Long have I claimed that children are a little loose in the screws, but now I have photographic evidence. You know how most people sleep in their beds with actual blankets covering them? Well, my smaller girls have decided that something so pedestrian really will not do and have come up with alternative sleeping arrangements:

Here’s Faithy

And Kyra

And yes, they have indeed tucked blankets through the slats of the top bunk to form girly little cocoon beds. They actually do somehow sleep in these things… at least until I catch them and return them to people-land. Maybe it’s like a hammock.

And how, you may ask, did they come with this brilliant idea? How the heck should I know! The minds of small children are bizarre, inscrutable places full of curiosity and frivolity. Who knows what goes on in there. Yikes!

Here is Henry’s cuteness for the day. I got him dressed today but didn’t put any shoes on him. Apparently that was not suitable to his footwear needs, so he found something he could put on himself.

Yes, those are Faith’s red patent leather church shoes he’s wearing. Really, this child is too cute for his own good.

See Kyra’s shoes? Henry had those on first. I’m not entirely sure how she got them off of his feet without some sort of cataclysmic event. Like the orange blob? Faith insisted on being in the picture and wearing that. Why? Did you not read the previous paragraph re: children’s minds?? Especially that child!

Personally, I think Henry’s shoes kind of work with the truck. Of course, everyone knows that red patent leather shoes go with everything.

Rachel

P.S. Grandpa and Grandma (and anyone else), here are two more recent photo albums if you want to peruse. Got some halfway decent shots.

Steps for LIfe Walkathon 5/15/10

Stonehenge Road Trip 5/29/10

Happily, today is one of those together days. Georgie got a 96% on his grammar test, and all three of the girls got 100% on their spelling tests. Yay! I teach good. Yeah sure, I suppose they may have had something to do with it.

This is Kyra’s first year of school (she’s five, turns six in July), and I’ve switched curriculum with her. The other kids I taught to read with TATRAS; and while it was okay, it just seemed to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r and the phonics didn’t always translate to the spelling side. Georgie didn’t pick up any reading speed until he was at least eight despite having been through all of TATRAS and several years of school. Trinity read right off the bat but was was an atrocious speller.

This year I switched everyone over to Spell to Write and Read and started Kyra off with it. I also decided to be bold and teach her cursive right from the start instead of printing. Okay, so that’s not bold like jumping from moving aircraft or engaging in hand-to-hand combat with an armed assailant, but it’s educationally bold. For me.

The basic philosophy of SWR is to skip the whole teaching them to read thing (which I loathe doing anyway because it is painfully slow and repetitive and awful) and just teach them to spell. After they hit a certain point, all the stuff that they can spell they will also be able to read and the reading will sort of organically occur.

Kyra and I have been faithfully practicing her 70 phonogram cards all year (which she only forgot two of today and she’ll have completely down by the end of next week), and guess what? It seems to be working. She’s starting to pick words off of things like the Amazon box and wants to read her readers more often. Learning cursive right away hasn’t seemed confusing with reading things in print. Here is today’s spelling test:

Awesome, huh? Go, Kyra! In case you’re trying to figure out the marking system (which I’m sure you all are), the double underlines are silent ‘e’s, and the single underlines are for double letter phonograms.

The other children have all had a marked improvement in both spelling and penmanship except for Georgie whose penmanship remains borderline terrible despite my best efforts, death threats, and blackmail. Hmmm, blackmail. Maybe I should tell him I’ll post his stuff on the blog. He’s almost to the age where parental embarrassment becomes an effective disciplinary tool. Hehe. His spelling isn’t too bad though. I guess in another year or two I should teach him to type.

In other, unrelated news that also falls under the “School” heading, I now know where the Duero River is, which until two weeks ago I had never even heard of. Yay, geography! Oh, I’m supposed to be teaching the kids school? Right. I knew that. Learning all this stuff myself is just a happy byproduct.

Rachel

Ever wondered what happens when your four year old does your hair? When I was pregnant with Henry last year I spent several months on the couch trying really hard not to vomit, and Kyra decided that good Mommy and Kyra time would involve her sitting on the arm of the couch right by my head and brushing my hair for hours. This was actually quite relaxing, so we both enjoyed it(after I gave my hair a quick brushing beforehand to diminish the “ow” factor of a young hair stylist).

