Dear B,

I just want to tell you how amazing you are.  You tackle everything in your path with such enthusiasm and joy that it is a pleasure to watch.  I've watched you grow this year, and I have to say you are one of the most interesting people to watch.  I may not always understand your methods in getting there, but I am content to observe.  Your solutions are creative - like the puppet you made with just a bag, straws, and yogurt cup.  No tape, no string, yet it moved well.

I love being around you.  I love watching you interact with your brother, giving him the help that he needs to finish his tasks.  I love watching you find your own interests in anime and cooking.  I love how, at 7-almost-8, you don't feel too 'grown up' to cuddle up on the couch with mom.  It's been a great year - I hope you'll treasure it as much as I do.

Happy Birthday, baby!

Nah..........not really ;)  But it's the theme of the month!  We are working on the sense of sight.  Yeah, I know, a 7yo has gone over this at least twice.  But that's okay, this time around we get to go a bit deeper!  Thanks to some cards I got from the Braille Institute and some cool DK  activity kits from Grandma, we are spending our days learning what makes our eyes see..........and how life would be different if they didn't.  Apparently, apple slices feel a lot like potatoes and hard butter and cheese can be mixed up.  Trying to cook?  Pfft!  We couldn't even find the right can!

But on the other hand, we did hear the garbage man three streets away and the low purring of the cat in the hall.  And we now have our own secret language.  Do you think if I wrote tomorrow's assignments in Braille it would frustrate them? LOL

Today's other activities included building a periscope, a kaleidescope, a mirror box, and a stereoscope.  The last sparked an interest in the Viewmaster again.  I brought out Theodoric's Rainbow when the 5yo became fascinated by the prisms and that set off a whole new wave of entheusiasm.

Do you think we can keep up the activities for a whole month?  I don't even know if we'll have enough for next week!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I caught the tail end of a conversation between the two boys.  Lately they've been "owning" cars they see on the road.  Turns out that's not as fun as laying claim to the universe:

7yo:  Well, I'll just take all nine planets!!!

5yo: There's only 8.

7yo, undaunted: Yeah, but there's numbered and lettered ones! Those are all mine!

5yo: There's a Hot Wheels one and that's mine. (Can you guess the current obsession?)

7yo: There's no such thing!

5yo: Uh-huh!  It's T95P32!

Tomorrow we wind up our study of the B.C. era.....with an ancient Greek dinner!  The kids and I translated recipes we found online, converted them to American measurements, and went shopping.  It was, uh, an interesting trip.  We picked up a few things we don't usually use (like leeks) and the combinations are ones we definitely haven't tried, so tomorrow should be an adventurous meal!

The computer ate my words!  I wrote out a great, entheusiastic post about our day today and how great it's been.  Unfortunately, the page not found monster ate it.

Alright the short story is this :

This weekend, I sat down with the 7yo and had a small talk about what was working and what wasn't.  We made a few changes, added in some stuff, took others out, and today...we had everything done by 1:30 and he asked "We're done??  I want to do more!"  This, from the kid who had just had a grammar lesson, math lesson, reading comprehension, writing, science, and an hour of Chinese practice.  (We do history tomorrow).  His suggestions worked, so we're keeping the changes!  It was such a peaceful, calm day .......and one we needed.  Friday had us going to the library, symphony, errands, basketball, and so on.  We spent more time in the car than we did at any one place, I think!  Saturday and Sunday had the neighbor boy over, so they built a giant K'nex rollercoaster together and spent all day watching the cars go around and making "traps" (aka, putting a lego man on the tracks so the train makes him fly off)

 Whoever says homeschooled kids aren't socialized aren't looking here!  The kids have their groups during the day, and they have their activities at night.  The problem is, it's getting to be too much! 

Another tooth gone.  Another crisp dollar bill in the piggy bank.  Slowly, slowly, my little boy is growing up.  *sniff*  Alright, I can't be too sad - it's been quite a while since he lost his other teeth - the kid is almost 8 and he's only lost 3.  We're still waiting for the major ones to go.

So today?  We celebrated with milkshakes and Hershey bar math.  

