My So-Called Homeschool

Barbara Curtis of Mommy Life is having an apron picture contest. There are still a few days to enter, so find a picture of you with your apron on and head on over. I’ve never thought about my apron much, but as a former staunch feminist, Barbara has a lot to say about what the apron, once a symbol of female slavery, now means to many of us regarding the decision we have made to stay home. I have to admit, when I put that apron, I feel like I’m in the uniform of the career I’ve chosen. Shlumping around in sweats or jeans-and-a-t may be my normal mode, but I constantly have to remind myself that this is the life I chose. I was not forced into this, the choice to stay home was a decision made after a lot of thought and prayer. Here’s the picture I sent to Barbara and a little bit of the story behind my apron:

I don’t have many pictures of myself in an apron — I’m usually the picture-taker. My absolutely favorite apron is one that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. She passed away the year we were married, I only met her once before that, but we have a common apron. It’s definitely vintage; a red, yellow, and green print of quaint Pensylvania Dutch folkart. When I wear that apron and cook from her 1955 Betty Crocker cookbook, complete with penciled notes in the margins, I feel like I know her quite well!

In this picture taken October 2005, I’m wearing my favorite apron, and the girls are wearing aprons my mother made from vintage fabric found in my grandmother’s attic. I think both grandmas would be proud!

Sigh. You get three kids dressed up, one husband ironed (and after the pants he planned to wear weren’t quite right, iron a second pair), yourself presentable and off to church. Then you sing for church — luckily the praise team sings on-mike but from the pew — while your 3-year-old son insists on sitting on your lap instead of with Nana and Papa, shrieking and crying for you the one time you DO stand up front to sing. Then you get home and serve a beautifully brown roast, complete with potatoes, carrots, and gravy. Presents are opened, pictures are taken, children and adults alike are thrilled. Then you chit-chat with the in-laws until you realize that you should probably be getting ready RIGHT NOW for the Christmas Eve service that you, your husband, and two oldest children are all singing in. Oh, and packing for the night at the sister-in-law’s house isn’t done yet either. So, all is packed, presents in the back of the van, all kids dressed up (again), hubby dressed up (still), yourself dressed up (again). Successful Christmas Eve service, your voice holds out and you can still breathe when it’s done. Daughters off with Nana and Papa to the SIL’s 1 1/2 hrs away, hubby can’t get away for another hour. Finally, off in the van to SIL’s, loosening pants, kicking off shoes, breathing a sigh that this part is over — then realization. YOU FORGOT THE CAMERA!!!! Duh. Anyway, here’s some from Christmas Eve day. Hopefully I’ll get some from the in-laws to post of the actual day.

(This one’s a little bluury — it’s always after the first picture that I notice the tiny fingerprint on the lens!)

(Air Buddies was provided to me free of charge by Disney for the purpose of review.)

I have to admit, I don’t think I’ve seen any of the Air Bud movies all the way through. I saw bits of the first one, and it seemed cute enough, but it didn’t particularly grab me. That could be because I didn’t have kids yet. Who knows. This movie, however, is adorable. If you hate cute, this wouldn’t be for you. Just look at those mugs!!!

Sitting down with my kids, I immediately asked “The dogs didn’t talk in the other movies, did they?” Nope, that’s a new thing. The voices for all the animals were perfect — especially Don Knotts as Sniffer, the sherriff’s dog. I wasn’t sure if it would work , but it did. Maybe not seeing the other movies helped with that.

It was a typical kids movie — predictable plot, advantage taken of every cuteness, cliche characters — but who cares? The kids loved it, I enjoyed it, what’s the problem? I wasn’t expecting Apocalypto! Anyway, I would recommend this movie without any caveats. No innuendo, very little gratuitous gross humor (one pup has a slight intestinal problem, but it’s limited to one ‘pull my finger’ bit and one ‘farting as a method of propulsion’ bit). The only think I didn’t really get was the bad guy character. Why a vintner/big game hunter? Anyone can hire two boobs to capture pups, why the far-out character?

Overall, a great kid’s movie for any age, definitely worth buying!  I think it would make a great gift for any kid on your list that you’re not quite sure what to get — or to keep on hand for a just-in-case gift.

