A Light in the Shadows

Book reports!!

2011-09-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did it. I made them do book reports. Writing is one of those things that is so important, that if you don't learn, well... you can't blog!! Who wants to read a blog with no paragraphs and no flow and no form? Well, apparently lots of people, lol, but I hate blogs without paragraphs. I hate people who use bad spelling and grammar on Facebook. I also hate when people say "libary" and "fustrated."

We've dabbled a little in Writing Strands. We play around with Mad Libs. But I truly, truly believe that good writing comes from reading good books. The reading is still coming along slowly here. I'm sure they're all "behind" grade level - though Cameron fakes it pretty well. (Actually, I gave them a couple of word tests about a month ago and both Cameron and Cassia scored at about where they should be on one test, but then kind of low on one that was supposed to test their ability to read alone.) But we do listen to a lot of good audio books and I read wonderful stories to them (finally finished the entire Harry Potter series! and have now moved on to Treasure Island). I know in my heart that hearing good prose will help them to write good prose.

And now I have proof.

Cameron's book report was so lovely! I just don't have another word for it. I mean, the spelling was horrific (and you can put that word on his vocabulary list because he asked me what it meant when I mentioned that, lol) but the content was divine. When I first assigned the task (in a spur of the moment, "This is what you need to do before you can play video games today," moment) I first asked them if they knew what a paragraph was. Cameron spit out the perfectly right answer, "A collection of sentences," though I'm not entirely sure where he picked that up. I must have said that before (?). Then we digressed into this silly tirade of, "Well, what are sentences?" A collection of words. What are words? A collection of letters. What are letters? A representation of sounds. What are sounds? A way we use our voices to communicate with each other. Etc., etc., etc. Yes, it went on for quite a bit longer. Eeek.

Anyway, after defining the paragraph (and the meaning of life) I told them the basic parts of an essay and that their book report should contain at least three paragraphs: an introduction, "I read X book by Y and it was about Z;" a body, "I (dis)liked X because ABC," but please use more than just one sentence here; and finally a conclusion, "I think people should(n't) read X because Q." I also told them that this book report should be at least a page long (knowing that Cassia writes bigger and occasionally skips lines). I was truly impressed by how little help they asked for and how comprehensive their book reports were! I mean, it worked!!! Just listening to good literature has given them good writing skills (not Hemmingway, obviously, but good for their age!)

Cassia's essay was a little sparse - her last two paragraphs were only one sentence each - but they did the assignment well and Cameron wrote quite a nice second half of his essay because he was concerned about filling a whole page, lol. Cassia just wrote bigger. ;) (Finding it hilarious that my paragraph about Cassia's paragraph being sparse is sparse. LOL.)

In conclusion, "I think that the Ghost of Blackhawk Island is a really good book and I think that every kid should get a chance to read the Ghost of Blackhawk Island at least once or twice in their life." And, "I like Molly the Pony: A True Story so much I read it 7 times. I really think you should read this book it is really good."

The End.

It's that time of year again!

2011-09-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

LOL, it's that time of year again: the weather is cooling, parents all over Facebook are posting their back to school pictures, homeschoolers start planning out the year, and I decide to give blogging one more try. We'll see how long I last. Last fall, I think I only made it one whole post before giving up.

But really, last year was a whirlwind. I had a 4-yr old and a 2-yr old... that's enough to do anyone in. I had too many classes and 4-H projects with the older two - we seriously had something going EVERY day of the week. Craziness. And I took up roller derby. I had actually taken it up in April or May of the previous "school year" but finally made the team in September which meant three practices a week and lots of weekend commitments.

Of course this year, I'm still doing roller derby and I'm an officer in the league (but hopefully only until December!). We're still in 4-H and I actually have THREE of them in it this year (but that should make it easier with more kids involved and fewer running rampant around the 4-H center) and somehow I ended up co-leader of our club... still not quite sure how that happened, lol. But this year, we seem to have three days "mostly" free and instead of a 4-yr old and a 2-yr old, I have a 5-yr old and a 3-yr old (next week) and I'm finding more and more moments of sanity and rationality in the two of them. (Oh boy, they are thick as thieves though and don't necessarily use their powers for good!) So, I have hopes and dreams of being more organized and in control and purposeful in our schooling, rather than haphazardly taking what we can get. Actually, with this leader thing going on I HAVE TO BE more organized and in control. These blogger mind-dumps usually help a lot with that, so here I am.

Anyway... today a friend posted a favorite article on Facebook about what kids should really be learning in the preschool years: things like knowing they are unconditionally loved and that there is magic in the world. And there was also a link for the World Book list of what a child should know for each grade. Guess what I zeroed in on? LOL.

Turns out though that we're not doing too badly (if you ignore language arts). Linus is actually pretty much ready to graduate preschool at two-and-fifty-one-fifty-seconds... except for the Social-Emotional Development sections. He is only three-ish, so maybe I'll cut him a little slack. ;) I noticed in the Kindergarten Social Studies section that it said Greyson should be "understanding and appreciating different cultures" so I pulled out our Children Like Me book, intending to read a couple pages with him. We read the w.h.o.l.e. book. A couple times he asked how long it was and how much more was left, and once he even said that he was done after this page, but then when I tried to close it he wanted to go on. (And when I say "read" I mean that we went over each page and talked about the things that interested him, not reading all the words per se.)

It was pretty awesome. He's really into wanting to learn right now. Not too long ago, he was balking anytime I suggested he do something or look at something. Now, he may not be 100% on board (like he had this really dubious expression when I said that I wanted to read this book with him), but he gives it a shot and will let himself be pulled into something that wasn't necessarily his idea.

And then there's the stuff that is his idea! Earlier we had been reading books and we took a lunch break from reading and he pulled out this dry erase activity board we have and started playing "tic tac toe" with Linus - except they weren't using just X's and O's, they were using lots of letters! So cute. Grey even ended up writing ZOO and then recognized it! And then that led, even later, to him asking how to spell a million different things and then trying to copy them. Did I ask him to do this?? No way. Would he had done it if I had?? No way.

P.S. The red letters are Greyson's and the green are Linus'.

Unschooling rocks. Just sayin'

Another School Year, Another Attempt at the Blog

2010-08-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

Just for Megan and Amy, I'm making some use of my iPhone in the dentist's waiting room. The kids are watching Ichabod Crane & Mister Toad and so, might possibly, allow me to finish a thought. I wouldn't put any money on that though. ;)

So despite my best efforts, the kids are growing up. Can you believe that when I started this blog Cameron was in Preschool/K-4? Well, now he's in 4th, Cassia in 2nd, and Greyson (the baby in my profile pic, lol) is in Pre-K/K-4. Before I know it, I'm going to have a house full of teenagers and THEN what am I going to do???

Since I apparently haven't blogged since March, I'll catch you up on the last year a bit... What did we do? We seemed to be so busy doing everything that we didn't have time to do anything. The kids each made it through, maybe, half a math level; we only made it through 2 or 3 lessons in Writing Stands; did almost no history or science. But we DID do book club, cooking, global art & crafts, sewing, and outdoor adventuring in 4-H; piano (Cassia) and violin (Cameron) lessons; American history via the old PBS cartoon Liberty's Kids; scouts; sports; many, many audio books; and a zillion field trips. It was a good year of unschooling. We learned a lot, but this year I'm feeling the need for more structure in our lives.

So to that, I've created a "schedule" for this school year. It's extraordinarily loose as far as schedules go, but it gives us some direction. Each day has 8-10am blocked off for schoolwork and 10- noon for cleaning the house. After that, the schedule varies according to our other activities and includes things like science projects (Cassia's request), cooking, history projects, and tea & poetry afternoons.

We've been on the schedule for four days now and it's been a partial success. We gotten math, writing, and reading done every day, but we never get started on it until 10. Cleaning is a bit of a hit and miss - no one ever wants to and I just don't feel like the fight most of the time - but I think that might improve with a little bit of consistency, hence the scheduled time.

Today is supposed to be our science project day but I have nothing planned. I think if they work quickly with their bookwork and actually help me clean once we get home from the dentist then we'll have time to do an experiment from one of the many kits we have before soccer practices. See the schedule is a good thing- I never would have thought of that as a plan for today if it wasn't already on the schedule.

Well, it looks like it's going to be my turn soon so I better bid you adieu. Happy New School Year!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ignore this

2010-03-06T17:25:00.001-08:00

Testing why I can't seem to read my blog from my phone unless I write a new posting.

Oh, looks like I figured put how to add a picture tho....

Big oops there. Yes, that's the needle floating out there in the middle of the fabric.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Midnight musings

2010-03-04T23:21:00.000-08:00

OK, it's not midnight yet, but I'm sure it will be once I finish. My days have taken on the strangest patterns. Now that the kids are getting older they are much better able to fend for themselves in the morning (get up, get a fruit & cereal bar, get a glass of juice, turn on tv, veg), I'm able to sleep in a bit. This means that I'm able to stay up a bit. Sometimes a big bit. It's not uncommon for me to stay up until 1:00 am lately which I haven't done on a regular basis since college. Mid-life crisis? Perhaps, but I'm guessing I still have a few more years before that one hits. One thing that it does stem from though is that I quit "having" to watch certain shows on tv. I still like tv - I'm not like many of my insane friends who only get cable tv when the Olympics is on and then cancel it right after (swear to god, I know at least three people who did that) but I've become less chained to it. I've found that I can let DH watch a show and go do something else. I can even enjoy a show just about as much by only hearing it from the next room. It's liberating. It really is.

So what am I doing? Sewing! Or at least trying to. Here is a tooth pillow that I made for Cameron:

Cassia has a matching pink one.

And here are some quilted potholders that I made:

It's been a really rewarding pastime for me. I've always pegged myself as a "can't sew" person, but the truth was I never really tried. Well, I tried to make a dress once in junior high Home Ec but the pattern I picked out was much too hard and I got quickly frustrated and quit. Ended up failing that portion of the class, actually. That pretty much set the tone. I made a pillow in 1999 and turned some old flannels into napkins in 2004. I tried to make an outfit for Cassia around that same time, but again, it was hard and I got frustrated. I didn't entirely quit that time though. I finished the capris but never got around to the shirt. I don't think she ever wore them. There was just something wonky about them... not sure what.

But for the last two years, Cassia has been involved in a beginning machine sewing project at 4-H.
Last year she made an apron and this year she's make doll bedding - pillow & blanket for the doll and a coordinating pillow for herself. Well I figured, if a six-year-old can do it, so can I. So for Christmas I recycled some of her old clothes into little drawstring bags to hold handmade Easy Bake Oven mixes. (Which are really good! SOOOO much better than the icky chemically ones you buy.) It was such a fun and EASY project that it inspired me to do more.

DH's aunt makes these gorgeous quilts and she makes that look so fun and easy that I thought I might give that a try too. So far, I've made 5 quilt squares. Three with a Roman Tile pattern (pictured above) and two with a tulip pattern.

The first squares were super easy and fun. The actual quilting and binding of them was a bit more difficult, but overall I'm happy with the effect and I learned a ton. The tulip pattern was a lot more complicated. I learned, as I progressed, that a little measuring and marking goes a long way and the extra time spent there saves a lot of time ripping out bad seams. They eventually came out looking quite nice. The quilting of them has been more challenging. First I was going to attempt to hand quilt them but soon realized that the batting I'm using in these potholders is much too thick for me to learn such a fussy new skill. So then I tried machine quilting them, like I did the first set, but the tension is all off and it's been a nightmare of knotted thread and skipped stitches. I think I've finally got that down but the pretty little pattern that I had planned on is not looking very pretty with my less than perfect sewing. I think that I may rip it all out again and go back to trying to hand quilt it anyway.

As you can imagine, this isn't really stuff that I can work on with little ones around so I can't get too crafty until after they go to bed. Which means I've been up until at least midnight every night for the last couple weeks. *Yawn* But, I'm feeling pretty self-satisfied. I'm not giving up. I know I can do this if I just keep practicing and that's actually a great feeling. I'm really enjoying that this IS hard. And somehow potholders and tooth pillows don't seem as intimidating as clothing and such. If I screw up a potholder, who cares? It's probably going to get stained and burned anyway, right? If I screw up clothing it's wasted time and money because no one is going to wear it. At least that's what I'm thinking. The bottom line is just that making clothing wasn't satisfying to me but this is.

Oh, and I just realized that we have a play to go to in the morning so I'm going to have to get up early. Blah. OK, enough about me. ;) Maybe tomorrow I'll actually blog about the kids and this school thing.

Smooth sailing?

2010-02-25T15:30:00.000-08:00

One of the nice things about sick kids is that it gives you the opportunity (aka excuse) to stay home for a while. Aside from our little farm excursion on Monday, we haven't been anywhere all week which gave us a wonderful opportunity to just stay home and focus on schoolwork. Which we did.

The spelling tic-tac-toe is still going fabulously. They really enjoy working on it now. Cassia's favorite is "Write a poem with the words." This one activity has inspired her so much that she's been writing poems about everything. She wrote one the other day after a conversation about balloons and air density...

Air, air here and there
Air, air everywhere.

Simple, yes, but I love it. Mostly I just love the inspiration of it. It inspired some breakfast talk about the rhyme and rhythm of poetry too (what is the literary term for that?) and then a quick reading of Robert Frost. And all that from Spelling? Nice.

Math is moving along nicely. Cassia finished up her book and has moved on to level 2A. Cameron has one more exercise and a review or two to go. The fact that we've been doing it every day though means that no one is complaining about having to do it every day. It's just routine. It's just what we do. Also nice.

We haven't done history every day, but we've done it at least three times a week the last few weeks. They built a Viking ship out of a cereal box the other day and are thrilled to once again be able to trace the paths of our readings onto maps. You see, our scanner was broken for ages and so we weren't able to do any of the things from the Story of the World activity guide unless I actually managed to go to Staples and make copies... which didn't happen very often, as I'm sure you can imagine. Now we have a new printer/scanner/copier and all is right with the world again. :)

We've read lots of books. I picked up a bunch of easy readers from the library and almost every day I have Cassia or Cameron read to us. We've also been continuing with our Goblet of Fire read aloud and I think Cameron finally, really, appreciates how much better a book can be than the movie.

Our really big thing of the week though has been writing. We started Writing Strands 2 this week and it has been so much fun! I think they, Cameron especially, have really enjoyed focusing on the ideas of writing rather than just the mechanics. The first lesson was on describing things and we spent three days building up big, beautiful sentences describing a pen and then we culminated today with each of them writing their own unique descriptions of something. We talked about how wonderful language is that you can say exactly the same thing in so many different ways.

Cameron's sentence: Greyson's little, orange squirt gun soaks surprised people.

Cassia's sentence: Our broom is yellow and green and used to sweep kitchen messes.

They drew illustrations too. The really great thing about this program is that it is written for homeschoolers so it's extremely adaptable to multi-age use. They were each able to work at an appropriate level to themselves and both earned an "A+" for their efforts. (I had to remind Cassia of the arbitrariness of the grades when she seemed to get overly attached to her A+ and she said "I know, but I still like it." LOL)

So it turns out that drafts saved on BlogPress are not saved into your blogger dashboard, so I'm going to go ahead and publish this now and edit it on the other computer. Mobile blogging in my living room is tiring. ;)

Cassia and Cameron seem to be feeling much better so this was written (mostly) while they were in their respective piano and violin lessons. Cassia also reluctantly went to ballet (she was afraid she might start coughing) and ended up doing just fine. Greyson, however, spiked a fever again and so I caved and called the doctor. Five days of fever is too much for me. Turns out he has a double ear infection and is now thrilled with his yummy pink medicine. (It's so much easier when they actually like the stuff, lol.) So hopefully he'll be feeling better soon. Dr. D said to give him a call back if these coughs last for more than two weeks. Seems like they always last for longer than that, but we'll see how I feel about that next week. We're already on day 8 for Cassia and Linus.

So it's been a week of ups and downs. Up on the brain work, down on the health meter. I guess you can't have it all. ;) We'll see how our newfound academic routine holds up in the weeks to come. It's so hard to hear the call of the books when the sun is screaming "Come and PLAY!!"

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Here we go again

2010-02-22T12:58:00.000-08:00

Four little lovebirds sitting in a tree, C-OU-GH-I-N-G.

Yes, sick again. Cassia and Linus came down with fevers and coughs mid-last week. We had to skip a play that we had tickets for (hate that!) and missed music lessons for the second time this month. We did take advantage of the home time though and worked on spelling, math, and history. We also read Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. That was a great book. It was so exciting that the kids wouldn't let me put it down and we read the whole thing in just two sittings.

By Friday, everyone seemed much better and we went ahead and went to the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Dinner. We were on the decoration committee and had a good time with the paper chains, streamers, and balloons. The dinner was delicious and the ceremony was great - at least, that's what I heard. By the time dinner was over, both Linus and Greyson were done with the whole thing so I ended up taking them home before the ceremony. Cameron got his Bear badge with the rest of his pack (even though he had to finish up the last of the work on Sunday). He's spending all his spare time working on arrow points now.

Saturday morning I took Greyson to gymnastics. He saw a little boy in the lobby who was doing a trial class and it was like love at first sight. They were instant best buds and were on exactly the same Silly Wavelength. They were driving me kind of nuts, but one of the coaches just loved it. She said that she had never seen Grey interacting with another child like that before. He tends to be quite shy and clingy when we're out (which is so bizarre if you actually know him or have heard stories, lol). He was so independent though, and has been for several weeks now, that I decided it's time to move him up to the next level of classes, sans parent. So one more week of Mommy-and-Me and then it's off for the big boy classes. That frees up our Saturday mornings for Linus to start taking the baby gymnastics class!

On our way home we spotted a sign for an "airport display day" at our local airport so we went and rounded everyone else up for an impromptu field trip. I had to talk DH into it but it was so worth it. The airport had about 20 one and two-seater airplanes on display that the kids could run up to and peer inside. It was much more informal than an airshow or a museum and the air field is small enough that they were free to just run around at will. Good times. Greyson wore his NASA commander costume and was as big a spectacle as the airplanes to the other guests, lol. He loved the attention. It was pretty cold so we headed out after about half an hour, amidst the very loud and tearful protests from Greyson.

At home we settled in to watch some Olympics and that's when The Sickness hit Cameron and Greyson. It wasn't too bad on Saturday, but by Sunday Grey was running a 103 fever and Cameron was hovering around 100. Luckily that part of it only lasts a day and today, Monday, everyone feels pretty good but still sounds really bad. Well, Grey still has a low fever but he seems to feel fine. Phew. I really hate 103.

And finally, I must tell you about our impromptu field trip of today. When we went to pick up our farm fresh eggs today, our farmer friend told us that a new lamb was born on Friday! Well, we had to go see that! We tromped through the fields and the mud to see the chickens, the sheep with the tiny little 3-day old lamb, and the surprisingly adorable pigs. The farmer's little boy grabbed Greyson and Cassia and showed them all his treasures including a large number of, what we are assuming are, old cattle bones! Apparently, the pigs dug a couple bones up in that area and then the little boy went to work with his hoe finding all the rest. Very fun stuff. That is unschooling at its best right there - farmer boy turned archaeologist!

It was so nice just meandering in the sun, watching the animals, watching the kids, watching the kids watching the animals... it was hard to leave. Unfortunately, Farmer Sally had a ton of work to do so we had to leave them. I am a bit jealous though. The grass is always greener, isn't it?

Mobile blogging? Woo hoo!

2010-02-16T16:02:00.001-08:00

I finally did it. I finally got my blog connected to my iPhone! Now i just need to perfect thumb typing. ;). Now you can expect updates, with pictures even, while I'm waiting at gmnastics or ballet or violon or baseball... Oh the possibilities!! So let's see, when did I last blog? I'm pretty sure it was over a week ago so I'll just recap to there.

We started doing spelling again. A brilliant friend of mine shared a fun way to do the work. I made a tic tac toe board with different things on the boxes like "write each word three times," or "write each word in a sentence," or "write a poem with the words" - which happens to be exactly the same as writing them in sentences but is apparently more fun, lol. Anyway, they just get to pick any three things on a row for the week. It works great. The power of choice and variety is great.

Math has also taken on a bitvof variety- Cam is doing addition and subtraction with time and Cassia is doing money problems. They're both really close to finishing their books and moving up to levels 4 and 2.

We're plodding throuh history. Hopefully soon we will stop plodding and start enjoying again. We just got a new printer/scanner/copier so we can start doing the maps and coloring pages again. That always makes it more fun.

What else... did I mention that Cam has started fencing? He loves it. I don't neccesarily love the 6 - 7pm time slot, but what can you do. Little League practice just started this week too. And then there's still Cub Scouts. If I'm lucky, we'll only end up double booked a couple times a week and not every day like I'm fearing. How do you prioritize stuff like that? They're all important and require dedication and practice. I just wish everything didn't have to be "after school" hours.

OK, my thumbs are cramping. Must be time to wrap this up. Ciao friends.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Call me crazy

2010-02-08T16:13:00.000-08:00

Oh, so many things I wanted to blog about in the last week and I just never got to it. I really need to get that Blogger app working on my iPhone. So let's see, what were the highlights?

One day last week I donated some of Cassia's old clothes to a fellow homeschooler who said that she was a single parent, in dire straights. Now, obviously, that made me want to help her all the more but when we went to her house it turned out that it was a woman that I had run into many times before at field trips and even in the grocery store, I just hadn't recognized her name (if I ever knew it). I had always admired this woman and how well-behaved her children were. That time I ran into her in the grocery store was a day that I was feeling particularly frazzled and she really set me at peace. So to find this same woman opening the door to our hand-me-downs was both a joy and a huge tug on my heart. It felt so good to be able to give back to her some of the kindness she had given me in the past. I really hope she can get her family back on its feet soon.

What else... oh, I wanted to recommend a free online curriculum called Head of the Class. They only have preK through 2nd grades right now but promise to have up to 8th grade soon. Cassia really, really likes it. She begs me to let her "do my website" first thing every morning. Greyson likes it too. There are a LOT of printouts and lots of fun videos. Each time the child logs in, they get a menu of the lessons available - usually math, writing, spelling (not for the preK, obviously), reading, and then either art, geography, Spanish, music, etc. It's pretty fun. The one thing we've had problems with is having the lessons freeze up and not load properly. We really hate that because then it's kind of lost forever. All in all though, it's definitely worth the money. ;)

Speaking of curriculum, I was recently appalled by Cameron's writing abilities. I mean, he couldn't get it through his head to put spaces between the words! And his spelling is absolutely atrocious. So we're going to start spelling again, though this time, unlike during the summer, I won't have them write out the definitions. I think that was just a bit too tedious. I'll have them write the words a few times a day and then have a test on Fridays. I've also ordered Writing Strands and I'm hoping that will take care of everything else.

And speaking of writing (here is where the call me crazy part comes in), I've decided to try and write a book. I know. Crazy. I can't keep up with the things I'm supposed to be doing and now I'm adding this giant thing in. But the urge hit me and I just really want to give it a try. I'm going to write some easy chapter books, something that will appeal to boys and girls and doesn't involve them being stuck in school all day! I don't want to give too much away, lest someone steals my idea and does a better job of it than I can, but it's going to involve the history of cooking and the importance of eating good food and maybe a recipe or two, too. My biggest concern is follow-through. I am horrible at follow-through. I very rarely finish "projects" like this. I started some quilted potholders just after Christmas, thinking they were small enough to actually finish. Nope. Can't seem to get back to it to finish them off. Call me crazy. ;) Well, call me whatever you like but then go ahead and send me some "stick with it" vibes, if you don't mind.

OK, break's over. Back to my research.

Game on!

2010-02-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

Today's schooling consisted of POKEMON! The original idea was to start up kind of a Pokemon tournament club, but no one really wanted to compete (except Cameron). So we just had a Pokemon playday. Two friends came over and they traded cards and played a game or two. We moms sat and chatted. It was nice.

It was actually the third time in as many days that I got to sit around and chat with moms! WooHoo! Saturday morning I went to a business meeting for our homeschool group and gobbled up eggs florentine and chai while discussing options for our new web site. Later that night I met up with some other moms and gobbled up pasta and wine (and bruschetta and mousse and coffee and...) while discussing "girl stuff" and then we topped the evening off with a movie! Dinner and a movie on a Saturday night! Can't remember the last time I did that. Today the food wasn't as exciting - blue corn chips, pretzels, and tea - but the conversation was great.

Cameron and Cassia kept playing Pokemon after their friends left and then moved on to TOPS Trumps Wonders of the World. It's funny how once you get into game mode you just get stuck there sometimes. I love that they love games. Games give you reading, math, science, adventure, fantasy, role playing, problem solving, cooperation, and FUN too!

Making mudpies

2010-01-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

Our record of making park days this fall/winter has been dismal. Between illnesses, travel, and the stinkin' weather, we've only made about one out of every four or five park days. That a pretty bad showing for a gal who brought her 3 day old baby to park day!! ... but that was September. This is January. So this week, even though the forecast said a 60% chance of rain, even though it was bound to be muddy even if it wasn't raining, even though I had had a sore throat all week, we went for it. None of the kids was sick (except one small runny nose) and it wasn't raining at the moment. So we went.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea! It was a very crowded park day! After only about an hour, we were all itching to move so we set off on a grand adventure. We thought we were taking a short walk, but the boys took the lead and soon we were committed to The Big Hike. (The Big Hike is usually reserved for blackberry picking in late summer.) The rivers had all wiggled out of their banks. The bridge was barely above the water line. The paths had all been dissolved into mud. Giant impassable ponds lurked behind every bend. But it was fun! We had such a blast. Some of the kids were skating in their mud-caked sneakers while others had given up entirely and were tackling the trail in bare feet (or was it a bear-like feat?). We adults did our best to tread lightly and stay above ground. The kids stopped caring long before and splashed right through the center of the flooded paths. I think they probably had the right idea.

Despite the mud and the muck, the weather stayed nice through the majority of the hike. It was only during the last quarter-mile that it started to sprinkle on us and then, just as the parking lot was in sight, the sky opened up and dumped on us. LOL! Greyson, who had been one of the lead hikers the entire way (!), finally hit his limit and just stood there shivering in the cold, wet, parking lot. Poor guy. I had to carry a damp, tired baby in one arm and a soaked and cranky Greyson in the other! But we got everyone stripped down to the bare essentials and wrapped in blankets for the ride home and all was good. Hot chocolate sealed the deal on a perfect rainy day.

Gotta love it when you can embrace the weather rather than fighting it.

Life is a cabaret, my friends

2010-01-28T19:03:00.000-08:00

I was going to say, life is a circus, since we went to go see The Moscow Circus yesterday but I think a cabaret is friendlier sounding. (Of course this house is sounding pretty circus-like at the moment!)

So let's see, what's new. The Moscow Circus show was fun. Parts were a bit sultry for a "school show," in my opinion, but the kids didn't notice. Well, they didn't know they noticed but I saw Cameron react when the hula hoop girl ripped off her pants, vest, and cap to reveal a lacy red dress slit up to there, flowing brown curls, and a pout that reached to the balcony. I mean, it was a pretty stunning transformation and he's *almost* to the point that he gets why men like women, though far away from it himself. If that makes any sense.

Today was nothing particularly exciting, just lessons on top of lessons. We started out with a trip to the library. Cassia got more fairy books. Cameron got a Star Wars book. I picked up some random easy readers for Cameron to read to Cassia. He can read well enough to enjoy a chapter book now, but I'm pretty sure he's skipping about half of the words. Giving him the assignment of reading to his sister, to help her, is really my way of checking and making sure he's reading what he thinks he's reading. Devious, I know. ;)

We are hosting a Flat Stanley from New Jersey right now so we took him to the library with us and had his picture taken with our favorite librarian. Stanley was sent to Cameron but he thinks it's completely silly and so Cassia has been his true host. Next we took Stanley to music lessons and we he got his picture taken playing Middle C on the piano.

Cassia has been taking piano lessons for three weeks now and is doing a great job. She loves the homework and the practice and her teacher said she is doing so well that she doubled her work load! They were making up a practice chart and the teacher asked how often she was practicing. I rounded up a bit to 10 minutes, twice a week. She said that she was doing extremely well for only practicing twice a week. And then Cameron's teacher came out and told me that he told her that he "doesn't have enough time to practice." Uh huh. She followed that up with "How much tv did you watch today?" Hmm, he didn't really have a good answer for that one!

It's funny how he was the one who begged and begged and begged for violin lessons and now that he has them doesn't seem the slightest bit interested in playing. Cassia, on the other hand, never really showed much interest, can't carry a tune in a bucket, but is now a budding musician! Who would've guessed. This really just solidifies in my mind that you really need to try out as much as you can whenever you have the opportunity. Who knows what is going to be The Thing!

Next was ballet. Today was the first day of the new semester and Cassia's first day in The Purple Class (a.k.a. Threshold Level). I've heard it's a much more serious class and she said it was very different but that she still likes it. They always say that only about one girl in ten sticks with it to the actual upper division classes. I always wonder.... Yes, it's my dream that she become a famous ballerina, lol. I'm really curious when it will stop being her dream too.

Double project day

2010-01-26T17:44:00.000-08:00

Phew! Today was a busy day. We had back-to-back 4-H projects, one of which was led by me, followed by gymnastics.

The project I led today was Primary Cooking and we made lots of different hors d'oeurves. I set up 4 different stations in which the kids could make (1) toothpick hors d'oeurves, (2) canapés, (3) finger sandwiches, and (4) chocolate covered pretzel sticks. The kids really seemed to have fun and got very creative! I tried to stress both the beauty of the finished product and the convenience of it. I think I said several times that the main point of hors d'oeurves is to feed your guests while enabling them to walk around without making a total mess of your house. LOL, I hope they really understood the importance of the "no mess" part. ;) I'll put the pictures at the end.

Some of the parents commented that the project was really fun because it was real food that kids could really make without worry or fuss from an adult. That's actually what I love about leading cooking. I know that even really little kids can cook, all by themselves, if they just have the opportunity and the right recipes. Greyson's specialty is scrambled eggs. He rocks those eggs and is so proud to serve them up to everyone. (Honestly, he's the only one who doesn't get shells in them!) Cassia's specialty is fruit salad. Cameron, well, he hasn't found his specialty yet but I'm guessing it might be steak.

After cooking was The Money Project and they set up a mock doughnut shop! It was super fun and super full of really, really good information. Unfortunately, some of the kids were already amped up on chocolate covered pretzels, lol, and weren't the best listeners... but overall it was great fun. I was so impressed by all the business ideas coming off of everyone. Really, there are some entrepreneurs in that group, mark my words.

After that we rushed off to gymnastics where it was a surprise Star Day! Cassia was so disappointed because she didn't get a new ribbon (first time ever in this class) but the skills are getting harder. There was another girl in her group that was just beside herself with crying. I felt bad for her. The competition of this really isn't for everyone. I'm guessing E won't be in it for much longer. But once we got home and looked at her chart, Cassia and I realized that she probably would've gotten enough stars to move up a level if they hadn't run out of time for the trampoline skills. That made her feel much better.

Have I mentioned that Cameron decided to quit gymnastics? He had gotten to a place where he just wasn't getting very many stars anymore and had really just plateaued in his skills. He decided that he would rather try another sport. (Fencing to start in February.) But today during the testing he was very clingy and hugging me a lot. I was a little concerned and asked him if he was sad that he wasn't down there earning stars too or if he was happy to not have to do it. He grinned and said that he was very happy to not be down there right now. Phew. Good call.

OK, I really need to get dinner started now since it's already 6:30 (eeks!) The pictures from the cooking project are below. Enjoy. :)

Scientists on the loose - part II

2010-01-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

Today we went to the California Academy of Sciences museum. And it was another fabulous day. I love how when it's just us (Mom + 4 kids) out somewhere, they really step up and stick together. Greyson was soooooo into everything that he kept hanging back looking at everything, but all it took was a quick call and he came running right up. He was such a good boy. I love that. I mean, I love that he was a good boy, but more importantly, I love that he knows when to step up and be agreeable, lol. He spends so much time "fighting the power" that sometimes I'm afraid that he doesn't remember how to just go with the flow and enjoy himself. But he does. :)

We spent the day with my friend and her two boys again. Such a nice time. The kids really seemed to get along and it is so nice to just hang out with someone you've known forever. Yes, we don't speak often and haven't actually seen each other face to face in, oh, um, maybe 5 years, but it was still so comfortable and relaxing. It felt like home. I wish she lived closer.

I had an interesting time people watching in the toddler area in the museum. My friend had taken the bigger kids to the planetarium show and I was hanging out with Grey and Linus in the toddler room. As anyone who has spent much time in a toddler room knows, there isn't exactly a lot of adult stimulation in there so people watching is the main form of entertainment. There was the usual "stand back and let your child wreak havoc without ever noticing" parent and the "hover centimeters away and intervene before your child can even look at something that might cause controversy somehow" parent. There was even a slightly frazzled "yes, I know my child is bigger than everyone else and doesn't really know how to control himself but, really, what can I do but remove him from the situation when he goes too far - so stop looking at me like that!" mom, whom I really felt for and got a kick out of watching.

But I noticed two new types today. There was the "set your child up for failure right off the bat" parent who said to the sweet and quiet one or one-and-a-half year old as he approached the play ship's steering wheel, "Now make sure you share if anyone else comes over!" Now, I know that doesn't really sound bad but there was no one else around him! He hadn't even touched it and she was already warning him that he wasn't really going to be able to enjoy it because someone else might come up and they are obviously more important than he is. OK, maybe I'm reading too much into that one but it really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. It just seemed so limiting and belittling even to set those limits on his fun right off the bat. Personally, I'd rather see him have a good time with it all to himself first and then if someone else approached throw out the sharing reminder. But then again, my kids think they rule the world so maybe I've given them a little too much leeway there, lol.

