Embroidery

My older sister taught me how to cross stitch when I was Shane's age.   I made many pretty little things with my cross stitching skills, but I quit after Ian was born.  Mark was worried that Ian would swallow a needle and suggested I switch to knitting.  I could make useful things like socks and hats and the needles are too big to swallow.  We all know how that story ends!

Daniel's Project (I told him to frown for the picture)

Nothing makes me happier than cooking up "hands on" projects that correlate with something we are studying in history or science, and I am in desperate need of happy.  Monday, the kids colored a picture of the Bayeux Tapestry while I read about the Battle of Hastings in our history book.  The Bayeux Tapestry, which is actually an embroidered banner, is almost 1000 years old and is 270 feet long!  That's three times as long as a blue whale (according to Shane)!  This was the perfect time to pass my stitchin' skills on down to my children.

"This is boring. Let's go tie knots instead." ~Ian

I know better than to try to teach anything with too much detail.  What works for us is to have an example of embroidery online, show them something I've made, and then hand them the supplies.  If I try to demonstrate first, they all clamor and interrupt and ask too many questions.  They just want to jump into things first and ask questions second.  I also don't make Ian come and join us; I give him the option if he seems interested.  My goal for today was just to get them to thread a needle and do a simple straight stitch to form a letter or their name.  So, is anyone surprised that the girls took to stitching and the boys didn't?  I never once biased their thoughts in any way as to which gender embroidery appeals to or who embroidered the most throughout history.  Ian wanted to go tie knots.  Shane would rather do his math.  Daniel crumpled his project up into a ball (not that I was expecting Daniel to do anything, but I still give him supplies so he feels included).

Fiona made an F and Evie finished her whole name.  Evie, our focused artistic child, is now planning to add colorful decorations.  She is the reason I've made an effort to schedule arts and crafts.  I used to save art for Friday afternoons, but it rarely got done.  Wednesday mornings are much better because we are ready for a break from workbooks (more on that later) and Wednesday afternoons are busy, on-the-road days with Homeschool PE at the YMCA.  Evie has decided to add purple confetti markings around her name.  It looks great!  She'll be doing cross stitch designs in no time!

Microcosmos

Sorry for being such a TV geek.  There.  I apologized in advance.  Most people I know have large flat screen TVs in their house.  We were dreaming of hanging a large flat screen, but we couldn't agree on where it should go and how to protect it from competitive children racing to see who could turn the TV off first... I already posted that we watched Jurassic Park and SpongeBob, but where this TV really gets us is with our nerdy, sciencey documentaries.

Last night we watched Microcosmos, a documentary about insects and other little creepy crawlies. Even if you don't have a giant TV, I highly recommend this movie.  It is French, so instead of winning Academy Awards it had to win Cesars.  It was nominated for eight Cesars and won five.  There is no boring, sleep-inducing commentary, only beautiful music and amazing cinematography.

These little guys are SO HUGE on our new TV. I'm going to call this movie MACROcosmos from now on!

If you are shy about watching insects or gastropods mate in front of your children (we are not), then be ready to shield small eyes.

If you are queasy around spiders...well, you've been warned!  That spider is bigger than our dog!

Can you believe I took pictures of movies on our TV for my blog? How pathetic is that?  But this bugs were SO COOL!

Snow

Fiona's snow baby

Willing victim

Feeding a snow bottle to the snow baby

After Lula refused to wear her mittens, she fell in the snow

Ian's snow Glom

Home Sweet Home

That's a Big TV!

I made a special trip out to my sister's house last night to pick up a new (to us) TV.  They bought a nicer one for the Superbowl.

Lula helps Mark haul the old, dust covered entertainment center to make room for...

That is one BIG TV!  Good thing our living room is so big!

Jack, camouflaged

Even though we have a few inches of snow, and it is probably the only snow we will see this year, the kids would rather sit by the fire and watch...

