Signs of Life : The Brownie Chronicles

We kicked off our 2013-2014 school year by sending off the boys to TSD the last week of August. Tian is now in pre-k and Travis has started Kindergarten!  They both have excellent teachers, so we couldn't be more pleased. I have a bit of a learning curve to get through this year. I've never had a child in government-run grade school.  Now that Travis is in Kindergarten, he has homework he brings home every night. The idea of having him do assigned homework after he's been in school for seven hours goes totally against my personal teaching philosophy, so the second week of school, when the homework began, I struggled with my own attitude regarding his homework. In the midst of my exasperating about it to Ken and silently to myself, I realized I wasn't being a good example to my kids.  How can I expect them to work diligently and with a good attitude, even when they don't like what I'm asking of them, if I don't model that myself?  So, I look at the h...

This blog post is written directly to my friends, family, and anyone who has commented on my blog or YouTube account this year. I'm not ignoring you!   *smiling and cringing in apology*   Well, I haven't been ignoring you, but I have been putting off replying to many of you.  Whether I've gotten emails, facebook messages, or texts, I've just had a tough time replying in a timely manner.  This has been a challenging summer to say the least, but I would say my busy-ness started months before that. I have several friends from my boys' classes with whom I've been talking about playdates for months, but they just aren't happening.  When I finally do get together with someone, it's because they were persistent in contacting me.  For you I'm grateful!  It's ironic, because in the past, I was told on several occasions that I was the friend always reaching out.  Years ago, I even remember having friends with kids about the same age as my ...