Mr Rychen & Magnets

This morning Rychen and Elisabeth started Science without me even knowing about it. I LOVE to come in the room and hear Rychen reading aloud! (normally he doesn't like to read, but this teacher thing is a little trick to get him to do it!) I went into my office to work. A while later they came in asking for paper clips to do the activity in the book. Then they ran around the house with magnets to see which appliances/furniture were magnetic and Rychen wrote a list (of his own accord! Handwriting practice down for the day!). How cool is that? I love these spunky kids.

(ps. you can't really tell, but this picture is of Rychen holding the magnet with paper clips attached)

"By their fruits ye shall know them"

 I have some pretty great fruits, if I do say so myself!

Weapons weapons

Rychen has reached that time in his life where its all about weapons....

swords, guns, and now the latest is bow and arrow. What a boy!

At first we didn't allow gun toys and we delayed this... until we were out of town last summer and they saw a cousin pretend shooting and they picked it up. Then last month without even thinking, I bought Rychen a toy that shoots a ball out on a string, so you never lose it. I was partial to this toy because I had one when I was little! --but I never pretended to SHOOT PEOPLE! That just didn't occur to me. None of my siblings pretended to shoot people. So we are a little taken aback and concerned...

I talked to a couple friends about what they think about toy guns. I think the consensus is, they will pretend anything is a gun so there's nothing you can do. But as long as their hearts are in the right place (they are not actually cruel people) its probably harmless.

Still, we had our FHE lesson on the sanctity of life and not making fun out of dying or killing.

We are still a little nervous about household accidents when children don't know the difference between a toy and a real weapon (I watched The Secret of Bees too many times, I guess)

Well at least the guns have now turned to swords... at least that's a real sport.

Rychen has been cutting his own toys from cardboard! Which is ironic because the first time (when he forgot to ask permission and made the bad judgment of using a steak knife) he ended up gouging himself - ha! see what you get?

He has made himself and his friends all sword/shield sets. And now yesterday he made a bow with several arrows and a quiver! Is that creative or what. Funny boy.

First-born relationships?

..and speaking of being sentimental with my kids...

It's occured to me lately that I have a certain relationship with Rychen P. that I probably won't have with the other kids. I guess that it normal for a first-born relationship but I haven't heard other moms talk about this (is it a secret?)

I have a really special bond with him as my first-born -- we spent so much one-on-one time with each other, I felt like he was my little buddy in everything I did -- but I think it's an even greater bond because that time of my life was so important. I was going through a lot of changes, growth, therapy, etc. and add that to being a mom for the first time, it was a very emotional time of my life. Plus our personalities are SO MUCH ALIKE that he was just continually challenging me and forcing me to face things about myself. When he was 4 ish, I remember saying we had a love/hate relationship! He was very difficult for me, but I still had such a bond with him. A dramatic relationship of sorts.

Now Elisabeth and Taylor just aren't. Elisabeth is very independent, she wakes up and plays and I can go for hours without her needing me. She does cry from time to time (when she is tired) and need hugs. But that's pretty much it. She goes to bed alone without any issues (Rychen P needed me in there with him til he was 5! He slept in our room for years). Even Taylor doesn't really need me. Sometimes I think if it weren't for my milk, he wouldn't even know who I was. haha! He is just such a low-key, content little guy. He likes to be held and interact but he really doesn't care who it is. (I have to admit this is a fresh change of course...and very welcomed!) Now, I ADORE Taylor, I really enjoy making him smile and mothering him. But just saying what a different time I had with Rychen P. and how that has affected our relationship still. Some people have theories about how birth affects personalities and bonds. I am supposed to be better bonded to E and T since they had a more natural, unintervented birth. But maybe that is why they have more content personalities. But also its probably why I don't have any strong emotions tied up with them...their births were just too easy. (I took Rychen P. to a chiropractor once for energy work and he asked if he was a C-section baby since he was so emotional and had serious attachment problems. Ha! He looked so dumb and unprofessional when I said no...even if I have some theories like that, I woudn't ever come right out with a blanket statement like that! I know lots of well-adjusted c/s babies)

How do your relationships with your children differ?

Memories

I watched the Vow last night, Wow what an interesting story! I loved it. I am glad I watched it with Rychen though because it would have been a different movie for me if he wasn't there. The effect is a lot like the Notebook, and when I watched that movie alone, I cried and cried for hours because I was so confused about my past life!

