Autumn is here!

And, besides the ringing in of our family's favorite season, we have much to celebrate! The husband got a job this week! It's in the field he wants to move into (and will be starting school for soon), and he will be home more during the kids' waking hours. It's a paycut, but we are fine with struggling for a little while in order to make things better in the long run. I've been encouraged to apply for a job as a breastfeeding peer counselor with our local WIC office and plan to turn in the application next week, so I may be bringing in a little something extra to help out as well. Either way, I'll likely look for part-time work after the baby is a couple of months old during hours when hubby is home with the kids. I like having a little bit of an outlet, but the hassle of childcare isn't one I like to deal with!

The big girls started dance last week (9/13 and 9/17, respectively). The six year old is doing a tap/ballet combo, and the three year old is doing "creative movement". Which is intro to tap and ballet and fun movement. They both love it! It's the first time either of them have taken a structured class for anything. After the new year we'll likely add swim lessons. I think 2 lessons each is about enough though!

Six year old ballerina and her three year old copycat. :)

Three year old Ballerina

As for me, I've begun seeing a different chiropractor for this pregnancy. Not because I didn't like my old chiropractor...in fact I really do like him! BUT, my insurance didn't cover him and I need to go more during pregnancy than I could swing without the help of insurance. Plus the new chiropractor specializes in pregnancy and has some different state of the art equipment, etc. I've noticed a HUGE difference. For one, she adjusts the pubis symphysis itself rather than just the illium and sacrum in hopes of stabilizing the entire pelvis. The adjustment hurts. The little hammer (I forget the actual name) thing is not a fun sensation. And I usually have to come home and rest after an adjustment. But it is helping!

And that state of the art equipment? It found some rotation and issues in my cervical vertebrae. This is significant because it is the vertebrae that are connected with the nerves causing my wrist/hand issues. Getting adjusted hasn't been a cure, but I am able to do more with less pain and numbness in my wrist and hand! I figure it may take a while before it can fix it completely; I've been living with this for almost five years, two weeks isn't going to fix it all. But it has given me hope that maybe I will be able to massage again one day.

This autumn is especially significant for us. This is the season in which we will be welcoming our newest family member. :) I love that I will be birthing during the season that brings me the most joy, inspiration, and closeness to God. Autumn has always been special, this will just make it a bit moreso. We are still undecided between home and hospital, but I am leaning towards staying home and going with the original plan of an unassisted birth. The thing that sounds best about a hospital birth is the two day vacation afterward. No house to clean, no worrying about cooking for anybody, cable TV and room service! And really, with a little prep work we can have the meals and such all ready to go here. Microwaving isn't hard. And I would likely go nuts spending time away from the kids like that. Plus there's that whole leaving the house in labor and fear of precipitous birthing in the van on the way there. I don't even like going anywhere without my husband after 36 weeks for fear of going into labor when out and about!

31 Week belly. Ignore bad lighting and hanging converter box wire- we have to do that to watch Fox, lol!

Though we go into each pregnancy planning on it lasting up to 42 weeks, we could realistically have as little as 5 weeks and as many as 11 based on 'normal' pregnancies and the lengths of my others. Seeing as this is baby #4, we really don't have a ton of preparations. Washing clothes and putting them away. I'm turning my closet into a nursery nook. We co-sleep, but we'll put our mini pack and play in there (with the doors removed, of course!), the clothes in baskets on the upper shelf, and add a mobile and paint it a little different than the rest of the room. Just to have a nice baby "area". We've never done that with the other kids. Just planned for co-sleeping and that was that. We have a new carseat, we have cloth diaper covers and plenty of prefolds and flats, though we will probably pick up some preemie prefolds for the first few days. I need to go get my Ergo from a friend, but I have my ring sling and wrap ready to go. I want to finish the house. Some painting and decorating. And I want to get all of us into a good routine and get a household schedule worked out. Which will happen naturally as the husband settles into his new job. Then the fall activities. Apple orchard. Pumpkin patch. Maternity pictures.

As the leaves change and fall, the air turns crisp, and we are settling into life. I don't know how to explain the change from the summer. But there is a change. Things feel right again.

Hybrid Schooling

We are a homeschooling family. A homeschooling family who, as of January 25th, will have one daughter in public kindergarten. I still consider us a homeschooling family. We are doing hybrid schooling. Everything can be hybrid these days. Cars are gas and electric. Diapers can work both as cloth or disposable. Why can't schooling be a hybrid of classroom and homeschooling?

