Parenting is hard

Man, does my heart ache when either of my boys are having a difficult day or time.  Whether it's at school, friends, daycare, sports, church or at home.  We all have bad days, but that doesn't give me any comfort when P or K have one.  I just want to take care of what ever it is for them and send them off happy, smiling and having fun...but I know I can't always do that.  That wouldn't be preparing them for the "real world", now would it??  sigh...  Someone popped my bubble!  I mean, come on, they are only 6, do they really need to be prepared for the real world just yet?  But then I have always said that teaching children when they are young and then it will be natural for them when they get older.  You can't let a child run wild as a toddler and then all of a sudden expect them to listen and do exactly what you say when you say it.  Or teaching manners.  Oh my, where have the manners gone??  PLEASE teach your children manners.  That's another soap box, though... 

One of my boys is a little more sensitive, okay, a lot more, than the other.  It's just their own personalities.  Just because they are twins, doesn't mean they are the exact same in every shape, form and manner.  He gets his feeling hurt easily, and quite frankly, he comes by it VERY honestly, from him Momma, but he gets his temper from his Daddy.  All that to say, he is having a difficult time this year with his 1st grade teacher.  When we were in school not THAT long ago, we were learning the things kids are learning in K & 1st grade that we were learning in 2 & 3rd grade.  The boys were already alternating going to other teachers classes part of the day in kindergarten.  I didn't start doing that until 6th grade.

At the beginning of this school year, I knew we were going to possibly have a not-so-great-as-wonderful-as-our-kindergarten teacher when 1st grade teacher sent home one of his schoolwork papers and she wrote "come on" at the top of it...the first few weeks of school!!  Then another with "too messy".  We "thought" we had a good solution for the "too messy" note... We told him to slow down and take his time to make his letters better and spread his words out more.  Well, that backfired.  Now we were getting notes on his papers with "40 min. later" etc.  Poor kid can't win for loosing.  So at this point he is starting to shut down in class and be pretty emotional at home too.  Things only got worse after Christmas break.  Within the first week of being back at school, the teacher had already written more notes on his paperwork directed to parents and sent me two e-mails asking if "anything was going on at home".  To say I was mad is a HUGE understatement.  I wanted to replay saying "no lady, it's what is going on THERE and your attitude towards him and what you say and write to him that is affecting him!!".  But I didn't.  Instead I called the school principal and counselor and discussed it with them, then they met with my son.  Things were discussed then the principal said she would have a meeting with the teacher.  Apparently she did, because ALL notes, good and not so wonderful, were no longer being put on his papers.  NOTHING, no smiley faces etc.  Maybe I am worrying/reading into this WAY too much??  Can a 6 year old have such animosity towards someone?  I ask because he didn't participate when the class sang happy birthday to the teacher.  That is when I knew things were worse than I even knew.  Some days he would even come home and go straight to his bed and lay there with his stuffed animal.  This is not natural and I knew something needed to be change.  But what at this point of the school year?  There are only 3 more months of this school year.  Do we leave him in that teachers class and hope that he continues to learn everything that he needs to in order to go to 2nd grade or move him to a different class/teacher?  This is also the first year that the boys have not been in the same class, and I am sure that is part of the issue...a small part.  He was the one that was excited to be in a different class than brother, but now, he gets excited when he gets to visit brother's class occasionally.  I just want to fix all of this.  For both of my boys to have an enjoyable school year and to look forward to school while they still should.  The time for them to dread going to school comes soon enough as is.  This teacher is setting him up to not like school and he's only in 1st grade!  I want my bubble back!  ; )  Pray for us, please.  We just got another call about him having a melt down in class and she took him to the office.  Note that she called Daddy and not Mommy.... SMH.

