our week

The first half of the week went well. I went to church on Sunday and celebrated that Jesus has risen. Monday CO had swimming lessons and was definately finally over his 'bug' from last week.
Tuesday, Thursday & Friday we had a 'play date' with J...the foster baby that is being transfered to our home. Thursday morning we awoke to LOTS of wind. While CO and I were taking the garbage out the power went off. CO also got to witness the neighbour's tree being blown down as well as another neighbour's trampoline flying away.
It is now Saturday evening and we are still without hydro. My parents rented a generator yesterday mid morning in order to save all the food in the fridges and freezers. I went to get some water from someone in town yesterday as well as pick up some pizza. I was feeling a bit off but didn't think too much of it, on the way home I was aware that I may need to pull over to be sick but I was hoping that it would just go away :) wishful thinking I know...well NO such luck. I was OH SO SICK and I think I went into shock a bit as there was nothing I could do to get warm. (I was in layers of polar fleece with angora goat hair socks, lots of blankets and a hot water bottle. I even had the pleasure of a heater running all night...it took me most of the night to finally get warm) I SO bad was not wanting to be sick as I was actually looking forward to getting to work where there was hydro, running water and the possibility of a shower. Oh how I long for a hot shower! Well my stomach is feeling 80% better but still no hydro :(

saturday

yesterday I was able to not 'dread' the fact that it was Friday as I have the weekend off!!!
We went to our church for a Good Friday Brunch and Service. It was good to get to Church as it is a rare occurrence in my life with my job.
We had a nice relaxing day and during supper CO was complaining of a sore stomach (me thinking he just needed to have a sit on the toilet) and OUT came all the food he had ate that day. So I loaded him into the bathtub and he proceeded to be sick out the other end three times.
SO, I decided that this is suspicious and took him to emerg. He had been symptom free for over 36 hours. Doctor just looked at him asked questions and told us he wasn't concerned it was still probably just the stomach virus. The doctor didn't even touch him. OH well. Fortunately since we are small town we were home from emerg in two hours.
The doctor just said to feed him whatever he wanted and the virus will run its course. ME I am hoping it is done...but I guess only time will tell. The Easter bunny will NOT be visiting us this weekend. I am not thinking a bunch of chocolate and sugar are what his body needs right now. Hopefully he just forgets about it since he is only 3.
My brother and his family are on route for the day (currently stuck in traffic on the big highway probably due to an accident). CO has been excitedly talking for days that his cousin is coming.

It is a beautiful day today. I have ALL the window open and am in a 'spring cleaning' mode. Hopefully we can air out all the sick germs from this past week.

a much better day...

My little guy is on the mend!! His appetite has returned and so has some of his energy!! Unfortunately so has his endless chatter....he talks a million miles per hour. I've always said that his hollywood name is 'Broken Record', he even talks in his sleep :) I have to admit I enjoyed the quiet I've had this week with him being under the weather.

These days he is asking what everything is made of. And he will ask everyone the same question and even ask the same person the same question over and over again.

The bathroom reno has the walls stripped of tile and hardware (mirror too). The walls around the  bathtub was stripped to the wood so there will be no using the bathtub again until the reno is complete. The builder is coming in two weeks to start reassembly. He is going to be leveling the floor and ceiling. And from there putting in tile, the new fixtures and the old cabinets. I am keeping my sink (since it is new to me in the last couple of years) but getting a soaker tub and a low flush toilet. I am wanting a different doorway but we'll have to see how that will go. Right now my doorway is off the kitchen and that is kinda uky.

I am excited for a new bathroom!!!

and the flu goes on...

CO is still dealing with his stomach bug but he seems to have more energy as he is currently helping my father demo the bathroom. YES my father feels today would be a good day to rip out my bathroom (the contractor can't come and reassemble it for two more weeks). I had to make sure my kid was wearing his work gloves and rubber boots as they are smashing the tile from the walls and bathtub area.
I am thining of postponing or canceling the easter bunny this year. I am not sure I want CO's stomach full of chocolate and sugar after he has had a week of sickness. Fortunately he is 3 and probably won't notice if I skip it all together.
I'd better go get my camera and take photos of my little demo man.

and the flu continues...

my poor CO is still sick! he is still just miserable...not interested in doing much of anything. He is running a fever so he is getting Tylenol. Fortunately he hasn't thrown up since supper last night. I am struggling to get him to drink. It seems the child that LOVES juice (but rarely gets it) doesn't really like Gatorade. So I have resorted to bribing him to drink some and his reward is juice :)
I don't know what I have done to my back but I've been in pain the last two days. It is an upper back pain and to the right. Needless to say it is 345 and I forgot to put the Mongolian stew in the crock pot. So I am thinking spinach omelets for supper...or maybe perogies...
I borrowed some VHS movies from my neighbour today for CO. He has now watched 'toy story' and '101 dalmations'. Previous to this he hadn't really watched a FULL Disney movie (he has seen parts of Cars but has never been interested in sitting through the whole thing at once and we watched it in three parts)
I am hoping he is better by the weekend...I have it off and my brother and his family will be joining us

