So, I'm sure you have figured out by now that my family isn't exactly wealthy. In fact, we are probably the opposite of how I was brought up in this area. When we have extra money, we must spend it wisely and usually do so by stocking up on things that we need like extra food and household supplies (toilet paper, dish and laundry soap, shower soaps, stuff like that). We make it work somehow.
So, I did some calculations not too long ago based on the homeschool materials I have here currently, and realized that I may be lucky to make it to our tax refund with the stuff we have currently. I have curriculum I love, but in some subjects it is too expensive to buy whenever we need it. Those subjects I purchase with the tax refund, attempting to estimate how many levels we'll need in math (for example!) or if our history and science will be enough for a year and what supplemental materials to buy.
Well, I can tell you that I likely miscalculated math. Liddy is close to moving up a level in math to Beta, as are Missa and Kimi (they will likely by Christmas). Which that's no big deal, I have the next level already purchased for all 3 children. However, the rate Liddy goes in math I'll need the level AFTER what I've purchased by my birthday in February most likely. That is where the issue lies. Same in history, we're at a good groove in our program and supplements but I can see us finishing by my birthday, putting me in a position where I'll need to purchase the next core level. So what is a girl to do in a situation like this?
Well first, I take it to prayer. I don't do ANYTHING major without praying first until I know what to do. I still didn't know what to do really, but hey it'll work out. That's about all I knew.
Now enter Scott's old babysitter. She would watch him when he was younger than our children, and she homeschooled her 3 kids. The youngest just recently graduated from homeschool in fact, and she decided to clean off the homeschool shelves. She decided to offer to us first, and said that anything we can't use to pass to someone else who can. I got 6 levels of Math-U-See, starting with the very next level in line from where my current collection leaves off, and a lot of books for history, science, grammar, and other subjects. So now, I have solved the issue of what to do, as I have several years' worth of resources and materials that I can just grab and use, supplementing with the library as needed once I get the 2 teacher sets for the math that aren't here.
I think I need to send Scott over to Home Depot for another shelf and brackets for the shelves in our bedroom where I store all the homeschooling books that aren't currently in use...... almost all of this stuff is totally usable to us, with the exception of a couple items that I know right now we won't be using (like Apologia science). I can't wait until later tonight when I can really get deep into this box and log each book into my library spreadsheet and organize and start skimming books to see what will work when and how to best utilize materials.
Just another example of God providing for us when we come to Him in need. He has many times provided things as we needed for our family, by providing extra overtime for my husband at work or leading others to bless us with things that we may need (as in this case, a bunch of homeschool books) or by simply putting us in the right place at the right moment to find something we need (like a much-needed book at a thrift store, or a $1 clearance rack at Target or WalMart for clothing for one of the kids). And sometimes, God smacks us back to reality by reminding us that we do not need what we think we do, that what we have will work for us well enough.
~Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours.~ Psalm 128:1-2 (NIV)
~Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.~ Hebrews 4:16 (NIV)
God will always provide what we need when we truly need it, and sometimes before we need it. But we have to have the confidence and knowledge to approach Him with our needs, otherwise He cannot provide if we do not ask.
When is the last time you approached the throne in prayer and asked Him to bless you with the things you need? No matter how small that need may be (perhaps gas to get to the store or a box of pasta for supper that night), when did you ask Him to provide for you in your time of need? When you truly need something, God will NEVER look the other way. He loves us, and wants us to come to Him with our wants and needs just as we as parents want our children to do with us. Give God the chance, and He will bless you beyond anything you could have ever imagined.
Sunday, September 04, 2011
4 years ago yesterday.....
Four years ago yesterday was a holiday. It was Labor Day. It was also 3 days past my due date with my fourth child, and I woke up at about 6am in early labor. She was the only of mine to make it to her due date before being born. She was an unexpected blessing, and it had taken me the first 6 months of my pregnancy to stop being angry at Scott for tossing the condom aside that day. (how's that for TMI mom?) Well, 4 years ago yesterday I fell in love all over again, and we had to FIGHT to time with our baby girl.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
seriously? PINK?????
Scott is getting even with me I think. The last two nights, I've refused to take the pain so I stole his pillows and used to prop my back and stomach in bed while I sleep. I don't have any pain when I wake up, but apparently his neck hurts from no pillows.
So he bought me a body pillow today.
He bought a PINK eff'ing body pillow. Like, I've had a lovely $60 pregnancy support pillow picked out at Amazon (with free shipping too!) for a few weeks now that he said I could get. Well, its payday, and I was looking forward to ordering that support pillow this weekend. Instead, he went to WalMart and got me a $10 cheapo body pillow and he had to choose the pink one.
I hate pink. I may be a female, but pink is NOT a color that I feel looks good on anything but bubblegum and flowers. And he got me a PINK pillow.......
I will find the humor in it later, but now I have to get back to Jordan's 4th birthday. But before I go, here's a picture for you to see what I'm looking like at 13 1/2 weeks pregnant.
Yup, I'm going to be HUGE again this time. And no it isn't quadruplets. Yes, we're sure.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
need some guidance here for a health/science study
So I had a moment this morning. I was just getting out of the shower, I barely had the towel in my hands even, when Kimi and Liddy came into the bathroom. (sometimes I really do NOT like having only one bathroom, this was one of those moments at first) Now, these two kids are my inquisitive ones who make complex connections quickly on a regular basis. I'm regularly surprised by the things they say, think, figure out, and do.
Their question when they came into the bathroom was one that I was NOT prepared for, however. "Mom, we want to know how the baby is going to come out of your tummy." Oh my....... I'm dripping and trying to cover the important parts with a too-small towel thanks to my stomach growing (I show early and then gain a lot during pregnancy, I'm hoping to stick under 50lbs this time) and now I get to figure out how to answer THAT to a 5yr old and 7yr old. I told them I needed a bit to think about how to answer that because it is a little complicated, and they skipped off to let me think.
An hour later now, I still have NO IDEA how to answer that and they've asked me about it already a couple more times. Anyone got suggestions for me on how to explain that to them (we've not had the talk yet about how the baby actually got there, they are starting with the end and working backwards for information) without scarring them for life? We've already talked about the things a newborn needs and what they can and can't do, looked at pictures of them as newborns, and stuff like that. So, now we're talking about the baby growing in there and then coming out. Suggestions?
Their question when they came into the bathroom was one that I was NOT prepared for, however. "Mom, we want to know how the baby is going to come out of your tummy." Oh my....... I'm dripping and trying to cover the important parts with a too-small towel thanks to my stomach growing (I show early and then gain a lot during pregnancy, I'm hoping to stick under 50lbs this time) and now I get to figure out how to answer THAT to a 5yr old and 7yr old. I told them I needed a bit to think about how to answer that because it is a little complicated, and they skipped off to let me think.
An hour later now, I still have NO IDEA how to answer that and they've asked me about it already a couple more times. Anyone got suggestions for me on how to explain that to them (we've not had the talk yet about how the baby actually got there, they are starting with the end and working backwards for information) without scarring them for life? We've already talked about the things a newborn needs and what they can and can't do, looked at pictures of them as newborns, and stuff like that. So, now we're talking about the baby growing in there and then coming out. Suggestions?
Friday, August 26, 2011
they never cease to amaze me
My sweet little Kimi and I have been working on writing her numbers for math mostly, and counting to 20. Well, it looks like now I need to teach the kid to skip count by 10's and then 5's because she can count to 109 with help at each ten's change. CRUD! I'm not ready for her to be moving this fast...... and I'm thinking that Primer may now officially be beneath her level, she's also memorizing some of her facts just from playing with the math blocks with her sisters (they are all playing with them lately to help them memorize which color is what number).
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
pregnancy- week 12
I have officially hit the 12 week point, as of yesterday, in my pregnancy. I can now start to relax a bit about it. However, by now I've usually had one or two appointments with my OB/GYN. I've still not had my first appointment due to money issues, but we're getting that fixed now.
I woke up this morning to the sound of my two sweet oldest girls fighting quite loudly. Yesterday I caught them playing in my front yard without even mentioning that they were going outside at all, which doesn't EVER fly with me. As a result, they got the lovely task of "go clean that black hole you call your bedroom and don't come out until it is finished!" for this disobedience. They are more than welcome to play outdoors, but they must ask first and are required to stay out back unless they ask special permission (which is only granted if an adult is able and willing to sit out front since we live on a busy main road). Its the same rule we've had since my oldest was old enough to go down a slide on her own, and it hasn't changed even with moving to a new city and house three years ago. Rules are rules, and I will punish those who break them.
So yes, they got to clean their room, and they took all day until Scott got home and still didn't finish it. So he fed them and sent them to bed after getting on them about it himself, and I gave them hugs and then told them that if their room wasn't finished the next morning before I woke up they would have warmed butts. (I did mention that i have NO patience when I'm pregnant right?) Yeah, they decided to get into a screaming match at 6:30am and it woke me up.
I tried to lay in bed and ignore it, until I heard one spout off, "oh don't worry about cleaning our room. Mom won't do anything, and she's probably already forgotten about it by now." That got me up and I warmed butts for not doing their task I assigned yesterday. 4 hours later, they finally decided to do it and had it finished for me to OK Missa running the sweeper in there. I got my point across....... now let's hope this time it sticks.
But when i had to get up this morning so early from the fighting, I stood up and had this horrible sharp pain in my lower stomach. It felt like i pulled a muscle, so I scrunched right up immediately and stayed for a minute before slowly straightening myself up again and rubbing my stomach to loosen it up. Ahhhh the aches have begun.
I also canceled my appointment with my OB/GYN for next week, and requested the release form to transfer records to another practice. See, I live about 5 minutes from an acceptable hospital, but my practice delivers at an amazing hospital in Westerville (northern Columbus if you aren't familiar with this area). With my being due March 5th, as soon as I found out my due date I started feeling uneasy about the distance to my doctor's practice and to the delivering hospital. I have had to reschedule my first appointment as well, due to financial reasons. So, I spent a lot of time praying about this and trying to figure out why I felt uneasy, and then decided to transfer to a practice with a midwife that delivers locally. Well, when I looked up the number this afternoon at the hospital's web site, I discovered that this practice has three CNM's instead of just the one I knew about. I got the call made, appointment is scheduled with the midwife, and I just need to get my proof of pregnancy mailed in for my insurance coverage and then the form for records transfer to the new practice. Amazingly, despite not particularly caring for the local hospital, I feel completely at peace with the decision. It isn't St. Ann's Hospital, but I'm sure that they can take care of everything just fine with my delivery. Now I just need to find a sitter for the girls for my 2pm appointment the 7th, I really don't want to take them when I'm going to my first appointment at a new practice and not knowing what exactly to expect. Eh, I'm sure I'll find someone.....
I woke up this morning to the sound of my two sweet oldest girls fighting quite loudly. Yesterday I caught them playing in my front yard without even mentioning that they were going outside at all, which doesn't EVER fly with me. As a result, they got the lovely task of "go clean that black hole you call your bedroom and don't come out until it is finished!" for this disobedience. They are more than welcome to play outdoors, but they must ask first and are required to stay out back unless they ask special permission (which is only granted if an adult is able and willing to sit out front since we live on a busy main road). Its the same rule we've had since my oldest was old enough to go down a slide on her own, and it hasn't changed even with moving to a new city and house three years ago. Rules are rules, and I will punish those who break them.
So yes, they got to clean their room, and they took all day until Scott got home and still didn't finish it. So he fed them and sent them to bed after getting on them about it himself, and I gave them hugs and then told them that if their room wasn't finished the next morning before I woke up they would have warmed butts. (I did mention that i have NO patience when I'm pregnant right?) Yeah, they decided to get into a screaming match at 6:30am and it woke me up.
I tried to lay in bed and ignore it, until I heard one spout off, "oh don't worry about cleaning our room. Mom won't do anything, and she's probably already forgotten about it by now." That got me up and I warmed butts for not doing their task I assigned yesterday. 4 hours later, they finally decided to do it and had it finished for me to OK Missa running the sweeper in there. I got my point across....... now let's hope this time it sticks.
But when i had to get up this morning so early from the fighting, I stood up and had this horrible sharp pain in my lower stomach. It felt like i pulled a muscle, so I scrunched right up immediately and stayed for a minute before slowly straightening myself up again and rubbing my stomach to loosen it up. Ahhhh the aches have begun.
I also canceled my appointment with my OB/GYN for next week, and requested the release form to transfer records to another practice. See, I live about 5 minutes from an acceptable hospital, but my practice delivers at an amazing hospital in Westerville (northern Columbus if you aren't familiar with this area). With my being due March 5th, as soon as I found out my due date I started feeling uneasy about the distance to my doctor's practice and to the delivering hospital. I have had to reschedule my first appointment as well, due to financial reasons. So, I spent a lot of time praying about this and trying to figure out why I felt uneasy, and then decided to transfer to a practice with a midwife that delivers locally. Well, when I looked up the number this afternoon at the hospital's web site, I discovered that this practice has three CNM's instead of just the one I knew about. I got the call made, appointment is scheduled with the midwife, and I just need to get my proof of pregnancy mailed in for my insurance coverage and then the form for records transfer to the new practice. Amazingly, despite not particularly caring for the local hospital, I feel completely at peace with the decision. It isn't St. Ann's Hospital, but I'm sure that they can take care of everything just fine with my delivery. Now I just need to find a sitter for the girls for my 2pm appointment the 7th, I really don't want to take them when I'm going to my first appointment at a new practice and not knowing what exactly to expect. Eh, I'm sure I'll find someone.....
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
I love Math-U-See
So I posted over the weekend how I'm starting to feel better and was starting officially this week. I really need to learn to not say that kind of stuff, because I now feel like crud again. I'm so tired that I can barely stay awake, pregnancy sickness is starting to make an appearance again, and I'm sore everywhere. Its just that awkward stage for me now. Poor Scott ended up sleeping on the sofa last night because I went to bed before the kids did and I locked the bedroom door, when he was ready for bed he couldn't get me to wake up to unlock the door for him.
But anyway, my love for Math-U-See........ As you may know, we switched in the middle of last school year for the kids. Well, this week with me feeling so tired and unable to do much of anything has pretty much meant that we're just doing basics. For us, basics means they read to me and write stuff as they want to. At least, that's what it meant to me in the past. Now, they can do their math fairly independently as well when I'm not able to spend the time teaching them. Math-U-See has a dvd instruction video for each level that teaches the lessons, and the worksheets ALWAYS follow the same format for practicing the material so there is no guessing. This week, Missa has done an entire lesson on her own pretty much, and will do the test tomorrow or Friday. Liddy is halfway through a lesson herself, and tomorrow Kimi and I will be watching the DVD lesson she's on together (I love my laptop).
