how we are doing

Hello, those patient and loyal blog-readers still out there.
We are alive. I know my blogging is almost non-existent. I am having trouble finding time to blog. I do blog on the imaginary blog that lives in my head. But finding time to park in front of the computer long enough to blog...ah, that is the issue. What little time I get here is often spent trying to sort out my emails or trying to catch up on *your* blogs. And when I don't blog for a while, well...the blog starts to feel like some old friend I haven't been very good about keeping in touch with. The more time that goes by, the more there is to tell, and the more there is to explaining your absence, and so you tend to stay away longer....

Anywho, I'll just jump in with a quick update I guess. My life in a quick 10 minute post, because this is the only way I'll be able to do it, and if I don't get it down quickly it'll never happen!

I'm doing swell, in a running around and always behind on everything kind of way. I just can't seem to quite get my bearings since Tess has been born. I'm not sure why. She is an easy baby. But it seems *just* out of my reach, you know? Today I had great plans to get our schoolwork done early and then spend the afternoon cleaning storm debris out of our backyard with the kids, fresh air and exercise and all that good stuff, and then Kain had several fits during school time and it took us much too long to get done with his school work. More about that tomorrow, as I am working on a "day in the life post" for today.

Maria just had her first feis, her first Irish dance competition. It was crazy and wild because we didn't know at all what to expect and it was very different than anything we've done before, but we survived and she won first place in one of her dances. She and Kain are both playing Upward basketball right now. She was very nervous about playing because she's never played basketball before. It was pretty surprising to see the burst of insecurity from my otherwise outgoing and confident girl. I literally had to force her to go to the first practice amidst tears and anguish. Guess what? She loves it, and she scored a basket in her first game. Lucky for me, because if it had gone the other way my name would have been mud around here, huh?

Kain is...Kain. Hehe. He's doing pretty well most days. School is pretty rough. He's not on the Adderall right now, (insert long medication juggling scenario here) and so it's like doing math with a chicken. He's literally all over the place, rocking and rolling and thrashing and interrupting and it's insane. To top it all off, I can't really shorten any lengthy lessons for him or anything because we are working on catching him up to the grade level he was supposed to be on...he's been a grade behind because his mother never bothered to enroll him in school and it *really, really* bothers him...so we've been making a big push, especially in math. It makes for some long days. He doesn't want to give up though, and if we can both survive the math we'll be ok. He turned 9 last week and messed up the cool thing I had going on where all the kids were aged in factors of 4...Maria 12, Kain 8, Jack 4, Tess a teeny baby. Am I the only one that enjoys such symmetry? I am quite anal-retentive sometimes, yes?

Jack is awesome. He is going through a big Momma's boy stage right now and I love it. I'm eating it up. He's developing a great sense of humor and we just have a blast together. He's reading Bob books all by himself and is just a smarty pants. He's still obsessed with music and his new thing now is to play "conductor". His favorite books are "Meet the Orchestra" and "Zin Zin Zin, a Violin". Love. This. Boy.

Tess...my sunshine. She is sweet and happy and cutting her fourth tooth. She's eating mushy bits of table food and rolling across the house to find little fernerds of lint and stuff under the furniture to try and choke on. She's fat and sassy and lots of fun.

My camera is still busted, so no pictures. I keep forgetting to take it in. I'm losing my mind. It's leaking out of my ears and running down my neck right now. But I'm here, I'm ok. I'm not burned out or anything, but I feel like I could be if we don't get a grip on our routines and stuff here. I feel like the big clincher is Kain's math. I simply cannot spend two hours a day trying to cajole him through math and still get everything else done. I just can't. I don't know what else to do. We are using Saxon math 3 for him, and it's just taking sooooo long. It's a long program anyway, even with a "normal" child, and with Kain...oy. That meeting. It takes forever and ever. All that topic switching. But his math skills are so iffy that he really needs a lot of review, you know? So, what...I should take a slower pace through the book? That would be nice. It might come to that. It'll mess me up so bad for next year though (sigh). We wouldn't be ready to start Saxon 54 when we start 4th grade. And that's my anal-retentiveness coming out again.