Short days

Our new normal is a carefully choreographed dance of separation. John takes Peter to school at 7:50am and I pick him up at 2:55pm on a typical school day. Usually he's out of the house before any of his "annoying" siblings have graced his presence. If I can get everyone finished with all their lessons before pickup time, the late afternoon can be more easily focused on creating a quiet peaceful environment for the after-school landing.

Yesterday, however, was a testing day, all the kids doing the PSAT before an 2 hour early release. We had a lot less time to accomplish our homeschooling goals. Generally, if I can at least get the two younger boys finished with their work, that makes the biggest difference, as their presence is especially irritating to their big brother. Getting the girls (especially the 9yo) to stick to a schedule is like forcing a round peg into a square hole. They tend to disappear given any distraction and I have to restrain myself to yell for them to return... if possible. Sometimes it's not possible for me to search for them throughout the whole house and "quietly" demand they return to their studies at the table. Even yelling at/to the other children can cause Peter to come unglued.

Which brings me to contemplating June 13, the last day of school with a foreboding of dread. To keep the peace it will become imperative that we find him something to do during the day, outside of the house... or the rest of us find something to do outside of the house... and that it not cost us much money. Because... oh yeah... John is suppose to retire soon and instead of saving, we've been hemorrhaging money, time, and energy. We're on the glide path to land flat on our faces if anything other than divine intervention unfolds when he hangs up his uniform for good.

The list of broken stuff is still long. Yesterday was also the beginning of an open application season for a particular grant that kids with certain developmental disabilities can apply for. We are totally new to all of this. I only joined the special blessings group this past year (never having been to an actual meeting because it's like in Manassas, not nearby)… John has attending some informational presentations and I've been gleaning from the web groups. This particular grant is limited to first come, first serve, and needs based and I "think" it's state money. You have to specify exactly how you'd use it and for what, and be prepared to be audited of course. Folks apparently, stay up late so they can submit the application upon the stroke of midnight. The response was so overwhelming the site apparently crashed. By time we got around to putting in our application, everything was fixed. As we went through the form, I was struck with thoughts of "where shall I start, what's most likely to be approved and granted?" We put in a request for funding for the monthly service fee for the Angel Sense GPS tracking device I purchased last month. It was on sale, and I felt it might be very helpful as Peter leaves the house more often, perhaps even transitioning to leaving on his own.

Why not a cell phone... because as I read the crime reports daily, one of the most common crimes committed near our house is cellphone theft from pedestrian victims. If someone tried to assault my son, they'd have to have a special tool to remove and get away with the Angel Sense device. That was my rational. He still wants a cell phone though. That's one of the conversations I try and avoid with him, as he can get irritated pretty quickly. I told him the device wasn't just for him, as I've been sending it with Charlotte when she goes to walk dogs. That seemed to make it a little more acceptable to him. And for the moment he's not actually using it much. We hand him off to an attendant at school for now.

Next week we're having our IEP meeting and I'll learn more about what they think will be appropriate accommodations. We are hoping that perhaps we could get him a special needs bus ride or at least keep the attendant. However, they've continued to suggest that the attendant would only be a temporary accommodation. We'll see.

So my birthday is coming up... a date I'd rather ignore frankly. The school just scheduled the IEP meeting for that morning. So it's sooooo not going to be all about "me!" Every year John wants to know what I want. If I don't specify something, he usually buys me something I'd rather not have. All these years, he still doesn't really get me.... well he gets that we have different ideas and tastes. He gets that I usually don't like random gifts. If the "gift" is coming from my own pot of money, or as usually is the case, a unplanned expense I'm going to be very discriminating. I immediately think about the other things we need more than said unrequested item. Like, right now, we need to do some more yard drainage work for the house. The range hood over the stove and the dishwasher are both broke. All the storm doors are broken. The damage from Peter's last major outburst (broken glass shower door, and cabinet vanity doors, and towel rack) has caused the menfolk to abandon their bathroom, increasing the traffic in the "mom"/ diaper change bathroom. I can't even think about frivolous "wants." I can't force myself to fake joy in the little "gifts." I've always been this way. It's not gotten easier over the years. So this year I thought kind of hard... because it's really not about me at all. Birthdays are always about everyone else and what they want. They want to buy something and have me be grateful... so I told him I wanted the Joseph to my Bavarian Madonna, which is just about impossible as the 22" statue has been on backorder for years. So I suggested perhaps the set in the shorter stature... which is a compromise. If he actually buys them both in the smaller size I'm not sure what I'll do with my big statue. It's one of the few nice things I have that hasn't been wrecked. It's just a statue that's pleasant to look upon. As things have been destroyed my tendency to be attached to any "thing" has died a little more. I want to like my things. I want to live in a pretty home. However, nothing I can do right now would foster those desires, so why waste time, money, or energy on those?
That's where I'm at right now.

