A look into our life as we grow in the Lord, learn to parent, and begin our homeschooling journey. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/ en-us Homeschool Blogger Fri, 2 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0500 Fri, 2 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/732788/ Fri, 2 Oct 2009 22:00:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/732788/ I think today I deserve some type of mommy medal of honor.  I took both Jaylyn and Jaxon to the dentist today.  And the trip was……………drum roll please………………… a huge success!!! Jaylyn has been to the dentist before and usually does pretty well.  Today she had her teeth cleaned, flossed, and counted.  Her favorite things are the Mr. Thirsty (straw) and the water gun.  She had the best time and just talked to the hygienist like an adult.  It was priceless to hear their conversation.  Then it was time for Jaxon.  He was there for what they call a “Happy Visit.”  Our goal was to keep him happy.  He sat in the chair in my lap and played with the light.  He wanted it on and off and then on again.  He held Mr. Thirsty and refused to put it in his mouth.  He waved it around like a wand.  He poked me in the nose with it.  He put it in Jaylyn’s mouth.  He talked to it.  He put it in his palm and let it suction his fingers.  Then………….finally, he put it in his mouth.  The water gun was a huge hit.  He used it like a personal water fountain.  The whole suctioning out the water thing just didn’t make any sense to him.  He took a long drink, swallowed, and then put in Mr. Thirsty.  Not very effective.  Then he had his teeth brushed with just a toothbrush.  He actually opened his mouth a couple times to let the hygienist brush his teeth.  Then she used the mirror to count his bottom teeth.  After that he was done.  Then the kids got their own masks because those were just fascinating.  Jaylyn wore her non-latex gloves.  They got their toothbrushes.  They picked a toy.  And the hygienist gave them each a glove balloon.  They were happy campers.  Wow!  That was nearly painless!  No cavities.  Clean teeth.  Happy kids.  And a dental office that is still intact.  Go back in March, we’ll see how that visit goes. http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/731999/ Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:47:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/731999/ Ok, this update is long, long overdue, so here it goes: Mine and my husband’s allergy tests came back.  I was sensitive to gluten and my husband was borderline on the gluten.  I was on the high side of normal on dairy and my husband was completely fine with dairy.  So, I’ve stopped gluten.  I’ve stopped oats.  I’ve stopped chocolate.  I’m limiting my dairy intake.  We’ve begun going to a chiropractor.  He said Ellie was “crooked” or whatever terminology they use.  So, last week she began getting adjusted.  She started sleeping through the night again.  We had five nights of sleep!!!  The chiro is also doing acupuncture treatments on her.  Maybe those are helping too.  We saw a new pediatrician on Thursday.  He was a little better than our current pediatrician as far as being patient, listening to my concerns, and spending time talking with us.  He told me most of the same things—dryer sheets, detergents, Vaseline, oils, lotions, creams, no soap, limited baths……….. His new suggestions were:  using Elidel (which really isn’t supposed to be for kids under 2.  I’ve also read some scary stuff about Elidel so I’m just not sure yet.) using bleach baths (putting her in a tub with even a little bit of bleach just makes me nervous, gonna have to research that one) giving her children’s Claritin to help the itch (going to think about that one.  Benadryl makes Ellie really, really awake so that is NOT an option) But he ordered an allergy test on her!  Finally!  I don’t care if it shows nothing.  I just wanted someone to try it.  I felt like all the other doctors were laughing off my concerns about a food allergy.  It may not be the answer but at least we can rule some things out.  I would love to eat normal foods again!  Friday we went to our hospital for the lab work.  After a ridiculous wait, ridiculous miscommunication, and just ridiculous people in general.  We got the labs done.  We may have to go back and repeat them because they can only take a certain amount of blood from such a small baby and it may not have been enough to run the complete test.  We’ll hopefully get our results sometime this week and know if we need to go back.  I hope not!  They had to draw blood from a vein and it was not a fun experience.  Then over the weekend, Ellie flared up, didn’t sleep, and fussed for about 5 hours on Sunday.  It was the longest weekend!  It didn’t even feel like a weekend.  Sunday night Ellie decided to sleep a little longer and Monday night she slept through the night again.  She’s looked slightly better on Monday and now she looks pretty red and scaly again today.  This week we have an appointment with an ENT who specializes in allergies.  Maybe he’ll have some other suggestions.  I feel like we’ve just gone around and around and around and not made any progress.  So lotions and creams and oils don’t seem to make a difference.  So not using soap, or dryer sheets, and changing detergents didn’t help.  So the pediatricians haven’t offered much helpful advice.  So the chiropractic care and acupuncture might not be helping.  So changing my diet doesn’t seem to make much of an impact.  What is going on?  The only answer may be “she’ll grow out of it.”  FINE!!!  But what do we do in the meantime???  Someone answer me that! http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/731573/ Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:48:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/731573/ We decided we would buy a potty for little Jaxon.  We want him to be familiar with the potty and hopefully get him interested sooner rather than later.  I feel like a diaper changing assembly line some days and two kids in diapers is no fun!  