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!

One more step

This weekend the butcher block counters were cut for three of the spaces in our kitchen. It would be neat, yet perhaps too complicated, to do the rest of the counters with this, but I'm brainstorming how to complete the sink side. We also finished the last two cabinet doors for this first phase of the resurfacing of our kitchen. This wall still needs the trim and a rack mounted before it will be complete. I do look forward to being able to push the fridge completely out of the way (it's about 12 inches away from the wall right now). Slowly, and surely, it's coming along. This week I get to polish my new counter everyday with mineral oil to prepare it for use. After that it will be once a week for a month, then once a month for the duration of it's lifetime. From what I've read all I need to do is keep it well oiled with mineral oil and it should be my idea of low maintenance and nearly indestructible. Lovely and cheaper than granite or any of the other fake stone stuff. Sounds good to me.

One tooth, two teeth, three teeth...Ah Ha, Ha, Ha!

Think back to your childhood, when you used to watch Sesame Street, when The Count came on to reveal the number of the day. It's with this jovial and almost sinister voice I think with when I consider all the teeth my son has in his left numerary bicuspid area, directly beneath the area of his now repaired cleft lip. Today the orthodontist asked me if I had gotten that tooth pulled as he'd asked before we began treatment. To which my response was, "we sure did," the memory of my son sucking on a blood soaked piece of gauze for half a day fresh in my mind.

Well, the tooth growing in it's place doesn't look right. In my mind I was responding "well of course it doesn't" before I verbally stated, "these seem to be tooth fragments." Some questions arose about his past x-rays, as this office doesn't appear to have all the ones I presented to them on file (eye roll please!) If they had they would have known this was not a normal tooth currently erupting and a larger, more fully formed tooth is lodged up in the upper jaw. At this revelation our (Tricare appointed) orthodontist stated we needed an oral surgeon, as he was "just a lowly orthodontist," and this was beyond his expertise. The thought of trying to get authorization for this through Tricare sent my head into a tizzy that's for sure. Since I'm not alone in this journey and I called upon a friend who has been there and very recently done that, and she eagerly agreed to help me walk through this one. She's got connections who are in the know...and I ain't ashamed to ask for her advice.

And I thought my day was going to be challenging because it seems time to get Number 2 evaluated for orthodontic care and I had planned on beginning the paperwork for that during our appointment...which I did. Never time to get comfortable, as once you've mastered some little trial in life, along comes another hurdle to recon with. Despite all that I felt like I've accomplished a lot today, fresh and ready to take it on!

Up to today I was thinking that the smartest thing to do would be to have both children see the same orthodontist (booking appointments at the same time seems all to convenient). However, perhaps I should seek out a few different opinions for my second child because according to her regular dentist (and though she is not cleft affected) her teeth crowding and overbite are much more severe then her big brother. He always makes such a big deal about how amazingly (messed up) her teeth are, but thinks our cleft affected child isn't all that bad...ironically. That worries me some.

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.

Breastfeeding Awareness Week

 In honor of Breastfeeding Awareness Week, I thought I'd share this picture from our trip last May to St. Augustine, FL. Outside the Cathedral there's a statue dedicated to Father Pedro Camps who led the Minorcan colony to the place that would be known as America's oldest city.  While there I knew nothing about these early colonist, but was struck by the lowest sitting figure in the statue, the mother and child, having so obviously just finished nursing.

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.