I'm back!

Sorry for the long delay in getting back. I never did get the house really clean (though it was presentable) because even though I turned off the computer distraction, Julie Andrews drew me in to Austria. There's a car commercial that they keep playing on Nick Jr with the "So long, farewell" song from The Sound of Music on it and the kids would walk around singing it all day. Well, I just couldn't let them not see it in context so I made them watch it the other day (did I blog about that?) and so it's been on several times over the past week. Anyway, I love that movie - had to watch.

Friday afternoon we went to the LEGO Engineering project at 4-H. It was hilarious trying to get there: I had a hard time pulling Cameron away from his LEGOs to go to play with LEGOs. ;) It was really fun. They had a bunch of motors and just let the kids free-form build whatever they wanted for the first half - there were some great designs! - and then brought out some race car kits for the next half. The last few minutes they had races with their rubber band powered cars. Greyson kept crawling on the raceway, lol. This was the first project where Cameron hasn't needed any help at all. I sat on the other side of the room with Cassia and Greyson, coloring pictures and casually chatting, thinking this is what it must feel like to send your kids to school. OK, not quite, but I bet that's what it feels like to have your kid in a co-op class without you! It's amazing to me that my little out of control toddler is at that point now.

Saturday we spent the day with my dad playing miniature golf. Cassia got a hole-in-one on her very first hole! Cameron did that too his first time playing. I guess it's a family tradition. Greyson's got a lot to live up to. ;) Anyway, on the way there, Cassia pointed out that there were three girls in the car. We asked her how many boys there were and she counted four. Next we asked Cameron how many people total there were and rather than counting them, he said, "Hmmm, three girls plus four boys is.... 7 people!" Everyone was suitably impressed with his addition skills but I was much more impressed by the fact that rather than counting, he sat there and did a math problem in his head. It seems that mathematics for him has moved from the concrete manipulation of things to the abstract manipulation of symbols.

Sunday we went to a birthday party then my mom came over for dinner. I didn't have much appetite and blamed it on the overly sweet and chemically cupcakes at the party. No such luck. Monday I woke up on death's door, it seems. I won't get into the nitty gritty, but the vertigo alone was enough to kill me. So I spent Monday and Tuesday on the couch watching Discovery Channel all day and moving as little as possible. Have you ever tried to carry a baby while the room is spinning?? Not fun.

Cameron and Cassia were a great help though. They fixed their own food (with a little help) and played nicely all day Monday. Cameron even brought his schoolwork to the couch for me. We very slowly worked through one math exercise (more addition) and one phonics exercise (hard and soft g). Tuesday DH was afraid that he was getting it too and stayed home as a precautionary measure. He ended up just taking care of the kids all day. What a man! He even did Cameron's schoolwork with him. They read the last chapter in MPH 3A on materials and I have to say that I was pretty impressed. He made sure that Cam understood what he was saying (I don't think he really needed to verify that Cameron could define every word in every sentence, but I was good and did not say a word!) and he even roamed around the house looking for concrete examples of each type of material. The man obviously understands multisensory learning! By dinnertime, I was able to actually eat again and felt much better after that. Greyson though, woke up screaming every two hours ALL NIGHT LONG. Yawn. Today, I am still a little dizzy and very tired/wiped out/sleepy but I think that now I will survive. Still not sure I should drive though so we're skipping park day this afternoon.