It's true, I'm a food snob.

I admit it! I freely admit that I am a food snob, but not even I suspected how deeply those feelings run. I was in Safeway tonight buying diet soda and ice cream for my sick husband (gotta feed those cravings, right?) and I was just overcome. Aisles and aisles of chemical concoctions. Row after row of different varieties of the exact same item. I don't even mean rows and rows of ice cream. I mean rows and rows of Dreyer's Ice Cream. Lots of variety in flavor, but pretty much only Dryer's Ice Cream on the shelves. I finally found the Breyer's All Natural that we prefer but there was only a sixth of the shelf space given to it and most of those rows were empty.

Main stream grocery stores give the impression of abundance and variety but every time I go into one I am simply overcome by the sheer amount of sameness. They very definitely want you to buy from one specific supplier and they are not shy about shoving that product in your face. Even Cokes... I went in to buy a six-pack of Diet Pepsi. I couldn't find one!! I found 30 packs. I found 6-packs of 6-oz cans - for the kids (that's another rant altogether!). I found 6-packs of the store brand. But my DH very specifically wanted a six-pack of Diet Pepsi and they wanted me to buy 30 instead. No thanks. I did finally end up buying a 6-pack of 20-oz bottles, which was more than I wanted, but I would NOT buy that 30-pack of cans. Sheesh.

I know you guys think I'm nuts, but I seriously was on the verge of some kind of weird attack in there. I usually shop in Whole Foods. There's lots of variety. Milk free options. Gluten free options. Soy free options. Low fat. Full fat. Expeller-pressed fat. You may not get the specific brand you were looking for but you will find a myriad of choices. I've heard that they have been or will soon be bought out by Safeway, but I don't care as long as they don't take away my choices. I WANT TO CHOOSE FOR MYSELF! I guess that's why I homeschool, isn't it? That's funny. I actually had this exact same conversation with Cameron earlier today. He was saying something to the effect of how kids with two parents that work have to go to school instead of homeschooling. I was trying to explain that it's more than the work factor. It's that most people just don't think to question the norm. Not with their schooling. Not with the food they eat. Not with the tv they watch. Not with anything. Dullsville, USA. Send in the clones.

So there's my rant for the day. Ironically, I was going to rant about people who think that the rules don't apply to them - like the woman at the play place today who refused to make her kids follow the huge "NO RUUNING" sign or the other huge "No children over 3 in this area" sign in the area where my baby was almost trampled by them. But being the mother of the children that I am... I'm not going to throw stones just yet. ;)

So what's this blog supposed to be about? Oh yeah, school! LOL. Well, school went marvelously today. First off we went to homeschool day at this play place on the other side of the county. I had to drop something off to someone in that town, so it was serendipitous that homeschool day at this place was today too. Unfortunately, there were no other homeschoolers there, but we had a great time anyway. Cameron played trains and built with blocks. Cassia cooked pretend food and put all the dollies to bed. Greyson chewed on stuff and shook maracas. Just as we were about to leave, a homeschool family that we just met at the park last Friday happened in and we had a nice time chatting with them. We basically spent all day there.

We got home around 2:30 and I immediately got Cameron started on his schoolwork. He did a phonics lesson on "ea" as the long /e/ sound. He read well. We played a game where he had to read cards with "ea" words on them and there were four cards mixed in that said "eat a treat." I had put a mysterious plate of cheese and crackers on the table. He was so excited when he came across those "eat a treat" cards, lol. It's great to see that "click" when words actually mean something. Next he did a one page math exercise on adding three numbers. The next section in the workbook is a review section and then we move on to multiplication! Yikes! We finished off our school day with a science activity about patterns and cycles. It was a simple "complete the pattern" thing followed by rewriting they patterns that were cyclic with a recycling type notation. You know, the three arrows thing.

I've been thinking so much about next year and wondering if I'm going to be attempting and/or expecting too much out of Cam. But then with days like today, days when we spend all day out playing and then still get all of the intended work done, I know that we can do it. We can do it. We can do it. We can do it. Say it with me! We can do it.