Update Time

Is anyone still out there? I can't believe I haven't posted since October 14th. It wasn't intentional. Life got busy. And a certain three year old decided he no longer needs naps. Yes, we are going through the dreaded transition of not napping. My typical time to sit down and read other blogs and update my own was beloved nap time. That only happens a few days a week and it seems I have twenty things to get accomplished during that precious free time. Here is a quick update of the past 6 weeks and hopefully I'll find new motivation to blog at night because I do miss this space.

*I got a job!!! Oh yeah, another big reason life got busy. Well, it's a super part time job. I work for a non-profit, Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services (ETSS), and am part of their after school tutoring program. ETSS started out as serving the Ethiopian immigrant community in Columbus but have expanded their services across the city and serve a wide variety of immigrants and refugees. I know the director of the non-profit because of some volunteering I did for ETSS a few years ago. I emailed him to let him know I was interested in applying for any positions pertaining to teaching English as a second language. He let me know those positions had been filled for the school year but he would keep my resume on file. That was ideal because I wasn't really looking for this school year but wanted him to know I was still interested for next year. About a week later, I got an email from the manager of the after school tutoring program and he said he needed to fill some positions and asked me if I was interested. I decided it didn't hurt to interview and see what they were looking for. I wasn't sure we would be able to make it work in terms of child care but wanted to get my foot in the door. I interviewed and it couldn't have worked out more perfectly. The position is only 9 hours a week and 6 of those hours are spent on site twice a week. The other 3 hours are for prep time that I can do at home. I work at their East side location which serves the children of Ethiopian immigrants! The other great part is that the site is about 5 minutes from D's office. So twice a week I drop off LB with D at his office and then I head to work and they head home. I started a few weeks and so far I love it. I did get puked on by a kindergartener on my third day and also caught a cold from one of them but I guess that is what you expect when you work with little kids. But I love being surrounded by kids who look like mine and share his culture. I will probably learn a lot from them as well. I'm enjoying meeting their parents and hopefully I can be of some help in terms of communicating with schools and providing tutors with extra resources. It's a good outlet for me and I feel really lucky. I also feel like LB is in part responsible for this job. I love how his adoption has had ripple effects on our life.

*LB is going to be 4 years old in two months! I can't believe it. He continues to go to school twice a week and it's been going well so far. There have been a few mornings when he's said he doesn't want to go but he eventually comes around and drop offs have been tear free! I had my first parent teacher conference about a month ago. I was nervous! But it was fine. They have him nailed to a tee! His teachers described him as joyful, social, smart, easily distracted and a bit wild. He also struggles with "walking feet" in the classroom. No shock there. But I love that he has some favorite friends and that they get excited when they see each other. It's especially great when we run into these friends outside of school and they go nuts with excitement. I worry a bit (a lot) about how small he is compared to the kids in his class and most of these friends are actually several months younger than him. But for the moment he seems to hold his own and doesn't let it hold him back. I've been happy with his school. I wish there were more diversity but his teachers have been working with preschoolers for a long time and seem to do a great job with the kids. He comes home with cool crafts and stories of looking at bugs on the playground or pretending to be rabbits with his best buddy. The teachers send me a photo about once a week of LB doing one of the scheduled activities and they post their lesson plans online as well so we can see what they are learning. I'll say it again. I wish there were more diversity. I suppose no school is perfect. Here's his school picture.

*My mom came to visit Halloween week and we had a lot of fun. I hope to do a separate post on Halloween. The timing of her trip was great because D was in California for work and it also ended up being the week I had my interview so her help was a huge gift! We went to the zoo, the OSU airport and she bought LB a new bike. A few weeks before her visit, I was backing out of the garage and clipped the side of his bike. It was officially broken. I felt like the worst mom EVER! LB handled it pretty well. Thank goodness Meemaw came to the rescue.

*So back to this no napping nonsense. In a nutshell, it sucks. The silver lining is that he goes to bed at 7pm on the days he doesn't nap and it's nice to have a full evening to relax with D. One of the first nights he went to bed to 7pm, D and I looked at each other around 8:30pm and couldn't believe how early it still was. I also like not feeling rushed to get back to the house around lunchtime so he can be down for a nap by 1pm. He'll go about 2 or 3 days without a nap and then be in desperate need of one. That seems to be our current pattern. The days feel long that's for sure. I'm working on implementing some quiet time to replace the nap so that I can still get a little break mid-day and he can do something restful. I recently tried to explain quiet time to him and we were brainstorming activities he could do. One of his suggestions was "playing my drums." Clearly, the concept went a bit over his head. We're still working on it. LB has always been such a good napper and I was convinced he would be a regular napper until kindergarten. Sigh. But I should be grateful he lasted this long as I know some kids who gave up their nap at 2. I'm trying to count my blessings. Here he is asleep on the way to the grocery store on a no nap day. It's tough being 3.

