Learning Life Through Unschooling

Birds, birds and more birds

2011-05-16T11:41:00.000-07:00

It all started with my brother, the Instigator. He sent a rather innocuous looking link and said something about "baby eagles". That was all it took. Soon thereafter, my kids became eagles. On top of watching the live webcam and tracking the babies, they themselves flew about the house, googled habits of eagles and spent birthday money on new eagle toys. My 8yr old Rose even declared one night, "I'm only eating the meat at dinner because eagles don't eat anything else".

When they are not being eagles, they've been Daddy's helpers in the garden. He's replacing the old wooden rotting-out raised garden boxes with concrete block raised beds. And he's expanding the garden area. It's a very slow long job (and our rainy weather hasn't helped) because he's building it on the hill. So in order to level the beds, he's doing a LOT of digging. And leveling with gravel and leveling with blocks and top stones. It's a big process, I'm telling ya. But the kids love being out there with him. They're apparently naturalists...but Rose is the one who enjoys it the most. She has the drive and focus to stay and help when the rest have gone off to play. I walked out the other day to see how things were coming along and heard Rose say, "Dad, what's that pile of decomposing material over there from?" So she's getting some great science lessons out there.

And then Daddy had to feed the bird obsession. He installed a hummingbird feeder and a finch suet feeder and we have had a blast watching and observing and pretending and yahoo-ing and researching.

As for me? Well, I think it's for the birds.

Who are you all?

2010-05-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

I'm amazed that I haven't posted anything since December and I still have about 50 people every week come and check out my blog. I'm that many of you can't be lost! :) Thanks for looking and bearing with me as life has gotten really hectic and my posts have become almost non-existent.

I'm also not quite sure what to do with this blog at this point. I attended a homeschooling expo and decided to try out a program, popular in my area, called My Father's World. It's basically a glorified unit study, and unit studies have always appealed to me. The program goes in a 5 year cycle and the first year is about geography and cultures, then two years of world history and two years of American history, all from a Christian perspective.

It's given us a little more structure but we're done with it in two hours on most days. The kids also asked for a math program so we're using Math-U-See, which they really love due to the leg0-like manipulatives that they use.

So the 7 and 9 yr olds are using these programs and the little ones are still unschooling. I meant to only do these programs with the oldest but the 7yr old wanted to be involved too and that's fine. The little ones sometimes sit along with our read-alouds or color or practice writing while we do "school" so they're probably absorbing some information as well. But they are free to come and go as they please. I encourage them to go play as often as I can because I still believe that unschooling is vital, especially for the younger years.

I'll be updating sporadically and as always, if you have questions, please post - they get emailed to me and I'll be sure to respond. Thanks for visiting!

Christmas Memories

2009-12-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

Christmas decorating this year was a little different than usual. I was feeling a bit down because I had been out of commission for six weeks from my MS flare and was missing out on some activities that I have looked forward to all year. Las Posadas on the riverfront, singing in our church Christmas program, the homeschooling group field trips, my MOPS outings and even Black Friday shopping had all been canceled due to my limitations.

Watching my kids excitement at putting up the decorations really got me in the mood though. They gleefully and painstakingly rolled out all the strings of lights, plugged them in and exchanged burned out bulbs. They attached all 50+ branches on the tree and stayed up very late watching Hubby hang the lights up. Hanging the ornaments was icing on the cake for them.

They giggled with glee when they found the Veggie Tales ornament, argued over which colored ball to hang and awwww'd when they found their baby ornaments. Near the end, I heard 6yrRose say, “Do I really have to hang this hideous one?” 4yrJade agreed, “Yeah, it's hideous.” 9yrMatthew said, “Just hang it in the back.” Rose, pondering this for a moment said, “I don't want to hang this hideous one. Mom, do I have to hang this hideous bear?”

As I turned toward her, I noticed that hanging from her hand was an ornament given to me, I think, by Darlene and Grandpa. It is a cute bear making an ice sculpture of a snowman. But one of the bear's arms is missing and I assume that is the reason why it has been named “hideous bear”. I looked at the date on it: 1981. This ornament is almost 30 years old! My thoughts wandered to Christmas at Grandpas house. The crackling fireplace, the laughter of our family, the excitement of the season, the long drive there and the short drive home, listening to card games, begging Mom to stay “just a little bit longer”, the fluffy green sleeping bags of Grandpas, the play room upstairs that wasn't heated, Barbies, playing hide and seek and, of course, all the delicious food.

My eyes wandered down our tree to another ornament. A Klingon Bird of Prey. It was the first ornament I gave Hubby after we married in 1994 and again my thoughts drifted to the past. Our first arguments, the little apartment we started out in, my first office job, playing card games with friends, sharing our one older-than-dirt car for several years, our first house, the dreams we had about what life would be like down the road, staying up all night to play Myst through the New Year, going on a Canadian fishing trip with Hubby's family.

As I looked around, my eye caught Matthew's baby ornament, 2000. Motherhood was nothing like I had anticipated and those memories flooded back as well. Hyperemesis while I was pregnant, his exciting birth, moments of worry while they took him down the hall for oxygen. All the time I spent holding him for hours and hours, the frustration of trying to determine why he was crying “this” time, the joy of finding that he liked the exersaucer and I could actually put him down for a while. The seclusion I felt that first year after quitting my job and becoming a stay-at-home-mom. Joining La Leche League and gaining mommy friends. I grew a lot as a person that first year of motherhood.

As I looked at each of the kids baby ornaments, I was flooded with all their memories as well. Rose's long labor, my amazement at how easy an “easy baby” could be. I grimaced as I remembered when Rose dropped newborn Jade on the floor and it sounded like an egg cracking. The jaundice we fought with all of them, my MS diagnosis when Jade was 6 months old, dealing with gestational diabetes and gallbladder disease, worrying through 2yrLinnae's pregnancy that I wasn't on medication for MS and what if I had problems after she was born, and all of Linnae's ER trips (splitting her toe open, fever seizures and most recently, the allergic reaction to nuts).

My eyes had made their way down the tree and now focused on the empty tree skirt. It looks so bare without presents. I can still vividly remember Matthew's reaction the year he got his Veggie Tales Larry-Mobile. He screamed in delight, cried and ran out of the room in a dramatic flare. The same reaction was true for the Buzz Lightyear “armie-grabber” and the Bionicle Takanuva. My girls, on the other hand, haven't ever had that one item that they just HAD to have. They make a list and seem happy with whatever they get. I think they take after me.

Though Mom may recall differently, I can't remember ever focusing on one particular gift that I was hoping for under the tree. Sure there was always a new Amy Grant tape that I wanted but I never remember feeling disappointed that I didn't get that “one thing”. I do, however, remember many gifts that hold a special place in my heart. My stereo, guitar (though I think that was a birthday gift?), boombox, a little Styrofoam airplane that had “Phoenix” written on it, my K-9 figure, a beautiful sandcastle, necklaces with my name or initial on them, and a big brown stuffed bear.

But my most prized gift from childhood is definitely my
Sesame Street blanket.

Though it's threadbare in the most literal sense, it is still the perfect weight and feel that a blanket should be. I've tried many times to mimic similar blankets for my kids (and myself) and just can't make them feel as good as that one. Warm but not hot, smooth but not silky, functional but fun. I bring it out from time to time to show my kids but Sesame Street has changed so much since the 70's that it doesn't hold my kids attention in the slightest and they spend the time asking me the characters names instead of admiring this amazing thing my mom made for me. When I look at it, I think about how many long hours Mom must have spent during nap time at the day school working on each delicate stitch. How she must have worried like crazy that she wouldn't get all our blankets finished on time that year! I imagine her back hurting from being hunched over in those metal chairs, trying to see the lines under the soft nap time lights. It stirs something in me to put myself in her shoes. As a mom, it's easy now to imagine the effort she put into the blanket. But I wonder if she can put herself in my shoes. She can't possibly imagine how comforting that blanket was to me. It was always there. Always a reminder of how much she loved me. It was there when I was burning up with fever, there when I had my first heartbreak. It was there to make a tent over the heat register after playing in the snow and there to make forts and tunnels with our chairs. I wasn't “sick” until Mom brought my blanket to the couch and made me lie down. Even as a teenager, I still sought out that blanket when I was sick.

I'm surprised to find myself grateful that I've been forced to slow down this year and reflect on Christmas Past as my thoughts keep wandering down our tree...

Politics

2009-10-07T09:06:00.001-07:00

Yes, I said the P word.

When I think of politics, I remember nasty fights my father's family would get into every Thanksgiving and Christmas over the political weather. They were each very vocal in their beliefs and they had opposite beliefs. Not a good mix for this timid young girl. I hated listening to them argue and yell and vowed to stay away from politics.

In fact, I remember that my first big fight with my husband (while we were still dating) was over politics. Not who I voted for but the fact that I wouldn't discuss it with him. I didn't even want to tell him *why* I voted for who I voted for because I knew he voted for the other guy and I was expecting a big fight like I'd seen as a young girl.

So I've stayed out of it. I'll be honest...my views have drastically changed since we got married (all of my own accord, I assure you) and since we now agreed, it seemed a little safer to discuss. But still, I didn't want to get him going. What could my one little vote do? Vote and live with whatever the majority wanted.

Until now. This last year has opened the eyes of many Moms all across America, including me. I think we've decided that the spending of the last 5 years is totally out of control and this is going to have a major effect on our kids lives. And as a mom, you don't mess with our kids!! I feel the urge, as many moms have recently, to actually get involved and do something about it.

I now find myself watching political talk shows and listening to political talk radio. I find myself wanting to head to DC in an effort to make my points heard. And I find myself wanting to really show my kids what this country was founded on and the original beliefs of our government. I believe it's important to teach them so they can know the truth.

So I've decided to get a little Charlotte Mason-y on you. We're going to read through history. Good living books like The Sign of the Beaver and Little House and The Call of the Wild and Little Women. Books that enable us to dip right into that time in history and learn about life.

We're starting with The Birchbark House, a story about a Native American Ojibwa girl in 1847. We've read two chapters and have already discussed smallpox, Native American religious beliefs, building materials for homes, language differences, and the uses and preparation of animals (food, clothing, tools, etc). They often interrupt the story to discuss a new idea to think about, which is a little distracting to me but I've learned this is how they like to read and I can go with the flow. :) We're thinking of building a tepee (because we can't rip birch bark off a tree anywhere near here).

I'll keep you updated on our reading list and might add the list in the sidebar too.

Zoology

2009-10-05T12:29:00.000-07:00

The kids have enjoyed studying animals all summer around here. They've focused on insects but we've also studied squirrels, dogs, rabbits and turkeys. Yes, turkeys. Though we live in a suburb of a very large city, we have a gang of wild turkeys who have chosen a home nearby. We pass by them nearly every day at some point. I'll try to snap some pictures for you but I'm usually driving so we'll see what I can get safely. ;) Maybe we need to take a walk up there and hunt for them.

But they want more info now. Like, what actually makes birds fly? And are squirrels and woodchucks related?

So I found a series of books that we are really enjoying. It's a series by Jeannie Fulbright and called Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day. It is written for grades K-6 (but I'm learning things and not feeling 'talked down' to!). We go over the subject matter, I find out what they absorbed and we move on. I can see these books as great reference materials and books that we do several times in the years to come, learning more each time around as our interests grow. Jeannie has two more books in the zoology series on land animals and swimming creatures. She also has books on biology, chemistry, botany, astronomy, etc. It's a great series and we're having fun with it.

So what does enable birds to fly? Is it the amount of force they exert on the air? No, it's lift. The neat experiment we did was this:
1. fill a cup with water and put a straw in it
2. take another straw and blow across the top of the first straw (in the fashion of blowing across the top of a glass soda bottle to make a sound)
What happens? Try it and see. :)

During our station break...

2009-09-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

I know, I promised to try harder. But honestly, blogging just hasn't been in me this summer. **However**, I DO love fall...and the crisp cool weather makes me want to start all kinds of projects and get frisky! So I'm sure the blogging is coming soon!

Meanwhile, I give these few humorous links for your entertainment since I, in all my glorious unschooling, just don't want to right now. :-P And because I'm an unschooler, that means that I don't have to. :) Be back soon!

Enjoy!

The Bitter Homeschoolers Wishlist
http://www.secular-homeschooling.com/001/bitter_homeschooler.html

Confessions of a home-schooler
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/09/28/confessions_homeschooler/print.html

A New School Year

2009-08-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well, at least for my friends.

Many people ask me this time of year if we've started our school year yet. The truth is, we don't really have an ending so we don't really have a beginning either. Our learning never stops. And honestly, schooled kids are no different - I just think we look at learning from different points of view.

However, we have been doing a little more ebbing than flowing lately so last night, I asked the kids if there was anything they'd like to learn more about. They were quick with answers.

6yrDD: Animals!
me: What about animals?

6yrDD: Everything!! And weather!
me: Ok, we can work on that.
8yrDS: Mom, I want to learn about atoms.
me: (eyebrow lifting) Ummm...you should talk to your father because you already know more about atoms than I do. We'll work on it.
I turned to the 4yr old: And what would you like to learn?
4yrDD: I want to know how to draw my letters. Like S and W.
me thinking: Hmm, it's nice when they ask you.

So I suppose a trip to the library is due.

6yrDD has found a game on Webkinz that allows you to create dialog for animated creatures in order to write your own story. She loves it! The interesting part is that it has a built-in spell checker and she has spent the morning asking me how to spell words. It led to a great discussion on contractions. And she told me that she needs to practice spelling words.

To a parent of a 6yr old schooled kid, you might think, "Ok, so my kid has spelling words every week too." The difference with unschooling is this: *she* told *me*. I didn't tell her. Therefore, the drive is within her. She wants to learn this and because she has the desire, she will be more motivated and will probably learn it in a shorter amount of time than most of her schooled peers.

"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child." - George Bernard Shaw

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated

2009-07-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

(That's a Twain quote)

Yes, we're still alive. My last post was in February! Dare I blame it on the nice weather? We've been so busy that I've not had time to post...well...that AND the fact that I found Facebook...and Farm Town. uugh. I'm ready for a new obsession...or maybe an old blogging one. ;)

The kids have VBS this week so I might not have a lot to write about but I will see you soon for sure!

A Titanic Evening

2009-02-16T13:14:00.001-08:00

I have a feast for your eyes. Our new church family offered something unique this year for Valentine's Day - a Titanic themed evening complete with a ten course dinner. As our anniversary is on the 12th of February, we usually double both events into one night out. But this year was our 15 year anniversary and we wanted to do something a little more unique. So when the Titanic evening was advertised, I jumped (so to speak).

Period dress was encouraged and I love a good reason to try out clothing from other time periods/stories/plays so I started on Tuesday for a costume that would be ready by Saturday.

On Tuesday, I purchased:
An ugly straw hat

Trimmings

And a shirt and dress from a thrift store. Coincidentally, if you ever need a quick costume, thrift stores are DEFINITELY the way to go!! It's dirt cheap and you don't mind hacking them to shreds.

This $4 dress was a burgundy velvet on top and a burgundy satin on the skirt

I quickly set my plans in motion. I separated the dress bottom from the top, intending only to use the skirt. I wanted to use the velvet to cover the hat but realized there wasn't enough material. I found some upholstery fabric I had, left-over from some burgundy couch pillows I'd made a few years ago and used that instead. Only one glue-gun burn away, and I was done with the hat.

I spent a couple days looking online to really get a feel of Edwardian dress style. And apparently, just about anything went. The day-time tea gowns had high empire waistlines, full length skirts and lace covered their skin to their necks. In the evenings, however, society ladies liked to show off their jewelry so they were allowed in the evening to wear low neck lines and pretty jewels. To borrow a phrase from Gone With The Wind, they weren't allowed to "show your bosom before three o'clock!"

There was also a high oriental influence going on in fashion at the time. Many dresses had a komono style flair to them. Many dresses used the bright yellows and reds and ornate decor to them. Some Edwardian dresses were very puffed out in front, reminding me of a proud hen (something I nixed right away). Women also wore suits of many different kinds (if you recall the boarding suit Rose wore in the movie).

In the end, I went with the oriental style influence. I had a black velvet komono style top and placed it on top of the shirt and skirt, complete with a black tie. If I'd had time, I would have searched for some dangling earrings but that was secondary.

I also happened to find a derby for Hubby and together, we made the costumes work pretty well:

On Saturday, we arrived at 6pm to the banquet hall. They had a photographer set up when we entered. I'll post that picture later! We were handed a 'boarding pass' and told not to open it until we were told. We made our way to the tables, which were decorated beautifully.

A string trio played old beautiful songs for us throughout dinner.

When we opened our boarding passes, we had been assigned to an actual passenger on the Titanic. We had their name and class. I was M. Dorothy Tupin, 2nd class. Hubby was Johan Asplund, 3rd class. I teased him that he was overdressed for 'steerage' and that I hope he enjoyed his last meal, because I wasn't going to mourn a lowly third class passenger when I was safely aboard the Carpathia.

You can see here what was served for the first class passengers at dinner. Note that it was common for them to have more like 20 courses at dinner!

Ours wasn't quite so grand but was indeed a great dinner:

We spent the evening wondering how we'd ever eat ten courses but it was all eaten, every last bite, and very tasty indeed.
Here were our ten courses:
1. appetizer course - deviled eggs, rye bread toast points with dill, rye bread toast points with dill, fresh red pepper and cucumber slices
2. soup course - vegetable marrow soup (we were so intrigued as to what vegetable marrow was that someone broke out their ipod and looked it up on wiki for us) This was wonderful soup!
3. fish course - slice of fish with sauce and pickle
Cabin biscuits (crackers) were passed around at this time
4. chicken course - chicken with carmelized onions on top and vegetable marrow slices, hollowed out and filled with a yummy rice/veggie mix.
5. main course - roast beef slices, garlic baby potatoes and peas
6. dessert course - sorbet
We were told that 2nd class and steerage would usually end their meal here and retire to a loud party below deck.
7. chicken course - chicken nugget with honey mustard sauce poured over the top, and two sweet pickles. This course seemed very cheaply done to me but the flavors worked really well together and you should try it sometime!
8. salad course (yes, they had their salads at the end of their meals)
9. dessert course - this was an apple, raisin, walnut spice cake of some type
10. coffee course

Around course 6, a lady and man, dressed in period costumes, got up to speak about their lives as passengers aboard the Titanic. The woman was a 1st class lady who survived and was so worried about society's view of her that she spent the rest of her life trying to be perfect and never really mourning her husband. The man who spoke was Richard Norris Williams, a rising tennis star, who was traveling to the US to play matches because he'd beat everyone in England already. When the ship sank, he clung to a half deflated life raft and only 11 of the 30 on the raft survived. Aboard the Carpathia, the doctor wanted to amputate both of his legs because of the damage to them.

He refused and returned to Europe, aboard the France, in the May to exercise daily and convalesce. However, he soon returned to the US, took up his place at Harvard and, incredibly, managed to win the US Open mixed doubles that year with Mary Browne.

In 1913 he was the beaten finalist in the singles, by which time he was a naturalised American playing in the Davis Cup team, which he captained to seven wins in a 13-year career. He went one better in 1914 and 1916 when he won the US Open singles, the latter on the grass at Forest Hills. After the first world war he won the men's doubles in 1920 at Wimbledon, where he was also a finalist in 1924, the same year he took Olympic gold.

This man gave his life to God and in the tournament that he was favored in more than any other, declined to play because the match was on a Sunday. It was an inspiring tale of a life-time commitment to God.

A local history teacher, whose deepest love is the Titanic, gave a great talk about the building of the ship, important people who were on the voyage, how many little things could have made a huge difference in the outcome. Most of us know there weren't enough life boats and they didn't act quickly enough, thinking her unsinkable. But smaller things, like the captain ignoring the ice warnings, the lookouts not being able to find their binoculars, a ship that was nearby enough to save them all but who's communications officer had retired to bed so he never received the SOS. So many little things that went wrong that day.

In the end, I was wrong, as usual. My 2nd class lady, M. Dorothy Tupin, died that night (I was unable to find any information on her) and Hubby's person, Johan Asplund, lived.

It was a fun yet sobering evening. It definitely sparked my interest in Titanic and I'm sure the unschooler in me will have more to share about the subject soon.

Soooooooooooo much

2009-02-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

There is so much going on in our lives right now that it's difficult to find the time to blog about it! I guess that's a good thing...that we're so busy living life that I can't find time to write about it. ;)

God has been leading us to a particular church in our area. First it was a mention of a homeschool group there. A couple weeks later I found they had a MOPS group (after I resigned from my current one). When we attended, I found two long lost friends from childhood are attending there and one of them is in charge of the MOPS group. The church family was warm and friendly and though it's a bit farther than I wanted to drive, I really feel that we are where God wants us. There are several ministries I'm interested in, including a (get this) *newsletter* ministry. That was the biggest thing I was going to miss from my old MOPS duties...and God provided it in a different way. It's been amazing to see all of this occur so fast because so many times, answers/direction from God seems to take forty years of wandering in the wilderness sometimes. I haven't attended any of the new events because I contacted the church just after they'd had their monthly meetings/events so they're upcoming and I'm sure I'll keep you updated.

We had a very busy weekend! Hubby had Friday off and we decided to go to the Science Center, where are hosting Sue on limited display. Sue is the biggest, most complete T-rex skeleton they've ever found. (Did you know we've only found 22 near complete T-rex skeletons? I just assumed is was MANY more than that from the focus on them.) She was really neat to see and the kids had a great time learning about dinosaurs. Last week, Matthew told me that he wanted to be an archaeologist some day. So when he saw that they had a station set up for 'excavations' at the exhibit, he was gung-ho to try it out. They had taken pieces of small bones and covered them in plaster, just like they do before they move recovered bones from the ground so they can transport them. The station had tooth brushes and hard plastic knife-type instruments. After digging on his clump for about 30 minutes, Matthew declared, "I don't want to be an archaeologist anymore. I just don't have the patience." It gave me a chuckle, of course, but this is key for unschoolers. Unschoolers explore the world, try things on and decided if they like them. In school, you sit and hear about things and you can guess if you'd like it but you don't really know if you like being an archaeologist until you get your hands dirty. For this reason, many unschoolers try to get involved in apprenticeships as they reach that age. I know Matthew's patience will grow as he matures but it's nice for him to actually discover that it's not Indiana Jones using his whip to escape with the beautifully clean and shiny treasure...it's painstakingly slow digging and precision. Not that it can't be rewarding but that he finds out for himself what it really is.

"Blegck! My lips touched dinosaur lips!"

"They've got the whole world in their hands!"

To further illustrate my point...did you watch Blast From The Past? Brendan Frasier is raised in a bomb shelter until he's 30. His father tries, numerous times, to explain the game of baseball (and the ocean) but until Brendan actually sees a it, he doesn't ever really understand it. Likewise, how many of your friends pursued a course of study in college and ended up on something totally different as a career? Or aren't happy with their career choices? I wonder how different their lives would be if they'd had a chance to really try it on, as in an apprenticeship.

Rose says she'd love to be a zookeeper. There is a program for junior zookeepers at our zoo that I'm looking forward to sending her to when she's older, just to see exactly what their jobs entail (no pun intended).

On Saturday, we did something else unique. There was an ice sculpting contest not too far away. Living in Missouri all my life, I've never seen this before except on the movie, Groundhog Day (Happy, Happy, btw!). It was so interesting to watch! I wish I could have caught the more intricate portions, like the rounded columns and such, but it was a sight to behold nonetheless.

"Don't worry, no one got hurt"

"Raise the Draw Bridge"

"Lighthouse and rocky outing with sailboat at the end" (hard to see the details in this picture I had to downsize for blogger but this was my favorite)

"Unicorn"

Seahorse

Dragon

Centaur...well, maybe *this* was my favorite. All the curves *and* the need to carve muscles and such - perhaps this was the hardest to do??

Angelfish

The Dark Knight

Dragon #1

Big Dragon

And on Sunday, we went to see sled dogs. Our library system is sponsoring a program called The Big Read this month and the book is The Call of the Wild. There will be children's story times about sled dogs and arts and crafts and they're bringing in speakers for the adults. It's a whole hoopla that we've gotten caught up in. Yesterday they brought out the St. Louis Dog Sled group to kick off The Big Read. Rose was in her element, being such an animal lover, but they were quite big dogs and she was more cautious than usual. Matthew (my germ-a-phobe), however, amazed me by petting and standing next to the bear-sized dogs.

Out Of The Mouth Of Babes

2009-01-26T16:56:00.000-08:00

While I was trying to get some help cleaning up today, Matthew piped up, "Just be glad that God blessed you with a family and never mind about the messes we've made."

Doubt

2009-01-06T12:08:00.000-08:00

[Fall is incredibly busy for me and I apologize for my lack of posting the last few months. Hopefully I'll be back to my normal routine and blogging more regularly again.]

I am a pretty good self-doubter. I admit it. I second guess nearly every single decision I ever make. And even when things go as well as I predicted they could, I still second-guess that something else could have made it better. Is that my inner perfectionist or just being human? I'm not sure. However, I can honestly say that I've never really doubted our decision to homeschool our kids. Oh sure, there are days when ever fiber of my being screams, "That's IT - I'm signing them up for school tomorrow!" but those moments/days of frazzled frustrations pass and I realize I wouldn't change this lifestyle for anything, even on those really bad days.

But I also must confess that I doubt our method of homeschooling from time to time. Is unschooling the best way for us right now? This usually only comes up when a friend mentions what their children are doing in school and I realize my kids haven't even touched that subject matter yet. Sometimes, the realization comes through other channels.

Matthew had some Christmas money that has been burning a hole in his pocket. We looked through the Bionicles (the Christmas toy of choice this year) at Wally World and Target but they didn't have anything he wanted. So he got online, looking through Amazon's selections and suddenly that hole in his pocket was a flaming fire. He was looking at things that, I thought, were pretty well out of his price range.

So on Monday night, I caught a glimpse of a Time and Money workbook that had been passed to us at some time. [Why is it that they usually teach those two concepts together anyway?? I remember having trouble remembering which one was based on 60's and which was based on 100's. Math. ick.] I made a mental note to get the workbook out the next day to teach Matthew how to count his money, and promptly fell asleep.

But Tuesday morning was off to a jump start as I realized it was the day of my annual MRI and I was quite nervous and totally forgot about the workbook. I had my scan in the early afternoon and by that evening, I was still wiped out and not feeling well. I laid down on my bed while the girls played in my room. I dozed off and on and at some point, Matthew came in to ask me how much a dime is worth. I answered and when I was feeling better, the girls and I headed downstairs.

I found Matthew on his computer. He was searching Amazon's toys again, having stumbled across the marketplace where people sell them second-hand (and at reduced prices). As I looked behind him at the kitchen table, I saw his bank dumped out on the table. He had different piles and a tally sheet in the middle of it. He had actually counted every quarter, nickel, dime and penny. And he'd found out that he had $3.42.

