Update: Post Back-To-School

Now that it's October, I can happily say that  I think we survived the craziness of back to work/school. As we've been sorting out our new routine, there have been many little moments where I've stopped and tried to tell myself to write about it on the blog so that I don't forget in the future. So really this blog will just be a mish-mash of a ton of random things.

Update on Ethan's preschool and swimming lessons: Today was Ethan's 3rd official swimming lesson without a parent in the pool. (Last week's class was cancelled due to poop, again) It was the first time that he didn't cry at all. He did say one time that he would rather not go, but even then there were no tears. The pool had sent him a card for his birthday telling him to see the front desk for a present. This helped a lot. He got in the pool with no problem and joined in right away. Josh was even able to leave his stool-by-the-side-of-the-pool duty today. When he came out of the pool he exclaimed, "That was fun!" Yippeee! The old Ethan is back I think. It's so fun to watch what your child is like when they are not in your care. You definitely get to see a whole lot about what their personality is like. With Ethan, when it comes to teachers (or generally anyone with the exception of Josh and I) he will be very attentive and 'good'. He is definitely all business in the pool.

I think that preschool is getting better too. Less tears in the morning before going. He is still a little sad/quiet on preschool mornings but he goes with much less fight. I can tell it's getting better than before because now when you mention the word 'preschool', it doesn't lead to 'tears of the hyperventilating kind'.

"On the next episode of "Food Hoarders" from TLC...." This one goes to Ethan. Lately the boy is just HUNGRY! He's eating is full meals, ALL. OF. IT. plus dessert. Then right before bed he'll still say, "Me stwill, stwill, hungweee". We'll give him a bowl of cereal and he eats it quietly, all alone in the half lit kitchen.  Not only is he downing the food we put in front of him, he has also taken to hoarding a lot of food. The other day he was eating cereal at the table. I made toast for Josh and I and he insisted on having one for himself too. Then I poured a bowl of cereal for Maddy (different from the kind he was eating) and he insisted on having a bowl of that too. We tried to tell him that he could have it after he finished his current bowl and toast, but he would have none of it. By the end I believe he had two bowls of cereal, a piece of toast, a milk and a bowl of grapes scattered around him. Just to note, he didn't actually eat all of that, but more like he wanted the security of knowing that it was there if he needed it. Too funny.

Signs of growing: By this I don't mean physically, or height-wise (though by the last paragraph, I'm willing to bet that he must be growing physically too). There have been little things that Ethan does or says that shows he growing up. The first is that his beloved Woa-Woa is now called "Dog". The first time I heard him say, "Where's me dog?" I nearly cried. It's about 50/50 most of the time, but I know that it's really leaning to more towards 60/40 of the times he calls Woa Woa dog instead. :(

He is also beginning to use the pronouns "my" and "I" correctly instead of "me". Sometimes. I've read in books that you are just supposed to gently correct them by repeating what was said in the correct way, but honestly sometimes I catch myself not correcting it only because I think it's cute and what's the rush, right??? :)

Homeschooling update: So far it's going really well. Not that we haven't had a few times of 'bad moods', or not wanting to do the work, but on the whole everyone is happy. I L.O.V.E. the fact that with only one child to focus on, I can really see the tiny baby steps of the learning process. We've gotten into a groove with our schedule and I have to say that I love the weather we've been having to be able to enjoy 'recess' out in our neighbourhood. With the way our school room is set up, and the fact that we live so close to the park, I've never been happier to live where we are right now.

A few changes at home: First of all we've cut our cable. Well technically we can still watch all the old channels, but the guide part is gone. I'm finding it takes so much more 'work' to now figure out what is on at a given time, that I don't even bother with watching TV as much. Am I really that lazy? Anyway, it's been a change for the better. I only watch the shows I REALLY want to see and now have way more time to get stuff done. I've been able to do a lot more planning for homeschooling and 'work' school because of it.

Since this is my last year bringing in an income, we've decided to try and not count on my income for our budget this current year. We've now switched to a 'cash only' system for most of our expenses and I'm happy to report that we've been at it for a whole month and it's really not all that bad. We've watched many episodes of "Til Debt Do Us Part" with Gail Vaz Oxlade and the people on it usually say that it's really not that bad. I used to never believe them, until now. Josh is really happy that paying the bills is much easier and I'm find myself not missing the mall as much as I thought I would. I definitely helps that I'm homeschooling with Maddy while Ethan is at preschool instead of 'killing time' at Metrotown. :)

It's nice to back in a routine of sorts and it's even nicer to know that this routine will stick for quite a while. We've been enjoying the fall so far and we still have Maddy's birthday and a family trip coming up. Stay tuned, fun times ahead!!!