The other "interesting" parent I saw was actually quite shocking to me. It may have been a cultural difference but I saw this woman get extremely stern and angry because her toddler took off her socks. The little girl (who couldn't have been much more than one) was so cute and said "Socks off!" in a sweet little sing-song voice as she pulled one off and the mother just about went ballistic. "That is NOT appropriate! Put that back on right now! Do you need to have a time out?!?" as she practically wrestles the little thing down on the ground and forces her to put her sock back on. Now, I don't think that she was a violent or abusive mother or anything, but I do think that that was a pretty severe reaction to taking off your socks in an area where they require you to remove your shoes and half the kids didn't even have socks on! And threatening a time out for such a little thing? I'm sure she had no idea what she did wrong. I'm sure I don't either. Some people are just really hard for me to figure out.

Of course I spent a lot of time explaining to my friend's kids why food dropped on the floor was still ok for my kids to pick up again and eat. I hope no one's writing a blog about what a bad parent I am!

Scientists on the loose!

2010-01-25T09:32:00.000-08:00

Spent the day at the Exploratorium yesterday. SO much fun! One of the great things about it, for me, is that it feels so small. As soon as we get there the kids all go in different directions! There are so many cool experiments. Every, single thing is hands on and you don't really need an adult there to read the sign to you to have fun and take some new knowledge away (though you get more out of it when you do). Apparently though, not everyone feels the same way. I've heard several people say that that place is seriously overwhelming to them. Interesting, huh?

We met an old friend of mine there and her two sons. Everyone was pretty much doing their own thing inside the museum but once we were leaving they all broke out into spontaneous games of tag and "I'll race you!" Those are the universal games that bring all kids together. My friend's husband was saying that playing tag in the Palace of Fine Arts is probably the one memory that will stick in their boys' heads. :) Love that!

Today we are meeting them at another museum. I'll try to blog about it as soon as I get home because even though I did manage to find a few minutes of uninterrupted time this morning, I've lost the feel of yesterday. Late afternoon blogging is more heartfelt, I think.

Where does the time go?

2010-01-23T07:36:00.000-08:00

You know, just about every day something wonderful and amazing happens around here that I want to share... but then life gets in the way and I don't get around to it. And then I forget. Isn't that awful? Isn't that supposed to be the point of this whole thing? To share the joys of homeschooling and being with my kids 24/7? To appreciate and remember the little things before they slip away forever?

Oh well. What can I do but try? I guess I could aim for shorter blog posts and then it wouldn't be such an ordeal to just do it. That seems to fall in line with the whole FlyLady perfectionism thing. Chores done badly still bless the house. Blog posts that only say half of what I wanted still say half of what I wanted!

So what did I want to say? I forget. It was quiet when I started this and so I thought I would take a few minutes and get a few thoughts out, but now it is no longer quiet and my thoughts have gone the way of the wind. Isn't that always the way? Well here's a new thought then. A FlyLady inspired blog: 15 minutes a day. I need to find a time of day when I have 15 minutes (lol) and have something to share at that point. Early morning is probably my best bet. Maybe I should take notes during the day so I remember the next morning, lol. Sadly, yes, it is that bad. ;)

I'm baaaack...

2010-01-10T22:28:00.000-08:00

OK, last week was a complete write-off. Stupid sickness. And the worst part was that it wasn't even the kids!! It was DH and me. I woke up Saturday with a headache and sore throat and he woke up with it on Sunday. He ended up with a 101 fever, swollen glands, and 3 days home from work! I just ended up with a steady stream of Tylenol and hot tea. My throat finally stopped hurting yesterday. Man, that thing just wiped me out. Nothing was accomplished all week.

Well, no, that's not entirely true. Cassia made some wonderful self-motivation strides. She was drawing a birthday card for a friend (yes, I did still have to take them to a birthday party even though I was sick because THEY weren't) and asked me how to spell "love." Cameron said, "Just draw a heart!" and she replied, "You know, I'm getting too old to just draw a heart for love. I need to learn how to read and write!" Amen, sister! She also just randomly got out an animal encyclopedia and started reading it one day. Another day it was a book on castles. Today it was a book on origami - she made a whole basket of snakes! She's my reader! Of course, she's not necessarily reading the words in these books but she is reading a lot of captions and she is discovering what wonderful treasures lie inside. She also wrote a book based on a cool tangram design and called it The Jewel of Good and Bad. She apologized to me for it "only" being a picture book but the pictures really told the story. I loved it.

Cameron has been doing a lot of puzzling: tangrams, dominoes, Legos, electronic circuits. He's also been reading chapter books at night! Wahoo!! Finally! He read a Bakugan book that he had gotten from the library and when he finished that, he started on one that DH had read as a kid. Something about a haunted something or other, lol.

Greyson has been watching Hero of the Rails over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. He has a friend that he sees during Cassia's ballet class and they spent the entire hour last week playing Thomas trains and acting out that movie. I swear, it's preschooler crack.

Linus has just been trying to do everything that Greyson does. He's learned to jump off the couch (*sigh*) and to roll Bakugan. He can make all sorts of train, plane, and car sounds - way too cute. And he even helps me do laundry. I really love this age (15 months, if you've lost count).

So the kids have been busy, but I've felt like the week has been a bit of a waste for me. Today, I finally feel back on track and I've made up a menu plan for next week so that I can shop from a list at the store tomorrow. I've been much too free with the credit card at the grocery store in the last year and I need to cut down a bit. It's funny how spending just a little bit more than what you pay off each month adds up over the years! The best way to cut corners though is to know what I need, know what I'm buying, and know how much it costs. Hopefully I won't have to start itemizing my shopping list again. I did that for a while and while it was truly eye-opening to see where exactly all my money was going, it was very time consuming. I don't have that kind of time lately.

And speaking of time, I wanted to get a little exercise in tonight which means that I must bid you good night.

I think I can, I think I can..

2009-12-30T14:16:00.000-08:00

Day three and we're still going strong! I admit it, the chore chart is for me more than for anyone. I need to see what needs to be done. I need all the little boxes filled in. I need accountability. And it's working! At least it's working for the big stuff. I've done all my morning chores for three days now, I've kept the laundry at a manageable level (apparently that means two loads a day, every day), and I've had the kitchen completely clean each night before I go to bed. There are really only a few more things to tighten the leads on and I will be extremely happy (and PROUD) of myself. Yeah me!

And when I've kept up on the things that I need to do, it's much easier for me to enforce The Law on the other members of this house. I always felt a huge pang of guilt telling the kids to clean and do x and y when I knew I wasn't doing everything I should. Granted I was still doing a ton, but when I was falling short of my own expectations it was very hard to expect anyone else to come close either. Now I can say, "Have you made your bed yet?" and feel good knowing that the answer is yes for me too.

So today everyone was done with their morning chores and into their schoolwork by 11:30 - and that's even with the respective morning veg outs in front of Bakugan and Facebook. Cassia started out with reading Green Eggs and Ham in a closet. She said the rest of the house was too loud, lol. I had her read that out loud to us yesterday and I guess she really enjoyed it. She was very proud that she read it this time completely in her head. Greyson was playing around on Starfall. He loves the stories on there but any time I suggest that he "do school" or even look at a book that wasn't his idea, he completely shuts down. He was looking at animal pictures online once and so I went and grabbed a couple of our kid's animal encyclopedias thinking that he would love browsing the pictures in those too. Well, he got so offended (?) at my suggestion that he wouldn't even continue looking at the pictures online. He huffed off and spent the next hour in a bad mood. Now I just let him explore things as he sees fit with NO intervention. Kids are so, um, challenging sometimes!

Next C&C each did one math exercise each. Cassia started another (because she got it in her head that if she does as many as she can each day while Cameron only does one, she might pass him up soon, lol) but only got a couple problems into it before she got distracted by Greyson playing on Starfall. We also read a couple chapters from The Phantom Tollbooth (they finally got to Digitopolis!) and a chapter of history. We read about Mohammad and the beginning of Islam. I learned a lot in that chapter that I hadn't known. Too bad the library is closed until next week because I'd like to get a couple more books on it before that spark of new interest has waned.

Now everyone is relaxing. Cameron is playing games on my iPhone. Greyson is watching vintage Porky Pig cartoons. Cassia is coloring fairies and singing "Deck the Halls" super, super loudly, lol. Linus is exploring and I am catching up on blogs. Now it is time to move on to my afternoon chores. Maybe today will be the day when I can actually check off every box. :)

So far, so good!

2009-12-29T18:39:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it. I revived the old chore chart and added a section for Dinner time. Cameron helps with dinner Mondays and Thursdays and with the dishes Tuesdays and Fridays; Cassia helps with dinner Tuesdays and Fridays and with the dishes Wednesdays and Saturdays; Greyson helps with dinner Wednesdays and Saturdays and with the dishes Mondays and Thursdays; and Sunday anybody is free to help with anything (or I also reserve the right to ban everyone from helping if I so desire). So far, Cassia has been the most enthusiastic chef, never leaving my side and constantly asking "What can I do now?" and Greyson has been the most enthusiastic dishwasher. He was eager to begin, a quick learner when it came to rinsing advice, and very, very hard to get away from the sink when we were done. Cameron was a good sous chef but would do one thing, leave, and then wait to be called back. The jury is still out on his dishwashing skills. I suggested that he get a head start on his job by putting the prep dishes in the dishwasher (which I had already gone ahead and rinsed, by the way) and he just gave me that "Do I have to?" look and disappeared. That's pretty much par for the course with his attitude in general when I ask him to do anything. I'm willing to bet that's just pretty typical 8-yr old though. What he needs to learn is that he can't just slink away. He has to do it. He is starting to get the message, I think.

The rest of the chart is going well too. Cassia is a dynamo and had almost all of her morning chores done before 9am. WTG, Cassie! Cameron has been doing the bare minimum and pretty much only when he's forced to. Greyson is avoiding the whole concept and going with the view that if he doesn't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist. He's three, so I'll let that one work for now.

Schoolwork is on the chart too and I really like having it down on paper so I can say, "See, it has to be done!" Math is always first and foremost and Cassia has been great lately with forging ahead and doing two or three exercises at a time. Cameron does one, or two if they're really short. A month or so ago, things were much different. I couldn't even get Cassia to finish a page without her dissolving into frustrated hysterics. It's strange, she gets these nervous tics - noises, stutters, and fidgets - and she wasn't doing them at all then but she was getting ultra frustrated ALL the time. Now she's recently started the tics up again but she has more focus and determination in what she does. If I had to pick between the two, I'd definitely take the tics over the hysterics.

Most of the rest of our schoolwork comes from 4-H lately. We try read history and science a few times a week, but it's really hard to find time when it's calm enough (Greyson and Linus) to sit down and focus. I have high hopes that we will be finding more time soon though. One of our 4-H Projects is a book club. The book for January is The Phantom Tollbooth and we've been having a great time reading that. I really enjoy the wordplay and Cameron, especially, thinks it's hilarious. We had a project meeting today for the Money Project. The kids learned about goods and services and where to find those things in the neighborhood, as well as how to lead people to them using a map.

OK, I'm sure I had something more eloquent to say in there somewhere but my thought process got interrupted and now the house is filled with the screams of one who is not very happy with his new molars that are coming in. Linus barely slept at all last night and he's been screaming a LOT today too. I really hope he decides to sleep tonight....

This is the post...

2009-12-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

This is the post where I say, "My New Year's Resolution this year is to blog more regularly." LOL. Yeah, ok. I've said that about dozen times this year, at least. But honestly, my New Year's Resolution is to make my computer-time quality time and not just a means of wasting time. And for me, that means blogging. Less Facebooking, more blogging. Less digging for gossip, more reading all those interesting newsletters that sit in my inbox unread because I can never find the time. (And yet I can find the time to play endless games of Scrabble rip-offs and build up an imaginary zoo online.) More time doing the stuff that expands my mind and opens my heart and less time numbing my mind. More time doing stuff (or learning about stuff) that I can share with the kids and less time looking for a means to escape them.

Yes, I admit it. I use the computer to escape the noise and the chaos of this house. But guess what? They just get louder and more chaotic in response. My New Year's Resolution is to engage and take back the joy in my life. It's been a busy and stressful year. I've been yelling and snapping too much and playing too little. I always feel like I'm behind on everything and never have time for the fun stuff because the not-fun stuff is always in the way. So again, I say, it's time to engage and take back the joy in my life. Just DO the crap that I've been avoiding and then I will have time for the fun stuff. And cut down on the evening tv. What a waste of time.

One of Cassia's Christmas presents was a bunch of Mom-made mixes for her Easy Bake Oven. I found recipes online and bagged up single serving baggies of several different treats for her to make (pizza dough, pie crust, cookies, brownies, tea cakes). Then I took material from some recently outgrown clothing and sewed them into little drawstring bags to keep the different mixes in. Finally, I tied laminated recipe cards to the drawstrings and Voila! Hours of fun for only pennies. But the best part of this project is that I realized how wonderfully relaxing it is to spend the evening sewing instead of vegetating in front of the tv. I've been wanting to start quilting for quite a while now - even bought some supplies - but didn't realistically think I'd ever get to it with all the little ones around and "so little" time. I suddenly found a whole bunch of time! And Linus was just enthralled with watching me sew. He didn't get in the way at all and just sat there all wide-eyed making cute little sewing machine noises, lol.

Another thing I've learned in the last couple weeks is that rather than nurturing the kids' curiosity, I've been inadvertently squashing it because I've felt so overwhelmed and behind. They're always asking to help make dinner, something I think is immensely important, and I keep pushing them away. Greyson especially. He's so eager. But he's three so his help is usually just more work for me. He said to me the other day, "Mommy, how come you NEVER let anyone help you make dinner?" And he was so sad and frustrated when he said it too. It really broke my heart and I realized that they are always asking to help and I'm always telling them no. No more.

I want to make up a Helping Schedule. Each child (of able age) will have one night to help cook, one night to help do dishes after dinner, and one night off. I think that they will have a lot of fun helping to cook and will also, hopefully, learn that part of cooking is cleaning. I fear that I've slacked so badly in teaching them to clean. It's something that I had to learn as an adult (and am still learning), so it's hard for me to make them do something that I never had to do. But I also know that it was a huge detriment to me and I'm hoping that they will avoid that fate.

I'm feeling that I also need to make a Chore Chart of some sort but those haven't had much success around here. The one we had that lasted the longest was a dry-erase chart with a few basic things in morning, noon, and night sections and then also a "Do 1 or 2 Extra Chores" section in each time slot where they could pick little things that were necessary and slightly more fun to do, like dusting the blinds or wiping off the doorknobs. Cassia, especially, really liked the extra chores. I could bring that one back out and then add the cooking schedule to that.

So hopefully, with a little more organization, a little more focus, and a little more fun, 2010 will be a fabulous year. It will be the year when Greyson reaches a more rational age (4) and when Linus will be the only whirlwind toddler. If I can only keep the older ones acting more like older ones and less like toddlers, lol, we'll be Golden. And hopefully, I will find time to blog.

The Happiest Vacation on Earth!

2009-11-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh, we just got back from the BEST vacation. Seven days away, six nights at a Fort Wilderness cabin, 4 days with The Mouse, and 1 day lost in space at the Kennedy Space Center. I could've stayed another week, I think, but it is nice to be home. A nice side benefit is that my mind is still on Florida time even though my body is in California. I got up chipper as Chip-n-Dale at 6am and have a ton of morning time left before we have to do anything today - which gives me time to blog! Now, if I could just get the kids back on Pacific Time (Linus woke up, ready to play, at 4am today) while I stay on Eastern Time, I'll be golden.

The flights went better than expected. The kids were really, really patient considering what they were being asked to do: 1.5 hrs from northern California to Seattle, an hour layover, 5ish hours to Orlando, then another 40 minutes on a bus to the resort. We left the house at 8am and checked into our lodge at 12:30am (yes, midnight). Lonnnnng day!

The cabins were FABULOUS. The kids had their own room - bunk beds, a double bed, and a portable crib all fit comfortable in the bedroom - and we took the fold down bed (You know, those ones that hide in the wall? What are those called?) in the living room. We had a full kitchen and a charcoal bbq and a picnic table out front. The only thing that could have been improved upon was the quality of the "trading post." They claimed to have supplies there, but there really wasn't much of anything besides souvenirs and beer. But there was a WalMart within a couple of miles of the place so it wasn't a huge tragedy once we had a car. (Yes, I bought food at WalMart; something I said I'd never do!) The resort restaurant, The Trails End, had really good food though, was open until 10pm, and they even had take-out. Our last night there we went to Chip and Dale's campfire and sing-along. Very fun. Big thumbs up for the Fort Wilderness Lodge and Campground (yes, a real campground was available too!)

The first day we went to Epcot. We had a great time. I heard from several people that it was huge and might be really boring for the little kids but it wasn't at all. It was really a homeschooler's dream, lol! We all loved the slow boat rides through history and through the different countries. The marketplaces were fun. The food, wine, and beer was great. The kids had a blast getting their passports stamped at each country... until they lost them. Cassia lost hers with only two stamps to go. She was heart-broken. Cameron waited until his was completely full before losing his. *roll eyes* But the fun was in the collecting. I should be glad that's two fewer things to mess up their rooms, right? They also had this really cool thing where certain parks stay open up to three hours late for resort guests so we just flew through the last few things and took another ride on our favorite attractions with no lines at all. It was especially easy since it was our first day and we were all still on Pacific time so staying until midnight was no effort at all for C&C.

The next day was not quite as successful. We tried to get up early and go to the Magic Kingdom after staying up until 1 am. Not a good idea. We overslept and decided to skip breakfast. Worse idea. By 11 or 12, everyone was cranky and crying. We had issues with the rental car we needed for Friday and need to leave the park early to pick that up. Lots of tears. And then on the boat back to the resort (sooooooo cool to take a boat back and forth!), Cassia's beloved Minnie Mouse ears blew off her head and into the lake. OMG. For twenty or thirty minutes all we heard were the desperate and tortured cries of "My Minnie hat!" Heartbroken does not even begin to describe it, even though we instantly promised her a new set of ears. Eventually she calmed down, but WOW. Getting the rental car itself was an adventure. The driver who came to pick me up got lost on the way so I didn't get the car until almost 6pm (even though the place closed at 5, lol) and then *I* got lost on the way back! I guess that's another improvement that I'd like to see at Fort Wilderness: lit signs! By the time I got back, we decided to just spend the night in and rest up for the next day when over-sleeping was not an option.

Friday we drove across the state to see the Kennedy Space Center. This was another place that I had been warned might not go over well with The Little Ones and The Girl but it was a huge success. Another homeshooler's dream! We took the Up-Close Tour and rode a bus out to the VIP launch viewing areas, the vehicle assembly building, International Space Station clean room, saw the crawler, and got the closest possible view of a shuttle on the launch pad. THAT was surreal. I didn't think I'd be so impressed with that but it was amazing. They had one of the best play structures I've ever seen, second only to the pirate cove at Legoland. Linus was not thrilled with all the bus riding, but Greyson had such a good time looking at all the rockets that he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up now. Firefighter is just not exciting enough anymore. ;) Cameron had a BLAST. Cassia got a little bored at times, but she still had a really good time overall. Overall, it was WELL worth the side trip. It was also nice to get a little different view of the state... and all it's toll roads, lol.

Saturday was originally supposed to be our "hang out at Fort Wilderness" day, but since our Magic Kingdom day turned out to be such a flop we decided to try that one again. We got such an early start that we were too early for the first boat over there but we took a boat over to the Contemporary Resort instead where we hopped on the monorail. Greyson loved that! He's a train man. Before the park even opened we got Cassia her new Minnie ears. Those ones did NOT get lost. ;) Once we got in we headed straight for Fantasyland and did all the rides before the lines got long. That was about all Greyson could handle. We could see the sanity just leaking out of his little head and the maniacal three-year-old seeping in. We still had to return the rental Bohemith (Suburban, lol) and Cameron had a 2:45 appointment on the archery range so we headed out at about noon once again, but this time with a much more satisfied feeling. After I returned the car (and did not get lost coming back) we hit the pool for an hour, let Linus nap while we had leftovers for lunch, and then Cameron went to archery and Cassia and Greyson had a pony ride. Next was an early dinner at Trail's End and then the little boys stayed home with Daddy (and were both asleep by 7:30!) while I took the big kids back to the Magic Kingdom and boy did we have fun! There were still virtually no lines and we hit up just about everything we had missed. I think the only ride we didn't go on was Aladdin's Magic carpet and Space Mountain (which was closed) and we did our favorites (Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain) twice. We did miss a few shows that we would have like to have seen, but we left feeling like we had thoroughly done the place. Overall impression - fun, but Disneyland is way better. It was nice to actually be able to do everything in one day though.

Our final day was spent at the Animal Kingdom. DH originally wanted to skip it, but we talked him into it. We were all very pleasantly surprised with that park! To me, it felt like real Disney magic there. The Magic Kingdom felt a bit like a cheap copy of Disneyland, but this was the real thing. I was transported to other worlds and very impressed with the message of conservation and respect for our world. And Expedition Everest rocked. Cameron went on it 4 times. First DH went with C&C and I got us all Fast Passes to go later but the line was so short that we decided I would go ahead and go with C&C then too. But Cassia didn't want to go again. So Cam went once with DH, once with me, and then again with DH and again with me using the Fast Passes. LOL, he tried to talk us into going again later too! Greyson got his first big/fast ride there on the rapids. Apparently, he LOVED it. It'll be nice when we don't have to keep splitting up to go on rides so someone can watch the little ones. Again, we did everything except the Nemo show and left feeling good and tired.

We finished up the night roasting marshmallows and singing campfire songs with Chip and Dale and then called it an early night in preparation for our big travel day home. The bus picked us up at 5 am (yawn). That means we got up at 4am... 1am our time! The wonderful thing about that though is that just about everyone (except Cameron) slept on the plane. It is a much shorter flight when you are asleep. This time we got on the plane at 8:30am and were back in our home county by 4:00 pm. Gotta love gaining 3 hours! But we were all asleep by 8:30, lol, and up this morning before 6:00. Oh well, like I said, it gave me some time to blog. And now we have arrived at the time I would normally be getting up so I guess I should get ready for the day.

I hope I can continue to get up early (while convincing the kids to sleep later) to enjoy a little bit of me time each day. I really miss my daily mind dumps - so therapeutic. ;)

Time flies!

2009-09-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

OMGoodness, I cannot believe I've let another week+ go by without blogging. And I thought I was doing so good. Hmph. Well, to the inquiring minds that wanted to know... YES! The car trick worked amazingly. Cassia sat there pouting at her math book for TWO hours. I finally said, "OK, it's time for us to go pick up our meat order now." I could see the relief (as in, I won, now I don't have to do it!) pass over her face and then I said, "Grab your math book and get in the car." To my surprise though, she said "OK!" and happily grabbed it and got in the car. She had the entire problem set done before we even got to the gas station down the street. Literally, less than five minutes. Weird. And that was that.

This last week has not been quite so productive. The kids have been sick. I broke my toe. (Insert sympathy here.) So we've done spelling, and some math, and Harry Potter maybe once or twice, and that's it. Next week the new 4-H year starts. There are some amazing sounding projects lined up. I think we're going to be very busy!!

Dinner is on the stove so I better go attend to it! I'll try to be better next week, I promise!!

Back in the Saddle Again

2009-08-25T15:19:00.000-07:00

Now that we are in week two of "Fall" (if you can call mid-August fall), we picked up a couple more subjects again. Yesterday, in addition to spelling, math, and literature (i.e. Harry Potter), I officially started Cassia on phonics a la The Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading. Wow, what a difference in waiting until a child actually shows you that they are ready instead of forcing it upon them at "the right age" and then just assuming they'll pick it up as you go. They don't. Much, much, much easier to just let them learn and explore letters, sounds, and words via Starfall, Bob Books, Dr. Seuss, and whatever else strikes their fancy and then pick up the formal rules and regulations once they are already reading a little bit. She and I whizzed through about 5 lessons yesterday and another three or four today. She's reading confidently and enthusiastically, unlike Cameron who did those same lessons grudgingly and dragging his feet the whole way.

We also added science back in. We studied light and transparency and did a couple of really fun activities holding different materials up to a light bulb and qualifying how much light came through. We've agreed to do science Mondays, Wednesdays, and then Fridays if we have time.

History is also back on the table. It had been so long, I completely forgot where we were, lol. Turns out we were on the Byzantine Empire. I still have no scanner though, so I'm going to really have to think ahead to go out and copy the maps and coloring pages at Staples or something. I'm also going to have to get my butt back to the library soon too. I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and drag everyone in there because I can't imagine when I'm going to have a chance to go by myself. DH has been working weekends and will continue to do so until mid-September. I hate taking the little ones in, but I also hate not having that resource.

Cassia decided that we also needed to add grammar back in to our days. She really missed the poems and silly little exercises in First Language Lessons. Sure, why not. I'm not going to argue that one!

So that was our day today and yesterday. Cameron spent all of his free time today making up a golf board game. He drew 18 holes and wrote the distance and par. He made a bunch of little cards too, but I'm not sure how you play yet. I came up with the idea that you could hit little Lego dots along the courses to get your score. I hope we can play after dinner.

Cassia is having a major crisis at the moment. She was all gung ho about the her schoolwork today until we got to math. She kept saying that she didn't want to do it, so I put it off until last but she is just sitting there crying and pouting over a handful of subtraction problems that would take her all of 10 minutes if she would just do them. I've tried everything: walking her through them; sending her outside for a 5 minute exercise break (She refused to exercise too. She just sat next to the sandbox wimpering.); giving her the option to clean her room instead; telling her that we weren't leaving the house until they were done even though she has a soccer game tonight. I just don't know what to do. After all this fussing, I don't feel like I can say, "Fine, don't do it." I don't like being manipulated. Greyson does enough of that on his own. He will just flat out refuse to do something he doesn't want to. He gets a little leeway with that because he's three, but I'm getting less and less tolerant of the behavior because it is getting out of control. So, in order to show everyone that I am to be taken seriously, I don't feel like I can give in here. I'm not being mean or getting angry; I'm just refusing to let it slide. Probably a battle that was not worth fighting from the start, but I'm kind of bound to it now.

We have to go pick up our meat order now and it's a bit of a drive. I think I will make her take the math with her and do it in the car. My friend, K, says that her kids can always focus better in the car for some reason. Less distractions, I guess, and something about the buzz and rumble of the road. We'll see. Wish me luck.

Welcome to Fall!

2009-08-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it is mid-August and school is back in session already. I mean, the way the weather's been it's hardly seemed like summer at all! One week of 100 degree weather, two weeks of 60 degree weather, and then one week of 100 degree weather all over again by which point my kids are all sick from all the temperature changes! But at least this means it will once again be safe to go to the park and the library.

I haven't blogged the last couple weeks, not necessarily from flakiness, but because it was our in between Summer & Fall break. The first week of August was all about getting ready for Cameron's birthday party. It was an Indiana Jones theme and turned out to be a lot of fun. We had treasure hunts and treacherous tricycle rides where you had to dodge an onslaught of water balloons, lol. The second week of August we went camping way up high in the mountains so that we could have a clear view of the Perseids Meteor Shower. We went with several other homeschooling families that we know from 4-H. It was so fun. I definitely think it will become a yearly tradition.

In the midst of camping, we took a day off to go to the San Francisco Zoo and see the new baby chicks join the rest of the colony. Cameron is an adoptive parent of the penguins and so we had a special invite to come witness the March of the Penguins 2009. There were several news crews there and I happened to notice one of the cameramen taking special notice of my little ones. And looky, looky what I found on the internet...

Watch the video and keep an eye out for a cuter than cute Greyson near the end, chewing away on his fingers in rapt attention.

Our local elementary schools started yesterday, so I'll say we did too. ;) We started the school year out with roller skating! There were still quite a few older kids at the Tiny Tot session, so I'm guessing that a lot of the neighboring schools haven't started quite yet. Our learning experience of the day: one of our friends found a $10 bill on the ground! Rather than hoarding it to himself, he put it into the change machine and split it with his sister. She in turn split it with another girl and bought some candy which they then shared with Cassia. The boy who originally found the money used his to play a game of pool with Cameron. It was a great lesson on generosity (and division!).

After that we came home and the kids did some work on their 4-H record books which were due last week. Ooops. It took a ridiculous amount of motivating to get them started. In fact, I didn't do a very good job because they only grudgingly got through half of it. I was pretty frustrated because I thought that that was the VERY last day we could turn them in. Luckily, we had a reprieve as I had gotten the dates wrong. One more day! So today we got up bright and early (well some of us did - Greyson didn't wake up until 9:30 and Cassia didn't get up until almost 10!) and resumed work. Cameron was having a hard time motivating himself again but we switched focus and did the part of his record book that he could dictate to me, instead of writing himself. He told the story of his 4-H year and really got excited about the things he had done and what he had accomplished. That made finishing the rest up really easy. Cassia is still finishing hers as I write this.

A couple weeks ago, Cassia asked if Greyson shouldn't be learning his letters and numbers now too. I said no. I'm definitely anti- pushing preschoolers and Kindergarteners now. I kind of feel bad for all the stuff I tried to make Cameron do when he was that age, lol. Oh well, live and learn, right? Anyway, in my quest to let the Little Ones just absorb I decided that I actually had been neglecting Greyson a little bit. So I've been trying to read to him more lately and I've found that that has been attracting the big kids to my side too! :) Today I decided to officially start introducing letters to him and started reading the Cat in the Hat Beginning Book Dictionary to him. This brought Cassia to my side and she started reading it to us instead. She's really doing well with reading. I'd like to pick up phonics with her again because I think she's truly ready now to do it without getting frustrated.

We read the Aa and Bb entries and part of Cc and then they got bored and wanted to read something else. Cassia ran off to get a couple Bob books. She read one and then Greyson ran off to get his own Bob book... he came back with a Bob the Builder book! LOL. Cassia ended up reading four Bob books and I read another couple board books to Grey. We were all very snuggly and comfy. It was nice... especially because Linus was napping the whole time. ;)

Cameron wrote his spelling words and then looked up the first three. He still hates doing it, but he's much faster. I explained to him how much it's helped his spelling, and reading, and penmanship and I think he is seeing the value in the exercise a little more... rather than it just being a case of me being evil. Bwahahahaha. ;) He had spent the entire morning doing his recordbook and then playing Timez Attack for a long time, so I called that a school day. Cassia wrote her spelling words three times each. She needs to spend a little more time working on letter form, but she's doing pretty good.

We dropped off our record books, had a mini-playdate with the leader's kids, and came home to curl up with Harry Potter. We only have a few more chapters left in book three. We'll do number four, I've decided, but I'm still not sure about five. Six and seven really should wait, I think, but will Cameron let me?? He's really into them. Next we'll do something a little shorter, like Huck Finn or Treasure Island and then maybe we'll try Narnia. I'm finding that finishing up our schooling with a nice read aloud is a good motivator for me to get things done each day. Motivating Mommy is always a bonus. :)

Summer - Weeks 4 & 5?

2009-07-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

I've lost track of what week it is, lol. I wonder if that's a good or bad sign?

We've been chugging along. Last week Cameron was the one who got 100% on his spelling and Cassia only got 33%. The words are getting harder though. Cameron is now PAYING ATTENTION to the words and thinking about them. WooHoo! I'm having Cassia write each word three times each day now. She's complaining a lot about it but I really believe that you need a physical-mental connection for writing it correctly before it will sink in. We'll see if she does better this week.

We've also added a new read aloud to our daily curriculum. Last Wednesday was Cassia's 6th birthday and one of her gifts was the complete Chronicles of Narnia (abridged) on CD. We've been listening to it in the car and the kids are absolutely enthralled! I am so thrilled about that. They play Narnia when they come home and Cassia took a box and turned it into a magic wardrobe for her dolls. She cut out trees and a lamppost from paper and drew in the snow. So cute! And the BEST part about our Narnia obsession is that Cameron happened across our paperback of the collection and decided that he wanted to read it! He got up early and read the first chapter of The Magician's Nephew before I was even out of bed. He even made himself a bookmark. I think this is the day that I have been waiting for his entire life. :D

I always wondered how people could simultaneously read more than one book without confusing them but I guess I just never tried it! We are having no trouble at all enjoying both Harry Potter and Narnia. We have just five chapters left in The Chamber of Secrets and no plans to stop reading the series until we're finished! (Cameron and I went and saw The Half-Blood Prince last weekend and he wants to know what's going to happen next. I told him that he's just going to have to read the books to find out!)

Our other newest summer time indulgence is the swimming pool! I know, not really a novel activity for July but we just never really got into the whole public pool thing. BUT we've found a gorgeous little pool about a half hour away that is fed from a natural warm spring and tucked away between the oaks. We've been meeting some of our park friends there and let me tell you, it is heaven. The days just melt away in the sun and laughter. There are actually three pools so there is something for everyone. The only hard part is getting them out of there!

And now I need to start cracking the whip on the spelling work that is NOT going on behind me so that we can read our Harry Potter for the day!

Summer - Week 3

2009-07-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

D'oh! Has it been over a week again? Bad me. We were out of town Monday though, so that day shouldn't count.

We've kept up with the spelling, math, and Harry Potter every day. The spelling definitions are PURE torture. It took Cameron two hours to write three definitions, two days in a row! Ugh. Of course, if he hadn't been using fancy crazy writing then it wouldn't have taken so long. Whatever. It's his choice to take forever if he wants to. Seriously, six definitions in two days isn't too much to expect. (Do I sound like I'm trying to convince myself? Is it working?) But I think it's paying off.

Not really much else to report! Cassia started her new ballet class Tuesday morning. It's much more disciplined but she still loves it. It's the Pre-Threshold class, for 6-yr olds with prior experience. New 6-yr olds would go into the class she just left. Next year will be Threshold and the next she would start the numbered levels that promote by skill rather than age. She's really grown up....

