Socialize, socialize, socialize

Mmhmm... it's a key phrase, it's the most asked question when people find out you're homeschooling, and it's something my pediatrician has brought up at the last several appointments since hearing we're homeschooling (because clearly my very friendly, talkative children are lacking in socialization! @@)

So this is aimed at our dear pediatrician.

Dear Sir,
I've heard that you are concerned that my four children, since they are being homeschooled, might not have proper opportunities to socialize with children... other than their siblings (yes he really said that they needed to socialize with kids their own age other than their siblings), but I want to assure you that my children have plenty of opportunity to socialize.  Let me list these opportunities for you to put your mind at ease.

1 - they attend church every Sunday (as long as they aren't sick) and are in classes with similar aged peers.
2 - through the school year they attend our Awana program at church on Wed nights where again they are in class with similar aged peers.

3 - in the summer we attend our church's week-long VBS program where once more they are in class with similar aged peers.
4 - As they age into it and show desire they are registered for t-ball with similar aged peers.

mine is number 11

 5 - We make an honest attempt to spend time at the library weekly throughout the whole year - sometimes for story time and sometimes just to be there.  There is often socializing with peers of similar ages and would you believe it they socialize with the adult librarians too!  It's amazing!
6 - every time we walk into the grocery store all together they have opportunity to socialize as people comment on how good they are being or how cute they are.  Some adults even start conversations with my children and then (gasp) my children once again go socializing outside their age bracket.
7 - my children are blessed to be four of almost 12 cousins all 7 and under and so they are similar aged peers.  Regular playdates and family gatherings definitely qualify as socializing.

this is an older pic and it's missing a couple of cousins who weren't born yet.

from Easter this year.  Missing Tristan who lives in FL and the belly bean my sister hasn't had yet. lol

8 - it CANNOT be ignored here people - while we are home, together, during the day, my children socialize with one another.  I cannot for the life of me imagine WHY being siblings makes this socializing any less valid.  They learn sharing and problem solving together, they learn to play cooperatively.  They share ideas back and forth and they teach one another.  My oldest is happy to read aloud to his younger brothers.  My younger boys are happy to show their baby sister how things work.

It's also necessary to mention that most of a teacher's time at school is spent telling the children to STOP talking (ie socializing) and listen to learn.  So really the whole homeschoolers lack socialization thing is a HUGE unfounded myth.  Yes there are some families that are super sheltering, we are not one of those families.  I LOVE for my children to get together with their friends and their cousins.... so that *I* can socialize!

In conclusion, I hope that this plethora of socialization opportunities, my children have, puts your mind at rest and we are able to move on from this serious misconception of yours.  Because really if you're going to be concerned with my home schooling shouldn't you care more about whether my children are learning the fundamentals of reading and math that they will need to succeed in the future in higher education and career paths than whether or not they have enough time to chit chat with other children the same age as them???

Sincerely,
the somewhat annoyed mom of the super socialized monkey boys and princess girl

PS. The princess if given a mirror will even socialize with herself! Now THAT is socialization at it's best!

The summer reading program

The summer reading program has been such a blessing to our family this summer in so many ways.

1 - it's been a free activity and the kids love going each week to get their next prize for listening to/reading books.

2 - it's kinda pushed us into more quality time together as I read books to the younger two boys.  Princess was too young for the program this year but she often listens along as well.

and sometimes she takes matters into her own little hands and reads alone.

3 - it's shown Squirrel monkey that he can read.... by himself... for fun or to his brothers.  It's stretched him as a reader and he's really gotten into it.  I LOVE it.  He was about 5 mo younger than the age category called for but he's been reading independently for more than a year so I kinda pushed to have him put in the read alone category to stretch him and it's been great. 

4 - the prizes have been great - free snacks at McD's (our local McD's sponsors our reading program), and tickets to the county fair - one "ticket" includes a free parking pass, one free ride ticket, and one free amphitheater ticket.  This is huge for us.  It will allow us to go to the fair together as a family this year for super low cost - just the cost of KOJ and I getting in the gate, since we've got the parking pass.  I'm so blessed by this because I know that the kids are going to LOVE the fair.  It will also allow KOJ to take the boys to the demolition derby with a bunch of their church friends and their fathers.

So if you didn't check out your library's summer reading program this year make sure you do so next year for sure.  You might be surprised at the great things this free summer activity can bring into your life.

Later this week er... wait it's already Thursday isn't it?  Ummm... then maybe tomorrow but maybe not until next week I'll be reviewing our summer bucket list and see where we stand with that and the chances of meeting the goals on it.  I'm also feeling a post about how we socialize our monkeys coming on.

