I have four kids..I have four kids..I have four kids..











 

I am a mathematical genius.  I routinely forget how to count.  This morning I took Jordan in for a quick appointment at the dermatologist.  They were upgrading their patient records system to a portable - laptop based system, (so five years ago) and needed to scan Jordan's medical insurance card again.  I dug through my wallet, only to discover that it is missing.  ??  That is weird since I almost never have to show our cards (save mine) to anybody.  The thing is, it took counting through the medical cards (I have mine and all the kids) repeatedly to figure it was missing in the first place.

And when I finally figured out it was missing, the thought "I have FOUR kids?" kept repeating in my mind.  I have had FOUR kids for the past three years and 235 days, and it only just creeps into my conscious thought now?  Not really, but the gravity of the situation has...

I am officially losing my mind.

On My Way..

 

 

 

So... I've been totally preoccupied lately.

 

 

To read about what I've been up to, go here.



Simple Woman's Daybook Entry

 

 

 

 



Outside my window...

 

 

A whole lotta this....  This picture was Thursday morning.  The rain started spitting on Tuesday, and then started to get down to serious business.  On Wednesday night, I got nervous.  The news on TV was pretty bad.  Boulder, CO, which is 45 min. SW of us was already witnessing catastrophic flooding.  I patrolled our three basement window wells on a frequent basis.  At 1 a.m. Dean and I donned our rain jackets and visited this drainage ditch behind our house.  (You can see our roof behind the spruce tree).  The water level was at about 4 ft. on that pole there.  See those bricks that line the backside?  The water was even with the third row of bricks down from the top - so it was over the front wall there, by that grey metal screen.  Once the water breeches this wall, there is nothing to hold the water back from our house.  The geniuses that graded our yard when the house was built directed the water toward the house.  Luckily there is also a slope that drains the water toward the left of the picture, where we are bordered by a street.  That is our only saving grace.

 

A friend posted that it seems like our little area of the Front Range is in a bubble - impervious to the death and destruction that is going on around us.  I feel like that too.  The images that we have seen are horrendous, and the mountain towns that are less than an hours' drive away are getting the worst of it.  Yet here, we can drive around (mostly), enjoy our dry basements and our running water and electricity.  The only complaint we have is that the bridges that connect the southern side or our city to the northern side have been closed periodically due to the dangerous flooding of the river and the stresses it places on the bridges.  Water isn't topping the bridges, but the flow rate is dangerously high at the moment.  The worst may yet come for us.  Today it is supposed to rain ALL day.  An upslope has parked a storm system directly above us, and won't budge any time soon.  We'll see what unfolds... For now we are counting our blessings, and I am ansy to get stuff off the basement floor.

 

 

I am thinking... about all of the displaced families and animals, and all of those who are still waiting rescue.

I am thankful... for the moisture, but this is such a deluge!  The weather forecaster said that if we were to convert the amount of moisture we have received in rain into snow, it would be the equivalent of 100 inches of snow.  We.  would. die.

 

 

From the Learning Rooms... Another good week, but we lost it at the end, with all of the rain.  Jordan and Rylan were supposed to take the fall MAPS testing at a district's testing location on Friday, but it got cancelled because the district closed the schools on Friday.  Rylan started a weekly art class on Tuesday, and really enjoyed it.  Owen has decided to give gymnastics another try, so his first class was on Tuesday as well.  Rylan looked wistfully at all of the girl gymnasts that were doing their classes and begged for her chance as well.  I looked at her like she was crazy.  She is already doing jazz, tumbling AND ballet!!  To her credit, she has mentioned that she has wanted to on at least a weekly basis for the past three years.  So.  On Thursday afternoons, Rylan and Owen will be taking their respective gymnastics classes at the same time.  A scheduling win for me, but a loss for the pocketbook, and another. damn. trip. to. Loveland.  :(

 

 

In the kitchen...  Nothing fantastic going on there, I'm afraid...

I am wearing...  Standard blogging attire.  ;)

 

I am creating... A household binder.  An organizational wonder that would make a few of you gag or roll your eyes, so I'll stop right now.  But it makes me happy.

