Community

For the past three weeks, I feel like I have been on my own. Troy was in Japan for two weeks, then he played catch up with work and then he had a three day camp out with the scouts. And now he is in charge of a big project so the long days continued today.

I really try not to complain. Life is busy, but it is hard to be on your own. Today I could feel myself unravel a bit. There was more edge in my voice when I talked to the kids. There were more negative thoughts in my head. 

So I figured I would write down the way I have been blessed in the past three weeks and previous weeks that I haven't documented.

Saku's classmate's mom brought him home one day as there was a crazy flash flood warning and she has a nice high sitting Jeep. It was so nice to not worry about the weather, have Eerika take a full nap and relax an extra 30 minutes on the couch doing nothing.

Corrye brought me dinner while Troy was gone. She also offered to watch the kids for an evening so Troy and I can go on a date now that he is back. 

One of the moms of Troy's deacons stopped by on Saturday to drop off a cake to show her appreciation for us. As I read her card out loud to the kids, I choked up as I was so grateful that someone noticed my sacrifice. Maybe that is a selfish thing to say, but it meant a lot to me that she acknowledged that it is hard to be on your own.

Heather gave another pile of clothes for Saku to wear. 

Another friend offered a gorgeous dresser for us as she knew I was looking for a dresser. She also invited us over for dinner while Troy was in Japan. 

Tonight as kids biked and I walked back from the park and it was getting dark, Katie stopped her van by us and asked if we wanted a ride home. 

Two people at church offered positive remarks about my pregnant belly rather than being shocked on how much longer I have. It really made me feel so much better as I have been anxious about my size.

The kids really have been great. They have cleaned up and helped around the house. They have been good listeners and good about going to bed. Saku's prayers also seem to be right on and I can feel the heaven a bit closer as the kids pray.

A major blessing has been the fact that I haven't tired out until today. I mean I am physically tired because I don't sleep well, but mentally I feel like I have been able to hold it together. Sometimes you need to let it unravel a bit so you can keep it together in the future.

Mister Saku

Dear Saku,

Last week has been your first official Fall Break from school. Today you said you wished that fall break would last forever. Then again, yesterday you said you missed your friends and you asked if I could give you some homework because you missed doing it. I think it shows how you are growing up and while you are loving the freedom of being home, you also miss some of the structure that school gives you. 

You are loving coloring, drawing and writing notes now. While Eerika napped, you and I drew together. You will also independently go and just draw. You love being creative. You also love holding onto all of your creations, which makes it tricky as you produce multiple art pieces each day. 

You are trying very hard at home to get "on leaves" as in be recognized for very good behavior. So you go and brush your teeth without being asked. And then you ask "would you put on above the leaves?" or "would you give me a gilly spot"? As you have helped me in the kitchen, you have said several times "I don't mind doing all the work". 

When you were younger, bed time used to be such a hassle. Now you give us no hard time. You stay in bed and go to sleep without any issues. It is so refreshing as Eerika now tries her limits with bed time.

You say the most sincere and amazing prayers. Lately you have asked the "Holy Ghost to strengthen us".  

We didn't bike much this summer because it is just too hot, but now that the weather has cooled down we have done evening walks and bike rides. You are so much stronger on your bike. It is very impressive. 

You prefer "educational" shows such as Wild Kratts or Planet Earth to other shows. Most movies make you nervous as you don't like anything sad/scary/insert negative emotion. 

You are very dependable for a five year old. Because I am so tired with your little brother in my belly, I have taken naps during the week you have been home. I can give you the iPad and tell you to watch one/two shows of a specified show and then come and wake me up and you do it. There is no sneaking of extra show time. 

You are not too preoccupied with the arrival of your little brother but you do like to suggest names for him. 

You like to check out cars and figure out their make and model. 

You are reading smoothly, though you still doubt your ability to read. But when you are just reading because you happen to see words, it comes very easily to you. 

The other day you ate three slices of pizza. 

You still love using your imagination and playing pretend. And now that Eerika can do it with you, you guys sometimes disappear for long periods of time and have a great time together. I also get to come and be the zoo keeper or a little girl or dragon. It actually is very enjoyable to play with you as long as you don't tell me every 30 minutes "pretend that I am doing this". 

