Change

There's a lot of it going on all the time, I guess, but this is one of those moments (in the big scheme of things) when I seem to have a lot of attention on it, too.

There have been changes for the kids at school. Megan's started Gr. 4 and has to cope with a bunch of new subjects being introduced and quite a lot more homework than before.

Michael's gone to Gr. 2 and seems to be so much more confident and capable than he was last year. I have often beaten myself up for holding him back a year but when I see him slotting in so nicely with his group and managing so well with his school work, I think it might have been worth it.

And for right now, I'm going to let myself have that, and not torture myself with questions and arguments and wondering whether I just took the lazy parent's route.

Jack and James are also enjoying their new classes at nursery school this year. Jack continues to be his cute and charming self while James has become quite the little ladies' man - the little girls in his class queue up at the door to wait for him in the mornings!

The boys have all had their annual haircuts, courtesy of Dad, and while I was sad to see Jack's beautiful, mildly gingery curls go, he definitely looks more comfortable without all that hair to deal with in the summer heat. James'whispy little blonde locks are also gone - perhaps not altogether a bad thing, considering what was left of them after Jack played barber toward the end of last year. From certain angles, he looked a bit like he had a mullet...

You may remember me saying in one of my last posts how our holiday had me thinking about making a few changes in our home life. Well, shortly after writing that post, I read about FlyLady on Pink Hair Girl's blog and over the past couple of weeks I've started doing the Baby Steps on the FlyLady programme.
Some days are better than others, but I can tell you that just doing a few of these basic things has already made an enormous difference to my household!

I must admit that I've been a bit slack on this for the last few days but every time I think about how fantastic it's going to be when I have my life running like clockwork, I feel inspired to pick up again where I've left off. I do believe that putting a little bit of order into my day to day life has empowered me to reach for those things I had given up on before.

Like the possibility of ever completing my studies.

A few days ago, I filled out my registration application for the 2012 academic year at UNISA and tonight David and I made a plan to pay the registration fees. So it's official - I'm once again a student.

Some of you may recall that getting back into my studies is something I've been wanting to do and have failed to manage for a couple of years in a row now, so this is really a big deal for me. I'd like to thank you for being an inspiration in this regard, Laura!

So yes, this is definitely a year for new things (and for rediscovering some not so new things) and I think it's going to be a good one.