I am going... Maybe to the store once more.. although we are pretty well stocked up, in anticipation of a run on milk, eggs and bread by those who fear the end of times has come.

 

I am wondering... About our Girl Scout meeting we have on Wednesday, which is on the other side of the river.  Hope the bridges are open by then.

I am reading... I opened Cold Mountain the other day, and read the first couple of chapters.  Not really drawn in...  I did hear about an interesting book from a friend last week called A Thousand White Women.  I am going to see if I can find it at the library.

 

In the garden...  Water?  I did pick some rhubarb early last week to make a strawberry-rhubarb crisp.

 

I am hoping... What everyone is hoping for now...

 

I am looking forward to... this coming weekend, if things dry out this week, when we have planned to go camping.

I am learning...  About a fun way to go internet geocaching.  Pick a famous landmark - anywhere in the world - and get it's exact mapping coordinates.  Come up with some questions about it (use Wikipedia).  Send your teen on a geocaching excursion to locate the site by it's coordinates, answer the questions and copy and paste a picture of it.  Pretty neat stuff.  Thanks to PLATO science for the idea.  (I really need to write up a review about PLATO... long overdue!)

 

 

I am hearing... Rain.  Yesterday it was endless helicopter traffic - Black Hawks and Chinooks - as they ferried supplies and did rescues up and down the Front Range.  Today they can't fly, due to low visibility.  For a lot of these canyons, there is no way in or out except by air since the roads are completely washed away.

 

Around the house... There are 15 boxes of flooring waiting to go in.  Dean needs to get the underlayment today and then we can get started on finishing the other half of the ground floor.  After several long months of a halfway finished project, we can finally begin!  We also met with the first of a few house painting contractors to get price quotes for painting the house.  We only have a few more weeks to get this done!  Also, the part for the washer came on Tuesday and Dean put Humpty Dumpty back together again.  I'm glad I can drop the washing-in-the-bathtub-business - we were about to run out of towels!

I am pondering... how I am going to get my walk in.  I'm tired of soggy walks.

 

One of my favorite things...  Well... rainy days.  But not six of them in a row.  I could not live in Seattle.

A few plans for the rest of the week... Normally, I would say violin, jazz, boy scouts, Dr. appt., art, tumbling, Lego robotics, homeschool PE class, girl scouts, ballet, gymnastics, Lego robotics and fitting homeschooling in and around all of those things, but I am not really sure.  It all depends on various road closures.

 

Here is a picture for thought I am sharing...





This is the storm water retention area that is across the street from our house.  The night before it was an additional two feet deep.  Owen (in the yellow rain jacket) was able to walk across it, though the water came up to his chest.  Normally this area is dry and neighborhood kids use it to play football or soccer in.

 

To read more entries and visit a variety of other blogs, go here...



Simplicity Parenting: Filtering

 

 



Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and more Secure Kids
by Kim John Payne, M.Ed.



 

 

The Stress Bath

 

 

So... you're sitting in the parent's waiting area while you wait for your child to do their weekly XYZ class.  Or you are at the park.  Or you are at the library story time.  You are feeling good...happy with the world, even!  Then THAT parent shows up... you know the one...  The one who loves to rant and rave and worry about the current sensational news stories.  The one that is certain that all things plastic, Monsanto, Red dye #40 and non-gluten/dairy/sugar-free will kill you.  The one that is certain that she gets the raw deal.  The one that is the constant victim.  The constant complainer.  The one with the child that could do better in the world if they weren't unfairly victimized either.  You like this person well enough, but you consistently find that after you spend just five minutes listening to her, you feel depressed, worried and guilty.  You, my friend, have just been drenched in a Stress Bath. 

 

I came across this term, 'stress bath', in a chapter (see book above) that Dr. Payne wrote, about filtering out the adult world.  I love this term - he hit it right on the money.  That is exactly what it feels like.  You feel like you have been completely covered in doom and gloom.  It's icky.  You literally want to listen to a Raffi CD on endless repeat and shower yourself in glitter to take the edge off.  So much for enjoying yourself at any point in time for the rest of the day... now you are too worried about all the evils that are lurking anywhere and everywhere.

