It's a Sweet Life

One of the funnest things about kids is getting to study with them. Guy and I have a mutual "addiction" to Animal Planet. If I watch TV, it's for that and I am always amazed by the vocabulary that he picks up from it that he wants to discuss afterward. He has speech impairments, so this is always nice to see his soak up thinks like a sponge!

Sometimes working with kids his age is hard. At the age of 11, he is almost a man and I am decidedly uncool. Recently he turned into an obstinate I-Don't-Care-Bear at school and his teacher and I became "best friends!" so he knows I am talking to her. He also knows it's an act, but if he wants it to stop, he has to turn his grades around. Last night he let me study his spelling words with him! I am going to try finger spelling the letters with him, too. He resisted signing when he was 5, but now that he is older and can spell, it may help. Like all kids his age, when I was his age other kids were into finger spelling and I wasn't in to it at all-- they'd say, "I can sign!" then start spelling everything. I can spell but I found it annoying. "Just talk!"

It was fun looking over the spelling words and saying them with him and pointing things out. He noticed that "together" is to-get-her. I showed him that none of his words that had an "h" in it was followed with an "a"-- "h" was always followed by an "e." (He kept wanting to put an "a" after the "h".)

As he an I watched Animal Planet, I had to fold laundry. Starshine noticed that I was folding sheets and wanted to help (she loves to help me.) We played with the sheets, acting like they were parachutes, raising them up high, then holding on and running underneath them! It was so beyond cute with her. She kept laughing and asking to do it again and again!

This past week has been spirit week with the three guys. The two older ones wore sandals to school yesterday (no logic could get them to put boots in their backpacks and go out-- nooooo, my young men had to wear sandals in the snow and act like it was no big deal!) They have gone wearing their clothes inside out and just had a blast.

I however had a coffee last evening and am wired but tired so I am up sharing this!

Teaching my Kinderlein to Read

I'm teaching my 3 youngest to read. The eldest of my Littles, Calamity Jane, is on the verge of breaking the code. She is in kindergarten and she has a handle on her letters and sounds. Today we were working on this and she did well as did Mudd. When we do this, I make "centers" where the guys to fun projects and are separated lest they harass one another. I may have blocks, puppets, or a craft that they can do.

Mudd is on the fast track to reading as well. He seems ambidextrous. I have nine children and at least a third are left handed-- nationally it's 10%. (Darrin says that "it's the top 10% who are left handed!") When we practice letters, he switches hands. When one hand tires, it goes into claw mode and the other takes over. He doesn't think much of it. I'm learning to write with my left hand to demonstrate for him. It's easier to do cursive rather than print.

Starshine learned to put a crayon behind her ear as we practiced writing today. She thought it made her look cool and had to go put them behind either ear then both, then back to one. She is so funny and looks at herself in the mirror and practices her smiles with the crayons there. She is almost three-- if she is like this as a teenager I fear it will be earrings and pretty clothes!

I'm also working with them on German. I love that language and after just a few days the words are occupying more of my mind and more comes back. I so much wish that I could go back there again. . . I sometimes crave the blood sausages and oh dear-- their freshly-picked fruits from Italy make ours up here (picked while still green) taste like cardboard. I want to eat their fruits again, and go hiking. I love speaking it whenever I can and Germans like you to try to speak their language so when I meet them I speak it.

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I am on the computer a lot less. . . after a gentle rebuke from a fellow blogger, I stopped being on so late. (I'd started trolling after midnight. I was a friendly troll, but very chatty. . . I am wincing as I write this.) I realized that I spent way too much time bouncing to my favorite blogs. I quit this fast upon realizing it and got to my schoolwork. I am doing a lot more in the evenings and the quality improved immediately. (You know who you are and you are my academic cure for my ADHD.) Statistics is a mandated evil and I am doing it. I think of it as Listerine, a mouthwash. It had an ad in the 60's, "Listerine: I hate it but I use it." I think the same of statistics: I hate it but I do it. I switched to an easier science class and I hate that I have but I just need to get my degree. It's a biology class on the ecosystems of Alaska. While I took it knowing that it would be easier, I find that I love it so I put more into it. I just turned in a study on glaciers. I get to do artwork with it and sketch, so that helps. Sketching glaciers is amusing as I like to touch everything that I draw.

I Sometimes Don't Get Along Well with Others

I was at my children's charter school the other day to drop off some paperwork. One of the teachers asked me if I could stay for a couple of minutes because he had a contraption that I'd appreciate that he wanted to show me. Cloud came in and said that everyone was acting crazy in the Diva so I went out-- kids' body parts were flailing around and I started laughing and hollered, "OK, you guys! Knock that sh-- out, you are providing proof that man descended from orangutans!" They heard me through the open windows and started laughing and stopped. I told them to give me five more minutes, and we spoke for a moment on how to not act. ("We are not supposed to get into your purse and get our allowance early!" "I can't pull Cloud's hair!" "We can't give Basil a wedgie!" That always gets them laughing. I'd come back and they'd tell me what they didn't do. I'd take them to Dairy Queen, they thought it was because they'd behaved but I was just enjoying them.)

Yes, I use words that are considered curse words, but I am not swearing. It's just getting to the point. I was not brought up to swear and I don'tknow from where the words come, but it's how I speak. I went back into the school. A mother was very upset. "Do you believe in. . . evolution?" My mind was in the teacher's office and she may as well have been speaking to me about invaders from Mars. I looked at her and said, "I have no idea what you are talking about."

In stilted words she acted appalled that I. . . spoke. . . about my children . . . and all mankind. . . descending from . . . apes. I told her that I don't believe in Evolution. We are past that. I beleieve in deevolution and that they get it from their father. (My husband knows that this is a joke-- when the kids do things that infuriate me but are funny, I tell him that they must get it from his side. Had I meant it, I'd have said nothing.)

I went back and the teacher showed me his latest LEGO creation-- it was seriously cool with a remote control. (He let me play with it before I had to go.)

On my way out, the secretary who'd gotten an earful from the woman I'd spoken to said that she never knew from which field I was coming and was laughing about it. ("That makes two of us.") I often cover my hair unless I don't, I am usually very mellow except for when I am not, my kids are pretty good except for when they are not, etc. The kids came in to use the bathroom and she and I started talking about people. It seems like many turn into charicatures of themselves, "I'm this way and this is how people who are this way act." They only act in a box. It's painfully annoying. I can't change them, but I'll be damned if I try to blend in with bland or be something I'm not.

Idle Hands are the Devil's Toys

Today, with my children being grounded until the end of summer for flipping people off and being with kids who threw rocks at a neighbor's house, I had to be with them 100% of the time. School resumes on 18 August. Last night my husband and I ran off worksheets for them and from 10AM till the time he got here, I had them memorizing times tables, writing for me and memorizing poetry. They actually had fun-- they were chatting nonstop and helping each other out. Guy is a little slow but they were helping him and he told me later that Princess Cloud wanted him to do well and he was excited about it. (They normally can't stand each other.) I had the little kids working on kindergarten and pre-school work. Calamity Jane is ready to read and was putting letters and sounds together and I'm certain that Mud & Starshine will follow her in this.

I'm tired and perfectly worn out. Without being asked, Dmetrios and Basil offered to help me make bread and I taught Basil to make gravy while Dmetrios buttered slices of bread for me and wrapped them in foil.

My SUV wouldn't start today. It's a diva! It rained so it probably got too cold.