I Can’t Promise Anything Funny

It feels like I’ve been neglecting my blog so I figured I’d give it some love today even though I have nothing organized to share.  No theme, no story that ends with something my kids said, just me blabbering.

Let’s see…I’m reading The Litigators AND Crazy Love simultaneously.  They’re such different genres, I’m not getting my books confused for once.  I’m like the last person in America to get on the Francis Chan bandwagon.  I’ve known who he is for years but I mentally grouped him in with Rob Bell and Steven Furtick and dismissed him as a narcissistic flake who writes fluff books less about God and more about himself and his feeeeeeeelings.  He’s not like that AT.  ALL.  In fact, in the first chapter he tells you to get over yourself, that God is King and the world is not centered around you.  So my apologies to Pastor Chan for thinking him an emergent because there’s some really good stuff in this book.  This is an ebook and I tried not to laugh when I came across a typo that quoted scripture and included the phrase “Glory of the Loin.”  No, I did not not giggle again.  It’s like a biblical commentary of the “wicked Bible.”  (Shout out to Amanda who hath shewed me thine heretical printing press errors.  Shout!  <— there it is.)

Sarah continues to get up at 4:30 am every morning for a feeding, I’m getting her a nutritional IV by the way, and I continue to get about 6 hours of sleep a night BUT I also get several hours alone each morning, so bonus, I guess.  I can’t go back to sleep once I’m up, my body just flatly refuses.  I like the stillness of morning, but it would be nice if I could get up at SEVEN and have until NINE before people woke up, versus 4 am to 7am.  Henry, you can read, and I know you look at the blog, let’s try to make this happen.

AH!  Speaking of Henry, I think I streamlined his curriculum and schedule for next year.  It goes as follows:

Monday – Classical Conversations (might be another day, don’t know yet)

Monday – Friday:  Bible reading – I will read to them, we’re going to try and read the whole, extremely detailed and gigantic, children’s Bible that belonged to me.

Tuesday – Friday:  Saxon 2 phonics and reading

Tuesday – Friday:  Saxon 2 math

Tu/Th: Shurley English

W/Fr:  Prima Latina

Friday – Science Fridays!    We’ll do a science-y thing.  (yesssssss, I listen to it sometimes…)

We will finish the Prima Latina book, but I don’t know about the Shurley english.  I think you have to do it every day to get it done in a year.  I just don’t think he can handle/NEEDS english every day.  We might do the parts of speech jingles each day, but I don’t have 45 minutes to devote to an english lesson when he still needs to work on phonics.

I am really excited about the Prima Latina book.  He will learn 125 latin words/phrases over the course of the book and it’s divided up nicely and gives a dialogue to use so I am not just sitting there going “Do it.”  I also switched from Christian Liberty Press to Saxon for phonics for several reasons:  one, I hate the CLP book, it’s cut and dried and boring to me, he’s not crazy about it either.  I do NOT have a way to liven it up.  It’s a great curriculum in theory and substance, it’s HARD and he’s learned a lot so he’s got a good foundation.  But enter a big, giant negative for those of us who were not teachers in a former life and/or are not creative when it comes to giving a lesson some zing and it becomes a horrible curriculum in my opinion.  I’d already bought Rhys a copy of both student books and he wants to do them (he started yesterday) and I want to scream at him to run!  It’s boring!  But he’s a lot more patient when it comes to schoolwork than Henry, so it may be okay for him.  He cares not for pazazz, just give him rote material and let him go.

Random musing:  the CLP book IS a good foundational book for phonics.  Maybe I can use it on Rhys and Sarah when they begin learning phonics to give them a good, solid foundation and then switch to Saxon in 1st grade like I’m doing with Henry.  I’ll have to pace Rhys because he’s wanting to start the book in earnest NOW and he’s pre-K.  It’s going to be too hard for him, I think.  No, I know.  He cannot write well and you’ve got to be able to write to do the book with any success.  Well, we’ll see.

