Robo Mom!

Dear diary, This is the first time I've tried to blog from my phone. It seems to be working! It won't be long before I completelylose my ability to touch type and I can only wrote words by stopping my fingeracross my phone screen,  mispronounced accepted. (Errors left as appeared)why blog on my phone? It is easier to do that while attacked to a reluctant nursery and an almost two year old. Of course the formatting isn't what I like,  but hey! You can't have your cake and rest out too !anyway, today is going to be crazy busy. I'm meeting for different people for Buy Nothing finds/offers, Ian had his writing class, the girls have their art class, I'm hoping to do some grocery store training with my double trouble team, and there is always spots on Tuesday.

 oh my gosh, the autocorrect is hilarious.

I'll just leave that entry for giggles.  Back to the computer. Whew!

This is a mama spider with baby spiders all over her abdomen. She lives with Sheldon the tortoise.

Ian would like to report he got an A+ on one of his assignments for his writing class.  I would like to report that I didn't get any shopping done, but I did buy some juice boxes after Heidi fell out of the van, landing like a sky diver that whose parachute didn't open. Ian also celebrated National Coffee Day with his first cup of black coffee that he actually had permission to drink (the one he had at the Cub Scout Blue and Gold banquet doesn't count).  My baby is growing up so fast!

Yesterday was our first MOPS playgroup day.  I drank three big cups of coffee with hazelnut creamer while there.  It was like a mom version of drinking too much at the bars.  Yesterday afternoon was our first day back at Homeschool PE at the YMCA. I took eight kids. It was a piece of cake. This time! But by the time I came home, the coffee had all worn off and I felt like I had the mom version of a hangover. Water and Tylonel and the earliest bedtime I could manage helped.

Genevieve, inspired by the art class, set up the watercolors for herself and her siblings.

The local artist community has put together some free art classes for the homeschoolers on the KP.  Last week and today, we spent an hour at the library painting with water colors.  Genevieve and Fiona really enjoy this class.  I have been sitting in our tiny children's section of the library with Lula, Heidi, and Jason.  The idea of being in a library with no child-friendly bathrooms is kinda scary.  Lula likes to push all the books deep into the shelves while Heidi likes to pull them down.  Trying to feed Jason to keep him from crying while the girls are in various stages of book vandalism is something I can only do for about 20 minutes (why do they keep crayons near books?).  Today I managed the three little ones for 40 minutes before we went out to the van.  I had to really think through my exit strategy before I put it into action. I had cookies in the van, books to check out, a baby that didn't want to be put down, a double stroller to manage, and two diapers that needed changing badly.  But I made it with no tears, from myself or the little ones. I was able to load the three littles with clean pants into the van by the time the art class was finished! Yay me!

It was a long, exhausting day with just these two short trips into town. BUT I'm making progress with getting out and about with little people. Tomorrow is another YMCA day and then I get to stay home for four days in a row!

Double Trouble

Lula and Heidi are quite the team.  I thought I had the whole sibling relationship thing figured out until these two.  They are just learning how to play together, but they are still better at competing against each other.  When Lula is crying (or Jason for that matter), Heidi starts in too, looking at Lula out of the corner of her eye to make sure she herself is getting the attention.  They fight over clothes already, Heidi taking her cues on what is cute and pretty from Lula (who takes her cues from princesses and monkeys).  I can't tell you how many times I've broken up a tug-o-war match over a certain blue tutu. And underpants, even though Heidi isn't potty trained.  And shoes. Lula wears size 8, Heidi wears size 6.  I have 9 and 7.  Lula squeezes her feet into the 7's and thinks they are hers, but really they are Heidi's.  I've started hiding things after they go to sleep...

Lula and her bathing suit (hidden) Heidi wearing Lula's shirt as a dress.

Playing tea party together!

You can see the sister resemblance here!

Lula is going through a phase where she doesn't want to sleep alone.  She's convinced there are spiders in her bed.  Lucky for her she has three sisters that will rotate sleeping with her.  We never make anyone sleep with her; in a large family where siblings share rooms, the bed is an individual's own special place.  If Genevieve or Fiona want to share, that is completely up to them.  The night Lula slept with Heidi, neither one wanted a snuggle buddy.  Heidi was fine with it as long as Lula didn't take her pillow or her favorite spot in the bed!

They will watch movies together because they turn into zombies.  But before the movie starts we hear, "COW!" and "NO! I want to watch Curious George!"  Cow is Heidi's word for Baby Einstein.

