The Honeymoon is over

I like to think that I have been a pretty involved mom since going to work for the last year. I told myself that I was in the know about their lives and demands and day to day behavior. It has been a year since I have been home with them full time. The last time this was the case, Chase had barely learned to walk and the brother/sister dynamic, only in the beginning phases. It turns out that while I saw them everyday in that last year and interacted with them as much as I could before and after work....I still missed a lot. I am going to show you a behind the scenes look at life at our house. You mothers (bless your hearts) will not be surprised by what you witness and I'm sure it will not phase you. But I, in truth, after having had children now for 4 years, suddenly find myself feeling a little green! Like I'm a rookie in the toddler on toddler brawl and have somehow forgotten just how hard the daily grind of life at home as Mommy really is. How do you forget that! At one point a couple days ago I said to myself, "I'm ready to go back to work I need a break!" So, heres to you Mama's, whose finest hours are spent in the care of the little ones you adore, and you may or may not be recognized for that on a daily basis. I salute your accomplishments, and am (after regaining my resolve) glad to be counted among you.

"C" is for Carebears, Camping, Cars & Chase

I haven't blogged in months and rather than try and catch up I'm just going to begin with today. I have recently been excused from work because .....SURPRISE! Baby #3 is on the way and I have been suffering from the usual dizziness that I have had with the two previous pregnancys. But don't offer sympathy yet because it has given me the opportunity to be at home instead of passing out at work Yay! I am so glad to be home I missed my kids! We have started the new routine off with a bang and have started "Alphabet Days" in honor of Savannah getting ready for kindergarten in the fall. She has had some resistance to learning in a conventional way and I'm not sure if that because I haven't been home or what. She is a quirky little thing anyway...so in order to accomadate her cute little personality we have instituted a practice of honoring one letter everyday, all day.

We began of course with "A". First we learned about air by playing with a fan and a balloon and other things that float. We made paper airplanes and had a race to see who could fly farthest. And then we calmed things down a bit and watched "Ariel" aka the Little Mermaid. For lunch we had apples and other non A foods.

For "B" day we rode bikes, played badmitten (mostly we just ran around with the rackets in our hands) we tried baseball (with much the same result) and at lunch we learned about Bees and had peanut butter honey sandwiches with some gummy bears for desert. We even went to the grocery store (something we had to do anyway) and identified the letter "B" all around the store not forgetting the Bakery where grandma is a Baker and of course she gave us a cookie. We wrapped up by Baking cookies of our own.

SO today is "C" day and we so far have had the remaining cookies which Chase decided to mash up into the couch and so in honor of "C" day he helped me Clean it up!! Little stinker. Then we collected all our Cars and had races we ate Corn dogs and Cheese sticks, and Crackers for lunch and the finale was camping on the living room floor with a makeshift tent and we even invited our Carebears and Cat stuffed animals. The great things is this has really jump started her enthusiasm and really given us all something to look forward to everyday. I love that it is applied learning for her and that because there are activities she doesn't feel like shes learning all day even though she is! The part I love best of all is that I haven't spent any money and have managed to still find fun things to do with things we have at home. Yay! Mostly I'm just glad to be home.