Making Strides

This week has been a very good week at our house. I have, as several times before, decided to turn off the TV completely. The difference in our home is remarkable every time I do this, I don't know why I fall back into the video and morning cartoon routine time and again. I wouldn't trade anything for the peace and clarity of mind I've had this week! Everyday I'm a little nervous to start the morning because I hear my little boy calling my name earlier than I'm ready and I know it's all up to me to teach and entertain him. How easy it would be to turn on Curious George and give myself a little time to wake up (this has been my routine in the past due to my lack of excitement about morning time)! Instead, sleepy, groggy-eyed me prays, "okay God, please help me today". And guess what!!!!!!!!??? He has!!!!! God has been so good! This morning we even had school for the first time. I made a sack-breakfast (instead of sack lunch) for him last night before bed and had a couple of worksheets for him that helped him begin to draw straight lines from left to right and top to bottom. We did a bear craft and read a book on bears. It was so fun preparing all this for him and guess what else...he loved it all!!!!!!!!! He even wanted more worksheets!!!!!!!!!!!!! My kind of student :)

All I can say is praise Jesus! I can't believe how dependent I had become upon the TV to entertain him. I'm not going to proclaim, "no tv ever again", but I am going to take it one day at a time as I've done this week and trust God to help me without resorting to television. Christian has been in a better mood and we've played more than ever. Usually he's requesting a television show or another video every 10 minutes, but at the first of the week when he started asking I just said, no tv we're going to play a game, or play with our toys, or go on a walk, etc... and he's fallen right into stride. Don't get me wrong, we have played with toys and have played outside more than inside since the spring, but when we were inside, it seemed the tv had to be on. Having it off has made all the difference.

Here are a couple of pictures from his first day of school (it seems like the teacher in me has been waiting for this day ever since we brought him home ~smile~).

Another stride forward that happened today was Christian putting on his shoes all by himself for the first time! I didn't even ask him to. I was in the bathroom fixing my hair and he walks in saying, "wook Ma, put shoes on all by self!" I couldn't have been prouder of him. Part of me wanted to cry. We hugged and cheered for a long time.

A couple of cute things he's saying these days are:

"What doin' Ma? (Da?)" He always wants to know what we're doing.

"Gwad to meet you Da (Ma, Soph, ect,...)" Kelly taught him this and he'll shake our hands (or paw) and say this phrase. It's so sweet and sounds so sincere!