If you look closely, you can see four blond heads on the blanket-covered couch

 ...SpongeBob

But tonight, we celebrate Grandad's birthday in style with a viewing of Jurassic Park.  Oh, my, was it fantastic! I felt like I was back in 1993 in the movie theater, that is how awesome and huge the TV is.  The dinosaurs seemed to walk right through the living room.  Lula was scared; she would squeak and press up against me when T-Rex walked by, but she wouldn't let me cover her eyes because she wanted to keep eating popcorn.  Daniel's classic question was, "Is that part of a human's arm?"  The hardest part of owning this TV is choosing what to watch next...

Microclimates

Oh, it's so cold!  The last couple of days have been below freezing and we have kept our wood stove running and running and running... and even with the wood stove, the temperature in my knitting basket next to my chair is:

That is not a joke.  This is the SAME room as the wood stove, just in the little triangle of space between my chair, the couch, and the window that I affectionately call my Knit Pit.  Brrr!  Just on the other side, at the foot of my chair, Heidi sleeps in her car seat.  She is nice and toasty in a blanket:

I have completely given up on sleeping in my room or having Daniel and Lula sleep in their room.  Lula sleeps on the couch downstairs with Heidi and I and Daniel sleeps with Mark.  This is how cold Heidi's bed in the nursery is, even with the door open to let heat in:

It is even colder when we keep the door closed to conserve heat.  The master bathroom is even colder still.  Brrrrrr!

I'm Down With ODD

As if colic and a defiant three year old weren't enough, Lula had to hit the "terrible twos" right at the age where my kids usually hit it...

Lula discovers the Temper Tantrum.  I wouldn't let her drink Heidi's bottle.  See how red her face is?

I don't need this right now.  Cutting out dairy and the Zantac don't seem to be working on my colicky baby (she has been crying all. DAY. LONG!) and I don't need an extra 45 minutes of crying every night from another kid.  Something has to go.  I choose...the defiant three year old.

My current library stack.

I'm glad I started reading the library books listed under the subject heading of "difficult children."  I can tell that it would be very very easy to have Daniel diagnosed with Oppositional Defiance Disorder.  VERY easy.  He bombed the How Often Does Your Child... test.  But since he is only three years old, he is on the young end for an official diagnosis.  And a label really wouldn't do anything for him because he isn't going to public school and he doesn't need professional help...yet.  My hope is to "reprogram" Daniel's wiring before his opposition and defiance become a chronic problem.  Unless it already is.  He has been oppositional since he could string two words together.  What was cute at 2 1/2 years, isn't so cute now at 3 1/2 years.  His behavior is quickly driving a wedge between him and his siblings and causing me distress.

I'm happy to glean wisdom and techniques to help Daniel overcome himself using these books.  So far, the book on the left has been very helpful; the rest I haven't started yet.  One example the book gave was when a child refuses to come out of a time out because they want to establish the control.  How did they know that Daniel does that any time he is given a time out?  In the past I just let him keep sitting there; he was quiet a little longer and gave us all a bit of a break.  The only person he was punishing was himself because he was choosing to miss out on fun.  Now I know I need to punish him with a second time out if he refuses to leave time out.  Strange, but it works.  He says, "I'm never getting off time out AGAIN!" and I say, "Because you are not obeying me, you will have another time out."  NOOOOO! After the second time out he meekly gets up when I tell him to, followed by my praise for listening and obeying.

Yesterday, when Shane gave Daniel a bowl of peaches and Daniel wouldn't say, "Thank you," I covered his bowl with my hand and said, "You can have your peaches after you say thank you to Shane."  Then I looked away and completely ignored him while he shouted "NO!" and "I already did!"  After about a minute, he squirmed in his chair like he was being stabbed with hot pokers and thanked Shane.  And then I praised him for obeying me and being so thoughtful and having such good manners.

Daniel cuts the cheese after he proves his knife skills on the carrots.  Terrifying.

