"WARNING TMI" or "Merit Badge in Order for Mom" or "Say YES, it's good"

Every now and again I am hit with the conviction that we - as parents - aught to have merit badges like the scouts do.  One merit badge being for every time you successfully potty trained a kid.

And now - a merit badge for when you said "YES" to something for the benefit of the kid and you had all reason and logic would dictate, and the planets were alined to say NO.

A binge in selfishness was *certainly* in order and due.

I am at a point of said selfishness - my moon is aligned such that I AM THE CENTER . . . so motivated by pain since it's my first day of . . . *cough* "aunt flow's" visit and she always comes with such a wallop of pain.

My spine and legs are trying to pull away from my body and to walk independently of me, and my back keeps me doubled over in submission . . . . so I go for the big stuff - the vicodin, and if I don't fall asleep soon, I usually start to get sick to my stomach.

But, it seems that at this moment where every.single.thing. is getting on my LAST nerve, my 7yr old wants to do LEAPS AND BOUNDS in learning and - inspired by finding his dad's "diary" from when his dad was his age - now my boy wants to write in a notebook too.

This is leaps and bounds because up to this point he has had no interest and - dare I say - an aversion - to writing.  Even to write his name - especially his LAST name, which is a mouthful, I grant you - would cause tears and fits; and all this time, every time, I asked him to try to read something he'd says "I can't" . .

Now -really, does it have to be right now*eye roll*! He comes in with a note book and draws pictures and is attempting to sound out a story.

And I try to sneak away and go to bed early "Mommy doesn't feel good" . .

But he finds me in the bathroom - and is on the BATHROOM FLOOR asking me about this word, that  word, can I help him . .

"Yes," I say thinking GET OUT!  GIVE ME SOME PRIVACY!  GO BUG YOUR DAD! LETS DO THIS LATER! LETS NOT DO THIS AT ALL!

Nevertheless, I know if I drop this ball now- that's it - I'm not going to get this chance later, and I can't call up his enthusiasm when it suites me, and honestly, I LOVE what I'm seeing happening before me . . . so Yes it is.

I praise his work so far, tell him I'm proud of what he is doing, but that it's really hard for me to read his writing without spaces. And then actually tell him - nicely- that mommy needs her privacy here and I'd meet him in my bed if he wanted to continue.

In bed we continue to talk back and forth and he continues to write and draw.

I suppress the desire to nit pick EVERY mistake, a "d" flipped backwards, the switch from lower case to upper case letters and the total lack of a period . . . and just put in little helps along the way 'cause I don't want this beautiful thing to stop.

And the vicodin is kicking in, and I'm now throbbing at a dull ache . . .

and my boy has gone from this:

It says "A plane. A plane flies. And I am in the plane."

To this!

And it is actually a complete story -  which he read back to me (picking my chin off the floor).   He has sworn me to secrecy, and these are the only excerpts that he has OK'd for public viewing . . the rest is for Grandma's eyes only.


 And he is still writing -

I have ask for NOTHING of this, kinda been begging for it to stop, really.
So.  I think I need to add a SAY YES badge to my sash - or some such ceremony - this one was EFFORT!

But I'm so glad I did.

Record keeping . . .

So - here I attempt again to note down the learning we do without even trying; last night we watched "How Stuff Works" about Wheat, Corn, Coffee and Salt.

And Andrew is now on Minecraft . . . whole lot of subtle learning there . . .

And just now this morning - Sarah- my dyslexic picked up and is reading "Lift and Separate" Baby Blues book #5

Finally on our way to the local mill pond we listened to "Stink-Solar System Superhero" which surprisingly was a fun story around the planets and the demoted-to-dwarf-planet the planet previously known as Pluto and the mnemonic  "My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas." for the planets - Mars, Venus, Earth, Mercury . . . etc.  So we get home and watch on Netflix "The Planets" and that was the end of the day! 

*blow* cough cough . . . .

Getting all that dust off this blog.

There - that's better.

I know it's summer, but when does learning stop?

We went camping these few days and my girl brought a book she is reading.  A Book. She. Is. READING!  It's still a very "simple" book to read, but while we were camping she curled up in the hammock and went at it.  (heart glowing)

Last month, June, she finished reading the big book of Dick and Jane.  For a reward we are going to Barns & Noble so she can pick out a *NEW* book.  Yay!

Love how she's doing - seeing how she struggles so with reading.  :-)

Red Ridding Hood

Andrew tells the story with the help of his little brother.

Ever "making"

Today's agenda, SURF SCHOOL!

Both Andrew and Sarah got up on their boards and Andrew even tried to jump and turn mid ride . . . He's so adventurous!

On the way to surf school  Sarah was *singing* her multiplications . . . 12's, 3's, 7's . . she knows them all!  I can not recommend Multiplication by Heart enough!

Then, Andrew is starting to leave me notes . . . "Luv mom" !  He talked about writing it "Luf mom" so we talked about the difference in the sound of "v" and "f" . . . I'm happy he's writing.

But more than that . . he *makes* things all the time.  Sewing, building, painting, fixing, sculpting and drawings . .  . Just now he quit his game on PBS.com to go and draw his dad.  He pulled down the "How to Draw Everything" book and opened it up and is figuring out how to draw his dad.

Boy, is there anything he won't -CREATE- with?

So, what did you do in class today?

Sarah took these pictures.  So we don't see her, but she did participate.  Participate in helping repair dad's car.  She didn't build a city with blocks but she did do archery under dad's supervision.  She worked on a  Math workbook, but only finish half a page.  She wrote me several notes.  And she read a bit from Dick and Jane. 