Because of our choice in curriculum for math, even days that I'm not really able to be much use beyond the most basic of tasks aren't a total wash academically. If I'm not up to actually teaching, I still have that fallback of them reading to me and being able to do their math fairly independently. I know this isn't exactly how the program was intended to be used with lower elementary students, but it is working beautifully for our family right now when life is upside down because mom and dad got this crazy idea to have another child.
But anyway, my love for Math-U-See........ As you may know, we switched in the middle of last school year for the kids. Well, this week with me feeling so tired and unable to do much of anything has pretty much meant that we're just doing basics. For us, basics means they read to me and write stuff as they want to. At least, that's what it meant to me in the past. Now, they can do their math fairly independently as well when I'm not able to spend the time teaching them. Math-U-See has a dvd instruction video for each level that teaches the lessons, and the worksheets ALWAYS follow the same format for practicing the material so there is no guessing. This week, Missa has done an entire lesson on her own pretty much, and will do the test tomorrow or Friday. Liddy is halfway through a lesson herself, and tomorrow Kimi and I will be watching the DVD lesson she's on together (I love my laptop).
Because of our choice in curriculum for math, even days that I'm not really able to be much use beyond the most basic of tasks aren't a total wash academically. If I'm not up to actually teaching, I still have that fallback of them reading to me and being able to do their math fairly independently. I know this isn't exactly how the program was intended to be used with lower elementary students, but it is working beautifully for our family right now when life is upside down because mom and dad got this crazy idea to have another child.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
energy bursts, new homeschool year, and stuff like that
Well, I've hit that point where I am starting to feel less tired. If you read my last post, I'm having some trouble with this pregnancy feeling real to me. I've not had much in the way of symptoms really this time around, and almost NO sickness. The main clues I have, besides my beautiful ultrasound, are tiredness and crampy/achy feelings in my stomach and abdomen as things start stretching and moving around to make room for the baby. OK, I've been hormonal and moody lately too, picking fights with Scott and being harder than usual on the kids. I've said things to the family that I wouldn't normally, and I'm using obscene language more around the kids than what I'd ever do typically. I am having issues with a short temper lately, and saying a lot of unkind things.
So anyway, this week I've noticed an increase in my energy level. It started with a few minutes of playing with the kids instead of just laying around supervising them (I get REAL tired at the start of a pregnancy apparently) and has moved up to where I was able to take a child with me out on a 2 hour grocery shopping trip this morning. So obviously, I'm not needing as much rest as I was even a week ago. It is now that I'm realizing exactly how many symptoms I was having earlier even though I wasn't too terribly sick.
So, now this is starting to feel real to me since I've figured out my major symptom. I now am starting to feel the anticipation. And, I'm beginning to take advantage of the energy that I'm starting to get back. We've put off starting the new homeschool year because of my lack of energy, and now I'm thinking I can do this on Monday. I don't have *all* my supplies really for this, but I've got enough to last for now. I have most of our books, and although I cannot make the switch in history that I wanted to originally (since we did so little history last year I wanted to pick up a couple books and switch from the 2 year program to the 1 year program for world history) I feel like we can totally pull off this whole thing.
I have a few weeks of basic consumable supplies for projects at least, but Scott has worked a lot of extra overtime this last 2 weeks so I will have the money hopefully to go out next weekend and finish off my supply shopping on top of a good restocking of groceries. This paycheck was a bit tight thanks to renewing tags and a driver's license, the mortgage payment, and having to get the drain guys out here to run the auger through our sewage line for the year. That took every bit we had, to where we had to ask Scott's mom for a small loan to get us through this second week of the pay period. I just needed a few more basic groceries, and Scott needed gas for the week so he can make the commute to work. We're good now though, thanks to her. Good supportive family is so important when it comes to the success of our family, and knowing that I can call her when it gets tight or I need a sitter in a pinch has been vital for the success of our family. She watches the kids for my prenatal appointments, watched them for several days/nights when Scott had his surgery, and even took them overnight a few months ago when Scott took me to the homeschool convention in Cincinnati. She will also keep the girls when we have the baby, hopefully we can convince her to come stay here in our house during that time instead of taking the kids all to her tiny 1 bedroom apartment for that 2-4 days. It may just save her sanity to have the extra space (the girls' bedroom is bigger than her apartment, plus the actual yard and toys that we've got to keep them occupied).
I'm really hoping that the fact that I'm starting to feel more energy and less cranky means that my house will start getting cleaned up and that I'll be more able to get things going again around here. Last homeschool year was so filled with interruptions that we have a LOT of math catch-up to do this year. I can't afford to be too far behind at all this year, Missa and Liddy both need to finish Alpha and Beta this school year in math and Kimi needs to finish Primer and start Alpha. Yes, that is more than a year and a half of math in one school year. All 3 girls are about 1/4 to 1/3 through the current levels in math. Last year we made huge strides in reading, so this year the plan is to go heavy on math and get that caught up to a degree. I hope I can pull off my plan for this subject.
Also, next weekend I hope to have pictures to post of the indoor garden that we are starting. I plan to send Scott out to purchase the materials needed to build the platform, and then hopefully we can get hold of one of those hard plastic wading pools still to use for our garden plot. If not, the plan is for him to build a box from wood and line it in pool plastic before filling it with soil. Then we wait for the seedlings we've started to get big enough to transplant successfully. The tallest one is an adorable little 3" tall cucumber plant. I am really looking forward to being able to post an update and pictures of our big science project that I'm doing this year with the girls.
So anyway, this week I've noticed an increase in my energy level. It started with a few minutes of playing with the kids instead of just laying around supervising them (I get REAL tired at the start of a pregnancy apparently) and has moved up to where I was able to take a child with me out on a 2 hour grocery shopping trip this morning. So obviously, I'm not needing as much rest as I was even a week ago. It is now that I'm realizing exactly how many symptoms I was having earlier even though I wasn't too terribly sick.
So, now this is starting to feel real to me since I've figured out my major symptom. I now am starting to feel the anticipation. And, I'm beginning to take advantage of the energy that I'm starting to get back. We've put off starting the new homeschool year because of my lack of energy, and now I'm thinking I can do this on Monday. I don't have *all* my supplies really for this, but I've got enough to last for now. I have most of our books, and although I cannot make the switch in history that I wanted to originally (since we did so little history last year I wanted to pick up a couple books and switch from the 2 year program to the 1 year program for world history) I feel like we can totally pull off this whole thing.
I have a few weeks of basic consumable supplies for projects at least, but Scott has worked a lot of extra overtime this last 2 weeks so I will have the money hopefully to go out next weekend and finish off my supply shopping on top of a good restocking of groceries. This paycheck was a bit tight thanks to renewing tags and a driver's license, the mortgage payment, and having to get the drain guys out here to run the auger through our sewage line for the year. That took every bit we had, to where we had to ask Scott's mom for a small loan to get us through this second week of the pay period. I just needed a few more basic groceries, and Scott needed gas for the week so he can make the commute to work. We're good now though, thanks to her. Good supportive family is so important when it comes to the success of our family, and knowing that I can call her when it gets tight or I need a sitter in a pinch has been vital for the success of our family. She watches the kids for my prenatal appointments, watched them for several days/nights when Scott had his surgery, and even took them overnight a few months ago when Scott took me to the homeschool convention in Cincinnati. She will also keep the girls when we have the baby, hopefully we can convince her to come stay here in our house during that time instead of taking the kids all to her tiny 1 bedroom apartment for that 2-4 days. It may just save her sanity to have the extra space (the girls' bedroom is bigger than her apartment, plus the actual yard and toys that we've got to keep them occupied).
I'm really hoping that the fact that I'm starting to feel more energy and less cranky means that my house will start getting cleaned up and that I'll be more able to get things going again around here. Last homeschool year was so filled with interruptions that we have a LOT of math catch-up to do this year. I can't afford to be too far behind at all this year, Missa and Liddy both need to finish Alpha and Beta this school year in math and Kimi needs to finish Primer and start Alpha. Yes, that is more than a year and a half of math in one school year. All 3 girls are about 1/4 to 1/3 through the current levels in math. Last year we made huge strides in reading, so this year the plan is to go heavy on math and get that caught up to a degree. I hope I can pull off my plan for this subject.
Also, next weekend I hope to have pictures to post of the indoor garden that we are starting. I plan to send Scott out to purchase the materials needed to build the platform, and then hopefully we can get hold of one of those hard plastic wading pools still to use for our garden plot. If not, the plan is for him to build a box from wood and line it in pool plastic before filling it with soil. Then we wait for the seedlings we've started to get big enough to transplant successfully. The tallest one is an adorable little 3" tall cucumber plant. I am really looking forward to being able to post an update and pictures of our big science project that I'm doing this year with the girls.
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
is it real?
I still am having trouble here with believing that we're expecting baby #5. I've had almost NO pregnancy sickness except for a week or two where I just felt horrible, and really there hasn't been anything to indicate that I'm pregnant happen. Yes, I am tired and I have some round ligament pains, but other than that I'm having no issues really. Scratch that, I've turned mean according to Scott and the kids. I've been picking fights with Scott lately, but he is such a good man he just forgets about it once I get done with my fighting and doesn't say a word.
So I decided that since I hit 10 weeks yesterday, putting me at 25% done with this pregnancy (give or take, as I'll likely deliver sometime the week before my due date), it was time to dig stuff out that I've been storing. The first thing I dug out was my boxes of cloth diapers.
Yes, I use those old-fashioned things. For over a year I used them on 3 kids at once while Missa was being too stubborn and not developmentally ready to learn to use the toilet instead of her pants. And, there are a LOT of options available for diapers now. Some are just as easy as changing a disposable, but you wash them instead of throwing them away. I have some of those; however, I prefer the good old fashioned pinned prefold with a cover over it. And yes, even the prefolds and flatfold diapers (those big squares of cloth you do origami to so they fit the baby) are better quality than they used to be back when we were children. In fact, here's my sweet Kimi modeling one of my diapers at 1 1/2 years old.
That is just a simple bleached infant prefold pinned, she was (and still is!) very small for her age so she never made it into premiums or toddlers before we quit using cloth at the end of my pregnancy with Jojo. I love them, and am planning to use them again this time.
So, I dug out boxes. Now I know I'm missing at least 1 or 2 boxes here of diapers, because I'm not seeing some that I clearly remember that are NOT cheap diapers. I had some very desirable fitteds and pockets with the girls that I was VERY proud of having, and they aren't in the boxes I got out today. However, with what I did find today I discovered that minus pins and a few covers, I don't need to buy ANYTHING to start from birth once the Pampers St. Ann's Hospital gives us runs out. Not too bad huh.........
But even with digging out the diapers, noting where my baby swing is at, and finding the pack n' play, this still doesn't feel real to me yet. I've had an ultrasound already, and I heard the sweet little heartbeat, but still it just isn't quite real to me. I sure hope that changes soon, because it feels odd to know that another baby is coming but its not sinking in really.
So I decided that since I hit 10 weeks yesterday, putting me at 25% done with this pregnancy (give or take, as I'll likely deliver sometime the week before my due date), it was time to dig stuff out that I've been storing. The first thing I dug out was my boxes of cloth diapers.
Yes, I use those old-fashioned things. For over a year I used them on 3 kids at once while Missa was being too stubborn and not developmentally ready to learn to use the toilet instead of her pants. And, there are a LOT of options available for diapers now. Some are just as easy as changing a disposable, but you wash them instead of throwing them away. I have some of those; however, I prefer the good old fashioned pinned prefold with a cover over it. And yes, even the prefolds and flatfold diapers (those big squares of cloth you do origami to so they fit the baby) are better quality than they used to be back when we were children. In fact, here's my sweet Kimi modeling one of my diapers at 1 1/2 years old.
That is just a simple bleached infant prefold pinned, she was (and still is!) very small for her age so she never made it into premiums or toddlers before we quit using cloth at the end of my pregnancy with Jojo. I love them, and am planning to use them again this time.
So, I dug out boxes. Now I know I'm missing at least 1 or 2 boxes here of diapers, because I'm not seeing some that I clearly remember that are NOT cheap diapers. I had some very desirable fitteds and pockets with the girls that I was VERY proud of having, and they aren't in the boxes I got out today. However, with what I did find today I discovered that minus pins and a few covers, I don't need to buy ANYTHING to start from birth once the Pampers St. Ann's Hospital gives us runs out. Not too bad huh.........
But even with digging out the diapers, noting where my baby swing is at, and finding the pack n' play, this still doesn't feel real to me yet. I've had an ultrasound already, and I heard the sweet little heartbeat, but still it just isn't quite real to me. I sure hope that changes soon, because it feels odd to know that another baby is coming but its not sinking in really.
Monday, August 01, 2011
the start of a new school year
Well, it is now August so I decided to go ahead and start our new school year today. I didn't do too much really, but it is more about getting into the habit right now than anything.
We started off this year's big science project. The kids are totally obsessed with how things grow, so I decided a while back to pick up a Miracle-Gro greenhouse kit for kids. It is a cute little thing, essentially a plastic base with clear plastic sides and lids and then there are 4 cups that you put the gro-mix into and then plant 4 different kinds of seeds that it came with into the cups. We have tomatoes, cucumbers, a hybrid of eggplant, and orange bell peppers planted in my living room now. Each girl got to plant one cup, and then Scott is going to build me something to transplant these little plants into hopefully in the next few weeks (or whenever they are getting too big for their containers). It was pretty easy and the kids got a kick out of it, and I have a feeling they will really enjoy watching the plants grow. Tomorrow I'm going to take some dried beans and wet paper towels to put in a clean empty pickle jar so they can SEE the process that their seeds are going through with growing in the "dirt" mix.
Then tomorrow will be a light day as well because we have a 9:30am appointment that will likely take us all morning, and hopefully that will be followed by a small food shopping trip. At least, this is what I'm hoping happens, I've heard rumors that WIC is changing from paper coupons to a debit card style like food stamps are done now so I may not be able to get milk and cereal tomorrow like I NEED to do. If we get to math and reading tomorrow, I'll be happy.
We started off this year's big science project. The kids are totally obsessed with how things grow, so I decided a while back to pick up a Miracle-Gro greenhouse kit for kids. It is a cute little thing, essentially a plastic base with clear plastic sides and lids and then there are 4 cups that you put the gro-mix into and then plant 4 different kinds of seeds that it came with into the cups. We have tomatoes, cucumbers, a hybrid of eggplant, and orange bell peppers planted in my living room now. Each girl got to plant one cup, and then Scott is going to build me something to transplant these little plants into hopefully in the next few weeks (or whenever they are getting too big for their containers). It was pretty easy and the kids got a kick out of it, and I have a feeling they will really enjoy watching the plants grow. Tomorrow I'm going to take some dried beans and wet paper towels to put in a clean empty pickle jar so they can SEE the process that their seeds are going through with growing in the "dirt" mix.
