Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Scratch head and smile...

Me:             Little Frog, why is your shoe full of water in the bathroom?
Little Frog:  Because we were in the bedroom  passing crickets.
Me:             ...? oh.


Professional Cricket Passer
just got an update from the Owl...
"We were SMASHING crickets."
oh.
still just 
o.h.

Nice day for a Giraffe


I feel bad for my Dear Husband sometimes...there are days when he walks in the door and I just instantly dump all over him about dealing with the kids all day.  But, those are they days I feel as if I am losing my mind.  

Case in Point: (this being AFTER I find the clean and dirty dishes mixed together in the dishwasher and my expensive garden hose sprayer completely thrashed in the sandpit)

 Me:  WHY is Daddy's Listerine ALL over the bathroom floor??!!!
Otter: I spilled it.
Me: ??? and WHY, W.H.Y!!  were you using the Listerine?
 Frog:  **We were cleaning the giraffe.**
Me:    ?            
 I silently hand them two towels and slowly back out of the bathroom.  

THEN Frog come is and says they found a head in the yard...
a talking head.  

O.K.  Must stop what I am doing and check this out bc. WHO KNOWS what the F@$k THAT means...

The children have dug a four foot hole and  buried Raccoon up OVER his ears in the sandpit.  He is standing straight upin the pit with his hands pinned to his sides, covered in sand...but having a hard time BREATHING with the weight of the sand on his chest.
sigh...

I dig him out while they baby cries to be picked up.

Bear walks in the house for lunch
Me: Gripe Gripe Gripe...the kids...Blah Blah Blah... the dishes...whiny whiny whiny...dangerously stooopid descisions...

See, I do not see this as dumping on Bear.  
This is my cry for HELP.  
An outstretched hand, grasping for the last vestiges of a lost reality as most folks know it.
Me, simply trying to place myself on the tiny scrap of firm ground that might confirm...
"This is crazy making...ISN'T IT?  Isn't it?!"

The Giraffe.  
of.course.

The Cirlce...or crap I have to needlessly do OVER and OVER again...

With a title like this, I could write about bed making, or toilet cleaning or meals or any of a multitude of daily tasks that constitute running a house full of kids...but we have all heard and lived that ... I am instead wearied by the tasks that one puts energy into and *thinks* are done, completed, off the list... when in reality...


Just spent an hour looking online for the perfect ''mote control Robot' that Little  Frog wants for his fourth birthday.  Found one that is not crazy expensive or complicated for a four year old...like 12$, red and shiny and makes cool noises. 
My oldest, Owl,  was sort of hanging around behind me...found a complicated, Yellow $$$$ one he liked and so, for fun, we started looking at it.  

When I went back to purchase the Big Birthday Surprise, Owl went to his four year old brother, Frog,  sold him...I mean SOLD HIM... on the YELLOW ONE and 

now, on my floor, under the computer desk,  I have a screaming, frantic four-year-old wailing for "the Yellow One."

Do you think the 'Red One' will EVER hit the high mark the Yellow One was elevated to?   

Me neither.  
crap. 
back to square one. 
my bad for indulging the older one...but, geez, Buddy, shut yer darn yapping pie hole.
Thanks again for making life so easy on every one,  you Tweenie Turdbird. 
Thanks for sharing the love and seeing the big, G*d Damn picture...
even after I sensed what *might* happen and told you SPECIFICALLY to keep a lid on it.
***sigh***
Love, Sisyphus

Senile Parenting...closer than you might think...


I know...I know...you all have heard this before...Parenting can be challenging... but so can parenting while you are getting OLDER…Getting Older FAST!
I woke up this morning suddenly remembering that the day before yesterday  Chris and I promised a ‘severe consequence' to one of our kids for a really DUMB MOVE on their part... an  UNKIND, HURTFULL decision they made that made things worse and humiliated another one of our kids... kind of typical kid stuff…but somehow highlighted by us wittnessing it full-on.

We were so dumbfounded by the sheer stupidity of said kid that we bought ourselves some time by promising a “dire consequence.’ But, because at the time we were super pissed off and needed to cool down a bit to think and ponder the meaning of it all, we put it off by saying we would talk about it “after dinner.”

Chris and I BOTH remember this much…

But neither one of us can remember exactly WHAT  happened to so offend our sensibilities or remember WHY  we were pissed and cannot piece together the ‘facts’ to come up with said ‘dire consequence.’ 

…sigh…

I think I may have to actually ASK the offending kid
Somehow, that just seems wrong…rubs me the wrong way for many reasons…least of all, my pride…

Someone once said that the hardest thing about parenting was being consistent. 
Yeah…that, and not losing your freakin’ mind.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Learn to Read or Pick Yer Nose, Your Choice...

Child Led Learning ... or something like that...

So Raccoon isn’t that big on reading or writing…or spelling and all that jazz…at least not like Owl was/is. So I sort of let him take the lead on this one. I really don't push it or practice at all. I am not worried. There is NO FRICKIN’ WAY and child of mine is getting out of this house without learning to read and write.
This is a literate household and we are fairly boring
if you don’t read you better have something moderately interesting up yer nose, because there ain’t much left to do but pick the snout if you don’t have a good book lying nearby.

So, the boys were interested in the Origins of Written Language.

