Here at the Flip Side School for Extraordinary Boys, we school year round. On the one hand, I’d love to have the summer off. On the other hand, I love having flexibility during the rest of the year. I was trying to figure out how many days we’ve done so far this year and it looked like we were at 65. That’s a bit low but not too bad. Then I realized that I needed to factor in field trip days and co-op days and that gets us almost to 80. I definitely can’t complain about that! Plus we’re 1/3 to 1/2 way through a lot of our books so that’s another plus! My major goal of the year is to be finished before thanksgiving. I would be VERY thankful for that!
I have started a new homeschool binder. I was trying to do our tracking online but the only program I found and liked ended up not being that usable for us. I think if we did a straight program like Abeka it would work fine, but we’re not that family. Anyways, it’s been a fun adventure putting it together. I never thought i would use something so old school but I think this will work well for us. I also bought a date stamp so it’s 200% more fun. Apparently that makes me a dork, at least that’s what my husband tells my kids.
I’ve instituted a morning run for the boys. Jeremy clocked the run at 1/2 a mile. They’re no where near the Presidential Physical Fitness mark but they’re getting better…. when they don’t stop to fight with each other or vandalize property. Apparently it’s time to get out and do that….. Well, the boys did well today 6:19 for Michael and 7:05 for Joseph. Considering how windy it is and that we haven’t ran since last Thursday, I’d say that’s pretty good.
Joseph’s reading better these days but math is a huge battle for us everyday. It’s his personality. Math isn’t actually hard for him. It’s the same stuff we did last year only this year he allegedly doesn’t know how, no matter how many times and ways we try. Michael’s doing really well at everything! Some days he throws fits about random things but he’s doing great most of the time. Michael’s currrently reading the Percy Jackson series. He’s in love 
He’ll start the 4th book today and wants us to go buy the 5th book so that it’s ready for him. I love having another reader in the house! Even if that one usually tells me he doesn’t like to read every time he’s not in the middle of a good book.
Zedekiah is 19 months now. He is a busy busy guy. He’s always into something and is growing and learning stuff every day. He’s fun to be around. His latest word is “cookie” or alternatively “2 cookie” and his newest hobbies are jumping on the bed and riding his bike. He loves to be outside. He also loves his brothers who are the best big brothers.
Oh! We’re growing butterflies right now. It’s been very interesting and soon they’ll start making their cocoons! Super exciting stuff here!
Zedekiah is getting his incisors. I have found that I’m not really that big of a fan of the incisor. Really, don’t we just use those for tearing meat with our teeth? My son will be a vegetarian! No, God, we don’t need those incisors, really!
Saturday night the sleeplessness started kicking in. Zedekiah is really the worst teether. He’s only been sleeping for at best 2 hours at a time. For the last 5 nights or so he’s woken up within an hour of me laying down with him. I’ve had nights with 2 hours of sleep this week. It’s not so good for the homeschooling to have a mom with so little sleep. By Wednesday Z had developed a sinus infection to go along with his teething. All the drooling and snot makes him look like one gooey, homely boy. Ew. Don’t even get me started on how gross it all is.
Last night (and this was a big PMS induced, I will admit to that), I flipped out a bit when he woke up within an hour of me laying down. Maybe a big bit. I’d already warned Jeremy that it was his stinking turn to stay up with him. So I had a fabulous night’s sleep last night (comparatively you know, my standards aren’t high at this point, if I didn’t watch a movie between 1 and 5 AM then that was a fabulous night’s sleep!) and felt great all day today. Jeremy didn’t so much have that experience.
All this was to say that I’m now conducting an experiment. If I don’t go to bed, will he still wake up? I’m sleeping on the couch tonight just to see.
I apologize to everyone that has already seen all but one of these on facebook. It’s really easy to export and upload there right when I’m dumping pictures onto my hard drive so that happens pretty frequently. I did realize that a few months ago when I realized that I wasn’t taking enough pictures of Michael, I may have went overboard….and quit taking pictures of Joseph. Whoops. Today I had my camera out taking pictures of a couple of things I’m selling so I got like 2 pictures of the kids too. I also managed to sell my insanely expensive BOB stroller….and only lost $6 on the purchase…. not bad after owning it for a year.
