Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Just feeling chatty

It's like such a huge weight has been lifted off me now that I've identified some of the issues going on this year. I'm so eager to get back on the right track! I don't yet have it all worked out how the 16yo will get her work done without me neglecting the others or how we'll organize stuff, but I'm going to rely on the kids a lot to figure that out. Things worked so much better when they did most of the school decision-making, too.


I do think my tiredness is definitely part of the problem. (Pam, if you're reading this--do those herbs you mentioned help people sleep longer, or just help them get to sleep? I can get to sleep no problem. But I have a hard time sleeping past 5! And usually, if I fall asleep before 10, I just wake up that much earlier (but not at all feeling rested); fall asleep after 10, and I'm still awake around 5 or so.) I can totally empathize with the 16yo because *I*'m having such a hard time.


But back to my originally scheduled babble:


I want to have some fun. With the kids. I want to play recorder and flute. I want to play some of the school games we have. I want us to come up with games we can play. I want to play word bingo and math bingo and French bingo. I want to do more art. I want to do more science. I want to put together timelines like I've wanted to do for sometime. (I actually started, but my original plan didn't work out so well and it was just too cumbersome to work with, so I've got another idea in mind: use 8.5" x 14" paper, each sheet for a particular century, or something. Haven't figured it out more than that, unfortunately! Century might be too long when looking at the ancient stuff we've done--it's almost got to be one sheet for each half millennium. lol) I want to go to Millennium Place. I want to have fun at the park instead of just sitting there. I want to be in shape. (Okay, so maybe I'm going a little too far with what I want for school! lol) I want to do sewing with the kids and so much more.


And I know if I could come up with some more simple games, ds would definitely be interested in doing more school stuff. He asked for this hockey math game from Scholastic and loves it. We've got to play more games.


On the note of ds... I have to say that despite my neglecting him a lot this year academically, it's still turned out okay--benign neglect. :) He's reading a little more each time, reads digital clocks without hesitation and can almost always tell you how long it will be until the time set for something. For example, if I tell him lunch is at 11, and he looks and sees it's 10:52, he'll tell you it's in 8 minutes. He's actually started extending that and can usually tell you up to 15 minutes before the time--even if you've told him something is at 1:30 or 1:40. That's very cool. He hasn't been working in his cursive book much, but he does still enjoy doing a little bit of it--just not a whole lot at once. It's an A Beka kindergarten book and it's just wonderful. It's started having the kids match up the cursive vowels with the print--he thinks it's a grand game! He really just wants to get to the pages where he can colour, but at the rate he's going, that won't be until he's 10. ;)


The 12yo--13 in a few weeks OMG--has been making some progress, too. We've had more talks and it does seem to help. We eased up on the reading level of his oral reading which made him much more interested in reading other things. He's started reading Superfudge--which I read to them all a few years back--and he says he likes it: it's still fairly easy to read and understand, even if there are some words here and there he's not getting. I think it's probably a perfect independent reading level for him right now. His handwriting... Wow. I mean, it's not beautiful, but he started writing this story about my niece and her obsession with the potty the other day and I absolutely had to comment on his printing. "You're printing looks like it's from a totally different person compared to the stuff you were doing last year!" He was pretty proud.


More babble... My niece (2yo) was crabby this morning. Didn't get her proper nap yesterday then was out in the evening and just didn't get enough sleep last night. She wanted to go outside with my two kids around 10:00 this morning--but have her shorts on first. Since I couldn't go out at that point, I told her "later". She pouted and put herself on the ground, on her stomach, in front of the back door. She laid there playing with her stuffed animal for a while. Then the 16yo says, "I think she's asleep. She's kind of half-sucking her soother." She was asleep. Here's what she looked like:



Poor kid had serious rug imprints on her face! I did pick her up and put her in bed. I never would have thought she'd fall asleep there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, I find scullcap helps me to feel a really nice drowsiness that lets me sleep longer. For instance...if I have been tossing and turning until, say, 2am, and then take a dropperful of the tincture...I will fall asleep within an hour or so...and then sleep in! If I have to get up...I can...I just feel *sleepy*. But then it wears off. But you can just try one of the herbs...and see what happens. If you don't like how you feel, you can stop taking it.

It's interesting to hear all your realizations about your year. It has been a very tough one for me too (as you know...). You have more real challenges....but I have many that exist in my head! (maybe too much scullcap....hahaha....).

No seriously, I don't take it that much. Only when I feel I need to....a few times a year for the past...hmmm....7 years or so?

Talk soon!