Each afternoon she asks the boys, "Ok, who wants to learn how to read?"
There is always a taker (unless they are playing or watching football...and even then sometimes Caleb volunteers) She leads them up to her room, shuts her door and the lessons begin. I smile when I hear her instructing one of the boys to say a letter and then elongate the accompanying phonetic sound. "Levi, A....Aa Aa Aa Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapple. SAY IT!"
I have to say, the boys obey her instruction, repeating the sounds and learning the words. Often times after one of her sessions the door will suddenly swing open and Evelyn will bound out with a book and an excited boy following her, "Mom, listen to this. Levi can read!"
Levi (or whoever her current pupil is) will read through SPOT or another early reader and then both of them will beam.
I've finally come to accept how my daughter was made, and I'm realizing she's exactly right for the "brother situation" she was put in.
I've always wondered (and got so frustrated!) why she never wanted to really play "make believe" for hours by herself with her dolls and toys like I so enjoyed doing when I was a child. Why couldn't (can't) she be satisfied with the stillness and simplicity of herself and being alone?!
I don't understand how she was crafted, but I've learned to accept it and I see the goodness in needing people and engagement. She was born to be with others.
Evelyn thrives in a school setting. She loves the structure and loves the responsibility. She is absolutely THRILLED to be getting homework this year, although because things have always come easy for her, getting challenged by spelling words is something she has had to work though. She gets frustrated if she is not instantly excellent at it.
School will hopefully smooth out some of those rough edges and develop in her a perseverance and humble tenacity.
Being in school now over a month, our fall days have developed a cadence.
We have our morning routine down.
I still wake early to ready the house and make sure I'm in order before I try to go about and order everyone else. James is the absolute hardest to wake and get out of bed. He is a log, and then when I try to move him against his will he moans and gets mad and puts the pillow over his head.
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| This picture was not taken in the morning |
One time we were eating breakfast and he was still in bed. Missing a good sit down hot breakfast is his only incentive for getting up and that one day when he did miss his sit down breakfast, he realized that there was a reward for actually moving his body so early.
Except for getting them out of bed, having three boys to get ready in the morning is quite easy. I couldn't imagine dealing with more than one female.
Untangling and figuring out one mass of girl hair each day is quite enough, thank you very much. Evelyn's hair is always a battle in the morning, and we usually end up putting it in a pony tail and calling it good.
She's been wearing my huge early nineties hair bows she discovered in my parent's house this summer. I guess they are kind of coming back into style (I have notice people wearing scrunchies!)
It's fun to see her proudly clip the bows in her hair. The other day I said to her, "Evelyn, your bow matches your dress perfectly."
She looked at me, and noticing the pronoun I used responded, "So I guess they are my bows now and not yours?"
"Yes, Evelyn, they are yours."
The boy's kindergarten teacher has a daughter in Evie's class and they have become good friends. Evie was invited over to her house to play this weekend and when I picked her up with the boys in tow, they just couldn't believe that they were at their teacher's house! I do remember the unbelievable realization that in fact teachers do not sleep at school and they do have a life outside their classroom. This, I believe, was their moment.
I started volunteering in the classrooms last week. When I entered the boys room, Caleb accidentally walked right into me as I was coming in the door. He stopped, looked at my legs and when he saw my face looking down at him, he was in disbelief for a moment. His two worlds were colliding.
Again, it was another moment for him trying to reconcile his two worlds of homelife with Mom and school life with his teacher. Now MOM was in his CLASSROOM at SCHOOL. He just couldn't believe it. He started laughing uncontrollably. It was just about the cutest laugh and reaction I've ever seen.
I love being in their class, although I feel a little bit like a distraction.
They felt comfortable to casually call me over ("MOM!") when they needed help with something, and Levi reverted to his usual frustrated self when he couldn't get something perfect on his art project. During story time, they all sat on the carpet as the teacher read from a book. In the middle of the story, Levi looked at me from across the room and called out, "Mom, Evie was wrong. She said I didn't have enough to buy the Gatorade but I actually had two dollars and it was enough!" I sheepishly looked at their thankfully understanding teacher and put my finger over my lips and nodded my head at Levi.
I don't know when Evie will outgrow hugging me a school in front of her friends but she hasn't yet. Every time I walk down the hall to her classroom she always runs up to me and gives me the biggest hug. She wants to walk by me and hold me hand. I just soak all this PDA up because it is a gift that my kids appreciate me being apart of their day so much.
Caleb admitted that he did miss me during the day. Since school started he has made it his little habit of sneaking into our bed in the middle of the night to cuddle.
It is the most precious, sweetest thing. John and I have never endorsed or allowed the kids to sleep in our bed with us. We just value sleep way too much and believe everyone should have their own sleeping space. However, I don't have the heart to tell Caleb to stop doing this.
His nightly ritual is however, starting to disrupt John and my sleep, so I've given him certain days when he is allowed to come in. It's amazing to me because on the nights when he is allowed, he somehow wakes up at that exact time in the night. It must be very important to him, so important that he has adopted a little internal alarm clock.
These beautiful fall days are full. Weekends are really starting to become family times. We are having so much fun with soccer. So far we haven't had to sit in the rain. We've been blessed with really nice mornings.
We've been enjoying the outdoors as much as we can.
If you know me and my obsession with fruit picking, we just had to fit in an apple picking afternoon.
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| I could get used to this type of life. |
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| A memory forever |
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| "Got it Mom!" |
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| "I want you to make apple pie" |
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| Intense concentration pays off |
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| Glorious! |
We also paid our annual visit to Chapman School downtown Portland and watched the swift birds do their thing in the sky as they swirled and seemed to preform magic, swooping down into the chimney for the night. We brought a picnic dinner and as James lazily laid on the blanket on the side of hill, eating his roast beef sandwich watching the birds swirl around in the sky, he commented, "I can't believe those birds do that."
I can't either James. Every I am simply enchanted by the spectacle I witness above the Portland skies.
Afterwards, we paid a visit to good ol' Ruby Jewel for some ice cream sandwich indulgence!
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| Loved the ice cream, not the photo op |
These are good days and good times with our family. I'm treasuring every moment, especially now that not every moment is a moment. :)
This past week the boys had their class trip to the pumpkin patch.
All these muddy years accompanying my children to their class pumpkin patch trips and this one was my final time.
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| West Hills Kindergarten! |
I expected to be a little sad because I LOVE the pumpkin patch and bringing my kids to these farms to climb on hay bales and run around corn mazes was always a highlight.
But I have to say, as I was walking back to the car loading up their three pumpkins, I felt closure. The words "I've done the pumpkin patch" actually went through my mind and I felt ok about it being over.
It's a good feeling to know you've done something well, to have completed a season fully and be ready to move on.
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| The teacher said they were allowed to choose a pumpkin the size of their head. |
That feeling was the feeling I strive to have throughout my life with every passing season with my kids.
I want to have a feeling of satisfied accomplishment, without regrets and a knowledge that there is more wonderful things ahead.
I have never ever taken a single moment for granted yet during this school year.
I am truly enjoying every day and savoring the precious family times we get together and the precious times we have apart. :)