terrible night...exciting future

yesterday I got to spend the day with 'family' going out for lunch in Alma to celebrate my Aunt's belated birthday.I was feeling like crud (with a new cold) but I wanted to see everyone anyway.  My dad watched CO and took him to his swimming lesson. It seems that CO fell asleep just after 12 and he was still asleep when I got home after 430. No big deal. The afternoon is when he catches up on sleep as he NEVER (well very rarely ever) sleeps in past 645am. So while I was shovelling food into his mouth at supper time so we could get out the door to Girl Guides, he gaged and threw up. No big deal. Clean it up and get out the door. At Guides he is being his usual bug and not playing with the toys he brought along...then all of a sudden I hear someone call my name and I turn around to see across the room that CO is standing with 'stuff' all around him on the floor. My first thought was that he broke something into a million pieces but once I got closer I realised that he was throwing up again. Well I scooted him off to the bathroom where he threw up some more and cleaned up the mess. I brought him home and he seemed good. We layed in bed and I read him some stories. I was hoping that he was done. NO such luck. It continued on through the night (I am SO thankful for mattress pads that my mom invested in SO long ago as they protected the mattress) and I ended up having to change his bed three times. This morning LOTS of laundry was tackled and my little one has been snuggled in the reading chair watching 'blues clues' and 'veggie tales' movies on the portable tv/vcr.  Needless to say he is in the 'zone' as tv is a treat.

I purchased with part of my income tax return this baby. I LOVE it. I can multi-task with it and I've made my kid believe that it will suck up any toys that aren't put away.  I have yet to release it in any of the bedrooms. CO has a hard time not constantly pushing the button on the top that turns it on and off but he is getting better.  I was thinking I could set it to clean while I am sleeping but I think that the banging into things would wake me up in the night. When it does the kitchen it catches on one of the cupboard doors and ends up banging the door open and closed.

I also have another 'new' for the house. But I have to wait until I know for SURE that it is going to happen. I am excited!

it is all about the choice...

My aunt is here for almost a week. We are off to St.Jacob's market tomorrow :) I am excited to be going...I am excited to just spend time with her. As a child she was the aunt that went out of her way to invest herself in us kids the most and that made a big impact on me.
CO was TERRIBLE this evening. He made a string of bad choices leading up to going to bed. I gave him constant warning of consequences the whole way and encouragement for him to make good choices. He choose the wrong and then would have a huge fit when I delivered the forewarned consequence. Which would lead to another wrong choice, etc. In the end he finally choose the right option and softly cried himself to sleep. I find nights like this frustrating...even more so when I have company because on the most part he is a good kid, he is just VERY curious, strong willed, able and a button pusher :) Other than that he is a joy! Unfortunately for some reason the last couple of weeks he has regressed and is purposely defiant. Which is frustrating for me and he seems to be surprised when I follow through with the consequences that I warn him are coming his way.
Is it realistic of me to be expecting a 3 1/2 year old to want to obey? To make good choices?

I love books...

I love books...and it is a struggle to not buy TOO many children's books...but it is hard when there are SO many great and wonderful books out there. We DO use the library...lots...but sometimes CO finds a book and neither of the two libraries we have access to (or their interloan library families) have more books by the authors we are growing to love so much.


we discovered some art books by James Mayhew. We came across the one shown above and I was amazed at how quickly CO followed along with happening in the story (the girl goes IN the paining) and I loved how it was exposing him to 'art' and 'artists'. I don't really feel I was exposed to 'art' or 'artists' in my own education so if I can expose him through books....even greater...
well the libraries don't have any more in the series...so I am trying to watch for them on sale through amazon and try to resist the temptation to buy them all :)
 
Another author I really enjoy is Lynley Dodd and fortunately I inherited most of the author's books from my sister's library. The rhyming and repeat phrases in these stories are lots of fun and the stories are mostly about adventures of dogs and cats which are perfect for my little one who loves animals.
 

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

In our homeschool this week...
This week we spent the week on 'Caps for Sale'. We followed the guidelines from Before Five In a Row as well as a few other activities I found online.
CO really liked the story. He also liked the activities I did with a poem about monkeys and alligators.
Our seeds we planted a couple of weeks ago are growing...CO keeps picking lettuce and eating it
We planted a few more seeds this week as well.



Places we're going and people we're seeing...
Monday we started swimming lessons. It is a different teacher and he is now a salamander (he was a sea turtle). There are twin 4 year old boys in the class as well as a little girl (we have yet to meet the girl).
This was our first week of having two extra mornings out of the house for something called 'soundblast'. It is a speech therapy camp for 3 & 4 year olds. CO is behind in his speech development. When he was tested in the fall he didn't say the following sounds 'g, k, l, f, g, t, s, r, v, z' (when he is talking he subsitutes in the sound 'd'). We started a home speech therapy program (we went in a couple of times and they sent home activities for us to do at home) in the fall and since then he has started using 's, c, f' in the middle and ends of words, so he just needs to start using them at the begining of words.




My favorite thing this week was...
after supper on Wednesday, CO and I went out to see if our 'bear hunt trail' was accessible (vs  being flooded with all the melting snow). We were able to go along for a small part of it, and then we just wandered the hillsides looking for treasures. We spotted a blue heron which was exciting for me. I am SO looking forward to spring. The bulbs are starting to push up some greenery in the flowerbeds.


What's working/not working for us...
this week I am being a tough mama and trying to get my lovely CO to stop kicking. I am removing privleges and toys that he treasures when he is caught kicking. He has been kicking furniture, walls, me, the dog, etc. Last week the neighbour watched him for the day while I had first aid/cpr training and she gave him a few timeouts for kicking her kid...sigh. Wednesday alone he lost minimum 6 things and was sent to his room 3 times...by Friday things were much better...I can only think of him kicking once and he showed remorse right away.
All the 'loss' of priveledges, many time outs and the extra mornings out during the week have hindered the amount off time in our week for school this week. I had lots planned that we never got around to.


Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...
I am so looking forward to April, for spring, for the 2011 Sonlight catalogue, for next year's homeschool curriculum...

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