So, we’re not potty training, but we sure are talking about things.  Jaylyn is convinced that we ARE potty training Jaxon and she feels it is her job to do it.  Not that I’m complaining but her tactics aren’t working too well.  She runs up to Jaxon, tells him he needs to potty, takes him by the arm, and drags him to the bathroom.  Somehow I think she’s hurting my cause rather than helping it.  However, it is so cute to see Jaxon sitting on his little potty seat facing the potty while Jaylyn sits on the big potty and reads him a book.  The water runs, Jaylyn reads the potty book, and she asks him if he needs to potty.  And we’ve actually had success twice.  So, if nothing else.  He’s at least becoming a little more aware of things and maybe he’ll be ready shortly after he turns two.  Or maybe I’m being optimistic.  We’ll see.  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/729206/ Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:35:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/729206/ We started our new Bible curriculum last week.  And it's going really well!  I'm really happy with it!  The lessons are short with a few sentences in the side bar outlining the key points of the lesson.  At the bottom are some vocabulary words with definitions.  The next page has a guided prayer, a question and answer section about the story, some memory verses, a song, and some thoughts for further discussion.  Jaylyn has learned so much from just the first week and it is really sticking with her.  We've had so many conversations about the first week's lessons.  We do our lesson over the breakfast table each morning.  I can't wait to keep going.  Explorer's Bible Curriculum Beginnings I--And It Was Good http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/729205/ Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:28:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/729205/ So, I asked Jaylyn to go turn the dryer back on for me.  She sighed and under her breath said “reluctantly.”  What????  I asked. “What does ‘reluctantly’ mean?” That means that you don’t really want to do something but you’ll do it anyway.  “Okay, I’ll do it reluctantly.” How about doing it cheerfully???   As we were walking through the neighborhood the other night, we passed a model home.  Jaylyn asked what the model home was for and we talked about building houses.  Then our conversation went like this: Jaylyn:  One day I’ll build a house. Us:  That’s great. Jaylyn:  I’ll get married and we’ll go to the model home and pick out a house. Us:  You will have to pick out all the colors like the brick color and paint color.  Jaylyn:  I want a purple house!!! Us:  That would be cute!  You might want to check with your husband first and see if he’s ok with a purple house though. Jaylyn:  Ok.  But I haven’t met him yet.  Very true…………at least I don’t think she’s met him yet.  That’s a scary thought!!!  I can’t go there yet…….   Tonight at dinner we were doing word problems and talking about math.  Dad made up a story problem about a flat tire.  So, Jaylyn decided to make up her own story problem using the same topic. “One day my husband and I were driving in our car.  We jumped on a nail and got a flat tire.  Then my husband got out to fix the tire.  How many tires did we have left?” What is this fixation with husbands lately?  No no no!  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/729204/ Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:26:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/729204/ September 14-20 Bible  This was our first week with our new Bible curriculum through the Explorer’s Series.  So far so good.  Jaylyn really enjoys the short stories and the questions at the end of each lesson really help her retain the information.  We’ve had so many discussions about the lessons and she brings up questions about the lessons throughout the day.  They’re sticking with her!  We’ve discussed how God loves us, God wants us to pray, and how we should tell others about Him.  Today she told me she was going to be a missionary and that she wanted to call her great grandmother to tell her about Jesus.  Memorization  Jaylyn has been memorizing “The Caterpillar” by Christina Rossetti.  We’ve also reviewed Philippians 2:14-15 and Proverbs 17:22.  AWANA has also started for the year so we’ve had some new verses for that.  I John 4:8 is her verse for the week.  Math  In math we completed lesson 12 and reviewed place value.  Jaylyn is doing great with addition and can do much of the 1-5 addition in her head.  As we get into the bigger numbers she still struggles but she is able to visualize adding the blocks together and can pick which rod would equal the other two smaller rods put together.  We’ve also done many story problems while we’re in the car.  We make up stories about Jaylyn going shopping for new dolls, she finds two she likes and then sees one more.  How many dolls?  Then she sees one more that would be a good friend to those dolls.  So how many now?  She’s actually able to follow along and is doing great.  She always asks for a story now.  We’ve even done some simple subtraction in our stories.  Reading/Phonics  We have been learning the vowel sounds this week.  AHHHH, OHHHH, IHHHH, UHHH!  Jaylyn loves the sound effects of the vowels and Jaxon has been really in to learning them too.  He mostly just repeats whatever Jaylyn says.  Next week we’re going to learn some of the blends.  We have also practiced the letters that start at 2 o’clock—a, c, d, f, g, o, qu, and s.  Jaylyn is doing really well in her handwriting and her a’s, c’s, and o’s are great.  S is a hard one for her and seem to squiggle all over the page.  Literature  We read stories from Aesop, For the Children’s Hour, Mother Stories, and A Child’s Book of Verse.  We also read stories from Andersen and a story about Picasso.  Science  We discussed bees and hives.  We made a pretend hive under the small table and Jaylyn was the queen bee, Jaxon and I were worker bees, and Ellie was the baby bee.  