In Which We Go Through Another Day

These summaries of what we do each day must be incredibly boring, but I am going to do an even more tedious one now. The reason is that typing these schedules out help me learn what works for us and what doesn't.

Today I was slow getting up and slow to do my regular chores. I got things done little by little, but not systematically, and some chores and duties were skipped. Usually, my example is what sets the tone for the day, so I am curious to see how the rest of this day goes.

6:40ish I got up, made coffee, and mooned around on the computer

7:00ish I heard noises coming from Nick's room but nobody emerged

7:30ish Nick came out to be officially up for the day. I served him yogurt, peanut butter honey toast, and strawberry milk with Vitamin D added (I often use Carlson's Vitamin D drops for children based on tips from pharmacist moms who read Valerie's Babywise Mom blog and from our pediatrician). I also put on a load of laundry and got dressed. Nick got a pair of shorts on. That's all. His underwear stash has been depleted by the number of times I threw away his messy accidents. I guess I need to go buy more; they're kind of a necessity. Nick has gone #2 in the potty on his own a couple of times in the last few days, by the way!!!!!!!!!!!!

8:00ish Erik got up and I took Nick to the porch to paint a watercolor painting. I'm so glad I did that, because my one-on-one attention to Nick is suffering while I homeschool Xander. I still have one-on-one time with him, but the only things we tend to do during this time are reading and cuddling and talking. Not that those things are bad, but the poor boy wants to do other things, too. Watercolor painting requires a lot of my supervision because he doesn't remember to put his brush in the water between every color yet. Erik didn't get a packed lunch because we were painting instead of putting together the final touches of a lunch.

Nick made a snake shape, whether on purpose or by accident, and told me it was a snake. When he used green paint, that was a frog. Other things were battle droids, apparently.

I am so glad that we will be doing preschool so that Nick gets fun one-on-one time with me surrounded by amazing materials. That reminds me, part of our homework this week is to have Nick decorate the cover of a notebook that will serve as our goals journal. That will be a good activity for him while Xander and I are doing school work.

Between 8:30 and 9:00 I switched the load of laundry to the dryer and mooned around on the computer more. Xander got up. I fed him the same menu Nick had eaten. Nick had been sitting on the couch reading for a while, and somehow Xander immediately antagonized him by making conversation. (Not Xander's fault, probably.) I put on the TV and the kids watched Super Why!, Dinosaur Train, and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. TV in general is really rubbing me the wrong way lately, so I wish I wouldn't turn it on at vulnerable moments like lazy mornings and late afternoons. Bad me. During this time, Xander was drawing pictures using his markers and our animal stamps. He made a dragon out of a few different animal stamps put together "because I don't know how to draw a dragon."

I gave Nick (and me) a snack of turkey bacon, and more milk for Nick. I considered making more coffee even though I've already had three small mugs this morning.

10:30 I put Nick into independent playtime. He was very tired and even resorted to slapping himself in the face. I assume that was to banish the feelings of drowsiness. Xander and I got ready for school by clearing the table and saying the pledges. I wrote our schedule down on the dry erase board titled "Wonderful Wednesday."

10:45 We listened to "How the Camel Got His Hump" in Just So Stories. We had extra time and Xander really wanted to listen to another one, so we put on "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin." He wanted to listen to another after that, but there wasn't enough time. As I got out his next activity, he told me, "This is the worst morning ever. All because of what you are doing." He didn't sound very upset, though, so I think he was trying to get a rise out of me. I said, "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Your math activity is on the table and I'll explain it when you get there."

And everything went smoothly until he decided the activity was too hard. I think he didn't like seeing how big the stack of cards was. I had one card for each for numbers 4 through 11.

11:00 I put on "Scarborough Fair" while Xander did the hole-punching math activity. I decided he could do two cards per day.

11:15 We read "Summer Afternoon" three times and played around with reciting the first line with most of the words erased on our dry erase board. I am surprised at how he views this as a game. He hasn't complained once about memorizing a poem.

Nick had a peanut butter honey sandwich. Both boys had milk. We are low on milk.

11:30 Half hour break; Xander said he had a sore throat; I learned we are out of Children's Advil; I planned a trip to the store.

