Mom & Pop Home School

Well, it’s been quite a week around here. Here’s what’s happening:

Sunshine

Sunshine had her kindergarten assessment this week, and passed with flying colors. She’s very much FIVE and ready for school. I have somewhat mixed feelings about all this kindergarten stuff. I mean, she’s ready–she’s SO ready–to spread her wings a little. She’s clearly been feeling cooped up around here, and wants more time with her friends than we are able to accommodate given our circumstances. Her teacher seems like a very fun, loving person and their personalities seem to click well. Sunshine is going to LOVE school. She likes to do things like stand in line, take turns, raise her hand, follow directions etc. She raises her hand at dinner before she talks sometimes just for the thrill of it. She’s exactly the sort of child “the system” was built to accommodate. I’m quite sure she’ll thrive there. On the other hand…well…she’s my baby. She’s my comic relief. She’s my little ray of sunshine, and I’m going to miss her. It’s a little hard to see her grow up and leave the nest, even for half day kindergarten. On the OTHER other hand, homeschool will be SO much more focused for half a day. She does tend to be a bit disruptive, and school sometimes degenerates into a contest over who gets Mom’s attention. Which is very wearing on Mom. And there will be a couple of hours every day where she is NOT tornadoing my house. That’ll be kind of nice too. Maybe I’ll be able to keep on top of the clutter a little better. But then…the LAST time we put a child in kindergarten, well, let’s just say it didn’t go so well. I am fairly confident we won’t have multiple stern meetings with the principal during the first week of school this go-’round. But still, I admit to a vague, and completely unreasonable apprehension based on past maternal trauma. Nevertheless, Tuesday, August 28th is the big day, and off she goes.

 Cricket

Cricket and Mom started school this past Monday, the 20th. So far, it’s gone astonishingly well. Cricket is quite enthusiastic about history this year, and already I have been subjected to a rather extensive and enthusiastic lecture on the migration routes of Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Huns as they contributed to the downfall of the western Roman empire.

He is becoming excited about science as well. We have had a little crankiness about science not being all about animals this year, but I think he’ll come around. I’ll grant that the first science segment we did was not all that exciting. But the second one, about astronomical telescopes, he found quite fascinating.

There has been enthusiasm for literature, and even cheerfulness about spelling and grammar.

The real shocker for me has been his excitement about music this year. I had a bear of a time last year getting him to tolerate anything relating to music at all. This year I’m using a book about composers, and we’ve already gone through Bach, Scarlatti, and Hayden because he keeps asking to do one more. The book comes with a disk with samples of the music of the composers on it, so we listen and read, and discuss, and he does a workbook page, and he seems to rather enjoy it.

Art, too, is less of a challenge this year. For the first time in his life he is WILLINGLY coloring pictures. I’ve given him the option a couple of times when I had a coloring page for Sunshine, and he’s actually chosen to color. On purpose. And yes, I realize that with most children this would not be a big deal at all, but with Cricket, believe me, this is a feat. It makes me wonder whether the body snatchers have visited my house when I wasn’t looking.

Math continues to be a bit of a struggle, but compared to the beginning of last year it’s a walk in the park, so I’m not going to complain. We’ll just keep plugging away. I got a book with stories about real-life mathematicians in it, and will be reading probably a chapter a week from there. He quite enjoyed the first chapter about Thales, so I have hopes that this might be a way to build a bridge between Cricketland and the Wonderful World of Mathematics. Time will tell.

I’m not sure how long all this scholastic perkiness will last, but it was sure a nice way to start out the year. I will write another post later about this year’s curriculum and scheduling approach.

 Mom

Mom is doing a little better. I’ve been on a grand adventure through the wide, wide world of anti-depressants. I mentioned before that I had a bad reaction to the first medication my doctor tried me on (twitches and trembles, severe stomach cramps, nausea, dizziness–hello, Mr. Floor, what are you doing all sidewaysey like that?). So we tried me on another one. It worked great, and I had a really good, productive week and a half or so, during which time there was some back and forth banter amongst my house, the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, and the insurance company–which doesn’t want to pay for any percentage of that perscription because it’s so expensive and there are so many less expensive options that “do the same thing”. They finally told my doctor that they wouldn’t pay for that one unless I had tried and failed on at least two generics first. So, basically I had the option of scraping up an extra $120 per month (the two weeks I took it cost me $60), or trying yet another medication. So I figured at that price it was worth a try at least, and now I’ve been on the third perscription for about a week, and I feel my energy slowly oozing away, and lethargy seeping back in. Plus, I’m having sleep issues. Sigh. I’m giving it until my follow-up doctor appointment next week, and maybe it’ll all adjust out through my system and all will be well, I dunno. Otherwise, Pop says having a functional mother in the house is worth the big bucks, and I’m inclined to agree. Plus, maybe the insurance will pay for part of it at least now…sigh. Who knows.

Pop

Pop is drowning in work right now. This is a very good thing. We like work. As stressful as it is to have work piling up, we know from experience that too much work is a better kind of stress than no work at all, and bills hovering on the horizon. So we’re grateful for the work, but Pop is feeling a little overwhelmed, and is having to spend long hours at the computer. I bring him peanut butter sandwiches.

Yesterday I heard this conversation between my children: 

Sunshine (singing):

“Row, Row, Row your boat
Gently down the stream;
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
My wife had a dream.”

