Sickened

I'm sure you've all heard about this by now, but in case you haven't...

Here is a news article from today's (3/6/08) LA TIMES regarding this story. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-homeschool6mar06,1,4399394.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

Ruling seen as a threat to many home-schooling families

State appellate court says those who teach children in private must have a credential.
By Seema Mehta and Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
March 6, 2008

Parents who lack teaching credentials cannot educate their children at home, according to a state appellate court ruling that is sending waves of fear through California's home schooling families.

Advocates for the families vowed to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court. Enforcement until then appears unlikely, but if the ruling stands, home-schooling supporters say California will have the most regressive law in the nation.

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"This decision is a direct hit against every home schooler in California," said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, which represents the Sunland Christian School, which specializes in religious home schooling. "If the state Supreme Court does not reverse this . . . there will be nothing to prevent home-school witch hunts from being implemented in every corner of the state of California."

The institute estimates there are as many as 166,000 California students who are home schooled. State Department of Education officials say there is no way to know the true number.

Unlike at least 30 other states, home schooling is not specifically addressed in California law. Under the state education code, students must be enrolled in a public or private school, or can be taught at home by a credentialed tutor.

The California Department of Education currently allows home schooling as long as parents file paperwork with the state establishing themselves as small private schools, hire credentialed tutors or enroll their children in independent study programs run by charter or private schools or public school districts while still teaching at home.

California does little to enforce those provisions and insists it is the local school districts' responsibility. In addition, state education officials say some parents home school their children without the knowledge of any entity.

Home schoolers and government officials have largely accepted this murky arrangement.

"This works so well, I don't see any reason to change it," said J. Michael Smith, president of the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Assn.

The appellate court ruling stems from a case involving Lynwood parents Phillip and Mary Long, who were repeatedly referred to the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services over various allegations, including claims of physical abuse, involving some of their eight children.

All of the children are currently or had been enrolled in Sunland Christian School, where they would occasionally take tests, but were educated in their home by their mother, Phillip Long said.

A lawyer appointed to represent two of the Long's young children requested that the court require them to physically attend a public or private school where adults could monitor their well-being. A trial court disagreed, but the children's lawyer appealed to the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which has jurisdiction over Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

The appellate panel ruled that Sunland officials' occasional monitoring of the Longs' home schooling -- with the children taking some tests at the school -- is insufficient to qualify as being enrolled in a private school. Since Mary Long does not have a teaching credential, the family is violating state laws, the ruling said.

"Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court. "Parents who fail to [comply with school enrollment laws] may be subject to a criminal complaint against them, found guilty of an infraction, and subject to imposition of fines or an order to complete a parent education and counseling program."

Phillip Long said he believes the ruling stems from hostility against Christians and vowed to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

"I have sincerely held religious beliefs," he said. "Public schools conflict with that. I have to go with what my conscience requires me."

Public schools teach such topics as evolution, which Long said he doesn't believe in. He said his wife spends six hours each day teaching their children reading, writing, math, science, health, physical education, Bible and social studies. Court papers say Mary Long's education ended at 11th grade.

It's unclear if the ruling will be enforced, given the likely appeals. Typically, these rulings take effect 30 days after they are issued.

Other organizations that plan to get involved include the Pacific Justice Institute, Home School Legal Defense Assn. and the Home School Assn. of California.

Meanwhile, state Department of Education's attorneys are reviewing the ruling.

Teachers union officials will also be closely monitoring the appeal. A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said he agrees with the ruling.

"What's best for a child is to be taught by a credentialed teacher," he said.

While many educators and officials remained unfamiliar with the ruling Tuesday, news about it has been sweeping websites and blogs devoted to home schooling. Organizations have been getting tense phone calls from parents worried that they will be targeted.

Families who home school includethose whose religious beliefs conflict with public schools and those whose children are in the entertainment industry or have other time-consuming activities that require them to study at an individualized pace.

Glenn and Kathleen, a Sacramento-area couple who requested that their last name not be used for fear of prosecution, home school their 9-year-old son Hunter because their Christian beliefs would be contradicted in a public school setting, Glenn said. He is troubled by the idea that his son would be exposed to teachings about evolution, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and sex education .

"I want to have control over what goes in my son's head, not what's put in there by people who might be on the far left who have their own ideas about indoctrinating kids," he said.

If the ruling takes effect, Glenn vowed to move his family out of state. "If I can't home school my son in California, we're going to have to end up leaving California. That's how important it is to me."

seema.mehta@latimes.com

mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com

And the HSLDA response...

This is the HSLDA response: http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ca/200803060.asp
Response to Ruling of California Court of Appeal
‘Homeschooling is Illegal in California’

On February 28, 2008, the California Court of Appeals issued a ruling in a juvenile court proceeding that declared that almost all forms of homeschooling in California are in violation of state law. (Private tutoring by certified teachers remains an option.) Moreover, the court ruled that parents possess no constitutional right to homeschool their children.

This family was not a member of Home School Legal Defense Association. They were represented by court-appointed counsel throughout the proceeding. Since it was by law a confidential proceeding, to the best of our knowledge neither HSLDA nor any other legal advocacy organization had any knowledge that the right of all homeschoolers in California was depending upon the outcome of this family’s case.

There are two appellate options at this time.

First, we have been told that the family is appealing this decision to the California Supreme Court with their California counsel.

HSLDA will file an amicus brief on behalf of our 13,500 member families in California. We will argue that a proper interpretation of California statutes makes it clear that parents may legally teach their own children under the private-school exemption. However, if the court disagrees with our statutory argument, we will argue that the California statutes as interpreted by the Court of Appeal violate the constitutional rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

HSLDA welcomes other organizations and persons to assist with the amicus process so that a full defense of home education, religious freedom, and parental rights can be given to the California Supreme Court.

The second appellate option is to seek to have this particular decision “depublished.” Depublication is a decision that can only be made by the California Supreme Court. If the Court determines that the decision should stand, regarding this family, on the facts presented, but that the general pronouncements of law for all of homeschooling should not be determined by this case, then the Court has the option of “depublishing” the Court of Appeal’s decision. This would mean that the case is not binding precedent in California and has no effect on any other family.

HSLDA will take the lead in an effort to seek to have this case depublished.

Homeschooling has offered a great opportunity for families to give their children a quality education with a moral and philosophical approach that is consistent with each family's beliefs.

The ability to homeschool freely in California should not depend upon one family in a closed-door proceeding. All families should have the right to be heard since the rights of all are clearly at stake.

Can I throw up now? So... who's ready for a fight? (And please forgive the copyright violations - I did source them - but apparently I'm the criminal type.)

You're OUT!

Yes, Cameron was kicked out of baseball practice today. He really seemed so much better. I told him to tell the coach that he couldn't run today because he has a cough, but to go ahead and practice his catching and throwing. Well, just the exertion of throwing the ball in the quickly chilling evening air was enough to send him into coughing fits so we were sent home after less than ten minutes. Does that get me the Bad Mommy Award or the Good Little League Mom award?

The rest of the day was pretty productive... after I finally got my lazy butt out of bed! I finally crawled out to face the world about half hour before we had to leave for ballet so I quick fried up some eggs for everyone and got out the hustle alert. Amazingly, everyone listened and we actually made it on time!! That was nice. Cassia and I had a small disagreement over her teacher's name. She swore it was MissL (who was her first instructor over the summer) but I knew it was MissM. At least I thought I knew... she was so insistent that I finally said, "OK, let's go ask her." So I hauled everyone back out of the parking lot and back into the ballet studio just so I could say, "Ha! I was right!" to a 4 year old. LOL, mature aren't I? But the funny thing was that MissM told us that she and MissL had actually been friends since they were toddlers and were often mistaken for sisters. How sweet is that to be life long friends and to teach the same class in the same ballet studio as young adults.

Back at home, we wasted away the rest of the morning and early afternoon doing random things and then started school around 2:00 again. Cameron did a Phonics lesson on some of the more obscure silent letters. He was reading really well until we got to the "story" that he was to read. He panicked because it was "so long" - 8 lines. He totally froze up and started guessing all these words that I knew he knew. He kept saying that he was just nervous because he'd never read that much before... until I flipped back two whole lessons and showed him the nine lines that he had just read the other day without a problem. The difference? The nine line story had been broken down into two or three line paragraphs. This one was all one long paragraph. After seeing that he had, in fact, read that much before he relaxed a lot. He's been doing a lot of that "nervous" stuff lately. It seems so unnatural for him that I don't tend to take it very seriously. I guess I should try to be a little more sympathetic to it though.

Grammar/Language was working on memorizing Mr. Nobody and then studying the capitalization in the title and throughout the poem. Cassia already has half of the first stanza memorized after only two days on it. Speaking of Cassia, we worked on the letters P and Q today. She was really excited to do double Phonics. If only that enthusiasm lasted. ;) Next was Math which took over an hour for two pages. Ugh. And much of it had to be done twice because either I couldn't read the numbers that were doubling as hearts and clouds or he and Cassia were so busy laughing over the heart and cloud numbers that he wasn't paying attention to the actual problem. Somewhere during this, Cassia decided to break my part of our special mother/daughter necklaces by chewing the clasp off of mine. Nice huh. That put me in a really bad mood. Luckily, we only had a few minutes before baseball at that point so I read a quick entry in the Usborne Book of World History on the Phoenicians and then piled everyone in the car. Only to come home 10 minutes later, as previously described. But by then my mood was more one of sympathy to Cameron so we finished History with an entry in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia and then they went off to build puzzles.