They were born that way...?

For the past three weeks the Challenging Behavior Workshop had been penned on our family calendar. When this event posted in one of my many special needs groups, I wasted no time signing up for it. We've been neck deep in challenging behaviors for over 2 years now. The advent of puberty has not been gentle on our household. So many things have been broken and much remains broken, because we're pretty much broke.

Last week my autistic son started at the local high school, so I could get him out of the house and allow the rest of the children some certainty of normalcy during their school day.
(Yes, I'm going to say autistic son, instead of son with autism...because I'm not sold on this person first language politically correct philosophy at this time...maybe more on that later).
At some point of time, which we have been unable to identify, someone made a disparaging comment about homeschoolers to Peter. It's impossible to determine if the comment was disparaging or if he internalized it impure of it's initial intent. Regardless, he came to believe that by homeschooling alone, he was a defuncted and uneducated person and he grew to hate me for holding him back. Because public schools are not required and usually will not accept ANY homeschool coursework for credit, I felt that switching to public school was counter to the goal of achieving a diploma. On paper, earning a "mom" diploma was going to be a lot easier. However, circumstances were pushing that goal into a deep well. There's still a rope attached to the goal, which could be retrieved if ever he desired to turn the wheel and pull it back out. It's not lost, but for now he's not going to do it. He was closed off to anything other than a public school education.

Since last spring I've been trying to coax him along to just keep trying till he could start school in the fall. He couldn't grasp that he couldn't just start school in the summer... or the immediate moment. His behavior continued to decline and for a few months we shifted our efforts towards looking for a residential treatment facility to send him, because we were certain that even a school wouldn't be able to handle his outburst. Surely, if he acted out at school, the way he was acting at home, he'd be expelled for sure. I wasn't only concerned about his desire and well being, I was and am concerned for keeping others around him safe too. I don't want anyone else to be hurt...not my kids and not anyone else's child either. However, we were unable to find a facility that would accept him into their program. So finally, at the beginning of August we contacted the Special Services Coordinator with the school district and let her know what he needed.

We were given a bit of the run around. "Call the registrar, register," was all we were told. The registrar said we needed an appointment. We waited 2 weeks for the said appointment which was for the day before the start of school. John took the day off from work, and I loaded up a suitcase full of work samples, textbooks, medical records, mortgage statements, birth certificates, ect and walked into the office ready to lay it all out on the table. They hadn't expected anything beyond a simple registration when we were finally standing in the main office. The special needs director for the school wasn't even available and the school councilor was nowhere to be found. We waited in an empty gymnasium for over 40 minutes till he could be tracked down. At this point it was clear they wouldn't be willing to tell us how the day would go if we registered him and dropped him off the next day. So I scribbled down a written request for a IEP, which officially gave them 65 (business day) to get things together. And we went home. A couple days later we went in for an intake appointment with a roundtable of special education professionals. There we learned it would take more time to get all the assessments completed and they couldn't offer anything special without the IEP. We went home with a slew of testing appointments.

Over the following weeks Peter grew antsy and agitated and there wasn't anything we could do to prevent him from lashing out at everyone. We where able to make two of the appointments before the day all hell broke loose. Sept. 11, will now have another event we'll never forget attached to the date. It will now be the day the world changed, and the day my son tried to break my face and did thousands of dollars worth of damage to our home and pulverized any last shred of peace we had in this home. That day we had to call the police to our home. His father had to rush home and spent the rest of the day at a crisis facility where the said the only thing they could offer him was trip to a state phych hospital, BUT they highly recommended against it because it would be very traumatizing for him. Off the record the social worker told John that only Children's National Hospital had the resources to take care of kids with autism, while all the other inpatient facilities (Fort Belvoir and Dominion) refused to accept him because they said his IQ was too low. John brought him home that night.
        (We were suppose to have an intake appointment on 9/11 for the Community Service Board (CSB) for determining his eligibility for state wavers and whatever resources...which was canceled after we had to call the cops)

The next day Peter stayed on the computer till his father came home, at which point something triggered him and he began to rage again. This time I was determined we were going to do whatever we had to get him to Children's... because calling the cops wasn't going to get him anywhere but a state hospital or jail. At least one more avenue needed to be explored before we resorted to cops again. John wrestled with him for about an hour, while I packed everything into his car he would need, and then I took the rest of the kids out of the house. Charlotte had her first tap class that night. When we returned John and Peter were still home, Peter back on his computer ignoring his father's suggestions that they go for a car ride. He was no longer raging but wasn't unsettled either. However, just the sounds of his younger siblings coming home was trigger enough. He became agitated again, but thankfully agreed to get in the car. John spent the rest of the evening with Peter in the E.R. at Children's. This led to almost a week in the locked psych ward. John had been scratched and suffered a broken tooth in the scuffle... and was devastated.