Also not pictured here is a hike down into the valley where Sarah identified which way the horse was walking by it's tracts.

And Andrew got a bullseye from this distance!

Good times. :-)

Out of the Blue

Well, last night was the BIG BLACK OUT of southern San Diego, Arizona, and parts of Orange County and Baja California Mexico.  It affected us, and what a nice opportunity to TALK about electricity, and all that it affects.

Yesterday I forgot to mention the letter Sarah made out to her pen-pal.  Her pen-pal just lost her grandmother and Andrew was so moved by it that he dictated a letter of condolences for Sarah's pen-pal.  I need to remember to copy these letters before they go out.

Then tonight, Sarah pulled out my sewing basket (blowing off some dust) and wanted to work on embroidery/cross stitching.  And then so did Andrew.  They spent about an hour working on their projects.

 And Andrew has been into making soldiers out of anything/everything . . here are some play clay soldiers he made and armed.

Then Andrew made armies out of paper and waged war all over my living room, and when a "bomb" went off, he methodically tore off heads, limbs, etc to have strewn about. Is this healthy? Hmmm - 

Sarah mentioned she wants to work on her cursive writing.  Maybe tomorrow.

Lets Play Clay all day!

 As I write, my boy is still creating things with the play clay we made.  Andrew made one batch (with supervision)  and he loved measuring things out, mixing and it "cooked" pretty fast.

first attempt at clay play, a cut out snow man

a bowl

Foot prints to some large dinosaur 

I thought this was creative way to make texture on the eggs

The plot thickens - and *maybe* they should get out o'there!

Sarah's tree

Sarah's cave

Andrew's cave

This, he tells me, is Jesus on the cross

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday not a lot happened.  At least in the regard to the kids day.

I went with my hubby to meetings and then we had to take our sick baby boy (ok, he's 3) to the ER because of a cold triggered asthma attack.

When I asked my mother, a.k.a. the babysitter, what if any learning was done she said  - well no, since 3yr old was so sick they just mostly watched cartoons.  So whatever Dora the Explorer was teaching yesterday.  And Sarah made scrambled eggs in the microwave and toast for herself.  Home economics?
And Andrew spent hours using wooden blocks to create a town. Using cars to drive around.  We didn't get a picture and this morning - by the time my mom tells me about it -it looks like it was hit by Hurricane Irene.

Today we are off and running.  Sarah has been watching videos and talking about orangutan mothers in captivity and them learning to be mothers.  Followed by Anaconda Hunters video and talked about poisonous vs non poisonous boas and snakes.  She likes to study snakes.  She also left me this note:

It's actually an improvement to her spelling and sentence structure.  Her improvements are that the first word is capitalized in the sentence, all the correct letters are in "love" and *almost* in the right order - before it was spelled "lavo" or some such combination.  And "mom" is spelled right and not capitalized - before it was "Mooomy" or something similar.  This is *IMPROVEMENT!*

And then she worked on a "to do" list - she drew boxes and numbered them, then drew the "to do"s for her day.  Let's see what she if we can figure it out . .  .

1. lift weights  sell magazines
2. wash car
3. surgery on teddy bear sell toys
4. puppet show
5. walk the dogs (for money)
6. wash windows
7. learn something - teach people English
8. baby sit
9. ?

So - after asking Sarah she tells me this is her list of ways to earn money!  Good Job!  

Anyone want their dog walked?

Andrew, meanwhile is making a knight. Dressing his knight up with aluminum foil.

Every good Knight needs a well armored steed!

   

Making final adjustments to the helmet, and VOIALA! 

 Any damsels need rescuing?

Finally we had a great time in PE and aquatic sports playing in the kiddy pool! 

It's surprising even me.

Well I was hoping to do some "exploding" science today like they did here, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow.  Today we worked on their chore pockets.  Each kid has 2 magnetic pocket, one is labeled "TO DO" and the other is labeled "Done"

The idea being that as the tasks got done the task cards (colored 3x5's) would move from one pocket to another.  I got the idea from Jenny.  

I wrote out some tasks (wash dishes, make your bed, etc) I explained to the kids what they were and what they would be for, and I was surprised to find that before I was done explaining Sarah was reading what was written on the cards.  

Good!  

  

 Next step they were to draw or search cut and paste pictures that for them would show the task.

 Sarah is showing her "wash dishes"

Andrew working on his task card.

I'm rather surprised by their reading that they are doing here and there.  Both spent time on Secretbuilders.com today and Andrew completed a quest completely by himself - which requires reading.  If I ask him to read something he backs down from it saying he "can't" but I see evidence that he sure can when he's not feeling pressured to perform.

Then Dad took the boys out for some consumer math - having Andrew figure out how much money he had and what he could buy with it.

And finally at the end of the day Andrew learned some anatomy playing a game where you had to fix broken ribs.  Sounds fun, eh?

And all the kids either have sniffles or a low grade fever (99-100) or both, and now so do I.  But mine feel more like severe allergies . . anyway - don't know how much will get done tomorrow.

Friday - Math and other stuff

We listened to Multiplication by Heart  a couple of times (about 30min), also Andrew helped me make shortbread cookies and we talked about fractions (1/2, 2/3, etc) and exact measurement.  Not to mention using a recipe and bake times vs thickness of cookies.

Together the kids went to the corner store and bought treats with their money (currency) and came back and we talked about sharing a pack of 6 cookies with 3 people or 2 people and asked plenty of  "if so-and-so ate __  how many did so-and-so eat?"

Hand and eye coordination and logic with several games - of strategy or matching.

And last thing that I noticed is Andrew helping his little brother make a book and start a "comic book" by putting stickers on different pages and drawing details . . .

:-)