They are supposed to be putting all the puzzles away right now, but it doesn't sound like they are, lol. I'd better go check on that and get everyone to bed. Have a good night everyone.

P.S. If you're lurking, post a hello! I like comments!! Speaking of lurking, Sandy, if you are, sorry to her about M's arm! Ouch!! Cameron wanted to know if he was snowboarding "in real life or in a video game" and if he was doing flips when he broke it. LOL, apparently the story wasn't dramatic enough alone.

Workbookless Wednesday

LOL, I get so jealous of everyone's "Wordless Wednesday" posts sometimes. As if I could think ahead to find a picture appropriate for the day! As if I could use no words. ;)

So today was Workbookless Wednesday. We had some friends come over today to play a Pokemon Championship. OK, there were only three of us who played and it wasn't really a championship, but both Cameron and I faced off against R11. (P.S. All age references in the names are approximate because I cannot for the life of me remember how old these kids really are!) Cameron won his match and I let R11 win. ;) I didn't want him to feel too badly after just losing to Cam. And if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you! Cassia and E6 played Pokemon Yahtzee. J9 walked our crazy dog all around the house and the backyard. A8 hid in various places around the house, avoiding the dog of whom he was terrified. She's a pug, by the way. Very terrifying dog.

It was a great day. MomK and I chatted a lot. I realized that having seven kids in the house was actually not any more chaotic than having three, lol. Well, having seven kids and two moms in the house, that is. Greyson absolutely fell in love with MomK. He's not the type to let anyone else hold him. It's either Daddy or Mommy and he decides which one it is to be. Well today it was MomK. LOL, he would not leave her alone and she was happy to oblige. She said that her recent 40th birthday has left her with a bit of baby fever and a few cuddles from Grey was exactly what she had been needing. He was so sweet with her too, giving her the back rubs and pats that he usually reserves for me.

Then we went to the park for a local park day that we haven't actually attended in months! It was fun, but I was reminded of why we don't go anymore. The park is set up kind of strangely and it is almost impossible to keep track of where your kids are. Add a rambunctious toddler to the mix and it can get frantic. Of course, Greyson wouldn't let go of MomK so I knew where he was, lol. It was so funny too because there was a woman there who has actually babysat him once or twice where he pretty much screamed the entire time. We did a little experiment to see if it was just his mood or something personal. So MomK tried to hand him off to MomM and he got this terrified look on his face, turned his head, and hung on to MomK for his life. It's so bizarre. She has a daughter just a month younger than he is and they get along great. He just doesn't like MomM for some reason!

Anyway, we had to leave the park after only about 45 minutes. Cameron came down with a case of the sniffles yesterday which turned into a cough after baseball practice. He woke up feeling better this morning, but after about 15 minutes at the park he was ready to go home. At home he crawled into bed and then came out about 20 minutes later saying that he couldn't stop coughing. I gave him some Vicks and then realized that he had a fever too. Poor guy. Some Tylenol and a nap later, he was feeling better again but I sure hope this isn't that dreaded flu that everyone has been complaining about. Greyson's the only one of us who got a flu shot.

So there is Workbookless Wednesday for you. We had lessons in logic, strategy, interpersonal relations, PE, human physiology, zoology (Go Diego Go), and history (Time Warp Trio). And all on a sick day, too. ;)

Monday & Tuesday

Nothing too exciting to report around here. I guess that's a good thing though, right?

Monday we had a slow start to the day and only got Phonics and Spelling done before it was time to go to gymnastics. At gymnastics, I made Cameron do his math while Cassia had her class. At home again we read about the Phoenicians for History and then reviewed all of our poems for Grammar/Language. See, I told you, nothing too exciting. ;)

Today, Tuesday, we started our day with a few errands. We went to the library to pick up a Bill Nye video on the water cycle and coincidentally, Cameron picked up a Bill Nye video on ponds and lakes for his video choice! Cassia picked I Love Toy Trains, lol. She's always picking things like that and Baby Einstein. I don't think she realizes that she's growing up! Or maybe she's growing up so much in other areas that she likes the comfort of toddler videos. Our TiVo choices certainly are very advanced for her, so maybe she needs that balance. OK, next time she picks up Baby Einstein, I'll actually let her get it, lol. Next we went to the drug store for this anti-staph stuff that I saw. Yes, it's back again. *sigh*

Finally we got back home got got school started at the bright and early time of 2:00 pm. LOL. Yeah, we're morning people, can you tell? At least everyone was dressed and beds were made before 11:00am. That's the sign of a good day around here. ;) So anyway we learned "sci" words in Phonics, started work on memorizing a new poem for Grammar/Language, did a page of Math, read half a chapter on evaporation for Science and then watched both of the Bill Nye videos.

Then we planted trees. When I pulled in the garage earlier I had spotted a little brown caterpillar coming into the garage. We studied him for a while (I love homeschooling - we were able to point out his 6 real insect legs and his 8 other knobby pseudo-legs) and then dropped him into our winter garden for a snack. Cassia had meanwhile been collecting acorns and then proceeded to play with them while Cameron did his schoolwork. Just so you know, you can play a lot of different things with a couple handfuls of acorns! Anyway, she noticed that some of them were cracked and I mentioned that that was where the sprouts were trying to break free to grow more trees. (Truth is, I'm not entirely sure if that's why they split or not - we get a lot of acorns in our yard but no new trees! - but it sounded logical enough.) Anyway, she got so excited over that prospect that we had to rush out back and plant all ten of them along the back fence. She is imagining this huge wall of trees along the back and is so excited for them to grow. Too cute. Even Cameron and Greyson could not be left out of the excitement. Cameron helped to dig holes and to pat the acorns down and Greyson has, so far, made about 300 trips back and forth from the fridge to the acorns bringing them cups of water (and ice) to drink. LOL. Nature study at its best. Gotta love a 70˚ day after a week of rain and thunderstorms.

Soon we'll be off for baseball practice. Too bad I never got around to planning anything for dinner. We may have to resort to fast food - ick. Maybe Papa John's instead. I think if I pick up a pizza there after practice we could still eat by 7ish. I really need to plan baseball nights better, lol.

Insert Creative Title Here

Well, that beautiful weather we had on Wednesday gave way to more rain. It's been so bizarre today: sunny one minute and pouring rain the next. Even though Cassia is begging me to go to Favorite Park Day today, I just don't want to risk it. Both Cassia and Greyson have had the sniffles the last couple days and getting stuck in the wind and rain would not help that at all. Of course, it's been sunny here for the last two hours but who knows what it looks like half an hour northwest at the park. So I made them an alternate deal... do your chores, do your schoolwork, get the house tidied up for Daddy's return tonight and we can make cookies and hot chocolate. They readily agreed to my deal, making beds without a fuss, etc.

Cassia was the first one done with her morning chores so I took her into the schoolroom for a little bit of long neglected personalized schooling. We learned the "N" line for The Consonant Rhyme, sang Old MacDonald Had a Vowel, A-E-I-O-U, and then moved on to a couple pages in Earlybird Math. (Darcy, if you're reading, I always think of you when I pull that book out, lol.) It has been way too long since I really sat down with her and did concentrated schoolwork rather than just pointing a workbook in her direction while trying to do something else with Cameron. It felt good and she did great. I also finally had a chance to sit down in the schoolroom and clean up the mountain of foamie letters and crayons that somebody poured all over the ground a few days ago. That feels like a giant colorful weight lifted off my shoulders. Remind me never to buy little foamie pieces ever again. They suck in every possible way. Too bad the kids love them.

Next was Cameron's turn for school and we started with phonics. There was a section where they were saying something about certain "or" words having the /är/ in car sound instead of the normal /ôr/ in door sound... but 3 of the 5 we pronounce as /ôr/ in door! LOL! There was a note that said there were great regional differences in some of the words - I guess so! The words were forest, foreign, orange, borrow, and sorrow. Borrow and sorrow were the only ones that we use the disobedient /är/ in car sound for. How about you? Next was Grammar and a review of titles of respect. I guess our school outside day wasn't as productive as it was fun because Cameron barely remembered them at all. Good thing FLL really beats stuff into you until it is forever ingrained. ;) Spelling was next and we finished up a review section. Cameron did really well with that, especially at recognizing misspelled words in a list. Next was Math and a delightfully (for Cameron) short exercise on mental math and breaking a number into parts to add it (as in 63 + 26 = 63 + 20 + 6). He rocked. We finished up with reading a section on the Israelites in the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia.

Next on our list was supposed to be tidying up the house, mainly the floor, so that I can vacuum but certain children... like ALL of them... suddenly disappeared into the bedroom. I should go hunt them down but they're all playing so nicely together (and with phonics toys to boot) that I hate to disturb them. Besides, it gives me a few quiet minutes to blog. ;)

Yesterday was a busy, busy, busy day but unlike the busy, busy, busy day we had on Tuesday, this one left me feeling good and productive instead of exhausted and cranky. We started by dropping Cassia off at ballet and then running to the drug store to grab a couple of things that we still needed for our 4-H Cooking Project. By the time we got back it was pouring rain and Cameron decided that there was no way he was getting out of the car to go wait in the boring ballet waiting room. So we just hung out in the car for the remaining 15 minutes which wasn't too bad since I wasn't too keen on dragging a million kids through the pouring rain either. Greyson only set off the car alarm once. ;) Next we were off to 4-H to lead our Cooking for Primaries (kids 5 - 8 yrs old) project. We made fruit and nut granola (yum) and raspberry-swirl yogurt (double yum). The only hitch was that the oven wouldn't heat!! We finally found out that it was because the pilot light was out but since we were already running over schedule we decided to just cook the granola on the stovetop instead. It worked surprisingly well and most of the kids really liked what we made. In fact, many of the boys from the adjoining project popped over and asked if they could have some too because it smelled so good! I'd say that was a success.

