thewallises

I want to cherish forever what Jacob has shared as his favorites, so far, of kindergarten:

1st Day favorite: thumb votes                                                                                                     His teacher taught the class how to vote using their thumbs. Thumbs up means you really like it. Thumbs down means you don’t like it. Thumb to the side means you’re not sure or don’t know.

2nd Day favorite: the egg that was cracked open                                                             At the school they have constructed a chicken coop. There are two hens. Today his teacher went inside the coop to get one of the eggs that had been laid. Jacob was sooooooo excited to tell me that she actually cracked the egg open into a measuring cup for all of them to see and smell.

Oh the simple joys and thrills of childhood. I love it!

Last week I made a pact with myself: to start going to bed by 10pm.  Last night I broke my streak; went to bed at 1am instead. Totally reverted back to my old ways. Oh my goodness I feel like a train ran over me. I can hardly pull myself together this morning. Someone once told me that the number of hours of sleep we get before midnight makes a monumental difference in terms of how much deep sleep we get, and as a result how rested we feel. And I have to say that today I fully believe that. How in the world did I function this past year going to bed at 1am? 1:30? 2am?

I need to go back to 10pm. It’s got to happen! I need the rest. Without it I won’t be able to get up for a 6am swim. My body needs and craves exercise. And I need a morning’s wealth of patience as I start my day as mama. All good things that come from an early bedtime. Feel free to ask me and hold me to this. Please.

I was not mentally prepared to navigate homework with Jacob.

Jacob has several homework assignments this weekend:

1) Play a game that involves numbers. Check. Done. Easy. We played “Double Shutter”- a fun dice game.

2) Write a story about your family and draw a picture to go with it. This is the one I was not mentally prepared for. It was a huge learning experience for me!

• Duration: 1 hour

• The story: “We were at Disneyland and it was hot. Mama and Daddy surprised us by going to Yogurtland.”

• Difficulty level: hard!

• What it required: a ton of patience, a ton of guidance, a ton of encouragement, a ton of reminders to Jacob to stay focused, stay seated in an upright posture, to hold his pencil properly, to try to stay between the lines, and how to write certain letters.

And a TON of my own personal mental dialogue: “Don’t freak out!!! Yes, he’s dropped his pencil to the ground 6 times already….don’t freak out!!! If he feels your stress, these homework sittings will not be positive times together. Don’t stress. Let it go. Be cool. Be excited. Be encouraging. Yes, we’re moving into one hour on this assignment- don’t freak out! Completion with excellence is important. Don’t tell him to hurry scurry now just because it’s taken so long. Let him finish well. Don’t let the clock rule your decision to move on. Okay, yes, try to ignore the fact that he wants to erase his entire drawing. Yes, I know he wants his rollercoaster to look different- he’s not satisfied with his drawing. That’s good. I mean, no. Not good. Yes, he wants to draw it again because he wants it to be better presented. But, wait, this is going to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r. He hasn’t even started the drawing about Yogurtland……”

And so the journey begins of helping Jacob learn how to do homework…….

We still have one to go:

3) Write a story about the best part of your 1st day of school.

This will be interesting. I’ve learned we better pace these things out. No procrastination is going to be allowed in our house. If not, I’ll go off the deep end. Just sayin’. 🙂

Today was a big day. Jacob’s very 1st day of kindergarten. With both mama and daddy as educators, the beginning of school is a VERY momentous day!!! It was a great day. Jacob wanted to wear his brand new blue polo shirt to be just like daddy. Ha! It is true, Steve wears a lot of blue shirts to work. The #1 reason why Jacob was so excited to go to school was because he could be at the same school as daddy.

DaVinci Science, the charter high school that Steve is the principal for, now has the DaVinci Innovation Academy (charter K-8 elementary) on its campus. The thought of getting to see daddy every day on his way in to school is so so so so so huge to Jacob. Knowing that they are both a part of DaVinci has bonded Jacob to daddy with new delight. Jacob simply adores Steve. It is an incredible relationship to watch and one for which I am immensely thankful.

Jacob walked into school confident, excited and eager to learn. All things we hope will describe him the rest of his educational years. Watching him walk in with such ease, going straight to the building blocks, laughing his head off as he tried to build the greatest tower and then watching it all come crashing down, then heading over and pulling a “Harold & The Purple Crayon” book off of a shelf and sitting down to read it, I knew he’d be okay. He’s got the confidence he needs to be comfortable in this new situation. And I’m so thrilled about that.

Last night our dinner conversation included a play-by-play discussion of what our morning would look like: what we would do to get ready in the morning,  which way we would walk to school from our home, how/when we would give each other our farewell.  He told us that he wanted to give Natalie a hug and then lift her up off the ground. Omie (grandma) he wanted to give a kiss. Mama would get a kiss and a hug. And Daddy he hoped would lift him off the ground in a gigantic hug. I joked that then the 4 of us would walk out, stand by the classroom windows and all wave goodbye, swaying our arms in the air in a dramatic goodbye. He laughed. And he said, “okay, but I’ll ignore you.” Ha! We all laughed. I asked him if he’d rather we simply said our goodbyes and didn’t do the whole farewell at the windows. Oh no, no. He wanted us to wave and he wanted to pretend like he was ignoring us.

