Back to School!

Back to school! The joy and dread of every mother of school aged children. If your kids GO to school it means long shopping lists, PTA hit ups, stacks of forms to fill out, orientations, uniforms and pickup lines. If your kids STAY for home school it means new curriculum, lots of planning, lots of organizing, and pumping yourself up to be a teacher again. But whether your kids go or stay for school, back to school means back to the reality of *gasps* a SCHEDULE!  

All of the above applied to our family this year. ALL of it! We are home schooling the four older kids and our little squirt, Rabina, is going to Pre-K! We really went back and forth as to what to do this year. A lot of me just wanted to put all the kids in school so that I could have a nice break, but after much prayer and discussion I just did not have a peace about that. So, we decided putting Rabina in school and homeschooling the others was the best decision.

Last year was our first year home schooling. It went fairly well until the girls came home. When they came home, we did zero school for about 6 weeks and then tried to ease into some type of schooling. The schooling part itself was really hard and so overwhelming just because I had to learn what the girls knew and what they didn't. Also, Asher was under a lot of stress with the transition, so he was having a very hard time in school. Then, when you add a very needy and mischievous three-year-old to the mix, home school becomes darn near impossible!  There were days where I just cried over how horrible things were going in the educational department. It was a pretty rotten first year of home schooling but I tried to give myself lots of grace about it. It was only one year, and the world didn't end just because it didn't go so well. 

Despite how badly things went last year, I still really loved home schooling (at least the good days) and I wanted to continue it again this year because I felt like it was the best choice for the kids. I really wanted to put the girls in grades that fit their actual age and not their paper age (long story), but that requires a lot of catching up. I thought we could cover more ground with them if we home schooled. However, I knew if I was going to try again this year, I would have to figure something out for Rabina. We needed to be toddler-free so we could seriously focus on schooling! I applied for her to go to our public Pre-K program, but we weren't sure if she would get in since it's a lottery system. I had planned to put her in a mother's morning out program if she didn't get in, but we were hoping we wouldn't have to go to (or pay for) Plan-B. Well, she got into public Pre-K! Thank God! 

While I was excited, I was kind of nervous about Rabina going to school. School started on Aug 10, and she turned four on the second day of school! She is probably the youngest kid in her class physically, but she is certainly the youngest kid in her class developmentally. In a perfect reality I would not have sent her off to school being so young and immature, but I really needed her to go this year. Regardless, It was so hard for me to imagine her walking into that school building and getting to where she was supposed to go, much less going through a lunch line or walking in any line for that matter. It all seemed so above her capabilities. I met her teacher at "verification day" and explained that Rabina was adopted and asked the teacher to try to always point approval toward us. Like saying "Mom and Dad are going to love that picture!" and stuff like that. I didn't want to be the psycho, overbearing mom, so that's basically all I said about the subject. There was so much I wanted to say to her and warn her about, but I figured I should just let things play out. She would learn soon enough. This was such new territory for all of us though, so I was really anxious about it. Rabina seemed excited and a little scared, too.

Lance takes Rabina to school every morning and I pick her up. She wakes up at 6:30am, is dropped off for breakfast at 7:15am, and I pick her up at 2:30pm. It's a very long day for her! 

On the first day, Lance walked her in and gave me text and picture updates. He walked her in the whole first week and, after that, just started dropping her off at the door. What she does or where she goes once she crosses that threshold we have no idea.

Every student at R's school gets free breakfast and lunch! No complaints here!

She got on the floor and pitched a fit the very first day! Good times!

That book bag is as big as she is!

She found herself a friend.

When I pick her up in the afternoon she is all smiles and waves to me when she sees me in the pick up line! She is soooooooo tired though! 

This was actually the second day of school. 