I love you Saku. You are a big boy. Fortunately, you still love my hugs and kisses and snuggles as we read and play together. 

You make me life so full of wonder and excitement.

My Miss Eerika

Dear Eerika,

I woke up this morning and your beautiful face was next to me. You had come down during the night. I sneaked out of bed because I wanted to write down few thoughts about you and Saku. No later than three minutes after I sat on the couch, I heard your footsteps and you sleepily climbed on my lap and asked to snuggle me. You have wanted a lot of snuggles lately. Maybe it is the fact that we take our daily naps together and fall asleep holding hands or at least my arm around you. Maybe you are just growing more and more affectionate as you are getting bigger. 

You are so excited about Little Ninja. Just yesterday you asked when Halloween would be here because you want Little Ninja to come. You are so ready to take care of him and have him sleep in your room. You love when he kicks or moves when you have your hand on my belly. He will be the luckiest little brother in the world.

Lately I have realized what an excellent memory you have. Since we read books a lot, you seem to memorize them quite a bit. You also remember little details of our past conversations that you bring up later. Especially if it might will somehow contradict the rule that I am imposing on you. 

You are learning a lot right now. I think it is influenced by the fact that Saku goes to school and we talk about his learning/homework but you have really started to learn new things. You are very good with numbers. Your latest skill is counting backwards from five to zero. You recognize numbers well. You also understand the concept of zero which is pretty amazing. You can recognize more and more letters (B, E, R, K, L,M, S,T, P) and you love that fact our names start with the same letter. 

In life skills, you have mastered riding the four wheeler and love cruising around the neighborhood with it. You have also become so much more social and love making new friends. You love playing House with your joy school friends. You can be a bit bossy but your friends seem to let you get away with it. I hope you will be assertive like this throughout your life.

You can still be a little rough on Saku, but you are learning to be a bit kinder and he is learning to be a bit tougher. I think you are a perfect match for siblings; not because you behave perfectly together but I think you will balance each other for years to come.

You go to preschool, joy school and nursery with boldness and you enjoy your friends.

You started a habit of biting your nails. You try to push your limits more, but you are respond pretty well when those limits don't change due to a temper tantrum or "you are not the boss of me" exclamation.

Isi often says that if we give you a good foundation when it comes to the gospel, we wont have to worry. You are such a strong personality. Lately you have grasped the idea of Heavenly Father and Jesus more and talk about how they protect you against bad guys. You also talk about how much They love you.

Eerika, you are so amazing. I have loved our time together while Saku is at school. You are a happy girl who adapts easily to the changes in life.  You are affectionate. You tell me "you look beautiful" when I get dressed up and you tell me that you love me "to moon, to Bee's house and back". 

As a three year old, you have so much wit and charm. I love you.

I'm glad you are mine forever.

"Please bless isi that he can have delicious sushi" Saku has prayed for this in 99% of his prayers since Troy left for Japan.

"I want to play monopoly by myself. I had a big day with lots of people. So I need time to myself" Saku after school on Monday.  

"Why do you work so much?" Eerika asked me as she ventured upstairs after bedtime. I had explained her earlier than I do work after they go to bed. I meant cleaning the kitchen etc. When I told Troy of this conversation, he said "I didn't know you work so much". Hmmm...

Tonight she came up, and said "I thought you said to come upstairs". She is totally making this up. And then she goes "I heard 'Eerika come upstairs'". What a story teller. 

Little Ninja's Celebration

Corrye offered to put together a celebration for Little Ninja. Since he is my third child and second boy, we really don't need anything for him, but I strongly believe in celebrating each pregnancy so I was grateful for the baby shower.

I kept it very low key. I invited few close friends from the ward and that's it. Corrye kept it simple as well with two games and with lots of chatting. Because everyone knew each other and are pretty good friends, the atmosphere was very relaxing and fun. It felt like the perfect way to celebrate this little boy and the fact that I am getting close to the end of the pregnancy.

Corrye had assigned each friend a time of the day that their present would relate to. So Little Ninja got spoiled with few new toys for "play time", awesome snack gadgets for "snack time" and diapers and a car seat cover to help with  "nap time". The theme was "Around the Clock," which I loved. 

