2010-04-21 - 8:20 a.m.

Wish I had the time to clean the house before heading to the office today.

I don't so this is the 5 min of theraputic writing to vent about that.

It bothers me to leave the house a mess.

So I usually take an hour or more to straighten every AM and leave it in good shape. It was in good shape yesterday and I was organized and left notes for the nanny. Funny thing however is that when I do that I swear her motivation is dampened. I think she is at her best when she can come in and fix everything. Then she just ROCKS and gets everyone hopping. Its kinda funny.

So my place was in such order that she instead had the girls do awesome productive things to help out the lady in a wheelchair who is kind enough to have the girls spend time with her there. She then took them to McDonald's for a very rare treat in thanks for their help.

I was proud of the girls !

Had a lovely evening. Would have LIKED to have headed to Kohls as I had a $40 "Kohl's CASH" certificate burning a hole in my pocket. But there was NO WAY I would have gotten the girls to bed on time so gave up on that plan once I realized how late it was. I asked Soren what he wanted. I'll shop for it now without the rebate-- CE la vie.

I had no time to do shopping in the past few weeks since Easter. The rebate was from the Easter dress shopping for the girls.

In sad news my lovely Mother in Law (former that is) who is still a friend has been diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I am sad to hear that. A tumor was removed. It was malignant. Another was removed which was apparently benign but close to the other.

She is the best grandmother to the kids (despite like everyone else in the world being imperfect! We ALL ARE) What I do apprechiate about her is her great BIG LOVE. She is one of the most loving and I have to say Also FORGIVING people I have met. She has shown a remakable capacity to fogive and be gracious and accepting- even in the face of knowing that her grandchildren were unhappy with their treatment she was never anthing but gracious and INVOLVED with the kids even when she was pushed away by my 2nd husband.

He managed to attempt to RUIN Soren's First Communion.

He managed to take Sadie for her First Communion a day early so when I showed up at the designated time of the class- even after I had gone out of my way to extend an invitation to Sadie's Aunts and pass on the info (not sure why he was downplaying it)- To find out that Sadie WAS NOT THERE.

I discovered she received her First Communion the day before with Daddy and she later told me and Aunt and Uncle.

Nice.

Lovely photo was sent to me.

She looked beautiful in the dress I bought for her at least so she knew I cared about it and understood I think that my lack of presence wasn't due to my choice.

I think of this now as the big agenda this week is for Raitlin to finish her First Communion Prep HW.

Katie got hers done as she was highly motivated by a birthday party on Sunday afternoon. I told the girls to get it done before Religious Ed on Sunday morn so we could go to the party. Raitlin worked SO HARD that I said OK to the party.

Thankful that we have another invite to play with friends. Hope that helps motivate Raitlin to get that homework done.

OFf to work. At least the toothbrushes have been boiled and bleached and rinsed clean and bathrooms and cups all disinfected.

The clutter and massive clothing chore of sorting that I started and DIDN't finish ( as I had too many helpers so gave up and let them play at helping- packing clothes away etc... until the boxes of ALL of Alexy's belongings from her bedroom ended up downstairs. It was HILARIOUS. But now its a mess as I had to UNPACK all she loaded up ! She was too funny that I just let her play on Sat. So enthusiastic but the only problem was the boxes WERE NOT put together correctly so when we all praised her for her great work, we later realized the BOTTOM would fall out as soon as you picked up the box ! These are boxes that Raitlin the chief box builder knows how to fold together. I had thought SHE put them all together and hadn't realized Alexy had done so many! I was finding tripping over the bozes irritating but when I moved them I didn't expect the contents that were inside- I thought they were ALL WINTER CLOTHES but Alexy collected EVERY LITTLE TOY SHE LIKES and put them in the boxes as well.)

