Naptime Blog

Am I the only one that feels like I live in my car lately?

I have had other moms say they welcome the respite of summer. They enjoy days spent lounging by the pool and the fact that they don’t have to run their kids to school, after-school practices, soccer games, dance classes, etc. Maybe it’s just because I have a son who attends therapies to help him walk better and talk better and catch up with his peers, but I am always on the road or in an appointment. There aren’t many days where we just relax.

That being said, my three year old will start back to preschool later this month and my two year old will start Mother’s Day Out two days a week. Looking at the schedule that will leave me about two hours on Tuesdays and about two hours on Thursdays where I am completely alone without my sweet kiddos. What on earth will I do with all of this time? Anytime I procure a little time like this, I always seem to wander around like a lost puppy. While shopping, it just feels weird to not be wrestling two wiggly boys or constantly stopping to retrieve sippy cups that have been launched from the stroller. I love having them with me, so taking me time is a bit difficult. I know it is much needed though. It always refreshes me when I actually do it.

By Shannon

Potamus Prefers

http://www.potamusprefers.com/

Am I the only parent that feels this way? I know parents who go to the gym and go to get massages and manicures and pedicures. I think maybe I should jump on that train. What do you think?

DECISIONS, Decisions, decisions,

Our sweet little baby Jayce is growing right on up! He is currently going to a home daycare. While I know the family LOVES him to death, I wonder if it is time for him to be around his peers. He is 16 months and I don’t want him to miss out on that social component that he will get from being around his peers.

This is such a tough decision for me. I know he is well taking care of and watched closely now, but I am afraid when he is in a room full of small toddlers he will get lost in the crowd.

I am praying that the pros out weight the cons. He is grow in right on up…

~Shanta

I can’t believe that it’s this time of year again! Our son Jeromy who is a 4^th grade has made through another testing season. Forth grade has brought on a lot of new challenges; girls, sports competiveness & the dreaded EOG’s.

Overall, I would say he has had a pretty good year. As a parent and an educator I must admit the end of grade testing systems the schools districts use for accountability really frustrate me. Your child could have busted their butt all year and not be a great test taker and possibly fail for the year because of one test! On the flip side, your child could have been really lazy and not done any work all year but test well and automatically advance.

I hope one day a more efficient system to highlight a child’s individual strengths and address their weakness comes to light!

Proud mother & educator,

Shanta

In my last blog post, I told you about how big my boys are getting. Well, my 3-year-old is now in preschool. He has been going for three days (as I type this) and, so far, loves it. This is a program for kids, like him, that need extra help.

For those that don’t know, he is developmentally delayed and goes to occupational and physical therapy to help him out. The preschool he is going to at the local elementary school is very language based and will help him in that area. It should also help him to catch up a bit to his peers.

He gets to dress up and take his backpack to school. He has circle time and plays with toys. He makes art projects and takes speech classes. He is in a small class with six other little ones. The best part (in his opinion) is riding the big bus. He gets to ride the big school bus every day. He gets super excited about that.

Here is a video from this morning to show you how excited he gets…

I think he enjoys getting ready each morning and spending time with me while he eats breakfast outside on his picnic table on the porch. He also likes waiting (with much happiness and anticipation) for that big yellow, child carrying vehicle to round the curb.

After watching the video, what do you think?

Shannon
Potamus Prefers
http://www.potamusprefers.com/

There are many advantages to being a parent.  We get to experience love on a different level.  We get to see stages of life from the very beginning.  We get to see our children grow and develop their own unique personalities and strengths.  We get to see life once again through their eyes, and our own senses are renewed as we experience all that life has to offer once again through our children.  There are so many advantages the list is endless.

Another advantage to being a parent may at times seem like a disadvantage.  But if we use the knowledge that we gain from what we learn as a parent and make the necessary adjustments, it can be one of the biggest advantages we can forever thank our children for giving us.  That is the ability to see ourselves and our actions the way others see us.

A few months back I wrote a blog about how, as parents, we need to maintain our cool in front of our children.  I discussed how we model behavior to our children.  But if we really sit back and take a look at our children, we often see not only little echoes, but we might even see a mirror image of ourselves.  I can see myself in all of my children and I am reminded of the adjustments I need to make in my life.

My daughter is turning eight this month.  She is a great student, even though she doesn’t like school.  She is great at sports (she inherited that from her father and my sister, NOT me) and is a healthy, well rounded child.  My sister coaches Girls Basketball in the upper grades of my daughter’s school.  After practice one day, the girls were talking to my sister about my daughter.  Turns out, these older girls said that they see Juliana in the schoolyard sometimes and she is bossing around the boys in her class.  My sister was concerned and brought this to my attention.  I was alarmed, and had a talk with my daughter.  Juliana reported that she gets upset when the other kids don’t like to do things her way.  She told me that sometimes the boys do stupid things and she tries to tell them how to do things.  These comments really concerned me, because I realized that my daughter was just like me in that respect.  As a type A personality, I have always had to deal with my bossy tendencies.  Growing up, I spent plenty of time putting myself (and trying to keep myself) “in check”, and it took many years and many damaged friendships to realize that everyone has to live their own lives and I can only control myself. 