The following week was the first respite we've ever had. I needed time to emotionally recover from all sorts of feelings. My house... my home... is on it's head. So many things have been destroyed. We continually adapt, accommodate, and sacrifice... and it's never enough. And there seems to be no end in sight. While Peter was in the hospital, initially he wanted to know if we'd be picking him up, he was bored, but soon he was a model patient, clearly not the worse kid they were dealing with. It was pretty clear to me our home... our home filled with little kids, clutter, noise, and rules were all triggers for Peter. And I wasted no time contacting the school and letting them know what I wanted now. Two more testing appointments had to be cancelled because of the hospitalization. However, John and I took the opportunity to speak with the school social worker (for 2 hours we told her just about everything), and we had the lady from CSB out to our house for another 2 hours in the same day. We also attended family day at John's work (something we hadn't done in a while since the kiddie rides and activities irritate Peter). The little kids had a blast and their behaviors began to ease up. John took me to brunch at the officer's club... which was surreal... my life has been so restricted for so long. Yet, I couldn't help but feel like I was coming up from under the water just long enough to take a big breath before needing to submerge again.

Once I knew Peter was coming home I put in a call to the school and let them know we wanted to enroll him and get him started ASAP. I felt that I'd done all I could to inform them... and now they needed to do whatever they needed to meet the need. Our schools receive over 60% of the budget for our county. Even CSB only receives a tiny sliver of about 2% and said that the schools hold all the power, money, and resources. So to there credit once I decided I didn't want to wait to start school till we had an IEP in place the guidance councilor and the special needs coordinator moved fast and we met to put together a schedule. Most of his classes are the most restrictive, small special needs courses. I think they did a good job. Each morning this week we walked him to the main office to meet an attendant who escorted him to his classes. She professed that he's just the "sweetest" and had a great week. Peter really seemed happy. I'm praying this works!

However, he has told me a few things I'm concerned about and I'm still holding my breath. He's a very tall 17year old who has been placed with mostly 9th graders, 13/ 14yo and he's beginning to think he's their elder and might be taking on a similar big brother dynamic he asserts with his younger siblings.

He's still in the honeymoon phase. So many times we've tried something "new," and he's been excited and receptive for a period of time... till he's not. So we're still pressing forward looking for resources and trying to prepare for the future.

Last night John and I attended this Challenging Behavior workshop with the Pediatrician who was a self-professed behavioral expert. She just about lost me though, when right off the bat she declared we needed to accept that these kids were all "born this way." Just about the only thing I believe for certain is we are born with unchangeable and unique set of DNA. Genes can be inactive, they can be activated, mitochondria can become dysfunctional and damaged. Genetics are the loaded gun and environment can pull the trigger... but I don't believe that all these kids, 1 in 32 boys are born this way.

Either way, the workshop was a bit disappointing.  I didn't come away with much new nor inspiring. The ASC group hosting had generously provided subway club sandwiches (dairy, gluten, and soy unlimited) and for the fist time in over a week... after I'd painstakingly packed special lunches for Peter all week long; I was unable to prevent him from scarfing down 2 of them.

AND this morning, he tore the gate off the bolts as his father ushered him out the door for another special needs Transitioning to Adulthood Workshop. Yet, another gate is destroyed. I'm so used to this I've had a new one waiting in the closet, ready to go since July. I'm actually surprised it lasted this long. His record time for destroying a brand new gate is 1 week. But because his baby brother would still fall down the stairs head first if given the chance, we HAVE to have a gate. We NEED to move to a house which does not have the living rooms and kitchen on the second floor. He needs his own quiet living space. We need our own noisy safe space. We need more hours in the day. More money in the bank... but nobody is going to buy this house like this... so we're stuck.

Meanwhile, the blessed Benedict Crucifixes, miraculous medal, and holy water font arrived the other day. A tiny plastic St. Joseph is guarding our front door, and I'm saying whatever (short) novena that hits my inbox. Yet, I feel distant from our Parish community. Last week we attended mass at another Parish, because I just felt drawn to go there instead. The new Pastor at our home parish has been making changes, which aren't bad per say, but leave me feeling weird... too much protestant music or something, I don't know. I think his message is fine... it's just not working well for us. We struggle to get all the kids to sit still and be quiet in  mass. I thought perhaps a new place might help. The kids were still noisy, but the cry room and bathroom were much easier to access. The amount of Latin and purely catholic music is more soothing at this other parish. I don't know where we'll attend mass this week, but my heart feels pulled to make changes now.

