New Year, New Routine

Earlier this week I had that special moment many mothers have where they put their child on the bus for the first time to send them off to kindergarten.
Had it not been for an adorable 2 year old who was screaming, "I want my Adam*!!" as her brother climbed on the bus, I would have been in tears.
My middle child has been my soft spot as I mentioned a few days ago. She looked so grown up getting on the bus with an air of confidence to rival any experienced bus rider. It's only the first of many times she will leave the nest and I will cry and celebrate each one.
We hit a milestone this week with her, too. The milestone has been several years in the making and one that we're really excited about.
My Spitfire has learned how to read!
She is still in the early stages, but she can now confidently sound out words and is beginning to recognize a few by sight. She wants to read each night. Just six short months ago she was uninterested in sitting down to listen to us read a book, much less to try and connect sounds to form words.

With the start of school-for-2 comes a new routine for our entire family. It is taking extra effort to get Spitfire to bed on-time and the Reader (my oldest) still wants to stay up and read as long as it is light enough to do so. The sun is setting earlier each day, so this hasn't been too much of a problem.
Sleep is something I value quite highly! My husband and I developed the habit of putting Reader to sleep around 7pm each night when she was a baby and we have stuck as closely to that as possible, with each school year pushing back her bedtime by about 15 minutes.
Spitfire and Reader share a bedroom, so having them go to bed at the same time would be ideal, it just isn't practical since a 9 year old really doesn't need as much sleep as a 5 year old. If you want to read studies and recommendations on pediatric sleep needs, take a look here and here.
We're currently 0-4 for getting Spitfire to bed at her designated 7pm bedtime, but one of those losses was getting her to bed at 6:30, so that counts for something I suppose.
Perhaps tonight we'll hit the 7pm bull's eye?
One new thing we added to our routine this summer is scripture reading. Some nights we only have time for a couple of minutes and other nights we've spent half an hour reading together. On the abbreviated nights, we have turned to listening to the scriptures now that our mobile devices have the audio file so readily available. Since Spitfire is still quite young and the vocabulary isn't what she's used to hearing, we stop frequently to explain a little of what is being read. Last night I knew that Spitfire needed to go to bed early so we listened during dinner. It was peaceful, something I needed after having a rather difficult day with work.
It was a desire of both my parents and my husband's parents to have regular family scripture study but neither couple managed to make it a family priority while their children were young. I am hoping that even though Spitfire is still young, and Dash is pretty much oblivious, we can make this a pattern in our lives. For now, the younger children aren't getting much out of the scriptures themselves but they will learn that regular scripture study is important to us and the hope is that it will become important to them, too.
Most evenings I finish work around 5:15, which means I have 105 minutes to feed my children, have them get into their pajamas with their teeth brushed, get their clothes laid out for the next day and lunches or snacks made, and then spend a few minutes reading together. It isn't much time! I need to find a better way of getting meals done quickly since my time is so limited. I know the crock pot should be my friend, but even getting that put together during my day hasn't been easy.
The sleep thing seriously makes me wish my little girls didn't have to catch the bus a full hour and a half before the high school starts. The teen biological sleep clock studies drive me nuts. Teenagers can adjust their sleep times--just ask any Latter-day Saint high schooler who has had seminary at 6am. Can my 5 year old do that? No, because we simply don't have enough time in the evening to put her to bed any sooner.
And we don't even do extra curricular sports!! When I think about the number of families in our community who have their elementary school kids in soccer, baseball, football, dance, and art classes, it makes my head spin. I am half convinced that many of the discipline problems at school could be curbed if the younger students were able to get another hour of sleep each night. I know the impact on my own children and those in my care is significant.
Here are a few pictures from the first day of school that I wanted to share.
My little babies are growing up!

Last day of School, June 2015

First day of School August 2015

The Reader, 4th Grade

The Spitfire, Kindergarten

Hey, Wait for Mom!

Is Spitfire somewhere in line?

Yup, she's there. The 32nd student on the bus from our stop.

Half Day Kindergarten means greeting the Reader at the end of her day.

Dash is now 7 months and counting. 