I am not good at busting my camera out and taking pictures with my friends, but this time I kindly requested to take pictures with them. I have shared many things with these ladies and it is good to have a memory of their beautiful faces.

Rachael

Sarah and Madi

Hilary

Kayla

Jaden and Nicole had to leave before we had a chance to take a picture and Brittny was camera shy this time. I also missed a picture with Corrye. I almost got emotional as I hugged her in the end because it really was such a perfect way to feel loved by my friends as well as their excitement for this boy. 

One of the fun presents was this snack bib. You can put snacks inside of it and they can reach in there with their little hands. Saku tested it for us. His hands were a bit big, so I better not start using it for movie nights. Sarah and Madi found this gem! Since I am so cheap, I would never buy something like this but now we will have this awesome accessory to snack with. 

Parent Teacher Conference

On Friday was Saku's first parent teacher conference. We have been communicating with Mrs Bohnsack since the beginning of the school year, but it was nice to sit down officially and talk about Saku. 

Saku's first report card summarizes his school work in the following way:

"Saku is a bright student. He has learned many words in Mandarin and does well in recalling them. He does very well in Math and Reading. At the beginning of the year, he would take a long time to complete his work and would get upset when he ran out of time. He has now learned to work quicker but still does a neat job. He is kind and helpful to all his class mates. He brings a smile to others' faces when he smiles. It is a pleasure to have Saku in my class this year."

A big leap for Saku was the fact that he got Exceeds the Standard for "I can read sight words with fluency and I can point and follow words in a book correctly".In last progress summary (about a month ago), he had only been able to identify about 6 sight words and now he can do more than 40 with an instant recall. 

He also got "consistent excellence" for all of his behaviors which are such as wait for his turn, follows school rules, listens and follows directions, uses appropriate voice. I can tell that Saku works really hard to do the "right thing" in class such as not talking and following the rules, so the fact that I could show him that his teachers are aware of his hard work was important.

Also the fact that the teachers notice how kind and sensitive to other people's feelings he is makes me happy. 

The teachers are also aware of his sensitive side and how he can get emotional easily, but they have noticed how he can control it much better than he was able to in the beginning of the year. And they have seem to know how to help him cope with unpleasant situations.

I am so grateful for his teachers. I feel very assured that this is where Saku is supposed to be this year. 

Up before 6 am

I have been looking forward to Saturday all week when my alarm wouldn't go off at 5:55 am and force me out of bed for another morning of getting ready for school. After a bad night of sleep, though I can't specifically point out why I felt like I didn't sleep more than an hour in a row, my body decided to wake up at 5:40. That is even earlier than our school morning wake up call. 

We survived our first school week without Troy. Making sure that we were all presentable by 7:05 when we should head out of the door was no joke, but we did it. The 14 mile commute to school twice a day did wear on me a bit, but I tried to make the best out of it by letting Eerika play at the playground after a drop off.

 This week was a spirit week at Saku's school. Each day, the kids wore a different theme.

Monday was a pajama day. When I mentioned this to Saku, he seemed nervous. He felt like it was silly to wear pajamas to school. He is a very self aware child and conscious of being different or "weird".

He ended up wearing pajama pants and a regular T-shirt. Once he saw that other kids were wearing pajamas, he was so glad that he had done it. I am glad that he chose to wear the pajamas before he saw that "everyone else was doing it".  And for the rest of the week, he was excited to get dressed up. 

Tuesday was a Crazy Dress Up Day. I am not crazy or silly person, but I want the kids to be part of the school spirit and have a chance to figure out for themselves if they are the silly/spirited type when it comes to public dressing up.  So we went with T-shirt backwards, silly glasses and mismatching socks. Saku ended up also wearing his shorts backwards and he took the soccer sock off because it was too thick for his shoes. So he was one sock man for the day. 

Eerika had the playground to herself each morning after the morning whistle. I am not 100% what the school rule is about parents and younger siblings playing at the playground during school hours, but so far we haven't been scolded. 

On the Crazy Dress Up Day, Eerika came to school in pajamas and crazy bed head!

Eerika and I still got our naps on most days, though we did skip them on Thursday and Friday as they were half days. 

Little Ninja at 32 weeks and 4 days. 

Wednesday Saku wore green; even his underwear was green. 

For Thursday 9/11, it was a Patriotic Day. 

