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".