The Day My Kids Flew Away

Sometimes my life is so eventful that I just can't wait to write about it...but then life keeps coming and I never get to it.  Although, it is really much closer to the truth to say I simply don't place blogging at a very high priority.  I hope you don't take it personally, but I do put potty training, laundry, and scrubbing showers before sharing my thoughts with all of you....

See, J had those staples put in her head somewhere around two months ago and today I sit here, finally,  writing about the absolutely ridiculous day we all had when we went to the hospital to have them removed. 

I recall it being a blustery Tuesday in which I had a number of errands on my list with the hopefully quick ER visit last.  We accomplished the other errands without incident and headed to the hospital (I would have happily gone to our pediatrician, but then I pay more because the ER kindly includes the removal visit in their nominal fee when you go there, in the first place, to have them installed). 

As I get out of the car I notice that my door closes on its own with quite a bit of gusto.  I make a mental note to carry M, as he does not like wind, and S as she is probably too small to withstand the wind (although she thinks it is great fun).  I proceed around my SUV opening the doors (and trunk-as two children enter and exit there) to let everyone out.  Yes, I do often feel like a flight attendent, in case you were wondering.  I hear some protests about the wind, but very sympathetically point out that the entrance is "right over there" (about 50 yards).

I begin walking toward the doors, shielding my youngest two from the wind when I notice I am alone.  I look around and find Z, carrying a bag of books, has made a beeline for the door with his head down and has severely missed his target and obviously has no idea of his misfortune.  However, that quickly becomes no big deal as over the wind I hear T and J screaming at the top of their lungs.  They are literally being blown across the parking lot. 

Time out: Have you ever watched the Weather Channel during a severe hurricane?  Well, if you are as dorky as Ryan and I and you have then just picture those poor weather reporter people who continue talking while they are nearly horizontal and holding onto a light pole, but much shorter, cuter, and helpless.

This is what I saw except that every two seconds one of the girls would actually fall to the ground and try to get up only to be swept FARTHER away from the door.  Meanwhile, I am completely incapacitated.  I can't set a child down (let's not imagine what would happen to a lighter person), but I don't even have a hand free. I have one child on each hip, one child blindly heading off to who knows where, and two girls nearly rolling across the parking lot.  I quickly decide that I have to get Z to come back, if he can hear me, to sit with M and S in the ER lobby. 

I wait for a brief break in the gusting and holler with all my might to get Z's attention.  It worked!  He looks more than befuddled as to how he ended up where he was, but now heads in the right direction.  I can now focus on the girls who are screaming as they have managed to find solace in a parking lot island and are CLINGING to a poor two year old tree.  However, this island happens to have small rock as its ground cover and they are continuously crawling or falling on this material. Thus, more reason to holler...other than being helpless. 

I attempt to tell them my plan, but it really isn't worth it.  I make a beeline to the door and get through the first set of sliding doors, set down M and S, tell Z to "watch them" and RUN back outside.  I rescue my two girls who are still trying to claw their way across the rocks on all fours, but keep ending up back at their beloved tree.  As we go in I notice that T is particularly upset.  Come to find out her headband blew away.  Deep breath...deal with that in a bit. 

As I walk through the second set of double doors, with all of my children safely in tow, I am now in a very crowded waiting room for the ER.  I feel fifty thoughts a second rushing to my head.

Something like this: This waiting room is full.  We are going to have to wait a long time.  It is almost lunch time.  I can't wait more than an hour.  Wait, they are all staring at us.  Are you serious? They must have just watched us fall all over the parking lot.  Wow, that is fantastic.  Glad my family could be of some entertainment.  Hold on people...really? None of you abled bodied people could have helped me?  Really???  Oh well, I will look straight ahead.  We are all OK.  I will be the composed mom of five and smile. 

I go to the counter and this kind woman looks at me sympathetically.

What? Did they have a running commentary going on in here?

She now informs me, almost sheepishly, that the wait is over two hours long; they have just been very busy today.  "OK, maybe my husband will bring her this evening", I say with a fair amount of resignation.  She kindly offers me the nurse station phone number which we can call later to see if the wait is shorter.