It's been two weeks and she loves school. I think overall she's been doing well, but I got a sort of humorous update from the teacher this past week. It's humorous only because this is what we deal with everyday and now somebody other than us gets to... um... enjoy it. She told me that Rabina has a hard time being obedient and sitting down in circle time with the rest of the class. She says she would much rather play with all the awesome toys. Say what? My child being disobedient? No never! *maniacal laughter* On Friday, her teacher told me she went and sat behind the teacher's desk. The teacher thought it was harmless and maybe she would just sit there and listen. *maniacal laughter* Well, she drew all over her computer screen with a black permanent marker. She also told me that at lunch that day, Rabina, along with a couple of other kids, decided to get up from the lunch table and go running through the lunch line again for the fun of it. The head of the cafeteria and the principal had to intervene. Bless that poor teacher! Bless her! I had better start planning the most supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Christmas and Teacher appreciation gifts!

I do feel like having that break from her during the day has been good for me... for us. I have a lot more patience for her and feel much more affectionate toward her. In the afternoon when she comes home I play with her (just the two of us) and sometimes we take a nap together because she is so tired. I guess that's my only complaint... she's very tired and therefore pretty grumpy. I am hoping as she gets used to the routine that will get better. I'm grumpy when I'm tired, too. 

Having Rabina in school has definitely made a huge difference for our home schooling! We started school the same day she did. This year is going MUCH better than last year. All the kids are doing really well as a whole. We have a few issues we are working on, but I have been really happy with the way things have been going. Day one was a huge shock to the system for everyone. Lots of tears that day but we overcame and pressed on! Asher is doing really well this year, and I am so proud of how far he has come!

Khushboo redoing an entire sheet of addition after having "counted wrong"

Brayden is in 3rd grade this year. I decided Khushboo and Kashila would do well at the 2nd grade level and Asher is in 1st grade. Home schooling 4 kids on 3 different levels is not a walk in the park (unless it's nature walk day and then it might actually be a walk in the park). It's not like I can set everyone down with their school work and go do my own thing. No, it requires my complete involvement. I'm ok with that, but it's definitely time consuming. We start school at 8:30am every day and some days we just barely finish before we have to leave to get Rabina at 2:15pm. On shorter days we finish around 12:00.

We are doing the first year of the My Father's World cycle. The cycle is a four year curriculum and it starts off with Exploring Countries and Cultures. It's challenging and I like that. My best friend Andrea is home schooling her three kids for the first time, and they are doing the same curriculum with us. We have a "synergy" (hate that word) group on Fridays and will do different events and field trips together! I love having her as a partner of sorts. I'm excited to really dig into things and can't wait to start exploring the different cultures around the world! 

Our first synergy group with Andrea's kids. Rabina got to join after school.

Our world cake. haha!

Tomorrow starts our third week of school. Let's do this thang! 

Here are a few pics from Rabina's 4th birthday. She is such a hoot and we are thankful for her! 

Also, Asher lost his first tooth! My baby boy is growing up!

Until next time! -K

Eight Months - An Honest Update

I started writing a blog post many weeks ago (closer to the six month mark) to update you guys on how things were going. I had the whole darn thing written down to the very last paragraph and then BAM the power went out. Thank you summer storm. Of course, I had had this bright idea to write the blog in Pages instead of directly in Blogger which of course meant I had not saved my work (stupid) which means two days of blogging went down the drain. I almost cried. I mean under normal circumstances it sucks to lose your work, but when it takes EXTRA effort to sit down and blog it's completely devastating! I just couldn't bring myself to rewrite it all.

I've finally gotten to the point were I can sit and gather my thoughts again. So, YAY you get a blog post!

Our girls have been with us eight months now! In some way it feels like just yesterday we were picking nits in the hotel room but it mostly feels like they've always been here. I can hardly remember what it felt like to have just two kids. My mom tells me all the time how it feels like they've just always been part of our family and now she can't imagine life without them. I completely agree with her!

The girls have changed and grown so much! It's amazing what a difference eight months can make! They are all doing really well! They have adjusted way better than we could have ever hoped! 