*name changed for privacy

Whew! A Month to Remember

August is almost over. I made it through Jackson's due date anniversary with minimal crying and maximum loves and snuggles from Dash. My husband has been gone for most of the month for work so I've been experiencing my first jaunt into solo parenting.
It's not as tough as I thought!
It helped that I was incredibly busy at work. At the start of the month I had 2 new families with a combined 3 children sign contracts for care in my home. In addition, I watched another baby on a temporary basis for a week and a half.
Talk about busy! It was great though. I do much better on a busy schedule than when I have time to putz around the house. Having a full load encourages me to plan better meals and activities and we've had a blast reincorporating singing time into the routine.
All 3 of my new clients and their parents are a delight to work with and that has been really refreshing. Starting care for a new family has always been one of those things that makes me nervous, wondering whether we'll get along long-term and wanting to make sure that I take as good of care as I am capable of, to help the children thrive as they develop their fine and gross motor skills, communication, and general social interactions. Being a parent can be hard but I feel the weight of those lessons more acutely with the children I care for during the week. Those children aren't mine and I don't want to "screw them up!"
So far, so good! The new children are fitting in beautifully with my existing clients and I am really excited to get into a solid routine when school starts next week.
My middle child (I still want to call her my baby!) starts kindergarten next week.
Where has time gone?
Think about it. . . When we moved into our home, she was under a year old and not quite walking. She has been my daily companion for 5 amazing years, helping me with work things when I needed a little helper, playing with the children regardless of age, and just a general ray of sunshine with a touch of spitfire thrown in.
Or a lot of fire! That girl has personality in spades!
It's more than that though. She was only 15 months old when I suffered our 3rd loss. She was still nursing and I'll be the first to admit that I held her closer and nursed her more often for the next few months.
She nursed through the death of my mother, too. We only made it a few more weeks before I was touched out and couldn't handle breastfeeding her anymore, but she still snuggled with me each afternoon before naptime.
She watched me through losing our little girl later that year, too, and kept me smiling month after month when we couldn't seem to get pregnant again. On those days when I had all the babies sleeping and I had time to think about where I was in life, and the uncontrollable sobbing would hit, she was the one who was home to come and give me a hug and hold me tight if she was awake.
I don't think she remembers most of those grueling months where I constantly battled my grief and anger, but I will always remember the look in her eyes as she saw me crying and how much I could tell she wanted to make everything better.
She was the stitches that held my bleeding heart together until my wounds could heal.
And they have. Dash provided the remainder of the healing and I am so very grateful that I have another five years to go before I send her off to school.
I'm happy. I'm busy. I'm dedicated to the children I care for. I'm in love with my precious little girls.
I'm happy and it feels so good!
Both of my older 2 children have been assigned to the teachers we were hoping for and they each have a good friend in their class. It's going to be an amazing year.
But I just might cry when Spitfire gets on the bus next week . .
Dash is continuing to grow and I just want time to slow down a little. Please?!?!?
I know her cloth diapers add a little length to her torso and it's clear she's inherited my long body but even though she's just turned 7 months old, I can't fit her into anything unless it's 18 months. The snaps simply don't fit without an extender. She's like this chubby little ball of dimples and rolls with spastic hair and the easiest disposition of any baby I have cared for.
Her grandfather cared for her last night for a couple of hours so I could help my mother-in-law set up her classroom and he commented on how quiet and happy she was the whole time.
And she really is like that all the time. She makes a little whine/grunt noise when she's hungry or tired, but she almost never lets out a full cry as most babies tend to do.
Her excitement when she sees her food is pretty fun, too. It doesn't matter whether the food is coming from my body or her little feeder, she makes a gasping, hyperventilating, excited noise before she digs in.
In the case of nursing, she literally digs in! I've never had a pincher before but she tries to grab fistfulls of my flesh and since that doesn't really work she pinches to try and hold on while simultaneously pushing away with her arms.
It feels a little like trying to nurse an octopus. I found myself wondering aloud this morning how something with only 2 arms and 2 legs could possibly wiggle so much. 1-2-3-4. Nope, only 4 limbs, not 8.
Dash is so rolly-polly that I'm having harder time with getting her cloth diapers to fit. Some of my absolute favorites are getting too tight around her tummy.  They all claim to fit to 35 pounds and I'm thinking "How??" They seem fine when she is laying down, but since she prefers to sit they dig in and she has some serious muffin top going on! I realize she'll slim down once she's crawling and then walking, but in the meantime I am just grateful that she doesn't complain that her diaper is a little snug!
In a few short weeks the weather will cool down during the day (our nights are already cooling) and it'll be time for pants or leg warmers. I can't remember what sizes I have in storage so it will be fun looking through the older girls' clothes. Doing so always brings back a slew of memories. . .
Wait, did I just hint that I'm ready for fall?
How did that happen?? I don't like cold weather! I promise I don't!
And yet I find myself excited for sweatpants, soups, and zippered hoodies . . .
I must be getting old.