From there we headed off to baseball practice. This time we actually found the rest of the team, thank goodness. One of the families had donated their barn for us to practice in on rainy days so that was really fun. They even had a 3-yr old girl that was showing Cassia all the ins and outs of the barn and farm. I was pretty impressed with the practice and how they really strove to teach proper technique. Cameron wasn't the best on the team, by far, but it is a mixed team of 6 and 7 year olds and this was the second year of Little League for many of them. One thing that Cameron did excel at though was behavior! Can you believe it? My little Hellion was one of the best behaved boys there. Phew! Of course, he did insist on telling the coaches that his way was better than theirs, lol, but he wasn't kicking up dust and hay from the floor or climbing the hay bales and he was paying complete attention to what the coaches were saying. Yes, you read right, Cameron was paying complete attention without fidgeting! Woo-freakin-Hoo!!

And now you're caught up on our lives. Oh, in case you didn't figure it out, we did not find the time for bookwork yesterday. Not by a long shot! We were only home for about an hour between 10am and 6:30pm. But I'd say that we did P.E. and Home Ec at the very least. Actually, the cooking involved math and reading too and I don't think that I'd be stretching it too much to say that baseball also involved Social Studies and the ever popular "socialization." ;) I also got to practice my Homeschool Speech at baseball, lol. "Oh, you homeschool? How does that work?" LOL, I think I was enthusiastic enough about it without sounding too condescending or freakish but you never know. ;) OK, time to whip the monkeys into shape and get this house clean so we can dirty it up again with cookies. Mmmmm, cookies.

School's Out!

Outdoors that is!


It was a nice day for a change, at least for a few hours, so we decided to do school outside today. Little did I know that they would want to play school too! LOL, so we set up the chairs and filled the classroom with plastic animals and babies (real and plastic). Cameron, Greyson, and I were the teachers and Cassia and the rest were the students. Greyson was actually a "student teacher" because he couldn't decide where he wanted to sit. ;) Cameron would demonstrate the lesson to the students by reading from his phonics book and Cassia would copy down what he said. OK, she would just doodle, but it was fun. When it was time for Grammar/Language, I brought out our slate boards and chalk and C&C learned the abbreviations for titles of respect (Mr., Dr., etc). Cameron did some copywork on the concrete. It was a fun change.

But by the time we got to math, it was getting chilly again and Cameron was more interested in playing than working. It took him over an hour to not even finish one exercise. He was doing well and then suddenly had a major brain freeze and couldn't remember how to do anything. I made him finish up the section and then said we would move on and he could finish it later. So we read a chapter in SOTW about Moses' birth and the story of the Exodus. The kids were pretty enthralled by the whole thing. They were shocked that people could be so mean and kill so heartlessly. That actually led to a discussion of the UN and human rights and war crimes and such. Somehow, I don't think the topic would have gone there in a brick & mortar school, lol. After that we went to the store to get supplies for our 4-H cooking project tomorrow. Once we got home, Cameron got right back to work on his math. He's doing much better on it now that he's had a break. The number of problems on a page seem to have taken a huge jump in this book. It's been a bit of an adjustment.

Backtracking a bit, we had a crazy day yesterday! We started out with a field trip to a local recycling center. That was pretty uneventful (and boring) except for the fact that of all the kids there, guess who didn't know how to keep a safe distance from the giant piles of broken glass bottles? I mean, it didn't even occur to them that it might not be safe to walk right up to the 8-foot high piles of broken glass and investigate! On one hand, I really, really like that they are so adventurous and curious. They probably got more out of the field trip than the others because they were so busy exploring everything. But on the other hand, don't they have any common sense??? Man! Cassia was being pretty contrary too. The guy was showing them the little bricks of aluminum cans that go together to make the large bales and said, "Now don't touch these because they can be really sharp," and what does she do? Of course, she immediately reaches out and touches it. And then Cameron has to because she did. *sigh* Oh well, they'll grow out of it, right?

Next we came home and did some quick schoolwork (Phonics, Grammar, Spelling, and Math) before heading out to gymnastics. They were closed Monday for President's Day and so we had a make-up class. Cassia, Greyson, and I had to spend Cameron's class waiting in the car though because Greyson decided that it would be fun to start throwing toys over the edge of the Mezzanine and onto the gym floor. They have a little toddler toy area that's enclosed (everywhere but the top) but it just seems like all the toddlers hate it, lol. I can convince him to spend a few minutes in there sometimes but not yesterday! He started by throwing puzzles out in my direction and then I thought he had calmed down but one of the coaches yelled up that he had tossed a plastic bowling pin over the edge and it almost hit someone in the head!! At least that was light. Next he picked up this big elephant pull toy - very hard, very heavy - and started to hurl it over the edge. Luckily, I got to him first, but that was the point where I gathered everyone up and headed out to the car instead. There he proceeded to just scream the whole time instead - but at least he wasn't hurting anyone. And I actually managed to get half a nap in too, lol.

When Cameron's class was over we headed home to change shoes and then headed right back out for Cam's first Little League practice. The only problem was that the coach never showed! So Cam and this other little boy just played catch for about half an hour and then we left. About an hour later we get a call from the coach telling us that they were there, just in a different place! Turns out that he forgot to tell several of us that in case of rain we would meet in front of the school, not around back. In the directions that he gave me, you turn just before you see the front of the school so I never noticed that there was anyone out front. I think that the other people just parked in front of the school automatically rather than driving around the side like our two families did. Anyway, you'd think that he would have taken a walk around to where we were just to make sure no one was there, wouldn't you? Well, he didn't. Grrrr. But the second practice is tomorrow and now I have his cell phone number to make sure we're all in the same place.

Monday, we took the day off of schoolwork for President's Day (aka DH is Home Day) but it was no vacation!! We spent the day purging old toys. Here's the before picture...

Scary, huh! We had the kids help decide what was to keep, trash, or donate. We ended up with 4 big trash barrels filled with broken and otherwise useless toys, a trunk full of nice toys for donating, and a bedroom full of toys that can actually be contained in their containers. WooHooo!! AND with all this extra floor space, we were able to move the toddler bed in there for Greyson. Yes, we now have room for four in one bedroom: bunk beds, toddler bed, and crib. Grey's still not quite ready to sleep in his big boy bed even though he loves to play in it. It's hard convincing him to actually stay in it though, lol.

OK, I'm done with my novel now. Hope everyone else is well. Love to all. :)

Water, water everywhere!

Wednesday was supposed to be our catch up day, but we went to the park instead. Guess what that meant... yep, no schoolwork! Oh well. We did start out the day with a scientific field trip though. We went to the pediatrician's to get Greyson the booster for his flu shot. I am more and more impressed with this doctor. I was just expecting this to just be a nurse appointment - wham, bam, thank you ma'am - but we were scheduled for a full appointment. She knew we didn't have anything specific to see her about, since he just had a check-up last month, but she checked his ears, chest, and throat to make sure his cold was going away the way it should. She checked out a few of his scrapes (he has so many, lol) to see if they were healing ok. She cleaned some gunk out of his ears. I mentioned that I was still concerned with his digestive system because even cutting out all dairy does not seem to have totally solved his "issues" so she is referring us to a GI specialist. All in all, it was thorough, friendly care. I like that. The front desk lady is a bit of a dingbat, lol, but I don't care.

So then we met a friend at the park to get back our Grammar book that they borrowed. They forgot it, lol, but we had a great time anyway. After that we came home and napped. ;)

Today we started the day with Cassia's ballet class. We got a notice about the annual show. Can you say "awwwww!" It's not till June, but I'm so excited I can barely stand it, lol. I would love to invite you all, but we only get 6 tickets total and our immediate family will take up most of those, lol. Maybe I'll actually figure out how to You-Tube a portion of it or something.

After that we went out to a Valentine's Day brunch. Nothing says love like strawberry pancakes that you don't have to clean up after! I'm also making salmon for dinner. That's pink. Don't tell me I didn't make an effort this holiday. ;)

I finally convinced Cameron to do schoolwork at around 2:00. We did Phonics (can I say again how impressed I am with his reading now?), Spelling, Math (adding/subtracting to 100, as in ___ + 67 = 100), and then Science which brings me to the day's title. Our topic was... the water cycle! We read the text book stuff on the states of water last time we did Science (gosh, I think that was last week!) and so today we read a bunch of library books on the topic. By the third book, when the author was asking those rhetorical questions like, "Did you know that the same water that you drink used to be a part of the ocean?" they were both saying, "yes, yes, we know!" LOL, I guess I can't complain about them not listening when I read aloud. We didn't do Grammar today because we don't have our book. And then I took a nap. And that was our exciting Wed/Thurs. Thank for stopping by. :)

Tut Tut!

It's a record! We actually finished a chapter book in three sittings! Those three sittings did take about a week to accomplish, but I was pretty proud of us. They loved hearing about the Time Warp Trio characters that they know and love so well from the Discovery Kids' show. Some may say that tv is bad, but tv is definitely my friend and I am not ashamed to admit it.