What if instead, I'd woken up that morning and shoved the workbook at him? He might have enjoyed it but I'd be willing to bet that his own method of discovery about money is something he enjoyed more and will be something he'll remember for a long time. It was important to him at that moment in time and I bet he won't forget it. Whereas a forced lesson might not have been interesting in the least, this was all his idea and something he enjoyed discovering on his own. I did show him the workbook for follow-up material and he said, "Wow, Mom, thanks! This will be great for me to refer to next time I need to count my money."

Silly me, for doubting our real-time learning lifestyle.

Brightest Full Moon of 2008 Tonight!!

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

Another great moon shot, taken from my beloved Olympus E500...

Science@NASA: Not all full Moons are the same. This Friday's is the biggest and brightest full Moon of the year.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/09dec_fullmoon.htm?friend

Wii Love Our Wii

2008-11-29T10:33:00.000-08:00

We've had our Wii for quite a while now and are just learning that there's a way you can go in and download (for a fee) the old 'classics' to play on the Wii. Games such as Zelda and PacMan and Galaga and Super Mario. The Wii comes with a built-in wireless network so it's pretty easy to get up and running. And if you have a husband who is in the computer security profession, it's even easier. ;)

As Hubby was setting up the optional router, he asked us what we should name it. Matthew replied, "Call it 'wii love our wii'!"
Hubby chuckled and said, "Well, that tells people what we are using the network for and we don't want to do that."
Matthew asked, "Why don't you want people to know what we're using it for?"
"Because people will snoop and some people will try to hack in and do bad things to our game and computers."
I added, "They already know we have computers just by our connection - we don't want to broadcast that we also have a Wii to strangers."
Matthew paused as he pondered that and then laughed said, "Mom, that's ridiculous - how would *anyone* live without a computer?"

Great Early Reader Chapter Books

2008-11-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

Somewhere between picture books and chapter books, there is a category that's not totally named. If you go to your local bookstore, they probably have bright numbers on certain books like "Step 1 Reading" or the like. But I find that there are better ones out there. Here is a list of books and/or authors who have chapter books that are heavily illustrated so they're great for those kids who want to step out of picture books but find chapter books just a bit too daunting...

And as a side note, you might check your library for "Jim Trelease's Read Aloud Handbook" - this is a book full of reviews about children's books. He reviews the storyline, tells you what age would like it, how it's illustrated, etc. I've gotten a lot of good ideas out of that one.

Suggestions...
The Cynthia Rylant books (Mr. Putter and Tabby)
Zach's Alligator
Magic Tree House series
Beatrix Potter books
Alice in Wonderland (Try the one illustrated by Alison Jay, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.")
Marguerite Henry's books
Beverly Cleary books
Jigsaw Jones mysteries
Nate the Great series
Pixie Tricks series
Rainbow Fairies and Weather Fairies
Barbara Cooney books
Brian Wildsmith books
Horrible Harry
Ramona Quimby series
Bunnicula Tales (which is an early reader form of the Bunnicula books)
Amelia Bedelia books (for homeschoolers, this is heavily centered in school)
Junie B Jones books (for homeschoolers, this is heavily centered in school)
Little House books, I believe, have younger versions.
I've heard the Incredible Journey books are great - and just might spin you off into studying geography or history too. :) ijbooks.com
The series by Gerinomo Stilton - I just found these myself and they're *very cute* and lots of colorful small pics throughout the books (20+). You can view a few pages on Amazon.

And don't forget comic books and graphic novels!!! Like Peanuts, Bone, Garfield, etc.

For a little bit older (or if you are reading to him/her), there's a really great series by Bill Myers (he co-wrote the McGee and Me series if you're familiar with that). It's very funny Christian stories for kids. Both my newly 8yr old son *and* I have been howling reading the series. We're on "My Life As Reindeer Roadkill" right now - a great Christmas story where the main character gets invited to Jesus' bday party by an angel in a dream. He spends a while trying to determine if it was real...and if it was, what in kind of a birthday gift could you get for the Son of God??? It's an older series but if you have a big church, it might be in their library.

I googled "early reader chapter books" and some good lists hanging around. You might try that too. Here's one that looked good http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/10465.asp

If you have any to add to my list, please add it in the comments!

Happy Reading!!

Christmas Conversations

2008-11-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, Hubby was gone hunting. So my mom and I decided to take the kids 'hunting' too. We hunted at that big store with lots of toys in it that has a famous giraffe on the logo. We were putting together their Christmas wish lists.

I'm one of those ~~cheap~~ ~~thrifty~~ frugal moms who refuses to purchase a toy for my kids on every shopping trip. First, I'd be flat broke in all of seven days because you know that with my scattered brain, I'm at Wallyworld at least 12,743 times a day. Second (and most important), I believe that if gifts are given *all* the time then they're never special. So in this house, gifts are saved for birthdays and holidays. Of course, Christmas is probably the biggest gift receiving event in our family. We know that the true reason to celebrate Christmas is to remember that God sent his son to Earth to die for our sins...the *ultimate* gift that could ever be received by anyone.

Our MOPS group made Advent candle wreaths today. I've never done Advent, unless you count the Santa-centric "25 days of chocolates" cheap cardboard thing, which I don't. They turned out beautifully. The youth pastor then talked to us about Advent and different ways to keep Christ in Christmas.

So when the kids were talking about what they wanted for Christmas this afternoon, I interjected with, "I can't wait until Jesus' birthday!" They all stopped mid-sentence as they pondered that for a moment. Rose was the first to break the silence as she asked with profound sincerity, "How old is he gonna be?"

************************************************************************************

Back to our hunting story...
Grammy arrived on Saturday morning and as we were excitedly getting our coats on, Matthew stepped forward, with a sad looking face and said, "Grammy, I'm sorry but I'm just afraid I won't get to buy anything today, what with the economy and the election and all." Classic. "Kids these days."

We get in the car and the three oldest kids are all chattering about making their Christmas lists. Even though I'm properly prepared (for once) with a notebook and pen, they've each brought something to write on (the back of an old Christmas card, a Hello Kitty mini-notepad and a piece of construction paper) and a writing utensil (a pink pen in the shape of some creature with rubber-band sprays of hair coming out the top, a teeny crayon stub and a watercolor pencil...I've learned not to ask and so should you).

Rose (5.5yrs) is reading signs outside and Matthew starts spelling them after she reads them. That's all it takes for Grammy (The Ever-Teacher) to ask.
"Matthew, can you spell Christmas?"
"Ummmmmmm...." he trails off.
"Just try it - I bet you can spell it!" she encourages.
"Well, it's just 'Christ' and 'mas' put together," he says.
I think that's a great answer. It probably also means he has a photographic memory like his mom does. But Ever-Teacher wasn't satisfied.
"OK...so how do you spell it?" she continues.
He reluctantly whines and says he can't do it. She sighs, guessing he probably can but just won't. I stifle a laugh to myself, knowing he probably can but just won't.
In the rear-view mirror, I see Rose whisper something to him (the two of them whispering is never good so I pay attention).
After a moment, he declares excitedly, "OK! I'll try it!"
Delighted, Ever-Teacher exclaims, "Great!"
I can see what's going on but I stay silent. I'm *almost* not sure that I'm correct in what I think is happening.
"C...h...........r...i......s..........t...............m...i........s," he slowly says.
Ever-Teacher gushes, "That was really good! It's actually m..a..s but you did a great job getting that close!"

At this point, I can't keep quiet anymore.
"Mom," I hysterically laughed out, trying to hold back the tears now streaming down my face, "Rose found the word written down on something back there and he was tricking you into believing that he was really sounding it out."
Grammy, humiliated that she was bested by an eight year old, said, "That wasn't very funny," despite the guffaws emanating from the van that proved otherwise.

Mom

2008-11-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

No matter how old I am, Mom can still 'make it all better'. When I was young, Mom was the one I went to when I forgot how to pedal backwards to stop my bike and instead, ran my out-of-control bicycle down the hill straight into a tree, giving myself a concussion. The time we were on vacation in Florida and the heavy hotel door slammed on my foot and I lost my toenail, Mom was the one I wanted. Even at the age of thirty-three, when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, my gut instinct screamed, “I want my mommy”.

What makes Mom so unique in her ability to comfort me? Perhaps, after thirty five years, she just knows me better than anyone. Perhaps I really am 'just like her' as I have heard often in my life. How is it that when things go wrong, I still yearn for her comfort first?

This is my third year in MOPS. I have four children ages one to eight, who I home school. My husband works from home as well so all six of us are here all the time. For the past two weeks, my group has been preparing for an early Holiday Bazaar. We invited vendors to come and sell their goods and donate a percentage back to us as a fund raiser for our group. I decided to make gifts in a jar. The $5 S'Mores Bar mix and scented bath salts sold like hotcakes last year so I thought it would work great again this year. I spent two weeks price shopping (with four kids), purchasing (with four kids), mixing (with four kids), filling (with four kids), decorating (with four kids), tagging (with four kids) and lugging jars to my van (with four kids). I also made items for the bake sale, crocheted bookmarks and made a display board as I'm the Publicity Coordinator for our group. My house was neglected, we ate prepared meals more often than usual and my patience level was lessening each day as I worried over the display board and measured more marshmallows than I ever want to again in my entire life. Finally, the big day was here.

By the time our first customer arrived, the bazaar was beautiful! Christmas tablecloths and decorations abounded, holiday music played in the back, the smell of hot cider hung in the air. Appetizers were warm and the bake sale was filled with goodies you can only dream about. We were ready to make some money for MOPS!

However, I'm sure in no small part to the current economy woes, we didn't have many shoppers that evening. In fact, I didn't sell one single jar. What was I going to do with these jars that I'd put so much money into? A friend told me about another local MOPS bazaar nearby for the following weekend. With a renewed zeal to get the jars sold, I signed up for a booth on Saturday. The booth cost $35 and I sold $27. Eight more dollars in the hole...and the worst part was coming home with all those jars to a house that needed cleaning, kids who needed their mom's attention back and a husband who'd been covering extra for me the last few weeks. Depressed and worried about how to sell the jars, I tried to vent to my husband. Bless his heart, he gave it a great shot but after about twenty minutes, his eyes started to glaze over. I called my coordinator but she was out of town. So I turned to Mom.

“Hey, are you busy?” I asked her on the phone.
“Well...I just walked in the house. Why?” she answered.
“Do you have time for a coffee?”
“Sure,” she said.

After we settled ourselves in the corner donut shop with a couple of coffees, I poured my heart out about my jars. I was beating myself up because I'd taken this risk with my money upfront and it hadn't worked out like I'd expected. Our bazaar hadn't turned out like we expected and I'd wasted my Saturday away digging myself deeper in debt at the second bazaar. Mom listened patiently and added empathy at just the right moments.

“So how many jars did you actually sell?” she asked.
“Only six S'mores, two salts and three bookmarks,” I replied sullenly. “And that was only after I lowered the prices down to two dollars on the salts!”
“But that doesn't equal twenty seven dollars.”

After replaying the day in my head, I realized I'd forgotten about a check someone had written me. When I recalculated, I had actually made four whole dollars for my Saturday efforts! Four dollars wasn't anywhere near what I'd spent making the jars but somehow, I felt better. She got our her checkbook and told me that she needed four jars for Christmas presents herself.

“There. Now you've made twenty-four dollars today!” she said. Seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, our conversation shifted for a few minutes. Then she casually asked me what I was serving for dinner. When I admitted that I hadn't even thought about it yet (and it was already 6pm), she said she had a frozen pizza that I should take home. I tried to refuse but Mom wouldn't let me. So when I dropped her off at home, she ran inside to get the pizza for me and returned with our prior MOPS fund raiser...frozen pizzas that we sold last month. Catching the look in my eyes, she said quickly, “I can't eat pizza anyway – it messes with my stomach. I really only bought it to support your group.”

On my way home, life seemed so much brighter in the dark skies of the evening. I had made twenty-four dollars back already. I had gotten my depressed thoughts off my chest over a good cup of coffee. I had a free dinner with me. And I had a mom who could *still* make it all better.

You had to be there...

2008-10-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

After telling the docent at the zoo an earful until she looked at me bewildered and asked how old he was, Matthew told me enthusiastically on the way out, "Mom, all you have to do to be smart is just READ MORE! You can learn ANYTHING from books!"

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Pictures of our Springfield trip

2008-10-07T15:14:00.001-07:00

Sorry! Brain death has occurred here, I suppose. Here are the pictures that were supposed to accompany the below post (thanks, Pam!). ;)

The indoor New Salem pictures are much brighter (due to my flash) than they actually were. The interior of the buildings were so very dark and dim. I was amazed at how dark the school was - all they had for lighting was the fireplace, about 5 taper candles on the chandelier and the tiny row of windows you see. Since this was the only spot that had a desk type surface, I assume that was the only place they actually read and practiced writing. The rest of the class engaged in repeating their teacher. They called this a "blab" school. You can read more about the school here.

New Salem, Onstot Residence:

New Salem #2:

New Salem's school/church:

Lincoln's Home in Springfield:

Fall is Officially HERE!!

2008-10-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

Yippeeeeeeeeee! Did I tell you that this is my absolute FAVORITE season?? I can't pick a favorite fall activity (as I asked you to do in my last post) because I just love them all, though my fall allergies do make things like hay rides and bond fires a little less fun.

I know I've been quiet lately and I have lots of things to share so let's get started:
First, some housekeeping...I need to correct a couple things from the post about my grandfather. In WWII, he was actually in the Army. He didn't join the National Guard until he came home. Also (my mother was very quick to point out), his car of choice was ALWAYS a Chevy. I'm not sure why I put down 'Ford' except maybe that's what I used to drive?? Anyway, he was a genuine Chevy guy through-and-through.

So onto new business...
It's been a crazy busy month. Matthew turned eight years old in the beginning of September and I got into one of my crazy organizing moods. These moods don't strike often at all so I had to jump at the opportunity. So I was busy planning and organizing up to his birthday. Meanwhile, it struck me that Hubby was turning the big ol' 4-0 near the end of Sept and that I should do something a little extraordinary. At first, I was planning a surprise party but then remembered he didn't seem overly pleased with the one I threw for him at 35 so I scratched that idea after about a week. But what to do?? I still wanted something special and it slowly dawned on me that hey...for the first time in 9 years, I wasn't pregnant and/or nursing anyone! We could actually take a romantic trip...just the TWO of us! So I got busy coming up with ideas on places to go. We wanted to keep the trip semi-local for various reasons. Since we've both seen many places in Missouri, when the idea of Springfield, IL, came up, it seemed like a great idea.

Springfield, IL, is the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, mostly thought of as our 'best' President. He was born in Kentucky and spent most of his childhood moving around. His mother died when he was nine years old and his father re-married. It is thought that his step-mother was influential in prompting him to read but he did teach himself. At age 22, he left his family and set up near Springfield in the town of New Salem, IL. He was hired by a man to carry goods on a flatboat from New Salem down to New Orleans. Imagine the adventure he must have had! He tried out several different trades in New Salem including serving in the Black Hawk War (he saw no action), Postmaster of New Salem, running a store for a few years, surveyor, rail splitting (hence his nickname of "Rail Splitter"), helping at the mill, and running as a candidate for State Legislator (an election which he lost). His interest in the law (which started as a boy in Indiana), led him to start studying it more thoroughly. He worked up legal documents for friends and argued some cases. He traveled 20 miles to Springfield to borrow legal books from a friend's law office. In New Salem, he was granted his law license and granted admission to the bar.

What a great unschooling way of life! Trying your hand at many different careers, traveling to the deep south where the way of life was *much* different in that time, teaching yourself. He taught himself all he needed to know about law. He didn't have any formal law training. I know it was a simpler day back then but imagine so immersing yourself in something you loved that you could make a good living at it without colleges and loans you pay forever and dorms and all the extra headaches we have associated with it today. It's fascinating to think about.

After his roughly six years in New Salem, he saw the dying town for where it was headed and moved to Springfield. There he met his wife (who also has an interesting story herself), married, started a family and ran for more political positions. Twelve years later, running on a third-party ballot (yes, EVERY vote does count!), he was leaving for the White House lawn.

I've told you before that, in school, history was my most hated class. It was boring and just a memorization of dates, names, parties and wars. I understood the premise of learning from the past so you wouldn't repeat the same mistakes but history was taught in a very dead way to me. I did what I *had* to do to keep my mother ~~happy~~ ~~content~~ from raking me over the coals (I got C's in history classes) but I loathed history. In my lack of foresight, I took a history class as zero-hour one year in high school. [This was an optional class that ran an hour ahead of 'regular school' so that I could choose an additional elective class that year...music was that important to me.] As you can imagine, an extra early class on a subject I loathed was not a good choice and I remember sleeping through quite a bit of class time (Mom, please don't yell at me now - there's no point. ;) ).

We toured the restored New Salem ghost town, we toured Lincoln's home in Springfield and we visited the *totally awesome* Lincoln Library and Museum (2005) in Springfield (which, unfortunately didn't allow photos). In the museum, they had amazing scene after scene of pieces of Lincolns life, from the White House bedroom scene of the death of one of their boys (they lost 3 out of 4), to the recreated Ford's Theater assassination. If you're ever driving through Springfield, it's definitely worth a few hours (though it took us five hours to get through it all - of course, we took our time).

Before this trip, I knew roughly what most other American's know about him...he was President during the Civil War, he ended slavery, he is revered as our 'best' President in most circles and he was one of two Presidents assassinated in office. But this weekend, Lincoln came alive to me and I doubt I'll ever think of him...or politics or slavery or life in the 1800's or...in the same way again. I learned more about Lincoln and the Civil War during those five hours than I ever learned in school.

It was a great weekend and a great time for learning. I can't wait to take the kids! Maybe next spring??

Hopefully now that life has resumed to somewhat 'normal', I'll be blogging a bit more. Though, it *is* costume-making season. And I have lots of 'field trips' in store - apple picking and farm visiting and fall craft making and that leads us right into hunting season (for Hubby, not me) and Thanksgiving and Christmas. Wow, is it really almost here? It was a chilly 65 degrees in the house this morning - I guess it's time for the heater and long pants and jackets...I can hardly wait!

Fun Fall Activities

2008-09-22T12:50:00.001-07:00

I LOVE Fall!! The dark rainy skies, the crunching leaves, the smell of burning wood in the air. It all transports me back to my childhood...and my grandpa's house. He lived in a wooded resort area, just off of a few huge lakes. I remember taking hikes with his daughter (my half-aunt, who is a year younger than me), my brothers, Grandpa and his dogs, Snoopy and Gi-Gi. In the summertime, we caught catfish in the lake but come fall, we opted for nature hikes with his big walking stick, his wood fireplace, and apple and pumpkin pie.

Grandpa loved to entertain. When we stayed overnight, he'd be up before the crack of dawn making a breakfast buffet that would put *any* five star restaurant to shame. Of course he had eggs any way you liked them, bacon, sausage, toast, etc. but his specialty that none of us have forgotten were the biscuits and gravy from scratch. And it wasn't this yucky sausage gravy that everyone serves - it was made from bacon grease. Y.U.M.

We'd wake up in his old down sleeping bags to the most wonderful of smells and have a long breakfast while visiting...and I never wanted to leave. Most would say it was because my half-aunt, Pattie, was the sister I never had but I think it was just that friendly, warm, inviting, happy family feeling.

I am always reminded of him more at this time of year than at any other. Though he died when I was ten and his family moved a few years later, I always have an urge to drive down and peek at the old house this time of year.

He fought in France during WWII in the National Guard. He loved to fish. I can still remember his deep husky voice to this day. He liked to wear cowboy style hats and drove an old yellow Ford pickup. I remember his smile and the love I felt. Happy Fall, Grandpa!

Grandpa's Biscuits and Gravy
1. Fry up some bacon till you have a lot of grease, remove bacon
2. Add enough flour to the grease to make a paste and let it cook for a minute to get the raw flour taste out.
3. Slowly pour in milk, a little a time, and whisk (or use the back of a fork like he did) until desired consistency. Go slowly because once you add too much, you can't really go back.

So while I enjoy my walk down memory lane, I'll ask something from you...

What are your favorite Fall activities? (you can choose more than one)

o Pumpkin Patch
o Hayrides
o Apple picking
o Shopping for/making costumes
o Decorating your house for Fall/Halloween
o Nature walks in jeans and jackets
o Closing down your garden for the coming winter
o Getting out the winter clothes from storage
o Taking a drive just to see the changing leaves
o Thinking about fireplaces and early Christmas shopping
o Baking breads and pies
o Making fall crafts (with or without your kids)
o Raking leaves into a pile for jumping in
o Planting
o Carving pumpkins
o Trick-Or-Treating
o Watch Fall/Halloween theme movies like "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie
Brown" or "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" or "Nightmare Before Christmas"
o Watch or play football games
o Build (or go to) a bondfire
o Go camping

Down on the Farm

2008-09-20T09:48:00.001-07:00

Jade has a recent penchant for pony tails. So this morning, on a lazy Saturday, she said, "Mom, you make me a pony?" I made her a pony. A while later, I got to playing with her hair. "Would you like a piggy?" "A piggy?" "Yes, a pig tail!" Squealing with glee, she vigorously shook her head yes. So I did a braid and showed her the 'piggy'. She was quite happy with that.

About 30 minutes later, she came back to me. "I can't like this piggy." This is also her favorite phrase. It's not 'I don't like this delicious dinner you've prepared', it's 'I can't like this delicious dinner you've prepared.' So after a bit of whining about not being able to like her piggy, I started to take it out. She said, "I want a sheep!" baaaaa

So I made her a bun and said, "There. There's your sheep." "Bink oo, Maw-ee!" (thank you, mommy) She went to show it to Matthew. "Look, my sheep!" After turning her around to see it, Matthew said, "It looks more like a bunny tail to me".

Wii've been busy!!

2008-09-03T11:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, Wii have. ;) And today, I found a Wii Fit. I may not be blogging for a while. Teehee.

I think wii have a virus going around here. Rose is running a fever and everyone is quite sluggish. Matthew's Star Wars: Return of the Jedi birthday party is on Sunday though, so I'm hoping wii are better very quickly.

But, while wii are having fun, I leave you with that horrible H word (homework):
I ran across a really superb article by one of my favorite relaxed-learning-style champions, John Taylor Gatto. His article, The Exhausted School, is located here. It's not a quick read so allow some time or read it in chunks. So many great points in favor of relaxed learning or unschooling or child-led learning or whatever you want to call it. I say we put all these labels into one like, "Life Learning". I'm sure someone who is better at catchy terms could do better than that but there's my five second contribution. ;) But I digress...

An excerpt from that article:

Much daily misery around us is caused by the fact our schools force children to grow up absurd. Any reform in schooling must deal with its absurdi-ties: it is absurd and antilife to be part of a system that compels you to sit in confinement with people exactly the same age and social class. That system effectively cuts you off from information you need to be sane, and cuts you off from your own past and future. It seals you into a continuous present much the same way television does. It is absurd and anti-life to be part of a system compelling you to listen to a stranger read poetry when you ache to learn to construct buildings; it is absurd and anti-life to sit with a stranger discussing the construction of buildings when the rush of language inside you makes you want to write a poem.

Your homework?? Read the article and tell me what you think. My sitemeter tells me that there are routinely 100 readers each week. I only average about one comment per post...so there are LOTS of you lurking...and you don't want to be a lurker, do you?? Tell me honestly (but nicely, please - my kids read my blog) what you think of the article, and if it's your first comment here, tell me why you're interested in my blog. Do you homeschool? Are you looking at options? Maybe you don't homeschool and just want to find out if wii are all as strange as you think. ;) I'm interested in you too!

Fun Discipline

2008-08-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

Even with unschooling, discipline can be fun.

Rose has started holding her bedroom door over everyone. She locks her siblings out, she slams it when she's mad, she's not quiet coming in and out at naptime when I've asked her repeatedly. So this morning there were lots of slams and siblings banging on the door and Jade crying to be let in (after all, they do SHARE the room now). I decided that perhaps Rose needed to live without a doorknob for a few days to fully appreciate it. So I removed the handle and explained why. She seemed undaunted, as she always does when punished.

Thirty minutes later, Matthew and Rose come bounding downstairs and ask me if they can have the "big American flag towel" from the bathroom closet. I agreed but was curious and asked them why.

"Well, Mom," Matthew started. Talking fast and excited, he explained, "We're putting on a bit of a show and we need the towel for our flag. Rose is going to cut out circles from brown paper and make coins and since she has that hole in her door now, we can use it to sell tickets through!"
[Somehow, I feel that the punishment has become something fun.]

Rose continued, "Yeah, and we're going to do the show about the Presidents!"

Matthew is my instigator. He comes up with grand plans and starts to organize the other kids around him into getting the plan accomplished. He isn't a big do-er, he's more of the director who doesn't dirty his hands. ;) My (first-born) brother would probably say it's a first-born thing but whatever the reason, that's how Matthew is. So he wanted to learn about the Presidents a while back and we started on Washington and that was fun. Then came Adams and let me just save you the time - there *is* no entertaining book about John Adams out there for children to read. Believe me, I've scoured the library and Amazon. It's just not there. Sad but true. So we kinda got stopped dead in our tracks. But with Hubby out of town this week, I was reading bedtime stories in his absence and Matthew picked out the Jefferson book. MUCH better reading. I guess history just knows more about Jefferson's life. After we finished it, he asked me to read it again. So I suppose this is where the grand plan came from.

Another grand plan he's working on is one he came up with purely on his own. The neighbor's grandson has spent a lot of time at her house this summer so all the kids played together a lot. For the past month, Matthew and Jacob have been trying to figure out how to make money selling stuff. First it was going to be a garage sale. I decided that would involve too much of me making sure they didn't have price tags on, say, our new TV and with my back issues, I nixed that. So then they decided to make a Koolaid stand. They made signs and taped them to the outside of the house, they attempted to color the entire driveway in different swatches of color, they sat outside yelling at people walking their dogs to come and have Koolaid. The only problem with the plan was the lack of Koolaid. Hmmm... He decided that they needed a better "draw" and asked me again about having a garage sale. It was at this point that I realized he was very determined about this idea.

"Honey, why do you want to have a sale? What toy are you trying to purchase now?? The new set of Bionicles you've been drooling over, I guess?" He looked up at me with those sweeter-than-sweet baby blues and said, quite irritated, "No, Moooom, we're going to donate all the money we make to people who don't have any money."

My heart melted, as would anyone who heard that from her child. And I felt a little shamed that I hadn't helped him more with his quest of such noble intentions. So we put our heads together and started to think of how he could accomplish this feat and came up with an idea. Our homeschooling group has been wanting to have a garage sale in which we would donate the money to a local humane society. Perhaps they would allow him to set up a Koolaid stand at the garage sale with his proceeds being donated to Feed The Children or a similar charity.