2006

2007

2009

Summer - Week 2

2009-07-02T17:32:00.000-07:00

Well, week two is just about at a close and I have to say that, aside from my cold, it's gone really well. We continued on with spelling, math, and reading aloud just about every day. Tuesday was an exception because the kids got it in their heads to write their own Harry Potter books. Cameron's was called Harry Potter's Book of Werewolves and Other Things. He filled it with pictures and descriptions of favorite things from the wizarding world. Cassia wrote one called Butterflies and Fairies which she filled first with the fairies from the Tinkerbell Movie and then from butterflies taken from a field guide. They literally spent all day working on them. Wednesday, after I made them do schoolwork first, they wrote second books! Cameron's was Cameron Potter's Book of Spells by Nicholas Flamel and Cassia's was Hermione's Book Book. Cameron's, obvioiusly, listed spells and their magic words. Cassia's was true genious though - she brought out practically all of our Dr. Suess and Little Golden Books, dumped them on the table, and copied the title and a picture from her favorites. And I think this was a 20 page book she made!

It was so funny though. Copying those spelling word definitions from the dictionary was pure and complete torture. You seriously would've thought that it was cruel and unusual punishment from the way Cameron went on about it, but when the writing was something he wanted to do? He wrote all day long for two days. Now, I know all my unschooling friends will remind me that there is no need to force them to do writing and spelling when, as they've just proven, they will do it willingly when they are interested but having to spell out every, single word for an almost 8 year old was too much for me. He really was seeming to have no sense of how to spell things at ALL and I can already see the improvement in just these two weeks. He's been keeping a chore chart for a Cub Scout badge and the entries were almost illegible three weeks ago, but this weeks was neat and orderly. Of course the spelling was atrocious because he couldn't read the words from the previous week's chart and didn't put a thought into how the word should actually be spelled, but we're working on it. While he was writing his Spell Book, he did actually make some decent efforts at spelling the words correctly before asking me for help.

Cassia finished her math book this week and started on Primary Math 1B. She was so excited to start the new book today that she did five exercises. The kids also took a spelling pre-test today and Cameron got them all right! Cassia missed two. One because she transposed the letters (sotp instead of stop) and one because she glanced at Cameron's paper as I marked it as all right and then changed one of her answers!! The funny thing is that it was right the first time and she changed it to be wrong. LOL. She was very upset to hear that. The child takes any lack of perfection very hard though. It was seriously tragic for her to get less than 100%. I think she might really be Hermione Granger!

And speaking of Hermione, we finished The Sorcerer's Stone today. As soon as I closed the book, Cameron grabbed it out of my hand and ran to replace it on the shelf and bring out The Chamber of Secrets. But then he didn't want to read it. ?? Cassia was actually the one who begged to start it and then to read "just one more chapter." I think my general rule is that I will not say no to someone who wants to read. It's not even a majority rules thing, like Cassia was insisting, it's just that it would be wrong as a homeschool parent to stifle a desire to read or be read to. If anyone doesn't want to listen, then the house is plenty big enough for them to find somewhere else to be. Of course Cameron didn't want to miss any of the story so he stayed and listened.

We're leaving for the long weekend tomorrow evening and I'm still up in the air as to what we're going to do during the day. Part of me wants to go to Park Day since it's been about three weeks since we've been there. But the saner part of me keeps reminding me that I have a miserable cold that got much worse after we went to roller skating on Monday and that we really should spend the day packing the car and such (seeing as how I'm blogging instead of doing that now). We also need to take those spelling tests, do some math, and read some more Harry Potter because I am really liking the consistency of working daily. So we'll see if sanity or desire wins out.

Have a Happy 4th of July!!

For Megan ;)

2009-06-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, summer is here! The lazy days of summer. The lazy days of summer when we are accomplishing more schoolwork than we have in the last couple months!! We're on a break from most of our activities, with the exception of ballet for Cassia, violin for Cameron, and gymnastics for Greyson, and it is amazing what we can get done when we're not running all over town!

We started the summer out with camps. Cassia had a week of horse camp. She LOVED it and she she did really good too. Especially for someone who had never ridden a horse before. :) During that week, Cameron and I did a lot of math and a lot of science in her absence. It was amazing to me how the household dynamic changed. The next week Cameron had golf camp. He also LOVED it and did great. The household dynamic changed that week even more markedly. Cassia was so displaced. She just didn't know what to do with herself without him to play with! But we survived and I was even more determined to really "crack down" on the bookwork this summer.

And I have so far succeeded. Last week, every single day we did spelling work, math, and then read aloud. Every. Single. Day. It doesn't sound like much when I write it out here, but it really has been multiple hours of bookwork.

I realized that Cameron's spelling is atrocious. He has no clue how to spell anything, so I whipped out the old Spelling Power book and started over from the very first list: bus, bat, sit, see, tub, us. I'm giving both Cameron and Cassia the same words but varying what they are doing with them.

Monday:
both take turns reading the introductory paragraph about the words.
both write list words.
Cassia looks up words in the Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary, laughs at the silly drawings, and tries to read the silly example sentences.
Cameron looks up words in the Webster's Children's Dictionary, reads all the definitions and usage examples, and copies the most relevant definition to his paper.
Tuesday:
both write list words again
Cassia does fill-in-the-blank exercises from workbook.
Cameron finishes looking up and writing definitions.
Wednesday:
both take a pretest and write any missed word three times
Thursday:
both write list words again
Friday:
both take test

Cassia is doing great with this whole thing. She got 100% on both her pretest and her Friday test and it really seems to be helping her reading take off too. Cameron is already struggling. *sigh* He complains the whole time about the definitions and has trouble reading words in the dictionary that I really think he should be able to. He wrote all of his "B"s backward on the pretest (a totally forgivable error, but still) and then spelled "sit" with an "e" on the Friday test. Argh. I'm really, really hoping though that this just shows that he really needs to be doing this. I remembering doing this in third grade, so I know I'm not expecting too much of him.

Anyway, after that we do math. Cassia is just finishing up the last couple review sections in Primary Math 1A. She's been flying through this book. Cameron's made some big strides too, though he rarely does more than one exercise a day. He claims to love long division so that is very good news, lol. I guess no one has told him that it's supposed to be hard and he's supposed to hate it. ;) He's about halfway through 3A. Now, if you look back in my blog you'll probably see that those are the exact same books they started the year with, but like I said before, we've been so busy with "stuff" that we really haven't had very much time to do anything else! Cameron's also been playing a lot of Timez Attack, and of course there's good old-fashioned life learning too. I feel so guilty sometimes that we don't have more to show for our year, but they really did learn so much and did so much.

The last thing we've been doing each afternoon is some summer reading. I really want them to find pleasure in books, so I wanted to read something fun. I gave them the choice of Robin Hood; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Charlotte's Web; or Harry Potter. Guess which one they picked. So we are reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone again. They are being great listeners though. This is really the most successful read aloud we've ever had. We are reading two chapters a day and I'm optimistic that by the end of the summer we will make it through at least two, if not three, of the series.

And so that's what we've been up to. Today we started the day with roller skating and then came home, ate lunch, and got right to work. Cameron has been complaining bitterly about having to write the definitions again but, oh well. Cassia actually finished looking up all of her words before even got halfway through his first definition so she moved on to some Explode the Code work. She's already completed book 1 and just started book 2 today. She just loves it. Cameron hated that series. It's funny how different they are. This week I'm hoping to add some science and/or history into the mix too. We'll see. Honestly, I'll be happy to just keep this up for another five days straight. ;)

We'll see if I can keep up on the blog too. I've missed you. :)

It was a great day!

2009-02-26T15:33:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a GREAT day!

...until dinner. OMG, what is it about dinnertime that drives them absolutely BONKERS and then sends me over the edge. By the time DH got home I was seriously spewing smoke out of my ears and shooting lightning bolts from my eyes. Gah. Tell me other kids do this? Tell me that it's normal for children to lose their sense of hearing and respond to nothing but their sibling's maniacal giggle. Tell me that they will outgrow this and I will survive!! OK, enough venting. I feel better now.

So since last time... Thursday was ballet where we signed up for the Annual Student Showcase. Did I tell you about that? They're doing a full ballet called The Enchanted Garden and each class gets to be a different flower. The exciting part is that it's a real production with a dress rehearsal and publicly sold tickets and everything. Should be really fun. Friday was Favorite Park Day. Man, did we miss that! Between sickness and the weather it had been over a month since we'd been able to play.

Saturday brought the first Little League practice of the season. I think it's going to be a great season. The coach really impressed me for some reason. I haven't even talked to him face to face yet, lol, but his level of organization and contact is a thousand times better than our coach last year. The scary thing is that we also signed Cassia up for tee ball this year. I know Cameron's games will all be at one of the three fields at this one park and I'm hoping that Cassia's games will all be at the elementary school across the street so that if we do have game overlap during the week (when I can't count on DH to be home to drive one of them) it won't be too tragic of a situation. Of course it's also possible that I'm going to end up dropping poor Cameron off by himself and then driving Cassia all over town for her games, but I'm hoping for the best. And he won't care either way. And there is a parent on the team that we know from last year with a little girl that Cassia is good friends with, so I'm sure she wouldn't mind keeping an eye on him if need be.

The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. At one point, Cassia got out her phonics book and started working on it. Cameron said, "Cassia, what are you doing?? It's the weekend! You don't have to do school today!" I wonder if that difference in attitude is simply because I had put more pressure on him to do school every week day or just a difference in personalities?

Monday we went to gymnastics and as I was digging through the school bag to find something for Cameron to work on while we were there, I realized that I never got out his new math book! All that build up to finish the old book and then we forgot to get the new one out, lol. Yes, unschoolers at heart, all of us. So we did science instead. He started a workbook page where he was supposed to rearrange phrases to make a logical sentence and then find the word that it was describing. The first sentence was "Only plants / can use this energy / from the sun / to make food." That was actually a great lesson because we got to discuss sentence mechanics too - two subjects in one! The workbook didn't have enough space for him to actually write the sentence out (since it is a 4th grade book and his writing is still 1st grade size) so he wrote it on the only paper I had in the bag - story paper! Of course this prompted him to draw a picture to accompany the sentence and then, since it was science, he labeled all the pictures. So that made it art and spelling too. And he never did make it past the first sentence but I think he got quite a lot out of it!

Tuesday we went to another Odyssey of the Mind practice and the kids rehearsed again. They're doing a fabulous job and I can't wait to see what the final creation is going to look like. The kids seem to really like it too. I wonder if this will spark a love of acting/theater? Our 4-H project for the day was canceled due to the sickness of the leaders. That's the problem with being the first ones sick. Once we're better and want to do stuff, everyone else is sick! I can't remember what we did instead. Did we watch a movie? Play a game? I really can't remember. Hmm.

Wednesday was our day off from activities. We watched the Tinkerbell movie. We built with K'Nex. We finally started Cameron's new math book. The first lesson was numbers to ten thousand and he did great until we got to the "write the number in words" section. Does any kid like those? LOL. Those last four problems took a crazy amount of time. Cassia did three or four lessons in her math book in that time. After they finished their math, we read two of the last four chapters in Story of the World, Volume 1. Even though we haven't really done a lot of extra stuff in the last half of the book, we're still pretty much on schedule with our 5-year plan for the four volumes. So I'm happy with that. The next two chapters are on the fall of Rome and then after that I think we'll spend a week or two going through some of the myriads of Roman stuff that DH's aunt (a retired 4th/5th GATE teacher) gave me before moving on to Volume 2.

Today we spent the morning spring cleaning and then did an in depth phonics and grammar study - we watched The Electric Company on DVD. ;) Did you know that Bill Cosby and Morgan Freeman (OMG, he was so funky cool, rofl) were on that?? After lunch we went to ballet. During that Cameron did two exercises in his math book - obviously there was no writing of words involved, lol. Greyson had me read a couple books to him and then he followed one of the ballerinas around the studio watching her vacuum. He's such a nut. Cameron wanted to do history too but just then we heard the pitter-patter of little ballerina feet coming down the stairs. I planned to do it once we got home but they got distracted with K'Nex and I got distracted blogging and now I don't think we have enough time before baseball practice. Oh well. Tomorrow is another day. :)

Busy busy!

2009-02-18T12:29:00.000-08:00

So as not to disappoint my loyal fan base of 2, I'll blog instead of doing something productive like laundry or grocery shopping or cleaning or bread-making or any number of a zillion other things.

We had a busy day yesterday! We started out with a really great Odyssey of the Mind meeting. It was raining (oh and we saw several of the most beautiful rainbows on the way there. I wish I could upload the pictures in my head to share with you!) so instead of working on the set and props like we had planned to, we went ahead and did a rehearsal. I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but the challenge is to portray a candy factory that makes five different candies that each feature a healthy ingredient. The factory needs to have a candy maker giving out and describing samples and a comical customer who buys them, as well as machines and such.

The kids auditioned for the parts they wanted and Cassia was chosen as the head candy maker! Well, actually the three kids who wanted the part Ro-Sham-Boed for it and she won, lol. But she did a FABULOUS job. She stood behind the register and had to completely ad lib the candies and how they are made with a healthy ingredient. Everyone was pretty impressed. Cameron and another boy, E6, are her assistants who run the machines. The kids decided that the comical customer would be the oldest girl, C9, and that she would enter the candy factory with her kids, N5 and I6, who also happen to be the shortest and shiest kids so it worked out really well. C9 was a fabulous mother too. She is a natural ham, lol, but was also wonderful at prompting Cassia for the things she was supposed to say. The final member of the team, T6, who was originally only going to participate if he didn't have to perform, was the sound effects guy. He sits in a large box full of noise makers and makes the sounds of the machines. He also did an EXCELLENT job. All in all, I was extremely impressed with the kids. I had been getting a little concerned about how and if it was all going to come together and whether anybody was going to get anything out of it at all, but now all those fears have been put to rest. They're going to do great.

The coach video-taped the rehearsal and the kids loved seeing themselves on tv, lol. After we watched the recording and reviewed some of the things that might be better done (like not talking over people, lol) we all went out to McDonald's for lunch. Yes, you read right. We went to McDonald's. I still feel over-salted, lol. But the kids had fun. There was a huge indoor plaything and we've all been cooped up way too long, so that was worth it.

After that we rushed off to go pick up some farm fresh eggs from a friend and then rushed home to meet another friend who was bringing by some aromatherapy stuff. I love that I'm getting so much stuff lately from friends. I have a friend for eggs; one for aromatherapy sprays, bath salts, and the best all-natural hand sanitizer ever made; one for Arbonne which I am very quickly getting addicted to; and then I have our farm for veggies which feels like I'm getting them from a friend. :)

And then we rushed off again to mail some packages and get a PO Box for our homeschool group - both of which turned out to be a bigger ordeal than I anticipated! Apparently, PO Boxes are a hot commodity in this town and it looks like I'm going to have to go to a commercial post office to find one. So that kind of sucks since it is on the other side of town and not next to anything that I regularly go to... except the drive through Starbucks, lol. So that whole thing took a lot longer than I was expecting so we had to skip the grocery store and come straight home to shove some noodles and marinara sauce into our mouths and rush us out again to a Homeschool 101 meeting.

The Homeschool 101 meetings are something new that our chair has been organizing where new homeschoolers and those considering homeschooling can come together with veterans to ask and answer questions. This was the first one I've been able to make it to and it was fun to get out and talk shop. The dynamic was interesting though. There was one woman considering homeschooling and then 5 families who, like me, are still pretty new at this but also kind of feel like experts at the whole thing! LOL, so what we had was this one terrified and confused single mother being bombarded by 7 expert opinions by people who are really still newbies themselves. I wonder if we helped her at all. One person, in particular, I'm afraid was a bit intimidating and the chair had to keep redirecting the conversation away from what's wrong with schools and back to what's unique to homeschooling. But it was fun to get out and I hope I'm able to go again next time - though hopefully I'll be able to leave the kids at home.

Today we are making up for being so busy yesterday by being exceptionally lazy. C&C didn't get dressed until 1:15 and have been watching tv all morning. I really need to run some errands though so I better get moving. One of the things my friend dropped off yesterday was a spray that promised to focus the cluttered mommy mind so that one can prioritize and actually get things done. It worked yesterday but today I used it just before hopping on the computer and so it had the effect of focusing my computer time. In other words, instead of doing all the things I should've been doing, I just spent the last two hours uploading photos and blogging. I guess that's better than just wasting time on Facebook like I normally do, lol. I think I should ask her to make a spray that will instill the nesting instinct. Nothing like that pre-baby need to organize and clean up your life. Anyway, off I go. Nice chatting with you. :)

Now back to our regularly scheduled lives

2009-02-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

Wow. That was quite an illness we had there. We suffered through everything, very slowly, one at a time, for weeks. Blech. I guess it really is better to only have one puking child at a time though, right?

This week has been spent getting us back to normal. Cameron has been v e r y s l o w l y making his way through the last two reviews in his math book and finally finished today. He's been reading here and there and he seems to really be getting better all the time. We've been reading books on dinosaurs and woolly mammoths. We've been watching documentaries on butterflies and submarines and Bill Nye the Science Guy on earthquakes. We've been listening to Vivaldi. We've been playing cribbage and 'Smath and Options (Scrabble with prism shaped tiles that you can flip).

Cassia has flown through her math book and her phonics book. She's on exercise 18, I think, in math after only a couple weeks. And you know we aren't doing book work more that a couple times a week. She just sits down and works for over an hour every time she does it. She's also about a third of the way through Explode the Code 1. It's amazing how well she is learning to read from that. Totally different experience than with Cameron. She's also been reading library books and doing Starfall. And the art... oh man, that girl is creative. She made the most amazing abstract drawing today. She says that it's a Spanish Chess board but it looks like, well, here let me upload it... (Egads. The effort of that and the distractions that followed have delayed my getting back to this for about 24 hours!) OK, nevermind, let me just say that it reminds me of a Picasso. Beautiful work.

Greyson has been Greyson, lol. He's been busy fixing everything with the plastic tool sets he got for Christmas and cooking with a combination of my and Cassia's dishes. He's amazing with sounds - animal imitations and voices and the like. He's also really becoming able to play *with* the other kids and understand their games. It's nice to see. Of course he's also able to express his displeasure with things too and he and Cassia, especially, have been clashing heads a lot. That's not so nice to see. But it's all part of growing up, I suppose.

After missing 4-H and rollerskating and gymnastics and the PARK for about three weeks now, it was really nice to be able to get back to some of those things. For 4-H Puppetry, we made these this week

Unfortunately, it was raining for our Valentine's Party at Favorite Park Day so it's been postponed to next week. Waahhhh! We REALLY wanted to go to the park. We were even going to ditch the 4-H Origami project to go but the weather just wouldn't cooperate. Some people suggested having the party at someone's house instead, but I think the point, for quite a few of us, is to get OUT of the house. Usually when we have these parties half the crafts and activities go undone because the kids are just too busy playing in the sand box and climbing trees. But it was okay because we had Origami to go to instead... until the project leader told us that her kids were sick and they had to cancel! So we went from having too many things to do on Friday to too few. We ended up going to the grocery store and doing laundry instead. Joy of joys.

We did get to go to the farm too though and it's been way to long since we'd been there. LOL, I was watching a show on the Travel Channel the other night and my mouth literally started watering when the host tasted some local cooked greens on his travels in Greece. I knew right then that it had been way too long since we had any good fresh veggies in the house! But now we are stocked and our menu for Valentine's dinner include Pink Beet Pilaf and sauteed dinosaur kale. Mmmmm. And on that note, I better get planning.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!!

It's Spring, Time to Sing Vivaldi!

2009-01-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

OK, it's not spring but it might as well be with the weather we've had the last few days! It was 68 and gorgeous today. Too bad the kids are still sick. They were well enough to play in the back yard though and they really appreciated that one.

Since they were feeling better though, I figured I should bust out the books. Cameron finished off the last regular exercise in his math book and is two-thirds of the way through the second-to-last review.

I haven't been able to find Cassia's math book ANYwhere!! It just disappeared. I have a feeling that it got left out somewhere and someone "put it away" in a rush and it's now residing in a random toy bin somewhere. I glanced at most of the bookshelves and didn't see it there, but we have a lot of books so I could have easily just missed it.

Anyway, I finally gave up and skipped her ahead to the Primary Math 1A book. I doubt she'll miss the last third of Earlybird 2B and if we do find it, she'll probably have a blast going back and doing it for fun. She was thrilled to start the new book. Of course the first chapter is ultra easy - counting to ten. But it does have something new in that it's asking her to match the numbers with the words. Cameron was never able to do that but I have a feeling that she's going to pick it up pretty easily. She's got a great memory for stuff like that, where as he - like me - needs the rules and reasons behind it before it will stick.

Another difference between the two of them stood out very sharply today. There was an exercise that asked her to color a certain number of objects. She happily and carefully colored each one a different color and proudly showed off each set to me. I remember when Cameron did that exercise - he HATED it!! He hated to color so much. When he did do it, he would just kind of scribble the picture out. I remember I finally just told him to put an X on them instead of coloring because it was such torture for him. So his 1A book is a big scribbley mess and hers is a beautiful work of art, lol. Nothing against not wanting to color though!! I totally get that that's not his thing and I'm okay with it, but it was nice to see all the beautiful colors today. It flashed me back to my own brightly and carefully colored worksheets of decades past. And in her enthusiasm, she completed six exercises and begged me for more but I told her to save a few for tomorrow.

After that I asked them if they wanted to read a history story or learn about a composer. Cassia had found the Classical Magic books the other day and was looking through them. I am embarrassed to say that I had completely forgotten about them!! LOL. Anyway, I thought I'd let them choose what else to do and Cameron said "Histoser." Cassia also chimed in with "Compistory." So I followed their lead, like any good homeschool mom would, and we did both. ;) For history we read about Augustus Caesar and the kids were thrilled to learn that both their birth months were named for leaders of Rome. We followed that up with the first few pages of Classical Magic and learned some of the characteristics of the Baroque period and then read a short biography of Vivaldi. I thought we would finish off by listening to a few clips of Vivaldi's Springtime. We have a couple of fun versions of the first movement so we listened to those and then I went to Classical Archives to play a more sophisticated version. To my surprise though, they wanted to listen to ALL the seasons! Mostly we just listened to clips of each, not the full movement, but we did sample all three movements of all four seasons. And then they went through and listened to all of the baroque period kid's songs! (From the Beethoven's Wig and Classical Magic serieses - yes, I've sorted them all into iTunes playlists - yes, I'm a geek.)

So that was a lot of fun. I'm hoping we can listen to some more Vivaldi in the next couple days and then read another biography or two on him. There is a second biography on him in Volume 2 of Classical Magic (why I'm not sure) and I have several online sites bookmarked. Hopefully the interest will continue because this really is something I've been wanting to learn about with them. Cameron also got some art and science work in today by using his How To Draw Dinosaurs book. :) He did a really great job. He's got a skill for drawing. Cassia has the eye for color, but he has the eye for line. He can carry a better tune too. I wonder if that's related?

If this is less than coherent or cohesive it's because I'm starving and am having trouble concentrating but wanted to get this finished before I move on to getting dinner finished. Homemade pizza tonight! I wonder if Vivaldi inspired me?

The Sickies Have Landed!

2009-01-23T11:33:00.000-08:00

Ahhhh! We've been invaded by Sickies and let me tell you, it's no fun despite the fact that I felt no guilt in watching Kung Fu Panda at 7:00 am this morning. Greyson has been holding on to this cough and mild fever for a few days now and Linus has had a stuffy nose for a week but it all seemed to come to a crux for everyone last night. Cameron and Greyson both woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe and needing a nebulizer treatment. Cassia woke up feverish in the night and decided to sleep on the couch. At sunrise her fever shot up to 102 and she instantly regurgitated the liquid Tylenol I tried to give her for it. Not a happy camper. She was able to keep down a melt-away tablet though and then some toast and tea. Everyone seems to be feeling better now, but I keep waiting for the meds to wear off and everyone to be miserable again.

The worst part is that we had a little girl over yesterday morning and I fear that she's going to be miserable now because of us. :( I'm watching her two days a week so her mother doesn't have to put her (just 2-1/2) in daycare. I think she would've been better off in daycare yesterday! I had left the mother a message the day before saying that Grey seemed to be getting worse, but she didn't get it in time. So now I'm feeling bad that I didn't try harder to get a hold of her or even turn them away at the door. Neither of us are ones to hide from germs, but still....

Anyway, enough of giving myself a guilt trip. Wednesday we spent the morning at the dentist. I have a broken tooth that is going to need to be pulled. *sigh* Luckily, there is a wisdom tooth right next to it that never surfaced so it should move right in to take it's place. Cassia had a couple of cavities starting in the back. Maybe now she'll believe us when we say tooth brushing is not a race, lol. The boys were fine. Of course. (I hate my teeth and one of my great fears is that the kids got my teeth. I guess I should be happy that it looks like it is just a girl gene.) Greyson was soooooo curious while we were there. He peeked into every office and asked the dental assistant about all the equipment in the prep room. That boy likes machines!

Then we came home and did two sections of science. We studied energy by watching a ball bounce and a paper windmill spin. We thought of all the different ways that a windmill can be made to spin and what the source of energy is for that. That particular unit is one reason that I am glad that we do follow a curriculum, however loosely. I never would've thought to do that and the kids really enjoyed stretching their brains to come up with solutions. The second section was about how the energy of the sun is the original source of energy for living things. (The sun gives it energy to plants which are eaten by herbivores which are eaten by carnivores.) I think we have touched on that concept before but it's still fun to go over it officially.

Next Cameron did some math. He's excited to finish this book and has been doing two to three exercises every time we do math so that he can move through it quicker. Too bad we are only doing it once or twice a week, lol. Also too bad that I didn't order our new books earlier to inspire this work surge. While he was doing that, Cassia and Greyson were playing on Starfall. Greyson was so into it. I wouldn't be surprised if he taught himself to read very early on.

I think that was all we did before the heebie jeebies and hacking started creeping in. Thursday we didn't do anything except watch T2 in the morning. Cassia and Grey did a little on Starfall and Cameron built a lot with K'Nex, but mostly we just watched movies. I'm wondering if I should mark that as an official "sick" day. I do like to keep track of days when the kids are truly too sick to do school in our attendance records but don't Starfall and K'Nex count? On a healthy day I would say, "Absolutely!", but when they're sick it's just a relaxation activity. I know, I know. All my unschool friends are shaking their heads and wanting to smack me about now, but I can't help but ponder such things and classify it all. If we had read a book or two I would consider it all school, but we didn't. I really wanted to too but no one was in the mood. We have James and the Giant Peach here that we were doing really good at reading for a while but then it got misplaced in the back of the minivan and we got out of the groove of reading it. I'd really like to get back to that and if I can manage that today I will count it as a school day.

In other plans, I would like to bake some bread today and maybe make a lamb stew for dinner. I have some library books of my own that I would like to get to. One that I'm particularly interested in is on whole grains and the other is a pressure cooker cookbook. It's a cold drizzly day today so we aren't missing much by sticking around the house. Yesterday we did miss Parent Watch day at Cassia's ballet class - the one day a year that they let the parents in - but there was no way she was up to it. Hopefully everyone will be better by next week. We have a big week planned including Star Week at gymnastics! Star Week only comes once every 8 weeks and is the only way they can advance. I know they'll be crushed if they can't do it.

OK, enough rambling from here. I just wanted to make sure that I got more than one post in this week. :)

Happy Inauguration Day!!!

2009-01-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

WooHoooo!!!!!! First and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS and WELCOME President Obama. I know many of you are not as thrilled as I am but I am very hopeful for a time in our country's history when everyone can work together for a change and not just bicker about right and left.

Secondly, yeah, I know... two months. I'm not even going to apologize or promise to do better. We'll see if do or not. ;)

Cameron and Cassia started a new venture today. They joined an Odyssey of the Mind team. It is the only homeschool team in our region and it's our group's first time doing it! Exciting stuff! Our coach though, had coached another team before and is VERY enthusiastic about the whole thing. She really seems to know what she's doing and I'm really looking forward to it. I had to laugh though when we walked into her house today. She is the first person I've met who really lives up to that homeschool stereotype. Their garage had been converted into a schoolroom with posters and charts all over; science projects half completed here and there; boxes of manipulatives and toys neatly stacked ALL over the place; Christian posters and paintings all over the house; lots of little chairs and desks; a carpet with the United States on it; and even a plaque with the School Rules printed on it (which her son made sure to read to us so we knew them!). It was very quaint and picturesque and I'm actually surprised that it's taken me so long to meet someone who schools that way!

If you don't know what it is, Odyssey of the Mind is a problem solving competition where multiple teams work on solving the same problem and then present their unique solution through a skit or other presentation. The winning teams can then go on from the regional competition to state, national, and international competitions! (The K - 2nd grade teams don't actually compete but still get to present at the regional competition.) Through this they learn problem solving, teamwork, budget management, public speaking, etc, etc, etc. Uniqueness is rewarded and the adults must stay strictly hands off.

We had our first team practice today and I know the kids learned oodles of stuff. They learned how to brainstorm ideas and then voted for their favorite ones. They learned to not criticize ideas that were different and to not be too disappointed if their idea wasn't chosen. Then they had a little acting lesson and acted out a strange little song using a mystery emotion which the other kids had to guess. Cameron took to it instantly and everyone guessed his emotion, proud, right off the bat. Cassia, surprisingly, was a little shy and the coach, MomH, had to perform the song with her. The crowd got it in two or three guesses, but it was a tough one: love! The best part was that there is one boy on the team, T6, who says he'll only be a part of this if he doesn't have to perform. We agreed that he can be the "behind-the-scenes" guy. While the other kids were acting out the song, he was in charge of picking who would go next. Well, when everyone was done he was having so much fun that he announced "The only one who hasn't gone yet is me!" and did his own version of the silly song. He had a moment or two where I thought he might freeze up and change his mind, but he didn't and he had a lot of fun doing it too. Yay! Maybe he will change his mind and want to be a part of the performance too.

After practice we headed to a friend's house to pick up some farm fresh eggs. It was our first time there and OH, what a lovely place they have. The chickens were, dare I say, adorable and there was something very soothing about their clucking. I really never anticipated that one! Their feathers were absolutely gorgeous too. We fed them some corn, collected a few freshly lain eggs, chased down the family ducks, and then finally settled in to taking over the backyard, lol. They had a zip line (which Cameron was too heavy for and pretty much hit the ground as soon as he jumped off the ladder, lol) that was a huge hit and a neat plank swing in a neat old tree. The weather was gorgeous - sunny and mild - and the time to leave came all too soon. No one wanted to go.

We finally arrived home to relax with K'Nex, Old School Sesame Street DVDs, and computer time (depending on who you were). It was such a nice day that I was inspired to blog while our BBQ'ed chicken legs and home fries cook. Maybe I'll even keep up the habit. It is the dawn of a new era, you know. :)

Trying...

2008-11-19T17:28:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, the only thing we had on the agenda was a committee meeting for the 4-H Holiday Party. I have a few gripes about the meeting but I don't think I'll get into them here. I will let you in on a brag though - they were trying to figure how to solve the ultimate dilemma of too many desserts and no food at the potluck and Cameron came up with the solution. He suggested that everyone bring both a dessert and something healthy. Sure, there will still be a ton of sweets, but then it will at least be balanced with an equal number of other foods, regardless of how many people come. In previous years they've assigned people entree, salad, or desert based on their last name but then it ends up unbalanced when there are no-shows or rebels. So, even though the role of the kids at the meeting was less than I like to see, their suggestions were taken seriously (the meeting leaders just had to be reminded to actually ASK the children for their input).

After the meeting we had to go pick up our meat buying club meat. We've switched from a medium to a large order and got lots of roasts this time. I think I'm going to have to put a touch of effort into menu planning though so that I actually take things out to thaw. (Hmm, what is for dinner tonight? Nothing is thawed!) There should've been plenty of time to do other stuff too, but I somehow never got around to anything. I felt a bit achy, which progressed to my skin feeling like it was on fire during dinner, which progressed to chills and a 101 fever not long after that. A good night's sleep did wonders though and *knock on wood* I haven't had a fever since about 5:30 this morning.

Today we had nothing on the schedule at all for the first time in ages so that took all the pressure off the day. Cameron built a Tie Fighter out of Legos and I made Cassia turn off Sesame Street (her newest addiction) and read her a few fairy tales, including this version of Hansel and Gretel. I actually managed to get a few loads of laundry done AND once Grey went down for his nap around 3:30 we did schoolwork. Cameron read The Three Billy Goats Gruff from a book of tall tales we have for reading. He complained A TON about the writing being too small and it being too hard and everything else but once he finally did it, he realized that the language in the book was actually much easier for him to read than the DK Readers he's been struggling so much with! He even tried to give the troll a scary voice while he was reading. Next Cassia did a phonics lesson on "ck." She was pretty rusty at first, but ended up reading very well. Math was fun because the lesson was on estimating one liter and then checking yourself. The kids waaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy underestimated by saying a 5 gallon bucket would hold two liters, lol, but I think they really gained some conceptual knowledge from the process. We finished up with history and I read them the story of China's first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, and his terracotta army. They were not the slightest bit enthused by it though Cameron did a good job of at least pretending to be interested. Cassia complained that history was boring since we never do the maps and coloring pages anymore. I agreed that if they'd stop complaining and procrastinating so much about the whole process that I'd make sure I found the time for the fun stuff too.

So, all in all, it's been a pretty productive day. I think I just got a big burst of motivation when I realized that I wasn't going to spend the whole day in the throes of fevered chills. Thank goodness! Now let's just hope that it was a minor 24-hr bug thing and that I'll be right as rain tomorrow. My dad is coming over this weekend and I have a lot of cleaning to do before then.

Poor baby!!

2008-11-17T18:13:00.000-08:00

Today was that time in a mother's life that she dreads. At least I do. And I probably dread it in a different way than they typical American mom does. Today, my baby boy had his two month check-up - that means vaccinations. I am so torn over vaccinations. Cameron and Cassia both got them on schedule and I barely thought a thing of it... except, of course, that heart-wrenching feeling of letting someone hurt your baby ON PURPOSE. By the time Greyson came along I was pondering their safety and then he went and had a nasty reaction to his first series. He went from rarely crying and a pretty defined sleep/wake schedule (his schedule, not mine) to a pattern of completely zonked out one minute and then screaming the next that lasted about a week. It was a huge temperament change. Seems like he also had some mild physical symptoms too like swelling and a mild fever. It was nothing serious or lasting, but it was real and it was caused by the immunizations. I spread the rest of his shots out, coming back two or three times to finish all the recommended shots with each well-check.

