Softly Blows the Morning Breeze, Until My Kids Wake Up

Productivity is overrated with kids.  With the fighting and playing and general mess-making, attempting anything more than just keeping them fed and alive leads to ultimate frustration.

Despite this, I did manage to do a few productive things this week: enrolling Emily in preschool, buying a gym membership AND going to the gym, and getting the house (and myself) ready for my school year to start.

Although I had planned on continuing home preschool with Emily, a friend tipped me off to a wonderful co-op preschool down the street that had openings. After a few weeks of phone tag and snow days, I had Emily enrolled.  Today was her first day and she really enjoyed it.  Whew!

This allows me time to, uh, not do much.  BUT she's happy, so that's good.

I'm thrilled that I still have my Andrew home with me.  He's such a hilarious guy who loves to snuggle and read books.  He is also quite enthralled with the letter X right now, which is cool.

Amelia likes to climb on everything When she's not climbing, she wants me to hold her All. The. Time.  She won't sleep unless I'm lying down next to her.  She'll also scream and slam her face into my legs whenever I try to do any chore (dishes, laundry, cleaning in general). I guess she really likes me.

Amelia loves the song "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."  I'm teaching her a few others songs but this is the song she'll drop everything for to dance to.  She's learning the different animal sounds and learning to recognize the different animals.

I start school again on the 21st. As usual, I can only take a few classes and this time they are all in the evening.  I'll still be working at the Crisis Nursery but I've transitioned to a PRN position to allow more flexibility in my monthly scheduling (and open up my weekends).  I'll also continue working in the Math Lab as a teaching assistant for Algebra, Trigonometry, basic stats and pre-calculus; tutoring athletes for a few hours a week; and I'm tutoring in a low-income school district on Fridays.  Although my schedule sounds busy, it's actually less busy all around and the kids will spend more time with both Ben and me during the week and on the weekends.  Pretty sweet deal.

Ben's work anniversary is quickly approaching.  It's so crazy to think that he'll have started working at Enterprise two years ago in March and in his current position for one year in January.  He really enjoys his job.  The flexibility that his job allows is the main reason I can continue working and going to school.  I am glad that he and I have worked out a schedule that works best for us both.

Speaking of Ben, he celebrated his 30th birthday in December.  Per his request, we went to Chuck E. Cheese so he could play with the kids.

And quiet time is over.