He's very excited at the prospect. He informed me yesterday that Jacob told him that he just has to get the Koolaid Blast flavors because they're MUCH better than regular Koolaid...and people would be willing to pay more money for it. He's talking about signs to make and donation jars to decorate and making a stand. He can't wait to get started.

He and Rose constantly are having new ideas about the house they're going to live in together when they grow up. How they'll work out two families in one house and who can paint and who can cook and who can mow the lawn. Of course, even so, Matthew is still the director and Rose is more the do-er. But it works well for their relationship.

In conclusion, I'm not sure that *my* point was made about the door handle but I'm fairly certain they each learned something about it anyway.

Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils

2008-08-20T08:44:00.000-07:00

A few lines from 'You've Got Mail':

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

Public school started here this week. Traffic has gotten horrendous, once again, and I'm starting to get "the stares" when I take the kids to the store during the day. I'm usually very confident about our decision to homeschool and our method of homeschooling called unschooling (or interest-driven learning or eclectic learning or relaxed homeschooling or whatever you'd like to call it). But for the first few weeks of public school in the fall, I do wonder. I see the young elementary kids happily standing at the bus stops, shiny new backpacks in hand and expectation on their faces and I get a twinge of...doubt.

Are my kids missing out? Would they like school? Most of my questions are social in nature...questions about making new friends and listening to another adult, following directions, etc. Then I realize that those thoughts are from the public schooled kid inside me.

When my big picture comes back in focus, the reality is that I don't really think those things are important. Would they like school? They might...for a week...or maybe even a year. But most kids that I see, somewhere around 3rd - 4th grade, lose that excitement and happiness about going to school that you see on the 1st graders. I'm not sure exactly why or how it happens but it does wane around that age.

Do they need to listen to another adult? I know people think that's important but really, why? I teach my kids to submit to authority. Why is it important that they practice it with someone else? And if is indeed important, they have Sunday School teachers and extra-curricular teachers and babysitters and grandparents where they can get their practice in.

Following directions occurs naturally in life, non-stop, and that's a very silly reason to send someone off to school. Where do these thoughts come from? Just yesterday I was showing Matthew how to load the dishwasher. Directions. I've been teaching Rose how to clean the bathroom and Jade how to help with laundry. Directions. When Matthew gets a new box of Legos or Bionicles, they include directions that he must follow or it won't look like the creation on the box. Their computer games have directions. Everywhere you go in life, there are directions. Park here. Stand in line here. Use this bathroom. Swipe your card here. Stop at this red light. Drive from here to there.

As for friends, we have homeschooled friends. We also have MOPS friends and church friends and neighbors...and they have their other siblings as well. Probably the very best friends they'll ever have are their siblings and they are all truly the best of friends. They have their moments, obviously, but they get along a million times better than my brothers and I did. It warms my heart to see how much fun they have together.

Then again, I've always had the impression that doubts were bad. But somewhere along the line, I've changed my stance and now believe that doubts are quite healthy. Doubts stretch us and make us re-evaluate our beliefs/thoughts/feelings. If we didn't have doubts, we might never discover anything in life. Doubts also teach us about ourselves. This process I seem to go through each fall only helps, in the end, to strengthen my resolve to continue on this path.

I think about what we've been learning lately. Rose is writing stories (which I must post for you) and Matthew is studying the presidents and learning to type (and working on spelling at the same time). We're all learning about being in a large family and helping out with chores. Jade is asking many questions about reading lately. "How do you read that?" "What sound does that make?" She's well on her way to being an early reader like her siblings. I've always felt inadequate in geography and recently found a great tool to improve my skills on it via a friend's blog. Last night, I memorized the European countries. Perhaps my interest will stir something in them as well.

So I might just give in to the urge to buy a bouquet of sharpened pencils for my table centerpiece. It might be a good reminder of this time of growth in my homeschooling experience.

Jewelry Give-Away

2008-08-18T09:17:00.003-07:00

A blog I read is having a jewelry give-away. And if you post about it on your own blog, you get an extra entry. I'm not one to typically wear jewelry (and allergies make flowers impossible for Hubby to give me), so this is a very unique request from me. But I truly LOVE this piece and would love to have it so I'm blogging for my extra entry. Check it out! :) Jewelry Give-Away

Don't Shoot Me

2008-08-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Nope, not another catchy blog title about my injections. This one is B.I.G.

A friend called me up today and said, "Hey 80's music lover...I have tickets to the Poison concert this weekend. And I get a tour of the tour bus. And, I get to ride IN THE BUS to the concert." I was speechless.

"Wanna come with?"

Wow. I have to say, my first thought was, 'Poison...yeah, I know they were big...what did they specifically sing?' [insert blog title here] So I quickly threw some Teddy Grahams at the screaming hungry baby and got on youtube. I found their Rose song. Awww...I **LOVED** that one. Something in me just loved it when those hard rock bands would do a mellow song. The Rose song has such great harmonization! Then I found "Talk Dirty To Me". I wasn't ever a fan of that song but it brought back lots of memories. We had a juke box in our high school cafeteria. I'm 99% sure that song was one that I heard over and over and over and over during lunch....daily....for four years (reason #732 to homeschool, but that's another post).

But then I tried to imagine myself in Poison's bus. I just couldn't. What would a person even wear to such a thing?? Would I need to dig up some painters pants and a big over sized shirt with a standing collar and a big chunky belt? Slouch boots? I don't have enough hair anymore to do a side ponytail! I just could not picture mommyfied-me doing something like that, though I know there are many, many who would give their eye teeth for that opportunity, and still more who would gladly don the appropriate 80's garb.

Still, the experience itself would be SUCH an experience! And isn't that the great part of life (and one of the core ideas behind unschooling)...the experiences?? How would that experience change my ideas, images, thoughts, etc.? I was so tempted to go just because of the life-learning experience I could obtain.

But [insert blog title here], the kids have a birthday party. And we have another family birthday party at the same time that I was planning to rush off to after the first was over. It's a busy night. And Hubby is out of town next week. I decided to forgo the experience for my kiddos. Now, if the same experience was offered with Amy Grant, I'd move Heaven and earth to make that one happen, no doubt about it. My inner child would finally be at peace if I were to experience that.

In the end, I feel ok about my decision...I think. I'm cracking jokes with Hubby like, "If I'm ever gonna try pot, I don't want it to be second-hand smoke in a musty tour bus anyway" and "My ears can hardly handle the four kids - I'd never be able to handle front row seats at a rock concert".

And, if my kids ever become fans of the group, I'll just have to say, "[insert blog title here]".

Absurd inventions, towels and weather

2008-08-08T14:51:00.001-07:00

It's the little things in life that drive me nuts. Check out this new product that I ran across today:

It's called "Squirt Baby Food Dispenser". First off, any seasoned mom will avoid ANY product that even hints of squirting, much less by placing it on the title. And any new mom should at least see that this starts out "squirt baby". I'm guessing a more appropriate name would be "Squirt Mom, Baby Food Dispenser". As if moms aren't squirted enough with baby food, they had to go and create an object that adds to the mess. How lovely.

Come on, invent something useful. Like a device that makes it impossible for a 16 month old to yank the hand towel off the bar for the 175,463rd time in the same day. I'm thinking one of those plastic baggie clips but only bigger...you know, towel sized...would do nicely.

They're so close right now...clips and towels in the same photo. WHY hasn't anyone come up with that yet?

So, your mission this weekend is to scour every store you enter for a device that will accomplish my goal. I know, it's school shopping season and everyone will be out if they have the pretty weather we do. 81F for a high today!!! Usually it's 100 or more this time of year. For the next week, it's all temps in the 80's. Must be all that global warming I keep hearing about. Anyway, if you find a device that's meant to keep my children from leaving the towels on the bathroom floor (apart from electroshock gadgets), I'd be willing to do something big. B-I-G big. I know I've seen one out there at some point but alas, my googling skills are shoddy today.

Have a great weekend and keep your eyes peeled!

Update on Sickly

2008-08-05T14:33:00.000-07:00

So on top of her nasty cold and eczema and cutting those darned incisors (which I swear are *the* most painful for all my kids) and her foot massacre and subsequent sewing up last night, she had two shots today. She needed her tetanus booster and while we were getting one, we decided to get another one caught up also so she got her #3 Hep B too. Poor thing has every reason to cry and fuss and whine and want to do nothing but have a cuddle.

But she's not. She's even smiling and pulling herself up to stand on that poor foot. She does NOT want to be constrained in the high chair and my ped said it's probably ok to let her stand on it a bit since she's not fully walking or running yet. It'll be my luck that she'll do it today, the day she really "shouldn't" learn.

But there's that sweet angelic smile staring up at me with those big blue eyes. She's even feeling well enough to do her familiar head-bonks...and hard enough to cause me to yell 'owwww', to which she laughs. What a trooper!

Matthew is a sensitive soul, as I've said before. After we left for the hospital last night, Grammy found him in his room, "just bawling his eyes out". He blubbered out, "I just didn't expect it to happen to her at such a young age!" She talked him down after a bit, telling him again that Linnae was going to be just fine. After he calmed down, he decided that he wanted to clean the kitchen for me. So he set out unloading and reloading the dishwasher and then grabbed the vacuum. Grammy worked on the kitchen counters and put dinner away. Rose grabbed the duster and broom while Jade cleaned the dinner table off. What a sweet surprise greeted us at 12:30a when we finally made it home!

Apparently the Pen IS Mightier Than the Sword

2008-08-04T22:22:00.001-07:00

Linnae proved it tonight. At 16 months (and still refusing to walk without holding something), she's using anything and everything to pull herself up these days. This evening, she made a bad choice. She chose the electric pencil sharpener cord. She was sitting on her knees with her feet bent behind herself and the pencil sharpener hit her just right apparently. Blood gushing everywhere. We applied pressure for a good while, Hubby washed with alcohol and applied a firm bandage. Still bleeding. So we called Grammy over to watch the other three while we took Linnae to the ER.

We had a medical student in training so aside from telling the receptionist, two nurses, the billing lady, the doctor and I'm sure several others, we also had to tell her the story. They looked at it (and it was still bleeding good) and determined that stitches would indeed be needed.

So they brought in iodine first and had us hold her foot in it "for 10 minutes. I'll watch the clock because it's exactly on time with my watch". After forty-five minutes of crying and screaming and pure exhaustion, they came in and took her foot out of the bath.

The nurse laid Linnae on her belly on the nurse's lap and they put two stitches in. It was still bleeding pretty well so they wrapped it up tight for 20 minutes.

Then they came in and loosened the bandage and sent us to Walgreens for antibiotics. I need to see if she's had her 12 month tetanus shot tomorrow (we're a little behind on a couple because we switched pediatricians).

I only had my camera phone but it's better for posterity than nothing. ;) All in all, she was a trooper. She really let it out while they were doing the stitches but other than that, most of her crying was just being super over-tired. And, as you can see from the pictures, she was quite calm at times.

So I get to spend a week "keeping her foot elevated and try to keep her from putting too much pressure on it". Yeah. OK. At least it's on the underside of her foot...only her pedicurist ever need know. ;)

She's baaaaaaack

2008-08-04T07:55:00.001-07:00

Big Bertha kicked my rear last night. Took forever to fall asleep, then I was really hot then chills for several hours, waking repeatedly. I was actually happy to see the sun this morning. Every muscle in my body is sore like I have the flu. Good thing dinner's also being provided.

My MOPS group got wind of my shot experience and decided to put me on the Meals For Moms list this week. It's a very sweet gesture though last week, when I was doing ok on the lower dose, it seemed a little unnecessary. But they wouldn't take no for an answer and today, I have to say, "Hallelujah!" Sometimes I just try to do too much and not accept help from others. I'm so glad God found a way around my stubbornness to provide dinners this week because apparently I'll need an extra hand or two.

In other news, I have a new nephew. Yes, it seems the family is reproducing like bunnies. He's out of state so I'll post pictures when I get them. :)

The kids dug out Matthew's box of Transformers from the basement yesterday. When he got his new bed last spring, we cleaned out his room and downsized the toys. He wasn't playing much with his Transformers anymore but he wasn't quite ready to give them up completely. So we put them in a labeled box downstairs in storage and I hadn't heard another word about them. Until yesterday. He and Rose, mostly, are having a blast with them - like brand-new toys. I'm glad they're getting more use out of them. After all, there's a small fortune worth of Transformers here, certainly more than meets the eye. ;)

You may not see me for a while

2008-08-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

I just discovered digital scrapping. I know, I'm LATE to the game...very late. I fought against it, I ignored it, I thought I needed expensive programs for it and I was wrong. There, I said it. Wrong-o = me. May I present to you, my first ever digital scrapbook page....

Easy peasy!! You know how much I love my free source Photoshop look-alike, GIMP!! It was all done with my dig camera, GIMP and some free digital scrapping papers/embellishments, etc. WOW. I'm gonna have fun with this. :)

My 365's Finally Updated

2008-08-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've finally taken the time to update my 365 blog. Almost a month of entries but it's current now. So wander on over there and check it out. ;)

http://learninglife365.blogspot.com/

A request...

2008-07-31T16:42:00.000-07:00

To whoever was praying for me a half hour ago: Bless you, bless you. And can you set a reminder for yourself to pray for me at 6pm every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday from now until...well, until they come out with an approved oral med (my neurologist hopes it'll be out in 2010 - it's currently in trials and doing very well so far!)?

I picked the hip. I figured it this way: The thighs are worst, closely followed by the hips (which makes me feel even worse when my baby has to get her immunizations). So I'm doing a hard-easy-hard-easy pattern. So I did thighs first, then arms and it was time for my next hard spot. Believe it or not, yes, the stomach is considered easy. They say it's because the stomach doesn't have lots of nerves there so that makes sense to me. Apparently, your hip and thighs have LOTS of nerves. But, sweet Prayer Warrior, Big Bertha went easy on me tonight and I thank you from the bottom of my....errr....hip. ;) She hurt me but not as bad as some of the lower dose shots. I did get my headache faster tonight but maybe I'll get lucky and it'll go away faster too. The original dose was 8.8 mcgs, then I went to 22mcgs and Big Bertha was 44mcgs. Hopefully the side effects are as tolerable as the last two dosages.

In UNSCHOOLING news...
Matthew, quietly making his lunch, announces, "Mom, 10 times 3 is 30!" "Yep," I said, in unschooling fashion, not immediately quizzing him on other problems he can solve. He continued, "Because 10 plus 10 plus 10 is 30!" "Yep," I answered again.

Just now, I asked him what made him think of that this afternoon. Was he counting something? "No, just sometimes my mind starts thinking about numbers and I think about them...and then my mind thinks about something else".

I was recently talking to a friend who wanted to know how to answer strangers when they asked about what kind of schooling they do at home. My answers are different depending on who we're talking to. If it's a grocery store check-out lady, I just say that "we homeschool". If it's a neighbor or friend, I might go into the concept of unschooling or 'child-led interests' or 'relaxed homeschooling' or 'delight-driven learning' (most of these are roughly the same concept). I told her that the first question people invariably ask is, "But what if they don't want to learn xxx subject?" Usually that subject is math. I'd say nine out of ten times, it's math (and the other 10% is science). My answer is usually, "How can they *not* learn math? It's everywhere. It's in cooking, in drawing maps, in spending their money on items at the store, in helping Hubby build something for the yard, in calculating square footage for painting a room with Mom. You can't escape math just because you don't like to sit in a stuffy classroom with some old man (all my math teachers were old men who couldn't relate to me) spouting theorems at you and forcing you to recite the times tables. And sometimes, math just pops into your head and you think about it for a while and then, you think about something else.

Big Bertha

2008-07-31T15:45:00.000-07:00

Yep, tonight's the night. Big Bertha. The whole shabang. I take my shots up to full dosage in about 20 minutes. Wish me luck.

The only question I have to answer now is...stomach or hip?? The ponderings of a madwoman. I suppose, since my hips are sore anyway what with all the chiro work, maybe I should let them rest. Or, maybe I should go for it since they already hurt, just make one part of my body hurt?? Hmmm...decisions, decisions...

'Course you know where I *really* wish I could stick Big Bertha. ;)

I survived!

2008-07-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

Yep, I survived the chiro! It really was not bad at all. My right hip was twisted back so he gently put it back into place. It didn't hurt but in truth, my hip joints are tender and a little sore - but if you've been walking around that long out of place, yeah, it's gonna hurt a little when you right it. I also feel like one leg is long than the other; I guess I'm going to have to learn to walk again. Do you think I'll learn before Linnae does??

I haven't blogged much - we've had company. Two weeks ago, I had one of my favorite nieces stay with me and the following week, I had one of my other favorites nieces stay with me. We had SO. MUCH. FUN. During the first week, Shopper and I cleaned up a HUGE portion of the basement while Hubby was out of town on business. I'm still amazed at how much we accomplished in less than two days. Then Shopper and I went shopping. Did I say she loves to shop?? We hit this mall and that mall and Target and Walmart and by the end of the week, I was exhausted. It was a wonderful I've-been-busy-having-fun exhaustion but exhaustion nonetheless. She watched me up triple the doseage of my shots and live to tell the tale. She even watched me give myself a stomach shot in the parking lot of a scrapbooking going-out-of-business sale. The kids were in evening VBS that week so Shopper and I got quite a bit of time in the evenings to just us and baby Linnae.

That Saturday, her sister came up and the three of us went to see Little Women: The Musical, performed by some college kids nearby. It was a good show and fun to dress up and be girly instead of mommyfied, for a change. Shopper went home on Saturday.

Last week was much different. Freshman and I (wow, I still can't believe it!) slowed down. She's more into talking and 'hanging' and after my busy shopping week, I was happy to indulge. We got out and did some shopping and ate out a few times - it was a fun week. When I hurt my back on Friday, I was all the more glad she was here to help out with the kiddos. It was so sad to see them leave but I hope to see them again before school starts.

I can't even write what it meant to have them up here all to myself. SIL has 4 kiddos and I have 4 and when we're together, it's 10 or 12 people and we're all so excited to see each other and you feel like you get to see them but not SEE them, you know?? It was such a joy for me to have them here. I got a glimpse into my teen years again and felt quite young-at-heart. I can hardly wait for next summer when they visit again! Until then, Facebook will have to suffice.

For those who are asking about my shots - they're going well. I have gotten over the deep exhaustion I had the first couple of weeks and the other side effects (nausea, fevers, chills, body aches, etc) are completely gone. I do typically get a headache about an hour after the injection but it's tolerable and, other than that, if it weren't for the actual injection site, I probably wouldn't know I'm taking anything. The medium (liquid) they place the medicine in stings like you wouldn't believe. But, at least if it's furious, it's also fast. The sting is mostly gone in two or three minutes. But it *is* a doozy.

Matthew just ran downstairs to show me an origami elephant. "Mom, aren't you surprised? After a year, I can still do it! Of course, I had to use the book...I find that it gives better directions than my mind remembers." ;) Welcome to my world, son.

So for now, I'm getting used to my "new" hips and trying to take it easy and not re-injure myself. I'm so fortunate to have a loving husband who can cook and clean...and who does cook and clean, without me asking. In fact, he honestly does a better job than I do in the cleaning department! The kids are dancing upstairs to their VBS music, I can hear Hubby finishing up his job related work downstairs and I'm sitting in a nice air conditioned home while it burns up at 104F outside. Life is good.

My body is falling apart

2008-07-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

I was getting out of the van (was taking the kids bowling for the first time) on Friday morning and felt shooting sharp pains in my lower back so bad that it took me to the ground. Fortunately the van door was open and I got to sit on the floor boards instead. I found a chiro and he said I've strained/sprained my lower back muscles, probably due to an underlying misalignment of joints. I still have that rib pain that I had all last winter too - it's better, but never fixed, you know? I suppose that is probably related to this.

So I'm going to conquer my fear of chiros and just do it. Anything at this point to have a fully functioning body again...well, as functioning as it can be anyway. The chiro put me on a stim machine (to promote healing) and sent me home with a portable stim machine (for pain relief - kinda numbs the area) and strict "rest" instructions for the weekend. I'm definitely doing better but still have a way to go. I have another appt with him on Monday afternoon, probably for an actual adjustment. eeek. I just hope he doesn't make it worse.

Your mission? Post a comment on how WONDERFUL you feel after you visit the chiro. Geez - I have had a drug-free childbirth, I give myself shots 3 times a week that sting like the dickens (yes, the higher doseage does REALLY sting) and I'm STILL scared to death of the chiropractor. Insane, I know, but there it is.

Educational Reform

2008-07-26T14:59:00.000-07:00

"Sir Ken Robinson is author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. In this talk, he makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it. (Recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:02)" - blog.ted.com

In my wandering aimlessly on the internet today, I came across this video in one of my homeschooling groups. While I don't think Ken is pro-homeschool per se, he talks about education reform in the truest sense of the words. I really like what he has to say here and my experience in public school was much as he describes. Even in art and music classes, we were doing it right or wrong. I love that line from Little Women when Laurie says, "My music is like your paintings: a mediocre copy of another man's genius." This is what "art" and "music" classes were like for me in school. Either I painted the apple "right" or I "could have done it better" - like there was a minimum standard in ART. Isn't ART someone's impression, someone's feelings/thoughts on something? How can you put a standard on it, for each person will have his or her own standard. Music is a little more concrete - you follow the music and play it as written. However when, through 10+ years of flute instruction, did anyone ask me to play something from my heart? Something that wasn't music I'd already heard or seen? Something that was truly *my* art, and not just my rendition of someone else's genius. I'm not sure that I can call myself artsy just because I can play the flute and guitar and read music and sing well and am slowly learning piano. I'm learning how to play instruments and read and play music but am I actually ARTSY? No, I think not.

Interesting speech - listen to it if you have the 20 minutes. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

I'm not so sure...

2008-07-12T06:36:00.001-07:00

As a 1930s wife, I am
Superior

Take the test!

My Girly Girl

2008-07-10T13:54:00.000-07:00

In Rose's room, you will find everything befitting a girly girl.

Tons of stuffed animals:

More stuffed animals:

Hard animals galore (how they all get along in that box, I have no idea):

Littlest Pet Shop extravaganza:

A well-used art desk:

Lots of recently weeded out books:

Books (and some music) on cds and tapes:

And two dinosaurs. Big T is her *prized* possession...that she begged and begged and begged Grammy for at Christmas. Then my girly girl actually cried when she opened him. Maybe she's a tomboy after all. Though, Big T can usually be seen wearing a pink t-shirt or a feather boa or a green glittery scarf. Don't ask me, I just work here.

To be fair...

2008-07-10T12:46:00.001-07:00

Since I did a blog post several weeks ago about the Subway contest excluding homeschoolers, I feel it's my duty to announce that they've changed the contest a little and homeschoolers are now included. Here's the link to the new contest, open to all kids pre-K - 6. http://www.subwayfreshbuzz.com/kids/contest.aspx (and apparently they have a proofreader now, who can actually spell...or at least knows how to use spell check.)

It doesn't affect our eating habits because, as I said before, we don't buy sub sandwiches if we're going to eat out - we like hot meals. ;) But I'm glad they chose to change the exclusivity of the contest.

Babies...again

2008-07-09T12:32:00.000-07:00

NO, not mine!! I'm DONE, for the love of Pete! ;)

My niece had a baby yesterday. I'm officially a Great Aunt. Now if that doesn't make me feel old, I'm not sure what will. At least I can't say, as Hubby can, that my sister is a Grandma. Teeheehee...anything to keep a few years on him. lol But I digress.

Her baby is just beautiful! Full head of the softest black hair ever. Darker complexion that she'll grow to love when she realizes she doesn't have to ponder tanning alternatives. Very alert and just taking the world in. Her name is Ariel, meaning 'lion of God'. I didn't hear her lungs so I can't testify to the lion part but I pray she live up to (at least the other part of!) her name. :) She's not a mermaid (as the girls asked) but she's definitely a beautiful princess! Pictures coming hopefully soon (dummy me forgot my camera!).

And speaking of babies, I've started a 365 project. It's a separate blog where you take a photo every day for a year and post it. I will likely save several days' posts and then just do the actual photo uploading and posting at one time but I *will* take a photo every day. If you're interested in following along, here it is:
http://learninglife365.blogspot.com/

If These Walls Could Speak

2008-07-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Rose: Can you warm up my lunch for me?
Matthew (in a very sweet tone): Rose, you can do it yourself. God doesn't want you to be helpless!
____________________________________________________

While the older two were at VBS today, I took Linnae and Jade to WallyWorld and saw their 'school supplies' were on sale. I grabbed tons of crayons, colored pencils and .05 notebooks. While standing in the checkout line, Jade was eyeing her new finds and exclaimed, "You got new crayons for meeee??" Then, her excitement immediately changed and she got a super serious look on her face as she held out her hand in a talk to the hand way, "only. on. paper."

Confessions of an Unschooler

2008-07-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Dropped Matthew and Rose off at VBS this morning. I took my 2nd shot last night and though I was worried that I was sugar-coating my memory of it, I realized that I truly wasn't. It really wasn't bad; it felt more like a mosquito bite than a 'shot'. I have to massage it for 2 minutes to help the medicine dissipate and while the medicine is dissipating, it does sting a bit but the needle, which was my main fear, is really nothing. I took it at 6pm and went to bed at 10p, asking God to allow my body to accept the meds without major hurdles. Hubby woke me around 12:45a for more Ibuprofen and I slept MUCH better than I did the first night. I feel a little 'sloshy' - not seasick, not dizzy, but things in my line of sight just seem to move a bit too easily, you know? So with all those kids jumping all over church this morning with VBS excitement, I had to go lean against the wall and close my eyes for a few minutes until I could leave my kids with their class. And I feel a tad bit achy but the Ibuprofen is taking care of that. All in all, not too bad. I'll do this dosage for the next 4 shots and then almost triple it. Thank you for all the comments and emails and kind words and prayers. They're sincerely appreciated.

Now for the confessions...
I worry when I drop my kids off for a program without me. Not that they'll get hurt or be abducted or anything like that (well, nothing more than normal mom worry, that is). I worry because they're homeschoolers and they don't know the (what I like to call) school-setting-etiquette. You know, the raising hands to answer questions, asking to go to the bathroom or for a drink of water, etc. I could see them totally forgetting to ask permission and just run out of class yelling, "PAUSE THE STORY - I HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM!" as is customary in our home. ;) But the more programs they're involved in, the better they get at remembering the rules so that's not a huge concern. The biggie is this: I worry about how my kids answer questions. For instance...in a school setting, teacher asks a pointed question, expecting a specific answer. Kid answers with the response they think the teacher is waiting for. But here at home, we just talk to each other. If I ask him a question, I encourage him to really think about it and to expand his range of thoughts into more questions. Now I realize that for the sake of practicality, you just can't do that in a classroom where you have 45 minutes to get just a few concepts into those 25 minds. But I do worry about Matthew seeming to 'take over the class' just from the way that he's used to talking and answering questions and exploring ideas.

