It's been a very long time since I've posted about what we've been up to. And even longer since I've posted pictures of the girls. I love to take photos of my girls, but I'm in a photography rut right now, I think. Currently, it's chore instead of a hobby. I need to fix my attitude.
Anyway, here's a run-down of what we've been up to, and maybe there will be pictures added later if I can get my act together. I usually start with Lucy, but I'll start with Amy today. Being stuck in the middle means you never really get to be first for anything.
Amy
Amy is so much fun. She lives in the moment. She's still a very "busy" girl, but she always has a sunny outlook and never stays upset for long. She loves school, and has many friends in her class. She also adores her teacher, and I think the feeling is mutual. Amy is a fantastic reader, and she's a math whiz. When she has math homework that should take about 15 minutes to do, she whips it out (100% correct, I might add) in about 4 or 5 minutes. And she knows her math facts like the back of her hand.
She tells me she wants to be homeschooled for 2nd grade and go back to school for 3rd grade. Although the prospect of homeschooling her doesn't intimidate me, I'm not sure how I feel about the potential on-again/off-again relationship with the public school because although I found a curriculum I really love (more on that later), it doesn't match the education offered in school. So, at this point, I don't know. I'll just have to do a lot of thinking and praying about it before I decide. In the meantime, I am making an extra effort to spend some special time just with Amy, since she's the one I see the least. And I really miss her sometimes.
Amy did inform me the other day that she "wanted to go to culinary school so that someday I can be on 'Cupcake Wars'." She already loves to cook, and I think she would be an amazing chef!
Sadie
Sadie is still mostly enjoying preschool. There's another girl in there who can be quite bossy, and Sadie does not respond well to that at all. She was preoccupied about it over the weekend, and I told her that it would be okay to tell this other girl, "Thank you, but I can handle myself." When I picked her up yesterday, she told me she couldn't remember what I told her she could say. I reminded her, but she woke up this morning with a "tummy ache" and didn't want to go to school. She seems to be feeling well enough to eat breakfast and run around, so I think her stomach pain is more from anxiety than bacteria.
As far as life outside of preschool, Sadie has lately enjoyed "doing crafts". Her favorite thing is stringing beads for necklaces and bracelets. She has great coordination and it keeps her attention for a long time (for a 4 year old, anyway). She and I also completed a Valentine ladybug foam house kit that I bought at Michaels. She did a lot of the "contruction" herself and it turned out really cute. Sadie also loves to help in the kitchen, especially when it involves the stove. (Yikes!)
Lucy
And finally, Lucy. Lucy has been doing really well at homeschooling. She has been very flexible in letting me noodle around with her schoolwork, until I finally stumbled upon a curriculum that I think works best for us. I was really feeling lost and without a sense of academic direction for a few weeks. I was worried that I wasn't providing her with the education I thought she needed (read: what they're offering at school). I had originally looked at the "virtual school" option last summer, and it just didn't feel right to me. I think it works well for many, many families (I know 3 who are going this route for now), but it has never seemed like a good fit for me.
I almost gave up and contacted one virtual school for some details about their program, but before I did that, I forged on a little longer looking for SOMETHING. And I found it! I wanted something less stuffy than the "classical education", but more structured than "unschooling". Something that focused on learning through literature (including history), and also addressed music, art, and handiwork. I wanted an authentic learning environment, and not a school-at-home re-creation. The Charlotte Mason model is the perfect fit for us. And what's great is that Lucy can work fairly independently on much of it. What I will change for next fall, however, is I will definitely purchase a good math curriculum. I've been teaching her myself, and she responds well to that, but I worry that there will be holes in her mathematic knowledge. I also worry that I'm not on-par with what her peers are learning in math at school. Maybe I need to let that go.
In other Lucy news, she's auditioning for the upcoming Tacoma Youth Theatre productions. She is VERY excited, and Saturday can't come soon enough!
More soon.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
"We Want the Nice Mom Back!"
Every now and then, Mean Mom makes a visit to our family. She usually issues edicts such as:
"From now on, each of you will do exactly as I say exactly when I say to do it, or you will find yourself in bed 15 minutes earlier."
She is trying to sound in control and authoritarian, but instead she just sounds silly. And she makes my children cry, and beg for Nice Mom to return.
I tell my kids that Mean Mom wouldn't even show up if Nice Mom could say for example, "[insert child's name here], please get your shoes and socks on right now." and then said child would happily go without complaint or stalling to retrieve the socks and shoes and quickly put them on, thereby ensuring that Nice Mom wouldn't sound like an increasingly angry and tired broken record, we would be on time for school, and Nice Mom would harbor feelings of contentment and goodwill toward the charges in her care.
