Thursday begins about 5:30 AM when Andy leaves for the airport. I should get up, but I go back to sleep until 6:45. Around 7, I find that the twins are up and have opened all the drawers to Farmerboy's dresser and are climbing them like a ladder. This dresser is not attached to the wall. The boys therefore begin their day with serious discipline.
Then we move on to breakfast.
And Pokemon...
The twins are their usual whirlwind in the morning. After we all do catechism together and I read aloud to the bigger kids, I sit down with them and we do "math" (what they call workbooks). They like having books like the older kids. Both of them go through several pages of Modern Curriculum Press Phonics K because circling is a novelty. Then it's on to Montessori animal puzzles.
We get the Botany puzzles out, too, but they're a little more difficult. Katydid gives a lesson on parts of the flower.
And again, outside after lunch with tulips.
It's about 55 degrees and the wind is blowing 20 or 30 mph. Cold. But sunny.
Gareth tells me the twins are playing in the garden, but a few minutes later they take off up the hill. Fortunately Katydid follows them (with the camera).
Here they are in the woods. Without telling me where they were going. Gareth, Farmerboy, and I spend about 30 minutes looking for them. When they all come out of the woods, they get the "Tell me where you are going first" lecture.
Then it's time for a nap, and book work for the three older kids.
Then we have pancakes for dinner in front of the TV.
Then I read a bunch of books to the little boys.
Then it's 10:00 and I wrestle them to bed.
At nearly 11:00, we all are finally asleep. Just a typical night when Andy is out of town.
Two of them should have gotten it by now, but haven't. Drastic measures will have to be taken. One of them can take as long as he wants but seems to mostly want to rip toilet paper into tiny little strips and throw it into the toilet, then scream when I remove him from the vicinity. (He's the one who's requesting potty-training at this point. I would be happy to let him go for a while longer.)
I will probably find this amusing some day. A long, long time from now.
Katydid and Gareth were sick for at least part of week 12. When Katydid first came down with whatever it was, it sure seemed like it was flu because it had all the classic "flu" symptoms: chills, sudden onset, fever, sore throat, upset stomach, body aches. But it didn't spread to any of the little boys, really (although Farmerboy took a nap every afternoon that week.). So I have no idea what it was. The big kids all had their seasonal flu shots and the little boys didn't, so it seems odd that the kids who got flu shots would come down with a flu and and the kids who got no shots would avoid it. H1N1 was aboslutely rampant in our area that week, bad enough that several schools were closed, but... who knows. It was a mystery virus.
Anyway, because the big kids were sick, the week was mainly focused on little kids. We did manage to finally finish The Hobbit, and to start reading Our Island Story and The Story of Europe, both by H.E. Marshall. It felt good to get back to some history again. We're continuing to read A Life of Our Lord for Children by Marigold Hunt. This is the third book we've read by this author (The First Christians: The Acts of the Apostles for Children and St. Patrick's Summer: A Children's Adventure Catechism are the others) and the kids have enjoyed them all. More than that, they retain a lot from those books, some pretty deep concepts.
I'm afraid that we haven't done much that's special to mark any feast days lately, though... We make a point of praying for the Poor Souls every day, which I hope is enough.
Monday
The twins did a lot of "matching cards". I actually had to invent some on the spur of the moment, because they would go through a set and demand more. This is a Bug Bingo game. Technically, it's supposed to be played like bingo, but for our purposes, I gave them the boards and let them match the cards to the pictures on the boards.
Chipmunk liked searching for O's in the Alphabet Zoop cards. (He'd also already drawn on himself that morning, as you can see by the green on his cheek.)
In the afternoon we headed outside to play on the logs:
Which are useful as forts, ships, and also sometimes nature study...
Tuesday:
Tuesday morning was devoted to all things dinosaur. I got down a puzzle and the boys argued cooperated to put it together. I also printed out some matching cards and coloring sheets from this Homeschool Share dinosaur unit.