I also worry because those two in particular have seemed quite restless (and in a trouble-making mood, if I can be so bold) the last few weeks. It could be they've been working off of my shot anxiety or that I was sick for a good portion of June or that it's summer or that the tags in their clothes are driving them nuts (lol) or any number of things. But they've been restless nonetheless and I just hope they behave themselves and have fun learning more about God. Maybe just a break from the house will cure their restlessness. ;)

The best laid plans

2008-07-04T08:14:00.000-07:00

Our 4th pictures:

Rose runs up to me with a blank piece of paper and a pen. She says, "Mom, write, 'may I please have Indy's hat?' on here." Eyeing her suspiciously, I begin to write. Matthew says to her in a hushed whisper, "Give it to me!" Not putting two and two together, I keep writing. Thanking me, she turns and hands the paper to Matthew and says, "There. Now give it to me." He sighs, hands the paper straight back to her and she immediately opens her hand to reveal the hidden Lego Indiana Jones hat.

****************************************************************************
Reason To Homeschool #532:
Matthew, in an effort to be sweet and sympathetic to his not-feeling-so-great mom, was giving me a back rub. I was thoroughly relaxing at his soft fingers when he said quietly, "You know, I think homeschooling moms get more massaging because their kids stay at home more often." My shoulders started shaking, breaking the relaxation, just before the fits of laughter encompassed us all.

The Price

2008-07-04T07:10:00.001-07:00

literature = free

medicine filled needles = $125/month copay

needle auto-injector = months of the five stages of grief (well, maybe four - I'm not sure 'acceptance' has set in yet), followed by weeks of worry and anxiety and fear

travel bag for the auto-injector and medicated needles = free

plate of milk and cookies to reward yourself for pressing the button on the auto-injector yourself = priceless

Though I really had to fight the urge to crawl under the table (and my dining table is quite tall and would have worked well for me), I persevered and stared that needle straight in the eye. I put the auto-injector on my thigh and it only took me about 5-10 seconds (after eyeing Hubby for one last encouraging look) for me to press the button. I was pleasantly surprised. The needle is very small (the smallest on the market for MS medications) and it's a subcutaneous injection so it doesn't have to go in too deep. The needle didn't hurt much at all...much like a mosquito bite. It certainly was much less painful than the 4x daily finger pricks for the gestational diabetes blood sugar tests! The medicine, on the other hand, did sting a bit but it also wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Holding the button down for a ten-count wasn't too horrible either. All in all, I was pleasantly surprised. This was the smallest dose (I'll be getting about five times this much in another month) and the amount of fluid to be injected will double as well. But I'm trying not to think about that (denial is the first stage).

As for the side-effects, they weren't great but not as bad as they could have been. It can take a good six months for my body to "get used" to the medication until I'm seeing slight (or no) effects (and hopefully I'm not one of those who never gets used to them). About 4 hours after I took the shot, pure and utter exhaustion set in. It felt like I'd taken about 4 Benadryl's on top of the other. I could barely keep my eyes open to finish cooking dinner. Kids got down to bed late and I finally crawled to my own bed around 9pm, very early for me. Though I was already on Ibuprofen, I was still running a fever when I went to bed. Sleep was very restless and I woke repeatedly all night long with the fever. I feel groggy and sleepy this morning but nothing I can't handle. I do expect the side effects to keep worsening as I go along (they warn of flu-like symptoms with fever, chills, nausea, muscle-aches, tiredness). The injection site looks like a mosquito bite with a large (quarter-sized) red circle around it. I'd show you a picture of that but hey, it's my thigh! ;)

I'm actually on an introductory program for the medication so it's only $50/month for a year for the medication. In the grand scheme of things, $125 isn't bad considering that, without insurance, it's over $2K a month...and if you look at it that way, Hubby just got about a $24K raise. lol

Keep MS research in your prayers. They're currently working on oral trials of this medication and my doctor is hopeful that it might be out in 2010. I know there are many MSers who are so scared of needles that they simply won't go on the medicine so please keep this medical research on your prayer list. And if you want to pray for me, pray for continued courage, understanding kids and mild, quick side effects.

Ten Things About Me/Us

2008-06-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

First, an announcement: I'm getting old.
Symptoms: I turned the big ol' 3-5 a few months back. I had to downgrade the resolution on my laptop so I don't squint all the time. I *cannot* get used to using only ONE space after periods when typing so I have truly become the epitome of "you can't teach an old dog new tricks". I force my kids to drink from a lowly water fountain because I remember when "you could buy a bottle of water for .50 and I refuse to pay $3.00 for it now" (plus if the garden hose, transporting water from the WELL, that filled the horse's water trough, was good enough for me...). And a morning at the zoo totally tuckers me out. (But that might actually reflect on another aspect of my life, saved for a bit later.)
Solution: Do what you can with what you have. If you're old, make accommodations as best as you can and deal with the rest as is.

I have so much to update you on that this could be a two or three parter. I'll try to shorten it to mostly highlights...but I'll warn you that it's truly very hard for me to say something without the back-story!! If you want to know more about any of the topics, feel free to email me or ask in the comments. I am good about answering questions. :)

1. My aforementioned sinus pressure tales could be a really long, really sad anecdote about the incompetence of the medical system in the US but I'm sure you've already heard too many of those. So I'll shorten the tale to one sentence: I've found a 'work-around', for the most part, on my own, after spending gobs of [time and money and more pain and energy and worry] asking doctors to figure it out for me.

2. We had a lovely Flag Day celebration with our local homeschool group. The kids learned about the Olympic flag and the American flag, discussed flag symbols, created their own flags, participated in a flag parade (around the subdivision) and played a Memory-type game with flags from many different countries. The memory game was a great idea though if you have very small children, I'd suggest a smaller sampling of flags - maybe ten flags - to start with and go up from there. This would be a great game for this weekend and easy to make yourself by printing them on the computer (just google various country flags) - you can even cover them in contact paper to make a game that lasts longer than a weekend! :) It would be neat to put magnets on the back of them when you're done to display on the fridge. You never know...it just might lead to an impromptu study on Japan, which might lead to building a volcano model, which might lead to a documentary on Mount St. Helens, which might lead to drawing a map of California (or a road trip to CA!), which might lead to discovering the funny city of Ukiah, CA, which might lead to finding this site which tells of a Haiku festival in Ukiah (that's haiku spelled backwards), which might lead to just having to make some haikus of your own...and haiku takes you right back to Japan again, but to explore maybe their culture instead of their landscape. ;) Ahhhh...unschooling at its finest.

3. I found *THE* neatest thing online the other day. Librivox is a community of volunteers who audio record themselves reading books to store in a digital (mp3 and such) formats. These are all public domain books (books published before 1923) so Harry Potter isn't there but there are so many classics (and poems) that are! I love this idea and I'm soooo happy it's out there. Even if you don't want to volunteer, check out your favorite poem or story - download the audio version for free on their site. Little Women, The Road Not Taken, Shakespeare, Moby Dick and even the Bible are just a very small sampling of audio recordings available. Lend your hand...err, voice...to the project (it's actually very simple and if you have a microphone for your computer, it can be totally accomplished with freeware programs too!). :)

4. I held the Creative Activities position for our MOPS group last year. While I enjoyed the creative outlet and really did like it, it ended up being a bad year for me with the new baby and all my unforeseen back/rib issues. So I decided to slow things up a bit and do Publicity this year. Basically, I update the website (I can obviously handle that...teehee), handle flyers and a display for MOPS Sunday (when we do our big plug for moms in the church to join/help our group) and do the monthly newsletter. When Matthew was a baby, several of us in the local La Leche League meetings decided to start a playgroup. After it got rolling, I put together a monthly newsletter and *really* *loved* doing it. So I'm very excited about doing it for MOPS this year. I was originally going to do it along with the lady who did the position last year but she emailed today and said that she feels pulled to do Creative Activities this year. So it looks like we traded positions and will be picking each others brains.

5. My old time readers should know but I haven't talked about this in a long time, for you newbies. I was diagnosed with MS in January 2006. (In my prologue (LOL), I mentioned tiredness - fatigue is the #1 complaint of people with MS). At the time, we were planning on having another baby and it wouldn't have done much good for me to be on medication for six months so I decided to wait. Well, I made it through the pregnancy very well. It's common for women with MS to have a great pregnancy (the disease sort of goes dormant) and then have a relapse between 3-6 months after delivery. I've done great - no relapses since my actual diagnosis. I've had some symptoms here and there but no acute relapses...it took lots of prayers by us and family/friends but I was able to make the "at least one year of breastfeeding" that I felt was really important for Linnae. But she's weaned now and it's time for me to buck up and start the meds.
There is no cure for MS but the medication will reduce my risk of developing more lesions by 33%. 33% might not sound that great but when you realize that you're talking about lowering your chance of paralysis or similarly terrifying fates by 33%, you decide that it's worth the trouble. ;)
The medicine is a hard pill to swallow though. Actually, it's not a pill at all...it's a self-inflicted (or husband-inflicted) shot, three times a week. And has the potential to make me feel pretty cruddy (flu-like) for a few months until my body gets used to it. I've come a long way from my days of hiding underneath the pediatrician's table, forcing nurses, much to my mother's chagrin, to pull me out for my immunizations. I remember that my first few lab pregnancy tests were a huge deal for me. In fact, I remember one nurse in particular saying, "Honey, you'd better HOPE you're not pregnant if this is how you react to needles!!" Then I went through infertility and lots of needles, then hyperemesis with pregnancy #1 (and more needles), then gallbladder attacks all through pregnancy #2 (and surgery to remove the gallbladder after pgcy...more needles), then gestational diabetes with #3 and #4 pgcys along with those four-times-daily needle blood sugar levels...and let's not talk about that 10 inch epidural needle I had three times (yeah, only three...my badge of honor...teehee). After all of this, I'm a LOT better about needles than I was as a child; however, every time I see one come at me, my inner child wants to head for the nearest table and camp out under it for the rest of my life. So if you would send some prayers/positive thoughts my way on Thursday afternoon, that will be the day that I'm acquainted with my spiffy needle injecting device...and I'd appreciate some extra strength and courage that day.

6. Both Matthew and Rose have had separate classes at the Zoo in the past few weeks. I didn't get to attend either class with them but they seemed to have a really good time. Matthew's class was all about animal tracks - the kinds of footprints different animals leave and how to track animals in the woods. Rose's class was for the pre-K crowd and was more of an arts and crafts class. They sang animal songs and did some fingerplays and a few crafts. Nothing extraordinary but she did seem to really like it. Plus, she got to pet an OPOSSUM!! Pretty. Cool. (soooooooooo glad I wasn't there! I still shiver when Hubby tells the story of falling asleep in the tree while hunting to wake up with one staring him in the face. uuuuugh I would have been down that tree faster than a speeding bullet...or, on second thought, I probably would have just shot it, that is, if I actually shot things. shiver.)

7. My brother recommended a graphic novel (known to us old people as a "comic book" series bound together into a book) for Matthew. It's called Tintin and something he recently started reading himself. He already has our nephews hooked and if his own daughter was old enough to read, I bet she'd be loving it too. I picked up the first book of seven the other day at the library and it landed on the couch. Ten minutes later, I heard Matthew say to no one in particular, "What's this?" and for the next 45 minutes, all I saw was this:

He stopped only when I told him it was time for dinner, and went straight back to it. The following morning, he finished it up and asked for the second book. I was a bit shocked. He *does* have an affinity for Garfield and Peanuts strips (and even Dilbert) but Tintin was written by a Belgian. It has *gasp* pictures of men smoking cigars, for crying out loud! LOL It was published in various countries in Europe so some of the terminology used is unfamiliar to him, as well as 1954 lango. But he was, as you can see, thoroughly entranced. Apparently Steven Spielberg was also entranced by it as he's working on a Tintin movie, scheduled to film in September.

8. We had some friends in town early in June (miss you already Mike and Jen!!) (loved seeing you Christie and Ryan and R&D!) and then I had checkups with all of my doctors in a two week span, along with a few kid visits to the pediatrician. I then spent the next week seeing my primary dr and urgent care and ENT for my sinus issues. June flew past us.
(for you non-budding-astronomers, this is a picture of the June night sky)

9. July promises to be super busy as well. Hubby is on business travel for part of this week and then there is, of course, the holiday weekend. Next week, Grammy is on vacation while Matthew and Rose are attending VBS...but I'm sure we'll still find something to get us into trouble. The third week, my niece is staying with us and the kids have another, evening-style, VBS. The fourth week, my other niece in that family is staying with us. And Hubby will have some more traveling this month as well. Then it'll be crunch time for the August MOPS newsletter.
(I have no idea what this musical is about but the picture seemed to sum up July)

10. I'm spoiled. We went to the zoo today with friends. Yesterday's overcast upper 70's breezy beauuuuuuutiful day apparently fooled many of us and we all headed to the zoo today. It was sunny, 84 and not very breezy. Not horrible, indeed, but it was hotter than I prefer. There were GOBS of people there. On the way out, there was probably at least a half-mile line just to park vehicles. I had gotten a pretty good free spot and as someone decided to jam up traffic to wait for me to unload the stroller and get everyone packed into their car seats, I felt the pressure rising every second. I'm no novice at getting stuff shoved away but I got really stressed out when a quarter of a mile of cars started honking. I realize they were honking at the guy who stopped, and not me, but *I* was the one he was waiting on and it took me quite a while to de-stress from the situation.
I forget sometimes how spoiled I am, being a homeschooler. We usually visit the zoo in the cooler weather in the spring and fall, simply because of our own weather tastes, so we usually go when most other kids are in school during the week. But today, we met up with friends and were shoving the strollers through the Herpetarium with all the other kids who are trying to get the most bang for their summer buck, so to speak. If that was the only way I ever got to see the zoo, I'd be one of those moms who hates to go there too.
They did have a neat robotic, life-sized dinosaur exhibit. The exhibit was buried deep along the dreaded elephant trail. The trail itself is neat the first time or two...or maybe three times you do it. If you click on that link, you'll see a map of the trail and you can see it's a neat idea. The path winds you through South America, Africa, Asia and North America...on ten acres...and you see various animals relating to each section. For instance, in Africa, you see our two hippos (who were in really bad moods today). But this is where ideas and practicality don't mesh very well, in my opinion. It soon becomes the never-ending, can't-get-out-if-you-wanted-to trail. Especially when they're cleaning the elephant paddocks and the only animals to watch are the Sweaty Zookeepers. Or when you've been on the stinkin' trail at least a hundred times and *still* have yet to actually SEE the reported Black Rhino. There's no way to walk up, see there are no elephants and walk away to see the lions. This is a looooong winding trail that has a few other animals along it but when you reach the middle and decide that 'going to see the elephants' wasn't as big a priority as you initially thought, you're stuck on the trail anyway. No turning around, no short cuts. Yes, I am complaining...but with a purpose. You need the mood and the back story. Hot, tons of people, very long walk that you can't get out of, looking for reported 'dinosaur exhibit'. Rose, looking at yet another empty paddock, sighs and says, "It sure is a long way to walk to see those dinosaurs." I retorted, quick on my feet, "You DO have dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour, right?" My children looked at me oddly and said nothing. I continued in Ian Malcolm style, "Hello? Helloooooo?" Not even a giggle or a smirk for my really great reference to the best line in Jurrasic Park. Nada. Further proof that I'm old.
But I digress. Back to Dinos...
Somewhere between Africa and Asia, they placed the dinosaur exhibit. The dinos roared at us while moving their front legs and heads around and the Dilophosaurus even sprayed a mist of water, causing me to feel a tad bit sorry for Dennis Nedry. At the end of the exhibit, there was a cast of a dinosaur skeleton for the kids to 'dig up'. (Note what highly useful archaeological tools they handed my kids...and the great shape they're in! Matthew and Rose wanted to know where the trowels and "real tools" were).
Regardless of my spoiled state (and tongue-in-cheek complaining), I really do love our zoo. I know it's one of the best in the US and what's more - it's free! We also loved meeting up with our friends at the zoo, even if it was a short morning.

The 'spitting' dilophosaurus:

Fighting Hippos Mere Inches Away!

Still sick...I think...

2008-06-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

One of the blogs I read, Unschooling Snapshots, had a good strewing post today that I wanted to share with you. Whatcha Strewin'?

I haven't blogged much the past few weeks and that's mainly because I'm still not feeling well. I've had many sinus infections in my life as a result of my bad hay-fever allergies but this time, it is much different. This is just sinus pressure. No congestion, no cough, no sneezing, no runny nose. Just severe pressure in my upper sinuses and even my upper teeth. After a week of that, I called for antibiotics. Four days later, I went to Urgent Care. Two days later, I was seeing my regular dr again. He gave me some pain meds (along with other stuff) and I've kinda been floating along for the last 4 days. So I don't know if I'm actually *doing* better but I am *feeling* better...however, this is my last day of pain meds so we'll see what tomorrow brings. I may be back at my drs office on Friday, begging for a lobotomy again.

Matthew is continuing his leisurely study on presidents. The book we read about John Adams didn't paint him to be a very nice person and talked more about what he did before becoming president than what he actually did in office. I'm not sure if that's the way history remembers him or if that was just this particular author so we'll be looking for another book about him to get a more rounded picture. I'm anxious to move on to Jefferson as I found a good fictional biography of Jefferson as a boy that looks good.

Rose is now reading Jade's before-nap stories to her. It's so sweet to peek in there after I've put the baby down for nap and see them snuggled up in bed, reading quietly together. Being girls (or perhaps just their personalities), they butt heads more often than either does with Matthew. I was initially quite worried that moving Jade into Rose's room would make matters worse but I think it's working well. They seem to have adjusted fine and don't mind sharing the room at all. They even seem to play nicer together but still have their moments so it is especially sweet and heart-warming to me to see Rose reading stories to her little sister.

Linnae is closer to walking. She has the leg strength, just not the confidence yet. But she can crawl up the stairs faster than anyone can catch her, much to my chagrin, and I know it will only be a short time before I will be wishing she was 'just crawling' again. :)

This afternoon, Grammy is taking Matthew and Rose to see Prince Caspian. Tomorrow we have a birthday party and a homeschooling get-together with a Flag Day focus (it was rescheduled from last week due to illness) and on Saturday, Rose and I have a program at the Zoo.

I know it wasn't much to blog about but I wanted to let you know we're still here and hopefully I'll be back to blogging more often soon. In my fuzzy pain med state, you're lucky it was at least coherent. LOL

Out of the Fog

2008-06-17T19:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been out of good posts for a while. Truth is, I'm feeling lousy. For the past 4-5 days, I've had some really strong sinus pressure, resulting in headaches (of which I'm not accustomed) and general extra crabbiness. I have no congestion in my nose or ears or chest - just the pressure that's causing me to think about the pros of lobotomies an awful lot. So, last night when dear sweet Hubby offered to put the baby to bed, I readily accepted (and he always puts the other three down too).

I went to bed much later (the decongestant that didn't help kept me awake) and flipped on the baby monitor as usual. All I heard was static so I switched to the other channel as Jade likes to play with the buttons sometimes. I then heard the familiar noise machine in the background and went to sleep.

Around 5am, I heard Linnae crying. It wasn't a "I mean business" cry but more of a "I want somebody to come in here...I think". You know, one of those cry-for-10-seconds-then-quiet-for-a-minute repeat things. Knock on wood, she's a GREAT sleeper and hasn't ever done this to me before (boy I'm really asking for it, posting this!). So I let her do that for a little while, hoping she'd go back to sleep. No such luck. About 10 minutes later, she really started crying good. Worried that she'd wake the other 3 at 5am (oh doesn't THAT sound fun?), I leapt from my bed and scrambled down the hall. Bleary eyed, I opened her door and saw her raise her sleepy head off the mattress and blink at me like, "What's going on, Mom?" In my half-awake state, I thought that maybe she'd been crying in her sleep. So I picked her up and held her and swayed, trying to get her back to sleep. She was very quiet. After a couple minutes, I tried to lay her back down and she wasn't going to have any of that. So I held her a bit more. Fever? Nope. Diaper? OK. Cold? Nope. Maybe she just had a bad dream.

Then I heard her cry again. Except she was crying down the hall on the monitor. But she was in my arms and I knew for sure that she wasn't crying. As the fog began to lift off of my sleepy brain, I realized that I was listening to a baby...but not mine. And the cry was too young to be any of my other kidlets. It was then that I looked at her monitor and realized it was turned off...Hubby had forgotten to turn it on last night. I was apparently listening to the neighbor's baby, who is, needless to say, an early riser. And I'd woken poor Linnae up for no good reason.

So this evening, I took the opportunity to tell my neighbor about it. She apologized several times but I told her that the only reason I was telling her was not to complain but to make sure she was aware that she might have other neighbors listening in too...and that she might want to be sure to turn it off when the baby's not sleeping (especially if she wants to complain about the neighbors...lol).

I'm sure I'll laugh about this some day but today, in this bleak sinus pain state? Not so much.

Weekend Wonders

2008-06-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, pizza night, no less, Matthew decided that he wanted to set the table. This is something quite new for us as we usually do buffet style around our house. He was very particular about setting his spot just right. He had the plate centered, the cup at the top right, the folded napkin on the right as well. Then he placed the fork on the napkin and the knife on the left. He looked at me quizzically and asked if that looked right or if the utensils were the other way around. I said, "Though it makes more sense to me the way you've done it, in nice restaurants, they do place the fork on the left and the knife on the right." He emphatically retorted, "Mom! In nice restaurants they wrap them up in the napkins!" I suppose that I might need to take him somewhere "nice" some day so he can see what "nice" is. ;)

On Sunday, 5yo Rose and I went out alone. I needed some blood work done at the hospital and then we went shopping for new bath towels. The hospital took *much* longer than I expected and Rose was very hungry so I told her we could grab a hamburger in between stops, teasing that it was "just because you have really neat parents who do that sort of thing". She said dramatically, "You mean, I have the BEST parents in the whole world!" I grinned at her in the rear-view mirror. She added in a know-it-all voice, "Well, along with Carl and Nancy, of course". This got a full-blown laugh. Carl and Nancy are our neighbors. Their grandkids come over a lot and play with my kids so we've gotten to know them pretty well. Nancy's grandkids are heavily male and she really enjoys getting to talk about girly things with Rose. I think she and her husband probably *are* some of the best parents out there but I find it so funny that Rose thought of them first on her list of "best parents in the world".

For more on table settings, click here.
To see a shining example of why we need more great parents like Carl and Nancy, click here (though I'll warn you that the comments down the page there aren't for kidlet eyes).

Overheard today

2008-06-11T20:32:00.001-07:00

Matthew: Burned brownie bottoms are awesome!!!

Rose (speaking of her stuffed sheep dog): Floss has been sleeping for days and days. I think he might wake up more if he had some sheep to watch. But sometimes he practices with the plastic sheep...but he needs some stuffed sheep, or some Webkinz sheep, if there are any.

Jade: I nee all my tats! ('I need all my cats', referring to her armfuls of stuffed animals, not one of them being an actual cat)

Linnae: ni-ni!

Awesome article

2008-06-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

This article, by one of my favorite writers (and yes, she's a published author - she's best known for her Little House series books about Laura's grandmother and others), will heretofore be referred to as "My absolute favoritist (Rose's word) all-time best read on arguments against homeschooling".

It's so well written. She doesn't attack 'school' but instead gives real answers to those questions that we, as homeschoolers, get soooo very often. Go read it. If you're a homeschooler, you'll shout hip-hip-hooray at the end. If you're not a homeschooler, you will have a new perspective on homeschooling...and, it might just be an even better one than you have now. ;)

Monday, Monday...

2008-06-09T13:31:00.001-07:00

If the song is now stuck in your head, welcome to my world. And it's not even one I like. :)

We've had a very busy weekend. Saturday morning, Matthew went to a program at the zoo. So I drove him all the way down there and dropped him off (parents weren't invited to stay). His class was about Animal Tracks. They identified tracks and figured out which animal made which track and the instructor brought in some animals for them to look at like a millipede, white ferret, etc. He had a great time. While he was there, Grammy and I went over to the Art and History museums to look around. I wanted to see if there was anything I thought the kids might like there. I found some fascinating things at the History museum's store. A plethora of items (coffee cups, t-shirts, books, pens, etc) with the quote, "Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History". I have since put the book on reserve at the library so I can't say if it's a good read or not but the quote really struck me. I'm no women's libber but I really liked that thought as it could apply to so many things.

I picked up a couple books on the presidents for Matthew, one of which was a series of fictional biographies about Jefferson's childhood. I'm betting my library has more of the series too. At the Art Museum, I picked up a great little book on how to draw cats for Rose, as well as some beautiful detailed butterfly tattoos for the girls.

After picking Matthew up from the Zoo (where we teased him that they'd just throw him in the monkey cage if I was late), we rushed over to Steak N Shake for a quick lunch. We drove all the way home to drop Matthew and Grammy off and I went straight back downtown to see Mamma Mia! at the Fabulous Fox Theater (if you've never been, it's too gorgeous to describe - click on the link to see the pictures). I didn't care for the storyline all that much but it was really fun getting to see how they worked a storyline into all the ABBA songs that I grew up listening to (and still do). I had a really good time. I was originally going to go with a friend but she backed out and I couldn't find anyone to go with me so I took the best date...myself. LOL Who would enjoy it more than me? ME, of course! :) After that, I rushed back home to greet SIL & BIL, who stayed with us Saturday night to catch an early plane to Cancun on Sunday. SIL and I went out for rare treat - kidless time together! The four of us stayed up too late watching youtubes and geeking out on the couches. It was a really great day.

On Sunday, we spent the afternoon with a friend of Hubby's from high school. His wife and I have become good friends and our kids have now as well. We had a great lunch and went to a new indoor playground and just had a great time there all afternoon.

It was a very busy weekend but it was a lot of fun. After the kids got down to bed, I was looking up one of the Abba songs I hadn't thought about in many years and found out that they made the musical into a movie!! It opens next month with Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan. I'm excited to see what Meryl does with the role as I love just about anything she does. :) It'll be fun to see it so close to when I saw the musical so I can compare and contrast the two. Quite fun!

So today I've spent chillin out and tomorrow we have plans with friends and Wednesday we have plans with SILs kids. So it should be a good (but tiring) week. I hope you have a great one too!

Life Lessons

2008-06-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

Many times I have been given 'teaching situations' in my life. They come from friends, family, strangers and God. Some are more poignant than others and some are definitely more fun that others as well. Usually, I do *not* see them coming...even after I should certainly know better.

When my online friend, Stacey, blogged about her son doing this, I chuckled:

When this one happened to her 2 week old couch, I grimaced, but still laughed.

And when she posted this, I began to wonder if it wasn't all just a ploy for good blogging.

But when she blogged this, I nearly wet my pants, laughing myself silly. I mean, really...WHO in their right mind would give that kid MORE MARKERS???

Alas, dear sweet Stacey (who makes THE most incredible cakes, btw!), I am no longer amused.

