Day 61

I haven't written for a while.  The cause would be Thanksgiving, which was nice but busy.  The only thing I can think of that I could have written about was yesterday.  We came home from church, and I announced that we were going to work outside.  I heard a chorus of "Nooo!"s, and I then told them that game-time was riding on them helping.  I went out to work alone. 
Pretty soon, Emily came out.  I told her where the work gloves were, and she got them.  She asked if she could do the job I was doing, which was raking muck out of our small pond.  I gladly let her so that I could start taking dead stalks out of the pond's surrounding garden. 
While I took the sopping muck and dead leaves to the edge of the woods for disposal, Emily asked if there was something else she could do ("What, you don't want to help move mucky bio-hazardous waste?  What's the matter with you?") so I sent her to Rabbit Hill.  Rabbit Hill was at one time a pile of dirt that we had delivered.  It was supposed to be screened top soil.  Instead, it contained little surprises like half of a brick, or broken glass.  Not cool.  So, instead of being used and spread and beautiful by now, we had Rabbit Hill, a collection of ragweed and other noxious weeds that could not be mown.  The dirt had been delivered in April.  It's now the end of November.  It was getting to the point that we couldn't open the car door on that side of the driveway because of the weeds. 
Anyway, all this time, Luke was whining at me from the doorway.  I told him go in or grab gloves and come out and help.  To my Utter Astonishment, he grabbed gloves and came out to help with Rabbit Hill.  We ripped out weeds and they climbed up and got the top weeds out, and we soon had an impressive pile of weeds to cart to the woods.  Emily took a well-deserved break, and Luke and I carted the stuff.  He helped until it was all gone.  I think somewhere along the line, it became less about a reward, and more about enjoying doing the job.  It was uber-cool.

Now, on to Monday:
I am constantly surprised by how up and down one day can be.  This morning, anticipating trouble from the ranks, I pulled out the big guns right away.  "No video games for a week if you give me trouble!"  As it turned out, though, I didn't really have to.  Luke gave me very little trouble on our way to orchestra, and even played well.  His only comment was to ask if we 'had to stay' after.  I said no, as we were going to Aikido, and that seemed to help.  It also helps that we have an audio book in the car, and the only time we listen to it is if we are in the car.  It's not the most cerebral stuff, but it is entertaining, and at least the vocabulary is ok, and the characters have moral questions to deal with.  But while Gregor the Overlander isn't exactly educational, it helps get us where we are going. 

After Aikido is when things started heading downhill.  School after Aikido in the afternoon seems to be a big issue.  I may have to reorganize our 'schedule' that we put together to take that into account.  Luke is also extremely tired which, while I understand it, doesn't excuse him from doing work or being civil to his sister.  Things deteriorated until Dad came home and saved the day.  He displayed the utmost patience when I couldn't, helping Luke through math and English.  After dinner, he even cooked with each kid, seperately.  Luke and Dad made chocolate chip cookies, then Emily and Dad made banana bread.  Dad also did all the dishes and made the coffee for the morning!!  He's the only reason I'm sane at the moment.  I need all the sane moments I can get.  I love that man!

Day 60

It was the worst of times...

If only I had showered at 8am this morning like I had planned, this whole day would have been different.  The idea of going out to the car, chucking the kids in, and depositing them at the nearest school would have been not just tempting, but a definite possibility.  It was one of those mornings.  We began well, but then we got off track, and I lost it somehow.  I was screaming, there were tears (mine and theirs), and it was bad.  I do think there is an element of competition between Luke and Emily within all this, but I find it very hard to take.  Have I mentioned that I've heard 4th grade is hard?  Have I?

Despite the tremors in our morning, we managed to get a lot done.  A math lesson plus a test, English, grammar, geography, a touch of chemistry (mneumonics), helping with household chores, typing, spelling games on the computer...Wow!  When I put it like that, it sounds like we had a great day!  We rounded it off with a movie and staying up late (as we can all sleep in tomorrow anyway), and me reading two chapters of Cheaper By the Dozen.  Relative happiness reigns.

Day 59

Orchestra.  The idea of orchestra is wonderful.  It's fun, it's lively, it's cool people, and it's academic in many ways without having to be academic in nature.  I love it for many things.  Yet I dread it. 

Every Monday, Luke gives me trouble about going to orchestra.  For all of the last two years (this is our third year), I think I can count on one hand the number of times Luke has been happy to go.  When I dwell on this, it makes me sad.  How awful to have our musical outlet be the source of so much sadness and upset for him!  Today, on the verge of deciding to quit after the next concert, I was fairly decided.  I was done forcing my son to do this 'dreaded' thing every week.  I also decided against forcing him to come in.  When we arrived at 9:58am, I took our stuff out, and Emily got hers, and I headed in.  I fully expected Luke to stay in the car. 
Wishing I had parked right in front of the building even though we weren't far, I started towards the door, only to hear Luke's car door open and close.  I didn't look.  Emily turned her head, and I quickly told her not to look.  It was like having a large bird behind us.  If we didn't look at it, we wouldn't spook it.
Sure enough, Luke came in.  He huffed.  He got a chair and set himself up.  Got his trumpet, his stand, and demanded his music.  Sure, kid, sure. 
To my surprise, he played.  He didn't look thrilled, but he got those notes, and he got them pretty good! 
I was shocked, and saddened to think I wouldn't be bringing him past January because he doesn't like coming.  He could be good! 
Afterwards, he came up to me, and I told him how proud I was that he had played, and how good he sounded.  Then I heard the words come out of his mouth.

