Hormones and Homeschool

I’m thinking this might actually be the name of a new blog, not just a single post.  It would be all about my experience as a pre-menopausal home school mom and my race to educate my children before I kill them.  Well, at least it would cover all the details of our daily trials and triumphs we have while homeschooling.  Today just may have been “the” day to prompt me to do this.

With hormones raging, I approached homeschooling today with a no nonsense attitude.  I had full expectations for my child to be focused and to to do his work diligently (especially since I have been teaching him about this godly characteristic for the past two weeks).  Instead, he whined for 20 minutes that his handwriting work was babyish, yet when I checked his work he had only completed one line and it was not worthy of even a check mark.  I then set a timer and told him that he had five minutes to complete the work and then it would become homework for him to complete after dinner.  Our phonics lesson was not that much more productive.  Lots of crying and whining.  Lots of wasted time.  And I was hosting bunco later this evening.  I did not need this to happen today.  I had a house to clean, tables to set up, and a meal to prepare for 12 women.  And have I mentioned that my hormones are raging?

Sometime during the middle of all of this, I sent him to his bedroom to cry and have a time out.  Time out for me, that is.  He finally stopped crying and came back out and said he was ready to work.  More complaining and just over all having a bad attitude.  I eventually broke down in tears as well and one of us crumpled up the handwriting paper and threw it away.  We need a do-over.  Tomorrow.  And, I promise that I won’t crumple up any more handwriting papers.

Hormones and Homeschool

I’m thinking this might actually be the name of a new blog, not just a single post.  It would be all about my experience as a pre-menopausal home school mom and my race to educate my children before I kill them.  Well, at least it would cover all the details of our daily trials and triumphs we have while homeschooling.  Today just may have been “the” day to prompt me to do this.

With hormones raging, I approached homeschooling today with a no nonsense attitude.  I had full expectations for my child to be focused and to to do his work diligently (especially since I have been teaching him about this godly characteristic for the past two weeks).  Instead, he whined for 20 minutes that his handwriting work was babyish, yet when I checked his work he had only completed one line and it was not worthy of even a check mark.  I then set a timer and told him that he had five minutes to complete the work and then it would become homework for him to complete after dinner.  Our phonics lesson was not that much more productive.  Lots of crying and whining.  Lots of wasted time.  And I was hosting bunco later this evening.  I did not need this to happen today.  I had a house to clean, tables to set up, and a meal to prepare for 12 women.  And have I mentioned that my hormones are raging?

Sometime during the middle of all of this, I sent him to his bedroom to cry and have a time out.  Time out for me, that is.  He finally stopped crying and came back out and said he was ready to work.  More complaining and just over all having a bad attitude.  I eventually broke down in tears as well and one of us crumpled up the handwriting paper and threw it away.  We need a do-over.  Tomorrow.  And, I promise that I won’t crumple up any more handwriting papers.

I Got a New Toy!

I unexpectedly received a new “toy” today!  By some standards it would not be considered a toy.  And, by other’s standards, it might not cause excitement.  But, I was excited when my husband when to the hardware store for supplies on our remodel and he returned with a Black & Decker electric weed eater/edger called the GrassHog XP just for me.  Maybe it’s because we are going to do yard work tomorrow on our massive backyard and I made the comment that I would like an electric weed eater as opposed to his gas-powered one that I can barely lift.  None the less, I was still surprised!

I was so excited that I could not wait to use it.  As soon as I finished the painting that I was working on, I took it out of the box and got busy.  The wonderful thing about this is that tomorrow when we do our yard work, we will have a head start.  I got the back yard completely edged.  The cons to my adventure are that my pointer finger and thumb on my left hand are completely numb and have been this way for several hours.  I guess this is from the vibration of the edger.  I also endured an injury.  Something, I am guessing a stick, rock, or pecan shell, flew up and struck me on the forehead above my left eye.  It stung so badly and felt wet.  I don’t really like blood, so I was a bit scared.  Of course head wounds bleed worse than what the actual cut is sometimes.  I have a small cut, tiny really, but it gave me a scare.  I sure am glad my two year-old was there to be my nurse.  I was at least offered some sympathy and a princess band-aid.

Despite the numb fingers and the blood, I am still excited about my new toy!

An Eater or a Wiper, but a Picker, None the Less

Have you heard the phrase, “lesser of two evils”?  I’m sure that this will completely gross some people out, but it is one of the crazy random things that has crossed my mind today while staying at home with my beautiful children.  Even beautiful children can be gross.  I’m talking about boogers here.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to rear both a boy and a girl and there truly is a difference in genders besides you know what.  The booger thing is probably not gender specific, but I have noticed that while my beautiful, yet unmistakably boyish boy likes to eat boogers; my equally beautiful, self-proclaimed “girly girl” tends to be more of a wiper.  Which, I am quick to say that I am so glad that she chooses not to digest her boogers; however, I am none too happy to find the little crusty things everywhere from her bed sheets to the trim panel of the door which is located next to her car seat.  And, there was the time that I was walking her to her room one evening for bed and she very kindly wiped a long stringy one on the hallway wall.  I really hope they both outgrow this picking stage real soon.  The End.

