New Routine, and then I go off on a tangent. But there are pictures!

We've been back to our school year "routine" for a week. I put routine in quotation marks because it's a new routine for us. Actually, this week we will start our REAL routine. Last week was just a transition week.

Colin's first day of Junior Kindergarten (He looks a little tense. He was actually very mellow. I blame it on the word "cheese."). Oh and...(I had a cute outfit picked out for him, which he agreed he'd wear the day before. But that morning, he decided he didn't want to battle with the button and zipper on the shorts, and the grey henley t-shirt didn't have any pictures on it, so he didn't want to wear it. Whatever...get dressed...as long as it's clean I'm cool with it. So he picked mesh shorts and his helicopter t-shirt.).

While my first graders were at gym, art, or music, I picked Colin up at Sandy's and took him to school every day. I am pleasantly surprised at how easy the transition actually has been for him. On Tuesday, I walked him in the building and helped him find is cubby, hang up his backpack, and walked him into the classroom. He did amazing. On Wednesday, I walked him to his cubby but didn't go into his classroom. He sniffled for about 30 seconds and then he was good to go (I think he was especially tired that day because he almost fell asleep in the car on our way there). On Thursday, I walked him to the door of the building. As I was walking away, he called for me and I thought, "Oh great...here we go" but he just wanted another hug :). On Friday, I dropped him off at the end of a path that the parent drop-off kids get dropped off, and he waltzed right up to the building no problem. Seriously, I did NOT expect it to go so smoothly. Every day after school, he gets walked to the office and I pick him up there after I get my first-graders on their merry ways home. He hangs out in my classroom. The first few days were a little hairy, but now he knows that I have to get work done so he has to be quiet. He has been looking at books, watching Curious George on my phone, and every day I give him a snack.

He loves school. He talks about two boys named Reed and Ryland. There's two reasons I think he chose to befriend them first: 1. They both sit at his table and 2. There are boy-girl siblings at Sandy's named Reid and Rylan. He has learned a few new songs, and he's generally anxious to go to school. I think it really helped that his two good friends from Sandy's also went to school this year, so he's the oldest when he's there in the morning, and he really doesn't want to take a nap with all of the little kids.

This week we start our real routine, where I take him to school Mondays and Fridays, and Kevin's mom takes him Tuesdays through Thursdays. That will be nice so I can have some of my prep time back. The 20 minutes it takes to pick Colin up and drop him off isn't a very long time, but enough that I can get a lot done!

I'm teaching piano on Tuesdays from 5-7 and Wednesdays from 6-7. It's a bit late, but it's nice because we don't have to rush home. Right now I have 11 students, but 1 is moving out of town sometime in the near future. 10ish students is the number my studio sustains itself at. The money is amazing, and I love learning how to play piano Simply Music style, but now that Colin is getting to the age where he might start showing interest in extracurricular activities, I have to stop building my studio. My plan right now is to keep teaching the students I have, but not add anyone. If someone drops out, I won't be too heartbroken. Simply Music has been wonderful for me as a pianist and piano teacher. As much as I would love to quit my teaching job and work from home as a piano teacher, I don't want to take that leap of faith. It's too dependent on too many factors out of my control. Plus, I'd be teaching piano mostly in evenings, and when my kids are in school, I won't have a lot of time with them if my evenings are packed with teaching 60 students (the amount I estimate I would need to have to make the same income, plus purchase our own health/dental insurance). Plus I suck at bookkeeping, so there's that. I mean, I manage 11 students "fine," but I could never keep 60 straight. (Sorry, that was so not on-topic, but relevant I guess).

