The Luckiest No Matter What!

Dear Preston, HAPPY THIRD BIRTHDAY!!! My last baby is three! The other day, at Great Grandma Hundt’s funeral, I saw a few of Daddy’s cousins with baby bellies and it was so strange to me that I’m done with having a brand new baby in the house. You are it. What a beautiful ending to the baby stage, though, as you have been a radiant light; bringing more joy wherever it is that you are. This last year you learned to truly speak, jump incredibly well on the trampoline, go down slides, swing, dig in the sand, have books that you can read by heart, sing all kinds of songs, say prayers, and confirm for Daddy and I that we created no shy or quiet children. Hearing you find your voice and seeing you learn of things you love has been an awesome part of your two-year-old life!  You are certainly finding your own way and doing things your own way too. S ometimes you’ll eat anything like sushi or soup or all kinds of salads. Other times you don’t feel like eating a banana anymore after you wer...

One of my reasons for writing anything down is to preserve my story in this big, big world. Putting my fingers on these typing keys help make my family's memories have a place to sit so I can revisit them whenever I want and remember, soak it all back in.  Time is a thief! I can't remember the last time I captured what's going on with #hundtboysx4: what they are into, what they love, what's been challenging for them. It always feels overwhelming to do that kind of necessary memory preserving justice, but I always try and that's what matters.  Here's whats up with the Hundt Boys... NOLAN N loves to do these jumping pictures and I am always ready to say yes. This guy is more than 7.5 years old. This last year during the pandemic has arguably been the hardest on him of my four sons... outwardly anyway. He has lost sports, which he loves more than any other activity. He has only been able to build a relationship with his teacher over a screen, which is the most impo...

My kids have been learning remotely since March. There is no end in sight for us. I am working my tail off, the kids are working their tails off, their teachers are working their tails off. We've had ebbs and flows of things going pretty smooth and going like a goat rodeo, but one blessing (and curse) at this point is that we know the drill.  I know N and J will have zoom calls from 8:30-11:45 with a 15 minute break at 10:15. I know they will do literacy first and then math. I know what their asynchronous work looks like and about how long it takes. I know C will write about his weekend every Monday morning. I know he does Freckle on Friday. I know when he sees his new sight words. It is all predictable and known at this point.  I called this kind of monotony a blessing because consistency is important, routines are important. My young children can show a lot of independence when things are predictable. I also put that it is a curse in perenthesis because knowing exactly what'...

 In January 2020, I finally made the phone call I knew had been coming.  Preston was doing very little talking. At his 18 month appointment, his pediatrician wasn't terribly concerned yet, but did warn me he had some things against him: he's a sibling meaning that his older brothers would likely do a lot of the talking for him, he's a boy, and he wasn't in daycare. Because I was home with him, I knew what he wanted most of the time so he didn't NEED to work on his verbal skills. Here we were, a few months later, with little to no progress in his speech development since that appointment. I felt like it was time to get EarlyOn involved and get him some help and us some tools.  Speech Development Preston had a very small handful of words- a mama and dada here or there, a couple animal noises and that was basically it. The thing that was interesting about him was he was ZERO percent frustrated. It never bothered him if we didn't know what he was trying to communica...

I have two second graders and one kindergartner who have been in remote learning for about a week. There is a learning curve in this for us all: kids, parents, teachers. We are all learning technology. Each of us are learning norms, learning new schedules, and learning routines. The chaos of it all and the camaraderie of it all is unique and palpable. We are all working hard and trying our best and that is easy to see. I could go on and on about all the feelings present, what the kids have been doing each day, and how we are all adjusting. Whenever anyone has asked me how things are going, I usually have a lot to say.  However, I thought I would share some smiles and frowns from the week. We still share these about our day each night at bedtime and the biggest take away is that, no matter what happens, there are smiles and there are frowns each day. Reflecting in this way helps to find the positives when we may feel like there is none and invites us to examine problems that may...

During the spring shut down, we worked primarily at our breakfast nook table and dining room table. It was okay, but I realized, the more weeks we were out of school, how distracting that area was. My kids were just steps away from food and toys. Not to mention, for a good chunk of their day, someone was cooking something near them. It was way easier sometimes to watch mom making sandwiches than it was to finish a journal entry. The Space Because of that, we've been working to clear out our main room in the basement so that we can do learning from there. I wanted the space to be inviting, comfortable, but devoid of as many distractions as possible. I also wanted to be able to spread out my three humans so they had an area to clearly focus without getting too distracted by each other. Little by little we've been organizing, sorting, and getting rid of things to make that space work. Restructuring this room isn't necessary, but it has felt really good to feel product...

The past couple of years, I've spent the summer doing 'camp days' with #hundboysx4. I'll come downstairs in the morning and announce, "It's MOVE-IT MONDAY" or "Get ready for a WACKY WEDNESDAY." If you want more ideas of camp days like this, read more about it here . That's been going really well and kids really like it. It gave a little focus to our days and also kept things fresh. This year, for so many reasons, I decided I wanted to be just a bit more structured and do a little more intentional educational activities. We were already knee deep in a routine where we spent some time in the morning doing school-ish type things because of in person school being canceled since mid March. Since we don't have many places to go or other activities like sports or camps, I felt like having something for 1-3 hours each day might make sense. As I was planning for what that might look like back in June, Carter ended up being my muse.  He was i...

Dear Carter, I wrote you this letter a little early this year for your THIRD birthday because I knew it might be likely I would be at the hospital with your new baby brother or sister.     Although your year has been wonderful; you are SUCH a blessing in our family, lately, you’ve been working on some pretty major changes that have kept you busy and tired as well.   First of all, you started preschool.   Watching you waltz up to Miss Hilarie’s door like you owned the place and running in without so much as a wave goodbye (as I was crying through my sunglasses) was exactly you.   My confident, outgoing guy.   It’s been hard for you to feel like you are missing out on things at home while you are there, but you are doing sensational at school.   I love how much you tell me about your day- please always keep doing that as I will always care. After many, many months of being completely uninterested in anything having to do with the potty, you...

Well, readers, hell has officially froze over I think.  The first reason I believe this to be true is because it is literally frozen here: we've been in a winter storm warning in April that's been bringing wind, snow, sleet, and mostly ice.  I was up in the middle of the night, around 3:30am, which is my new awake time, listening to the freezing rain and watching Friends while the baby kicked me.  I don't even understand why this storm is called a winter storm since it is NO LONGER WINTER.  Get with the program, mother nature!  The other reason hell has froze over around here is because my children slept until 7:00am this morning!  SEVEN A.M.  If you've read any of my blogs about sleeping lately, you know that is NOT normal, for Nolan and Judah anyway.  In fact, the last time the two of them slept until 7:00 was probably a year ago? They've only slept until 8:00 once in their entire almost five years of life.  When Judah came waltzing into ...

The Bing has turned two and a half years old recently!  It's insane to me how old he is, how big he is, how much he can do, and how many things he thinks he can do (that maybe he can't yet ;) )  Here's what up with Carter... Things Carter is Into: Carter loves destroying things- much to the chagrin of his brothers who are often the victim of this.  I know that dumping, running into, and knocking down are super age appropriate for Carter right now, but it's definitely been a bit more challenging this time around since there are older brothers.  When N and J were Carter's age, the only stuff they messed with was mine.  Not that I enjoyed that or anything, but I'd much rather me get frustrated or sad than anyone else.  It's hard to try to help N and J understand they may need to build in a different place or that pretty much any time they are working on a creation, they are taking a large risk that Hurricane Carter may reek havoc.  Carter does seem t...