At the eight month mark, life is NORMAL for us. Having five kids is normal now. Having little girls is normal now. We are all totally past the "new" feeling and it's hard to believe our girls haven't even been with us a full year. Technically, things are still relatively new, but it all feels pretty normal. It finally feels like I'm living MY life instead of the life belonging to somebody else. 

 

We've totally got this big family thing down. Okay, well maybe not totally, but we are getting the swing of it.  Sometimes it still sounds weird when I hear myself say "We have five kids," and when I list off their ages "Eight, eight, seven, six and three," I have the same mental reaction as the person hearing my list. Like, "Whoa, that's a lot of kids!" But the actual living life with five kids is no longer alarming and feels quite normal now. Frankly, I think we could add a few more and it wouldn't make that big of a difference other than the fact we would need a bigger house and a bigger vehicle. I have to agree with the theory that somewhere around kid 3 or 4 (I'm not really sure which is the magical number because we skipped those) adding more children doesn't really make a huge impact. Don't worry, Lord willing we will NOT be adding anymore children to our family anytime soon, so you can relax. :)

Mealtimes and bedtimes work like a well oiled machines most of the time. Food and sleep are precious things to this mamma, so we don't play around with those! We've learned that we have to fix everyone's plates and serve them only when we, Mom and Dad, are ready to eat ourselves. Otherwise, by the time we sit down to enjoy our meal, at least one child is asking for seconds. Unfortunately I still haven't learned the art of cheap AND healthy meals so we spend more on food than we do our mortgage. We should have bought stock in Publix and SAMS Club! 

Bedtime goes pretty smoothly. We have a pretty well worn ritual, but we still haven't solved the pesky problem of children getting up out of their beds several times for various reasons... "I can't sleep because it's hot." "It's almost 10pm and I'm going to die because I can't go to sleep." "He won't stop [insert one of the following: laughing, talking, farting, playing, looking at me, being mean, singing]." "My leg hurts." "I just had a bad dream (hasn't been in bed long enough to go to sleep) and I'm scared." "I can only go to sleep if I sleep in your room." "I need water." "I have to go to the bathroom again." You get the idea. Lance and I have to hide in our bedroom with the door locked. 

Some other areas of normalcy... Herding five cats kids across a busy parking lot is no longer panic inducing and more of a minor annoyance. I guess you just come to a place where you put way too much trust in your children and other drivers, and you just assume/hope that they will all make it. Haha! We've heard "Are they all yours?" enough times to validate having the answer printed on a t-shirt. I've embraced the concept that we will draw attention everywhere we go. All the children play and flight like normal siblings. We rarely even hear the Indian accents anymore even though it's quite obvious to others. Lance and I can go into a church service and don't have to worry about how the kids are doing (big plus). And most importantly, everyone loves Chick-Fil-A. Yep, normal is the name of the game at this point.

I'm sure "normal" sounds like a super great thing, and for the most part it is. The word "normal" means usual or ordinary. However, there are some things that have become usual and ordinary that aren't such great things, things that can be really difficult and frustrating. There are certain behaviors (I'll let you guess which child they belong to) that are a constant struggle. Dealing with them every now and then would be one thing, but dealing with them morning, noon and night for months on end is flat out exhausting, and it's definitely taken it's toll on me physically, mentally and spiritually. Of course when I'm not at my best it shows and that just leads to lots of guilt. It's actually very isolating, because I feel like I'm the only adoptive mom who is struggling with this or who makes these mistakes, but I know that's not true. In fact, so many adoptive moms have told me they are in the same boat. It's the norm nobody likes to talk about.

