Bubba burgers
We are having an unusual Fourth of July this year. The Paris trip has thrown me off-not that I’m complaining.
My husband is working over the holiday. I had thought about taking the kids to watch fireworks this evening, but selfishly I just didn’t have it in me to haul them around. Plus, our local weather has been less than pleasant with lots of rain and humid conditions. Not too great for being outside, but the kids still swam in the rain. That’s me in the picture below sitting under my blue poncho trying not to get soaked. We did enjoy Bubba burgers for a late dinner tonight. You really must eat burgers over the holiday, and my younger kids helped make a flag cake (which I’m still eating on as I type this to you). The kids took turns finding items in an American art book I have featuring pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That’s about as deep as I went with any American history-related topic today.
I finished second grade studies with my second son this afternoon-yah!! Now, my focus is on my first grade daughter. She and I worked on her Singapore math this evening, and she finished one of her tests around 9:30. I was almost surprised how well she did given the lateness of the day, but they have been sleeping late in the mornings so maybe the rest helped. Tomorrow I’ll cover more academics with my daughter. It’s quite possible she will reach all of her first grade goals then. I may be opening a bottle of champagne, soon!
I should catch up on what’s going on in the world. I saw a blurb on Egypt and unrelated Snowden, but that’s about it. Instead I’m looking at house magazines, a rare treat for me. I’m hoping to transform my basement into a large schoolroom over the summer and take back my former dining room. Looking for ideas on decor. If you’d like to send your child to our school in my basement, I’m taking applications since I’ll have a much larger space. The tuition is quite high, though.
Alright, no, I’m just kidding, but tuition money would help to fund my Home Goods runs-ha!
Bath time with baby wipes
Just finished roasting marshmallows by the fire. Still without power from the hurricane. Our studies are continuing by candlelight. No sense wasting valuable time. We will have to resort to using our friends’ showers tomorrow if power is not restored. Until then we are using baby wipes.
The Fourth Child
Maybe you can relate to this..
Our fourth child seems to be the comic relief in our family, likely due in part to his birth order. He tends to be a little more laid back, also. When you have 3 other children in front of him, your energy is spread out, and you learn not to react to the little things going on. It’s more like you just throw food onto the high chair table and hope it works out that he teaches himself how to eat because you’re being consumed by everybody else.
Today, he gave me a good laugh while we were driving to preschool (all of our kids have attended outside preschool programs). Today was show-and-tell with the letter “T” so we were discussing all of the items that he could have taken for his presentation. He said with a serious tone, “Well, we can’t bring a girl’s private parts”. I paused for a moment as I processed what he had just said and then tried to figure out what he might be referring to. My first thought was “tit” referring to a woman’s chest, but I couldn’t believe he’d know that word yet. So, I went on to ask him what he was referring to. He said, “You know, toody”. I tried hard not to laugh. You see, in our household the word “toody” has sometimes taken the place of the word “vagina”. I don’t particularly like replacing anatomical words with obscure words like “toody” but for some reason this one has stuck with my kids. Now why he would have thought to say that he couldn’t take a “toody” to preschool.. I have no idea.
The conversation made me think about how different my children are from one another. Then, it made me wonder how in the world I’m going to teach all of them at one time as they get older! Will I just throw the books at the fourth kid and hope it works out for him? No, I can honestly say I don’t think I’ll do that because I’m a bit neurotic with academics and desire that they love to learn. That being said, I don’t know how I’ll do all of the little things to make it all come together. The big picture will be accomplished through His grace, so I’m going to give it my best shot. Big fan of homeschooling, BIG FAN.
P.S.-The above picture occurred after we’d just finished reading about the Olmec and Aztec Indians. My children thought it would be fun to paint their bodies like the Indians had done. You can imagine how my face looked after I saw what they had created, and I’m only showing you just a little bit of the art. Help me.
Ivy League Homeschooling 