 

And it's not just the face-to-face conversations.  It's the friend that sends you every email attachment that describes every danger you may not be aware off.  It is your Facebook feed.  It is the variety of news apps, magazine articles, 20/20 episodes, the nightly news... we're all going to suffer some horrible malady unless we do "this" or "that".  Seriously.  Go to your Facebook feed and count up the negative postings vs. the positive ones for the past 24 hours.  Who wins?  The only negatives that don't really 'count' are the ones in which a friend shares a personal story of loss or sadness (not a story about a stranger that is supposed to tug at your heart...)  I think personal stories are important - that is how we maintain connections.

 

I am so totally guilty of posting the negatives.  Around election time, I was in a backlash 'zone' with the astounding number of vitriolic conservative postings that were filling my feed.  I got wise and just bounced a few of the offending 'friends' from my feed.  And there they remain...  Sometime after the beginning of this year I made a concerted effort to keep things on the positive side.  I've slipped many a time, but I am aware of the friends that do the same, and I am grateful for their little rays of sunshine that light up my feed here and there.  And then last night happened...  A few more 'friends' got bounced.  Something about the eve of Patriot Day made the Obama haters circle in a feeder frenzy on Facebook.  Implicating Obama with Bin Laden and 9-11?  Buh-bye.  Obama is going to destroy the nation by weighing his options with what to do with Syria?  Out you go.  I save my sanity and my mood by filtering out the vitriol.  I totally get that I need to embrace everyone's opinion and that there is real value in that...but the posts that insult our president just because it is some sort of bizarre form of entertainment..?  You aren't expressing anything other than you would rather 'share' than spend a couple more seconds rethinking about the message you are sending.

 

But I digress...This post is about filtering the messages we are exposing our kids to day after day - and very apropos on this day of remembrance of 9/11.  Children Learn What They Live.  If you spew forth constant negativity and victimization stories, your children will do the same.  If you are listening to or watching something in front of your kids, they are listening to.  I am an NPR junkie, but when I step back and listen to it from the young child's perspective, maybe they shouldn't be hearing about the horrors of what is happening in Syria.  Or in the House of Representatives.  Or on the streets of Boston.  That's when I turn it off.  And then there's TV - seeing the twin towers in flames, people screaming in the streets and so forth.  Older teens, who should know the history - yes, they should be keenly aware of worldly events.  But not young children.  They can't process it.  They see pictures of the terrorists, and learn to fear - even hate, without the distinction that not all the individuals that populate that part of the world are like that.  The constant barrage of fear, hate, fear, hate, fear, hate on any of the national news channels (seriously - spend just 5 minutes on FOX news - if you can stand it) equates the mother of all stress baths.  Do you know what that does to your psyche?  Let alone your children's psyche?

Do yourself a favor and switch it off - especially today.  Go for a walk, breathe deep and focus on the good - and don't forget to involve your children too.  Cultivate the more positive friendships in your life.  Listen to the news if you must - but when you are alone, or switch it off the second it takes a turn.  Get off Facebook - or at least weed out the friends who aren't very friendly after all.  Filter the messages that come to your eyes and ears - and your children's as well.  You will feel the difference.  Dr. Payne related a story in which the parents did that very thing - they turned if off.  And in a matter of days, their young son stopped having trouble at school, grew less and less agitated and stopped having nightmares.  You have to remember that even though you and your child listen to the same story on the news, you are processing it with different filters and prior experiences.



Up to my ankles in suds...

photo credit

 

 

Yes we homeschool, so we kind of buck the cultural norms in that regard.  But we haven't relinquished our love of electricity, plastic bottles full of corrosive laundry detergent, liberal - even, dare I say, wasteful water usage, or a love of all things fabric softener.  Gain.  sniff.  ahhhhh.

