How's the new school?

We have become one of the many guinea pigs to our neighborhood and community. With sly eyes we are asked, "How's the new school? We've thought about it but wanted to wait to see how it turned out." Meaning we want to see how your kids do before we try it out on our kids. We are happy to be the experiment and feel so blessed that our children have this amazing opportunity.

My Kindergartner, 2nd grader and 3rd grader are all attending a very outside the box approach to education at the American International School of Utah. The school is in the old "historic" 49th St. Galleria. There are about a thousand students enrolled from K-12 with 20% international students in the high school. There are 280 kids in the elementary school, with over 500 kids on the waiting list.

So to answer to your question...
It's amazing. My kids have never been happier! As a mom I love that there is no required homework and NO backpacks! So happy. The kids can work on Raz-kids, and other programs they are using at school if parents want them to. But for me, I love that my kids come home and can play, play, play. I'm not fighting them on homework or yelling at them because there is a moldy sandwich in their backpack or that I'm tripping over backpacks all over the house. The school tries to be as paperless as possible and only allows healthy snacks. Want to bring a treat for a child's birthday - you are limited to fruit cuts, fruit leathers, strawberries with whip cream, etc. I love that my kids don't come home loaded with sugar.

Breakdown...
Gwen loves Kindergarten. It is a Montessori approach. She plays all day while challenging her brain (this is her quote). There are 48 kids in Pre-K to K and they all have class together with three head teachers and one assistant teacher. I love all of her teachers. They are strict but kind and super fun. Gwen wishes she was all day... which we had the option to pay for. She is reading better at home and loves school. Isn't that the point in Kindergarten.

Audrey adores her two teachers in 2nd grade. Yep a class of 36 has two amazing teachers. It is also a Montessori approach mixed with Acton Model. She has yoga 2-3 times a week. Love it! She tells me that she plays all day but her teachers tell her she is actually learning as she plays. I've never had her come home with so much excitement. It helps that all the elementary kids are provide with a healthy snack every day. She loves the books they read and tells us every detail, she loves the science experiments they do and the fun the have. She made a volcano erupt last week and this week she made a cross section of the earth with it's different layers.

Porter is in 3rd grade and didn't love the first week. I think the 3-5 graders had a harder time adjusting to the different culture at the school. It is now the end of week 3 and he loves it. I think the 3-5 teaching style is my favorite. There is a teacher and an assistant for 36 kids. There are four groups which they call crews. All the crews are mixed with 3rd,4th, and 5th graders. Some of Porter's favorite projects have been drawing a self portrait. See the improvement below. He fought this assignment and didn't want to do it but now loves to see how much he improved (which was the purpose). I"m excited to see his final draft that is at home. He wrote an autobiography and today is presenting a biography that we wrote with a group of kids. They interviewed one of the teachers and created a timeline and biography of them. I told him what a great thing to learn. He can write a biography about his grandparents. He was excited. They are also reading the Giver. Daily they have "specials" which include a variation of the following depending on the trimester: Ukulele (he starts this in December), Choir, Dance/Theater, Health, PE, Art, and Keyboarding. He comes home happy and excited to learn.

Other perks...
Porter and Audrey take piano lessons at the school on Tuesday mornings. There is also a beginning orchestra that we will do next year with Audrey at the violin and Porter at the cello. Also an amazing performing arts director and opportunities to be in plays.

How's the new school? Amazing, awesome, a dream come true.

Is it perfect? Of course not. Parents, teachers and staff are all working from the same book but we are not always on the same page. Not a well defined flow of authority. But those issues take time and will work out.

I thought parents were crazy to drive from Layton, or Eagle Mountain to take their kids to AISU, but now I think I would do the same. I'm just luck to live 1.5 miles away :D

What I've learned about loss

There is something healing about recognizing the hurt.

The first week I tried not be sad. I didn't want to waste my time being sad. I soon realized that acknowledging that it is normal and okay to feel pain over my many losses. Somehow telling my self this made me feel better. When I have a hard day I allow myself to go through the emotions and heal from them.

Healing from loss takes time.

We struggled with infertility (used lightly) with Porter. The pain of not getting pregnant month after month seemed unbearable at the time. Now I look back at the short period or phase of our lives with fondness. All the tender moments Eric and I had together as we worked through the feelings of fear and disappointment. Remembering this helps me realize that in five years I can feel the same way about this experience. Time seems to slow down when life is a struggle. It feels all encompassing right now but I know that this is such a small moment in time.