Zedekiah and I went on a date to Panera one evening. He loves Panera a lot. Later on a daddy and his similarly aged daughter came and sat next to us on their own date. I felt a little put out when Z started making eyes at the little girl….. while he was on a date with me!
On a different day, during the same week, at the same restaurant, Michael and his cousin Kaitlyn had a wonderful grown up meal at a different table far, far away from us. They really did look so grown up.
This is what Michael’s spot at the table looks like most of the time while we’re doing school….and yes, most of the time he isn’t sitting down.
When your mom is very angry at you and says “Joseph, what am I supposed to do with you?” Never, ever suggest that she should put you in the garbage can. Big mistake.
Zedekiah really wanted me to give him the camera. That’s why he’s standing so still and actually looking at the camera.
Life is really flying by these days. I just got the men planning done, almost all my email caught up and finished watching my fav TV shows for the week. Then I thought “I wonder when the last time I blogged was….” Hmmm yeah, it had been 2 months. Yeah, it had been 2 months since I so much as logged on here. I had a wonderfully sweet comment waiting to be approved from Cousin Becca and it had been waiting for a really really long time. Sorry Becca!
Our kitchen is still not all the way finished. We still have some outlets to replace and drawer handles to put on since stupid Hull’s made the cabinets like 18 inches thick and the screws they provided aren’t nearly long enough to get the handles on and I never think about it when I’m going out and could actually purchase the correct length of screw. Other than that, the kitchen is beautiful and someday I really will take a picture and post it.
We’ve seen a lot of sickness in the last month. Michael, Jeremy and I all had the flu a couple of weeks ago. Ew. Zedekiah spent most of this week with a fever and being really really crabby and tired. The doctor said it was probably teething combined with a virus. He’s feeling much better now. Thank goodness because our movie rental bills were really adding up on iTunes from all the 4 AM movie rentals I was making.
Zedekiah is quite the big boy nowadays. He’s spent the last couple of days exploring outside since the weather has been beautiful. He’s riding his little ride on “bike” and trying to steal his brother’s big bikes (and he makes sure that he has one of their helmets on first!) He likes to zoom cars around, play with balls and balloons, play light sabers with his brothers (in full Jedi gear), and do whatever his brothers are doing….even if it is standing in the corner!
We’re chugging along with school. We’ve gotten to the point in the year where I start figuring out what is working and what isn’t. It’s kind of sad to have to let things go that I really wanted to work. Everything that Joseph is doing is working great for him. I’m extremely happy about that. He’s doing a great job learning to read and working hard on his math. We’re struggling a bit learning about the soft g and c sounds but really, doesn’t even make sense to adults? Michael is in need of a new writing, grammar and spelling program. Sometimes I wonder if I need to go have him tested for learning disabilities. He’s a really really smart boy. He reads incredibly well. He is great at math. But anything to do with spelling or grammar or writing is soooo difficult for him. I’m having such a hard time figuring out what will work for him as we continue to find things that won’t work. So last week we said goodbye to All About Spelling. I still love it, but it wasn’t working for him. We’re going to try an “old school” approach with spelling word lists and test and see if that helps. I need to find time soon to figure out what to do about his writing and grammar. One thing at a time though….right??
I’ve decided that I don’t have enough to do so I’m taking a leadership position in our homeschool group/co-op. Two of the current board members are leaving (on amicable terms for a change!) and my friend Becky and I are going to step up. We have lots of ideas floating around and I’ve already spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I think people want out of our co-op. I’ve also spent some time setting up field trips. They’re actually pretty fun to plan! Who knew? Thursday I’m borrowing a friend’s kid so that I can go on a field trip to the Lyric Opera in chicago to see Donizetti’s “The Elixer of Love.” I’m so excited. I scheduled out a whole day of fun including a train trip up there, lunch at Giordano’s pizza, the opera, and going to the Art Institute’s free evening before we run to catch the last train out of Chicago at 7. SEVEN. Isn’t that insanely early? I’ve also just finished planning a trip to Champaign to a couple of museums over there. I’ve never been to either and the programs they have sounded perfect for our kids so I’m excited about that one too. Plus, I”m a geek. Like you all didn’t know that.