I’ve decided that over the summer I’m going to read Saxon 2 math and phonics, Shurley English and Prima Latina from cover to cover.  Maybe I’m supposed to do that, but I didn’t do it with any of his K books.  Next year will involve a lot more work, both the math and english curriculums (and probably the Saxon phonics but it hasn’t come in the mail yet) call for a lot of extraneous manipulatives (I miss you already, cut and dried and rote and manipulative-free CLP!) so I’ll have to gather those up each day/week.

As far as CC goes, I’ve already printed out all the paperwork for the tri-fold board for next fall’s cycle.  Well, minus math or latin, one of those.  I’m almost out of toner so I have to replace the cartridge before I print any more large projects.  I don’t need it NOW so I’m not going to waste the last of my ink on that, I’ll print and organize it sometime after the ink completely runs out and I’m forced to fork over $5,000 for a new ink cartridge.

I just typed and erased “I can’t believe Rhys is starting CC” but he’s already doing it, ha!  He blends right in.  His speech is not as good as say, Henry or one of the other older kids (or really, any of them) and he has trouble saying some of the big words, but he’s doing really well so far.  I cannot BELIEVE the child got up and gave his presentation on his green motorcycle toy just like a big boy.  Just walked right up to the front of the room and started talking, making eye contact, telling all about his motorcycle.  This is the shy child who wouldn’t SPEAK in nursery.  He’s thriving in class, it’s amazing.  I wish now I’d signed him up at the beginning of the year, but who knew?  And he was only three and our program didn’t have room for him at the time, nor did it have any three-year-olds.  The Durham program, which was (? I heard it shrank) much larger had some 3′s, but our Raleigh group is small and barely had room for all the 4 and 5′s.  He’ll be in his own class without Henry next fall but I think he’ll have the same tutor (yay!) so he should be just fine.

Also, I cannot say enough good things about our church.  If you’re in the Raleigh area and are looking, send me a message and I’ll give you details.  It’s amazing to see how God led us to the CC group, which then lead to this church.  I almost signed up for the Durham CC group because it’s closer to our house, but met the present director of the Raleigh group and Dave and I liked her so much we spontaneously decided to write HER a check and join her group, despite the drive.  SO GLAD WE DID!  And it was not a coincidence, it was a (brace yourself, Andrea) “God thing.”  (she loves that saying).  We’re going to the second class needed to join the church this summer and then finish the process.  I said to Dave the other day, “I want to join [church]” and he said “I thought that was the point?”  I just hadn’t made the proclamation, I guess.  Even though it’s large, I am starting to recognize people, which is nice.  We already know a dozen or so folks, but I’d like to get to know more.  The pastor said they had 1100 people there for Easter!  That’s very cool that THAT MANY folks came out, even if it was just one Sunday a year, maybe a seed was planted.  Honestly, I don’t know how you could visit and not want to go back, the message and the worship are that good.

I am growing out my fingernails.  Yes, I bite them out of nervousness.  I painted them and that’s actually helped me not bite – my left hand, anyway.  I showed them to Dave last night and said “Look!  I am growing my nails out!” all proud of the small amount of nail I’d accumulated.  He said “I can’t tell.”  Thanks!

Actually I do owe him thanks for getting a parasite off me.  I scratched my back Monday night and felt something new and weird in the middle.  It felt like a skin tag but I knew I didn’t have one there.  I said, “Is this a skin tag?”  Deadpan, like he’s telling me it’s a paint dot he says, “No, it’s a tick.”

GET IT OFF!  GET IT OFF!  GET IT OFF!  GET IT OFF!  GET IT OFF!!!!!!!!!!

He got the body but then the head broke off.  So he had to gouge into my back with a pair of (I hope) sterile fingernail scissors to dig the head out.  I hope they were clean, otherwise this blog will be renamed “Life Without Peanut Butter and Mother” which is really depressing.

I think I’ve purged my brain now.  Good day to you all!