Labor Day, Milestones

Okay, I know I'm a little behind, but here are some pics anyway of our Labor Day weekend! Some of my faithful readers might have already seen these on fb, as my photog-SIL posted a bunch of great ones there. We had a great time riding four-wheelers, wading in Blue River, and having a weenie roast at my Uncle Gary's beautiful ranch.

This pic below is hilarious I think; it's six people on a four-wheeler: Paul, Diane, Claire, Kerrigan, me, and Anna! We had 11 people on three four-wheelers, although four of the people were six and under. And I can now say that I have nursed a baby while on the back of a moving four-wheeler (not in this picture). As my BIL Kyle said, Anna was getting a milkshake!! Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.



Carson helps the girls get to the rock. The water was rushing pretty quickly in spots.


I'm smiling, but my bottom is in for a world of hurt in just a second!!


Anna loved it!! But she did wish she could get down and crawl around. She's getting to be quite the wiggleworm, making church tough at times! I must also mention that her hair is very reddish in sunlight, but more of a golden red inside. We get tons of comments on her being a redhead. We'll see!




Anna loves getting to gum on a whole piece of fruit!! This is Diane feeding her a peach. Right now, AJ will eat chunks of very soft fruit, puffs, rice rusks, and teething biscuits. She has yet to warm up to any veggies very much, although she'll occasionally take a few bites of sweet potato or carrots.



Also, in the milestone department, Anna is now cruising! Big Sis helped her on this one, I think, as Claire has been pushing her on her walker for a couple weeks now. Now, Anna moves right along on it, or along the couch or bathtub. She is thrilled with herself.

MAMA!

At seven and a half months, Anna is saying Mama! She makes the sound "mom" a lot while she's focusing on getting somewhere, but sometimes when she's actually trying to get to ME, she says "Mama!" It's so sweet.

And Claire is saying all kinds of crazy stuff! Today, we were driving, and she said, "I saw one cow, Mom." (She has recently switched to calling Jay and me Dad and Mom instead of Daddy and Mommy.) I said, "Just one cow all by itself?" and she said, "Yes. I guess his other cows must have gone up to heaven!"

A note for Mama

Claire is big into writing notes, in which she scribbles ciphers onto a piece of notebook paper, and then tells me what she's written. The other day, I could have burst with pride when she showed me a note she'd written to mommy that said "Claire will obey, be patient, not tell lies, and not throw fits." I had not given her a list like this or a lecture or anything! But we've really been working on her behavior these past couple weeks; I'm reading a book called Training Up a Child: Following God's Plan, and it is so refreshingly old-school. I get so used to reading all this psycho-babble about child-rearing that it is so nice to hear a lady say that a woman has to be a good helpmeet to her husband to be a good mother. It's so true! I've gotten a major attitude adjustment, and I hope it sticks: I'm trying to fix Jay's lunches for him before he leaves, show interest in his jobs, get the house cleaned up for when he comes home, and in general let him do his job of being the leader around here!

But anyway, this book has a very old-school take on discipline and chores, too: the author says nothing will sweeten an attitude faster than a good old-fashioned spanking--with a rod! She actually recommends going to a tree and getting a thin, flexible branch, since that's what the Bible says parents should use on a child! We're still sticking with the hand for now. We're working on making "obeying Mama" a very important thing, or else she can expect a march to another room and a spanking she will remember. We've also started doing a chore chart and allowance for Claire (a nickel per chore per day), and it's amazing how willing she is to be a good helper, even with things that aren't on her chore chart! With this focus on being a helper and obeying Mama, she's also become much more willing to leave when I say it's time to go, which has always been a point of difficulty for her. I've been trying to do a better job of communicating to her the plan for when we go somewhere ("I'm going to feed Anna, and then we're leaving Mamaw's house."), and then she'll repeat it back to me, just as proud as can be. It's seems like if I find the right balance of respect and firmness to address her with, she really responds to it, like she feels like she's part of the team, and is willing to do her job or face the consequences.

Claire also brought a note to me the other day that she said was a letter to Santa that said, "I love you, Santa." I said, "That's nice that you didn't ask for anything; you just told him you love him." Then she said, "And I drew two mean ghosts." ???

As for Anna: she's seven months old, still a totally breastfed baby, and loves to watch her big sis, pull herself up and shout for joy, and grab stuff. It's great to have two different stages of kids! I love that Anna requires no complicated explanations, but I also love that Claire likes to have things explained. Life is good.

First day of school!

We're enjoying our first school day here at the Mauck house. I love my schedule: my first class is at 9:30, so I have to leave by 8:50 to get the girls to Calera and back to SE with a few minutes to park and hike through parking lots and upstairs to my office, where I prep for a couple minutes. Then I have two sections of Comp 1 back-to-back, BOTH in a smart classroom this year, which I'm super-psyched about. That way I don't have to make so many copies of handouts or activities; I just pull them up on the computer and let everyone look on the projector screen. I'm back to P&D's house by 12:30. On Thursdays, I'll take Anna to their house and then take Claire to Thursday School before I go on to the college, so I have to leave a tad earlier.

The girls both had a great time with Mamaw and Papaw this morning: Diane pretends they're having school, and they do arts and crafts, recess, and storytime before lunch. Anna ate a rice rusk with some carrots and then took a nap, and was still asleep when I got back!

In other news, I've started running with a friend; we were doing a workout video three mornings a week at her house, but got bored with that and decided to run instead. While it's so hot, we're running at the church gym, but hopefully by the time it cools off, we'll both have secured jogging strollers and can run at the park. We're planning on doing a 5k in Caddo in October.

Speaking of Caddo, I have five former Caddo students in my classes this year! I suppose that's a compliment that they chose to come back for more!