lifeonplanetmum.com

You must be so sick of all the snow photos that I have been posting.  However, nothing is more beautiful than after a couple of days of snowstorm and then a bright morning with a sky so blue, it looks like I shot it in Velvia (slide film) but in truth, I did not alter any part of these shots or touch up the colours. They are as blue and bright as you see here.

This was the neighbour’s house. I love the icicles!

The blue skies I was talking about.

Walking down the pathway, that we normally take to school…

Matt and the boys were the only ones outside on the hill (see their tiny specks in the picture below?) The ducks had a little spot to themselves in the nearly frozen pond.

This is the carpark to the swimming pool, next to the pond. It doesn’t look like a car park now!

Thigh deep in snow.

I finally gathered up the courage to go on the sled with the boys! Did it for a couple of times and then gave up when I thought I was going too fast! The boys didn’t seem to mind the speed. In fact James was grumpy because he thought it was slower than the last time!

Crashing to a stop at the foot of the hill. This was when I pulled my muscles in front of my thighs because we did a 360 degree spin coming down that hill.  Did I say it was fast? I gave up after that.  The snow is meant for my boys and I went back home to do some quilting. A more safe alternative, me thinks!

This was the view from the top of the hill. The pond is at the bottom, the little shed in the corner is the community pool and behind those trees is our house somewhere.

America is so beautiful - even though I don’t like the cold, the winter has been a real novelty. The blizzard is really something, I don’t mind it returning again next year!

Wow, what a mad weather this has been! The snow stopped yesterday evening and this morning, the skies were brilliant blue. I would say that this time, the snow is more than the last one, about 28 plus inches.  Normally, the snow plough trucks clean up our roads several times a day when it snows but it has been more than 24 hours and no sign of the ploughs. The tree next to our house cracked and fell on the neighbour’s house from the weight of the snow.  The neighbour across of us was awoken at 1.30am because a tree fell on his deck and onto their picnic table. Fortunately, none of these trees fell through our roofs.

This is what our street/road looks like. There is no way out.

We had two power outages, one during the night on the first night of the snow. That lasted for six hours and when we got up, the house was freezing cold. Power came back on in the morning but it kept going on and off till finally, just as we sat down to dinner, the power went off for a longer period.  James was terrified of the dark but luckily we had some candles which I bought as gifts.  It turned out to be very cosy but we were getting concerned about the cold setting in.  We started putting on our layers of coats and ugg boots. Luckily it lasted for 30 mins and we were able to enjoy James’ first attempt at making brownies on his own.

We are getting a bit concerned because on Tuesday and Wednesday, there is another snow fall predicted, this time, 8 inches.  At this rate, we will be stuck indoors until Thursday! Am getting worried about the staples like milk, eggs and bread running out - now I know why there is a mad rush to get these at the stores! 

Matt has no work tomorrow, a plus in all of this! The boys’ school will be cancelled tomorrow and Tuesday, which means they have run out of their snow days and the schools will be extending their school year, which effects our flights out of here back to Malaysia.

Here is a photo of Matt today, in the midst of shovelling about 20 plus inches of snow off our driveway and our walkway.  It is up to Matt’s thigh! It is still snowing as I write this.

Tomorrow, we are expecting about 20 inches of snow.  We were under the impression that this 20 inches of snow is something that happens once every 10 years but this is the second time in 6 weeks. Matt’s work has been cancelled, all schools cancelled throughout DC and VA but not us. We have to get up at 6am to find out if school is on or not on the website. Sigh, why can’t they just cancel it like everyone else? It will start snowing at 10.30am so kids will only be at school for an hour. Apparently, the snow storm will hit 10 states across the east of the USA.  Huge! Matt went to the store today and all bottled water, toilet paper, vegetables were sold out!

We are going on a mission tomorrow to help our care group leader whose 5 year son just had a big operation.  She homeschools her 4 kids, which is a lot on her plate,  so the whole group has put a roster together to do her laundry, grocery shopping, food cooking, ferrying her other three kids to their activities.  The little boy cannot be exposed to any type of sunlight while he heals so she is very limited in what she can do.  So, I have cooked up some of my fried rice, the only dish I do well, and deliver it to their place tomorrow all before 9.30am to be back before the snowstorm starts. Wish us well!

This was our place on Wed morning, very white and pristine.  Poor Matt got up, thinking work was cancelled but he had to go anyway! Fortunately, we have a neighbour who works at the same office as Matt offered him a ride all the way to DC.

Today at karate, the teacher started a new social lesson called, “Stranger Danger.” He asked the class what they understood by the word “Stranger.”  Few of the children gave the standard answers - and then Cameron was the last.  His answer was lengthy.

“A stranger is a person who offers you candy and then asks you to go to their house and then they will kill you!”

Two mothers seated in front of me turned around to look at me incredulously. I seriously don’t know what their problem was, I thought it was a good answer!

James achieved the Principal’s Writing Award for Dec and he forgot to mention it to us. We found out through the school newsletter! We are so proud of him. The teachers nominate children each month to receive a certificate from the principal for outstanding work done.

Also at art, they have been working on Japanese pottery, called Jomon and his work was selected to be put on display at the Rockville Library! We went down to the library to take some photos. Well done, James!