On Friday all the Kindergarten kids wore white. This picture is from the family movie night. Eerika is so not photogenic. She is beautiful girl, but it often doesn't translate in candid pictures. 

Saku was happy to see many of his friends at the movie night. 

Silence Or Snoring

Tonight I had Eerika on my right side and Saku on my left side as they fell asleep.  It is a Wednesday night and I had just stretched out our evening probably about 15 minute too long, so as I announced at 7:50 that Wizard of Oz was the only thing we were reading, Saku broke down. Ironically, that is why I chose not to read other books because he NEEDED to go to sleep ASAP.

So the fact that there was no more reading led to crying. I asked him to join our family prayer, but he was crying so he missed it. Because he didn't join in our family prayer, there was going to be no story. It is our family rule. If you aren't reverent for family prayer and scriptures, there is no story. 

Eerika still got a story, which lead to Saku crying more because he wanted a story and also because he couldn't find Cookie Dough, his stuffed animal dog. I asked him to stop crying or I would have to take him upstairs. The kids are sleeping in my room on their mattresses while Troy is gone.

Once Eerika's story and prayer were done, Saku was still crying so of course I had to take him upstairs. He was obviously so upset. He was exhausted. He missed his story, which he loves and now he would have to be upstairs by himself. 

I do follow up on my threats, but I also have a tendency to show a lot of mercy because I am softie. We were able to talk it through and he could understand why he didn't get a story and why he was upstairs. So we headed back downstairs on the condition that there would be no more crying. He still had few sniffle filled words about Cookie Dough and Eerika somehow had misplaced her kitty so she started breaking down, so I figured that we would all climb into my bed and they would fall asleep there.

I snuggled both kids as I sang to them and soon there was a soft snoring on my both sides. 

It is hard to enforce rules. My least favorite part of parenting. I am grateful that the situation was defused and the kids went to bed hearing my singing and knowing that they are much loved. 

Losing is Hard

"She should recognize that I am very sensitive"-Saku as he lost a game of Uno and got very sad about it.  I told him that I wouldn't play big boy games with him if he would cry after he lost. 

We better stop talking about how sensitive he is so he doesn't use it as an excuse.

Troy had a man to man talk with Saku and we successfully played two more games with Saku losing but no tears. 

He did say that at school he controls his emotions so he "doesn't embarrass others". I think he meant that he wouldn't be embarrassed.  So it is good to know that he can control them when needed. 

Offcial Preschool

Eerika is going to Tiny Hands Preschool. Just once a week for now, but she gets dropped off at 8 am and I pick her up at 10:30 and I do not have to teach at all. It is pretty awesome. Miss Wendy has only six kids in the class, which I really like. Amber and Brad are in the class with Eerika. McKinnley is another girl, which will be good for Eerika to have more girl friends as she is so surrounded by boy stuff at home.

We attended the open house of the preschool. We filled out registration paper work. This is all new to us as Saku's Joy School was very low key and unofficial.  At the open house, Eerika got to decorate a field trip T-shirt and eat some cookies. She has her own little cubby with her name on it and they have "green, yellow, red" behavior chart just like Saku has in his class room. This is a big deal. Now she gets to tells us if she stayed on green at school. She even got fish for a little treasure.

It seems important for Eerika to have a school of her own to go to. 

This girl was excited to go to the open house.  She was so patient to wait for her turn to decorate her T-shirt and do the fishing. I am proud of her. I think she will love preschool and blossom even more than she has in the past months.

Things to remember

"Please bless that I won't have many difficult things in my life" Saku's prayer before dinner.

"No one is cuter than me" Eerika, yesterday as I told her that she is the cutest thing on the block. The positive thing is that she lets me do her hair so she will look cute and she is adamant about painting nails, but of course, I don't want her to think that she is better than others. How to teach self confidence and humility at the same time?? And to a three year old.

I asked Eerika "can I keep you forever?" as we snuggled yesterday.

She laughed and said "I am your daughter" as if it was given that she was mine forever. 

Saku requests a sacrament meeting song each night as a lullaby because he wants to "be like Heavenly Father".

Saku's best buddy Zane calls him Sock sometimes. I asked him if he liked it or not, and he said "he is my best buddy so I don't mind it".