Better Late than Never ;)

My boy. I still can't believe he's three! I really can't believe he's been three for a whole month! EEK!

Hard to Settle

We're finding it difficult to settle in to our new routine lately. LIFE keeps getting in the way. We have had a lot going on with family lately. Whew, other people stress me out. THEN, Cohen got sick. Poor buddy got hit by some crazy virus that Chyenne probably brought home from school. He's finally on the mend. Daddy got sick just a day later and his sickness is still lingering. I was sick (sick as a DOG) Friday. Oh I never want to be that sick again. I spent all day yesterday (OUR FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY) trying to build up strength and watching movies with the kids. Luckily I am feeling better. Now to get the house back in order. It sure is tough to settle in to a new routine.

 

We've been quite busy. I'm coaching two soccer teams, Chyenne's and Cohen's. Chyenne is still a drama queen but she's a good little player when she pays attention. Cohen? He's FANTASTIC. He is going to be my little star. Everyone comments on how great he is. This is his first season playing. His first game is tomorrow. Having soccer every night makes it a little exhausting for Chyenne with school. It's always a rush to make sure she's in bed at a decent time.

 

Little Miss Priss is still nervous about school. She counts down the days until her favorite day of the week, Friday. Every Friday morning since school has been in session, she has commented how excited she is to come home from school and spend TWO AND A HALF days with mommy {daddy and brother too}. She doesn't like the whole Monday-Friday commitment to school. I can't really blame her. I long for the entirely too short weekend too. Just last night, Chyenne and I were cuddling before bed and she whispered some of the sweetest, saddest words to me. "Mommy, why do I have to grow up? I just want to be little again. Little like a toddler so I can do things and have fun, but I can stay home with you and do homeschool. I just want to spend every day with you. I don't like getting bigger. I want to be little forever. I want to stay little so I can fit in your arms forever. I want to be your little baby always. I don't want to go to school and miss you. I just want to be little. Why do I have to keep growing? I will quit eating healthy foods so I won't grow! Just hold me forever!" Oh honey. Me too. I want to hold you forever too. I don't want you to grow up quite so fast. I don't want you to spend time away from me (even though it's good for the both of us).

She is quite good at ripping my heart out. Bless her.

 

Little man ADORES the extra time with mommy. He soaks it all in. He's always excited to see his sister when she returns from school, but he thoroughly enjoys the alone time. I thoroughly enjoy it too. It's so nice to have him to myself and to give him the attention he deserves. He's such a good boy. I may lose it when HE has to go to BIG SCHOOL. I don't even want to think about it. My little tough man who doesn't cry when he gets a black eye is the most cuddly little mama's boy. Lately, every sentence he says is followed with a "right, mama?" Oh it's precious. "Chyenne, that's not the way we do it! Right, mama?!" Melts my heart that he ALWAYS wants my approval. When riding in the car, "Green means go, red means stop, and yellow means slow down OR go fast! Right, mama?!" Right little buddy.

 

It's funny to watch. Chyenne is my Sensitive Sally who is always in charge. She loves to please me, but she also is quite insistent on doing everything her way. She thinks she's the boss. Cohen, he's my rough and tough little man but he is a rule-follower and aims to please. I love seeing their personalities shine.

Despite our hectic schedules and trying to settle in to our new routine of having a kid in school amongst everything else, we're doing well. These sweet smiles keep us going.

When we're ALL well, we will hopefully celebrate our anniversary, since 5 years IS a big deal. ;)

Harnessed

We're fully intent on keeping these two cuties harnessed until they outgrow their seats...Thanks Britax for setting high standards.

 

He is Super!

Little man has been ALL about super heroes lately. He loves them all from Batman to Superman to Green Lantern and the Hulk. His absolute favorites are (in order): Captain America (because he is a soldier and Cohen hopes to be a solider one day), Iron Man (because personally I think he's a badass...I'm sure my 3 year old shares the same views. HA), and Spiderman. I snapped this photo of him while he was playing in the car waiting to pick Chyenne up from school. We always get there almost an hour early so she is one of the first ones picked up. :)

Chyenne's First Day

My baby girl started Pre-K last week. WOW! I cannot believe she is IN SCHOOL. My heart aches missing her.

She was pretty excited about going to school. She picked out her outfit that she intended to wear mid summer. My little planner.

 She was SOOOO EXCITED. I was anxious but excited for her.

 Braided hair, cute romper, matching headband and necklace, comfortable shoes, denim jacket, yummy mommy-packed lunch, cute backback, we're READY!

 Here she is sitting outside the school with her "boyfriend". She's lucky to have him and a few other friends in her class. I hope she makes tons more.

She was thrilled UNTIL we got into the classroom and she realized that she would be WITHOUT mommy. Oh boy. She totally broke my heart. She showed many mixed emotions on her first day of school. She started crying on the ride to school because she didn't want me to leave her. My heart aches. In the classroom, I helped her get her things ready. She was anxious, then scared. I didn't think it would be so hard.

When I left, she had cried and dried it up 3 separate times. My arms were already aching without her in them. This is going to be a LONG year.

 

We're now on her 8th day of school and she has cried 5 days out of the 8. :'( I have shed just about as many tears. School isn't what she thought it would be quite yet.

 

She was expecting to be having spelling tests, math tests, and lots of writing and reading (which I'm sure she would ace). Hopefully once they get the routine down, they'll do more work. She has asked to do homeschool 6 days so far. My little learner. If she doesn't start learning, we may push to have her moved up, moved into the gifted class, OR pull her out and homeschool all day. I would prefer not to have to do the later because we worked SO hard to get her in. Sheesh.

 

Lucky for me, I can't stay too said for too long because I get to spend all of my time with this sweet guy! He's loving the one-on-one mommy time and doing homeschool at HIS pace. He's one bright boy.

