Everyone's in School Now

It's the third week of August and my three children are in school. So I will write down my observations at this stage. We now are dealing with only two schools unlike last year when each kid went to a different school. Morning schedule is simpler, and now it's easier to keep track of everyone's arrival time. This makes it more convenient to plan for after-school activities such as going out to see movies, eat, and the not so fun things like going to the doctor, orthodontist or dentist, etc.


Shannon and Brahms are a lot happier being together and in the same school. They talk about what each other is doing in school and they help each other. They, including Miriam, now do their homework together which means that none of them get to do the "down-load-talk" to the one who is struggling to get some homework done. When someone is stressing to solve a problem and the other is dying to let out some stuff from the head, it is a tricky situation. With the current schedule, that is not the problem anymore. The new challenge is for them is to figure out who should talk first when all the homework is done. Sometimes I act like a referee saying, "She's still talking", "Let him finish his sentence!" "Wait for your turn!", "Miriam's talking to you!" I guess I still have to continue with that job.


Last year the choice of music that is played in the house was a great cause of distress. People complained about each other's choice of music. Yes, each person has an Ipod and could listen to their own playlist without affecting others. However, there are two rules that would prevent this from happening: 1) No headphones are allowed when you are with the family; 2) Retire to your bedroom ONLY when you are going to nap or sleep. As a result we all have to listen from a common CD player and thus the problem. Well, we sucessfully solved that problem by assigning days to each family member when they can use their own playlist (music selection) for everyone to listen to. Each kid gets two days per week while Tim and I combined get one day. That's alright for Tim because all the CDs in our library are all approved by him. I, on the other hand, have to suffer a lot because my exposure to various music genre is very limited (by choice) :) This arrangement is one home improvement at the Lewis House.


Miriam is in Mr. N's (Nordquist) class. It's a 4th and 5th grade combined. Being with a lot of older kids (plus her genes) Miriam is the smallest student in the room. She may be short but she's smart and an independent worker. She can be a friend to anyboby. Sometime I look at her and hope that she could maintain that innocence, abundance of forgiveness and lack of malice in her dealings with others. But then she'll grow up and have to learn to evaluate the people around her and expect them to conform to some guidelines. Yes, expectation is often the root cause for a lot of relational complications. The bible says that "unless you change and become like little children , you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 18:3 Anyway, Miriam is happy in her new classroom and new teacher. She's very excited!


Another observation worth mentioning here is that Brahms has been helping more in the kitchen. I thought that he probably has more time now since he spends less time in the school bus, but he thinks that he manages his time better now. He gets to learn how to cook beyond rice and boiled eggs and makes my life easier. That's a good thing!


Preparing a weekly menu has helped us in the past years of school. Menus served as my shopping guide. It has also allowed Tim to help me better. On regular days (when he's not traveling) he would make breakfast while I prepare lunches to go. We are on our second week of school and I have not yet written a menu. So I'd better stop blogging and make one now.