doctors office and Costco happened on a day I was already heading out to Henderson and I hadn’t gone out there specifically to pick up the contacts or glasses.

The day started so well. Now I’m just blogging to keep awake and avoid doing dishes.

Monday was the first day of dance for the girls. When I was trying to get them going, because they were slow, hearing it was for dance perked them right up and they got ready quickly, at least for two easily distracted girls.

We got there and Eden immediately started acting shy. She was hiding behind me and not wanting to look Sam in the eye. I got her inside and we put her ballet slippers on and she was not wanting to be outgoing. She sat on her piece of blue tape and slumped her shoulders over and would not make eye contact with Sam. She basically stood or sat there the whole time.

At one point she did follow the leader. (I have a video of her participating.)

At another point she stood there while Sam held her arms and tried to dance with her.

It broke this mama’s heart to watch her daughter be so shy and non participative. I almost cried, but Eden wants to go back, so I guess it wasn’t all that bad for her.

Lilah’s class was after Eden’s and I spent a lot of the time in the hall with Eden, Britta, and my friend Emilie, who’s has a daughter Eden’s age and one 6 months younger than Lilah.
Lilah asked for me to be in her class longer so next week another mom, also named Emilie, will be taking Britta to the park during the class so I can sit with Eden and we can watch Lilah more.

I know Lilah really enjoyed herself. I hope Eden enjoys herself more as time goes on.

(I was trying to let Sam be the teacher and let her deal with Eden’s shyness rather then being intrusive. I also want Eden to gain some independence, and since their were no tears and she wasn’t trying to come to me, I figured I’d let her shyness run the course. )

Also Lilah and I were in the hallway during Eden’s class, in reality a foyer outside the class, a work out room, and a door to the gymnasium. Lilah was having fun running circles, taking up maybe a third of the foyer and not making much noise, while Britta ate her snack and we waited for Eden’s class. A woman came out of the gym and gave Lilah a ‘you need to stop that’ condescending look and Lilah immediately stopped running and came to my side.

I knew she was an employee of the rec center because of her badge, and later I found out she’s one of the managers/ supervisors of the rec center. I was really annoyed and if I was a confrontational person would have said something. I was just annoyed that someone would be so stern when a child was just having harmless fun and wasn’t bothering anyone, with the parent right there. It is a recreation center after all. Jon says if it happens again I should calmly respond that I’m watching her and allowing her get her energy out, or something a lot less confrontational than what comes to my mind.

As I think about it I get a little more upset. If she had said thank you once Lilah stopped running I may have forgiven the look . I wish she had approached me and asked me to have my daughter stop running for safety issues, that I could handle.  But to give ‘the look’ and and not even make eye contact with the parent, that really bothers me. I’m the only person who can give my daughter ‘the look’ and maybe family, but I have got to know you if you’re gonna use the look to have my child stop doing something.

After watching Eden be so shy and then to have Lilah’s feelings hurt by a complete stranger I almost cried again. I also didn’t know how I should respond and it just shocked me a little. Maybe it was getting up at 5:30 am, but I was an emotional person during dance class.

On a positive note here are some pictures I snapped and a short video. I mostly took it since Jon’s at work during their classes but Eden’s also really enjoyed watching it. I’m hoping it helps her be a little more herself at the next class.

Shy Eden.

Following the leader.

Hands “glued” to her hips.

Sam’s a good teacher. (Lilah’s the second from the front.)

I guess I’ll need to take more pictures of Lilah next time.

Here’s the video.

Today was my first day taking the 6 am yoga class at a local community center. I tried to get to bed early, but it is hard to begin a new habit, it’s also hard when your sister’s cell phone decides to call you at 11 pm. 😉

I awoke several times during the night. My body doesn’t know when 5:30 am is, so I kept waking up wondering what time it was. At one point I noticed our bedroom door was shut so I rolled over to see if one of the girls had climbed in, but there was no girl in my bed nor was there a husband. I knew it must almost be 5:30.
My alarm went off shortly after and I lingered in bed. Jon came in to get me up and I reluctantly got started on my day.  My eyes were to tired for contacts so I just wore my glasses and brushed my hair after I got dressed. I ate a small plum because I felt hungry, and had not eaten my normal evening snack which helps me to be less light headed in the morning.

