guess we are not done yet....update

SO, I packed away the Duplo this past Spring. And had it stacked in the corner of the front porch. I was thinking we'd bless it to someone else since B is the only one that really built with it this past winter. The boys play with the vehicles but I was thinking my hopes for having 'building boys' kinda went out the window. WELL, this past Wednesday the boys unpacked it while I was visiting with dear old friends and they have been playing with it non-stop. AND their non-stop play of house has transferred to Duplo. Seriously I was getting sick of 'house'. It has been non-stop in this house for two months. I mean like EVERY day, non-stop. It is the only way T would play. If they were digging in the sandbox it was while playing 'house' and it was two weeks non-stop of the boys calling eachother husband and wife. I tried explaining that people didn't call eachother by their titles but to no avail. And T was constantly wearing skirts, tutus on his head for long hair, he even drew makeup on his face with not washable marker. It is in those moments that I have to remember that maturity wise he is still just 4, NOT 6 1/2.

But they are building, well atleast the oldest is. The duplo men have expanded the 'house' characters to more than just a wife and husband! yeah!

So I guess another winter of Duplo taking over the living room is in order...I will embrace the imagination!

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football
CO is playing tackle football.

it took him a bit to figure it out and embrace it (as he is hesitant with all change) but he LOVES it. What big kid who loves to wrestle wouldn't? you can tackle and knock over other kids and not get in trouble!
the thing I love about football: is it active (3 hours of practice a week), it is very much about teamwork and the coaches are touch and encouraging at the same time, hard work in practice is rewarded with more game time, I only had to supply the cleats and mouth guard (total less than $10 as the cleats were bought 2nd hand by Nana)
what I don't like about football: I DON'T fit in with the other parents very well. I struggle to listen to them joke and complain about their personal lives and deadbeat spouses. I have two VERY busy evenings as Tuesdays is choir and football and Thursdays is swimming and football. There have been 4 fundraisers already. I understand that they need money for expenses but honestly...I can't justify this many in two months to my family and neighbours.

Overall I am SO happy that he loves it so much. It is for three months in the fall and then again in the spring. 

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choir
T has music running through his veins. He is constantly singing and beating out a rhythm.
I found a local kids choir and it is AMAZING! he is the youngest. They prefer them to start at age 7 but said they would give him a chance because of his passion. It was explained to him that it was an honour for them to take him below the desired age so he needed to do his best to be 'big'.
He loves it. It is a great outlet for him, he is learning SO much and in a few months, the concerts will probably begin. I really like that this group is big on performing in the community (schools, seniors homes, etc.)

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school
I am teaching them all this year. (well B is making me school her too...she is my eager student...wanting to know where her math test is too, etc.)
I schooled T on the days he was home last year. I also did some school all summer. So, we've transitioned well. We've developed a good rhythm. I started out with us just doing the basics and every couple of weeks I am adding to the workload. The boys are doing well. We have our bad days and moments but the goal is to school 4 days a week (we take Tuesdays off for co-op) so they are really having school 5 days a week but only 4 at home.
Due to the fact that I am finding things so much more harmonious these days, I am signing us up for more field trips with the home school groups, etc.
We went on a trip to a honey farm. VERY fun and cool.
my kids got to pet a bee!













and in a couple of weeks the boys are going to do tree climbing (with ropes and harnesses)

all the kids are doing swim lessons through the group as well

my love/hate relationship with....socks

I love bare feet. (which a little 3 year old boy referred to them as 'bare pigs' this summer and that phrase melted my heart)
I walk bare foot around my house inside and out. I am required to wear shoes at work, I take them off without even realizing it.
In the winter, I LOVE my socks. My socks are all hand knit for me by my mother and I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. Before my mother started knitting me socks, I liked funky crazy socks but mostly I loved my angora goat hair ones and my wool ones.
My children make me feel differently about socks. My oldest also likes socks. ALL year round. Bugs me to no end. He leaves them helter skelter all over the house inside and out. He wears socks for days on end and I often have to peel those ones off his feet while he is in bed half asleep. My son is SO terrible for making sure that his socks end up in the laundry that often I have only one of a pair at any given time...which resulted in my son no longer wearing matched socks. The other day he wore one that was stripped red and blue and the other was a solid brown.
My oldest has giant feet that have grown quickly. My youngest son had very small feet when he joined our family but has grown like a weed since and therefore his feet have also grown. Which has resulted in socks that I have no idea who fit whom and if some of them actually fit anyone.
I have tried to fix the sock problem by buying multiple packs of the same type of socks for each child.
I have even stopped matching socks for awhile and just had a giant bucket. I got to the point that I designated two drawers in the dresser in the laundry room to be JUST for socks. Boy socks in the left drawer, Girl socks in the right. My oldest just ended up stealing all my store purchased socks because his feet grew again and his socks were too small, and because I tried hiding his socks for the summer to get him to stop wearing them with his Keen sandals.
When we were at the cottage this summer...there was NO sock issues...I didn't pack any.

