Sunday

As I sit here right now typing at my dining room table, a friend is sitting on the other end working on their own laptop, with Katherine hanging over looking at the screen pointing out pictures that are coming up on the screen.  Katherine has become a strong book-a-holic, begging for books to be read to her, or for her to go through and point out animals, colors, and items to you herself.  She LOVES reading, it’s so incredibly precious.  I was reading at 2 1/2yo, I wonder when reading for her will click.  For Jonah, he staggered through reading, finally having it click for him when he was in second grade.  Alyssa is entering first, and hasn’t quite picked up reading yet.  I’m sure she too will be in reading help, as Jonah was.  Katherine though…. with her love for books being overflowing, I doubt that it’ll be another five years before she’s reading.  I have no doubt that in another year, by the time she’s turning 3yo, she’ll be reading.  I love watching my kids, and observing the passions in life they hold, and watching how they transpire 🙂

The biggest thing Katherine is learning right now, is her colors.  "Yellow bus, green car, blue truck, brown dog, orange book, purple ball".  She’s learning her numbers, simple counting from 1 to 10.  Once she has that we’ll work on counting backwards and simple addition and subtraction.  She almomst has it.  We count walking up and down the stairs.  I was taking notice at the similarities of Jonah and Katherine vs Alyssa.  Alyssa has the wonderful quality of make believe role playing.  She is incredible with it, something that Jonah never did and something I’d like to encourage Katherine to do, although with a sister like Alyssa I’m not sure how she’ll get away not playing make believe 🙂  Alyssa also completely lets herself go dancing, she’s an incredible child.

Alyssa met a new friend today, a child who is also entering first grade who lives near right next door to us.  She met her today on our way out the door feeding horses.  I sat there watching the two of them interact, finally calling Alyssa over to the car.  I explained that we needed to go feed horses, but when we came back she could play.  She excitingly told the girl.  When we arrived back, I smiled as the sweet nextdoor child, said, "Hello there girl!!!".  They played from 1pm – 6pm, dressup and tea party.  Alyssa was in heaven.  She came up at that time and asked if she could go swimming with them.  I went down to talk with the childs grandfather.  What a wonderful family.  The mother of this child is a single mom, she’ll be home on Tuesday, I look forward to meeting her.

While down there, the witch lady who has chewed my kids for playing with a volume level much lower then normal children, screamed from her balcony at the two girls.  She yelled at me, and it gave me the opportunity to face her back – letting her know that if she had a problem with the kids she needed to talk to the office.  She threatened to call the police.  *Shrug* That’s fine, what are they going to do?  6pm, the terrorizers are quietly playing tea party.  Ugh.  She yelled that they have been screaming all afternoon, and she’s already once told them to be quiet.  This is a lady who has no children.  She also came over to the pool a few weeks ago, yelling at both of my girls as well as a few other children who were part of the group, for being too loud.  I’ve already been in touch with management about it, only to also find out that she’s been harrassing the neighbor that lives below her, also threatening to call the cops.

I learned more about her tonight.  She is an author, co-authoring a few books with a good friend of hers who lives below her, who also has yelled at the kids but has also shown a very sweet and kind side to her.  I decided that the best solution would be to sit down with her, with the other parents here, and come to a compromise.  As even the office said, the kids can’t be kept locked inside, it’s summer time and need the freedom to play.  Obviously, any kid noise at all bothers her.  Kids need to play, while at the same time she needs her peace too.  My hope is that we can agree that the kids can freely play until 6pm at a respectful kid volume.  If she is having a day where she needs quiet, then she can call me and I’ll pull the kids inside or we’ll go elsewhere.  I can understand someone needing quiet.  She said there were four other people that are upset….. I would like to find out who these people are and talk with them also.  Was she just white lying?  It’s very important to me that everyone and their comfort is respected, while my kids are also able to be kids.

I suppose I’m fighting more for this now since Alyssa has a friend who I am sure she’ll be playing much more with, and will be in that back area behind my building.  They live on ground level and here on the corner.  I want to be sure we catch this now so the kids can freely play.  When she yelled at the kids, Alyssa ran inside crying, coming out with coaxing while she asked, "Is the scary lady gone?".  I don’t want that to happen again.  While at the same time, I don’t want to continue to keep my kids locked inside with concern that their talking will bother this lady.  I do all I can to respect all around.  If my kids are throwing a tantrum, are loud, or fighting, I shut the windows and doors.  I’m not going to have it bother others.  I was told today by this family, they didn’t even realize kids lived here, they’re so quiet.  I do my best.  I hope that a comfortable compromise can be made.  I will be talking to the management tomorrow though, to let them know what happened and what we are doing to solve the problem.  What I worry about, is that although they may have lived here for a while, the property is now under new ownership and management.  The complaints the office has received is all they know about these two ladies.  I’d rather we come to a peaceful agreement before either are considered for eviction for yelling at tenents children and harrassing the parents.  I most certainly am glad that I am not the only one.

I can’t wait to pick up Jonah.  Six more days!  I miss him SO MUCH!  It’s been almost seven weeks.  This is the longest he’s spent with his dad.  I am happy for him 🙂  He isn’t ready to talk to his dad about his desire to homeschool yet, he knows that he strongly disagrees with it.  He agrees with my decision of talking to him in December, when Jonah sees his dad again.  He will have had four months of homeschooling at that time, as well as one or two testings having occured.  I plan to bring with me all the work he’s accomplished, his schedule, as well as his scores for last year vs this year – – – – showing to him the incredible progress he has made.  I have no doubt this will occur.  Jonah still dreads his dad seeing his scores from last year, basically he failed 3rd gra

de.  He feels horrible, and doesn’t want to appear as a failure in his dads eyes.  Poor guy 🙁  But, it will be important for his dad to see the direction Jonah was heading in, and what homeschool has provided for him.  I feel so strongly about this, that should his dad argue with me, I will fight him.  Something I normally wouldn’t do, but not when I see the incredible negative results that were occuring.  Should Jonah not flourish in the homeschool program, then I wouldn’t hesitate placing him back into the public school system, but based on his personality and the way he learns best, I have no doubt that he will progress very well and VERY quickly.  I’m excited to start with him.

These two pictures were taken by a friends phone.  The first one is Alyssa on her pony, myself, and Katherine in my arms.  Alyssa was so proud to show off her pony, Sierra.  Sierra foundered last year so has been on the recovery.  She’s MUCH better, and almost ready to be ridden regularly again.  I love having Sierra in our family, she’s been with us for 8 1/2 years now.  She one day will pass onto Katherine, but for now she’s Alyssa’s pony.  I have no doubt that she’ll one day be teaching my own grandchildren to ride 🙂  Doesn’t Alyssa look beautiful up there???

This next picture was the one taken yesterday at the local grange’s, "Customer Appreciation Day".  Katherine was on one pony and then begged to ride the second too.  The saddle was crooked, but Katherine didn’t notice.  I can’t imagine my kids not being a part of horses in some sort of way.  I need to be sure to offer them more time to ride.  Jonah was close to entering his first horse show when he was Katherine’s age.  I would LOVE for the kids to all have their own horses one day, but not sure about that.  We have two right now, Jonah’s horse and Alyssa’s pony.  Good enough – spendy suckers are more costly then kids! LOL

Well, that’s about it.  I seem to be venturing to this diary to type much more often.  The entries are turning out LONG!  Sorry 🙂