In the afternoon, the boys shifted gears and concentrated on coloring King Arthur paper dolls from Paper Dali. (HT: Jessica, who shared the Paper Dali link in her Google Shared Items.)
Farmerboy has been on a King Arthur kick lately, thanks to Jim Weiss, and was excited when we encountered Merlin, Uther Pendragon, and Arthur in Our Island Story (in Week 13).
Katydid colored many saint paper dolls, but she immediately whisked them off to her room so I don't have any pictures.
Tuesday also happened to be Daddy's birthday, which he celebrated by making a business day trip and getting home late to eat cheesecake.
Wednesday:
Daddy celebrated the day after his birthday by making a trip to Boston. The boys demanded American Revolution paper dolls. They also complained that they couldn't build really good castles because there weren't enough wall blocks for all 4 of them to use at the same time. I took a deep breath and offered to go down to the basement and bring up all the blocks I had taken away a few months ago because they were not being picked up in a -- shall we say -- timely and cheerful fashion. We spent the morning sorting and building with the "new" blocks:
That's what it looked like on Wednesday of last week. By Friday night, all the "new" blocks had been put up in a closet out of reach again, because that was the deal: If I bring these blocks out, you have to pick them up when you're told to, or I will have to put them away again. Oh, yes, Mommy, we'll pick them up, can we pleeeeese play with the blocks? Unfortunately, there was a breach of contract, proving yet again that home is not like school. Many of the Reggio books you read have fantastic block creations and/or block areas, or at the very least inform you that you are to include lots of different kinds of blocks and other materials for children to build and dramatize with. Personally, I agree. It is hard to build big castles if someone has used all the wall blocks. But at home with a large family, reality must be negotiated. I don't have time to pick up millions of blocks every day, and I shouldn't have to. (The two year old is actually far better at picking up than his brothers.) So at some point the environment must be used to teach responsibility, respect, and obedience instead of science, math, or anything else. In my experience anyway.
I do hope I can try again with the blocks, though, because I really like some of them, and so do the boys.
Thursday
Thursday we went outside. We had been stuck inside for two days, which is not good for active young boys. (Can you hear my fear of winter?) Anyway, it was a bit chilly -- temperatures down around 40 -- so we put on our bigger coats and headed outside while the nearly-recovered big kids stayed inside where it was warm and read books.
Did you notice N's new glasses in the block picture? It turns out his eyesight is really bad, and that's the reason he has always seemed so clumsy (which is why we took him to our developmental optometrist at just barely 4 years old.) Now, his brother, J., has never seemed to trip as much or run into things as much, so I didn't schedule a screening for him. When N. got his glasses, J. was most upset. He therefore decided that he would wear his sunglasses just like N. wore his real glasses. So he put them on in the morning and took them off at night. I tried to comfort him by telling him that he does have an eye appointment scheduled in January, but of course that might as well be twenty years from now if you're 4.
(And, yes, we do still think they're identical. How identical is identical often depends on conditions for each in the womb, and N had to deal with an improperly implanted cord while J did not.)
Anyway, while we were out, we decided to take a short nature walk in the field, which was cut short by J being accidentally hit in the eye by Farmerboy. On our way back we stopped near the house to investigate the milkweed seeds by the deck. (J was feeling better by then.)
The boys called the seeds "parachute guys" and brought some inside to play with.
Friday
Friday is extra chore day, so mostly we clean. But in the morning, the boys set up some domino rallies...
That's N, who should have his glasses on. Confusing, I know. And actually, Friday morning went kind of like this:
8:30 AM -- the little boys have already watched Curious George, a Dinosaur Train episode about poop, been banned from playing monkeys (an old rule) and orangutans (a new rule), searched through a stack of old copies of Ranger Rick and Your Big Backyard to find animals they are allowed to play ("We could play worms, Mommy!"), requested a stack of books about "jungles", moved on to dinosaur books, asked if I could go downstairs to find the dominoes and what about "that number matching game?" (Triominos), set up domino rallies, argued about who has more dominoes, and received instruction in both counting and social skills. Can I take my shower now, please?
