Last night were the presidential debates which we watched. I haven't really paid much attention to the past several elections. The last one I don't think I was registered and had a little one. The time before I was out of the country, then before in collage and figuring that out.....anyways we watched it. While we were watching I talked to the boys about what was going on, who was who and we watched. Well they kind of did. I can't wait for them to get older so we can learn about all the various topics together. While most of the time the boys played I listened, toward the end I asked Max who he thought should be president to which he replied "uh....the prophet!" Awesome answer! That would make things easier.
Levi is on his second week of piano lessons. I debated about the whole piano thing knowing that I definitely wanted him to play and have music in his life because it would something that would stay with him his whole life. I always wish I had played from the get go but only did a couple years worth of lessons here and there and as a result my technique is spotty, sight reading is poor, and confidence is lacking but I do love it. We decided to give it a try and see how he did and if it went well we'd keep going and so far so good. He seems to really like it and pick up on terms and concepts fairly quickly. Our cousin Krista has been coming over and we watch her daughter in exchange for lessons which so far is working out well. I like the idea of having her for a teacher because I am extremely comfortable with her as a person, her ability to teach and her amazing patience and ability to work with little kids. Right now Levi is the youngest person she's taught but she's doing great and says he's doing well. We have decided to do shortened lessons because a 30 minute lesson is too much for any 5 year old.
Speaking of extracurriculars, soccer is coming to an end. Kind of sad, kind of not. It is a lot of time and energy to get to practices and games. How do people do it with multiple kids in multiple sports/classes?!?!!?! Yipes. I'm glad we did it this year though because it was pretty low key and just plain fun. We'll be doing it again and Max will be doing it too which he is excited about. You should see him kick a ball, it's so cute.
I don't think I wrote about it but Jason got the full time position he was applying for at Nike which was a huge relief for us. The whole process had tons of ups and downs and was fairly stressful. But he's happy to be doing something that is in the area he wants, using his degree and actually really beginning a career and not just a job.
We just went to parent teacher conferences for Levi, our first one and it looks like things are going well. He needs to keep working on reading, writing and fine motor skills but I knew they'd say that, I think they say that to everyone. One thing I have to say, I am quite surprised with how much is expected of kindergartners. From everything I've read and the people and teachers who I've talked to have said is that kindergarteners are learning now what they used to teach in the first grade 15 years ago to keep up with all the other grades curriculum and meeting benchmarks. It's just not the same. By the end of the year they should: count 1-100 by 1's, 5's and 10's, do math adding and subtracting up to total of 10, read small books, and they said write a paragraph. For me that was a big one. A paragraph? The teacher even said that the district or whoever the powers that be are, might make one of the benchmarks be writing a full paragraph, not just sentences but a paragraph with a topic sentence..... I was amazed. Anyways, we're in a whole new ballgame now. Levi is doing well with all the work and seems like he's right where he should be. One thing I was surprised with is that his teacher said he can be kind of quiet at times. Shocker for me because he is completely all talk at home. I've been wanting to tally it up to see just how many questions a day he asks me but I'm fairly sure it's in the hundreds. But she said it was good because it's not like he wasn't social but he knew when to listen to the teacher, during story time and other times. Also, he drew the cutest self portrait which I wanted to take it home and frame it. He's just so darling.
Speaking of school, with all this added stuff into the schedule I've found there is so little time for TV for them, which is a good thing over all. In my experience, for my boys at least, usually the less tv the better. They just seem to complain less, play better together (most of the time) than when they watch more. Here's been our daily schedule:
7-8am get up, breakfast, get dressed. Sometimes Jason does it before work so I can sleep a little longer
8-9am Play time
9-10:30 a mix of reading to me time with Levi, writing, coloring time, cleaning house, playing outside, practice piano, all depending on how they're doing and we go with what they're up to for the morning
10:45 Levi starts eating. He, no joke, can take up to 45 minutes to eat lunch
11:30 Bus drop off. I do a little learning activity with Max, then he plays legos, building or watches some shows with great grandma
2:30 Walk to pick up Levi
3:15 -4:30 Finish homework stuff/practice whatever we had for the day
4:30-5 Big clean up before dad gets home
5 Make dinner
5:45 Hopefully have it on the table, again our meal time can go a little long so can go for over 45 minutes
6:30 (if lucky and done with dinner) A little bit of play time or time to hang with whoever is over for the day, usually one of my siblings or mom
7:15ish Bath time, getting ready for bed time
8pm bed, but they don't fall asleep till later. Levi listens to an audio book for a half hour which Max falls asleep to.
It's so busy! and that's with no other curveballs such as soccer practice, other activities, dad working later, family over, preschool for Max. I feel like I have to be much more on the ball with things if I want to get everything accomplished.
As a result my house is trashed, but it is usually in complete disarray. I think I've kind of figured out the boys schedule from getting them to school, making sure Levi (and Max) do some reading to me time, writing time, drawing time, piano practice time each day, then me having work time during school hours and even getting some sort of dinner made more days than not but am still trying to figure out the keeping house clean. Ah well.
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