Actually, as much as I hate admitting it, a couple of months ago I felt like I was falling into a depression. I think I was so worn down and depleted I felt like I had nothing left to give. I don't think I've really ever been depressed before, so I don't know what that really looks like for me, but I just wanted to be left alone. I didn't want to be around any of the kids, and I was not so nice about that. I didn't want to make any meals or clean any part of my house. If I could have just buried myself in blankets and slept all day I probably would have. I woke up looking forward to bedtime and dreading all the time in between. I recognized that I was beginning to head down a slippery and scary slope, and I sure didn't want to know what was at the bottom of that slope. I decided I needed to pay more attention to myself and take time for myself when I needed it. Sometimes that looks like me just going to the store alone. Sometimes it looks like me spending thirty minutes curled up with some coffee and my bible. Sometimes it looks like attending a home school workshop. A lot of times it looks like me huffing on essential oils. I really can't say that things are 100% better or that I'm taking excellent care of myself. There's a lot more progress that needs to be made in this area but I'm trying.

I believe "self-care" is one of the things adoptive parents (and really parents in general), especially moms, should take more seriously and put more effort toward. As moms we tend to put everyone's needs before our own, because, well, our households just wouldn't work if we didn't. If your life looks like mine, you reach the end of the day to find that Johnny, Sue, and Mary all had nice baths, three meals and five zillion snacks, hours of self-gratifying entertainment, education, and whatever else was on the docket for the day, and you, Mom, had a cup of cold coffee, a half eaten slice of toast, no shower and a list of chores and tasks to complete. And the next day and the day after that all look pretty much the same. How can we expect that to not take a toll on us? Parenting is hard, but it's beautiful. It's the pouring out of your life for others, and what a blessing that is. But we can't give what we don't have. We need to replenish ourselves spiritually, mentally and physically so that we can effectively pour into the lives of those around us.

So mamma (or daddy), look at me (because that's what we say when we mean business, right)! You NEED to take care of yourself! As easy as it is to push your own needs to the back burner, you have to make self-care a priority. Whatever that looks like for you, do it! You have to take the time and make the effort to nourish your body, mind and soul, or you will wither and fade! We are finite. We have limits. We need good meals and exercise and sleep. We need time alone to think and relax. We need to have a listening ear instead of being one for a change. And most importantly, we need to turn our focus to the source of all strength, God, and recognize our deep need for him every day, every hour. We need a daily imparting of His grace and love in our hearts so that we can pour that out to our family.

I believe that one of the biggest parts of self-care for couples is keeping your relationship healthy. Lance and I are actually doing really well in this area. I've been so thankful for his love and support. He's the only soul on this planet who totally gets how hard things are and everything I struggle with. He knows all about my mistakes and shortcomings and yet he continues to support me and encourage me. I need that! We decided we needed to make it a priority to go on dates and such. We went on our first date back in May for a friend's wedding and it was like a gateway drug... we want more dates! We've been on three total now and two of those were weddings. We actually just booked a week long trip for our 11th anniversary in October and we are both super excited about it! California here we come! Thankfully, things are normal enough for us to do this! I never would have imagined we would be leaving our kids for a week before we had even hit our one year anniversary of the girls being home, but the hotels and flights are booked so we are and we cannot wait.

So, yeah, eight months have come and gone and things are pretty normal. Some things have gotten easier and some things have gotten harder. Despite the difficulties we face, I have to say that we are so blessed. We are honored and unbelievably humbled that God has entrusted us with five amazing children. Why he chose two screw ups for this job I have no idea, but I am thankful he did. While we may have felt a great spectrum of things, we have never felt any regret for our decision to adopt. This has been one of the hardest and most wonderful journeys God has ever led us on. It has made me so well acquainted with my need for Jesus and if that were the only thing I gained from this journey (it's definitely not) then I would say it was well worth it. I never want to come to a place in my life where I feel confident, content and sufficient apart from Christ.

