I don't know what to do!

I'm to the point where I need help! I am so upset and worried for Natalie! I almost don't want to put anything here because if I do, then it's always out there, but I need some advice on whether I should go talk to a doctor or if I'm just over reacting about things.

Natalie has always been a worrier, worrying a lot more about things than she rightfully should. But lately, especially when getting up and ready for school, she stresses to the point where she cannot function! This morning it was about her socks and it took her 25 minutes to eat a small bowl of cereal because she was having a fit about her socks. The past three weeks of school, we have maybe 1 good morning out of the 5. I've tried everything, bribing (I know horrible), encouragement, punishment, ignoring, but nothing seems to work. The past couple days we've had her eat breakfast first thing in the morning so she has the blood sugar she needs to function and this has helped a little, these mornings are not as stressful as mornings that she gets dressed first, but still bad enough. I am usually so upset by the time it's time to take her down to the bus (or some mornings into school because she's taken so long that we miss the bus) that on the way home I'm bawling! I try to not to yell at her when I get this upset, because that really doesn't help things, but sometimes I just can't hold it back. I know she can do it, but she just gets so stressed about things she can't get past it.

Yesterday I subbed in a class where this boy threw a fit each time I assigned some class work because he didn't have enough time, or his teacher wouldn't like the way he did it, or something else. And then it was escalated because some kids were looking at him while he was throwing his fit. I can see this in Natalie. If she doesn't do something exactly right, or how she thinks it should be done, she stresses out!

Depression runs on both sides of our family and both my sister and Peter's sister are bi-polar. There have been many times that both my mom and Peter's parents have compared her to Kathi or Betsy that I'm certain she's got the early signs of being bi-polar. I'm a mom, so I want my kid to be healthy and perfect, and, even though I love her unconditionally, it breaks my heart to think that she's got this tough road ahead of her. I don't want to have to "label" her as bi-polar and put her on any kind of medication, but I also know, after watching my sister struggle with it, that if that is what she has, getting her help early on might be the best thing I do for her. I'm scared, worried, heart broken, sad, nervous, etc. for her and I'm to the point that I just don't know what to do. Am I being paranoid, or overreacting? Or is there something to actually be worried about here? From other people I talk to, like the lady I leave her with when I'm subbing, she doesn't act this way for others. Is this just something that she does for mom and dad? Or is it something real?

First Day

Well, today was Natalie's first official day of kindergarten! She was so excited she was up at 6 and ready by 7! Which is great, except we didn't have to leave the house until 9:15. She was so impatient to get to school, she was asking every ten minutes if it was time to leave, so I had to put a movie on to tide over the time. Even with the movie, she asked every half hour, haha.
Normally she'll ride the bus to school, but today I drove her in. We left Alexis with Grandma today, so it was just Natalie and I. On the way there, Natalie informed me that she didn't need me to take her in to her classroom, that she knew where her classroom was and she could go in by herself. I immediately vetoed that one and told her that she may not need me to take her in, but I needed me to take her in. She said I was funny. I took her in, helped her unload her supplies on the table, made her find her clip on name tag, helped her clip it on and then she went to her desk and started the morning worksheet that was waiting there. Mrs. Benson (her teacher) then invited the parents that were still there to hang around and watch the morning routine. So I hung around and watched them do the flag salute, sing a couple songs, count to 20, etc. Natalie didn't know what to think about the flag salute. We hadn't talked about that at all and I think she was a bit uncomfortable doing something she didn't know anything about. I have a feeling it won't be long and she'll be teaching it to Alexis. :) Everything else they did, she already easily knew, and everytime the did something that she knew, she'd look at me with a big smile and give me a thumbs up sign. It made me laugh, I just wish I had thought to bring a camera, oh well.


I can't believe she's a kindergartner already! It just seems yesterday she was just a baby. I always thought that when this day would come, that I wouldn't be emotional, that being a teacher I would be exempt from it. But I didn't think of it through the parent aspect of it and I admit, on my way home I cried a little. I guess it's something about the realization that she's an official KID now and no longer my baby. Before this step, you can always justify that they're still totally dependant on you as a parent. But now, you'll have to start letting them become an independent person, to figure things out on their own. I've always let her be independent, but somehow now it's different. I'm sitting here trying to word it to explain it, but it's one of those things, that until you live it, you can't know how it feels, an unexplainable feeling.

Have a great first day at school, Natalie!! Mommy loves you a lot!!!

Fun Crafts!

Yesterday the girls and I went down to visit our good friends in Seattle! It was a last trip before school/work starts for everyone! While the under 5 foot crowd (the kids) played and napped, the adults worked on a project. We made tooth fairy pillows! Small little pillows that have a pocket in them. When one of the girls loose a tooth, they will place the tooth in the pocket and then the Tooth Fairy will leave the money in the pocket. They turned out way super cute! I love them!