So anyway, Monday we had a very productive school day. Cameron did Phonics (words ending in -ing); Grammar (review); Spelling (words with the "ow" sound); started his new math book with some algebraic type addition and subtraction problems (__ + 24 = 35); and then we read about Thutmose I, Hatshepsut, Amenhotep, and King Tut for History. It was fabulous that the TWT book tied in so nicely with our History reading. It was almost like I planned it. The truth is that we were at the library and I suddenly thought to myself, "Oh, I wonder if Time Warp Trio has an Egypt book?" and they just happened to have it in our library and it just happened to be about Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. Happy coincidences are also my friends. The kids were really intrigued by the story of Howard Carter's discovery of Tut's tomb so I brought out this neat book I have called, Into the Mummy's Tomb. (Thank you, Aunt P!) I actually have two copies of it so both Cameron and Cassia were able to flip through their own copies looking at the real life treasures of King Tut. Cameron especially liked the photographs that Carter's expedition made... the discovery of the staircase, the first lamps in the dark, the unwrapping of the mummy! Very exciting stuff! I love when History is exciting. :)

Today was mostly taken up by 4-H. It was the monthly business meeting, or The Boring Meeting as we lovingly call it. ;) Nothing too exciting there except for Greyson repeatedly running out the front door or screaming if I prevented him from doing so. *roll eyes* The Community Service Project for the month was bagging up Valentine's cookies for the underprivileged. The bonus of that one is that you bring three dozen cookies to donate but get to take home a dozen mixed cookies for yourself. The dark side of that is that you get to bring home a dozen cookies. Need I say that several children were sent to bed early tonight??

After that we had to go to gymnastics for a make-up Star Day for Cameron. You have to earn stars to advance through the classes. There are 4 levels in each class and 10 skills in each level. You have to get stars on 8 of 10 skills to move up a level. Cameron is working on level two and was really disappointed that he only earned one star tonight. Maybe I should start taking him to the open gym sessions on Saturdays so that he can practice more. I hate seeing him try hard and be disappointed like that. Of course, it's way better than seeing him goofing off and not caring either way, but it still bruises a Mommy's heart to see. Anyway, that got us home in time for dinner and the rest of Tut, Tut! before bed. I was really hoping to get a bunch of stuff done tomorrow but we have a doctor's appointment for Greyson first thing in the morning followed by a playdate in a far off town. We should get home by 2pm, but who knows if anyone will be in the mood for schoolwork then.

My laundry is calling. Talk at you later. :)

Still sick

Blech, I hate colds that linger forever. So, needless to say, we haven't done much lately. Yesterday the library and the grocery store totally wiped me out for the day. The only thing school-related that we did was for me to read the first third of the Time Warp Trio book, Tut Tut, for History. LOL, that counts as literature, right?? In other good library news, Cameron actually picked out a chapter book to check out!!! It was Star Wars: Boba Fett, The Fight to Survive. Quality literature, I'm sure. I'm not even sure if he was planning to read it or if he wanted me to read it to him because he hasn't mentioned it since... but it's a great start!!

Today we made it to ballet early for the first time in I can't remember how long, lol. Some sad news though. One of the moms there lost the baby that she was expecting. She must've been at least 10 or 12 weeks. I feel awful for her, but I really couldn't say anything but "I'm sorry." It all just hit too close to home. I really wanted to reach out to her and say something more profound, more personal but I barely know her and was pretty sure that I wouldn't have been able to open my mouth without crying. :( So sad.

Anyway, after a long afternoon of making Valentines, napping, and watching DOOL, we finally got settled into schoolwork at about 4:30 pm. Cameron did some excellent reading today. We worked on two syllable words ending in "er" for Phonics; practiced picking out nouns, pronouns, and action verbs from "The Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens" for Grammar; finally finished off that math workbook (I always write down the dates we begin and end and this one took 5 months and 1 week. A little slower than usual but not too bad considering how often we slack!); and finished off with reading about water and evaporation for Science. We were supposed to do an activity for Science too, but I was a bad girl and didn't read ahead so I didn't have the necessary supplies. So this weekend I need to go out and buy a couple of lab thermometers and some beakers. The funny thing is that I will have to go to the hobby store for those. The teacher supply store doesn't carry that type of thing, lol.

And that's our day. I'm ready for a nap now. ;)

We're Back!!

I would like to start out with a big apology to Meesh and Maria for not calling when I was in town. Greyson's cough did subside by Wednesday but by Thursday I was popping Sudafed and Tylenol like candy. Blech. Seems like the first time we met I ended up infecting everyone with a nasty virus so I thought I would spare you this time, lol. I hope Emma's birthday party was fabulous.

We spent the week with MIL and step-FIL for his 70th birthday party. It was a nice time despite the colds and the little spat DH and I got into because I didn't bring Cameron's schoolwork with us. Well, he said he was just "making a comment" and I got defensive. Whatever. Anyway, he said that he thought it was important to keep up the requirement of school everyday to instill structure and blah, blah, blah. He said, "I thought the main benefit of homeschooling was that you could do it anywhere?" I said, "I thought the main benefit of homeschooling was that you didn't have to wait for public school breaks to go on vacation?" Then he said that it seemed that we had been taking a LOT of breaks since Christmas and that's about the point where it crossed the "comment" and "discussion" line for me. Annnyyywwwaaayyyyy... I don't mean to be airing dirty laundry, I just hate when suddenly it seems like you're not on the same page anymore. I think we left it at him thinking me hormonal and me thinking him a Neanderthal. And we never brought it up again. ;)

I did make a point of pointing out all the educational stuff that we were actually doing though. For example, Cameron was watching me doing my Sudoku book and wanted me to teach him how to do it. He even asked if they made kids' versions of it and if we could get him one! Math puzzles? How can I resist?!? So of course I went out and bought him one (and found a great $1 sale and got a bunch of "100 Things You Should Know About..." books and a copy of the Atlas Maior of 1665 for a dollar each). It was really great watching Cam struggle with the puzzles and then finally figuring them out. He was really surprised too at the elated feeling you can get when something seems so utterly impossible at the beginning and yet you still manage to do it. He also drew me a wonderful picture of the solar system... Darn, I just realized that I left that there! I wanted to keep that one. We spent time with their cousins and I don't know about you, but I think that spending time with one's extended family can be extremely educational! They also watched Black Beauty for the first time and loved it which has me thinking that it might be a good read aloud.

All good stuff. I think the problem with DH is that when he is home, he (and so they) spend a lot of time playing video games and watching movies so he assumes that if we're not actively doing schoolwork that we are just being lazy and goofing off. I guess it's just hard for him to be so removed from our lives at times. Anyone else have that problem? But I also made a point of having the kids show off a bit for one of DH's cousins. She was complaining about the lack of English grammar skill among the students in the college courses she teaches and so I started in with, "Even my 4 year old knows English Grammar!" and had them pipe up with the definition of a noun and a pronoun. And then Cameron impressed me by spouting off the entire three part definition of a verb. I don't even have that one memorized yet! That led to a bunch of poem recitation, including The Five Vowels by Cassia and Work by Cameron which led to a discussion on work ethics and the importance of always doing your best. Basically, they ended up looking like a couple of brainy, little smartie pants and I was very proud of them. I didn't even bother to say anything smug or I-told-you-so-ish to DH. It wasn't necessary. I just smiled and didn't give another thought to our taking "too many breaks."

Our last day there we went to the Griffith Park Observatory. That was a real treat. We saw the most amazing planetarium show. I don't know how they crammed so much information into a half hour and yet kept it so engaging. It was really a delight and both Cameron and Cassia loved it too. DH was kind enough to stay outside with Greyson while we watched. Greyson spent the time running up and down all the stairs in the building, lol. The Observatory also had these random little "classes" all over the place. We'd just be looking at an exhibit and suddenly someone would come over and ask any interested parties to have a seat and hear a little lecture on whatever the subject was. They really want you to love what they're offering. I like that. Like I said, we had a fabulous time and you can't beat the price... FREE!

Now at home, I'm trying to find the bottom of suitcases underneath all that dirty laundry. We had a 4-H project today and made little animals out of recycled paper egg cartons. They came out surprisingly cute and everyone had a good time making them. Cassia made a feathered fish, a bunny with a cotton tail longer than its body, and a cat with a curly gold tail. Cameron made an airplane with eyes. Funny how Cameron is the one in 4-H and Cassia is the one who really gets into all the projects, lol. Afterward, several families met up at Baskin Robbins for ice cream and the ever elusive socialization, lol. I really needed the socialization - I don't see nearly enough adults that I actually enjoy talking to. ;)

While we were chatting, I found out that even if I had wanted to hide my pregnancy it is now impossible. We were talking about breastfeeding and I mentioned how I wished Greyson would wean because it is killing me and MomM looked over at me, looked down at my belly, and exclaimed, "Oh! You're pregnant!!" She is convinced, regardless of what the u/s says, that I am having twins because I am showing so much already, lol. I hope she is willing to offer some nanny services if her curse turns out to be right. ;)

We finally got home around 4 after much ice cream, playing, and a couple of mad dashes toward heavy traffic by an unnamed little maniac. Said maniac and I took a quick nap, C&C watched a couple episodes of Little Einsteins and then we all got up to finally do some schoolwork. Cameron learned about words ending in "le" for Phonics; listened to and narrated back "The Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens" for Grammar/Language; did several workbook pages on the phases of water for Science; did 2 pages of Spelling; and 1-1/2 pages of review for Math. He was supposed to do 3 pages of math to finish off the workbook but he just didn't have it in him so late in the day. I was happy with the amount of work we did though. It was much more than our usual lately. Cassia also learned another line of The Consonant Rhyme and then wanted to work in her workbooks but I had to tell her no so that I could make dinner. I will make a point to spend some time with her doing workbooks tomorrow. We don't have anything going tomorrow except grocery shopping and the library so we will have lots of time to spend. Will we have the patience after the grocery store? Only time will tell, lol.