I probably should have WAITED just a few more days to undo her "Work" so she wouldn't have realized it wasn't good enough for me! I hate giving kids that message (even subconsciously) after they have been motivated to "HELP")

That beings me to a topic on my mind. I am saddened that at five years old Alexy ALREADY seems ANXIOUS about a homework writing assigment. It saddens me to see a kid at five stressing over spelling. I mean that just THWARTS the joy and creativity of writing.

She is the first child of mine I have seen do that. All five of the others at her age just LOVED to write stories.

Granted I haven't done this with her as often as I did with the others due to working. I also think she has a good kindergarden teacher. So maybe the perfectionism is internal within her. But its a concern to me that at five she can't just enter the joy of writing a story creatively and use invented spelling to the best of her ability and enjoy the process of writing a story. It can be one of the most fun things.

So it saddens me to see her stressing at FIVE YEARS OLD over the mechanics of that.

I just hope this push to teach early childhood reading skills earlier than they used to is not detrimental to children's love of reading and writing. If kids get stressed and early on think they are NOT capable and worried about their inability it can leave a negative perception about and activity.

There were too many cooks in the house-I had to re-direct siblings from trying to "help." One started to write FOR her and then tried to get Alexy to COPY . That did not go over well with me as NOTHING Makes me more annoyed that fear of getting something done on time to the extent that a kid will be tempted to cut corners or cheat and not do THEIR OWN WORK.

I explained that ALEXY has to write HER Story and that everyone else has to LEAVE HER ALONE to do it.

Explained it was NICE they wanted to help, but that if it is not HER STORY Then it is CHEATING and then it is HER SISTER's STORY.

The big kids were having a real issue with the invented spelling and interfering.

Could only get Alexy to enjoy the process and project when she was ALONE and RELAXED AWAY FROM SIBLINGS.

Ce la vie... She did the best she could.

Just like me.

I hope she DOES get the message that when you do YOUR BEST and REALLY MAKE EFFORT THAT IT IS GOOD ENOUGH.

I told my girls I have had As in my life and I have had C- in some things, and I was NEVER MORE PROUD of the grade I got in Biology which I LOVED and worked hard to EARN. I think it may have been a 73 or 83. I TOTALLY FORGET which grade after studying, re-writing notes into a typed journal with color pencil diagrams and going in to see the teacher who wanted to see my notebook and parents for a conference.

The little old nun had been hard on me for not making effort based on the inconcgurency between high aptitude tests and performance.

I never saw a Nun cry before. I think I may never have seen an adult cry before. But that little old nun's eyes welled with tears when she reviews the THREE notebooks that I had. For I re-wrote a hand written one AND the typed one with diagrams EVERY DAY in an attempt to study and retain the facts.

It didn't work.

But I knew at that moment that when one does their best, it is EASY for the world to make assumptions if it is not as good as others preformance, but in the end, it DOESN'T MATTER WHAT OTHERS THINK WHEN THE TAKE THE CURSORY FIRST LOOK AND MAKE ASSUMPTIONS.

If they ever care to look deeper they might then see the truth.

Like that little old nun it just MIGHT Make them cry to realize how hard they have been on me, and just how mistaken.

However, until they REALLY want to look, I just do what I can to focus on me. I am the only person who I need to truly be accountable to.

That is what I told the girls today.

Do your best FOR YOU. Do your best SO YOU ARE PROUD.

And I WAS PROUD of that grade, despite the disappointment.

I gave that lecture to SADIE last night after she crumbled up a B- and wanted to throw it out. She got upset when I started to go over it with her to see if she could learn the points she didn't know. She blurted out "ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" and then I told her if she did her best IT WAS GOOD ENOUGH and I WAS PROUD, but that doesn't mean one doesn't try to learn that which they DON'T KNOW.

I told her I AM PROUD of her B- if that was HER BEST EFFORT AT THAT TIME - but that I know if she reads the questions she got wrong that NEXT time she might do even Better! I just don't like her being hard on herself and NOT motivated to keep trying.

OH well... off to work.

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