Next - Fox and the Hound 2, then that should be it for the reviews for a while.

I really do have some other stuff to post, but I need to get some business done — for some reason, these folks want links before Christmas! I wonder why?

(Barnyard was provided to me free of charge by Special Ops Media for the purpose of review.)

Watching the trailers, I wasn’t that impressed — it just wasn’t a movie I thought I’d want to go see. It looked like just another anthromorphic movie, and fart-joking animals just aren’t my thing. Plus, being raised in Kansas, the whole male-cattle-with-udders thing hit me wrong right off the bat. But, I thought I’d see what the kids thought and offered to watch and review it.

Once I watched it, my opinion didn’t change much. The udder thing still bothered me. Really, if you’re going to do a movie about animals, research the subject animal thoroughly! The kids, being Detroiters, however never even noticed or commented on it. City kids, what do they know?! The music was rockin’. Monkey boy rarely sat down the entire time, either dancing on a chair or rocking around the room. Ben’s rendition of “I Won’t Back Down” worked very well in his coyote fighting scenes and I liked the repeat of it when Otis finally grows a backbone.

The message that you have to grow up sometime — and if you don’t something bad could happen — is one that I think kids need to hear. I’m not sure if this really was the vehicle for that message. The movie bounced back and forth between fart jokes and nearly maudlin introspective scenes much too quickly, leaving one with a bit of mental whiplash. The movie is rated PG, and rightfully so. Some PG movies my 6 and 8 year olds — and even the 3 year old — can handle just fine. The girls were fine with it, although Pink Pixie turned her back on the coyote scenes. They were NOT too scary, mind you, she just “didn’t like them”. Monkey Boy (3) found it a little too scary. Other than that, I thought there were just a few too many jokes with innuendo for my kids’ ages. Most of it went over their heads, but in my opinion what goes over their heads often still goes into their subconscious and they just don’t need that in the back of their minds. Also, the bonus features are not rated — nothing horribly inappropriate, I just think the image of a pig with a bottle of BBQ sauce stuck in its butt is an image they didn’t need burned into their brains.

Overall, there were cute moments — but they didn’t square with the overall tone of the movie which was geared to older kids. Conversely, older kids may have found the cute bits boring and the message a bit preachy. It wasn’t bad to watch for free, but I wouldn’t have paid for it.

Yeah, I’m behind, what’s new?

I didn’t get actual Halloween pictures — of course my batteries were dying in the camera and I couldn’t find the charger! But our church has an Autumn Fest celebration the Friday before Halloween and this year all three kids wore the exact same costumes for both events. I did get one picture on Halloween night — the loot!!!

Ok, I sure hope this doesn’t blow my data allotment for this blog! In a nutshell: Vacation was awesome, the reunion was fun — very casual, just a cook-out with about 15 of the 23 members of my graduating class, time with Mom was WAAAAY too short, time with my in-laws even shorter. Driving was WAAAAAY too long — even Squid said we should fly next time and he was the main “let’s drive, flying is too expensive” proponent. Now, on to the pictures.

As I mentioned, we drove aaaalll the way to Kansas. The first leg of the trip was 12 hours, to Kansas City. One of the rest stops had a cute little play area, with a super-wide teeter-totter, swings, and a climbing area. You’ll notice a theme in all the pictures — I’m usually taking them so you won’t see me much!

After staying the night in Kansas City, we had a late breakfast, trip to Walmart for things we forgot, and a leisurely trip to Stafford. There is no hotel in Stafford except for the establishment affectionately known to the natives as The Roach Motel. No thanks! But a few years ago a former resident bought up several old Victorians and has opened 4 bed-and-breakfasts. The one we stayed in was probably the most recent acquisition and still has a lot of renovations to be done.

See those stairs? Those go up to the ‘Gentlemen’s Suite’, which was where we were staying. It was a very interesting suite of rooms, two bedrooms with two beds each, a strange little hallway and a private bath. With three children (one potty training), a shared bathroom would have been asking for disaster!

Now, I didn’t take any pictures of the Oktoberfest parade float — it was very elaborate: Hay bales and a sign that said “20th Reunion Class of 1986″. Yeah, we’re not one of the super school-spirit classes, we just wanted to hang out! There were pictures taken, but I seem to have deleted the e-mail. As soon as I get it again, I’ll post the uber-float here!

