My Bright Beginnings

Not many people know, but I made a career change last year. I had been working in child care for a few years and risen through the ranks. On the outside all looked good. Multiple promotions sounds like a good thing. However, managing adults and dealing with adult problems is not my forte. I enjoy working with kids. I love to see them grow and thrive. My heart swells when I get to be one of the reasons they are learning and growing. So, when a preschool teaching position became available, I jumped at the opportunity. It was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I joined the Y preschool team half way through the last school year. It was a rough transition for the kiddos. They were used to one teacher and then had to meet this stranger and go with her flow. Thankfully, preschoolers are pretty flexible, and open to change as long as the change is fun.

Last year ended wonderfully and this new school year is showing promise to be just as awesome. So, I've decided to document my journey and share some of the fun things my classes do through the year.

A little background:

I have two classes this year. Both are half days. One class is ages 3-4, while the other is 4-5.

Both classes have the same themes, letters, numbers, colors, and shapes to learn for the week. However they will not always do the same activities. Sometimes they will have the same activities, but the older class may have more steps or more fine motor skills to practice.

Buddyboy happens to be in my 4-5 class. Sometimes it's nice having him with me; then other days it's really hard having your own kid in your class.

Last year I only had one half day class, so I'm interested to see how the juggling of two classes, at differing developmental and academic stages, goes.

I'm hoping I'll be able to keep up with this blog since I really enjoy this work and want to share all the awesome things we do.

My Top 5 Books on Parenting

As usual, it's been a while between my postings. I am currently seeing a trend of # sharing your top 7 books. Really??? Only 7??? Hmmmm. I can't even narrow it to 10. However, if I am allowed to narrow by category, this seems more achievable. So, here are my top 5 parenting books thus far in my almost 7 years of parenting. Enjoy!

Also, these are not in best to worst order, but in order of my finding and using based on my children's ages and stages. 😉


1. The Nursing Mother's Companion

This book was my first favorite parenting book. It reassured me while pregnant with my first child that I would be able to feed her once she arrived and help her to survive with substantial food I provided. This book provided multiple issues that can occur and multiple ways to help you and your child solve the problems. It didn't make me nervous, and while I was learning how to be a new parent through my exhausted and PPD state, this book never felt shaming but was always encouraging. Because of the easy with which I found nursing to be, I was able to nurse both my children until their first birthdays, after which I called it quits.





2. The Happiest Baby on the Block

This book was a life saver in my daughter's first year where everything is new in parenting no matter how experienced you are at nannying, babysitting, or from reading books and blogs. This book helped both my husband and I figure out how to answer the screaming or crying which was baby's only way to communicate. Again, this book was never shaming, but always encouraging and providing options on ways to make the parent-child relationship an enjoyable journey. Thankfully, once our second kiddo came along we were familiar with these methods, and it was a much quicker adjustment to life with a baby with only a few times needing to glance through this book.






3. The Happiest Toddler on the Block

This book was a life saver when our oldest began testing EVERYTHING. Limits, patience, boundaries, you name it. How do we deal with this?! What is this tantrum about?! Why won't she talk to us?! This book answered these questions. I think out of all the books that we've read together, this was my husband's favorite. "They are little cave-people!" He tells anyone who is willing to listen on his new philosophy on toddlers.





4. 1-2-3 Magic: 3-Step Discipline for Calm, Effective, Happy Parenting

This book was really helpful once we had both kids acting up and the older was no longer a toddler. It as helped us as a family get through the grocery without meltdowns and embarrassment. This book was really good to build on what had already learned from "The Happiest Toddler on the Block." Both kids know that when I start counting, I mean business and will typically get a move on.







5. Calmer, Easier, Happier Parenting

This is the newest book that my husband and I are reading. While all the other books have been great, and have helped us feel more confident as parents, we are now entering a stage where our oldest is simply tuning us out. She doesn't seem to hear us when we ask her to do something, once, twice, three times. She doesn't hear us start to count until we are yelling, and we are only yelling because she is totally and completely ignoring us speaking to her. So far we've enjoyed this read and are very hopeful that this will be the next book to help us in our parenting journey of making a happy, healthy home for our family.



What are some of your favorite parenting books? Have you read these? Let me know your thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

Little Helper

Today we did some serious cleaning in the house. We have lived in our new home for just over a year and I finally emptied that dreaded last box. The one that was shoved in a corner and hidden behind a chair to be kept out of sight when I was fed up with all the unpacking and cleaning that comes with moving. This was my home school box. It had all the extra "little things" that were helpful to have, but not a necessity. So it has sat there, for a year, having been open a handful of times, waiting to finally be unloaded.

When going through this box, I found our preschool calendar. I haven't felt an urge to break this out again since this year Babycake was away in Kindergarten, and Buddyboy didn't turn three until a couple months ago. Since Buddyboy is now working on many things preschool, I figured we might as well put up the calendar.

Babycake enjoyed going through all the old school things. She even helped organize, hang, and laminate the calendar for Buddyboy. I think she was more excited about the whole thing than Buddyboy was. She hunted for our special fourth of July date marker, and placed a Happy Birthday date marker for her cousin born just yesterday.