I was going to do a 7 Quick Takes post, but never got the chance.
So that was our week, with the exception of the picture books, of course...
Of course, the busy weekend could be coloring my perceptions of the whole week. Swim lessons began (for Gareth, Katydid, and Farmerboy), violin lessons continued (for Katydid), there was a trip to the library, and the rain held off long enough for our Little Flowers and Blue Knights groups to meet at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville.
The shrine is built on the site of the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues and his companions. Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha was later born here, and baptized just a few miles away. We had a picnic lunch with one of the priests and the kids played soccer in the field by the gift shop.
Another important event this week...
The twins turned 4! Four years ago I could not imagine surviving to this point. And yet -- here we are. :-)
So those were the special occasions. The boys had to unwrap presents early on Saturday morning as fast as they could, because Andy had to take Farmerboy to his swim lesson by 8 AM. I don't think it bothered them much, though. ;-)
Other highlights of week 7...
The boys rediscovered stamping. Here, Farmerboy is experimenting with thumprints.
Inspired by a project in The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas, Gareth cut up an eraser to make his own stamps. He found that stamp ink worked better than the black tempera paint he started out with.
Gareth and Farmerboy also messed around with acrylics a bit...
Gareth's gas giants inside a nebula. As he was painting, he realized he had very little black paint. I provided him with a very cool book I bought off a bargain table several years ago, a collection of Hubble photos called The Universe. Since some regions of space are full of colored dust, Gareth decided that might work for his background. He tried to fill in some black in the gaps. This was basically a painting to experiment with the qualities of acrylic. Since I know very little about painting myself, I will need to do some research and experimentation to figure out how to extend his explorations. I find that this is the area in which I often fall down. I do a fair job at introducing the kids to novel materials and projects, but not such a good job at deepening skills.
Farmerboy was inspired by Gareth's painting, so he decided to paint his own planet:
The red circle is the planet, surrounded by purple atmosphere, streaming off into space.
Katydid and I fooled around with oil pastels this week. I sat down one day when the boys were stamping to experiment with blending oil pastels.
I was just laying down patches of color to figure out how oil pastels work (on black paper).
Katydid drew a landscape instead:
On another day, she copied down this poem she wrote and illustrated it with oil pastels:
I often forget to mention Farmerboy's academics, which are a little different (obviously) from the big kids'. This is what we're using:
Modern Curriculum Press Phonics A , spending a longer time working on consonant sounds, as he has some trouble remembering them
Handwriting Without Tears , the 1st grade book
A mish-mash of reading materials, including silly sentences I write for him, word cards I cut out from cardstock he can use to make his own silly sentences (silly is a big draw here), and Sonlight's I Can Read It! series (Book 1). I find the Sonlight stories a little weird in some places, but it's nice having them all together in a few books.
Mainly Montessori math materials... the 100 chain is what he has been interested in most since we began our school year in August. He's learned to lay out the tens cards and count the beads one-to-one to 100. He also counts on the 100 board, counts piano keys, counts lots of stuff spontaneously. When we first began, he would often skip numbers, had trouble remembering the -9 to -ty (29, 30, etc) transition, but he's got them down now. Last year I tried to use Singapore's kindergarten workbook with him, which was a disaster. He learned to write his numbers, but that was about it. (In my defense, I had to be able to do something with him while also rocking a baby for 2 hours every afternoon.) This year, since we've switched back to Montessori, is going much, much better. I've done presentations of the decimal system using base 10 blocks, and he is keen to be able to go on to the 1000 chain now that he can do the 100 chain.