OK, this is getting long — I think I’ll post part 2 later!

We’re heading to Kansas tomorrow morning, so today’s busy with last-minute tasks. We’re going to my ::cough:: 20th ::cough:: high school reunion this weekend, spending time with my mom and sister next week, and then meeting up with Squid’s parents for the next weekend. Lots of stuff to do, people to see! I can’t wait, I think my Mom is about to burst with excitement. This sister hasn’t even seen Monkey Boy yet, she’s pretty geeked too!

Hold the fort for me, I may or not may not blog from the road.

You know, I haven’t posted in over a week - but it’s not for lack of material. I get so many ideas, I just can’t focus my thoughts down to one post! Here’s some of the things running through my brain:

• How can I get Monkey Boy to do his vocal percussion in front of the camera so I can post it?
• Should we be doing more structured lessons?
• Is my new laundry routine really working?
• When we ever get the renovations done? What shall we do next? When will we be able to afford the next step?
• I’ve got to get some bulbs planted before the ground freezes. Probably should get it done before we leave on vacation.
• We’re leaving on vacation next Thursday. AAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK so much to do!!!
• Squid’s hours may be cut to 3 days per week for a while. What are we going to do?
• The washer won’t spin out the clothes. I tried to fool it by running another spin cycle - 3 times - but ended up wringing out the bottom half of the load by hand. We can’t get a new one til after vacation — and then probably not for a while. It’s probably at least 30 years old, does anyone repair these things?
• I have got to start doing my Bible study every day. There’s just too much good stuff in there to wait until the afternoon of the study. Of course, I’d have time if I weren’t on the computer so much or if I’d get up when I need to (6:30 am) instead of when my body wants to (8:30 am).
• Why does God need us to pray? Doesn’t He have a plan already? If He is all-knowing and omnipotent, what difference do our prayers make? Are we going to change His mind? I know we’re commanded to pray, so I do, but I wonder about these things.
• Bunches of stuff going on with Sis. Should I blog it or would it be exposing more than she would want. She could use the prayers and well-wishes.
• Is this urge to sleep all the time depression or a thyroid problem?  Just no energy for anything.
• I’ve got to lose some weight, need to exercise.  I really shouldn’t be gasping for breath after running Monkey Boy on his trike for 5 minutes.  Oh, how I hate exercising.

See how it goes? Round and round and round, with little or no lag time between thoughts. That’s actually just a little more organized than my brain is, I just put it in bullets for reading clarity. Sigh. Maybe one of these days I can find time to expand some of these things into posts.

No, not blogging, you’re still stuck with me! My last day at the daycare will be September 1. I am so glad to be done with that, although I am very grateful that God put it in my path when He did. Working just a few hours every day really helped us get some bills paid. But I was getting more and more frustrated with the job. I’m just not cut out to be a preschool teacher! If I were, I guess that would have been my career path in the first place. It’s ironic, I homeschool my own children, but 4 hours with 6-8 toddlers was making me batty! Not to mention illness (I’m home sick today with something I picked up there), it’s almost impossible to ask a parent at the door to take their sick child back home and skip work that day — particularly since most of our parents are single parents. But as soon as one child has a hacking cough and fever, you know it’s going to hit everyone in the room — including you!

Then there’s the time away from my family. I told C I was doing this to help our family, and that the minute it became a detriment to my family I was out of there. The girls hate it there — they’re 6 and 7 (Jasmine will be 8 in December) — it’s just too boring for them. This summer might have been better, since they have a school-age program, but 3 of the 8 kids in that class are completely out-of-control siblings who are rotten to each other, disrespectful to the teacher, and pick on the other kids. Plus there’s the 7yo with the rage disorder. They actually had to physically pick him up and carry him from one room to another b/c they needed to consolidate classes. He was so angry, he knocked a large sand table completely over! My girls know to stay out of his way, and they’re not the types to tease him to distraction, but still they could end up collateral damage. They were also bringing home some mouthiness and general rotten attitudes. Not all of it was “bad influences”, but I think some of it was also just not enough Mom time. Most of my morning is spent getting ready for the afternoon.