Healing is a process and not a one time event.

I became frustrated when the hurt of these miscarriages came back. After two weeks I really felt great and things were moving on. I was happy to not be sick and to have a summer of not being pregnant ahead of me. Then I started getting test results. The pain came flooding back with every call from the doctor's office. I would heal and be doing well then the medical bills started coming in the mail. Every time I get the courage to sit down and start paying the bills the feelings come back. I try to pay them when I can have a few moments of sadness and tears. The first time I started paying the bills I felt great empathy for anyone who has had to do this for a lost child. How painful to sit down to the astronomical bills that represent a horrible loss in your life.

The fear of future loss never leaves you.

Every time we decide to try for another child I feared not being able to get pregnant. I don't think I could ever experience pregnancy again without the fear of losing the baby. Whatever loss you have experienced in life stays with you to some degree.

Life goes on. I'm grateful that summer is a few weeks away and that I get to spend every minute of it playing and exploring with my children. I've declared this summer the summer of hiking and outdoor adventures. I love being out in nature and the peace that I feel there. I'm excited to take my awesome little hikers around the many beautiful canyons surrounding our city.

Creating My Own Happiness

In February, I found out I was pregnant. I was giddy for the first week. The second week I was scared to death. This was my roller coaster of emotions for the next eight weeks. Nauseated, headaches, hatred for food and narcolepsy are good descriptions of my health during the first trimester. Eric made dinner for about four weeks straight and I took a nap everyday with cute Rose. I felt more pregnant than I did with my last two pregnancies and knew that this had to be it. I was going to finally keep this pregnancy, yet deep down I think I knew. I never allowed myself to get too excited because it wasn't real until I saw a heartbeat at 12-14 weeks.

The Tuesday before Easter I had my first doctors appointment. I didn't sleep all night stressing out about my appointment. I can't miscarry a third time, right. Everything is going to be okay. I started losing a little weight and felt off. I wanted more than anything to believe that this pregnancy would be different. Eric came with me and the doctor congratulated us. I looked at him and said, "Let's make sure there is something to celebrate first." He was a little surprised but went straight to the ultrasound and once again no heartbeat. The baby measured at 11 weeks 1 day. I was numb. We went to the second ultrasound machine to have the tech distraught, "I just check you a few weeks ago and everything looked great, how can this be?" I just shrugged my shoulders and said "it's the third time" as tears streamed down my face. It was an extremely painful doctors visit. We scheduled the D&C for the next morning. I couldn't believe this was happening again. At the time I was in good spirits. I felt peace and purpose to the chaos.

The D&C went well. The best part was when the anesthesiologist lectured me on overpopulating the earth. I think the OR nurse wanted to punch him. The plan was to run a few tests on the fetus and on my thyroid. I kept telling myself that we were going to get an answer, these tests were going to help. It was bittersweet to learn that everything looks normal. The nurse even told me that there is no reason why we can't keep trying, oh and that it was a girl (ouch!). I wanted to say, "We are never going through this again!" More doctor visits are planned. I'm not very hopeful. I now suffer from recurrent miscarriages. What makes mine rare is that it is happening after four normal pregnancies and all my miscarriages have been at eleven weeks.

My running buddy has also experienced miscarriages and loss. As we talked one morning about how I felt like I needed something to heal and knew that writing about the experience would help. I expressed to her how I didn't know how to start. She said it perfectly, "It's hard when you don't have a happy ending." I've thought about that a lot this week. I struggle with the lack of hope. With the other two miscarriages I felt comfort in knowing we could try again. Now it is emotionally, physically, and financially unwise to continue trying. Doing so would define me as insane. My biggest fear is to become pregnant. I think one of my struggles has been our new home. We build a six bedroom house to fill with children not house guests or furniture. Now what do we do with our extra rooms? (Although, we love and encourage house guests!)

I always imagined knowing it was going to be our last child and cherishing every moment. To stop having children was going to be a joyous decision as we felt complete as a family. I still want that feeling. I guess that feeling will come with time if we are forced to be done.

As I pondered the idea of a happy ending, I decided I needed to change my definition of happy. I needed to create my happiness. I have an amazing husband and four beautiful children. Life is good, even if it isn't what I planned. Has any of our lives turned out like we thought? It is usually so much better. Although I lack hope in the baby department, I do have hope that I will someday have an understanding of why this happened and clarity to it's greater purpose.