So anyway, today it was Linus' turn. I've been debating waiting until 6 months to even start them at all, but then I see the terrified and concerned look on the pediatrician's face and I go ahead and do it. I did say right off the bat that I wanted him on a more spread out schedule though, so he got the DTP today and then will go back in two weeks for the hep and something else. They tried to sell me on a new oral rotovirus vaccine, but I declined. To be fair, she really didn't try to sell me on it at ALL and nodded understandingly when I said that I didn't feel comfortable giving my baby a new vaccine (especially a live virus - eek), but the fact that 90% of parents probably go ahead and get everything "just to be safe" kind of freaks me out. I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist or anything, but drug (and pesticide) companies have way too much control over our lives.

But he survived with nothing more that a big soundless cry at the time (and when I took the band-aid off) and an extra long nap afterward.

Around noontime I tried to get school started. Cameron read a couple of pages from a DK Reader on Star Wars spacecrafts, but it was frustrating for us both. He guessed practically every word. I mean, he would get "Galactic Republic Starcraft" right but then miss "ride." It was ridiculous. I'm tempted to go back and make him do all the phonics lessons again, but I know that would just make him hate reading (and probably me). I guess I just need to stay away from the Level 3 stuff, but the lower level readers are soooooooooooo booooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg for him. At least he was interested in this book - even though he was doing more repeating than reading. *sigh*

So that put a bit of a damper on my school spirit and I let everything else slide until gymnastics. Greyson fell asleep in the car on the way there so we sat in the car and did a few science workbook pages during Cassia's class. We had skipped the workbook pages for the previous chapter, respiration, so that's what we did. He loved it, in fact he's the one who chose that subject to do, and we both actually learned a few things. (Quick quiz - how does a tadpole breathe? Mouth? Skin? Gills? Air holes?). He has a bit of a headcold and felt too sick to do gymnastics today so after that we just went home. I fully intended to do math, grammar, and hopefully history once we got there but it never happened.

We have a relatively light week ahead of us for a change. Oh, I forgot to blog about last Friday. We skipped Favorite Park Day to go to an Origami project for 4-H. The kids were so sad/mad about it when I told them on Thursday but, thankfully, they had a great time doing origami. The craft itself was fun AND they had lots of friends their age to play with too. The made a couple of things, then played, then made some more things, then played some more so it was a nice balance. And they didn't mention the park once. They made cups, boats, and cootie catchers. The cooties catchers have been the big hit - especially once I showed them how to write the "stuff" on them and play the game.

OK, someone is telling me it's time to make dinner and someone else is telling me it's time to hold him again. :)

It's a record!

2008-11-13T18:13:00.000-08:00

It's a record, both for blogging and for schoolwork this week. ;) Sadly, that record is three days of blogging and two of schoolwork but it's something! And "schoolwork" today was pretty lame, but I used the word and made him do something that he didn't necessarily want to, so that counts. ;) LOL.

The kids spent the morning making sticker art and for one of the first times ever, both of their pictures made perfect sense. Cameron's was a race track with race cars zooming around. The stands were filled with penguins watching the race. Cassia's was a camping scene. Two ballerinas with sparkly crowns were camping with the squirrels and raccoons. There was even coffee on the camp stove. I know, the penguins and ballerinas sound a little off, but they worked with the pictures and it wasn't just a giant jumble of stickers. They were actually telling a story. I don't know - I liked them. ;)

We spent the rest of the morning doing some chores and then we went to ballet. While Cassia was in class I whipped out my HSC bag of books and announced that it was time for school. Cameron didn't actually complain at all. That is, he didn't complain until I told him that I had forgotten to grab a book for him to read so he'd have to read one from the lobby there. I picked up an "About the body" book that I knew he liked to look at and told him to read that. I figured it was a great tie in to the science that we've been (sort of) doing. He said it wasn't "fair" and that it wasn't good to read too much science. I forget what his exact logic was - and I use the term loosely - but the girl behind the counter started laughing. Anyway, I finally convinced him to read it because it would count as both science and reading.

And that's as much as we did. Told you it was lame. Oh wait, I did read the next section in his math book to him but it was on the liter and you needed to actually use a liter of water to do the work. Couldn't really do that in the ballet studio and we ran out of time anyway.

After ballet, we met some old friends at a park and spent the rest of the day climbing trees, wading in ponds, and throwing sand. Cassia fell out of a tree. The branch that she was climbing on broke beneath her, but she's okay aside from a nasty scratch up her back and a sore bum. Greyson fell in the pond, lol. He thought it was fun. We scared off some little girl's dad at the playground. The kids were rough-housing a bit and playing "sandstorm" - *sigh* - and the dad promptly swooped his daughter up and left after only about five minutes. The girl had been having fun but that's just not the way kids are "supposed to" play, I guess. It actually sparked a great conversation between MomJ and I as we pondered how many parents our kids scare off and what fun they're missing. ;)

One of the super fun things that the kids had been doing that I'm sure most kids, at least around here, miss out on was a leaf slide. There was this huge ravine/dry river bed that was covered in dry leaves. They had been climbing up and down a little path and we kept warning the little ones to stay back from the edge because the leaf litter was slippery and we didn't want them losing their footing and getting hurt. I'm sure you can see those little seven year old brain wheels turning! Leaf slide!! Sure we had just said to be careful of that, but sliding down on their behinds was perfectly wonderful fun. Nothing I would have suggested, but something amazing that only a young child would discover. And I can guarantee you that most parents I know would never have allowed it. Well, except for the crazy bunch of ruffians we hang out with, lol.

Now see? How can we get any bookwork done with all that other fun going on??? We were all educated by the forest nymphs today.

Theatrical Day

2008-11-12T16:17:00.000-08:00

Edited to add pictures!

We had a great day today!! We started out with a school showing of James and the Giant Peach. Like I said yesterday, we have never read the book nor seen the movie so although we were going into it with zero expectations, I was a little worried about such an unknown holding their attention. I don't know about your kids, but mine like things more and more the more they are exposed to them. A particular Time Warp Trio episode is better the five hundredth time to them than the first - unlike for me. But this showing of James and the Giant Peach captured their attention and their imagination like few things have. Cameron said, and I quote, "That show was so good that I forgot about Zelda and everything! All I could think about was the story and wondering what was going to happen next!" Wow. It made him forget about Zelda?? That's big. I think a trip to the library for a certain Roan Dahl book is in order!

Cassia was sitting in rapt attention the whole time too. Wide eyes. Hair chewing. Edge of seat sitting. Great stuff. :) Even Greyson was an angel. And you know I rarely use the words "angel" and "Greyson" in the same sentence... unless the term "angel" is followed by the words "of death" or "of destruction." ;) He LOVES the theater though. He got a little restless towards the end of the hour long show but he jumped into his chair after every song to clap appreciatively. I wonder if he will have a future theater career or will just remain a fan.

After the show we came home for lunch and then went to the 4-H center for puppetry. We made Pilgrims and Indians out of poster board with yarn for legs and felt for clothes. We also made the cutest turkeys ever. I got brown work gloves and we glued googley eyes on the thumb with felt beaks and waddles. Next we covered the glove fingers with feathers and voila, cutest turkey ever. While the kids worked, I read The Thanksgiving Story to them. No one was really listening, lol, but they were polite enough. When it came time for them to do their version of it, one girl said "I'm from England and now I'm on a ship." Another boy said, "Here turkey!!! Yum, yum!" LOL. It was cute. One thing I noticed today is that even though we spend 85% of the time making the puppets, the performances are what they really look forward to. Next time, I think I'll prepare a script so that we can try out a more formal show. That may take all the fun out of it though. We'll see.

Next we went to Trader Joe's and the kids were... get ready... GOOD! I couldn't believe it, but I was thrilled. ;) They have been happily making more puppets since we got home - at least an hour now. Cassia is making characters from Humpty Dumpty and Cameron made Link (from the Legend of Zelda) and a giant centipede (from James and the Giant Peach).

Cassia's "Indian Dancing Girl" and "Humpty Dumpty"

Cameron's "Pilgrim," "Turkey," "Link," and "Giant Centipede"

What? Blog??

2008-11-11T18:34:00.000-08:00

OMG, I am such a bad blogger! Can you ever forgive me?? Life has been crazy busy. I have been spending a ton of time online, but it's been playing games on Facebook rather than doing anything useful. (Wait, is blogging useful?)

Schoolwork has been practically nonexistent. On good weeks, we've gotten work done on Monday. And that's it. And that's a good week, lol! We've been doing a ton of extracurricular stuff though. 4-H projects, Halloween costume designing, pumpkin patch field trips, "play dates" (What is an educational sounding term for that? Visiting other schools? Research into alternative schooling methods? Studies in group dynamics?), sports, theater, a planetarium show, etc! Not to mention laundry! OMG, I can't believe how much stinkin' laundry I have now. I am NEVER caught up.

So this Monday we did school at gymnastics. Cameron read a Star Wars easy reader... a VERY easy reader. I think it was good for him to easily read a book though. It built his confidence up a bit. Next he did a couple of (also easy) exercises on capacity for math. We finished up with copywork/science and I had him copy several sentences about the heart from his textbook. That was not easy. They were long sentences and he complained the whole time about doing it. When he went in to his class, Cassia jumped on the school boat and did several pages in her math book on subtraction. The gym is practically deserted during Cassia's class so Cameron has the place to himself but once his class starts the gym gets filled to capacity. So Cassia had more than a couple interested onlookers to her scholastic journey and she was more than happy to oblige them, showing off her arithmetic skills.

Today we went to 4-H and a couple of new projects were announced that we were very interested in. Cameron signed up for a chess project where they will get to build their own chess sets. Cassia signed up for sewing. I really don't think either of them will be the slightest bit interested in the other project so I may, for the first time ever, do a drop off thing. It's weird that they're growing up!!

Tomorrow we are going to a play - James and the Giant Peach! We've never read the book nor seen the movie so the performance won't have any expectations to live up to. ;) Actually what I'm hoping is that it will inspire a desire to read the book. After that is the 4H project that I am leading, Puppetry. We are going to make turkeys out of brown work gloves and poster board pilgrims and Native Americans. I plan on reading The First Thanksgiving to them while they craft and then let them perform their own interpretation of it afterward. Should be quite amusing, lol.

So there's a little catch up for you. I was feeling kind of guilty for not getting more bookwork done the last couple of weeks (ok, months, lol) but this has made me realize just how much we are doing.

Free Day!

2008-10-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, two whole days with absolutely NOTHING on the schedule. :) Well, nothing except four kids, a messy house, and a homeschool, that is.

We started school around 11:30 again. Cameron begrudgingly read the first two chapters of Snowshoe Thompson. First, he didn't feel like reading right now. I said, You never feel like reading. Then he said it wasn't right to read a winter book in the fall. I said, Too bad. Then he read the first sentence which said something about it being a few weeks before Christmas and he stopped dead and gave me That Look. He sat there for a ridiculous amount of time pouting and being all indignant because he just couldn't read a book about Christmas when it wasn't even winter. Give me a freaking break. Then I reminded him that he had just finished Frog and Toad all year which was about ALL the seasons and the last chapter was even set on Christmas Eve. He finally conceded and read the first chapter, but badly. I practically had to tell him every other word. And then I had the audacity to make him read a second chapter! How dare I? Well, it was worth it because he read that chapter very well.

Next I gave him a few minutes off to ride his scooter and then we came back to grammar. Today's lesson was on listening and storytelling skills. I read a fable called The Quarrel to them and then they told it back to me in their own words. Both Cameron and Cassia did a fabulous job of telling the story back to me in a concise and logical matter. I know that doesn't sound very impressive but a year ago they couldn't do it. They'd list a million irrelevant details and then skip the main points. But practice makes perfect!

Math was next and Cameron did an exercise on calculating intervals of time. For example, how long is a show that begins at 11:40 and ends at 12:05?

After that we did science and read some pages on the circulatory system. We've been badly neglecting science again. I skipped just about all of the activities for the respiratory system because we didn't have the materials... rubber tubing, 2-liter plastic bottles, a dead fish! If I were smart, I would look ahead and see what we'll need for the circulatory system but I probably won't.

Cassia didn't officially do anything except listen in on grammar and science but at this very moment, while they are eating ice cream, Cameron is writing math problems for her and she is loving them. It's the Trickle Down Theory of Education, I suppose. ;)

Right now it is only 2:30 and we are done with schoolwork and video game time so the only thing left for us to do is some "spring" cleaning. ;) I haven't informed the kids of that yet, but I'm sure they'll love it. LOL.

Thankful

2008-10-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

Let me just start off by saying how thankful I am to have my family. Yesterday, our friend, Marie, and her three children were involved in a serious car accident. Their SUV flipped on the freeway. Thankfully, they all walked away from it but are battered, bruised, and understandably shaken. The littlest one, who is one month younger than Greyson, has reduced her vocabulary to just a few words now: car, roll, and carseat. Actually, when I went to drop off a pizza at their house last night I think I introduced one more word to her vocabulary. She wandered up to me holding a baby doll and I said, "Is that your baby?" She held the doll out to me and said "roll." I said, "Yeah, I heard. That must've been scary," and she nodded her head and repeated, "scary." As I left them and said goodbye to her, she repeated again, "scary." Breaks my heart. I'm so thankful they're all right and I am so incredibly thankful for my family... even when Greyson is trying his hardest to flip the glass coffee table and all its contents - be right back. I swear that boy is trying to seriously injure himself and I am terrified that he will succeed one of these days. Anyway, I'm glad that someone was looking over the P family. Please think a good thought for them the next time you hug your kids.

Back to the mundane. Friday we went to see a performance of The Tales of Beatrix Potter put on by the city ballet. They performed at the VFW building which is just on the other side of town, but we still managed to get there at the last possible second. We were, literally, the very last people in the building. It was a school performance and we went with a handful of other homeschoolers under a friend's homeschool's name. They had saved us seats in the very front row (!) but since we were so late, someone else took them. And then my friend kicked them out, lol. I felt awful kicking them out at the last second like that, but they were "saved" seats! The ballet was great though and everyone enjoyed it. I am really impressed with how well Greyson handles himself in the theater. Last Friday we went to see a Native American Dance group called The Four Winds, led by Eddie Madril, and he was incredibly behaved there too. He was quiet and interested and actually better behaved than the other two!! I think he may have a future in the theater.

After the ballet we went to the park. I cannot believe how big our little park group has gotten! There have been a couple of new people joining recently, both new to our HS group and old friends who are newly able to make the park day, and I am just really impressed with how well everyone adapts to that. Cassia and the newest girl, K4.5, really seem to be bonding. Friday they spent the whole time building a sand hospital. Cameron and some of the boys built a sand Death Mountain. It was pretty cool except for the fact that it kept erupting huge explosions of sand. *sigh* How many times do you have to say "Don't throw sand!" for it to sink in?? I'm guessing it won't be until he's about 30.

The weekend held the end-of-year party for soccer. C&C both really got along well with everyone on the team. Oh, a bit of news I forgot! Cameron lost tooth #2 on Sunday morning but as he was showing it off to everyone, they told him how many teeth they had lost. He came back to our table looking all defeated and said, "How come everyone else has more adult teeth than I do when I'm older?" Poor guy. It's hard being the late bloomer. Aside from that though, the pizza party was great fun.

Monday we did bookwork first thing in the late morning, lol. We got started around 11:30, which isn't too bad. Cameron finished reading The Case of the Double Cross. He's said a couple times that he thought it was a pretty good book. There were a couple more in the series at the library so I'm glad he liked it. Next we did Grammar and reviewed helping verbs. No one seemed to get the concept at all, but I'm not too terribly concerned. They are familiar with the term, which is more than I can say for a lot of kids, I'm sure! Next was math and Cameron did a couple pages on identifying the time on a clock as "x past y" or "x before z" and Cassia did some subtraction. We finished up with history by reading the rest of I Once Was a Monkey: Tales the Buddha Told.

Then we headed out to gymnastics. I decided to just save myself some grief and plan to spend the entire time in the car. That worked out well because we all had something to read or do, Linus slept the entire time, and Greyson fell asleep in a much quicker time than he would have if I had let him get all crazy and out of control first. I think he knew we were in the car so he could nap and it wasn't just a "you're in trouble" type of thing.

We actually have NOTHING on the calendar for the next two days. Phew! First time in a long time. Hopefully we'll be able to get lots done on lots of fronts. Now that I think about it, we need to get busy with Halloween costumes too so maybe we can spend some time on that. Anyone know where I can get a black Hogwarts cape without buying a stupid costume? If only this were 1983 and I could borrow my sister's black satin wrap skirt, lol.

A Weak Week

2008-10-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

We sooooooooo got nothing done this week. Well, except for Monday. In addition to what I already blogged about, we finished off a book on Buddhism.

Tuesday was the 4-H business meeting. That was pretty much it for the day. During dinner there were some random math problems thrown around at the table. Cassia likes to start that, lol. It's so funny, she'll throw out questions like she's quizzing you even though she doesn't have a clue what the right answer is.

Wednesday we spent a good part of the day at T6's house. That was pretty much all about LEGOs. Well, Greyson and Cassia got some play time in with a cash register and Cameron got some logic work in while playing with a castle puzzle game. After that we rushed home for the last soccer game of the season. I was planning on signing him up for basketball next but I just realized that the registration was over a month ago... even though the practices haven't started yet and the games don't even start until November. That reminds me, I was going to try and call anyway... Hmmm, I just spoke to the athletic director and it turns out that there may be one team that has one player less than he thought it did. He's going to look into it and get back to me. Well that would be nice! And what great timing I had with calling. Anyway, if that doesn't work out, a friend of ours is trying to organize an indoor soccer class for homeschoolers.

Thursday I woke up with a bit of a sore throat so the thought of regular schoolwork wasn't very appealing to me. We did play Alpha Animals though and that totally counts as science. I made it into reading too because if Cameron couldn't think of the right type of animal then I would let him "cheat" and look at the reference list but only if he read it for himself. Then we went to ballet. I brought along The Case of the Double Cross and suggested that he read it while we were there, but he didn't want to. He claimed that a case of the hiccups (which were genuine) would make it too hard to read aloud. I figured that was pretty logical so I let him have that one. I fully intended on doing reading and math once we got home but they're watching Harry Potter 5 and I'm blogging, so that obviously didn't happen.

I really should be taking it easy anyway because I don't want this sore throat getting any worse. We have tickets to a ballet tomorrow, The Tales of Beatrix Potter, followed by Favorite Park Day and I don't want to miss either of those. But I don't want anyone getting sick either. Tough choice. We may end up just seeing the show and then staying home after that. We have the end of year soccer party on Sunday too and I know Cam doesn't want to miss that.

We have a much lighter week scheduled next week so maybe we can get some bookwork done then. Or maybe not. ;)

School on the run

2008-10-13T17:04:00.001-07:00

Today we did school on the sidewalk outside of gymnastics, lol. The morning was "wasted" away doing other stuff but I was smart enough to grab a reader and the math workbooks and shove them into the diaper bag on our way out the door. Boy was Cameron surprised when I tossed the reader at him and told him it was time for school, lol. He tried to resist because he "didn't want to read that book" or "wanted to watch Cassia do gymnastics" or "didn't feel like it" but I countered with do it now or no video games all week. :P Surprisingly (not!), that worked. He actually seemed to like the book too. We got through the first half, 32 pages, of The Case of the Double Cross. A few pages into it though, we had to pick up all our stuff and head out to the car because Greyson insisted on throwing things (first balloons and then his SHOES) over the edge of the mezzanine onto the gym floor. *sigh* But once he was strapped in and detained I decided that it was too nice a day to force ALL of us to sit in a stuffy car so Cameron, Linus (in his car seat carrier), and I made camp on the sidewalk and read there. Unfortunately though, there was no time to get to math before Cassia got out of her class.

And then the explosion happened. OMG. So I hear this noise that anyone who's ever had a newborn is familiar with. I knew it was a big one because he'd been holding it in since early yesterday morning. I look over and then see this giant erruption of yellowish-orange lava bubbling out of the edge of Linus' onesie. Needless to say, we didn't stick around very long and just left Cam there for his class and then drove home to bathe the little (suddenly orange) guy. Now normally, I wouldn't bother you with the details of something like this, but this was so spectacular that it actually dripped down through the buckle of his carseat and onto the base. When I carried him into the house, it continued dripping down THROUGH the carseat onto the kitchen floor. WOW. I've never seen anything like it and I've seen a lot of poop. One time Greyson didn't poop for about 10 days and that was a giant mess when it finally happened but it still didn't drip through the carseat!! Unbelievable.

Anyway, Cameron just informed me that he would like to finish his schoolwork now. On the way home he asked if he could play video games when we got home and I said he could if he finished his math and history first. He started playing some game with Cassia once we got home so I figured he figured it wasn't worth the effort, but I guess he changed his mind. And he just asked me again, so I better get going. :)

Crafty days

2008-10-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

As anticipated, we didn't get any bookwork done the last two days. We've been busy with 4-H projects instead. Yesterday we went to the American Kids Crafts project. It was inspired by the American Girl books and associated craft projects, but due to the number of boys in the project, the leader promised to make no mention of them, lol. First the kids made clay pinch pots which they'll paint next month. Everyone had a great time with that, even Greyson. Next the kids made dream catchers out of embroidery hoops and yarn. Very cute. Cameron and Cassia both hung their dream catchers above their beds and we sprayed them with Happy Dreams spray (an aromatherapy spray that a friend of mine makes) as an added touch. Apparently they work quite well.

Today it was my turn to lead a project on puppetry. We made puppets out of construction paper cut-outs, traced from storybooks, and glued them onto popsicle sticks. Since we are coding this as a drama project, instead of arts & crafts, I wanted to focus more on the art of giving a puppet show than on the act of making the puppets. We started off with a demonstration by C&C who performed "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" for the group with puppets that I made last night.
Next I provided some traced characters from several other rhymes and told the kids (aged 5 - 7) to get in groups, pick a poem, and then they could either use my tracings or draw their own characters. It was so hard to step back and just let the kids do it "wrong" (for example, coloring and decorating the tracing paper rather than using it as a template) but I did. Next I gave them a few minutes to practice and then they performed their masterpieces. The girls did "The Five Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens" and the boys did "Hey, Diddle Diddle." I have to say, the girls were a bit more organized both in their puppet show production and actual puppet making. In fact, the boys didn't even stick to the right characters nor did they even realize that until they were performing the play! LOL, but it was cute and they all did a great job in the end.

So we can call all that History, Social Studies, and Fine/Performing Arts. I guess we could call it Literature too since we were reciting poetry and M7 can even call it Reading since she read the Three Little Kittens from the book while the girls performed their show. Since we're counting up "work," we also read part of I Once Was a Monkey: Stories Buddha Told as a bedtime story last night and plan to do so again tonight. We had time (and I was willing, lol) to do schoolwork after we got home from 4-H today but Cameron chose to watch Harry Potter instead. I know I keep swearing that we need to get into the habit of doing it every day but I really do consider 4-H school time... just not enough to give free video game time for it!

Tomorrow is ballet and then a field trip to another pumpkin patch, but all that is not until the afternoon so I am really going to try to get some work in during the morning. I just wish there was some way I could stop them from turning on the tv as soon as they wake up. It's so hard to get anyone motivated after that - including me. I guess I could unplug it? But I so enjoy our slow mornings. I really need a few minutes, myself, to wake up in front of the computer before I can get going for the day... or maybe I just tell myself that and I should unplug the computer too! Hmmm, food for thought.

And just for fun... Linus, week 3

The Road to Hell?

2008-10-06T21:01:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to keep up, really I have! I had every good intention of keeping up with my blogging (hence the road to hell reference, lol) but somehow the days keep slipping away. Can you believe that my little baby is three weeks old already??? I can't. I was really a bit shocked when I told someone that today, lol. All weekend I was saying, "three weeks, Monday!" but now that it's Monday, it just sounded weird. Mothers are mental, I tell ya.

So let's see, to catch up... Wednesday we did school for the third day in a row. WooHoo! Cameron read the book Death Valley: A Day in the Desert and did really well... until I asked him to read that one last page of extra facts at the end of the book. Oh. My. GOD. You would think that I asked him to read War and Peace. It was one stinkin' page of interesting facts and he pouted and sulked and did the whole passive resistance thing. WhatEVER. I, however, am not pregnant anymore and did not give in, nor did I get mad or emotional about it. I just made him read the stupid page whether he wanted to or not. So there. ;) We also did grammar in which nothing interesting enough to stay in my memory five days later happened and then Cameron did a review page in math. There were two pages before the next section started and he REALLY wanted to get through them both and start the section on telling time... but then he was too wiped after doing the problems. He did really good though considering he started out saying, "I don't even remember how to do this!" (borrowing) but then did perfectly.

I can't remember if Cassia did anything or not because she is not officially enrolled in our school (six on or before Dec 2 for compulsory attendance laws) so I'm not writing her work down in our daily planner/attendance record. Did you catch that?? I'm actually keeping up on our planner and using that to update my blog, rather than the opposite, lol. Shocker, I know. Mostly it's because I can't remember if I ate breakfast most days, much less remember what we did six hours earlier. But it's nice this way. I feel like I'm starting out the new year very neatly and well-organized for a change.

But back to last week... Thursday we met some friends at the local pumpkin patch. It was October 2nd, afterall! These particular friends seem to have a pumpkin patch addiction. We usually burn out halfway through the month and start turning down invitations from them, lol, but the first pumpkin visit of the season is always pure bliss. Turns out though that we named the wrong child Linus. At one point, Greyson grabbed a blankie and wandered out into the middle of the patch to sit and wait for the Great Pumpkin. He wasn't moving for anything! LOL. We didn't manage to get anything else done that day except go to Cassia's ballet lesson, but did we really need to? Dancing and large farm machinery - what more does an educational day require??

Friday was Favorite Park Day that almost wasn't. The sky threatened rain. I was determined though and swore that the weather reports promised no rain until 5pm. (Well, they said "likely sprinkles" until 5 and then "definite showers" after 5.) Our windshield was dotted with rain, but not enough to actually use the wipers, the entire 30 minute drive to Favorite Park but once we hit downtown the rain miraculously stopped and I swear there was even sunshine as we pulled into the parking lot. Luckily I had talked to MomK that morning so I knew she'd be there but no one else seemed brave enough to risk the weather. A few more friends did show up a few hours later though and so it ended up being a much lovelier day than anyone expected. We finally left a few minutes before 5, and as we did, the rain came down on our windshield once again. Who would've guessed... the weatherman was right.

Saturday - gymnastics for Greyson, soccer for Cameron. Sunday - laundry, laundry, laundry.

And that finally brings us to today. For school, Cameron read another chapter from Frog and Toad All Year. Can I say again how much we love those books? They're so quaint, in my opinion, and so hilarious in the kids' opinions. I tried to get Cameron to check out a Little Bear book from the library last week because I have a feeling that they'll have the same sort of feel, but since he's seen the cartoon he wouldn't go for it - too babyish. I doubt that Frog and Toad would translate as well to tv either. Grammar was a review of the four parts of speech that we've learned: nouns, verbs, pronouns, and adjectives. Math was another review section. I lost my patience a bit at one point because the baby was crying, Greyson was climbing all over Cassia and me while I was trying to do phonics with her, and Cameron was needing me to verify that he was doing every single step correctly. Ugh. Is this right? Is this right? Do I add here? Is this times tabling? I finally snapped and told him not to say another word to me until the entire page was done. Of course, most of it was done wrong. It's so hard to find that balance between working together and letting them learn on their own. Math practice isn't very useful if they're doing it all wrong, but it also isn't very useful when you're telling them which step to do next! I always considered teaching math my expertise too. Ha! Oh well, it's not about me.

For History we read a book about Buddhists. The more I read, the more I think that Buddhism is something that I'd like to study more and maybe even practice to some extent (except the vegetarian part). Cameron was interested, but he didn't really grasp the excess vs moderation part. He said, "so do Buddhists live in caves?" I said, "No, they just don't have more than they need. See, we have way more than we really need here." "Really? Because I don't think I have too many toys. In fact, there are a lot of toys that I don't have that I need." Uh huh. Tell that to... well, lots of other people. But the prince who became The Buddha grew up spoiled too, so I know all is not lost on my materialistic little man. ;) You know what I love though? My little man is also spoiled with knowledge. I didn't learn about Buddhism when I was 7. In fact, I believe I was around 27 before I knew anything about it and 37 before I knew any of its principles. Homeschooling rocks.

And with that, I will bid you goodnight. We have an early (12:30, lol) 4-H project to go to tomorrow so I doubt we will get any bookwork done but I will try to get on and blog to spare you from the novella that my posts become when too much time goes by.

Adventures in Parenting

2008-09-30T22:05:00.001-07:00

DH went back to work this week so I've been on my own. Yesterday wasn't anything too traumatic, just gymnastics and I'm used to that being a zoo. Today, however, I ventured out to both the grocery store and the library. Yeehaw, that was interesting. The grocery store wasn't too bad - the kids actually behaved - but I forgot to bring my baby sling so I had to put Greyson in the cart seat, Linus in his infant car seat carrier in the main part of the basket, and then had to ask Cameron and Cassia to push one of those little kid carts so we had somewhere to put the groceries! LOL. I know I'm going to end up being that mom who has to push three carts through the store each week to feed all her teenage boys. They were actually pretty well behaved in the library too, but it felt really zooish. I think I messed my back up carrying the infant carrier in one hand and Greyson on my other hip across the street. And then trying to keep track of them all while I was checking out the books? Yikes. Someday I'll get the hang of it, I'm sure. (I hope, lol.)

But we did have another productive school day, even though we didn't get started until almost 12:30. Cameron read a chapter from Frog and Toad All Year. Cassia chose not to do any phonics or reading today. For grammar we learned about adjectives. It was kind of funny, one part of the lesson gave a list of adjectives and asked them to name nouns that those adjectives could describe. Hot, cold, long, short, cute, fuzzy, etc. Cameron did really well (although he kept saying "Linus" for almost all of them, lol) but Cassia seemed to struggle a bit thinking of things. Another part of the lesson asked them to come up with all the adjectives they could for a certain noun. I picked the noun "Linus" thinking that would be easy since we had already used him for a number of adjectives. Cassia came up with several right off the bat but Cameron found it almost impossible to come up with a single adjective. He could only manage to think of descriptive clauses like "has a small nose" or "has lots of hair" or "cries a lot." I had to help him turn them around into words like "hairy" and "tearful." I just thought it was interesting that one struggled with the nouns and one struggled with the adjectives.

For math, Cameron learned about adding fractions to make a whole. (e.g. 3/5 + ___ = 1) He got a little confused at first, saying things like "3/5 + 1/2 = 1 whole" but got the hang of it pretty quickly. Cassia did some more subtraction and made a cute little bunny calculator where a hungry bunny on an envelope gobbles up carrots on an index card.

We finished up with history and read about the Mauryan Empire of India and Emperor Asoka who renounced the act of war after seeing how it made his people suffer. We also read a Buddhist story from the Jataka Tales about a hare, an otter, a jackal, and a monkey. (In looking that up in Wikipedia, I noticed that it seems to be spelled incorrectly in SOTW. They have it written "Jakata" Tales.) Cassia was so impressed by the ending in which the hare tried to sacrifice himself in a fire to feed a hungry traveler only to find that the traveler was really a disguised god and the fire did not harm him, that she decided to draw a picture of it. It's quite a good picture, but unfortunately, our scanner does not seem to be working at the moment. She wanted to give it to the librarian but I convinced her that we should keep it in her History Notebook* instead. I had great last minute luck at the library and came home with an armload of other Jataka Tales and a colorful and simple book on Buddhists.

I had wanted to do science today too, but we really did need to get to the store and the library before soccer. Oh yes, I had to take all four kids to soccer too. I met an elderly man there who had been laughing at Greyson and was admiring the baby. He said in his heavily accented English, "Two boys?" and I said, "No. Three boys, one girl." He looked startled for a minute and seemed to count on his fingers a bit before finally looking up and saying, "Now that's a family!" Now, I thought the previous generations were used to larger families! He looked at me like I had said twelve kids, lol. So that was my final adventure for the day. The good news is that Greyson cooperated and actually walked back to the car when it was time to leave instead of making me carry him and that Cameron and Cassia both pitched in and carried the camp chairs so that I didn't have to make two trips. I really do think we all may get the hang of this eventually. :)

*OMG, I have been so horrible at getting anything for the History Notebooks! Ideally, we should have drawings and maps and narrations for every chapter we've read but I haven't put anything in there for months. If anything, all I have is a random pile of maps and coloring pages stuffed in a drawer somewhere waiting to be scanned, sorted, and hole punched. I hated feeling tied to having to do written stuff so we'd have proof that we studied X, but I also hate having huge gaps in the stuff I do have because I love the idea of ending up with a self-made history book. A clear case of being damned if you do and damned if you don't.

First Day of Fall Quarter

2008-09-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

First day trying to get back into a routine and it worked great! Well, ok, my grandiose plans about trying to work a cleaning schedule back into our lives hasn't quite manifested itself yet but I'm working on it. We did get school done though.

Cameron read a Pixar Little Golden Book, Mater and the Ghost Light and then Cassia read Road to Reading's Cat Hat. It was a bit above her (I really, really HATE how "level 1" books are never really appropriate for beginning readers) but she pushed her way through, with my help, and was able to actually read at least half of the words. At one point I even offered to read the rest for her but she declined, wanting to do it all by herself. I like that. :)

Next we did Grammar/Language/Writing. I decided to finally take on the FLL lesson on dictation with Cameron, so first I set up Cassia with a copywork sentence from the book she had just read. Ralph was a happy cat hat. She did great with it. Her only flaw was writing all of her "a"s in capital. She attempted the lower case ones several times, but finally gave up and went with the capitals. So she knows the right way to do it, she just found it too hard this time and I'm totally cool with that. For Cameron, I dictated the sentence, "March is a windy month." We discussed how a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a punctuation mark. We discussed how you determine which punctuation mark to use. He was sure he wouldn't be able to do it at first, but we sounded the words out together and he did great. I had to help a lot with the spelling of "month" but other than that he did perfectly.

