New Title

We snuck in a trip to the grocery store this morning after my bus run. While in the store, my kids began their usual, "can we get this, mom?" routine.

One of the things they regularly ask me for is the Yop yogurt drink which I rarely get because it's too expensive. I just get regular yogurt instead that's on sale. However, today Yop was on sale, so much to the kids' delight, I stocked up.

Seth had to to protect them, so excited was he. He had to put them on the counter when I went to pay for them, so excited was he. And, so excited was he that I earned a new title today. On the way out to the car, he exclaimed in total delight:

"Mom, you're the best YOGURT-DRINK-PICKER-UPPER, EVER!"

And so today I proudly wear my badge of honour.

Trial By Homeschooling

It doesn't matter how much I tried to prepare myself for this fact, I'm still a little thrown off because of it.

BOYS ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN GIRLS WHEN IT COMES TO LEARNING.

While I remain pleasantly surprised at how long Seth is willing to do school without his A.D.H.D. kicking in, I have been just as unpleasantly surprised at how much he does not retain. Just when I think he's "getting it", he promptly "forgets it".

He is still much better with numbers than letters. With his letters, he is still struggling with his vowels names and short vowel sounds, particularly with remembering the name of "i" and the sound of "e". The first two consonants introduced to him are "t" and "l" and from one day to the next he cannot remember the name of "t", only the sound.

Today I discovered two more problems, both of which almost reduced me to tears of frustration. I was asking Seth to trace his numbers first, and then write them in the spot beside where he traced them. I then got tied up with giving Hannah a speed drill in math and initially was not able to watch him. When I finally looked back at him, he was hung up writing the number 3 neatly (and not doing a very good job), and had not begun by tracing it. Now I do not expect him to write all of his numbers and letters perfectly or even that great. Yet. However, I do expect him to listen to my instructions. And that is what caused my frustration. It did not matter how many times I told him to TRACE the number 3, he would look at me in the face and promptly attempt to write a 3 correctly without tracing it. I had him look at me and repeat my instructions; he still did not carry them out. It was probably close to one dozen times of stopping him, erasing his attempt, and showing him myself (several times with me doing it myself) before he finally cooperated and/or understood.

Then I had him count to 20. He knows his numbers well and has on his own figured out the pattern of counting after 20. However, I had forgotten that for some reason he cannot retain the number 15. When he counts, he skips from 14 to 16, every time, and only does this at 15. Not 25 or 35 or 45, etc. So, I had him count over and over and over from 11 to 20. At least 20 times. He would miss the 15, so I would count with him. He would do it again himself, only to again miss 15. It took until the 19th time AT LEAST, for him to say 15 himself.

I'm sure a large part of it is that he is not really listening. I also know, however, that he will remember something one day, and forget it the next. He has also written his 2's and 3's backward on several occasions, so it's something I want to be cautious of and watch closely. One of the things I was told at a homeschool conference is that there are some studies that show that dyslexia can be caused by pushing a child to read TOO early, rather than letting them wait and read when they're ready. With this in mind, I realize I have to be careful with how much I push my son.

On a positive note, however, my daughter had a great attitude today, the first time since school started. I'm thankful that it all usually balances out. When one is having an off day, the other is having a good day.

Because God knows how much this mama can handle.

Attitude

I'm pretty sure my 7-year-old is turning 14 tomorrow.

Over the last couple of months and especially since school has started, she has so many ups and downs in a day that my head is spinning. She has not had a day go by in school where she hasn't shown major attitude. One day it will be because she can't write properly; the next it will be because her little brother gets to finish before her; the next it will be because she simply CANNOT make a sentence with the word tree, butterfly and flower. (Her sentence was A tree. A butterfly. A flower.!!!) This from a girl who has written TWO songs.

Then, she'll be the sweetest girl I could ever hope for. She hugs me regularly and tells me I'm the best mom in the whole world and that she loves me - several times a day. This from a girl who generally does not display affection even half the amount as her brother. She offered to wash my dishes tonight and did an excellent job. She carefully folded all of my towels that had been dumped on my bed, and again did a superb job of it. Unfortunately, the attitude showed up when I walked in on her doing it (she was trying to surprise me) and could not be comforted. It didn't matter how much I told her that I appreciated the job she did, all she could say was, "but mom, I wanted to surprise you!"

{{Huge sigh}}.

I cannot imagine what her teenage years will bring, but I'm sure hoping she'll have this part of them over with by then.

Ten more years of this and I'll likely have permanent residence on the fifth floor.

Question Of The Day #2

Question: What could possibly be better than waking up to hugs and kisses and tickles and pokes and ear pulling from your son?

Answer: Waking up to a CONCERT from both of your children, singing Redeemer at the top of their lungs, interspersed with your son yelling "HANNAH!" in outrage because she presumably stole his solo.

