Three Plus Two

Seven Quick Takes Saturday

One

After a lot of back and forth debating, I've finally decided to switch to blogger. I started working on the new blog this week and will hopefully have it ready soon.  I realized recently how much I missed blogging.  I'm trying to find that balance in my day that will allow me to have the laundry at a manageable level and a couple of minutes available for not working, too.

Two

What reminded me that I like to blog?  Elizabeth's knitting posts.  I have been sort of casually dipping in and out of them for a while, but this week it really hit me: it sounds like she's having fun.  Fun knitting and fun blogging about it.  I like learning about new things (like marine biology and physical geography and quantum physics) so I can give my kids some structure for the things they want to learn about, but I really, firmly believe that one of the most important roles of a teacher (especially a mother-teacher) is to model what it means to be an active learner.  Kids want to see their mothers learning interesting stuff.  Too often I think that having all the work done and keeping everyone on a perfect schedule means that I am being a good mother.  But what good is having all the work done if my patience is short, and I don't have time to do the things that will nurture our souls?     

Three

The work isn't done, by the way.  In case you were wondering.

Four

I keep meaning to update my Grocery Project.  When I started keeping track of my grocery expenses, I was amazed at how much we were really paying for food, household items, and common over the counter medicines and vitamins -- even as I was trying to cut costs.  And then food prices started going up, and I wasn't sure how much I ought to be paying for food.  What I ended up doing was taking a portion of our medical budget (medicine and supplements) and attaching it to our grocery budget (food and household products) to account for the stuff I was buying at the store.  It took too much time to separate that stuff out, and I had started using this nifty savings tracker from The Coupon Project and wanted to track those savings, too.   I've been able to cut $100 to $200 a month off what we were actually paying to eat a grain-reduced, organic, real food diet when buying primarily from stores. (This masks the fact that I'm also getting more food for my money, which is important when all your boys suddenly hit a growth spurt!!) Now that I have some experience with the stores here and with coupons, I could cut more by eliminating some of the organic processed and convenience products that we buy (almond milk, Stoneyfield whole milk yogurt, Larabars, and the gluten-free chicken sausages at Costco, for example), but a) my husband likes to try new things; b)he travels a lot and sending him with a grain-free packaged bar like Larabar keeps him from eating junk on the road; and c)I have four kids playing baseball right now.  Paying a little more for good-for-you convenience saves us from paying a lot more for not-so-good-for-you fast food.

Five

We haven't totally eliminated fast food from our diet either.

Six

The grain-free experiment is going well.  Since mid-January I've lost 30 pounds.  My husband has lost about 20.  (I'm still nursing, which he thinks is an unfair advantage.)  I feel a lot better.  All the candida related problems which were so bad after a year of inhaled steroids for asthma and 30 days or more of antibiotics at #7's birth have improved quite a bit.  I also made a huge discovery: my depression is diet related.  After cutting out grains, sugar, and starchy vegetables, I am sometimes discouraged but I do not get really depressed.  I have much more energy.  My face does not break out (which has been an ongoing problem with me since I was 10).  And some of the real evidence of the benefits our new diet came recently when Andy had his physical for Scout leadership: his blood pressure, which had been high, dropped 15 points into normal bounds.  Part of the reason for his success is exercise, but diet seems to count for a lot.  In particular, he gave up the large amounts of soda he was drinking; large amounts of high fructose corn syrup in the diet have been linked to hypertension. 

Seven

I'm sitting next to a 10.9 lb. cabbage here at the breakfast table this morning.  It came from my garden, which makes it doubly amazing. It's about 14 inches in diameter, and I had to hack off the root with a butcher knife like a machete.  I wish I could take a picture, but we've lost the battery charger and are awaiting a new one in the mail.  (I miss my old camera with its old-fashioned batteries.)  The coolest thing about this cabbage is that it came from a plant my neighbor gave me, and she got it for free from a program an Alabama plant farm sets up for 3rd graders to grow giant cabbages.  I didn't have a 3rd grader this year, so this plant is technically an "extra".  Maybe next year we'll participate in the competition.  This year, it's just going to make a lot of lacto-fermented sauerkraut (or cortido or kim chi).    

 

K-2 Year in Review: Language Arts

Note: I apologize for the state of my sidebar! The typepad design editor has not been working for me very often.  Sometimes my content disappears, sometimes it turns up again, and it never really goes where I put it.  

