Adjustments

As the ancient Greek philosopher said, "the only constant in life is change." Although we didn't end up moving even though we had our house on the market for 6 months (for which I am grateful), I am definitely adjusting to big changes this year. I am adjusting to life with my mother in Heaven. I miss her very much. I wish I could call her on the phone, but I am also relieved that she is free from physical suffering. The tears I (still) shed are proof of how much we loved each other. That is a gift not to be taken for granted. There are people who experience little to no grief at the news of a relative's passing because they didn't have a good relationship. Of course the adjustment is MUCH greater for my father.

I am also adjusting to Paul's job change. I was expecting him to be gone from home a lot more (because he had worked at the family the first 4 years of our marriage), but I had no inkling he would be gone as much as he actually has been the past 2 1/2 months. It's such a dramatic change from having the summers off as a professor to the other extreme of being away from home as many as 18 1/2 hours a day six days a week. For the first almost 15 years of marriage I was the one going to bed first. Now we either go down at the same time or he goes to bed first as he goes to bed between 9:30-10:00 these days, which is very wise considering he often leaves for work before 4am (sometimes as early as 2am). For example this Wednesday he left for work at 4:00 am and got home at 8:00 pm while I was at church picking the kids up from their summer musical. He was in the shower when we came home and while I brushed the kids teeth and such. He had about 30 seconds with each boy that night to tuck them into bed.  On Monday and Tuesday he got home at 7:00 pm each night while the kids were at VBS. He picked them up at 9:00 and helped me brush their teeth and get them into bed Yvonne suggested I move the kids bedtime back later so that they could have more time with Daddy, but I haven't done so because #1 I do not think they will sleep in later if I do that and #2 if Paul gets home at 8:00 and goes to bed at 9:30 that only leaves him time to shower, eat dinner, and watch a little television. He usually watches something on Amazon Prime or a DVD from the library each night. We usually get our cable tv hooked back up in September (for football), but we are doing it a month early so we can watch the Olympics. So in the near future he'll have a lot more choices of what to watch on tv (until we disconnect the cable again once the NFL season is over). Anyhow, it has definitely been an adjustment for the kids and I. Oliver is oblivious, but Nadia and Ian have definitely noticed the change and miss their dad.

The swimming pool where the kids have taken lessons the past six years made a change this summer from offering three two week sessions to offering one week sessions almost the whole summer. When Nadia was in Level Two their schedule didn't work for us so I signed her up for one week of private lessons instead. At the end of that week the instructor said Nadia had mastered Level 2 and had almost also mastered Level 3, but I put her in Level 3 last year, and this year she was in a class for levels 4-6. Ian passed Level 1 last year in the two week session, but this year one week was not enough for him to pass Level 2. I asked him if he wanted to wait until next year to take Level 2 again, or if he wanted to take a second week of lessons the first week of August while Nadia was having her diving lessons, and he said he wanted another week this  year so I signed him up. I am not going to sign Oliver up for another week though in light of the $45 charge involved. I will sign him up for Level 1 next summer. He needs to work on being brave enough to submerge his head under water. Oliver's teacher on Tuesday-Thursday was better than the one he had on Mon/Fri in my opinion. He had a private lesson on Thursday as the other boy didn't show up. Ian needs to work on giving more eye contact to his teacher when she's talking. Oliver's personality is SO different from Ian's. He was very verbal and very vocal in ideas of what they could do next during the lesson. Ian has never been like that. The three kids are not three peas in a pod that is for sure. God has made us each very unique! I am missing Miss Nadia so much. I am VERY glad I do not need to get used to her absence in our home yet. I know that day will come all too quickly, but we should have another 10 years before that happens. I will be hugging my girl tomorrow morning!

I am also making adjustments based on our last minute vacation plans. Originally I had planned for us to go to Del Grosso's amusement park twice this summer, but then when I signed Nadia and Ian up for the baseball/softball clinic at Sunbury Bible Church, I decided we'd only go to Del Grosso's once. It was later that same day after I paid the $50 for the clinic that I found out about the proposed dates of a vacation in August, which would conflict with the second date for DelGrosso's. So it seems this year we are taking a break from DelGrosso's, but we will be enjoying a water park in Ohio that we have never been to before instead (at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky). I had registered Nadia and Ian for Good News Camp the week we're now going to Ohio so they won't be doing that, but I only paid $30 total and it was to a very worth cause (CEF) so that's not a big deal. Next year all three kids will be old enough for that camp. None of them have done it before. I learned about it last year and it's less than 10 minutes from our house! Hopefully they'll all be able to do it next year. Speaking of growing up, I have been delinquent in teaching Oliver his alphabet. I worked with Nadia to learn her letters a few months before she turned four. Ian learned them on his own when he was two. I had intended to teach them to Oliver this summer, but we haven't spent much time on it (yet). I don't think we will achieve the goal by his birthday, but I think we can achieve it by the end of August. Here's a little video showing some of the ones he knows thus far.