To the library

Today we went to the library.  Some of my readers also have a passel or more of children (for the purposes of this post a passel = 4).  Some of my readers don't.  So let me tell you all what walking to the library is like.  First you start off with wonderful mommy intentions of taking your precious children to the library - whether for a story time or just for something to do to get out of the house.  We are fortunate enough to live about a 15 min walk from the library (.5 mile - yes it really takes us fifteen minutes one way).

Step 1 - tell the children to get dressed.  This will cause all sorts of questions from the monkeys "Where we go?" "Why?"  "I'm out of shorts mom!"

Step 2 - tell the children to get on their shoes which is followed by "I can't find my shoes!" "I don't want to wear those sandals that are sitting in plain sight I want to wear my tennis shoes that are hiding under the curtain by the back door" "I don't have my water bottle"  "NO don't leave me!" and generally includes a sobbing baby who just wishes I'd go lay her down for her nap.

Step 3 - collect the library books - this part is probably the least painful part of the process, they know they'll come home with "new" loot so they aren't bad usually about taking back the books we've already read.

Step 4 - Tell the children to go outside and wait on the sidewalk.  Run around like a chicken with your head cut off ensuring that you have diapers for the baby, your wallet with the library cards, the sheets with the kids' reading list for the summer reading program so they can get their next prize, and a water cup for the still crying baby and you say a prayer under your breath that the tired baby will just give in and fall asleep on the walk.

Step 5 - THE WALK - this involves children darting about on the sidewalk in front of and behind me.  They're super good about waiting at the corners for everyone to cross together.  We do not employ the holding hand method of street crossing.  I make sure it's clear and I shout at them to cross NOW!  It works for us.  So far.   This step usually involves the three boys and myself spread out the whole length of the current block we're on at any given time.  Often there is one or more child so far ahead that if they wanted to run away from me they totally could and often there is one or more child so far behind I think I could read a whole book to the other children before they catch back up.  I often wonder what the people driving past us think of the whole thing.  I can tell by the way some people turn a corner extra slow that they don't trust my children not to dart out into the road.  Which is fine, I'd rather they be cautious but the boys pretty well know the danger of doing so and it has never been a problem on any of our walks.

Step 6 - enjoy some time at the library, return books, tell the children to be quieter, we're in the library, etc.  Then we do steps 1-5 in reverse order - well except I don't generally tell them to undress when we get home and they just naturally kick off their own shoes (they are my children after all!).

At any rate a decent bit of exercise for mama, worn out kids make for great naps, and new books so we can finish our last ten books for our summer reading program by Saturday when we will load up in the van and go back a 2nd time this week to get our final prize.

Sometimes I think I could join the circus with my show.

a new adventure

Sometimes there are people in our lives that we perhaps take for granted.  But we shouldn't.  We esp shouldn't take for granted the things that we can learn from these people.  One of these people in my life is my grandma.  She makes amazing quilts, her knitted Christmas stockings are family heirlooms in my opinion.  I'm sure there's a TON more that she knows that I don't but those two things come to mind.

Now I don't currently have an interest in quilting because I don't have the time or space at this season of life (but someday I totally will).  I am however DYING to learn how to knit.  So I called my grandma up today and asked her if she'd teach me how to knit.  "Sure!" she said and then told me not to buy any needles as she has plenty. 

I'll probably start with something simple like these pot holders only in solid colors.

Then I'll move on to other fun things like

and this

and this

Oh yes, I've wanted to learn how to knit for a VERY long time but having a daughter has gotten me off my procrastinating rump and onward I'll go.  Maybe I can make her one of these beauties for her birthday next year.


Learning to knit is also on my "bucket list" of sorts.  And so I'm going to embark on a new adventure and take some wisdom from a grandma who has it and the time to impart it.

the blessing of adoption

Adoption is so fantastic.  I hope to one day adopt.  When our children are older I hope to foster to adopt pre-teen and teenage kids who thinks that the world has left them behind.

Adoption is such a HUGE undertaking and right now where I am in life I just cannot fathom it.  It would take a HUGE step of faith for me to even consider adoption with four littles already demanding so much of my time and attention.

But my friend Rachel has chosen with her husband and her three small children to follow God's direction for their family on their journey to adoption.  So please go check out her adoption blog and give if the Lord leads but at the very least I know your prayers and encouragement would be much appreciated.  Help bring "Wallace" home.

God's provision in the little things

I've been working hard as you've seen on de-cluttering and re-organizing our home, especially our school stuff.  We're planning to start school in about three weeks and I want to be all organized for the year before that happens.  I've got the curriculum bought.  I've got the children.  I've got a table and a few seats.  But if I can't find the curriculum it's not going to do much good.  Also finding a way to organize each week/days stuff where Princess can't get into and destroy it presents a challenge too with our limited space.

