March transitioned from winter to spring, although it has felt more like summer here in San Diego. We welcomed Tim back from his work trip to Boston at the beginning of the month. Cordelia, Anthony, and Lydia transitioned to new sports activities. We celebrated Cordelia’s 12th birthday!
Cordelia is now 12. We had a small family celebration on her actual birthday and will be having a small friend party the first weekend in April. Cordelia has now had a month of Basketball practice. Her team has played three games and won their last game. It’s a good group of girls and she’s becoming a key player on the team. She’s playing point guard, which means she’s doing the majority of the ball handling. She’s also calling the plays and starting to figure out how to find the open teammates for easy shots. Her tenacity on the defense has also been inspiring. It seems like basketball is becoming a great way to build teamwork and those friendships. Cordelia did great on her 6th grade science fair bouncing egg experiment. In April she will be doing a similar showcase for her English class, representing a specific country. She got assigned South Korea and she’s been working hard on getting her poster board and presentation ready. She’s also going to have an assignment for history due at the end of the month, so April is shaping up to be busy! In ice skating, her synchro team finished their season and had their final party. We think she is a little sad to be leaving some friends, but her interest in ice skating had been dwindling, so it’s not a huge loss for her.
Anthony has had a very complicated and emotional month. He started the month nervous and uncertain about his soccer club selection. We ultimately decided to go with the local team, which has turned out to be a great choice. The whole experience seemed to be stressful and it took him almost the whole month to regain a desire to play soccer. But after three weeks of practice, he is gaining confidence and got chosen as team captain by his coach! Unfortunately, his emotional turmoil spread into an overall anxiety about getting dropped off basically anywhere. He started crying every morning at school and his enthusiasm for school dropped. His teacher said he did a great job on his historical figure report, but he has been feeling bored and not really connected with the other students. He and his partner did win one of the egg drop prizes for highest with no parachute. Anthony continues to enjoy piano, although since the daylight savings time shift he hasn’t been waking up to play before school.
Lydia enjoyed her field trip to the flower fields. She learned about the flowers and had fun with her classmates. Lydia worked really hard to prepare for her speech competition, unfortunately she did not win. She was really sad and disappointed about that. Lydia started the after-school basketball class this month. She’s been having a fun time in that. Lydia also swimming still. Lydia’s piano skills seem to be increasing a bit. She has several songs now that can be recognized when she plays and her timing is improving too.
Natalie is continuing through her phonics book 2 and is almost done. She is getting a little more challenging works at school, but we think she’s still a bit bored. Natalie started her next session of soccer, still in the same class. Her swimming is slowing improving. We got her on the waiting list for a swim school closer to our house.
Alicia is trying to figure out if there’s a good way to increase her hours at work and still manage the needed home duties. It was a very stressful month at work with lots of hard deadlines and demands. Some of the items she supports are getting high visibility from upper management and adding stress to things. Home life has been mixed with some good times and some challenging times. This month seemed to be especially emotionally charged and that has led to lots of difficult interactions. AWANA has continued to be smooth but there will be end of the year tasks to wrap up soon.
Tim had a long but successful trip to Boston for work. He was also able to take some extra days to visit his brother and new niece in Louisiana. After a number of delays and canceled flights, he finally made it back home. He has been recognized at work for all the great contributions he made for the demonstration and got assigned a larger role in leading the project. At home, all the family emotions and events of the month have made things challenging. It has been hard to feel like things are settled at home when there hasn’t been a lot of good family time. Tim did make some good progress on our new bookshelf and is preparing to finish the new linen cabinet in April.
April has begun and we feel a bit uncertain about where the month will take us. The kids will have their Spring break from school. Hopefully this will be a good time to reset. Cordelia and Anthony are looking forward to a week with Mimi and Papa in Arizona. Lydia and Natalie will be doing a science camp together. In the middle of the month, Tim and Alicia will be celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. We are praying for God to help us navigate the emotional turmoil and regain more positive family interactions.
