Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Day 1 of Stay-At-Home Bear in the Books


And the race is off. Except there is no finish line in sight. And if I was really running it would be more like a swiftish walk.

The point is that the stay-at-home bear thing is really happening. And in a way even I didn't see coming, the university I work at screwed me a bit and now I only have 1 class instead of two. Can we say tighten that financial belt? I thought it was tight before, but now only oxygen shall get through.

Yesterday was the 1st day of the next 6 years of my life. If we continue to stay in Cali, there's no way we can both afford to work full-time. Preschool is a million dollars.

Given that I know virtually zilch about preschool and babies naturally, I decided to research my kids. The GB is a research nerd 1st and everything else 2nd. So I invested some research time by reading the actual baby books we already own and watching a day of Super Nanny. The results were interesting. The 1st result was a better sense of order and discipline in the house. I am in favor of both because I will be here all day. The 2nd result was fighting with Sun & Moon who did not seem to know where this new discipline came from which is ironic because I got the idea from her.

I have also developed a lesson plan for Cletus and DC based on what they should be learning at their age. I figure we will just repetitively do these things until they  master the skill and then we will move on to new things. For Cletus, everyday we will sing songs, read books, learn about 1 animal, and learn to help/do chores. After that there's a bunch of things we can add but they won't necessarily be daily: playing pretend, stacking, colors, music, shapes, art, motor skills (tumbling), going to the park. For DC, now 3 months, we have talking to her, standing on my hands, tummy time, & holding a rattle or ring. The 1st priority for DC is getting on a schedule so she sleeps better.

I am quite pleased with my nerdiness. I will work on Cletus' lesson plan because I want him ready for kindergarten when the time comes. Also, he will work on following directions as a new part of the house discipline. Super Nanny was really helpful when it came to the time out process and how to make it work effectively.

As far as day 1 went, it was great until 10 minutes before Sun & Moon got home. Right when it was time to show off my hard work and skill development, the house just seemed to explode with chaos. She walked in the door just in time to have no confidence that the day went well. :-( Hopefully, Day 2 will end better.

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