Last week, the older three kids were awake bright and early as usual. Rose (5y) and Jade (3y) have really been enjoying coloring/drawing a lot together lately and this morning was no different. In fact, I'd gone out the night before and bought them a brand new set of *washable* Crayola markers because they were using cheap off brand markers that were in really bad shape. They were having a blast together.

The baby woke and I went upstairs to get her. As is customary, the other three trailed along right behind me, screaming their 'good mornings' at the baby until she shuddered in fear before breaking into a sobbing fit. (Geez...you'd think by now that she'd be used to that morning greeting!) I calmed her down and when I turned around, I found Jade bent over like she was picking something up off the carpet. Just happy that I didn't trip over her and fall in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, I didn't pay much attention to what she was actually doing. I start making my way down the stairs with the older two kids in tow (still trying to out-good-morning the other) and trying to calm the baby. I realize, halfway down the stairs that there are little brown spots on my carpet. Each stair had a brown spot on it. It then slowly dawned on me. I looked back at the top of the stairs just in time to see Jade starting to make the next spot. She had a brown marker in hand and apparently, each step she took, she marked it with the marker. I suppose, one could make a Hansel and Gretel connection out of it but I digress. She was told not to do it and punished accordingly.

Being the super cleaning mom in a household of 6 people, the marks were still there a couple days later. I hadn't looked up on the Crayola website yet how to clean their *washable* markers out of carpet. I probably should have asked Stacey. She might have whispered a warning of my impending doom.

On Sunday morning, I woke to find this. It's not the best picture but you get the gist. If you look closely, you can even see all the small purple dots surrounding the big purple design:

I'm just grateful that some of it went on the rug that needs to be replaced anyway.

Needless to say, I was *not* laughing. I immediately thought of Stacey and how I'd laughed "with" the poor woman.

Crayola.com does have a neat site. They have a huge database to search for getting their products out of other things. You can enter in the specific writing implement (washable markers) and the specific item destroyed (carpet). Then it gives you very specific steps on how to remove their product. My instructions were:

Stain Removal Tips
Dampen a sponge with alcohol and use a blotting motion to absorb the marker stain, changing the sponge as often as needed. Apply upholstery/rug shampoo according to the directions on the container. If stain remains, use Capture spot and soil remover according to the directions on the container.

I wonder if they have rights to Capture Spot Remover and rubbing alcohol? If my kids (and Stacey's) are any measure, we should both purchase stock in the companies right now.

I didn't have a sponge but got to work with some cotton balls and rubbing alcohol. It took lots of elbow grease but it did come almost completely out. Rose was thrilled to help me clean up the mess on her floor.

A few hours later, it magically reappeared though it wasn't nearly as distinct a picture as before:

I need to attack it again with the alcohol but I have had 50,483 other messes since Sunday that required more urgent attention. At least the brown marker blended in nicely with our cream carpet with tan specks. Purple just kinda stands out, ya know??

So, I send this out tonight into the blogosphere, begging forgiveness from Stacey for laughing at her marker plight.

These 'teaching situations' never come like I really want them to.

(You can find Stacey's post about *all* of her son's hysterical antics...including MORE, yes MORE marker incidents here. Thanks, Stacey for letting me piggyback on you for a bit. :))

Twittering away

2008-06-05T19:29:00.000-07:00

I've had a bad week. I'm just not feeling great. It basically hasn't stopped raining since early March and the mold count is through the roof. The red puffy eyes combined with the scratchy deep voice would be enough for anyone to run in fear but combine it with the hot humid stickiness outside and my lovely mood and you've got a real winner here. On the up side, we've still been learning things (on top of "how to avoid Mom this week," that is).

I'm utterly amazed at how well Rose is reading. It seems to have happened overnight. She's even entered the library summer reading program. They have to read so many minutes to get a prize...and she's very focused on filling her sheet. At bedtime, we read her a story and then she reads us one...just because it's silly to read Mom a bedtime story. I really need to get that webcam so you can see it yourself.

Speaking of the library, I went in to get the last Harry Potter book the other day for Matthew and the librarian asked if I wanted to sign him up for the reading program. When I agreed, she asked what "grade" he was in. After a few minutes of a dumb stare while I tried to figure it out, I finally blurted out that he would be going into 2nd grade next year. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at me. "Second? And he's reading Harry Potter?" (I love these opportunities to further positive opinions of homeschoolers.) "Yes," I replied and smiled, "we're homeschoolers." Then I asked if my daughter could join up too, "she'll be in Kindergarten." (I was proud of myself for thinking so quick on my feet.) "Is she reading on her own yet?" When I again said, "yes", I really suspect she thought I was lying to her. Oh well. The kids are excited...prizes??? for reading??? WHY??? They can't seem to figure out why anyone needed to encourage kids to read...why on earth would a kid NOT want to read? I have no idea.

I said I would update you on Matthew's quest to learn about the Presidents. He told me that he wants to know more about them so he can "answer more questions when we play trivia games". To hear him say it, you'd think we go to trivia nights all the time. The truth of the matter is that we had one with our MOPS group this year and they brought in someone to do a trivia quiz with the kids while we had ours for the adults. Then MIL had one at her church later, that allowed the kids and adults to play together. We also like to play word and trivia games around here sometimes but with the kids ages, it's a little limited at this point. I might need to get Disney Trivial Pursuit soon though. Anyway...presidents. I found a book at the library that wasn't too dry about Washington. We read through it and we've talked about it some the past few days. Tonight he wanted me to read it again because "I still haven't memorized all the stuff about him that I want to yet." If you asked, the first thing he'd tell you is that Washington had false teeth that were made out of human teeth (ick), cows teeth (TRIPLE ICK) and the tusks of elephants (don't. even. I don't know where those tusks have been!?!?). He would also tell you that Washington fought in the French and Indian War and built the White House but was the only president to never live in it (before this week, I couldn't have told you any of that either, sadly). I made a suggestion that we could do a presidential scrapbook so we'd have something to reference and he seemed really interested in that. I also found a movie called "The Crossing" about Washington at the library but I need to preview it as it's not rated and I believe Washington was rumored to be quite the philanderer and my usual kid-friendly-movie-review sites don't have the movie listed.

Jade is speaking a lot better these days too...much bigger words and more clearly. A couple days ago, the two older kids ran outside to play. Jade, finally getting the computer to herself, decided to stay inside and hoard it. She played on Starfall.com (a GREAT early reading site!) for about 45 minutes and loved every second of it.

Linnae is finally pulling herself up to standing. After 14 months of me kicking her feet out from under her, she's persevered and doing it anyway. I knew that Irish name(first name), as well as the Irish blood, would serve her well. :)

We had a good discussion today about discrimination. Matthew was relaying a conversation he had with Hubby a few days ago. Apparently when they went out to get haircuts and lunch last weekend, Matthew was naming off places he'd like to eat. When he mentioned Subway, Hubby said, "Remember Mom said we're not going to give them our business anymore?" At this point, Matthew looked at me and said, "I forget why now though. Why not?" First I told him that we don't usually eat there anyway so I didn't feel it was that big of a stand but I explained about Subway's recent contest and how they're excluding us from participating because we're homeschoolers. Never being one to hide his emotions, he slammed his hand down on the counter and said, through gritted teeth, "Well, I hope that everyone decides to not give them business anymore and they go out of business totally! We should tell all our friends to go to Quizno's." Might be a good time to read Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. :)

Last, but not least...my friend Pattie recently mentioned twitter.com on her blog (yes, even though she was originally Hubby's college friend, I have claimed her now...teehee). I clicked on a link and it's the neatest concept! It's like mini-blogging. In 140 characters or less, you answer the question "what are you doing?" You link up with friends and see what they're doing. I've added it in the sidebar of my browser so it's super easy to add an entry quickly. I'm having some connectivity issues tonight but hope they resolve soon. So if you're on twitter, leave me a comment or email...you might learn even MORE about us. :)

Learning Life Through Books

2008-06-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Our neighbor has her grandkids over at her house a lot and because of that, my kids have become good friends with them. One of their parents is going through a divorce and the cousins are now temporarily living together. As is so often the case, there are some growing pains going on that we hear about from the kids. After I called the kids in tonight for baths, I went outside to see that all the toys had been brought back inside. One of the boys, A, was out there and he was leaning down on his water gun so that it took me a minute to figure out exactly what he was doing.
"Oh," I said in revelation, "you're getting all the water out of it, eh?"
He said, "Yeah. I'm mad at J because he put the water in here wrong and he takes my toys and yesterday, when I wanted a Popsicle, he said it was his brother, C's, and I'd have to ask C for one...but then said he was going to tell C to say no anyway when I asked him."
"Wow," I agreed, "that doesn't sound very nice."

Later, at dinner, Matthew brought up the fact that A and J weren't speaking because they were mad at each other. And he sounded like he was empathizing with A and mad at J himself. He said, seemingly frustrated, "I can't wait until their small school break is over so I can talk to J about it!" I talked to him for a few minutes about not being mad at someone just because your friend is mad at them. It's ok to empathize with him but I felt he should think twice before he decided to also be mad at J, because he's friends with J too. He interrupted me with, "Mom, you know in my Harry Potter books..."
Thinking what I'd said went straight in one ear and other the other, I said, "mmm?"
He continued, "Well, Hermione and Ron get mad at each other a lot. They don't speak to each other for a long time."
I said, "Oh?"
"But Harry gets them together and fixes it for them," he said, giving me the thumbs-up signal and a wink.
"Ohhhh....so you're going to be Harry for A and J?"
"Yep," he said, "I'm gonna make them talk to each other again! That's why I can't wait for their school break to be over."

~Better than *any* book report I could have ever received, he not only followed the storyline (a minor storyline, at that) but he figured out what the author was really trying to say and applied it to his own life. I think Joanne Rowling would be quite pleased too.~

It's HERE!

2008-05-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm typing to you from my new laptop!!! WOW, this is FUN! And I even checked out Webkinz already. It's amazing how much faster this machine is - the Wheel of Wow would spin for a full 5 minutes on my old desktop...now I see that it's supposed to actually spin for all of like 15 seconds. I hope when I wipe and reload the desktop, that it will run faster for the kiddos.

I do miss my big ergonomic keyboard but I will remedy that soon. Maybe a trip to Best Buy is in order this weekend. ;) The other problem is that I need a desk area. The kids will have my old desktop setup but I need a desk for my docking station and monitor, etc. So at the moment, I'm just trying to figure out how to have three desks on the main floor without looking like an office building. ;) Hubby has his roll-top mail desk and the kids have my old desk (that doesn't have room for my new computer stuff). So I need a desk, a space to put it, a chair, a monitor (for either me or the kids), keyboard and mouse. It seems really silly to have three desks but it is necessary. And because the kids are so young, I need to have their computer where I can monitor their online sites (yeah, that's a little un-unschoolish of me but you know I'm not a radical) so I can't very well put it in one of their rooms. So for now, we'll just look officey. If anyone has any great ideas (ahem...Jean2!), please...I'm all ears!

I didn't opt to install MS Office. I just couldn't justify the expense when there's a *free* look-alike that supposedly works just as well, if not better, than MS Office (and you all know what a ~~cheapskate~~ great bargain shopper I am!)...Open Office. I love to support freebies for home users!

My only problem now is which new toy to play with first?? GPS...laptop...GPS...laptop...decisions, decisions.

Zoo

2008-05-29T07:57:00.000-07:00

I find myself thinking, "My next blog post will probably be from my new computer" a lot these days. For the last few days, it's been sitting in Kentucky...in customs. As Jen so eloquently put it, "Customs? In Kentucky? I didn't know they had declared themselves an independent country!" I hadn't been notified either, Jen. However, it seems the laptop shipped directly from China to Kentucky. While that seems like a very odd flight to me (and since Hubby's shipped from China to Alaska a few months ago), I have never tried to understand postal routes so I'll just leave it to the experts to figure out. But this morning, I see that it's "out for delivery", which sounds very promising. I'll be sure to take pictures. :) I feel like a 5yr old on Christmas morning.

The weatherman lied. He gave us that beautiful forecast for Memorial Day weekend and it didn't turn out nearly that nice. As usual, Memorial Day was hot and sticky. Very sticky. But it wasn't as bad as it has been in years past so that's something. However, just to show that Spring wasn't over yet, she decided to give us really fierce thunderstorms all night long and give us a high of around 60 the next day. It was very unexpected but, in my opinion, nice. ;) So we got our BBQ and roasted marshmallows and we even got to complain about the heat...a bit. And I even got to see Indy whip the bad guys into shape.

I blogged a while back about geocaching and my new GPS (my birthday gift from Hubby). Very long story short, the Magellan GPS just wasn't up to snuff. There were issues with the order, the price and the 'items included', as well as the item itself having many issues and the final straw...the software wouldn't load on Hubbys new souped-up laptop (or my ancient one). So, after returning that, I used the extra birthday money I got from other family members and upgraded to a Garmin 60cx. It's a breeze. Batteries fit, my ancient PC had no troubles installing the hardware or software, and the functions on the unit just seem more intuitive to me. I'm really happy I switched. Now to find some freebie maps for it...teeheehee. I'm psyched to get back to geocaching again. :)

Several of you have asked me about the recent Subway issue, knowing we're homeschoolers. I have to bring up this point alone. As homeschoolers, we eat 3 meals a day at home. We do not spend money on school/work lunches every day. So we have a bigger variety to choose from when we do eat out, I would imagine, than non-homeschooled families. Our family doesn't frequent Subway very much at all anyway simply because I can build the same sandwich for pennies comparatively (and more healthy as well, utilizing veggies from my garden and non pre-packaged meats). However, I do believe that homeschoolers frequent Subway more often than non-homeschoolers simply because our lifestyle doesn't demand that we eat 'on campus'. I believe it's a very bad move for Subway and in our house, we'll continue business as usual, making our sandwiches at home. I'm just glad that my 5 and 7 year olds can probably spell the words, 'United States' and 'basket' better than the Subway PR people can. 'Nuff said.

The high yesterday was 68F, I believe. Today is supposed to be 78. Such is life in Missouri. So the kids and I ran to the zoo yesterday. One, most people wait to do the zoo on really hot days (I have no idea why either!?!). And Two, some schools are still going for maybe another week. So we went. It was a very nice day and we really enjoyed it as it was our first trip of the year. Usually we go much more in the spring but it's just been too wet. Some pictures of the day...

First the kids wanted to check out the new amphibian exhibit. We saw a metamorphosis area where tadpoles were turning into frogs. Very cool. The woman running the exhibit started by talking down to my kids but was quickly corrected when Matthew started telling *her* more about the chytrid fungus than she was supposed to be teaching that day. I was quite surprised myself at all the information spewing forth from him especially since I've never heard of it. He said that he'd read an article about it in a magazine a while back. Hmmm...

Jade was quite proud of herself that she touched this boa in the Children's Zoo

Here are some more pictures from the zoo:

Jade's baby elephant (also named Jade) sure has grown since this time last year!

Next...wait. just. a. second. There's a KNOCK. at my door. Maybe it's the worlds only May Santa Claus?? Gotta Run.

BBQ leftovers

2008-05-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Review of last week's menu:
Breakfast for Dinner was a huge hit, as was the tomato soup (as always).
The kids really liked the Tuna Helper so I might look up some tuna casserole recipes to try out (I really hate buying packaged foods if I can help it).

The "Chicken and Carrots and Onions" - can you believe I've improved upon a great mogul of my childhood?? While my mom spent a couple hours over the electric skillet making fried chicken every Sunday afternoon (and worrying that it was burning), I decided that it was just too much trouble. So I've never really made fried chicken for my husband in 14+ years. I think I attempted it once but that experience not only confirmed the trickiness of making it but also brought to attention the MESS involved. But a few months ago, we had dinner at my MILs house. She made fried chicken too. It wasn't nearly as greasy as my moms (sorry, Mom), and she wasn't stressed about the issue at all. I asked her what she did differently. Here's what she does...
Heat oven to 425, wash and flour chicken pieces. Place a stick of butter on jelly roll pan lined with aluminum foil and let it melt. When butter is melted, place chicken pieces on pan. After 30 minutes, turn chicken pieces. After 30 more minutes, it's done. And it's pretty much *THAT* foolproof. I've done that a couple times and wow, it's easy, not much mess and fast (in the regard that it requires little of me and leaves me room to concentrate on sides).
So, I decided to try to incorporate my mom's awesome "chicken and carrots and onions" recipe with this other method of fried chicken. I did everything the same but at the 30 minute mark when I turned the chicken over, I added cut up carrots (I leave them in circles about 1/4 inch thick) and onions. Moms recipe called for yellow onions but I was out so instead, I reached for a leek. If you've never had a leek before, it is very much like a green onion in taste (it just requires a bit more cleaning). So after I turned the chicken, I placed the carrots and leeks (also cut up in pieces about the same size as the carrots) on top. I started to worry that I put the onions on too soon when some started browning but decided I was stuck at that point. I'm so glad I didn't mess with it! Sometimes (albeit rarely), the worst mistakes have the best outcomes!

It was SUCH a delicious dish! I really LOVED the leeks in there as opposed to the yellow onions my mom always used. And I loved the less greasy, no fuss chicken. The only thing to improve on next time is maybe find a way to still steam the carrots a tad - they were a bit dry. Maybe I can put some aluminum foil on top for a few minutes with a splash of water underneath. Regardless, we loved it and it was devoured quickly. :)

So, the menu for this week (of course I'm late again!)...
Monday - I BBQd pork steaks, turkey hot dogs and turkey sausages (akin to brats). Made potato salad, deviled eggs, waldorf salad, baked beans, corn on the cob [too early for good ones though :(], roasted marshmallows and pound cake with strawberries and blueberries for dessert. YUM!!
Tuesday - leftovers
Wednesday - pork stirfry, rice, potstickers
Thursday - Honey Chicken Legs, salad, green beans
Friday - spaghetti & meatballs, bread, salad

Happy Memorial Day weekend to my US friends!

2008-05-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

I know I have a couple Aussies who read my blog so I'll wish them a nice weekend too. :)

But here in the States, it's Memorial Day weekend. Most people have Monday off in observance of the holiday to remember those Americans who have died in military service for our country.

What sticks out in my mind the most about this holiday in the past is that it's miserably hot. Growing up, it seemed that our family tradition was a pork steak BBQ followed by a good blockbuster movie in a cold theater...and maybe some ice cream too. I never could understand the people who went camping in weather so incredibly hot and sticky (of course, I naturally prefer cold weather to hot). I definitely preferred the cold dark movie theater. I have fond memories of spending Memorial Day weekend entranced with Star Wars episodes, Deep Impact, The Mummy, Twister, Spider-Man, Back Draft, Indiana Jones movies...in fact, many Lucas & Spielberg films. Some were obviously better than others but I have very fond memories of them.

Many church services remember our veterans in some way on Sunday morning services. Many families have BBQs this weekend at some point. This is the 'official' beginning of summer as schools will be ending this week or next (for most schools) and all of our public swimming pools will open this weekend. So many kids will be splashing around and doing belly flops and cannonballs. It's also a big camping weekend. There will be local parades and events to honor all of our vets as well. Many families will frequent Home Depot or Lowes in order to get their landscaping fixed up for the summer. Float trips are also a big hit on this weekend...lazing around in a canoe as the river takes you miles downstream (except for those party bums who bring loads of 12-packs) is just a great way to beat the heat.

St. Louis events:
*May 21 - June 15, Shakespeare Festival
*May 23 - 26, Rib America Festival
*May 24, Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing Celebration
*May 24, Memorial Day Ceremony
*May 26, First Annual Southside Rib Cookoff and Barbeque
*May 26, 36th Annual Gypsy Caravan

Gypsy Caravan?? Annual?? Hmmm...

This weekend, as with most of our Spring weather this year, is surprising us. The high is forecast to be 77F tomorrow and 87F Sunday and Monday. Not too shabby. I would prefer something in the 60's myself but it could be a lot worse.

This weekend, we have a birthday party for our niece. Hubby has been busy as a beaver since last weekend working on totally disassembling our master bath shower and re-caulking everything. Apparently the people who built it didn't do a great job and that's why it's been a nightmare for me to clean...and combined with recent leakage around the seals, he decided to pretty much start from scratch. I only wish I'd taken pictures for you. So he's close to being done now but he'll finish that project up this weekend, if not before. Grammy's coming over for BBQ on Monday afternoon and I'm sure Hubby has mowing on his list of weekend to-do's, as well as some landscaping.

And who knows? Maybe I'll even get to catch the new Indiana Jones flick.

However you spend it, I hope you have a great weekend!

I'm late...

2008-05-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

but I need to start doing this so I'm just going to jump in today.

This week's menu is quite unusual for me but I've been feeling pretty non-imaginative since I'm still getting over being sick. I bought a lot of convenience meals for Grammy last weekend so she'd have it easy watching the kids and she didn't end up using them. So since I'm not feeling great, we're using them up. I typically do NOT use this much pre-packaged stuff, though it's been a nice break to have an easy week.

Monday - Pizza Night (made our own with store-bought crusts)
Tuesday - Breakfast for Dinner! Pancakes, eggs/egg beaters, turkey bacon, oranges
Wednesday - Rachel Ray's Quick Creamy Tomato Soup & Soup Toppers, fruit variety
Thursday - Tuna Helper (I have a MOPS meeting & dinner so this is fast for me to cook before hand), corn, tomatoes, waldorf salad
Friday - Chicken and Carrots and Onions (below), applesauce, edamame, pudding
On weekends, we usually do leftover buffets and occasionally eat out so I don't typically *plan* meals for the weekends. But there's always something around here I could throw together pretty quick if needed.

Chicken and Carrots and Onions
This recipe was one of *the* favorite meals of my family when we were growing up. I didn't learn to appreciate it until I was old enough to start eating onions. ;) Basically you make fried chicken. Towards the end, you add sliced carrots and onions to the pan and let them get nice and golden (or darker) brown. During the last minute of cooking, you add a little water to the lid and dump that in the pan and cover and let it all steam (to soften the carrots a bit). It doesn't sound like much but it's the epitome of comfort food to me now. ;)

Rain, reading and...laptops?

2008-05-19T11:42:00.001-07:00

Our cold is *still* hanging around. Lovely. Mine went into sinusitis with a cough that has left my lungs and stomach sore and tired....let's not even start on the whole trying-to-sleep-with-this-cough rant. Let's just say that we're all sick so I haven't felt like blogging or doing much of anything for that matter.

But I'll give a quick run-down of news worthy items for you.
1. I ordered my new laptop last night!!!!! After much much MUCH deliberation, I went with a Thinkpad T61P, for those of you who are interested. I was debating between that and several others for a few weeks when I came up with a good idea. I have been itching to play Oblivion since it came out 2 years ago and I wasn't sure if I'd like the glossy but high-color screens that are so popular today or if I wanted the matte non-glare but not so high-color screens that Lenovo has. So dear sweet Hubby bought Oblivion for me to try on his Thinkpad. I was hooked. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the mouse nubbie on Lenovo's laptops and the screen was bright enough to satisfy me. I think, in the long run, the glare on the glossy screens would have driven me to so something really evil. ;) I'm not a heavy gamer at all but I did absolutely love Morrowind and I'm excited to play its successor. It's Hubby's fault. We spent our very first New Year as a married couple haunched over our Windows 95 playing Myst. My brothers liked Traveler and D&D but it was Hubby who finally hooked me on games.

2. Rose is READING!! And I'm not talking about 3 letter words. She's reading words like "everyone" and "prancing". She's reading VERY well. When did this happen? I'm not sure. As unschoolers, you know I don't have a set curriculum. So how do the kids learn? I answer questions. Hubby reads to them...a lot. She plays with Starfall.com when she feels like it. She has a few toy/gadgets that talk about word sounds. When she has asked me in the past what a word is, I will sound out the letters slowly as I say "ssss tt arrrr tt". She has been working on writing so much lately. She writes very phonetically but she's doing it and correct spelling will come with more reading. I'm already seeing a vast improvement in her spelling. We're all so very proud of her and it's so great to see her self confidence grow!

3. Matthew has been a little unsure of what to do with himself lately. I see him wandering around seemingly bored quite a lot these last few weeks. It was never a statement of "I'm bored" but just his demeanor that told me. I think a lot of it has to do with the constant rain we've had this season. He's always anxious to ride his bike but the allergies have been bad and within an hour, he's inside practically crying over incredibly itchy eyes. I understand that! So yesterday I talked to him about his seeming out of sorts and he agreed with me. I asked him if there was something he'd like to focus on studying about. Being mostly a science guy in the past, he surprised me with answering (after a minute of thought), "Presidents". Immediately my stomach started churning while I thought of boring dry 'history' but I kept my game face on. "Would you like to start with the first one and work your way forward or start with the current one or someone else?" He said he'd like to start in the front and work his way chronologically. OK. Guess I need to head to the library...see what I can find online. Wonder where I can get Schoolhouse Rocks episodes? :) So that you can get a picture of how they learn without curriculum, I'll try to remember to blog the details.

4. Jade is loving the new room arrangement. Sleeping with her sister and being a 'big girl' is definitely a new high for her. But it's hard to tell with her...she's always been a very happy person. Even as a baby, she was always all smiles. If she wasn't crying (for a very good reason), she was smiling. It's still very much the same way with her. Even though she's in the "terrible threes", it's barely noticeable due to her overwhelming always-sunny disposition.

5. Linnae is not such a happy baby. At almost 14 months, she is still the baby of the family and waits for everyone else to do things for her. She wants to stand up but decides to cry and hope that someone else decides to come over and stand her up instead. If you stand her up, she's as happy as a clam for a while...until she wants to sit down again and then proceeds to cry until someone puts her down or she gives up and falls. It's hard being the baby (I know because I was one too).

I should have some pictures up soon and I hope to catch Rose reading on video so I can post that too!

Road Trip!

2008-05-07T08:02:00.000-07:00

We've all been sick with a nasty cold this week. And it started last weekend with a combination of allergies from us being out and enjoying the dry yet cool weather. So we've not had a lot of energy and there hasn't been too much to blog about.

But we have big plans for this weekend. Hubby's grandmother is getting a great Mother's Day surprise! Hubby, Linnae and I are going to surprise her with a visit. Other members of our extended family are also traveling up there to surprise her and I think it'll be a great weekend. But it's a very long trip. About 10 hours or more each way, when all is said and done. And forcing my older 3 to sit in a car all day, then spend a day visiting family and "being quiet", only to ask them to sit in a car all day the following day...well, that seems almost inhumane to me. Nana has met the other three and they'll be much happier at home with Grammy watching them for me. Nana hasn't met Linnae...plus she's the hardest to care for because of her young age so we'll be taking her with us. She travels well and will probably sleep most of the weekend away. Send prayers for a safe trip and extra stamina for Grammy. ;)

I'm sure we'll have some exciting stories to share on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend yourself!

Tag...you're it!