I've looked into workboxes and I LOVE the idea but the space thing presents an issue.  So I looked around online in the blogosphere to see other workbox "translations".  I found a few that I thought were great.  I bought a couple dozen ice cube bins intending to use those as our workboxes (I have NO idea what I was thinking, I don't have the shelfspace for that).  So as of late I've been thinking and the other day one of the kids was playing with a small plastic file box I have that I kept our papers organized in - bills and such.  They were lifting this clear lid on the top that opened to a tray space for things like pens, paperclips etc.  It hit me then that this would be perfect!  One box per boy.  Their pencils, scissors, crayons, glue sticks, etc. will fit in the top tray and I can file in the whole week's worth of school work inside the box.  LOVE! 

I had another dilemma.  We're using Confessions of a Homeschooler's letter of the week curriculum and well the storage solution I thought I had didn't work for this because accordion files only open out so much and these activities became quite thick.  So I realized I would need two more file boxes to store the LOTW activities.  Well the file boxes are 10.00 each and as previously mentioned I prefer to be frugal.  So I checked the price on amazon and I could get a 4pack for 36.00.  Woot a 4.00 savings!  But we went out yard saling and thrift store shopping yesterday.  I was hoping to find a few of these file boxes that other people had decided they no longer needed.

Salvation Army didn't have any but they had some AWESOME children's books and a book sale going on for .29 a book and buy 1 get 1 free so basically 2 books for .29.  I got an oversized Jack and the Beanstalk that came with flashcards and a cd of the story.

I think this though was my favorite book find:  A copy of the classic Peter Pan

But I was also tickled by finding this copy of a McGraw Hill reader book:

I also got a few other fun books, easy readers for Howler to work with through the year, a few Golden Books, and we also got a few board games.

Anyway back to the story, alas no file boxes.  So we headed over to Goodwill.  I found a copy of Madeline here though it wasn't AS good of a deal I picked it up anyway because it's one of our FIAR books for the coming school year (we may just go ahead and start with it lol).  I searched around but no file boxes.  But back in the furniture section I found a slightly dented black two drawer file cabinet.  In the bottom drawer it had a whole bunch of hanging files in great condition.  For 3.99 we bought it and it fits not only my LOTW stuff but I was able to move our family files into the bottom drawer of it freeing up the file box we already owned.  So for this year we only need one more file box.  At 10.00 plus the 3.99 for the filing cabinet we saved a little more than 30.00.  Sometimes I marvel at the small ways that God provides for us.  I'm so thrilled and happy and thankful.

Have a blessed Sunday everyone!

A New Day!

I'm so thankful to God for a new day.  This blog covers a lot of things.  A lot of times I talk about my children and things we've been doing as a family.  Sometimes I talk about our schooling, baking, things I'm thankful for, what we're going to eat for dinner, and a few times I've mentioned how I'm cleaning challenged.

Today is going to fall into the cleaning challenged category of posts. 

I have often felt that I must be the only truly incompetent cleaner on the planet.  People say they're homes need to be picked up and cleaned up and they'd be embarrassed to have company stop by but in the back of my mind I'm always thinking "Yeah right, you probably have a few dirty dishes in the sink and toys from the kids actively playing strewn about." 

I haven't found the answers yet.  My house is a total mess right now.  A lot of it is toys.  A lot of it is dishes.  Some of it is dirty laundry.  I strive to keep a clean home.

But not yesterday.  Yesterday I washed two loads of laundry and diapers.  I dried two loads of laundry (one load still sits in the dryer as I type) and folded three or four loads of laundry (it had built up).  I also managed to unload the dishwasher (finally, from three days before) and re-load and ran it before bed.

Otherwise I did pretty much nothing all day.  Not because there weren't things to do but because I didn't feel like it.  Yesterday was an off day for me.  My mood was off kilter and the motivation was seriously lacking.  Today though is a new day.  Today I can start my day right.  I can go take my shower, unload and re-load the dishwasher and set it to run while we go to the program at the library.  I can dry my diapers and toss another load in.  When we come home I can start in the kitchen and clean off my counters, wash the big pots and pans and bowls and PUT THEM AWAY!  I can remember to put dinner in the crock pot before we head out this morning so it's one less thing I have to think about tonight.  Because today is a new day.  Each hour is a new hour.  It's never too late to make the right choice in things like this.

And I am thankful for new days, new mercies, and the never ending grace of God.  I'm also thankful that I'm not alone.  That I'm not the only who is challenged by house work.  Check out this blog that a reader shared with me earlier this week:  A slob comes clean  It has been a real encouragement to me this week.  I am NOT alone!  And for the record I do not personally know this person but I do know that if housework is a challenge to you and you find yourself ignoring giant sticky spots on your floor until you can't walk because you're stuck in place before mopping then this blog will probably be an encouragement to you too!