The picture above shows three problems in one.  They were fighting over who got to look at the baby.  So Heidi stood on a box so she could see better.  Then Lula put her foot on Heidi's box and made Heidi mad.  So she hit Lula with her baby doll.  Plus Lula is wearing the red skirt with white polka dots.  This fits both of them (especially when Heidi is wearing a fat diaper) so it is also something they tug back and forth.  When Ian and Shane hit this phase (they were 15 months apart in age) and both wanted the Thomas train, we just went to the store and bought two of everything.  I don't know if I can find two red skirts with white polka dots.

Is this rivalry a problem of too many kids and not enough love? Heck, no! We are swimming in love around here!  I know for a fact there are just some personalities, phases, and transitions that need a little more time, a little more patience, and a little more grace.  Two little girls that remind me of my sister and I that are only 16 months apart in age two months after a baby brother has usurped their mother's lap? They definitely need some extra grace!

Two Months

Can you believe that Jason is two months old? Boy am I glad we are past the newborn stage.  Now that he isn't hungry, he is so happy!  He doesn't like being hungry!  I took some pictures of him today to celebrate his survival.  He is soooo dreamy. I love his coffee brown eyes...

 

Two Weeks Done

We are now two weeks into our school year and so far we've kept on track.  Hooray! I was so nervous about this year.  I told one of my favorite people that I was scared and I thought I was crazy.  What was I thinking? Eight kids? She responded, "We're all scared. Even those moms trying to teach just one kid."  She is so right. My Facebook feed was full of homeschool group posts of moms worried about everything from curriculum choices to school spaces.  I had been annoyed by them-after all, they only had one or two or three kids.  Or one kindergartener and three under four years.  And no one cares what math you are choosing and if you need suggestions on language arts curriculum, there is this thing called Google you can use.  But then there was one post from a large family blogger that had a "roll call" for homeschoolers and post after post had moms listing the number of kids homeschooling and how they too felt nervous even though they were starting year 17...and then I didn't feel so crazy.

I read somewhere to replace "crazy" with "..." gosh, I wish I could remember. But it was cool.

My daily schedule is working, not because we stick to it, but because it gives me a reference when I can't remember what to do next or where to jump in.  I've given an hour to each "class" but I've found we rarely spend an hour on anything.  I'm sure when math stops being review things will pick up.  It sure is nice to be done with everything by 2:00 in the afternoon.

Even with Monday being a holiday, Ian was done with an entire week's worth of work by 10:40 this morning.  His writing class at "The Ranch" was also successful.  He has discovered that he likes to listen to music while he is working.  I don't like listening to music while he is working, so he gets to use either my computer with headphones or his dad's MP3 player with headphones.  With headphones!  Both have a endless selection of classic rock.  He watched me yell at Shane and Daniel for rough play and said it was like watching a silent movie. I'm glad we've found a way for the noise of younger siblings to not bother him while he works.

Done with School Reward: Get Dumber

I've never been good at teaching spelling and have mostly left spelling up to workbooks (which does work), but we've come up with some new ideas.  One is Spelling City online.  I created a free account and I just type in the spelling words for the week for Evie and Ian.  Ian is using the 500 most commonly misspelled words list from Bookshark and Evie is using the weekly spelling words assigned by her Sonlight curriculum.  A computer voice reads each word out loud and they type the word in to the computer.  At the end they find out which words they don't know and they study in whatever method works best for them.  They get to decide.  Evie likes to put words she doesn't know on index cards cut in half on a necklace or play games at Spelling City.  Ian just studies.

Spelling Words

Daniel is always an adventure in teaching.  My successes this week have been hard earned.  We need a delicate balance between carrot and stick with this boy.  I have to have a complicated system of rewards to keep him feeling like he is in control, but confused enough he can't actually take control.  He insists on the hardest reading lessons and won't use the easier curriculum.  When he does a good job and finishes the lesson without too many interruptions, he gets a sticker on his chart.  If he is so bad that he ends up crying (for whatever reason), he gets an X.  After five lesson he can get a small piece of candy.  If he has two X's, no candy. 

For science, instead of reading a dull book about evaporation and condensation and the water cycle, I told him I was going to do some "science magic."  I was going to make all the water on the slides, swings, and grass disappear!  His job, which he was very excited about, was to periodically check on my magical progress. 