I take my brood through the first set of doors to many fearful protests and tell them to wait on the small bench that is in this small area before actually going outside.

As I run out to my car to pull it up to the doors I realize my keys were gone!!  I climb in the car to empty my purse and it dawns on me that I can hear the engine running.  I had never turned off our car!!!  I take another deep breath and place one child at a time inside the running car.

We all made it home safely. 

And I found the headband!!!

They really must be twins...

Often when I am out with the kids, T and J are assumed by most to be twins.  They are the same height, have the same hair and eye color, and generally look quite a bit alike.  The two of them have developed all sorts of responses to this question/comment (many people don't ask, but simply assume).

Just today, the mom teaching their coop class was introducing them to another mom who was visiting, and said, "And this is T and this is J; good luck keeping them straight!"  And their poor swimming instructor...they have matching swimsuits and both have hot pink goggles.  One can often hear her trying out both names for one girl just to see which gets their attention.

I don't try to encourage this 'twin-like' behavior.  But I don't discourage it either.  I hope they are the best of friends and love each other's company dearly all the years of their lives, but they are two individuals who are really not much alike, underneath, at all. So I do my best to allow them to be however 'twinish' (or not) they desire on any given day.

However, on Monday this idea of occasionally being twins became a bit over the top.  Not to mention dangerous and expensive.

See, there was this post about 13 months ago: Our first trip to the ER.  For the sake of demonstrating just how absurd this is: T and J are almost exactly 13 months apart.

Well, we repeated that incident once again on Monday.  Only this time with J.  Yup, she has four staples in the center back of her head.

She was sitting on a small, low wooden stool using a side table to do her handwriting (she is known for finding odd locations and configurations in which to do most tasks) when she lost her balance and fell back.  It would have been a small bump on the carpet except that a chair had been pushed back and she came back on a corner of the chair leg.  I was in the kitchen (around a corner) making bread when she hollered. 

I will never get over the amount of blood that comes with head injuries.  Dripping all over the floor, down all of her hair, etc. She even had managed to cover a bit of her face with some.  Oh, the amount of ideas one's head suddenly has at a moment like this is rather staggering.  Anyhow, it was a mess, but once I washed her up a bit I saw that it was just like T's and knew we were in for the same treatment.  I also knew I could wait twenty minutes for Ryan to come home and watch the rest of the little ones.

On to the ER J and I went.  The nurse even remembered our family from when we all had come in for T to have her staples taken out.  I suppose there aren't too many groups of six people (only one of those persons being an adult) piling into an ER room with school books and pencils to have staples removed... 

Fortunately for J, the Dr decided to use a topical numbing gel.  T had no anesthetic with hers, but she is a much tougher cookie.  Four staples and a special teddy bear later we were on our way home.

I still can't decide on one thing: Is it simply sad or a blessing from above that we finished paying off our last ER bill (for T's broken finger) this month, just in time to begin another payment plan....

Oh, and did I ever tell you?  T named her bear, which the ER gave her last year, "Staples".  Seriously.

J's bear's name? "Fancy Jane"....don't ask; I don't know...but its things like that which go to show that they really aren't twins.

Homeschool Update-History & some great reads

We are in a season of life that consists primarily of putting one foot in front of the other.  Ryan is working long, stressful hours.  The weather is still cold.  Cabin fever has come and not gone.We have had more than our share of colds, stomach flues, and 'fluky' bugs.  But this time of year is also, 'buckle down and make some serious head-way with school' in our family. 

As I seem to have a tendency to modify curriculum, I have settled on the best way to adapt Heart of Dakota's Bigger Hearts for His Glory for our family. We primarily use the history, language arts, and science reading along with the hymn study and some of the geography and vocabulary.  I have abandoned the Bible study and poetry study.  Instead, we decide as a family what type of Bible study we want to do when we finish one.  This time the kids really wanted to do a simple study on Mark.  I wasn't about to turn that down!  Our last study was using the book, Leading Little Ones to God.  To read more on how much I liked that book, go here.

