Winding down

Curly Sue's recital was Saturday and she did very well. She was a Raggedy Ann doll in ballet and a Hot Wheels car in jazz. She had two performances and I was backstage for both, helping with costumes and makeup and general peacekeeping. All went well except that someone boneheadedly set the AC in the low 60s and froze up the unit, so it was bone-meltingly hot and smelled of sweaty feet all six or eight hours we were back there.

Oh, and she has been promoted into Ballet 3 and starts pre-pointe classes next year. Hooray!

Our summer plans have changed a bit. Larry has decided he wants to go on the youth campout at Fall Creek Falls this summer instead of Lego Mindstorm camp, and Moe decided that Youth Police Academy is enough structured summer days and doesn't want to do the bug camp. Apparently, that leaves more time to play war with the neighborhood kiddos, and I'm absolutely fine with that! Curly Sue's dance camp is in July beginning just after noon, so that will work out well for us, too.

This is our last official week of school, though Larry will work most days on a lesson or two in Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra so he can start algebra early in the school year. I am waffling between starting school in July or August, and so far August is winning because we enjoyed a longer summer so much last year.

Larry has expressed great interest in police work and archaeology, and my brother Bubby happens to have majored in history and minored in criminal justice, in addition to serving as a police officer for 10 years. Bubby is excited that Larry is excited, and they have lots to talk about now. Next year, when Larry turns 14, he will be eligible to join the Police Explorers. It helps that the city police chief is Larry's small group leader at church and that another officer leads Moe's small group, and he admires them both very much.

Bubby told me about an archaeology Bible he found, which will fit in nicely with Larry's study of Mystery of History next year. It will give him extra research opportunities while allowing us to study history/Bible with all three children at once. Larry will continue in TT math and Apologia General Science, as well as start the Latin Road to English Grammar. He will continue to read literature and write essays regularly but we are allowing him a period of independent study time each day as well, when he can pursue computer programming, architecture, meteorology and anything else educational -- his choice.

The one thing new I've bought for the littles is a book on teaching math by Marilyn Burns, who wrote Math for Smarty Pants and the I Hate Mathematics Book, among others. She includes overviews and lots of math games, which will fit in perfectly with our math notebooking we started last year. We still have Horizons workbooks for hectic days. We have Sequential Spelling, many specialized science books and leftovers from last year's k12 -- I just have to put my resources together in some kind of plan that addresses our needs. (Another reason to start in August instead of July.) We will fill in with literature; what we don't have can easily be found at the library, and I have downloaded many free unit studies from CurrClick as well.

I am looking forward to the new school year, but even more to the end of this one.

Never underestimate the power of a good night's sleep

I say this because I haven't had one in...oh, several months. I'd been recommended melatonin by my doctor and it worked for a few weeks but lately, not at all.

Yesterday, he prescribed Ambien and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I awoke rested. The doctor says a few weeks' worth should reset my sleep schedule (oh, joy!) and then I won't need it any longer.

Meanwhile, I am working on eating better, taking vitamins and getting some exercise. I am way too heavy right now, and I've joined Sparkpeople. It's free and the support is phenomenal. I especially enjoy the nutrition and exercise tracker features.

We have about three weeks left in school and most of our stuff in place for next year. I likely will not start school until the first week of August, though we usually start the first Monday after July 4. We enjoyed our long summer last year and have several plans in place for this year's break.

Curly Sue and Moe are registered for the city's youth police academy, which they greatly enjoyed last year. Curly Sue will be going to dance camp and the boys want to do day camps at the college. Larry wants to register for the Lego Mindstorm robotics camp and Moe for the Bugs for Breakfast insect camp.

The local recreation department is bringing in a college track star to do a day camp and I think the children would love that as well, but they don't seem too interested. Oh, well...they'll have plenty to do anyway!

Off to stretch my well-rested muscles.

Happy early Mother's Day!

We just returned from a glorious week at Orange Beach, Alabama. We weren't able to see the Blue Angels this time around but we did visit the Naval Air Museum and Fort Barrancus. We were slightly hindered by my sore foot and Curly Sue's ear infection (we rarely make it through an entire vacation without visiting at least one fine urgent care facility).

During our trip, we dined at LuLu's, where my sweet family bought an autographed copy of Crazy Sista Cooking for me. My Webkinz-crazy kiddos chose a bullfrog for me as well. Ain't he cute? Happy Mother's Day to me!

Changing names for changing times

Larry turned 13 this morning at 10:52 a.m. In honor of this day, I hereby change his name to The Teenager. I briefly considered changing my name to a four-letter word and daring my kiddos to swear, but I resisted and overcame.