I'm very happy one of the kiddos is excited to use the calendar, I just wish it was the one who will be learning what a calendar is. ;-)

The new kid calendar station

Babycake's calendar set up at the old house.

New Season of Letter of the Week

I tried, and failed, to start preschool with Buddyboy this year while Babycake was at school. He was vaguely interested in learning shapes and counting, would do a craft if I laid it all out for him, but really he was happy to just run rampant.

This summer however, Babycake was provided some instruction to keep her counting, reading, and writing, sharp over summer, and suddenly Buddyboy is into learning as well! I wasn't too surprised to see him sit contentedly for 10 mins crafting and singing letter songs while across the table his sister is doing her own work. Whatever she does, he has to do as well.

So While I've been having Babycake work on her words and numbers each morning with breakfast, I've had Buddyboy practicing his letter sounds and making crafts to go with each letter. It has been such a success! So far Buddyboy knows most shapes at sight, can count on his own to 20 (mixing a number here or there), and knows A is for alligator and apple, and E is for elephant without any help. As far as colors go, everything is yellow, or blue. We're watching to see if he has some color blindness.

In the end, I couldn't be more pleased with his sudden interest in specified learning. We have read every day of his life, and we discuss how things do and don't work b/c he's asking, but I've not been able to sit down with him long enough to specifically point out a 'triangle has 3 sides.' I'm pumped and hope I have the stamina to keep this up once school starts back up and I switch back working mornings instead of evenings. I'd like to at least get 3 days in of preschool-esc education in a week, but wouldn't be surprised if it becomes once or twice a week. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Kindergarten Graduate

Well. Babycake did it! She made it through her first year of school. She LOVED it. I could not have asked for a better teacher. Mrs. B. was about as Montessori as you can get in a public school. Addison loved her, her class, the bus ride and driver... pretty much everything about school.

Not only did Babycake finish off her first year of school but she also finished her first year as a Girl Scout. One year of Daisies in the bag! Some how I got roped into helping lead the troop... Oh well. Babycake enjoyed the time I spent with her and her friends. That's what matters.

Month schedule of words and numbers for each day

Now we are half way through summer. Life is just flying past. Mrs. B. sent home a little practice binder with all of her 'Kinder friends' so the kiddos could continue their learning and stay fresh over break. Babycake and I are LOVING this! As we all know, Babycake is a bottomless pit when it comes to her desire to learn, so this was such a relief for me that we were provided a layout for education over the summer. The first week, Babycake was all about her dry erase binder work. Currently, she is all about Sciencefusion. She does it all, its just fun to see what each of her favorites are each week.

My schedule I adjusted for what was provided and fits in our schedule

Number of the Day

Word of the Day

2017 in Review

Wow! It has been a year since my last post. I am not at all surprised I didn't carve out time to keep up with this blog. 2017 was a crazy busy year for us. Every time I felt we were settling into a new routine and catching our breathes things changed again.

I think that's what the theme for 2017 was for our family- Change. We sold our home of 7 years in March. We had a 20 day time limit from acceptance of offer to signing and leaving. We did not find a home to purchase in those 20 days and so moved into a 2 bedroom apartment. We lived there for three months. The first month was fun. Almost all of our possessions were in storage so we were living very minimally. The kids thought this was awesome. The not only shared a room, but a bed as well. Being in such a small space we couldn't get away from one another and were always on top of each other. Like I said, the first month was fun. After that I was desperately house hunting at all hours of the day.

Our first home

The balcony was the kids' yard in which to

play at the apartment.

Due to the smallness of the apartment, we really got to know our new town's parks. We spent most of our afternoons at one of the surrounding parks and attending many of the Park and Rec events. Babycake's 5th birthday was at one these new parks. Her theme was superheroes. She was so lucky to have many family and friends attend. Buddyboy's 2nd birthday was held at Monkey Joe's. Due to the cost of such an event, and the fact we couldn't host in our apartment, we only had family attend. Both kids enjoyed both parties.

Checking out an emergency helicopter during our town's Safety Day!

Kids got to help paint Babycake's new room!

Now our 20 day house sale was crazy, but that seemed to be the way the market was last year. Every house that was listed seemed to sell within 24 hours of popping on the market. I was truly grateful I was home all day with the kids and only worked evenings at this time. I was able to continuously watch listings and meet our realtor at a house almost with in 2 hours of the house having been listed. I honestly lost count of the number of houses we saw. We made offers on 4. We were outbid on all four. Amazingly on the last house we made an offer the people who outbid us and were accepted backed out and we were next in line.

Yay! We finally had a home! I have to admit the kids were troopers through the whole selling/buying/ moving process. Babycake was excited to move and never had any fits about it. Buddyboy was too small to fully understand the life changes happening around him. We could not have asked for better kids. Love them!