I helped Nick use materials like stickers, glue, tissue paper, and paintbrush markers to decorate the cover of his new school journal. The cover was decorated, then he wanted to put a large piece of tissue paper over all of it, like so:

Then we all went to WalMart. I almost never go there, but today we needed toddler underwear and I didn't want the wheedling that usually goes with our Target trips (Legos, Goldfish, and ice cream, oh my). Our local WalMart doesn't seem to have prices much lower than Target, and HEB beats them out, so I don't normally go there. Unfortunately, HEB does not carry underwear.

I decided to go ahead and try to get the week's groceries while we were there without having planned out all our meals first. This is a major no-no in my book, but then again, taking advantage of being out while we're out is a good thing. I think we are nearly done with our week's shopping. Hurray!

Nick and Xander are having their first caramel apples ever. I told Xander the apple might pull his loose teeth out but he was welcome to take the risk if he wanted. This is their "fall treat." We agreed they would only have it once a year.

Nick went down for his nap pretty late today at 2:00. At his age, the difference between 1:00 and 2:00 doesn't seem to matter. 1:30 seems to be a really good time for him right now. He slept until 4:00ish.

Xander got to play. I was too tired myself to make him finish his last two school activities. I laid down instead.

We had meatballs and spiral noodles and fruit salad for dinner. With a LOT of prompting from Erik and enforcing that Nick could not get down until he finished, Nick finished his whole plate. (It was a small plate of small portions.) He did this the evening before, too. Everyone finished his or her dinner and we all clapped for each other.

After I got dressed for my run, Xander and Nick and I jogged down our street and back again. They were playing Star Wars the whole time. Xander was pretending to run and fight with his light saber and Nick kept saying something about there being "too many" enemies.

Then I went on my two-mile run. I'm guessing it was two miles based on past runs. I was out for almost 21 minutes. Erik had the boys watching a PBS documentary on lions and humans and the book and movie Born Free. They filmed the movie using untrained, as in non-circus, lions, can you imagine?

The book Born Free was written by Joy Adamson. She and her husband, George, raised a lion cub to adulthood in Kenya and then released her. It seems that the lion (Elsa) was always imprinted on and loyal to them. Both Joy and George were later murdered, Joy by a former employee they had fired and George by poachers when he rushed in to save a tourist who had gotten caught up with them. I find it telling that, in the wilds of Kenya, sometimes on intimate terms with full-grown lions and cheetahs, they were both killed by human beings.

Xander and I drew a Chinese dragon using a step by step tutorial. I wanted to show him that it is possible to draw something even if you think you don't know how. I had him look for the different shapes that we needed to draw. For example, the spikes along the dragon's body were not quite triangles, but I showed him how they were basically triangles but with curved tops.

Then Nick and I and Sandy went outside in the twilight. Sandy always seems calm and interested outside. He stretches his neck up whenever he feels a breeze. I could never let him run around out there because we have plenty of flying predators in the area, but I do hold him out there every once in a great while. Nick got to see the first star of the night. And the second, and third. Etc. He loves being outside.

After that, it was bedtime. I invited Xander to ask me any questions he wanted to. He asked me how markers are made, why their tips are always pointed, why they draw thinner than crayons, and how Legos are made and put into boxes.

Erik and I tasted a wine (which happened to be very bitter - yuck) and played Star Trek Expeditions. We were blown out of the sky and basically failed to the utmost in all our missions. It was a good time together, though. :)

It's Try Our Best Day

Today is going very well. I decided to have a brief heart-to-heart with Xander before starting school about our attitude for the day. That got him to grudgingly start the school portion of our day.

On a small dry-erase board, I wrote "It's Tuesday! Try Our Best Day!" and then I listed times and the subjects we would be doing at those times. I told Xander he could continue coloring on his Star Wars Story Studio book every time we finished a subject before 15 minutes were up. We've been using the timer for each subject, and each time we have had a few minutes for him to color. He gets to erase each subject as we finish it from the dry-erase board. I think he really likes this way of doing things, and I do, too. If we continue, it will teach him the value of getting things done at the right time and not getting distracted in order to make extra time for leisure. I hope.