Then tomorrow will be a light day as well because we have a 9:30am appointment that will likely take us all morning, and hopefully that will be followed by a small food shopping trip. At least, this is what I'm hoping happens, I've heard rumors that WIC is changing from paper coupons to a debit card style like food stamps are done now so I may not be able to get milk and cereal tomorrow like I NEED to do. If we get to math and reading tomorrow, I'll be happy.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
hmmm what do I still need to buy?
It is school supply shopping time! Yes, that time when the kids all groan and the parents cheer because their kids are going back to public or private school. For homeschoolers, this means cheap supplies for our schooling. I like to take advantage of these sales.
While we may not buy things like lunch boxes and backpacks, there are many things we do get. For example, each of my girls is given a milk crate to keep her workbooks and supplies in. Missa and Liddy are on their third year with their crates, and this year we bought crates to add to the set for Kimi and Jojo. I color code their materials as much as possible also
With the addition of 2 more kids getting crates, this means I need to purchase some additional items. So, I'm trying to remember what all I need so that we can pull off this year beautifully. I'm going to post a list here, and then edit it as I remember more that we need and cross out items we've gotten as they are purchased. Pardon my running tally on this.
100+ boxes of 24ct Crayola crayons
12+ packs Crayola colored pencils
10+ packs mechanical pens
5+ packs ball-point pens
50+ glue sticks
2 pencil/crayon boxes, colors red and green (or clear and some spray paint)
40+ notebooks
1 3-ring binder, 1 1/2" size
ponytail elastics
barrettes
poster boards
paints and brushes
single hole punch
new 3-hole punch (unless I can find my good one in the garage boxes)
8+ pairs school scissors
OK I know I'm missing stuff. I'll edit it later lol
While we may not buy things like lunch boxes and backpacks, there are many things we do get. For example, each of my girls is given a milk crate to keep her workbooks and supplies in. Missa and Liddy are on their third year with their crates, and this year we bought crates to add to the set for Kimi and Jojo. I color code their materials as much as possible also
With the addition of 2 more kids getting crates, this means I need to purchase some additional items. So, I'm trying to remember what all I need so that we can pull off this year beautifully. I'm going to post a list here, and then edit it as I remember more that we need and cross out items we've gotten as they are purchased. Pardon my running tally on this.
100+ boxes of 24ct Crayola crayons
12+ packs Crayola colored pencils
10+ packs mechanical pens
5+ packs ball-point pens
50+ glue sticks
2 pencil/crayon boxes, colors red and green (or clear and some spray paint)
40+ notebooks
1 3-ring binder, 1 1/2" size
ponytail elastics
barrettes
poster boards
paints and brushes
single hole punch
new 3-hole punch (unless I can find my good one in the garage boxes)
8+ pairs school scissors
OK I know I'm missing stuff. I'll edit it later lol
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
a due date, water play, and disappointment
Yup, we have a due date. I personally think the ultrasound tech has no clue what she's doing because she didn't take many measurements of the baby and kinda said "uhhhhh I think...." when we asked how far along I am and when I'm due, so yeah. But for now, we are calling a due date of March 5, 2012. And with my pattern for delivery, there IS a chance that I could go into labor on February 29th (leap day baby!!!!) OR on our anniversary March 6th. That puts me right now at 8 weeks pregnant. I'll be asking Dr. Parker about this when I go see him on August 9th and get his opinion.
In terms of water play, the kids have been doing a LOT of that lately. We had to get a new hose over the weekend for their sprinkler, and the increased water pressure as a result has them giddy. I have a feeling our water bill will be over $100 when it comes next month with how much they've been playing in the water out back.
I'm also disappointed. We had to cancel the order from Amazon for my Kindle. Plumbing issues need fixed before we can play. Oh well, just as well I think, Scott's overtime is coming back in a big way now and we're going to have some great paychecks. I'll just take a little from each of them until I have the money for my Kindle again. I'm not going to worry over it, especially since I have the Kindle app on my laptop and can read anything I want at any time.
In terms of water play, the kids have been doing a LOT of that lately. We had to get a new hose over the weekend for their sprinkler, and the increased water pressure as a result has them giddy. I have a feeling our water bill will be over $100 when it comes next month with how much they've been playing in the water out back.
I'm also disappointed. We had to cancel the order from Amazon for my Kindle. Plumbing issues need fixed before we can play. Oh well, just as well I think, Scott's overtime is coming back in a big way now and we're going to have some great paychecks. I'll just take a little from each of them until I have the money for my Kindle again. I'm not going to worry over it, especially since I have the Kindle app on my laptop and can read anything I want at any time.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
What I'm reading this week
I have trouble with books. One, I'm dyslexic and have ADHD (hmmmm sounds like Missa, doesn't it?). I have trouble focusing on pages in a book and getting started reading because of the ADHD, and then the simple act of reading is very tiring for me once I do get going. If you are dyslexic or have a dyslexic child, you know what I am talking about on this one.
And before I go ANY further, I'd like to point out something. Dyslexic people may not be behind in reading. In fact, I was a very early reader and can read anything I want to fluently. However, my dyslexia affects my comprehension of written material. Often, THIS is what happens with dyslexia. Missa is a "classic" dyslexic child, where her reading level AND her comprehension are both affected. Dyslexia looks different in each person, and many would never guess that I am one of these people. I'll spare you the list of famous dyslexic people (ok maybe just a few..... Patrick Dempsey, ya know, Dr. Shepherd on Grey's Anatomy, he's dyslexic, as well as Picasso, Beethoven, Darwin- ok bad example there LOL- and even the son of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ozzy Osborne's oldest daughter, they are all dyslexic) but trust me when I say that dyslexia is much different from what people would normally expect.
So, now you know I'm dyslexic, and I can already hear you screaming at the computer. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE A LITERATURE-BASED CURRICULUM FOR HOMESCHOOL??????? Easy, I can read out loud just fine and dandy. I even have excellent comprehension when I hear myself read out loud. I just flat out love books, and I want my kids to have that excitement too. OK, I got that one covered, I have to go into their bedroom tomorrow and round up all the library books to take back because I have a feeling half of them found their way off the shelf and under their beds, in the closets, and in other odd places. They read constantly, and they enjoy it. Yes, even my dyslexic Missa enjoys reading.
But, outside reading to the kids for lessons, I do very little reading myself outside my college books and what I find on the computer screen. So, I am fixing that now. I have the Kindle software on my laptop, and my lovely husband decided to surprise me by ordering a Kindle for me from Amazon. Yes, I too am joining the crowd of Kindle owners. I am especially excited about this "experimental" feature of the Kindle that reads books to you. If this works well enough, I can immerse myself in books as much as I want to without tiring from the struggle to read. But anyway, my plan is that tomorrow I am going to start with a book on my laptop with the Kindle app, and then I am going to read it. I should finish the book right around the time my Kindle is delivered. So what am I reading this week?
Now this book appeals to me on many levels. One, I'm a slob. There, I said it. I hate housework, and will do anything I can in an attempt to get out of doing it. I don't see any point to cleaning all the time only to have my kids undo the cleaning as fast as I clean it up. I've heard that this book is full of Christian content, and I hope that it can speak to my heart about this little issue I have with cleaning. I've tried so many other things in the past for housework, and nothing really has worked because in my HEART I've always resented chores and don't see a point to doing this stuff most of the time. And if you don't get the title, it is referring to Luke 10:30-42 when Mary sat at Jesus' feet listening while Martha was running about cooking and cleaning. I am very much a Mary, and very little Martha in this case. Hopefully this book will give me some inspiration to embrace the Martha side of my life a little more instead of pushing it away all the time.
And before I go ANY further, I'd like to point out something. Dyslexic people may not be behind in reading. In fact, I was a very early reader and can read anything I want to fluently. However, my dyslexia affects my comprehension of written material. Often, THIS is what happens with dyslexia. Missa is a "classic" dyslexic child, where her reading level AND her comprehension are both affected. Dyslexia looks different in each person, and many would never guess that I am one of these people. I'll spare you the list of famous dyslexic people (ok maybe just a few..... Patrick Dempsey, ya know, Dr. Shepherd on Grey's Anatomy, he's dyslexic, as well as Picasso, Beethoven, Darwin- ok bad example there LOL- and even the son of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ozzy Osborne's oldest daughter, they are all dyslexic) but trust me when I say that dyslexia is much different from what people would normally expect.
So, now you know I'm dyslexic, and I can already hear you screaming at the computer. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE A LITERATURE-BASED CURRICULUM FOR HOMESCHOOL??????? Easy, I can read out loud just fine and dandy. I even have excellent comprehension when I hear myself read out loud. I just flat out love books, and I want my kids to have that excitement too. OK, I got that one covered, I have to go into their bedroom tomorrow and round up all the library books to take back because I have a feeling half of them found their way off the shelf and under their beds, in the closets, and in other odd places. They read constantly, and they enjoy it. Yes, even my dyslexic Missa enjoys reading.
But, outside reading to the kids for lessons, I do very little reading myself outside my college books and what I find on the computer screen. So, I am fixing that now. I have the Kindle software on my laptop, and my lovely husband decided to surprise me by ordering a Kindle for me from Amazon. Yes, I too am joining the crowd of Kindle owners. I am especially excited about this "experimental" feature of the Kindle that reads books to you. If this works well enough, I can immerse myself in books as much as I want to without tiring from the struggle to read. But anyway, my plan is that tomorrow I am going to start with a book on my laptop with the Kindle app, and then I am going to read it. I should finish the book right around the time my Kindle is delivered. So what am I reading this week?
Now this book appeals to me on many levels. One, I'm a slob. There, I said it. I hate housework, and will do anything I can in an attempt to get out of doing it. I don't see any point to cleaning all the time only to have my kids undo the cleaning as fast as I clean it up. I've heard that this book is full of Christian content, and I hope that it can speak to my heart about this little issue I have with cleaning. I've tried so many other things in the past for housework, and nothing really has worked because in my HEART I've always resented chores and don't see a point to doing this stuff most of the time. And if you don't get the title, it is referring to Luke 10:30-42 when Mary sat at Jesus' feet listening while Martha was running about cooking and cleaning. I am very much a Mary, and very little Martha in this case. Hopefully this book will give me some inspiration to embrace the Martha side of my life a little more instead of pushing it away all the time.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Scott's surgery- update 3
Well, we are now at the 1 week point after his surgery. OK almost, that comes tomorrow. His incisions are healing nicely,and he's not taken any of his pain medication for a couple days now. He even made a short trip to the local WalMart (with 2 kids no less, Jojo ALWAYS goes with whoever is running an errand and then he took Missa to be a useful help to him). He is healing nicely, and much quicker than I expected given his post-op issues. He goes in on the 20th to see the surgeon and get a work release, and to get that pesky 10lb lift restriction lifted as well.
This morning he looked at me and said, "honey I really hope he releases me for work next week when I go in. I love you guys but DANG woman this house is insane during the day!" He misses the peace of his job apparently. At work he is on his feet for 10-14 hours a day with loud machines running nonstop, but at home he's had the joy of a little person poking him every 30 seconds and chanting, "daddy daddy DADDY" from the time they wake up until they go to bed. And that's not including the typical sibling rivalry and fighting, arguing, screeching, complaining, and whining and crying. He's ready to go back, we've driven him to the point where he's ready to shoot himself if he is told he has to stay home longer.
This morning he looked at me and said, "honey I really hope he releases me for work next week when I go in. I love you guys but DANG woman this house is insane during the day!" He misses the peace of his job apparently. At work he is on his feet for 10-14 hours a day with loud machines running nonstop, but at home he's had the joy of a little person poking him every 30 seconds and chanting, "daddy daddy DADDY" from the time they wake up until they go to bed. And that's not including the typical sibling rivalry and fighting, arguing, screeching, complaining, and whining and crying. He's ready to go back, we've driven him to the point where he's ready to shoot himself if he is told he has to stay home longer.
Friday, July 08, 2011
a glimpse of God's awesomeness
~Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from Him. Psalm 127:3~
Yes, the day after I worried that I was going to lose my husband from an anesthesia issue from his surgery, we learned that we are going to be welcoming a fifth child into our family. Because I haven't had a cycle since we had my IUD removed in May, I will be going in a week and a half to my obstetrician to have an ultrasound to date my pregnancy and calculate a due date. I am anywhere from 4-10 weeks pregnant. So far, I have been blessed to not have any pregnancy sickness at all. This is a major blessing as the girls all made me so miserable sick that I ended up on medication after a 20lb weight loss each time. It is such a blessing and joy to know that our family is being blessed with another member joining us in 2012.
And now we all know why I was so upset and crying when I got to go up and see Scott at first after his surgery. I overreacted big time because of the hormonal changes I'm going through right now.
Scott's surgery- update 2
Yesterday was just a bit trying for me. I should have done this last night, but ended up collapsing with exhaustion at 7pm and just now woke up at 6am. So yeah, I'm sure I get a little grace for not updating right away. So anyway.....
Around 3pm yesterday, Scott stabilized and woke up alert. We got him eating ice chips, and when that stayed down he got a small can of diet cola and some saltine crackers. He was given a pain pill and they made him walk a bit in the hall and then make an attempt in the bathroom (anesthesia can affect a person's bladder usage so we needed to make sure that he IS capable of emptying it, he hated that but got over it and tinkled for us a little). At 5pm, we got him dressed and I had the van at the door to pick him up. Since I do not have air conditioning in my van, the nurse made sure that he had a 32oz. mug freshly filled with water and a LOT of ice for the hour ride home.
I dropped off the prescription for him at CVS on our way home, and then I got him inside and he decided that he had to use the bathroom again. That time it was painful because he had to push a bit, but it is a good thing he did go because his bladder was apparently urgently filled. Then I got him into bed, skipped over to the neighbor and asked her to keep an eye on him since he did have surgery that morning, and I went to get his prescription and some Sprite.
Right now, CVS here has a deal for 2 liter bottles of Coke products for 69 cents with their card. I got him a Sprite and me a Coke, and I had to get a new CVS card because I lost ours and they couldn't find it in their system with any of the 5 phone numbers I gave them. Go figure. His prescription thankfully was only $7 so it didn't hurt us too much financially. No, the problem with his prescription is a little different.
The surgeon prescribed him Vicodin for his pain. He is allergic to Percocet (and I have a feeling I completely butchered spelling that one) so that one wasn't an option. So why is Vicodin an issue? I am highly allergic to Vicodin. Last time I took it myself, I broke out into serious hives, itched like crazy all over, and had trouble breathing. Once I recovered from that reaction, I took my bottle and tossed the remaining pills in the toilet, but just coming in contact with them caused me to break out in hives again. So, I cannot even TOUCH his pain pills, or the bottle itself. He had the bottle on his nightstand overnight, and I woke up this morning itchy and a little wheezy. I'll be living on Benadryl for a few days until the Vicodin is gone, in an attempt to reduce my allergic reaction to his medication. I'm not going to ask the surgeon to give him a different medication just because its causing me some issues, it works for him and the other popular one he can't take. I just have to make sure I know where that bottle is at all times until it hits my outside trash, and keep my time around it to a minimum.
