No Time to Post

That's really not true, I have time to post updates about the kids, everyday something happens that I think I should write about that! But I don't. 'Cause I'd rather be with my kids. The kids are ALL napping now, so I thought I'd make writing a priority.

For the first time in quite a while, I am home, by myself, with all three kids. This hasn't happened for more than a day or two since last summer, and even then I had help coming in left and right because Max was a newborn. I was very scared about how these few weeks of summer break would go for us, but actually, they've gone really well. I'm lucky to have fantastically well-behaved children, and have been able to do the grocery store, parks/playgrounds, library, post office and all kinds of other errands with them with pretty much no problem - except that the stroller has two seriously deflated tires. The actual wheel has broken and we're waiting for replacements, which need to come hella fast, because pushing that thing uphill is no easy task as it is.

We've been doing a homeschool dry-run with Karol and Patrick, and they are having a ton of fun with it. We are finally starting to catch up to Karol's abilities in her math book, so we've been able to slow down a bit with it.

Max had his first birthday! And it was a blast. We celebrated while we were in Indiana catching up with tons of friends and family. Speaking of which - what a whirlwind vacation that was! I already feel like I need another one; Matt and I did get to escape the kids for a couple days, though, at the lovely Swan Lake Inn Golf Resort.

Karol is about two weeks away from turning FOUR. I'm just a bit disturbed about this. I'm really not ready for her to be four. It's already time for decision 2012: kindergarten. And we could not be in a harder place to make this decision. New York has a lot of fantastic options and a lot of terrible ones as well, and not much in between. But enough of that, because I'm sure I'll be writing about nothing else in about 9 months when it becomes a really serious decision.

Patrick is picking up communication skills hand over fist these days. He is amazing, to say the least. Usually when kids can't find a way to express what they're thinking, they throw a tantrum. Patrick will try to explain something, sigh, and then say "I don't know the words." And that is that. I assure him that someday he'll know all the words, and he can tell me about it then.

I am really soaking up this opportunity I've got to experience my kids through constant immersion. The apartment is looking a little worse for the wear, but amazingly I've been able to keep up with the regular cleaning stuff. It's keeping the kids' toys under control that seems to be impossible. Although it's amazing how quickly they clean up all their own things when there's money to be earned.

That's right, money. No, we aren't outright paying our kids to do what they should be doing anyway, but since Karol's been learning about pennies and nickels in her math book, we've had to find a reason to give her (and Patrick, can't leave him out) change to buy things in our 'store.' In order to drive home the whole money concept, I gave the kids some pennies and nickels (just pennies for Pat, he's working on counting 1-20) and they 'bought' some of their toys from the living room to take to their bedroom. They quickly ran out of money, however, so they withdrew some from the bank. Pretty soon I decided they needed to 'work' for their money, lest they get the idea that it grows on trees. Hence the living room pick up. Then the game could continue. I haven't taught them about saving yet, I figure I can wait until we cover dimes, quarters and dollars before I bust out compound interest and that sort of thing.

In other news...well, there's not much other news. Matt's still working his buns off, the kids will be returning to Nazareth Nursery in the coming weeks, and I'm just here, trying to keep people clean and fed.