Got the Pizza Hut Book-It materials in the mail. They're not much, just a pamphlet explaining the rules plus reward certificates that I fill out and he brings in for a free personal pan pizza. I like that the teacher sets the goal for the student(s), so it can be a goal of minutes per day, pages per day, or number of books per month. My goal for Xander is fifteen minutes of reading to himself every day.

Also got the James Herriott's Treasury for Children in the mail. As I predicted, Xander fell in love with it. The book is large and hardcover, so the beautiful illustrations of animals in the Yorkshire Dales are just as important to the book as the stories. We are in the middle of the first story, Moses the Kitten.

If Xander continues to like James Herriott, we own a couple of his adult books, All Things Bright and Beautiful and All Things Wise and Wonderful.

Today, Xander did many minutes of Star Wars Jedi Math. Fifteen minutes were for school. Now he's playing for free time. Tomorrow I'll make sure he does a hands-on math activity (that doesn't include hands on a control pad). He listened to the rest of a story in Among the Night People. Both boys listened to Scarborough Fair (the Simon and Garfunkel version) several times. I printed out the lyrics and began a Folk Songs binder so we can learn a couple of songs per 12 weeks.

I read him another fable from Aesop and he narrated back to me what had happened in it. He learned a new Spanish word, mariposa, and I read him part of the book Adios, Oscar! Una Fabula de Mariposas. He continues to be interested in picture books even when they are in Spanish. Of course, we read aloud from The Hobbit again.

Xander also learned about the zoom function on his new camera and took a couple of pictures to compare zoomed in with zoomed out. (Below are my pictures; I haven't tried to figure out how to connect his camera to the computer yet.)

I put an apron on Nick so he could help me make a snack; instead he shared his apple with a dinosaur

he was very helpful, assisting the dinosaur in chewing

here Xander is copying a phrase from This Country of Ours

Weekly Goals

I'm nervous to see how I did on last week's goals. Here they are, crossed out if I did them:

Last week's goals:

Personal

1. Go to church on Sunday. {This was the day I slept half the day.}
2. Run at least 5 miles this week. {I ran 3.5.}
3. Get Locks of Love hair cut.


Marriage

4. Have another wine tasting and game playing night. {We did taste another wine, but didn't play another game.}

Children/Homeschooling

5. Schedule Xander's tonsil removal surgery.
6. Finish the first chapter of The Hobbit.


Service/Family/Friends

7. Finish my first Mother Bear Project bear.
8. Call both my mom and dad this Sunday. {Talked to my mom; wanted to call my dad; see above about sleeping.}

Business/Writing

9. Write two remaining Homemaking Cottage articles for September.

Financial

10. Call insurance company. ! {!}

Ew. I did even less than last week in terms of completing these written goals. On the bright side, homeschooling is going well and last night's running was awesome. Maybe I am on the upswing.

10 Goals For This Week:

Personal

1. Go to church on Sunday.
2. Run at least 5 miles this week.
3. Start keeping a morning journal.

Marriage

4. Have another wine tasting and game playing night.

5. Focus on Erik when I get home from running and have nightly chores done. Forget about what I haven't yet completed for the day, or the week, or the month.

Children/Homeschooling

6. Take Nick to preschool - with homework finished.
7. Go on a nature hike as a family.

Service/Family/Friends

8. Finish my first Mother Bear Project bear.
9. Call both my mom and dad this Sunday.

Financial

10. Call insurance company. !!

Preschool Starts

This morning was the parent orientation for a preschool program we are participating in with Nick. It is one of the free programs offered in association with the school district. It is well organized. The preschool "class" room is fantastic. It's just as good as or better than the pre-k classrooms Xander attended. It might be smaller, but all the resources are much newer.

There are "workstations" rather than "centers," named that way because the teacher/coordinator wants to emphasize that when children are playing they are working at learning. There is an easel with paints, art station, reading station, writing station with various surfaces to write on, science station, block station, manipulatives station, sensory station, math games and toys station, and the place where the kids pick up their picture/name tags and have their group time.

Preschool only happens once a week for a regularly scheduled hour. Our class is the one on Monday mornings. If we are more than five minutes late, they lock the door. I kind of like that because one of the reasons Erik and I wanted to enroll Nick is to get him used to a structured school-like environment. Of course, they don't lock the doors in public school, but they do make you go to the office and get a "tardy." I do hope to homeschool Nick as he gets older, but he will need these skills for many other kinds of groups he might want to join in the future.