So, he is doing MUCH better now than he was at my initial post on him post-op. He says his pain isn't too bad at this point, but he's in bed asleep right now. We'll see how he does in a few hours when I make him get up to use the bathroom.......
Around 3pm yesterday, Scott stabilized and woke up alert. We got him eating ice chips, and when that stayed down he got a small can of diet cola and some saltine crackers. He was given a pain pill and they made him walk a bit in the hall and then make an attempt in the bathroom (anesthesia can affect a person's bladder usage so we needed to make sure that he IS capable of emptying it, he hated that but got over it and tinkled for us a little). At 5pm, we got him dressed and I had the van at the door to pick him up. Since I do not have air conditioning in my van, the nurse made sure that he had a 32oz. mug freshly filled with water and a LOT of ice for the hour ride home.
I dropped off the prescription for him at CVS on our way home, and then I got him inside and he decided that he had to use the bathroom again. That time it was painful because he had to push a bit, but it is a good thing he did go because his bladder was apparently urgently filled. Then I got him into bed, skipped over to the neighbor and asked her to keep an eye on him since he did have surgery that morning, and I went to get his prescription and some Sprite.
Right now, CVS here has a deal for 2 liter bottles of Coke products for 69 cents with their card. I got him a Sprite and me a Coke, and I had to get a new CVS card because I lost ours and they couldn't find it in their system with any of the 5 phone numbers I gave them. Go figure. His prescription thankfully was only $7 so it didn't hurt us too much financially. No, the problem with his prescription is a little different.
The surgeon prescribed him Vicodin for his pain. He is allergic to Percocet (and I have a feeling I completely butchered spelling that one) so that one wasn't an option. So why is Vicodin an issue? I am highly allergic to Vicodin. Last time I took it myself, I broke out into serious hives, itched like crazy all over, and had trouble breathing. Once I recovered from that reaction, I took my bottle and tossed the remaining pills in the toilet, but just coming in contact with them caused me to break out in hives again. So, I cannot even TOUCH his pain pills, or the bottle itself. He had the bottle on his nightstand overnight, and I woke up this morning itchy and a little wheezy. I'll be living on Benadryl for a few days until the Vicodin is gone, in an attempt to reduce my allergic reaction to his medication. I'm not going to ask the surgeon to give him a different medication just because its causing me some issues, it works for him and the other popular one he can't take. I just have to make sure I know where that bottle is at all times until it hits my outside trash, and keep my time around it to a minimum.
So, he is doing MUCH better now than he was at my initial post on him post-op. He says his pain isn't too bad at this point, but he's in bed asleep right now. We'll see how he does in a few hours when I make him get up to use the bathroom.......
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Scott's surgery
Today was surgery day. Yesterday the hospital called and told us that he had been moved to an earlier time, so we had to be here at 5:30am instead of 7am. The gallbladder removal and hernia repair went perfectly, and the other stuff turned out to be fatty deposits so no need to biopsy those. This is WONDERFUL news. He has been out of surgery almost 4 hours how, and I'm sitting here watching him sleep. He has had a bit of trouble with his breathing, so they have him on oxygen. In fact, as of right this moment his stats are....
blood pressure: 104/63
pulse: 61-65bpm
oxygen saturation: yeah uhh.......
The oxygen is a bit of an issue. Even with being on oxygen, his saturation is dropping below 80 every minute or so until the alarm wakes him back up. His body is having trouble coordinating itself to breathe while he sleeps off the anesthesia that is still in his system. He is pale and has been vomiting as well. We're looking at a long day here and possibly him spending the night to get him stable if he doesn't come out of the anesthesia the rest of the way soon. At the moment, while I've been typing up this post his saturation has stayed consistent between 93-98 (so about 10min now, which is an improvement) so he may be able to go down a little in his oxygen flow soon. I'm hoping this is a really good sign that he's going to be off the oxygen soon, he's been on it for about the entire time since he came out of the operating room.
So, now I'm going to find my way to the hospital cafeteria to get some lunch because the Tim Horton's here at the hospital STINKS, their timbits were stale so I'm not going to punish myself with one of their soup/sandwich combos. I'll give another update once I know if he's going home, or if he's staying overnight, or what. Please pray for Scott until then, that he will come out of this quickly.
blood pressure: 104/63
pulse: 61-65bpm
oxygen saturation: yeah uhh.......
The oxygen is a bit of an issue. Even with being on oxygen, his saturation is dropping below 80 every minute or so until the alarm wakes him back up. His body is having trouble coordinating itself to breathe while he sleeps off the anesthesia that is still in his system. He is pale and has been vomiting as well. We're looking at a long day here and possibly him spending the night to get him stable if he doesn't come out of the anesthesia the rest of the way soon. At the moment, while I've been typing up this post his saturation has stayed consistent between 93-98 (so about 10min now, which is an improvement) so he may be able to go down a little in his oxygen flow soon. I'm hoping this is a really good sign that he's going to be off the oxygen soon, he's been on it for about the entire time since he came out of the operating room.
So, now I'm going to find my way to the hospital cafeteria to get some lunch because the Tim Horton's here at the hospital STINKS, their timbits were stale so I'm not going to punish myself with one of their soup/sandwich combos. I'll give another update once I know if he's going home, or if he's staying overnight, or what. Please pray for Scott until then, that he will come out of this quickly.
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
Thursday is the day!
Well, we're in the final countdown. Tomorrow around suppertime, I'm taking the girls over to sleep over with grandma and then Scott is going to take me out to eat at Olive Garden with the two $25 gift cards we have (free date night, SCORE!!!!). Then we get to sleep early tomorrow night so that we can be at the hospital by 7am for him to be admitted and prepped for surgery.
I don't know if I shared yet exactly what the surgery is for, so I will now just in case. About 5 years ago, he was having some stomach problems and had a full abdominal MRI done. They found gallstones and a tiny spot on his liver (about 10mm if I remember correctly). We were told that the spot on his liver was likely nothing, and that eventually he'd likely need his gallbladder removed. The last several months, he's been having problems with his gallbladder, and the pain has gotten more severe with attacks as they got more frequent. He had a particularly bad attack a few weeks ago, and ended up seeing his doctor and then being referred to a surgeon to get his gallbladder removed. They did pre-op testing and found a mass around his gallbladder and the spot on his liver has grown, plus he also has a small hernia that is coincidentally at the location of one incision that will be made for the removal surgery. This surgery will be removing his gallbladder, checking out the mass and spot (plus taking biopsies if they look suspicious), and repairing the hernia.
This isn't the first time I've been right by his side through surgery. 3 months before Liddy was born, he had back surgery that removed close to 40% of a herniated disc in the L4 region. That procedure was done outpatient however, at a surgical center. There is a good chance that Thursday's surgery will have him in the hospital overnight for anywhere from 1-4 days, depending on how they have to do the gallbladder removal. If they do it laproscopically, he could be outpatient or spend 1-2 nights admitted, but if they determine that it is too risky and they have to fully open him up for the traditional procedure he's looking at 4 or more nights. We've been together almost 9 years now, and we've NEVER really been apart during this time. Even when I am in the hospital after having a baby, he's usually stayed with me in the hospital room while his mom took care of any kids that we had. I hope the hospital will let me sleep there with him, because I really don't want to go home without him.
I don't know if I shared yet exactly what the surgery is for, so I will now just in case. About 5 years ago, he was having some stomach problems and had a full abdominal MRI done. They found gallstones and a tiny spot on his liver (about 10mm if I remember correctly). We were told that the spot on his liver was likely nothing, and that eventually he'd likely need his gallbladder removed. The last several months, he's been having problems with his gallbladder, and the pain has gotten more severe with attacks as they got more frequent. He had a particularly bad attack a few weeks ago, and ended up seeing his doctor and then being referred to a surgeon to get his gallbladder removed. They did pre-op testing and found a mass around his gallbladder and the spot on his liver has grown, plus he also has a small hernia that is coincidentally at the location of one incision that will be made for the removal surgery. This surgery will be removing his gallbladder, checking out the mass and spot (plus taking biopsies if they look suspicious), and repairing the hernia.
This isn't the first time I've been right by his side through surgery. 3 months before Liddy was born, he had back surgery that removed close to 40% of a herniated disc in the L4 region. That procedure was done outpatient however, at a surgical center. There is a good chance that Thursday's surgery will have him in the hospital overnight for anywhere from 1-4 days, depending on how they have to do the gallbladder removal. If they do it laproscopically, he could be outpatient or spend 1-2 nights admitted, but if they determine that it is too risky and they have to fully open him up for the traditional procedure he's looking at 4 or more nights. We've been together almost 9 years now, and we've NEVER really been apart during this time. Even when I am in the hospital after having a baby, he's usually stayed with me in the hospital room while his mom took care of any kids that we had. I hope the hospital will let me sleep there with him, because I really don't want to go home without him.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
I love VBS week
This week my older 3 kids are at VBS up at SHBC. This means that I've just got Jojo with me in the mornings from around 8am until noon. I'm finding that when she's alone, Jojo is a completely different kind of kid. Right now she is sitting happily on the floor and playing with a duck game (not the way its meant to be played with but she's having fun and it isn't being destroyed so I won't say a word). She's quietly entertained herself every morning so far this week (except yesterday, she didn't sleep well the night before and was WOUND UP from being overtired so she was being aggressive and whiny and wouldn't lay down with me to nap while her sisters were gone, instead she napped for 3 hours after we had lunch).
This is the week I look forward to every year. We are in the period that usually Scott is going 6 months without a week vacation, so I use the VBS week to recharge with fewer kids around. Last year was Kimi's first year in VBS, and I used the week to relax and enjoy myself, reading good books, playing favorite computer games, and doing some errands and chores that don't get done usually with the kids around. This year's VBS week is no exception. I'm catching up on laundry, deep cleaning my kitchen and living/dining room, relaxing with my laptop (instead of playing games and reading constantly I'm working on getting ahead in my college homework and surfing Facebook), and just enjoying my time until I pick the kids up at noon. Monday I did a BUNCH of paperwork for our homeschool, including scheduling some electives, coming up with a working schedule for lessons, making a rotation list for activities to add in Missa's workboxes, and getting my notification prepared to send in late next month so that our homeschool is legal for another year. Tomorrow my plan is to take Jojo to story time at the library at 10am, and I will spend some time with books in the children's section scanning them to determine how much I want to accelerate our time in Sonlight core B followed by core C (I have to be sure they aren't too much for Missa) to make sure I don't hit core D (US history) too early with her, from a maturity standpoint. I will also pick up a few more readers for the girls, and return the ones that we've finished already from my trip there last Saturday.
And of course, I hope to get almost fully caught up on the laundry, clean the majority of the house up completely, and get some yard work done and freezer meals made for while Scott is off work recovering from his surgery. I love having things all planned out for me when we hit a crazy time, and I know that Thursday is going to start a VERY crazy time for us with his surgery. Hopefully I can get all the preparations made for that before this weekend is over.
This is the week I look forward to every year. We are in the period that usually Scott is going 6 months without a week vacation, so I use the VBS week to recharge with fewer kids around. Last year was Kimi's first year in VBS, and I used the week to relax and enjoy myself, reading good books, playing favorite computer games, and doing some errands and chores that don't get done usually with the kids around. This year's VBS week is no exception. I'm catching up on laundry, deep cleaning my kitchen and living/dining room, relaxing with my laptop (instead of playing games and reading constantly I'm working on getting ahead in my college homework and surfing Facebook), and just enjoying my time until I pick the kids up at noon. Monday I did a BUNCH of paperwork for our homeschool, including scheduling some electives, coming up with a working schedule for lessons, making a rotation list for activities to add in Missa's workboxes, and getting my notification prepared to send in late next month so that our homeschool is legal for another year. Tomorrow my plan is to take Jojo to story time at the library at 10am, and I will spend some time with books in the children's section scanning them to determine how much I want to accelerate our time in Sonlight core B followed by core C (I have to be sure they aren't too much for Missa) to make sure I don't hit core D (US history) too early with her, from a maturity standpoint. I will also pick up a few more readers for the girls, and return the ones that we've finished already from my trip there last Saturday.
And of course, I hope to get almost fully caught up on the laundry, clean the majority of the house up completely, and get some yard work done and freezer meals made for while Scott is off work recovering from his surgery. I love having things all planned out for me when we hit a crazy time, and I know that Thursday is going to start a VERY crazy time for us with his surgery. Hopefully I can get all the preparations made for that before this weekend is over.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Introducing..... S'more the hamster!
He's sleeping right now in the top of his habitat (this section snaps off to use as a transport carrier) so I grabbed the camera to get a shot of him. The girls also tried yesterday and Sunday to get a good picture of him, so I'll share the best they got as well from those attempts.
Don't you just LOVE the white stripe? They picked him out on Saturday at the pet store, and PRAYED that he'd be there still when they got to take daddy to get their pet on Sunday. Apparently, God listened because he was still there for them (he was the only brown one with a big white stripe) and Scott thought he was cute enough so he paid for the one they chose.
Liddy, Kimi, and Jojo love to watch S'more eat, play, and chew. They can spend all day watching him and fighting over whose turn it is to have the center spot for watching (the one with the best view). Missa, on the other hand, enjoys watching him but she's more interested in taking care of S'more. She has been making sure he has fresh water in his water bottle, brushing him, bugging me to put him in his exercise ball so he can run around the living room, and keeping an eye on his food dish and the condition of his habitat. She thinks it is great fun to take care of him. I wonder how she'll feel this afternoon when I have her changing the bedding in his habitat and washing the base of it (from his toileting habits)......... bet she doesn't find THAT part to be very fun.
Now, how long do you think it will take the novelty to wear off to where I'm the one taking care of his feeding, water, and cage cleaning and nobody wants to watch him, pet him, or hold him....... LOL
Monday, June 27, 2011
reading progress
Usually I post about how my older girls are doing, especially Missa, when it comes to reading. Well, today I'm bragging (again!) on my sweet Kimi.
This afternoon, after the kids got home from VBS, we ate and then took a nap. Jojo is still snoring away happily on the sofa, in all her 3 year old cuteness. So I took the opportunity of her being silent for a bit to work with Kimi on her reading. She's hit a bit of a wall lately with the Sonlight Fun Tales readers that we have been working on, so I decided to change things up at the library. I grabbed her a few of the easiest readers they have there for her to try out as a change of pace. Today, we read one. Its a Rigby 3 reader, so very simple. Each page has one simple sentence and the child is supposed to use clues in the picture if they have trouble with a word in the sentence. There are a total of 5 or 6 sentences in the entire book, so obviously a short book. She and I went through it together once, me helping her with the words, and then she read it by herself to me. Then she read it to her big sisters, and plans to read it to her daddy tonight when he gets home from work. We will *hopefully* spend the week reading this book and the other 3 of this level that I got and then next week we'll move up to the next level of readers if she feels comfortable with this level (I also got her a Dick and Jane book to try out if she wants). I have a feeling that this is exactly what she needs to get going and build her confidence quickly while we slowly work through the Sonlight readers.