Perfectionism is NOT Perfect

As indicated on personality tests and consulting with a licensed counselor, my husband and I are pretty much perfectionists.  Where some people might view this as a positive and other perfectionists might even give a fist-pump and a “Aw, yeah!”; I am here to tell you that perfectionism is absolutely NOT perfect.  As a matter of fact, perfectionism comes with a cost and this negative side of perfectionism can be destructive to one’s self and others.

My theory on perfectionism is based solely on experience.  One can read this and agree or disagree whole heartedly.  It doesn’t matter to me.  These are just my thoughts.  (Whew! For a perfectionist, that is hard to write.  Why would anyone not agree with me?)  Well, here we go.  I am going to start by sharing an example of a perfectionist in the making-my 6 year-old son.  I home school my son and it is usually without fail that we have some type of breakdown during the process of our school day.  One evening while reflecting on the past few weeks of schooling and the inevitable mid-lesson crisis, it somehow became clear to me that my son is a perfectionist in the making.  An unfortunate characteristic trait that has begun to manifest in him is that he feels that if he is not “good” at something, then he is not even going to try.  He simply goes into shut-down mode.  He begins complaining and whining and making every excuse as to why he should not be doing the lesson.  Or, his newest tactic is to try to be silly and make me laugh in hopes that I will become the unfocused teacher and not complete the task at hand.

Now, this is not the only thing that leads me to believe that he is a perfectionist and that this a trait of a perfectionist.  What I did though, is I began to do some self reflections and discovered that I have done this same thing in a different way.  If there is something that I am interested in doing (i.e. blogging), yet I don’t feel like I am “good” at it or that it is “perfect” so to speak, then I simply avoid ever really getting started.  And, maybe this isn’t even a trait of a perfectionist.  I guess I would need to take some surveys of some people who are considered perfectionists.  My husband does agree and I do consider him an extreme perfectionist.  I have commonly called him a procrastinator in some situations, but when taking a closer look it is easy to realize that it has been due more to the fact that he is afraid of failure.  Afraid of screwing something up.  So based on these simple family character traits, I am led to believe that perfectionism is NOT perfect!

Dreams

Dreams have been pouring out all around me lately.  I have been having them and people around me have been having them.  I don’t think these are the “ate Taco Bell at 2a.m” variety of dreams, but rather spiritual dreams that are spoken of in the Bible.  Joel 2:28 says, “And it shall come to pass afterward, [that] I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions”.  These are the types of dreams of which I am speaking.  I do not have a personal account of the dreams of others.  However, I can account for mine.  I have had two dreams in the last two weeks and I will retell them here:

Dream #1

I was driving my Lincoln Navigator and I had two passengers(two women from my church) with me.  We were following a caravan of other vehicles.  It was raining very hard and the roads were wet and slippery.  We were approaching a sharp curve around the edge of a cliff.  I got a little nervous and clinched the wheel tighter.  As we approached the curve, an 18-wheeler came past us and showered the windshield with all kinds of water and debris.  This obstructed my vision and my worst fears were realized-we missed the curve and we were sailing through the sky to utter destruction.  I felt a sense of panic and guilt.  Feeling that even though I could not have prevented the obstruction, that I was still responsible for my passengers.  I could vividly see the inside of the vehicle as we were free-falling.  What lay beneath us was a dry river bed that was full of large craggy rocks and boulders.  I was bracing myself for what was imminent.  Then we landed.  There was no explosion; no crunching of metal upon the desolate ground.  I looked out of my window and saw that we had landed on a large succulent pile of green grass.  I was so thankful that we were safe.  I knew that it was a miracle.  The last thing I remember before awaking was thinking that I still needed to check on my friends.

Dream #2

I was an employee at a bank.  A person who used to go to my church was my supervisor.  It was our department’s responsibility to count the money at the end of the day and deposit it in the bank.  Our boss was a woman whom we liked and worked well with, but we did not really trust her 100%.  We felt like she was more for the corporation than she was for us, her employees.  I remember that my supervisor was putting a large pile of money in the safe and I was standing looking over his shoulder into the safe.  But, he wasn’t actually putting it in.  He was taking it out.  I realized that we were going to take this money.  It was at this time that the boss came in and they exchanged cordial words about the money and then she left.  Then the supervisor took the money somewhere.  In the next scene, there were about four of us sitting around a kitchen table (including myself and my supervisor) and we were discussing the heist and how we got away with it.  I remember thinking to God, “I know this is wrong and it is a sin, but I’m going to be o.k., right?  I’m just doing what my supervisor said and he said its o.k.”  Then I awoke.

In light of my current situation, I have some ideas what these might mean, but if anyone would like to offer an explanation, feel free.

Cat Got Your Tongue?

