First of all, last night Preston slept all night. I'm not sure what time he would've woken up if I hadn't gone in there to get him up myself. He was in bed by 10 last night, and skipped his normal 12/1ish and 3/4ish feedings. I woke him at 5 and he was tough to wake! Crossing my fingers we have reached the point of sleeping all night. Thank you BABYWISE and Thank Ya Jesus!!!!
Also, today Callie started Pre-K. She has attended preschool before when she was three, but we ended up only completing one semester of school before deciding to pull her out. We adored the preschool she was at, but at the time we lived a good 25 minutes each way from the school, and the drive and time in the car was just not worth it.
Last year, I opted out of sending her to Pre-K, since we homeschool and things were fine in that department. She loved the little crafts and letters of the week she was learning at home, and together with Camryn, we were able to do school during Charleigh's (extremely long) afternoon naps every day.
Since then, we purchased a new house that is located "in town" (before we were out in the country), and last summer I started considering the thought of sending Callie to Pre-K for this school year. I just love all the sweet friends, crafts, play time, and learning that Pre-K has to offer, and it was such a precious time in Camryn's life that it has left me with very fond memories! I love the fall and Christmas programs, the spring play days, little field trips, and more.
With all of that being said, we decided that we would continue to keep her home, mostly because we moved into our new house just a month prior to when the school year began, and we had no idea what kind of groove we would get in living here. Since Callie's birthday falls just past the September 1st cut-off date, I knew I had another year after this one to change my mind.
Well, exactly one week after our newest addition Preston arrived, I knew it was time to go to school! ;)
The girl is SO smart, has a very fast "busy brain", and loves nothing more than socializing (<--the socializing part comes from me... the rest of her, not so much!) So I knew having some time to herself to get out and go roam the halls of a new location would be just the thing for this little busy body. So, a few weeks later, I signed her up and planned to have her start back after Christmas break.
Today was the day to start! She was actually supposed to start yesterday, but woke up with a really painful ear ache, so we opted for the pediatrician's office instead of the school. Double ear infection, ouch! Looks like she may end up needing to get tubes placed again.
Anyway, the ride there and home was priceless! She is so confident and loves to chat, so it was so much fun hearing her mention all the details of how her day went. Who she played with, how they loved her fur coat, what she talked about at lunch, how her teacher lives in our neighborhood, and more. She made sure to tell me that she gets to go " FOUR WHOLE DAYS ALL THE TIME!" too. Needless to say, best decision made so far this year. :) She will go for four days a week this year, then in the fall she will start Kindergarten there, and then I'll bring her back home for 1st grade- on. That's the plan so far for all the little's ;)
Aside from her hilarious commentary on her first day, I think an even sweeter moment was when we got home and her sisters greeted her at the door. Charleigh was yelling in her tiny little toddler voice, " I MISH YEW, CAWWIE! I MISH YEW!" (translation- I missed you, Callie! I missed you!" and Camryn was there waiting to grab her bag and give her hug like a second mother. She asked her all the same questions I had asked before, and she couldn't wait to hear all about it. I could see it in Camryn's eyes, that spark. It is almost the same spark a mother has when looking at her child. I don't know how that girl became such an old soul, but she really is the sweetest. I love looking at her sisters through her eyes.
After that I was on an "I love my children!" high that lasted all of 20 minutes when the day began to wear on all the younger girls. Callie was tired from school and Charleigh was ready for a nap. Immediately Charleigh went in to her competitive nature, which tends to only show up when Callie is around, and started yelling to all of us which items are " MINE!". Callie started asking what all the girls did at home school and began begging to do their activites as well. Ahh, reality. ;) My brain immediately went into to-do list mode. I was suddenly reminded of all of the tasks that need to be completed before nap time, (lunch for the girls, feeding Preston, tidying up the kitchen so I could start dinner, laundry, laundry, more laundry). I couldn't help but continue to smile through it all though. This is life, it's messy, and chaotic, but that is exactly what I love about it. The unpredictable!
