Kindergarten Goal Setting

Petra brought home a project from school in which she was supposed to show what she would look like when she was 100 years old.  Think big shiny ear rings.  Think cotton ball hair.  Think lace collar.  On the other side of the paper, she had to write out a 5 item "Before I am 100 Bucket List."

1. Visit the Pacific Ocean
2. Watch something we couldn't decipher
3. Touch Dolphins
4. Surf
5. Be a mom

If things go according to plan, she should be able to check of #1 this summer.

Not what I had planned.

Last week did not go according to plan.  It was supposed to be busy- really busy.   I was concerned that the kids might have trouble keeping up with their school work because we were all supposed to be bouncing all over the place.  Last Saturday I found myself forcing myself to sit and relax my muscles, because I was so wound up about getting setup for the week.

The PLAN was
Sunday: Early birthday party for Steve + Super Bowl fun at home
Monday: Steve to church meeting; Sarah & Petra to taekwondo
Tuesday: Whole family to community group bible study
Wednesday: Julia to gymnastics; Sarah & Petra to taekwondo
Thursday: Paul to Boy Scouts; Steve and Julia to weapons class; Sarah to Pre-school application meeting
Friday: Sarah's parents visit; Maybe a trip to the zoo or something else fun
Saturday: Steve to missions meeting: rest of family hangs out with Sarah's parents

What ACTUALLY happened
Sunday: Early birthday party for Steve + Super Bowl fun + Sarah lost her voice
Monday: Sarah came home early from work.  Sarah & Petra stayed home because they were both sniffly and feeling puny.  Steve to church meeting.  Snow fell. Steve's drive home took 1.5 hours.
Tuesday: Snow day.  Everybody stayed home.  In the evening Steve, Paul & Julia went to bible study.  Sarah, Petra and Nathan stayed home and sniffled.
Wednesday: School had a 2 hour delay.  Sarah still couldn't talk.  She worked from home for a few hours.  Petra felt pretty sick so she stayed home from school.  Julia went to gymnastics.  Steve learned that there is zero cell phone signal at gymnastics.  Sarah and Petra stayed home and sniffled.
Thursday: Paul made it to Boy Scouts.  Steve and Julia made it to weapons class.  Sarah called and confirmed that she could pick up a preschool application next week.
Friday:  No grandparents visit.  Instead Sarah and the kids do some light housework, until Sarah hit a wall about 11:30 a.m.  Paul and Julia had to help make lunch.  The kids played nicely upstairs and Sarah sat on the couch with a sketch pad all afternoon.
Saturday: Steve went to his missions meeting.  By Saturday afternoon, Julia was getting cabin fever, so Steve took all the kids to the store to buy juice, underwear, a soap dish and some little toys to reward Nathan for potty training efforts.

So I have been working at resting for a week now.  I congratulate myself each time I let go of my incessant drive to get things done and let myself zone out.   I'm looking forward to getting moving again.  I'm a little disappointed about the fun things I've missed out on the last week.  Even, so, I'm grateful that I have been able to have a season of rest.

Julia, a gymnast

Julia has been asking for years for gymnastics classes.  We told her that she had to make it through getting her black belt in taekwondo first. She got her black belt last August, but I've been dragging my feet on getting her into a class because our schedule is already so busy, because gymnastics culture makes me nervous, and because I liked having her in taekwondo with us.  But I'm also seeing that Julia needs the exercise and outlet.

So Wednesday night she got to go to her her first class.  I watched from a balcony as she did warm-ups and practiced cartwheels, round-outs, and back somersaults.  That girl loves throwing herself around.  She had several falls, but always picked herself back up cheerfully.  She and I were both a little concerned at first, because her instructor was calling out things to do without really instructing.  As the class went on, she spent more time one-on-one with the girls.  Julia's class had just 5 girls, all very novice.

I saw as the hour progressed how good this was for my little brainy girl, and how it seemed to feed a hunger she had.  After bumping her lip during a trampoline exercise, she kept trying.  When set to practicing round-outs, she just kept at it, over and over again for the whole time available.

Who knew that exercise and stress relief could be so fun?

Petra's breakfast recipe

Petra wrote a recipe for breakfast this morning.  Well, she wrote the first few lines and then dictated the rest for me to write.

BaGl and nuts
1 Git a bAGl
2 Put it in the tostr
3 tak it out of the toaster.
4 Put butter on it.
5 Put (finely chopped) nuts on it.
6 Scoop up with your hands the nuts that fell on your placemat.
7 Put them on your bagel.
8 Spread them out.
9 If some of them fell on your plate, put them on your bagel.
10 Put them on and spread them out.
11 Lick off the nuts.
12 Eat the bagel.