Our history curriculum has taken us through a biographical study of the American Revolution time period.  Z is an avid reader and particularly likes history.  Seriously, he reads his Bible, a fun book (such as Little House on the Prairie or the Fairchild Family series), and a history book at his rest time.  I finally started a list for him so that he knows what to pull off the shelf (nearly every three days) when he finishes his latest historical biography or nonfiction. 

I acknowledge this is a great problem to have (yes, I know this is not necessarily common and no, I do not expect this to continue through all of my children so please don't feel bad if your kid isn't devouring every history book out there; you are welcome to consider us the weird ones), but it keeps me on my toes looking for age appropriate and 'non-dry' (living) history books.  My primary resource is the Childhood of Famous Americans series.  And when that resource runs dry, I wait until a library day, go to the history section with him, grab a two foot high stack of books covering the time period we are studying and sort through them.  I hand him my 'yes's' and let him pick what he would read from those.

When beginning to plan out this year, last summer, I added some history books to enhance our studies. See, I know that whenever I pull out a good living history book to read for Z and T's history time two things usually happen.  One, I quickly gain a larger audience.  And second, they all complain when I stop.  So, while HOD included some great old living history books I wanted to add a bit of meat for our style.  For this task I browse the catalogs of other homeschool publishers and weed through some reviews of the books on Amazon. 

The best book so far is actually a rather short, more picture book style piece that is included in Beautiful Feet's history curriculum.  A More Perfect Union  by Maestro is an excellent read for younger elementary students learning about American history.  If you want to teach the story of the Constitution and begin a dialogue regarding the basic structure of our government, this is just the book.   The illustrations are very pleasant, the text simple, but the teaching of our founding fathers' endurance is never insignificant.

Other good supplements for American history are Jean Fritz's books.  The kids giggled all throughout Why don't you get a horse, Sam Adams? and they were intrigued by the story of Where was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May?  Understand, these are good for additions to a American history curriculum, particularly in a biographical approach, such as we are doing this year.

Two series which I keep an eye out for at library booksales (they seem to be commonly sold for a quarter or two around here) are the "If you lived..." and "If you grew up..." books by Scholastic.  These are great little paperbacks which transport the reader back to being a child in a particular time period.  There are illustrations on nearly all of the pages accompanying text that flows in a question and answer format.  Such as, "What did boys and girls where during the time of....?".  I find these books great for when we are beginning to study a new time period or person (there are books such as, If you grew up with Abraham Lincoln).

So, how in the world do I afford all of these books?  First, I talked a lot about that here.  Second, I have a new wonderful resource.  Thriftbooks.  You can find a ton of books for 3.99 with no additional shipping.  And if you find multiple books coming from the same warehouse then you save .50 on each of those additional books!  And...search for coupon codes.  I ordered once in Jan and once in February and both times found that they had active coupons going.  One was for a free book and one was for 10% off the whole order. This can make Charlotte Mason schooling seriously affordable!  And of course, the library.  I only buy books that I intend to use for all five children or I hope they would read many times for enjoyment.

That is our history update, folks.  Literature, art and music to come.  Just don't hold your breath.  I only wrote this post over three days!

How our children do work

I have taken an intentional break from blogging.  The holidays were filled with some serious game playing, a Kutless Christmas concert where Ryan and I volunteered, baking, a trip to see the Nutcracker, and simple days.  It was awesome!  Ryan took about a week and a half off and we all really just enjoyed life together.

And then we rang in the new year with everyone at the Dr.'s office and many on a much needed antibiotic.

But here I am, back to writing, and healthy (except for a serious calf muscle strain-long story...let's just say patience is not one of my strong suits)!

I am going to wrap up the series on kids and work today. To find part 1 go here.  For part 2: here.

Our family has a designated chore time five days a week.  It happens M,T,Th,F,Sat.  Wednesdays are a busy day for us outside of the house and chores just don't make sense that day.  Currently, I have the kids doing their weekday chores after lunch.  This allows us to have a solid morning to get school done.  On Saturdays, chores are first thing. Sundays are a day of rest.

