So, today is March 2nd. It's been a hectic few weeks, dealing with mom and the kids and my boyfriend and everything else life has done to cause more chaos than I am typically accustomed to. So I think at this point, the easiest thing to do will be to break this down into individual people/events that have occured recently and write about each thing, one at a time. And, I'm sure that somewhere, somehow these events merge to create the web that is woven into the everyday life we consider so typical of these times and parallels the menageries that everybody else has dealt with in their own life, at one point or another.
Mom: My mom broke up with her boyfriend a while back. She has finally moved past the depression stage that so typically is entailed with such events, and is now back to smiling, singing, dancing, and being more happy than I have seen in a long while. She is currently losing weight that was put on from stress, and has drastically cut her food intake, but it's to a level that she is content with and she seems to be refinding a balance that I watched her lose a long while ago...
Halle: Halle was my mom's Seeing Eye dog. She has officially been retired, and joined our family in her retirement. She now sleeps on our bed, plays with the kids, and seems very contented in her new lifestyle. She also enjoys going with on car rides, and getting her tummy rubbed. We have had no problems with her overall adjustment, and find that she gets more used to it every day...
My boyfriend: While I will not go so far as to say that he is enjoying his new job, I do think that my boyfriend is getting more used to it. He is still stressed over it, and they are inconsistent with the hours that he expected to work, sometimes keeping him a few hours late and sometimes letting him off an hour or two early. That being said, he is also managing to accumulate some overtime sporadically, which helps to offset the pay cut in switching jobs. As for our relationship, we are doing well. Things are not nearly as tense as they have been in the past and, at this point, most of the issues that come up are more from everyday stress than enything else.
Wedding Plans: We've got most of the arrangements and plans for the wedding worked out, aside from the food issue. There is an awesome little restaurant here that specializes in unique health foods, and they have shown interest in making a cake to fit our needs. We are planning on ordering a small cake from them in May for ZoKo's birthday, and figure this will give us a chance to taste a cake from them and see if it is agreeable to us. Either way, we are planning on ordering some finger food snacks from them to serve on platters, they make a really good peanut butter ball, with honey and apricot pieces in it. We figure that ordering a ton of those will make a good snack...
ZoKo: ZoKo took about a three week break from standard book work in order to accomodate the other things going on in our environment at the moment. Athough, she did keep up with her independent reading and reading books in core subjects during this break, as well as math worksheets. She resumed working with books on Monday, and it has been a slow start (science and history only), but we're working on it, together. We have been taking turns reading out of the books, and my extra involvement seems to be helping her attitude with getting back into the old routine.
HomeSchooling: I recently bought a very large lot of classic literature and leveled books from someone on Craig's List. These are mostly rated for a 5th-6th grade level, which puts them at ZoKo's level and about 3 grade levels above where B is at the moment. The girls have spent many hours the last several days helping me sort and organize the books and digging through telling each other (very excitedly) exactly which books they "can't wait" to read. B has been practicing her grade 2 reading more enthusiastically, trying to progress herself up to the level 5 books. All the kids have been practicing their writing and math and reading skills on a daily basis.
B: B has been making extensive progress on her school work, and is now ahead of most of her class on these basic things. This has become enough of a routine at our house that she simple gets home from school, grabs her notebook, and asks me to write out problems for her to solve. She also seems genuinely proud of herself for completing her tasks properly.
I don't really know what else to say about the girls, other than talking about their academics, because everything has been going so well with them. They both appreciate the allowances they get for doing their chores, and generally speaking, accomplish said tasks with almost no resistance whatsoever. Overall, they are both outgoing, upbeat, and keep a positive outlook on most things that life throws their way...
Odie: We had a parent-teacher conference Monday evening for Odie. His progress this year has been astounding. He is still not up to a kindergarten level, but he can now write his first name accurately and count to 16 on his own. He still does not know the letters of the alphabet, but we are going to be working with him on these asap. His resistance at home comes and goes, typically in a pattern consistent with the parenting schedule. He tends to iggnore me and refuse to cooperate with anything assigned to him for at least a week after returning from a weekend away. We have talked to him, and fully understand why this is, but I really don't feel like putting that reasoning out into public knowledge. We are hoping that with a combination of age, time, and continual work, substantial progress can eventually be attained. As to how likely this seems, I would honestly have to say that varies from moment to moment rather than day to day...
KiKi: KiKi has made tremendous progress recently. Yesterday, he was tracing the outside circle of a cd on his magnadoodle, for the first time ever. He used one hand to hold the disc stable, and would move his hand around in order to keep the disc stable. The result was a 100% perfect circle outline of a cd, on his first try! I would love to say I got a picture, but he erased the magenadoodle as soon as he saw the camera in my hand. He has also made a lot of progress in eating. He will now eat most homemade soups, bean mixtures, quinoa, rice, and couscous. Yes, they are all still chopped up to roughly the same consistency, but the flavors vary a lot and he's getting used to this idea. He absolutely refuses to eat anything he considers to be cold, but has gotten used to warmer foods. He also will now eat food off of a toddler spoon rather than just a baby spoon, and will also eat food from a toddler fork.
Well, I think I'm done for the moment. Any questions, inquiries, dilemmas, or other paradoxes, feel free to message me and maybe I'll actually reply. Until next time, peace out, so long, and thanks for all the fish...
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