Cricket (disgusted): “It’s NOT ‘My wife had a dream”. It’s “life is but a dream!”

Sunshine (indignant): “I’m not allowed to say butt!”

There followed a short argument about the difference between “but” and “butt”. A short time later, Sunshine was singing again. 

Sunshine (singing):

“Row, Row, Row your boat
Gently down the stream;
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
My bottom had a dream.”

Ahem…ok, so you may have noticed that it’s been a while since I posted. If it makes you feel any better I have reasons…or…er…at least excuses.

Highlight of highlights: Sunshine has turned five! We had a fun, fun party with five little friends (and a big sister who wasn’t technically invited and left us scrambling a little to get another goodie bag together, and yes I know we could have told her no, but I’m not sure her mother saw the envelope with only the younger sister’s name on it, and the actual card inside didn’t have names—note to self for next year—so she probably assumed both girls were invited). It was a ”fairies and dragons” party as per Sunshine’s request, and guests were invited to dress as either a fairy or a dragon. Silly me, I assumed that we’d only have fairies because we only invited girls, but one of the little friends came in a FABOULOUS dragon suit, which I think absolutely made Sunshine’s day. Sunshine wore her new Tinkerbell costume, which I had been informed repeatedly over the course of several weeks was something she REALLY, REALLY wanted. Or at least, a GREEN fairy costume. So now when friends come over she can wear the green one, and the friend can wear the pink one, and everyone can prance magicalliciously around together, la-la-la-LAAAA! The party guests made fairy wands, had cake (fairy and dragon themed, of course, though not one of my finest masterpieces) and ice cream and presents, and then we had a treasure hunt in which pieces of a (very PINK) map had been hidden in various locations around the house, each piece leading to the next, and the last leading to the picnic basket in which were hidden goodie bags for all. And then we had a happy little parade to return all the fairies, the dragon, a big sister, and one cute little tiger (her mama said she BEGGED to wear the tiger suit, and since she knew how much Sunshine loves tigers right now, mama acquiesced—and Sunshine sure didn’t mind…lol). A good time was had by all, I think, including Uncle J. and Aunt A. who have safely and recently returned from an excursion to Guatemala with Help International to save the world one orphan at a time! (We’re proud of their efforts.)

Sunshine is SO excited to be five, though possibly a little disappointed not to have woken up a foot or so taller. She announces her age to everyone we meet, and is constantly telling me how she does things a little differently, “now that I’m FIIIIIVVVVE!” It’s ridiculously cute.

Other stuff:

Pop is immersed in the yearly late summer rush of work, with projects from several big clients. Some of it’s fun, some more tedious, but he’s definitely keeping busy.

The following phrase actually passed the lips of my son on more than one occasion in the past week: “Mom, can’t we start school TODAY?!” Before you leap to the completely reasonable conclusion that he’s an adroid drone sent here by space aliens to replace our child and collect data on atypical family life amongst North American human fauna, I’ll just mention that the sole reason for his enthusiasm is a set of castle building cards by Klutz which I have purchased and put on the history shelf with orders that they are not to be touched except during history read-aloud time in school. So I still anticipate considerable resistance once we actually start.

And speaking of the history shelf, it resides in our new “schoolroom” in our unfinished basement. That is a story in and of itself, which I will blog about soon, hopefully with photographic evidence. With a bit of effort on Mom’s part, it’s become quite a cheery little corner down there. It’s amazing what a coat of paint can do!

And speaking of effort on Mom’s part…well, Mom has been in to see the doctor again about the eternal dragging fogginess she’s been slogging through for several months. A number of tests have been run since last spring, ruling out such common culprits as anemia, thyroid issues, and so forth. In the spring my constant exhaustion was chalked up to stress, and indeed I had been through a rather stressful year and a half or so (not all of which has found its way here), so that seemed reasonable, and I spent a lot of time resting up this summer, all to no avail. So the next thing we’re going to try is an antidepressant, to see if that helps. I have high hopes for it, but I started less than a week ago and have already had to switch medications once because of side effects, which may turn out just to be the stomach flu. I’m feeling pretty crummy today, but better than the worst day (which was actually the middle of the night, which is probably a good thing, because I think I would have scared the children…sigh). Anyway, we’ll see how things are in a week or two, and hopefully over the course of another month I’ll start having a bit more energy and motivation. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised if the stress has affected my brain chemistry (which is the reasoning behind the antidepressant), because it definitely affected my blood pressure, asthma, immune system, and several other organ systems I’m not going to go into detail about. Most of the symptoms have disappeared over the summer, and I’ve got high hopes for a healthy fall—if only I can get over the drags…sigh.

Anyway, that’s mostly what we’ve been up to, if you toss in a couple of short-notice, but very enjoyable visits from a couple of aunts, several cousins, and two cute dogs (not all at the same time), and a Pioneer Day celebration that involved carnival rides, and an outdoor quilt show at a place where several pioneer cabins and outbuildings had been moved, restored, and opened for public viewing for Pioneer Day. One of the cabins and a pump house had been built by Archibald Gardiner, who Cricket was most excited to learn is his anscestor, several greats removed. All sorts of fun ’round here, let me tell ya.

And now I’m going to go watch some sci-fi on tv with my darling hubby, and then tuck my sorry, tired, nauseous self into BED.

Thanks for asking!