Well this movie had an effect on me too but not as dramatic, and a more positive one. Well I happened to be holding Taylor at the same time, sleeping in my arms and I was thinking how fast he is growing and I hope I remember his babyhood. (this movie is about forgetting important things and relationships in your life) My biggest fear as a mom is that I will forget special times with my kids. Like right now is a special time of my life with baby Taylor but three years from now I won't even remember this. I have a gap in my memories with Elisabeth, I need to go back through pictures and journals to try to remember. At least I have a journal! I LOVE my journals.

We just had our anniversary and I got out my journal from when we dated. It's a good thing, because it was like a fresh story to me - I remember nothing!!! Ha! So weird!!

The movie ended cute because they get to re-court and get to know each other again, and fall in love again. Well she does, at least. The man just has a lot of patience!

Did you see this move? What did you think? Are you ever scared of forgetting special memories?

Mr. Rychen

Rychen loves being a know-it-all! And of course we know the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. So I have been having Rychen be Elisabeth's preschool teacher. She does preschool about twice a week with a friend, and we switch of houses. Well its a great deal for me because I don't have to teach ever -- I just have Rychen do it. heehee :)  He does games and activities to learn letter sounds with the girls, and other things he comes up with. Like last time, he decided on his own to demonstrate piano and teach them how the piano works with the strings and hammers.

 

Now we got a kindergarten science textbook, and the words are the perfect reading level for Rychen. So I am having him read a chapter to Elisabeth every day and discuss the pictures. Taylor likes it too :)

Workin' at the Car Wash!

My van has been sporting a thick layer of dust. We usually wait for a coupon and take it to get washed, but this time I said "No!" The kids are getting old enough and need this opportunity to learn WORK. When I was growing up my Dad would pay us to wash the cars! It was a lot of fun and hard work. What kid doesn't want to spray the hose?? Look at Elisabeth in her skirt and dress shoes! She loved helping out.

Family Update

 Taylor is 4 months now. I can't decide what his temperment is or how to classify him. He is different than the other two were (or maybe I just can't remember). When he is awake, he is really content and happy for anyone to be holding him. When he is hungry/tired, he is a very frustrating baby. He just cat naps here and there, and occasionally he'll take a real nap. And he does not like to eat. I do remember when R and E were toddlers, it would be hard to nurse them if anything else was going on in the room because they were so distractable. Well Taylor is like that already! Even if we're in a room alone, it's off on, off on, off on. Which drives me crazy because my milk is on on, on on, on on. If you get my drift.  Anyway... Somehow he manages to gain weight at an amazing rate. He doubled his birthweight in 3 months, instead of the standard 6 months. He is way chunky, weighing now what Elisabeth (and myself) weighed at one year!

 

 Elisabeth is 3-1/2 and reading like a champ. We exposed her, sure. But she really taught herself. She also likes to scream. She plays great by herself but Rychen often tries to get her involved and they end up screaming at each other... we really wish they would just play on their own a lot of the times.

 

 Rychen is two months shy of 7. He can read a little bit better than Elisabeth. But his math abilities are well into third grade. Its intersting to see how the two kids have their individual strengths. He has only recently been doing spelling and is doing well, not because he is good with language but because he is good with memorization. So his guesses are terrible, but once he is taught how to spell something he won't forget. Rychen can read chapter books now but he still won't pick them up and read on his own. However he has read several books on audio, including the entire first book of Story of the World which is how he is learning Ancient world history. Rychen's good news lately is that he has nearly mastered all the songs in the Suzuki book 1 for piano and is now in book 2. Another exciting thing is that he can now eat oatmeal and eggs because we figured out he was only reacting to certain types. He is not allergic to oats after all, but the trace amounts of gluten from processing them. And eggs he can have naturally raised eggs.

 

 ME... I am doing a twice weekly swim class at YMCA and running the other days. I don't have any event plans yet but would like to do a few half marathons later in the year, and a sprint triathlon or two. But its just fun to get out and work my body. I am still working at home 3-5 hours a day.

 

 Rychen is swimming and running also; and just signed up for a Half-Ironman triathlon! That will be exciting. He is much busier at work now that a few more brokers have joined their office. But he still finds time to clean our house :) He is building our fence by himself. We just had our 8th anniversary and are still goin' strong!