Anyway, so that's our new routine. Hopefully we can add swimming lessons into the mix in October :)

A few pictures Colin's teacher sent me of him at school on Friday:
Plotting his escape:

 School district motto:

Busy Busy Busy

These next 2 weeks can be over, like, now. Here's a rundown of the events to come:

Tuesday: A student observer from UWRF is coming to my classroom, and make up piano lessons in the evening.
Wednesday: standardized test for my 1st graders, meeting after school, Ben's 10 monthday
Thursday: Parent-Teacher conferences until 7:30 pm
Friday: Vault Denim Party at a co-workers house
Saturday: Cleaning marathon in preparation for an introductory session for some prospective piano students

Sunday: Playing piano in church. yikes! Especially considering look at how much time I have to practice!
Monday: Nothing!!
Tuesday: Student observer, make up piano lessons
Wednesday: make up piano lessons
Thursday: Parent-Teacher conferences until 7:30 (although my last conference is at 6:00 so I can just hang out for the last hour and get stuff done!)

In the past, we've had conferences on Tuesday and Thursday in one week. This time around it's two Thursdays, which is just not fun. By the time I get home it will be 7:45. Hopefully Ben will still be awake for me to put him to sleep. He's usually sleeping by then :(

Pass me the wine. Or ice cream. Or masseuse. Or esthetician who gives great facials.

Hodge Podge

Not much exciting is going on around here. So just a quick little hodge podge of news for you...

Ben is good. He takes a 3-4 hr nap every day, which allows me to either be hyper-productive or anti-productive (sadly, I've been choosing the latter recently). He's been sleeping pretty well at night. Not all the way through, but just waking once to eat and going back to sleep right away. Once he starts "snacking" vs. eating, we'll try to wean him off of waking up altogether. Although I'm hoping he'll just do that on his own :) We've set a goal to get him to drink from a bottle once a day for these next few weeks because he starts daycare on the 5th and he's not so much loving the bottle. We're working on the details (like a date!) for Ben's baptism. That's my goal before maternity leave is up--to get that on the calendar and the people in place for it.

Colin is good. He's had jumping beans in his pants the last few days. Cabin fever or something. We're struggling with him getting down from the table and jumping around rather than eating. We've threatened to get the booster seat back out and strap him in it during supper time.

I'm good. My maternity leave is coming to a close quickly. I go back the 5th (less than 2 weeks away!) and I'll do a "reverse shadow" for 2 days. It will help me ease back into it, Since, you know, I can't just leave 20 6 and 7 year olds unattended to pump for 15 minutes! It might be rough those first few days having to hold out until lunch or prep, so if I need to leave my long term sub will be there for back up. Whew! Spring break starts the 12th so working just 1 week will be good way to ease into it again. I'm ready to go back. The only thing I'm not looking forward to is being so goshdarn tired and working through it and pretending to not be tired. Not that I nap a whole lot at home anyway. Ben will do great at daycare, Colin will enjoy having him there, and I know he'll be in good hands.
My decluttering frenzy has died down a bit because I decluttered a lot already! Right now I'm working on the basement storage room. My mom came up over the weekend and helped me get rid of some stuff. I need to find the right organizers for some things, and then I'll be ready to tell you about it.
I'm going to hold another introductory session to recruit one more class of piano students. Hopefully I'll get a few more kids. I'd love to have 3-5 more.

Kevin is good. He's starting up a blog :) No, it's not about his adventures in fatherhood, although that might be...entertaining. It's work-related. When it's up and running I'll share the url with you and you can visit him.

Rocket's good. I think he's ready for spring. He misses lying in the grass basking in the warm sunshine. Aren't we all?

We're all good.

You good?

Weekly update

I really do apologize for the lack of posts, and the fact that when I do post I just can't shut up :) Colin has been uber-territorial and obsessive about my laptop and his YouTube videos of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Even if I were to start a post, it would be a battle to finish it. It was getting ridiculous. We've decided to take an "out of sight, out of mind" approach. The laptop is stored on top of the fridge (until nap time or bed time if I need to use it). If he wants to watch something, it has to be on TV or one of his DVDs.