We also watched several videos about bees, hives, how bees make honey, and how new hives are started.  We also took a field trip to the science museum where we played in a tractor, in the water, in a little treehouse, in the shadow box, and in the gymnastics room.  Geography  We talked about islands and learned the word Archipelago.  Any time she saw something grouped together she would point out that it looked like an archipelago.  I love when she learns big words!  Art/Music  We drew a bee with crayon and colored the wings with baby oil to make them transparent.  We “toe” painted on the patio.  We listened to the Flight of the Bumble Bee while we painted.  We also made a rolled bee with construction paper and added googly eyes and wax paper wings.  On Saturday Jaylyn had art class at the art museum.  We read a book about Van Gogh and then painted with acrylic paint mixed with corn starch to make thick paint.  Jaylyn painted with brushes, forks, and knives to make a textured picture.  Then we toured the museum through the impressionism gallery and saw paintings by Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh.  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/728496/ Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:16:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/728496/ I’ve been reading the book Creative Correction by Lisa Whelchel and have seen some interesting discipline ideas.  I’ve decided to try some new things with Jaylyn because she can throw one ugly temper tantrum and I am really tired of listening to the screams.  We now have a delegated screaming spot in the house.  It’s a beach towel on our closet floor.  If she feels the need to scream, she can go do it there because I sure don’t want to listen to it! We’ve also begun a token jar.  When she obeys the first time I ask her to do something, with no whining or complaining, she gets to put one token in her jar.  When she has 20 tokens, she gets the prize that adorns the top of our fridge—a new book, stickers, little toys, or art supplies.  So far, she has been much more pleasant when I ask her to do things.  When she throws a fit if I ask her to do something, tokens are taken out for each time I have to ask her.  I also have a secret stash of little goodies for when she is doing something very helpful without even being asked—like entertaining Jaxon and bringing him toys when he is upset that I am feeding Ellie and can’t play with them.  She can be so helpful sometimes.  So, we now have some rewards ready for her. One of our other problems has been parking lots.  Jaylyn and Jaxon will NOT hold my hand when we cross the parking lot.  It is a huge problem when I have the diaper bag, Ellie in the sling, and a kid on each hand.  I cannot chase them down or drag them through the parking lot.  Lately, I have to have Ellie in the front pack carrier, Jaxon on one hip, the diaper bag on the other, and Jaylyn holding my free hand.  She has been refusing to cooperate though.  So, now I give her an option—I can either hold her hair or her hand.  She gets to choose.  After one time of me holding on to her hair through a parking lot, she opts for the hand every time and now walks sweetly beside me rather than pulling my arm out of socket in the parking lot.  Yay!  Any creative correction method you use?  I’m always looking for something other than “time out” which doesn’t seem to work too well…... http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/726656/ Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:28:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/726656/ Jaxon's pick:   Jaylyn's pick: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/721189/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:36:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/721189/ From the backseat Jaylyn screams, “Jaxon’s being stubborn!!!!!” Apparently, he wouldn’t give her the book that he was reading.  Stubborn was her word of the week after we read it in one of Aesop’s fables.  Now, whenever someone won’t share with her, they are being stubborn.  However, she is the one who is, in fact, being stubborn in insisting that she needs everything everyone else has.    A backseat conversation between Jaylyn and Jaxon. “Buddy do you like your monkey blankie??” Jaylyn asks. Dah!  (translated:  yes) “Do you want your monkey blankie???” Dah! “Sorry!  We don’t have it!” “Do you like your book?” Dah! “Do you like spankings, buddy???” Dah! “You do?” Dah! Silence for a few minutes.  Then: “Buddy, do you understand????” Noh………   Jaxon runs to my computer screaming “Bach Bach Bach!”  No he’s not a chicken; he wants to listen to Bach on my computer.  He may not know all his colors, but he is learning composers…….strange….. Speaking of colors, to Jaxon everything is “geen!”  I think green must be his favorite color.  We’re working on blue and now he can say “boo,” but he still insists everything is green.  He’s now able to say “burble” and he tries to say orange.  Red and yellow are nonexistent.  “Boo Boo!”  “Uh oh boo boo!”  Jaxon has become very dramatic about pretend boo boos and he finds them everywhere.  Whenever he finds them on someone else, he pronounces, “uh oh” and then proceeds to kiss the person’s boo boo.  He’s so sweet! Yesterday, Jaylyn began having a meltdown.  She was in the living room screaming while Jaxon calmly watched her from his little blue chair.  As Jaylyn jumped up and down, she was able to get out, “I want the blue chair!”  Ohh, fighting over chairs.  I calmly explained that Jaylyn could sit in the red one.  “NOOOOOOOO”  Now we had an all-out tantrum on our hands.  When she finally began to calm down, she screamed, “I want the blue chair!  Whoever sits in the blue chair is the boss!  I want to be the boss but I’m not the boss right now!”  Wow!  I never expected anything so honest.  http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/721183/ Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:22:00 -0500 http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lexi/721183/