Foyer light and deck paint

The glass on the light fixture in our foyer was cracked and I'd been searching for the perfect replacement for months. It's probable that the fixture was original to the house as the wires were enclosed in cloth. That's like 1960's era right?

 Last month I thought I'd found just the right one, but it was out of stock... So I put in "notify me" request, which was fulfilled last week. This weekend my handyman in shining armor spent hours and a trip to the hardware story trying to install the new fixture. Being about 1.5 stories in height required a fully extended ladder, and the aid of the 6' teenager with long arms. It wouldn't work. He tried reinstalling that fixture three times with no success. After the second attempt I was more than ready to toss in the towel and just get a big box bargain, because it was clear the "perfect" fixture was anything but. Indeed, the fixture we picked up at Home Depot was cheaper, seemed to be a better quality, and was much easier to install. It also worked! My request for a return and refund for the "perfect" fixture was honored.

I put in another hour of painting the deck floor and some of the railing.
We went to the pool for an hour.
My brilliant knight found a recipe for fish tacos, which I have a thing for.
And I tried to organize the kids' binders and lesson plans for the school year.
So that was our weekend.

Breaking free

We spend a lot of time devoted to trying to stick to a school work regimen. Of course I have goals, and the drive to accomplish more and more can infringe upon just getting out of the house. Aside form therapy appointments and prescheduled extracurricular classes there's not enough time for anything else. There's just no room in the finite allotment of time. With a special needs child... teenager... they ALWAYS need more time. No matter how much restraint I've used to avoid assigning an unmanageable amount of work, it's always too much work. So we push and push to get everything finished... and we're never.... almost never finished.

And the social life suffers. Not just because of the aforementioned work load, but inhibitions that build up from previous catastrophic socializing failures. Nobody likes to crash and burn repeatedly.

But it gets lonely, and a little maddening.

And this weekend I experienced a disappointment when an incomplete invitation to see friends didn't pan out, followed up by an overwhelming feeling of unworthiness and rejection when the undisclosed event went off without a hitch and without us.

Being a beautiful day, this deep desire to bask in fellowship and the outdoors took hold and controlled the entire day. No formalized lessoned were given, and the kids played vigorously almost all day long. It was recess, homeschooler style, at two intervals for an hour and a half each, two different age groups at different parks; park hopping.

Then one child went to dance class, as split ops facilitated a second child's simultaneous swim class attendance.

Tomorrow we'll return to our regularly scheduled lessons, exactly where we left off... and we'll keep pushing for progress. But next Wednesday we'll make time for play, because it's just as important, if not more important...

How do I schedule

Actual adult conversation... we made it to the pool today, and I ran into a mom I've been sort of getting to know at the pool. Being a fellow homeschooler, she asked how I schedule our days. Good question!

I had to admit that I haven't much success in keeping to a schedule because more often than not someone will throw a monkey wrench into my best laid plans. Sadly... or mercifully, there are only so many hours of the day. Some of my children require a lot of time to work through certain lessons. Instead I have to gage our workloads, especially my own, and continually strive to press on even when goals aren't met. It's good to have goals, but important to realize they might not always be met on a predetermined timeline... not when it comes to children... especially young once who have no concept of the importance of time management.

There's simply no substitute for time.


Lately, I've been wishing that there could be more time... but by night fall I'm eager for the close of the day.

I don't construct daily lesson plan, instead I write down what we've accomplished, as it's proof of what we've done and not a checklist of failures. I select a course or curriculum and we just dive in, working at a pace that matches our ability. Rushing through lessons without mastery or at least a vague comprehension serves us very poorly. To learn it's sometime necessary to slow down and really digest the materials, mastering something before we can move on to the next.

 In the past we also had to contend with a lack of motivation, which made lessons absolutely stagnant and brought many a days to a near standstill. Lately, we've implemented a mind craft reward system, which has generated a great deal of forward progression in the workbooks that used to sit idle while excuses were made, and efforts were lack luster.