Confirmation!

Well, the big news which I'm sure everyone is waiting to here is that BlobbyBerm is doing just fine! S/he is growing right on schedule, measuring at 7w3d, and has the sweetest little fluttering heartbeat that you've ever seen. The official due date is September 12th, just in time for the Fall Quarter. :) Blobby's classes will include breathing, eating, cooing, and pooping... straight A's, I'm sure.

But in the here and now Cameron learned the schwa sound in Phonics, did the first half of the very last Review Exercise in his math book, and dictated a Story About Me for Grammar. After I wrote his story down, we went through and identified the personal pronoun I, the proper nouns, and the action verbs. He really enjoyed most of it, but at one point just said, "I'm done doing this," and sat back in his chair. I said, "No, you're not," and we finished. LOL. I wish all conflicts were that simple. ;)

Unfortunately, I don't have time to ramble. We are leaving to go out of town early tomorrow morning and I am supposed to be packing. I just wanted to make sure that you all got the news about Blobby's sweet little heartbeat. :)

P.S. Maria, Meesh... I may be free for a playdate sometime during the week. It depends on MIL's plans for us and Greyson's cough. I'll try to call you.

Week is over!

Phew! We made it through the week! It's amazing! LOL.

Yesterday we had a busy, busy day. We started with ballet. Oh wait, rather, we started with everyone getting sick on Tuesday/Wednesday and me wondering if anyone was going to be well enough for our big day. Luckily, they were human so we started with ballet where Cameron got a really nice compliment. He had been rambling on about his ideas on the invention of the toilet and the ideal building materials for it, lol. And then he was reading an Inside Your Body Book and was really getting into it and talking about it with me and coming to all sorts of wonderful revelations about how things work and why. Anyway, this lady asked me if he was homeschooled. (Probably because he kept asking me if we could do his schoolwork as soon as we got home. I'm sure this looked very ambitious and scholarly, lol, but of course we all know he just wants to play video games afterward!) When I said that he was, she said that he was one of the brightest young men she'd ever seen. Well, gosh, thanks!

Later was the 4-H Cooking Project that I lead for the little kids (3 - 8). I *so* did not want to do it, lol, but a commitment is a commitment. I felt like the whole thing was a disaster. I was under-prepared, disorganized, and easily frazzled. Shocker, huh? ;) BUT apparently it was a success! The oldest girl even came up to me afterward and told me what a good time she had today. I was pretty shocked because she kept asking to do things like add the milk or stir the soup and I kept asking her to let the littler kids have a turn first. I thought she would be upset, but she truly loved helping them and didn't mind going last at all! Yeah her! I also must give credit to MomS and her guitar. That woman could tame any wild banshee. And finally Greyson probably owes his life to MomL who designated herself my second pair of hands. She is one of those inhumanely patient and practically perfect in every way AP moms, and I'm telling you she was indispensable to me! She was the one who would remember to remind the kids not to touch the moving parts of the can opener and to watch out for the step stool. She held the bread for me while I helped Cassia butter it while holding Greyson on my hip, lol. Now normally, perfection annoys me but yesterday I could not have appreciated it more! After all that, I decided that we'd just call that school for the day. ;)

Today, Friday, it was pouring rain all day. I was very thankful that we didn't have anywhere to be. So we just stayed home and did laundry for the most part. Cameron did Phonics, Math, Grammar, and Spelling. Nothing too exciting there except that he did an excellent job on it all. Also of note is that he asked when we could do Science. Whoops! I guess it's been too long. I did try to get some science in by watching an old episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I loved it! It was just as good as I remember it. The kids were not so enthralled. Oh well, I tried.

And now dinner is ready so I have to go. Forgive my lack of proofreading.

I'm alive, I swear!

Hello everyone! Nothing too exciting going on here. Well, Greyson has been doing some cooking...

...yes that is dog food in the pots. And yes those are steak knives in the background. But other than that, nothing too exciting.

I did get my blood results in and they look great. In fact, they're really, really high. So high in fact, that people are starting to tease me about twins. LOL, yeah, that would be funny. Imagine what my kitchen would look like with three little chefs!

School today was Phonics (intro to 2-syllable words), Grammar/Language (learning the months of autumn), and Math (the last exercise in the 2A workbook). Again, nothing too exciting. We took the holiday yesterday. DH was home so they all basically just played video games all day. *roll eyes* We were going to do gymnastics today but C&C suddenly came down with a cold so I had to cancel.

And that's the news from Bermland. Sorry it's not too exciting. :)

Christmas in January

A big box arrived on our front porch today. It was from Grandma C and Grandpa G - you know, the ones we were supposed to visit the week before Christmas and then rescheduled for the week of New Years and then rescheduled for February. Well, I guess they got tired of holding our Christmas presents for us and mailed all 33 pounds of them to us!! (Can you imagine how much that cost to ship???) So it was Christmas all over again. Cassia got a music/jewelry box with a spinning ballerina inside. She's just been staring at that little dancer for hours. She also got a set of clingy Princess paper dolls. (Clingy as in plastic clothes that hold on to the doll by static cling. Not clingy as in those Disney Princesses really need to find some self worth beyond their respective Princes.) Greyson got a remote control car (very cool!) and some foam lift-the-flap books. (Also very cool. I'd never seen those before.) I got a new super soft robe, some puzzle books (cryptogram and suduko), and this amazing looking cookbook published in 1924. I love old cookbooks. Cameron got this.

So my incentive for school today was, "You can build it as soon as your schoolwork is done!" We did Phonics (a review on all the r-changed vowels) and Grammar (learned the summer months and their abbreviations) and Math (reviewing division by 2s and 3s). Then we did, get ready for it... History! For the first time in about two weeks, we did history. Unfortunately, Cameron didn't want to do the coloring page that went with the reading and Cassia didn't want to do anything! (She was too busy playing Princesses. They were all sleeping in the drawers of her jewelry box, lol!) But we did the reading and Cameron, grudgingly, did the mapwork. Tomorrow, I have high hopes of finally wrapping our chicken mummies. That will count as History and Science.

We also started our day with a bike ride. We had to run over to the pediatrician's office to pick something up so we just decided to ride bikes/push strollers. Aside from Cassia's training wheel falling off and Cameron having some chain & gear issues that were beyond my comprehension, we had a great time. I think a morning bike ride might be a great tradition to start on those mornings when the temperature is above 60. Now I just hope that the weather holds up until Friday. I want to go to the park!

Meet BlobbyBerm

I am so sorry if I worried anyone. I've just been crazy busy. Everything is fine. We got BlobbyBerm's first portrait yesterday. Can't see much - ok, can't see anything, lol - but everything looks good. Blobby is measuring a little big, 5wk6d instead of 5wk2d, but looks fat, round, and healthy. I got my first round of bloodwork yesterday too and go back again Thursday and Monday. They said they can't give me any results on the numbers until Friday. I go back in two weeks for another u/s. Hopefully we will see a heartbeat then. It was just too early this time. The only downside is that I was prepared to tell the kids as long as this appointment went well but DH said that he doesn't want to until we hear a heartbeat. Argh! I don't know if I can keep it from them for two weeks!

I also took Greyson in for his bloodwork yesterday. He was not thrilled. Thankfully my less than militant approach to Chinese toy recalls has not had any adverse affect on his lead levels. I was actually a little worried about that, lol. They said something about his blood cells being a little small though which indicates that he may be on the verge of an iron deficiency. She said it was nothing to worry about though, just to push meat, eggs, peanut butter, and green leafy veggies. Again, it's probably due to his digestion problems that took me way too long to pick up on. Bad mommy!

On the school front, we did the bare minimum yesterday (Phonics, Spelling, Grammar, and Math) in between appointments. Today was the monthly 4-H meeting so that and grocery shopping pretty much took up the entire day. Well, as much as the day as I was willing to participate in! LOL! A really cute thing did happen at 4-H though. It was presentation day so this adorable little girl was playing a dulcimer as her presentation. She started out by saying that it was from the Smokey Mountains. When it was Q&A time, Cassia asked, "Is Smokey Mountain a song or a volcano?" LOL. The little girl handled the question with grace though and explained that it was actually a National Park on the edge of Tennessee.

So that's the news. I feel good. That wave of nausea seems to have only lasted about a day. The exhaustion only hits in the late afternoon now, so that's helpful. Now I just need to not think about those HCG levels since they're not going to tell me anything about them until Friday at the earliest. Gotta love modern technology. *roll eyes*

Oh, and Greyson has mastered a new skill: doorknobs! The babyproofing must now expand to ALL rooms! Eeek!

The House is CLEAN!

It's amazing! I had a huge burst of energy today and decided to clean the entire house! Woo Hoo! Although I was slightly concerned with the sudden lack of exhaustion that is generally my number one pregnancy symptom in the first trimester, I am suddenly nauseated by absolutely everything in this kitchen so I guess it's all good. But Cheez-Its, my friends, are disgusting. (OK, technically, Trader Joe's Cheddar Cheese Squares, but the same idea.) I bought them specifically for between meal munching and they taste like sour milk to me. Wahhh. I am so sad. I will try again in a day or two. Hopefully it's just a temporary aversion. But there's the baby news so far. My first appointment is Monday. Did I mention that? I am very excited. Can't wait. Cross your fingers that my little 5wk 3day bean will be visible (and healthy!) then.

