Spoony Spoonerton

Kinda old . . . but it makes me laugh everytime I see it!

Dare I Say It's Working?

We are finishing up our first year of (kindergarten) homeschool. It has been an absolute blast and we have definitely found our groove. We had a bit of a bumpy start with our phonics program. I thumbed through & selected Horizons (K) curriculum. No one told me that Horizons is crazy advanced (well, by just about one year, but that's a lot to a 5yo learning to read!) until two months into the drudgery.

So, I held my breath & totally chucked the Horizons program & picked up Bob Jones. We were doing BJU math already & I had many people recommend BJU to me for phonics. We started at the beginning to get a good, fresh start. Emelye loved it! There are phonics characters, a rabbit & his friends who "teach" the child, etc. No, this isn't a multimedia/ DVD curriculum. There are just some characters who are present during certain times in the lesson. (For example, HP drew Hopper the Frog for us on an index card. Emelye has Hopper hop from sight word --lily pad-- to sight word while she reads them.)

Emelye has thoroughly enjoyed this curriculum. Recently, though, my jaw started to drop b/c she actually has started reading things that I don't ask her to. The other day, she got a box off the counter & excitedly brought it to me, pointing & saying, "Mommy -- fat free!" "Yes, that's right, sweetie! That's my big reader." Today, she read my printed t-shirt while we were working on math.

But probably the biggest jaw-dropping moment happened this morning. Auntie Jenn gave us a huge box of early childhood/ elem ed stuff that she no longer needs since she doesn't work with kids in speech therapy anymore. One item included was a set of reading textbooks presumably for kindergarten/1st graders. While I was sleepily brewing my coffee, I hear, "Who made this mess?" It was Emelye reading from one of the textbooks. "That's awesome," I thought, smiled, and went back to my coffee.

She continued to read throughout the day, with no prompt from me, but some encouragement as to her ability to read. She has now read about 3/4 of that 150-page textbook. Now, mind you, there's at max 5 sentences on a page & she stumbles on some words (we haven't gotten to "r" influenced vowels yet), but on the whole she is reading. And reading well if I do say so. And reading because she wants to (which is important to me).

On the days that it seems like we don't get anything done, I do cherish these ah-ha moments of when I see my children actively learning & exploring because they want to. Good day.

One Blah Monday

Have you ever had one of those days where you felt liked you worked tirelessly the whole day through and then wondered what in the world you accomplished when you reach the end of that day?

That was my Monday, April 5. I started my day with a relatively short, but task-filled, list. Some basic things topped it. Laundry, clean the kitchen, grocery shopping. And some not-so-common things (for me anyway). Mowing the lawn, switching out toys, cleaning OUR room.

I started with our room. It had been since Christmas since I had attempted to tackle the clutter that seems to grow if left unchecked. And I paid for not having addressed such clutter before today. I was in our room for the whole morning, minus breakfast time & getting dressed/ready time. I looked up & saw it was 10 after noon. Whoops. And it wasn't even done. . . . sigh . . .

So I carouse the young'ens into the kitchen for some left-over lunch followed by quiet time for all. (This is a cherished time of day -- for me anyway.) Addie fought tooth & nail for an hour. "Addie, get in the bed." "Addie, if you get out of the bed again, you will not get any tv time today." "Addie, if you get out of the bed again, Mommy is going to take your paci." After an hour of this, I told her quiet time was over. She bounded out of her room, full of energy.

On to some yard work. The push mower needed oil & we didn't have any. (Did I mention this was to be the first mow of the year?) The riding mower's battery had died over the winter. So, all I could do was some trim work with the electric weed eater.

About 10 minutes into it, Little Miss No-Nap falls into her hold-me-I'm-so-tired phase. I can't take this. Um . . . Oh! I have a check I need to put in at the bank. And . . . to get the kids excited . . . we'll stop by Sonic on the way. (Yeah, it was for the kids.)

Sweet tea. Sprite. Cherry limeade. "Thank you Mrs. Allisonkiwi." And, as I suspected . . . Addie has fallen asleep. We drive home. The older two are sent to their power wheels. I open every available opening on the van so Addie won't get too hot, cuz I ain't movin' her! That girl needs her sleep. I get the trimming done in the front. I can't go to the backyard because I would be out of eyesight of Addie.

I can't go inside. What to do? What to do? Ah . . . transplanting daffodils. Yes. Not on the list, but that's about all I can do now.

Doing this takes 2 hours. Jonathan gets home. Yes, honey, I need you to get some pizza because I haven't cooked.

Pizza for everyone. Ironing. Finish cleaning our room. Oh, and there's that online class I need to work on . . .

Tomorrow WILL BE better! Maybe I will only tackle one thing on my list for tomorrow.

Egg Dyeing -- not for the faint of heart

I have romantic notions of various childhood experiences. Taking care of some super cute baby ducks and/or geese, making 'recipes' of sand and mud in the backyard, and reading my Pocahontas book during a July rainstorm with the windows open.