A few words about the assortment of books here... on Sept. 29, the Feast of St. Michael and the Archangels, the kids reminisced about the year we made shields. So Farmerboy got off on a bit of a knight tangent. He made himself a cardboard and aluminum foil suit of armor, and shields for himself and his little brothers. The boys then added their own coats of arms. Why don't I have pictures? I have no idea.
And then... the duck and chick books. On and off for months, the twins have made it evident that they are fascinated with eggs. They pretend to be flood monsters hatching out of their eggs (they lie on their backs and put pillows on their bellies for "eggs"). They pretend to be gigantic plum-plums hatching of their eggs. (Pip's invention.) They pretend that they are chicks and I am the Mommy and they hatch out of their eggs and then go on the road. ("Chicks on the road!" they call just like we do when the chickens wander into the street.) Their dearest wish is that we would get a rooster so instead of eating our eggs, we would let some hatch. And then they became enamored of Daisy. So I have been canvasing the library shelves for chick/duck/egg picture books. I think I have found all of them by now, and will probably need to hunt through the rest of the library system.
(Ack! How could I forget? We also read Five Little Ducks about a million times this week!)
Read this week
Gareth: Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson; Fellowship of the Ring; St. Dominic and the Rosary (Vision Books); various Dig!, Muse, and Faces issues re: prehistory
Katydid: Little Women; Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede; Louisa May Alcott issues of Cobblestone; Queen Victoria issues of Calliope; Dig! Neandertals
Read-alouds this week: The Hobbit (everyone); Farmerboy (little boys); Once Upon a Time Saints: Around the Year (appropriate pages)
Listened to this week: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, CDs 3&4 (mostly)
Watched this week: The Planets: Formation of the Solar System; Ken Burn's National Parks: Episode 3 (I have no idea why #2 was skipped)
I was clearing out some shelves in the laundry room today to make more room for storage. Some things I cleared off the shelves went straight into the trash, and others went into the garage sale box. Then I ran into this picnic basket. My sister -inlaw gave us this basket many years ago. I have always loved it... but have never used it. There are only four place settings in the basket, and our family quickly grew beyond the four settings. But it appeals to the reader in me -- having enjoyed too many scenes in books about picnicing on sandwiches and lemonade beneath shady oaks.
So, as I sat on the floor in the laundry room wondering how I should use it (and feeling guilty that I hadn't used it), the boys came in to see what I was doing. And I decided that I would take a chance and let them use it, as I had often thought of doing when I saw it sitting up there on the top shelf near the ceiling -- lonely and gathering dust.
I see it as sort of a combination Montessori/Reggio material. The dishes are real china and must be handled carefully. The basket has latches that must be twisted to close and open. The place settings fit into an inner basket that can be lifted out of the larger basket.
One of the features the boys found most appealing is the way the utensils slide into the leather strip on the inside of the lid. (I removed the forks and knives. I didn't feel like making any more ER visits this week.)
I folded up a table cloth and laid it in the basket underneath the dish insert. The boys then filled it with toy food and immediately carted it off to have a picnic in the family room. I think that it will be a way for them to practice manners and social graces. It will also be interesting to see what sort of "picnics" they have. I predict that it will be taken "caving" in the closet at least once.
Fortunately, we have a ready-made place for it, too. (Which is not always the case when I have a bright idea.)
It fits right here next to the toy kitchen. (And yes, that is a stethoscope from a doctor's kit on the toy stove. I don't know why.) The kitchen fits in the space between a sort of free-standing room divider that divides our family room area from our living room area (for lack of a better way to describe it). On the other side of the toy kitchen is the piano. (It's not a perfect arrangement, but it's the best we could do.)
The twins have needed some guidance with the dishes, but I remain optimistic. At the very least it was something interesting to do on a rainy day.
Pretty early yesterday morning I knew it was going to be one of those weeks where life revolves around medical needs, but I couldn't have predicted which ones, exactly. Katydid and Farmerboy woke up with stomach aches. I called Andy and asked him to bring us gingerale at lunchtime. (I thought we could survive until then.) I told Katydid to go back to bed and assigned chicken duty to Gareth. I did Katydid's chores and read books to the little boys.