My children have been blessed with the gift of gab.  They never stop talking unless they are asleep.  Seriously.  I’m a stay-at-home mom and sometimes I don’t want to stay at home.  I need the voices to stop sometimes!  My sister recently wrote a blog entitled “Time Out for your Mouth”.  You can read it by clicking here.  I definitely am needing one of these time-outs for my children.

My son Sam is 6 now.  He started talking at 12 months.  My darling daughter Devri is 2 years and 4 months old.  I think she came out of the womb talking (or so it seems).  She actually started talking a little later than her brother.   Around 15 months.  I loved it that Sam talked so early because when it was just the two of us, it was fun to see what would come out of his little mouth.  He is such a sweet, kind-hearted kid.  Devri’s personality is polar opposite of her brother’s.  Don’t misunderstand, she can be absolutely precious and I love her dearly.  However, Devri has already developed her “alpha woman” gene.  “Do this, Mamma.”  “Move, Brother.”  “Go away, Mamma.”  She is quite bossy.  Yesterday Sam told her so and her response was, “I’m not bossy.  I’m busy.”  I actually like this.  I think I will use this at some point in my life.

So, today the three of us drive to Odessa to go see our awesome, wonderful dentist, Dr. Joel Edwards.  I highly recommend him and you can find his information here.  We arrived to his office and they call Devri’s name and all three of us proceed to the back to the exam room area where Devri is weighed and measured.  Devri begins to tell the hygenist all about her princess band-aid that is across her nose.  (She fell down the cement steps at church last night.  Owww!)  The hygenist seems smitten with the conversation coming from this little two year-old with lopsided ponytails.  She takes us into the exam room and tells us Dr. Edwards will be with us shortly.  He arrived after a few minutes and for the next 20 minutes my two children became mute.  Not one word.  What?  It was amazing.  And a little strange.  He is a wonderful dentist.  Very gentle and the kids both responded to his requests while he examined them, but they would not speak.  He gave them both stickers.  Devri for being a great patient and Sam for wearing a Texas Longhorn football jersey.  Another reason that I like him-he’s a Longhorn fan!  Then he sent us on our merry way.  We stepped out of his office and my serenity came to an end.  Devri started singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” whilst Sam engaged me in deep conversation about sharks all while I am trying to find my way back to Big Spring.  Somehow we made it.  No one fell asleep on the way home.  Darn.

Reading Adventures- Log 2: SSSS-aaaaaa-mmmmm

Why, oh, why does teaching reading have to be so difficult?  I know this is a rhetorical question, but, honestly, I don’t remember it being this hard when I learned to read!  Ha, ha!  I have many questions about teaching reading.  Such, as:

• Why does my son look at me when he is reading?  Are the words written on my forehead?
• Why does the same boy look at the first letter in a word and then proceed to guess what the word is-ex., the word “bad” is read “bbbbb-at”, “bat”.  Noooooo, that is not the word.
• Why does he wait for me to sound out the word for him, when I know with certainty that he knows all the sounds of all the letters in the alphabet.  (I think.)

These are just a few questions that I am trying to answer for myself.  Really, I do NOT want you all to answer them for me.  I know that teaching someone to read is not easy.  I did it in a public school classroom for 7 years.  But, thank God, the kindergarten teachers in public schools have self-inflicted goals to teach kindergarteners to read.  This always made my job as a 1st grade teacher quite simple.  Yet, now I have the burden of figuring out how they did it!  Pray for me.

On a side note, he loves making words with his magnetic letters.  He used three of his sight words and his name to make this sentence.  I don’t think he knows that he made a sentence, but maybe he knows more than he wants me to know!

Sam’s First Day Back

Sam has had a productive day today.  We have completed Math, Phonics, Spelling, Handwriting and Reading.  We are going to be doing our History lesson during Devri’s nap.  Sam is excited and ready to learn, so I am anticipating a wonderful school year.  The only area we seem to struggle with is handwriting.  He doesn’t seem to notice the lines in which he is supposed to position his letters and this drives me crazy.  I am hoping that as the days and weeks go by that this becomes a non-issue.  It is the first day back!

I am excited about all of our new curriculum this year.  We are attempting to provide Sam with a classical education at home.  I am using the book, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise as a road map.  They recommended several different Phonics curriculum.  We chose to use Modern Curriculum Press Plaid Phonics and Explode the Code.  For Spelling we are using A Spelling Workout.  We are using Abeka Math and for History we will be using a book called History for Little Pilgrims from Christian Liberty Press.

We managed to complete Math and all of our Language Arts lessons between 9-12, with one 15 minute break.  Now, all we left to do in the afternoon is our History lesson and we are going to be listening to some classical literature on the iPod.  We shall see how it all goes!

First Day Back

So far on this first day of homeschool, this is what I have learned-

• Devri can paint her own fingernails.
• Devri can unscrew the cap to the nail polish remover.
• Devri can get up on the potty all by herself.