Well my latest phase in trying to keep the socks under control....I took ALL socks and bagged them up. Then I purchased a set of 'weekday' socks for each child. If a child does not get his socks in the laundry, then next time Wednesday rolls around, NO socks for them. The boy's feet will match so I will know if someone is not sticking to the plan.
I am not sure if it is going to work or not. There is a single lonely Saturday sock in the downstairs bathroom on the floor.
But I have my fingers crossed that one day, the hate part of my relationship with socks will be a thing of the past.

switching out of summer mode

We spent an amazing amount of time at the cottage this summer. That was the goal. We got a week in May, two in June, four in July and two in August = 9 weeks! It was just what we needed. I arranged childcare at the cottage when possible and I took 3 weekends off between July and August.
I didn't stop school. I took small breaks. I decreased our work load drastically. I knew that it was important especially for my oldest to have the 'routine' still to his days and I didn't want to have September be a month of 'review' and 'relearning' all that was forgotten over the summer. I also didn't want the giant battle of transitioning from a life of play to a life of school and then play.

Well, I have spent many months preparing for what I wanted our 2014/2015 school year to look. I am wanting it to be a year of 'family' and growing with God.

Today, we started with our new schedule.
We of course slept in ;) In all the years of parenting my oldest son, he has been an early riser. The month of August he slowly switched from being a 7:15am riser (like clockwork all year) to an 8am risier. I am NOT complaining, it just may not work for my goal of having the 'major' part of school done by noon.
Even with us getting up late, I was still able to have the day flow as I had hoped and planned.
Our school day started with family devotions. (the few minutes before the kids were called to join me at the table, I spent time in prayer)
For family devotions we are starting with 'Leading Little Ones to God' and my goal is to do a prayer journal with the kids that we will keep track of prayer requests and all pray in round robin style.
I added a worship song or hymn (maybe I will add more as CO accepts this change) that we sing together. It will usually be in you tube format to add the visual stimulation to capture their attention more. T LOVES to sing, so he is very happy for this addition.

I also added our family Bible verse (the one I have selected for the year is Matt 27:37-39) that we recite together and then we recite our family mission statement & pledge/rules together. I figure the more we say it, the more it will sink in ;)

Also this year, a change is that instead of listing all the work that is expected for the day and the kids choosing what order they do them, there is a checklist that they do in order. Not an easy transition for CO but once he accepted it, it went well. The boys check off things as they go. This enables me to teach reading, etc. at a different time and the other child is busy working on more independent work. Last year they both would work on the same subject and I felt there was useful time wasted waiting for me to finish with the other child.

The schedule isn't perfect and I will continue to tweak it as time goes.

Also added is a star chart. Each boy can earn up to 6 stars a day (mostly for attitude and hard work). In a 5 week period, if they have earned 100 stars they earn something. For this cycle the reward is a date with Mom. I will evaluate if the goal stays the same or changes as the year progresses.

Also B is now 3, and is doing some seat work. She has always bugged to join the big boys and in the past I would throw different activities at her to occupy her. I am now going to do a letter of the week type activity with her. It is mostly art related, slightly phonics related but the goal is just to have her learn letter sounds and names. She comes and goes through school time as she wants. I made up a binder of 'A' pages for her to colour, cut and paste, etc. When she choose to jump up and join us the first time she did her little weather and feelings page as well as her 'B is for B____' page (both of these pages are dry erase so she can do them over and over again). While the boys were busy working I took her over to her ABC poster (I have it on the back of the front door and with it I have the leapfrog A and magnetic A's) and told her that we were going to learn 'A' today. We sang the alphabet while following along with the poster and then took her over to work on an 'A' colouring page. The second time she joined us, I gave her a colouring page related to the story that I was reading to the boys. The third time both the boys were busy working so I read to her an 'alligator' story and looked on a page for the letter 'A'. Then while I made lunch she watched a short you tube clip from Sesame Street that was about the letter 'A'. The rest of her morning she spent floating around (cleaning as she went) between puzzles, play kitchen, etc. She found her alligator pull toy and when I saw her with it I encouraged her to take him over to the poster and show it his letter and sing the ABC song to it.

