We were without internet access for two weeks after we moved in.  In that time I had lots of chores to do, so I didn't particularly notice the extra free time. I did realize just how much time I was spending on the computer before, though, and made me realize I don't want to do that again.  I'm pretty much off Facebook at this point - haven't checked it in at least a week.  I used to read about 30 blogs (through my reader) and have cut that down to about 12 of the ones that I either really enjoy or find very useful. (It's anything from food blogs to frugal tips to specific sales/coupons to decorating.)  I'm also only getting on the computer a few times a day.  I'd like to set specific times that I can get on, but our schedule's kind of flexible right now so I think that would be hard.  I want to read more, have more time for stuff around the house, etc.  The computer just sucks my time and wastes it.

Molly's first gymnastics class was this morning.  She's so funny - first she comes out of the class all excited and telling me about all the fun stuff they did.  Then, five minutes later, she's telling me it wasn't fun and making up some stupid reason for it.  I question her on that and she makes up another dumb reason. She's been doing this a lot lately - telling me why she doesn't have any fun.  She definitely has an inferiority complex when it comes to Anna, and I think this is just an extension of it.  In her mind, Anna must be having more fun than she is.  I tried telling her that school isn't that fun and it is a lot of work, but I don't want to overstress that (since she is going to school next year, after all) and she doesn't really believe me anyway.  It's kind of frustrating to have her constantly comparing herself to Anna and thinking she's coming up short in one way or another. Like today, she said to me, "Do you know how to spell carrot?  K-W-T."  Perhaps I responded wrong, but I praised her effort in getting the letters close, and then told that it's actually a C at the beginning (and told her that K and C can sound alike sometimes, and that it's hard to know which one is right) and that it's actually caRRot, not cawit (as she says it with her speech issues), so it's really an R in the middle.  (I didn't bother telling her about the vowels because in my experience, kids just don't get those at this age.)  She immediately got all down saying, "I got it wrong.  I don't know how to spell." I told her that was absolutely not true and she did a really good job sounding out the letters and I was impressed with what she told me (and I genuinely was - Anna was nowhere near being able to do that when she was 4.5), but it wasn't good enough for her.  It's kind of like, how do I praise her and tell her she did a good job but correct her mistakes so that she can learn from them?  I don't know...She's learning a lot from Anna but she's never going to be at the same level and I don't know how to get her to realize that's OK.

We're having some new friends over for playgroup today.  New as in, I've never met any of them.  That should be interesting. I'm not against meeting new people, I just find it a little difficult at times.  I think the rest of them know each other though, so that should provide a conversation buffer...hopefully this all pans out and Molly will have some of her own friends soon!

OK, I'm going to go get some stuff done before PG.  Happy Thursday!