I am proud of my daughter for being a leader.  I am proud that she stands up for her beliefs, and I am proud that she is developing into a strong and independent young lady.  But seeing myself in my daughter, seeing one of my biggest challenges in life “in the mirror” has made me remember that I need to constantly be aware of how I cannot control everything and need to accept my faults and the faults of others and move forward.

My twins are 19 months, and can often be little parrots.  One of the boys is always being a clown, making everyone laugh and often needing to be reminded to behave.  I recently realized that I do the same thing my mother used to do.  I haven’t figured out yet if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  Whenever I used to get reprimanded by my mother, she would react by calling my dad if I needed to be reprimanded a second time.  “Lou!  Jennifer is not listening to me!”  So last week, when I reprimanded my son Louis (named after my father!), and he responded with “PAUL!” I knew that I used the same way of ‘reprimanding’ that my mom did.    When Louis misbehaves, I react by calling “Paul!”.  Louis just beat me to it by calling his father for me!

Funny thing is, my dad and I have always had a great relationship, and I don’t know why my mom always tried to make me afraid of him!  I guess she thought that having the male parent be the disciplinarian would work better than the female.  But, like in our house, my mom was the one who was home the majority of the time with the kids, and therefore had to do the majority of the disciplining when necessary.  So even if my children behave when my husband disciplines them, that will not help me when he is at work all day long!

I watch the twins interact with each other, and I watch my daughter interact with her brothers.  The twins talk to each other with their hands, pointing and shrugging their shoulders, making faces and raising their voices when they aren’t heard.  And they do it just like I do.  I recently was reminded once again how I need to watch how I react in front of my children, and how these little sponges were taking everything in.  My son Anthony will raise his voice and point his finger at his brother when his brother steals his cookies.  Just like I raise my voice and point my finger.

We are our children’s first teachers.  My little “echoes” are MY teachers.  When I see myself in them and see that their behaviors need to change, it reminds me that I am the one who might need to adjust MY behavior.  Just another advantage to being a parent.  We have that constant “mirror image” or “echo” that reminds us of what we may need to adjust.  As long as we follow up and work on adjusting it, we should be ok.  Just because we are grownups doesn’t mean we aren’t still learning, growing and changing, right?   

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (8), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (7 months)
www.nevaland.com

Well it has been 8 years since high school and I’ve always been scared to go back to school. The thought of math among other subjects were not appealing to me, and on top of that I was very scared about how I would pay for it, which is really strange. I now know that going back to school is pretty easy and the financial assistance is there if needed. Even though a lot of my friends who are in college tried to encourage me and tell me the financial aspect of it was quite simple, I was still stubborn and held off going back.

Well I am happy to say that I have finally enrolled! With the help of a grant I am now enrolled in school to become an electrologist. For those who may not know, it’s permanent hair removal. The good thing about this school is I will have 2 licenses by the time I am through, one in skin care as an esthetician and one in electrology. It’s funny because in my bio section on here I mentioned how I took a detour in life and didn’t go to college because I wasn’t sure what would make me happy, and I’m pretty content with the way this is looking and believe that I will be happy doing this! I’ve been in school for 2 weeks already and every day I get a facial, as well as perform a facial on a fellow student. Who can go wrong with that? I’m very excited about it and hope this will benefit us greatly in the near future!

Have any of you gone back to school after your children were born? If so, how did you balance out a good schedule making sure you had time for your family and/or job?

-Krystle

I spent years and years in school.  After high school, I got my bachelors degree.  Three years ago, completed my masters degree.  I did my fair share of school work, homework, projects, papers, and studying.  I enjoyed school, and worked my butt off to end my educational career with a 3.75 GPA.  So why am I doing homework again?

My daughter is in the second grade.  She is now learning her times tables, geometry, interesting scientific phenomena, and she is reading at a level much higher than that of a second grader.  It upsets me very much that she says she does not like school.  When I was her age I loved school.  Regardless, my little girl does not do much studying, loses her attention span quite easily when doing homework after school, admits she does not like school, and when I test her before a test she drives me crazy with the ridiculous answers she gives me, but yet she holds a 96-98 average with every report card and ranks in the top 10 percentile with every standardized test.   I guess I should not complain, but I just wish she enjoyed school. 