He also enjoyed imitating his social studies lesson on clothing and climate and running around in the sun wearing only his underpants.  The best lesson we had was handwriting the lower case g.  I took advantage of his destructive nature and had him trace over my g's to erase them off the white board.  If his finger followed the correct path (not if he erased the letter completely-I didn't want him going the wrong direction), I would exclaim, "GAH!" He loved it.

There is a reason school isn't compulsory until a child is eight years old.  Around this age, things just seem to click into place in their brains and the kids who were behind in reading suddenly catch up and those who didn't "get" math suddenly do.  And they sit still and listen and understand.  Fiona seems to have reached that point.  Last year, teaching her calendar skills was stressful.  Day after day, she would answer 2015 if I asked her the month.  Now she can do the entire day of calendar activities with no assistance.  Hallelujah. 

Heidi Hoo Ha Ha

This girl's vocabulary is taking leaps and bounds! She is adding two to three words per day!

Heidi Hoo Ha Ha

The people in her family are Mom, Dad, Een (Ian), Nane (Shane), Kai and Gack (Jack).  She can be ginky sometimes when her diaper needs changing and she really likes to sit on the potty.   She lets me know that she's "ah none" when her bottle is empty. She likes watching Cow on the "wee-wee" (that would be any Baby Einstein movie with a cow in it on the TV).  Wee-wee meant something totally different to her brothers, so this word creates laughter she doesn't understand.  She just knows she said something funny.  She also loves her shoes, apples, binkies, and Baby.

The shoe is muddy

Know what else she has mastered? "No" and "Mine!"

Finding Joy

This is hard.  Starting school. Motivating teens who don't want to be home. Weaning a baby off formula now that he is through his growth spurt. Establishing a new routine without all the pieces of the puzzle.  Quitting sugar (again).  Having a stronger will than the strongest will ever known to 5 year olds. Creating Whole30 approved meals that appeal to both adults and children out of what is in the house. Doing the cooking, cleaning, laundry, typing, and phone calls with a baby in one arm. Doing it all by getting up at 6:00 AM every morning whether or not I was awake for two hours with a baby who just wanted to smile at the lamp.  It's hard.  These pictures of Lula sum up what it is like when someone says, "Smile," or anything else inspirational that is supposed to help me "do it all."

Smile

I can't

 Try

I can't

 You mean you won't. You need to find some way to smile.

How's this?

Thank you, Lula Joy, for bringing laughter into our day.  (She watched the Jungle Book the other night and insisted that Mowgli was actually Pocahontas as a little girl)

Blooper!

Our first week is a week of grace.  I have a delicately balanced schedule, but because PE doesn't start until the end of the month (forcing everyone to pay a month's worth of membership fees for two PE classes), we have some time to get used to the routine.  It is also good for us to know approximately how long it takes to get certain things done.  Like breakfast.  I have about an hour to go from super exhausted mom of a newborn to teaching first and second grade math concurrently.  Oatmeal can't take forty minutes to prepare.  Sorry guys, no more apple oatmeal.

Apple oatmeal? I won't eat that even though you spent 40 minutes making it!

And no more sitting in front of your bowl as long as you want.  I can't remember why Daniel was crying, but he certainly made our first day difficult.  From not wanting to finish his breakfast to arguing with me over what he will and won't read, he was super-concentrated ODD Daniel at his finest.  

And don't take my picture!

The light switch in the school room was broken, which didn't matter when it was sunny, but the first day we had rain and clouds.  Mark fixed the switch and replaced the light bulbs...and the light bulbs are supposed to mimic sunlight but look more like those long fluorescent light bulb tubes.  It hurts my eyes, so I guess we won't do school on rainy days (just kidding-I'm getting used to it).

You can almost hear the buzzing of the lights-but there isn'y any

On our first day of school, Heidi fell asleep face down on my lap (while standing).  I was busy holding Jason and teaching language arts, so she didn't have a place to curl up in.  She isn't the one that falls asleep standing up very often.  That's Lula's thing (Lula was probably sneaking outside to break branches off the fruit trees so she could reach the fruit).  But Heidi was super tired from cutting teeth and waking me up in the middle of the night, so I guess the face down position was appropriate.

How could she even breathe like that? (I had Genevieve move her to the couch)

Daniel's day got a whole lot better when he decided to do his handwriting in invisible ink from a spy kit his brother gave him.  See how proud he is?

I did do my j's. See?

I did make him go back over the invisible ink with the "reveal" marker and yes, his js were nice.

First Day: Complete, not too many bloopers.  It could have been worse I suppose...