Including B in school turned out better than I had hoped. I was worried that she would be more of a distraction. She tried in the beginning to join us at the table with her toys (which just end up distracting the boys) so I reminded her that toys stay away from the school table and that she is free to play with them away from the table. This will encourage her to learn that the table is for school (which is still fun). She is able to feel more included which is something she is wanting.

As the boys get used to the new format, I am sure that they will pick up the pace. The amount of time it took for them to tackle 'calendar' time nearly drove me off a cliff. In the end, I realized that one boy didn't actually return to Math after our group time and so he will have to finish that up after quiet time before outside play.

I need to increase my organization. I will have to add menus again to our days. Having the food more organized will very much help. My goal is also to start my day with God and my Bible. I have yet to master keeping this in my day EVERY day. It has always been sporadic. I am also wanting the boys to start this habit early so by the end of this school year, I want them also doing this. It is more difficult as they aren't actually able to read the 'Bible' really yet, but they can still spend this time with their Bibles, looking through them and in prayer.

In two weeks will be back to schooling only four days a week because we take Tuesdays off for Bible Study. The boys will be expected to do a couple of independent things before we walk out the door, and since the group has a 'home school' class they will be learning in that environment.

(now a quick glimpse of a small fraction of our summer)

this is two blocks from our house!
there is wonderful trail that runs along it for walking, cycling and we even
take our kayaks onto the water

he was VERY happy to complete is Math book

we found this turtle when walking in the woods at the cottage

messy faces...we eat outside all our meals at the cottage

yum yum

one of the two parks

our 'oasis' of a cottage....it is small and peaceful!

tuckered out (yes I know her shoulder straps are too high, I have fixed it)

our sandbox in the backyard

fun with older cousins

dancing for Canada Day

making stilts

helping bath the 'healthiest' baby on the campground

crayfishing

crayfishing with friends!

what to do??

Neglect sucks! The damage it does to a kid long term is cruddy!

I am dealing with the side effects of neglect with many different people in my family these days. I am tired of it. How much can you hold someone accountable for the crap that is who they are because their mothers neglected them when they needed someone most. The first 5 years are SO vital in a child's brain. When there is neglect, parts of the brain shut down and become mi-wired.

http://www.thinkkids.org/learn/our-collaborative-problem-solving-approach/

is an interesting view on assisting those who are in this boat...

now to spend the night researching...


Please Pray for my family. There are lots of struggles. Especially with two. Pray for the kid's parents that they will be able to parent the children in the best healing way for the children.

July is just around the corner...

The kids struggled with my return to work. CO the most. It was a slow acceptance for him. I think he slept in my bed for over a month. After the second weekend I worked, there was vomit from him stressing over things.

now it is the end of June. He is back into the swing of things.

It has been a roller coaster ride since going back to work. My beloved client P passed away. I have been working with him since I moved here. It was very sudden. I mourned him a long time. The stress of not knowing what was happening with my job after he died did a number on me for a couple of weeks (over the last few years, the clients in the house have slowly moved out and this client was the last in the house). After two and a half weeks, I was finally told my fate and I got to keep my '40 hour weekend' which was my biggest worry. I had so many struggles with the kids with me going back to work that I couldn't imagine having to transition them to me working 5 days a week (which was a possibility. With the agency I work for the only guarantee is full time hours, not the schedule)

I am now working with elderly clients. A strange change after working with only high behaviours these past years. It is a much more mellow environment. I still miss P. I hear him daily in moments as I come across things.

T had been struggling through May and June. He was making improvements but I think the knowledge of schooling ending was the root of things as well as his teacher left on MAT leave.

These past couple of weeks CO has been off. Lots of old behaviours resurfaced. I think his is partly because there has been a change with the weekend sitters. I had two quit suddenly. (one of them I was happy to leave as I was ready to be done with her...the other I didn't mind...she was a bit on the lazy side)
So my life is a rollercoaster. This is just the cliff notes of things.