The kids (mostly three-year-olds) start by "signing in" next to their name. Then they go in with their parent(s) and pick up their picture/name tag from the table to put it on. They explore the stations however they want to or however their parents encourage them. During the last ten minutes or so, the children gather together for group time.

The place is beautiful. They have a nice outdoor playground for little ones at their center (which is part of the portable buildings outside a local middle school). There is a child care area that is quite large. Xander will be spending the time there. He will be the oldest, since other older siblings are in public school, but he won't mind that. Just some of the things I saw in there were:

• a nice wall map of the United States
• all kinds of blocks and magnet vehicles
• a mini trampoline with bars to hold on to
• a "house" made of mats in formation
• a kitchen area
• a dress-up area
• a baby/toddler crawl and rocking chair area
• a marble run

 There were plenty of other areas and toys in there; I couldn't take it all in while helping Nick get his shoes on, finding Xander, and getting Nick's picture taken for his name tag.

One drawback was that both boys seemed worn out by the time we got home. It was only 10:15 or so, but I gave them lunch instead of a snack and then had Nick do independent playtime. Xander could not get any school work done without whining, so we went back and forth on whether or not he was going to do his schoolwork or lay down in his bed without playing toys. He rested for more than half an hour.

Meanwhile, Nick got out and admitted he had to go potty. I had him sit on the potty and bribed him with another ice cream cone if he did #2 in the potty again. I just really want to make this second nature for him. He did it! (Hurray! I shouted mentally.)

Nick and I read National Geographic books almost all the way up to naptime.

In fits and starts, Xander:

• listened to another two sections of The Story of the World
• colored, cut, and glued to index cards pictures of what he had heard
• put those cards on our wall timeline in order
• played Star Wards Jedi Math on his Leapster
• listened to The Hobbit
• discussed the saying "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" with me
• listened to Johnny Appleseed, the version retold and illustrated by Steven Kellogg (Xander was really captured by his illustrations)
• listened to the poem "Buckingham Palace" by A.A. Milne
• copied a phrase from This Country of Ours underneath his illustration showing the action: "the house was finished"

We're steadily getting through The Hobbit. Xander usually wants to listen to it at breakfast time and before bed.

Yesterday evening I went for a two-mile run and it felt great. I told Erik it was either the five days or so I took off or the temperature. For the last two days, we have had lows of about 60 degrees and highs of 90ish degrees. It feels wonderful.

A Milestone, I Hope

Nick achieved a milestone! A gross milestone! Thanks to Erik having him sit on the potty chair and watching him like a hawk most of the day, he finally went #2 there. He got his promised ice cream cone, months and months after the promise was made.

We're hoping this was the breakthrough. Since he trained himself for #1, we assume that now he knows that it actually works, he will do the same for #2. If it wasn't the breakthrough...I will be sad.

I slept half the day yesterday without feeling any less tired. It is probably the running (as little as I have been doing) and it makes me feel like an old lady!

In other news...Nick hums his way through most activities. He even "read" a National Geographic book to me the other day by asking, for each page, "You wanna hear the lizard {or whatever other creature was on the page}?" When I said yes, he would hum a phrase for that animal. A different phrase for each animal.

As a result of his humminess and talkiness, there is almost never a silent moment here. I must have finally gotten used to it; it doesn't bother me. It does bother Xander, when he is trying to watch a movie, talk to me, play, or rest.

(Well, to be completely truthful, it is trying on those days when every sentence is opened with, "Mo-om! Mo-om! Mo-om! Talk to Nick!!")

This is just one more sign that Nick is really into music. I am going to have him study songs and composers along with Xander (to the best of his ability) because I think we would be shortchanging him not to encourage his musical interest.

Xander loves music, too, especially patriotic songs. He can identify orchestral instruments with great accuracy when we're listening to a song being played by those types of instruments. He even recognizes one or two classical music songs. I'm hoping that I can find some way (or some person) to teach him voice lessons so he can gain a stronger, more tuneful voice. Very soon, I will be teaching him to play the recorder. If he will keep up with it (cheerfully), I think he will love having the ability to "make songs" himself.