Ok, I’m going to try uploading some pictures if I can find the cable to my camera….. if it goes well there may be an accompanying picture post.
Apparently my site was down. I post so infrequently these days that I didn’t notice but my 3 avid readers did. The last couple of months have been exhausting. In November we had some water damage in our kitchen due to some pipes coming apart. I don’t remember if I actually discussed that here or not. Well, when all was said and done we ended up getting a new kitchen floor, replacing one cabinet, getting a new countertop and getting rid of the stinking raised area. Oh how I loathed the raised area. The project seemed to go on forever. I found that I have no use for general contractors, despite ours being a nice enough guy. I just can’t get into having someone drop by and if we’re not home, they don’t work. Seriously? I have a cell phone on me most of the time (well, not now, but I might elaborate on that later) and can be home in like 20 minutes from anywhere in town. That type of thing added about a week to our total time. Our cabinet guy flat out lied to me and said it would be “about a week” to get the cabinet in that was supposed to match our other cabinets. It took a month. It doesn’t match and it’s mis-hung. As much as I like to patronize the local guy, I totally can’t recommend Hull’s after seeing what we got from them. I need to get the receipt from our contractor and I’ll be very curious to know how much this cabinet cost us.
After seeing the whole room put together, I’m very very pleased with it. I wish we would have just gotten a new countertop ages ago. I can’t believe what a difference it makes in the room. Actually we should have just done this whole project (minus the cabinet and water damage, of course) ages ago. In the grand scheme of things it really didn’t cost that much and it’s made a world of difference. Two months ago I loathed my kitchen. My appliances were ok but everything else was horribly 1980’s. Now I even like my cabinets well enough.
We need to replace the outlets and switches since the contractor painted on all of them…. another bone, seriously, I paint just as well as they do. And finish getting everything put away which so far has taken 2 days. I’m cleaning and sorting and purging and relocating. It’s a really good feeling. Having a kitchen is a good feeling. Going 6 weeks without one really really sucked. A lot. I’d like to phrase that better but I just don’t have it in me. But, after I get that done and put batteries in the camera, I’ll get pictures posted. I won’t make you wait on my finding window treatments, promise
My birthday was last week. One of the less exciting ones I’ve had in my life. So far my birthday date with my husband has gotten cancelled twice. Once because of the weather and then Jeremy’s sick now. My phone broke last week and I’m not eligible for an early upgrade until tomorrow. The people at best buy wouldn’t even try to let me upgrade a few days early. Stinky them. Tomorrow I’ll be ordering my new shiny iphone online so that the stinky best buy people don’t get commission on it. Also, this way I don’t have to drive all the way back out there since they’re the only ones in town that sell the iphone. Whatever that’s about. I did get to spend Saturday out shopping by myself. I would rather have been joined by a friend but they were all busy. See, really, just a stinky birthday. Then that night Zedekiah got sick, like nasty puking sick all over our beds. Eww. Twice. Double Ewww.
We did our “soft start” to our academic year yesterday. Michael’s starting 3rd grade and Joseph is starting 1st. They’re such big boys now! This week we’re focusing on working on their independent workbooks while I’m around so that I can help them, hopefully making them more independent by next week. We’re doing ALL of their workbooks everyday when usually they’d only have 1 or 2 of them to do per day. I want them to be comfortable getting them started though.
Well, I’m off to look into window treatments and what to do with our giant blank walls here in the kitchen.
As always, the holidays seem to have snuck up on me. I keep dreaming of a year when we can spend the entire month of December just learning about Christmas and doing fun Christmas things. That wasn’t this year for sure! I’ve already got my sights set on it for next year though.
