Category Archives: Rhys
Okay, if you won’t, I will.
“I hate eggs!”
“Well eggs hate you!”
“I hate my underwear!”
“Well your underwear hates you!”
Not really, but that conversation almost happened. One night this week Rhys was being beyond belligerent and refused to put on his underwear. He was rolling all around the bed – totally naked – showing me and my mom EVERYTHING he has, things I really, really have no desire to see. Positions no one should freeze in, especially when accompanied by screams and grunts.
In order to make this Circ du Sorevolting end, I tried some humor on him. I asked, “Do you want me to put your underwear on?” leaving the understood “…you?” off. He knew what I meant - do you want me to dress you? – and he screamed “NO!!”
I said, “I’m going to put it on for you, okay?”
“NOOOO!”
Closer I crept to the bed with his red doggie underwear in my hand. I sat down in the chair beside his bed and proceeded to put his underwear on. He did not object, which was good, we were making progress. Well, not really.
A little too small, I think.
I couldn’t really get them up past my shins. When he looked over and saw that I literally meant, “I’m putting on your underwear,” he started laughing and tried to get the underwear off. I let him have it and he got dressed.
Now, am I going to have to start putting on size 5T pants in order to motivate him to get going on Sunday mornings? I think not.
Presentations!
Today was CC day and I thought I’d tape the boys’ presentations. I particularly wanted to tape Rhys’ since he was reciting poems, so I thought I shouldn’t exclude Henry.
First up, Rhys reciting three poems: ”The Caterpillar” by Christina G. Rosetti, “Hearts Are Like Doors” by Anonymous, and “Work” by Anonymous.
I think he was a little nervous at first because he knows “The Caterpillar” the best and he messed it up a bit. But once he got over his nerves he did fine. I am so proud of my Rhysie! There’s no way I could have stood up in front of a group and recited poems when I was four – and these are poems he’s learned by hanging around the table while Henry does his school work, they are from Henry’s book, First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise (a great book, by the way).
Now for Henry. We finished up Little House on the Prairie last night so I coaxed him into taking it in today as his presentation. He was going to take “The Odyssey” in but since we haven’t read it yet he didn’t have anything to say about it. The Little House book just made a lot more sense. We’ve found a lot of other CC’ers reading the series, so we’re either spoiling it for them or we’re getting spoilers ourselves. It’s kind of funny. ”CLOSE YOUR EARS!” Gosh, I hope no one tells them Mary goes blind, that’s a biggie.
This is one thing I really love about the CC program. Notice how the presentations evolve and mature between Rhys’ class and Henry’s class. Both classes use the same method (child stands at the front, introduces himself – mother doesn’t get the camera on quickly enough…) and then addresses the class with their presentation. When it’s complete, they know to ask if there are any questions. They call on the question askers and answer the best they can. Usually there isn’t any chaos. Usually 
This type of presentation (in Rhys’ room it’s more like show-and-tell most weeks) starts them on the road to public speaking, giving them the ability to speak clearly and confidently in front of a group of peers and adults starting at four years of age. By the time they’re ten, they’re poised, confident and old pros at public speaking. I’m 36, never had this kind of opportunity and I want to stammer and stare at my feet when I have to speak to a group. Where was this when I was growing up?!
Oh and fever and auge is malaria. Sorry we never clarified that, but you probably guessed it.
Right Back at You!
I’m tired of hearing complaints about food. I bought this awesome buckwheat pancake mix and made it for the kids last week. Everyone loved it except for Rhys, who wouldn’t taste it because I made the mistake of saying the word “buckwheat.” I guess it sounded nasty or something. Today I bought some more when I went to Earth Fare and I was excited to show Henry because we both loved the pancakes so much. When I pulled the box out of the bag Henry cheered and Rhys snarled,
“I HATE those pancakes!”
Well.
Fast-forward an hour and Dave and I were discussing what we wanted for dinner. I said I was thinking about making sausage and eggs and…
“I HATE EGGS!” Rhys yelled.
Fed up, I said, “Well eggs hate you!”
(he knows I’m kidding, we don’t need therapy)
CC Memory Work Incentive Results: We Owe…
Last week I wrote about our CC new memory work incentive plan that we’re introducing at um, week 18 (out of 24). I am pleased to say that the boys took to it and it worked really well! The only thing we didn’t use was the Bible column – yes, I know that’s kind of the most important part – but I’ll be honest in saying we have not been memorizing Exodus 20 this year, even though we should. They do know the 10 commandments and can tell you those in order so I think that’s a nice start.