Every day Juliana comes home with homework, and every few weeks she gets a project assigned.  As her mother, I check her homework nightly and help her with her projects.  Since Juliana’s homework started getting trickier within the past few months, I have truly begun to feel like my mother.  My mind is always running a million thoughts a minute, and until I mastered the art of penmanship, I could not keep up with my thoughts on paper, and my mother would yell at me regularly that my homework was sloppy.  She would make me do it over and over again until it was to her liking.  I distinctly remember writing in those marble notebooks, and if my mom was that unhappy with my rushed penmanship, she would rip out the page and have me start again.  But then, later on in school, the opposite side of that ripped out page would fall out of the marble notebook because my mom tore out its other half!  It is memories like this that I am reminded of every time Juliana hastily writes up her homework, with illegible words or ridiculous misspellings of things I am certain she knows how to spell.  I will not tear out the page, although, believe me, I have been tempted.  And so I sit there with her correcting her far out sentences and having her change words that I think would be better another way…  And then it hits me…  I already finished my years and years of school.  It is now Juliana’s turn.

My daughter is a very bright girl with excellent grades and a wonderful imagination.  Although in many ways she is like me, Juliana needs to do her own homework.  I will undoubtedly be there to check her homework and guide her in the right direction, but for now, I need to let her be herself!

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (7), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (4 months)www.nevaland.com

I recently learned that my 9 year old has a girlfriend. I have mixed emotions about the whole thing. I ‘guess’ it’s normal to have a little crush in the 4th grade. I heard my son and his little friends talking about it and I didn’t pay much attention to it. Well, my husband went to his school last week for an awards ceremony and he saw the little girlfriend at the program. It was really funny, because my son was super embarrassed.
 
When the little girl’s mother realized who my husband was she came over to say “hello”. She said her daughter has had a crush on Jeromy for a few years now. “WHAT”!!!!

I am not sure if I am ready for this phase. He wants a cell phone too!! A cell phone and a girlfriend, that’s too much for mommy. He is a handsome little devil, if I must say so myself! Lol

You guys keep me in your prayers during this difficult time. LOL

~Shanta

It’s that time of the school year again, “Science Project” time. I have to say as a mother, I dread this time of the school year. As a teacher, you would think this would be a piece of cake, NOT!

My son usually comes home clueless about he needs to do. His instructions are very vague and the topics are out of this world for 4th graders. I have a hard time with the kids not getting much guidance on what is required and the kids are allowed to pick ANYTHING they want off of a list of 100 various project.

We are doing something with “light bulbs”, not sure what, but “light bulbs”. If our project comes together nicely, I will share pictures later.

 Moms, please pray my strength and patience on this one…

~Shanta

I am still not sure how I feel about the phone call that I got from the Principal last week.  I mean I am proud of my daughter for sticking up for herself and not allowing anyone to get away with touching her, but I do not like that my child feels that it is okay to hit another child.  Let me backtrack a bit.

When the Principal called at 1 PM last Tuesday, I thought it was the nurse calling to tell me Juliana was not feeling well.  When I heard the Principal’s voice, I thought it might be about the website that I have been managing for the past two years for the school.  Instead, I heard “Juliana hit a little boy in the schoolyard today”.  WHAT?  I would have liked to say “You have the wrong child”, but first of all, the school is small and the Principal knows all the children personally by name, and second, I loathe when parents deny that their child could do no wrong. So I sat there and listened while she told me the story.

I learned that the children were playing during recess, and one of the boys tagged her on the shoulder.  Another boy squeezed her in the breast area.  Although my daughter is too young to have developed anything in that area, I have been adamant about teaching her that she should never allow anyone to touch her in her private areas, and that area was of course a private area.

I am not sure if it was sheer reflex, but turns out my daughter hauled off and punched the little boy in the jaw saying “You are not supposed to touch a girl like that!”  The boy started crying and his lip bled.  They were both called to the principal’s office, he admitted what he did and apologized, the principal told my daughter that she should have called the lunch mother, and told both of them that no one should be touching anyone’s private areas.  The principal called the boy’s mom and then called me, and told me that although she did not tell Juliana outright, she is proud that Juliana knows to never let someone touch her and that she defended herself. 

I, on the other hand, cannot believe my daughter hit another child!  I have never been in a fight and would never have hit anyone else, although there have been times in my life when I WISH I would have!  I would have preferred that she went to the lunch mother as well, and did not condone the hitting.

The one thing I wanted my daughter to clarify to me was “Are you sure he didn’t touch you by accident?”  And Juliana explained to me that the boy not only touched her, he pinched her in that area and twisted!  Not only was she defending herself from a boy touching her where he had no right to touch her, she was also probably embarrassed that he did this, and maybe he even hurt her! 

My husband and I did sit her down that evening to have a talk with her.  I needed to stress that hitting is not something we will allow.  I reminded her that she needs to go to a trusted adult if anyone ever hurts her or does something wrong to her.  I told her that I never want another call from the Principal saying that Juliana hit anyone ever again.
When she went to bed later that night, I told my husband that I was secretly very proud of my daughter for sticking up for herself.  I know that I never had the guts to do that when I was younger, and although I meant what I said about never wanting to hear that my daughter hit another child, I am very happy she has proven that she will not allow anyone to hurt her or touch her inappropriately.  And I hope the little boy learned his lesson as well! 

Jennifer
Wife to Paul, Mom to Juliana (7), Anthony and Louis (1) and Joseph (2 months)
www.nevaland.com