While swimming laps... it's always refreshing and empowering when I'm able to squeeze some lap swimming. Usually I'm the fastest in to pool, but today the lady in the next lane over was faster. I joke that she had the advantage with the speedo suit, while my mom dress suit wasn't designed for actual swimming, making it the perfect drag suit. I definitely had more resistance and was less streamline... and it's not a big deal, but since I've always gotten a little thrill out of pretending to race anyone else in the pool (and being used to winning my races) it was a bit of humbling experience to swim along side someone a league above... but in a good way. It makes me want to swim more and get better. That's how I've always been. I look to those in front of me as someone I want to catch up with, and then pass... which was how I ran my cross country races, a mental method if you will. Coach always said it was the best way to run a race. I certainly felt it was the most fulfilling... and really the only way I could maintain stamina to finish. A steady stream of short-term goals leads to the bigger finishing goal. So in many ways life, for me, is like a race... a long distance race. There's no quick and easy, just long and hard fought.

Junior High Literature Lessons

"Diana"...
someone isn't hardwired
for spelling...

Can you guess the book we're reading right now? 


Artwork is not part of the assignment, but has mysteriously appeared on my board like some fantastical crop circles.    Sort of.... not really... I know exactly who drew these. She seems to have a love hate relationship with this course thus far. She hates that I am slowing the reading of this book down, as she's rather used to consuming a novel whole in a day or two. Instead, we're dissecting chapters, extracting vocabulary words, and asking questions which (one hopes) will lead to deeper thought about the characters in this building roman.

 

 

Egg drop

Everyone surely must remember doing the egg drop experiment sometime in their academic career, right? Our assignment was to device a way to protect an egg from breakage before hurling it off the highest point accessible to us. In my day that was the top of the football bleachers. For my kids, it was the top of our deck. Since we have an abundance of cushy vegetation, I insisted we aim for the walkway and avoid the fall breaking affect those hostas would have, undoubtedly provided.

The results

Tissue box filled with baby doll quits: Pass

Tupperware lined with cotton balls and

pencils taped to the sides  and paper parachute: Fail

Lesson, insulation works better than rigid stilts. Perhaps if something with springs or coils had been used, the second design might have worked out better.

Disclaimer: No eggs were wasted in this experiment. They went right into the morning hash... along with my "sneaky greens" folate fortification.

Breakfast: 2lbs of precooked chopped red potatoes (with skins, which I had frozen) defrosted
1/4 olive oil butter
1/2 tsp Himalayan salt (natural minerals)
1tbs Lawry's season salt (flavor...live a little)
1/2 a package of goat cheese (for us bovine intolerant types)
4 eggs (Omegas!)
1/2 tbs chia seeds (iron, omegas, calcium...ect)
1/2 tbs flax seed (can you really have too much omega... NO!)
1 tbs coconut oil (good fat, feeds your nervous system, fights yeast and infections... nature's antibiotic)
Big fist full of super greens (I keep a bag in the freezer, cause we all need natural folate, vitamin K, yada yada... and roughage).

Defrost potatoes, add to the pan with butter, cook till hot.
Mix goat cheese, chia and flax seeds, and coconut oil into the potatoes.
In a small bowl mix eggs and salt, then pour over the potato mash, allowing it to seep into the potatoes. Cook till golden crust begins to form, stir occasionally to avoid burning. Finally, add sneaky greens and mix in, allowing to cook for another 2-3 minutes before serving. The kids will cover it in ketchup anyhow, so who cares, go crazy adding in the green stuff!
Optional: add sausage or corn beef, or cook in bacon grease... yummy!

No breaks

If we're going to take any time off from our studies and learning activities it's going to have to be scheduled... and I haven't worked up the nerve to schedule down time... though I know I should. But.. but.. but...

There's so many new things we're integrating into our routine, one of which is Integrated Listening Systems (iLs), which our Occupational Therapist began with our oldest a couple months ago. We're increasing our sessions by doing more at home.

The regular task of washing clothes, cleaning, cooking (at which I genuinely lack talent), and keeping little folks safe remain. 

While doing dishes my toddler brought me this Mei Tai carrier I completed a few days ago, and wanted some up time. Given his baby sister was sleeping happily in her swing I was glad to oblige. After a minute he whispered over my shoulder, "Jesus." At which I realized he was identifying our statues. So I asked him to name everyone else in the Holy Family. He said, "that's Mary," and as I pointed to the tallest figure, he insisted, "that's Jesus." It's actually Joseph, so we had to work a while to convince him of this, because he wasn't buying it. Finally, he conceded that Jesus was the baby, and the tall statue was Joseph.