I’m just going to divert from the memory work incentive plan for a second and admit how stupid I am – I thought that the recitation of Exodus 20 was just something we did at the beginning of CC each week, you know, like the pledge. It didn’t dawn on me until I wrote the above paragraph that we were actually supposed to MEMORIZE it. This is on par with me being under the impression Sponge Bob was a piece of swiss cheese for about five years. I just thought it was awesome that a lot of the moms (I’m looking at you Angela!) knew the verse chapter and could recite it perfectly!
Wow. I guess we should work on memorizing Exodus 20 this summer. Andrea will be proud – it’s the KJV version I do prefer memorizing in the KJV, I find it’s easier, it’s more melodic and poetic. All the verses I memorized as a child were from the KJV even though I don’t think we owned a KJV. Odd. And when the boys’ smokin’ devotional has a verse I know (like John 3:16) as their weekly memory verse, I automatically flip it to KJV so they’ll learn it that way. So – Andrea proud, Daniel says “Well, only one foot in hell.” BAHAHAHA!!! I really need to buy a KJV. And I know, no Scofield.
So back to the original point of this post before everyone runs down demanding breakfast, the boys did a FANTASTIC JOB last week! I am so proud of them, they totally exceeded my expectations! I had Rhys go first and Henry go upstairs while he gave his answers. They learn seven timeline cards each week and since Rhys can’t read, I gave him some slack and three tries to get them in order, and I gave him help by telling him which ones were in the wrong spots. But he got it right after the second try! He also got the following right: his history sentence, his science facts about the ocean, his Latin 2nd declensions, and his English grammer – naming all three helping verbs (you go Rhys!). He almost got the math right, the question was “What’s the area of a triangle?” and he said “The area of a triangle is one base times height.” I soooooo wanted to give him a little help and give it to him, but if he proofed for it he’d get it wrong, so I didn’t. He’ll get it next time! So Mr. Rhys earned five quarters! The things he missed were geography and math (and Bible but whose fault is that? ahem).
Henry did exceptionally well with the timeline cards, getting them in the correct order within seconds. He did sing the timeline song as he moved them into their spots, but hey – whatever works! He’s been listening to it on the iPod. I put their weekly memory work and the timeline song and other songs (preposition, Presidents, Old and New Testament books of the Bible and the Orchestra song) on the iPod and they think it’s so cool to sit and listen to them. Unfortunately, since they love the timeline song so much, they claim they “can’t find” the memory work for whatever week we’re on, but considering they can both play Minecraft unassisted, I call baloney on this. They can work an iPod nano. He also got his history sentence, science , Latin and math memory work correct. So he and Rhys got almost everything covered between the two of them, minus Bible (my fault) and geography (also sort of my fault, since I don’t have weeks 15 – 20 printed out from CC Connected, I have no idea where those pages are; I need them but I am too cheap to pay $6.00 to print out a couple of geography pages).
The grand total for this week comes to: $2.50 total. I see $4.00 hanging on the fridge for them, I’m hoping Dave doesn’t have change or else I’m going to have him watch the Rock and Learn money video.
I’d say this is a great start when I have been such a slack teacher with them when it comes to CC. And this is just spending 20ish minutes a day with them using the iPad app. We’ve been doing the iPad app, but not making a point to do it EVERY. DAY. But now we are. I also scramble up the timeline cards and let them put them in order. They like to see who can do it first. Henry is at a great advantage because he can read. He sings the timeline song and then matches up the words with the cards. Rhys has to memorize which picture goes in what order and these are not simple pictures; a lot of them look very similar too (Karl Marx and Charles Darwin anyone?). Henry is also becoming very interested in the Story of the World and I LOVE IT! I feel like we’re finally on track – he’s cultivating a love of learning, he asks questions and is curious, he’s very excited when we get new books and begs (okay so that’s kind of annoying) for me to get more off Amazon. I’m going to have to introduce him to the library this summer. I do buy a lot off Amazon and half.com because they’re things we’re going to write in, like nature journals, and you can’t do that with library books. Well, I suppose you could, but they wouldn’t appreciate it. More on the nature journals later – they are fascinating and worth their own post.