Since Henry was born a year ago, though, I’ve been more in zoom mode and less in lie on the couch mode so Kyra’s hairdoing opportunities have lessened considerably. The other day she asked if she could do my hair, and I had some computer stuff to do so I just laid on the couch with my laptop and let her play all she wanted. Soon she was heading my way with armfuls of hair clippies. Hey, if two clippies are pretty, all the clippies must be ever so much more lovely! And here is my resulting ‘do:

This picture doesn’t get the back which is completely covered in clippes as well. And how many clips, bobby pins, etc. do you think were in my hair? Oh, just fifty-nine. Took me fifteen minutes to take them all out!

Rachel

Kyra’s educational voyage began today, and boy was she happy! She’s been asking me to start doing school with her ever since her nap schedule dropped from every day to every other day a few months ago, and as I was browsing through my computer stuff today I discovered a whole stash of old alphabet printables that I had made up ages ago when I got started with the older kids.

After rummaging around downstairs for a binder and printing off all the tracers, Kyra and I put together a school book for her and she sat down next to me in my room and did school while I worked on my computer. She’s four and a half. School at this age is not terribly consuming, and I’m pretty sure I can keep her busy with tracers for a few weeks until I get going with the big kids next month.

We started today with tracers for her name. As soon as she can do that, we’ll move on to the alphabet. Here’s a couple of pictures of my happy new student:

Yes, fancy desk and materials, I know. She seems thoroughly happy to be sitting on my bedroom floor right next to Mommy with the bathroom stool for her desk. So congratulations, Kyra, and welcome to school!

Rachel

Kyra and Faith often come in when they wake up in the morning (around 8:15 or so) and climb up on me & George’s bed to visit for a few minutes. The other day George was already showered and in his office when Kyra came in to visit with me (she’s 3). Her lips have been a bit chapped and I noticed she had an owee on her lip.

ME: Kyra, did you bite your lip?

KYRA: Yes.

ME: Sweetie, don’t do that. Then it makes an owee and bleeds.

KYRA: But Mommy, I like blood. It tastes yummy.

ME: No, yucky!

KYRA: You know what else tastes yummy?

ME: {No answer. How can I get out of this conversation?}

KYRA: Boogers!

ME: Nooooo, that’s disgusting! Don’t eat boogers. Gross!!!!

KYRA: No Mommy, they’re really good. You should try them.

Okay, well time for a shower now. Despite that very polite invitation to share, I declined the Booger Breakfast. Apparently I’m raising a vampiric snot-eater. Argh!!! Why in the world do children do this?? My son and I used to have similar conversations, although he didn’t try to talk me into eating this new delicacy. Blech! So disgusting.

So there’s the gross-out post for today. I had to write this down so that I don’t forget. As much as I would I would like to forget the entire conversation ever occurred, I am torn by my desire for amnesia and my desire to embarrass Kyra with this story in about ten years. Hehe. Hey, if I have to listen to this stuff now, I think it’s entirely fair to remind them of it later so they can errr, enjoy it to when they’re old enough to appreciate it…. It’s almost as good as the picture of Kyra playing the piano naked (she thinks that picture is hilarious now). I’m sure I’ll be able to put that to good use later.

Rachel

Ahhh, it’s so nice when the children start getting a little big bigger and more helpful. Take Georgie, for example. He’s eight now and delights in responsibilities like walking Kyra (age 2.5) to Sunday School before he heads up to his own class.

Usually I do this myself so that I can take her potty beforehand; but this week I left something in the car and when I returned from retrieving it, Kyra was already off to class. I messed with Faith for a few minutes and then visions of a wet-pantied child started crowding into my head, so I hopped up the stairs to go check on her.

When I got to Kyra’s classroom, a small knot of three other women whose children are also in the class were standing outside the door chatting and distance monitoring their own brood for unexplained meltdowns (this is the two and three year old class after all, and this round has about eleven boys to three girls). The Moms started laughing as soon as they saw me coming….

“I just came to check on Kyra; looks like she made it to class okay.” I said, peeking through the door.

“Yes, Georgie brought her in.” replied one of the Moms. More laughter (a lot more).

Apparently Kyra had been just fine up the stairs and down the hall but freaked out as soon as she got near the classroom door. Being the sensitive, gentle brother that he is, Georgie decided to tackle her into Sunday School. It seems he managed to push, pull, shove, force her into the classroom despite the screaming, kicking, and other unpleasantries aimed at him.