Math was next and Cameron did several pages on comparing fractions. He is a natural with them and had no problem conceptualizing the fact that the fraction with the bigger number on the bottom is actually the smaller fraction. It totally made sense to him. Cassia did several pages on visualizing the subtraction process by crossing out balloons or vases to be "taken away." She did great too, except for writing a lot of her numbers backwards. I think it's a left-handed thing for her.

That was the end of our official school day because then it was gymnastics time. Nothing special went on there except a few temper tantrums from the napless one and lots of mothers ooohing and aaaahing over Linus. I did have a moment or two when, with a babe in arms, a child in class, and two in the play area, I wondered how I had ever thought three kids was a lot. LOL, I remember when one kid seemed like a lot to manage! Funny how we adapt.

Anyway, schooling with a newborn is not so tough. That two-year old is getting more and more challenging by the day but in not too long he will be a three year old and then he will be four and I'll have a different two year old to deal with! And then one day they will be gone and I know I will be longing for those quirky little temperaments again. I met a mother of four/grandmother of eight a few months back who said that she found that four children were plenty... and then she paused and said, "but once they are grown, you never had enough of them." I can totally see that being true. I'm already having those pangs, knowing this is our last. So I am cherishing every moment with my sweet young newborn and trying to appreciate every moment I have with all of my little miracles because I know they are only mine to borrow and time will move too fast...

Ramblings from the edge

2008-09-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

(Which reminds me, I've been meaning to read Postcards From the Edge for years now. I should request that from the library.)

Don't worry, I'm not teetering on the brink of anything... except maybe a routine. DH is going back to work next week and will even be out of town for most of the next two weeks but I think I'll be ok. I'm feeling good. Linus is a complete angel. Here, I took this today...

...have you ever seen such an adorable pile of mush and baby chub??

I just had some random thoughts clunking around my head and felt like blogging. :) School for the last two weeks has been what I would call "School Lite." Cameron has been reading a chapter a day from a Frog and Toad book. We have both Frog and Toad Are Friends and Frog and Toad All Year from the library and he likes alternating between the two. I can't get over what great books they are and how much we are all enjoying them. For math he's been playing Timez Attack. And that "counts" as school work so that he can play video games. It's hard enough trying to keep up some sort of school routine with DH around, much less a newborn, but this is working. Next week though, I think we'll officially start the Fall Quarter. LOL, I didn't even realize that Fall was upon us until we were a couple days into the season. But that's ok. I don't think anyone will notice if we start a week late.

I was thinking about our fall quarter yesterday and I really think I want to make a big effort to study Classical Composers. I was listening to our local classical station and realized that I really do have a general sense of certain composer's styles simply from listening to Beethoven's Wig. If we made an effort - and put to use the $25 a year I'm spending on Classical Archives - then I'm sure it would be no time at all before we were all pretty Classically literate. We could easily read a composer's biography on Friday mornings, before park, and then listen to his works on the way to Favorite Park Day. What a simple way that would be to study! I know we're also going to be seeing many ballets and plays this year as well. In fact, we just watched The Royal Ballet's production of Swan Lake on DVD this morning. I was really surprised that Cassia watched the entire two hours of it in one sitting. Greyson was pretty into it too. Cameron, well, not so much but he did watch the end. Luckily we all already knew the story from watching Barbie of Swan Lake so many times.

There were some other things floating around my head that I wanted to share, but I can't seem to remember them at the moment and Cameron is wanting to play Tri-Ominos. I think I might hear Linus fussing in the other room too. He has the quietest little cry. It's so hard to hear him. :) I might post again later. Ciao, friends.

Love is...

2008-09-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Forgive my absence. I've been a little busy/distracted. :)

Please welcome Linus Morgan "Blobby" Berm. (He's still pretty blobbish, lol.) He rushed into the world at 7:53pm on Monday, September 15, 2008. He weighed 8 lbs 5 oz and was 19 inches long. He has a nice little head of reddish-brown hair and eyes that will likely turn brown within the month. If you "know" me well enough to know my favorite homeschooling board, you can find a link to the birth story and pictures there. Otherwise, you'll have to be satisfied with these...

Happy Due Date to me!

2008-09-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

Well there we go, today is the day. Looks like little Blobby has decided to be just like his brothers and sister and remain warm and cozy inside for as long as possible. But that's ok. I think I'm finally ready. I just got all the baby clothes put away yesterday, lol. Oh wait, I still need to rearrange the changing table to fit both newborn and Greyson size diapers on there. (Have I mentioned that after completely mastering the potty, Greyson decided he was no longer interested and went totally back to diapers?? Ugh.) Now it's time to just wait and wonder. I actually love this part best. I made it to the due date. It really is going to be any day now!

We never made it to the Jelly Belly Factory on Wednesday. Cassia woke up feeling sick. It wasn't anything serious, just a stuffy nose, light cough, and then one brief case of throwing up a tiny bit of "icky water" but I didn't want to risk her getting carsick on the drive over. DH was working at home so we left her there watching Mermaidia and the rest of us went on a quick trip to Mrs. Grossman's for sticker grab bags to make her feel better. She was a little disappointed that she couldn't come too, but the giant mass of stickers did the trick. Cameron read her a story, but that was the extent of schoolwork. He had asked to do some (ok he asked if he could play video games anyway) but the books were in Grandma C's room and she was taking a (very LONG) nap after the excursion.

Thursday Cameron woke up feeling not so well. His feel better movie of choice was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, lol. Then the kids spent the rest of the morning playing card games with Grandma. I took Cassia to ballet in the early afternoon and spent a very nice hour just sitting and reading. When we got home and Greyson went down for his nap, Cameron was feeling better so Grandma C took C&C (lots of Cs in our family, lol) out shoe shopping and I got to spend yet another nice quiet hour reading. And then they still weren't home so I went ahead and rearranged dresser contents so I could put baby clothes away.

Today is Favorite Park Day. I promised our park friends that the only way we would miss would be if something miraculous happened last night. Well, it didn't, lol. As far as the kids that are already here... Cassia seems to be all better, just a slightly stuffy nose, and Cameron, well, I think a decongestant will do wonders for him. It's one of those tough decisions where on one hand, I don't want to keep them home because they really need to get out but on the other hand, I certainly don't want anyone sick. I already warned them that if anyone is sick then they can't visit NewBaby in the hospital and I really don't want to bring a newborn home to a house of sickies either. So hopefully, this congestion thing will stay mild and Blobby will hold out a few more days until all the germies have moved on.

Reinforcements have arrived!

2008-09-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

Reinforcements have arrived!! I am infinitely more relaxed. There is SOMEONE ELSE to entertain the munchkins. There is SOMEONE ELSE to do the dishes. There is SOMEONE ELSE to say "No, don't do that" or "Here, let me help." There is SOMEONE ELSE to watch the kids while I go to the doctor or on errands. There is SOMEONE ELSE. *phew!*

So, here I am, blogging my morning away while my blueberry-cherry muffins finish baking. *sigh* Bliss. Actually, this is why my MIL keeps delaying her arrival with each child because she sees how productive I become once she arrives and then doesn't think that I need her. I should just get in the habit of sending her video of how pathetic I am before she arrives, lol. Actually, this time we failed miserably at getting the house cleaned up before she got here. I got the bathroom clean and the kitchen tolerable, but the rest of the house was still trashed. Oh well, she didn't run away and she's actually been helping to keep all the crap off the floor which is where my complete and utter failure has shown itself. You know, it's hard to pick up when you can't bend over. ;)

Anyway, um, homeschool... yeah, that's what we're blogging about, right? I last left you last Wednesday after a super productive couple of days. Thursday was the polar opposite of that, lol. We did do schoolwork on Thursday and Cameron read the first chapter of Frog and Toad Are Friends (he does love that book, BTW) and we did math and a few pages of science. Then we went to ballet and Greyson screamed pretty much the entire time. And then we went to Our Neighborhood Park Day which just restarted for the "fall" at a new time/day. This park day used to be on Wednesday which is generally our "do nothing" day so we rarely went. I love having at least one day a week where we just don't leave the house. Anyway, now that it overlaps with ballet class, I think we might stop by on our way home occasionally. But it was about 105˚ last Thursday and there is NO shade at this particular park. It was so bad that even the kids started asking to leave after an hour. The rest of the day was, understandably, shot.

Friday was Favorite Park Day and there are lots of big shady oak trees and a nice breeze there. It was hot, but it was bearable. So the adults hunkered down in the shade next to the snack table and the kids hunkered down in the shade in the sand box and we happily enjoyed the official restarting of Favorite Park Day with a snack and craft project potluck. When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but several reusable canvas bags full of toys and baby clothes and baby blankets and aromatherapy sprays and bath salts and handmade chocolates and dairy-free snacks for Greyson and crayons and coloring books... and love. Yes, my Favorite Friends at Favorite Park Day conspired with our 4-H friends to throw me a surprise baby shower. :) And not just baby stuff, but stuff to keep the other kids occupied to give me and the new little one a bit of peace once he arrives. It was so wonderful and so touching. *sniff sniff* It definitely goes up there with one of the best days of my life. I've never had such a circle of friends. I am honored and blessed to be a part of such an amazing community.

The weekend was spent with DH finishing up Cassia's room. It's beautiful. I should go take a picture (while it's still clean, lol) but that would require getting up. ;) One wall is covered in bookshelves and looks SOoooooo much better than all the random cheapy Home Depot bookcases that used to hold our school books. Her little white desk has become Cameron's favorite place to do math. Her bed has become our favorite place to read. It's a haven for us all.

I spent the weekend finishing up the family rosters for our homeschool group. Wow, that was a project. Thankfully, DH took pity on me and stayed up late one night stuffing them all with their ridiculous number of fliers, folding, and sealing them. All 160 of them.

Monday, MIL finally arrived. We spent the morning attempting to clean up and she arrived just in time to head out for gymnastics. I left her there with the kiddos and went to the post office to mail out the rosters. Yikes, I had to put stamps on those puppies by hand! Why did I think they would have an automated thing to do it for me?? At least I didn't have to lick the stamps. (OK, please tell me everyone remembers having to lick stamps, right? I'm not that old, am I?) After the gym, we headed right out to soccer. DH met us there and stayed with C&C while Grandma and Greyson went home for a nap and I headed to the grocery store. You seriously need one parent for each child, I think. Oh how I resent our nuclear family society at times!! MIL can't move near us though because all of her DH's family lives near them (including his 90-something year old mother!) and won't let them leave. Oh well. Hopefully we will be able to be there for our children... and hopefully they will want us to be.

Tuesday the kids spent most of the morning just enjoying having Grandma C around. Cameron and Cassia and I left about noon for the first 4-H meeting of the year. It felt strange being there and not having to chase Grey around, lol. Cameron and Cassia both got to be Sergeants at Arms and help carry in the flags and lead the Pledge of Allegiance. They were pretty proud. It was a good meeting and the kids signed up for cooking, historical crafts, origami, geocaching, and puppetry. Well, I don't know if they would have voluntarily signed up for puppetry or not, but since I'm leading it, they're taking it. ;) There were lots of new families this year and several of them were pretty big families too! I think there were two or three new families with three or four kids around the same age as mine. It should be a fun year.

When we got home, Cameron read Grandma C a chapter of Frog and Toad for school. She was suitably impressed with his reading and he and Cassia were just rolling laughing over the story. Next was Cassia's turn to impress and she read Grandma C "her" Ant book. Grandma was actually really surprised and impressed with her ability and I was glowing with pride. I especially had to throw in the fact that Cassia's schooling is totally optional and I've never forced her to do anything she doesn't want to. (Their cousin H, who is also 5, just started Kindergarten this year and hates it already.) While Cassia read, Cameron went into her room and did his math. He's still working on matching up fractional pictures with the fraction numbers. He loves fractions and thinks they're super easy. Gotta love that. I hope that attitude sticks around. The "boring" 4-H meeting (which actually wasn't too boring at all this time!) counted as the other subject today. I suppose if I had to name it I'd call it Social Studies. It really is a study of government and speech and leadership and citizenship as well as all the cool things that you learn during the projects. Have I mentioned that I love 4-H? ;)

Today, now that we've all gorged ourselves on freshly baked muffins, we're going to head out to the Jelly Belly Factory for a tour today. We didn't have anything on the schedule today and MIL had never been there... so why not? Sorry for the crazy-long post again. I'll try to blog again before another week passes me by.

Love to all. :)

Productivity!!

2008-09-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

Yee-haw!! I've had the most productive last couple of days. I am SO relieved. I don't know if it's just my nesting instinct finally kicking in or if it's my birth numerology moving from 10, Wheel of Fortune (lots of change and ups and downs) to 11, Karma or Justice (where you reap what you sow), as my friend Karin predicts. I was complaining a couple weeks ago about feeling so out of control and so incredibly in need of a change and she reassured me that as soon as my birthday passed I would feel a change and most likely move into a period of strength. Seems to be true and regardless the reason, I'll take it!

So to recap... Friday was Favorite Park Day. We didn't do any blackberry picking like we had planned (partly because Cassia had lost her sandals and then refused to put on any other pair of shoes *eye roll*) but spent most of the afternoon learning a Spanish card game. Cameron loved that game and wanted to keep playing round after round after round, lol.

We left the park a bit early because we had plans to go to an Unschooler's Game Night and Potluck that evening. I had been wanting to go for months but since DH is usually only home for dinner 3 nights a week, we had never made it. This week, however, DH wasn't going to be home until close to 10pm so we decided to go. C&C were so excited. They LOVE board games and card games and the thought of having a room full of games to play and kids to play them with was truly exciting. We brought Hungry, Hungry Hippos, Tangoes, and SkipBo and a big bowl of homemade refried beans. Unfortunately though, none of the other kids seemed to want to play any games. Dinner wasn't served until about 8pm and then the adults settled down to a game of Trivial Pursuit and the kids disappeared into one of the bedrooms around a computer. Computer and electronic games were supposed to be strictly off limits at this gathering, but (forgive my stereotypes) the Unschooling Nature of the group seemed to prevent any of the parents from telling their kids not to. I knew my kids actually wanted to play games so I pulled them away from the computer and played a round of SkipBo with them. And then we left. Don't get me wrong, it's not that we had a bad time. We had a good time - it just didn't quite live up to our expectations of a Game Night.

The weekend was spent finishing up Cassia's new room. It looks fabulous. We have her brand new big girl bed in there complete with purple walls, pink and purple butterfly sheets, a floor lamp in 5 different shades of pink, white shelving along one wall, and what was supposed to be their school desk that is now the perfect accessory to the girliest of girly-girl rooms. She loves it. I love it. I wonder if she'll let me move in too. ;)

Monday was my birthday. I am that much closer to 40 now - yikes. LOL. Funny, I remember 28 being a lot harder than 29 or 30 and it seems that 38 is the same way. I think it's that once you hit that x8 you can no longer say you're mid-twenties or mid-thirties. Oh yeah, I'm late thirties now. And barefoot and pregnant too, lol. We didn't do anything special really. Just hung out around the house and then went out to dinner. It was a nice day.

Tuesday, get ready, we actually did schoolwork. Cassia finished up a review page in phonics on CVC words with the five short vowel sounds. She did FABULOUSLY. I had been worried that she was just memorizing the words after I read them the first time and then couldn't recall them later, but this time she really seemed to "get" the sounding it out thing. Cameron finally FINISHED the very last phonics lesson. WooHooo!!! We got through it. The whole book. Yay!! Next I decided to skip Grammar because the lesson was about introducing dictation and I just don't think Cameron is quite ready for that. I think I'll wait a week or so for him to get comfortable reading small sentences again before I make him start writing them. For math, Cassia did some more adding and Cameron started an introduction to fractions. We finished off with Science and read all about lungs and gills. There was a cool activity for measuring lung capacity but unfortunately I didn't have all the parts for it. I need a rubber tube. Where do you get a rubber tube?? I looked online for something else fun to do, but there were surprisingly few suitable unit study ideas for the respiratory system.

We finished off the day with haircuts and gymnastics. It was about 500 degrees in the gym so that pretty much finished off my productivity too. I met yet another mother of four also. It's funny how they're all coming out of the woodwork now! It seems that having four kids is almost commonplace around here now. Well, not really, but it does seem that three is the oddball number - people either have one or two or just jump straight to four!

Today was another good day. I started off with an OB appointment. Everything is good. I'm much less uncomfortable now, for some reason, and am content to just wait until Junior decides to make his appearance - though I do appreciate the repeated offers to induce from my OB. She just keeps saying that everything looks great and so she'll go along with whatever I want to do. Oh and I'm still anemic, but not as badly so that probably has something to do with my energy level too. DH was working from home today so since he was home with the kids, I decided to stop off at the library on my way home. I paid my $9.40 fine (ouch!) and picked up a book for everyone. I got Cameron Frog and Toad Are Friends, Cassia An Ant: Learning the Short A Sound, and Calling All Engines for Greyson. Cameron said, "Oh, I bet I'll like this book!" and then tossed it aside, lol. Greyson jumped right in squealing, "Tommy! Tommy!" and spent about 15 minutes flipping through the pictures in his Thomas book. Cassia, after looking slightly strangely at me for getting her a book on ants, sat down and read the entire thing cover to cover. She did SO good. I was so proud. She had some problems remembering the word "an" but I think it was because she didn't really realize that it was a word, you know? I don't think she ever listened to herself closely enough to realize that she say "an umbrella" rather than "a umbrella" so I can see how it would be hard to read. She could read the words "ant" and "can" just fine so it was just some silly mental block, but oh well. She worked hard sounding things out and really, really did a fabulous job. I am so happy that I got that book for her. For me, I got Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife to get me "in the mood" so to speak. I wanted to get one of Ina May Gaskin's books but they were all checked out.

After lunch we... get ready... did school again! Yes, you read that right - two days in a row! And the best part is that everyone was super, super cooperative and wonderful about it. Cassia voluntarily did a phonics lesson even after spending all that time reading her ant book. I totally said she could skip it if she wanted but she wanted to surge ahead. The lesson was on double consonants and she piped up with "Hey, I read a word in my ant book that had that. Well, it wasn't like that but it was two with the same sound!" and she was right. She had read the word "black" in her book. She's a smart little cookie. Cameron put up a bit of a fuss when I asked him to go get his library book to read for school. So then I told him it didn't matter what he read as long as he grabbed something to read. He finally came back with a WALL-E Little Golden Book and read it well. It turns out that I was right about him. He seemed to really need the closure of finishing all the phonics lessons before he could have the confidence to believe that he could read. It's been coming on for a few weeks now - ever since we started that final section of the book - but now it seems complete. He read "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and now he can read anything. ;) For math, Cassia started on subtraction by counting backwards on a number line. Cameron named fractions from pictures, as in, "1/5 is 1 part of 5 equal parts" and he even did all the reading in his math book too. For History we read about the caste system in Ancient India and about the young prince, Siddhartha, who became Buddha. I'd really like to go a little deeper into Buddhism with the kids. If I *had* to choose a religion, I think I would choose that one. I went over a couple of the principles with Cameron, like reincarnation, and he informed me that he is starting to believe in ghosts and gods - especially ghosts. I think he might be ready to really start understanding what religion means to people.

The ironic thing about today is that school was done in Cassia's room. Yes, when that room was The School Room we never did school in there. It was just too cluttered and crowded and stiff. Now that it's all purple and comfy (and all DH's computers are out of there), it seems to be the ideal place to get a little quiet and hunker down with a good book, lol. A lesson in irony at its best.

The only thing left on our schedule today is a soccer game this evening. It is so nice to have everything done and out of the way early. I really hope this trend continues. Maybe I can even get the house clean and the baby's stuff ready before he arrives. *grin*

It's Unschooling. Really.

2008-08-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

OK, so we didn't do any schoolwork Tuesday or Wednesday... but it's ok. We were unschooling. Really, we were!

Tuesday wasn't a good day for me. Blobby was practicing his Mommy Torture skills and I could barely walk. I was in so much pain. Ugh. So I just pretty much sat in front of the computer all day. That probably wasn't the best decision on my part due to the chair involved, but oh well. It really wasn't *that* bad until later. I think sitting on the hard computer chair all made it worse though.

The kids spend most of the day playing with LEGOs. It wasn't just regular LEGOs though. Cameron got out the big ones "for Greyson" almost first thing in the morning but all three of them played with them all day. They were quite creative too and made an entire zoo. The giraffe was the best. :)

Late in the day we went to an OB appointment. Everything looks good. My GBS test came out negative so that's a relief. My file has been faxed over to the hospital so I don't need to bother pre-registering. She did say that Blobby could still flip over again, if he's the stubborn sort, so she'll check that again next week. But with all this pain shooting down my legs recently, I'm willing to put big money on a giant head resting very low down there. I was complaining about how my MIL refuses to come down until a few days before my due date because she doesn't want to get stuck here waiting for four weeks like she usually does and the OB offered to induce me at a convenient time. I thought that was nice of her, but I am definitely against inductions of convenience and she was happy with that too.

Next was soccer and that was what did me in. Sitting on the ground for an hour is not my body's idea of fun. Cameron was a super star though. He made 4 of the 5 goals for his team - not that I was counting though, lol. He kept getting talked to about hogging the ball though. He got in a couple good passes, but most of the goals were him taking it from one end to the other, lol. Next time, I am definitely bringing a chair. I never wanted to bother carrying one but that hobble back to the car after sitting on the ground was not fun.

Wednesday was much better. I spent the morning cracking the whip and making the kids clean the house. It was *just* clean on Monday and then one day of me just letting them be and it looked like we hadn't cleaned in a year. Seriously, I got motivated because if I went into labor there is no way I would've been able to ask someone over to babysit. No way. I would've either had to spend early labor cleaning up debris so it wasn't quite so humiliating or just pile everyone into the car and dump them at someone else's house. Now, it's not so bad and just looks a bit lived in - not like something that would get my children taken away from me, lol.

Next we all piled into the car and went to the grocery store. Thankfully, no one was horrible there. Yay. I can't tell you what a rare treat that is, lol. I also got done half of the work that I need to have done by next week for our homeschool group. I should be able to whip out the rest of it in an evening. I'm not sure I'm motivated to do it tonight. Maybe tomorrow. The kids spent their time playing with the giant treasure chest that was the centerpiece of Cameron's party. They collected treasure; sorted treasure; quantified treasure; hid treasure; found treasure. It really was educational stuff. I loved how Cameron sorted out and piled up all the different types of treasure. I wouldn't have been surprised if he whipped up a quick bar graph of his holdings, lol. Maybe next week. ;) Then they played Senet. And now they are drawing pictures of the video games that I won't let them play because no one has done any bookwork. Bwahahaha.

Raspberry smoothies...mmmmm

2008-08-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

Oh wait, that was supposed to be a blog title not a Twitter post. But we just got back from the farm with a basket of ripe raspberries and then blended them up with the handful of blackberries we had leftover from Friday, some raspberry sorbet, and milk. Yummmm. It would've been better if the vanilla ice cream that I had thought was in the freezer was still there but somebody appears to have eaten it all. At least we had the sorbet.

So, let's see.... what's new? Friday we dropped the ball, of course, and didn't get school done before the park. We did get the living room semi-straightened though and that was my big priority for the day. At the park we went on a huge blackberry adventure and everyone came back with full bellies and half-full containers of fresh, ripe berries. We had forgotten to bring a container with us so we had to borrow one, but this week I'm going to bring a huge one. On the latter half of that trail, there were so many berries that were not quite ready yet. Oh man, there's going to be a berry bonanza this week. I have lots of recipes in mind to make so maybe I should bring two huge containers and make sure everyone has a full stomach so we don't eat too much of the loot.

The weekend was spent converting the computer/school room (which had turned into a loose paper and craft supply junk yard) into The Purple Palace... aka the Cassia/guest room.

We're going to move all her stuff in there now, but it will house MIL while she's here in September and then it will be all for the Spoiled Little Princess after that. I think it's unfair and sexist that she gets her own room simply because she is a girl while the other three have to share, but DH says it's just because I'm jealous that I never had a Purple Palace when I was a kid. ;) He thinks the boys will dig living barrack style and she would be miserable trying to find room for her Barbies amidst the LEGOs and trucks. I agree, but think she should have to do it anyway for character's sake. She already thinks she's a princess - why should we have to prove it to her too?? I at least think the kids should be split two and two with C&C in one room and Grey and Blobby in the other because I think that the age difference is more important than the gender difference. I mean, how is Cameron going to feel in five years at age 12(!) having to share with a 5 and 7 year old? Wouldn't he be more comfortable with someone closer to his own age? But regardless, this is how we're doing it and that was how the weekend was spent. We're also going to cover an entire wall with bookshelves so the room will also be The Library. LOL, I think we just need a bigger house. Six bedrooms anyone??

Monday I actually had a really productive morning and got the kitchen cleaned, everyone showered and dressed, and school started all before noon. It wasn't until about 1:00 that the contractions/aches & pains started in and told me it was time to give it a rest. That's a big improvement from most days where I can barely get started before my body is telling me to shut it down. Weekends (where I basically just hand everything over to DH) are a good thing.

For school, I started Cameron out with math to do independently while I finished up the kitchen. He was finishing up the last two pages of the review section, which was word problems, so I left him to read them and work them out on his own. He actually did really well, except for the Singaporian names, lol. It was also nice to be doing something else and just calling over help when needed instead of sitting there impatiently breathing down his neck waiting for his brain to come around to the right conclusion. It reminded me of the way we did math about a year ago and I think it works much better that way.

Next we did phonics. Cassia went first and read a couple small stories with short vowel CVC words. She did pretty well and was having more success than usual in sounding things out and actually coming up with the right word. We only did half the lesson though because it was a pretty big struggle. I am proud of how well she is doing though. Cameron started the second to last lesson in the book and did fantastically with the huge words in it. Well, he did ok with the huge words but did fantastically with the other medium sized words which used to look huge to him, lol. He's really gained a lot of confidence in reading and has actually taken to reading books to Cassia every now and then. I love that. :)

We didn't have time for anything else though before gymnastics because Cassia's phonics took a lot longer than I anticipated. At the gym, Cassia was the only one who showed up for class! It was great because they really got to focus on her form, which is my one big criticism of her current coach. She tends to look away a lot and doesn't really seem to care if they do it right. Granted, the kids are only 4 - 6, but I'd still like to see them learn to do it the correct way. Today though, Cassia got lots of extra help in making her legs straight when she does those funny little half cartwheels, keeping her shoulders straight while she walks sideways down the balance beam, and keeping her arms flexed while she swung with an "earring hold" on the rings. She also had extra time to do some of the things she wanted to do just for fun like little performances on the high beam, lol. It was so cute. She did lots of tip-toes and "beautiful ballet arms" and DiDi even showed her how to do a little pirouette on the beam. In fact, she did a Cassia version of pretty much everything she saw on the beam in the Olympics, lol. I don't think she's ever had a better time in class. Cameron did great in class too, but by that time I was too busy chasing Greyson around in circles to watch too closely.

On the way home from the gym we stopped at our local farm for the first time in waaayyyy too long. Mmmmm, the bounty. I had a really hard time stopping myself at 6 lbs of produce and a single basket of berries... but that was all the cash I had! And then it was home for raspberry smoothies and blogging or cartoons, depending on who you are. Well, Greyson tried to go for the cartoon option but only lasted about 3 minutes before he crashed over the arm of the couch. I am actually surprised he made it that long. He usually falls asleep either during gymnastics or on the way home, lol. And now it's time for me to start dinner. Talk at ya later. :)

Day 3

2008-08-21T19:33:00.001-07:00

Day three of my resolve to "do school everyday without exception" and I've already failed. LOL, like we weren't all expecting that. It's ok. I'm going to blame it on the Brain Sucking Baby that is currently residing on top of some nerve in my pelvic floor. To my credit, I suggested school two or three times but the Brain Sucking Baby and the 90 degree day conspired against my will to fight the opposition. Said opposition consisted of multiple and quickly fleeing cries of "in a little bit!"

C&C did play a rousing round of golf around the house though. The piles of debris became the hazards that they had to avoid to get the best points. They also played a couple board games. And watched some Olympics and Discovery Kids. And a little Days of Our Lives (shhh!). So the day was not completely lost for them... just me. No, that's not true either because I did do laundry despite my best efforts to avoid all things laborious today. Oh yeah, I also vacuumed the dining room after Greyson decided to throw a plate across the room, smashing it to smithereens. *sigh* That boy's got a temper some days.

If I can manage to go to bed at a decent time tonight, I'll try to rally the troops for school first thing in the morning before we hit the park. I *do* tend to have some motivation first thing so there is a small hope for that. Small, but hope nonetheless. ;)

NOT Back to School!

2008-08-20T20:15:00.001-07:00

Well, our local public schools started up today and, once again, I did not send any of my children. I could've gotten rid of two of them this year, but alas, I'm kind of used to them being underfoot all the time. ;)

We "celebrated" the day by going to Cameron's 7-yr check-up. He's fine - slightly below average in weight and off the charts in height. He passed the hearing and visions tests. He successfully peed in a cup and asked the doctor neurotic questions about itchy skin and eyes that have trouble focusing first thing in the morning. (The eye thing she chalked up to him having light eyes. She said her green-eyed DH and DS are always complaining about brightness and such while her brown-eyed self can't even remember to wear sunglasses. Sounds a lot like me.) The first thing the nurse said to us was, "What's up? Why aren't you in school today?" Cameron answered that we hadn't started yet, meaning that we would get to it later in the afternoon, but of course she misunderstood and started wondering when his school started and which one it was. I guess there just isn't that much to small talk about to a young child besides school? I don't know, I have a hard time shutting him up about "stuff" and school is rarely one of those topics, lol. Anyway, she didn't look at us like we had three heads when we said that no, we homeschool but she did do that "oooohhhhhh" thing that means that she's heard about "those people."

The next phase of the "celebration" was breakfast at IHOP. It's never as good as I remember it being, but it was eggs and pancakes that I didn't have to cook. That's always a good thing. Cassia actually cleaned her plate which is a shocking event, so she obviously could find no lack of quality in the happy face pancakes. Again, the waitress asked us why the kids weren't in school today. I happily answered that we homeschooled and were out celebrating Not Back To School Day. This time though, the reaction was that of an understanding smile and reassurance that that's probably the best way to do things. She then told us that she had been homeschooled through part of high school. I've been meeting quite a few young ladies recently who have shared that fact with me. The front desk "girl" at our dentist's was homeschooled for junior high.

Next on the list was an OB appointment for Blobby and me. He's definitely head down now and pretty much engaged. Dilation is starting in the tiniest little bit, which usually doesn't happen until about 39 or 40 weeks for me, so things are moving along quite nicely. Maybe this little one will make his appearance somewhere around on time? The kids were psycho-crazy while we were waiting for the doctor to come in (couldn't have anything to do with sugary pancakes and syrup, could it?) so by the time we got home I was ready to hunker down with the remote and attempt to catch up on my Olympics. DH wasn't into watching it all weekend so now I'm like three days behind and running out of drive space on the TiVo!!

Several hours and a disappointing 5th place finish for the Branagh/Youngs beach volleyball team later and we got started on schoolwork. It was a "short" day where we only did phonics (short /u/ CVC words for Cassia with accompanying drawings to draw and caption, eg "I run in the sun" and more multi-syllabic monstrosities for Cam), grammar (contractions), and math (review section on multiplying 3s and 4s and adding and subtracting money). Cameron was NOT the most cooperative student today. We had several long talks about why he needed to learn how to read and why he needed to cooperate when I said he had to do X. Finally, the reason that won out was that if he wasn't going to cooperate with my way of doing school then I would have to send him to another school. I really thought I'd have a few more years before I had to pull out the "public school threat" but, there it is.

He wasn't very cooperative yesterday either when we did the basics. It was all about doing the bare minimum so he could play video games. We had another long talk about the reasons we are doing this and I finally just said that we can no longer just skip days here and there. He loses all momentum and focus. It's not that typical brain cell loss that kids usually go through over the summer, he actually gets a little sharper with many skills after a short break, it's the loss of routine. If we're not doing it every day then every day becomes a bargaining of "do I really have to do this today?" So I laid it out - no more skipping school because it's gymnastics day and we don't get started early enough or don't want to do it while Greyson's awake. No more skipping school because it's park day. No more skipping school because Mommy is tired and just doesn't feel like it. No more. School is in five days a week. (Kind of coincidental I made this grand resolution on the day before the public schools started, isn't it?) And I didn't get any argument today when I said it was time to start school and I didn't get any argument when he had to come back to finish his math after soccer practice this evening because he was dragging his feet too much with everything and didn't get it finished beforehand. I just got a bunch of "I'm tired of reading big words!" and "I hate subtraction!" Let me let you in on a little secret... he only hates subtraction when he rushes through it and borrows wrong. Thankfully, as soon as we make it through the last two pages of this review section we can move on to something totally new and interesting: fractions!

Anyway, back to yesterday, along with the three R's (Reading, grammaR, and math Review) we also read about the Indians living along the Ganges River during the time of Rome (Cameron definitively said that he is not a Hindu because he does not believe that the stories of Ganga and Shiva are true) and started the MPH 4B science books. The first chapter in science is about the respiratory system and so to demonstrate moving air we made aerofoils out of notebook paper and found all the ways we could to make them move by using nothing but moving air. It was pretty fun and even Greyson got into it. Later in the evening, Cameron decided to make a paper airplane and after one particularly nice flight announced, "Behold the power of moving air!" LOL, sounds like something he got from Ms. Frizzle but I'll take it as our science studies spilling over to real life play. The kids really enjoy science and I'm sorry that I let it slip for so long just because we were going to an experimental science class. So what if the topics didn't match up week to week? There's no such thing as too much science.

