The Pumpkin Patch - Time to Blog?

Oct. 2, 2007 - Time to Blog?

I haven't blogged in almost a week. I've been trying to get a lot of random stuff done around the house. I honestly don't know how you all find the time to blog at all, especially those of you who have more little ones than me! At least five times a day I'll think of something interesting or otherwise worthwhile that I want to blog about, but when 8:00 rolls around and everyone's in bed, what do I do? I sit on my butt and read other people's blogs instead :)

So here's a list of some of the projects I've managed to complete in the past week:

1. Finally printed a lot of family pictures and put them up in frames. Jonah is 6 months old now and I didn't even have any photos of him up around the house yet!

2. Brought down all Fall/Winter clothes and jackets from the attic. Washed them. Even got everything put away in appropriate dressers.

3. Cleaned out back hallway where a lot of junk tends to accumulate. Plenty of room now for the air conditioners when hubby packs them away for the season...hopefully he'll decide to do this sometime before Christmas.

And what I have left to do:

1. Clean out my fridge!

2. Clean/organize entire computer area and THROW STUFF AWAY. I hate clutter! My husband has a hard time throwing away Burger King receipts from 4 years ago. We will never see eye to eye in the clutter department. So I'll be tackling this scary mess all by myself sometime this weekend.

3. Wash the tub.

In other news, it's been about a month since we started the new school year and I'm just now getting back into my groove. We had a few rough spots; I think I'm slowly learning that if I can keep my emotions under control and remain calm, the kids will respond much better. I certainly can't predict or prevent every little interruption, meltdown, or bad mood, but I can control my reaction to these things. I don't want to feel discouraged or impatient everytime my kids misbehave or become distracted. So instead I am trying to pray for wisdom and patience! I want them to enjoy learning. I want this to be a fun experience for all of us. I try to keep that in mind everyday.

Last week I think my hormones were partly to blame for my irritability. I was spotting off and on and I've noticed that this is usually a harbinger to Moody Mama. I'm not sure if my body is trying to bring on AF, but my guess is that I'll spot a little here and there until Jonah is 9 months old. He is still nursing so much that I can't imagine having a full-blown period already. I hope not :(

We made a model of the Nile river last week. This is one of the projects in the Story of the World. The grass is already beginning to grow on the "banks" of our little river. The kids love hands-on activities like this. I need to make it a point to do a lot more of them. I pretty much planned out every week of History already, but I'm going to try to fit in even more of the projects than I originally intended. Noah especially learns better when he's actually doing something, rather than sitting passively and listening. So this week we're learning about hireoglyphs and cuneiform and I think I'll try to bring out the clay at some point to practice some Egyptian or Sumerian writing.

What else? Noah is learning a new poem for Grammar called "Work." Actually, he memorized it already, but there is a lot of review in First Language Lessons. I really like this poem and have found myself repeating it to the kids when they don't want to pitch in at clean-up time! Here it is:

"Work"

Anonymous

Work while you work

Play while you play;

This is the way

To be happy each day.

All that you do,

Do with your might;

Things done by halves

Are never done right

Noah has been reading a lot of the Oliver Pig books by Jean Van Leeuwen lately. He seems to enjoy them. He also read an Eyewitness Reader Level 3 (grades 2-3) last week. I had to help him quite a bit, but thought it was worth the effort for him to try because it was something that interested him: Beastly Tales: Yeti, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster. Here is his illustration for that one!

It's a Yeti, can you tell? And here is the narration he dictated to me:

"This book was about Yetis, Bigfeet, and Loch Ness monsters. People found footprints of the Yeti in the snow. We don't know if it really exists. If it is alive, we don't know anything about it, like what it eats or where it lives."

And here is what he drew for another book called "Cave People" by Linda Hayward:

And here is his narration: "The Neanderthals were strong people who lived a long time ago. They made spears and hunted animals for skin and food. Fire was used for warmth and for scaring away animals that might try to eat the Neanderthals at night. Fire was also used for light in the darkness."

Some other good readers that the kids have enjoyed recently: the Cork and Fuzz books by Dori Chaconas; The Fire Cat by Esther Averill; the Poppleton Pig books by Cynthia Rylant; Mildred and Sam and Mildred and Sam and their Babies, both by Sharleen Collicott.

Well, Jonah is calling. Time to feed him and get ready for bed :)

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