If you would like to continue praying for our family, you can pray for each of us in the following ways:

Lance- Pray for contentment in where God has us right now and for wisdom to lead our family. 
Kristian- Pray for an abundance of love and patience and grace. Pray for upcoming homeschooling.
Brayden- Pray for a loving and kind spirit toward siblings. 
Khushboo- Pray for her teeth as she just got an appliance to fix her cross bite. Pray for her to build friendships. 
Kashila- Pray for her eyes. We are trying to fix strabismus. 
Asher- Pray for continued improvement in ability to deal with emotions and pray for a good school year for him. 
Rabina- Pray for her to learn to seek attention in appropriate ways. Pray for my (mom) attachment to be more secure with her.

I'll leave it here for today. Next up will probably be about our homeschooling and not homeschooling (yes, both).

Lots of love! Until next time! -K

P.S. We got kittens because we didn't have enough warm bodies in this tiny house!!

Our Trip To Anna Maria Island

Before the girls came home, one of the things I dreamed of doing was taking them to the beach for the very first time. There were so many "firsts" that we missed. I'm somewhat okay with that fact, because I know many of those "firsts" (especially with Khushboo and Kashila) were experienced with their birth family – first smiles, first words, first steps, first haircuts – I'm okay that their birth family were able to share in those joys. However, I looked forward to the "firsts" that would be ours to share, and watching them put their toes in the sand and experience the grandeur of the ocean for the first time was somewhere at the top of the list.

At the beginning of the year, we began planning to go to the beach around Lance and Asher's birthday (April). Additionally, I had discovered, through a friend, LegoLand in Florida gives pretty major discounts to home school families on certain days every month. When you have five kids, you will take any discount you can get. Can I get an amen from all my big-family-mamas? Lance and I really wanted to take advantage of this discount and take the kids to LegoLand for a day as a surprise, but I was having a hard time figuring out how to juggle a week at our usual beach spot, Panama City, and a day in Orlando. It seemed like a long drive for just one day (6 hours from Panama City).

Then it dawned on me... there are OTHER beaches in Florida! Imagine that! I started looking into beaches near central Florida and discovered a beautiful little island called Anna Maria which is just outside of Tampa and St. Petersburg. It looked like the perfect spot! While it would be a long drive down – about 8 or 9 hours with bathroom and food breaks – it was only a 2 hour drive to LegoLand, so that made a day trip there much more reasonable.

I found the perfect house for us to stay. It was huge! Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, large kitchen and dinning area AND the best part was it had it's own private pool! It was about a block from the beach which wasn't too bad. I wished we could have been right on the beach, but those type houses were quite hard to find in Anna Maria when you have a budget like ours. We booked the house for a full week and got our discounted tickets for LegoLand (an almost $400 savings)! The kids were so excited, even though they didn't know about LegoLand, and Lance and I were quite ready for a break from our daily grind.

Here's some pictures of the house... 

Front of the house. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The private pool. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The kitchen. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The kitchen and living room. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The dinning room and kitchen. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The master bedroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The master bedroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The master bathroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The second upstairs bedroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

We had planned to leave for the beach around 3:00am on Lance and Asher's birthday so the kids could sleep for a while in the car but we ended up getting away around 8ish instead because Lance and I were so tired from the day before. Somehow, I fit everything in the van and still had room to shove the kids in their seats. I should have received a metal for that feat. Seriously. Ten minutes down the road, Kashila asked if we were close to the beach. [Face-palm] It was going to be a looooooooooong drive.

Just before Albany, GA, we started having issues with the van. We had O'Riley's Auto Parts read the computer and discovered we had a bad spark plug! Thankfully we were able to get a new one and Lance replaced but it cost us some time. We were so glad we had not left in the early morning else we would have just been sitting around waiting for somewhere to open! We had hoped to be in Anna Maria in the afternoon but we didn't get there until 6ish! Overall the kids did GREAT on the road. I don't recall any meltdowns. Not even from the kids. :)

We loved Anna Maria Island! There's the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Tampa Bay on the other side. The Island is very relaxed and simple. It's almost like old school Florida. The beach isn't lined with huge condominiums and I loved that! The Island has some small condo units but mostly there's just a bunch of houses. Our house was a block from Manatee Beach, which is the most popular public beach on the island. It has a cafe, a gift shop, a lifeguard, a playground and live music at night. The downside to this beach is it got very crowded by lunchtime. I'm not a huge fan of crowds, but with the kids, we aren't able to stay at the beach much longer than a few hours so it wasn't a huge deal.

