Finally, an Update!

Wow, three weeks sure do fly!

Some may be wondering how Noah is doing in Kindergarten. He loves his teacher, has made tons of friends, and is receiving lots of positive reinforcement for good behavior. The transition has been pretty rough, though. Noah was still taking 2-hour naps up until the week before he started school, so now he comes home and plays for awhile before dinner, but by dinnertime, we are getting all KINDS of pouting, attitude, and general crabbiness that is wearing us all down. He eats a snack at school right before he comes home, but I am rethinking the type of snack to send, hoping to change something. We try to have the lights out by 8:00, and I wake him up by 7:00, but perhaps bedtime needs to be even earlier. That's the catch--one of his biggest complaints is that he never has time to just play. He isn't home until almost 4:00, and since he insists on dragging dinner out by sitting at the table for close to an hour before eating what's on his plate, he hardly has time to play and relax. The most difficult aspect for Chris and me, besides Noah's change in behavior, is some of the tough conversations we've had with him over the last three weeks.

The first week of school, Noah told me he had to sit out for a few minutes during recess because he was pretend shooting. I'm sure he was warned, but he told me, "They said not to play guns. We weren't playing guns, though, we were pretending to play guns!" We talked about the fact that sometimes we don't agree with a rule, but we still need to follow that rule. That was the EASY conversation. The next week, Noah was telling me about some of his new friends and mentioned one we'll call "Jeremy." I casually asked Noah if Jeremy is a nice boy, and Noah responded, "Kind of..." To summarize, our conversation was about choosing good people to be our friends but still showing love and kindness to each person. Noah was sobbing at the thought of not being Jeremy's friend, but he also knew that Jeremy was breaking rules and acting up and was probably not the best friend to choose. And last week, a little girl we'll call "Mary" told Noah a bold-faced lie, and even promised him that it was true. This lie made Noah believe that a teacher endorsed bullying, because he couldn't comprehend that someone would tell such a whopper to him. So then we had a conversation about how some children don't have parents who teach them honesty, and how he needs to be careful about believing Mary in the future since she had been caught in a lie. A few days later, I asked how things were going with Mary, and I learned that Noah is some kind of ringleader because he had instructed most of the class not to play with Mary since she lied to him. Ack!!! We then proceeded to explore the idea of forgiveness and the Golden Rule. I am EXHAUSTED from all of the moral lessons, not to mention the academic ones!

Audrey handles one-on-one time with Mommy fairly well, considering that I am not nearly the playmate Noah is and the poor thing ends up running lots of errands with me in the mornings. We are up by 6:30 and drag Noah out of bed by 7:00, and aim to be pulling out of the driveway by 7:45. School begins at 8:00, so we usually have dropped him off in the carpool line around 7:58 (don't judge) and try to run errands then. It's pretty annoying that lots of places don't open until 10:00 a.m.! I mean, c'mon, Costco, get with the program. We can be finished with grocery shopping and home by 9:30! I've been able to have lunch with some people, work my JBF consignment sale, go to ladies' Bible study, shop, volunteer at Hearts & Hands, clean, volunteer for the PTA, and quite a few other of my "to-dos" while Noah's at school. Audrey takes a nap right after lunch usually, so as of the fourth day of school, Noah has ridden the bus home. He enjoys it, I love the convenience, and I feel comfortable with it since he has two friends he rides home with (our neighbors Colton and Cassidy).

I've also been playing volleyball on a co-ed team with church friends, and now I joined a women's team that will hopefully be pretty competitive. Our games start in October, but we've had a couple of practices and I am certainly getting my exercise!

In other news, TCU football season started a few weeks ago and we are currently undefeated! Chris and I have tickets with his parents, plus some friends of my Aunt Nancy's and Chris' coworker Anna and her husband. We enjoyed AWESOME fall football weather for our first two games, which is not taken for granted here in Texas!

These two haven't been to a game yet, but they support the Frogs on game day!

The other day, Audrey told us, "I cheesing." 

The campus of TCU is one of my favorite places to be :)

Chris with our friends Daniel and Frank and Daniel's cousin

Horned Frog Marching Band! I miss these days...

Loving the fast-paced Horned Frog offense!

Our game day buddies!