It's been a long while since I posted. Moving in was a busy process as was trying to unpack and address house issues while maintaining normalcy for the kids. A true juggling act.
House issues withstanding, it's been nice to have the extra room indoors, separate bedrooms for the kids, and space outside to play, plant and just roam. This year we didn't head to Idyllwild for the holidays for the first time in 10+ years. With recent cash outlays, we decided that a stay-cation might be best especially since V. is gone M-F.
To catch up since we've moved in, D. started talking a lot. He loves to sing with me at naptime and bedtime, "You are my sunshine" and "Twinkle twinkle little star". But now we are able to have conversations about things that happened during the day or just things in general. It's amazing to watch him pause to think of how to say something and his love of books has exploded. It's become one of his favorite things now. He now has moved into swim classes by himself which makes my heart sad but so proud as I watch him excel on his own.
I. is doing great in school. We've been having some challenges at home but I'm hoping that may get better with a combination of things. She loves her daddy and her brother that is for certain and I think she may love her mommy but that is not quite so certain thanks to my "enforcer" status.
With a new year on the horizon, I've been thinking about a goal for 2014. This is the one that jumped to the front of my mind: expressing appreciation/gratitude/thanks. I read something that said that in order for children to learn this trait, they really need to see it modeled. Since this is definitely not a trait that V. shares, it's up to me to model it for my kids and it happens to be a major character trait I'd like to see in my kids. One idea I had was taking a stack of post it notes and labeling them "I appreciate/thank you for" and having them out for all of us to write short notes of appreciation to each other daily or throughout the week to develop an attitude of gratitude. I'm hoping it will help.
I.'s school is going to start a book club in the new year with a book called, "The Christian Parenting Handbook" by Dr. Scott Turanksy and Joanne Miller, RN BSN. They announced it in the weekly newsletter and I read an excerpt on Amazon and it really spoke to me. I think it will be vastly helpful so I ordered it and look forward to reading it and applying what I learn. That's always the hard part right, applying what you read.
A good start to a new year.
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