"I like Orchestra."

Then he ran off to play with the other kids.

Day 58

The 58th day of school, and what did we do?  Math Mixed Practice didn't get done until the evening, because the day was spent cleaning the two rat cages, looking up redness on rat feet, trimming rat nails, doing a dance recital for a senior group with Emily, and going to Aikido.  Toss in some laundry and dishes, and that was my day in a nutshell. 
Sigh.

Day 57

We had History class today.  While Luke gave me the typical trouble with putting on his shoes, we got off without too much trouble and actually made it on time.  This was my week to lead the class, and we shared our projects, did our maps of Columbus' route, and played an Explorer game. 

(We did learn what sort of man Columbus was, so I think I'll be hearing about it every Columbus Day from now on, which I'm glad for.  One should know the truth about one's country and not necessarily stand on tradition if tradition is wrong.)

The first thing we did was share our projects.  Luke and Em had worked on their dioramas last week, and had not added to them, but they were admired by all.  Several of the other kids brought their projects, and they were all enjoyed and admired.




Cortez on a bridge to Tenochtitlan fighting with the Aztecs (Luke's) The horse was attached so he could be pulled from one side to the other and 'walk' across the bridge.  The bars you see taped to the 'water' are gold bars, like the ones Cortez lost off the bridges, then could never regain.




Cortez attacks the Aztecs.  There is a ziggurat in the background, as well as information scrolls.  Emily drew the natives, and behind them you can see Cortez' horses (he being the first to bring them to the Americas).

 We then moved on to the maps.




Top: Luke's Bottom: Emily's Middle: Sample

 I had prepared for the craft by procuring brown paper bags, playing pyromaniac by ripping the edges to map-size and burning them slightly.  Then I crumpled them all up, smoothed them out, and finally ironed them out flat again.  A lot of work to prepare for 15 students, but they all seemed to like it.  We used markers to outline and write, and watercolor paints to color in the water and the land (and sea serpents, if they had them).  The project went over fairly well.

The other thing we did was play an Explorer game similar to Concentration.  We had read the chapter on Explorers, but there were so many and they all sort of ran together, so I printed out facts about each in different colors and attached them to cards.  They could then match the explorer to the card, and that made it go much more smoothly, and they all took turns just matching the fact to the explorer. 

Somehow, we seemed to arrive home in a decent mood, and got our work done according to the schedule we had made up as closely as we could, and made it to the last Library program for the Fall.  A busy day!

Days 55, 56

Day 56 was much better than Day 55.  Day 56 was full of Dance for Emily and myself, and Trevor Zoo, which we really like.  We had friends with us, and even company in the car, so we did well and enjoyed it.  We even read some history when we got back!  Much better than Day 55.

Day 55 was a mess.  Day 55 was yelling and crying, and that was just me!  Later, Emily went to Numeracy Club, so that was a good thing, and Luke went with me to the store.  After that, things were somewhat improved.  That's as far as I want to go with Day 55.

Tomorrow we'll have History class, and I'm not sure how it will go, but I have high hopes as we are doing a craft and a game, and showing off our dioramas.   Later we have library story time, and after that their cousin's birthday.  Should be good!

Days 53, 54

Saturday

I feel a little guilty.  I had the kids do a math test on a Saturday!  They both did well, and we then went to Nana's house where we went crazy making candles of all sorts.



Candles we made at Nana's


We fluffed up the wax and made 'snow' that we coated onto existing candles, we filled molds with different colors and scents, we made tealight candles...It was a lot of fun to do with their Nana, cousins, and Aunt Kris.  And now we have a bunch of candles to burn!  Yay!

Sunday

So the next day, Sunday, we went for a walk in the afternoon.  It was such a beautiful day!  We went on the rail trail, enticing the kids with walkie talkies.  Notice in the picture, Dad is surrounded by kids with the walkie talkies, and also notice the dog's "I'm Not A Deer" bandana.  All in all, a nice weekend. 



Dad surrounded!



Monday

That's when we hit Monday.  Monday was pretty bad.  First, Luke didn't want to go to orchestra.  I'm starting to feel like I'm losing this battle.  He'll have to come anyway, but I'm tired of fighting him.  If he'd enjoy playing the keyboard with simple lessons, I'd do that, but I don't get a good response from him about that either.  Oh, well.  May be a moot point by next year anyway.  So, we did that, then went to Aikido, which was fine, but afterwards, I couldn't get them to participate without having a tantrum myself, and I feel stupid for it.  But in the end, people rallied, and we managed to play with measurements in a reasonably good mood.  We figured out how many cups in a pint, pints in a quart, quarts in a half gallon, and half gallons in a gallon.  That last was pretty easy, really. 

So, between my weekend and today, I'd say this more than counts for two days!