slowing down

This has been an interesting semester thus far. We are "concerned" about each child individually which has stressed the family a bit. To this end, we are trying to slow down and really enjoy each other. Ted has been rather wild at home (granted, he is good as gold at school and TKD) so he's been having, as I mentioned earlier, lots of time outs. I've tried to be gentler in my approach and it's working, in that we don't leave the event angry and hurt, but he is still out of control. We are seeing an homeopathic pediatrician next week, both to investigate alternative asthma treatments, and, I hope, isolate possible trigger foods for his behavior. Maybe the small amount of cream cheese he is enjoying on his daily bagel is enough dairy to push him over the edge. We shall see. Sam is also getting a thumbs up from his teachers, but both Jason's mom and I are concerned about the two boys' exclusiveness, and aggressiveness to the other kids who try to play with them. I'm having a talk with his teacher tomorrow afternoon about a plan to help with this. Perhaps they'll be put into different classrooms. Maybe a teacher can just always keep one eye on the two of them. We'll see. And Mae. Mae (there is a trend here) is apparently doing great in school, talking and playing and being happy. But when we pored over the 100+ photos on the Butterfly website, each picture showed her alone and looking sad. The other girls are always photographed together, dressed up and laughing. We're going to address this at her conference (official conferences are in 2 weeks). Maybe she should be held back like Sam. The emotional development is just as important as the academic and maybe she's just not ready. We'll see. Paul is going to NJ in a few weeks for work and will be able to squeeze in a visit with his sister Nancy. I'm sad for me but thrilled for him. We love Nancy!

So, that's why we've been busy. Plus my teaching and the high holy day gigs. And the holidays themselves. And homework (Ted is at a K reading level now, we found out today (the books start at A and go to Z. Remember his first A book? I'm not sure where he's supposed to be at the end of 1st grade, but he was at H at the end of Kindergarten so this is great improvement!) Tonight he read to me from a Nate the Great book. I'm feeling much less stressed about this area now.)
Starting Monday, I plan to start running again (I've kept up my Tue/Thu/Fri short 3 mile runs, but have neglected the longer ones. I plan to put in a long run next week, then move it to a Sunday once rehearsals at Sinai are over. Plus Paul has me doing 3 reps of 25 pushups, 25 situps and 25 bicep curls each night. He is a slave driver. Did I mention I'm counting points again? Oh yes, the joy of 20 points a day. I dream about cookies. Hee.)

End of long rambling post. I found some fun pics in our archives so I might start posting 'memories' soon. It's funny to look back 10 years and see what is the same and what is different. So much is the same. And so so much is different. Good stuff.