More change is in the air

So we are well into the school year now and getting into a pretty decent routine! The kids are getting to school *mostly* on time, everyone is adjusting well. Nathan is doing great, I love hearing him talk about preschool:). He is crazy inquisitive - I'm not sure Lynsey asked this many questions, but maybe I just don't remember. Sometimes I just have to ask him not to ask me any more questions, which I then feel bad about, but seriously! He seems to especially like asking them when I'm driving, which is the worst time for me to be answering a bunch of bizarre questions. Anyway, great to see that he is doing developmentally appropriate things in any case:). He still comes to lay down with me at night at least once a night. I asked him one morning why he still comes, and he says, "I just can't make it without you". Melt my heart! He can come lay down and snuggle with me for a while longer yet<3.

Lynsey has started doing gymnastics again, which I think is a good thing for her. She is a bit impatient to be doing the harder things, but I think she understands that she needs to master some of the more basic things first. She joined Girl Scouts which is kind of fun! She gets to be in a troop with her friend Ari which will hopefully be a good thing for her (they have a bit of a competitive relationship but they love each other!). She is doing great at school and I just love the situation she has at Horace Mann. She is making new friends and fitting in well - so thankful for that!

Now on to our precious Adam. Adam has been very challenging these last few weeks. That may be an understatement. I like to compare parenting Adam to high intensity interval training. It's either very easy or very hard. The hard parts are ridiculously hard, and you go until you can't breathe anymore. And then you get this recovery, which is easy and you get to rest and let your body recover, preparing you to go again. We are fully in the middle of a pretty intense session with that boy! He has been a stress case lately, it is getting so hard to manage! We can hardly say a word to each other, Brian and I, without him interrupting us with a rant of, "no we're not going to _________!" It.Is.Constant. He has done this before, but it wasn't as bad. He would pick out certain things that we were talking about and say that we weren't going there, and I just had to repeat it back to him, "no, we're not going to ______" and that was the end of it. I now have to repeat the phrase several times - like 4 or 5 or even more, and there is no guarantee that this will calm him down at all. He often just escalates it for 20 or 30 minutes more, and then eventually he does calm down. I actually *somewhat jokingly* said to Brian that we should just start texting each other when we're at home instead of talking. The only consolation we have at this time is that traditionally when he goes through these stressful times, it is only temporary and he does mellow out after 3 or 4 weeks usually. I don't know if this is the same thing, as I feel like he is still ramping up and we are a solid 3 weeks in now, but it just seems almost impossible that his little brain could keep this up (it will need some rest eventually from the high vigilance of having to keep track of every word we say!). I guess I should clarify that he does have mellow times throughout the day as well, thankfully we have had a beautiful fall so far and he's been able to be outside a lot. Sanity breaks, that is for sure!

On to what is changing! Well, in the midst of all this stress, we are going to be switching Adam to the public school that Lynsey is going to! We had planned on doing this sometime this year, and I've talked about it on this blog before, but the time frame has changed. Originally, we were thinking a really slow transition, maybe starting part time before Christmas and switching him full-time to the public school after Christmas. Well, we found out on Friday that his Program Manager is leaving - her last day is October 17th. A new Program Manager will be coming in, know next to nothing about Adam, and they will have to work with the school during the transition? That didn't seem like the best solution. So, his transition is being fast-tracked a bit - as in, he could start at the school as early as next week! The Principal of the school called me yesterday morning and I actually went into the school to tour the special needs classrooms and every other area of the school where Adam would be going. I sat down with her and the Psychologist and we talked a bit about where he would start, what kind of supports he would need right away, and how the assessments and writing of his IEP would work. It was a great meeting - I feel so much better about him going there! The classroom he will be in isn't that different than the classrooms as RSA, I think he will feel right at home in that environment. They have this awesome program called "Colt Companions" where students from General Ed classrooms volunteer with the special needs kids, and you can bet Lynsey has signed up for that! It's so scary, but I feel about as good as I think would be possible considering our situation. It's so funny, we weren't considering this area when we looked at houses, and kept trying to buy houses in other neighborhoods, but I guess God was working something else out for us that we were not aware of at that time:). I will keep you all posted about exactly when this is happening and how it goes, I still have to talk to the teacher of his classroom (she was out for the day yesterday). Prayers are appreciated! I know he can do this, he has managed a lot of changes in his young life, but he has been at the same school for 3 years. This would be a hard change for anybody, never mind a little guy that hates change as much as Adam:-/.