I got to the rec center a little before six. I that saw a group of people had congregated outside the door and wondered if they were also there for the yoga class. They were not. They were there to work out and I was the first person to yoga. I waited and my friend Sam and one other person showed up. We prepared the room since the instructor had not shown up yet, which I was told was very unusual for her. The instructor and one other woman came in around 6:10 and we began stretching  with the assistance of a ballet bar, relaxing our backs and stretching our tail bones.

The instructor, who will be 71 on Christmas Eve, then showed me some modified poses by using the wall. Boy were they hard. My body is so tense and I am so not flexible. The moves used more upper body and core strength than anything, but those are two things I also lack. ( I definitely need to do some core training on my off days to get the most out of yoga.)

After showing me some poses on the wall we went to the mates. I have terrible posture and do not know how to stand up straight. Another thing I need to work on.

We did some poses on the floor and I felt a little more confident. I could do the sphinx and downward dog, but I had to leave before they finished so I could get home to Jon because he needed to leave for work.

The class had started very late and was ending even later.

I do feel a difference in my body, mostly my back and shoulders. Two places that have bothered me a lot lately.

I took a nap this afternoon because I was so tired, and I’m going to try to wake up early for a work out tomorrow. Jon pointed out that my  new schedule will limit both our quiet times. His time to himself is early in the morning, which I will be gone for three days of the week, and mine is at night, which I now won’t have because I’ll have to go to bed early. I am able to take naps if I want to stay up late, but I really want to avoid taking long naps, which is what I do and have a healthier sleep schedule.

I’m hoping to find solitude in the new schedule. Though I do worry about what to do with myself on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My at home work out isn’t more than a half hour and it will greatly distract from Jon’s quiet time. I guess we’ll figure it out as time goes on.

I finally went through the pictures from our trip to Idaho.
I took over 100, but I put only around 50 in the video. 🙂

Forgive any misspellings, there always seems to be one I gloss over until I’ve already published and posted it.

The song is Israel Kamakawiwo’ole’s Country home. It has a Hawaiian twist, in which I wish I lived by the beach, but I think it was kinda fitting for family reunion pictures. (I was just going to choose any random song I liked and it’s really the random song I liked and chose.)

If you want to read about our trip to Idaho and Ely you can go to these two different posts.

Wednesday we had Lilah’s class. Lilah knows so much that I sometimes have a hard time reading each day with her and having learning time.
Since Beth’s my mentor, and I can call her that since she called herself my mentor, we had a talk and my goal was to set a time to have “school time”. This is kinda against unschooling, but I’m not going for complete unschooling. The thought is if we have a routine we can guarantee some learning everyday or a time to stimulate learning. I have a box of special school things that I’m taking out at our “school time” and I let the girls do what they want.

Beth also gave me lots of cool things so the girls have loved it. One thing Lilah discovered was there are four ways to add six. Beth gave us a set of domino’s. Lilah was counting the dots and drawing pictures and she brought me some domino’s and asked how they could all have six dots when they where so different. So we had a lesson on adding six and the different ways you could add it. I thought it was fun.

So my school time is after lunch. We’re usually running around and doing things in the morning but home by lunch. So after lunch is our school time. It also goes with my reading a story or two before putting Eden down for her nap but I haven’t read to them in days. We go through cycles. All I do is read, read, read and then we go weeks with just reading once or twice. I should be better about that.

I figure we might be gone some days after lunch, but those are usually days we go to the park for the unschooling group, so that can count as “school time” too.

After lunch we went to the park for the unschooling group, or Life learners which I will now refer to them as. On the discussion board our coordinator, or Tara, was sick and a few others said they would still be there, but when I showed up at the park only one other person was there, and this was her first time. She has a daughter who is 6, so that makes me happy, and her daughter, Sarahphina which I’m guessing how to spell, played really well with Lilah and Eden. The mom was really easy to talk to and we had a good discussion which just got better when one other mom showed up. This mom has a teen aged son, he actually stayed home, and had just returned from living in Hollywood while her son was pursuing an acting career.
We left the park around 4 o’clock, and had a regular night.

Thursday was my busy doctor’s appointment day. Sam was kind enough to watch the girls all morning for me. She had them from 8:40 am till 12:45 pm so I could attend my dermatologist appointment and eye appointment.
I had a mole removed on my arm in July, and it too was precancerous, but does not need suturing. This makes 4 moles precancerous, one normal, for the five I’ve had removed. She removed another mole in my right shoulder, so if she doesn’t call sooner to say it needs suturing we’ll find out in six months if it too is precancerous.