I don't have to turn in any end-of-the-year paperwork to the state this year, but I thought I would like a wrap-up anyway.  Nothing we did was revolutionary -- mostly it was just trying to hang on -- but maybe somebody needs to see what it means to just hang on in the early years.  Lately it seems that I have heard many newish homeschoolers with young kids really stressing out about first and second grade (or kindergarten) curricula and I always want to tell them to relax. 

So, anyway, this is a review of what I can remember that we did.  I'm combining my 7 and 5 year olds because they mostly did things together.  Technically my five year olds were not in kindergarten because their birthdays come in October, but it didn't seem to make a difference to them.   I decided to declare our year over about a week ago, and we'll start back up in July when it gets hot.  Although we did about as well as we could this year, considering, I am hoping that next year is better, and really thinking hard about homeschooling styles, balance, and this marathon that is raising (and homeschooling) a large family.

Phonics

Somehow my five year old twins (and my three year old, too) learned all their letters and letter sounds this year.  The twins and I occasionally sat down with  Phonics Pathways  (known in our house as The Big Book of Letters) for formal reading lessons, but mostly -- I am somewhat embarassed to say -- they learned these things from Starfall.  I felt a little guilty about this for a while, and then I thought, why not just be happy it was so painless.  The twins are blending, doing a little reading in McGuffey and Bob books, and Chipmunk is spelling STOP signs.  Pop is upset that he cannot yet read Star Wars chapter books.  They seem to get that words in books can actually be read, and that they ought to be able to apply the skills they're learning to books they want to read, or coupons, or whatever.  My second grader, on the other hand, is still convinced that letters are meaningless squiggles only designed to give him a hard time. We made it through long vowel sounds this year, and we have been using Phonics Pathways (and Modern Curriculum Press Phonics A ) methodically. In fact, I think a little too methodically; in April I became concerned that "reading" had seemed only to become a school subject for him, so I ditched the texts and just asked him to read to me from our large collection of early readers (Gareth was eight and a half when reading finally clicked for him, so I have amassed quite a few).  He chose to read from our sets of Brand New Readers, which are not strictly phonetic little books, but the stories are funny and Katydid loved them, too.  They're short enough and repetitive enough to give him a sense of accomplishment, which he needs at this point.

Handwriting

Pip and Pop used Handwriting Without Tears.  Sort of.  Both have problems with fine motor skills, and neither has the concept of "just do one page".  Or "wait and let's use this neat little chalkboard".  This was not something I required, just something I had on the shelf for them to do when they wanted.

Farmerboy (grade 2) has beautiful handwriting, especially for a leftie, and completed Copybook I from Memoria Press.  When I say "completed", I mean he did all the writing.  This child does not like to illustrate his work, so we just left all the "draw a picture here" pages blank.

Narration

I'm including this as a topic because I know people are interested in it, and I tried to do it more formally this year with Farmerboy.  I have to tell you, narration in my house is a little exhausting.  As soon as it becomes a formal process, no one wants to tell me anything.  If I am sneaky - or if we have a genuine discussion - my kids demonstrate excellent comprehension. (Educationese for: they like to talk about books.)  If I ask directly for someone to narrate or retell immediately after we read, I am usually met with rolling eyes.  I understand that doing formal narration eases kids into writing later on, but the energy required to sustain the process is often something I just don't have.  On the other hand, I know my kids pick things up just from listening to books and talking about them; the other day I sat down with Pip to read Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms and after I had read the first page, he said, "But what's the problem?  Books usually have a problem."

Yep, kiddo, a story without conflict would be boring.  (And Fletcher does actually run into a "problem", but not on the first page.)

Fairy Tales and Folk Stories

I stuck with something simple this year, and that was a good thing.  For some reason I had a really hard time keeping a regular read-aloud time, even for the little ones.  I did not write this plan down; I did not decide ahead of time which stories or books I would read; I just decided that this year I would try to read the younger kids more fairy tales.  There are many, many lovely picture books illustrating single fairy and folk tales, many of which we own, but we stuck primarily to collections this year. (The boys loved the Tiger and Rabbit stories in this collection.)

(Tried to narrate from this one.)

(Lots of short stories, with wonderful illustrations.)

(Farmerboy retold these tales for days afterward.  I began to think that Paul Bunyan was a relative.)