Pop did not wake up with a stomachache. Instead, he apparently woke up with a burning desire to go to the ER. In the morning, I was called on to stop a game in which he climbed up on top of his dresser - on top! - stood up, and then jumped - as high as he could! - onto his bed. All he needed was to turn a somersault in midair to complete the crazy three year old imitation of an Olympic gymnast. At least he managed to stick the landing.
Then, at lunchtime, as I was sitting down to eat my lunch after doling out cheese quesadillas to every one else, and putting away the gingerale that Andy had so thoughtfully brought for the sick kids (who did NOT throw up, all thanks be to God!!), Pop decided to toss a Mason Jar onto our stone patio to see if it would break. (It did.) I dashed outside to stop the other three boys from walking into the broken glass, barefoot, thoroughly disciplined the offender, and cleaned up the mess, then sat down again to eat.
Not five minutes later Pop started howling. "My toe! My toe!"
Now, I have to back up and tell you that he was standing on the step down from the deck, where we had earlier that day seen a snake. So what I immediately thought was that he had been bitten by a snake. A garter snake. So I wasn't too alarmed, but he was crying like he was in a great deal of pain. I dropped my fork and ran outside to see what was wrong.
(This is where you should stop reading if you're squeamish.)
Once out there it was obvious he had not been bitten by a snake. I thought he'd just stubbed his toe. But on closer examination, the toenail on his big toe looked a little odd.
It turned out that he had a "splinter" of wood half an inch long and a quarter inch wide jammed underneath his toenail, all the way to the back.
There was no way I could pull it out without putting the poor kid in even more pain that he was in already -- which was considerable -- so I called Andy (who wasn't even back at work yet) -- and sent the kids into emergency mobilization mode, and we headed off to the ER... which was packed... and hoping that Katydid's stomachache did not grow into anything bigger and more messy. (Thank you, God, it did not!)
Anyway, poor Pop -- they had to numb his entire toe to pull the splinter out, and even that didn't block all the pain, especially since the splinter came out in three or four pieces. He's none the worse for wear now, but - ugh.
This morning I had my own encounter with needles -- I went in for allergy testing and discovered that I am REALLY ALLERGIC to dust mites and grass pollen, but not to mold as I expected... and oh, yeah MAPLE pollen (and hello, where do I live??) -- but after Pop's ER experience with the numbing needles and the splinter, I was humbled enough to think that an entire tray of needles was so not a big deal.
And tomorrow Katydid has an eye exam.
So I think I meant to be sorting and organizing this week, but um, I'm having a bit of a hard time remembering.
Weeks 3, 4, and 5 are being lumped together as cabin fever weeks. I think we did actually do something, and I have a few pictures to prove it, but mainly winter insanity took over.
This week (week 5) ended up a little better than I expected, after a disastrous Monday on which I informed my husband that I was going to pack the kids up myself and head south for a month or two, just so the three year olds would be able to GO OUTSIDE. The twins have broken every Christmas present that can be broken. Every time I go outside to feed the chickens I come back in to find that they have been throwing Duplos as "bombs". Invariably, this means that the living room looks like a bomb has gone off in it. They have completely demolished the laundry room (we haven't replaced the fifth gate to be broken in two years), the hallway, and their bedroom (daily). They hit each other with wooden blocks, light sabres, and anything else that can be pressed into service as a weapon. Of course, it's easy to focus on the twins because they're usually the loudest, but really, all of the kids have been a bit out of sorts. (Cough.) On this particular Monday, every single time I opened my mouth to read, Chipmunk and at least one of the twins would be involved in a punching, hitting, kicking wrestling match on the floor. There were more tantrums than I care to mention, and my older kids were not helping. Thus, the threat. Sensing things had gone a little farther than normal, my dear husband met me at the optometrist's office so we wouldn't all have to stuff into the small waiting room, and he took the other kids to Home Depot where he bought me a plant.