 

 

Three years ago, we plunked down an obscene, OBSCENE, I SAY!, amount of money on a Samsung front loader washer/dryer combo.  After one week of use, they were no longer my favorite.  Even if they were shiny.  The washer took a ridiculous amount of time to do one, paltry load.  The dryer's magical damp 'sensor' wasn't so magical.  Three years have passed, and my disdain has only increased.  Whenever we travel to my inlaws and make use of their washer/dryer (on a daily basis during our visit because we have filthy kids...), I sit in awe.  I love my MIL's machines.  I want to ditch the suitcases, the children and the back seat and just take the machines home with me.  j/k   well...almost.

 

For the past month or so, our washer has completely under-performed.  As in... "I don't really feel like draining out all of this filthy water, or spinning or anything, so I am just going to sit here and beep at you every 30 seconds... all. night. long.  Out running errands?  Okay, I'll just entertain the dog and cat with the beeping.  I'm sure they will enjoy that.  Don't worry.  I'm sure you won't mind if your clothes fester in dirty water for a few hours..."

 

Samsung?  You suck.  So does the cheap plastic parts you put in your machines.  For the sheer pain of plunking down $1600 on one single machine, I expect better.  BETTER!

 

I am talking about the drain pump.  And the MAJOR PITA factor involved in getting to the drain hoses.  Which were caked in sludge.  I half expected to find a wayward penny.  Or a lego.  Or a button.  Nope.  Just a faulty part.

 

So, this past Sunday morning, I found my washing machine and all of its 40 respective parts, spread out all over the upstairs hallway.  Dean must have been busy.  Believe me when I say that stepping on metal screws hurts worse that those funky-shaped legos that stick out at all angles... you know the ones.

 

And the part that needs to be replaced?  Well, it should arrive sometime later this week.  We don't have enough clothes to last that long.  So my options are: stink.  No thank you.  Go naked.  again...pass.  Go to a Laundromat.  The last time I did that was in New Orleans when we vacationed there in 2010.  That actually wasn't sooo bad, once I got over my fear.  Dean took the kids for ice cream, and I washed and folded and watched my first episode ever of CSI on a little TV that was suspended from the ceiling.  Then the witchy owner-lady killed the TV 10 minutes before closing time, and no amount of eye daggers was going to convince her to turn it back on.  Another option would be to haul the dirty clothes to my mom's.  Nice idea, but I really don't have that kind of time, and I don't want to be a burden.  So... what option is left??

 

Ah-ha!!  The bathtub.  Bathtub you say?  Google it.  There is a whole (very scary) world out there of DIYers that has turned the act of washing your clothes out by hand into a modern-day art form.  It is culturally confusing however, to Google images of "Washing clothes by hand in bathtub", and see gleeful Preppers washing away in their plastic tubs mixed in with images of women and men slapping clothes on rocks next to a dirty stream. 

 

So, back to me (since it is all about me), I've got it down to a science...

 

1. Fill tub to about 2-3" deep with water - the temp depends on what you are washing.

2. Add liquid detergent while it is filling.  I also add softener too, because I am too lazy to do that separately.

3. Dump in clothes.  I limit myself to about 15 items, give or take.

4. Get them wet, step in and swish around with your feet just a bit to work in the soap.

5. Let sit for 10 minutes or so.  Or until you remember that you left clothes in the tub in the first place..

6. Get back into tub and get a 10 min. cardio workout.  Dance, stomp, swish, pretend you are an Olympic speed skater - careful - water can slosh!  Do the Twist!

7. Drain.

8. Rinse.

9. Drain.

10. Rinse.

11. Get all of the clothes into a big pile at the back of the tub, and then place your hands against the front of the tub and puuuusssshhhh.  Do a couple wall push-ups.  Then puuuuussshhh some more.  Squeeze as much of the water out as you can.  Then....get the Salad Spinner!!!! 

12. Spin each item.  A mop bucket with a squeezer-thingy can work too.

13.  Either hang up to dry, or throw in dryer.  (thank goodness that is still working, at least)

 

Done! 

 

Bonbon anyone?

