No Volume Control

I feel like i should be posting something..

Steph started work this past Monday, so today is day 4 for him. His days are much longer than any other job because of the commute. And he also says that this job is more demanding then his last job, mainly for the fact that he is still learning everyone's names, and responsibilities, but at the same time he is the boss of some of them, and wants to jump right in and not seem like a dim-wit MTP.

Ellie has finished her second week of school. We had a little "issue" on Monday when Kat was home sick, and Ellie was at school. End of the day, we (Kat, Dani and I) go out to the bus stop, and wait for the bus. Her bus pulls up, stops, opens the door.. No movement from inside. Bus driver calls her name.. She ISN'T ON THE BUS!! Holy scary moment there. The bus driver calls it in to dispatch - "missing child". Find out she is on another bus, and they are almost here to drop her off. Less than 5 minutes later, the bus Ellie got on arrived to drop her off. The bus drivers kids found her sleeping on the bus, and after a few questions and a call to dispatch, found her address, and brought her home. *phew*

Kat is finishing up her second week of school. She is enjoying it. And i'm liking this school alot more than either of the other two. They seem much more on the ball about everything. Kat seems to be learning alot.. and *gasp* she has regular homework already.
Her spelling words this week are "I", "am", & "me". She knows them. Her homework last night was taking 5 letters "l", "a", "n", "t" and "p" and re-arranging them with our help to spell a bunch of words, and then spell a secret 5 letter word. It took a while, but she did get the hang of it and finished it.

Kat and Ellie's days are very long and remind me of when i went to school. It's not like we are *that* far from the school, but because we are pretty much right on the border of the school area, they are one of the first to be picked up, at 745.. and one of the last to be dropped off at 4:45.. So ya, VERY long day. Ellie is fine with the bus. Not even a hint of motion sickness, so either she is outgrowing it, or she is fine with the bus movement.

Ellie's schedule is something that we need a calendar for. She goes every Monday and Wednesday (that's the easy part), and then goes half of the Friday's - not necessarily every second Friday because of holidays and such, but luckily we have a big calendar that i was able to mark all the Fridays onto. And surprisingly enough, she only gets one 6 day weekend all year (Friday off and then Monday off, and of course, Thursday and Tuesdays always off).

I'm still fearful that she will find the learning part of school boring, but we are hoping that the social part and the craft part will make it fun for her.

There is a program at their school called "Kindercare" which seems really interesting.. maybe for next year if she follows the same schedule with days off. Basically it makes the school week a full 5 days for them.. in which they go to this Kindercare program on their days off and it's more of a daycare environment with all the socializing but they work closely with the kindergarten classes and follow their themes and lessons and include it in their days as well. The problem - it's not free, and this year, it's not in the budget (and no, not asking for any well-meaning grandparents to sponsor her LOL). But maybe next year. And probably in the second year when Dani starts going to school (which is *ack* only 2 years away).

Speaking of Dani... Other than a little cold, she is adjusting very well to the new house and the routine, except for the sleeping part. She is very much NOT a morning person. She when i have to wake her up every morning at 730 to basically drag her to the bus stop, she is NOT happy. But hopefully with some tweaks in her sleeping habits (bedtime, naps etc), she will get more use to it, cause it's not changing any time soon. We are going to be attacking both her night time wake ups (which are really getting better *knock on wood*... she has slept right through the night twice in the past week, plus last night slept until 530am, so really good), and in a few weeks, we will be attacking the potty, and seeing if we can make steps in the underwear direction. The big problem will be finding Diego underwear for girls. LOL

I think that is it for now.. :)