Wash the wool blankets and plant the tomatos

The clouds parted enough today that we decided to eat lunch on our deck. Since it's warming up, it seemed time to wash the wool blankets, and sun dry them in preparation of storing them till next winter. Not everyone has a wool blanket, but the two we have (king size and one twin) generally get washed in the wool cycle perhaps a couple times a year... unless they actually get dirty. Generally, it was still very much a school day with plenty of chores. Still, finding time to be outside seems vital to our health (10 minutes of sunshine makes a daily dose of vitamin D). Not being prepared for a long play session in the yard (we had math to get back to), the young folks helped me plant some more tomato (cherry this time) and cucumber seeds before I pressed everyone back indoors, with minimal protest. Somewhere I read that even if you can't play, finding time to just be outside is really important to health and child development. Seems sage to me.

Quiet room

We spend two hours in the waiting room of speech and occupational therapy every Tuesday morning. My eldest son usually slips into the quiet room while he waits for his turn as he doesn't like the ruckus all the younger kids make. For months now I've endured the constant buzz of numerous conversations mixed with the sounds of siblings playing, and I leave speech feeling very taxed. It was getting more and more obvious to me that part of my loathing for our time at speech was the noise we endured in the waiting room during the first hour. While the second hour is not as noisy, by that point we're so overstimulated, that we're still miserable and exhausted.

Yesterday, like an epiphany, I made up my mind that we would all join my eldest son in the quiet room, at least for the first hour. Instead of just sitting or trying to read stories to my younger kids through all the noise, I too would take advantage of the quiet space the center has provided for clients who become overwhelmed.

This tactic seemed to really help. My son was able to complete a vocabulary assignment while he waited (he needs to be prompted, which requires my constant attention, to continue his work or usually nothing will be accomplished). His sisters also exclaimed that they found it easier to complete their assignments as well. Hiding in the quiet room may well be an enduring practice from here on out.

Captians of Industry

There's a series on Netflix, The Men Who Built America, and it's got me started on an industrial revolution era kick. In this show you'll get an overview of Vanderbilt (ships and railroads), Rockefeller (oil), Carnegie (steal), J.P. Morgan (bank tycoon), and Ford (who doesn't really fit with the other's for many reasons).

This week we learned about Nickola Tesla, in The Master of Lightning.  He was actually more influential in the spread of the availability of electricity throughout our country. It seems to me he may have even been somewhat Spectrum-ish, given his aversions to shaking hands and tendency towards seclusion. Still he was good friends with Mark Twain and many other famous folks of the day, so it's wasn't like he was a total recluse. He was just very devoted to his interests.

Today, I found my eldest child looking up the various early model Ford vehicles in the encyclopedia. He does have an interest in categorizing items by year. His ideal historical timeline would map out all the dates of inventions.

St. George and the Dragon

We've just started reading St. George and the Dragon, by Michael Lotti, for our classroom story time. We've only just finished the second chapter today, but I'll update this post when/ if I have more to say on it. I'd read it was a good book for middle school kids.

 

Science Delta Year

Week one I was trying to introduce the concept of an atom, which drew a lot of blank looks. When week two rolled around and I was explaining elements, still more vacant expressions. I need visuals, but how do you show an atom and microscopic molecules to your kids? So tonight I'm up looking for videos.
What is an Atom, is short but feels long because it's kind of boring.
Atoms, Bill Nye's presentation is much more interesting though full of many distracting antics. Yeah, that ought to do it.

Early North America discoverers

As we began American history this year, we circle back to our Barbarian Viking history (close to where we left off with the middle ages last year) to recap a point on our history timeline;

The Vikings, sailors, and warriors from Scandinavia began invading and settling many parts of Europe in the 9th century. Around 1000 A.D. the Viking, Leif Eriksson, reached the shores of North America. -CCM Beta year

While our Classical Catholic Memory lesson for this week introduces the voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1492, we're reminded of the earlier encounters the Vikings had with "Vinland" almost 500 years earlier, in our history book (not affiliated with CCM), From Sea to Shining Sea: The story of America. By the end of the first chapter we learned that the sailors of the Santa Maria (Pinta, and Nina) prayed the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen) each evening, which happens to be our Latin memory work for the next few weeks.

I just screened the film, Vikings; Journey to the New World, for my visual learners. This documentary covers the materials from our lessons almost exactly and will provide additional review.

For writing we've elected to continue with International Excellence in Writing at home using the U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons, Volume 1, which matched up very nicely this week with two source text on Christopher Columbus.