Homeschooling has pretty much gone out the window except for those opportunities when we can discuss ideas on the way to work or around the house. Yesterday was the difference between a mirage and oasis (they were a little confused which was real and which wasn’t), and they even learned what a metaphor was (the red room is an oasis of peace in the cacophony of noise at Children’s Outreach).

Anyway, all that bubbled up into this post, which my friend Tammy from church read. She e-mailed me to say that she wasn’t sure what she was going to do with Joey when she went to school in the fall and VOILA! Another gift from God just in the right timing. I’m going to watch her son for her, for considerably less than she’d be paying most places, and I can stay home with my own kids! He and Monkey Boy have already hit it off, MB is asking me everyday when Joey is coming to play. I’ll be making about half what C was paying me — BUT there’s more! The mother of the triplets two houses down from us (also from church) stopped by to drop off a bag of clothes for Pink Pixie and mentioned to Squid that she might be starting a new job and may need someone to watch the girls after school. Nothing’s solid yet, but looks like another answer to prayer.

I know there will be new challenges with more kids in our little house, but I know that we will work them out. For now, I am just counting the days til September, 21 to be exact!

All my churchy readers are probably vicariously exhausted just reading the title.  I don’t know what it is about Vacation Bible School that just sucks the life right out of you, but I am always just totally beat by the end of the week.  Luckily for us, this year we did Monday and Tuesday’s scheduled programs this morning and evening, so we’ll finish the week on Wednesday.  It made for a slightly crazy Sunday, but this way we’ll end on our biggest day.  Our attendance always goes from around 300 to 450 or so by Wednesday, then drops off on Thursday and Friday — I think lots of people head up North for the weekend and want to get an early start.

Squid is heading up the VBS praise team for the week, I’m singing, and this year the girls are singing too!  They had such a blast, and their friends thought they were SOOOO cool to get to sing on mike.  Our preacher told them they were awesome, and told us privately that having kids on the team really gave it the ‘VBS sound’.  It’s not that big of a deal, but I’m pretty proud!

Well, it’s a busy week, in addition to our VBS, the local Lutheran church is having theirs too, mornings.  The girls invited a friend to ours today, so she invited them to come to hers.  I’ll have 4 hrs/day basically to myself!  What will I ever find to fill the time?  Oh, yeah, the stuff I didn’t get done this weekend because I was being lazy.  Sigh.  It always catches up with me!

I actually posted ON my birthday (the 3rd) and did not mention it, lol! It was a pretty anti-climactic day. Squid took me out Saturday night, we saw X-men 3: The Final Stand (hated the ending!) and went to dinner at Amigos, a local Mexican restaurant. Yeah, I work in Mexicantown and we ate Mexican in a suburb. Go figure! Sunday we had a picnic at church — it’s so nice of them to do that for my birthday every year - hah! Squid had to work Monday, but the girls felt it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t go to Red Robin after he got off work. They were so worried the waitress wouldn’t know it was my birthday and I wouldn’t get the goofy birthday song. They should have known, Daddy was on top of it. We came home, and I blogged a little and went to bed with a slight headache.

The 4th came along and Squid was working again. We didn’t plan anything to do — which turned out to be a good thing, since that headache didn’t go away but just lurked, and when I lay down for a nap BAM! It turned into a migraine. I don’t them very often, but this one was a doozy. Of course, by the time Monkey Boy woke up I was into the nausea stage and he was right there.

“Whatcha doin mom?”

“Barfing, son”

“Oh.”

“GO AWAY!”

“It’s OK mom, you not sick. You OK mom!”

Oh, that his words would make it so! Jasmine and Pink Pixie were out at friends’ houses playing, but they happened to come back home and distracted Monkey for a while. I lay for about 30 minutes with a cold washcloth over my eyes and POOF! it disappeared. Thank goodness!

Anyway, that was my holiday weekend. Welcome to the excitement that is my life!