So, in a nutshell...
Ben has been growing. What else does he do? He's gaining weight quickly and we'll find out the official stats next Thursday at his 2 month appointment. He continues to be a good sleeper. I usually wake up about twice during the night to feed him and I'm typically only up for about a half hour. That is, if I am awake enough to go to back to bed. I often pass out in the rocking chair and wake up after an hour or more. Ben is smiling and "talking" more and more every day. His little "laugh" is emerging, but for now it's just a deep breath in with a little noise.
My favorite view:
Colin is ready for spring to be here. He needs to get outside and run off some energy. Some days are more challenging than others, but hopefully soon his cabin fever will be cured. Speaking of cures, he had strep last week. He's finishing up some Amoxicillin, which has been a chore to give him. He refuses to take it straight--he'll fight us, even if we pin him down, and he'll purse his lips together so we can't get the syringe in his mouth. Even if we do manage to get the tip in, he'll spit the medicine right back out all over us. We've been creative about mixing it with other things. We've made strawberry banana smoothies and eaten a lot of strawberry pudding over the last week!

I just finished typing up some loose recipes I had floating around in my cabinet. I'm going to print them and store them in plastic page protectors in a little binder. Aside from giving my neighbor 3 grocery bags bags + 3 small appliances for donation, that's the only decluttering thing I've worked on the last week. I am tossing around the idea of adding another class to my piano lessons. More about that later...don't want to talk (err...read) your ears (eyes) off!

Kevin is working more in the office. No more taking advantage of his help while he's working from home. :( He's been busy working and helping me with the boys.

Simply Music: Highs and Lows

After my intro sessions last weekend, I was sure that signing up the 4 students who came would be cake (except maybe not the one who was discouraged at the end). The biggest challenge, I thought, was to get these 4 students to all choose the same day and time for lessons.

Then came Monday. No money from anybody. And an email from my co-worker/friend whose daughter I have taught piano lessons to for the last year and a half saying her husband said it wouldn't work in their budget. I emailed the teacher I talk with in St. Paul and she emailed me some awesome fast facts about cost, value, etc. I tweaked it and sent it to my coworker. She emailed me back saying she would forward it to her husband, but she wasn't sure it would convince him.

I came home absolutely defeated, coming to the realization that I spent $650 and 40 hours of training for naught.

I went to work on Tuesday and I got a phone call in the middle of the day from another parent, saying she was on board and she'd drop off some money for me that evening. 1 student.

My co-worker emailed me saying her husband agreed on the condition that they get an extra month or two for the lower introductory rate. I obliged, knowing that the cost of the lessons is more than the cost of traditional lessons (for good reason). I figured if I could get this group started, they would soon realize the value of Simply Music lessons. I emailed everyone letting them know that I reduced the lessons for the duration of the first level to the intro rate, and after that it would be the regular rate. 2 students.

On Wednesday, I emailed everyone I hadn't heard from, just wondering what they were thinking about signing up for lessons or not. Later in the day, I found an enrollment form in my school mailbox. 3 students.

That afternoon, I met with a student and parent who had forgotten about the introductory session.

On Wednesday night, I got an email from the parent who seemed discouraged and she was in. She dropped a check off for me this morning in our mailbox. 4 students.

And today after school, the parent/student I talked to yesterday came to my classroom to become more convinced Simply Music is worth the value. And my student total rose to 5.

5 students! At the beginning of the week, I wasn't sure it was going to happen at all. But now it's reality. I've got a handful to start with next month.

5 students, 50 minutes.

And I'm perfectly fine with that :-D

Simply Music: And now it's up to fate.

I held my two introductory sessions this weekend. I had 1 person attend Saturday (1 didn't show), and at one point she said she was 99% sure she'd sign her son up. As she was leaving, I realized I didn't tell her the price of the student materials (books and what not) and when I told her, she said, "Well that makes a big difference." I emailed her to clarify costs and everything. I haven't heard from her yet.

Then today I had 3 parents/2 kids attend (1 parent/child didn't show). All 3 were interested and filled out their availability form. Then I checked facebook and one said it's not in their budget right now :(. This student is one I've had for a year and a half, and she started pretty young, so she only took lessons every other week to the tune of $31/month. Now lessons are every week and they cost more. So I'm really sad about that. Especially since I know she'll do really well in it.