Due to all our appointments and then soccer practice today (not to mention my mandated tv time), we didn't get to science or history but I said that we would do them both again tomorrow. Now that I think of it, that just might work out best to have short days when we have other stuff to do like gymnastics and the park and then long days where we do as much as we can on days when we're not doing anything else anyway. We'll still get history and science in two or three times a week like we would if we were alternating and we wouldn't end up feeling so rushed all the time. We also wouldn't have days that dissolve into nothing but craziness... which is what most days feel like around here lately. I keep saying it's for the kids, but I think *I'm* the one who needs some structure around here!

Speaking of structure, I know the structure of this post is lacking and probably hurting your brains by this point, lol. So with that, I'll sign off and go watch some more beach volleyball.

So behind, so behind

2008-08-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

I am so sorry to leave you all with nothing new to read for so long. I feel like such a hypocrite when I complain so much when other people (ahem MEESH) aren't updating often enough. But you haven't missed much anyway.

We haven't done much actual schoolwork since Cameron's birthday but we have been busy! We went camping at Pomo Canyon just off the coast. The campground was gorgeous and the company divine. We went with several of our Favorite Park Day friends because our favorite park was going to be closed in preparation for a big apple festival that weekend. We met there on Thursday afternoon and camped until Saturday morning. The kids had a great time exploring all the trees - they even named most of them! On Friday, everyone hiked the Pomo Canyon Trail from the campgrounds to the beach - 2.8 miles! It was a steep hike too! I was really proud of the kids for all making it. Greyson and I drove over to the beach though and served as the taxi back to the campground. I was a little sad at first to be bumped from the hike, but I knew it was the best choice and quickly realized that it would have been quite pathetic of me to even try, considering how winded I got just walking down the stairs from the parking lot to the beach, lol. It would have been especially so since I probably would have had to carry Greyson too. We definitely made the right choice and spent a lovely couple hours digging in the sand.

After we left the campgrounds Saturday morning, we all caravaned to a local beach on the Russian River. Ah, bliss. That felt like park day just in a new location, lol. On Sunday, we all coincidentally ended up at that apple festival so it was almost like another extension of the trip. All in all, it was a great extended weekend. I was glad to be back to the routine of the week though. Suddenly, our busy schedule seemed much more manageable. ;)

Monday we did mountains of dirty, dirty laundry from the trip. And then we went to gymnastics. They had Olympic week and all the kids did some sort of tribute to it. In Cameron's class they had a mini-Olympics of their own and the kids got to run a marathon around the gym, perform on the balance beams (earning a 10 if they didn't fall off and a 9 if they did, lol), and long jump into the foam pit. They had a ton of fun, you could tell. Cassia's class got to wave international flags, crawl through Olympic rings, and do some sort of relay involving roller boards - maybe they were pretending to swim? Then we went to soccer practice, drove through a burger place (shhh!), and then came home and watched real Olympics. I've been TiVo'ing it and spending WAYYYYYYYYYYY too much time watching.

Tuesday we started the day off with a doctor's appointment for me. Baby Blobby has turned around the right way!!! WOOOHOOOO!!!!! I'm very relieved. I was kind of curious about the challenge of delivering breach, but trust me, I'd really rather things just go smoothly. And honestly, I've been so exhausted lately that I'm wondering how I'm going to get through a normal labor. The rest of the day we didn't do much except do some grocery shopping, cleaning, watching the Olympics, and general do-nothingness.

Today, Wednesday, the kids played several board games. They just get in these moods sometimes where they'll want to play a whole bunch of them in a row. We did actually manage to get bookwork done too - shocker, I know - and did phonics (multi-syllabic words for Cameron, short-o words for Cassie), grammar/language (a picture study), math (word problems involving money for Cam and adding to 9 and 10 for Cassia), and history (stories about Roman Gladiators). Cameron really enjoyed the Gladiator stories. He kept telling me about the Time Warp Trio episode with the Gladiators and about the Playmobile Gladiator set and even mentioned the book Archimedes Takes a Bath when we were discussing the Roman Baths. Gotta love that.

We finished the day with soccer practice and Mexican take-out. Cameron really loves soccer and has really bonded with the coach's daughter. They were on the same side for their practice game and every time they'd make a goal they'd give each other a hug and then walk back to the other side arm in arm. So cute. When we were leaving she called goodbye to him and he called back, "Bye!! We really make a good team!"

Now, I've got to get to my Olympics before I get too far behind and run out of space on my DVR drive. Go USA!!

Happy Birthday, Cameron!!

2008-08-04T08:02:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official... SEVEN years ago, my life changed. Isn't it amazing what a child does to your life? How things change in ways you never thought they could? I was one of those, Oh I won't let my life change just because we have a baby! We'll still do all the same old stuff and hang out with the same old people, they'll just be three of us! Uh huh. ;) Thankfully, my life has changed much for the better and I wouldn't go back for a second.

LOL, I was looking for baby pictures to share and found this composite I did for one of his other birthdays. A then and now from about 4 months old and about 4 years...
and now my brave and strong elfling hero...

Ah, he's going to kill me in a few years for that. ;)

But anyway.... sorry I've been so scarce. Most of last week was spent in preparation for the big birthday party on Saturday. What I thought was going to be just my dad and a few family friends turned out to be a huge to-do with about 25 guests! We BBQed and made cardboard and aluminum foil swords but the hit of the party was the marshmallow shooting contest. At Cassia's party, Cameron received a bow that shoots mini-marshmallows so we took full advantage of that one! We set up an archery target on our back fence and lined up all 15 kids for target practice. Surprisingly, three of the smallest participants got the best scores and one of them was Cassia! Even more surprising was that Cameron and R12, both self-proclaimed combat champions, got some of the worst scores. It was great fun and I was glad to see the grand prize, a water balloon shooting sling shot, out of the house.

Sunday we went to another fabulous party. There was a GIANT bounce house... need I say more? OK, there was some other great stuff too like sun catchers and really good food (and really good wine for the adults) and snacks and cupcakes and balloons and great friends. It was a good day. It was a great weekend.

Monday, Cameron's actual birthday was a busy, busy, busy day. We started out with a follow-up appointment for Greyson with the pediatric GI specialist. I was expecting a pretty boring, "He seems to be doing fine, just keep up what you're doing and he'll probably grow out of this in a year or two," but what I got was, "He hasn't gained any weight since the last time he was here (3 months ago) and his symptoms are asynchronous with his lab results. Let's do more tests." Apparently, his body reacts as if he has a lactose intolerance but many of the foods he reacts to shouldn't have enough lactose to cause such a sudden and dramatic reaction. The other option would be if he were having an anaphylactic reaction but his labs didn't indicate that at all. Hmmmmm. So, they're sending him for a breath test for lactose intolerance and recommending that he see an allergist to figure out what exactly it is that he's reacting to. She's not that concerned, because he does appear to be happy and healthy and proportionate for his age, but he is putting on weight more slowly than he probably should and she wants to make sure that the food he is eating is actually sticking around long enough to give him the nutrition he needs. She also recommended, again, that I give him a fiber supplement. Ugh. So there's that update.

Next was gymnastics where both kids did fabulously. Actually, all three of them did fabulously and for the first time in about a month, we didn't have to go sit in the car. Yeah! I was talking to one of Cameron's coaches afterward and we were musing back to how far he's come. This particular coach was the preschool director way back when and we were reminiscing about 2-yr old Cameron who would do nothing but run in circles during the free play class. LOL. And then slightly older Cameron who would run in circles during the demonstrations of the more structured classes. And then the Cameron of just last year who said it was too hard and didn't want to bother trying. The Cameron of today though has completed the Roller level of his Rollers & Twisters class in less than a year and was being used as an example of how to do many of the skills for the other boys. You've come a long way baby! Coach Steve said that Cameron is a testament to the fact that crazy boys DO mature. ;) In fact, he was quite impressed that we all survived seven years at all, lol.

And to top off the day, we had Cameron's first soccer practice. Lots of things annoy me about soccer and I should refrain.... but here goes. First off, he misses the cut-off by four days. You need to be "the age" by July 31st, so my seven-year-old, second grade boy, who is tall for his age anyway, is playing the U7 league with a bunch of six-year-old first graders. And the majority of his team this year is girls. Not that I have anything against girls, but he just towers over the lot of them. He doesn't seem to mind though. It was the same last year, but at least last year the coach's son was in the same predicament so it was more of a mixed team.

And then there are the parents. Oh my. There was this one couple there with a little girl who was something between 1-1/2 and 2 who was whining and crying a bit. It was late in the afternoon and you could tell she was just exhausted and didn't want to be there. I could totally sympathize, lol. Well the lovely parents just kept yelling at her and telling her that she had to stop crying or she was "going to be sent to the principal's office" or that she'd have to go "sit on the naughty stool" or in the car and finally that she needed to stop because she was embarrassing her mother. Oh, please. Honestly, I found the parents' behavior embarrassing, not the child's. Finally, the poor girl fell asleep in her mother's arms and then, in between intellectually stimulating conversations about beer commercials and not being able to wait for the kids to be back in school, they kept waking her up so she would be able to sleep later. Sheesh. I really felt sorry for that poor baby. She obviously needed a break and her parents obviously didn't want to deal with her so what does it matter if she naps through 45 minutes of soccer practice? And then, this was the kicker for me, they start talking about their vacations this year. "Well, we went to Disney twice, but I don't count that as a vacation. That's work! We went to the Bahamas for a week and the kids were with so-and-so and oh, that was just heaven." Disney twice in one year is no vacation?? Why go then? What is wrong with these people? Why did they even bother to have kids? Ugh. Not that I didn't thoroughly enjoy our 3 days ALONE on Catalina Island for our 10th anniversary - but I think that's the only time we've ever vacationed away from them aside from the occasional one night away for Knott's Scary Farm or something. Weird. It's just a different mindset, I guess. Anyway, I need to find different parents to sit near next time before that couple drives me insane. ;)

Tuesday we thankfully have nothing planned. Day of laundry awaits. :) And for one final time...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CAMERON!!!

Still Here!

2008-07-25T09:50:00.000-07:00

I'm still here, just not doing much.

Wednesday we had a good school day. Cassia read extremely well in her phonics and Cameron learned about homonyms, homographs, and homophones in his. He really enjoyed the detective work of that and spent all day thinking up new ones. Grammar was reviewing abbreviations. Math was more of the same: adding for Cassia and subtracting money for Cameron. For history I read about early Rome from our history encyclopedias and then we watched the What the Ancients Knew episode on Rome. That was a really good one. Cameron was suitable impressed with all they did and was duly inspired to spend the rest of the day making Roman shields and weapons out of paper, cardboard, strapping tape, and aluminum foil. In fact, he spent the entire next day doing that too.

Thursday we didn't do any official schoolwork as I was feeling kind of under the weather but C&C spent a lot of time playing on Starfall. That site just never gets old. There was also the usual assortment of Magic Schoolbus, Zoboomafoo, and other educational type tv show (like Food Network Challenge, lol).

It's been pretty low key around here. I did have an OB appointment Wednesday morning and found out the reason I'm so stinkin' tired all the time: anemic. I should've known. I was anemic with Cameron too but I didn't even think of that this time. I thought it was just a byproduct of being on number four! I also found out that the little bugger is the wrong way around in there. His head is up by my ribs and it's getting down to the wire to convince him to turn. I'm 33 weeks today and from what I've been reading, after 34 weeks it starts getting pretty tight in there! And it looks like after 36 weeks, you're pretty much stuck with what you've got. *sigh*

The good news is that my OB said that since I have proven myself as "more than competent at vaginal births" that she would try to deliver him however he presents. She said that if it were my first, she would schedule a c-section, but there's "no reason to cut up that cute little belly if we don't have to." Phew! That is a huge relief to me. I know our old insurance would have NEVER gone for that so I am so thankful that I have found this wonderful woman who is willing to trust a woman's body to do what it is meant to do. And the more I read, the more I realize just how lucky I am to have found her. Doctors are so paranoid about lawsuits now that they take the surgery route at the first sign that things might be out of the ordinary. But from what I was reading, in the more common breech positions, delivery isn't any more complicated than a head down presentation. The hips are the same width as the head at that age and a frank breech should just slide out with nothing but some minimal hip bruising. I guess my biggest worry is if I go too far past my due date. I'm not sure if I'm more opposed to being induced before my body is ready to give up the little guy or having to have a c-section at 42 weeks because he's too big to come out butt first. At this point, I'm still hoping he'll come to his senses and turn around.

Cassia also had a check-up Wednesday morning. She's perfect, but we all knew that. ;) She's 75%ile for height and 50%ile for weight. That's been the norm for my kiddos their whole lives so it looks like they're growing pretty consistently. She also got her "Kindergarten Shots" and didn't even shed a tear. I guess after ear-piercing, that was cake. (And apparently she's psychic too because as soon as I typed that, she yelled, "Mommy! We haven't cleaned my ears yet this morning!")

Today is park day so I had better get going and actually get dressed or something. I hope everyone is well. I am very behind on my blog reading lately. Sorry - it doesn't mean that I don't love you. :)

Already forgetting...

2008-07-22T22:58:00.000-07:00

Argh! It's been almost a week since I've blogged now and I'm already forgetting what we've done! I have no recollection of Thursday whatsoever. I think we did bookwork, but I could be wrong. Let's see, we went to ballet for Cassia's first official Pre-Ballet class. (She loved the harder class, btw, and said it was much more fun.) Stopped by TJ's for a few last minute things. Baked a strawberry cake. Hmmm.... I guess I could try to match up Wednesday's blog entry with the work that we've done since and try to figure it out, but it's really not that important. (Until I do decide to go through and update my roll book/lesson planner and then it will be a nightmare, lol.)

But on to important things! Friday was Cassia's birthday party. :) We had a great turnout and a lovely time. The children are very, very spoiled and have a wonderful bunch of friends. I feel guilty for being so cheap with our gifts now (I have a $5 - $10 rule), lol, but everything was perfect. Except the cake was too small. I'm going to have to make that recipe again because it was really, really good. Maybe I'll make it for my birthday too.

That wiped me out for the entire weekend though. DH pulled a Superman and decided to steam clean the living room and dining room. I was only supposed to finish going through the gazillion boxes of clothes that have been sitting in the hallway for weeks now, but I only got through half of them. The rest of the time I just sat there watching tv. Pathetic, I know, but I really just couldn't do anything.

Monday I was feeling a little better and determined to get back to our regular routine. We did do school on Monday - at least we did everything but History. We ran out of time before gymnastics. Phonics was a Who Did What? game where you mix up subject and predicate cards to make silly sentences. Reading through them the first time was a bit of a struggle, but Cameron did really well remembering what they said after that. Grammar was a review of all the verb types (action, being, linking, and helping). Math for Cameron was subtracting money by writing out the problem "the long way" and using borrowing. It took forEVER and that is why we had no time for history. Cassia was working on adding. They had her coloring seven vases red, blue, or green and then writing the addition problem based on what she had colored. It was really neat seeing the light bulb go off during that. "Hey! You know, no matter which way you color them, they still add up to seven!"

Gymnastics was trying, as usual. I don't know if it's just pregnancy getting the best of me or what but I just cannot deal with Grey during gymnastics anymore. Every week now, we end up sitting in the car because he starts throwing a fit. He gets SO grumpy when it's his naptime now and all these afternoon classes are right smack in the middle of it. I know that in the fall Cassia's ballet will most likely be in the afternoon too. Don't they know that my boy needs his beauty sleep?? He always falls asleep on the way home then, but by then it's so late that I have to wake him for dinner and deal with a grump then too. He's so much nicer when he can just take his nap at 2 or 3 like his body is telling him to and then wake up naturally.

Today we did not do any schoolwork. I didn't get enough sleep last night and so I was just drained of energy. I may be fighting off a cold too because Greyson had a bit of a runny nose. But whatever the reason, I spent most of my free time today playing solitaire Scrabble. But not all day!! We had an afternoon date at Mrs. Grossman's!! A friend of ours was taking some of her relatives on a factory tour and was nice enough to invite us along. We can't say no to a tour of the sticker factory!! There was a school bus there and Cameron made the observation that we were like a school and I was like their teacher taking them on a field trip! I was thinking, well duh, but he just thought that was a hilarious concept. Once we got home with our gazillions of stickers, the kids set to work creating their stickery masterpieces. They spent hours making pictures and telling stories to each other about what the stickers were doing (there were pigs and hamburgers raining from the sky at one point) and then it somehow evolved into paper sword and shield making. Cameron made the best paper and cardboard sword and shield specimens that he has ever made. He even made some for Cassia too. Something about those knight and castle stickers really got his creative juices flowing. When I tucked him into bed he said, "I hope tomorrow is just like today! That was a super fun day!!" I'd say the $3 per person spent on the tour and the $12 spent in the company store was worth it. If you're ever in town, let me know and we'll take you there too. Stickers make people happy. Even Mrs. Grossman herself said that - how can you not love your job when you are working with hearts and teddy bears and puppy dogs all day?

Big Brains and Birthdays

2008-07-16T18:08:00.000-07:00

First off, let me just tell you that I am now the proud parent of a 5-YEAR OLD GIRL! I've been calling her "almost 5" for ages, but now it sounds really weird for her to tell people that.

For her big day, I surprised her with a trip out to get her ears pierced! She's been asking ever since her Fairy Friend got hers done for her 4th birthday. She was happy and brave and very grown up about the whole thing... until they did it. Oh my, she went from happy and excited to a puddle of tears almost instantly. These were no crocodile tears either; it really hurt. But they were quick on the draw with lollipops for everyone and that made it better pretty quickly.

Unfortunately, one of the backings fell off in her sleep last night and so the back closed up on one of them. I had to re-pierce it for her this morning and she didn't like that very much either. Luckily, as a girl of many piercings, I've had that happen many times and knew it wasn't a big deal to just pop it through again. She must really, really like her earrings for putting up with it and then not complaining when I cleaned the second ear. And then happily went for her afternoon cleaning as well. She really is a big girl now.

So that took up most of our day yesterday. We actually had to go back to the piercing place twice so that they would have two employees to do both ears at once. In the meantime, we went out for "tea" (hot chocolate or lemonade and scones) and played at the mall playground. Then we hit the grocery store and I'm sure you all know that that did me in for good. Her special birthday dinner request was for green beans and peas. We convinced her that she needed a main dish too so she chose macaroni and cheese (boxed, of course) and fruit salad. She had the BEST time helping me to prepare all that. I really should plan more time to make dinner and let her help more often.

Today was back to the grind (as if, lol) after the Official School Holiday. We started out with Science... ok, it was a dentist's appointment. The kids did great. Great teeth all around, except for me. I had a hole in one tooth where my filling needs to be replaced but she said it can wait until I'm not pregnant anymore. I really like that she doesn't pressure me into getting x-rays while pregnant. Technically, they should be fine at this point but why risk it, right?

We came home and got lunch and then put Grey down for a nap - a challenge in itself today. We started with Cassia's phonics and she started out okay but then started just guessing silly things. I got so frustrated with her that I told her that we were done and it was Cameron's turn. She cried and cried! And then she did the rest of the lesson with good effort. I wasn't even trying to trick her into doing better. I really was done - but I'll take it. Cameron struggled through his lesson, but he put in a good effort. They were hard words. For grammar they learned about linking verbs and then did another page for their poem books. They drew pictures for the month of March with daffodils blowing in the wind. Somehow, it got mentioned that Easter is sometimes in March so the daffodils are harboring a few Easter eggs too. They both complained a lot when I asked them to do it, but then both ended up spending about an hour working on it. Next was math where Cameron did some subtracting of money. He was having some trouble focusing and ended up taking forEVER to finish. I'm thinking that we need to move back to the dining room table to work instead of the couch, at least for a bit. Cassia insisted on doing her Explode the Code Primer "for math" and finished up the letter Q. She wanted to keep going and finish off the book with X but I asked her to save it for tomorrow. We finished up with history and I read about the Roman gods and a bit about their thirst for new lands and new technologies. They didn't seem as impressed as I had hoped with their invention of concrete, paved roads, and aqueducts, but I think I have an episode of What the Ancients Knew on TiVo that might help with that.

Right now they're playing Big Brain Academy on the Wii. They've been watching me play on Facebook lately and begging me to let them try (not on MY game, lol) and so I dusted off BBA today and they're happy as clams with it. They're doing pretty well too. I bet that game helps with standardized testing skills. ;) Too bad we don't take them.

Tomorrow the plan is ballet, grocery store, and then cake baking! I'm off to make dinner now.

Yawn!

2008-07-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

As I was typing in the title for this, I noticed that already have a post entitled this! I guess it's a theme in my life right now! ;) I didn't sleep too terribly well last night. I have gotten in this strange habit of waking up at 4:30 to use the bathroom and then not being able to go back to sleep until 6:00. And then, of course, Greyson usually wants to get up at about 6:30 or 7:00. Luckily though, DH was home today and got up with him so I was able to sleep until about 8:30, but it wasn't a restful sleep at all.

Regardless, we got schoolwork done in the morning. I wasn't really in the mood so I was grumpy and impatient, but we got it done nonetheless. Phonics with Cameron was a nightmare. It was one of those days when I had to feed him every single word. Words like "lake" and "these." Not what I needed on a low-patience day. :( Things went better with Cassia. She did okay. I did okay. Neither of us was great but she did page one of the three-page lesson and then asked to keep going even though I suggested quitting there. I guess that means that I didn't come off as badly as I felt like I was coming across, lol.

Next was grammar and that went really well. The lesson was on using commas in a series and it even included some reading for the student to do to demonstrate the ease of reading "I have this, this, and this," as opposed to "I have this and this and this." This time, Cameron read fabulously. The words were small since they were not meant to challenge but to show a point and he read them with ease. I think the simple point that it wasn't phonics helped a lot.

For history, we began our study of the Roman Empire and read the story of Remus and Romulus. Cassia was horrified. There wasn't much story in between these cute little babies being raised by wolves, being adopted by farmers, and then killing each other. She was picturing babies killing one another! I can see how that would be a bit traumatic for her, lol. We followed that story up with the tale of the Etruscans going back and forth between Greece and Rome and bringing the culture over. I know I have at least one book on the Etruscans and several on Roman mythology so I think I'll look through those tonight and see if I can find some supplemental material without having to go to the library (where I probably owe a bunch of money).

Cameron finished off his school day by playing Timez Attack for math. He started a new game and went all the way from 2's to 5's in about a half an hour. That's pretty good considering that you have to master each level (as in answer every problem x1 through x12 right) before you can move on. Cassia didn't do any math, but I think I'll have her alternate phonics and math for a while. She does grammar and history or science every day even though I still consider those optional for her, so I'll cut her a break with only one mandatory subject each day. When Cameron was in Kindergarten, I think he did phonics and math every day and then science, art, or music once or twice a week. She's already getting a much more rigorous education even though she doesn't have to do any of it, lol.

Next Cassia and I worked on some craft samples for her birthday party on Friday. We're going to make tutu inspired hair scrunchie things and ballerina clothespin dolls. I was panicking about the clothespin dolls last night because the sample one I was making was really, really hard! There is no way that a bunch of 3 - 8 year olds were going to be able to do it so I briefly considered just making a dozen of them myself and just handing them out as party favors. That prospect was both a bit overwhelming and not nearly as much fun! Luckily though, I figured out a better way to attach the skirt so that there is no glue or extraordinary dexterity involved. Phew! For the boys, I made a little knight clothespin doll with aluminum foil, lol. He's pretty cute though probably too fragile to last even one battle. I had lots of patience with the crafts, so maybe that's something I should do more often as stress relief. (I wish I could say the same about the boys jumping on the bed Cassia and I were working on though!) I planned out the finger sandwiches that we're going to serve while I wasn't sleeping this morning, so really the only thing left to do is figure out what cake recipe I'm going to use, make a list, and go shopping. Well, that and then make everything and get it there in one piece, lol.

After that we hurried off to gymnastics. There was a little spitfire of a girl in Cassia's class today and I really pitied the coaches, especially the new one who was shadowing the class for the first time. Greyson was a handful because he was just super tired. By the time it was time for Cameron's class, he was just done and so he, Cassia, and I went out to the car and turned on a movie that happened to be in there. As I predicted, Greyson fell asleep within five minutes, lol. I got a few minutes of shut eye too, so that was nice.

Grey loves to play in my purse during gymnastics so Cameron had the great idea to make him his own wallet and money to play with. The second we got home he set to work making cardboard dollars, coins, and credit cards for him to play with. He's also in the process of making a construction paper wallet and cell phone for him too. I really hope Grey likes them because Cameron put a lot of thought and effort into the project.

Cassia is currently learning the sign language alphabet via a set of rubber stamps someone gave us. I remember when I taught myself the ASL alphabet from one of those cards that deaf people would sell in airports. Funny how that is so intriguing to kids.

That's about it for today. About this time, five years ago, I think I started getting one or two contractions that told me that the time was near. I remember we had been to Bodega Bay and picked up some fresh clams so I was making a fish stew but I had to keep sitting down. My MIL was staying with us to help out and she was freaking out that I would just sit down for a minute and then go right on cooking, lol. If she'd had her way, I would have been in the hospital with the first twinge rather than waiting until they were 5 minutes apart like the doctor recommended - which turned out to be about eighteen hours later.

Infamous

2008-07-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

(Overheard being said to the boy in line in front of us at the sign-in table for golf camp)
Counselor #1: And what was your name?
Boy: John Doe
Counselor #1: And what level are you again, John?
Boy: Circle
(John Doe walks away to start warming up.)
Counselor #1: (with a devilish look in her eye) And who might this be?? This isn't Cameron, is it??
Me: (to Cameron) Making yourself known already?
Cameron: (sheepishly) yes...
Counselor #1: And you're Triangle level. Here's your name tag.
Counselor #2: Oh yes, we all know Cameron. He's a smart one!
Me: (curious what's coming next) Yes, I've always thought so.
Counselor #2: We asked him to eat a salty snack yesterday to help keep him hydrated and he told us that he wasn't allowed to eat salt.
Cameron: Our family doesn't eat salt.
Me: (blushing) Well, we don't eat a lot of it. Everything in moderation, you know.

OK, this conversation may not look like much but this is coming off the conversation the previous day when he refused to wear a hat to golf in because all we have are black baseball hats and they told him that a light colored one would reflect the heat better. And the one the day before when he told them all that he wasn't allowed to eat candy. I really wonder about the conversations that must be going on at snack time, lol. I just told him to make healthy choices and go for the apples (his favorite food anyway) instead of the Doritos (which he wishes could be his favorite food). He's probably laying out all these "rules" that we have. LOL, oh my. So really, who is looking like the bigger freak here - him or me?

Am I the only one who wonders about how their homeschooled kids come across next to the "regular" kids? His schooling has never been brought up in front of me, but he is not shy in sharing that fact when kids start talking about what grade they're in and what school they go to. He's proud of his homeschooled status and I'm proud of his pride in it, you know? But I still wonder sometimes. Is he coming off as a little weird because (1) he has a very outgoing and opinionated personality, (2) he's a bit younger than most of the other kids there (the camp is officially for 7 & up but they said he was close enough and they often have younger kids try it out), or (3) because he is homeschooled and not used to dealing with people in the same way that other people are used to being dealt with? I guess the real question is probably whether or not he is coming off weird at all or if it is just my fear that he will. I always feel that Cassia and Greyson are totally out of control and being inappropriate too, but I've come to realize that that's mostly because most people just don't have a lot of young kids. People who do, their kids act just like mine.

But there are a whole new set of insecurities for me now that he is obviously school age. I find that many, many people contemplate homeschooling during the preschool years and quite a few even try it out during the optional Kindergarten year, but most people chicken out by the time that magic age of 6 comes along. We stand out now as homeschoolers, wherever we are during the day in the school year. And I'm ok with that. I guess I'm just wondering now if we also stand out as homeschoolers when we are mixed in with the "normal folk." I don't know why I worry. The counselors obviously like him, even if they do find him a bit precocious. Another one of the boys even walked by and specifically said hi to him after camp while we were hanging out having a lemonade in the club house. Cam told me that a girl was going to bring him a new bottle cap from home for his collection. So he has friends and he's fitting in just fine... why should I worry? Nature of being a mother, I guess? Maybe it's that for one of the first times in his life, I'm not there to watch. I'm not there to catch all the subtle nuances in the conversations. I'm not there to guide him in the more appropriate behavior or reaction. I'm having to trust that he's going to fly simply because he's flapping his wings. Growing up is tough... on a mom.

Hmmm. I had no idea that's where that train of thought was going today. Therapy 101 for me. That what I love about blogging. :)

Nothing really remarkable in the rest of the day. Greyson and I went shopping for some pink party decorations. He is such a doll when it is just me and him. He totally charms the pants off me, lol. He doesn't get into any trouble either. He either plays quietly by himself or snuggles up with me in front of the tv. It kind of makes me suspect (duh) that his mischief is just the easiest way to get my attention when the others are around. What in the world is he going to come up with to get my attention when the New Baby comes? Yikes. Hopefully, since he really loves babies, he will go for the more constructive approach of being a big helper. Pretty please?

Once C&C were home we spent another productive day watching Food Network. I think I have them addicted to Food Network Challenge. They literally begged to watch it, lol. I managed to finish up the mountain of laundry I started yesterday, but it's still not all folded. I really should do that now. Really, I should. I should also do something about all the debris that's managed to strew itself all over the floor in every single room of the house... but that would require bending over. LOL, not gonna happen. The big problem is that by the time the kids are home from camp, it's so hot that I don't even have the energy to be Mean Mommy. Nice Mommy has a really messy house apparently. ;) But DH comes home tomorrow so I better find the inner slave driver soon. He's very grumpy when he comes home to a house that looks like this. I don't really blame him either.

OK, dinner, laundry, bed.

Challenge!

2008-07-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Oh it was a highly educational day around here today. C&C went off to camp and Greyson and I came home and watched The Next Food Network Star. Well, we only had time to watch part of an episode before it was time to go to my OB appointment. We get there and sit down and after about five minutes the girl behind the desk (I don't really mean to be condescending, but she was young and I don't know if she's an actual nurse or just a helper monkey or what) calls me back and says that the doctor is off delivering a baby right now but why don't I go ahead and give my urine sample and then she'll take my vitals now. I figure she must be on her way back from the hospital now, right? The girl offers to put me in a room while we wait, but I say that with Greyson in tow it would be easier to be in the waiting room. So after she takes my vitals and such she starts saying, mostly to herself, that maybe she should try to call the doctor since she hasn't heard from her in a while. So now I'm thinking... what? Why would you offer to put me in an exam room when you have no clue when she is going to be back??? Babies take HOURS to deliver! I hear her leave a voicemail for the doctor and when she receives no immediate callback I just have to go ask. "So... it doesn't sound like she's on her way back yet or anything, is she?" The girl says, "Well, it sounded that way when I talked to her at 9 this morning!" It was almost 11:00 by then. I had to pick the kids up at noon. No thanks. I rescheduled. Why the heck she didn't just call me before my appointment and tell me that the doctor was in a delivery, I have no idea. I mean seriously. The office is only five minutes from my house, but there are a lot of other things I could have been doing with my time this morning than just sitting around watching tv and waiting for it to be time to go. And then once I got back home, I only had enough time to sit around watching tv until it was time to go again! I suppose I could have done something else, but it would've been much easier if I had an entire two hours to work with rather than two 30 - 45 minute stretches with a big bunch of wasted time in the middle. I bet they'll charge me for two appointments too since she took my vitals and did the urine test. Cause you know it costs several hundred dollars to stick a piece of litmus in a cup of pee. *Ugh* (Sorry, I was going to try and be reasonably civil today.)

So then I go and get the kids and come back home to find that it is suddenly way too hot to function. It was about 105 outside and 85 inside. The good news is that our solar attic fan is making a difference since it used to be only about 10 degrees cooler inside than out until about 3 or 4 pm when it suddenly got hotter inside than outside. Now it stays a solid 20 degrees cooler inside and doesn't get hotter inside than out until about 6 or 7 pm when the sun is no longer activating the fan. But by then the breeze has usually kicked up outside so I just need to open a few windows to make it tolerable again. Anyway, 85 is still too hot for me, lol, so I just melted onto the couch in front of more Food TV. I watched the rest of The Next Food Network Star marathon that I had TiVo'ed. The kids decided that it was too hot to do anything too so they all ended up on the couch with me. We moved on to the Food Network Challenge of Disney-Pixar cakes and then the one on Disney villains. It had cooled down a bit by then and the winning villain cake inspired C&C to go play Peter Pan. I finally found some strength to go finish up some laundry and then make dinner.

The good thing about being lazy all day and watching the Food Network is that it inspires me to be a little more creative with my food choices, lol. Dinner wasn't anything spectacular - sun-dried tomato sausages, mashed sweet potatoes, and green salad - but for breakfast I made English muffins topped with smoked Gouda and an over-easy egg. Yum. That one was definitely inspired by the (disastrous, lol) brunches served on a train from the Next FN Star that I watched yesterday. Who says tv is evil? So let's all think cooler thoughts for tomorrow, OK? I really need to do some birthday party planning. A little schoolwork might be nice too. ;)

Heat sucks

2008-07-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

Blech. I remember, back in the day, when I felt that it wasn't truly summer unless it hit 100+ degrees outside. I craved the heat. I would feel chilled in 80 degree weather, lol. Oh, the good old days. So NOT true anymore. We've got a heat wave of a week here and I am in super-bitch mode because of it. I am hot, I am grumpy, and I feel like crap - don't mess with me. Please. Even the stupid woman in the grocery store who was standing there chatting with her friend in between two checkout lines - not putting her stuff down on either - who gave me attitude like I stole her spot when I got in line (she claimed that she didn't realize there were separate lines for the two registers???) has annoyed me all day. It was such a non-issue and I totally took the high road and let her go in front of me with a smile, yet it's bugged me all day. I'm just in that kind of mood. Like I said, the heat sucks... but I'll try to limit my bitching about it as much as I can.