Overall, I love my life. I am blessed. It is hard. Single parenting sucks most of the time. I had a hard time figuring out how to get errands done these last couple of months once the boys evening programs ended. Grocery shopping with kids with food issues is NOT fun.

Monday we leave for the cottage for a month. I am SO loving our life there. It is simple and free.

I am blessed.

February & March Books Read

Books I read
1.


Chapter books I read with the kids
1. Happy Times in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgrin
2. Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
3. The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
4. Runaway Mouse by Beverly Cleary
5. Ramona and her Mother by Beverly Cleary


Picture books I read multiple times this month
1. Good Night Moon (B's fav)
2. Goodnight Rabbit (which was my sister's fav book when she first came to Canada)
3. Going on a Bear Hunt (B loves this one and every time I read it I am reminded how much J didn't :) he would always refuse the book because the bear scared him)
4. Noah's Ark

the end and beginning...

My parental leave is over. I started back to work last weekend. I was very sad driving into work last weekend. I didn't get much sleep at work as one of the clients stayed up until almost 3am watching tv (plus day light savings, dst, time was a factor) and I was just wide awake. Not exactly sure why.
Work was good. Short as I just worked the Sunday part of the shift. But overall, I fell back into the job without a hitch.
I returned home to two very over tired boys. They were late in settling to sleep Saturday night as my father let the cat out of the bag that I was headed into work (I had just told them I was going back to work in March and after that I just said 'soon' as I didn't want them to get worried or anxious) and then they missed an hour of sleep due to dst, then they didn't settle at quiet time and rest Sunday afternoon. Needless to say come bedtime Sunday night, my oldest was an over tired emotional wreck. He doesn't handle change well, especially when that change involves us not being together. He was a weepy, anxious, overtired wreck come bedtime and just begged me to stay upstairs with him. I brought him downstairs to get him calm. We watched the pvr'd episode of Heartland, by this time he was done with the weeping and then we snuggled together into my bed. His tears returned but he was more rational. After more reassurance that I would stay with him, he finally fell asleep. The next son was up in the night with nightmares.
Returning to work kinda sucks for the everyone. Well except B....she is my cool cat :) She just needed some snuggles after I got home and she was ok :) She doesn't carry as much baggage as the boys.

Before I headed into work, I had all figured out what was happening with childcare and I had all my ducks in a row (at least until Easter). Last night my ducks began to scatter. Which sent me into a panic (two nights previous of not enough sleep did not help things) and I was an emotional crying mess. I had to remind myself that God has the whole situation under control.

I got the boys quickly through school this morning (we aren't taking a week off right now as we are going to time off at Easter) and we headed off to visit C's chickens (they moved to a farm as we aren't allowed them in town and a neighbour complained...not sure if I blogged about it or not). It was a beautiful Spring day. I know Spring is probably not here to stay, but today was beautiful and we enjoyed it while we could. We spent the rest of the morning at the farm. I talked with my friend there and she gave me a couple of names to try for childcare. I left feeling much better about things. The children had a great time with the animals and mucking in mud.

My cousin's daughter is here for the rest of the week. I always enjoy having her as all the kids get along with her and when she is here it is company for me and an extra set of eyes and helping hands. Right now she is on a bread making boat (inspired by my baking bread earlier in the day)...right now my house smells yummy. She cleaned the kitchen from supper without being asked while I was getting the children ready for bed....so very nice and appreciated!

these photos are of CO when he was three. He loved mud then and he still loves mud today! He announced today that he was very excited for Spring because he was looking forward to playing with mud! (let the laundry marathon of muddy clothes begin!)

January Books Read

1. Crossfire by Jeanette Windle
2. Nurturing Adoptions by Deborah D. Gray
3. Unglued by  Lysa Terkeurs

Read Alouds with the CO
1. The Children of Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgrin
2. Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield

Childrens books with T (the ones he really enjoyed and I read multiple times)
1. Choo Choo by Virginia Lee Burton
2. Press Here by Herve Tullet

our schooling journey...