I told everyone that I'd like to start the first week of October, so I'd need the money for at least the student materials tomorrow (Monday) so I can order and receive the materials from Simply Music on time.

The two students I haven't mentioned both go to the school I teach at, so I said they could just give me the money at school. I guess I will find out tomorrow if they're going to sign up!

After tonight's session, I was so sure I'd have at least 3 students, if not 4. Now I'm down to hopefully 2.

Have I told you lately that I hate money? Because I do.

Simply Music

I've been teaching piano lessons for about 6 years now. Boring, traditional piano lessons. After co-teaching a group piano lesson class during summer school, I looked into changing up my methods a little more, moving away from private lessons and towards group lessons. I "researched" group lessons on google to try to find ideas of how it worked. Now, I put researched in quotations because it last all of a half hour before I stumbled upon Simply Music.

In a nutshell, Simply Music is a non-traditional way of teaching piano lessons. We teach our children how to talk before we teach them the ABCS, spelling, and sentence structure. But when we teach piano lessons, we jump right into reading music instead of just letting students play.

Look at this:
There's a lot going on there. Straight lines, curved lines, and each line has a different letter, and oh by the way the lines on the top and the lines on the bottom don't have the same letters, symbols, numbers, notes that look different, letters... A lot to learn! And students learn all of that in the first 6 months or so in traditional lessons.

In the first year of Simply Music piano lessons (which are in a group setting), students don't even learn how to read music. They just play it! In the first 3 months, they have a dozen songs from various genres that they can play by memory. They even leave the first lesson knowing how to play a song. And that's what they really want to do. They want to play, not learn!

Simply Music is not sold in stores (infomercial alert!). You have to sign up on their website to be trained, send them a bunch of money, and then you get the training materials to learn how to play and teach the Simply Music way.

Through the website, I found a local Simply Music piano teacher and attended a free information session she held in her in-home "studio." I was hooked on the program. I knew I would be. She told me I'd definitely have to raise my rates by about $10 per lesson per student. This scares the crap out of me, but she reassured me that it will work because 1) students in group settings get a longer lesson 2) students get books and DVDs to practice with at home (which is an additional fee) 3) students will progress so much faster than students learning traditionally, which makes students and parents very happy 4) students will be motivated to play. Instead of that fight to go practice, there's a fight to STOP practicing, which, again, makes parents very happy.

Needless to say, I'm very excited about starting the process. I sent in my application and my money today and look forward to receiving a package in the mail soon. I am ready to use my time more efficiently and make more money to supplement our incomes. In turn, hopefully I can push our DMP payments to the max because every penny of what I earn teaching piano lessons will be going towards that.

The reason I don't clean these days

I hosted a piano recital at my home for my 5 lovely lady students. Thus, I cleaned my house for about 5 hours. BUT not the entire 5 hours, you see, because I couldn't stand for very long! I'd sweep a bit of the floor and my right hip would hurt. I'd sit down. Then I'd get up and sweep some more and then sit down. Then I had to mop up Rocket's paw prints. So I'd do a little bit, then sit down. Then I dusted, and washed dishes, and cleaned the bathroom. It has never been such a painful job before. Now that the recital is over (it went well, the students had fun, the families were appreciative, they loved my punch), all I'm going to do is sit the entire rest of the night. My house does look quite lovely, though. Cleanest it's been at least all week. Maybe even longer than that.

Oh, and our washing machine doesn't work. At least it didn't 5 hours ago when I tried. There's no way I'm walking down the stairs to the basement to check if it works now. Because, you know, that means I'll have to walk back up. The only reason I'm hoping it doesn't work is so that I can get a new washer. But that costs money. Money that ideally should be used towards other things. But if the cosmos want me to get a new washing machine, let the cosmos speak.

Off to sit on the couch. If you need me, you'll find me there. And bring a snack while you're up... :)