A staggered start

 

 

You would think that after 6 years of homeschooling under my belt, I would have this gig all figured out. Not so. Every year has consisted of different circumstances, schedules and temperaments.

I want this to be *the* year that we take the 'schooling' part of school a little more seriously. I've got my plate full now, as Owen has joined the ranks and will begin doing regular work, just like his older brother and sister. Jordan is now an eighth grader, and I've got a lot of ground to cover. Rylan is in second grade, and not quite where I had hoped she would be. So, this is the year for change.

I know from past experience that doing the full schedule on the first day is a huge mistake. The kids need to transition out of their lazy days just as much as I need to. It was surprisingly easy to put homeschool out of my mind for June and July. As much as I had planned on schooling through the summer, my heart was just not in it, and with Jordan gone and our general summer activity busyness in the way, schoolwork was just not going to happen.

So here we are. It is August (and it's almost over !?!?), and our school year is well underway. I thought about school in short snippets here and there, and one of the decisions I made was that we would do a staggered start. Each week, as August progressed, I would add another kid to the schedule. And as each day passed by, we would add another item or two to the work load.

I began with Jordan, and after three weeks, he is running at almost full tilt. The only exception is World History. Neither of us are really grooving on History Odyssey. We cannot seem to move beyond ancient history!! After six years of homeschooling, we have left all the world history beyond ancient history virtually untouched, with the exception of what we read about in the yearly Core Knowledge books. I think that of all of the school subjects, history is my absolute favorite, and so I don't know why I am struggling with this. I need to figure out what my issue is with History Odyssey is, and fix it. Quickly.

We are using Homeschool Schedtrak again this year to track our hours, and Jordan has logged over 40 for this month already, so I think we are off to an excellent start. Please don't roll your eyes or secretly hate me when I tell you this, but Jordan has remarked, on numerous occasions over these past few weeks, that he is really enjoying the work - especially Physics, and looks forward to checking off his schedule as he goes. I am only making note of it here because I understand how fleeting and remarkable it is for a 13 yr. old to say something like this in the first place, and I need it here to remind me of the good times. I know that hard and difficult times are to be expected. I just want to be prepared. Now, I am not going to lie, there is a dangling carrot for motivation here. A completed schoolwork checklist = Minecraft, so that is truly what is pushing him here, at the moment.

Rylan's turn came up, and, just as I expected, she was less than thrilled. We are working at about half the desired work load right now. I think it is going to take a while to get her into a comfortable routine. The one highlight came last week, when upon the completion of a math lesson, she remarked in an astounded and pleased voice that she was excited to be doing 'real math' at this point, 'just like Jordan'. Not sure why solving the same sort of problems all of a sudden feels like the real thing, but there you have it. Another happy customer, so I'll file it away in the Good Times folder, for later use to remind me why it was a good idea to homeschool in the first place.

Owen is officially known to the school district now, as I just added his name to the Notice of Intent to Homeschool letter we have to send to the local district each fall. Owen loves his big yellow pencils and putting stickers on things. I no longer think he will be a lefty, he is most definitely a righty. I am a little disappointed...I thought that would have been kind of cool. We have only started up two things at this point - Reading Eggs and Explode the Code, so we will just continue to work on adding stuff as we go.

It has been a very good start - our best ever, to date. I think that it has also helped us that the extra stuff doesn't really start up until next month. Jordan has joined our homeschool Lego NXT group, and will meet twice a week until the month of November, when they go to competition. The group just started up meetings this past week, and he is enjoying it. He is also doing Boy Scouts, of course. And that's it! I think that not going to karate five days a week will make a huge difference for him. I'm still sad about that, but in the big picture, it's a good thing. Rylan wrapped up her summer tumbling session a week ago, and is enjoying not having anything to do at the moment. And I hope she does, because in another week's time, she will be a busy, busy girl. She will have three nights of dance in a row - jazz, tumbling and ballet, plus violin, and then Girl Scouts starts up in October, along with extra Nutcracker practices. I am glad we are not starting up scouts in September - I still need to get my feet on solid ground before I take on seven little Brownies!