2008-05-02T09:06:00.000-07:00

OK, here's the deal...you plug in your answers to the questions in Google Images and then choose a picture, since a picture does speak a thousand words. ;)

1. Your age at your next birthday:

2. Place I would like to travel:

3. Favorite Place: (Mt. Zion Nat'l Park in Utah, where we honeymooned)

4. Favorite Object:

5. Favorite Food:

and

6. Favorite Animal:

7. My Nickname:

8. State I was born in:

9. Bad Habit I have:

10. Favorite color:

Consider yourself tagged. :)

What we really did for Earth Day

2008-05-01T08:46:00.001-07:00

So nobody commented on our Earth Day excursions. In reality, maybe I was pmsing a bit when I wrote that. ;) But we did actually have the exterminator out that day to spray for ants outside. I have never had a bug guy out to my house. You might say that even though the gov't says it's safe, I'm a skeptic and I'd rather not have all that stuff around the house. However...

Every spring, we get ants in here for a few weeks while it's quite wet in March/April. This year has been flood city. We're just drowning here in the midwest. It makes me sad that we can't send it all out to my brother in CA, whose favorite hiking grounds have gone up in flames this week. I'm not sure of the source of this photo or I'd leave a link but I think pictures really do speak 1,000 words or more.

Anyway, so we're flooded out here...and apparently so are the ants. They've come to my home for refuge (I mean, come on...I have 4 kids under the age of 8. I obviously have lots of cheerios and crumbs all over my floors! It's ant heaven!). I was willing to work with them for a while and then they just took over in a major way. Usually when it starts drying out each spring, they leave. But not this year. So we called Ant Man. Bless his soul, they were gone almost immediately...I certainly didn't expect THAT quick of a response. But I'm glad. I have one trail left open and I put down some Terro stuff and they are soooo happy to have it. [evil mode] All my little worker monkeys are doing my bidding...and they will have very bad tummy aches tonight! mwahhhaaaaahaaaahaaaaaa... [end evil mode] But even doing such evil things to the little pests, we did learn a lot about ants. Ant Man told us many interesting things about them. Did you know that when they sense a sick ant, they will grab him and drag him away from the colony to die alone? It sounds cruel but it makes sense. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" I suppose it's similar in thought to leper colonies of ancient times. But, true to form, a couple days after Ant Man came, we did find our driveway lined with piles of dead ants.

However, we did do our part for Mother Earth as well on Earth Day. Hubby and the kids did a lot of dividing and transplanting our larger plants outside. They moved a lot of plants to the front garden to weed out the back. And on our trip to the Botanical Gardens last week, I did get some herbs to grow and potted those as well. So all in all, maybe we evened out?? ;)

This afternoon, we're headed to a super big annual used book fair. MECCA for homeschoolers!! :) I guess tomorrow's post will be about our finds. :)

Life Lessons via Looney Tunes??

2008-04-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

Along our learning life pathways, we meet many many resources to learn from. Strangers, teachers, friends, relatives, pets, cartoons. Cartoons you ask? Yes even cartoons. I think I touched on this a few days ago but where was your first experience with classical music? The Bugs Bunny Show, I'd wager. I bet you can all hum that tune they played in the episode where Bugs is massaging Elmer Fudd's head. Admit it - even now it's in your head. ;)

Someone blogged a few days ago about how downhill Sesame Street has gone since its hayday back in the 70's. If you don't have young kids now (or haven't watched it since you were a kid), turn it on today. It's jibberish...twaddle...yuck. Nothing like the wonderful things I was taught there. I learned my letters and phonics and numbers and counting of course. But I also learned about people who were different than me. I learned some Spanish and sign language. I saw my first physically and mentally disabled people there...and learned that they were pretty much just like me but had some different obstacles to overcome than I did. I saw real friendships like Bert and Ernie and Snuffy and Big Bird. They hurt each others feelings and said things they shouldn't and then they forgave each other and had a better relationship for it. *Those* were real friends. ;)

Now, Sesame Street has gotten too politically correct. Did you know Cookie Monster doesn't even eat cookies anymore?? Sad but true... Cookie Monster Crumbles To A Healthy Diet.

And don't forget Looney Tunes! Yep, Looney Tunes.
"Everything I Learned, I did not Learn in Kindergarten...I learned from the Looney Tunes" by JustJen. A *great* list there!!

So keep your eyes peeled...you never know WHERE you'll be learning from next. ;)

Manners and Cache

2008-04-29T12:18:00.000-07:00

Would somebody, ANYBODY, explain to me why people don't say, "excuse me" to my kids when they're standing in the middle of the aisle? Instead, the offended party stands there silent with her cart, waiting for me to notice her. When I finally do notice her, she gives me one of those smiles that says, "I'm smiling but on the inside I'm thinking I want to yell at your kids to MOVE IT". This happens ALL THE TIME. It frustrates me to no end. I want to look at the adult and say in a condescending voice, "Say, 'excuse me please' and they'll move". But I don't. I'm not the kind of person who can say that but boy do I WANT to. It happened to us three times in Walmart today and we were literally in there for less than 10 minutes. Do they not see the holes on either side of my kids heads and realize that they must be EARS? Arrrrgh. OK...guess that's a pet peeve of mine. ;) Do me a favor, ok? Next time you're in the store and someone's kids are in your way, PLEASE look the kids in the eyes and say, "Excuse me, hun". Just for me. Try it. Maybe we'll start something where kids are treated like they have ears and brains. :)

Onto other things...
The kidlets and I went on our first geocache today! It was based on Harry Potter and since Matthew is reading through the series, it was a really great one for our group. We were supposed to meet a friend today but he got sick and since the kids were disappointed, we decided to do this instead. So I plugged in the coordinates into my new spiffy GPS and we found our way there. Its location was in a local park that we know fairly well and it was pretty easy to find.

"Which direction now, Mom?"

Harry Potter Cache

You've heard of the game show Cash Cab, right? Well here are the CacheKids inspecting their treasure.

In most caches you'll find a logbook where you sign your name and date and leave comments. Then in the container you'll find all sorts of odds and ends. You take a treasure and leave one in return for the next person. There were Happy Meal toys, small stuffed animals, stickers, toy cars, etc. My kids picked out a spider ring (Matthew), a princess tiara (Rose) and a die (as in the singular form of the word dice) (Jade). We left two magic rings and a key chain that Hubby brought back from Vegas that had "Treasure Hunters" printed on it. I thought it was especially appropriate. I guess I'll have to start a box for keeping trinkets specifically for geocaching.

Though it was ccccccold (Jade's complaint) and muddy (Rose's complaint) and in the woods with bugs (Matthew's complaint) and I worried about copperheads the whole time (my complaint), we did have fun...and Linnae didn't complain once...not even when I was carrying her and my big camera and my GPS and cell phone and car keys (not that I'm complaining but it will be much easier when she starts walking!). But in spite of our minor complaints, we did have fun and are looking forward to the next hunt.

Earth Day

2008-04-28T15:16:00.000-07:00

The question...
"You're a homeschooling family" [read: 'you are quacks']
"and you guys always do something unique" [read: 'you're always doing really weird things]
"I'm sure you did something really interesting for Earth day." [read: 'what insane idea did you come up with THIS year?']

The answer...
"For Earth Day, we called the exterminator and had him spray poison all around the perimeter of our house to ward off the ant army that found us."

The comeback...
"Oh."

[oh yeah, you may try to stick your tail between your legs but I can still see it on your way out the door]

You say it's your birthday....well it's my birthday too!

2008-04-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

Yes, in addition to the other birthday most of you moms with young children are celebrating today (Webkinz, of course!), this is the day I turn the big 'ol Three - Five. Kind of a milestone, eh? Yes, I know...you needn't make excuses...I know you all wish me well and have very busy lives. :) Plus, you know *I'M* not very good at remembering dates either! teehee

So my kids have been VERY excited waiting for today to start. First, it was Mom's birthday. Then it was the Webkinz extravaganza!! THEN, Mom decided to go nuts and FINALLY have baby sister Linnae's late birthday party today too. THEN - Ohhh my...Grandma is taking the whole family out for dinner at one of our favorite places...Red Lobster. Please, those of you coastal people, just let me believe it's good seafood, ok? I DO live smack dab in the MIDDLE of the freakin' States and fresh seafood, like a trip to the beach for the day, is...well...probably not truly possible in my lifetime. So I'll have my coconut shrimp and 'fresh' snow crab legs tonight and truly tell myself that it couldn't possibly be better on the coast. It's ok...I don't really know what I'm missing, right?

So the kids were on me the moment I awoke to get my presents opened. Of course Hubby was sleeping in so that was on hold while I cleaned up the kitchen, fed the baby, contained over-tired Rose and stumbled through making coffee because I wasn't in bed last night until ohhhh...about 1am. Just watching TV shows and chillin' out. Of course at 2pm now and just a couple hours before the party and then dinner out, I'm REALLY wishing I hadn't made that choice last night. Do they actually make mini toothpicks to hold eyelids open for you while you sleep? Hmmm

The kids gave me my first Webkinz of my very own...a very cute Panda bear. He's the pet of the month for May so I'll wait a few days to register him. Hubby got me a GPS. Yes, I actually asked for one, along with a few other items. My interest is mainly in geocaching. First, it looks fun. Second, it's something the kids can do with me (and Hubby)! (For so many politicians harping on 'family values' these days, it amazes me that here in the midwest, we have movies, dinner, hick dancing and bars. There are outdoor things like walking, parks, zoo, etc. but those things are very weather dependent and small children tire quickly when walking. There are bowling alleys and skating rinks but those are overrun by smokers or unsupervised, mean kids far too often. Where are any family events still coming?? Through CHURCHES. But that's another post) Where was I? Oh yes, geocaching. Third (and a very distant third) is because it will teach us great life lessons (you know how I hate to use that E word).

If you live in a cave, geocaching is pretty simple. There are hundreds, nay thousands, of sites that log geocaches. A geocache is like a buried treasure. Doesn't have to be buried - could be hanging off a tree branch, etc. But there's something to find. Sometimes you leave the object for the next geocacher, sometimes you take what's in there and make a new one. The sites give specifics about it. They're in local parks and all sorts of places. If you want to get an idea of where caches are around your area, check out Geocaching.com. I've been interested in this for over a year and I'm really excited to have the GPS to do it now. I think kids will also get a lot from it - sense of adventure, mystery, problem solving, directions, knowledge of how to read and follow maps, topographical information and more. I'm very excited to get started!

My particular GPS has major highways and interstates but no smaller roads. I would like to upgrade the map later on to include roads - it would be extremely helpful for this woman who sometimes finds herself in the middle of nowhere. ;) So now when you tell me to get lost, I truly can.

ENTP

2008-04-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

I just did the Meyers/Briggs Personality Test and I think I rated the same as I did 15 years ago so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise to me. What IS interesting, however, is that many of the career matches listed are things which I have wished I was or have done at some point. I've written my resume out to the side for your amusement. :)

ENTP (I posted the graph on my blog sidebar)

ENTPs are often happy with the following jobs which tend to match well with the Originator/Intellectual personality.
* Actor - was in drama club and teams all throughout school. Many school plays.
* Artist - I do lots of crafts but not art. I don't feel artsy unless you count music.
* Comedian - I'm pretty funny (I think) and like to entertain but I wouldn't want a career out of it.
* Computer Analyst - worked on IBM's help desk
* Computer Programmer - took programming classes in college and helped a programmer design a new system when I was working in the mortgage division.
* Consultant - Uhh...yep, computer consultant
* Designer - I do like to change things around in my home. Not sure I'd like to design for a living but I do enjoy doing that kind of stuff.
* Engineer - see Inventor
* Entrepreneur - could you put 'homeschooler' under here? maybe??
* Inventor - I don't invent machines but I do very often find something I like in a store and come home to make/build it myself.
* Journalist - I've always ALWAYS loved to write. Was on numerous newspaper teams in school and I did an awesome newsletter for my old playgroup which I just loved doing.
* Lawyer/Attorney - ICK!?!? Though I *do* love to gather information. ;)
* Marketer - This is actually something that interests me though I have no experience with it other than my own natural morbid curiosity.
* Musician - OK, I've done every choir that ever came my way in school and church and then some. I played flute all through high school and college. I took classical guitar lessons for a while. I'm teaching myself keyboard (slowly). Very musical here.
* Photographer - well, you needn't have read my blog for years to figure out that I have an avid interest in this! I have played around with nice cameras and really love all the things I can do with them graphically too!
* Politician - DOUBLE ICK!?!?!
* Psychiatrist - My mom has told me time and time again that I should be a counselor or shrink or psychologist throughout my lifetime. And if I hadn't gone the husband/kids/SAHM/homeschooler route, I just might be one today.
* Psychologist - see above
* Public Relations - well, I'm doing the publicity chair for my MOPS group next year! LOL And I blog here for 'public relations' - does that count? :)
* Sales Representative - Do I sell homeschooling? teehee Though I think I'm pretty persuasive and can talk people into things fairly easily so even though the title doesn't appeal to me, it might be something I'd enjoy.
* Scientist - I do love to see HOW and WHY things work. I do a good amount of experiments with food on a daily basis. I really love to watch Alton Brown explain WHY mushrooms
* Systems Analyst - I love diagnosing computers. Mine is a very very **very** old hunk of metal that I've upgraded just as far as I possibly can. I think I currently have the RAM maxed out at 1 GiG. I'm running a 333 processor. Yes, older than actual dirt. Flash almost always kills my browser. I have to put the extension on Firefox so I can kill Flash manually. Joy. YouTube is just not possible. :( Alas - Hubby speaks of some such thing called a 'laptop' - what wonder could that be?? And perhaps soon??? Hmmmm....
* Writer - Ummm...I'm blogging, I've written poetry, stories, and am even working on a few books here and there in my spare time these last few years (well, to be honest, I *have* been busy having babies the last 8 or so years...lol).

Feelin' Groovy

2008-04-23T14:45:00.000-07:00

Last week, we decided to go to the St. Louis Botanical Gardens. Of course you know we learned a lot about botany that day but there was so much more too!

On the way out of the subdivision, Jade yelled, "Slow down!" I followed up with "you move too fast...gotta make the morning last...just kickin' round the cobblestone...looking for love and feelin' groovy". That became our song for the day, as well as good discussion material. We talked about music styles and how there are different time periods associated with different types of music.

Later, we saw some balloons over a car dealership. One was a small blimp. We discussed the shape, the name, the Hindenburg, and then Matthew began to compare/contrast it to airplanes. We talked about which is probably cheaper to make, which is considered safer, etc.

A little further down the road, we saw my old roller skating rink. It's been abandoned for years now but the bright blue building is still there. That got us remembering about our recent roller skating escapade and Matthew said he was still very excited to try skating again and take Rose too. We then talked about wood floors vs concrete floors and inline skates vs old style. Matthew wished they had skates for beginners with 4 wheels on both sides - 'a good combo of both kinds of skates!' We then did some brainstorming about why they don't make skates that way - maybe it's harder to do the corners in them or maybe they're too heavy, etc.

Matthew spotted a good sized tree and said he guessed that would be a good climbing tree. We made a list of what he thought were requirements to be labeled as such. 1. Branches that are close to the ground but very thick 2. A nice thick tree 3. Good foothold spaces

As we came up to some construction, Rose asked what they were doing to the overpass. I said they were grading it. Matthew asked what that was and I explained how grading helps water flow across the bridge and drainage and soil retention.

We passed a humongous quarry. I heard Rose say very seriously in the back seat, "I bet that's a GREAT place to find dinosaur bones!" Matthew then proceeded to tell her that they weren't excavating because they were using big machines and if they were looking for dinosaur bones, they'd have to be much more careful and use smaller tools. They talked about archaeology for a while.

A while later, Rose asked me what the Yield sign means. Matthew said, "It means that the car behind you can go around you if he wants to go faster." So I explained 'yield' to them and gave a few practical examples (other than for road signs).

We also drove past some big old style water towers and Matthew asked me how they worked. I gave the basics and said we could look up more info when we got home.

At this point, I found that we were a little lost and I had to stop writing down our conversations. All these topics (and more) just on the way there! I could have easily popped in a DVD and let them zone out so I could call a friend on the phone but I didn't. Though we do have a DVD player in the van, I don't use it frequently, usually only coming home from a long day (if it's a long drive to the city and back) or on road trips.

But our day at the Botanical Gardens was just beginning. We went specifically on this day because the St. Louis Herb Society was having their annual Herb Days fund raiser. They brought herblings (my term) to sell to the public. We got a nice assortment of stuff I use regularly and then headed into the Gardens themselves.

If you've never been to the Botanical Gardens in St. Louis, put that down on your list of things to do when you come visit me. :) They were just gorgeous and since the nature of the place is seasonal, you'll never see the same things twice. Here are some great pictures from our fun day (if you click on the pictures, they'll enlarge so you can see details).

We especially loved the Japanese Garden with the huge lake in the middle

Jade found that the holes in the bridge were *just* the right size for her to see the ducks and fish below.

Some of our favorite flowers...
A double daffodil

Gregii Tulip

I love the gradation in this flower bed with the same flowers. I wonder if the sun/moisture level caused it?

They were putting up some new art pieces in the Gardens on this day and we watched them work on the main piece all day. When we came in, they were trying to put it in place and having trouble because their machine wasn't large enough - it kept tipping over. By the time we left, they had brought in the big guns and were finally getting the job completed. The art pieces were made of stones and mirrors and little pits of all kinds of things. I assume it was relating to Earth Day and that they used recycled materials. The kids loved playing on them and the pieces really were amazing to look at!

Matthew was especially interested in seeing the hedge maze because his latest Harry Potter book contained one. But a worker told us that they'd just replanted it and it wasn't very tall. The kids still had fun with it though. It was a bit easier than intended but just *perfect* for Jade's height. ;)

A parting shot of the gang

And a parting thought. This was on a series of wrought iron signs but I especially liked this one. It seems appropo for me. :)

Interesting morning here

2008-04-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

I promised I'd talk about the room-switch-dance so I need to preface this by explaining that. Since we have a 4 bedroom house, everyone had their own room until now. Linnae, who just turned 1yr, has been in a crib next to my bed. The others I moved out around 9-10 mos to their own rooms but knowing I'd have to move everyone around, I delayed it. But the last couple of months of her having me up 10 times a night has finally taken its toll. I was done sharing a room with her. Here's what the set-up was before...

1. Matthew had the bottom portion of a bunk bed in his room.
2. Rose was sleeping on our futon in her room.
3. Jade had the top portion of a bunk bed in her room (as an aside, this works GREAT for young kids who are transitioning to beds but are afraid to fall out - built in rails!!)
4. Linnae in our room in the crib.

So first we needed another bed. The two older girls were going to share Rose's room (it's the biggest kids room) and the futon takes up a lot more space than a twin bed so we decided the girls would have the bunk bed, un-bunked until Rose is a little older, in their room. So that left Matthew without a bed. After MUCH searching, he decided on a loft bed with a desk and bookshelf underneath. So over the last month, we've slowly been reorganizing and getting his new bed in there. Here's the finished product:

This Monday, I moved Rose's bed and the crib into Jade's room and Matthew's bed and Jade's bed into Rose's room. It was a big day. It has worked out well and everyone's sleeping just fine. And Linnae?? Sleeps better than ever!! Where she was waking me 5-10 times a night, now she wakes me once or none. I do believe that my sleep-apnea-RLS Hubby was waking her all night long. So the move was long overdue. I'll take pics of the girl's rooms when they're organized. We're not done yet.

***********************************************************
So that brings us to this morning. I was up late last night and soundly sleeping...for once since having Linnae about a year ago...when I found myself dreaming that a pile of books or something had fallen off the bed or couch. I could swear I heard a thud but whether it was the dream or something else, I was startled awake. Hubby woke too and asked me if I was shaking the bed. I had a brief passing thought of 'yeah, I jumped when the books fell in my dream' but wasn't awake enough to answer him out loud. I turned over to go back to sleep and he said, "What time is it?" He'd been up really late with work so I said, "Just go back to sleep." He touched my arm and said, "What time is it?" So I rounded the time and said, "4:30".

This morning as I was getting dressed, I found this (and if you're the nosy type, click on the picture and it will enlarge so you can read some of the titles of my favorite books):

Other than the glaring announcement that I need to clean out my bookshelf, I just picked up the fallen over wipes box, straightened the books and finished getting dressed.

When I got downstairs, I checked email first, as I KNOW you do. :) And there from my auto-email-local-homeschool-message-board was an email about "did you guys feel the earthquake?" I announced it to Hubby and he said, "Was it at 4:30? That's why I asked you what time it was because it felt like an earthquake to me." Yep. Just in case you live in a cave today, lower Illinois had a 5.2 earthquake that we felt over here west of St. Louis, MO. Other than some old buidings losing some of their bricks, damage was pretty non-existent and no injuries reported. I did feel the 10:17 after shock (4.6) though no one else in my household did.

After returning upstairs, I realized that the initial shaking this morning must have knocked my books over, which knocked the wipes box over, which I heard and inserted into my dream, which woke me up.

It's not a major happening in the grand scheme of things but I've been thinking about it all day. It's kinda scary that I was so out of it in that place between sleep and wakefulness as to not realize what was going on at the time. Granted, it wasn't major shaking here but enough to knock my books over evidently.

I suppose you Californians aren't too impressed with my story but for me, it was a pretty big thing. The good news? Well, the odorous ants that have been coming in for 2 months are surprisingly totally gone today. Have only seen one stray so far and it's almost 2pm. Maybe the quake scared them back underground...or better yet...maybe it created a very deep chasm into which they all fell. Ahhhhh...now THAT'S a nice dream!!

Dragons

2008-04-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Grammy works at a Christian day school and along with doing office work most of the day, she is the librarian. This works well for us. They get lots of donated books, movies and tapes/cds that, as a Christian school, they cannot use. For example, if it talks about Santa or The Easter Bunny or evolution or items that are too young (board books) or duplicates. These rejected items are put in a pile for the teachers to take home for their personal use. We get to look through as well.

The latest batch of books had Dragonology in it. It's a really neat book but probably mentions magic somewhere so they couldn't use it at the school. Matthew LOVES it. There was a thick cardboard dragon in the back to put together and that was done immediately. The dragon flew around here for a couple days and earned a spot of honor in his room on his bookcase. What's neat is that he's going through the Harry Potter series right now so dragons fit right in there nicely.

Yesterday it was a nice day and the kids wanted to go outside. The two older kiddos went and left Linnae, me and sick Jade inside to do the room-switch-dance (more about that later). Matthew came in after a while and asked me if he could have some of "that putty you used to put my poster up". Eying him suspiciously, I asked why he wanted it. He replied excitedly, "So that we can set a trap for the dragon!" [pause for dramatic effect while I pondered what in the world he was thinking] He continued, "Well, Rose and I are trying to figure out if dragons are real or not so we think we should put some putty outside and try to capture a dragon footprint!" The Scientific Method at its finest. :)

Thinking fast, I said, "That's a great idea! I'm not sure that putty would be the greatest medium for footprints though. You know what works really great?" Now it was his turn to eye me with suspicion. "Mud," I answered. His whole face lit up as he exclaimed, "YES!! Mud is really great - like how it preserved the dinosaurs!" He ran down the stairs and out of the house yelling, "ROSE!! We need water!!"

We have a large compost bin made out of concrete blocks in our back yard. To save the neighbors the site of beautious concrete blocks (lol), we enclosed the area with some white trellis gate pieces. [See? We're great neighbors - come live by us!] It has been really windy the last week as we have cold fronts followed by warm fronts (and tornadoes). So part of our trellis gate was knocked down in the wind...or so I thought.

Today, the kids ran outside again to "check their trap". They played some too and when they came in and Matthew had settled at the XBOX with the girls watching him, I asked them about what they did outside.
me: So, what did you guys do outside?
Matthew: We played.
Rose: I picked a dan...uh...dandelion.
me: What else?
[Matthew is zoning out to Crash Bandicoot]
me: Did you find a dragon print?
Matthew, disappointed: No. But we re-set the trap for tonight!
Rose: Yeah, we filled it up again.
me: Where is your trap?
Matthew: By the compost bin.
me: Oh, so you think the dragon will head to the compost bin?
Matthew: Well, that's where the gate is knocked down! We think he might have done that.

I teased Hubby that he should go give them a dragon print tonight but I'm not sure how ethical that is. Should I playfully indulge his imagination about dragons or would it be cruel when he realized it was a plant? Knowing Matthew, he'd probably be angry that we faked it. But I'm looking forward to seeing where this experiment is leading us. :)

What's the difference between onions and textbooks?

2008-04-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Most people don't cry when you cut up a textbook!

I'm not even sure where to start in talking about the homeschool expo that I attended this weekend. I was only there one day and got so much information that my head is still swimming! And most homeschoolers were there to buy curricula as well! At least I got to skip that step - I can't even imagine trying to decide between the thousands available.

Exhibitors lined the halls and rooms of a THREE story bigger-than-life church. The only church I've visited that was larger was my brothers in AZ and people would literally walk in there thinking it was a shopping mall. ;)

I started Saturday with a speaker from our homeschoolers lobbyist group, FHE. As well as entertaining us, she gave us information on MO homeschooling laws, examples of log sheets and some information about different methods of homeschooling. Yes, she did mention unschooling! The other major methods she talked about were
1. Traditional - (think "school at home") This is the idea most people have in their heads when you say 'homeschool' - it's filled with worksheets, curriculum and lesson plans. These people usually have school for set hours each day.
2. Classical - This method is heavy *heavy* in reading and teaches things according to age and mental readiness.

[excerpt from the above link]Classical education depends on a three-part process of training the mind. The early years of school are spent in absorbing facts, systematically laying the foundations for advanced study. In the middle grades, students learn to think through arguments. In the high school years, they learn to express themselves. This classical pattern is called the trivium.

Check the link for more info.
3. I think the other they mentioned was Charlotte Mason style - This woman believed that kids should explore other areas outside of reading, writing and 'rithmatic (she lived in the late 1800's/early 1900's). She thought they should explore art and music as they had interest to do so. This method relies heavily on having the children notebook what they're learning. From writing a sentence or two about it (or for younger ones, they can draw pictures or have an adult write what they dictate), to collecting items from nature...anything you can imagine in a scrapbook! There are CM curricula out there but I'd venture to say, in my humble opinion, that she probably wouldn't like that too much, from what I've read about her. ;) Think "learning through living books". What's a living book, you ask. Well, I'm glad you did. A living book is something that gives you a real sense of the subject in a personal matter. A living book could be Tom Sawyer, Little House on the Prairie and Swiss Family Robinson as opposed to a non-living book like the encyclopedia or classroom textbooks that give information but don't give much feeling or mood. Admit it - how much more thought have you given to the movie, Titanic, than the couple of dry paragraphs you read about the disaster in school? I hated history in school. But after we read The Diary of Anne Frank, I wanted to know more about WWII.
4. Unschooling - and you're figuring out what that is. :)

To my local homeschooling friends in MO and IL, I'd highly recommend getting a copy of their book, "First Things First". It goes over all the above as well as record keeping, transcripts, homeschooling support groups in MO, and so much more! You can get it on CD at the link for $5 or in book form for $10.