Yesterday was an extremely trying day. I am in Limboland, stuck between not quite feeling well enough to do all I need to and not quite feeling ill enough to take to my bed until next week. My parents kindly brought home the children early yesterday afternoon and Moe was crying out with terrible stomach pains. He's had a sore stomach off and on for a few days and I knew he wasn't "stove up."

After seeing his flushed face and panicked expression, I decided to take him to the ER. The triage nurse was almost certain he had appendicitis, but the pain had faded by the time he was seen by a doctor, who thought it might be a kidney stone (unusual in a child, but not unheard-of). He needed to have a CT scan but that hospital's was down, so we were discharged and sent a couple of towns over to another hospital for the scan.

Thankfully, it was neither appendicitis nor a kidney stone but something called mesenteric adenitis, a fancy word for inflamed lymph nodes in his stomach. Rest and regular ibuprofen should do the trick. The doctors think it was caused by a virus, most likely the Influenza A he had two weeks ago. There is a slight possibility it was caused by celiac disease or cumulative dairy allergy, so if it persists we'll have to take him for further testing, but for now he'll have to be on total rest for a week.

Any ideas on how to tell an active 8-year-old he won't be able to hunt eggs with his cousins Sunday afternoon?

Comfort

I have been ill with a cough/fever/sore throat for a couple of days, and yesterday I felt so sick I asked my parents to take the children for the afternoon so I could rest. It turned into an overnight trip at my parents' request.

Late in the afternoon, I got a call from Larry.

"Hi, Mom. I was just calling to see how everything's going and to see if I can do anything for you. And to tell you I love you and hope you feel better."

My boy who turns 13 tomorrow, just checking on his Mama.

Geddy had a meeting but called to say he was bringing home dinner. When he came in, he handed me a bag from Burger King containing my very favorite fast-food dessert, Hershey's Sundae Pie. He had brought me the chicken fries I'd asked for as well, but the slice of pie was an unsolicited love offering.

Curly Sue and Moe called later to tell us goodnight. Moe, barely 8, had written a near-perfect essay on Ben Franklin while Curly Sue had researched and started a paper on Abigail Adams. I knew I didn't have to worry about them not doing their schoolwork for Nannie and Paw-Paw, and Nannie said they actually did more than they were supposed to do.

Mercy, my sweet family makes it very difficult for me to stay sick!

For Misty

Misty, my longish-distance friend, is a fellow homeschooling mom who is tons of fun and loves 80s music. I was thinking about her as I watched the VH1 100 One-Hit Wonders from the 80s countdown. (A bunch of them had more than one hit, but I digress.)

Misty has five children, including a baby and a special-needs teen. Right now her husband is battling a newly diagnosed chronic illness and her baby was just diagnosed with mono. Now, I know tons of folks are going through tough times right now, but this is one of those break-your-mama's-back moments and if your prayer card isn't too full, please keep them in mind.

Whip it, Misty! Whip it good!

School update

I haven't written about school for awhile. To recap, we tried hard to make Georgia Virtual Academy work for us first semester but couldn't manage it. We parted ways amicably, us with a better sense of where our learning gaps lay.

Right now, we are working on getting familiar with the bigger picture of mathematics. Larry is continuing with Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, which right now is review for him. He and I are reading Romping Through Mathematics together and making pages for his math notebook -- we're learning about square and cube roots at the moment. He is finishing up in Vocabulary from Classical Roots B, after which we will (finally!) get started in The Latin Road to English Grammar and Wordly Wise 7.

Using literature from Sonlight 6, he is working on perfecting the five-paragraph essay. He chooses an aspect of each novel -- for instance, characterization in Young Fu of the Upper Yangtzee -- and writes a draft, which we go over together and then revise for a final markup.

The littles are using several workbooks each. Horizons Math, Wordly Wise, k12 Spelling, Exercises in English and Vocabulary Workshop should be finished within the next month. Then, we will start working in Sequential Spelling, more Wordly Wise and more Horizons Math. I plan to purchase Teaching Textbooks 4 to use in tandem next year. We are keeping math notebooks for the littles, too, using books about math to learn new concepts and writing and solving our own word problems.

After much fretting about history, I chose Mystery of History because of its strong Bible concentration and because it includes levels of assignments for each of the children's ages, meaning I can use one program for all three children. Because Larry is working in Apologia's Exploring Creation with General Science, I can modify science to include all three as well, with Larry taking the lead on lab work and including the littles as "lab assistants." In addition, we have several biology resources, including health and nutrition, with which to supplement.

Hopefully, all I will need to purchase for next year is the TT4 set, freeing up some of the budget for basic art and school supplies. I guess that's one advantage of switching gears mid-year. I love being able to combine subjects for everyone as well because the children challenge each other and come up with some really great thoughts sometimes just by discussion.

Now, if I can just keep my nose out of all the cool homeschooling catalogs that keep appearing in my mailbox...