But my third baby read a book! Yup, total proud momma moment here......
This afternoon, after the kids got home from VBS, we ate and then took a nap. Jojo is still snoring away happily on the sofa, in all her 3 year old cuteness. So I took the opportunity of her being silent for a bit to work with Kimi on her reading. She's hit a bit of a wall lately with the Sonlight Fun Tales readers that we have been working on, so I decided to change things up at the library. I grabbed her a few of the easiest readers they have there for her to try out as a change of pace. Today, we read one. Its a Rigby 3 reader, so very simple. Each page has one simple sentence and the child is supposed to use clues in the picture if they have trouble with a word in the sentence. There are a total of 5 or 6 sentences in the entire book, so obviously a short book. She and I went through it together once, me helping her with the words, and then she read it by herself to me. Then she read it to her big sisters, and plans to read it to her daddy tonight when he gets home from work. We will *hopefully* spend the week reading this book and the other 3 of this level that I got and then next week we'll move up to the next level of readers if she feels comfortable with this level (I also got her a Dick and Jane book to try out if she wants). I have a feeling that this is exactly what she needs to get going and build her confidence quickly while we slowly work through the Sonlight readers.
But my third baby read a book! Yup, total proud momma moment here......
Sunday, June 26, 2011
new pet
It all started yesterday at Wildwood Park. Scott took the girls there to play while I went to the library to get some books for this week. Liddy cornered a wild bunny just as Scott decided that it was time to go home. The entire trip home, and for a good long while after that at home, she threw a loud noisy fit over not being allowed to keep the bunny she had cornered.
So, we decided to look into what all is needed for a pet rabbit, and do some research at the same time about different breeds and caring for one. Basics, right? Well, we got information and then I went out to get some prices for stuff for a bunny, along with finding out what it will cost for the stuff we need. Of course, Missa and Liddy wanted to come along to see too. So off we went.
We fell in love with the mini lops, but yeah a little too expensive for us right now. So we decided to keep looking at other pets they had there to get ideas. They ended up picking out a brown hamster with a big white stripe around his middle (yes, we made sure we got a male). Then this morning I went and got a habitat, food, and such at WalMart (paid half as much as what I would have at the pet store). We got it all set up, and then went off to get their hamster. Once I get a good picture of him, I'll introduce S'more the hamster.
So, we decided to look into what all is needed for a pet rabbit, and do some research at the same time about different breeds and caring for one. Basics, right? Well, we got information and then I went out to get some prices for stuff for a bunny, along with finding out what it will cost for the stuff we need. Of course, Missa and Liddy wanted to come along to see too. So off we went.
We fell in love with the mini lops, but yeah a little too expensive for us right now. So we decided to keep looking at other pets they had there to get ideas. They ended up picking out a brown hamster with a big white stripe around his middle (yes, we made sure we got a male). Then this morning I went and got a habitat, food, and such at WalMart (paid half as much as what I would have at the pet store). We got it all set up, and then went off to get their hamster. Once I get a good picture of him, I'll introduce S'more the hamster.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
UGH at Scott's surgery
So, we had the scans done on Tuesday for his surgery, and they found a couple things in addition to the immediate problem. Great......
And to top it all off, my mother-in-law was going to watch the kids so I can go with him to see the surgeon tomorrow. Well, she's in the hospital now and can't watch them, so now I can't go because I'm not going to be able to find a sitter on such short notice who is willing to take 4 kids at 8am for a few hours so I can take notes at the appointment and make sure I have all the details I need for his recovery post-op and the long term things that we need to take care of because of the surgery. *sigh*
I'd ask what else could go wrong, but really at this point I just don't feel like pushing my luck any further........
And to top it all off, my mother-in-law was going to watch the kids so I can go with him to see the surgeon tomorrow. Well, she's in the hospital now and can't watch them, so now I can't go because I'm not going to be able to find a sitter on such short notice who is willing to take 4 kids at 8am for a few hours so I can take notes at the appointment and make sure I have all the details I need for his recovery post-op and the long term things that we need to take care of because of the surgery. *sigh*
I'd ask what else could go wrong, but really at this point I just don't feel like pushing my luck any further........
Sunday, June 19, 2011
looking for something!
I'm hoping that I get enough traffic that this may actually get answered, but if not then no big deal I'll keep searching on my own. I am looking for every free resource I can find for lapbooks, unit study ideas, activities, file folder games, and such that I can use for our homeschool. Also open to cheaper stuff (we have a few things we want to buy from Evan-Moor and Hands of a Child as we have the money) but would prefer to not spend *too* much. Anyone?
Friday, June 17, 2011
summer school theme 1
Well the kids want schoolwork daily, despite the break, so I'm doing a bunch of preschool unit studies and lapbooks to make this fun and to include all the girls. On Monday, we start our first week of this. We're going to learn a bit about mice. I have the book "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" from Sonlight core P3/4, and I just printed off a couple minits from the lapbook at Homeschool Share for the cooresponding lapbook to make a mini lapbook (we'll cut the folders in half for this, it should be perfect). I have a mouse craft, and we'll learn the different parts of a mouse and some interesting fun little facts. To go with it, our baking project for the week will be cookies. Nothing big or fancy, but it should be interesting and light and fun for the girls. The older two will have copywork from the story as well, and they will each read the story to me by the end of the week. I'm not doing full-blown week units here, just a little theme activity to get them all having fun together and hopefully teach Jojo and Kimi how school works in our home so that they are ready when we get into the big lapbooks and studies this fall with each pair (if you didn't know, Missa and Liddy are a pair and then Kimi and Jojo are a pair).
And the bonus is that since I'm only going to do mini-laps with them, we only have a couple minits to do each one and it should be easily finished in a week. It is those longer units that take more than a week and/or have a dozen or more pieces for the lapbook that get me bogged down and overwhelmed.
And the bonus is that since I'm only going to do mini-laps with them, we only have a couple minits to do each one and it should be easily finished in a week. It is those longer units that take more than a week and/or have a dozen or more pieces for the lapbook that get me bogged down and overwhelmed.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
proud momma moment
Let me tell you about my Kimi. She is 5, was a late talker, and is small for her age. She has an attitude the size of Texas, and a stubborn streak wider than the Mississippi. Needless to say, she's my difficult strong-willed child of the bunch. We butt heads regularly as she attempts to plow through the boundaries and rules in our home.
Well, today I believe we had a small breakthrough moment. She didn't get her way with a sister, and decided to stomp on her hand as a response to it. As a result, I smacked her butt and put her in her bedroom, prompting her to throw a lot screaming tantrum complete with dumping a bin of toys and throwing them around. She asked me after a bit if she'd be allowed out, and I told her (as usual) that she can come out after she cleans up the mess she made with the toys she dumped out and threw around. She did try to tell me that she didn't throw and dump any toys, but I just looked at her with that "yeah, right" look and she gave up. She pouted off to their room again. When I peeked in on her after about 10min, she had picked up all the toys PLUS put dirty clothes in the laundry pile, throw away a few papers, put some crayons back in the drawer the art stuff goes in, and was making their beds.
I told her that she can go outside and play if she wanted, with Jojo. I think she is starting to figure it out....... And I hope that her cooperation this time wasn't just a one-time thing. She's becoming such a wonderful and helpful young lady lately, these little moments of sweetness and rule-following have been happening more often.
Well, today I believe we had a small breakthrough moment. She didn't get her way with a sister, and decided to stomp on her hand as a response to it. As a result, I smacked her butt and put her in her bedroom, prompting her to throw a lot screaming tantrum complete with dumping a bin of toys and throwing them around. She asked me after a bit if she'd be allowed out, and I told her (as usual) that she can come out after she cleans up the mess she made with the toys she dumped out and threw around. She did try to tell me that she didn't throw and dump any toys, but I just looked at her with that "yeah, right" look and she gave up. She pouted off to their room again. When I peeked in on her after about 10min, she had picked up all the toys PLUS put dirty clothes in the laundry pile, throw away a few papers, put some crayons back in the drawer the art stuff goes in, and was making their beds.
I told her that she can go outside and play if she wanted, with Jojo. I think she is starting to figure it out....... And I hope that her cooperation this time wasn't just a one-time thing. She's becoming such a wonderful and helpful young lady lately, these little moments of sweetness and rule-following have been happening more often.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Just so I can remember this later
Scott has his pre-op testing on the 21st, needs to be there at 7:30am and fast at least 8 hours prior. Then the 24th at 9:30am he has the surgical consult. Gotta ask his mom if she will watch the girls the 24th so I can ask a hundred questions and take notes and all that since he will NOT be smart enough to do it for me, and then I need to uhhhhhh CRAP what did I forget on top of this all? Oh well, I'll remember later. Oh yeah, I need to type and print out a full list of things to ask the doctor and make sure its in my binder with blank paper for me to take notes and write down answers to stuff.
And I need to hit the ATM tomorrow so I can go to JoAnn's for some fabric, I need a couple new dresses and got a coupon for 50% off one item (a single cut of fabric counts so I'm gonna get enough of one pattern to make me a few dresses/skirts I think). I need to oil my machines and get them ready, and I need to remember zippers and a couple other notions to finish a few pending projects. Yup, that should cover it. I hope.
(yes, I totally just used my blog as a notepad to keep track of stuff, you *will* see that quite a bit for now so that I can keep track of everything with the chaos of Scott going in for surgery soon, hopefully I don't start posting chore lists too LOL)
And I need to hit the ATM tomorrow so I can go to JoAnn's for some fabric, I need a couple new dresses and got a coupon for 50% off one item (a single cut of fabric counts so I'm gonna get enough of one pattern to make me a few dresses/skirts I think). I need to oil my machines and get them ready, and I need to remember zippers and a couple other notions to finish a few pending projects. Yup, that should cover it. I hope.
(yes, I totally just used my blog as a notepad to keep track of stuff, you *will* see that quite a bit for now so that I can keep track of everything with the chaos of Scott going in for surgery soon, hopefully I don't start posting chore lists too LOL)
Friday, June 10, 2011
PROOF that I got a second lefty kid
I was trying to keep Jojo from throwing a FIT over my saying no to watching an inappropriate tv show, so I told her to pick an activity. She chose to do school, strange child.... lol Anyway, I did her math with her (she is not doing Math-U-See with her sisters this year in attempt to hold her a year, instead she's doing Singapore Earlybird) and then we did a lesson in All About Reading. She got the biggest kick out of doing her math lesson and then doing reading stuff. We talked about same and different, and compared sea animals in a picture in her math workbook. In her reading lesson time, we did the capital B lesson. She loves her lessons time, it gives her a chance to have one on one time with me daily and we snuggle and giggle and talk and play games.
Anyway, I like telling people this little useless trivia that we have a perfect 50/50 split in dominance for writing. I'm a lefty. along with Missa and Jojo, while Scott, Liddy, and Kimi are all right-handed. Well, I've had a few people tell me that it isn't possible for me to know that a 3 year old is a lefty, so I decided to get a little proof. So, here we have it, I took these pictures of Jojo during her reading activity page today (she doesn't do the craft part of these pages, she so far just wants to color the pages instead so we do that together)
See? I do know what I'm talking about here. I've been able to identify dominance with each of my girls before her third birthday, and Jojo is no exception. So, 3 lefties and 3 right-handed in this household. Totally blows away the statistic that less than 10% of the population is left-handed........ or something like that.
Anyway, I like telling people this little useless trivia that we have a perfect 50/50 split in dominance for writing. I'm a lefty. along with Missa and Jojo, while Scott, Liddy, and Kimi are all right-handed. Well, I've had a few people tell me that it isn't possible for me to know that a 3 year old is a lefty, so I decided to get a little proof. So, here we have it, I took these pictures of Jojo during her reading activity page today (she doesn't do the craft part of these pages, she so far just wants to color the pages instead so we do that together)
See? I do know what I'm talking about here. I've been able to identify dominance with each of my girls before her third birthday, and Jojo is no exception. So, 3 lefties and 3 right-handed in this household. Totally blows away the statistic that less than 10% of the population is left-handed........ or something like that.
well I was right
I mentioned Scott may need surgery in the near future...... He has an appointment in 2 weeks for a surgical consult to get things going there, and also has pre-op scans and tests scheduled. He could be off work for 4-6 weeks recovering, so my life is going to be turned upside down here real soon.
And the kids asked to do lessons, so I had Missa do her journal and then we did step 2 in All About Spelling and Liddy did her journal while Kimi did her handwriting practice. They just came in from recess (they are afraid it may rain) and in a bit we'll do some math and other stuff. I got all our materials for a full day of work pulled out, so if we do it all cool. If not, no biggie. Its not like I have to finish cleaning the house for a friend to visit since he decided to cancel on me last night. So I guess the 11 years we've not actually been face to face in person will continue to go on longer....... since there weren't enough people here that he wanted to see that were available this weekend for him to feel like it was worth coming up. Yes, I'm slightly hurt to know that my family is not worthy enough of a visit if he can't see a dozen others, but hey life goes on. Its not as if I actually spent all week scrubbing my house down and then bought some steaks that I couldn't really afford on my current food budget so that I could feed him a good meal. Its not as if I saw his coming up as a special occasion and got all excited like a kid looking forward to Christmas. I don't feel heartbroken and want to just break down and cry because I got my hopes up. Life goes on, I've got too much to do to be bothered with doing all that stuff.
Which speaking of my busy life, I may not be around much for a while. With getting things in order for Scott's surgery next month, the kids insisting on doing schoolwork anyway, and keeping up with my college classes I have enough on my plate that I may not be able to post much of anything. If you are one of my Facebook friends, I'll have myself logged in with the window minimized while I study. If you want to message me, feel free and I'll get back with you during a break from my studying.
And the kids asked to do lessons, so I had Missa do her journal and then we did step 2 in All About Spelling and Liddy did her journal while Kimi did her handwriting practice. They just came in from recess (they are afraid it may rain) and in a bit we'll do some math and other stuff. I got all our materials for a full day of work pulled out, so if we do it all cool. If not, no biggie. Its not like I have to finish cleaning the house for a friend to visit since he decided to cancel on me last night. So I guess the 11 years we've not actually been face to face in person will continue to go on longer....... since there weren't enough people here that he wanted to see that were available this weekend for him to feel like it was worth coming up. Yes, I'm slightly hurt to know that my family is not worthy enough of a visit if he can't see a dozen others, but hey life goes on. Its not as if I actually spent all week scrubbing my house down and then bought some steaks that I couldn't really afford on my current food budget so that I could feed him a good meal. Its not as if I saw his coming up as a special occasion and got all excited like a kid looking forward to Christmas. I don't feel heartbroken and want to just break down and cry because I got my hopes up. Life goes on, I've got too much to do to be bothered with doing all that stuff.
