I'm a slacker

I wish I was the kind of person who really kept up with these things. There will be times that I do really well with it and update it maybe a couple of times a week or something, but then periods like this last oh... 5 1/2 months... happen. When I looked back at my last entry, I said a quick prayer of thanks because Dylan is no longer in that mood. Every now and again (which is few and far between) he will do or say something that goes along those lines, but he's a lot better now. His biggest adjustment now has been 5th grade. Things are definitely different this year. He requested his teacher this year and he likes her, but she is nothing like any of his other teachers. His work load is bigger (of course) and there's a lot more that he is required to keep up with at home. We had some issues the first few weeks. He had two projects/assignments that he was very nearly late turning in, and he had not even told me that one of them was supposed to be turned in. I try to stay on top of what he has to do for school so I can remind him when he needs to be working on something. After that, I had to schedule a meeting with her because I knew we needed to get a jump on whatever was causing his absentmindedness. After living with both of my brothers for as long as I did, I recognize the signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Dylan definitely has it, but until this point, we haven't really had any problems. His grades have not been affected, and it's really only manifested itself when he has to do any writing. Well, once he started having problems, I knew that we needed to get a plan of action in place. I know I will more than likely need to have him officially tested and probably even set up on medication before middle school, but we are trying to do everything that is possible before we go that route. I got him a homework planner that he has to write in every day. He then has to take it to his teacher for her to make sure he's written everything down. After he comes home and does all his homework, I have to go over the planner and sign it after I've checked over everything. That has been working pretty nicely so far. I think he's only had one day where he forgot to give it to her to sign. THEN he started his PACE program again. So, on Tuesdays at 8:15, he gets taken over to another school where he takes part in his PACE activities until around 1:30ish when he is brought back to his school. So, he misses almost an entire day of school, but he still has to complete all the classwork and homework that is issued for that day. This hasn't been a problem in the past, but now he has a lot more reading activities in his classwork and he's not able to keep up with it. A couple of weeks ago, we were up late almost every night working on homework and those reading activities because he had fallen so far behind on them. So, now our routine will be that he brings home his reading activities on Mondays and Tuesdays so he can try to get caught up on what he is missing, that way he'll be able to turn them in on time every Friday. I can say that it has been pretty stressful for me. I did not have this problem when I was in school. I may have had teensy portions of ADD or ADHD, but it was never something that messed up my schoolwork. Having had two brothers deal with it equipped me to notice the signs before things started to get worse, so I am glad that we are working on it. I am really glad that his teacher is as helpful as she is. 

Bella and Eowyn are doing great. I am really enjoying being a SAHM with them. I am trying (TRYING) to establish some sort of routine for our family. The bigger our family gets, the harder it is to keep track of what needs to be done every day. I picked up some great pointers from the FlyLady's website about routines. It's still a work in progress, but I believe that I will eventually get it put together.

Things are great on the church home-front. We love our church family at First Baptist Church of Theodore. I joined the choir a couple of weeks ago and the kids really enjoy their activities. They both have Sunday school classes. Dylan has Bible Drill on Sundays at 5 and then they both do children's choir at 6, while the evening service is taking place. It's definitely been a blessing to have that outlet every week.

Work is another story. We are still dealing with issues on that front and it's so hard to see how anything is going to work out. We really feel like something needs to happen soon because it's just getting way to stressful to deal with. It's also a money issue. I've very much enjoyed being able to stay home, and I really want to continue to do so, but I don't know how easy it will be for me to continue doing it unless something changes. I hate being vague. I would really love to say everything that I am thinking right now and, in theory, I should be able to do that. However, because there are too many people that don't know how to take things in context, I have to be all mysterious. What I'd really like is for everyone to keep us in your prayers about this kind of stuff. We also put our house on the market a little over a month ago. We've had no nibbles at all. We really need to sell the house because we have outgrown it and we have way too much stuff for this house. However, we don't know where we'd go if we sold it and we don't really have much leeway in terms of price range. There's a lot of stress there too, so prayers are appreciated all the way around.