Happy 7th Birthday, Tommy!

Tommy is 7 years old! 

For his birthday this year, we combined two of his most favorite things: San Francisco and science, and so we celebrated his birthday at The Exploratorium with his best friend. He had a really good time and it was the perfect day birthday outing. We were truly blessed that day!

This has been a year of growing pains for Tommy, both literally and figuratively. I just looked back at his 6 year old check-in and marveled at how much he changed in the past year! Yes, he grew a few inches. Went up a few shoe sizes. He complained of many leg pains throughout the year. But emotionally and mentally he also went through some major changes.

The normally happy and mellow boy turned into someone quite different starting around January. There were many fits. Many tears over very simple things. A quick temper. Always quickly frustrated. Behavior that made me wonder if my child had simply gone crazy, things he'd never done before and didn't fit his character. Lots of questioning about why exactly he had to do the things we asked. Lots of behaviors that made me honestly start to think he had one of the neurological disorders that seems to affect many boys these days. Or at the very least some kind of food allergy that was making my kid crazy. Something had to be wrong because this was not the kid that I knew. I spent many nights wondering what in the world happened to my kid. Was it something I did? Is this just who he is now? These were days of countless tears and prayers on my part.

And then, like a terrible storm ending, it all went away. Around August, he went back to his normal self. The change was so gradual, that I didn't even realize it until recently when a few people mentioned, "You know, I think Tommy has mellowed out a lot." And then it hit me: no more fits, no more crazy behavior. My old Tommy was back! It had waned so gradually I didn't even notice. It's been a few weeks since his birthday and he seems to be even still changing: he's a bit more responsible and more mature in a way that is hard to describe. I think he should have birthdays more often.

So here is Tommy today:

He is intensely curious. Finding out how things work and what they are all about is an impulse that he is learning to regulate. While six months ago his curiosity got him in big trouble several times, now he seems to know the boundaries of what he is able to do with his curiosity. He builds, he takes apart, he questions, all in a more mature way now. 

In school, he continues to do well in math, though it is also the thing that gives him the most frustration. He loves geography. He loves to read. His favorite books are the National Geographic series Weird But True, which is jam-packed full of facts about everything one can imagine: everything that is the biggest, smallest, fastest, heaviest, most expensive. His absolute favorite part of school is piano. He started taking lessons in March, and at first was lukewarm about it. Now he plays almost constantly throughout the day.

He longs for adventure and independence. We recently started having the boys make their own breakfast a few days a week and he loves being able to choose items for himself and have free reign over the kitchen. The other day he made scrambled eggs and toasted waffles completely on his own; he was so pleased with himself. We have been trying to find ways to give him more independence and let him roam as free as he possibly can while still being safe. He is so happy when we give him more little bits of freedom. 

I'm really enjoying my 7 year old. I'm excited to see how he grows during this next year. :)

Happy Birthday Donuts 

Birthday Interview with Tommy - 7 years old

Tommy is turning seven tomorrow, so it's time for our birthday interview! Based on how this interview went, I think I'm going to have to change some of the questions for next year, to make them a bit more mature. He seemed to think the questions were a bit silly. Why can't kids just stay little?

So how do you think it'll feel to be seven?
Pretty good.

What kinds of things can you do now that you’re almost seven that you couldn’t do when you were littler?
I’ll get more things to do. Like play harder [board] games. I can explore more games. 

What is your favorite color?
Red.

What is your favorite food?  
Apples with lemon juice.

What is your least favorite food?  
Butternut squash soup with mashed up mushrooms. (I explained that this food doesn't really exist, but then he said, "Yeah, but it would be just so gross!" Fair enough.)

What is your favorite book?
Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

What is your favorite thing to play with?
Geotrax train set

Do you have any friends? Who are they?
My best friend is Joseph Guenther.

What is your favorite thing to do?
Go on a daddy date. Actually, go to Central Park in SF.

What is your favorite thing about yourself?
That I’m good at helping people.

What is your favorite thing to do outside?
Climb our redwood tree.

Where is your favorite place to go?
Panera

What do you want to do for a job when you grow up?  
What Dad does. (What does Dad do?) Works with computers. (Why do you want to do that?) Because I like Dad, and I want to do what he does.

Where do you want to live when you grow up?  
I think I’ll live in San Francisco.

Do you think you’ll get married when you grow up? Who do you think you’ll marry?
Yes… I don’t know yet. 

How old will you be when you get married?
26

Where do babies come from?
A woman, of course. Why do you ask? 

Is there anything you’re afraid of?
No….Like what? I could make myself afraid of mirrors. I guess there's nothing I'm afraid of.

If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why? 
A baby cheetah. Because they’re really cute and they can hop really well. 