We do pay our children a bit for chores.  This consists of a couple of quarters a week.  We don't want to make this a large money making ordeal.  However, we want to give a small opportunity for them to begin learning some money managing skills.  In addition, it is a way to introduce the concept of working to earn a paycheck. 

We do not pay all of the children equally.  Our oldest two earn a quarter more than J does and their assigned jobs reflect that difference.  M and S do not have chores nor do they receive any income.

Our children usually begin doing chores when they are between 3 and 4.  This begins with simply putting away their own clean laundry, making their bed and maybe helping dust or wipe down counters or feed a pet.

Typically by the time they are 4 they are ready to take on some more independent light cleaning.  It is better to begin this process early rather than late.  Just don't overwhelm them; you want this to be a positive, helpful experience.

As a practical matter, how do we handle kids and chemicals?  We don't.  I use all natural cleaners.  You can make some of your own.  You can look to buy some 7th Generation at the store (not really my favorite, but convenient). 

We purchase through Melaleuca (I use all of their cleaners and laundry/dish detergent) and through Frontier (I buy Citra-Solv and all of our personal products from them).  Team up with like minded friends and family if you wish to do an account on Melaleuca as it requires a monthly commitment that I find is typically beyond what one family needs.  Or contact Frontier to see if they have a buying group in your area. 

Honestly, long-term, you will save piles of money with these two companies if you become committed to natural products. I don't sell for either of them.  It is just my honest opinion.

My last bit of advice is to be consistent, but flexible.  Keep chores going despite any whining or complaining.  Better yet, inform your children that income is only given out when their jobs have been done well and cheerfully. 

But if a child is not feeling well or it has been a particular stressful day I may declare that there are no chores, but that everyone needs to work together to get a particular two or three things done.  Sometimes this is simply emptying the dishwasher or picking up the living spaces.  This helps everyone enjoy a bit of grace, but work together to keep our home functioning.

No matter what, make chores and working together a priority.  It will instill work ethic, personal responsibility, and a sense of belonging to each young one.

Why should kids work?

I promised a few weeks ago, when I shared our fantastic chore system, more writing on kids and work. 

Hopefully, you subscribe to the 'better late than never' philosophy...if not, well, um...I'm moving on.

So, the question today is, 'why should kids do chores?' or 'why should children work?'.

Really, I could simply say to refer to the book of Proverbs.  There are more than a few nuggets on how God created our bodies to work.  But that wouldn't be necessarily super helpful so I suppose I shall expound a bit more.

It has surprised me, over the last few years, to discover how many parents do not think their kids should have to do jobs around their home.  Possibly, these parents felt over-worked as kids, themselves and fear they will do the same to their children.  Maybe they don't want to put in the effort to teach their kids how to do some tasks. And there are even more adults who simply believe 'kids are kids' and shouldn't have to do more than their schoolwork.

We don't believe in any of that. Period.

God made all of us to work.  And parents were given children for many reasons and one of the purposes of childhood is to learn how to be a productive adult and the parents are the teachers in this endeavor.  And last time I checked, productiveness requires a fair amount of effort, or work.

So, I hope my children learn to be comfortable with working their bodies physically in many ways, including with tasks that can feel meaningless and redundant, although necessary, around the house (really...who likes to vacuum up a floor only to see it dirty a few hours later). 

In addition, our daughters need to learn to be good keepers of their future homes and chores are a first step in that direction.

We also believe that required work helps produce a certain amount of character and attitude improvement. 

Ryan works in middle management.  I could write for hours (except that I have work to do) about the stories he comes home with which demonstrate an adult's lack of determination to simply suck it up and go get the job done.  How sad would it be to carelessly develop a worker like that under our own roof? 

I am not saying that by having my children do chores they will turn into future five star employees.  I am simply saying that chores are a beginning step in developing the 'work' part of their character.  And we find that to be Biblical.

"Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth." Proverbs 10:4

"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." Proverbs 14:23

"One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys." Proverbs 18:9

"Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless man goes hungry." Proverbs 19:15

Everything is good in moderation and with consideration.  Requiring children to work is no exception.  Next time I intend to tackle how we have our children working.