So I did not pack off after all (although my mother called on Friday offering to fly up here and drive down with us so Andy could stay here and work, an offer I may just accept.) What I did was to take away TV time in the morning. I had to do this with Gareth, too, a long time ago. No TV time in the morning, no background music during the day, no media period. Not even Bach. Too much screen time, too much noise = too much hyperactivity. But, being a sluggish riser, I had wanted a babysitter for the mornings. TV as a morning babysitter was doing more harm than good, though, and the rest of the week saw a vast improvement over Monday. I haven't revoked all TV, but it's down to 30 minutes a day, in the afternoon.
Because I said "no TV" in the mornings, I am also having to deal with my own screen-time habits, namely computer use. I used to get online while the boys watched TV, but since saying, "No TV," I thought I probably ought to tell myself, "No computer," too. Revoking my own online priveleges in the morning means I'm less distracted about getting the day going, and I can hop right on it if the boys start revving up. I find it immensely difficult to be "on" all day like this -- considering that sometimes the boys open their eyes and immediately start climbing all over their beds and hanging off the bed rails, hooting and pretending to be monkeys, and when they do go down for a nap is the only time my older three can concentrate on academics, and Chipmunk will only nap on me, and then it's time to start dinner -- but it is introducing some sanity to our days.
But enough of my winter woes and on to some actual accomplishments.
We finished studying ancient India and moved on to ancient Africa. There isn't a whole lot of information on ancient Africa for kids, so we are mostly focusing on folk tales. (For ancient India, we also focused heavily on fairy tales and the Ramayana. I should post some book lists.)
We started learning about caves. We watched Mysterious Life of Caves - NOVA and were all suitably disgusted and amazed by the formations eloquently named "snottites", which look like... well, you can probably figure it out. They're formed by bacteria which produce sulfuric acid.
In an ironic twist of fate, just when I had given up on the Montessori materials because I had to put them all away to keep Chipmunk from scattering them everywhere, the little boys decided that they really wanted to use all the sensorial stuff I have tucked away in the linen closet. This week (week 5) the boys used the color boxes, the geometric solids, the knobbed cylinders, and the constructive triangles. Chipmunk just loves putting objects in containers and putting the lids on them.
Gareth was awarded Tenderfoot rank at a Boy Scout ceremony.
Gareth and Katydid started swimming lessons.
Katydid wrote and delivered a five minute speech on the life of St. Agnes.
I started long picture book reading sessions with the little boys after lunch.
Katydid read aloud Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone -- the entire book -- to Farmerboy (and the rest of us.)
And everyone did math.
To make a long post even longer, how about some pictures?
The kids set up a pet village in the family room.
Katydid, concentrating on writing her speech.
Pip is a robot. Every game the twins play -- farm, dogs, monkeys -- ends up with an evil robot.
Andy and Gareth fixed the dishwasher when it broke.
Gareth drew more of his invented animals. This one is based on the marbled cat, which he read about in an old Scientific American.
I'm not sure what this one is based on.
Drawing maps has also been big around here lately. Gareth likes to draw maps of the worlds he uses in stories. He's been working on this map for a while, but this week he started a new map as a collaboration with Katydid and Farmerboy. The kids have an intricate world system they've formed over the years. It has its own languages, geography, creatures, planets, cultures, mythologies, and economies. I am privy to some of it, but not all of it. I like watching them map their imaginations.
