Free Time

People keep asking me what I am going to do with all my alone time once Ruby starts preschool in the fall. It's still 5 months away, but I've been thinking about it for a while. What will I do with those 3 hours every day? I daydream about going to the grocery store without an octopus in my cart, getting more than one errand done in a morning, doing 2 classes at the Y, a leisurely cup of coffee with a friend in a place not designed for little kids. Maybe I will learn to knit, speak french and write a book! Start my own lunch making business! Hmm, maybe not that last one.

Disorganization 101

Let me start by saying that I am frequently told, "you're the most organized person I know." Not true. In reality I am a fabulous actress.

I am a naturally disorganized person. I assume this is why I love office supplies so much, there's so much hope in office max: post-its and file folders, color-coded labels and pens, note pads and index cards, mmmmm. I love it. I like to day dream about a hyper-organized craft/sewing/office space. The thing is, no matter how hard I try, or what great solutions Ikea can provide, my craft room will always need to have doors to hide the mess. My brain just isn't wired that way. Sometimes I hit my clutter/chaos threshold and I get all jiggly inside and I absolutely must at that instant clean it up!! But mostly, I just don't mind.

There are tons of good reasons to be organized and I have heard and live with them all. Having three kids demands a certain level of order, while I have no qualms about eating a bowl of cereal for dinner every night, I won't give that to them. (this is one of things I am looking forward to about them going off to college in 15 years) I hate planning ahead. My therapist told me that I can't plan ahead because my mom had cancer and progressed quickly. So I am unable to plan more than two weeks ahead, forever working on the premise that you never know what lies ahead. I think it's the ADD, but to each their own.

So now I might be looking down the barrel of therapy and tutoring for Sophie, combined with dance and music lessons for her and Will. Cereal for dinner is looking pretty good.

I am not organized enough to have a kids with any special needs, I have too many of my own. I also don't have enough time, neither in each day nor in her childhood. But I'll do my best.

I'm not as normal as you

Over the past 5 weeks or so, I've been working my way through the beginnings of psycho-educational testing for Sophie. She's 7, she's easily distracted (like me), she's bright (no really, the numbers bear it out), she's clever. She sometimes has a hard time getting her thoughts out in a timely and logical manner. She has a hard time making to the end of a multi-step project (like me, see my craft table for proof) forget cleaning up, piles are the order of the day (I know no one like that).

My biggest issue is that she seems to be having a hard time learning to read. At the end of her kindergarten year, after seeing the reading specialist for several months didn't improve things much, I started looking more closely at her behavior when reading. Fidgety, too hot, too cold, my neck itches, moving the book around, touching her eyes, one eye closed...and then her actual reading, skipping over things, going backwards, sounding a word out and then forgetting it 3 seconds later. So I took her to a pediatric opthomologist who specializes in eye tracking (movement) problems. She doesn't have any problems with tracking, BUT she's far-sighted. She was straining to see the letters and exhausting herself. Now she wears glasses for reading and school work.

Here we are, about 9 months later, and her reading has improved, markedly, but still she's not reading on a first grade level and it is a lot of work for her. So we've had the first round of evaluations done and the results (according to psychologist A) show that she has Dyslexia and ADD. Now, dyslexia just refers to general reading learning difficulties and ADD is technically no longer a diagnosis, it's been removed from the DSM IV. She has "non-active ADHD". Again, according to the first psychologist. Her advice for helping Sophie was essentially to stay the course. Not really all that helpful.

Psychologist A has been at this for 30 years, she a great tester. But, as psychologist B pointed out: the tests are the tests and the numbers are the numbers, it's all about how you read them. So I am seeing psychologist B (NEWER! YOUNGER! FRESHER!) tomorrow for a second opinion reading. I think the first reading was really pretty spot on, but I am hoping the she'll be able to point us toward more testing to really get at exactly what Sophie's reading problem is. And follow that with a more specific plan for helping her.

Dreaming

I have been spending a lot of time lately imagining and designing my "perfect" house. Kitchen with a knee-high brick fireplace, bar/counter seating for 5, eat-in space for 8-10 to one side and a cozy lounge-y/ craft-y/ home-office space to the other. Sunlight in the eating area in the morning and sunlight in the lounge-y space in the afternoon. Skylights. A screened porch and deck with outdoor eating space easily available. A fire pit in the back yard. A finished, walk-out basement. Woods and a creek to get muddy in. Space in the garage for 2 cars AND all the bikes, scooters, wagons and sports gear. A mop sink, work bench and second fridge in the garage, too. A laundry room with counter space to hold at least 4 laundry baskets, a utility sink and natural lighting. And space for an ironing board. (okay, I am just getting greedy now, but it's a fantasy) Double sinks in the kids' bathroom and space to open the door, walk in and out while someone is using the sink. I don't need a fancy master bathroom, I find huge bathrooms to be a waste of space. (I do like a water closet, though).