Finally, this week after leaving speech therapy feeling rather frustrated (again) with what feels to me like a lack of progress, and also learning that one of the Occupational Therapist (we waited all summer for a slot to see) is leaving next week, it's time for a change. It's nearly settled, and we've booked appointments with a new therapy center not far away from the first. This new center just underwent an expansion and has twice the number of therapist on staff than our original center. Still a bit nervous, I decided to take our assessments copies in person so I could see this place for myself. Everything about this place is so much bigger! Multiple OT rooms, with swings big enough for even my teenager (who still loves to swing), and a rock climbing wall! And they have aged group therapy sessions, something our previous speech therapist (who moved away this summer) wanted to organize for my oldest son, but could never get authorized. Not only do they have room for us, but they can get both kids in at almost the same time for both speech and OT on the same day! Currently, we're going to speech on Tuesday morning and OT on Wednesday, and it's taking up a lot of our school time. Being able to knock out all the sessions in one morning will solve our Wednesday morning time crunch and cut down travel expense. The waiting room is very large and has a kid sized table for my to preschoolers work at. For the past few weeks I've been using our wait time to work on coloring and preliminary handwriting skills, but it's been less than ideal with no decent place to sit, and often an over crowded noisy waiting area. Still I'm nervous because we'll have a whole new set of people to get to know and I always worry about how my oldest will take to the changes. I pray this is a good move to make and that I'm doing the right thing.

Another marvelous thing happened this week. The opening of Jeff Todd Way will easily cut at least 10 or 15 minutes off my travel time on speech and OT day. Richmond highway is always so crazy and often crowded, and now I can avoid it almost completely. After visiting the new therapy center yesterday, we decided to take the new road home and it was a magnificent wide open road through trees (no development what-so-ever) and was like a time warp. The kids couldn't believe how quickly we were able to get home. Lining the new road is a very wide walking and bike trail. Fantastic!

Silence is golden

During our inaugural occupational therapy appointment day, when our waiting time was going to exceed 60 minutes, anticipation ensured that I'd come prepared with books, pencils, and crayons for my restless little ones. An hour to kill is more time than I care to waste, so having just procured workbooks for the preschooler and kindergartener, it seemed prudent to make the most of our time.


The preparations were paying off until another mother with little ones in tow joined the room and activated a hand held mind numbing device for her progeny. The percussive sounds overriding my storytelling voice as I was in the middle of reading my children Who Took the Farmer's Hat?  Irritation riddled internally, so it was all I could do to maintain my focus, hugging my three little ones a little closer so that perhaps my voice might have a bit of a head start reaching their auditory processing system first, as if my extra effort to overcome the noisy distraction.

It was nearly impossible not to suspect that awful technological contraptions for whatever brought her there that day, however, knowing all too well that even children devoid of constant media entertainment can have deficits too. Eyes downcast, I strained to keep my judgmental thoughts to myself.

In walked another busy mom and more young children and you might very well imagine the cacophony that ensued as nine children crammed into this small waiting room played. Add a few therapist discussing how the sessions went all at the same time and you'll understand one of the things I find most unpleasant about our weekly appointments to speech and (just started) occupational therapy. My ideal background noise for a therapeutic environment sounds like a orchestra, violin concerto, or perhaps a piano piece that isn't full of bravado or too much staccato.

Anyhow, one of the other unfortunate things I overheard yesterday was the bemoaning of how difficult have so many (three and four...) children is, all the while minding my own business with five of my six children playing rather (and unusually) peacefully. No way was I jumping into that conversation, which I wasn't invited to anyway ;) 

If only I had the gift of instant insight perhaps I could have written this post, Does Size Matter? I wholeheartedly concur with Kate's synopsis. Perhaps if the other moms ask my opinion on the subject in the future I could say something to the effect: Whether you have one, three, four, six, or 19 being a mom is a hard job. However, we don't have to surrender and let it defeat us. Own it. Take on the challenge. Acknowledge and improve your areas weaknesses. Never stop learning. Don't loose sight of the big picture. The goal is to springboard them into adulthood in a way so they will take those big leaps and land on their feet... perhaps crash once in a while, but teach them to do so in a fashion so they can get back up again and keep going. "Feet first, never head first" is what I say often whenever we're at a playground. Though my stubborn lot don't always heed my admonishments. And in those moments, I dub them over to their other mother, Mary, or their Guardian Angel.

Many hands make light work

Last month they asked if they could help me paint the kitchen. That wasn't going to happen, but today we found something they could paint all by themselves. It was both helpful and fun as well as an excellent motor skills developmental activity.

Presumptive Teacher

 Swim practice is now over for the summer. Now we can go to the pool to just have fun and nobody will have to sit along the sidelines watching and waiting. Yeah!

We heard there's a scholarship being offered for one lucky kid to join the winter team. I really, really, really want my oldest son to continue swimming year round because it has been so good for him. It burns energy, isn't heavily dependent upon accurately processed instructions (get in and swim...like they can hear anything with their heads under the water anyway), and he really needs something like this in his life. However, the cost for either of the two teams in our neck of the woods seemed staggeringly out of budget. So I pushed him to write an essay, and as usual had to give a LOT of guidance to help him organize his thoughts. If he wins the scholarship then there will be more swimming this year. However, if he doesn't, then we'll be free (yeah that's a way to look at it) to just swim at our leisure.