WOW!
The Holy Grail of Homeschooling!!!!
Child Driven Interests!!!
Whoopie!

I jumped on this one and we did all sorts of things…
one of which was to make our own cuneiform plaques. Cool, huh?!
History.
Writing.
Art!
Curiosity.
This homeschooling mama was eating it up!
Oh Joy! What brilliant children I have!!!!
This is Raccoon with his cuneiform plaque that we now hang proudly on the art wall.


It says ASS...
that's right...
my other kids wrote their names...initials...'Keep Out' stuff like that ...
but this one spells "Ass" in ancient Sumerian.
n.i.c.e.


This one by the pool he did in Kindergarten so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised...
makes a homeschooling Mom PROUD, I tell ya'.
We must be on the right track.
I feel comforted that my child has such a zest for knowledge and a wide grasp on the English Language.
sigh....

You don't even want to know what the boys discovered they could do with the Speak-N-Spell...

Summer Musing

This has been on my mind for awhile and I am just now getting around to publishing it....



Somehow, with home learning, "summer", as a social and emotional construct, doesn't have the same resonance for my children as it once did with me. That makes me a little…wistful, I guess. I remember the anticipation and the exciting activities surrounding the closing of the year. Summer had such bigness, so much ROOM in the idea. It felt expansive and creative and full of potential. I remember, too the boredom and loneliness that comes with August,
… but right now we are talking Last Day of School…
Summer BEGINS!

Robinson Outdoor Academy; the only real theme of ROA is that if you learned something today, you probably require a shower…if you don’t need a shower, then you better get back out there and get the job done.


Our prerequisites include, but are not limited to, mud and good shoes, ropes, tape (lots of tape, preferably duct tape), sunscreen, snacks are a must and I prefer a big sunhat. A pocket knife comes in handy and so do matches.

Let’s get outside and, I don’t know, blow something up, set something on fire, dig a hole, add some water, make a mess, study a bug or bird of new leaf. Or, start the day with helping mom make dinner, do some laundry, read a teetering stack of books, tease each other a little, watch some TV, love the kittens into submission, tie each other up (literally.), play hide and seek, bring the scooters inside the house, race around, play battleship, cheat, get caught, and complain about being bored.

We learn all the time...or ~ sometimes, NONE of the time.
We tend to play.
We play A LOT.
Bionicles ROCK.
Pokemon.
Legos.
Paint.
Zoobs.
Couch forts.
Swimming.
Spy and/or monster games are a MUST
and then we slow it down reading with Mom.

Last week we took all the matresses out of the house and had a massive sleepout with friends.

So, it is hard to conceptualize what a Summer ‘Break’ would look like. We sort of live life on our own terms (or try to…) and our “daily grind” – well, it is not much of a grind…we get up, read, we do some chores, or not, we play some games, read a little, feed the animals, figure out some intriguing math problem on the white board in the kitchen, read, read, read, cook, read, watch some movies… so take a break from what, exactly?

And yet. And yet, I find that I AM looking forwards to summer. I have been trying to figure out if this is an artifact from my years and years and more years of schooling or if it has some meat on its bones. I am leaning towards “meat.”

While we are eclectic homeschoolers and our days do not look anything like a public school day and much of the time we never even touch curriculum in the manner intended, as parents, The Man and I still have goals and hopes for our children’s education and, hey,

The public school system likes to tout that it has some sort of systematic comprehensive blueprint of what a fourth grader “should know.” Now, we can get in there and debate how well of a job the public schools do in deciding on the scope and design of a fourth grader’s educational plan, but … why reinvent the wheel? We just don’t take their wheel too seriously…

So, we do tend to follow some of what our State says we should be doing…besides, we are a part of a Charter school and if we follow their course of study…even loosely, then the cool field trips and free museum days they wrangle up are more fun.

Still, there can be a lot of pressure on the homeschooling parent; much of it self-imposed. Much of it stemming from fear...never a pretty place to come from... So, no matter how blasé I may sound about our homeschooling plan of action, no matter how cool playing with your happy kids all day sounds, I am still a bit uptight sometimes and looking forwards to summer… a break from the Break… if you will.
Go. Figure.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Top O' The Mornin' to Ya


So last night someone left a dixie cup of M&M's in my bedroom. This morning, all four kids were loitering around my bed waiting for breakfast and mommy to get it in gear.

As I stumbled out of the room, I saw the dixie cup and I thought to myself, “M&M’s…a little sugar kick to jumpstart Mommy.” Of course, I don’t feed peanut M&M’s to my babies for breakfast, so there was no room for sharing…

stealth, I had to be stealthy and

vewwy qwi-et.

Children have chocolate radar. I couldn’t even acknowledge the choco-score so I simply picked up the cup, turned my side to the rabid seagulls that normally flank me on all sides and, as I walked out the door, popped one in my mouth.

Did I mention I live out in the country? WAY out in the country…

That we are the minority out here…Planet Earth is right…insects TOTALLY out number us and have our every move anticipated and covered….once they defeat our dreaded shoe or rolled newspaper attack they will absolutely kick our butts.

The dixie cup was swarming with ants, a little black marching, mindless workforce operating together to feed the swarm that lives inside my walls.

and THAT is what I had for breakfast.

Ants and Crest toothpaste.
YUM.