My eyes are the same. They haven’t changed since before I had Eden. It seems amazing to me to keep the same prescription. For so much of my youth my eyes changed drastically each year. I was so relieved to learn that your eyes come to a plateau and stay the same. If we didn’t have so many other things to worry about I would so do laser eye surgery, but atlas we do.

I went to a new doctor and he seemed perplexed that I only wear my contacts part time and my glasses most of the time. I don’t think he understood that glasses are a necessity and contacts are a luxury in my life. He mentioned my children pulling on my glasses, but since they’re older they’re obviously past that stage, plus they learned fairly quickly not to pull on glasses since Jon and I both wore them. My doctor is all about contacts and being to the most “natural state”. I guess glasses don’t bother me, though I like the way I look with contacts.
I am getting new frames this year. My current frames are getting too old and breaking in different places, plus I’m looking forward to getting something a little more up to date.

Friday we stayed home. I sewed a blanket for a baby shower I went to today. I didn’t take any pictures though. (If you could Emilie it would be appreciated and just e-mail me one.)
Today we got a leotard for Eden and Lilah and Jon’s date was to the dollar store to choose gifts for Eden and me. Last week Lilah was obsessed with giving me a gift but she had to wait till her date with Daddy.

I had a baby shower this afternoon and then tonight I took the girls to a carnival that was at Anna’s church. They had a small ferris wheel, which the girls loved, a “train”, and a couple jumper things. One was a regular bouncy thing for kinds to jump in and the other was an obstacle course type thing.
Lilah loved it and Eden had fun watching her, since she was just a little to little for the obstacle course. It was a fun night.

Now it’s time for bed, and if you read all of this you must have nothing else to do.

I realized I hadn’t done any posts about what we’ve been up to this week, and it’s Friday…wait now it’s Saturday.

Monday I cleaned all day long. It was mostly de-cluttering and getting places for random things. I even organized my hall closet. It looks really nice in there now, maybe I’ll post an after picture since you’ve seen the before. After the girls were in bed I swept and mopped.

Tuesday morning I folded clothes, washed sheets, and did the regular kitchen chores.

Why did I go through every room and make them presentable, along with cleaning my dirty floors? It’s really quite simple.

We had our house sprayed by our bug guy and he goes in every room, thus every room had to be presentable, or at least clean enough that he could actually do his job and spray in them. I’d hate for him to get caught on the boxes for Jon’s solar oven or our shred pile.

We don’t regularly have the bug guy out. In fact this is may be the fourth time we’ve had them come out in three years. All the previous visits were for invasions of ants. We’re also not big fans of pesticide in our home, but now that the kids are older and I don’t have infants I feel a little more comfortable, though we don’t have a big bug problem in the house.

I wanted to mop only the day before he came to make sure I didn’t need to mop for at least a week, probably more with my track record, and  mop around pesticide.

I haven’t seen any dead bugs in the house, but we had a roach die by our front porch doormat and the spider that was making webs in our front dirt area was a black widow that died right next to our front door. I mean right next to it. And it was big. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate black widows?

It makes me want to have him spray the outside once a month to prevent these lovely creatures from coming into my house. Which is likely since we don’t have an airtight seal on the bottom of our front door.

I also had Britta Tuesday morning so Sam could study. Then Sam came over at lunch time and we made granola. I have a very easy recipe and she likes it so she may continue to use it if I were to e-mail it to her.

The girls were fascinated with the bug guy and silently followed him around. Well, they were silent until they got outside and Lilah started chatting about our cat cage. (We had another one pooping in our yard and caught it Sunday night.)

I clean for visitors and apparently our bug guy.

Who do you clean for?

Today we had one full day without any accidents. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m talking about potty training Eden.

I think we have success.

I may also have to completely cut out pull-ups, we use them at night and nap time and when we go out. Eden wants to still wear pull-ups during the day in case of an accident, but I’ve noticed she just uses the pull-ups and has less motivation to use the toilet. She still needs them at nighttime half the time, or when she sleeps past 7:30, so I want to keep them around, but I’m torn.

I’m so happy, and so is she, ’cause now she can take dance when it starts on Monday. Tomorrow we’re going to go pick out a leotard and get new dance shoes for Lilah.

I’m excited. It’s clicked and I’ve been able to have patience and gain a belief in her abilities to know her body.