So let's see, where were we? Thursday... what did we do Thursday? I know we didn't do any history of the 4th of July stuff because the printer ran out of ink and I couldn't print out the cool little activity books from Enchanted Learning. I also realized that the video clip on The History Channel would not be interesting at all. (The Halloween one was way better.) I'm thinking that we didn't do much of anything. The heat was already starting to crank up at that point and it was all I could do to get the laundry done. The good news was that I was able to save a lot of energy by drying most of it outside on the line. When it's hot here, it only takes about an hour. If I alternate drying one load on the line and the next in the dryer, I can double my laundry productivity too. You may find that trivial, but I already do a heck of a lot of laundry around here. I'm really going to need to utilize all efficiency plans once we have four kids.

Friday was the Fourth and we drove out to see some relatives in central California. ALWAYS a good time there. AuntP just finished out her final year of teaching so she passed on another box of school supplies. She taught the GATE classes so she had some really cool stuff. Now I have some really cool stuff, lol. We spent a very enjoyable and relaxing weekend there (despite the 50 barking dogs and the children who would stay up until 10 or 11 and then get up at dawn *yawn*). They have air conditioning AND a pool so the heat was not an issue at all. Until the drive home. Oh man. I was doing ok until we stopped at a rest stop about halfway home. The heat hit me like a brick to the head and I spent the rest of the drive home in total misery. I laid down as soon as we got home and instantly fell asleep for about an hour. I was just wiped.

Today, after a long night's rest, we started Camp Week! We got up bright and early and took Cameron to golf camp. Then we drove to the other side of town and dropped Cassia off at ballet camp. Thankfully, her brand new ballet slippers that have been missing for two weeks were there. One of her friends from her old class was there too, T4. They were really happy to see each other but apparently got separated during the instructional part of the day because Cassia has moved up a level and T4 is still in the old class. T4 was so upset that she apparently refused to participate! Of course, she's always been a bit of a free spirit in class anyway, marching to her own drummer rather than following those pesky directions.

But during all this, Greyson and I hit the grocery store and then came home to some laundry and some quality tv time. I have this big wish list of things that I'd like to get done this week while I'm down two children, but honestly, they're only gone from 9 - 12 and I'll probably have a more productive use of my time just resting up so that I can deal with the rest of the day! Sounds pathetic, I know, but at this point I just don't care. I wasn't going to mention this, but the heat has been giving me contractions and I just don't want to risk those going anywhere. I'm 95% sure they're "nothing" because I can always pinpoint the stressor that starts them and they not any sort of regular or progressive - just annoying and exhausting - but I'm not going to risk it either. If my body says lay on the couch sipping cranberry juice and seltzer water all day, then that's what I'm going to do.

Then we go to pick Cassie up. She was disappointed that ballet camp was so much like ballet class. I'm not sure what she expected. The did a class, then snack, story, and crafts, and then more dancing. I guess she wanted more crafts and less work. I think the parents would be up in arms though paying that much for ballet camp if there wasn't a lot of ballet involved. At least I would be. We're not doing camp for daycare purposes. We're doing it for fun and learning. Cameron LOVED golf camp. In fact, he insanely loved golf camp. The first thing he said to me was, "Next year I have to do full day camp instead of half day." The full day campers get to hang out and play 9 holes in the afternoon.

We came home and had lunch then and contemplated doing schoolwork, especially since Greyson had actually fallen asleep in between picking up Cassia and Cameron and stayed asleep when I transferred him from the car to his bed. Wahoo! But we didn't do it. The kids seemed really in need of some downtime after camp and we still had to go to gymnastics! Cameron wasn't convinced he wanted to go, but I kind of made them. That was a big mistake though because there is no a/c in the gym and it was absolutely sweltering. Ugh. Kill me. The good thing though was that most people did decide to skip it so there were only two kids in Cassia's class and only three boys in Cameron's! They practically had private lessons, lol. But that really did me in for the day and I succumbed to Food Network and Link's Crossbow Training for the rest of the day. (Thank you Meesh for the recommendation!)

It's supposed to be in the 100s all week so I don't know what, if anything, will get done but we don't have much else on the agenda for the rest of the week. I have an OB appointment tomorrow during camp time and then we have Favorite Park Day on Friday, but I think that's it for commitments. Hopefully I can manage to squeeze a day or two of school in too. Think cool thoughts for me. Maybe I'll set up the pool tomorrow. Usually that's the fastest way to get the weather to cool down, lol. Blow up the pool one day and enjoy the unseasonably cool weather the rest of the week. ;)

So much to blog, so little time

2008-07-02T21:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I've been too sleepy to blog most nights this week!! I'll try to remember what we did though...

Monday we did schoolwork nice and early so that we could get ready for a little campout with some friends. Cameron did an excellent job with phonics. Cassia did too. She's really impressing me with how she is picking it up. I think she might be more of a sight reader though because she tends to either know a word or get totally frustrated by it, so we'll see how that all works out. Math was next. Cam did some more money adding. Cassia did adding with pictures. There was one page where they had six rows of six dotted vases and you were supposed to trace some number of them and then write an accompanying addition problem. For example, if you traced one vase then you wrote 1 + 5 = 6. I remember really having to walk Cameron through that one, but she didn't even need the slightest bit of help. She can just sit down and whiz through this stuff when she wants to. Unfortunately though, that tends to mean that I expect her to do that most of the time and I can be a little short with her wanting the one-on-one attention. I've been trying to get one of them to work independently while the other gets the one-on-one but it is so hard!! And I can't really separate them either because if only one is doing schoolwork then the other is trying to play with them! For Grammar we reviewed sentence types. For History we read the Native American myth called Rabbit Shoots the Sun. It was a fun story and they seemed to enjoy it while I was reading, but the second I was done I was met with, "Are we done now?" *roll eyes* Not quite the response I was looking for. But to tell you the truth, that's pretty much the attitude I had with school for the day too. I wanted to get it over with so we could pack up our stuff for the trip!

So then we ran to the grocery store and then came home and packed up our stuff. Quite a lot of stuff actually considering that we were only going for one night and we were actually camping in a friend's backyard! They had a 12-man tent and there were going to be eleven of us in there: 4 moms, 4 girls aged 4 - 6, and 3 boys aged 2 - 6. The host girl's brother and father were out of town camping themselves so they thought it would be fun to have a girl's campout. Of course, there were some big and little brothers that had to come too but we tried to keep them from being too overwhelmed by girliness. There were a couple instances of "boys can't play this" and "stop following us!" but all in all, they behaved themselves. I'm glad that Cameron did have L4 to play with though. They kept to themselves on the Pirate Ship most of the time while the girls did crafts, played dress up and doctor, and started the Greyson Fan Club. The night ended with a flashlight hike down the wooded street and a quick dip in the hot tub. OK, it was more like a rowdy splash in the hot tub, but they were happy and clean afterward. The absolute girliest scene ever erupted just after dawn as they woke up one by one and all gravitated over to one air mattress and began a huge whispering, giggling, tickle fight. They were even tickling their stuffed animals, lol. We were all up too late and then up too early. Tuesday we had all sorts of plans for adventures, but everyone was way too tired and cranky so we just cut it short with a quick stumble down to a dry creek bed and then home around noon. We were all too tired to do anything but nap, do some laundry, and watch some tv after that, lol. Everyone slept really, really, really well in our own beds that night.

Today we all slept in. Even Greyson slept until 7:30, which is a very pleasant rarity. He didn't even have his normal 5am trip into my room to wake me up and leave me sleepless from 5 - 6 before he gets up at 6:30 or 7. He just came into my room around 1am - or was it 3am - crawled in bed and went right back to sleep. Thankfully, so did I.

We managed to get all the usual stuff done for school today. Phonics was a bit pained (funny how we seem to have every other day good and bad for phonics, but if we don't do it every day there are many more bad days than good) for Cameron and Cassia didn't even want to do it. She did do a couple pages in her "cow book" (Go For the Code) on the letter Q though. There's only one more letter left in it and then she'll be done with that whole series. She liked it but I'm not sure how truly valuable it was. A lot of it seemed to be coloring for the sake of following directions. Most of the stuff that really did seem important to me, like write the letter whose sound begins this picture, she always wanted to skip. She did like the pages where you would see a line of similar shapes and have to pick out the different ones - like find the "m"s in - n n m n m m m n m n m n n m n n n. Anyway, we did Cameron's phonics first while she did Go For the Code, and then Cameron started math (subtracting money) but then she needed some individual instruction on her phonics... it was all very back and forth and confusing. I really need to find a better way. I finally got them synchronized again for grammar/language where we reviewed the poem Monday's Child and then practiced writing dates. Wait, I take that back. They weren't synchronized at all because while I was reading FLL to them and Cassia was writing down her birthday, Cameron was busy writing math problems for me to do. LOL, he is such a nut. He kept writing down problems for me and then when I would pass them he would reward me with a higher level of problems. The final level was things like $2,000,000,000 - $100,000,000. Luckily, I passed. ;) Anyway, he would take time out of his important work of making me worksheets to do what I was asking of him. The kids also made the second pages for their Year books, drawing a picture for February and copying the second stanza of the poem, The Year. The pictures were much less involved than January's. You can barely tell what Cassia's is, but she did draw what the stanza was describing. Cameron's has nothing at all to do with February and is just a picture of him and his friend R11 playing Zelda on a big green hill. He said it just shows how lucky we are that in California February isn't rainy like it said in the poem. I think he's training to be a politician. We finished off with Science and read about ways to conserve water. We have officially finished all the reading in the MPH 4A text book. There is one or two more activities that I would like to do in the activity book and Cameron always likes to do all the stuff in the workbook, so I'm guessing we'll be done with that next week. I should really glance at the 4B book to see where that is going so maybe I can be a little prepared. LOL, as if.

Tomorrow the plan is to study the history of the 4th of July. I told them I'd find some really fun things to do for that so I had better get busy and do it. Hopefully I'll blog again tomorrow, but if not it's because I procrastinated too long, lost track of the day, and had to rush all afternoon and evening trying to finish laundry and pack for our trip out of town this weekend. So, I may "see" you tomorrow or it may not be until Monday.

Three days was the limit.

2008-06-27T19:11:00.000-07:00

LOL, looks like my 3-day streak was about all we could manage. Cameron actually said today, "Funny how we got in the habit of doing schoolwork everyday for only a few days and now we're not doing it anymore." Sometimes I think kid years are like dog years... two days of no schoolwork is a really, really long time, lol. Actually we really only skipped one day because I can't remember the last time we did schoolwork on a Friday!

But since I was mentioning my blog to some unschooling friends, let me focus on the real learning that has been going on in the past two days. :)

Thursday there was a really interesting discussion on an homeschool group that I belong to. They were discussing how to make the charter school rules and regulations work with unschooling and whether or not that was worth it. It was so interesting to see how the same situation affects different families due to their different histories and different ideals. But that's what sucked up most of my day. I just can't resist a good online conversation. :)

The kids were... gosh, I cannot remember. I know they were doing something really cool while I was involved in that conversation but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. That was another thing that came up - how blogging helps this horrific memory of mine from losing all the most important parts of our lives... the little details that mean so much to me (and probably bore the rest of you to death, lol). I do know that we went to the post office, Trader Joe's, and then the library. The main point of going to the library this week, besides returning those overdue Greek books, was for Cameron to browse through the kids' magazines. We've decided that once he finishes his phonics book that we will drop all formal reading, phonics, and spelling if he agrees to read for 15 minutes a day. Knowing him as well as I do, I know that he will agree but never comply if it is books that he has to read. Several people have suggested magazines because the clumps of words are so much less intimidating and the topics are meant to grab your attention right away. So we agreed to get him a magazine subscription of his choice for reading material. The library didn't have the best selection of magazines but he was able to look through National Geographic for Kids, Sports Illustrated Kids, Ranger Rick, and a few others that he wouldn't even open (Cricket, Family Fun, etc). I think we've decided on the NatGeo. He actually picked the SI first, but when I looked at it I realized he would never actually read it. It was aimed at a much higher age range/reading level. So, fingers crossed that that works and doesn't just become more clutter laying around the house.

Once we were at home, I was just beat. Life has been kicking my butt the last few days so I just kind of crashed on the couch in front of the tv. I watched my Days of Our Lives while the big kids rode scooters out back and Grey napped. That hour just wasn't enough for me to recuperate though so I flipped on Deadliest Catch. That isn't something that I normally watch while they're awake (neither is Days but they have just about zero interest in it so I can pretty much guarantee that they'll leave the room) but I just couldn't convince myself to do anything else but sit there so I figured it would be a harmless enough show. I don't know what it was about that show but they were drawn in instantly! Within minutes they were both sitting next to me, open mouthed and begging to know what was going on. It was a really dramatic episode and they were both sitting on the edge of their seats watching. LOL, who would've known! I finally dragged myself off the couch afterward to start dinner and they both ran outside to their scooters. Suddenly I hear...

"How many crab did you catch?"
"I caught twenty hundred dozen. How many did you catch?"
"Oh, I caught a million pounds! My ship is called the American Sword Swinger. What's yours?"
"Mine is the Olympia I. Oh look, there's more crab!"

A few minutes later they pulled their crab boats (aka scooters) off to the side yard to offload their crab and then went right back out to catch more. I think there was a big storm too. LOL. Do you think public school kids play Deadliest Catch or is that strictly a joy reserved for homeschoolers? My guess is that public school kids would be more likely to imitate the bad language and poor familial relations than the actual fishing. ;) But I may be prejudiced.

After dinner, me again exhausted from the effort, I flipped on Animal Cops and we all enjoyed an hour of kitty rescues. Unfortunately, Cameron woke up later in the night saying that he kept dreaming of all those poor cats! Of all the shows to give nightmares, I never would have predicted it would be Animal Cops. It wasn't even an episode with any abuse in it. It was mostly cats stuck up in trees or down drain pipes. I guess those simple, daily dangers were too accessible to his poor little subconscious.

Friday was Favorite Park Day. We were supposed to get there a little earlier than usual because just about everyone who was going to be there was had to leave early. I planned to leave at 11:30 and get there at noon. Of course that meant that we didn't get into the car until 12:15, lol. It was one of those mornings where nothing seemed to go right and everyone was getting hurt from stupid things. (C&C hooked a leash up to Greyson's shirt to play doggie but then were too rough and yanked him over, flat on his back on the kitchen floor. Cassia was climbing through a folding chair (don't ask me why) which collapsed on her giving her a big bump on her head. Cameron ran full speed into a corner.) Finally we got everything together to go, but THEN... click, click, click. Dead battery. *sigh* The second one in about 3 or 4 months. I actually debated whether or not I should call AAA for a minute or two. Missing the park day that we had been looking forward to all week after having been kept inside by all that smoky air seemed like a perfect natural consequence for them messing around with the lights in the car AGAIN. But I wanted to get out of the house as much as they did, so I called. Good thing too because the guy, Triple A (as Cassia named him), decided to test the battery's charge and found it to be on it's last leg. The charge was down to 9 volts from the full 12.6, which isn't too horribly bad, but there was this other number that was supposed to be 550 that was only 56. He said that even if he charged it up to it's full 12 volts that it wouldn't hold the charge very long and we'd likely be calling him back in a couple weeks. So, I guess it wasn't the kids afterall and I'm glad I called.

Amazingly, after all that, we finally made it to the park by 1:30. There were three families there and they all had to leave by 3:00!! An hour and a half at the park may seem like a long time to most people, but for us, Favorite Park Day is an all day affair. We were planning on 3 hours and even that would've felt short. At about 2:45 another family showed up so that gave us an excuse to hang out a little longer - and I am so glad we did! The little boy from this family is generally very shy and rarely interacts with the big group games that usually happen there. Usually, if he interacts with anyone at all, it is with Greyson. The two of them have really hit it off for some reason. I think it's because they both speak to each other with an unspoken language, you know? I had always assumed this boy, F, was about 5 but I found out today that he's only a few months younger than Cameron! He was a completely different child today. He was outgoing and combative (have to be around my two!) and he and Cameron and Cassia had the BEST time. After more than a year of playing with this boy, we finally feel like we know him.

The best game of the day was Sea Turtle. Cassia dug a big hole in the sandbox and announced that she was going to lay her eggs there. I could not help laughing very loudly when she lifted her skirt and squatted over the hole. ROFL. She sat there for a while laying them and then hopped off and carefully covered them with sand. Next F and Greyson swooped in like predatory dogs and started trying to eat her eggs, lol. She started to get mad and take it very personally but I reminded her that that's why sea turtles lay so many eggs and so then it became a great game to see how many they could steal from her. The funniest part of the whole game was probably the very beginning when she announced that she was a jaguar laying her eggs in the sand! So, yeah, there was science. All through the game each of the kids took pride in spouting off different facts that they had picked up about jaguars, sea turtles, and predators. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the whole thing. :)

By the time we left, F was truly a friend rather than just a long-time acquaintance. Cassia didn't want to leave so I asked F if he'd like a new sister. ;) He seriously thought about it for a minute and after telling us that his mother couldn't give him a sister because she was too old, lol, he agreed to take Cassia. LOL, I think he happily would have too. She looked a bit shocked though. After a few minutes of talking, F decided to just invite us all over for a sleepover instead! It cracks me up how often these kids suggest sleepovers. It's always the entire family too. What a riot that would be - I think they live in a communal living complex (aka very small place).

I know I'm forgetting something very, very cool and very significant that Greyson did recently but I cannot remember what it was. Something to do with how incredibly brilliant he is for his age. ;) Just know that he is a boy genius and that will be fine. Oh and just for fun, here is Cassia's PicMe page from Sprout Online. Make sure you watch the video - it's just too cute.

Yawn!

2008-06-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

While I was crammed in between two snoring beauties, Cassia started coughing at around 4am. It was a nasty, congested, barking, wheezing, popping cough and it sounded like it really hurt. And it didn't let up once it started. She didn't even really wake up, she just coughed continually in her sleep for like an hour. I finally gave her some cough medicine and that kicked in after about 45-minutes, letting her slide back into a restful sleep once again. About half an hour later Greyson woke up with Mr. Sun and that was the end of my restful sleep. *yawn* I didn't lose that much sleep, but it's hit me hard today and I've had a hard time waking up and getting motivated for anything.

So I canceled our pool date and spent a slow morning at home. I'm not even sure where the majority of it went. I guess I was reading, both online stuff and homeschool magazines. The kids were watching Elmo in Grouchland - for Greyson, of course. (I won't mention who wandered outside to play after about ten or fifteen minutes of it and who was glued to the tv for the entire thing, lol.)

Finally, around 2:00, I decided that we had better get school started with and put Greyson down to nap. Cameron was not into phonics at all. It was only a one page lesson on words beginning with x and ps but I had to feed him practically every word on the page. It is so pointless to do phonics when he doesn't feel like it. I can guarantee that we could do the exact same lesson again tomorrow and he wouldn't be able to read a word of it - but he would definitely remember that we already did it. Oh well. At this point, I just want to finish the book and so does he. Not the best attitude, but it's ours and we're keeping it. ;) Cassia did pretty well with phonics. She was able to read every single one of the review words first try without any prompting, but then had a bit of trouble with the new ones and then in the sentences where they were mixing them up. She also keeps reading "the" as "ted" and "hen" as "the". Typing them out, I can see where the confusion is coming from - too many similarly shaped letters.

Next was grammar/language and we read a poem about the months of the year. The book then told us to make a booklet out of the poem with a new page for each stanza. I thought it was a dumb idea and didn't really think they would want to do it, lol, but I suggested it anyway and they jumped all over it! They're always surprising me like that. I pulled out the story paper and had them each draw a picture for January and then copy the January stanza below it. They made some really cute pictures. Cameron did a great job copying the verse, but Cassia only did the title and then asked me to write the verse for her. Considering that this is a second grade language book, I figured that that was a reasonable request.

Next should've been math but Cameron claimed that his hand was too tired after all that drawing and writing and that he needed a break first. I should have given him a writing break by doing science next and saving math for last, but I decided to go ahead and let him have a playing break. I had started reading a magazine article while they were working on their pictures anyway so I said they could have a break until I finished the article. Unfortunately, they went into the bedroom to get swords and shields and woke Greyson up. Grrrrr. Eventually I did finish my article and I did get Cameron back for math but we had to do it with a tired boy laying on my lap, but unwilling to go back to sleep. He eventually ran off with Cassia to go play somewhere (so she never got her math done) and while Cameron worked in his workbook, I took my nap. LOL, it was only about ten or fifteen minutes long but it was worth it.

Finally we did science (they had to wake me up though and tell me that we *had* to do it even though I wanted to keep sleeping, lol) and read half a chapter on water pollution. There was a picture of the Singapore River in 1977 and all I can say is Ewww!! There were also some nasty pictures from the Exxon Valdez spill and my little environmentalists were sufficiently horrified. One of the accompanying activities in the Activity Book was to go to a local source of water and rate it for pollution. It was too late in the afternoon to do it today, but tomorrow I'd like to make a point to do that. We have a little creek a couple blocks away from our house and it's a favorite teen hangout. It's not too badly polluted since there is wildlife galore still living there, but there are enough beer bottles that it will make a good subject to study. In fact, I think I'll pack a trash bag so we can do a little good deed while we're there.

So there ya go. Three days in row! Even when I didn't want to, lol. And guess what, they're not saying "no" to me when I ask them to clean up either. Now I just need to stop procrastinating with the other stuff I need to get done too. I did reschedule two doctor's appointments today, so that's progress.

Freedom!

2008-06-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's so nice to have the freedom of a loose schedule. It's a very light week with practically nothing on the calendar at all so when I emerged from the shower this morning to find Greyson at the coffee table surrounded by a pair of scissors and four peeled and slightly mashed bananas and two other children sitting right next to him, brainlessly staring at the television as if they had no concept of what was going on around them (though one did have a banana in his mouth), I had no problem shutting off the tv, throwing a minor fit, and demanding that no one was doing anything until the entire house was sparkling and everyone started taking a little bit of responsibility for their actions and the world around them. Phew! So, the sheets got changed, the toys got picked up, and the entire house got straightened in record time. I think I made an impression. ;)

A spontaneous gymnastics competition broke out in the living room after that. Greyson started it by laying over the coffee table and doing a half-headstand. That prompted the other two to try doing their own head or handstands around the room, which led to cartwheels, which led to Greyson doing his first solo forward rolls, which led to Cameron doing his first perfect forward roll with an elevator up (aka standing up right after the roll without putting his hands down or crossing his legs). They were having fun and they were exercising so I announced that school would begin in 15 minutes. Unfortunately, things deteriorated into some strange and loud game of dogpile/horsey and I had to call things to a halt before someone got really hurt. It always amazes me how quickly things go from fun to insane.

School had actually started earlier in the morning. For some reason Cameron didn't wake up until after 9:00 and Cassia, eager to finish the last few pages in her math book, wanted to do her math before he woke up. She finished up a page on identifying one quarter versus one of four different sized pieces of a shape and then she moved on to the last section which was an introduction to adding using a number line. The new book picked up right at that point and she did another page or two there before Cameron woke up. He, inspired by the math in the air, decided to play some Timez Attack and worked on his 4 and 5 times tables. That was all before the shower and the banana incident.

Once the chaos had again subsided, Cameron did a three-page lesson in phonics on more common prefixes like un, en, uni, bi, and tri. He read exceptionally well. Stellar, in fact. But it did take a long time and Greyson was being Greyson and landed himself in both a time out and a nap during that lesson. Things were much easier then, lol. Next was grammar where we reviewed linking verbs and identified the ones that had occurred in the story of the Camel's Nose. It ended with a pretty fun game where we cut up the sentences from said story into subject, linking verb, and description parts and rearranged them to make funny sentences. My favorite was, "My nose is not big enough for the two of us." LOL.

Both kids quickly reminded me that they had already done math and so we then moved on to history. We read about the ancient peoples of the Americas, specifically the Nazca and their mysterious drawings

and the Olmec and their giant heads.

We looked at the locations of both on our wall (floor, lol) map and on Google Earth and then looked at more pictures on Wikipedia. It felt like a good little explore on the subject. I was happy and they were reasonably interested.

It was a good day, yet again, and despite the bananas we ended up with all our work done and a clean house. We even went and picked up a big box full of local, sustainably farmed meat from our new meat CSA. We got lots of steaks and chops in beef, pork, and lamb varieties. We may have only gotten 2 each of the steaks and chops but they are HUGE (at least a pound each) and should easily feed our little family, especially since Cassia won't touch a piece of meat unless it is covered in sugar, lol. Now I just need to be a good girl and plan out some menus so that I actually remember to defrost and use this local, natural goodness over the next month and don't keep running to the store for something to make at the last minute.

First Day of the 2008-09 School Year!

2008-06-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

And we survived!! I forgot to hype it up to everyone last night, lol, but still Cassia and Greyson managed to start the day with an exceptionally educational activity. They played with the Lentil Science kit for quite a long time while I was shaking off the morning cobwebs. Granted, their lessons were more about sharing than about science or math, but it was good tactile fun. Cameron even joined in for a little while.

As Shadowlight Academy tradition dictates, we started the new school year off with a couple sentences of copywork.

"My name is Cameron Bermxxxxx. I am now in the second grade."
~and~
"My name is Cassia. I am in Kindergarten."

Cassia was more excited to start it than Cameron was, but he was more enthusiastic about getting it perfect than she was. In fact, his second try practically was perfect where as hers was actually a bit worse - though the inclusion of spaces helped a great deal in the legibility. ;)

Meanwhile I spent a long time vacuuming lentils off the carpet.

Next was Phonics. Cassia chose to go first and really, really did a great job reading. She wasn't just guessing or parroting me. She was reading. :) You go, Girl! Cameron started out well but faded about a third of the way through the lesson and just started making up random words instead of reading. I hate when he does that. I gave him a "pep talk" though and he perked up for the last third of the lesson.

Grammar/Language was reading a fable called The Camel's Nose. In the story, a camel talked his way into his rider's tent and then tricked him out to sleep in the cold. The kids did a decent job of narrating it back to me, working together to give important plot points. That's at least as useful as narrating it back individually, right? I'm thinking that rather than floundering with trying to remember the important points, the play off each other's ideas has got to be more fruitful. It's easier for me for them to work together, at any rate. ;) There was also a "discussion" section in the book which talked about the camel being like a bad habit that has pushed itself into your life which I thought was pretty good but then it went on to compare it to bad friends and how you should only surround yourself with worthwhile companions. That was kind of weird to me, I thought. I've been trying to get them to be accepting to everyone and to model good behavior instead of shunning people for whatever reason - but discussion of alternatives is always good too.

Next was math and again they chose Cassia to go first. She did a lesson on the concept of halves and quarters. The activities were so fun that Cameron wanted to get in on them too! So we spent a bunch of time making and coloring half and quarter shapes that would fold out to full shapes to demonstrate the equal proportion of the sections. I really love the way the Earlybird Math shows concepts like this. I just noticed today that they have discontinued the series in favor of one that is "in compliance with the California State Standards." Eeek. Um, no thanks. I really don't want my Kindergartener being drilled in addition and subtraction in preparation for standardized testing like the state seems to want. That's WHY we homeschool. I like Singapore because it is different. It's a different way to look at math and I'm afraid to see how that has had to be tweaked to be in compliance with the standards. Hopefully I'm just overreacting. I guess we'll see in a couple years when Greyson is ready for it. Maybe I'll just scan in C&C's old books and Photoshop out the answers, lol.

And then suddenly I noticed that it was time for gymnastics and we were going to be late again! Amazingly, we were the first ones there though and Cassia had private lessons for a few minutes, lol. Eventually four more kids trickled in. Don't you just love the lazy schedules of summer? Nothing too spectacular happened during Cameron's class except that they were working on dive rolls. He loves those.

We hit the grocery store on the way home but Greyson was sound asleep so I had to carry him through the store while Cameron pushed the cart. Wow, were my arms tired. Unfortunately, he woke up while we were checking out and had a screaming writhing fit in my arms. Yikes. Fortunately, he calmed down in the car and after a quick trip to the potty, decided to resume his nap once we were home. Then it was finally time for Cameron's math and he did a lesson on adding money. He did fabulously. He didn't make a single mistake in the entire practice section or exercise.

Now both kids are playing video games. It's so much more complicated now that she's wanting to play too! We had a minor setback when they both wanted to play (her Boom Blocks, him Legend of Zelda) and there wasn't enough time before dinner and bed for them to both have their hour, but they worked it out and decided to play Mario Galaxy with two players for one hour. Hopefully these boys we know, M & S, won't tell them that they have their mom convinced that they should get double time when they play a two player game. ;) LOL.

And that was our first day. Nothing stellar, but it was good. We didn't do history or science. I have science slated for twice a week and history for 3 or 4 times a week in our schedule. I want to ease back in without feeling behind when it just doesn't happen... but I also want to hold myself a little more responsible for getting things done when it can happen. I think scheduling and allowing for a day off here and there will help that. Besides, I haven't looked at our history books in at least two weeks so I would have no clue what I wanted to do anyway, lol. Hopefully, I'll motivate myself to glance at the Activity Guide tonight and possibly print some stuff out.

Time to get dinner on the table. Have a good evening everyone. :)

What a week!

2008-06-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

Boy, was I right to call Summer Break for this week! There is no way we would have ever found time to do any school this week so it was nice to just be able not even worry about it.

DH and Cameron left to go do some fence building for Uncle D last Friday so Cassia, Greyson and I went to Favorite Park Day by ourselves. It was a good day and I was glad we went and was also glad to see how many kids commented on Cameron's absence. It's always good to be missed.

Saturday, the three of us went first to the local dance shop and bought Cassia her new leotard for the next class level and some new ballet slippers because I could barely squeeze her old ones on her little (big!) feet. Next we went to a birthday party and had a lovely time. They had a gymnastics course set up and a little bounce house and both of the kids had a great time. After sandwiches, cake, and foam purse decorating we headed off to the ballet dress rehearsal. I was hoping to stay and catch a glimpse but they kicked us all out and said come back in 2 hours. Hmph.

Sunday Cassia and Greyson painted a birdhouse house for their Daddy for Father's Day. They had a great time doing it and it is the brightest, most beautiful birdhouse any bird has ever seen. The boys made it back to us by dinnertime so we were able to celebrate the day a bit with presents and DH's favorite dinner.

Monday wasn't anything special except gymnastics. I remember wondering whether or not I shouldn't have have tried to do some schoolwork, but I had already told Cameron that there wouldn't be any. I had thought that MIL would be here and we would be busy either entertaining her or getting ready for her arrival but she ended up canceling at the last minute. It was fine though because that was the only day we would've had time so it was nice to just have a day to do whatever struck our fancy (which wasn't much, lol).

Tuesday I started the day with an OB appointment. Nothing exciting there, which is a good thing. Everything is measuring just fine and I found out that I passed the 3-hr glucose test with flying colors: no gestational diabetes for me! Phew! The rest of the afternoon was spent doing housework until it was time to get ready for The Big Ballet Show. OMG, I have never seen anything cuter. Seriously. If the little two-year-olds in their little tutus either standing there like deer in the headlights or dancing to their own tunes were not cute enough (and they were cute), imagine Cassia being a little Prima Ballerina on stage. Her class was the only one to perform onstage without their teacher and every one of them looked to my little Princess to lead them. She was more than happy to oblige, lol. It was so funny, the director of the ballet school got up first and gave this big speech about how they were so very young and it was the first time on stage for many of them so not to be surprised or disappointed if they froze or needed to be held by their teacher, lol. Um, not My Baby Girl. She looked as is she owned that stage. She told me before the show that she was disappointed that she had to go out with the whole class - she wanted to be up there alone performing for the masses. LOL. What a girl. We have video. Hopefully it will come off the camera and go onto the computer this weekend.

Wednesday we met our Favorite Park Day friends at a different local park to go hiking. It was really fun to interact with the same old people in a totally different environment. We spent all day there and came home tired and dirty. That always makes for a good day.

Thursday morning was the last ballet class of the spring session. Cassia and T4 were the only two girls who showed up - I guess everyone else forgot there was one last class after the show! The teacher was even nice enough to let us stand in the doorway and watch. Greyson is so enamored with ballerinas. He just loves to watch them dance. He was enthralled with the show too. He just sat and watched with huge eyes and clapped enthusiastically after every number. We hit the grocery store on the way home and then came home and spent the next hour or so perfecting my Cheddar-Apple Puff recipe for the Daily Cheese Contest at the fair. With cheesy hors d'ouerves in hand, we made our way to fair late in the afternoon and stayed there until after 8pm. The kids had a great time and my puffs won first prize in the adult category. I'm glad I decided to just take them on my own instead of trying to convince DH to go too. He hates stuff like that and spends the entire time stressed out and wanting to leave. It's much nicer when we can just go and enjoy ourselves without worrying about what a bad time he's having, lol. He was much happier that way too.

So that brings us to today, Friday. If it hadn't been Favorite Park Day, I would've just stayed home because I was worn out from all the special stuff all week and desperately behind on laundry, but I just can't miss Favorite Park Day. It was hot out there (in the 100s) but it was fun. Greyson, who had a less than ideal time at the fair because he just wasn't big enough to do the really fun stuff, especially enjoyed being back in his element - the sandbox.

Next week promises to be much less exciting. We have no plans this weekend - for the first time in I can't remember how long - and ballet is on break for two weeks. The Summer Solstice is on Saturday so that means that the Summer Quarter and our new school year will start on Monday. It will be a good thing to have a slow week to ring that in... if only we will be able to stay cool enough for things to be tolerable around the house. We might just have to have school in the pool, lol.

I think we're on Summer Break.