After nap time, Charleigh had a first as well. I woke her up and started carrying her downstairs, but she sort of whispered something so I stopped to ask her again. All she could say was, "snow. reindeer." Apparently she had been dreaming. Her first time to remember a dream. :) As we walked past the laundry room, she noticed the (red) washer & dryer and said " there's Rudolph." I guess someone is missing Christmastime! Sweet girl.
Another first is the first time I'm getting to use my new dutch oven! Whoop whoop! I've wanted one of these bad boys for a LONG time. Kicking it off with a big ole' pot of chili for dinner. Perfect for this cold January day!
Since having Preston, I have learned that for THIS season of life, dinner MUST be on the stove/in the crock pot/in the oven in the afternoon in order to feed my family a real dinner and not cereal for dinner. Ha! I think "Okay, he'll be napping from 4-6 so that is when I will cook dinner" and then sure enough, the boy is wide awake needing a thousand different things that conveniently end up taking up nearly the entire 2 hours that I was planning on using to cook.
Just so my life doesn't come off as all together... I'll throw in some "dirty laundry" for ya'll.
My master bedroom looks like I aimed to frame the shape of the room with as many baskets of clean - unfolded- laundry as possible. We are SO living out of laundry baskets right now. I'm always feeding or holding Preston before he naps, and when he naps I have the other three that need something, or it's time to feed them too, so the best I can do these days is throw it in and throw it out in a basket and deal with it later. If I wanted to lose even more sleep than I already have in the past 6 weeks, then I would stay up late putting it all away every night, but honestly, I'd rather have quality time with Kyle and the back of my eye lids. There will come again the time for putting laundry away appropriately, but that time is not now! :)
Hmm... what else? How about the fact that at any given moment one or several rooms in the house has toys, clothes, construction paper, or trash (she just LOVES to pull toilet paper off of the roll and see how many thousands of little pieces she can RIP it into) on the floor. Charleigh has risen to the occasion and is making her presence known- BIG TIME!! We are working on teaching her Charleigh-sized chores, and the floors are definitely part of them. The only problem is when she sneaks off and trashes another room. #cantkeepup. Again, the season of spotless floors comes eventually, just not any time soon as long as we keep having babies!! :)
Speaking of floors, I can't forget the van!! I nearly died today when I went to pick up Callie from the carpool line. I was loading Preston in his car seat, and opened up the door and just stood there. Ya know, I've never been one to have a squeaky clean car. In any of my cars, no matter how many kids I have. It is just my reality. But, I hadn't really taken a real long look into the floors of my van in I'd say, oh 7 or 8 weeks or so. Clothes, doll clothes, hair bows & panty hose, the list goes on and on. It's like the girls strip down to being buck naked on Sunday mornings on the way home from church before we even get a chance to pull in the drive way, all their outfits and accessories... OFF! I'm not even sure where some of it came from. Anyway, back to the carpool thing, looking at that site is a little different when you realize someone else is going to be looking at it shortly. I just stood there, at a cross roads of trying to decide between picking her up late in order to throw anything and everything into the trunk to do some sort of a fake-out in attempts to tricking the potential stranger into thinking it's been that way all along... OR I could make sure the visor on Preston's car seat was down all the way, so that whenever said stranger opens the door, all they notice is ADORABLE SQUISHY FACE and hopefully don't even glance down at what I like to call the aftermath of the Weathers girls. In my natural free-spirited way, I chose plan B. With a " Eh!", I plopped Preston's car seat into the base, tossed a blanket over the mess (which solved nothing) and just said a prayer that the lady would ask how young he is so I can appear to still be in the newborn fog and unable to do these things yet. ;)
In all seriousness... his squishy face really is adorable, see?!
At the end of crazy/good days like this, I just count my blessings and pat myself on the back for getting up at 5am. :) :) :)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>COMING SOON- the Home Birth story... I know you are all DYING to hear those details!! ;) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
We are doing the exact same thing for Rose. Pre-k now, kindergarten next year at the same cute Christian preschool, and then first grade at home. Perfect fit for our family too:)
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