And that is exactly what happened this morning. We said our goodbyes. We walked outside. Each of our faces framed by a window, as we peered in at him waving our goodbyes. And that precise moment is what I hope my memory will always hold onto. The biggest smile I think I’ve ever seen, stretched across the entirety of his face……and oh how he laughed as he tried to turn and pretend like we weren’t there. And yet he would snap his head back, beaming, hoping we were still there, still waving. And we were. And he laughed. And he smiled. We played this game for a few times. And then we walked on our way, confident that our little boy would survive and do well. His smile emblazoned in my mind as I carried on in my day, with a bit of an empty feeling of him not being with me.

This week marked my 1st attempt at returning to the world of exercise in who knows how long. I honestly can’t remember the last time I exercised for consecutive days. It was definitely before Natalie was born; and she just turned 4. Yes, there has been the exercise of lifting kids in and out of car seats, the occasional walk of our dogs, and pushing strollers over the last few years. But good cardio workout- yeah, that was a dream and a very faint memory.

Recently Jacob has found great humor in blowing fart kisses on me. It started with him giving me sweet kisses on the cheek. Then one day his brain clicked into a different gear and thought “hey, it would be fun to try to make a farting sound while giving my mom a kiss”. Well that then proceeded into him discovering that a different sound occurred if he made that “fart kiss” on my face vs. on my arm. And oooh-la-la the joy when he discovered that my flabby triceps produced the greatest sound of all. He started saying “oh, mama, let me feel for your squishy parts” as he would use his fingertips to prod my arm and look for the softest spot. Thank goodness he never found my belly or my thighs and was quite content with the fart sounds on the back of my arms.

Needless to say, despite the merry laughter it really has been a kick-in-the-pants for me to get back into exercise. So this week I decided I needed to start something new. Thankfully Steve is willing to leave for work at 7am this year, as opposed to the 6am early morning departure he had every day last year. And so now I am afforded that extra hour and can go exercise. I have returned to my love- swimming at the Hawthorne Pool, in the stillness of the early morning.

It’s cold. It’s still dark when I leave home. I’m trying not to be a wimp. I’m hoping for the Fall when the time will change and there will be more light at 5:30am. I’ve learned that swimming with my shaded goggles seriously messes with my mind at that time of day. On Monday I thought I was swimming in the dark the whole time. When I moved the goggles off my face to readjust for one moment, I was greatly surprised that the sun had already risen and there was glorious light in the sky. Lesson learned- no shaded goggles in the morning. But what a joy- to feel my soul awakened in the morning with the sun’s rays, the beautiful feeling of being all alone in my lane, arm over arm, kick after kick…..just me and the water and God. I love these kinds of mornings.

I’ve made it my goal to be there 4 mornings a week. Thursdays the pool is closed in the morning for cleaning. So I’m hoping I’ll be there each weekday. I better be- considering I ate 5 or 6 (I lost count) chocolate chip cookies today! I don’t exactly have the best will power in the world when there are fresh homemade cookies that Natalie was so eager to bake. 🙂 So I’ve got 4 days down…….and lots of squishy parts to tone up.

This is only going to work if I have discipline, perseverance and go to bed at a reasonable hour. I’m hopeful.

Today was the final day of the National Diving Championships. It was incredible being back at UCLA with my husband and two kids. This is the stage of my life I remember longing for and dreaming of when I was a college student many years ago. Enjoying life as a mom. Finding a fun outing for our family, stretching my kids’ awareness of the world and all that is in it.

So today we sat for 5 hours watching one spectacular dive after another.

• The 10M Men’s Platform (top 13 divers in the U.S. each doing 6 dives = 78 dives)
• The 5M Women’s Springboard (top 12 divers, each doing 5 = 60 dives)
• The 5M Synchronized Men’s Springboard (watched their warm-ups)

I was a very proud mama today. Wow! I didn’t even realize it until just calculating it. My kiddos sat through 138 dives. And that’s after arriving an hour early and watching all the warm-ups. But thankfully we arrived when we did; we were able to get the very last seats in the shaded prime seating area. The kids had been fascinated at first and then a good way through had the wiggles and then by the end were just tired. Who blames them? Natalie just turned 4 and Jacob is not even 6 yet. And yet they sat through 138 dives. Without a single complaint. And almost complete focus on each one. Before each dive, an electronic whistle blew, letting all spectators know they were expected to be completely silent, to allow the athletes full concentration. And my kids sat still and silent each time. I realize I’m gushing now with mama-pride of my cub bears. 🙂 But honestly, I’m just so happy that we can have fun, family outings like these. It makes my heart happy.

And what better way to start off my very 1st blog entry. I’m soooooooo far from being fit and muscular like those divers I saw today, but I do have a passion for something I’d love to plunge into. The world of documenting my family’s story. If some people read it along the way, hey, that’s great. But my main purpose is to record life in a way that will serve as my family’s archival journal. I’ve heard that bloggers can publish their posts into some kind of printed book. That’s what I dream of. One day. Perhaps a year from now. To print and cherish all the memories that by then my mind may have forgotten about. I do have a bad memory. So here’s to a future of holding on tight to the details……