I got the Rosetta Stone last night!  Okay, not the real one, the language program.  Although we do have a copy of the real one, too.    I spent a while getting lost in the first lessons of Manderin last night, with a Chinese linguist sitting behind me laughing.  Hey!   That thing is hard!  It doesn't start off easy, at least not when you're learning a tonal language.  Give me a Russian one and I'm sure I could fly right through!  I didn't do so badly once I got the hang of looking for clues.  The words that sounds like har mean child, nu - female, nan - male.  I think.  Um................

Yeah, lots of work ahead there, at least to get to a point of proficiency.  I want to be able to watch Xiu Xiu, the Sent Down Girl without subtitles one of these days.  Or, on second though, no, I don't.  That movie is incredibly sad.  Maybe I'll watch Cowboy Bebop instead.

On another note, what better way to get a kid to do something?  Tell them you won't do it.   The dippy one brought home a Goosebumps book over thanksgiving.  A gift from a well meaning relative.  I looked it over, read it, and told him I wouldn't read it to him because I didn't approve of the content for his age.  However, if he wanted to read it, he was more than welcome to.  Double standard?  Yeah, maybe.  But he gets to decide when to stop if it gets too upsetting.  Anyhow, he just decided that since I wasn't going to read it to him, he was going to read it to me.  And just finished his first chapter.

What better way way to wind up January?  We went to the hardware store this weekend and they had seeds and berry plants in the main aisle.  Well.  The kidlets got excited.  We can grow this?  Anything we want?  Cool!  So we walked away with

Watermelon seeds (the 5yo)

Corn (the 7yo)

and

Strawberries (together).

Yesterday was supposed to be planting day.   Plans changed!  So instead we started today. 

We read the Tiny Seed by Eric Carle to open up the unit, then spent a good bit of time comparing and contrasting the seeds while waiting for the gel crystals to set.  I don't know how many people have discovered this, but it's the coolest thing for little kids.  I almost got the root view farm and somehow it slipped from my mind before we started this project.  So I went hunting around the house.  Left over from summer planting was a bag of soil, and in the back of my closet I found a small bag of these crystals left over from a science experiment last year.  A half a teaspoon mixed with water fills one cup - the crystals get big and have a jello like consistency.  And they're clear.  Which is great, because it makes it very easy for us to see what is going on with our plants.

After we got the seeds planted in small glasses, the kids drew pictures of their cups.  Heh, the youngest's is cute - it has the seeds, and the rest is colored blue for the water with silver accent marks for dimension. 

Over lunch we read, what else?  The Secret Garden.  Haven't gotten to the garden part of the book yet, but the idea of a nasty, bratty little girl is appealing to them.  She gets away with so much more than they do!

Last night I turned in early with a headache.  Man, I wish I had stayed up a little while longer!  About half an hour after I went to bed this ensued:

AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!  There's SOMETHING in the garage!

What? Where? I don't see anything?

So the banging on boxes (in the dark) began, trying to scare this animal back into the wild.  Nothing.  So what's the logical solution?  Why, close the door, of course! 

I got up this morning completely unaware.  Did my usual morning thing, started school with the boys, and was about to have them take out the bathroom trash when their aunt mentioned the thing in the garage.    There's what?  Where?  And you don't know what it is?  I opened the door between the garage and the laundry room to have this creature run toward me.  Or the light.  Could be either.  So I hurried and hit the garage door opener on the wall and slammed the door shut, sure that I had gotten away from a rabid raccoon or opossum.  I ran upstairs to the schoolroom (by this time with a few kidlets following behind me)  and watched from the window to make sure the thing left the garage. 

And watched.

And watched.

It wasn't budging.  Whatever it was, liked the garage.  The kid's aunt got in her truck and drove around the house to the alley where the garage is.  By the time she got back inside, she was laughing.  Our monster creature was none other than this :

Yes, the extremely scary, rabid, terrifying...................puppy.  From the looks of the garage, she's mostly paper trained.  Poor thing! I think we scared her more than she did us!  Right now the boys are out in the backyard with her playing around.  I fed her some Friskies (hey, we have cats!) and gave her some water.  She never left the garage, though, even when we had the door wide open.  She only moved to go to the yard.  No collar, no tags.  We put up flyers but we're going to have to call animal control if she doesn't find her home.  