Which speaking of my busy life, I may not be around much for a while. With getting things in order for Scott's surgery next month, the kids insisting on doing schoolwork anyway, and keeping up with my college classes I have enough on my plate that I may not be able to post much of anything. If you are one of my Facebook friends, I'll have myself logged in with the window minimized while I study. If you want to message me, feel free and I'll get back with you during a break from my studying.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
summertime plans
Like I said last week, summer is one of my favorite times of year. I had originally planned to spend the summer working full speed with history, science, the basics, and all our extras. However, every time I set out to do a full day of lessons I get stopped by life and I get a feeling that I need to focus on other things. So, I do believe this year we will get a summer vacation and only do a bit of math, reading, and journal work a few days a week so they don't lose what we've done.
The biggest reason right now for that is because Scott is having a *small* health issue that will require him to have surgery at some point, likely in the near future. I am not sure what will happen when we are in that place, but I have faith that we will end up just fine and all will work out in the end. Scott is worrying about how we will pay the bills, but I don't think that we need to have any worries at all.
That has also lead to us trying to simplify our lives. I'm sorting through everything we own to cut down how much we have and hopefully make everything easier to keep track of and cleaned up. I'm hoping that this summer we can have one heck of a yard sale to bring in a little extra money (which will have the added bonus of easing a little of the worry about money that Scott is having).
Of course, there are other things beyond Scott's health that we are juggling. But only time will tell what is happening with those things. So there you have it.
The biggest reason right now for that is because Scott is having a *small* health issue that will require him to have surgery at some point, likely in the near future. I am not sure what will happen when we are in that place, but I have faith that we will end up just fine and all will work out in the end. Scott is worrying about how we will pay the bills, but I don't think that we need to have any worries at all.
That has also lead to us trying to simplify our lives. I'm sorting through everything we own to cut down how much we have and hopefully make everything easier to keep track of and cleaned up. I'm hoping that this summer we can have one heck of a yard sale to bring in a little extra money (which will have the added bonus of easing a little of the worry about money that Scott is having).
Of course, there are other things beyond Scott's health that we are juggling. But only time will tell what is happening with those things. So there you have it.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
summer treats
I love summer. We had to get a new grill to work in a pinch while Scott does some work on ours (the ingition system is malfunctioning on one burner) so we got a cheapo charcoal grill. He bought it Saturday and we've used it twice already, and I'm planning to again tonight I think.
But it is also popsicle season. This year we decided that instead of buying them we would try making our own. And my recipe that I used is a total hit. For less than $1 I can make 24 popsicles that are similar texture to the ones that are $4 for a box of 12, and the flavor is WAY better. We just finished off the ones that I made 2 days ago, so I need to make more and refill our molds. The nice thing is, I can do any flavor combination I want, as I'm only limited by the flavor availability of Kool-Aid and Jello powder. I'm sure it can be tweaked to use natural ingredients, but part of the fun of popsicles, in my opinion, is the lack of nutrition on top of the cold smooth frozen goodness. If you've never made your own popsicles, here's what I use for them (and you can do them in paper cups with store bought sticks, or in ice cube trays with toothpicks if you like)
1 small packet Jello
1 packet Kool-Aid mix
1 cup sugar
2 cups boiling water
2 cups COLD water
Mix the jello, kool-aid mix, and sugar. Add boiling water; stir until fully dissolved. Add cold water, stir and pour into molds. Freeze until solid.
What are your favorite summertime treats?
But it is also popsicle season. This year we decided that instead of buying them we would try making our own. And my recipe that I used is a total hit. For less than $1 I can make 24 popsicles that are similar texture to the ones that are $4 for a box of 12, and the flavor is WAY better. We just finished off the ones that I made 2 days ago, so I need to make more and refill our molds. The nice thing is, I can do any flavor combination I want, as I'm only limited by the flavor availability of Kool-Aid and Jello powder. I'm sure it can be tweaked to use natural ingredients, but part of the fun of popsicles, in my opinion, is the lack of nutrition on top of the cold smooth frozen goodness. If you've never made your own popsicles, here's what I use for them (and you can do them in paper cups with store bought sticks, or in ice cube trays with toothpicks if you like)
1 small packet Jello
1 packet Kool-Aid mix
1 cup sugar
2 cups boiling water
2 cups COLD water
Mix the jello, kool-aid mix, and sugar. Add boiling water; stir until fully dissolved. Add cold water, stir and pour into molds. Freeze until solid.
What are your favorite summertime treats?
what's gonna work? TEAMWORK!
If you have preschoolers, you are probably beating your head on the desk now at that image and the reference to their teamwork song. Unless you don't have television, then you are lucky. (for those of you who fall in the latter group, that is a picture of the Wonder Pets, show same name is on Nick Jr. and they focus on teamwork and problem solving skills)
So how does this apply to my home? Well, yesterday Missa and Liddy started their guided journals from Write Foundations. They each had a verse from the bible to copy, and then a journal prompt. Since they are both in book 1.1 the expectation is only one sentence answers for journal topics. Missa loves doing such things, she thinks it is great fun to copy books into a notebook and doing writing prompts. So, it wasn't much difficulty for her. I just explained to her what to do with her page and let her loose. Liddy, on the other hand, hated it. She has fine motor delays, and tires quickly with writing. She can spend hours reading daily without issue, but writing tires her out in seconds. She also didn't quite understand how to do the work, since she has never done a journal topic or copy work before. Lots of whining and complaining from her obviously, with me helping her figure it out until I got frustrated and told her to ask Missa because I can't take it any longer.
So a few minutes later I go back to the table to apologize to Liddy for losing my patience and help her finish the assignment, and what do I see? Missa scooted over close to her, with her journal right there to use as a model to explain how to do it. They are one grade apart in age, but have such different strengths that they are worlds apart at times. I think I need to take advantage of their strengths more often like this, teach them more about teamwork and working together to do things when one is struggling. I've discovered yesterday that they are an amazing team, maybe I should use that with Missa's math struggles to try and get Liddy to help her with math and see if they can teamwork their way to Missa mastering her basic facts, or for Liddy's hatred for history to get Missa to help her with the work when we are working together in history lessons. This is something I need to consider, I'd never thought that they could work together like that so well.
Monday, May 30, 2011
and I think I figured out the history issue
So, I posted a couple days ago about options I was considering for history with Missa and Liddy. If you didn't see it, well nutshell is.....
Missa loves history and can't get enough, Liddy hates history and would rather spend her days doing math. I slowed down part 1 of Intro to World History (Sonlight core B) to try and keep Lydia interested and get her to do some of the work, and am supplementing way more than I have the time to do without my own grades suffering (in fact, in the course of my supplementing so much, I failed one college class and am struggling badly in another that ends today).
So, my solution? I'm dropping Liddy as a target for our history studies, and moving on in life with Missa. Also, I have the guide for the one-year condensed Intro to World History (Sonlight core B+C) and I'm looking at it now to try and see what I need to purchase in terms of spine books to switch over to the one year program instead. Missa can keep up with it just fine, and if I don't just go to the condensed core program then Missa will have me moving double speed anyway and I'll end up buying core C (part 2 of the program) likely by Labor Day. This way, well I may have a chance at keeping her engaged and moving at her pace, and then we'll move into whatever we choose next (not sure if that will be US history from Sonlight or if we're going to be finding a different program for history or following their interests or what we're going to do).
So now I need to start tracking down copies of 3 books that we need for the switch to the one year program. I think Missa will LOVE the pace too.
Missa loves history and can't get enough, Liddy hates history and would rather spend her days doing math. I slowed down part 1 of Intro to World History (Sonlight core B) to try and keep Lydia interested and get her to do some of the work, and am supplementing way more than I have the time to do without my own grades suffering (in fact, in the course of my supplementing so much, I failed one college class and am struggling badly in another that ends today).
So, my solution? I'm dropping Liddy as a target for our history studies, and moving on in life with Missa. Also, I have the guide for the one-year condensed Intro to World History (Sonlight core B+C) and I'm looking at it now to try and see what I need to purchase in terms of spine books to switch over to the one year program instead. Missa can keep up with it just fine, and if I don't just go to the condensed core program then Missa will have me moving double speed anyway and I'll end up buying core C (part 2 of the program) likely by Labor Day. This way, well I may have a chance at keeping her engaged and moving at her pace, and then we'll move into whatever we choose next (not sure if that will be US history from Sonlight or if we're going to be finding a different program for history or following their interests or what we're going to do).
So now I need to start tracking down copies of 3 books that we need for the switch to the one year program. I think Missa will LOVE the pace too.
this momma is strange
Yes, that is purple hair...... it didn't take as well as I had hoped, so next payday I'm going to bleach it down as light as my almost black hair can go, and then do the purple over it again. I love being different like that!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
What I'm reading for June
So often I only read the kids' books, I forget to take the time out to read for ME. So, at the library yesterday I picked up a few books that I wanted to read. Here's my lineup.
This one I chose because well, I have 4 kids and we don't always eat as well as we should. I need ideas on how to maximize the nutrition, particularly with my picky eaters. This is just one book I'll be previewing to see if it is worthy of being purchased to add to our home collection.
Now, I've read this one a few times before, but never really took it to heart. Now that our budget is starting to dwindle for future years of homeschooling while more kids are coming up into compulsary education and reporting age, I need to start buckling down on what I spend on curriculum. I need to cut back on what we buy to teach with so that I can afford things like gas money for field trips and stuff like that. So I'm going to read this one again and take some notes for me to remember of different ideas, and possibly purchase this book since I have checked it out at least 4 times in the past 5 years.
OK this cookbook says it is for ADHD and Autism, well guess what. It is a book full of recipes that are gluten-free, dairy free, and free of certain other common allergens such as corn, eggs, and soy. We have issues with gluten, soy, and dairy (along with citrus, red dye 40, and shellfish). So, this book is more to help me figure out some new twists on recipes the kids can enjoy that are friendly to our current allergies and intolerance/sensitivities. Again, this book is on my list of potentials for purchasing.
I've heard so many good things about this one that I just had to check it out. Enough said.
Missa has MULTIPLE learning challenges, many of which are included in this book. Specifically, the kid is AD/HD-combined and has dyslexia and sensory issues. Yup, I think this one will help me out. Don't know yet if I feel it is worth considering buying, but I'll decide that after I read it through real good.
So that's my pleasure reading for June. It all involves the kids in one way or another, but so goes my life. I gave up fiction fluff novels years ago, unless it is one that I'm reading to the girls. I love learning and getting new ideas in my free time, and hopefully I have enough time to read these books in this next month. If not, I'll renew them and keep going through July too.
This one I chose because well, I have 4 kids and we don't always eat as well as we should. I need ideas on how to maximize the nutrition, particularly with my picky eaters. This is just one book I'll be previewing to see if it is worthy of being purchased to add to our home collection.
Now, I've read this one a few times before, but never really took it to heart. Now that our budget is starting to dwindle for future years of homeschooling while more kids are coming up into compulsary education and reporting age, I need to start buckling down on what I spend on curriculum. I need to cut back on what we buy to teach with so that I can afford things like gas money for field trips and stuff like that. So I'm going to read this one again and take some notes for me to remember of different ideas, and possibly purchase this book since I have checked it out at least 4 times in the past 5 years.
OK this cookbook says it is for ADHD and Autism, well guess what. It is a book full of recipes that are gluten-free, dairy free, and free of certain other common allergens such as corn, eggs, and soy. We have issues with gluten, soy, and dairy (along with citrus, red dye 40, and shellfish). So, this book is more to help me figure out some new twists on recipes the kids can enjoy that are friendly to our current allergies and intolerance/sensitivities. Again, this book is on my list of potentials for purchasing.
I've heard so many good things about this one that I just had to check it out. Enough said.
Missa has MULTIPLE learning challenges, many of which are included in this book. Specifically, the kid is AD/HD-combined and has dyslexia and sensory issues. Yup, I think this one will help me out. Don't know yet if I feel it is worth considering buying, but I'll decide that after I read it through real good.
So that's my pleasure reading for June. It all involves the kids in one way or another, but so goes my life. I gave up fiction fluff novels years ago, unless it is one that I'm reading to the girls. I love learning and getting new ideas in my free time, and hopefully I have enough time to read these books in this next month. If not, I'll renew them and keep going through July too.
Friday, May 27, 2011
help me decide what to do
In case you haven't already figured it out, we use Sonlight for history in our home. Missa and Liddy are paired up in a study group, and are doing core B (also known as Introduction to World History, Part 1). We are studying ancient world history, and we've added a lot of materials to it for hands-on elements. Missa is eating it up; she adores history and does very well with it. She can't get enough of history lessons and would love it if I would pick up the pace so she gets more material. Liddy, on the other hand, doesn't care for history so much. She'd much rather do math and skip history lessons completely. So, my moving slower is paced for her while the added material is to keep up with Missa. However, Missa is starting to get restless with so much added to cover the same stuff for soooo much longer.
So I'm considering a couple different things:
1) just pick up the pace in our core and if Liddy doesn't do it, fine.
2) split them up so Missa is going her pace in the core and Liddy is going HER pace in it too (so I'll end up doing 2 cores with a one grade gap, which is the ideal for combining kids)
3) add in Sonlight's core W to give a lot more depth to slow Missa down and keep her satisfied (core W is the one year World History in Depth program, geared to grade 8 for the most part)
Now there are problems with all 3. Option 1, then Liddy doesn't "do" history lessons really. She may here and there but yeah, that just irritates my teaching securities. But then, she's REALLY into math and reading, so if she's not getting it now she'll likely pick up the books from this core at a later date to read on her own so she'll get the material then. This option has possibilities.
With option 2, well that just creates so much more work for me to do the two girls separately. I'd burn out FAST from reading the material twice so each kid gets it at her pace, and then add in that it would essentially mean that I'm doing 3 full cores since my younger two are doing the Sonlight preschool cores now (I'm doing a combination of P3/4, P4/5, and core A at their interest and pace). I have 4 kids, and at this point my limit is two full cores.
Then there's option 3. It has the same disadvantages as option 2 does, with it adding a third core to my heavy workload of stuff I do already. But also, there's the added need for me to pre-read all the books first because Missa is only going into 3rd grade this fall. She may or may not be ready for the workload of core W, even stretched out to last the entire time we're doing core B and then core C. But at the same time, it would be an advantage because I'm taking that time to read it all first, then she and I read aloud together and it could lead to some great discussions.
Of course, there's other options that I could pick too, but these are the ones I'm stuck on right now. What do you think? I can't decide.........
So I'm considering a couple different things:
1) just pick up the pace in our core and if Liddy doesn't do it, fine.