Dear, Dear Seth

For some reason I have been in the mood to write more lately. I go through these spells where I am "written-out" or that I find nothing that my kids do is funny....:). Then I go through times like now where I think of sentences to write right in the middle of an escapade and MUST write it out. Never have I so enjoyed writing.

This morning Seth woke up and came out to the living room to snuggle. He sat on my lap and told me that he had a dream. I asked him what this dream was about.

"I was wearing a costume," he answered.

"Oh?" I asked. "What kind of costume?"

"Batman," he said. I thought this rather amusing since the only thing he has in the house that's Batman is a lunch bag, which I haven't seen for ages.

"Actually, I would like to be Batman when I grow up," he said seriously, which I again found amusing.

We were sitting there snuggling; he attempted to "win my heart". He did not quite succeed.

"Mom," he said. "It would be alright if you made my bed for me this morning," he sweet talked. It didn't work. He made his own bed.

The sweet moments ENDED in the afternoon.

His behaviour really hasn't been getting better, so Dave and I had to make some serious re-evaluation. If he can't sit still and be quiet during church at this age (when he has gone to church since birth FOUR times a week); and if he can't sit still on the bus for 15 minutes when other younger kids can, then we've - or really I'VE - fallen short on some things.

So, he sat on a chair in the living room today for a total of 37 minutes - 7 minutes were added on. He was told he had to sit there - not lay there - not get off, and could not talk. AT ALL. Now, if this seems cruel and unusual to some, I apologize. In my opinion, however, parents are far too lenient these days on their kids' behaviour in public and I am obviously no exception to the rule. He needs to learn to sit for a time EVERY DAY and entertain himself quietly in his mind. As Dave said to me, "If you want to accomplish this in church, you have to accomplish it at home." And I agree.

He sat quiet for 23 minutes. Then he made a monkey noise, so I added on 7 minutes. He got the picture and was angelic after that. He knows this will be a daily occurrence as long as it takes for him to change his behaviour in public. And I discovered something awesome.

It didn't kill him!

He has also started a new, very annoying phase of mimicking by repeating everything you say. He finds it quite humorous. So far it's easy enough to stop when he does it to me because I just go silent (which he CAN'T tolerate) long enough for him to say something to me in desperation, which I in turn REPEAT back to him. He gets the picture.

It's not the same for his sister, however. She hasn't quite learned how to stop him. Tonight we were having a discussion about how much she has been whining lately. She started crying and said, "Mom, I've been trying so hard not to whine," in a whiny voice. Dear, dear Seth, great little brother that he is, repeated back, just as whiny,

"MOM, I'VE BEEN TRYING SO HARD NOT TO WHINE!"

And well, as they say, the rest is history.

A Time To Laugh

Hannah's misspelled word of the day:

scweak (as in squeak)

Just in case you couldn't recognize it

It's things like this that keep a homeschooling mom sane and able to laugh.

Hectic Morning

It's been a hectic morning, so the kids are snuggled in their rooms having a bit of a break, while mom is snuggled on the computer having her break.

It guess it comes with trying to juggle too many things at once, which is what I did this morning. Running around doing laundry; schooling Seth; on the phone with the company I bought Hannah's curriculum from to ask a question I just could not answer Hannah; changing loads; starting lunch; and finally, again changing loads.

I had both the kids at the table at the same time because I was helping Seth PLUS giving Hannah an exam. This was the first time I've had to juggle both at the same time, and I got a good idea how difficult it is. Kudos to large home school families, and kudos to public school teachers.

Anyway, as I was going back and forth helping both kids - explaining to Seth what to do, and giving Hannah the next question - Hannah got tied up in knots on one question. She did not know the answer to it and so was unwilling to answer it at all. I was encouraging her to answer the question, even if it was wrong, because I wasn't using this test against her, but more as a guideline as to where she might need more work. Bright mother that I am, I should have clued in that her inability to answer the question made it obvious she needed more work in that particular area. But, I had Seth in one ear saying, "What do I do now, mom?" and Hannah on the other side saying, "I don't know how to answer this one." This was repeated several times until I finally just told Hannah to "WRITE SOMETHING!" (I didn't holler it, but I was exasperated). Wonderful mother that I am.

I finally look over at Seth to see what he was doing. He was supposed to be writing his numbers 1 through 4. I thought he understood that. In the midst of the kerfuffle with Hannah, and his lack of concentration, he failed to do as I said. Instead, in every box where a number was to be I saw a bunch of scribble. Confused, I asked him what he was doing. His answer?

"Well, YOU ASKED ME TO WRITE SOMETHING. So I did."

It was much needed comic relief. For both Hannah and I. Yup. A nice tension-reliever for a very busy morning.