When I was in upper elementary and middle school I spent hours and hours pouring over house plan books and drawing my own plans on reams of graph paper. Miraculously no one ever suggested architecture as a profession to me. By the time I made it high school I was convinced that I was horrible at math and I'd traded my pads of graph paper for water color paper and sketch books. Turned out, I was great at geometry, solving proofs seemed stupid to me because the answers were always seemed so organic and glaringly obvious. Yet somehow, I still may have missed my calling. hmmm.

It'a all about me

Like most mamas I am good at taking care of my family. I am not so good; however, at taking care of myself. Somewhere around forever-ago I taught swimming lessons at the YMCA. While I didn't always take advantage of my time before and after lessons to exercise I did often enough to stay in decent cardio shape. But like I said, that was forever ago.

The winter holidays did a number on my waistline and I was feeling both pretty blah about Me and pretty stressed about Sophie heading into this year. So I broke down and for the first time in my 16 year dalliance with the YMCA, I walked in and *gasp* JOINED. As a paying member. So I am paying for myself and the kids to be members, as well as a monthly add-on of nursery services (2 hours a day!) for Ruby. Now I feel obligated to go, which has been wonderful!

When I first started working at the Y as a lifeguard, I was in high school. I'd see super fit moms come in and drop their kids for 2 hours everyday while they worked out. And my thought was always pretty negative, "here she is, not working, dumping her kids on someone else, just so she keep her pre-baby body." As a mom of three now myself I realize that's incredibly unfair, but even so, that judgement translated into guilt and maybe shame when I thought of doing the same for myself. Those feelings kept me from really taking care of myself for 7 years!

I am so happy that I broke through those feelings, because I am feeling great. And you know what, Ruby LOVES the nursery. And I am getting ready to try a new work out for me (Bosu) and I think I am going to take Sophie to a beginner yoga class this week. Let's train some focus.

Now, I'm home from yoga, I've had lunch and I really need a shower but Ruby isn't napping. Maybe it's not ALL about me.

Rainy day blahs

It's raining. For the first time in what seems like forever. Sadly, it means we're trapped inside on a Sunday. Boo. It's been so very nice to be able to set the kids loose in the backyards with the neighbors sine we've had an early spring set in. (fingers crossed that winter is truly gone)

After a discussion of "all the cool things we could do if we could fly" (wherein the 7 year old knocked my house-keeping skills with "you could dust the ceiling fan") I decided this morning we'd bake more sandwich bread. Sophie did most of the work while Steve distracted the other kids.



found here: amandeleine.com

We also made Soph's veggie soup for dinner. Last time the kids did all the work, this time they were in the trance that only Alvin and the chipmunks can provide on a rainy day, so I did all the veggie prep, and man, was it faster than I remember! At the last minute I decided to make some yummy cheesy crackers via Smitten Kitchen, too.






Yum!

Almost a year

I've said it before, I'm a terrible blogger. But I am willing to try, try again. So here we go, in the last year I didn't tell you about:
the screen porch is wonderful and we LOVE it,
we've had multitude of crafty misadventures and successes,
a great many fights with my kids and all the funny things they said,
Sophie got glasses,
Steve and I went away for the first time without the kids: London and Paris!
we had a great veggie garden,
the kids learned to swim, Ruby is NOT afraid of the pool,
Will started Kindergarten,
Ruby swallowed (and pooped out) a metal hair clip (this resulted in a day at the hospital, the take away from this is that "at the hospable, I watch Yo-gabba-gabba!"), she also started her first dance class,
Steve started a new non-teaching job at the college,
Sophie is in a new classroom (Lower elementary in montessori is 1, 2 & 3, she's a first year)and pull-out reading tutoring,
we adopted two very sweet kittens, Moxie and Mouse, only to discover Will is extremely allergic to them, the kids still talk about them and ask to visit them at the (no kill!) shelter,
we hosted our first ever Thanksgiving with all my in-laws,
Will is reading anything and everything,
It snowed four times in December, (which is unheard of here) and
Ruby thinks she's about to potty train.

phew, so that's what you missed. next up: current events.