I’m very encouraged! It seems like Henry has matured somewhat over the past few weeks or has at least taken a renewed interest in learning. Rhys is always game for some kind of activity, unless he’s in one of his MOODS, but he can usually be talked out of it. I think they’re going to love doing a nature study. I hope I can learn to enjoy this. I really hate being outside, but I think it’s important for them, so I’m going to keep an open mind. And an icepack around my neck. Ugh, NC spring/summer/fall/winter humidity.
Another thanks to Brandy at Half-a-Hundred Acre Woods for the memory work template. She is a tremendous resource and inspiration to CCers! Thank you, you’re a blessing to us!!
Everyday Super Heroes
Overheard at the breakfast table:
Henry, ”I’m Batman!”
Rhys, “And I’m Roger, his sidekick!”
I think he’s getting his cult classic heroes mixed up.
Sick Days
Today is a sick day so I got a few minutes to myself to blog. This should automatically clue you in that it’s not a stomach virus.
I hadn’t felt well Monday, my stomach hurt like my (non-existent) belt was on too tight and I didn’t eat much. Yes, this in and of itself is astounding. This morning I woke up to Rhys beside me in bed and then I looked down and Henry was curled up at my feet like a cat. He said he’d been there half the night and felt awful but didn’t want to interrupt my sleep because “he was brave” and could handle this himself. Aww. I felt his head and he was burning up, said his stomach still hurt but he didn’t feel like he was going to get sick.
So he’s laying on the couch with his pillow and I’m trying to do 14 things at once.
And this blog entry was one of them. It’s now 6 pm, I started at 9 am and I typed three paragraphs of nothing.
I’m having homeschool malaise. I have so many ambitions but we always end up doing our schoolwork aaaaand….that’s it. We’ve been slowly working on this awesome CC lapbook that I will be reviewing sometime soon. I feel like an Egyptian slave driver “CUT FASTER! GLUE FASTER! NO, NO EXTRA BRADS, DO IT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE, ISRAELITE!” because we need to get it finished but it’s my fault we’re behind because I don’t make them work on it every day.
Several friends at CC recommended a website called edHelper.com and it’s come in handy the small bit I’ve used it. So far I’ve made several hidden word searches with Henry’s spelling words and printed out a book for him to read and color (waste – he did not color it. What a surprise). I tried to print out some stuff for Rhys but the printer sort of flaked out and it was indecipherable. I think I need a new ink cartridge. Time to cash in that 5-year CD.
Ah! We finished Farmer Boy and we’re on to Little House on the Prairie tonight. Averaging a chapter a night, I think it will take until October to finish the series unless they get bored and want to mix things up – or I do!
Two Henry funnies and then I am off to lay down because I think he’s given me his funk:
Yesterday he told me that robins enjoy being in the rain because they get moisturized. I knew he was paying attention to shopNBC the other night when I was watching a segment on eye creams! I knew it!
Last night as we were reading in Mark, we came across the story of the man whose son was possessed by a demon that would throw him into fire and water and do all sorts of horrid things – Jesus said if you have faith he will be healed and the man said “I have faith. Help me with my faith!” (I wonder how many people notice this as they read the story?). At any rate, Henry asks again,
“Can I be possessed by a demon?”
“No!”
“Why? Because only the Holy Spirit is partying up in here?” Points to self.
“Yes and haa!”
Rhys Has a How-to For You (pre-school friendly Lego Project)
Rhys builds an airplane with four engines. Sarah grapples for pieces. Rhys uses an incorrect pronoun when referencing her as well as an incorrect article. Well, he’s four and we’re working on it. :)
Brutal Honesty
Last night I was snuggling in bed with Rhys, reading a Curious George book with him. He started singing “Your love never fails, it never gives up…” and then abruptly stopped and buried his head in the pillows. We’d sung the song in church earlier that morning. He goes into service with us, I just happened to take a picture of the song (I never take pictures in church, so this is quite a coincidence).
I asked him to keep singing, told him that I was proud of him for remembering the song and that I thought he had a good singing voice.
“You do?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You don’t.”
WELL!
Man-Humor Cliches Found Within
Dave lies in the floor after dinner, Rhys approaches. He bends over and says in his best villain voice,
“Have a TASTE of your own MEDICINE!”
Time passes and then I hear a giggle.
Dave finally says, “Okay Rhys, enough farting in my face.”
I ask, “Did he just say ‘Have a taste of your own medicine’ and then fart in your face?”
Yeah he did. GASMAN!
