Life Lately

(Oh, yes.  Sister competition is fierce these days.)

Dance

I must say that I'm so proud of the girls for their maturity, confidence and focus.  They were moved up in ballet this year and it turns out they are the youngest (and the smallest) in their class but that hasn't stopped them.  At first, I feared they would be intimidated because of the age differences.  Nope.  I was surprised when Anna asked to take tap this year.  She's tapped before but, again, there are older kids in this class and it's more difficult.  That kid is holding her own.  She gives it her all and never once complains about it being too hard.

Last week, we attended a birthday dinner for Rich's mom and Allie choreographed a dance to perform.  Well, it was supposed to be for all three girls but there was arguing over when and how to rehearse so Allie broke off on her own.  We had a private room in the restaurant and everyone cleared space for her dance.  It was so impressive people thought she was performing an actual dance recital routine.

Homework

The trend of less homework has extended our way and it appears that Emily's teacher is in the camp of less is more.  This, of course, generates cries of "unfair" from the other two.  Life is unfair.  Move on.  Allie and Anna actually don't have an exorbitant amount of homework but they do have more.  We have a good routine going and homework is wrapped up quickly.  Although, Anna asked if she could complete hers while playing school the other day and I said yes.  It was super cute.  She was the teacher and she had dolls and stuffed animals lined up for students.

I go back and forth with my feelings on reading logs.  All three girls have reading logs this year.  Emily is required to complete hers Monday through Thursday while A and A have to fill it out every night.  They all need to read for a minimum of 20 minutes.  There have been times when it feels as if they've stopped short reading at night because they've met or exceeded that 20 minutes and they've filled out the log (A and A have to include page numbers) so they just go to sleep.  They're good readers so I'm not concerned with what is recorded on the log.  It's just that the log is sometimes a nuisance.  That being said, I understand why reading logs exist.  There are some kids who simply would not read at all and I am a believer that reading is important.

Reading

Speaking of reading, I don't recall if I've shared this little story here or not, so this may be a repeat.  A few months ago, I was chatting with Allie's BFF's mom, who used to work in the city.  She told me that she hasn't read a book since ending her public transportation days.  I inhaled sharply when she told me.  NOOOOOO!  At the time of our conversation, I felt like finishing a book before it was due back to the library was a struggle.  Whether right or wrong, I've been carving out time to read.  The cleaning will get done.  Hey, everyone's eating good meals so I don't want to hear any complaints.

Running  

I've continued to run, bumping up the length of my runs and sometimes my speed.  I decided to give myself a speed test a few weeks ago, despite not feeling well.  For my speed test, I wanted to see how fast I could run 1 mile.  I told myself I could walk a half mile afterwards and then slowly run another mile.  While I was fairly happy with my time (8:22), I did talk myself out of quitting multiple times while silently cursing, and I was sore for two days.  I also ended up taking off a week from running after that because of some wonderful back-to-school wildfire-spreading germs.


(I thought we all had strep throat again!  Nope, just colds.)


(How awesome is this photo?  I love it for so many reasons.  I didn't even ask them to pose like that.  That was their own doing.)