Heart of Dakota Science

As some of you may remember I used Apologia Science last year.  While I was very impressed with their curriculum and intend to return to it in a few years, it was not for us this year.  I wanted a more visual science curriculum with a bit more variation. 

Also, I wanted T and J to be able to join in and understand what was being taught.  Apologia spoke to a much older audience, used hard vocabulary, studied one topic all year, and the experiments were much too complicated for my style.

So, after deciding to use Heart of Dakota for Z's history this year I gave their science a look.  I researched the books they included for science and read through the teacher manual.  I liked what I saw.

Now, after about a quarter, I am very pleased with that decision.

The first unit (the first four or five weeks) in Bigger Hearts for His Glory focused on the seashore.  We primarily used One Small Square: Seashore.  The kids loved this book and I thought it was simple while also being fun.  I did add Pagoo to our reading, which turned out to be an awesome educational supplement to this unit and an enjoyable story that went very well with our study.

But what I was very impressed with was how great the experiments and demonstrations were.  I could pull the necessary items together within a couple of minutes and there was virtually no prep work.  However, the lessons taught were still very essential concepts that I wouldn't have necessarily thought of demonstrating in a hands-on format.  The simplicity has allowed the kids to remember what we did and what it taught and it has kept my four and five year old's attention.

For example we used sugar and water to demonstrate how the water (in the form of rain and waves) can change the seashore over time.  In addition, we used glitter and lotion to demonstrate germs on our hands and how it takes warm soapy water to remove the bulk of the germs.

In both of these cases I have seen my children imitate the experiment to some degree and I have heard them repeat the essential lesson to one another after many days have passed.  This is successful learning in my book!
We also do a notebook page once or twice a week about something we read.  I appreciate that Heart of Dakota includes an applicable verse with nearly every notebooking assignment.  And the assignments themselves allow for creativity and are simple enough for J to do her own version.

The book we are using currently, in the eighth week, is Science in Colonial America.  This book is much less of a 'living book' and the kids are not all that enthralled with it.  However, the hands-on part continues to impress.  And while I don't like this book quite so much, it is not long, and I know that we move on to much better materials soon. 

All in all, Heart of Dakota's science curriculum has been a great fit for our family this year.  We will continue on with studying the ecosystem of the woods, Thomas Edison, and science as it relates to Colonial and Early America.  And I am looking forward to it.

All in a Week's Time...

Some of our most memorable moments from the last week:

Double fisted talking!

Apparently either Mom is on the phone a lot or this youngest child has a lot of conversations that need to be had!  You can bet it is the second!

Just no one tell her those are business calculators (which had a very important role in the dating life of her parents and a much less significant role in the passing of our corporate finance class)!

We can check this one off the 'did your child ever do that' list

Our experimental four year-old decided to discover 'what would happen' if she put popped popcorn up her nose....

fortunately she wasn't very fond of the feeling...and we were able to help her blow it out!

The popular fellow!

T and J recently visited an assisted living facility with their homeschool co-op group and their teacher referred to the residence as an 'old folks home'. 

One night, this week, after a dinner in which we had all been talking about the outing,
Z (who has never been to such a place) asked T, "what was the place called where you gave those cards out to all those girls?"

Without waiting for a response he asked again, "wasn't it called the old fellow's home?"

Oh dear...I don't know if we ever got that one straightened out.  I wish I could see the mental picture he has of this place...

The Naked Warrior

M has taken to a new habit.

One evening I was changing him for bed.  As I took off the day's clothes and began to remove his diaper (fortunately only wet), before I even knew what was happening, he immediately slithered quickly away, giggled, and took off running at top speed around the house completely naked! 

As he ran he raised his right arm straight up high and began yelling HIIIII-YAWWWW.... down the hallway, through the kitchen, through the school room, and back to where I was sitting, hysterically dumbfounded....

Now, it seems, that if I am at all mellow about the changing process this whole scene will repeat itself at least once a day.  And seeing as this whole scene is highly entertaining I must admit that I don't necessarily try to avoid it (you know you wish you had this much entertainment every evening).

No pics of this one people.