This morning, I got it into my feeble mind to make French toast. Having been notified that we had run out of eggs, a new path had to be devised. "No problem, get me the apple sauce," but then the negative notification sounded again. Racking my brain, my first thought was to use a banana to make a batter for my fried toast (so that I could soak up all the lovely sausage grease in my iron skillet). Alas, the bananas are still so green the peels won't even come away from the fruit, which was also still quite hard. Finally, I determined to utilize the last portion of our homemade grape jam to render my toast batter with. Mixing the jelly with some almond milk, pinch of salt, and a few sprinkles of cinnamon, this whole grain toast caramelized quite nicely, and tasted delicious.

After reading the children another chapter from Marilee Haynes' book, A.K.A. Genius, I noticed something peculiar on my dry erase board, which I did not write. It seems I have a deputy teacher dishing out assignments to her siblings. Home School is a way of life... even during the summer it seems.

While I had purchased A.K.A. Genius for my eldest son (in a vain attempt to lure him away from Diary of a Wimpy Kid) it turns out my daughter has been far more interested in reading this book. Not to be defeated, I endeavored to make it a family read aloud book, in hopes that my son might yet still fain a hint of interest. Indeed, he will politely listen, but has not found this story captivating enough as to cause him to want to read ahead on his own. I suppose I'll have to get the sequel for his sister, who is into this, hook, line, and sinker.

Tell Me, Tree: all about trees for kids

We found Tell Me, Tree: all about trees for kids at our local library. It's written by Gail Gibbons. I picked it up because it had an attractive shiny hardcover copy. The lessons on the inside didn't disappoint.

 Gail writes about the various parts of a tree. She touches on the life cycle of seeds, leaves, and roots. In addition to a brief introduction to photosynthesis, she explains the difference between evergreens and conifers, and identifies about 19 different trees in her book. Obviously,this book is geared towards kids of elementary age. However, I enjoyed it too. I never read a book specifically about trees when I was a kid. Tell Me, Tree is a nice introduction to the study of trees.

My favorite part of the book is the instructions on how to make our own tree identification book. Gail gives examples on how to press leaves, make leaf and bark rubbings, and drawings of the various types of trees. My kids and I want to run outside and get started.

The leaves are starting to change outside our door, so we'll have to get started soon.

The new dishwasher

well, it isn't really a dishwasher at all. The dishwasher has been an epic fail at our house. Half the dishes come out still dirty, and I end up having to hand wash practically all the bowls and cups after each load. That's not very helpful at all.

When I was five years old I washed dishes three times a day...all by myself! Surely, I can teach my children (ages 2 to 10) to wash dishes once or twice a day. The younger ones can't reach the sink very well, so I decided to get them their own sink...a la Montessori style. It's educational, so it's cool! 

Now instead of a chore, it's an "activity." We can run two washing stations at once. The kids break up into teams. Each time has a washer and a dryer. The little kids get to help in a very real way. They learn fine motor skills, attention to detail, how to cooperate with others, and hopefully organizational skills. These are activities of daily living task from which they can gain a sense of pride in their earnest accomplishments. Who needs a dishwasher anyway?

This table was made by Junior at Midwest Woodworks. It's assembles using pocket screws which gives it a smooth "no hardware showing" look. However, it does take a while. It took a little more than a month for our table to arrive. Now that it's here, I can say it was worth the wait.

Bowling can be educational

Shhhhhh...don't tell my son he's doing math. My latest Montessori inspired "activity" is bowling. Using a chalk board we keep score, using tally marks we reinforce our addition skills. Nobody is crying over a math book. Win, win for everyone.

 

We bought our pins online and painted them with non-toxic watercolor paint, and sealed them with olive oil. I won't have to worry if somebody decides to nibble on the pins.

This small tool box was just floating about in my laundry room. My son has made two such boxes in cub scouts, and this is the smaller of the two. He didn't have much need for this small one, so I've commandeered it for our bowling activity.

Now, it is very important that they not throw the balls in the house...or ever, since they are solid wood and could hurt somebody. So this is a strictly supervised activity for us right now. We however, had the perfect hallway for an alley, and the ball rolling down the hall makes a nice sound which is kind of cathartic for me. I have always enjoyed bowling. I only had to demonstrate placing the pins once, and even the toddler understood. They are learning to take turns, and seem to enjoy setting the pins for their siblings.