Instead, Nice Mom asks for things to be done, and on the rare occasion that the children actually turn their heads and look at Nice Mom to acknowledge that her request was indeed heard, what usually happens is the request goes unfilled. Nice Mom repeats herself. Request still unfilled. Nice Mom gets busy doing something else, then remembers that the task is still incomplete. Nice Mom asks again. It may or may not happen.
Nice Mom gets treated to the sound of her own voice for several weeks, and then Mean Mom decides that Nice Mom has had enough.
Mean Mom has many tricks up her sleeve. They include things like threatening to bag up and give away any toys left on the floor in the bedroom, threatening to exert control over every aspect of the children's lives--what they wear, what they eat, what they can play with and when, or threatening to give them chores that will take them from after dinner to bedtime to complete. (More crying, and lots of "That's not fair!" ring through the house.)
And then somewhere during the day, Nice Mom gets a small break, and things go back to the way they were before (if you need a clue, go back and read from the word "Instead..." over and over and over again.)
This whole scenario happened this morning. I'm not sure if I woke up this way, or it's a holdover from last night's disastrous attempt at Family Home Evening. What should have taken no more than 6 minutes took over 40 minutes because of insipid interruptions, the inability to sit still and quietly for the 3 page picture scripture story, and continuing to engage in behavior that Mom and Dad had asked several time to cease and desist.
I'm not mad at my kids. But I am tired. I'm tired of saying things more than once and then have to ask myself if I actually said them out loud. I'm tired of things taking longer than they should. I'm tired of not being able to have a simple 5-minute conversation with my spouse without less than 10 interruptions by well-meaning children who insist that if they don't tell me RIGHT NOW, they will forget.
I don't want my children to fear me, and yet, I do. Does that make sense? I REALLY want them to do what I ask when I ask because they love and respect me, and they know that I never really ask them to do things that are too hard or take a long time, and they do it because there's a bigger plan than just the task at hand. But I'm to the point that in the absence of those things, I'll take fear.
Maybe I just need to get Mean Mom and Nice Mom together for a staff meeting. There has to be a way for both Moms to exist at the same time.
"From now on, each of you will do exactly as I say exactly when I say to do it, or you will find yourself in bed 15 minutes earlier."
She is trying to sound in control and authoritarian, but instead she just sounds silly. And she makes my children cry, and beg for Nice Mom to return.
I tell my kids that Mean Mom wouldn't even show up if Nice Mom could say for example, "[insert child's name here], please get your shoes and socks on right now." and then said child would happily go without complaint or stalling to retrieve the socks and shoes and quickly put them on, thereby ensuring that Nice Mom wouldn't sound like an increasingly angry and tired broken record, we would be on time for school, and Nice Mom would harbor feelings of contentment and goodwill toward the charges in her care.
Instead, Nice Mom asks for things to be done, and on the rare occasion that the children actually turn their heads and look at Nice Mom to acknowledge that her request was indeed heard, what usually happens is the request goes unfilled. Nice Mom repeats herself. Request still unfilled. Nice Mom gets busy doing something else, then remembers that the task is still incomplete. Nice Mom asks again. It may or may not happen.
Nice Mom gets treated to the sound of her own voice for several weeks, and then Mean Mom decides that Nice Mom has had enough.
Mean Mom has many tricks up her sleeve. They include things like threatening to bag up and give away any toys left on the floor in the bedroom, threatening to exert control over every aspect of the children's lives--what they wear, what they eat, what they can play with and when, or threatening to give them chores that will take them from after dinner to bedtime to complete. (More crying, and lots of "That's not fair!" ring through the house.)
And then somewhere during the day, Nice Mom gets a small break, and things go back to the way they were before (if you need a clue, go back and read from the word "Instead..." over and over and over again.)
This whole scenario happened this morning. I'm not sure if I woke up this way, or it's a holdover from last night's disastrous attempt at Family Home Evening. What should have taken no more than 6 minutes took over 40 minutes because of insipid interruptions, the inability to sit still and quietly for the 3 page picture scripture story, and continuing to engage in behavior that Mom and Dad had asked several time to cease and desist.
I'm not mad at my kids. But I am tired. I'm tired of saying things more than once and then have to ask myself if I actually said them out loud. I'm tired of things taking longer than they should. I'm tired of not being able to have a simple 5-minute conversation with my spouse without less than 10 interruptions by well-meaning children who insist that if they don't tell me RIGHT NOW, they will forget.
I don't want my children to fear me, and yet, I do. Does that make sense? I REALLY want them to do what I ask when I ask because they love and respect me, and they know that I never really ask them to do things that are too hard or take a long time, and they do it because there's a bigger plan than just the task at hand. But I'm to the point that in the absence of those things, I'll take fear.
Maybe I just need to get Mean Mom and Nice Mom together for a staff meeting. There has to be a way for both Moms to exist at the same time.
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