Pictures of our house!

I just did a blog post about the first day of school etc., so keep scrolling if you want to see that one:). I just finally got around to taking pictures of our new house so I thought I would post them! I was waiting until we were done everything, but I think it's time to face the facts that we will never be done everything lol! We will be painting for months, and there are so many little things we need to do, so I decided to just take the pictures and be done with it! We just did the first coat of paint on the upstairs hallway so everything is off the walls etc.

First day of school at three different schools!

Here we are on September 10th, summer is over and routine starts again! I would be lying if I wasn't a bit relieved to have this time come. Summer is so fun with so much going on, but I just need to feel like I can catch up on things and breathe again - and Nathan and Lynsey really could use some time apart so they can miss each other a bit and maybe not fight so much:-/. On Wednesday the 24th, Brian took Lynsey to work with him for "Bring Your Kid To Work Day" and Nathan and I joined for lunch and some more activities. It was a lot of fun! We didn't do much over Labor Day weekend, we have started painting again and did the trim and walls in our room over the course of last week. We got our new blinds in the upstairs bedrooms, yay! Just makes me hate the window coverings downstairs more, but all in due time;). Just yesterday we painted the first coat of the walls on the upstairs hallway and stairway - Brian had the joy of getting up on a ladder for that, not too fun for him. Anyway, slowly but surely our house is coming together! In my next post I am going to post the pictures I took this morning of the house so anyone that is interested can have a look:).

Lynsey started 4th grade on Tuesday, and I think she's going to have a great year! I have a great first impression of her teacher, and I know she has already made at least one friend in her class. I haven't really walked away from meeting a teacher of hers and feeling this good, hopefully the feeling will last! Adam went back to RSA on Tuesday after a long weekend, so I am calling that his first day of first grade:). I have been in touch with the Psychologist at Horace Mann and we are figuring out the first steps to getting him transitioned over. He has been extra stressed at home lately, lots of ranting about going places again, but I think it might be a delayed reaction to our move. He tends to be okay with big changes like this right at the start, and then a month or two later we start seeing a lot more anxiety from him. Fingers crossed it's a short phase! He sat down and started doing a puzzle all on his own the other day. That was pretty neat! He didn't get the right pieces exactly, but I helped him out and he stayed focused until it was done. Lynsey has been really good at getting him engaged to do some Lego building lately which is pretty cool. I so appreciate when she puts that effort in, it really pays off!

Nathan also had his first day this week! We had the meet n greet with his preschool teacher at City Kids School on Wednesday and his first day was Thursday. He had a lot of fun! I think it will be a good place for him. He is so inquisitive and soaking up so much right now, I think preschool is just the place for his curious little mind:). I took him to an indoor playground yesterday morning (he always has Fridays off) and on the way he said, "I think I will make friends. People usually always like me. I think they like the way I look." Lol! Confidence is not a problem! He can be a bit too blunt at times, though. The other day we were walking out of Adam's preschool and a little guy that Nathan used to be in a class with was walking out with us. He was trying to talk to Nathan and Nathan says, "That guy isn't very nice" or something negative along those lines. I have to now explain to my little 4 year old that you don't have to like everyone, but that you should never say unkind things to them because you can hurt their feelings. And the fake politeness begins haha! Oh well, he is just learning to navigate social waters, hopefully we can just encourage him to be kind while he's learning!

Along with Nathan's first day of preschool came my first day of being alone - for the first time all summer! I have to say the peace and quiet was lovely, although I was quite excited to pick Nathan up at 1 and hear all about his first day, and his first day of having a packed lunch:). He did great! He did give away his dried apricots, apparently after taking a bite out of one of them (sorry to the mom of that kid!) but he ate everything else which was a win! I have been having some trouble with Lynsey a few mornings, just getting her to understand what the word "hurry" means. Hopefully mornings will get a bit smoother, Thursday in particular was a rough one. She came downstairs with in her PJs and uncombed hair and poured herself a big bowl of cereal at 8:05, and I wanted to leave by 8:15. I don't have to tell you how the rest of the morning went, you can probably use your imagination. I should have made her get up sooner, of course a lot of this was my fault, but it was my first day of making 3 lunches and getting 3 kids off to different schools and I was a bit high strung and not on top of everything I guess! We are learning, it will get better I'm sure!