What do you love most about your siblings? 
Ben: That I have someone to play with.
Lucy: That I can play with her.

What do you like learning about?
Piano, that’s my best thing. 

What makes you very happy?
Birthdays make me really happy, because it’s a happy time.

Lucy is Walking!

A few weeks ago Lucy started to really enjoy us walking her around. She'd hold on to our hands and toddle happily. Last week she decided she was ready to start pushing things around. Like stools, chairs, and trucks, and baby walkers, and pretty much anything that would slide across the floor. 

Then today she let go and took off on her own! In the span of an hour, she went from taking just 10 steps to being able to cross the whole room, stop to pick something, turn to change direction, and even start running. She's really walking!

Apple Farm

This past week's field trip was to an apple farm with cousins and homeschooling friends. Visiting an apple farm has been on my fall bucket list for a few years now, and we finally did it!

It was a great place to get that obligatory baby-in-a-pumpkin-patch picture. :)

In the room where the apples are processed: washed, sorted, and boxed up to go to the stores.

What is one supposed to do with 8 pounds of apples? We started by making caramel apples. :)

Sunday Fun

Mark left for a weeklong business trip last Sunday. I had a bit of apprehension in the weeks leading up to this time. I've never been on my own with three kids (or any kids) for that long. Now that the week is over, I can report that everything went well and we  had a great time. I kept the kids really busy so they didn't have time for any shenanigans! 

The best day of all was the first day without Mark. We dropped him off at SFO early in the morning, then stopped by Krispy Kreme on the way back from the airport (my apologies to the boys' Sunday School teachers!)

Lucy's first doughnut (she only had a few pieces). She loved it.

 We met a tarantula on the way up the driveway to church. We stopped and got out to follow him around a bit. 

 After church, naps and quiet time, we went to our a car show in our town. This was the boys' favorite car, and the owner even let them hop inside.

Point Lobos

Last week we went to Point Lobos with friends. It was another perfect day at the coast. There was lots of boy romping, rock climbing, (rock throwing), and tide-pool exploring.  

This was the boys' favorite thing... seeing how close to the crashing waves they could get without getting wet. 

San Francisco Zoo

I've been trying to take lots of field trips while the weather is nice on the coast this fall. Two weeks ago we went to the San Francisco Zoo with some friends. The weather was wonderful! 

Stopping by a vista in Daly City, near the zoo.

The giraffes were all three kids' favorite animal at the zoo. 

Having lunch with the flamingos. 

Lucy at 15 Months

You are 15 months, Lucy!

You are so incredibly cute and pack a lot of personality in your little 20 %ile body. You are not afraid to make your opinion known. 

Your brothers totally adore you. As I'm writing this you are playing outside with them. They are building you a house out of our deck furniture and are laughing with delight when you crawl around inside. Every morning they rush to your bedroom door and push each other out of the way so they can be the first to greet you. 

You've started standing on your own and can stand for about thirty seconds without falling. You are cruising and pushing stools around the kitchen floor. You even took two steps a few days ago! I think you'll be full-on walking in a month or two.

You babble a TON. It's incredibly adorable. Words you are saying:

no!

uh-oh

 ow

puppah - (puppy)

mama

dada

bah-bay - (so big)

woah-woah - (bo-bo, from "bro-bro")

You're not always sunshine. This is what happened when I insisted that you eat a bite of egg. High drama, I tell ya. 

One of Bo-Bo's creations he built just for you. 

Your brothers love pushing you around the kitchen like this. :)

Even those this isn't a very good picture, I love it because it shows your spunk!

Cuddles with your other Bo-Bo

More drama. I don't remember what this was about, but it must have been very sad, indeed!

Homeschooling

We are two full months into our homeschooling year. We've settled into a rhythm. Most days are good, as long as my expectations are basic and I don't push anyone to do more than they are able. Then there are the days when one or more of us wake up on the wrong side of the bed and it's a challenge to be kind to each other. Those are the days when sometimes schooling gets set aside and we just work on being nice to each other. 

Tommy's favorite subject is piano. He says, "It's fun to play and to show people what I've learned." Ben's favorite subject is math, because "I get to learn new things." 

It's been neat to watch the boys flourish this year. Tommy is really like his new freedom in being able to choose his own schedule for the day. And Ben, who used to be very resistant to learning anything in the past, is doing well this school year. He is taking off in math, reading, and writing. He will even sit with his books and do work when it's not school time! 

We are really plowing through school. At this rate, we will be "officially" done with school by April, but of course that is not accounting for Life's curve-balls. My plan is to do as much as we can before our fourth little one comes along, because I know from experience that school will come to a screeching halt once that happens!

Tommy's coloring-book version of Starry Night (for picture study). 