I want to pass on these experiences to my own children. And as I've done so with other experiences, I all too quickly realize that I am remembering the experience from MY (child) perspective. I don't ever recall cleaning off the back porch duck poop (though I remember my mom doing it every morning as I left for school). I don't recall what happened to those sandy mud pies, but I know I never had to wash my clothes at such a young age (though I did grumble a lot when I had to help put clothes away with my mom). And I know I never even thought about wiping those window sills after a rainstorm.

Another such romantic notion I have is dyeing Easter eggs. Oh, it was a magical time! My mom would mix up a lovely concoction of food dye, vinegar, & water in her cute little blue-flowered tea cups. She would carefully drop the hard boiled eggs in her little tea cup, wait, raise it back up & leave it to dry. In as little as 30 minutes I had everything I needed to have one awesome egg hunt.

So, the time had come to pass on this tradition of dyeing eggs with my children. And, as an added bonus, one of my good friends brought her daughter, Scamp, over. I did several things wonderfully and some not so wonderfully.

Wonderful decisions:
1. Eggs were boiled ahead of time. (How boring is THAT to a 5yo or pre-schooler?!)
2. Purchasing enough eggs for each child to have a dozen.
3. Providing some simply irresistible sparkly glitter & tacky glue for added decoration. (Oh, and markers for the artsy Addie.)
4. EVERYTHING was moved outside. The cups filled with dye, all eggs, glitter especially, and some towels for drying.

Not-so-wonderful decisions:
1. Dyeing the eggs as part of the decorating process. Each egg needs a good 5-minute soak. So, dyeing 48 eggs with 8 cups of dye took, um, some time. And who --really -- wants to sit around on the front porch waiting for eggs to soak in some dye when it is a sunny, comfortable 70 degrees & power wheels that have been hibernating in the garage for the past 4 months?!? Oh, AND a friend comes over?!?!
2. Putting all of the dyeing & decorating necessities at foot-level on the porch. (Somehow we didn't have any spills though.)
3. Having all 4 children decorate the eggs together. Addie poured out two tubes of glitter while I was helping Scamp. There were a few scuffles over who got THAT purple egg.
4. Allowing them to peel & throw out an egg that had been unintentionally cracked. Suddenly 3 more eggs had cracks (that I hadn't noticed before) in them & "needed" to be peeled & effectively destroyed. I had to change my position on the matter at that point.

All-in-all we had a great time. I'm not sure how -- or if-- they'll remember it. And if they do remember it, I hope they remember it as a fun, creative time with mom (or a friend's mom) who let them make a mess (albeit outside).

Birthday girl!

My baby turned 2 last week. Over the past 9 months or so she has developed an adoration for Minnie Mouse. Since grandparents were apprised of this information, little miss had an entire Minnie Mouse night!

As always, I made the birthday cake. I used a buttercream icing & should have used shortening instead of butter since the slope was so steep. I also didn't have much luck in trying to mix colors.


She had a blast all the same!

Pumpkin Days

Fall is my favorite time of year. The air is crisp; the colors are beautiful. Also, you just can't beat pumpkin bread-type treats.

My mom always makes a pumpkin roll around this time of year. It's a delicious concoction of pumpkin bread-like tastiness and cream cheese/ confectioners sugar goodness all rolled up. My mom makes two -- one for my dad & one for the rest of us. For the non-dad one, she makes half of it without the lumpy, malodorous, & insipid pecans. (Yes, I would be one of the ones who avoids the nuts.) How awesome is that?

Thank you, mother, for catering to our differing pumpkin-roll tastes! I can't wait until Thanksgiving!!

If I Had a Super Power

No second thoughts. Teleporting. It's a no-brainer. It's the queen of superpowers. There's so many times when I'm trying to get from one side of town to the other and I often think, "If only I could teleport!" (I truly do think that at least once a week.) I don't necessarily mind the traffic. The boro doesn't have THAT much traffic, but about 50% of the time I'm late for something. Most of the time I'm trying to get to the Y for Zumba or weight-lifting classes, and I waited until the .very. .last. .minute. to wake up someone from a nap.

And whoever it is is one grumpy pot.

It's about a 15-20 minute drive to the Y from my house. I don't like driving with some grumpy pot(s) in the back seat.

Another time teleporting would come in handy would be for school. The kids & I would have school EVERY day in Hawaii. How awesome would that be? Learn about Africa? Well, let's just go on a safari this afternoon after Addie's nap. OK, kids, just one more time through Splash Mountain (oh, yes, teleporting to the beginning of lines and even avoiding park admission fees).

HP & I have been kicking around different places to go for our 10y anniversary coming up. We could go to Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Grand Cayman, AND Vegas. Not only would we save money on traveling TO the destination, but we could sleep in our own bed at night. No bags to (un)pack.

Yes, if I had a superpower, I would choose Teleporting. Just think of the wondrous possibilities.