Other amazing news is that even after sprucing up the entire house and putting away the mountain of toys that resulted from that spruce up, we still did school! The usual (for this week) Phonics, Grammar, and Math. Nothing too exciting, but I'm just thrilled that we actually did school 4 out of 5 days this week - if I'm remembering correctly - even though I pretty much wanted to pass the time on the couch watching DOOL and eating bon bons. I'll probably do that tonight though. ;)

And finally, our "No Solicitors" sign was breached again tonight. But this time it was a Girl Scout bearing a cookie order form so I was more than happy to oblige. In fact, the sweet girl didn't want to ring our bell because of the sign but her mother talked her into it. She's one of the few neighbors we actually know and we ordered from her last year too, so she was correct in assuming that I wouldn't mind. I was a good girl and only ordered six boxes - about a third of what I really wanted to, lol. DH usually ends up buying some too. And we still never have enough. Suddenly I'm thinking that I should've ordered more than two boxes of thin mints though. Those would have tasted so good fresh out of the freezer this summer. (As if they would last that long!) Mmmmm. I guess I'd better go make some mint tea because that's the closest thing I have to thin mints around here. ;)

No Soliciting!!!

We have a very clear "No Solicitors" sign hanging right above our doorbell. So tonight, about a half an hour after answering a phone call that started "We have some cash that we'd love to give you!" - if only that were true, someone knocked softly on our door. It was dark, our porch was dark, car in the garage, the "No Solicitors" sign firmly in place where it belongs, so I figured our dog must've gotten out or the neighbor was letting us know he was going out of town or something. Nope, it's a guy with a clipboard. I immediately say, "Didn't you notice our 'No Solicitors' sign?" to which he responds, "Oh, I'm not selling anything!" Oh really? "I'm just in the neighborhood talking to all of your neighbors about new windows! We're doing free in-" I cut in, "That would be soliciting. Go away!" And slam and lock the door in his face. I hate people like that. I should print out a page with the definition of solicitation on it to hand to these assholes who interrupt my dinner-making with their stupid "free" offers. Pardon my language. Hormones. (I've got 8 months left to use that excuse and I'm going to get all I can out of it!)

But aside from that, we've had a busy day! We started off the day with a check-up for Greyson. Finally, 8 months after switching insurances, lol, I found the kids a pediatrician. He checked out ok, though a little lower on the height-weight charts than he used to be. I don't think I ever blogged about this but I finally put two and two together and came up with a lactose intolerance!! Ahhhh!!! My dairy loving family has a baby who cannot tolerate milk or cheese!! Wah! Anyway, since it took me a good 9 months to figure that one out, he hasn't been growing quite as well as he had been. Kind of hard when you're not digesting much of anything. Anyway, he's been off all dairy for about two weeks and things are looking much better. I mentioned it to the doctor and she didn't seem concerned. Her sage advice was "if he reacts to it, avoid it." Simple enough, I suppose. Luckily I've just found out that he loves soy yogurt and cheese so now I don't feel like I'm depriving him anymore. Those were two of his favorite foods and now can be again.

Now for the bad news. Have I mentioned the insanely horrible diaper rash that he had a couple months ago? It was a nasty yeast and staph combination that got him put on Rx diaper cream and a mighty potent antibiotic. Well, it's been coming and going and now Cassia has it too. The little buggers spread in the wash. Grrrr. But it wasn't the yeasty beasties like I thought (and was treating with an antifungal). Oh no, it was the Staph Monster. So now we have a topical antibiotic for that and orders to come back if it's not gone by Monday. The thing that worries me is Cassia having staph. That is the thing that put her into the hospital, two years ago this week incidentally, with a bone infection. The fact that those little buggers hung onto the one diaper she wears a day (at night) and infected her makes me really nervous. The last time she had staph, it was a week in the hospital on iv antibiotics and then another three weeks on them at home. Ugh, don't want to go through that again. But that was accompanied by a crazy fever too and no one has has the slightest raise in temp. *Knock on wood.* OK, enough of that.

Here's some good news: we actually did school today!! Again, it was only Phonics, Grammar, and Math but Cameron did exceptionally well with them. He's also taken it upon himself to start learning cursive. Whenever there is writing to do in Grammar, we take it to the white board and the last couple times he has asked me to write the things in both printing and cursive. The first time he tried to copy the cursive, it was almost totally illegible, but today it was fabulous. Anyone could have walked up and read his writing. He's all proud too because I told him that he's not supposed to learn that until second grade, lol. He also played several rounds of TimezAttack, focusing on his 2s and 3s. He keeps starting new games so he won't have to move on to harder ones, lol. But that's ok. I don't want him forgetting the stuff that's actually in his math book right now!

Yesterday we didn't do any official schoolwork but we did go to the dentist. That's an oral hygiene lesson, right? Later, I read If You Give a Moose a Muffin to Cassia and then we did a word search about it. That was actually an incredibly educationally relevant thing for her to do because she was really working to match up the lower case letters in the list and the upper case letters in the puzzle. I love when you just do something for fun and it turns out to be totally appropriate, lol. We also read a recipe for Moose's Corn Muffins. It's a great little book we have. It's called Mouse Cookies & More and it's pretty much a book of unit studies on those books! There are puzzles and recipes and songs and even a cd. My dad always gives the greatest books for gifts. :)

I've felt a lot better yesterday and today. I was actually able to force myself to do a Prenatal Yoga workout last night and for the first time in a week, I had NO headache today. Yeah! I also had a lot of energy - at least enough to get us through all our errands, fold the laundry that's been piling up for days, make dinner, and actually do the dinner dishes! I do have a backache though so I think I may have overdone it a bit. Speaking of which, I think I've overdone this blog entry a bit too so I will say goodbye for now.

Still here, I swear!

There just hasn't been anything interesting going on lately. I am so tired and so incredibly COLD all the time that I just haven't really had much motivation to do anything much. That and this headache that will NOT go away. We've done Phonics, Grammar, and Math yesterday and today but that's been it.

Tomorrow we all have dentist appointments at the crack of dawn. Oh joy. I'm really looking forward to having everyone dressed and out the door by 8ish when today Greyson and I slept in until 9:00! NOT! I totally feel like I'm coming down with something, but I'm probably not. I will just probably continue to be miserable for another 8 weeks or so. At least, I hope I will be. Sort of. In a way, lol. You know what I mean! Anyway, I'm hoping to get to the library after our appointments. That will probably do me in for the day, lol. Oh darn, I just remembered that we're out of milk so I guess we'll be hitting up the grocery store too.

So there is my exciting update. Aren't you glad that I bothered posting this? LOL.

School called on account of Rain

If public schools can have Snow Days, then I can take a Rain Day, right? I woke up to a windy and stormy day and it just looked like the kind of day where you just cuddle up on the couch and watch movies and drink hot chocolate... so we did! If it was nice, we would've gone to the park anyway so it's not like we missed anything really. I did make sure to read them another African folktale for bedtime to make up for it. This one was called Too Much Talk. It was pretty funny. The kids especially liked the "Aiyee!!" parts. LOL. So far, Africa wins on best folk tales. We read some Miwok ones last year and while I really enjoyed them, they didn't have that fun catchy humor that the African ones have.

Other than that, we watched Harry Potter 1 and played a little Pokemon and then I played a little Wii. Cameron had lost his Wii time for the day (not because we didn't do school, just because of something that happened yesterday) so that freed the system up for me to use for a change! There is a Wii fitness test on it, lol... my Wii player age is 47! I think I need to practice a bit more!

We also didn't do our chores today, but the laundry got finished (finally!) and the house doesn't actually look too bad. But I must admit that the couch cushions are in disarray and there's a baby in the middle of the dining room floor. LOL. OK, I must go. I have been at this computer way too long today. But that reminds me, does anyone have any advice on DIY sunroom additions? We're very seriously considering one. DH wants to do a kit rather than hire a contractor, of course. I'm ok with that as long as we know all the "don't"s before we do them!

(Rereading this I am thinking that I should save it as a future example of how NOT to write a well-structured and flowing paragraph. ;) But, thankfully, I'm pretty confident that you guys don't read for literary genius.)

Chore chart still works!

Two days in a row and the chore chart is still working!! WooHoo!! Of course, the kids are doing about a million times better with theirs than I am with mine. I think I figured out my problem though... I don't have TIME to do chores when I'm helping the kids with all their stuff. I get all my morning and evening ones done, but two days in a row now, the only afternoon chore I've done is to check on the laundry (and that's just check on, not finish out the load, lol) and I guess I've planned dinner. But the last chore that the kids do in the morning is "start schoolwork" and that's usually at about 11:30 and takes us until about 1:00 or 1:30, depending. Then we have lunch, if we didn't have it during school, and after that we usually have some errand to run. Then I help the kids with their afternoon chores and after all that, I'm just done. Nap time.

Today, for example, after we finished schoolwork we went to the library and then had one of our infamous grocery store trips. Do your kids ever get that crazy, over-tired, super-hyper thing around dinnertime or before bedtime? Well, Cameron and Cassia had it BAD at the store. Any attempt to calm them down just resulted in them dissolving into a pool of laughter - usually in the middle of the aisle. So by the time we get home, I'm just livid (hormones already - oh, joy) and I've had this raging headache all day (again, hormones) and they just want to watch a movie. No way, José! I tell them that if they do all their afternoon chores then I will think about it. They were STILL crazy while doing their chores, but they did them. So then I turn on a movie for them (Princess Stories II from the library, lol), put Greyson down for a nap, and go fall asleep until 5:00. Then it's time to start dinner and my day is gone. Where did it go? Part of me wants to feel guilty for the nap but I'm not exactly productive when I'm yelling at everyone because I'm tired and head-achey.

