Sep. 25, 2007 - This, that, and everything else

Today was a stressful day! I'm feeling so discouraged right now. I feel as if my home will never be clean enough, laundry will never be completely done EVER again, I'll never get around to accomplishing my many tasks and goals! I hate that I'm such a perfectionist. I know I need to pray about this. I need to focus on what's most important and let go of everything else. But how? It's so hard to do. Something always needs to be done. Someone always needs my time, love, or attention.

Noah had a hard time concentrating this morning. Too many noises and distractions. Savannah and Elijah decided to have a meltdown over some chocolate chip cookies :( This was AFTER I'd let all the kids have some for a snack. Savannah informed me half an hour later that she was "starved to death" and that I was being mean by not allowing her to have any more. Elijah didn't waste time calling me mean; he just went right for the plate of cookies and grabbed a handful. Do you notice the difference in tactics here? Savannah is Drama Queen all the way. If you can't get what you want, first go for a guilt trip :) As for Elijah...either he was hoping he could cram some cookies into his mouth really quickly before I had a chance to take them away or (and this is the more likely scenario), he was counting on me to be so busy reprimanding Savannah that I wouldn't notice him sneaking away with his loot.

Anyway, a huge meltdown ensued. So that made things hard for Noah. But we got through it. The afternoon went better. I spent some time working on math and reading with Savannah first, then did our Science lesson afterwards. Savannah seems to feel excluded when I work with Noah first, so I thought it would help if I switched around our schedule once in a while. It did seem to calm her down for the rest of school time. Science was fine. I like the curriculum I chose this year and the kids seem to be enjoying it. Then Noah wanted to learn about Roman Numerals, so we did that for a while.

Here are some updates on what they've all been doing and learning over the past couple of weeks:

Jonah is getting better and better at sitting without support. All my other babies were doing it by 5 months, but he is definitely on his own schedule. I just sit him down a lot everyday and play with him to strengthen his muscles. No signs of teeth yet, either. I love how they are all so different and so special. It is a miracle to witness their little personalities unfold and something I will never tire of.

Elijah is using the big toilet. After living with a potty that constantly leaked pee all over the floor, I finally lost my patience. It'll be sitting on the curb tomorrow when the trash trucks come by. I honestly don't know why I put up with that thing for so long. So now we're using one of those rings that fit on top of the toilet seat so little ones don't fall in. It has Elmo and Ernie on it and Elijah seems to think that's pretty cool. He is also beginning to recognize and name a lot of the colors. He is using more words everyday and making lots of cute sentences. He loves putting puzzles together and helping me cook.

Savannah is such a fantastic reader! I am amazed at how quickly and easily she acquired this skill. I really don't have to "teach" her reading at all. We go over the weekly phonics lesson and I'm there to provide help when she gets stuck on a word, but for the most part, she does it herself. I keep LOTS of readers in the house about things that interest her. She can easily read the books designed for first to third graders.

Noah is reading books at the same level, but is more easily frustrated and does not have the passion for reading that his sister does. I hope someday he will, but I’m trying not to push him. He enjoys math, especially when he figures things out on his own. He will still come up to me from time to time with some random math fact. The other day he announced that 6 times 4 is 24 after examining the rows of water bottles I brought home from the store!

Both the older kids liked memorizing “The Caterpillar” poem from First Language Lessons. They’ve been going around the house reciting it for the past 2 weeks. Even Elijah knows the last two lines! They also like doing the illustrations for Story of the World. Spelling and Grammar have been simple enough. Every week we do two lessons in Spelling Workout. Noah usually has the words memorized by Thursday. Then on Friday I give him a little spelling test. I'm trying to have him work on his writing more. Over the summer we played a lot of writing "games." I helped the kids make mailboxes out of old shoe boxes and we sent each other letters, jokes, grocery store fliers, all sorts of stuff that we wrote. The kids really liked that. This year, in addition to copywork, I'm having him write about different journal topics or I'm giving him the option to write a letter or story. I'm excited to see him make some progress in his writing this year.

I'm reading such a good book right now. It's called The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook by Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore. I also read one of their other books, Better Late than Early, which was also fantastic. I have so many good things to say about this book, but it's getting late. But I'll leave you with this:

"Does anyone who knows children believe that the yellow school bus takes children down the road to a constructive, positive sense of society? Or returns them in the afternoon or evening more loving creatures than when they left in the morning? This happens only when the home is worse than the school! There is absolutely no evidence to support the prevailing assumption by parents and educators that the average school is more of a positive socializing agency than a good home - certainly not an altruistic one. And there is powerful evidence that we are schooling our youngsters today to be young narcissists. The ultimate result is recorded in the daily papers - failure, delinquency, drugs, sex, and often even violence. Values are being destroyed."

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Sep. 26, 2007 - Untitled Comment

Posted by CrossView

It does sound like you have your hands full!
I'm sorry that things are overwhelming right now...
I think motherhood is the only profession where we deliberately work ourselves out of a job.

And I want a seat with Elmo! -D

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