I’m sitting here at 8:45 am blogging instead of later in the day because I’m now working afternoons again. I started this part-time job at an inner-city daycare working 3pm until the count went down to where they didn’t need me (around 5:30 or so). It wasn’t many hours, and yes I was driving to Detroit for just a couple of hours a day, but the pay still helped out around the house even with the price of gas. I can’t get another job where I can bring my kids along, and Squid’s schedule is so constantly changing that I can’t schedule anything around him. I was working in one of the preschool rooms, the Green Room, with 3 and 4 year olds. They were making me crazy! I am not really temperamentally suited for working with large groups of young belligerent kids. I don’t know how to describe most of these kids. It’s beyond the normal defiance of stamping a foot and yelling NO!. Most of them just look through you like “Was someone talking to me?” when you try to correct them. Well, those are the ones who aren’t deliberately challenging you — again, beyond the normal boundary pushing of this age. Anyway, between feeling like I just wasn’t any good at what I was doing and getting home after dark (I started in February) with dinner being pushed later and later, I was really not liking my job. (Massive understatement) So when my boss, who incidentally is my minister’s wife, came to me to see if I’d like to move to the toddler room at 7am, I jumped at the chance! I can handle temper tantrums when they’re actually age-appropriate. Monkey Boy is in that class, which has worked out pretty well. And I figured we would be done by 11am and have the rest of the day to do schooling or whatever. But . . . things never work out quite the way you think they will. What actually ended up happening was we’d go in at 7am (me, up at 5:30, kids up at 6, out the door at 6:20), then I’d work til 11. I have some heartbreaking stories to tell about these kids, but I’m not sure if I’m going to do that here. Like I said, my boss’s husband is my minister and I know he reads this blog. I’m just not sure what would be appropriate. Anyway, we’d get home by 12 or so — I never left right on time — and then we’d have lunch and nap about 1. Monkey would of course fall asleep on the way home and think he’d had his nap for the day! He was sequestered to his crib anyway for an hour or two. I would drag my sorry butt out of bed around 3 or 4. The day is shot! Time to think about dinner. Then I wouldn’t be very sleepy to go to bed early so I’d be beat the next morning again. And so the cycle went. Just before I switched to the early morning shift, I had a miscarriage, then a day after I switched, my co-worker miscarried a couple of weeks later so I ended up actually working nearly full-time, we’re trying to potty train Monkey Boy and put him in a toddler bed (Whose idea was that to do those at the same time? They should be shot!), and other and sundry life happenings. I think moving back to an afternoon shift might actually work at least for summer. Even though we won’t get home til dinner time, we can eat a little late and the girls can still go out and play with their friends after dinner.

I don’t know how long I can do this job. It just sucks the life out of me. Besides issues with the kids that are draining, there is a lot of drama among the workers (again, won’t go into it for now anyway). PLUS, you know that homeschooling thing I do so my kids won’t be picking up a lot of bad attitudes from school? Yeah, that doesn’t work so well when you take them to daycare with you in the inner city. They are getting some very bad habits — from 3, 4, and 5 year olds no less! We talk about it and try to make a life lesson of it, but I think there’s just too much reinforcement there. But whenever I bring it up to Squid, he just looks at me with this I-really-hate-to-say-this look and says “You know, it is really helping out, though.” Until his possible full-time position solidifies, I’m stuck here. We’ve been praying about it, but it seems the answer is “Wait” for now. I’m holding on by my fingernails in the meantime . . .

(Yes, I know that it says 4:19 pm is when this posted, but I drafted this a couple of mornings ago and had to finish it later.)

I don’t know what’s up with me! I get on the computer, and surf Blog Explosion or Blog Mad — oh, and can’t forget the Blogging Chicks blogroll — but just can’t get up the energy to actually write anything. Let’s see, what’s happening around here? Quick bullets, maybe something will inspire me to write a whole post.

• Potty training Monkey Boy
• Monkey Boy has a Big Boy Bed now!
• Still working at the daycare, 7-11 am. There’s a whole post on the drama at THAT place, for sure!
• Squid (Hubby’s new nickname here on the blog, explanation here) has been working on a freelance project — a promotional video for an interracial unity event our denomination is holding for the greater Detroit area. He worked many, many hours more than he thought he would on that one, giving me much less online time for the past week or so, lol!
• I got asked to teach the music for a little drama the kids are working on this summer during Wednesday night Bible class. Problem? I didn’t get the lyrics sheet til last Wednesday night right before class. It’s and original drama that our youth minister’s wife did when she was a kid. No CD or tape, no sheet music. Just words and names of tunes. Sigh.
• No major renovations right now. I need to plant flowers, as right now I have a big pile of woodchip-covered dirt on either side of the front porch. I need to paint the dining room too. We’ll see when budgetary limitations will allow those two projects to happen!