Unfortunately, after all that Herculean effort dragging her into the room, she managed to escape his grip and fled back through the door, so he had to duplicate all of this effort and coerce her back into class a second time! Upon re-depositing her in the classroom, he blithely announced “Here ya go. See ya!” and ran away down the hall, leaving his howling sister alone to be comforted by Mrs. K., the Sunday School teacher.

Wow, I sure am thrilled that my son is getting bigger and so much more helpful!

Rachel

KYRA AND THE VERY BAD DAY

How was your day? Here’s the upshot of mine:

8:45 Drive Georgie & Trinity to school (starts at 9)

9:15 Meet Hubby at Jamba Juice to deliver the cell phone and USB drive that he left on the kitchen table this morning

10:00 School with Anika and laundry (whites)

10:30 Discover that while Ani and I were doing school, Kyra (age 2 and a half) was busy removing all non-pajama articles of clothing (that would be everything) and replacing them with princess jammy clothing. Re-upholster Kyra in appropriate attire. Remind her to leave clothes on.

10:45 Faith gets cranky, goes down to nap (she usually sleeps for around two hours in the morning and the same in the afternoon). Difficult getting her to sleep due to lack of binky. She has three but all have mysteriously vanished. All pacifiers last seen in Kyra’s mouth (her interest in pacifiers began a scant two months ago). Upon interrogation, she claims no knowledge of their current whereabouts.

11:00 Find Kyra with chocolate all over her face that she has appropriated from kitchen counter while I was putting Faith to bed. Remind her that foraging is not allowed and it’s nearly lunch time.

11:15 Find Kyra with barbeque chip breath and crumb evidence surrounding mouth area. Reprimand for swiping again.

11:45 Lunch

11:50 Faith wakes up in somewhat grumpy mood

12:45 Pick up Georgie & Trinity, back by 1:15

1:15 Get kids going on chores, homework, etc.

1:30 Find Kyra clothing-less again. Discover at the same time that she has fished my dead Jamba Juice cup from the garbage and is busily distributing meager contents accross the living room coffee table. Somewhat sterner disciplinary measures ensue.

2:00 Naptime for Kyra and Anika (thank heaven!). Georgie and Trinity have quiet time upstairs. Faith with me and still grumpy.

2:45 Faith finally to nap.

3:00 Lunchtime for me. Bowl of Golden Grahams. High dull factor, but at least I can sit down for two minutes without anyone screaming or behaving in any other indigestion-inducing fashion.

3:15 Fold laundry

3:45 Kyra wakes up and goes to play with Georgie and Trinity.

4:00 Faith wakes up crying because…. Kyra went into the room she was sleeping in (this makes two short naps for Faith today). Call Hubby and request that he bring home edible food for dinner tonight.

4:15 Discover Kyra again with actual clothing articles missing and alternate pair of princess jammies on. Try very hard not to actually kill her. Partially successful.

4:45 Find Kyra in kitchen with fridge door open and cheese brick in her hand.

4:50 In frustration, I go partially comatose on couch. Start indiscriminately yelling at whomever walks within ten feet of me.

5:00 Kyra miraculously discovers all three binkies and returns them to me by throwing them down the stairs at my head.

5:10 Answer the phone, “Hades Incorporated, this is Rachel speaking” when Hubby calls me on the phone to confirm dinner plans. Start macaroni for kids. Promptly return to couch.

5:30 Kids eat dinner

5:40 Hubby returns home. With food.

6:40 I practice my amazing disappearing act by entering the office and not reappearing until after five small children are in bed.

My friend’s teenaged son asked me at church the other day what I do all day while my older two kids are at school. I may possibly strangle anyone else who asks me that ever.

Yesterday my day involved Anika dropping a can of corn on Faith’s head (1/2″ long mark), Kyra falling out of her chair and scratching her stomach, Georgie arguing with exactly every statement any of his sisters made, and Trinity and Anika getting into a very large fight over dental floss. My Hubby asked me what I want for Christmas and actually seemed perplexed when I responded, “An overnight date with no children.” DUH!!!

With a modicum of luck and a dash of sleep, I’m hoping that Kyra will be improved tomorrow. She tends to have a very bad day every few weeks or so, and if I sit on her well enough she straightens up considerably by the next day. Sure is an exhausting day though.

Rachel