The boys played around experimenting with our keyboard yesterday. Erik played some tunes as well.

September Saturday

Erik went out to a football game today.

Meanwhile, the rest of us hung out, did a couple of errands, and schooled a bit.

In the morning, Xander played games on PBSKids.org while I actually took a little nap and Nick had independent playtime. I have been exhausted lately!

Later in the day, we went to Hobby Lobby to pick up a couple of photo albums for our Picture Studies and a sketchbook and watercolor pencils for our nature journals. (I plan to have Nick follow along for the Picture/Art Studies and the composers and songs we learn. He can draw while we're out using nature journals, but he's not going to use the good watercolor pencils.) We also picked up a Balance Bird for Nick. I got a pack of their educational figures (knights) after Xander pleaded. He can't have them until we get to studying that time period in our World History.

That motivated him to do a World History section today.

He:

• listened to section 2, The Nomads, from The Story of the World
• narrated to me a few facts he had heard about nomads
• cut out, glued to an index card, colored, and hung an illustration of nomads on our wall timeline - it's our first history timeline event!
• practiced using the watercolor pencils on paper; he didn't want to paint water over top of his pencil drawings but I did some experimenting (see below)
• listened to "America the Beautiful" a few times and tried singing along (he has heard it before, notably last year at school)
• listened to a story in Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
• listened to me read part of a story from Among the Night People by Clara Dillingham Pierson
• played in the back yard for a while
• spent many minutes playing with the Balance Bird (it cost us about $2 and we've already gotten way more than our money's worth in enjoyment - see below)
• used animal stamps on paper for fun
• held Sandy on his lap while watching another Dinotopia DVD

Xander made a ninja with nunchuks and (I think) an ax

this is a baby dinosaur, I forget what kind

just an illustration of how Nick looks after we go anywhere that has dirt

this one is even more true to life, but really he looks even more covered in person

I used an idea from Valerie's blog Children's Learning Activities to have Nick do horizontal lines...

...and vertical lines, and a square

this is what I drew with the watercolor pencils (Xander also did a fill-in-the-loops drawing)

this is after brushing water over top - if I had pressed harder with the pencils while drawing, the water-added product would have brighter colors

this is our current homeschool central (apart from this book case, we write/draw on the dining room table, do a daily calendar in Nick's room, keep nature journal supplies in a basket near the front door, and store extra art and craft materials and paper in the garage) (oh, yes, we also have a small basket of activities for Nick during school time and a big library basket that gets refilled every week)

the Balance Bird on a football!

Balance Bird on the top of a baseball bat!

Balance Bird on a crack in the wood post!

BB on the handle of a tricycle!

BB on Xander's finger tip!

this guy is trying to come around to see what I'm taking a picture of, as usual

BB on a water ball!

I'm trying to identify this tree in our back yard but no luck so far

Productive?

Late start today, not because of getting up late but because of being draggy. Again.

Nick played some figures and dinosaurs outside for novelty. It was a really nice morning compared to what it's usually like in the afternoons. A blazing inferno.

The kids journaled together. They are both "making a starship, Mommy!"

Off and on, the kids played together wonderfully.

Xander had quality lap time with Sandy. Sandy got a chunk of banana out of the deal. Plus, he seems to really like hanging out with Xander outside of the cage.

I planned next week's menus and made the grocery list. I also looked up various lessons for Xander.

The boys did free drawing, which was only different from journaling because I gave them each a large sheet of manila paper and they drew on the dining room table, excitedly, together.

When Nick took his nap, Xander and I got started in earnest.

Xander:

• listened to me read an Old Testament story and part of The Hobbit
• listened to me read about the land bridge that used to exist between Alaska and Asia, and the people who came over the bridge to the Americas
• recited one line of a passage we will memorize
• did another M&Ms math activity that related to number patterns as they are found on a die
• chose to learn to play the flutophone this year (over the keyboard)
• listened to and recited the title of a poem to learn this term: "Summer Afternoon" by A.A. Milne
• started the Star Wars Story Studio, customizing three books to color
• went to Will and Jill's house with me and Nick, to play