I DID IT!!!

I finally, successfully, pulled off a prank on Peter without giving it away by laughing and looking obvious! I found a fake $5,000 winning scratch ticket today at work. OK I admit that for a few minutes I thought I was the luckiest girl on earth....;) But after reading that "Winning tickets of $100 or more must be sent by mail to the Money Fairy, 123 NoWhere Drive, in Make-Believe Land" I figured it out. But I kept the ticket and practiced over and over again exactly what I was going to say and looking excited without looking mischevious in the car on the way home (I'm sure everyone who saw me must have thought I was nuts!) So first thing when I got home, I gave it to Peter and told him that I won. I didn't say another word. He looked at it and saw that it was a $5,000 winner and got VERY excited! He was jumping up and down laughing and yelling "We won!!!" He showed his dad the ticket and he said that it was very cool! Peter then starts 'spending' the money. He says now we can pay off the credit cards with that and put the money we have saved up as a down payment for a new car. He went on for about 20 minutes. The whole time I was very good and didn't start laughing hysterically, well maybe I was, but he attributed that to my being excited and not what it really was. It wasn't until he decided to figure out where to cash it in that he figured it out. It was hilarious when he did finally realized that it was fake. He yelled, "Ah Crap!" and threw the card down at me, because by this time I was on the floor laughing! So funny! The rest of the night you could hear him mumbling something about how he couldn't believe he fell for it! Finally, the prankee got the pranker!!!!

New Haircut!

I bet you thought it was going to be me who got the new haircut but you thought wrong! Natalie got a haircut yesterday! Many, many months ago she decided to cut her own hair, which you can sort of see in the first picture. And that's after a couple months of growing back out!
Yesterday she asked if we could cut her hair short like mine. We had the serious discussion about if we were to cut it short it was going to be short, there was no going back to long hair right away. She assured me and her dad that she really wanted it short.
So I took her to the hair stylest, constantly asking if she was sure that she wanted it to be cut short. She never waivered! And short it became! She LOVES it, and I do too!
She looks so much older! Doesn't it make her eyes just POP?!?! My little girl is getting big enough to help make these kind of decisions! Which I'm happy about, and very sad that she's growing up so fast too!

HAHA

This morning Alexis has been very independently playing by herself. When she started talking and walking out of the room, I started paying attention to what she's saying and where she's going. She was mumbling on about how she's tired and cranky and needs to go back to bed as she's walking up the stairs. Up the stairs she goes and after a few minutes she didn't come back down so I go up to see. She actually crawled into bed and fell back asleep. My little independent child!

We're still around!

I was told that I needed to do an update. Not much has really been going on, just everyday life around here.

Peter has been working for about a month now! The time has flown by! He's still driving down the Everett and Marysville, but they're saying that next week will be his last week doing that. Our budget for gas will appreciate that very much! Luckily our wonderful diesle Jetta gets GREAT gas milage so it's not that bad. He is enjoying working again and he likes his job and the people he works with! That makes things so much easier!

I've been getting to stay at home with the girls and we have been having lots of fun! If we're not playing outside, we're partying inside! I had a fun video of the girls dancing that I was going to upload, but after hours and hours and three failed attempt I'm giving up!

Natalie and I have been working on reading and spellling. She's really into spelling different words and I have been encouraging her very much. In about 2.5 weeks she'll be starting kindergarten. Although that in itself is turning into more of a hassle than you would think. The lady we had set up to watch the girls while I was going to sub backed out on us. There is a daycare right down the road from us and the school Natalie is supposed to go to, but she only takes school aged kids and doesn't really want to do kindergarten because they only go half days. She says that if she gets other mothers interested she'll reconsider the kindergarten age kids. So even if she does reconsder, we'd have to find somewhere else for Alexis to go to. All the other daycare/babysitters are out of the boundry lines for that school. So I have to figure out what other parents do, because I can't be the only mother who works, or figure out how to transfer her into a different school where I have more options for daycare. Frusterating! But Natalie is excited to start school again!

Alexis is getting bigger by the day it seems. I looked at her the other day and was shocked at how big she's gotten. She's definately not a baby anymore.... more of a kid now. Her vocabulary is getting bigger and she is talking in complete sentences now. She's very independent as well. Which sometimes causes arguments between the girls. Natalie is sometimes still under the mind set that Alexis is still a baby and needs help with everything, and Alexis wants to figure it out by herself.

Still no word on a few of the teaching positions I've applied for. Although I called on Wednesday for one of them and they hadn't called for interviews yet. And I have to turn in two letters of intent this afternoon. So there is still hope. But I'm OK with another year of subbing.