Holiday Season

Oh the joy of living in Oklahoma!!  Yesterday it was 70+ degrees.  Today, well...it might get to 40.  I am never, ever ready for winter.  We have barely even had Fall yet.  Thanksgiving is less than 3 weeks away!  The years go by way too fast.  I am already wanting to listen to Christmas music.  That is one thing I love about winter, and the exictement that I now can relive and see in my children.  They are such a wonderful blessing! 

Who let the dogs out?!? Who? Who?

So if anyone knows how to make it to where you can see the entire video and hear it, please let me know....

 

Preston singing to himself

Kindergarten year 2013-2014

Man am I awful at this blogging thing.  Just a few things have happened since my last post.  We have been in our new house a year as of last Friday.  It has gone by so fast.  What have we been up to, you might ask...
The boys started kindergarten in Aug. and have learned so much so fast!  I am amazed at what all they learn so much earlier than when I was in elementary.  The boys have learned in kindergarten what I would have learned in 1st & 2nd grade.  They are reading and doing math, spelling tests and science, and even computer lab!  We have enjoyed getting to know their teacher, Mrs. Shockley and the children in the class and their parents.  I think I have eaten more iced sugar cookies and cupcakes this year at all the class parties they have had than my entire life before they started school!  I have been blessed to be able to go to all of their class parties except for their Easter party on the 18th.  Their school is really great.  They pray in the mornings before everyone is dismissed to their classrooms.  They also have a really neat program called watch dogs.  This is a program where the Dad's, Granddad's etc. of the children can be involved in the school.  They are like security for a day, and with the way things are these days at schools, we can't be overly careful.  Plus the kids LOVE having their dad etc. there to show off to their friends, have lunch with and play with in class and at recess.  Shawn has been able to be a watch dog multiple times this year.  The kids get to go on stage in the mornings when their dad gets introduced to the school so they know who to go to if they need help etc.  They even play the funny song "who let the dogs out" as they are walking onto the stage.  The kids go wild, they love it so much! 

Preston's 1st day of Kindergarten

1st Day of Kindergarten!!

Kaleb's 1st Day of Kindergarten

We have a video of Preston singing part of the song "Who let the dogs out" to himself after school one day.  It is SO funny.  He is in the bathroom washing his hands and watching himself sing it in the mirror.  I love catching them doing silly stuff on camera/video.  I will try again to post the video on a separate post.  It isn't wanting to right now. 

 

The things kids say

I just have to share a few of the things the boys have said recently:

The boys and I were talking about Daddy's birthday comming up last week and Preston told me:
"We should get Daddy a "7" and a "3" that way he won't have too many candles to blow out,"  Shawn turned 37 yesterday. 

We went to my parents house for dinner Sat. night and my mom had made a new potato salad recipe that uses pesto.  While eating dinner the following conversation went on:

Me: Kaleb eat your potatoes.  (I had put two potatoes from my mom's potatoe salad on his plate plus two plain potates from what I made).
Kaleb: Mommy, I only want to eat CLEAN potatoes. 
We all lost it!  We laughed, and laughed and laughed.  Oma said "I didn't know I made dirty potatoes."  LOL 

Love all the silly stuff these boys come up with to say. 

Just Moved!!

Just Moved!!

We finally moved into our new home in April!  YEA!  We are still in the process of unpacking...man it's hard to have motivation and energy to unpack after working all day outside the home.  The boys room is almost done.  They decided that they wanted to do a super hero theme, so their bedroom is spider man blue and red.  Don't worry, only one wall is red, and it's the wall with the window thankgoodness!  My parents came over and painted the room for us.  The boys say that Oma & Opa helped THEM paint  LOL!!  They are a hoot!  I found some really cool metal pictures at Hobby Lobby that have different heros on them - spiderman, superman, batman etc.  They were even half off!  SCORE!  I was also able to find batman bathroom items at Target.  Pictures to come soon of the boys room and bathroom.  They are loving it!!

Here's a pic with two of the metal pictures that I found at Hobby Lobby. 

Christmas family photos

Family photos for Christmas 2012.

Silly Boys!