Sprung Forward

Why is it that weekends go by so quickly? Oh, maybe it's because we "lost" an hour this time around? Now, I love the whole idea of spring coming and longer amounts of daylight...but these time changes kinda mess with a person. Or, more specifically, the kids. Hard for them to go to bed "early", even more hard for them to wake up "earlier". Ah well...in a couple of days we'll all be adjusted! Or so I hope...you know what I mean...

So, outside of time changes, the ribclan household has been pretty status quo. One of the big things we've been doing lately is a new "reward" system for ms. Kdee. We created the system after her last teacher conference because academically, she's doing great, but she's a bit too much on "her time" versus "teacher time". We notice some of that at home, too, so we took the opportunity to help improve the situation for all of us. Basically, our system is nothing fancy--a series of marks for 3 specific areas of improvement and if she attains enough of the good marks, she gets the pre-approved reward of her choice on Sunday. The rewards aren't costly, but she's motivated by the ones we approve. So far, she's gotten to go to The Spiderwick Chronicles with ribB (her second time going), 2 hours of computer time & hang out time with me--and this week's reward? She gets to take 25 pictures on my camera--how funny is that? I tell ya, it doesn't take much to motivate her and when she's motivated...look out world!

Little B is still transitioning to the 3 year old room. It seems like he's missing his best buddy and the loose flow of his previous classroom (including long nap times, etc.). Well, our suspicions were confirmed this week when the 2 year old room teacher told us he's walking up to the ground-level window (of the 2 year room)at recess and peering in to see what they're doing, etc. Ohhhh, my...kind of pathetic and sad all in one! He's a good little spirit and we know that this is just a process he has to work through...but, it can still twist a parent's heart. It's interesting for us, too, because Kdee is one of the youngest of her class and little B is going to be one of the oldest. Wild.

ribB and I had the opportunity for a night free from kids last Friday--it was awesome! My Mom watched the kids overnight and we made the most of it. Since ribB has been a good sport with concerts lately (and often goes for dates to movies!), I decided to be a good sport back and go shooting for the first time at the Archery store. Turned out, we shot for 2 hours and it was a lot of fun (I wasn't even too sore the next day!) Afterward, we went out to BW3 for beer & wings (fun!) and...if you can believe it, we still went to a movie at 10pm! (Be Kind, Rewind--actually not so good...dang!). We got to sleep in the next day and have a lazy start to the day before we picked up the kids at 11am (and got to go to lunch with my mom). It was so wonderful! The rest of our weekend was very relaxed and nice...lots of catching up on household chores and hanging out together.

And, speaking of weekends, this upcoming one should be lots o' fun. We're heading down to a big St. Patty's Day celebration with Brett's Aunt Barb & Uncle Tim. I'm not Irish, but trust me, I'll celebrate for my family and the many other fine Irish folk in attendance--erin go bragh!