Odds and Ends

It hit 60 degrees here today. The ice is melting, the kids are out playing and there is mud everywhere. I have come to terms with mud, we are friends now. It took a long time but I don't mind it, except on the dogs. Because mud on the dogs simply translates to mud on my carpets and floors. The kids however are living in their mud boots and they have sense enough to take them off at the door now. It is a good thing I made peace with the mud as we live at the bottom of a hill and we are simply one big puddle and mud pits right now for the foreseeable future.

Ciaran and I spent the afternoon at a batting cage. He has baseball tryouts soon and has only ever played t-ball before. For his first time having anything pitched to him he did great. A few rounds in the batting cage and about 100 pitches from me before I realized he had his hands wrong. Ciaran is lefty - and I set him up and told him right that his left had needed to be on top. Then we worked on stance, bending knees, elbow up, etc and I forgot to check his hands and somehow did not notice he was doing it wrong! Bad mommy moment. The worst part is I knew the right way he needed to do it, I taught him that and then I did not pay attention or notice when he switched hands. All seems well now that he has his hands right.

Sirah and I played My Little Pony together today while the other two did school. She wanted some non-reading time with mommy and choose to play ponies and then to play dominoes - she won every game! Yesterday she hand wrote a letter to her grandparents and mailed so today she just wanted to play - fine by me.

I have discovered Ciaran works much better at school with music on. We used to listen to classical but now he seems to do best listening to Relient K or Hawk Nelson. Rhiannon needs silence so they obviously need to work in different rooms. The upside of Ciarans musical school has been an increased interest in doing it, better productivity, staying on task and better overall work - so let the music continue! A side benefit, we take dancing breaks every so often. Sometimes a song comes on and everyone just has to move - like Bring It On. So we all get up from school and dance together for a song or two, Rhia will even join us from the other room - then settle back into work a bit refreshed and energized.



For his birthday Ciaran got a great game we never heard of before "Hyper Dash" and the kids love it. I recommend it, encourages movement indoors and outdoors. They have spent a lot of time recently playing it. I wake up in the morning to the sounds of elephant herds running up above our heads as they get a round in first thing in the morning. It will be great fun when we are able to do this outdoors too.

After spending two weeks sick it feels good to be moving around again and getting back to routines. Of course this whole year has been a very different routine for us with my chronic pain. As I see the kids reaching the end of their school workbooks I realize we have spent the whole year dealing with this issue that started in September. We are all hoping that this all gets resolved with the upcoming surgery. The kids have really been amazing through this whole process.

Rhiannon has taken up baking lately. She especially enjoys baking bread and cake and also enjoys making meals from time to time. She has surprised me several times with a meal in bed. She is showing interest in doing some drama camps this summer and maybe getting back into horseback riding in the fall. Together we have started reading Eragon as our read aloud.

Overall things here are good and looking up. Looking forward to enjoying the spring.