Craziness has consumed our household.
In mid November we had a pipe leak and spray into the kitchen for hours while we were gone. By the time we got everything cleaned up we needed a new kitchen floor, a (singular) new cabinet, countertop, and dry wall behind the sink. Since the kitchen was already torn up, Jeremy went ahead and ripped out the horrible raised area we had in the kitchen. No more children falling out of their chairs at dinner and plummeting to their death for us!
We’ve been making lots of compromises on what we wanted to do when we remodeled the kitchen vs. what we can afford right now. Being in the middle of a lawsuit doesn’t help the finances at all. I’m definitely excited to have a new look in the kitchen.
Michael and Joseph are in the home stretches of Kindergarten and 2nd grade. Michael actually only has one more assignment to do before I deem him “done.” He’s been trying to figure out what it means that he got a “c” on his math final. I don’t grade him. But next year we’re going to start doing grades for math. Michael understands his math just fine when he stops to think about it, but he doesn’t like to stop and think, he likes to breeze through math without his brain. He would have gotten a high B if he would have checked his work. I’m quite fine with that for now. Joseph just started reading words with silent E on the end. I’m happy with that for the end of K.
We’re trying to work out a new sleep routine for Zedekiah. He has taken to staying up *very* late at night. A couple of nights ago he was up until 11. Not my idea of fun. Yesterday we had a much more successful night and got him to bed at 7:30. In January we’re going to be starting a very serious sleep routine overhaul so that we can make something around 8 a more steady bedtime.
We also bought the kids new bunk beds Thanksgiving weekend. There is now a set of bunk beds and a futon bunk bed in the kids bedroom. Big Lots had $50 off each set which were very already $70 cheaper than Walmart.com plus I got $110 in “bonus cash” to spend at Big Lots later. It turns out i had to spend each $10 separately. It was a bit crazy. I got a crazy amount of stuff for $17 the other day. Anyways, the kids love the bunks. I can’t wait until the boys figure out how to actually go to sleep with the older kids in their respective top bunks. Can’t. Wait. Michael’s been a bit of a bear since he needs more sleep than a newborn.
I believe that’s enough of an update for now. I’m going to go stare at my counter top samples that we picked up before church tonight. I’ve already vetoed a couple after seeing them away from the store lighting.
If you’re a homeschooling mom, you know how it feels when you think what you’re doing is just not working with your kids. I’ve been feeling that way lately. Back in September I was super happy with everything we’d chosen for this end of the year (we run calendar years but started a lot of new stuff in August). Then as September turned to October I started worrying that none of this stuff was working for us. Michael was not having the retention I’d hoped for and Joseph was always being ornery.
Usually we just open our books and start where we left off (except history which actually requires advance planning) but this week I decided to try something different. I wrote out every little thing I wanted to accomplish this week. So far it has worked spectacularly. Everything I wrote down for the last two days we actually got done. Everything. That never happens to us.
The big surprise was the change in Joseph I saw this week. I laid the independent work on him thick. I brought out an old workbook that I’d decided not to use and undecided to not use it. I also found this sweet little workbook for the boys to work on about a year ago and finally brought it back out for them to work on. It’s just a simple book that has things they like, things they remember, things about themselves etc so that I can keep it for all of eternity and remember how cute they were. Then, because i *am* the meanest mom in the world, I also tore some pages out of some Kumon workbooks that have mazes, dot-to-dots, and cut and paste puzzles and put them in a file folder for him. Apparently what Joseph needed was more work! He has had 2 fabulous days. Today he skip counted for me without any help, read his reading book without pretending he didn’t know really really easy words and did all of his addition all by himself. Oh my gosh, I was wearing my happy pants!
Michael’s major achievement this week was more of an epiphany on his part. He suddenly realized that he actually *doesn’t* have that much work to do on any given day. He found out that when he sits down and works on his homework and doesn’t spend 20 minutes complaining about everything that he gets done and gets to go play. I’m sure the good weather helps. I’ve sent the boys out to play for a loooong time the last 2 days. I would love this weather if it didn’t cause the swarming bugs. Eh. So gross. I should take pictures.
