Ready, Set, Go... to Kindergarten!

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Kindergarten registration is tomorrow night. I don't know how I feel about it yet. Part of me is so happy to see my little girl growing and learning and experiencing so many new things, but another part of me is afraid to let her go. I worry about the "big" kids and what they will teach her and I worry about how her personality will change once she is around a lot of other children and their ideas about how she should act and dress and talk. I have tried to decide whether home school would help her, but then I worry that by the age she would really need sheltering she will be fighting me to go to school. I wish we could afford private school so she could be in an enviroment that reinforces the morals and values that we are trying to instill in her, but right now that would be difficult and then when Lydia starts it would be impossible and I don't want to send one if I can't afford to send both, so it appears she is off to public school. I tell myself that I went to public elementary school and I turned out just fine, but that was then and this is now. We went for the Kindergarten visit last week. Two hours of touring the school and sitting in a classroom and meeting the teachers. They got to do activities that the Kindergarteners do and the highlight of the day was riding on a real school bus. Emma was so excited. She talked about it all week. She is a book worm and she loves school. Then we arrived. Her first reaction was " it is big" and she took on somewhat of a deer in headlights appearance. She never spoke a word the whole time we were there. She sat on her carpet square and stared at the smartboard while the teacher asked them their ABC's. She has known her ABC's since she was 2, but she sat frozen while the teacher smiled a sympathetic smile and called on someone else. She refused to do the excersize portion of the class, because she refuses to do anything she deems embarrasing, and when it was time for centers she sat on her carpet square and stared at the wall until the teacher took her hand and walked her to the puzzle table. I felt so bad for her. She seemed so small compared to the other children there. She couldn't reach the smartboard- she was to short and she seemed overwhelmed by how many kids were there- about 15. I told her there would probably be more in her class and she said " I hope not". The bus ride was fun though she decided she wanted to be a car rider because there were no seatbelt to keep you safe. ( That is fine because she was going to be a car rider anyway). You might be saying to yourself- why send her? If she is that little she may not be ready, but she is turning 5 in June way before the cut-off and like I said academically she is ready. She knows how to write basic words, count to most of the way to hundred, she is reading sight words and tying her shoes. Her pre-school teacher said she would be to bored to stay in preschool another year. They believe she is ready and that she will come out of her shell once she is there. I don't know if I am ready for her to come out of her shell, but I guess the time has come to let her go... even if it is only a mile down the road. Thank goodness lydia's birthday is after the cut- off so I still have three more years before I have to go through this stress again!

 

Stop, Look and Listen...

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I was reading a blog several weeks ago and they had posted random things that they had heard said around their house that week. I thought it was so funny when I read it and since then it has made me pay more attention to the little random things that I hear around my house. The things that normally would be funny for a moment and then forgotten. My children are growing up so fast and many days we are rushing to get things done. I am hurrying them up to go go go and I forget to stop and listen to the sweet things they say. All to soon these days will be gone, they are getting older and more independent every day. I don't want to miss these little moments because I am so busy focusing on myself, my house, and what we need to get done. Last week I went to the mall to look for summer clothes and realized that Emma is no longer in the "toddler" sizes. She has moved up to the "big" girl clothes. We were standing next to a little girl that was probably nine years old and looking at the same shirts, it really scared me to think that we were now shopping in the girls section and not in the baby and toddler section. In the Bible James says that we are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes and I never really felt that until I had kids, time truly does fly and we don't know what tomorrow brings so my prayer is that God will help me to slow down, listen, remember and enjoy every minute of this season He has blessed me with.
Some of the things I heard this week in the Hartman home:
"Mommy, I pushed out 16 babies today." (Wow Emma that is a lot.) "Well mommy you have to take care of what God gives you. Tomorrow He is gonna give me 22 more... First there is Josiah, Mary, Emily and then Slinky and I have to think of the other names for them."
"Tickle my belly button Mommy!... do it again... do it again... do it again... do it again..."
"Be careful, it is a jungle out there... watch out for lions and tigers ( and bears, says Lydia)"
"Love you back.. Da-dee! Love you back... Mo-mee!"
"Me shaken' my booteee."
"Daddy your face rough..." ( Emma used to say it was fuff, but Lydia talks plainer than she did)
"Pillow fight!!!!!" ( daddy's idea)
"Nobody worry about that dog you just sat on!"
"When I get big I want +8 babies just like Kate... but I am going to have to call a babysitter because I am going to be a veterinar..a vetriner... a dog doctor."
"Look mommy I'm climbing daddy mountain..."
"Mommy... Lydia says she is gonna eat me."
"You get to have dinner with a princess tonight..."
Thank you God!

 

Moving on...

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After much prayer, discussion, and deliberation we have decided that we are moving. We just feel like God opened the door for this job and we would always wonder what other doors God would have opened if we had gone, so we decided we should trust God and go. I have been so worried and stressed about what to do, but after we just said let's do it I have been pretty much at peace. I still worry about some things, whether we will be able to find a great church like the one we have here and whether or not the schools will be as good as the one Emma would go to in the fall, and of course I worry about the fact that I am an only child and this will be the farthest I have ever been from my family ( I know it is only an hour, but still it is the farthest I have ever been); however, I know that God will work it out. I have laid it in His hands and I choose to trust whatever He plans.
Now comes the fun part, trying to fix up an old house on a limited budget, trying to sell an old house in a horrible market, and trying to get our finances in order to be able to buy another house in a broken economy. My house has always felt tiny until I started painting it and now all of a sudden it seems huge. We had not really painted the whole house since we moved in and it has been a huge project, especially with two little sets of hands and feet that want to "help". Emma just keeps begging to paint her door purple and doesn't understand why that is not a good idea and Lydia just wants to paint anything any color and doesn't understand that paint doesn't dry that quickly. I never noticed all the little things that need to be updated, repaired or painted until I started. I started painting the bathroom door and then noticed that the doorknobs front to back didn't match. Someone just replaced the front of it but left the inside one original. I never noticed it before, but now we have to replace the doorknobs and since they don't make the doorknobs that are on it anymore we have to replace all the doorknobs going down the hall or none of them will match the bathroom. It is the little things that are driving me crazy, but God is in control and if it is meant to be it will be. The other morning I heard Ty Pennington yelling "MOVE THAT BUS" and I fell on the front yard as I saw my dream home revealed... and then I woke up.
The LORD says," I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you." Psalm 32:8