Monday, September 17, 2012

Turn, turn, turn...

As the actual season is changing (chilly mornings, final garden harvests...) we seem to be turning towards a new season in our own little family.  The little guy is 2-1/2 now and naps are slowly slipping away, right through my fingers it seems!  He still naps most of the time, but once every week or every couple of weeks, we will have 1, or 2, or 3 days without a nap.  It is a hard adjustment to make for me, but I think hardest for big sister who has come to enjoy that quiet time every afternoon with her dolls and special toys she doesn't want to share, and of course, with mama!  She asks when "mama-time" is every day and rushes off to play quietly in her room while I get her "baby" brother to sleep.  Although they have their moments, they really are so sweet together and big sis is so patient with her very rambunctious little brother, so I look forward to giving her that one on one attention too.  You know, the kind that isn't constantly interrupted by pulling a naked child off the table or counter, or the kind that doesn't need to be diverted by a suspicous rummaging in the fridge and an insistence that he CAN pour his own milk from the full gallon, or the rushed trip to the potty, or the "Mom, he's HITTING ME!" Yikes.  Rambunctious doesn't quite describe this kid, but we love him anyway :) 

In any case, we have pushed through those napless afternoons when they happen with lots of outdoor play time, sometimes a special snack for all of us, and some quiet cuddles on the couch while I TRY to nurse him to sleep!  In turn, my sweet girl and I have enjoyed some special cuddly reading time after the little guy crashes out at 7:00 p.m.!  I didn't realize how much I missed snuggling my girl to sleep-I always do bedtime by myself with both kids, pretty much since he was born, so we have gradually moved from an hour of tummy rubbing and cuddling while I nursed a newborn into having my daughter pop right into her bed after storytime to fall asleep by herself (in the same room though) while I nurse her brother to sleep. 

I almost think this no nap traded for a super early (and easy!) bedtime might be worth it, but only time will tell how this season will turn...

In other news, we enjoyed an end of garden feast for dinner of fried green tomatoes plucked fresh from our vines and sweet potatoes dug up today!  I am already missing summer!

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Beginning again

Tomorrow is our official first day of "school" for our kindergartner and our toddler tagging along.  Of course, this is completely arbitrary, but since she is seeing a lot of her friends heading off to the first day of school and getting a little jealous of the resulting fuss, we decided to make her day special too.  We had a special dinner this weekend, complete with kid-made cupcakes-and will do a first day of school picture tomorrow morning.  So many cute ideas on pinterest for back to school!  I love the chalkboard with the date, grade, and what they want to be when they grow up-what a great memory!

We are using Five in a Row as our main curriculum this year.  I am an unschooler at heart, but need a little bit of structure or we tend to do a downward slide into getting crabby and tired and hearing lots of whining, so this relaxed, literature-based program is our compromise!  We have also been doing Explode the Code for phonics and Right Start Math for...math :) I have big plans to incorporate Spanish this year too. 

I so love to look at my beautifully organized spreadsheets and binders, review my daily plans for the week, and admire the stack of books I ordered from the library ahead of time to complement the week's topics.  Because I know-KNOW-that in a few short weeks, this will be out the window!  I am sure we will still get ideas from the curriculum, but I will be so shocked if we are following it this closely come mid-year.  But I could be wrong-this is what happened last year when I tried to plan everything out, but honestly we didn't have enough to keep us occupied academically, so perhaps this year will be better.  She seems to thrive on structure and routine, but also needs lots of open play time (she's an introvert like her mama!).  So, basically I need to structure lots of unstructured time into our schedule! 

I'll update on how this first week goes-we are reading the Story of Ping and doing lots of activities about Chinese culture, with maybe a quick trip to Chinatown or at least a Chinese restaurant (random side-note: I cannot, for the life of me, spell the word restaurant correctly.  I have to look it up every time.  This is one a few words that constantly trip me up!)

I hope everyone is enjoying this slow edging towards autumn..I adore summer, but find myself looking forward to those crisp, cool days as we enter the new season.