The beach was a little different than what we are used to. The sand here wasn't soft and silky like the sand on the panhandle beaches. It's a lot coarser and mostly made up of broken bits of shells. This doesn't feel so good on your feet when you're walking up the beach. However, there were a lot of little shells to pick up and Khushboo and I really enjoyed our search for little purple ones.

All the kids loved the water. It was clear and warm. No jellyfish! We would go out with several inner tubes and enjoy the waves with all the kids. I was really impressed with how brave they all were! They also enjoyed playing in the sand. Kashila kept wanting to build a sandcastle but the sand just wasn't a good consistency for building nice sandcastles.

First day at the beach!

Brayden braving the waves!

This is how we roll... er, float.

Rabina wasn't too happy with the waves at this point.

Diggin!

They tried!

Brayden taking a break.

Busy bee.

Help me mom!

Ok, I'm helping.

The sunsets here are just gorgeous! We really liked going to the beach after dinner and taking in it's beauty as the sun went down. 

 

On Monday, we woke up and drove to LegoLand! We had told the kids we had a surprise for them but had not told them what it was until that morning. The boys were beside themselves! The girls were excited too but they didn't really have the big picture.

LegoLand was great! Everyone loved it but I'm glad we had gotten discount tickets else I would have felt ripped off! It rained for a couple of hours which hindered our fun slightly but overall we had a blast! We will definitely go back in the future. 

 

During our week long stay, we explored the island and the neighboring island of Longboat Key. We found a local doughnut shop in Anna Maria that makes custom doughnuts. Lance tried the maple and bacon one. Ewww! I tried the caramel and sea salt. It was nice but pretty heavy. We also ate ice cream at a local shop. All of our cones were made and some had already been licked by the time Lance and I tried to pay with our bank card and the staff informed us they only accepted cash! Ack! No "cash only" signs that we could see so how were we to know? Lance had to run to the ATM to get some cash. Note to self: bring more cash next time!

 

We also experienced some of the local gift shops which was fun. I had allowed the children a $40 limit. They could get anything up to $40. Helping children pick souvenirs and toys is like pulling teeth for me. I picked up a nice little Anna Maria coffee mug that I use all the time now. Khushboo and I got t-shirts. Brayden got a knife. Kashila and Asher got stuffed animals and various toys. Rabina got a mermaid doll.

For the most part, we ate at the house to save money, but Lance and I had wanted to go to a nice seafood restaurant on our last night on the island. We looked at all the reviews and chose the Waterfront Restaurant. It was $$$$$!!! The food was ok but not worth the $$$$$, so we will not be returning to the Waterfront on our next visit to Anna Maria. Next time we will go across the street to the restaurant at the end of the pier. We had walked up the pier while waiting for our table and spoke to some people leaving the restaurant. They said it was really good food and good prices. Oh and it's actually on the water!

The pier and the restaurant at the end.

While we were on the pier, we had the surprise of seeing a couple of manatees in the bay right off the pier. They just say there and smiled for the cameras. Well, they just sat there. None of us have ever seen manatees before, so Lance and I were quite impressed. The kids didn't care so much. 

The manatees

  I'm sure it sounds like we didn't do a ton of exciting stuff at the beach. That's probably because we didn't do a ton of exciting stuff, but that is just what we needed. I loved being able to spend the whole week as a family with nothing to do other than enjoy our time together. It was great! Lance and I both agreed that it was probably the best beach vacation we had ever had. We look forward to visiting Anna Maria Island again in the coming years.

Until next time! -K