Now all I have to carry around is a change of pants and panties with wipes that can probably stay in my trunk. I’m almost free of a diaper bag.

The real test will be Sundays, to see if she tells her nursery leaders when she has to go and I’ll probably check in on her to help with the transition.

I’m so happy for her and for me.

I’m so happy with the photos we got this year. I wish we had maybe one more different pose of the girls together and one of Jon and I together, but we don’t change that much, I just think the photographer would have done a better job than our last couples photo from two years ago, and with the CD it would have been worth it, but we didn’t decide to buy the CD till after we had finished our session.
So here are the photos.

Eden’s pirate face, as we call it.  (01family)

(02family)

I don’t like this photo and will not be giving it to anyone who wants it. I do think Jon has a mischievous smile and I’m using it as an example of a bad angle if you have a small double chin like me.  (04family)

This is a better angle for us double chinners and I just love these two family pics.  (05family)

(06family)

Girls are so cute. (07girls)

(08girls)

Uh, we kinda like each other.  (09girls)

We really like each other. (10girls)

She told them to kiss and boy did they give each other a  big kiss. I’ve learned I’m not a fan of kissing pictures.

(11girls)

Cute Eden  (13eden)

(14eden)

(15eden)

Cute Lilah (16lilah)

(17lilah)

(18lilah)

(19lilah)

(20lilah)

Someday we might be able to afford a photographer that will frolic in the grass or mountains with us, but for now I’m very happy with our in studio pictures.

So I hate to use the words ‘official’ and ‘old’ because that means I can never be young again and that those who are older than me, which is nearly everyone who reads this blog, will laugh at me because I ain’t that old.

Tonight while fulfilling my domestic duty by ironing shirts for Jon, something he would do but he’s just not that good at and two out of the three shirts I bought had to be ironed, grrr, I switched weight from my left leg to my right only to have a shooting pain down the outside of my left leg and to have it go slightly numb at the same time. Luckily I was close to the couch so I was able to sit down because any weight on my leg intensified the pain, but  I could only sit and I still had the intense pain if I moved so I called Jon. He came quickly, being the wonderful husband he is, and thankfully we have a small house so it wasn’t that far either. Jon helped me lie down on the couch and the pain immediately went away. The girls then came out to check on me, or to avoid sleep, and we sent them back to bed. Jon stayed and rubbed my leg for a little bit before returning to study.

So I think it was some sort of pinched nerve, though I’ve never experience that before, so I’m not sure. Yesterday I was doing a lot of cleaning  and I mopped the floors. Today I was also on my feet  doing a few more chores, but mostly chatting with Sam while we made granola in my hot kitchen.  Anyways, I was feeling a little spent earlier tonight so I’m sure that also contributed to whatever the pain was. Hopefully the yoga will help and I can reverse the hourglass and avoid having more of those shooting pains down my leg.

It seriously hurt and as I tell this story I feel like my dad. He always has leg pain, or some sort of pain going on.
I don’t want to get old.

When we had our family pictures taken a couple weeks ago we ventured out into the mall while they were uploading or getting edited or whatever they do for 20 minutes.

Lilah saw the fountain downstairs and wanted to see it up close, but we didn’t have time. So when it was time to pick up our pictures on Friday I got to the mall early enough to show them the fountain.

First we went shopping for me.  I was in need for new yoga pants so I found a pair I was happy with and a shirt for only $3.97.

Then we walked around and saw the fountains. The girls were impressed but liked the elevator more so we rode the elevator upstairs to the food court where we enjoyed a Cinnabon and raspberry lemonade.

After getting food we had a little more time to kill so I went through the clearance rack looking for shirts for Jon. I found two for just $6.47 each and one for $14.95. I figured they evened out to a nice $10 each with tax.

Then we picked up pictures and rode the escalator back downstairs. It was a sight I’m sure since I was holding the envelope the pictures came in with my mouth so I could give a hand to each girl and had my head watching the stairs to make sure neither of them tripped.
We don’t have much practice with moving stairs.

Sometimes the girls surprise me with their actions. They were very caring towards each other this day. As they waited for me to lock the car and get our bags they held hands by the rear of our car, both being careful not to venture into danger. Then they held hands and hugged each other periodically while we were shopping. There were times that Eden ran off but overall they were really well behaved.

The girls really enjoyed the mall and I was just happy to find some great deals.