The time line of finalizing the sale and our rent ending was pretty perfect. We had a week from buying the house to having to be out of the apartment. We got new floors installed (of course home improvement never goes as planned but I won't go into that.) We didn't think moving a second time in one year was easy enough, so we decided to go on a two week vacation for Hubby's 30th birthday the week after our move. Who cared that our house was a disaster of boxes and disarray? While the trip was nice, especially b/c we left the kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa, I was happy to come back and get our life into some kind of order. Then of course the dishwasher pooped out with in the first month of home ownership. Our AC froze over the second month, and on the third month Babycake started Kindergarten. What?!? How is my baby old enough to be in school?!

Frozen over AC creeping into the house

Waiting for the bus and Buddyboy thinks he's going with

Babycake is LOVING school. She could not wait to start school like many of her friends did last year. She gets to ride the bus, and there are three other kids in our new neighborhood who are in her class,  then a couple more kids are also in Kindergarten. We are very happy with our new neighborhood.

Babycake has made a lot of friends and her teacher is Amazing. I don't know how she heard about it, but within the first month of school Babycake was asking if she could be a Girl Scout. With all the changes and new things in our lives I really did not want to have her join any extra curricular activities. However, I went to the information meeting, and low and behold, I came home the Co-leader for Babycake's new Daisy troop. Needless to say she also loves Girl Scouts. She and her friends regularly ask when the next troop meeting is because they "CANNOT wait!" for the next one.

First GS Fun Badge!

During Fall Break the kids and I went on a road trip to visit friends in Ohio. They are homeschooled so it was wonderful we could go during the week and all of our schedules worked. Our friends moved there a couple years ago and I am truly grateful our friendship has been able to continue despite the distance and the crazy that is family life.

About half way through fall semester I got a promotion at my job at the YMCA. This of course comes with more hours than I was previously doing. Buddyboy does not like the amount of time we are at work. He is at a stage where he is big enough he can handle being in the big kid area and play well there, however he is not fully potty trained so he is not technically allowed out of the toddler area.

So. We are also potty training. Buddyboy has shown interest in using the potty for a long time, and any time he requested to sit on the potty we helped him. At this point he is fine at home. He rarely has accidents. However, he does not wear underwear or diapers at home (except for naps and bedtime of course). He does have to wear pull-ups when at work, so he has a harder time telling he has to pee and honestly doesn't care if he does b/c he knows it doesn't make a mess. So, this whole process may take more time getting down pat when we are not home. Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

Potty training attire

Finally, we went south to visit family over the new year weekend. We came back to find our furnace not working and the house at a chilly 40*. We had come home Sat afternoon. A technician came within an hour of our calling, but would not be able to get the needed part until Tuesday due to it being a holiday weekend with the new year starting Monday and his supply garage being closed. We are so grateful to our friends that took us in for two nights. On the third night of no heat we camped out in the basement with space heaters. The kids had a great time and slept really well.

That's our year in a nut shell. I'm hoping 2018 is a little less busy and gives us time to breath.

Bright Beginngs Update

The holidays are over! Hooray! As fun as they are, I think everyone can agree the holiday season is also crazy busy and stressful. Now that it is over though I have a break to share some of the new things were trying and enjoying. I'm determined that we will have a more regular school schedule as well as daily routine. Obviously I have resolutions for the new year ;-)

There were a few months when it was difficult to find time to sit down with Babycake and go over our lessons. She was still regularly taking naps and they lined up with Buddyboy's. However, when they would both be awake, Buddyboy (who has no slow mode) couldn't be distracted in order to get in a 5-20 min lesson with Babycake. Now, Buddyboy still doesn't have a slow mode, but he can be content to sit and try painting, play-doh, stickers,or sorting shapes for 5-10 min giving Babycake and I enough time to go over together what the lesson for the day is and allows me to sit with them both and share in the excitement of discovery.

Babycake with her spelling puzzles
Buddyboy sorting shapes in no particular order

Babycake playing math game
Buddyboy with Play-Doh

As I've mentioned before in previous posts, Babycake became frustrated with furthering our Bob Books reading. So for x-mas she received some Leap Frog Tag books and a Tag pen. The pen will read the simple books to the child as well as define words and play games. This has been a real hit as she likes to be independent, and I get a break from needing to entertain while at the same time she's getting a little education. I wouldn't go so far as to say these books are teaching Babycake how to read, but they do show that to read you go from right to left, and she is able to recognize a few words after pointing to them and hearing  it read to her. 

I also received "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" as an x-mas gift which I hope will help in our reading goals. So far we've done the first two lessons and flew through them. Babycake was happy to do them because she received praise for doing well. Since they are the first to lessons, they are incredibly basic and she already knew the material. I'm hoping that as the lessons progress and build she won't realize the get slightly more difficult and she continues to enjoy them.

And finally Babycake received some games by The Learning Journey Company that we really enjoy. Last year she received the Math game and we've really enjoyed it for math lessons as well as a rainy or cold day activity. So she was very excited to receive more games. The games are simple enough that she can do them on her own yet she learns at the same time. I also like that they are games/puzzles so she will let me, or her dad play with her every once in a while.

So needless to say, I'm hoping that we can stick to our new routine and enjoy some new games, stories and education along the way. Wish us luck!