2008-06-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

We must be on summer break. Not only have we not done any bookwork all week, I haven't even suggested it. No, I take that back. I suggested it Tuesday morning and was told, maybe later, which turned into never. I didn't bother suggesting it yesterday or today because it is just too darn hot and I don't feel like it. So there. It's Summer Break. What solidified my decision was driving past the local elementary school today and seeing that the first day of school will be August 20th. First of all, that means they're on Summer Break now and secondly, wow, doesn't that seem quick? That's only two months away. This week has been busy anyway and next week is Cassia's ballet recital, her last ballet class until July, and the county fair. I doubt we'll be getting anything done. So two weeks of vacation is declared, after which our Summer Quarter will officially start. (Please ignore the fact that I never got around to updating anything in the Nuts & Bolts section about our Winter Quarter.)

Back to this week, Tuesday was the big 4-H end-of-year party at the super cool local pool with the water slide, mushroom shower, and dumping buckets. That was *so* fun. I just love that pool. Not only are there fun toys there but a good third of the pool - a completely separate section - is only about three feet deep and there are tons of lifeguards so I feel perfectly confident in letting my non-to-weak-swimmers swim and play. Cameron and Cassia both are great about trying to learn to swim without breaking any safety or comfort barriers. We just don't go to the pool enough (at least we hadn't before this year, lol) to justify swim lessons just yet, so I'm happy to let them figure it out on their own. Greyson was a little fish. He would scoot back and forth all along the stairs (about a 4-ft length) over and over, propelling himself with his hands and kicking his feet. He would sit on the second step and splash and play. He even sat on the third step once, completely submerging himself, and came up with a huge grin and laugh. The friends were great too. I got to talk to a couple moms that I don't usually get to spend time with and we even ran into a mom and daughter from Favorite Park Day. We agreed that we'd like to schedule a couple "park" meetings at the pool this summer too.

Wednesday we had no plans but it was just so stinkin' hot that we didn't do a darn thing. The weather is really wiping me out. My ankles are gone. My wrists are disappearing. I have less than zero energy. I've been catching up on episodes of California's Gold. Oh the kids did do something very educational Wednesday morning though. Cassia asked if she could play "the map game" (aka Seterra) and she and Cameron spent about two or three hours playing the different geography games on there. Cameron even got in some reading practice trying to read all the country, state, and capital names. :) They followed that up with a Zoboomafoo marathon. Geography - check. Reading - check. Science - check. Good enough for me (the question is will it be good enough for DH to not give me a hard time about taking yet another break?) We also made a cherry pie with cherries from our neighbor's tree. Too bad there isn't enough left to give him some. ;)

Thursday was pretty much the same without the educational game or cooking. We did go to ballet class. Greyson loved standing at the door and watching Cassia until the teacher had to shut the door. I loved it too. ;) We hit the grocery store on the way home and the rest of the day was just spent trying to keep cool. I wanted to set up the wading pool, but I just didn't have the energy. I'll have DH do it tomorrow.

I have my 3-hr glucose tolerance test tomorrow morning. Oh joy. Wish me luck. After that DH and Cameron are going off to BIL's house for the weekend to build a fence. I'm anticipating that they'll leave pretty soon after I get back and then Cassia and Greyson and I will probably go to Favorite Park Day. The rest of the weekend we should spend cleaning since MIL and possibly Great-AuntP and maybe even cousins M8 and H5 are coming to see Cassia's ballet recital on Tuesday. We'll see what we really end up doing. My guess is that it will involve tv and a wading pool - but not necessarily at the same time. ;)

It was the best of times...

2008-06-09T20:53:00.001-07:00

it was the worst of times. Today was a really crappy day, actually. Literally and figuratively. It started with realizing that we will be unavoidably out of town the weekend I wanted to have the kids' birthday party which means we will have to have separate ones instead of the traditional combo. Then I got a phone call informing me that I failed the one-hour glucose screen and now I have to take the three hour test and quite possibly have gestational diabetes. Fun. Then I was in my bedroom folding laundry and Cameron comes to tell me that Greyson had an accident. I come out to find him sitting on the carpet taking off his poopy underwear in the dining room. Poop everywhere. Thank god for brown carpet. Not two minutes later, when I've barely only started to get a handle on the ridiculous mess that is Greyson legs, Cameron comes into the bathroom dripping blood all over - badly stubbed toe. Shall I go on?? I'd rather not. Let's just backtrack to the good days...

Friday was the best day EVER. We spent the late morning and early afternoon at the beach with our Favorite Park Day friends. The weather was nice, though a little windy, and the attitudes were all happy. The kids dug holes, jumped in the (had to have been below freezing) surf, ate sand covered fruits, nuts, and sandwiches. The adults talked and took turns escorting kids to the shoreline, bathroom, and various digging or exploring spots. All in all, a good beach day. From there we drove all the way across the county to the birthday party of one of our first homeschooling friends. I loved being able to think back to all the other parties we've been to there... I think this is our third! S was just turning 5 when we first met him. Five seemed so old at the time too since my boy was still going to be four for another two months. Such a difference between four and five! And now Cassia is going to be 5 in another month. Anyway, the best part was that it was a small intimate party and even though we seem to rarely connect with this family anymore, we were already friends with all the guests. Funny how you can be apart from a person for a while and then come back together to see that you've really been doing the same things, just different ways. I doubt that makes much sense, but I just find it funny that we've chosen different activities which have left us both too busy for time with each other, yet we've still connected with the exact same group of people. I left there feeling very full of friendship and very grateful for those relationships.

Saturday we started the day with another birthday party. This one was for the daughter of our first friends in this area. The mother used to babysit Cameron when he was a toddler and we went through our daughter's pregnancies together. But there I didn't feel the love and friendship that was so overwhelming the day before. We've been to birthday parties for various members of this family for six or seven years now and I knew all the little girls that usually frequented the daughter's parties. But this year was different. It was her fifth birthday and she's been going to preschool. She's matured a bit faster than Cassia has. She didn't want the old friends that have been at her last 4 parties there, she wanted her new school friends. She also insisted on a Hannah Montana party (though she doesn't really even know who she is) and the goody bags were full of lip gloss and body glitter. Cassia asked, after seeing the stuffed cow, tractor stickers, and rubber ball in Greyson's John Deere goody bag, why he's the only one who got fun stuff. Apparently, even with as super-pink girly as she tries to be, I have successfully shielded her from all that public school, growing-up-too-fast weirdness (for now). Phew!

From there we went to the 4-H Family Night Celebration. Now that was a lot of fun! The rainbow decorations that Cameron and the two five-year olds on the decorating committee picked out looked fabulously festive and several people commented how they'd never had better decor. :) Five and six year olds know how to party. The potluck was delish, though a bit cheese heavy for Greyson's system, and I was proud to bring home an empty bowl of Lemon-Quinoa salad. The presentations included skits this year and that really livened things up a bit. It made for a really enjoyable evening instead of just having to sit through a bunch of dry tri-fold presentations. Cameron recited the poem Mr. Nobody and he did it perfectly. I was teary eyed, I was so proud. :D There might be a video out there somewhere of him and if I can get my hands on it I will let you know. The silent auction has some amazing offerings this year (like a 1979 bottle of wine!) and made a record $577.45!! We were all spurred on to spend in the hope that this would eradicate our need for an additional fundraiser next year (like cookie dough or wrapping paper). We more than doubled what we took in last year at the auction so that may indeed have done it! WooHoo!!

Sunday was the final birthday party of the weekend and it was for one of the boys who was at the first party on Friday. So it was basically the same people again, lol. It was a nice time - even though it was at Chuck E. Cheese. The invitation said bring earplugs and Tylenol. LOL. Greyson especially had a BLAST. He was just zooming around plugging tokens into anything and everything. He rode every car thing there at least five times and that's no exaggeration. He also managed to make it to the bathroom to pee three times at Chuck E. Cheese!! And then when we got home, he woke up from his nap to pee!! It was an amazing potty day. I don't think he had a single accident. Much different from today when I don't think he made it once. Funny how that happens.

So there's the last four days in a very large nutshell. Oh one good thing did happen today - actually two good things: Cameron and Cassia both got six stars on their Star Day testing at gymnastics! Coincidentally, that meant that they both moved up to Level 4. Cameron is now a Level 4 Roller (the last level before moving up to be a Twister) and Cassia a now a Level 4 Shooting Star (I forget what her next grouping is called though). The really cool thing is that Cassia actually aced six of six skills today. She was *so* proud of herself. Big difference from the apathetic little thing who would barely participate in class a few weeks ago. Time for tv now... if I can stay awake, that is.

Art Day

2008-06-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

I started to write this earlier, but found myself utterly not in the mood! Can you imagine?? I frequently find myself without the time to blog, but rarely without the words. But I'm better now. No need to fear.

Wednesday was spent doing the thing we like best... nothing. ;) The day just disappeared somehow. We did manage to get up early and head out to a semi-local farmer's market. The stuff there was gorgeous and I spent a fortune (so much for saving money, lol) but to go 15 miles away for it seemed a little extreme when gas is $4.43 a gallon. We have one in our town but it is on Saturday afternoon and we are usually doing something or exhausted from having just done something. I think they start up a second one on Wednesday nights in late-June, but I don't know that I'd be able to motivate myself to get everyone out of the house for that one either. But it could be a nice walk... a nice looonnnnggggg walk. (It's on the complete other side of town.) And that would solve the parking problem (nothing but very limited street parking).

After that, the kids played. Cassia and I read a chapter or two of Charlotte's Web. I got it for her to try and get her over her crazy fear of spiders. She literally shuddered when I told her it was about a spider named Charlotte, but she is really enjoying listening to it. Wilbur is so darn cute, how can you not? I really can't remember what else was done... laundry maybe?

Once Grey went to sleep we did schoolwork. Phonics was a couple of pages of common word endings like "ible" and "able" and such. Cameron did great until he saw the second page and then he was whining and complaining and rolling around on the couch in protest. I showed him how close we were to the end of the book though and he perked up a bit. I gave him the choice of doing one lesson each time and finishing in thirteen more sessions or just doing one page at a time and finishing in about twenty. Suddenly his attitude perked up and he was more than happy to finish out the entire lesson. Grammar was a game demonstrating linking verbs. We had subject cards, descriptive cards, and linking cards and made silly sentences like "Mommy was ferocious." I especially liked that one. ;) Math was adding money. For history we read Archimedes Takes a Bath. I'm glad I decided to just go for it and read the book (and the whole thing in one sitting too) because it was a really fun story. Cameron sat next to me and drew the whole time so he was happy to sit still and listen.

Today, Thursday, started with ballet. Well, actually it started with me making everyone clean the mess that no one bothered to pick up the day before. Then ballet. Then grocery store. Then toy store. Then home by 12:30 which seemed pretty impressive since we actually got everything done that we needed to. I was pretty tired after all that so I ate lunch in front of the tv... and fell asleep, lol. The kids were being super loud playing this LEGO adventure game (Something about a 43 yr old man and his 12 yr old son and the son kept wanting to go camping but the father said he couldn't until he properly learned how to use his sword and shield. Finally the father was satisfied and they took their horses and their camping blocks (?) and went camping... on the kitchen counter where they still are. Must be a long camp out.) and all I remember was one minute I was watching Dirty Jobs, the next I was listening to this LEGO adventure, and then the LEGO guys kept saying, "Mommy! Mommy! MOMMY!!!" and I was wondering when they brought the mother character into the game when I suddenly woke up. Cameron said, "Mommy, you fell asleep!" like that was a bad thing or something. ;) You know, if one of them had fallen asleep on the couch I would do everything in my power to keep everyone else quiet and I would certainly NOT start yelling, "Cameron! Cameron, you fell asleep!" LOL. Ah, perspective.

A little bit later Cameron announced that he wanted to paint so I got out the stuff and set he and Cassia up in the backyard. Cameron painted Link from Legend of Zelda. LOL, big surprise there. Cassia told Cameron that she was painting Africa. I'll have to take his word on that one. Once they were dry the kids announced that they were going to go hang them up and took off with the Scotch tape. Then they dragged me, eyes closed, into my bedroom and showed me where they had hung them. My bed is now framed with lovely poster-paint-on-butcher-paper masterpieces. I like them. :)

Next we got to work on our decorations for the 4-H Family Night potluck on Saturday. We were in charge of making paper chains for two 12-ft tables. I had actually been kind of putting that off all week but once we sat down to do it, it was so fun! The kids really had a great time making them and since we needed two it, of course, turned into a big competition to see who could make the longest one first. We got our twenty-five feet of chain done in record time.

We have a CRAZY weekend ahead of us. Tomorrow we are going to the beach to meet our friends from Favorite Park Day. We are leaving the beach a tad early and then going to a birthday party clear on the other side of the county. The plan is that we clean up there (brrrr, beach showers) and then they will fall asleep on the drive and be nice and rested for the party. What will probably happen is that they will fall asleep about 5 minutes from the party and then be cranky the entire time. ;) Saturday we have another birthday party from 1 - 4 and then we have to be at the 4-H center by 4:15 to decorate for Family Night. That lasts until about 9pm. Looonnnggg day there. Note to self: pack pajamas to change the kids into before we drive home. And then Sunday we have yet another birthday party to go to. I should just get some insulin ready for them now. ;) We have another one next Saturday too. I should seriously make a "no sweets" rule for the month in between that last party and Cassia's birthday in July. Not that we really eat that many sweets anyway (well, ok, I do but they don't) but they are not going to need any extra ice cream or sorbet or fruit juice pops or anything. Nice mom, huh, ruin summer for them. ;)

Annnyyywwaaayyyy..... have a nice weekend everyone. Think "sane kids" thoughts for me. ;)

What a difference a week makes.

2008-06-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

This week is going MUCH better than last week. We're two for two on schoolwork. We're two for two on morning chores... though we seem to lose steam for the afternoon and evening chores. Laundry is caught up. Living room is not so bad. Kitchen, well, once I get the dinner dishes cleaned up it will be looking fine. Potty training is going great - only one pair of underpants used today! And... we still have the rest of the week pretty free!

Yesterday, Monday, I started the day with the lovely one hour glucose tolerance test. Oh, joy. I actually hope I pass because the orange drink seemed to hit me much more than in the past. I felt really funky, like I drank a whole pot of coffee; the world seemed a bit glossier and I could not stop tapping my foot. Weird. I never noticed any of that with any of my other pregnancies but I don't think I was avoiding high fructose corn syrup as religiously as I do now either. I used to drink the occasional Coke, meaning two to four a week, and now I have one maybe once a month, if that. I even quit drinking natural sodas made with cane sugar because the sweetness just started getting to me. My favorite drink lately is half juice and half Italian sparkling water. Mmmmm. Cran-raspberry is my favorite, but cherry juice is really good in it too. Oooh, I bet pineapple juice would be fab too. I'll have to see if I can find me some of that. (LOL at the power of suggestion. Just typing that made it necessary for me to go make myself one.)

I went for my lab work first thing in the morning and almost as soon as I got home, Cameron was asking to do school. He was very aware of how procrastination led to ZERO video games last week. He was determined not to let the same thing happen this week, lol. I guess it was a bad week for everyone. The problem was that Greyson was still awake and very rambunctious. Ugh. He and Cassia were playing with these ancient (as in from DH's childhood) letter toys. They're really cute. There are 24 little plastic things and their first letter clicks into the back. Well Cassia and Grey were pretending that they were food items and put all the letters into a bowl for alphabet soup, lol, and the other things were other foodstuff. Very cute and very creative but they both insisted on serving us while Cameron was trying to read or do math or listen to a story. I mean, they wouldn't stop! Well, Cassia finally did once I snapped at her a few times, but Grey would just keep dumping it in our laps and yelling "Eat! Eat!" I finally said that in the future we would just have to wait until Greyson was asleep to do schoolwork, even if it meant that video games had to be put off until late afternoon or evening. The interruptions were so bad that even Cameron agreed that that was a good idea. Somehow, we managed to do a phonics lesson on the "tion" and "sion" endings, a grammar lesson on state of being verbs, a math exercise on making change from $10, and read the final chapter on Greece in SOTW.

Cameron played his video games (he's currently working through The Legend of Zelda and the Ocarina of Time... and actually reading the dialog instead of just clicking through it!) and then it was time for gymnastics. Sunday both Cameron and Cassia were in The Big Gymnastics Show and did fabulously. The great thing about the show is that all the different team members do exhibitions. You get to see everything from the Level 1 - 3 kids who are "on the team" but can't yet compete (no, I don't really get that either), to the Level 4 - 6 Compulsory Teams who all compete with the same routines, to the Level 7 - 9 Optional Teams who get to make up their own routines, and the Rhythmic Gymnasts, and the Creative Dance Class members, and the Cheer Team, and it is all just really impressive. It really makes an impression on the younger kids too because I noticed everyone in both Cameron's and Cassia's classes was trying extra hard on Monday. They were all out there dreaming of someday being as good as A.J. on the rings or as graceful as Alejandra on the floor. Cameron, especially, is determined to make the team. He's still having a problem with it being hard though, lol. He wants to do it, but he doesn't want it to have to hurt. I can't really say that I blame him.

Today, Tuesday, we didn't do a darn thing except some laundry. C&C were playing Lego Zelda adventures all morning. Greyson kept finding bottles of either sunblock or lotion in random places and then squeezing them all over the floor. One time was tolerable but he did it three or four different times! I don't know what gets into him some days! And I don't know where he kept finding all those bottles, lol. I guess it's time to clean out the cabinets. Once he finally went down for a nap we pulled out the schoolbooks. Cameron did a phonics lesson on the "ture," "ible," and "able" endings and read the three paragraph story at the end of the lesson with remarkable ease and speed. I was truly impressed and I think he was too. Grammar was a lesson on linking verbs. Cameron impressed DH at dinnertime with a three-part definition of a verb ("A verb is a word that shows an action, shows a state of being, or links two words together.") but then couldn't quite remember what a linking verb really was. It is kind of confusing but I was impressed that he even remembered the name of them and that we learned them today when asked, lol. How many kids when asked, "What did you learn today?" can actually sit there and come up with something? Especially something from Grammar! LOL. I think it was the only new thing he could come up with though since math was word problems with making change from $1 or $10 and history was the last of our library books on Greece. Well, I do have one more, Archimedes Takes a Bath, but it's kind of long so I don't know if I'll bother trying to start it. I think they may be burned out on Greece. I think I am too.

And then it was time to make dinner. I made homemade whole wheat naan and this really simple but tasty bean dish. It was just beans (supposed to be chickpeas, but I used great northern), garam masala, ginger, and salt. It was also supposed to have this exotic Indian spice made from ground dried pomegranate seeds but the recipe said you could substitute a tsp of pomegranate juice instead. I was going to use cherry juice since the stuff I have is pretty tart, but then totally forgot to put it in. It was good anyway though. It was also supposed to have thin onion rings (raw) and lime wedges on top, but I knew the kids wouldn't go for that. So we just had the spiced beans and naan and it was really good. Well, I thought so anyway. ;)

Tomorrow we have nothing planned. Thursday is nothing but ballet. Friday is park day and a birthday party. I think it's going to be a good week.

And there went the week.

2008-05-29T20:12:00.001-07:00

Thursday is over and we officially got zero schoolwork and zero chores done. The kids were reasonably happy all week but the further we got into it the further they pushed their limits. It went from passively aggressively going and playing quietly instead of doing what I asked to flat out saying "No," this afternoon when I asked Cameron to pick up the toys in the living room. So instead of getting mad - I am so done with getting mad - and threatening them with the loss of all of their toys or something (which apparently would mean nothing anyway since Cassia informed me this evening that she hardly ever plays anymore because she doesn't have any toys that she wants to play with - puhleez) I calmly and quietly instigated a new policy. If you don't help me out during the day, you go straight to bed after dinner so that I can have time to do everything myself. Problem solved. They've pretty much had to go to bed right after dinner every night this week anyway because of different attitude problems so now I have an official rule to go with that. :P So there.

I had this whole tirade about a bunch of stuff typed out but I just realized that that was my headache and my backache talking. No need to point fingers at philosophies for a reason why they're acting this way. It's purely and simply a lack of consistency on my part. I let them do it and so they did. They've been taking advantage of me because I am tired and just don't want to deal with the fight. So no more fighting, just early bedtimes. If they really annoy me I'll just serve dinner at 3pm. ;)

In better news, they had their dress rehearsals for The Big Gym Show today and they both did FABULOUSLY. They both truly tried their best and I've never seen them look better. And I told them so. They beamed with pride...

...and then they resumed not listening to me and running around like crazy monkeys up and down the street. *roll eyes*

Smoother Sailing

2008-05-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Well today went much better than yesterday, though I can't really say that we accomplished much. Well, we did do a lot of planning for the 4-H Family Night potluck that is coming up in a couple weeks. Cameron is on both the games committee and the decoration committee so there was a lot of committeeing going on. And in the next couple weeks there is going to be a lot of stapling going on since he's going to have to make 24 feet of multi-colored paper chain!

Other than that, what did we do? Greyson seems to have totally given up on potty training. I guess the novelty wore off. He didn't even want to wear underwear today. Oh well. That is a very low priority on my list of things to worry about, lol. Cameron and Cassia just played a lot of LEGOs today. They've built these ships that carry horses and heroes off to strange lands in their various Legend of Zelda worlds. Cassia's was called Link's First Time in Space, lol. I didn't catch what Cameron's version was called. The funny thing was that they were playing separate games together. It was actually quite cool because that way they weren't arguing over the "right" way to do it or how the story went. They each had their own way and occasionally the two scenarios would interact, but mostly it was side-by-side fantasy LEGO adventuring. It worked for them, so it worked for me.

Then we went over to the K's for our committee meeting. That lasted all of about 15 minutes but we were there for about three hours eating lunch and playing with all their toys. They have some fun stuff in the backyard that their boys are getting too old for but my kids absolutely adore. We were joking that we should just go over there once a week for a park day so that their play stuff gets some use. ;) It was interesting because our kids never really interact because there's such a huge age difference - the K boys are 10 and 12, I think - but today M10 was actually playing with Cameron a bit, showing off his building skills with one of those magnetic building sets and comparing video game knowledge. I love when kids break out of their usual behaviors to just enjoy the moment and the people they're with. (LOL, suddenly the old saying, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" just popped into my mind!)

After that we had about an hour or so to grab some food and play some more LEGOs before heading off to the second to last baseball game. Wow, this season has gone fast. The kids played great today and that just had the coaches beaming. Saturday is the last game and then we're having a big BBQ and adult baseball game to close out the season. It should be really fun. We have some great kids and parents on the team.

And that was our day. Nothing too exciting, nothing too stressful. Kind of the way I like it. ;) Tomorrow though we WILL do book work and we WILL do some cleaning. The poor chore chart has been neglected this week.

Not on the Test

2008-05-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

Funny video that someone sent me today (can't figure out how to put the YouTube window on my blog, sorry)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dAujuqCo7s

Not what I had planned.

2008-05-27T20:20:00.000-07:00

Ever have one of those days? Our day today wasn't necessarily bad, but just about everything I did went wrong somehow.

Let's start with getting up. Grey got up first. DH forgot to lock the computer room when he left this morning. Somehow, and I'm still not sure how because there wasn't a chair in sight, Greyson got a hold of the bottle of dish soap. That bottle is now empty. Use your imagination on the rest. All I can say is that it's a good thing I got off my procrastination wagon yesterday and printed up and mailed the homeschool group's stuff that I needed to do this month because the computer that the printer is hooked up to just goes beep beep beep now.

Next was my OB appointment. That I expected to go totally wrong because (a) I forgot to write down when my appointment was and (b) I had to take everyone with me. But when I got through to the front desk at about ten minutes after nine, I found out that my appointment wasn't until 9:45 so I still had plenty of time. The kids were great while we were there. The OB was very tolerant of their myriad of questions too. So that whole thing went a thousand times better than I expected, lol.

At home I had a day of cooking and such planned because we didn't have anything else on the schedule. I made some beef broth in the pressure cooker. The recipe said to let it rest and depressurize naturally for twenty minutes and then release any remaining steam. Well, when I did that it seemed to almost boil over and broth, not steam, bubbled out of one of the release valves. I should've taken it apart then and cleaned the valve but I didn't. I went ahead with my second batch of broth. (My pressure cooker is only about 4 qts so I had to cut the recipe in half. But since the first part of the recipe calls for roasting the soup bones in the oven, I figured it would be easier to roast all the bones now and then just make two small batches.) The second batch wouldn't come to pressure and so I had to take the cooker apart, rinse things a bit and try again. The second time it worked. I still didn't take apart the release valve and clean it though. More on that later. The broth itself came out ok, I guess. It is very pale though and doesn't really smell like beef broth to me. I haven't tasted it yet. I can't imagine it went all that bad though. The worst case scenario is that I don't use it for soups and only as an ingredient in sauces and such.

Greyson has been doing fabulously with potty training. Yesterday he actually woke up from a nap, ran to the changing table to get his underwear that we had exchanged for a diaper before his nap, and then ran to bathroom. I lifted him onto the potty and voila, he peed! His diaper had been a little wet but I was so proud of him that he actually woke up to pee. Today was not one of those days though. Today was one of those days when he would want to go to the bathroom every five minutes but then would not stay on the toilet for five seconds. He would instantly jump off and say done. Several of those times he did that just in time to pee on the floor. Or five minutes before he peed on the carpet. After thirty false tries and about five accidents, I put him back in a diaper. Boy, was he in a mood today. That dish soap thing was just the start. He got into everything he could today. It wasn't long after the potty frustration that I put him down for a nap.

Once Grey was in bed I tried to get school going. Cassia begged and begged to go first. I agreed, even though I was afraid it might set a weird start to things, because I don't want to discourage that kind of enthusiasm. We did the second page of a lesson that she got too distracted to finish last week. She was still distracted (because Distract Your Sibling seems like the game to play during phonics time) but we made it through and by the end she was reading the sentences pretty well... though she cannot remember the word "the" for the life of her, lol. She has "cat" down though. She got that one right every time. After that, I had to jump up to do something - I think it was to tend to that second batch of broth - and C&C had gotten into a shouting match over ~~something~~ nothing. And then I realized that the kids' bedroom door was wide open and Greyson was stirring from the noise. Grrrr. He got up about two minutes later and that was that for schoolwork.

I was really annoyed at that point but they all were happy and joyfully playing together. By the time I was done with my stuff, they were playing house out in the Little Tykes slide house thingy in the back. Cameron was the father, Cassia was the mother, and Greyson was the baby. They took all their blankets outside and were happy as could be. What could I do? Rather than yell at them to get back inside and get to work, I decided to stick to my frequent claims that I don't force school when it obviously isn't working. It obviously wasn't working, so I gave up and turned on DOOL. ;) Nothing like daytime drama to make your personal drama seems less dramatic.

Cameron came wandering back inside at some point and wanted to watch gymnastics so I put on the Men's Big 10 Championship for him. He was really into it and told me that he would really like to compete. What a big switch from last year when the only reason he agreed to even stay in gymnastics was so that he could be in the Big Gym Show again! I told him he'd have to work hard and get super strong. He agreed to always try his hardest.

And then I started craving brownies for some reason, lol. So I got up to make some and then Cassia wanders in and asks if she could help. Since it was a day for doing things NOT the way I wanted, I went ahead and let her. ;) She was actually a really good helper and even cracked the eggs into the bowl without getting a single piece of shell in. The oven was acting wacky though. It never got up to temp. I waited a good 20 minutes and it never beeped, so I figured it must be close enough and put the brownies in anyway. They cooked for almost half an hour and it never did make it all the way up to 350. We had had issues with this same thing a few months back and had to replace the heating element but it was working fine until today. DH had moved the stove out yesterday to clean up some oil that he spilled down the side, so I'm guessing that must've done something to it again. *sigh* Just what I didn't need. The brownies still taste good though.

By then it was time to start dinner so I did the dishes really fast and got started with our quickey dinner of polska kielbasa and mashed potatoes. I put the potatoes in the pressure cooker and again it never came to pressure. I figured it must have something to do with the seal being wet or something (I don't know what I was thinking) but I did the same thing as I did with Batch 2 of the broth this afternoon: I turned the heat off, rinsed the top and the seal off, dried it, and tried again. But this time it still didn't work and by the time I figured that out all the water had steamed away and the bottom of the pan was horribly burned. The potatoes came out great though. I just hope I can salvage my pan. I really, really love that pan. So, lesson learned: if stuff comes out of the safety release valve, TAKE THE STUPID THING APART AND CLEAN IT.

The kids were more interested in playing in their mashed potatoes tonight instead of eating them so after a half hour or so I decided that I was just done with the day and sent everyone to bed. It was really only half an hour early (where did the evening go?) but it made a big impression. Cameron wisely said, "I know why you're sending us to be early." I figured he was going to say it was because I was tired and needed some alone time - which is true - but he said, "It's because when we act crazy it's because we need more rest," which is also very true. Apparently, they do listen sometimes. ;) They're also still all sniffling from this mystery cold that appeared out of nowhere this weekend, so that tends to make them insane as well. I'm going to use that as my excuse too.

Speaking of excuses, I'm going to stop making them and actually do some yoga tonight. I really need it today and I also happen to be all caught up on my TiVo'ed shows so I have nothing else to tempt me. Except cleaning that is and that is not really very tempting at all at the moment. ;)

Three-ish days off!

2008-05-22T15:33:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, nothing like three days with almost nothing to do to make the days feel like they're 24 hours long again. Tuesday was that Unschooler's Park Day. We did not do any schoolwork that day, lol. I had the kids do their morning chores, but somehow it just felt wrong for me to say, "You have to do schoolwork before we can go to the park." LOL. We did listen to d'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths on the way there and I decided that Greyson should've been named Hermes. In case you didn't know, Hermes snuck out of his cradle and caused all sorts of trouble, including stealing his brother Apollo's herd of cattle and slaughtering one to make the first lyre. Yeah, that's something Grey would do. Luckily, after a small talking-to by Zeus, he mended his wicked ways and became the golden child, loved by gods and humans alike. Again, that pretty much sounds like him.

Wednesday we had nothing to do at all and that's what we did. I gave Cameron a haircut in the morning and then we didn't even get started with schoolwork until late in the afternoon. Cameron did AMAZING during phonics (while Cassia waited in her room because she couldn't stop bugging him while he was trying to read) and then we all did a grammar lesson on pronouns. We were chanting the different pronouns, "I, me, my, mine, him, her, it, his, hers, its" and Greyson just kept saying, "Mine! Mine! Mine!" LOL. I think he's gotten the concept of the personal pronoun. ;) For math, Cameron played Timez Attack and ended up getting all the way through the 7s! For history we read The Librarian Who Measured the Earth. Really good book. (Oh, G, I forgot that you asked about You Wouldn't Want to be a Greek Slave... it was ok. The one on Sumerian Slaves was a lot better. The Greek one focused on household slaves and for the majority of it I was thinking, Yeah, so what? That's what I do. LOL, I think the kids were thinking that too.) Other than that, Cameron played his new Lego Star Wars, Episodes I - III game on the Game Cube and then they followed that up by watching Episode I on DVD.

Today, Thursday, Cameron woke up with a nasty cough! I have NO idea where that came from. He was fine yesterday. But we took Cassia to ballet anyway (and scared a mom and her two year old out of the waiting room with Cameron's germs - ooops!). Then we went to Trader Joe's where the children went typically insane. I don't know what it is about that store that makes them crazy. Cameron got a little cup of water from the sample bar and dropped the entire thing after one sip. We cleaned it up and had them set up a Wet Floor sign and he went to get more water. Then he splashed it. I sent him for a napkin and he cleaned that up. He was asking me whether or not he should ask for another Wet Floor sign when he dropped the entire cup AGAIN! *sigh* He got his Wet Floor sign that time. You'd think water would be a safe thing to have in the store. Then we went to our local organic farm and got a bounty for a song. We got seven small artichokes, a dozen carrots with their tops, a huge bag of different lettuces, two celery tops, a decent size sugar pumpkin, and two baskets of strawberries for only $12. All organic. All grown right down the street. Most picked this morning. I really love that place. I can't believe I had been driving past it for over a year without ever stopping in. Oh and I was finally able to compare prices - the organic strawberries at TJ's were $3.49 and the farm's are only $2 a basket. They taste better too. They're so sweet they taste like strawberry jam.

Once we were home and lunched, Cameron insisted that we do school. Since he was coughing so much still, we decided that for phonics he could just read an easy reader to us. He read Ride Otto Ride and we all enjoyed it very much. The book was way below his level and I think he really, really enjoyed the sense of accomplishment there. Next he did math which was a page on making change from a dollar. If he had been feeling better, I would have whipped out the actual cash - maybe we'll do that tomorrow or this weekend. Next was grammar and we learned about verbs that express a state of being. The copywork associated with that lesson was just copying them all down: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been. I just mentioned in passing that we would skip that but Cassia piped up with, "No, I want to do that!" So she did. Her writing is getting much better. Finally for history I read the Step into Reading book, The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War which was an excellent book. We've read several versions of the Trojan War so far and this has been the best yet. It was exciting reading and yet simple to understand. It also had a lot of historical facts and told of Homer writing the Iliad and how Heinrich Schliemann unearthed the ruins of Troy in 1870.

Now Cameron is once again battling Droids in Lego Star Wars land and it is time for me to figure out what is for dinner. I just made chicken stock in the pressure cooker while I was typing this up. I could only make about 6 cups in the size cooker I have, but it was easy and fast enough that I could do that as needed without storing gallons of it in the freezer. Now what can I pressure cook for dinner? I have some bulk Italian sausage in the fridge that needs to be used up... maybe that and white beans over spinach? Sounds good to me! Dinner planned. ;)

Oh, I almost forgot! The most exciting part of Wednesday was that Greyson decided that he is ready for the potty! He wandered around naked or half-naked all day and ran to the potty about thirty times, in all. LOL. He was so excited and did a really great job. He's even got the "point the wee-wee down" thing down too. It's handy having a big brother to look up to and show you these things. He went once this morning too, but once I put clothes on him to leave the house, that was it. It would be nice if I could have him out of diapers by the time New Baby gets here. I wasn't really looking forward to having to wash diapers every single day. Speaking of which, laundry calls...