 

There were more read-alouds and books on audio -- including marathons of Redwall books -- but nothing terribly organized.  In fact, I think Ill remember this year primarily as "The Year of Biggles, Redwall, and Harry Potter."

I meant to do the whole year in review all at once, but at this rate its going to take me until 2012! Sheesh!  Cross your fingers and maybe I'll get to Science, Math, and History before the next presidential election!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March Learning

March is nearly over, and I'm not done writing my math post yet.  I started it... and then I spent a day throwing up.  Which is how one of my children feels about math, actually.  I recently found an old homeschool journal in which I wrote about this child: "I just want him to learn to like to read, to think math isn't "boring", and to write using real letters instead of made up ones." 

"I guess we got 2 out of 3," I told him.

"No, I still write using made up letters," he said.

Inspired by Tolkein, he invents alphabets these days.  I'm pretty sure most of the story he's writing is in English, though.

I was going to call this an "in review" post, but then I wasn't sure if you could call what we've been doing "school"... maybe a lot of unschool.  Except not totally unschool either, because there was math and it was "boring". So there was learning, but only a fraction was orchestrated by me.

Maybe that's as it should be.  Because it's nice to see that some of your ideas -- written many years ago by a much less experienced you -- have borne fruit, and your kids really do like to read, and to learn, and can even write using real letters when they need to.

I still don't know how to make math not boring, but I'm working on it.  Maybe next year.  Anyway, one thing I've learned since I wrote that old journal is that not all learning has to be exciting.

So, some March highlights.

Katydid has had the camera out quite a bit lately, documenting spring.  Coming up on her agenda: an "azaela festival", in our shady backyard area the kids have dubbed Azaela Garden.

Some other photos I found on the camera:

Carolina chickadee, taking off...

Moonrise.

Of course, then I also find pictures like this:

I'm not sure who took this photo.  I think it was from the day I was sick.

(Don't worry.  No preschoolers were harmed in the making of this photo.  They have been warned not to do it again, though.)

Katydid is looking forward to the new photography series on the Weather Channel featuring photographer Peter Lik.  Over the weekend we watched a recorded NOVA about E.O. Wilson called Lord of the Ants, which she also enjoyed, particularly (I think) the sections about Wilson as a boy naturalist.  I think that Andy and I enjoyed it even more, though, because, as the parents of children who spend a lot of time mucking around in the woods and yard with ants and other creatures, it was nice to see the where that sort of learning can end up, and not, you know, as a deadbeat living in your parents' basement.

Hmmm.

Anyway, lots of ants and insects around here lately (and by lots of ants, I mean, really, billions) and the little boys have had a good time catching them using nearly every single one of my Mason jars. Farmerboy has enjoyed setting up food experiments for his ants.  I'm hoping to get a decent schedule going for the first time all year (in spite of stomach viruses and baseball season) and am trying to read to the younger boys while they eat their breakfast.  We've just started Insect Life from the Eyes and No Eyes series and Among the Meadow People.  

In addition to insects, there are still dinosaurs.  Andy and I have been putting up some new Ikea bookcases in the hopes of finally unpacking the garage, and in one of the boxes I found an old dinosaur skull kit that Gareth had built a few years ago but forgotten or gotten frustrated with.  He popped the rest of it together and Farmerboy spent a couple of afternoons applying clay:

 

He even added taste buds to the tongue with a clay tool.

Farmerboy's favorite TV show these days is Meteorite Men, so in addition to his dinosaur construction, he has also been throwing rocks in the front yard to test various theories about craters, strewn fields, etc.  So now we have a rule: Before any meteorite experiment, you have to yell "CLEAR!"

This isn't all we've been up to -- the little boys have become addicted to starfall (which now has a sister site with math, some of which you can only access with a subscription), Farmerboy is still struggling slowly through reading, and Gareth has begun working with his Greek tutor -- but it's where I'm going to have to stop.  Something I'm learning -- how to feed everyone around all the baseball practices!

 

 

 

 

We've Been Busy

So, the past few weeks there has been a lot going on!  And poor Amy who asked me about Life of Fred I have left hanging all this time.  (Sorry, Amy!) As it happens, I have spent much of the last few weeks going cross-eyed over math curricula so hopefully I will soon be able to do a giant middle school-ish math post wherein I provide you with every single one of my "expert" opinions (hah) about math. 