We just saw two we really liked on a real estate website - about 10 mins away from the boys’ school. Beauty of a home. Contemporary, just what we are after. It meets our budget, although the land is a little bit larger than what we like because it is 6.5 acres and it would be a real pain to rake up those leaves in fall.

The other one, nearer to town, but no bike route, sitting on 2 acres:

Very contemporary, love the glass all throughout the house.

Went to check with the realtor and a big boo hoo! Both were sold within the last few weeks! I can’t believe it! Houses like these are very hard to come by because for some strange reason, people don’t really like the contemporary look here.

The search continues…

Ok, I know I should have called this blog “The Nomadic Mum” blog because we are always on the move, or thinking about moving!

As I blogged about a few days ago, we have initiated our house hunting process because we have plans to put the boys in a private Christian school, run by our church.

For the longest time, I cannot remember how long, we have wanted our boys to have a consistent Christian upbringing, not only reflected (occasionally!) at home but also at school and those around them.  Imagine this, a child spends about 10,000 hours of his life at school. That is a lot of hours for a person to be influenced and taught by those around them!

We are somewhat happy/unsure with the school that our church runs - it is pretty exclusive, not in the grand sense, but exclusive as in opposite of “inclusive.”  You have to be a member of the church in order for your child to attend the school. That involves a 10 week course and a rigorous interview about yourself and your walk with Christ. In November, we became members of this church, which we think is a fantastic church.  The kids are great there, so polite, so kind. James has started addressing Matt and I, “Sir” and “Ma’am” just like some of the children when they address their parents. It is cute but I don’t really insist that he does that - it is his choice.

However, there is lot of good things going for their current public school.  The kids are learning so much! James is in an accelerated class.  He does Chinese once a week, Cameron learns French. It is a small school, no more than 400 kids from Kindergarten to Grade 5. They serve hot meals at the cafeteria and the bus comes to pick them up. It is all free, except for lunches.  James has a friend - the one who beat him up at the start of the year? He has become James’ best friend. I just got a call from the boy’s mother because they are going to form a baseball team and James has been invited to join the team. For years and years, we wanted James to fit in, to have friends.  He now has them.

Cameron’s teacher is working very hard on improving his behaviour on a daily basis. He has gone off the separate carpet and they are now using tokens to help him monitor his behaviour.

I have been keeping an arms’ length with everyone, my neighbours, not really having playdates over because I thought if we are going to move, there is no point trying to develop anything deeper. Even for the boys.

If we move the kids to the Christian school, there would be no more foreign languages. No more accelerated classes. We would never find out if James or Cameron qualified for the magnet school or gifted program run by the school county here. (tests run in Grade 3)  We would be living in a place which is pretty remote. Because of that, we would have to buy a second car so that Matt could drive to the train station. He cycles to the station at the moment, using the bicycle paths that run outside our estate.  The area where the church is does not have a bike path and it would be unsafe for him to cycle, especially when it snows.  Higher fees, added expense of a car, undesirable housing location, less options offered at the school for a Christian education.

The other option is for us to move states - to the other side of DC, to Virginia, where we originally put down deposit for another private Christian school. The area we would be looking at is only minutes away from downtown DC and an established area. The downside is that the school only goes up to Grade 8 and we would not want to buy a house there, only to move again after 6 years when James is ready for high school.

The obvious conclusion is to stay put where we are but we want to take this step of faith. It is a big step of faith for us, that what we are doing is the right thing by our boys.  School is more than just academics to us.

This is a very difficult decision for us to make and we have to come to a conclusion by the end of Feb.  Our heads are swimming! What to do?

I love my Le Creuset dutch oven - it is so orangey! This was a freebie from redeeming all our credit card points in Singapore before leaving. Matt asked me, “Do you want a dress honey?” And I opted for a pot instead!

There was an incident at the start of the school year involving one of my boys that made me realise how both of them needed to learn some self defense. So, we enrolled them to do karate twice a week.

It has so many benefits. It is more than just fitness or self defense.  I love the teachers of karate here, they are very encouraging to kids and are fine role models for the children. The teachers here are young men and they start a karate lesson each time with a social lesson. Last month it was “Respect” and he talks for 5 mins about ways we show respect to our friends, parents, teachers.  This month, it is about goal setting.  The boys look up to the teachers because they did some really cool things, like break concrete with their elbows and displayed all these super-strength feats.

I tried to enrol James for karate in Singapore with a renowned karate teacher but withdrew him after the first lesson because the “Master” kicked James very hard to punish him when James forgot to call him “Master.” I rang him and voiced my displeasure that such a person like him who was trying to teach children about control lost it over something which was merely a mistake. He was incensed that I challenged his authority in his arena. So different from here.

Aside from that, I was very happy to see that a lot of what we used to do in Occupational Therapy with Cameron is done during karate.  Some OTs recommend karate for children with motor planning delays, dyspraxia and low muscle tone.

So after 3 months of karate, they were ready to move on to their first belt test. The boys made it! They are now officially gold belt.  What is so neat about it is that they have a different test system for kids - makes sense because which child would want to wait a year before progressing to another belt? It has done so much for their motivation and excitement for the sport. They both had to break a board by kicking it.

Here are the boys, flushed and happy with their first achievement. Way to go boys!