2) split them up so Missa is going her pace in the core and Liddy is going HER pace in it too (so I'll end up doing 2 cores with a one grade gap, which is the ideal for combining kids)
3) add in Sonlight's core W to give a lot more depth to slow Missa down and keep her satisfied (core W is the one year World History in Depth program, geared to grade 8 for the most part)
Now there are problems with all 3. Option 1, then Liddy doesn't "do" history lessons really. She may here and there but yeah, that just irritates my teaching securities. But then, she's REALLY into math and reading, so if she's not getting it now she'll likely pick up the books from this core at a later date to read on her own so she'll get the material then. This option has possibilities.
With option 2, well that just creates so much more work for me to do the two girls separately. I'd burn out FAST from reading the material twice so each kid gets it at her pace, and then add in that it would essentially mean that I'm doing 3 full cores since my younger two are doing the Sonlight preschool cores now (I'm doing a combination of P3/4, P4/5, and core A at their interest and pace). I have 4 kids, and at this point my limit is two full cores.
Then there's option 3. It has the same disadvantages as option 2 does, with it adding a third core to my heavy workload of stuff I do already. But also, there's the added need for me to pre-read all the books first because Missa is only going into 3rd grade this fall. She may or may not be ready for the workload of core W, even stretched out to last the entire time we're doing core B and then core C. But at the same time, it would be an advantage because I'm taking that time to read it all first, then she and I read aloud together and it could lead to some great discussions.
Of course, there's other options that I could pick too, but these are the ones I'm stuck on right now. What do you think? I can't decide.........
what they are reading right now
Liddy loves books, and it is a challenge sometimes to find one that she can read that is going to challenge her at the same time. She's whipped through all our Sonlight grade 1 readers in just a few weeks, and has reread these books dozens of times. She LOVES the Dr. Seuss books. So after hearing her read one of those books yet again, I decided to test out my library stack of readers for Missa to see how her reading is. This is the book she's reading now........
She made it about halfway through it before deciding that she wanted to stop. That book was a *bit* of a challenge and a stretch for her, but she did very well with it.
Missa, on the other hand, has been slowly working all year long through the stories in this book........
She's not *quite* ready yet to tackle the book that Liddy is reading, and she struggles with the book she's reading now. We spend a lot of time reading together, me helping her with the words she doesn't know. She's about 1/4 through her book, we read stories a few times before moving on and revisit favorites that she's already read as we continue to work on her fluency.
Both girls' books are part of the Sonlight grade 2 readers set. I own the one Missa is reading, and Liddy's (plus most of the others) came from the local public library. I intend to buy the reader package here soon if I can scrounge up the money, giving Liddy and Missa both their own bible books (Missa will NOT part with her bible book any time soon, I already know this). But I thought it would be fun to share where my girls are in their reading (and even more surprising, Liddy's book is further into the reader schedule than Missa's book is but I think Missa's may be a harder book because of all those names).
She made it about halfway through it before deciding that she wanted to stop. That book was a *bit* of a challenge and a stretch for her, but she did very well with it.
Missa, on the other hand, has been slowly working all year long through the stories in this book........
She's not *quite* ready yet to tackle the book that Liddy is reading, and she struggles with the book she's reading now. We spend a lot of time reading together, me helping her with the words she doesn't know. She's about 1/4 through her book, we read stories a few times before moving on and revisit favorites that she's already read as we continue to work on her fluency.
Both girls' books are part of the Sonlight grade 2 readers set. I own the one Missa is reading, and Liddy's (plus most of the others) came from the local public library. I intend to buy the reader package here soon if I can scrounge up the money, giving Liddy and Missa both their own bible books (Missa will NOT part with her bible book any time soon, I already know this). But I thought it would be fun to share where my girls are in their reading (and even more surprising, Liddy's book is further into the reader schedule than Missa's book is but I think Missa's may be a harder book because of all those names).
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
When life happens.....
Yes, I am posting at 11:30pm. I got home not too long ago from the hospital, poor Missa has been in pain all day. She's described it as someone poking her in the stomach with a sharp knife. I didn't sweat it, and figured she'd be fine by this evening when she woke up at 7:30 with the pain. Obviously my day was SHOT.
She spent the day laying on the sofa, just kinda staring blankly at the tv and napping on and off. She didn't eat much today because it hurt, although she did go out front for a bit to watch the road construction (they are repaving the road we live on). She did have some relief early in the afternoon, or else she decided that the bubbles were just too tempting, and got up to say she'd do dishes for me when I said I had to get them going on. But other than that, she laid around, watching tv and napping and reading until Scott got home and decided that I needed to take her to the ER.
After 4 hours there, they determined that it *could* be appendicitis but said that its too early to tell and that it won't show up on any testing for a minimum of 24-36 hours from the initial onset of symptoms (which her only one so far has been the stomach pain). Since she has no fever (not like she does normally anyway when she's sick, last time she had a real fever was when she was in K and they sent her home with a fever of 104 and then an hour later she was at the ped's clocking it at over 106 while they scrambled to get it down again, they packed her in a lot of ice packs held to her body with a sheet) they felt that just some Tylenol would be sufficient, and sent us on our way. Thanks guys, next time I'll not bother wasting my time with y'all, I'll just wait for her doctor's office to open up the next morning instead since I could have given her Tylenol myself and called it good.
We didn't do any lessons of course, we just went with the flow of things. Tomorrow we'll try to pick up again if she's feeling up to it, we'll see how she's doing. If she's still in pain I'll take her to her doctor, but if it gets worse I'll skip the local hospital and make the drive with her and her 3 sisters to go to Children's Hospital up in Columbus instead. I'm not playing with Licking Memorial, they can't tell their bums from a hole in the ground.
She spent the day laying on the sofa, just kinda staring blankly at the tv and napping on and off. She didn't eat much today because it hurt, although she did go out front for a bit to watch the road construction (they are repaving the road we live on). She did have some relief early in the afternoon, or else she decided that the bubbles were just too tempting, and got up to say she'd do dishes for me when I said I had to get them going on. But other than that, she laid around, watching tv and napping and reading until Scott got home and decided that I needed to take her to the ER.
After 4 hours there, they determined that it *could* be appendicitis but said that its too early to tell and that it won't show up on any testing for a minimum of 24-36 hours from the initial onset of symptoms (which her only one so far has been the stomach pain). Since she has no fever (not like she does normally anyway when she's sick, last time she had a real fever was when she was in K and they sent her home with a fever of 104 and then an hour later she was at the ped's clocking it at over 106 while they scrambled to get it down again, they packed her in a lot of ice packs held to her body with a sheet) they felt that just some Tylenol would be sufficient, and sent us on our way. Thanks guys, next time I'll not bother wasting my time with y'all, I'll just wait for her doctor's office to open up the next morning instead since I could have given her Tylenol myself and called it good.
We didn't do any lessons of course, we just went with the flow of things. Tomorrow we'll try to pick up again if she's feeling up to it, we'll see how she's doing. If she's still in pain I'll take her to her doctor, but if it gets worse I'll skip the local hospital and make the drive with her and her 3 sisters to go to Children's Hospital up in Columbus instead. I'm not playing with Licking Memorial, they can't tell their bums from a hole in the ground.
Monday, May 02, 2011
preschool and learning goals- or why NOT to have them
I've been thinking a lot lately, thanks to a post I read over at the Sonlight forums last week. A mom asked on the forum there for the preschool cores what goals we set for our little learners to accomplish prior to the start of their K year. I answered, and then thought that it may be an interesting topic to cover here too just so anyone who reads this blog can better understand how we teach here in my home.
In our family, its not what the children learn so much as it is the journey they take to learning the material. We call ourselves eclectic unschoolers, which is a bit of an oxymoron. See, an eclectic homeschooler uses a variety of curricula to tailor the schooling as much as possible to their child's individual needs, taking current interests into account and changing up what doesn't work as needed. An unschooler has faith that a child will learn what they need to as they need and want to, and they provide incredibly rich learning environments and get their children involved in activities such as having a garden, taking care of pets, cooking, pursuing an area of the arts or athletics (or both!), and just about anything else you can think of. We are the best of both worlds. I use a variety of curricula as desired/needed for different subjects, particularly reading, writing, and math. Then I have curriculum for history and science, but we use it more exploratory. We may spent a year studying the same time period that is assigned to just 6-8 weeks in our history program, doing a lesson when they want to from the program or watching documentaries that go with the subject, finding information online, doing crafts and projects to replicate (sort of!) different things in our topic. Right now we're in Mesopotamia still, and the kids are waiting for me to feel the weather is good enough for us to go outside to try making mud bricks to build a small wall with. Yet, we don't pressure the kids. I suggest to them that they do some math or reading dailybut if they don't it is ok because I know that when they do, they will do multiple pages at a time and be more receptive to the work. I don't stress, and we have about as rich a learning environment as I can think of to do in our home with my physical limitations.
So, how does this apply to preschoolers? Well, my little Jojo, at the sweet age of 3 1/2 years old, is a preschooler now. She asked for some schoolwork like her big sisters do, I got her a few things to do gently with her. But I also thought about what my real goals with her are. I've never actually set goals for my preschoolers, as they have all be more than ready for K material when it comes time to start their K year at home. I had to really stop and think about what it is that I set out to do with my preschoolers, and here is what I came up with.
1. love learning Now, this sounds a bit odd to many, especially if you have children who go to public school. Those kids tend to HATE school by the time they hit 3rd or 4th grade, so loving to learn would be a foreign concept to some of these parents. However, this is one of my biggest goals for this age. Since we learn in a more organic manner, providing the tools for the girls to learn while not forcing them at the same time, it is vital that our girls be interested in learning more about things and know how to go about learning about what they are interested in. The preschooler's focus for this particular skill is to develop a love for learning about things. We do this by trying to always take the time to answer when one asks "why?" or "how?" or any question like that.
2. get down and dirty with life We do a lot of hands-on stuff. A LOT. Like I mentioned earlier, we are waiting on the weather to get just right for us to make mud bricks. We also are planning on building raised garden boxes this year and attempting to grow some food to take a little strain off our grocery budget. We don't have any pets due to Kimi having too many allergies to allow that, but we go to the Columbus Zoo regularly and they have a petting zoo for the kids, and the aquarium has a spot where you can get in line and wash your hands first to touch some of the sea life they have there (starfish, anemone, stuff like that). You can pet some reptiles there too sometimes, and we can ALWAYS see the animals. Last year, the girls couldn't get enough of the elephants (particularly the baby elephant). We cook with the kids. Just last week Missa made a lasagna with my help, she loves cooking and is pretty good at it for a kid her age.
3. develop a desire to be a part of our team Working together as a family is necessary in some parts of our life. With 6 people, that can make for a lot of messes. However, it also means that there are 12 hands to help pick up those messes, making the work just that much lighter for me. It also means that yard work is done faster, in theory. I have the ability to have the girls work in pairs to do different tasks, and if the job is too difficult for the little ones to help the oldest two take turns working with me while the one not working with me keeps her little sisters entertained. A preschooler can help water a garden, put the pulled weeds into a trash can, and pick up sticks. The extra 4 bodies means that grocery shopping can be done easier. The little ones help with getting things from the bottom shelves to put in the cart, and the oldest girls can push a shopping cart if I need more than one cart. If I go to Aldi, I can easily fill 3 or 4 shopping carts with food so having them able to push a cart really helps a lot. They all help bring in and put away groceries, with me standing at the van passing out bags they can carry until the last ones are ready to go in and then delegating who puts what kinds of stuff away and who unpacks bags for us to put the stuff away.
4. not let her get lost in the shuffle of our BUSY life Let's face it. With homeschooling and having 4 kids, me in college full time, and the various other things I do outside of typical housework and cooking, it can be hard to remember that the preschoolers are there at times. I regularly forget that my preschoolers need to have time focused on them too. It takes extra effort for me to remember this, and I use many different things to do this. I buy curriculum as soon as they start asking and I can afford it, giving me something to do with my preschooler. I have many books that I, my husband, or the oldest girls can read to a preschooler or toddler, and tomorrow I'll have All About Reading pre-level 1 for Jojo to do with me. She and I will take the time to do a bit of creative sewing to make a tote bag and matching apron for her, as well as make a puppet to go with it since I bought the basic package instead of the deluxe. At some point this week Sonlight will ship the handwriting books I got, one of which is for Jojo along with a math workbook that I have coming from them as well. I will use these materials as a way to remember to spend time daily with her as well as her sisters.
For us, the preschool and K years are the foundational years in our homeschool. These are the years that we have the most impact on the future of our little learners. What we do now to encourage or discourage them will shape the way they live and learn for the rest of their lives. Our biggest goals are to have the foundations they need for learning, living, respecting others, and loving God. If these foundations are laid effectively now, then later when they are learning the important academic foundation skills of basic math, effective reading, and the ability to write clearly and purposefully those skills will be easier for them and they will be more motivated (hopefully!) to work on it when they do not understand.
Learning does not stop just because one graduates from high school or college, or when they finish their studying for school each day. To live without learning is to die intellectually. My goal for these early years that all my girls are in with their schooling is to build the foundation they will need to not just learn effectively, but to WANT to learn constantly in their lives.
In our family, its not what the children learn so much as it is the journey they take to learning the material. We call ourselves eclectic unschoolers, which is a bit of an oxymoron. See, an eclectic homeschooler uses a variety of curricula to tailor the schooling as much as possible to their child's individual needs, taking current interests into account and changing up what doesn't work as needed. An unschooler has faith that a child will learn what they need to as they need and want to, and they provide incredibly rich learning environments and get their children involved in activities such as having a garden, taking care of pets, cooking, pursuing an area of the arts or athletics (or both!), and just about anything else you can think of. We are the best of both worlds. I use a variety of curricula as desired/needed for different subjects, particularly reading, writing, and math. Then I have curriculum for history and science, but we use it more exploratory. We may spent a year studying the same time period that is assigned to just 6-8 weeks in our history program, doing a lesson when they want to from the program or watching documentaries that go with the subject, finding information online, doing crafts and projects to replicate (sort of!) different things in our topic. Right now we're in Mesopotamia still, and the kids are waiting for me to feel the weather is good enough for us to go outside to try making mud bricks to build a small wall with. Yet, we don't pressure the kids. I suggest to them that they do some math or reading dailybut if they don't it is ok because I know that when they do, they will do multiple pages at a time and be more receptive to the work. I don't stress, and we have about as rich a learning environment as I can think of to do in our home with my physical limitations.
So, how does this apply to preschoolers? Well, my little Jojo, at the sweet age of 3 1/2 years old, is a preschooler now. She asked for some schoolwork like her big sisters do, I got her a few things to do gently with her. But I also thought about what my real goals with her are. I've never actually set goals for my preschoolers, as they have all be more than ready for K material when it comes time to start their K year at home. I had to really stop and think about what it is that I set out to do with my preschoolers, and here is what I came up with.