In addition to thinking about math (or trying to avoid thinking about math, which also happens at our house), we also made a short trip to my mom and dad's for my mom's birthday, had a lovely visit with a good friend, rode around in my dad's 1931 Oldsmobile (pictured above), came home and spent a week visiting Memphis' Pink Palace Museum and Brooks Art Museum, attended a giant homeschool convention (where Jim Weiss and Susan Wise Bauer were speakers)... and contracted a nasty stomach virus which has occupied most of the past week.  

Next week... baseball!

(4 kids, 3 teams.  Even bilocation wouldn't help me much.)

Anyway, back to the pictures. 

My dad's car does actually run -- remarkably well for a 1931.  Andy got to drive it around the neighborhood, and we all took turns as passenger.  "No seatbelts, no handles, no air bags," as Farmerboy told us, and a big cloud of smoke following behind.

As we've been home the past three weeks or so (and Andy has been traveling a lot), we've also been working hard on our garden.

Well, Andy has been working hard.  I hang out with the baby.

Here's how the garden looked when we started.

It's a lot greener now.  The lettuce we overwintered has really taken off.  And we now have hedges of young berry bushes, plus a fencerow of muscadines and a couple of fig trees. 

(For the curious, we're building a simple maze design. I tried to find a quick link but am holding a 9 month old octopus.  Potager post also forthcoming, I hope.)

And of course there is the normal craziness...

 

 

February in Mississippi

February in the South is a different animal than February in the North.  For years I have hated February and have spent long hours figuring out how to wage war on it.  In upstate New York February is midwinter.  The snow is not going to melt until April, so you had better figure out how to deal with it.

In Mississippi...

New York kids expect snow and ice in February...

(maybe it looks a little odd on the magnolias)

(Or hanging from the crepe myrtles)

But what they don't expect is...

SPRING!!!

Everybody keeps telling us that this streak of good weather is probably going to end and then the weather will turn bad (rainy) and cold (chilly) again, but, I'm sorry, everybody, YOU HAVE NO IDEA.  71 degrees?  That's like, what, JUNE in upstate New York???  Do you know how LONG it takes 4 feet of snow to melt???

So what if it turns into 50 degrees again!

I may even have to negotiate a ceasefire with February.

Week(s) in Review: 8th/9th grade

I have really fallen off the wagon as far as recordkeeping is concerned.  December and January passed by in a blur of colds and teething baby.  February promises more of the same, I'm afraid, but I'm hoping to get my act together somewhat.  As with our learning life this year, I'm not looking for perfect, just "good enough".

Gareth: 8th/9th grade

Faith

Gareth's been using Seton's Confirmation Prep, in addition to our family time with the Baltimore Catechism (No. 2) and the CCC. 

Math

We had been stuck in chapter 4 of Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra for almost two months.  (The holidays didn't help.)  Chapter 4 is one giant word problem.  It is really, really, really hard.  It is a whole chapter full of the kind of problems that Jacobs in Elementary Algebra gives as "Set IV" (meaning: if you're a math whiz, you might want to try this, but otherwise don't worry about it) and divides into two or more chapters.  We battled to the end with me wondering how the heck I was going to give him a grade for something I suspected was far more difficult than your average algebra book, and then I pulled out Jacobs.  My suspicions were confirmed, as Gareth is whizzing through Jacobs chapter 5 with very little help.  So now my problem is: do we continue to try to struggle through Fred, going to Jacobs for explanation and review, and in essence, completing two algebra textbooks for Algebra I?  Or do we just switch back to Jacobs?  The cartoons may be funny, but Gareth's right; the problems are much more interesting in Fred.  They're just exponentially harder.

On the bright side, I think Gareth will have a much better understanding of algebra when he's done than I ever did, and I took honors classes.  (As a bonus, I know that I will also understand algebra much better, too!)

Languages

Still using First Form Latin.  But we've also managed to find a tutor to help Gareth with ancient Greek.  Andy sent an email to the classics department at the local liberal arts college, and the end result will be that beginning next week, Gareth will meet with a junior once a week at Andy's office.   