Normally Daniel loves to do things on his own when it is his own idea.  He started making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches a year ago.  He is perfectly capable at making and buttering his toast.  This morning, I asked him to butter his own toast.  Because I asked him to do it and it wasn't his idea, he said "NO! And I'm never eating toast AGAIN!"  I just shrugged, dropped his toast on the floor, and called the dog to come eat it.  You can bet your bottom dollar he was off his chair and buttering away before Mina could get her teeth in HIS toast. Again, I praised him for obeying me and making his toast.

Up until today, Daniel has refused to participate in his PE class at the YMCA.  Today I explained to his teacher that Daniel was ODD and had a hard time participating in things that weren't his idea.  I said that normal tricks don't work on him; I tried them.  Even sitting in the baby stroller walking in boring circles around the track was better than dodge ball!  Crazy kid.  I didn't care if Daniel participated or not, but I wasn't going to reward him by giving him extra attention, positive or negative, for his behavior; he could just sit by himself on the bench for all I cared.  The teacher was awesome (he is a homeschooling dad of many) and totally gets it.  He got right down to Daniel's level and asked him what game he liked to play.  Daniel says, "Soccer ball?" and the teacher said, "That's a great idea! Let's go play with the soccer balls!" Daniel ran off and participated the whole time! After class he ran right into my arms for a big hug (sigh) and I praised him for playing and rewarded him with a trip to the big toy room!  Lucky boy!

When he isn't defying me, I am praising him to the skies and back for all his good deeds.  I'm hoping that his brain re-wires to WANT the praise over the negative attention.  Wouldn't it be nice if he just climbed into my lap for a snuggle instead of head-butting his sister over and over so I will grab him and restrain him and refuse to let go until he can control himself (and then he refuses to get off my lap when I do let go-or he starts giggling and head butting again so he will get in trouble again)?  The hardest part is ignoring him when he is acting out.  His siblings just don't have the same stubborn reserves that I do.  It will come in time if they are anything like me (big grin).  After all, it is quite possible Daniel gets all this awfulness from me; my mom did pass down an old copy of The Strong-Willed Child to me... hmmm...why did she have it?  Is it possible that...I have ODD?  That sure would explain a lot...

A 12th Man is Born

Yesterday, we Downens invaded my parent's house to watch the Superbowl.  It's not very often I wish we had network television, but when your home team goes to the Superbowl, you really want to see it happen, win or lose.  Our complications include having lots of little kids, one of which is in Seek-and-Destroy mode and one loud cryer, so we aren't the best guest to invite to your Superbowl Party.  Lucky for my parents, they weren't home to witness our invasion.

Guess what? After I took that picture of Heidi above, she fell asleep and slept through the whole game.  No crying.

The girls were so excited to watch the game, they made posters cheering the Seahawks on.   They also made a special point to dress in blue and green.  Well, Evie did.  Fiona wouldn't wear her blue and green dress because it wasn't purple.

Busy, busy girl!

The very first thing I did when I got to my parent's house was Lula proof.  Glass things out of reach.  Couch moved across the doorway into the nice living room with white carpet.  Baby gates across the other opening.  Plants up.  Doors closed.  Broom available (we swept the floor three times. Now I know why we have carpet...and dogs).

The other awesome thing I did was bring a folder of football themed activities for the younger set of kids.  I knew they wouldn't sit quietly through the whole game and would quickly burn through the toys.  When they started running around and shouting and fighting over the yoga ball (which my kids call a birth ball-because their mom does more birthing than yoga), I was ready with Design Your Own Helmet coloring pages and and some other math and writing themed pages from a homeschool blog.  I originally imagined myself sitting with the kids and doing the puzzles and talking about geography, but Mark explained How Football Works to me on the way over and...well, lets just say I'm hooked.

Mark held Heidi through three quarters of The Game

I just want to watch football now.  Now that the season is over and I still don't have network television.  I'm not the only newborn fan.  Shane caught the 12th Man bug too.  His favorite player is Russell Wilson.  Good choice!

P.S. Daniel still gets carsick.