1. love learning Now, this sounds a bit odd to many, especially if you have children who go to public school. Those kids tend to HATE school by the time they hit 3rd or 4th grade, so loving to learn would be a foreign concept to some of these parents. However, this is one of my biggest goals for this age. Since we learn in a more organic manner, providing the tools for the girls to learn while not forcing them at the same time, it is vital that our girls be interested in learning more about things and know how to go about learning about what they are interested in. The preschooler's focus for this particular skill is to develop a love for learning about things. We do this by trying to always take the time to answer when one asks "why?" or "how?" or any question like that.
2. get down and dirty with life We do a lot of hands-on stuff. A LOT. Like I mentioned earlier, we are waiting on the weather to get just right for us to make mud bricks. We also are planning on building raised garden boxes this year and attempting to grow some food to take a little strain off our grocery budget. We don't have any pets due to Kimi having too many allergies to allow that, but we go to the Columbus Zoo regularly and they have a petting zoo for the kids, and the aquarium has a spot where you can get in line and wash your hands first to touch some of the sea life they have there (starfish, anemone, stuff like that). You can pet some reptiles there too sometimes, and we can ALWAYS see the animals. Last year, the girls couldn't get enough of the elephants (particularly the baby elephant). We cook with the kids. Just last week Missa made a lasagna with my help, she loves cooking and is pretty good at it for a kid her age.
3. develop a desire to be a part of our team Working together as a family is necessary in some parts of our life. With 6 people, that can make for a lot of messes. However, it also means that there are 12 hands to help pick up those messes, making the work just that much lighter for me. It also means that yard work is done faster, in theory. I have the ability to have the girls work in pairs to do different tasks, and if the job is too difficult for the little ones to help the oldest two take turns working with me while the one not working with me keeps her little sisters entertained. A preschooler can help water a garden, put the pulled weeds into a trash can, and pick up sticks. The extra 4 bodies means that grocery shopping can be done easier. The little ones help with getting things from the bottom shelves to put in the cart, and the oldest girls can push a shopping cart if I need more than one cart. If I go to Aldi, I can easily fill 3 or 4 shopping carts with food so having them able to push a cart really helps a lot. They all help bring in and put away groceries, with me standing at the van passing out bags they can carry until the last ones are ready to go in and then delegating who puts what kinds of stuff away and who unpacks bags for us to put the stuff away.
4. not let her get lost in the shuffle of our BUSY life Let's face it. With homeschooling and having 4 kids, me in college full time, and the various other things I do outside of typical housework and cooking, it can be hard to remember that the preschoolers are there at times. I regularly forget that my preschoolers need to have time focused on them too. It takes extra effort for me to remember this, and I use many different things to do this. I buy curriculum as soon as they start asking and I can afford it, giving me something to do with my preschooler. I have many books that I, my husband, or the oldest girls can read to a preschooler or toddler, and tomorrow I'll have All About Reading pre-level 1 for Jojo to do with me. She and I will take the time to do a bit of creative sewing to make a tote bag and matching apron for her, as well as make a puppet to go with it since I bought the basic package instead of the deluxe. At some point this week Sonlight will ship the handwriting books I got, one of which is for Jojo along with a math workbook that I have coming from them as well. I will use these materials as a way to remember to spend time daily with her as well as her sisters.
For us, the preschool and K years are the foundational years in our homeschool. These are the years that we have the most impact on the future of our little learners. What we do now to encourage or discourage them will shape the way they live and learn for the rest of their lives. Our biggest goals are to have the foundations they need for learning, living, respecting others, and loving God. If these foundations are laid effectively now, then later when they are learning the important academic foundation skills of basic math, effective reading, and the ability to write clearly and purposefully those skills will be easier for them and they will be more motivated (hopefully!) to work on it when they do not understand.
Learning does not stop just because one graduates from high school or college, or when they finish their studying for school each day. To live without learning is to die intellectually. My goal for these early years that all my girls are in with their schooling is to build the foundation they will need to not just learn effectively, but to WANT to learn constantly in their lives.
Friday, April 22, 2011
portfolio review- CHECK!
Ahhhh, spring. Grass is growing, flowering trees are in bloom (my willow out front is BEAUTIFUL right now), and there are lots of puddles for splashing in when mommy's not looking. Yes, it is a lovely time of year, and when we usually are at our most productive in homeschool.
Spring also marks the time when most homeschoolers are usually finishing up their stuff and getting their reporting options done. Here in Ohio, we are blessed to have a couple choices for reporting. One option is to do a standardized test and submit the scores. The other is to have a review done by a teacher certified to teach in the state. We chose the review this year, after much discussion and prayer on the matter.
This was my first official portfolio review. I had no clue what to expect, and was pretty sure I'd not get our letters to send the school district. After all, I'd been diagnosed with mono the first day we were out on our own homeschooling, away from OHVA, and then we'd been plagued by various illness and injuries since my recovery from mono in January (because I just won't stay in bed like the doctor says to, nope I take my kids trick or treating all over a small town a half hour from my home a week after diagnosis lol). We'd had a rough time finding curriculum that fits our needs and everyone's style of teaching/learning, just now settling into a bit of a groove this past few weeks with things. I think it is safe to say I was just *slightly* anxious about this review.
Thankfully, we had opted to make the 1 hour drive from my home to Grove City to see Dr. Holinga at The Reading Doctor. She was a homeschooling mom and understands the more non-traditional methods that sometimes happen as life gets in the way of textbook learning. We had a great time with her, and it was just so fun to get out and on the road. I had forgotten how much I love to drive, and the girls seemed to enjoy our road trip as well once we had all gotten bathed, dressed, and in the van. I had all our stuff that I could think of to bring for the review, we had math books (both the ones we started with in October and the current program we do now), journals, and samples of the history stuff we're doing (gotta love the queen of supplementing, I had their History Pockets and the current lapbooks to show her) along with a book for each girl so she could informally assess their reading. Missa rocked it with her Bible, and Liddy giggled her way through Green Eggs And Ham. Goofy child....... and we now have 2 pretty yellow sheets of paper for me to send with my notification that says they have completed a year of schoolwork at their levels and pretty much to back off me for a year. She was the PERFECT choice for us this year for review, and I plan to go back every year for review with her as long as I refuse to use standardized tests.
So now let's get rocking with our homeschool, its kind of funny to say that, since we did a year-end assessment at what would be closer to the start of our school years. We have decided it would be better for our family to take winters off the full courseload and do just a minimum of work, and then hump it through the spring, summer, and fall. I don't do as well mentally in winter, and we have so many illnesses that plague us during that time that it really is more practical for us to do it this way. As long as they make progress though, how cares how we do the school year right?
Spring also marks the time when most homeschoolers are usually finishing up their stuff and getting their reporting options done. Here in Ohio, we are blessed to have a couple choices for reporting. One option is to do a standardized test and submit the scores. The other is to have a review done by a teacher certified to teach in the state. We chose the review this year, after much discussion and prayer on the matter.
This was my first official portfolio review. I had no clue what to expect, and was pretty sure I'd not get our letters to send the school district. After all, I'd been diagnosed with mono the first day we were out on our own homeschooling, away from OHVA, and then we'd been plagued by various illness and injuries since my recovery from mono in January (because I just won't stay in bed like the doctor says to, nope I take my kids trick or treating all over a small town a half hour from my home a week after diagnosis lol). We'd had a rough time finding curriculum that fits our needs and everyone's style of teaching/learning, just now settling into a bit of a groove this past few weeks with things. I think it is safe to say I was just *slightly* anxious about this review.
Thankfully, we had opted to make the 1 hour drive from my home to Grove City to see Dr. Holinga at The Reading Doctor. She was a homeschooling mom and understands the more non-traditional methods that sometimes happen as life gets in the way of textbook learning. We had a great time with her, and it was just so fun to get out and on the road. I had forgotten how much I love to drive, and the girls seemed to enjoy our road trip as well once we had all gotten bathed, dressed, and in the van. I had all our stuff that I could think of to bring for the review, we had math books (both the ones we started with in October and the current program we do now), journals, and samples of the history stuff we're doing (gotta love the queen of supplementing, I had their History Pockets and the current lapbooks to show her) along with a book for each girl so she could informally assess their reading. Missa rocked it with her Bible, and Liddy giggled her way through Green Eggs And Ham. Goofy child....... and we now have 2 pretty yellow sheets of paper for me to send with my notification that says they have completed a year of schoolwork at their levels and pretty much to back off me for a year. She was the PERFECT choice for us this year for review, and I plan to go back every year for review with her as long as I refuse to use standardized tests.
So now let's get rocking with our homeschool, its kind of funny to say that, since we did a year-end assessment at what would be closer to the start of our school years. We have decided it would be better for our family to take winters off the full courseload and do just a minimum of work, and then hump it through the spring, summer, and fall. I don't do as well mentally in winter, and we have so many illnesses that plague us during that time that it really is more practical for us to do it this way. As long as they make progress though, how cares how we do the school year right?
Monday, April 18, 2011
preschool plans
As you may or may not know, we don't do much normally for preschool here. We are big believers in the better late than early philosophy, and take a completely child-led approach for any child not under our state compulsory education laws. If I don't have to send in notification with that child's name on it, I don't force learning. That said, I do have a preschooler working almost daily in math, reading, and handwriting lessons because she has requested schoolbooks to be like her big sisters.
This upcoming fall, that child will her a K'er still not under compulsory attendance. She will continue her learning as she is doing now with Math-U-See (I have Alpha waiting for her currently), Handwriting Without Tears, and Sonlight readers at her pace and ability. It is her little sister that I am choosing to write about today.
Jojo is a typical 3 year old child. She likes to make messes, and sometimes these messes can take HOURS to clean up. Her beach in my kitchen is one of those messes, she dumped my sugar and flour to make the sand on my wood floor then used the kitchen sprayer to make the ocean. It took her about 3 minutes to do something that took me 4 hours to clean up sufficiently to not leave a sticky residue on the floor (as if anyone would notice my floor being sticky in there, you know what I mean if you've ever been in my kitchen LOL). She flushes entire rolls of toilet paper at one time, has plugged my bathtub with a washcloth, drawn on every wall and door in my home, writes on windows. Yes, she is 3 1/2 and she is VERY good at it.
SO, imagine my surprise when I was putting away the school supplies one day last week and she was helping me sweetly. Very carefully she handed me books to go on the shelf, and when I was marking off the boxes in my Sonlight core guides she fetched me a pencil. She wanted something.......
So I dared to ask her what it was she was wanting. I was not prepared for her answer.
"I want mine own Jojo spelling box and math book mommy, just like mine sisters."
Now, if you know anything at all from reading this, you know that we have been using Math-U-See for the older girls (Liddy, my 1st grader, is switching effective TODAY from Horizons math into Alpha with her older sister) and that Missa, my 2nd grader, does All About Spelling. She wants to do seat work just like the big sisters do.
OK, fine you say. Just hop online to the dozen freebie sites I know and grab worksheets for her, I hear you saying. Well, she's been doing those freebies for over a year now, and is becoming less satisfied with the work. I was anticipating that sometime NEXT school year she would have this request, so I didn't budget in to shop for her when we were at the homeschool convention. Now I'm in a bit of a pickle, aren't I?
So what did I do? First, I checked out blogs and chat forums that I frequent to read some stuff and get a few ideas on what to do with her. We're already lapbooking our way through Sonlight core P3/4, so she'll just move up to P4/5 with Kimi this fall. That takes care of social studies and read aloud time. Science is covered with our choice to do Real Science 4 Kids pre-level 1 with all the girls, she'll just join in on that one easy as can be. She's quite happy with that stuff in fact, she likes being included. But now, she also wants her own math and such.
Well, I personally think she's too young for Missa's spelling program. She'll be barely 4 when we do the official changing of the grades here in September. So I need to come up with something to substitute for the spelling. No problem, they also have a reading program called- you guessed it!- All About Reading! We'll buy that to give her a program of her own in that area. Math, well I'm just going to get the child a copy of the Primer level in our program, and let her go at it as slowly as she wants. She doesn't need to do a whole lesson daily like her big sisters sometimes do.
Crud LOL And here I was hoping for another year before she started asking me for real school books.
This upcoming fall, that child will her a K'er still not under compulsory attendance. She will continue her learning as she is doing now with Math-U-See (I have Alpha waiting for her currently), Handwriting Without Tears, and Sonlight readers at her pace and ability. It is her little sister that I am choosing to write about today.
Jojo is a typical 3 year old child. She likes to make messes, and sometimes these messes can take HOURS to clean up. Her beach in my kitchen is one of those messes, she dumped my sugar and flour to make the sand on my wood floor then used the kitchen sprayer to make the ocean. It took her about 3 minutes to do something that took me 4 hours to clean up sufficiently to not leave a sticky residue on the floor (as if anyone would notice my floor being sticky in there, you know what I mean if you've ever been in my kitchen LOL). She flushes entire rolls of toilet paper at one time, has plugged my bathtub with a washcloth, drawn on every wall and door in my home, writes on windows. Yes, she is 3 1/2 and she is VERY good at it.
SO, imagine my surprise when I was putting away the school supplies one day last week and she was helping me sweetly. Very carefully she handed me books to go on the shelf, and when I was marking off the boxes in my Sonlight core guides she fetched me a pencil. She wanted something.......
So I dared to ask her what it was she was wanting. I was not prepared for her answer.
"I want mine own Jojo spelling box and math book mommy, just like mine sisters."
Now, if you know anything at all from reading this, you know that we have been using Math-U-See for the older girls (Liddy, my 1st grader, is switching effective TODAY from Horizons math into Alpha with her older sister) and that Missa, my 2nd grader, does All About Spelling. She wants to do seat work just like the big sisters do.
OK, fine you say. Just hop online to the dozen freebie sites I know and grab worksheets for her, I hear you saying. Well, she's been doing those freebies for over a year now, and is becoming less satisfied with the work. I was anticipating that sometime NEXT school year she would have this request, so I didn't budget in to shop for her when we were at the homeschool convention. Now I'm in a bit of a pickle, aren't I?
So what did I do? First, I checked out blogs and chat forums that I frequent to read some stuff and get a few ideas on what to do with her. We're already lapbooking our way through Sonlight core P3/4, so she'll just move up to P4/5 with Kimi this fall. That takes care of social studies and read aloud time. Science is covered with our choice to do Real Science 4 Kids pre-level 1 with all the girls, she'll just join in on that one easy as can be. She's quite happy with that stuff in fact, she likes being included. But now, she also wants her own math and such.
Well, I personally think she's too young for Missa's spelling program. She'll be barely 4 when we do the official changing of the grades here in September. So I need to come up with something to substitute for the spelling. No problem, they also have a reading program called- you guessed it!- All About Reading! We'll buy that to give her a program of her own in that area. Math, well I'm just going to get the child a copy of the Primer level in our program, and let her go at it as slowly as she wants. She doesn't need to do a whole lesson daily like her big sisters sometimes do.
Crud LOL And here I was hoping for another year before she started asking me for real school books.
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