An Update on Life

Miz N
Started 2nd grade
Says she has the "sweetest teacher" ever
And that she loves school
And after school care club
But
We've already had to have one phone conference
And one email note about her behavior choices with her teacher
And two one-on-one meetings about her behaviors at club.
Sigh.

Good news is she is on grade level for everything
And is reading constantly
(Never saw that this summer)
And loves to write.

Testing the water big time with me
Mostly with lying
Which
As she is finding out
Is my number one pet peeve with kids
Especially when I know they are lying
I call them out on it
And they keep on lying.
Sigh.

She loves to play outdoors
And I've finally just let her go out
And sweat to death when we get home from school
And ride in circles around the cul-de-sac.
It does her good
And makes her happy
(As it does me).

Prayers for Miz N:
--That she begins to settle into the routines and expectations of school and is consistently respectful.
--That she will start filtering out exaggeration and fill-in-the-blank stories and start seeing the power in truth-telling.

Dora
Giggles
Whiner
Parrot
Little Sir Echo,
Whatever you want to call her,
Is three officially.
We celebrated by jumping as a family at BounceU
And then having Little Ceasers - her favorite.
She got a bunch of kitchen cooking utensils
And play food.
I am still on the look out for a little play kitchen for her.

Not potty-trained.
Talking non-stop.
Seriously.
Non-stop.
Still sleeping in the closet most days.

Mimicking everything and everybody.
When Little Man isn't sharing with her want she wants
Or doing what she wants
She starts to use my parenting techniques I use on her
On him.
Counting down.
(1, 2, 8, 7, 3...)
Whispering.
(Please give me....)
Yelling.
(No, _____!)
It's grand to see my amazing parent skills show up on a 3 year old
(Sarcasm, friends. Sarcasm.)

Her new thing is she says
"Shake your body" all of the time.
I have no idea where it came from
But it is a bit disturbing.
(And funny.  Yes.)

Prayers for Little Sir Echo:
--She will continue to develop her words and use them to communicate her needs.
--Her little stubborn ways will begin to soften around the edges.  She and I locked horns way too much.

Little Man
Well, Dracula,
Is still up to his biting ways
As well as crazy-hair pulling
And off the chart screaming

He is teething.
Joy of all joys.
Which
For him means
Little appetite
Lots of drooling
And a mess of a back end.

He is talking certain words more and more
Hi
Whoa
Wow
And...
My name.
Yes, my name.
(I kind of love that.)

Granted,
It's probably because his three year old sister
Seriously says my name
Over 1000 times an hour.
May-ann
May-ann
May-ann
(It's like finger nails on a chalk board)
(It seems to be her version of the "um" or "hmm")

Prayers for Little Man:
--That his molar will come in quickly and his diaper rash will heal quickly.
--That his vocabulary and sign language skills will continue to develop in order to help with overall communication.

Me
Maryann
May-ann
Momma
Miss Ramseyer
I am doing okay.
It's a day by day
Minute by minute
Tantrum by tantrum kind of thing.

School is in full force.
Good kids.
Love middle school.
Love teaching language arts.
We all have a new integrated class
That is throwing us all right over the edge
But I work with an amazing team
And we've come up with some mixing of students
That I think will work better for us and the kids
In order to accomplish the goals of the class.

Loving storytelling at church on Saturday nights
But still trying to figure out how to keep the two Littles awake
And in good moods
When,
By the time we get out,
It is an hour past dinner and time for bed.
Got the cleaning people coming Tuesday.
So excited I can hardly wait.

Got the water bill and the electricity bill for this month.
Holy crap.
That's all I can say.
Holy crap.

My mom is coming out in October
For three weeks
And I cannot wait!

Prayers for me:
Needing to learn effective coping strategies as a parent and a person when dealing with temper tantrums.  Needing to learn to give myself grace.  Needing to rely on His strength, instead of beating myself up for it and pulling away.