After that session was over, I started out in the Notebooking session. This would appeal greatly to CM homeschoolers but I think Rose would especially love to do this so I ran in to get the basics. But I got a good idea of where she was going pretty quickly and looked through her kids notebooks that she brought with her. I stepped out about halfway through and ran downstairs to the other session I wanted to see that hour. [That's the only problem with these things - I want to see every session and can only pick one an hour!] I stepped into Diana Waring's History Via the Scenic Route. WOW. Can that woman TALK! She's so fast that you're afraid to laugh at her jokes because by the time you stop to breathe, she's 10 sentences past you. Filled with more energy than I could ever EVER imagine, she sped us through some major history and did it so well that hers was the only booth I actually bought something from that day. Can you imagine? Me, who detested history, bought a history CD...for ME. LOL Not for my kids but for me ('course I'll be nice and share if they ask)!! (My title joke is hers, I must admit)
She talked about anchoring history on itself. Why does the year 1776 stick out in your mind? Did it ever occur to you that Mozart was creating music abroad that year too? History was taught to me in groups of events instead of chronologically; I think I would have preferred the latter.
She talked about things you can do to make history come alive for your kids...Take the Roman Empire for example. Read The Robe (living book), Caesars Gaelic War, build a roman arched bridge, map and study the size and changes of the Roman Empire according to ruler, make anise cookies. Anise is an herb that smells like licorice. Roman rulers used anise to scent their linens. So, stick a licorice stick in your child's pillowcase and let them think about being a powerful Roman. You can also make Joseph and Mary puppets going to Bethlehem. Yes, Joseph and Mary.

Luke 2:1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.

This was the reason that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem and the reason that Jesus was born there. Remember the whole Marc Antony/Cleopatra/Julius Caesar story?? Caesar Augustus was adopted by and named after his great uncle, Julius Caesar. When you connect the dots, it makes more sense and now it has a REASON to be remembered rather than dates you memorize for a week until you're tested on it.
I really loved Diana's presentation and am looking forward to listening to her whole series of history audio books.

Expo, part 2 next time. :)

It's all fun and games

2008-04-11T13:30:00.000-07:00

I had the joy of teaching my kids how to play Uno yesterday. Ahh the thrill!! Being the youngest of my siblings and the only girl, I was always on the lookout for someone...ANYONE...to play a game with me. The yes's were too few and far between for my liking. Of course, when you're the youngest, the older kids are playing games for older kids - it's a hard spot to be in. I did beg my way into games of Gin Rummy and Trivial Pursuit a few times though.

On the way to learn how to do the marbled paper (and btw, why didn't any of you guys tell me my fried brain was spelling marbled wrong?? I don't know WHERE my head was!?!), I stopped at a garage sale. As my usual readers know, I love a good bargain. If you ever want to find me in Target, look for the clearance racks. ;) There I will be. But I digress...ok - garage sale. I walked up and saw this incredibly cute Little Tikes girly house. PERFECT for my three girls, I knew from experience that these things are NOT cheap, even second hand. Just for kicks, I peeked at the price tag. $50 FIFTY DOLLARS???? What was wrong with it?? I looked around - this thing hadn't even been used outside!!! But sadly, the woman wouldn't take a check and in this world of credit cards everywhere, I just do NOT carry cash anymore. After sharing the sad story with my homeschooling friend who was leading the marbled paper craft, ~~she took pity on me~~ we exchanged cash for a check and my girls are now proud owners of a new summer home. (I'll put pictures up when the weather is warm enough for them to play with it.)
There was a stack of games in great condition. I grabbed Uno Madness (the board times you and pops up after a minute) and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (admit it, you're singing it in your head right now!). We decided that they should probably learn regular Uno first before stepping into the world of madness. So, armed with the brand-new deck that Grammy gave Rose for Easter, we started playing. We played with the cards laid out so everyone could see and help each other. I have to say, it says ages 7-10, I think. But Rose picked it up quickly with little help...I think younger kids can handle it fine. After we played a couple hands of that, they started Uno Madness. I didn't find it nearly as fun but the jumping board was such a novelty to them that they had a great time.

(For those of you who spotted the SonLight curriculum box in the background, it's not what you think! LOL A friend gave it to Matthew because he was eyeing the cut-out castle on the inside of the box.)

On Monday, we went to a friend's after-school birthday party. It was a beautiful day and we mostly played outside. Matthew climbed his first tree and was so darned proud of himself. I got a few great pictures but, alas, I was playing around with my settings (my attempt at learning manual picture settings) and had my film speed set way too high for outdoors and all I have is a big white blur. :( However, I did figure that out by these pictures...
The girls and other parents and I were outside in the front yard while the boys were in back. Birthday Girl's mom and neighbor got out some bikes, basketballs and rolling toys for the kids. The adults stood in the street, watching for cars, and the kids played happily between the two houses. At one point, my back was to the kids and I was talking to Marie. Her eyes got bigger and bigger as I hear this rushing sound behind me. As I turned around, I catch Jade coming down the sloping driveway just as fast as she could, no fear at all, yelling, "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee" all the way across the street and into the neighbors yard. And I thought I had to worry about Matthew in the tree! The pictures don't quite do the drama justice but here she is in all her glory...

Just look at her form! Leaning back to get the most bang for her aerodynamic buck!! Now if that isn't science at it's best and most fun, tell me, what is??

I guess those are the highlights of our fun and games this week. I'm excitedly heading to a homeschooling conference tomorrow (Whoooohooo!!) and can't wait to come back refreshed and armed with new ideas. :) Have a great weekend!!

Marbled Paper

2008-04-10T07:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday our small homeschool group made marbled paper. I had no idea what to expect beforehand but imagined something like putting a sheet of paper in a cake pan, squirting a few globs of paint and rolling marbles around by moving the pan. Was I ever pleased and surprised that this isn't what happened! :) (I did enough of THAT craft when I taught preschool.)

Marbled paper is a beautiful outcome with little work. It's a GREAT craft for everyone, especially really young kids, because it's fast, easy, fun and smells like Daddy.

1. Get some kids and trays (if you need help with this step, you should look for another craft). Protect your work area with newspapers or tablecloth, etc. We're using food coloring and if it stays on your hands for 3 days, you can imagine what it'll do to your carpet. ;)

2. Spray shaving cream into trays (one mom mentioned she's seen it done with whipped cream but I haven't tried that). We used good ol' Barbasol (apparently it's at the $1 store). You just want enough in there to cover the bottom well. Using a spatula, spread the shaving cream as even as possible (if you need help with this, see my cake-decorating friend Stacey). Then put a *few* drops of food coloring on the tray in various spots. I'd start with like 5 drops spread out nice and wide.

3. Run a straw through the drops and swirl all around until you find a pattern you like (if you need help with this, my artsy friend Mrs. Pivec can help!).

4. Take a piece of paper (we used about 5X7 size) and lay it on top of the shaving cream masterpiece. GENTLY tap paper down - enough to stick the cream to it but not so much that it comes over the edges. Then pull the paper out (another reason not to shove the paper down). You will have a lot of shaving cream on your paper. Colored paper also works well. We used both regular paper and card stock (if you need advice on card stock, my crafty/scrapbooking friend Jean would be willing!). They both worked nicely though the regular paper probably curled a little more.

5. Place paper (dry side down) on table and squeegee off the shaving cream (if you need help with this step, my friend Jen often acts like a human squeegee between work, kids and her new home business!). Be sure to use a nice squeegee for this - a cheapo one will make the job frustrating. This is when the beauty happens. It's amazing to see what pretty patterns show up under all that cream!

6. Hang to dry (if you need help with this, I'm sure my new crunchy online friend, Kez, would have some great ideas...plus, she would probably be a great one to 'hang' with in person!). They dry pretty quickly - maybe 30 minutes or less. Then you might need to place a heavy book on top of them for a while to reshape perfectly flat.

7. Now you have a beautiful masterpiece that you can write notes on, scrapbook with or just show off what a fabulous artistic mind your child has (just don't tell them how easy it was!). If you're still drawing a blank about what to do with the paper, check out one of my very favorite blogs, Making Books With Children, for ideas).

8. Swirl some more and repeat. Add some more colors and repeat. Just be careful - adding too much color and mixing too long will turn all of it brown. But you can take it quite a way before that happens.

Yes, the rumors are true!!

2008-04-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

After a 20 year hiatus, I am back on roller skates.

The THINGS we will do for our children, eh??

I actually *adored* skating as a kid. Every first Thursday of the month, our church would rent out the closest skating rink, gather their records (yes, records) and head to the church bus. After a 20 minute drive, we piled out and into the rental skates. It was a wood floor and the majority of attendees were youth group members but did we have FUN skating to our favorite CCM artists! Back in the day, it was lots of Petra, Michael W. Smith, Glad, Amy Grant, etc. I really loved it.

I've realized as an adult that the reason I don't like to exercise is because I don't like to sweat. I hate that sticky feeling. But with skating, if you're a fast skater, you blow the sweat off as you build it up. In hind sight, it was probably the *perfect* exercise for sweat-hating me. I also enjoy swimming but hey, if you don't have to get into a suit, WHY would you ever???

Yesterday on the way home from church, Matthew was reading his newsletter. There was a section about a fundraising skating party for a girl at our church who has Rett Syndrome. There was begging involved and I told him I would think about it. After all, I am still recovering from my rib/back stuff and I'm clumsy by nature and Hubby had plans of his own yesterday so it was all up to me. But being an unschooler and wanting to introduce him to any possible experiences [within reason...we won't EVER be bungy jumping!], I really wrestled with the decision. After several more attempts on his part, and a few walks down memory lane on my part, we decided to go.

A few years ago, he saw an episode of Caillou (who has since been banned from our home on account of his constant WHINING and his parents constant giving into whatever whim he has). In that episode, Caillou decides to go ice skating. In 15 minutes, you see him decide to go, whine his parents into taking him, his first step on the ice, his skating beautifully and him going home. So Matthew, I think, thought it would be really easy. And if ice skating with one blade was easy, roller skating with the old style (non-inline) skates would be even easier. But he wanted to invite Grammy, so we called her and she came.

When we got the skates on, he was a little trepidatious. But as he skated on the carpet, his confidence climbed and when "Who Let The Dogs Out" came on the speakers, he wanted out on the skate floor.

If you haven't been skating in 20 years, let me tell you a few things.
1. Roller rinks are still run down nasty places to be.
2. Skates are still run down nasty things that have so much black gunk on the rollers that there's no way you can have a smooth ride.
3. Amazingly, candy/soda prices have not skyrocketed there like they have at movie theaters. Sodas and big candy bars were $1.
4. I *still* don't want to eat anything they serve. ;)
5. Wood floors aren't the thing now. Apparently, painted concrete floors with tiny bumps all over them are the rage. I'm sure they're much easier on concussions.
6. Painted concrete floors are very slick. Slicker than snot, I'd say. In many ways, it WAS ice skating.

Matthew heads out onto the floor. The best image will be to image someone who's never skated before being shoved onto an ice rink in roller skates. Need I say more? Then I get out there to rescue him. I'm thinking I'll skate backwards and hold his hands. The best image will be to imagine someone who's not skated in 20 years boldly stepping out with confidence onto an ice rink in roller skates. Need I say more?? Yeah, not a great idea.

He freaked out, I kept trying to urge him on. We made it halfway down the wall to the next off ramp. He then proceeded to dump himself unceremoniously on the bench and announce that it was too hard and, "Let's just go home!" I let him rest for a bit and hoped he wouldn't give up. The kid in me really wanted him to learn how to skate and love it as much as I did. But what really matted to the adult in me was that he not quit just because it was hard. I wanted him to give it a really good try. But he wasn't budging...he wanted to go home. It was about this time that Grammy showed up. And she put skates on. I told her that he wanted to go home and she said, "I'll get him out there". She went around a couple times to get her skating legs back. Her hiatus from skating hasn't been as long as mine. When she was still teaching at the day school, she would go skating with the elementary kids in the summertime so it's only been more like 10-15 years for her. Still...

She came back and somehow got him to agree to go out again. She held his hand and he stayed near the wall. He was doing more of a walking-in-skates rather than actually skating but she got him out there.

They went all the way around a couple times. Then they came in to take a break. After a bit, I couldn't find Matthew. I finally spotted him - he was going around all by himself! He was holding onto the wall but he was OUT THERE!

At this point, I went out to get some exercise. I started a diet last week and wasn't going to have time to walk my 1.5 miles today so I decided to skate if I got the chance. He was doing fine on his own so I got out there. I got more used to the floor but still...slicker than snot. I slid around and probably looked like a toddler most of the time but it was fun and I actually had fun laughing at myself. Once I got it mostly down again, I decided to practice the backwards skating again. I was doing fine (though it was much harder on that slick floor) but at one point, I found myself in the middle of the rink and suddenly, my eyes left my skate and started to follow the disco light on the floor. The next thing I knew, I had come down hard on my left knee and then to the floor. I felt really foolish but hey, I'd skated pretty good for someone who hadn't done it in 20 years. ;) I dusted myself off, setting a good example for Matthew, and kept skating. A few more turns around the rink and I caught up with Grammy. She turned to say something to me and started to slide on the concrete. She reached for the emergency exit, missed and did a literal belly flop on the concrete floor. I think I stopped breathing until she started to sit up and I saw an 'ok' look on her face. She hit hard and I was quite concerned about her. But she dusted herself off and got back up on the horse too.

By the second hour, he was out in the middle of the rink holding onto nothing. He was skating the small inner circle. You remember that circle - the one where you'd meet another girl, hold hands and skate in a circle, right? Or practice your shoot-the-duck? He even told me later that he fell and hurt his rear really bad but got back up and kept going. My little over-actor gets super huge points for waiting until much later to tell me about it. ;)

I'm beaming with pride today because he didn't let it beat him. He didn't give up. Rose has stubborn determination...probably too much. But giving up on things is easier for Matthew and I am so incredibly proud of him that he kept trying and didn't let himself miss the fun.

Today, Grammy is pretty sore where she fell (mostly on her chin, which hit the floor pretty hard) and my knee is very tender when I touch it but we're ok. I was so worried that the fall would make my back/rib worse but it's no worse than it was.

He can't wait to go back! Next time, he says, he can't wait to take Rose. Neither can I! But next time, I think, I'll see if I can find a wooden floor.

It all started, innocently enough, at Stacey's favorite place

2008-04-05T05:57:00.000-07:00

Yep, Walmart. (Stacey LOVES that place!) Since Hubby now works from home and he's "home" at 5pm, we can now do errands in the evenings instead of stacking them all up for the weekend. So on Thursday night, we took the clan out with plans to hit Walmart (briefly), Blockbuster (to return only) and the mall for a couple returns of mine. We started at Walmart.

Hubby needed something for his office and Matthew had a return. For his birthday in September, he'd gotten a duplicate Bionicle. Last week we spent reorganizing his room and found that extra Bionicle. I asked why it wasn't opened yet and he said, "Mom, don't you remember you said we could return it for money?" I know Bionicle has their new line out now and I've seen some of the old ones clearanced already so I sadly explained that he needed to return items as quickly as possible before they go on sale so he can get the full money out of them. So walking into Walmart, we were discussing it again and he was worried about only getting $2 for a $10 item. We walked in the front door.

Hubby was carrying Linnae and said he was going to get a cart. I handed him the floppy seat for her and saw the goslings following after him. Matthew and I stopped at the greeter for the stupid return sticker. Matthew handed the guy his sealed Bionicle container. The senior guy looks it over, slowly, and says something about Lego's still being the #1 choice for boys, slowly, and puts a happy face sticker on it and slowly hands it back to Matthew. Rose appeared by my side at this point to see what was going on. Matthew gave me a look that said, "MooooooM - I didn't want this guy's stickers when I was three, I *certainly* don't want them NOW!" I said to the guy, "This is a return". He says, "OH! I thought he was showing me his toy!" Ummm...yeah, because that's what all 7 yr olds want to do is show the old stranger at the front of the store their toys (especially without saying something like, "See my new toy!"). He slowly peeled the sticker off, slowly scanned the canister about 10 times and slowly FINALLY handed it back to us, asking if we knew where returns are. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I LIVE HERE! And did I say we were in a hurry trying to get to three places tonight (plus the mall is a 15 minute drive)?

So having gotten through that ordeal, we finally met up with Hubby who had finally figured out the floppy seat and gotten Linnae in it. He said he was headed to office supplies. I said Matthew and I were headed to returns in the back. We start to leave and Rose fusses that she wants to go and Hubby said, "Can you take her too?" I said, "Yeah" and we left. We were cutting through furniture when we hear over the PA that there's a code Adam (for those who don't live there, it's like an Amber alert - for missing children - inside Walmart). When this code goes on, every Walmart employee stops what they're doing immediately to find the lost kid. I decide that this is a good teachable moment. I tell the kids that there's a lost little girl and if they see one wandering around by herself to let me know. We plow through to returns and amazingly, there's no line. As the lady is doing her stuff, employees come from the break room and ask her if the alert is over. She says no. Matthew held his breath as the lady scanned it and ~whew~ he got full price for it. He was ecstatic. I know the feeling. :) Well, he obviously wanted to see if the new ones were the same price so we stopped in toys. We hear the Adam alert again but this time, it seems it's not exactly an Adam alert...this time, it's that they *have* the kid, it's the parent who is missing. They say she's a 2 yr old with brown hair.

While standing there looking at Bionicles, another mom stops me and asks what toys a 5yr old boy likes. I think back and scour my frazzled (and in a hurry) brain and say Matthew was into Buzz Lightyear and Legos. [Friends with girls, let me tell you - no matter WHAT age, LEGOS are always a hit with boys!!!! Think of little boys as engineer students - anything they can build or demolish is a GREAT gift.] Matthew was having trouble picking between a couple items and I remind him that he has more money in his bank at home and I would be willing to lend him the extra. Rose runs to the next aisle to look at Littlest Pet Shop stuff. We hear the Adam alert again, "Attention - we have a 2 yr old with brown hair at the front of the store. She's really cute." Matthew finishes up in his section and we meet Rose. She's trying to decide between one case and the next for her pets. A couple comes by us and says, "Did you hear about the lost kid? Who could lose their kid for so long??" I said, "Well, actually, it's pretty easy. Like tonight, my husband is with me - sometimes one parent thinks the other parent has the child and vice versa." She placatingly agrees and says, "We saw her up front - she's just adorable!" Then she points at Rose and says, "She looks just like her". Whatever. I've been told the curly blond with green eyes looks 'just like' Rose too. In one ear and out the other. We hear the alert again while this lady was jabbering.

I spend a few minutes explaining to Rose (another teachable moment) that the $15 container only holds 25 pets but the $20 container will hold up to 150 pets and it's the better deal (plus it looks more sturdy, will stand up, etc). So I help her weigh the pros and cons (the feature animal included) and we start to leave the aisle when Hubby calls me. "In case you're wondering, I have Jade." STILL, I don't get it yet. I'm thinking, "of course you do - I left the two little ones with you". "What?" I ask. He says, "She was the lost girl up front."

Can I just say that I wanted to crawl under the nearest rock??? I don't mind telling you that I didn't even want to meet up with them and ADMIT that she was my child at that point. I KNOW what everyone in the store was thinking about "that poor girls mother!" I don't know that I've ever felt more stupid...well, it was close to the day I broke Matthew's leg (have I ever blogged about that?) but this was worse. I mean, I EXPLAINED the actual scenario to the lady in toys!! And she said she looked 'just like' Rose!!! Jade had probably been up there for 30 minutes before he retrieved her. But Mommy guilt got the better of me (was she scared??) and I trudged through to office supplies, where I found them waiting for me. She was her usual happy-go-lucky self, none the worse for wear and proudly showing off her happy face sticker (probably the one Matthew had removed from his return).

I asked him how he knew it was her. He said, the last announcement said her name was Jade (which I didn't hear) and he told Linnae, "Guess I know who that is". Upon finding her, he asked Jade who he was (without prompting her) and she said, "Daddy". He asked her what she'd been doing and she said, "riding the horse". See there's a stupid mechanical horse at the front of the store. We have never ridden it but it definitely would catch the attention of a 3yr old. I'm guessing that when Rose came to meet up with us and super-slow guy at the front, Jade followed her...and then got sidetracked on the horse. When she turned around, we were gone. Looking back, we don't think she was with us when we split up by the shopping carts. And yes, I was so sure Hubby had her that it never once crossed my mind that it might possibly be one of my kids. At least I was sympathetic to "the girls mother" instead of wanting to flog her like the rest of the store.

My only hope at this point was to get out of the store before anyone we knew recognized us (and her). We were standing in checkout when childhood best friend's sister, Bev, stops in her tracks.

~Everything went in slow motion like that episode in Frasier where Roz is disgusting from just working out and sees an old high school classmate. She says, "Please, please, please, God don't let him recognize me!". Then you hear, "Roz, is that you?" And, eyes still upturned, she says sarcastically, "Thanks for listening!"~

Eyeing Jade, she asks, "Is this YOUR little girl?" Embarrassed, I fumbled through explaining that each of us thought the other had her and quickly made our way out the door. Of course, in hind sight, she did know me when I was that age and since Jade is the spitting image of me (poor thing), shouldn't she have recognized her immediately? teehee.

She was so close to the front doors, I'm just incredibly thankful that someone noticed her! I asked Hubby if they explained how they found her and he said they were too busy telling him how cute she was. Yep, I should have known when they mentioned she was cute on the PA that it was one of my kids. [evil grin]

Of course, on the way to the van, I called my mom to relay the story. Her first response? "Laurie, you'll do ANYTHING for a blog post!"

Web....what?

2008-04-01T12:21:00.000-07:00

kinz. The Easter Bunny brought us the world of Webkinz this year. How did I stay out of that world for so long?? I don't know. Frankly, I'm feeling ambiguous about it too. On the one hand, it's a great learning tool. On the other hand, my computer time is now severely limited.

For those of you in the dark, Webkinz are stuffed creatures (typically pets and farm animals) that you buy for about $15 at toy stores. You then take them home and register your animals secret code on their website. Then the fun begins. You get an empty room to start. Various other objects are given to you as well as some money. From there, the possibilities are endless. Think SimLife on a kid scale. You play games to get Kinzcash and you perform 'jobs' to earn cash. With that cash, you can buy food for your animals (you have to keep them fed or they'll die) and you can buy items for their rooms from furniture to toilets to accessories (you have to keep them happy too).

From that nasty E word standpoint (educational), they've built in some great features. One of our friends animals said his favorite food is a lollipop. So our friend kept feeding the animal lollipop after lollipop (that's a hard word to type!). His hunger meter was good but his overall health wasn't. He got sick. So our friend took him to the vet and the vet said he needed vegetables and rest.

Some of the games are re-dos of very common games like Tetris and Pong, etc. but spruced up and animal-themed. There are also harder card games that require you to think and there is a big section of trivia questions too. When Rose ran out of money and her animal was getting hungry, we talked about better use of her money (Matthew has no problem talking her into spending HER money but he's a good saver in his own game) and I stayed up one night to get her some money after she went to bed. Now I find myself wanting to log in and play a few rounds just because the games are fun. I did tell the kids that my birthday is later this month and I'd love my own Webkinz. teehee

You can also chat with your friends who are online (chat uses only pre-approved words so it's kid safe), and invite those friends animals into your animals room. It's a great online world for the kids. :) Rose and Matthew have each bought another Webkinz already.

So if you don't hear from me soon, just envision Matthew, Rose and me vying for the computer. ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today is Linnae's first birthday. We expected Hubby to be out of town this week so the big party isn't planned yet and he ended up not being called out. So we'll have a little pizza party tonight with her (she likes to chew on the bones a.k.a. crust) and a larger extended family party later in the month.

She's marine crawling all over the place. She's starting to get up on her knees and hands but my other kids never really crawled in that sense either. FIL likes to tease that it's because Grandpa was a marine but I think it might have something to do with the hardwood floors. If you're in a sleeper (which mine are mostly for their first couple years...lol) and you're on wood floors, it's easiest to pull yourself with your hands and let your body slide, seal-like. I think on carpet, you don't slide and getting up on knees is really the only way to move around. Regardless, she's also trying to pull herself up. I keep telling the kids to kick her feet out from under her - I mean, really...do I need another walker?? - but they won't do it so I suppose that's around the corner too. Where DID I put that gate for the stairs?

The Proof is in the Puddin

2008-03-26T09:08:00.001-07:00

Matthew, 3 months

Rose, 4 months

Jade, 4 months

Linnae, 2.5 - 3 months

Nostalgic Day

2008-03-26T07:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it's all my girls birthdays or if it's because my littlest (and last baby) is turning 1yr in a few days or because my brother and his wife just had their first. But the simple fact is that I have been thinking a lot about those early days of motherhood recently. Don't get me wrong - I don't want any more kids. I definitely feel our family is complete at this point. However I do look back on those first few weeks as "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".

What do you seasoned moms remember about those early days?
The worst: Sleepless nights, being snippy with Hubby, feeling totally isolated from the world and friends and anyone who could possibly understand what I was going through, emotions going up and down and sideways every two minutes, feeling infuriated with pediatricians because I didn't feel they were listening to me nor did they have the same parenting ideals we did, and coming face-to-face with the humility and awe of caring for this tiny squealing thing.
I remember watching them check the car seat for us before we left the hospital with Matthew and thinking, "Are they REALLY letting me take him home? I don't know what to DO with him!" Rest assured, he let me know, under no uncertain terms, what to do with him. ;)

There's a new book out that I've skimmed (I haven't completely read it mainly because I know I'm past that newborn stage forever now) called The Happiest Baby On The Block. The author talks about the fact that newborn humans are some of the most helpless babies of all animals. And his theory is that our babies are born too early. That there should be a "4th trimester". Now, I've never *never* met a woman who would have been happy to go another trimester but I do see his point in a way. If you think about babies who are 3 months old versus newborns...3 month olds are much happier, able to hold their heads up, making eye contact, smiling, etc. Newborns are just HARD. They can only communicate with cries and studies have shown that nothing raises anyone's blood pressure and stress levels like that of a crying baby. And triple that when he/she is your own...and triple it again if he/she is your first baby. I remember the Mad About You episode. I'm sure you do too - everyone talked about it for weeks. It was 30 minutes of their newborn crying. She cried and cried and cried, all through the show. And at one point, Jaime was crying right along with her. I have to tell you, I watched it again in syndication after I'd had my son and I was exhausted by the end of that show. It took everything out of me.