Anyway, my point - and I did have one - is that I think I need to revamp my schedule a bit. Obviously, the afternoon is not a good time for me to schedule the bulk of my cleaning. Or maybe I just need to schedule a nap in there too so that I know that once I get X done I can go take my nap. Of course naps all depend on Grey and scheduling him doesn't work very well, lol. He didn't fall asleep today until after 3:00 and he usually naps around 12 or 1. The good news though is that my house is immensely cleaner. Just having both kids responsible in a check-it-off-the-list way has really made a difference in the toy debris around here. And we have clean windows! Cameron loves that chore. And Cassia even made her bed this morning!! She is always going on about how she is "too little" or "not old enough" to do it by herself, but the little dry erase dot on her chart sure is a big motivator!

So that is my brain dump for the day. But what is this blog supposed to be about? Oh yeah, homeschooling! Yeah, we did that too. Cameron did a short phonics lesson (on words like work, word, and worm), the entire week's worth of stuff on Spelling Time, one exercise in math on dividing by two, and one grammar/language lesson on memorizing the months of the year in order. Cassia didn't do anything today. She didn't even participate in the grammar recitations which she usually loves to do. We didn't do any history or science today either, but last night we read several African folk tales before bed. Their favorite one was Zomo the Rabbit. We read that one twice and Cameron even said, "When we're all done with History, we can even read this one for fun!"

OK, off to do my night time chores and hopefully have enough time leftover for yoga... or maybe just sleep. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Right on Schedule!

Well, maybe not right *on* schedule but we're getting there. I printed, "laminated" in page protectors, passed out, and hung up our new Chore Charts today. The kids have had a great time doing their little chores to be able to put a check mark in the right spot. Theirs say:

A.M.

• Get dressed
  
• Make bed
  
• Brush teeth
  
• Do one other chore
  
• Do schoolwork
  

Afternoon

• Pick up toys
  
• Pick up dishes & laundry around the house
  
• Fix couch cushions
  
• Do one other chore
  

P.M.

• Pick up dinner dishes/clear table
  
• Pick up toys
  
• Brush teeth
  

Weekly

• Change sheets
  
• Straighten bedroom
  

And the "one other chore"s that they can choose from are things like wiping down cabinets, cleaning doorknobs, dusting the blinds... all the little stuff that they can easily do but just never gets done around here.

My schedule is rather FlyLadyish... and I'm not doing as well as they are as keeping up on it, lol. I'm going to blame that on the fact that I've had to walk them through theirs. But anyway, here it is:

A.M.

• Get showered, dressed & ready for the day
  
• Make bed (I am so bad at that, lol)
  
• Shine master bathroom
  
• Start a load of laundry
  
• Shine kitchen
  

Afternoon

• Clean a "Hot Spot"
  
• Check laundry
  
• Clean in one room (for about 15 minutes)
  
• Plan dinner
  

P.M.

• Clean & sweep kitchen
  
• Clean a "Hot Spot"
  
• Shine kids' bathroom
  
• Find some "me" time
  

Weekly

• Change sheets
  
• Vacuum
  

We all got through our morning chores all right (though I don't know that I ever actually got the kitchen "shiny" lol) but it's already 4:30 and no one has started on their afternoon chores yet. That is mostly due to the fact that we didn't get school started until 12:30 or 1:00 and then we went to the store and have only been home about a half hour or so, but still...

School was the usual - one phonics lesson, one math practice page (the last one before we start the "division by 2's and 3's" chapter), two pages of spelling, and one grammar lesson (Aesop fable of the Crow and the Pitcher) for Cameron and one more line of the Consonant Rhyme and a couple pages of Go for the Code for Cassia.

OK, we have to get some of these "afternoon" chores done before the sun sets and it looks like I'm running out of time. ;) Thanks for all the well wishes in the last post, everyone. :) It means a lot to me.

Happy New Year!!

I hope 2008 is a prosperous and happy year for everyone. My New Year's Resolution is to start some chore charts around the house. I have such horrible follow-through with such things. I'm hoping that will give us all some accountability and pride in our housework and other duties.

Santa has left me a nice little gift this year. Take a closer look at this page to find out what it is. ;)

Back to our regularly scheduled school year tomorrow. I hope. LOL. All other attempts at getting things started during these holiday weeks have failed miserably. But now that the tree is down, DH is going back to work, and there are no more distractions in the near future, we should be able to get back into our routine. Our new routine plus chore charts, that is!

Happy New Year to all!

The Christmas Aftermath

Well, the gifts are open, the food is eaten, the sugar highs have crashed and I've decided that we will take as little of a Christmas break as possible, lol. We need that "have to do this everyday" aspect of our lives. I tried to get some school done yesterday, but all we did was build this cool solar-powered car. We did some experiments with it, like blocking the solar panel and seeing if it works from the light of a flashlight instead. It was a lot of fun and very educational... but the school books just sat on the dining room table all day untouched.

Today, I demanded that bookwork be done before the Wii was turned on. Two days of video game frenzy are enough! It's time we got back to one hour only and only after the things that we need to get done are done. OK, maybe he'll still play more than an hour because DH is home all week and he loves to play it just as much as Cameron does, lol.

Anyway, we started the day with Phonics for Cassia. She learned the line for the letter K in "The Consonant Rhyme." It's so funny, Cameron learned that poem by us doing it every day for about a month. Cassia is learning it by us doing it several times a month, lol. It's going to take us an entire year to get through it! But she is learning so much more than he is, just by being around him so I'm not going to sweat the fact that she may not know all her consonant sounds by the time she is 4-1/2 like he did. Cameron started his day with a Grammar lesson, picking the pronouns out of a story. I don't think he gets what a pronoun is at all, lol, but maybe by the time we review it the 700th time, he will. The second half of the Grammar lesson was reviewing our initials. We decided that we really like his name being C. E. Berm. It sounds very professional. For reading, Cameron read Cassia the instructions to her math book. She was working on writing her numbers from one to ten and then from ten to one. Next Cameron did his math, a Practice section on multiplying by threes while Cassia worked on her ETC book and the letter Y. We finished off with reading a couple of stories about Anansi the Spider from Story of the World. I have some more library books on him and other African folk tales that I'll try to convince them to read later today... but it is so hard to compete with that Wii!

All in all, we've had a fabulous Christmas. We thought we would be spending the holiday alone, but it turned out that my dad was able to join us for dinner. It was fabulous having him and his girlfriend/fiancé over. We don't see them nearly enough. In fact, we see them exactly twice a year: at the kids' birthday party and at Christmas. And yet they only live a couple of hours away. Oh well, it's not perfect but it's our family dynamic and I really do enjoy the time that we are able to spend together. I hope everyone else had a Merry time and was able to spend time with their loved ones.

Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards Men.

(Oh, and to explain the last two pictures on the slideshow... in Cameron's excitement to grab his Wii controller from the charger and play, he knocked over an entire glass of red wine onto my wireless keyboard! Ugh. So after hours of tedious cleaning and mopping... it still doesn't work and we have to buy a new one. I am currently typing on a hot pink and purple Princess keyboard with keys that are MUCH too small and causing my hands to cramp, lol. Ah, Christmas.)

Merry Christmas!

It's been an eventful year for us. So big, in fact, that we have needed to expand our yearly DVD of family pictures and videos to the Deluxe 2-Disk Edition!! Yes, we went 2 gigs over the limit this year, lol. No way around that. I blame Blogger. I've been much more inclined to document our lives in photo because of you all.

I hope to share some "best of" pictures and videos in the next week, but at the moment I have to check on my Dijon Maple Glazed Ham. Yum.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight. :)

Smells like Christmas!

Mmmm, just finished baking some gingerbread cookies. Yum! We were joking about the gingerbread boys taking off and running away as soon as they were cooked, and who would've known but they did! At least, they're gone now. That must be what happened to them! The real surprise will be if these cookies actually last until Christmas. The kids know they are for Santa, but I just cannot stay away from them, lol. I have two more types of cookie that I want to bake, I just need to get to the store for some ingredients first.

Anyway, yesterday the kids did a make-up class for gymnastics and adding that in with school work and the online obligations I have on Wednesday night meant that I didn't get a chance to blog. We didn't do anything especially interesting... I think. (Gosh, I've already forgotten! I have the worst short-term memory ever. Five seconds and it's GONE!) Ummm, Grammar was /ûr/ in stir, Phonics/Language was a poem about the days of the week and then writing them. That was actually something interesting. Instead of doing the copywork on paper, we did it on the white board and for some reason the kids got interested in me writing them in cursive too. It was a day of new things for both of them: Cameron tried to write in cursive and Cassia tried to write in lower case letter - both with pretty equal results, lol. Math was Timez Attack (he's beaten his 4's!) and then one workbook exercise. Spelling Time was also done and finished out for the week. I think we ran out of time at that point and had to go to the gym, so we didn't do Science or History.

Today, we started the day with Parent Day at Cassia's ballet class. Sooooooo cute! I got some video (I think! I was having problem after problem with the camera.) and if I ever figure out how to get it on YouTube or something I will share. We came home to do more /ûr/ in stir for Phonics, learn about initials for Grammar/Language, do more multiplication for Math - though I have to say I was surprised to see that Cameron got several of them wrong. The one thing I don't like about the Timez Attack game is that once you pass a level (as in 2's or 3's) you don't ever go back and review it again. It *is* reviewed when you come across it in a higher lever (as in 2x8 is seen again as 8x2) but it's pretty much gone once you pass the level. I think that is what was happening today in Cameron's math work. He kept mixing up the x2s and x3s simply because he's now pushed the x2s out of his head. I'm sure that happens to everyone though. For Spelling, Cameron chose to start the next week's Spelling Time work. Fine with me. For History, we read about Ancient Africa in our history encyclopedias. Our library books are all in now, so we will move on to those next week. I don't see how people can do two chapters a week, lol. They must just spend all day reading. My kids just don't sit still long enough for that, lol. And then we baked cookies, so that was Home Ec. Now, we better be off for our second period of Home Ec at the grocery store. I just realized that we have nothing for dinner.