I have a number of posts I'm working on right now -- ordering seeds, ancient India, weeks 3 and 4, a book review of The Writing Diet by Julia Cameron, a library day post -- but I don't think any of them are going to be finished in a hurry. So I just thought I'd pop on and let everyone who is not following me on Twitter know that I am still alive -- barely -- just without enough time to make posts longer than 140 characters on will our van make it out of the driveway or not. Even natives have pronounced this a bad winter, and what that means for me is that I am stuck inside with a toddler and two three year olds going batty because they can't go outside. Actually, I think that's a pretty good definition of "going batty" for grownups -- being stuck inside with a toddler and two three year olds who are unable to burn off enough energy to behave like human beings -- as opposed to, you know, monkeys or boys shipwrecked on an island for whom civilization has totally broken down.
Ahem.
Anyway, it looks like we're in for another big snow this week, so I doubt the situation is going to change any time soon... unless we move to Florida, which is unlikely although I keep threatening to pick up and go every time I have to wrestle three small children into snow suits and snow boots just to go to the doctor's office. (Also, every time Chipmunk picks the snow off my boots and starts eating it, particularly when I've just been to the chicken coop. And when the big kids get into a snowball fight and a certain child hits another child in the face with a plastic sled because that child has been "complaining too much", and "I didn't *mean* to hit him... *hard*." And when the twins start hurling Duplos like bombs. Actually, I guess I threaten to move to Florida a lot.)
But - the sun is out today, and I did manage to get the big kids to their swimming lessons, even though there were no signs for the pool or where to go once we got there, which is so typically New York because you're just supposed to KNOW see, I mean who VOLUNTARILY moves here anyway? Hmph. Well, the kids did get to their lessons, and they did well, which was a relief, because the instructors had them jumping in the deep end on the first day and, well, my kids don't actually swim that well. So you can bet I was saying a few Hail Mary's as I sat on the sidelines. Our carefully thought out logistics worked very well today -- swimming lessons, library (I paid my massive fine and was removed from the most wanted list), violin lessons, stop at Rite-Aid, *cough* Arby's *cough*, home -- but Gareth actually needs to move up a level in swimming and they had too many kids in the beginner level so they're going to have to break them into two groups, so the times are going to be moved all around and now the violin lessons that we had to rearrange so Katydid could do swimming is still going to be in the wrong spot. Getting kids to activities is turning out to be like one of those logic exercises on the GRE. ("If G needs to be at swimming at 11 and K has swimming at 10 and violin at 11:30 and the library is only open from 10-1 and Farmerboy wants to take swimming lessons, too, only his will be at 8 AM, what will the twins and Chipmunk be doing?"
There was at least one other mother there who was doing the same sort of logic exercises out loud to her children, though, so I felt better.
Another thing that deserves its own logic exercise: why were there 6 fish in the parking lot of the music store this morning? Not supermarket fish; I mean, real fish with fins and spines and eyeballs. Right beside the running boards of my van. Stepping in a fish would have been quite the surprise, but fortunately I managed to avoid it. (I shudder to think of Chipmunk eating the snow off my boots in that case, but I doubt moving to Florida would solve the problem of fish in parking lots. The fish in Florida probably aren't frozen stiff, so I imagine they would stink.)
Once a month shopping. I first encountered this concept when Kim mentioned it. Living out here in the boondocks with four of our six kids age 5 and under, once a month shopping sounds like a good deal. So I started a thread on 4Real asking about it. The consensus seems to be that 1) it may not save you as much money as it is supposed to, versus shopping store sales; 2) storage space is the biggest problem, especially when you are buying large quantities for large families; and 3) there's no way that we can freeze enough milk to last a month. (Our family goes through about a gallon of milk a day -- sometimes more.) On the other hand... only having to do the grocery shopping 12 times a year? Priceless. So my current plan is to investigate Amazon for certain non-perishable items that we can order in bulk and see if we can stretch our shopping to at least every two weeks.
Two
Vitamix blenders. I'm wondering if I can cobble together enough birthday and Christmas money to buy a reconditioned one. I'm wondering if having a better blender (one that doesn't smell like an electrical fire when I turn it on) will make the thought of whipping up a smoothie in the morning a thought that does not inspire dread. I'm wondering if it would make canning easier next year. I'm wondering if I'd use it if I bought it or if it would be like the elliptical we bought a few years ago which currently resides in our bedroom where it functions as a jungle-gym and safety hazard. I have to confess that I think one of the Vitamix's coolest uses is to make cold compost.