Language Arts

I'm trying to give Gareth a writing topic or two a week, and it seems to be working fairly well.  These writing assignments usually have to do with his reading in science and history, and I generally let him choose from a list.  So far he's done short papers on plate tectonics, the president's State of the Union address, and the Mongol invasion, and some creative writing about the Crusades.  That's in addition to his writing on his novel.  

He's also working in Grammar of Poetry (his choice), slogging through diagramming with Our Mother Tongue, and we have fallen off the wagon with Spelling Wisdom. 

Earth Science/Physical Science:

Gareth finished up Rocket Boys , Homer Hickam's memoir which inspired the excellent movie October Sky (which we also watched -- or tried to watch anyway, as the DVR cut off the end.)  In discussions we focused more on the science of building rockets than on literary themes... but really, I think this was just a good read.  

After he finished Rocket Boys, he picked up Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and started reading again where he'd left off.

He's also read many magazine articles over the past few weeks dealing with science -- from National Geographic, Smithsonian, Astronomy, and Natural History (which I would link you to except that my mouse has gone haywire) -- not assigned, just strewn.  And, as ever, television series remain a pillar of science learning around here: currently, Mutant Planet, How the Earth Was Made, The Universe, and NOVA and NOVA Science: Now! .   (Farmerboy and Katydid also like Meteorite Men, but Gareth thinks it's boring.)

Oh, and a couple of weeks ago he earned the Boy Scount Engineering merit badge.

History

Not too much reading here, as science has been more of a focus.  He's meandering through medieval Japan and China right now, The Story of Ancient China and China's Later Dynasties, as well as The 47 Ronin Story (Tuttle Classics) (I think).  He has a few books about Japan and the samurai in his basket, but I think he's been more focused on China lately.   

Art

We're not pursing art in a terribly organized fashion, but Gareth has been messing around with Artistic Pursuits (High School) and a "how to draw manga" book we picked up at Hobby Lobby the other day.  He just has to visit an art museum to get his Art merit badge.

  

Today

Today started out in my "office", where I worked with my super-organized daily planning system...

...otherwise known as "post-its on the refrigerator".

And then there was...

Graphing of Legos...

... requiring lots of concentration.

There was bouncing...

... and reading before quiet time...

Afternoon work...

And snow in the evening.

Tuesdays are halfway decent around here, usually.  How was your day?

 

Learning with Lego

I've been having a hard time getting enthused about homeschooling lately, so I decided it was time to not worry so much about "making progress" and to do something fun instead.

It's the flag of Denmark!

Cue: this Lego unit/lapbook, which I first learned about on the Aussie Pumpkin Patch blog last fall.  I'd tucked the idea away in the back of my mind, and these dreary, sick January days seemed like a good time to present it to my Lego-obsessed 7 year old.  Farmerboy is not an independent reader so he really couldn't do this unit independently, and he didn't have much interest in making a lapbook, but we had fun watching all the videos and doing the "building challenges".  Gareth and Katydid joined in on occasion, too.

We've only gone through the first 3 days because Pip had to make an unscheduled visit to minor medical on Thursday with an infected finger.  Farmerboy is looking forward to doing more learning with Lego this week... so much so that I'm afraid I'm going to have to come up with my own building challenges for many more days!

Farmerboy's taxi-truck from Day One... we couldn't find the taxi instructions, so Farmerboy made up his own.

The ship from Day 2... It's a speedboat.  His finger is hiding the prop he added to the back.

 
Katydid's mosaic from Day 3... a treasure chest.

We also used the nice spread on Lego manufacture in the book See How It's Made and found a good article about the science of how Lego works (among other things), which I read aloud to everyone.

Farmerboy has now added "Professional Lego Builder" to "Paleontologist" when asked what he wants to be when he grows up.  Next I think he will probably answer, "Nathan Sawaya".

 

 

Almost a Pantry Challenge

Maybe it looks like one of those miniscule nouveau cusine salads of the 80's, but I thought it was pretty.  I snipped some baby greens from our raised bed before it snowed, mixed in some purchased spinach, and we had a nice salad with our homemade chicken soup on Sunday night.

