Twittering away

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. :)