Out with the Old, in with the New, part 3

You know, I learned something from my experiences of blogging every day in November: If you have a good working title, why mess with it? So we'll continue in the series, "Out with the Old, in with the New," until it gets old, and then I'll come up with something new.

So, what is new? All kinds of things. Where did I leave off? Let's pick up with the kids.

Julien is doing well in the first grade. Starting this month, he began attending a Learning Enrichment Program at school, where he gets to do book reports and a research project. Unfortunately (for me) he chose the topic of dinosaurs for his research project. I'm not a huge fan of the large reptiles. Since we accept the truth of the Biblical account of creation and the origin of life, we're faced with some interesting challenges in terms of research, as a majority of the research makes references to evolution and millions of years, which is just plain wrong. I admit that I've managed to avoid this topic pretty much throughout my life as a "student", but I know that's not the place to be. So we're looking for some good and reliable sources that deal with the facts of the evidence, and not with the theory of evolution. It is possible to report on what we know about the T-rex without delving into all the creative speculations that are out there, but this will be a challenge for me to help him with this.

Tristan is doing well in kindergarten. He was on a roll this month with his reading, almost averaging 10 books a night. His favorite part of school is gym class, and he seems to have an affinity for "drumming" constantly when he's at home, and is often found playing "pretend guitar" with his light saber while we listen to music. He loves to laugh, which sometimes gets him in trouble at home when he can't get himself to stop. He just lost his second front tooth, and he is getting taller and leaner by the day. And he's looking forward to hopefully playing soccer again this spring.

Rosalind is growing up so fast. She started trying to dress herself a couple of months ago, and can successfully put on pants about 75% of the time. She discovered a pair of undies in her drawer back before Christmas, and was so thrilled she did the jump-jump dance and tried to put them on herself. So she got a whole pack of undies for Christmas, and after the new year, we decided to give it a try, and I can count on one hand the number of accidents she's had since then. She even has dry nights pretty regularly. So we just significantly reduced our demand for expensive disposable diapers! Yay!

And while Tristan is losing teeth, Brendan finally got his first one this month. (Sigh.) The arrival of the first tooth is always a sad moment for me, as it marks the end of the new baby status in my mind. Plus there are three (almost four) newer babies at church now, and he's big enough for the exer-saucer and jumpy-toys. We've also started on the baby cereal. While Brendan looks a lot like his siblings did at his age, he has distinguished himself as the one who spits up the most. Maybe it has to do with more distractions while he's feeding, or less time for burping. Whatever the reason, even Rosalind knows where to find the wipe rags to clean up Brendan's spit-up quickly. Despite the fact that he smells like sour milk most of the time, I can't keep myself from snuggling and smooching on him whenever I get the chance. As Rosalind likes to say, "He's so pweshuss!" I try to be impartial, but I have to agree with her.

(I'll have to post some photos later)