Three
Breakfasts. Toast is not cutting it anymore. Gareth and Katydid put their own breakfasts together (although I have to remind Katydid that a bowl of pineapple is not breakfast), but I'm wondering... is there a point at which it is easier to just make everybody eat the same thing at the same time, like lunch? This is probably a silly question, but I am asking it because I am really NOT a good morning person. I need a little time to wake up before thinking about civilized things like breakfasts that consist of more than bread and peanut butter, eaten on the couch while watching Curious George. But I do wonder if asking three small people what they want for breakfast instead of saying, "This is what we're all eating!" is shooting myself in the foot. I think at one point I actually had the kids sit at the table, too, but sleep deprivation has robbed me of those memories.
Four
Lunches. It turns out that Chipmunk is one of those weird kids who actually likes food with taste -- you know, like spaghetti with sauce? Crazy, I know. But he won't eat any of the food I habitually make for the other kids, who mainly oppose food with taste as a matter of principle. Our lunch list looks like this: plain buttered noodles; tortellini (surprise -- they will eat spinach tortellini); cheese quesadillas (hold the jalapenos); cheese sandwiches; the occasional leftover lasagna, roast beef, or roast chicken. That's about it. I don't buy deli meat, hot dogs, prepared chicken nuggets, or frozen pizza anymore... although there are times when I wish I did. But we've been trying to weed food additives, etc. out of our diet for the past several years. Just yesterday our eye doctor mentioned that we might try getting rid of salicylates (think apples, among other fruits) to see if that affected Katydid's headaches. I sighed. Getting rid of salicylates is a major part of the Feingold diet... and the part we've found hardest. In other areas of the country, substitutes for staples like apple juice -- pear juice, say -- are easy to come by, but not here, and certainly not in the kind of quantity we're talking about. BHT,TBHQ, vanillin, and dyes are relatively easy to avoid once you know what to look for, but it doesn't always mean it's easy avoiding them. There are times when I think, why, why, can't I just buy some egg nog for Pete's sake? And cereal? Why is it necessary to add petroleum products to my children's breakfast cereal??? Ahem.
Aside from the soapboxing, lunches are kind of boring around here.
Five
Winter coats. (Bet you thought I was going for a food theme, didn't you? Alas, I am not that good.) As usual I'm behind on this one, but I finally found last year's bag o'coats and snow pants in the basement, just in time for our 20 degree weather. And -- oh, happy day! -- it turns out that nobody needs a new coat this year. Although Pip was a bit miffed when I allowed Pop to wear Farmerboy's old car print coat. "Where's the other car coat?" he asked, reminding me that twins view the world just a bit differently.
Six
Speaking of twins... I keep waiting for them to outgrow the "destructive phase". But three of their favorite games right now are called "Damage", "Whammo", and "Cannonball".
Seven
You know, I think of these "quick takes" all week long, and now my mind is a complete blank. So I will just leave you to contemplate the fact that Farmerboy mistook the word "fudge" for "smudge" the other day, and now "smudge" (a concoction of cream, butter, and chocolate) is an official part of our lexicon. It's funny how fast that happens. A child utters something cute, and ten seconds later everyone else in the family is saying, "Have you had any smudge yet? Would you like some smudge? No, thank you, I've already had a piece of smudge," and it's like the word fudge never existed.
by Marigold Hunt. This is the third book we've read by this author (
and 
are the others) and the kids have enjoyed them all. More than that, they retain a lot from those books, some pretty deep concepts.
and were all suitably disgusted and amazed by the formations eloquently named "snottites", which look like... well, you can probably figure it out. They're formed by bacteria which produce sulfuric acid.
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