Time to Waste

Ahhhh, what to do? What to do?? After the crazy busy week last week, I feel like I'm forgetting something, lol. I keep walking around going, "What were we supposed to be doing today??" and then I look at the calendar and realize that there is nothing there. Ahhhhh.

So we did school and read a book and now we're playing our respective video games or blog browsing. Ahhhhh.

Cameron started the day with Timez Attack while I was in the shower. He's on his 4's now! Who would've thought that multiplication could be so fun? After breakfast we finally moved on to /ûr/ in stir words in Phonics. He was quite happy to finally be done with /âr/ in hair. Not so happy to find a two page lesson, but we got through it just fine. Next was Grammar where he acted out all the action verbs while I read a silly poem. Cassia did not get to do it though because she was laying in her bed in protest to my horrific request that she make her bed. I said if you're going to tell me that you don't know how to make your bed then you can just lay there until you figure out how to do it. So she did. For about two hours. What stubborn children I have!! She wasn't even upset or anything (though she was very upset and screaming at me when I told her to lay down), she just lay there playing finger games until the need to go to the bathroom finally brought her out. I had even already told her that she could come out, but she wouldn't because she was afraid that I would force her to make her bed. I am having flashbacks to my own childhood when I would sit on my bed for hours at a time when my mother would tell me to clean my room. Feels like payback. Obviously, I need to find a new technique.

But where was I? Oh yes, school. Next was Math where Cameron really breezed through a page on multiplying by threes. Last week he was struggling and counting them on his fingers. This week he knows them. Thank you Big Brainz. Next was Spelling in which he did both the entire Spelling Workout lesson and the first section of Spelling Time. And then we finished off the school day with History where we read a little about Ancient Africa. I was actually pretty disappointed in the chapter because there wasn't really anything on Ancient Africa! It basically just reviewed the civilizations that we learned before and then said that people had lived in other parts of Africa, besides Egypt, too. The rest of the chapter is African Folk tales. Hopefully my library books will come in soon so that we have a little something more to go on.

Something really cool did happen during that History lesson though. Last night we were at my brother-in-law's house and we watched a National Geographic video on the Genographic Project. My MIL had participated in it and sent in a DNA sample and in return had gotten a report of her ancient ancestry and a copy of the NG series that explained the initial compilation of world DNA in an attempt to explain the first human journeys out of Africa. I'd seen portions of the series before and Greyson was causing his usual mayhem so I was only half watching and not paying any attention to whether or not Cameron was watching. Anyway, today while I was trying to read about Ancient Africa from SOTW, he kept interrupting me with things like, "I know there were people in Africa! They started out here," pointing to the map, "and walked this way," tracing the route exactly as had been shown on the DVD, "and walked all the way to Australia!" So he was watching! "Those people were our ancestors! They were the ancient humans!" Cassia, who had fallen asleep during the movie, was very interested in his explanation so he spent a very long time explaining the migration of the early humans over the Ice Age Super Continents. LOL, if I hadn't been so annoyed that he kept interrupting me while I was trying to get through this chapter, I would've been really impressed. OK, I was impressed anyway. I think that boy is on his way to becoming a socio-archaeologist!

And speaking of future careers, the reason we were at my Brother-in-Law's house was that Monday we went to homeschool day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and BIL lives much closer to it than we do. Their homeschool day is an incredibly generous affair where they let all homeschooled children ages 4 - 17 and one adult per child in for free. They had tons of activities, demonstrations, and workshops set up and they even had a behind-the-scenes tour for teens. Way cool stuff. You did have to come in a group and register in advance, but that's a small price to pay for so much value - especially since they then sent a big cd-rom of educational supplements! We had the best time. Cassia told me that she wanted to take care of the jellies. I told her that she could definitely do that when she grew up. Later in the day, we saw the otter keepers bringing them their toys and she said that she wanted to help bring them their toys. I said that she couldn't because only the staff was allowed into the exhibit area. She looked at me with that look that she's been perfecting since she was a toddler and said, "Mommy, I meant I want to do that when I grow up." Duh. So then I told her that she was going to need to study marine biology then and she agreed. So her future is now set and ready to go. ;) Cameron liked the sharks. Greyson liked his shoes. ;) Actually his favorite part was a recreation of a tidal wave crash that goes over your head. He'd just stand there and laugh. We did get some cool pictures but they are, of course, on DH's laptop.

This was the first time I've really gone to a major homeschool event. I was just electrified to be surrounded by so many homeschoolers. There were all types, sorts, and stereotypes there and I loved it. One thing I did notice was that there was a much more relaxed atmosphere of parenting than is usually present in a big public space like that. It's hard to describe but there wasn't that big push for the kids to "behave" or not to wander off or anything. I'm not saying that everyone was well behaved, I'm just saying that the homeschool parents just aren't as concerned with minor wanderings. Kids were all over, learning on their own, and everyone was cool with it. Usually you'll find some overbearing dad freaking out because a child wants to linger somewhere when the family itinerary says that it's Time to Move! LOL, or maybe that was just me feeling more relaxed than usual because I knew that I was in an aquarium full of people who respect my educational and parenting choices. In other words, I didn't feel like a freak for once. ;)

Blog Contest!

Contest to win a $50 gift certificate at Homeschool eStore! Go to the Just Some Stuff blog for the rules!


1. How many children do you have / homeschool? 3 children - one in 1st, one in pre-K, one in constant trouble
2. How long have you been homeschooling? We have been an official, registered with the state, private school for two months now - but honestly, we've been homeschooling since the birth of my first child, August 2001. I know it sounds cliche', but it's true... especially since it's now trendy to send your child to preschool, at least part-time, at age two.
3. Have they always been homeschooled, or did they ever go to public/private school? Always homeschooled. I actually decided that I wanted to homeschool when I was pregnant with my first.
4. Do you plan on homeschooling until graduation? Absolutely.
5. Do you belong to a co-op? No, but our homeschool4 -H club is very co-op-ey.
6. Do you school all year long, or use some other schedule? We pretty much school all year long though we take a lot of time off in the summer and whenever life dictates the necessity.
7. Do you use textbooks only, or do you like to supplement with other materials? We use both textbooks and other stuff. Most of our subjects are at least supplemented by living books, internet research, and hands-on activities. Some subjects are entirely that.
8. Are field trips included in your school plans, or are they just family time? Again, both planned and "other." I will plan certain trips to coincide with our studies, some trips because there is a homeschool group going, and some trips just for fun. They all count though.
9. Do you and your kids do crafty stuff together for school time? We try to, but not as much as I'd like. My oldest doesn't like them much so it isn't really worth the effort to get all that mess out. Everyone loves experiments though. We really should do more of those than we do.
10. Would you consider everyday household life stuff ‘home ec’? Absolutely.
11. Do you have any advice for new homeschoolers? Don't get hung up on labels and don't worry if your homeschool doesn't look like anyone else's. What works for your family isn't necessarily what will work for anyone else's and that's ok. In fact, that's great! It means that you are truly giving your children the education that's right for them.
12. Do you have advice for homeschoolers with little ones under foot? Deep breaths, deep breaths! LOL, but seriously, flexibility is the key. Save the stuff that needs quiet and uninterrupted concentration for naptime. Try to get the little ones involved when you can. And most of all, remember that this is a short time in all your lives. Appreciate it for what it is and try to remember that you have a lifetime to do "serious stuff."

I have a few minutes

I have a few minutes while our spaghetti water boils, so I figured I'd come report on our exciting day, lol. Cameron spent all morning playing Times Attack. He just had to keep playing until he passed those 2's. When it came to the final battle where you have to get every one of the problems right to move on, he kept missing a different one every time he tried. At that point it would send you back to review the ones you missed but then he'd miss different ones the next time. I finally convinced him to just start his game over so that he could review ALL of them, and then he passed the level in two tries. Then he moved on to threes and I finally had to make him stop. He wanted to keep going until he finished that level too! LOL.

Next was the park. Nothing too interesting or exciting there. It was a great time as usual. There's a new mom who has been coming the last couple weeks and it's been nice getting to know her. (She's the type who likes to talk so there isn't a lot of initiating conversation on my part, lol.)

On the way to and from the park though, we listened to Tikki Tikki Tembo over and over and over. I only had the read-along cd because there was a waiting list for the hardcover book. We ended up getting them both at the same time but I didn't really expect to listen to the cd. We've never had any success with books on tape at all. But I decided to pop it in on the way to the park today on a whim and WOW was it a success. I don't know if it was the actual story or just the fact that it was one of those read-along books with the chime that tells you when to turn the page, but they loved it! They passed the book back and forth between tellings and we listened to it four times on the way to the park! They kept chanting "Tikki Tikki Tembo-No Sa Rembo-Chari Bari Ruchi-Pip Peri Pembo" over and over at the park. Cassia even said she wants to name our next boy baby that, lol. And then we listened to it another four times on the way home! Cameron was really making an effort in trying to read along too. It was fun, but I don't think I'll ever get that name out of my head!!

OK, my water is boiling. Have a nice weekend, everyone. :)