Family Story Time

While I've been on leave, I have had the pleasure of tons of quality time with all my boys. One of the things we've started is family story time. We all sit in the living room together and D and I take turns reading out loud. Currently we are going through the Percy Jackson series. Sometimes K is excited to listen, other times, you'd think it was the most tortuous thing we could possibly be making a three-year-old sit through. Of course, we let him play while we read, because well ... he's only three.

The other day I asked D, is it bad that we are more excited to hear about what happens to Percy Jackson than our son? The best times are when K will settle right up next to me as I read. We usually try to fit it in twice a day right now. Once in the morning, as D and I enjoy our coffee and then in the afternoon. Of course, when I return to work (in a very fast two weeks) I'm not sure where we will insert this new family tradition into our day. Perhaps after dinner? (That is if I can get out of work at a reasonable time every day.) Or will it be something we only get to do on the weekends. I'm hoping for the former. Of course, we already have the next series picked out after we finish with Percy's adventures: The Chronicles of Narnia. K's already a fan, so I'm hoping having the books read to him by mom and dad are just as exciting as his audio books that he listens to at night. (Yes, after I read him two stories at bedtime, he wants to listen to another one as he falls asleep. This kid loves stories more than anyone I know.)

Here's to more family story time!

Something to Write About

I have a ton of mini adventures I could document as my family of three adjusts to being a family of four ... but what I've learned this time around is that my slightly older body is having a harder time adjusting to sleep deprivation. Can four years really make that much of a difference? Apparently so. I have three and a half weeks left of my leave and I realized that I needed to start now if I wanted to make the transition easier (and realistic) to the routine I'll need to keep then.

So, this week - going to bed at a decent time. This means my pre-pregnancy bedtime of between 10 and 11. (Because my pregnancy bedtime of 8:30 - 9 would be ideal, but completely unrealistic.) Going to bed at the time has turned out to be fairly easy. Mostly because O is starting to grant us four hours of sleeping stints at night. So, I get to sleep until about 2:30 - 3 depending on when he last ate. Of course, because I have to pump after I feed him, I am not getting back to bed until 4 if I'm lucky. This means that when he wakes up between 6 and 7, I am nudging (not so gently) my husband to wake-up. Then I sleep until 8 or 9.

Of course, the sleeping until 8 or 9 is in no way preparing me for when I have to get up at 5:30 in mid-March, but this is why I am making the transition phase four weeks long. I figure next week, I'll tackle pumping during the day like I will have to at work. And then two weeks out, I'll do the whole, getting up when I will need to get up. Frankly, there's no need to rush abolishing the sleeping as much as I can aspect of being on leave with the benefits of a stay-at-home-spouse. Of course, I will look forward to the day when O decides he wants to sleep through the night ... but if he's anything like his big brother, I have another five months to get through first!

Which Boxes to Check?

With K turning four in April, I went to find information about preschool registration for this fall. When he was in day care - that was pretty much preschool, but with him staying home with D now, we know that we should probably enroll him in some time of structured program before he enters Kindergarten. Well ... low and behold, you have one month to register for preschool. We must have all our forms turned in by the end of this month and then depending on the number of people who register, we will be entered in a drawing to see if we get a slot. Now the pressure is really on to make sure I get everything filled out and submitted on time.

So, yesterday, I called the school district to make sure that my children are in the system (because, clearly they were not, as I have not received any information, like when I have to do the mandatory school screening - which now we are doing tomorrow.) The women on the phone was very nice as she walked me through all the questions. Then we got to the question that I've been wondering how we'd answer when it came time. "What ethnicity is your child?" She then proceeded to list the categories we're all familiar with: African-American, Hispanic, Asian, Caucasian, etc. I paused for a moment and then asked, "Is there an option for multi-racial?" She quickly responded, "Actually, our system now allows us to select more than one ethnicity per child, so you just need to let me know which ones you'd like me to select."

I was shocked and amazed. I felt like it was a sign that we as a society might be moving in the right direction (of course, really being in the right direction, ethnicity wouldn't matter and we wouldn't need to put ourselves in any category.) So, I let her know which boxes to select for my sons and then we moved on to the next question. When K and O get older, I will let them determine how they will want to define themselves when it comes to this question. I was just glad that I could pick all options that applied for now and not have to pick one. (or "other" - if they want to select "other" they can."

Now on to the next adventure tomorrow, when I take K in for pre-school screening. It will be the first realization that my baby is really growing up and will be starting school in a year. I know it will be harder on me, and I just hope that tomorrow he's in a good mood!