Our decision is one of both convenience and personality. A-L went in for her speech evaluation and she will need to be at the school for speech therapy 2-3 times/week. We do live close to the school, but the fact is that it would mean getting the other kids both dressed and ready to go twice a day 2-3 times/week when they don't need to go anywhere.

As we were leaving, I saw my first grade teacher, who is now the kindergarten teacher. We stopped to talk to her, since I've stayed in touch with her. A-L has been asking to go to Kindergarten. I asked the teacher, Mrs. W, about the possibility of Anna-Lee being in her class. She said they could definitely have her in class. We then went down to the room so A-L could see it. We talked a while, and Mrs. W told me to be sure to come down and help out with class parties, field trips, etc. whenever I could. We even discussed the possibility of us hatching some eggs in the class. She also made sure to tell me if public school wasn't working out, just let her know and if she could change anything she would. Otherwise don't feel bad about pulling her out. She also offered to get me in touch with other homeschooling families in town. Love this woman.

A-L and I also butt heads with my teaching style and her learning style. I think her and Mrs. W will be a better fit right now.

Which is where the hybrid comes in. I will continue to work with her here at home. Especially on science and history stuff. And I will work alongside the lessons she's learning at school with Mrs. W on other subjects. That way, she can be learning it while we work on finding a teaching/learning style that suit our mother/daughter dynamic. Best of both worlds. Hybrid schooling.

Anna-Lee

My sweet, wonderful Anna-Lee. She is five. How, when did that happen? I feel like she was just born. That sounds so cliche, but boy how its true! I wanted to do a little post introducing the world to this little girl who I proudly call myself mama to.



She's grown into an awesome child. But, to challenge me, God has blessed her with a personality like her mother's. This causes us to butt heads, and often. She is inquisitive, scatter-brained, silly, shy, serious, bossy, quick to anger, but also quick to love and to nurture. She's sassy, and smart beyond her years.



To her downfall, she has speech issues. This has made me overly protective. She's such a delicate soul. And she feels so fully and passionately (also like her mother!), that I have been terrified of her getting made fun of for how she talks. I had planned on sending her to school for preschool through 3rd grade before homeschooling. But each year I've found a reason not to. And it is because I was scared of her getting made fun of or bullied by other kids. As the victim of bullying myself, I would do anything to keep her from that.



Some of her favorite things are dinosaurs, astronomy, princesses, dolphins, snuggling with baby Lucy and Reese, and spending time on "family dates". She CRAVES time with other kids, which now that we are out of my crazy time at work, I will be setting up as much as I can. We are looking for dance lessons, and perhaps something like 4-H, Girl Scouts, or Youth Group.

Homeschooling By the Seat of Our Pants

This summer, like last, was spent debating whether or not we would enroll Anna-Lee in our local public school. In the end we kept her home, but didn't really do any official homeschooling. We watched a ton of PBS shows, she played on her Fisher Price Computer Cool School, and we practiced capital letter writing and letter/number recognition. But we weren't particularly consistent or structured. This was, in large part, due to me being miserable and pregnant.

So this year we were faced with the same dilemma. Anna-Lee is a smart kid. She has amazing potential. But I was feeling a lot of outward pressure to send her to public school. To give myself a break. To get her the speech therapy she needs. After all, I had both of the kindergarten teachers when I went to school, so wouldn't this be the best year to give public school a try?

I thought Kelton felt this way. Mostly because of his lack of opinion! He's the strong, silent type and it isn't always a good thing. Last night, after going through the motions of getting ready to enroll her, I asked Kelton if he felt as bad about the decision as I was feeling. To my utter surprise, he was!

So we are homeschooling! We have decided to not go with a formal curriculum. We have more of the add-on discs for her computer, and will be doing lots of activities on it with her. We also plan on utilizing our zoo's homeschool classes, going to the children's museum, etc. Our goals for the year are to get her writing upper and lowercase letters (and using them in the correct places), learning phonics and reading, and really work on numbers and counting. This is an area she has demonstrated a weakness. I don't think these goals are particularly lofty or unrealistic, nor are they so attainable as to leave her (or us!) bored and unchallenged.

I'll be posting more about our adventures in homeschooling as the year progresses. Right now I'm just excited a decision has been made and set into motion!