So after much insistence from one who feels the need to have this whole system be proven, the 7yo was tested using the state approved and generated TAKS.  It's an untimed test, but this is the first of its type we've done.  He went into the room cold - no practice tests, no bubble sheets, no 'teaching to the test'. 

With a 3rd grade test in reading, he passed.  Barely (26/40, passing grade 23/40).  As of today, the child is 7 years, 10mo, 3 days.  He's a second grader. I would have to say he isn't doing too badly.  And that this is working for him.  The kid who couldn't sit still for 10 minutes last summer is working independently, mostly stays on task, and his concentration skills have gotten much better.

Tomorrow is math.  I'm not too worried about this one, either.

The dippy one has taken a new level in his Tivo skills - not only can he repeat a conversation, but now he can start at the last phrase and go backward, all the way to the first.

I'm waiting for the words to start coming out in reverse as well.

A very rainy, cold Saturday had us at the science museum to see this.  The day started out on the wrong foot so I was a bit hesitant to take them.  The one was grumpy because he lost his basketball game, the other one didn't get a nap, and the weather made it hard for them to get their energy out.  I knew it was going to be a bad day.

BUT.........surprise!  The 5yo caught a quick nap on the way out there, so things started perking up.  We got our tickets and headed over to the black passageway.  First thought going in? It  was absolutely spectacular.  So much to see, we wouldn't be able to understand it all if we tried. We ended up missing a few of the displays simply to save time.  Most of the information cards were written at a level over their heads, so I "interpreted" the whole way through.  It was long, though, and the boys' interest waned a bit.  The things that did catch their eye : the brain/body slices, the lungs, digestive system, nervous system, and fetus display.  Everything I thought they'd like - the full bodies - they had zero interest in.  It was a great experience, though.  The 7yo has come a long way since last summer in his ability to concentrate and well, walk without bouncing around to everything.  We made it through 4 of the five display rooms before we found a bench and sat down to rest, the crowds and the lack of sleep taking its toll on the 5yo.   While we were sitting there, an elderly lady and her two daughters came up to us.  They told me that they'd been following the same circuit as us and commended the boys on how well behaved they were being.  What a rush of relief!  I still worry about taking them out places sometimes, but they've gotten so much better lately.  Mischa and I have an odd way of making sure things are going okay.  We stop and ask ourselves if they're happy.  Because if they're happy, that means they know and respect their limits; unhappy children press buttons and push to find that limit or to break away from their oppressive boundaries.

Whoops!  Off on a tangent!  I tend to let the boys explore a bit within reason - if I can see them, and they can see me, they're ok.  In a crowded room, that means they have to stay a bit closer.  Well, I lost track of the 5yo.  He was 5 feet away from me, but had attracted a small crowd around him.  The kid was reading the cards to a group of adults!  He suddenly realized I wasn't there and I heard this small voice, "mom? Mom???" I inched my way through to him to be greeted with "mom, what's a lesion?"  Hey, at least he was focused!

Our tour ended with the fetus display, which impacted them the most, I think.  There were guest  books at the end to sign and the 5yo wrote : I LiKed The FAt BABy. 

I'm not sure which one he was talking about, but glad he liked it.  Both boys have also decided they want to be donated to science so they can be part of a future display, and they filled out a donor card for me, too.   EEK!

And the best part?  Yesterday was housecleaning day.  I put on Schoolhouse Rock and in the middle of Telegraph Line, I had a 7yo run out of his room.  "Hey, mom!  That's about the nervous system!  Remember when we saw that?"

This is one area the little one has been lacking in.  When it comes to kids his own size or smaller, he has no trouble telling them what he thinks.  When it comes to big brother.......well, he lets big brother walk all over him.  Big brother is 7.  He's going through the normal 7yo phase of controlling pretend play, making up the rules to suit him......

I was being the good mom.  The one who stood up for little brother and didn't let big brother walk all over him.  You can guess how well that worked.  When we went on vacation I took one of my favorite books with me - Kids are Worth It! by Barbara Coloroso. I love this book because I can read a little bit at a time and feel much better about how the kids are doing and not be so hard on myself.  One of the chapters I read was about teaching assertiveness.  I have to say, the methods work wonderfully.  We've been back 2 weeks and putting it into practice again (I say again, because this is an ongoing process - things go well for a while, a new phase hits, and we're thrown into the cyclone again.  It's been a few years since this last phase of bossiness).  So this afternoon I was pleased to hear:

5yo: I think I'll ride my bike over to our friend's house.