I hope no one got the wrong impression from my last post on eating from the pantry.  As Marjorie pointed out in the comments, sometimes a well-stocked pantry is literally a lifesaver -- as when your entire city is shut down for a week because of ice.  Unlike Atlanta (which is still frozen) or Jen, who got 11 inches of snow, here in northwest Mississippi we only got about 3 or 4 inches, which melted off the roads in orderly fashion.  So we have been able to run to CVS all week to pick up sore throat pops, and, uh, ice cream (which I have categorized as a medicinal expense in this instance).   I should have had more of a store of things like children's ibuprofin, though, because we are almost out.  And I hadn't set aside any elderberry syrup either (but if you can get out, there is a coupon for Sambucol elderberry syrup at coupons.com and our CVS had it on sale this week, so I managed to get it for $8.99 instead of the ridiculous $12.99 regular price.  I'm not sure how that compares to vitacost because I haven't checked.) 

(A little aside about Northerners, Southerners, and winter weather...)

When we moved down here, Andy and I talked about how we would need to be prepared for power outages, winter storms, etc. more than in New York.  New York may get a million times more snow than Mississippi, but that means that New York also has the equipment to handle the snow.  Since snow and ice are a relative rarity in the South (and it never sticks around like this -- all week!), it doesn't make sense for cities to buy the kind of snow-moving equipment that is necessary up north.  The South also gets more ice than upstate New York.  Ice is crippling no matter where it falls.  The ice storm that hit Albany, NY a couple of years ago pulled down trees, knocked out power for a week or more in some areas, and resulted in an enormous number of burst pipes and flooded basements.  One family we knew had to fill their toilets with water from their creek, because their well pump was electric.  The roads may have been clear, but the roads were the least of anyone's problems. 

So, no, I am not going to make fun of Southerners and snow.  Although when I walked outside the other day to chase the recycling that was blowing down the street, and the sun was shining off the snow, and the birds were chattering in the trees, I think I said, "Hey! It feels just like April!"

Ok, so maybe that was making fun of upstate New York.

(Back to the point, whatever that was...)

Anyway, I have been following a sort of half-hearted pantry challenge this month, a little less half-heartedly this week as Andy and a couple of the kids have been sick, and of course -- the snow.  I needed to use some of the meat and fish I had in the freezer before buying more; I couldn't get to Whole Foods, which is farther away and where I buy meat; and the cupboards were decently stocked.  I've been grocery shopping twice since January 1, mainly to buy fruit and dairy, which we eat in insane quantities, but I've only done so-so with going grain-free.  It's tough to figure out what to feed my boys.

Grain-free meals I've made this month:

• Baked fish in Spaghetti Sauce (idea from Once a Month Cooking)
• Roast chicken/chicken soup (adapted from Ina Garten's Perfect Roast Chicken)
• Taco salad (for Andy and I), no corn chips/ Taco Soup with the leftovers
• Pork stir-fry (I cook with olive oil, leading me to remark that this was Italian-Chinese, which Andy promptly named "Marco Polo")
• Blueberry-Hazelnut Pancakes (adapted from Elena's Pantry Gluten-Free Pancakes

I have to say something about the pancakes, because they were awesome.  I substituted honey (local, raw) for the agave nectar, hazelnut flour for almond, stirred in some frozen blueberries, and cooked them in butter.   Heavenly.

 Grain-full meals this month:

• Vegetarian lasagna
• Homemade pizza/cheesy bread
• Macaroni and Cheese
• Spaghetti
• Soaked Flour Pancakes (adapted from Joy of Cooking, with the added step of soaking the flour)
• Salmon patties

Not Grain but not Grain-Free:

• Bacon Potatoes (Chop up a package of bacon and fry it. Cut up some potatoes, onions, and garlic. Fry in bacon drippings.  Season with salt and pepper.  Stir in bacon pieces and sprinkle with grated cheddar.  Now you have "Bacon Potatoes".) 

Extras:

• Muffin Bread
• Pumpkin Custard

Not quite back to work

Snow days (a whole 3 or 4 inches!) and the flu are making it hard to get "back to work".  Snow is much prettier than the flu, so here are some idyllic pictures of kids in the snow.  Good thing you can't see the jumble of boxes we had to search through to find boots, gloves, and snowpants.

It was just a matter of time...

before the telescope...

... turned into a snow cannon.

I should have seen that coming, I know.

The swing set was a present from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas and has seen heavy use.  Also seeing heavy use...

No explanation necessary, I think.

I was going to list all the schooly stuff we *are* easing into, but that will have to wait for another day... a day when the three year old naps, the baby isn't teething, the husband is well, and dinner is delivered in a cardboard box maybe. ;-)