*We continue to do music class weekly and we both absolutely love it. The final session for the year was the week before Thanksgiving and I am not sure how we will make it to January. Music is becoming a really big part of his life. I found out about a marching band competition going on at the high school in our neighborhood a few weeks ago and we took LB. It was cold that day but he loved it. We sat in a stadium for 2 hours watching marching bands and he still talks about it. We kept asking him if he was too cold and wanted to go home but he insisted on staying. On Thanksgiving, we were watching the parade and sadly they didn't show too many bands but when he got a glimpse of one he would get really excited and he kept asking us to "check and see" if there were any bands we could go see that day. I'm constantly scouring the internet for cheap and/or free musical events going on around town. I'm excited to take him to Tuba Christmas again in a few weeks. I also can't wait to see how this love of music continues to develop and what it means for him. Maybe nothing. Maybe something big.

That's our past six weeks with a few holes that I plan on filling in soon! I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! One more picture before I let you go.

Summer is Here

Towards the end of May, I started to get antsy. I was tired of the rainy weather and was ready to just spend our days outside already. So I started brainstorming and researching all the things I wanted to do over summer. Last summer, a few of my friends shared their Summer Fun lists and I thought it was a great idea so this year I made my own. I asked LB what he wanted to do and he said "go to the pool." This surprised me a bit because he is not an adventurous swimmer but either D or I must have said something to him about being able to play at a pool once it got warmer and that must have stuck. In fact, when I picked him up from the last day of school the first thing he said to me was, "let's go to the pool." Never mind he was wearing a long sleeve shirt that day and the pools weren't open yet. LB also asks to "go to the airport" every gosh darn morning so clearly that had to go on the list. The rest of the ideas were mine but were things I knew he would be excited about it (except maybe the summer reading club). 

Even thought I don't count Memorial weekend as summer, that's June 1st, we did check off several things from our list that weekend and it was summer-ish in many ways, despite some occasional rain. (Can you tell I am sick of tired of the rain? It's raining today too by the way.) The weekend started off with a much needed summer haircut for LB. His hair was getting thick and unruly. We headed out to the front porch armed with the clippers and a sucker. LB wasn't into it at first and shed some tears but then he got immersed in his sucker and toughed it out. D also won points by letting LB cut some of his hair so he could see that it's not scary and doesn't hurt. D was planning on shaving his own hair a little later so it worked out. LB's hair was so thick that D couldn't get the clippers through it with a guard so bald was the only option! He looks cute no matter what in my opinion. And since he's not a fan of getting his hair cut this buys us some time until the next one. It's already growing at record speed.

We also had a nice trip the conservatory that day and LB showed D the butterflies and his favorite spots to explore. He loves these fish and likes to decide what fish is the dad, mom and kid.

Sunday we got lucky and the weather was awesome. A little chilly in the morning but otherwise pretty great. LB "rode" his tricycle all the way to the park down the street and back that morning. That was a first! One of his trikes has a handle extended out the back for a grown-up to push and help steer. He did all the pedaling but definitely needed help in the steering department. Sadly, our street doesn't have a sidewalk so it makes it harder for him to understand that he has to stay towards the curb and not go out in the middle of the street. But I was proud of him for pedaling!

After an early lunch we loaded up the car and headed to Yellow Springs for the afternoon to spend some time with D's side of the family, which includes LB's cousins. We got there about 1pm and the kids stayed outside playing until we left around 6:30pm. They maybe came inside for about 20 minutes to eat and then were back out again. They had a great time together. It was nice because all the grown-ups took informal shifts keeping an eye on them so we all had time to sit and chat and drink a beer or two. During one of my shifts, I was determined to get a good shot of all three kids because D's mom tried to get them all to sit on the couch but it was nearly impossible to get smiles from all three of them at the same time. I had better luck taking shots while they were in the midst of their play. Since the odds of LB being an only child are incredibly high, I'm grateful that he has his cousins who are close in age. They sometimes fight and wrestle like siblings and it's good for him.

Monday morning was a banner day for LB. In the morning, we went to our local Memorial Day Parade for the third year in a row. We met our friends there, who also have a little one from Ethiopia, and had a ton of fun. LB has been talking about it non-stop. He is still obsessed with all instruments and he loves marching bands. It rained most of the morning but he didn't care. At one point he was shivering and I asked him if he wanted to go and he replied with a forceful "No!" So we stayed.

We spent most of the afternoon at the OSU airport. D has discovered an iphone app that shows flight schedules for the OSU airport so he checked it that morning and thanks to the Memorial Golf Tournament several private jets were scheduled to land. We picked up some lunch after the parade and went straight there. LB got his wish and we saw several "noisy jets" take off and land, including the plane for Bubba Watson and his family. Pretty cool.

That's Bubba getting out of the plane. I learned that day that he and his wife weren't able to conceive and their son is adopted. I think we spent close to 3 hours there. LB could spend all day every day there. That night he was asleep by 7:30pm and D and I collapsed on the couch. Yay for the start of summer!