Well, it's already the last day of August and man this summer has just flown by. It was not much of the 'true' Chicago weather that we are used to, so in a way feels like we were gipped a bit. It's been in the mid to upper 60's the last couple of days and just does not seem fair to be this temp at this point in the summer! But I'm hopeful we will experience the indian summers we've been lucky to have the last 2, or so, years. It would be wonderful to know that we will get another warm bout... even just a bit of it.
Dahlia's first "how to" video.... She's a natural...
Check out some of Kaidin's at: http://kaidinjarjusey.blogspot.com/ (I think he has tons of updating to do as he has over 20 dvd's of over 2hours of footage each! He's been busy this summer!!!)
So... let's see, our August was quite busy. We did lots of beach and pool time, visited family in Waukonda, park days and playdates. We were up in Waukegan one day to see the Nina and the Pinta replicas. That was a fun day trip on the train. We visited Volo bog with our family from/in Waukonda and that was quite an interesting lil' trip. Had our international pen pal group gathering, helped friends pack up for their move, scoured tons and tons of garage sales and were unfortunate to not find any camping equipment what-so-ever. But all fo the pool and beach time made up for it! ; )
For work, I found a local woman to do a tv show on me and Cultural Care on the local Evanston tv station. I did this long interview, and she also snap-shot 2 local host families and au pairs, as well as visited my au pair meeting this month to interview a couple au pairs. It's airing this week, and for the whole month of September! I'm excited to see the final product. We had gotten to see snips of it along the way b/c I asked her if I could bring Kaidin by to see the studio and editing process. He's still 110% into filming and he was so stoked to know that mommy was going to be on tv. He is sure we are going to be famous now. Too funny. Anyway, she was really cool with him coming by to see the process and he got to see editing in action, as well as the live tv shows in progress there. Very fun.
The week ahead is pretty mellow and I'm happy for that one. Tomorrow we are headed to a tie-dye party and I'm excited to do this! I have not done this since in The Gambia, so this will be super fun. We stocked up on stuff to dye, so this will be an interesting feat with Shea in tow. He's doomed to end up face first in the dye.
We will see grandpa this week, do a park day and hopefully hang with our close buddies. The weekend starts on months of classes. Kaidin and Seringe are starting a parent/child guitar class for the next 8 Saturdays. They will totally love it I hope. They both are dying to learn and this will be a wonderful thing they can do together.
From there the classes only keep starting up and things pile on to our schedule. It will all be fun, but so different from what we've had our plates that I'm a little nervous. The last 1-1.5 weeks has been really rough on me personally. I have had fleating thoughts of school not being that half bad. What happens is the sibling rivalry kicks in and I start to loose it immensely. I really have an extremely tough time with the fighting between the older two. Fortunately, I do know and see that it's just frustrations being taken out on each other. I'm not sure that's a good thing or bad. But each night they go to bed saying they love each other and wishing each other a good night. I have to believe that this time together is stregthening and not detrimental... I'm sure there is a list too long to count that would like to tell me otherwise. But I just can't buy it. I can see the positives. I can see that home/unschooling builds stronger families and that's really one of #1 reasons for doing so. Ugh. But in that heat of the moment, I really can be thrown. I am really a very peaceful -type person. I am very auditory sensitive I have discovered even more so lately. And when they go at it, I really get way too involved. I have figured this out fortunately, and the last few days have been SO much better for me. And I think my less-intense-involvement has minimized it for them as well. At any rate... it's been good lately. Case in point... today we went to the thrift store's half-off day and it was chaotic.... insanely packed full of people. But we actually had a really great day. Got the kids a full wardrobe full of clothes and even did a Target stop for shoes. It was pleasant, we all enjoyed it a ton and they argued next to none. If I can remain a bit more distant to this going on, maybe it would happen less and less. Or at the very least, I would feel more at peace and not overly stressed out by it. At any rate, helping them through those frustrations is important to me and I'd like that good things caome from it.
So the Fall is bringing us loads of classes, and it really should be fun once we get into the swing of things and the changes in our carefree summer schedule. Dahlia will be doing clay (with me), and then on her own, she'll be taking gymnastics, intro to soccer and basketball, and a girls cooking class. Kaidin will be doing the guitar with Seringe, a math games group, a cooking class for boys, and a drama course ("Dragon Fighting")... possibly a clowing class as well but that one is still in the works and may not happen, not sure. Shea is taking a Kindermusik class which he loves loves loves. And if that weren't enough, Kaidin is teaching his own animation class in our home on Wednesdays, which will alternate each week with Dahlia's Girls Club. It's going to be a full schedule for all. I'm just trying to figure out where I can stick in a couple exercise classes for me ; )
I really hope to get our family apple picking this year and we have various other things we'd like to accomplish, visit, see and do!
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