The best parts of the early months: The smiles, looking at your baby knowing that your body has sustained that one for 9 months and now that baby is thriving on your milk, the smiles, the happily sleeping baby, the laughter in their eyes, the warm bundle of snuggle on your chest, the afternoon naps together, the smiles, the warm baths together, bonding with Hubby over this new amazing creature that is half him and half me. But mostly the smiles. The ones that let you know, "You're doing a good job, Mom", or "thanks, Mom". Those smiles around six weeks go such a long way to save your sanity, don't they? Truth be told, the smiles of childhood *always* go a very long way. I know it saved my life (and my brothers too) several times. ;) In the midst of the terrible two's, the trying three's, and the four's that are so bad NO one dares give them a name, smiles are what save you all. When Rose got into the Nesquik and I found her like this, it was the smiles that saved us both.

And when Matthew and Rose were four, it was definitely the smiles that made me not pack my bags and leave even though I really wanted to. (Coincidentally, I wonder if that's the reason kids are shipped off to school at that age...lol...there were many days when I considered it!) The smiles are no different when they're babies. You work so hard for weeks and finally you see the first genuine smile. It is that moment when you remember why you started the whole baby process to begin with.

Those of you with newborns, hang in there - the reward is on its way.

Those of you who are pregnant, you've read enough about birth. Read something about what happens after birth. I wish some wise person had told me that when I was pregnant with my first.
Grab a book on baby sleep patterns. I highly recommend Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. HIGHLY. RECOMMEND. The best little gem I got from this book is "sleep begets sleep". You hear "let the baby cry for a while - so she's good and tired and she'll sleep better". That's wrong on so many levels. The more a baby sleeps, the more a baby will sleep. Overtired babies will not sleep...they'll get more tired and more tired until you throw them out the window (or at least want to). You can skip the sections on letting a four month old cry it out but the rest of his info is very useful and *really* helped us with Matthews sleep issues. To this day, I protect all of their sleep schedules voraciously. I see a huge *HUGE* difference on the odd day when I don't.
Read a good book on breastfeeding basics. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding is a hefty read but it's PACKED with great information and it's my first recommendation.
Read up on vaccine information (askdrsears.com is a great source for that and all things kid-related). Even if you're totally pro-vax, you should still read up on it and know what to expect.
Study what really constitutes 'sick' in a child.
Interview pediatricians. Ask them how supportive of breastfeeding they will be. Ask them if they will allow you to take a slower approach to vaccines - ask them about everything you feel strongly about. Even though the AAP says breastfeeding is best, not all doctors are bf supportive. Go to a La Leche League meeting. Yes, many pregnant moms go and I SOOO wish I'd gone when I was pregnant, in hind sight...it could have saved me sooo much worry.

[stepping off my box now]

I got carried away a little but I feel the need to shout it from the rooftops. We have done a good job telling expectant moms to prepare for birth...but the ball is dropped there. What do they do after birth? No wonder so many new moms feel helpless and spend days crying alone and throw in the towel on breastfeeding so early. It's hard stuff and they're simply not prepared. And early motherhood should be more fun. Those first 6 weeks seemed to be endless while I was there but in hind sight, it was barely a blink of the eye. There is a reason they use sleep-deprivation as a torture method, people! ;)

So if you find yourself in the midst of it all (and I know several of my readers are), take a deep breath, tell yourself "Mama said there'd be days like this" and try to enjoy it. Remember every detail. Jot a few thoughts each day if you can spare a second. You'll treasure every helpless feeling and every exhausted word down the road.

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done"

Happy Spring!

2008-03-24T11:48:00.001-07:00

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, I have a little poll going on the site about where your kids are primarily learning things, be it public school, private, homeschool or other. I'm interested to see where my readers are coming from. :)

This weekend was Easter, of course, and along with the usual celebrations, we included a birthday party for Jade, who is now three years old. She had a surprise party last weekend at her grandparents house with that side of the family so yesterday was just our immediate family and Grammy. We had a lot of activity and between the Easter baskets, egg hunts, ham, birthday presents, and cupcakes, it was a very full day. It was also the most beautiful Easter day that I have in my memories. Here are a few shots...

And some more pictures from our weekend...

Did someone say there's CHOCOLATE in here?

Do I blend in with my new toy?

Birthday Girl Jade:

Rose had just settled in for a long winter's nap after her cousins left...

Is that a Transformers Easter basket?

Jade, being the 3rd child, has figured out interesting ways to claim things for herself. For example, when I served strawberries the other night, she decided to bite into each one to be sure they were *hers alone*.

Rose surprised me with a story after quiet time the other day...

Translated: Slow cat sat on a cat ladder (latr). Fly I said (fli i sed)
as I ran past Mom and Dad making dinner(macen denr).
Happy Birthday
I'm 5
It has such a poetic feel to it, doesn't it? She even asked if she could put it in her poetry journal. (The journal is a notebook that she started when our homeschool group decided to study poetry last summer.) I feel that larger stories are just around the corner. I can't wait to see where her imagination takes her!

No, I haven't abandoned blogging

2008-03-03T12:14:00.000-08:00

The short version is we've been busy, I'm still having rib pain so it doesn't feel the greatest to sit at the computer, and there are a lot of adjustments going on around here (namely Hubby becoming a work-from-home guy). This week though, Hubby is halfway across the country in training and I have 3 sick kids with high fevers. It's not been a fun week (and I'm only saying this on TUESDAY!)...nor am I looking forward to the next few days.

Rose turned 5 a couple weeks ago and if she were going to public school, I'd need to be registering her for kindergarten soon. But I'm not. ;) She has been working hard on spelling - and it's all been totally her own idea. She's learning to read at the same time so it's interesting to see her phonetic spelling everywhere. [As an aside, isn't it an oxymoron that the word phonetic isn't pronounced phonetically?] Here is some of her recent work and art (I'll try to translate for you). If you want a clearer image, click on each picture and it'll blow up bigger for you.

That's "hamster" at the top, "gerbil" and "kangaroo" on bottom (with an unnamed ghost in between, I'm told).

Her drawing skills are really taking off and I'm sure my mother's inner artist is beaming with pride. There's a peacock, fish, bat, kangaroo, butterfly, a few snakes/worms, turtle, and my favorite - the jellyfish at the bottom.

This one says, "animals that (dat) you can draw (dro) on different paper".

I just know you teachers are groaning, "Ohhh pleeeeease do not let her make her S's backwards!!" But don't worry - it will correct itself as she gets older. She used to spell her whole name backwards, then just a few letters and now she writes the letters backwards because she "likes to be silly". Hubby called tonight and as she hung up, she said, "I love you too....I mean, I L O V E O U...no, Y O U T O."

What have we done right to have such early readers? I can't say for sure but my best guess isn't that I have geniuses...I don't. But we have fostered a love of reading in this house. I started reading Charlotte's Web out loud to Matthew when he was an infant. It soothed my fussy baby and I enjoyed escaping into a fantasy land for a while too. Reading has always been a ritual part of bedtime. Hubby and I soon got tired of the toddler books and often read books that we assumed were 'over their heads'. But it was amazing to see how much they actually caught. I think it almost became a science experiment to us, to see how much of the 'older' stuff they would catch and we soon found ourselves reading chapter books to our old 3 and young 4yr olds. Things like Magic Tree House and Magic School Bus and Little House series, Chronicles of Narnia and classics from our childhood like Charlotte's Web and Runaway Ralph and The Boxcar Children. Did that have anything to do with it? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Maybe they would have been early readers even if we hadn't read so much to them. Or maybe if we hadn't read above their reading levels. Maybe we picked the right stories to motivate them to want to learn to read. I guess I'll never know but I'm glad they are well-read even at 5 and 7 years old.

Matthew and I have been working on organizing his room. He outgrew his Buzz Lightyear themed room a couple years ago but his bedspread remains. It doesn't quite match the Transformers curtains but there's certainly no mistaking that a boy lives in there. :) His room has been long overdue for a change and some good organization. He and I went shopping last weekend to look at storage containers and ideas that would work in his room. We turned furniture around and sorted through his toys. We started to put the new organizational tools to good use.

And that's where it stopped. Rose got really sick on Saturday and then Matthew started it on Sunday. High fevers, cough, sore throat and body aches. We've had a good winter for illness (probably because with my back/rib injury, we haven't been anywhere to gather germs) so it was time. I just wish it had been a quick 24 hour bug instead of the week long (or better) flu that's going around. And I wish it had happened while Hubby was home to help me out with them. But life isn't fair, is it? ;)

And since I'm by myself this week with them, I'd better get my rest too. I'll post pictures of Matthew's room when we're done with it. Good night!

New Baby Joy

2008-02-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

I am officially an aunt again as of last night.

Welcome to the world, Sweet One. Can't wait to see pictures of your beautiful baby girl face!

Crazy Busy! (or, Our Life in 2010 Words or Less)

2008-02-19T10:36:00.000-08:00

It's been a while so we'll have a brief recap.

First...me. I did something to my right back rib area in early December, of which I still haven't a clue how it happened. I've been through a couple physical therapists, a chiropractor and a massage therapist. I'm still working on it though I'm much better than I was. It's just been a really slow road. Sitting at my computer isn't very comfortable so I haven't been blogging much as my faithful readers can see. Sorry! But I'm improving every day and I HOPE it's only a few more weeks until I'm back to 100%. I'd put myself at about 75% now.

Secondly, I guess I can spill the beans now. Hubby got a new job! :) :) :) We're thrilled!! It's a great opportunity and he will be working out of the house. So hello to an extra $250/month in gas alone! And I'm glad we'll be doing our part towards helping the environment a little too. :) He starts next week. I'm a little concerned about the noise level that we get to some days but we'll all have adjustments and thankfully, spring *should* be just around the corner so we can do lots more outside.

Now to the kids...
Almost 3yr old Jade does still have hair left, thank goodness! Her foray into the world of 'beautician with no training' was short lived and no more hair has been sacrificed. Her baby sister sighed a large breath of relief. ;) She's getting her last set of molars and has been a bit crabbier than usual but she's still my happiest kid all around. She is her big sister's shadow, sometimes to Rose's dismay. Rose wants to do whatever Matthew is doing and Jade wants to do whatever Rose is doing. Matthew doesn't mind the attention at all but Rose doesn't always like the tag-along. The day is coming soon when they will need to share a room though so I hope it's a phase. Jade has had some issues with speech - she's just been slow to get understandable. But within the last month, she's gotten so much clearer! She's also sporting a new pink potty too (and I have to say, I've been though *many* different potty 'contraptions'. This one is **totally** awesome!). My third baby is growing up...sniff..sniff..

Almost 11 month old Linnae has sprouted 4 teeth. Aside from a week of restless sleep, she's doing well. She also FINALLY decided to eat food in January, at 9 months old. She's sitting up and rolls from one side of the room to the other. I doubt she will ever crawl because she's such an efficient roller. And rolling fits her name better, I believe...
I have to pause to write about something that gave me a huge vindicating guffaw regarding her. I use my kids middle names on the blog (and their first names, with the exception of the baby, are very normal common names as opposed to some of their second names. lol). The baby is Rhonan Linnae. I have already posted her name back when she was born so the info is already out here. However, when I was pregnant (and yes, by the time you're pg with your 4th kid, it's "I am pregnant", not "we"), we decided that we really liked the name Ronan. It goes back to my Irish heritage and sounded good with the last name and we were looking for an R name (Hubby and I have a naming scheme based on our initials). We got the name from a character on one of our favorite shows, Stargate Atlantis. Not that we would name our kid "after" that character but that we liked the name. But we never came up with a good R girl name. Some of the top ones were Regan and Reese but we weren't totally convinced. I thought that maybe I needed to see her to decide her name. When she was born, we didn't name her right away like the other kids. On the second day, Hubby said teasingly, "It's a shame she wasn't a boy because we had that name picked out!" I said, "Why can't we still use it? Ronan means 'little seal' - that sounds like a girl name to me!" I decided to put an H in the name to make it look more girly and thus she was named Rhonan Linnae. It suits her very well and the kids call her "Rho-Rho" for a nickname. So, as with all unusual names, no one ever gets it right. And we spend a lot of time telling people what her name means. Most people either immediately love it or look at me like I'm nuts. I don't care. Like I said, it suits her.
A few episodes ago on Stargate Atlantis, Teyla told Ronan that she was pregnant. A while later in a sweet moment, he said to his friend, "And hey, boy or girl, Ronan is a good name". Hubby and I sat and stared at each other in total disbelief for a while. I think this was the first time in history when I was actually speechless. ;)
So, I have a 'little seal' who is rolling, not crawling. It fits. ;)

Rose...ahhh Rose. Rose had her 5th birthday this weekend. She is an animal lover, through and through. She asked for the hard Schleich animals you see at Target and Michaels and she asked for Littlest Pet Shop toys. And that's exactly what she got...gobs of them. She's in 7th heaven. The funny thing is that I've caught Jade quietly playing with them many times. In a family with 3 other siblings, it's rare to enjoy a toy completely by yourself and she's been sneaking off into Rose's room whenever she can. :) Rose is reading quite well for someone who just turned 5. She's taking a bit longer than Matthew did (he was reading very proficiently by 5) but her writing is coming along much faster than his ever did. And probably better than he is even today. She loves drawing and writing. She sounds out words and writes them down. They're phonetic spellings but I know the rest will come in time as she reads more. A friend gave her a diary on Sunday and she's already written several pages in it.

At one of our MOPS meetings in September, a little boy showed Matthew (currently 7.5yrs old) how to make a paper airplane. If only I knew how far he'd go with it! By the next day, I had a house FULL of airplanes. Grammy babysat that evening and another day passed and I had a house FULL of paper boats. That expanded to different kinds of planes (and discussions about aerodynamics) and I found gliders and dive bombers planes that did loop-de-loops. Then we had different kinds of boats. We compared and contrasted catamaran, typical sailing boats and canoes. We filled our sinks with water and saw which ones would actually float. When Grammy babysat, she told stories about how she would make paper boats and sail them down the creek behind her childhood home and her dog would chase after the boats and catch them. Then when the intrigue of paper planes and boats started to wean a bit, I checked out a book from the library on origami. His first few creations lacked the skill of neat folds and I found myself wondering if he was just too young yet to understand it. But he persevered and kept asking for more paper. By Christmas, he was making beautiful cranes with my Christmas dinner napkins. By New Years, he was making entire zoos. Animals, gift boxes, decorations, stars. He even made a reindeer for Rose's birthday. He can make a crane in any size you request. Even today, I find myself searching the library's website to see if they have advanced creation books. I really must post some pictures of them soon! The only real problem with this hobby is that he refuses to throw them away. Each creation is unique, even if it's his 1000th elephant. So we have origami pieces everywhere...and I do mean *everywhere*. But it'll be a neater party trick in college than belching his abc's. ;)

Matthew also recently dug out Hubby's old electronics kit from the basement. (Hubby is setting up his home office down there so I expect to see many old things being brought up in the next few months as the kids find new-to-them things to explore.) I got the set for Hubby off his Christmas list many years ago and Hubby never really found much time to play around with it. He told Matthew that he could play with it downstairs if he read the instruction book first. The book came up from the basement and Matthew went back to origami or chasing his sisters or Bionicle building or...something. About a week later, the kids and I were heading to MOPS and upon climbing out of the van at the church, Matthew said, "Mom, what would be a good grounding source in the basement? Could I use the door hinge?" Now I like to work with my hands (I built a rolling kitchen cart all by myself several years ago...hmmm...I should take a picture) and I'm no stranger to the concept of grounding but in the question coming from my 7 year old in the MOPS church parking lot really threw me. Sometimes it's scary how fast their minds absorb things. I suppose we'll have some electricity experiments in our near future.

We got it in our heads to study Chinese New Year this month. I make lots of Chinese food at home (just love the taste!) and we saw that it was coming up and it just stuck. The New Year started on Feb 7 and in China, they celebrate for 15 days, ending in a lantern ceremony on the evening of the 15th day. We've made lanterns and hung them all around our house. We made dragon puppets, almond cookies, we've read numerous books about China and learned a lot online as well. We're currently reading Grace Lin's book entitled, "The Year of the Rat". It's well written and the kids really seem to be enjoying it. We might even try our hand at making a compass and/or kites this week. This Friday will be the 15th day and the kids and Grammy and I are going our to our favorite Chinese restaurant to end the celebration with a bang. Hubby has a work party that evening in honor of his last day or he'd come along with us too.

I guess you're pretty much up to speed on our life. I hope to post some pictures soon! And if anyone has seen my point-and-shoot HP digital camera, please let me know where. ;) I have my dig SLR and all my memory cards but can't find that little camera. I guess that's why I don't like the little point-and-shoot ones - too easy to loose! At least my SLR is big and heavy and demands that you pay attention to where you're setting it down! ;) Last I saw the little one, it was at Grandma's house on Christmas Eve.

I'm adding something new to the blog on the sidebar. Those of you who use a feed reader might want to visit my blog and check it out (I'll let you know when it actually goes up). I'm going to try to keep a list of books we're reading and have read. I always like to see what friends are reading - especially the homeschooling kids. I might see if I can do something with LibraryThing (very neat site if you're a book buff!) that can track current reads and list older reads.

Oh and have you seen the ads for Prince Caspian?? We just can't wait to see it!

Lost but not forgotten

2008-01-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

I wrote this small blog entry back in January but for some reason, never posted it. I don't think it was intentionally skipped but I'm glad I just discovered the issue because I have more to add. So here's the original post from Jan 30:

***********************
An interesting thing happened yesterday that is the perfect example of how we learn things around here. Many of you have asked, "What if your child doesn't want to...learn about the civil war (for example)?" I'm glad you asked. ;)

Yesterday morning, we had beautiful weather. Though it was very windy, it was in the upper 60's, unheard of for January in STL. So the kids ran outside and got to blow some cabin fever off. While they were out there, I took the opportunity to do some housework and turned on the TV for some company. "Planet of the Apes" was on and though I've seen parts here and there and I know the gist of the story, I've never seen the whole movie. So I chose that to watch (for, as many of you SAHMs know, there's basically NOTHING worth watching during the week day mornings).

The kids came in a while later, Matthew first. He asked what show I was watching. I told him the name. He asked me what the story was about and I told him. He asked why the apes were talking and wearing clothes. We discussed that as well. He started to get really interested in it, eventually asking why the human was being treated so badly. This led to a really interesting discussion about slavery.

I found it hard and embarrassing to explain the actions of our forefathers but it was a really good talk. I'm sure, that at the age of 7.5, the Civil War has more meaning for him than most of his peers in school, who won't touch the subject for five more years.
***************************************************

As I mentioned a few posts back, Matthew told me that he wanted to study the US Presidents in succession, starting with Washington. I have to say that it's quite a challenge (in my library at least) to find good living books about Presidents.

Living Books = books that are well-written and engaging---they absorb the reader---the narrative and characters "come alive"; living books are the opposite of cold, dry textbooks.

But I was able to find one for Washington, Adams and Jefferson, as well as a historical fiction about Jefferson's childhood that looks promising. When I brought them home, Matthew was excited to get started on Washington. He glanced at the other books and picked up the Jefferson one and said, "Oh yeah, this was the one who was President in the Civil War." I started to say, "No," but he cut me off saying, "No, no...that was Lincoln." The kid has an amazing memory. I'm not sure if it was from our original talk about The Planet Of The Apes or a book along the way or something else but he made a connection because the information was important to the story line or the discussion...it wasn't just a list of facts and dates that someone said he needed to know in seventh grade. The information was presented in a living book form: The details absorbed him and the players came alive...the opposite of cold, dry textbooks.

My little Jedi Knights

2008-01-14T09:03:00.001-08:00

It's so good to see those baby blankets that Grandma spent lots of time making are still getting good use. ;) Guess I should have wrapped one around the baby too but she's busy EATING! Yes, she's finally decided to eat at 9 months. Every few days, since she was 6 months old, I've been spooning baby food into her mouth only to have it spat back out at me as she showed me her new trick, raspberries. This might be cute to a brand-new mom but by the time you get to your 4th kid, you've had EVERYTHING done to you. You've had spit-up galore all over yourself, vomit, poo, urine and every kind of food imaginable. 'Raspberries of food' is no longer cute to me. So I'd wait a couple days and try again. Nuttin. I finally decided that perhaps her waking me every 2 hours all night for a feed would be helped if I pushed food a little more. So I got those cereal puff things. For those of you non-moms (or ones with older kids) out there, they're similar to cheerios in that it's a crunchy finger sized food. With a big "Melts in their mouth!" slogan on the front, I decided to try them. She chews on anything else I put in her mouth - why not these? So last week, she got them. She immediately picked it up and put it in her mouth. LOVED them. And though they most definitely do NOT 'melt in their mouth', she had no trouble with them at all. So we did those for a few days and then Cheerios for a few days and yesterday, I tried the baby food again. Pears. *NO* raspberries. She slurped it off the spoon, swallowed it down and looked at me in that "can I please have some more, Mom?" way. Today I smooshed up a banana and she loved that too. Thank goodness! Life becomes easier, as a mom, when baby starts eating solids. Now I can tide her over for a bit if I'm stuck in a store at feeding time. :) That's worth its weight in gold, especially if you have 3 more tired hungry kids as well. Oh yeah, and she's working on sippy cup techniques too.

Coming soon...Matthew's latest obsession...and is Rose reading yet...and does Jade have any hair left on her head or have her mothers dreams (i.e. nightmares) come true?

Organization

2008-01-12T08:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, I said that yucky O word. ;) You might see a mother of 4 kids and automatically think, "She must have been born organized!" Well, this one was definitely not. I'm a disaster walking. So whenever I see organizational tips, I jump on them. Yesterday at MOPS, we had a speaker come and talk on the subject. I thought I'd share with you.

[Side note - I will be back soon to blogging! I'm still dealing with back issues and can't sit at the computer very long but I will be back soon, I hope!! Please send prayers for a speedier recovery!]

1. She bought a white plastic drawer for her kitchen/pantry that is the “snack drawer”. It’s filled with individual snack packs of goodies. Sometimes when she’s being really good (frugal), she will get the big goldfish (or whatever food) container and put single servings into small ziplocks. This way, she doesn’t have to stop what she’s doing every time they want snack – they can go pick out a snack themselves.

2. she highly recommends the book Desperation Dinners (hers was used so much that the cover had been burned off!). Easy 30 minutes or less meals.

3. Dippy Dinner – if you give kids dip, they’ll eat anything. So she has a dippy dinner every so often where it’s toasted ravioli with spaghetti sauce, carrots with ranch and apple with caramel. She says her 13 year old still asks for dippy dinner.

4. She has 3 boys and a husband and they all wear the same size socks and sorting socks was a total nightmare. So a friend told her to buy a different brand for each person. So #1 son has Hanes socks, #2 son has Champion, etc.

5. Hand-me-downs. Once you hand clothing down to the next child, sometimes you forget who it belongs to. And you could do letters on shirt tags but then you scratch off when you hand it down and it can get messy. A friend told her to just put one dot on the tag for child #1, and add a dot when that item gets handed down to child #2, etc. (I LOVE this idea!)

7. Kids have a lot of trouble figuring out which shoe goes on which foot. So she puts a permanent black marker dot on the inside heel of each shoe and then the kids get to “match” the dot so they know which foot it goes on.

8. She has several different backpacks for different events. Her daughter has 3 older brothers so they’re constantly at sporting events. She has a backpack filled with activity stuff for games. Then she has a quiet backpack for church and doctors appts, etc.

9. She color codes her kids sippy cups so everyone knows whose is whose and she would fill them up the night before and set them in the fridge. A couple years ago, Jean1 told me about this related tip and I LOVE it - I also assign each person a certain color for their hangers – it’s much easier sorting when I get upstairs with an armload to disburse)

10. A friend of hers started something years ago where she got a white cotton tablecloth and it’s her Thanksgiving tablecloth. Each year, whoever is there signs it. Now that her dad has passed away, it’s really turned into an heirloom. (You could also ask them to put down what they’re thankful for on it.)

11. She recommends the magazine called Real Simple because it has good practical advice for organization

12. She talked about all the artwork floating around the house that the kids make. What do you do with all that stuff? She said some people put them in frames. One of her friends painted a few frames on the wall and can change out the artwork frequently. She keeps a labeled accordion folder per kid per year that she keeps the extra special artwork in and at the end of the year, stores in a box in the basement. She has a friend who puts clear packing tape on the back of artwork so that when you place and remove masking tape to hang it, the paper doesn’t rip.

13. She also picks a family Bible verse each year (I think Marge talked about this already this year) for them to think about. Ephesians 4:29 and 1 Peter 3:8 were ones she’s used.

14. A friend said during small group discussion that she used to have a toy basket downstairs and before bed, they’d all toss toys in there…but then she’d have this basket of crud that didn’t get emptied. So she went to Target and got some small canvas totes for each kid (color coded) and they put their own toys in there and can carry it up to their own room.

Snow day from last weekend

2007-12-21T10:43:00.001-08:00

This one requires a bit of explanation - Rose is mimicking a meerkat, trying to dig through the snow down to find dinner.

Serendipity

2007-12-20T16:04:00.000-08:00

I admit it...I'm a sucker for romantic comedies. You've Got Mail, Sleepless In Seattle, Only You, Return To Me and While You Were Sleeping (as well as many others) are all DVD's that I have purchased and watch over and over again. Serendipity is also on the top of my list. I have watched these so many times that I can point out editing errors that should have been fixed. In Serendipity's opening credits, for example, you see them panning down some tall busy city building. What you might not have noticed is that, if you look closely, you can see the camera boom in the window reflections. In Romancing The Stone, the map changes several times from laminated to unlaminated. You also see Michael Douglas over-shoot the truck with his backpack and the supposedly remote waterfall cave they dig in? Yep, you can see the tire treads from their previous takes upon approach.

But none of these things ruin the movies for me. I'm a sucker for them. In fact, Hubby proposed to me after we watched Groundhog Day. It's "our" movie.

For those of you who are not romantic comedy buffs, the movie Serendipity, similarly to Only You, poses the question of fate. Are we indeed fated to someone or some life? Or is it all chance? One of the key scenes in the movie goes like this...

- It can't get any more clearer than this. I'm not supposed to be doing this. It's not in the cards.
- Hey, it's another one of your clues, man. Let's talk about it in the cab... on the way over.
- It's not a clue. It's a sign.
- What's the difference?
- A clue is what a detective uses to find a suspect. The receipt, the warehouse, that French guy-- those are clues. This is a sign. Me never finding the book, that's a sign. Sara never finding the $5.00 bill, that's a sign.
- How could something not happening be a sign?
- Maybe the absence of signs is a sign. Isn't it?

Well, I'll have you know there is no absence of clues or signs in what I'm about to show you. Let's see the clues first...
Clue #1:

Clue #2:

Clue #3:

Sign #1:
The 2.75 year old being happily quiet all by herself with the baby.

You always *think* quiet is good...it never is. So was this fated or left up to chance? I choose to believe this incident was 'opportunistic' at best. ;)