Well I got to teach both of my boys all week. T had a cold so he stayed home from school. It was a nice glimpse of our future (yes I am planning on teaching both the boys next year). I have spent a lot of time in prayer and planning trying to figure out how to teach two boys will essentially be grade 1 & 2 but with only 6 months gap in age. Well currently the decision, is to teach them both the same in all subjects other than Math and Reading. The thought of teaching them separately seems like a lot of work for such a small age gap and I think having them learn together will be unifying for them. I may actually have them fairly close in to being together in reading and math come fall. T spends time learning not only his lessons but also his brother's so I am fairly sure that when it comes to his time to have the lessons he has witnessed his brother have, he will just speed right through them :) It is SO fun to watch them be sponges for learning! I am SO thankful that God has blessed me with the job that I have so that I am able to teach my boys and be with them M-F.  It is so great to watch them finally figure out something that they have been struggling to figure out. It is so great to be able to celebrate with them when understanding kicks in.
This week T was doing a reading lesson about the short letter 'u'. Oh it was such a crazy lesson for him. He knew the letter sound. He would tell the sound of all the letters in the word but when it came time to blending them, he would say the word with the short 'o' sound. For instance he would have the word 'bug' say 'b-u-g bog'. I am not sure that this is something that would have been caught right away if he was having this same lesson in a group setting. He has developed some incorrect habits when it comes to his speech because he doesn't have top teeth so I am not sure if nobody ever thought to make sure that even if his teeth weren't there, that he was still using his mouth in the proper formation to make the sounds. We do a lot of correcting as I am a firm believer that if you aren't pronouncing your words properly, you aren't going to master reading them properly either. Well, we had a few days in a row this week that we could focus on the lesson at his pace. Lots of practice and today when he was reading his fluency page for the lesson, he only switched out the 'o' for the 'u' a couple of times rather than every time. We celebrated. It brought us closer (I would like to believe) and I got to share in this with him.
I am loving the math program we are using. CO is good at math...if he applies himself. That is probably one of his biggest struggles. He SO bad wants to be able to play and do school at the same time. Something that is rarely successful. The program we are using is set up so that they watch a lesson on a DVD with me and then they spend the rest of the week working on practicing what they have learning and reviewing what they have learned thus far. My goal for CO is to watch the lesson Monday and write the lesson test on Friday. Well this week, I was seeing that he wasn't grasping the lesson 100% by mid week and rather than sticking to the schedule for him to write the test today, I made up some flash cards to give him lots more practice and review. He will probably not write his test until the middle of next week so we can practice with the flash cards some more. This is one of the reasons why I home school. So that my boy's can learn at their own pace. In a group school setting, he would probably have started to fall behind and it would have been up to me to spend the evenings trying to catch him up when we were both tired, he would be frustrated and deflated because he would not have been on par with his peers potentially causing him to get farther and farther behind. It would mean we wouldn't be spending our evenings reading going on grand adventures while reading chapter books together but rather struggling through homework.
The math program explains thing in a fun way. For example a couple of weeks ago it was adding with 9. So, 9+5, 9+6, etc.   The way they explain it is that 9 wants to be a 10 because being 10 is VERY cool. So it uses the one hole that it has as a vacuum and steals one from the other number, so with 9+5....9 wants to be a ten...make a quick suction noise 'slurp' and that leaves 5 as a four...and the nine as a 10 meaning 14. I am probably explaining it not as clearly. So the lesson after that was adding with 8. 8 has two holes so it does two 'slurps'. It is fun for a boy to make vacuum noises to do his math.

here are the boys heading to swim lessons together. They are wearing insulated coveralls over their bathing suits :) Makes for being ready for the lesson that much faster. While the boys lessons are at different times this time round, it enables me to do some small 1:1 work with each boy as well as get some visiting in with some of the other moms and share our schooling journeys and struggles.

a day of celebration...

This evening on the way home from our Thursday adventures of drop Bea off at the sitter, go to swimming lessons, pick up Bea, go cook supper at my parent's, eat supper and head home...CO asked me 'how' he could ask Jesus into his heart so that he didn't have to die and spend time with that STUPID SATAN. I told him we could talk about the 'how' when we got home in a couple of minutes. I reminded him that we didn't use the 's-word' (that is what we call it...the s-word) and he piped up that Satan is STUPID even if we aren't supposed to say that word.
So this evening as I was tucking my little one into bed, I talked with him about what to do, and he prayed and asked Jesus into his heart.