7yo (off his bike until he can prove he can be safe due to not listening and riding in the middle of the road) : No, let's walk!

5yo: I want to ride my bike over.

7yo: No, we should walk over.

5yo:  I can make my own decisions!  I want to ride my bike!

What started as a quick 1.5 -2 week trip up to Vermont turned into almost three weeks.  Mr. XiaoNiao got an extra week of vacation, so we decided to take off right then (er - the next day, Saturday) and spend a bit more time doing what we wanted to do.  So - first stop : Michigan!  Grand Rapids, to be exact.  We found out Chris Van Allsburg was from there.  Having a child still interested in trains, we had to find out where the address was (11344 Edbrook Avenue) from the Polar Express movie!  We found out the train Mr. Van Allsburg used for his model was not too far away, but we didn't get a chance to go see it.  Instead, we spent the day at an amazing hands on art museum, and headed out the next morning. 

We crossed through Canada, following both our Mapquest and GPS directions.  Unfortunately, both didn't realize that we'd be getting to the NY/VT border at 2am.  We drove through snowy dirt roads, twisting between mountains, to end up.............at the ferry dock.  1 mile from our destination.  Ferries don't like to run at 2am.  Exhausted, we backtracked until we could go down and around the lake.  4 hours late getting to our destination, and since the mountains/snow had killed our cell phone reception, the relatives were on the phone with the cops when we got in.    Cleared that up, got a good two hours sleep, and we were off to chop down a Christmas tree!

The original plans were to stop in New York on our way to Vermont, to see my sister and her family.  They were up visiting inlaws.  Unfortunately, their time was cut short so they hadn't arrived yet when we were heading through.  Two days after arriving in VT, we headed back over to do a Christmas exchange and let the littles play for a bit.

We spent a nice week or two in VT, then headed back on the road to spend New Year's in Missouri.  We had long time friends who were visiting family there.  On our way, we took a detour and stopped at the Arch.  I really need to get pictures on here.  The kids remembered it from last time and spent a bit more time looking around in the museum there.  They were a bit disappointed that the wonderful storyteller we saw before hadn't made a repeat visit, but the animatronics kept them interested!  From there we went to a little town near Mansfield, MO to ring in the new year with our friends.  For those who don't know, Mansfield was the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I had to convince the others in the car that she was real and it wasn't just a Michael Landon series.  This was "mom's guilty pleasure" part of the trip.  We took a small detour through the town until we found her home.  It wasn't open, because it was New Year's Day when we saw it, but I think it's worth a repeat visit within the next few years.

It was a great trip!  I had a pouty 5yo (yes, 5 now!) complaining that I didn't bring "school stuff" and a 7yo collecting facts about every state he went through.Oh, and a 28yo excited about Hardee's new menu.   But home again, home again, jiggity jig....this morning the little one woke up with a 103.8 temp and no other symptoms.  School's been put off for a bit - it's hard to manage with one who won't be put down and won't eat.  This week, we're taking it easy, getting back into the groove of things.  Good thing their new toys are cleverly disguised learning tools!

Maybe we won't find easy,

but baby, we found the good.

Thank you for not accepting my best and expecting more.

Thank you for insisting, even in your baby way, on fair, though not equal treatment.

Thank you for teaching me that to learn something new, you have to start with the basics.  We've come a long way from learning what means "happy" and "sad" and exploring new ways to find out what means hot and cold.

Thank you for showing me that ways to keep you with me are better than devices to keep you away.  I still have that picture of you climbing baby gates at 10 months.  The look of determination on your face shows how you react to all challenges.

Thank you for sharing with me your thoughts and feelings before you could talk.  Signing was a godsend, and I'm happy to see that you still use it, but don't depend on it.

Thank you for teaching me that normal isn't normal, perfect isn't perfect, and when you're loved, it doesn't matter.

Happy birthday, Dippy.  You've come a long way in 5 years, and I've struggled to keep up with you.

