single mom summer

German finished school on Friday, May 13th and started his summer internship on Monday May 16th. He is interning at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Temple, Texas about 80 miles away. He works Mon-Fri and stays the night with an LDS family there in Temple and so far things are going pretty good. I'm so glad he is able to come home on the weekends. He is really enjoying his experience and he feels like working for the VA would be a great career choice for him. The girls and I miss dad, but we are surviving. I've been busy which really helps to make the time fly by faster. The twins just finished a 2-week swimming lesson last week and jumped off the diving board twice...it was so cute! I finished work last week and it is really nice to be done for the summer. I enjoyed teaching ESL, but things were stressful sometimes trying to find a babysitter every week and feeling less than energetic, not sure if I will do it again next year.

After the VA internship is over next week, German starts another internship in Dallas. We will see less of him, but I will try to stay busy. I think Audrey misses him the most, she asks about him alot and every week when dad kisses the girls goodbye Audrey says, "no daddy, please don't go." Last night she told me that her elephant (the one she sleeps with every night) misses her when she goes away and that he wants to come with her next time.

Lucy loves to help me cook, everytime she sees me cooking she goes to find her little chair to stand on and asks me what I am making. She'll say "Can I help you mommy? Oh no, I didn't wash my hands, I'll be right back!" When she returns she'll ask me if I washed my hands, too. She loves to sing, too! I checked out a book from the library called Song for a Princess, there's a little bird who sings a song to a sad princess to cheer her up. I made up a tune to go with the little poem he sings to the princess, it took me awhile to remember how I sung it, but now the girls have it memorized and want to sing it 5-6 times every night. Lucy loves it the most.

Sage loves to dance and give kisses, I love her head tilt w/ little puckered lips! She has to do whatever her sisters are doing and has very little fear, except during nursery. I still wait with her in nursery for a little while and I have to sneak out when she's not looking. I have been reading a book about attachment parenting and although I can't say I fully agree with everything in the book, there are many points that rang true and it's making me rethink some of my old ideas about parenting. I really want to change how I discipline and try harder to use the golden rule. I don't always treat my children the way I would like to be treated--I am a continual work in progress I guess.