Friday, July 1, 2011

Work Hard, Play Hard

Today had its ups and downs.  Madi woke up at 3am and couldn't get back to sleep until 6am.  Slept until around 7am.  Was still very tired, of course.  She finished the entire book "Trumpet of the Swam" by E.B. White during the three hours she was awake.  Loved the book!  We spent the morning in the playroom and eating breakfast.  Julia woke up super happy and was running through the house yelling "Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh" with her hands out to her side and going as fast as she possibly could.  At one point, she ran into the kitchen doing it and then stopped to look at Madi and I.  She had a pot in one hand and a purse on her other shoulder.  She smiled and ran the other direction yelling again.  Totally loud and crazy.

We left for my parents house around 10am.  As soon as Jules went down for her nap, Jer, the girls and I all went swimming.  Riley actually put on her goggles and went underwater!  One time, but still loved it.  Was even talking about it tonight at bedtime.  Though she didn't want to do it again, it's one step closer.  Madi was a fish as always.  Diving in and swimming underwater more than above water.  She splashes constantly.  Riley would go to wipe her face off and said "Everyone always splashes me when they go under water!"  haha - very true.  Riley would also grunt every time she got splashed - "errrrr."  An exasperated grunt.  Totally gets that from me as I do it whenever I'm really frustrated.

We had Sonic for lunch (gotta love those free gift cards) and then went home.  Afternoon felt long today.  Everyone was tired.  Jer and I had both gotten up with Riley the last two nights in the middle of the night.  Madi had hardly slept and was talking quite a lot.  Riley had gotten to bed late, but woke up fine.  By afternoon, she was sassy and kept doing this walk where she puts her hand in a fist and pumps it far in front of her as she takes long strides across the room saying "Fine.  Then I'll just move over here."  Julia was Julia and while she was totally happy most of the time, she also hardly stopped whining all afternoon and never stopped running.  I was about at my wits end juggling it all.

We hadn't had Madi do any studying the last four days due to VBS so today we had her do some math work from one of the books you gave her.  (we just said goodnight to Madi - only Jeremy called her Manny... too much Modern Family, I think! hahaha)  She was going quite fast through the multiplication fact pages (just simple multiplication like 5X5 or whatever - single digit).  It was a wheel to fill in so she could also just add another "5" to the next problem so it became more about addition than multiplication and was too easy compared to having it mixed up on flashcards or other problems in the other book she has.  So I looked through her book until we found a much more complex problem page for her.  Told her that she needed to be challenged as she's smart and she can handle it.  Don't want her just doing what comes easy to her.  She really didn't want to do the page.  But we made her do it anyway.  Took quite a bit of time which is fine.  It was good to have her really think through the answers.  She had to show her work and prove her problems just like she'll have to do at school.  It was four digit numbers multiplied by two digit numbers.  She finished the page with Jeremy while he worked through each one with her (letting her do her work on her own while he did his on the iPad).  Then they checked the work together.  I was chasing Julia and Riley around and we had to go to the store to get something for the neighbor for the birthday party tomorrow for their two year old.  So all in all she studied about an hour and a half.  Was great for her to persevere through it and finish the work.  It was quite a bit harder for her.  Also let us know what things are too easy for her and where her point of struggle is.  Makes it easier for us to know when to help and what to expect of her.  We were both very proud of her for working so hard on her math today.

Tonight for dinner we had cold pasta with vinaigrette and chicken.  Riley took 1 hour and 47 minutes to finish eating - argh!!!  Julia ended up throwing her food against the wall and all over the floor.  So between the cleanup, the bath for Jules, bedtime for Jules, mopping the floor, and watching Riley eat one piece of noodle at a time followed by an entire egg with cheese which she gobbled down, it was a stressful dinner.  We're working on having Madi keep her mouth closed as she eats.  Jeremy just does the same thing to her that your dad did with you guys and it is helping.

Bedtime went great tonight.  Jeremy actually fell asleep with Madi as she was reading.  When she nudged him to wake him up, she was staring right into his face and grinning ear to ear.  She told him "you were snoring!"  He thought it was hilarious!

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