What a fun weekend!  We had so much going on!  Saturday Brandon had his first basketball game.  He was so excited!  They won 21 to 10.  Dippy spent his time under the bleachers looking for the Hot Wheels car he lost at practice the night before.  From there we went to a theatre cleanup for a new community drama group starting up.  The place has been neglected for about 20 years and shows it.  I think it'll be a good little place, though.  There's a meeting after the 1st that I plan on attending, to see how I can help . 

Directly after we headed to the homeschooler's holiday party, and then from there to the parade back in our town.  Whew!  What a long day!  Sunday was a bit more laid back - I needed a break! We decided around noon to put up the Christmas tree already.  Well, I don't think I moved fast enough for the boys, so they took matters into their own hands.  They unpacked all the bells, spent a good two hours polishing them, then ran and got the tree out of the back closet.  I watched, put on Christmas music, made hot cocoa and cookies, and let them go to town!  They did a really good job.  The bells are all sparkly and silvery and the tree was put together right.  With one kid who has to be told how to do something 10 times, and another kid who focuses on details only, this was nothing short of a minor miracle. 

Course, settling down for school this morning was not easy......

Last night we took the boys to the Santa Claus Village a few towns over.  I wish I had pictures!  There was a post office, city hall, bakery, police station, ornament factory.......all just big enough for a 7 year old to fit into, but not so much a mommy!  They had a blast with a sleigh ride, writing their letter to Santa in the post office, making hats with Frosty, getting weighed and measured at the Beary Good Care Hospital....by the time we headed back to the car we had two very tired, happy, sticky children who fell asleep before we turned out of the parking lot.

I love this part of homeschooling!  My oldest is studying the fifty states right now.  Being such a kinesthetic kid, what do we do?  We sang and danced to the Animaniacs, we read and played the Scrambled States Of America (great game, btw!), used the wrapups, and we're making a book of all fifty states.  That last one is the most fun.  Instead of just looking up facts, he's getting to go to about half of them.  Thanksgiving week had him on a tour of TX, NM, AZ, UT, WY, and CO.  Christmas week has us going the other direction - NY, VT, MO. And all the states in between.  We took a composition book and seperated it into 50 parts, giving each state two pages.  One for  facts, and one for pictures, personal opinions and thoughts.  Of course, we can't go to all the states, but it's a start in the enthusiasm.

It looks like we're going to end history this month at the birth of Christ.  We just went to see the Nativity Story on Sunday.  It was a great way for the kids to see the building we had been talking about, the level of civilization, and a sort of a preview of what was to come. Right now we're in 1600-500 B.C., with Moses, Jacob, and the Hebrews, and a bit of Egypt coming up again.  It's really really interesting to study history this way.  When the youngest was ready to start learning to tell time, we found out why hours and minutes are based on a measurement of 60 (Thank you, Babylonians!) It makes a heck of a lot more sense to a first grader than just "because".  

Do you ever feel like there's too many book and not enough time?  We read every morning.  I have a list of books I want to read to them this year, the boys have a list they want to listen to.  Unfortunately, there's about 20 books on each.  And not "Bread and Jam For Frances" type books, but nice long pieces like Harry Potter, The Secret Garden, The Chronicles of Narnia.  Since August, we've made it through almost 5 - HP1, The Castle In The Attic, The House at Pooh Corner, Alice In Wonderland, and we are almost through with Charlotte's Web. I have one more book planned for Dec (The Best Christmas Pageant Ever) and then a break until after New Year's, when we start up with either the WoOz or HP2.  We have some of the ones I want to read on tape/cd, so that cuts down a bit, but still.  It's a LOT!

The dippy one has decided to make another leap in math.  It's not fair that his brother is working with double digits!  He has to, too!  So he went from single digit addition facts to working with whatever he wants.  Right now he's sitting behind me with a double digit carrying page (i.e. 34-16 or 15+29) but I've pretty much given up on him.  He has pushed aside anything less than a second grade level except with time/money.  Ok.  Well, it's all on you, kid. If you want my help, I know you'll come ask for it.  So far, so good.  He talks to himself, licks his fingers, but is actually interested in what he's doing.

Please watch.  Keeping the youngest in a 5pt harness has gotten harder and harder, but I think he will be in it for a bit longer after viewing this.  I am so sorry for this family's loss and amazed that they could make something like this to help others. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azgBhZfcqaQ