Her Number One Advocate: Pre-K Open House

After much thought, prayer, consideration, etc, Colt and I decided that we would put Chyenne in pre-K at our local public school. WHY when she is doing SO great homeschooling and she is OBVIOUSLY way too advanced for pre-K?!
Well I don't have a good answer except that I agreed with Colt that IF she got a slot at the desired school with the lottery that I would agree to let her go and continue to supplement her education at home.

WELL, back in May we got a phone call stating that Chyenne's name was the number one name drawn at the lottery for the school. Hooray, right?! Ugh, I was already having second thoughts. My princess has never been away from mommy. Hmmm...but it would allow for more one-on-one time with Cohen. Also Chyenne was beyond excited to get to go to "BIG SCHOOL" like her big cousin Malaki. Great.

 

A week or so before school was scheduled to start, I started emailing the teacher (the one pre-k teacher at the school) about curriculum and Chyenne. Everything seemed like it would pan out quite well. The teacher IS willing to work up with Chyenne.
Well, we emailed a few times and then the teacher sent me a crazy email saying "I just received my final roster and Chyenne's name is not on it!"
UM WHAT?!?! We have been planning for MONTHS for Chyenne to go to school. We bought a new backpack with matching lunch box (and got them personalized), we bought school clothes and school shoes, we arranged a schedule with a friend for me to take her son/pick him up from the same class. We planned a "new to school" party in honor of our little princess who was preparing to head to school for the first time. I even made a "school supplies cake" with supplies that a friend and I bought for the class. We were well prepared (not really emotionally, but we'll get to that).

So I called the school. The "records clerk" was less than helpful. SHE is the one who called me IN MAY saying Chyenne was the first on the list! REALLY?! She said that "sorry we couldn't get in touch with you to finish registration". HMMM. I did finish registration and YOU confirmed that MY girl would be attending THIS SCHOOL! Furious. So I asked to speak to the principal. She was even more discourteous. Colt (wonderful Army man that he is) got on the phone and into a heated conversation with the principal who proceeded to tell him that she was "unaware of the policies and principles of the pre-k enrollement at the school"... HER SCHOOL! Isn't that HER JOB to KNOW everything about her school?! Yeah, I thought so.

 

We then took it to the Board of Education. They gave us the runaround, at first. STRESSFUL! Here is was FOUR days before my princess was to start school and they had apparently UNRIGHTFULLY given away HER SLOT! We were quite angry. The local board of education was surprised (to say the least) to see Colt and myself SHOW UP at the county board meeting. It's open to the public but WE were the only public. We made it known that we were very unhappy about how things went about. We were displeased with Chyenne's slot being given away without any word to us. Especially when she was the first name drawn at the lottery AND this school (title I) was in OUR home district. We HAD to get her in. Simply because we could not disappoint our sweet girl who had said nothing short of amazing things about her new elementary school. They all seemed concerned. A few board memebers even guarenteed that they would do their absolute best to ensure Chyenne got into HER class. Great.

 

Colt had to go out of town early the next morning for an Army school (that he is still gone to). This was Friday before school started on Tuesday, the 21st of August. I called a thousand numbers the next day, did research of the policies and principles, and emailed tons of people. I even spoke with the State Superintendent of Georgia. I was determined to be Chyenne's NUMBER ONE ADVOCATE. I would fight for her, even if nobody else seemed to care. Finally around 5pm on Friday, I was told that they would FINALLY send up a waiver to override the numbers in pre-K...to basically add her a slot since the SCHOOL officials specifically went AGAINST policy to remove her name from the list (which could have been a simple mistake but the school didn't own up to it). I would know by 5PM on Monday **open house was at 6pm that same day**.

The weekend was stressful waiting. Especially with Chyenne asking tons of questions like "who took my spot? Did they take my desk?" Poor baby.

 

Monday morning rolled around and I called and called and called. I have never used my phone so much. I kept getting "we're still waiting". Around 3PM on Monday, I got a call saying that Chyenne had been given a NEW SLOT! The waiver was approved. My baby was going to Pre-K! YAY! WE did it! We were persistent enough to stand up for our girl. Awesome.

 

I got the little Miss ready for Open House. I made her scrap tutu skirt and her headband. She was excited and boy did she look cute! She was thrilled to be going to big school.
Of course she posed for pictures. Adorable.

 

 Mommy and Chy. :)

 

At Open House, we filled out paper work, met the teachers, met the school officials (even those who weren't so helpful). We toured the school. Saw the classroom.

Chyenne is in the PINK PIGS class. How fitting for our little Piggy Princess. It was meant to be for her to be in that class.

It was meant to be from the time I went to register her in April (we got her piggy lunch box in the mail the very same day). She was the first name called on lottery day (coincidence, I think not). She was meant to be in the PINK PIGS class with many of her friends.

 

I promise you little piggy princess, mommy will ALWAYS be your number one advocate. Mommy and Daddy will ALWAYS do what is in YOUR best interest. We will ALWAYS fight for you. You deserve that and so much more. We love you!

A Visit to the Fire Station

 To end our {slightly boring} summer, I took the kids (along with Chyenne's "boyfriend") to visit the Fire Station and learn more about fire safety. A real good, long time friend works at our local fire department and told me to bring the kids by whenever. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They got a tour of the fire engine, the ladder truck, the fire station, all of the gear, and even got to get stickers and hugs. :)

Cohen was trying to decide if he wants to be a fire fighter or an Army man (like daddy) when he grows up. After spraying the water hose, he asked the fire fighters if they get to shoot guns. HA! He then proudly announced, "I think I'm going to be a big strong Army man when I grow up...because I want to shoot guns!!!" Gosh.