I guess that’s about it. The girls have dance camp next week and Jasmine goes to church camp for a half-week the week after. Maybe I’ll have more time then. Please hold on for more posting, I promise it will get better.

Oh, boy, it’s been crazy around here! Last week was one of the hottest in MI for this time of year — it was actually in the 90’s! Usually Memorial Day Weekend is gloomy, wet, and cold so this was quite a change.

We’ve been wanting to put in a patio for a while, but Hubby and I disagreed on whether we should have pavers or a poured patio. The fact that the basement leaks along the back wall right under where a patio would go gave the poured patio trump power. So, we had the Honduras mission team from church come and do some practice work — they will be building a church building while in Honduras in a couple of weeks. We paid for the materials and labor, and they donated the manhours so the labor part would actually go towards their building fund (did that sentence make sense?). Of course, everyone tried not to complain while working in the 90°, 80% humidity day, considering that it will be much hotter and at least that humid in Honduras in July!

Before the patio could be poured, our friend Tim used his backhoe to dig out a 6-ft hole along the back wall, check for cracks — none were found! — and tar up the back wall. Then that was filled with sand and some of the dirt. While the backhoe was there, I had him take out some nasty bushes in front of the house (of course I didn’t take before pictures, that would have been smart!). He used some of the topsoil from the back to build me up a little burm on either side of the front porch. Since I wasn’t really planning to have that done right away, of course I have no budget for flowers and now have two dirtpiles in front of the house. Pretty! Anyway, the rest of the team came Friday night and they dug out the topsoil along the entire back of the house and 10 ft wide. Then they built the forms and started putting in the gravel. After tamping that all down, we were short about 3 yards of gravel, though, so everyone went home around 9:30 or so and came back Saturday morning to get to work again. Monkey Boy was in seventh heaven the whole weekend! “Mither Tim” was his new best friend, as he dug along side Tim and ‘helped’ him all weekend. Mither Tim even let him ride the backhoe with him and run the shovel!!! I kept saying “Monkey, stay out of the way”, but Tim has 5 kids, two of which are boys under the age of 3. He knew what he was getting into asking Monkey to help! Saturday at noon the concrete truck came. It was quite a site, 3-4 men in their 30s - 50s, and two teenage boys hauling wheelbarrows full of concrete up our driveway! The boys wanted to prove they could pull their weight so to speak, and the men wanted to prove they weren’t getting old. There were some very sore muscles Sunday, I’m sure! I bet there were around 50 wheelbarrowloads! By Saturday afternoon, it was all finished. Hubby wrote in the cement “To the Glory of God, Honduras Mission Team, May 27 2006. We wanted the team to all sign it, but they were all too shy. If you knew these folks, you would know what a joke that is! The girls wrote their names (Monkey was in bed trying to nap), and that was that. We are so blessed– at a cookout at Mither Tim’s house, some other church friends of ours had heard me saying we didn’t have patio furniture. They are getting new furniture, and will be bringing their old set over as soon as his truck gets out of the shop!

So, that’s what we’ve been up to. Summer is here and the outside is the place to be! Plus, when they did the pataio they had to move the air conditioner, so it’s been hotter than heck in the house. Of course, the day it got back down to the 70s (yesterday), was the day they hooked it back up, lol!

And here’s pictures (lots!) I won’t caption them, I think you can figure them out:

I haven’t uploaded pictures to this blog yet (any old ones are from Blogger), so here goes!

Anyone know how I can get these a little bigger?

Oops, now they’re huge. I guess I have some work to do!

OK, I think I’ve got it! I think they’re linked now, if you want to see a full-sized picture, click on the thumbnail. Yes, I’m blonde under this Miss Clairol and grey!

The trio at church

The bunny, the bunny, oh I love the bunny

Ra-Ra’s Easter Sandals (her first ‘high heels’)

Te-Te’s Easter Sandals (her first hh’s too)

Obligatory Easter basket pic