I’m really excited about getting back into the groove of schooling. Sometimes all the field trips and grand fun we have gets in the way of doing bookwork. We’ve gone to Rockhome Gardens, the apple orchard, the pumpkin patch, the Bloomington children’s museum, and grandma took the boys to the Opera one day. That on top of our normal stuff has kept us very busy. Next week the boys are going to take horse classes where they learn all about horses and apparently get to ride one at some point. I can’t imagine Joseph being calm enough for this class but I know they’ll both love it.
Well, I believe that is the end of my monthly update. I have good intentions of getting the diapers in the wash and fixing our lunch for tomorrow before I go to bed tonight. First I have to watch 15 more minutes of Gilmore girls. I’ve decided to watch the whole series since I never did get to see the ending of the series.
Homeschooling is keeping us super busy right now. It is the month of field trips. Today we went to Rockhome gardens and had a good time hanging out with friends. They have big plans for their park next year so I’m curious to return again next year. This year wasn’t too impressive though. Next week we have all our regular stuff (Playgroup on Mon, PE,visit with mom, and church on Wed, and Co-op and Christmas musical practice on Thursday) we also have a trip to the apple orchard on Wed and to the pumpkin patch on Friday. Craziness.
Today we were on the front page of our local paper. The boys have been taking a PE class led by Millikin students and it’s been well publicized around here for some reason. The print version actually had pictures of my boys in it, but we were all quoted in the article.
I’ve posted quite a few pictures on facebook lately. They have made a super easy way to upload straight from iPhoto so I’m keeping up pretty well right now. So in pictures, this is what we’ve been up to:
Joseph went to his Honor Rainbows ceremony in Mundelein. Zedekiah, Joseph and I went up the night before and I spent my first night ever being the only adult in a hotel room. We made it through all right.
Joseph took my camera for a few minutes. These are the results.
Our biggest news recently is that my baby turned ONE! Oh my gosh, I have no idea where that year went. We also had a birthday party for Z and Joseph, who turned 6 on Thursday.
We almost didn’t make it to the party due to a little incident at church that morning requiring a trip to the doctor for stitches, followed by a trip to the ER to get glued back together since we wouldn’t cooperate for stitches. It was a good time. Joseph has since picked the glue out and is now taped back together.
Today we made a trip to Rockhome gardens. We all had a good time.
Here are a few more random photos.
Here’s a picture of Joseph’s infamous head wound.
I have 1 little one still awake and chattering away. I’ve had him asleep 3 times tonight and he’s just not staying asleep. Now he’s playing and has been for almost an hour now. A while ago he took his pants off and walked around with them for a looong time.
Which leads me to another update….He has started walking I put him down a couple of weeks ago and he just stood there, then took a few steps. I thought it was still going to be quite a while before he took his first steps. I was wrong. Silly boy.
In the last day or so Zedekiah has started doing some fun things. Last night I stood him up instead of just sitting him down and much to my surprise he stood, then walked 3 steps before falling. He managed a few more steps like that over the course of the evening. He’s also started putting on my clothes. There’s a laundry basket of towels with a few shirts that need hung up thrown on top of it sitting in the living room. Zedekiah keeps going over to it and taking out two of my shirts and putting them on. He’s actually rather good at it. I would be more impressed if I didn’t know that this skill really generated from taking off his bibs. He never puts those back in. He’s also started mimicking what we’re saying. He’s managed to say some funny things that way. He doesn’t actually say much of anything on his own. Well, except “brothers” we were having a fascinating conversation at Target the other day that went something like this:
Me: Say ‘mama’
Z: Bru-ber
Me: No, not brother, say ‘mama’
Z: Bru-ber
This went on for a while. He’s showing me who is boss. He’s such a stinker.
We are off to the apple orchard to day with Jamie and Rachel so that will be lots of fun!
Uncategorized | nozwmn | 
May 11, 2010 2:15 pm | 
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