First Week and Weekend of 2011

Monday morning again. We've had one week back into life again after Christmas vacation. Christmas vacation brought illness galore, weariness beyond belief, and bickering amongst the entire Wheelz Crew. I wondered how things would go this first week back to school. And life. For the most part, I was pleasantly surprised.

School last week
It was an interesting week. Noah had lost his DS because of behavior about a month before school got out for Christmas. I told him he could have it back when he had a perfect week of behavior at school. And I continued to remind him that he would probably get DS games for Christmas and not be able to play them if he didn't get his act together. Needless to say, that's exactly what happened. He got a new game he wanted and was unable to play it. So the first week back to school for Noah was a lesson in good behavior. He worked SO hard. He got his act together even with things other than PB&J for breakfast. And he did indeed have a perfect week. Now that he knows he can do it, I hope that means he will continue. I have faith in him. He's been so helpful and cheerful and it is nice to have my nice little boy back for awhile.

The first week back with Aaron was kind of another story. He is not getting in trouble for behavior. But he is starting to show more signs of the same learning disability type of issues that Steve had when he was growing up in school. I will not go into details here. I need to state again how incredibly wonderful his teacher is. I love her so much and if we have another year with her next year, it will only be to Aaron's benefit. She has been so good about sharing her thoughts and listening to mine. I am confident that Aaron is in the best place for him at this time. Meanwhile, the little smarty pants has been lurking while I have been testing Noah on his multiplication problems and has managed to learn them quicker than his older brother. Therefore, Noah is working harder to memorize him ion order to not be shown up by his six year old brother. Pretty funny.

Scouts Again
We started our new scout pack last week. The boys have different dens in different locations at the same time on Tuesday nights. I managed to get my piano teaching schedule rearranged so that Steve and I can both be with a child every week during den meetings. I think this alone will solve some of the frustration that Noah had from the old pack. Aaron is SO excited to be a scout now that he wears his Tiger hat constantly and wants to do scouts every day. I am not sure how I am going to finance this endeavor yet but I will have to figure it out.

The kids were in a pretty good mood all weekend which was nice. They had a babysitter first thing Saturday morning since I had an audition to play for and Steve was working. My kids LOVE babysitters. It was not the one they had expected since there was an unexpected death in our old church on Friday that kind of threw a lot of people for a loop, including myself. So our planned sitter was busy but her sister came and the kids had a blast. By the time I got home, Aaron was begging me to leave again so M could stay. When Steve got home, we headed out to a new sledding hill and we had a great time. That evening we settled in for movie night. We loved Nanny McPhee.

Sunday was the first time that I made it back to church with the family since I started the evil 3rd shift job in November (other than Christmas Eve). During those weeks, Steve took the boys to church each Sunday morning while I was sleeping after working every single Saturday night. It was so nice to finally get back. I love to see how happy the boys are each week when they come out of class. And Noah got to take his new bible and was thrilled when the teacher picked HIS bible to read the story.

The afternoon was lazy. We had planned to go over to Deb's to go sledding on their hill, but we just never seemed to get our act together and did pretty much nothing. In the hopes of trying to spend less, we dumped our cable and started Netflix so the evening was spent watching yet another family movie. This one was pretty funny because Aaron has been begging for Willie Wonka (the old one) forever even though Steve and I both thought it was one of the weirdest movies we have ever seen. What Steve didn't know though was just how well I knew this movie. I didn't realize it either. Each time a song came on, even though it's been three decades at least since I saw this movie, I found myself singing along each of the songs. It was pretty amusing. Noah enjoyed it because his class just finished reading the book.

It is my second week of not working the second job and financially it is already starting to take its toll. This waiting to start working is so difficult, but at the same time, after having another relaxed morning getting the kids off to school, rather than an over tired, nasty mom trying to push the kids to get ready makes me glad that that my job was not extended. It is definitely a win/lose situation. And as much as I am worried about subbing, I wish I was starting sooner in order to start contributing my share to this household and not panic if I have to go buy cat food on a Sunday night.

The Week Ahead
This week is going to be about squeezing blood from a lemon. I need to find money for scout enrollment for both boys, scout uniform for Aaron, fingerprinting for subbing, and a vet visit for numerous Lily issues. UGH!! At least I have symphony chorus starting back up tonight, which I love. Two hours for myself is very nice.

It's so very cold outside, which makes me want to curl up under a blanket until Spring. But yesterday's message at church was all about Discipline and it spoke to my heart, so I will go take the dog out, do some Wii exercise, take my shower, and then start my "chores" for the day. As a matter of fact, I plan to write a post about this new series at church soon. One of the things Pastor Brad spoke about yesterday was being accountable to someone about your discipline. Even if no one reads this blog, I still feel that I will be more accountable if I put it in writing. At least I'm gonna try. THIS is my year to better myself.

Have a good week :)