ever shrinking bauer zoo

yes, now we are shrinking. apparently taking care of baby birds was a little more work than my kids wanted to do. after trying their best to feed them as often as possible (every couple of hours as opposed to every half hour for 12 hours), four died after about 4 days. the 5th one i told alex to put in another nest in the barn. yes, this is what i told him to do before bringing them all home, but he insisted he wanted to take care of them. so hopefully the 5th one will have a better chance of survival.
but we may be expanding again soon. one of our feeder guppies looks like she is pregnant. so we will be expanding again, but then again we will be shrinking. (they are turtle food after all!)

grace gets to do her kindergarten screening tomorrow. i was so nervous with alex, making sure to quiz him on things they may ask. now i am lucky enough to remember the appt and get her there on time. i think she's going to do fine. i got lucky enough to have some pretty smart kids, and they all pick up stuff fast. alex and haley are reading well above their age/grade levels. i guess your first child is the one you worry more with, try to get them to accomplish more and do it early as possible. why is that? is it to validate us as parents? are we afraid if they don't do better than soandso's kid then we must not be good enough parents? or is it just inexperience? i had no idea what alex should have known by the age of 5. the preschool i chose was not into teaching things like the alphabet and numbers. their philosophy was more "we teach them those things if they want to learn about them". they weren't a bad school. they dealt with more of the kids with issues. blind kids, deaf kids, learning impaired, autistic, physically impaired, you name it, they dealt with it. alex had none of those problems. why did i send him there? i was a teen mom, and my parents as teachers educator suggested i send him there. alot of those kids (teen parents' kids) had some big issues and they were able to figure them out sooner by having them at this school. not to mention it was free. that played a big part in it too. but when we did alex's screening, i found out he really didn't know any letters, only a few numbers, but did pretty well on the rest of it. (he had 2 screenings. one for zumwalt, which he passed with flying colors, and one for st. paul, he passed with half mast colors) haley did well on her screenings. better than alex. her school focused more on academics, as did grace's. if i had it to do over again, i don't think i would change what schools the kids went to. alex did fine in school. kids learn at their own pace. you can't force them to learn something when they aren't ready. they will get it eventually. no need to freak out that little jenny can read already, and grace only knows 23 letters. she'll get it. i have no doubt. and she'll do great, when she's ready.

only 3 more years until i have all 5 in school. i am actually excited about this. i haven't been one of those "weepy" moms. i don't cry on their first day of school, first communions, anything like that. these are momentous occasions, don't get me wrong, but i can't cry at them. maybe i will when it gets down to the last one. i don't know. i haven't gotten to that point yet.