3 Cups Interrupted Sleep

2 Tablespoons Mistakes (my own)

2 Cup Selfishness (my own)

3 Tablespoons of “Misbehaving” children

1 Teaspoon of the General Public

4 Tablespoon of Messy House

A dash of Lateness

Stir well until you can’t breathe or the twitch in your eye won’t stop, whichever happens first.

I started this post earlier today and recounted every single hard and ridiculous thing that happened today – but I just deleted it all.  It didn’t seem so bad in hindsight of now telling the story.  But it was bad, probably the most trying day in my entire career as a mother, but putting words to it didn’t do it justice so I stopped.  Have you been there?  For example, when I started to describe to John what had happened, I felt silly with some of the stuff I was describing that was SO HARD in the moment – I couldn’t even describe it. It’s crazy how emotions and lack of sleep can magnify EVERYTHING!

So right now, I’m thankful for God’s mercy to moms that He thought of naps and thankful that tomorrow is a new day.

What’s your recipe for a bad day?

• JJ will be in school all day- man I miss him.

• Henry will be going to preschool- JJ never went so preschool is all new to us.

• Emma will be joining George at Kids Day Out once a week.

• My sister Katie and her family moved back home- not only to STL but into our neighborhood!!! AND Tootie, my niece, will be going to Hudson with JJ.

• Kara, whom I have babysat 2 days a week since she was 9 weeks, is starting Kindergarten and won’t be a part of our Mondays and Fridays anymore. Totally bittersweet.

• I started watching my niece, Rosie and it is going so great! Her and Emma are BFFs..check out the picture.

Wow, I didn’t think it was a lot, but writing it out it is ALOT!  My current mental status is Monday -Friday I’m fine, it’s the transition to our weekends I have a hard time with lately.   Weekends we try to balance getting things done with relaxing and I’m not good at the latter.

What do you do on the weekends?  Do you find it hard to balance?

By God’ grace, I became instant friends with a group of girls, of which most of them also had transferred from all girl schools. We were called The 6-Pack because their were 6 of us and we were inseparable. I don’t know if this name was given to us or if self-proclaimed, but it was junior high – if you had a place or a name where you fit in – it was half the battle.

I’ve been thinking of my junior high 6-pack lately, especially when I stop and realize that we are now a family of 6. Even writing that,  it is crazy to me. Don’t get me wrong, we wanted a big family and I’m from a family of 6 — this should not be that crazy to me!

It really gets me when I see a picture of our four kids (which is really hard to get a good one!).   Just looking at each of their faces, I am hit with the fact that, again by God’s grace, John and I made these little people and we are in charge of their molding and shaping into adults. Um, holy crap.

So the realization of my new 6-pack has STILL not sunk in yet.  The family dynamic that comes with our new number has not fully materialized yet.  There are more haphazard decisions, unmet self-imposed expectations, and less time. I am still figuring out how to supply the demands.  For me, let the record show, 3 to 4 kids has a higher learning curve than the other jumps.  Everybody always asks me that question.  What’s weird, is that Emma is such an easy baby, it’s just adding the one more!  John would disagree and thinks 4 is less of a big deal.  I find that funny.

Bare with me as I try to re-enter the world of blogging!

Kim was talking about how she was going to homeschool Tyler for preschool.

Me: “Oh, I could never homeschool, I’d go crazy , I’m not organized enough, etc”

Kim: “Jill, you DO home school your boys.”

Me: “Oh, I guess I do.”

I never think of it as homeschooling.

I don’t send my boys to preschool for two reasons.  First, and foremost, is that I know they have the rest of their lives to be in school -so why rush it?  Second, I’m cheap and don’t want to pay for something I can teach them myself.

I’ve watched other children in my home since JJ (5yo) was 9 months old, so socialization isn’t an issue.  These days, I have a three extra kids other than my own three, three days a week…wow I guess three is the magic number!  I think coupled with my own Montessori education and the the interest I had in early childhood education in college, it was natural that our days have become a loosely structured day with focused time for learning.

For the past four years, I have made my own “curriculum”.  Usually it was gathered through lots of surfing on the web and trips to the library.  Sometimes, the themes (that’s what I called them) would work beautifully and other times I would get very overwhelmed with because I would make it more complicated.

Fast forward to the last several months, I discovered Tot School and Totally Tots.  Both of these sites are specific for moms who keep their toddlers home to prepare them for a homeschooling future.  This doesn’t fit me entirely – JJ will be attending half -day kindergarten in the fall – go Hudson Hawks!  BUT, the ideas and community I have found thorough these sites have provided me a great relief.  I don’t have to reinvent the wheel, they have a simple curriculum that I feel I can pick and choose what works for us.

We do Tot Trays once or twice a day.  First in the morning and sometimes again in the afternoon if the 4 o’clock hour is especially hard.  Here are some pictures from using our trays this week.  In later posts, I’ll actually explain the specifics on what the kids are doing.

We implement ideas from Totally Tots on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays – when I have other kids with us.

It looks like this:

Mondays: Now I know my ABCs – weekly ABC ideas with tots

Wednesdays: Bible Bites and sometimes Crafty Corner

Thursdays: Once a Upon a Book

I’ll be doing a post on Sundays about what we did the week before in Tot School.  This might help me own more what we’re doing, going back to my conversation with Kim.  I think it’s so funny when friends give me a totally different view of myself that I don’t see.  It’s funny that I see myself so differently, I’m thankful that I have friends that will sweetly tell me the good, bad and the ugly.

I have never had their pictures taken professionally.  The main reasons are because I don’t  want to go to Sears or the like, the photographers that I would want to take their pictures are more than I want to spend – especially because I would want them photographed once a year at least.  So I’m not doing it for now, but we do take a ton of pictures at home, and those are the ones that I love from my albums growing up – just the simple snapshots.

One of the consistent pictures I have taken off all of them is each in the duck robe at 3 months old.  Can you guess who’s who…scroll over the picture with your mouse to get the answer.

Anyways – here’s a picture of our fairy house.  It was built mainly out of sticks, landscaped with white rock, the roof was covered in moss and decorated with sweet pea flowers.  And although you can’t see it from the picture there is a locust shell protecting intruders on the roof (the boys idea of course). What’s crazy about this photo is that I could not get a clear picture of it – it kept turning out kinda foggy…I’d like to think it had something to do with the fairies.

First of all, my definition for a “favorite gift” for a little person usually includes these parameters:

• Around $10: Unless its a niece, I try to stick to a $10-$15 budget.  You can find lots of great gifts for this amount and it keeps me from going overboard.
• Preferably something consumable.  Kids usually have a lot of toy “clutter” to begin with and I don’t want to add to the clutter.
• Some ideas of consumable gifts: Crayons, Passes to The Magic House, Movie Tickets, Craft Kits, etc.

My friend Greta gives a ColorWonder Coloring Book with markers – I love this idea b/c it’s consumable, it’s not something I would buy for ourselves and its usually unisex so you can stock up if there is a sale.

So back to the purpose of this post, my fave gift to give lil’ girls right now is a crayon apron.  It’s great for girls from 2-5 (although the safety says 3yo), it’s easy to take on and off, you can get it monogrammed across the band if you want.  Amazon has them for $16.99; so yes it totally negates my gift parameters – BUT I’ve tested it and its totally worth it and they will get several years of mileage from it.

You can check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/5bt3n3