So that's it! Things have been quiet here on the blog as I got stuff rolling - not much down time as of late. I have been keeping up with how fellow homeschoolers - both local and on the blogosphere have been ramping things up, making changes here and there - always good to self-evaluate and know that we are all in the same boat, just carrying different cargo...

 

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The 4 o'clock ice cream social

 

 

 

There have been street closures due to construction surrounding our neighborhood all summer long.  Two of the main exit points are closed.  For our purposes, any time we want to travel south from our neighborhood (which we do the majority of the time), there is only one exit we can use - one way in, one way out.  That goes for everybody.  I'm not sure of the approximate size of our little enclave, but I would guesstimate about 1500 residences???  Plus a park, small lake, green space, tennis courts, ball field, soccer field and an elementary school.

 

So earlier this afternoon, at 4 pm., I ran a quick errand - going southbound.  I followed the now-customary route that meanders through the neighborhood to get to the exit street.  This route takes me right past the school.  I rounded the corner and immediately regretted it.  Cars...  Minivans...  Hundreds of them, all having to travel in the same direction - one way in, one way out.  There were parents and kids streaming down the sidewalks and crossing the streets, laden down with boxes of Kleenex, reams of printer paper, bundles of yellow pencils and newly minted crayons, in 64 different hues.  It's that time!

 

I've walked past the school every morning for the past month.  They have a little electronic message board out front that broadcasts upcoming events, and it has been advertising the day-before-school-starts ice cream social for a couple of weeks now.  It was a chance for the students to meet the teachers, see the classroom, and drop off a small fortune in school supplies.

All this hoopla makes me a little wistful and A LOT thankful.  I have mostly good memories of those first days as a teacher - I had a total of four of those 'first days', and they were fun, crazy and flew by in an instant.  The classroom was as neat-as-a-pin when the kids and a few helicopter parents streamed in, and in a total wreck by the end of the day.

 

From the parents' perspective, I got to at least experience that first day of Kindergarten with Jordan.  Here we are, in my classroom.  My first day, ready to teach third grade, and Jordan's first day of K.

 



 

Okay, I have to admit that looking at this photo makes me miss the classroom... - *just* a little bit.  I really did love setting it all up, doing the planning, and engaging with the kids.  And look at Jordan!  Ha!  Now he is a gangly 13 yr. old.  He was soooo exited that day.  He couldn't wait to get to his classroom - but he had to hang with me until it was time.

 

A lot of time has passed.  We now have six full years of homeschooling under our belts, and have already started up with #7.  I didn't feel particularly emotional about leaving public school behind until two years ago, when Rylan was ready for Kindergarten.  All of a sudden I felt this inner panic that I was depriving her of some sort of right of passage.  I tried to picture her in a classroom setting, sitting a table with other kids, madly coloring and chatting away.  I felt very sad, and it took a while to get past it.  Now we are at a milestone again - Owen is now the Kindergartner.  Do I feel the same sense of panic?

 

When I watched all of these families walking towards the school, carrying their burdens in backpacks and shopping bags, I did feel sad.  But not quite so much.  I was almost willing to surrender my girl to my feelings of elementary school nostalgia, but not our Owen.  No way.  I don't want to miss out on a second of schooling him because his enthusiasm is absolutely precious.  The concentrated effort that he puts forth in holding his pencil 'just so', the way he colors carefully within the lines, the way he brings his workbook and stickers to me with an expectant look on his face... I am so, so, so very thankful that we are on this path.  That I know that tomorrow morning, while tons of other kids are boarding yellow buses with their brand new backpacks and lunchboxes, we will wake up, and work through our day together as a family, at a measured pace, mixing in the play with the schoolwork - a routine we know like the back of our hands.  I love our homeschool life, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

 

(Although I have to admit - I suddenly have the urge to decorate a bulletin board with apples and bookworms...  Just a little one... maybe put up the calendar on it.  And post some copywork or something.  And a small inspirational poster.  And a list of some sort!  Gotta have a list.  Maybe some gold stars?)