Ben's volcano (for science)

This is what school time generally looks like for us. Even Lucy does school! She likes sitting with the boys and drawing. 

Lucy watching 'Bo-bo' practice piano

Beach Season

It's summer at the coast. In the actual summertime, it's usually cool and foggy. But come September and October, it's sunny and a balmy 75°. So we've been trying to squeeze in as many beach trips as possible in the next two months. 

The beach is seriously my favorite place to be. There are so many different fun areas to explore on the coast. The kids can't seem to get enough and never want to leave (and I never want to leave either). I feel very blessed to live where we do.

The awesome thing about homeschooling is that we can take off for the beach on a weekday and call it a field trip! :)

Adopted!

On Friday, August 23rd, Lucy's adoption was finalized! She is officially and completely ours!

She came into our lives almost exactly nine months ago. There were no complications to her case, so all the waiting was just the nature of the process.

Lucy's adoption was finalized two years (almost to the day) after this post was written, where we announced that we were starting the process of becoming foster parents. Crazy, huh? 

Lucy's name means as of light. Ever since she came into our lives, one of my prayers for her is that she would bring light to all who meet her. She certainly does bring light to everyone she meets - she is so sweet and makes everyone smile. She is quick to giggle and she has an infectious belly laugh.

The boys are totally taken by her. They showed her a lot of attention when she first came home, but I always wondered if they would lose interest at some point. To the contrary, they have only grown in their love and attention to her. They read stories to her, hold her hands while she toddles around, hoist her into her highchair for mealtimes, play peek-a-boo... a dozen times a day my heart smiles as I watch my big kids loving on their little sister. We call them 'Bo-Bo' to her, which evolved from "brother".

Listening to the judge go over the finalization procedure.

All finalized!

The adoption announcent we made to send out to family and friends.

Over the next few weeks, we will be working on updating our adoption home study so we can be put back on the matching list to adopt another little one. It will probably be a few months until our home study is completed, and then a few months (at best) after that until we are matched again. Keep us in your prayers, and be praying for the next little one who will one day be ours.

Back to (Home)School

We started school on Monday of this week. Our town doesn't start until Thursday of next week, but it's always around this time that I'm growing tired of our open-ended days and start yearning for some structure. Plus, I love starting so early so we can be spontaneous enough to take days off during the rest of the year and still finish school in mid-May.

This is my first year officially schooling two kids (Tommy for 2nd grade and Ben for kindergarten). Last year Ben had lots of freedom to either join us or not for school, and he usually opted not to join us in favor of doing a craft nearby or just playing in another room. 

I had some apprehension about schooling two kids. I wondered how in the world it would work, since both kids are young enough to need me to be very hands-on. Well, it's only been a week, but so far it's been smooth-sailing with two. We'll see how things go the rest of the year.

Another reason I was nervous about starting school this year was because of almost constant power struggles between me and my oldest. Last year was difficult for us at times (okay, it was really difficult at many times). It took me until almost the end of last schoolyear to figure out that:

a) I was pushing him too hard and making him do what I thought was a good amount of work, instead of what was a good amount of work for him. Now my goal is to get his "focused attention" on a given subject and to get his best work. I stop him after he produces a few perfect letter F's (for handwriting) or he masters his math concept for the day, instead of expecting a whole page of F's or two pages of math problems. It is better that he gives me his best work rather than get frustrated trying to produce a large quantity of work.

 b) he needs to know what the flow of the day is. He constantly asked questions like "What's happening after this? and then after that? And when is such-and--such happening?", which took up a lot of our time and my patience. 

c) he needs to have control over his own schedule. He had a hard time last year being told what to do all the time ("Okay, now it's time for math.... and now it's time for reading....") and not having any say over what came next.

To resolve both of these last issues for this year, I laminated our schedule posted it on the wall. He is able to choose the order in which he wants to do things. He gets a lot of satisfaction from checking off each subject as he completes it.

Our school room. Pretty much the same as last year, except that we added a piano and another bookcase to house our ever-increasing collection!

The books we are working on, in addition to the 3Rs. We are using the Charlotte Mason method which focuses a lot on learning through reading really good books. 

First day special breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes. The boys received boxes full of new school supplies as their back-to-school gift.

I am optimistic about this school year! I just need to remember to focus on my relationship with my children, rather than making sure we check all the subjects off the schedule and all the days off the calendar. I need to remind myself that the reason they are being educated at home is so we can learn to love each other and live as a family, not just so they can just have a different teacher.

This article below is from a blog that I find very encouraging. The author's posts have helped me a lot lately, in letting go of a lot of my uptightness (is that even a word?). I especially love this post, on letting go of our schedule and just being with your child:

http://www.handsfreemama.com