Is It Naptime Yet

I just have to make a note of this before I post about our Halloween festivities. Lilah is on the floor reading a book to Eden. It’s a board book so it has some words she doesn’t know, but that’s not fazing her. (Some  board books  have harder words since you’re suppose to read it to your child, compared to books for beginning readers. )

If my battery were in my camera instead of charging in my kitchen I’d take a video. I think she’s doing rather well and I love that’s she suggested reading a book to Eden and Eden is patiently listening to her big sister reading to her.

Lilah’s reading is really taking off. She knows so much and really enjoys reading books we borrow from Beth or we take out from the Library.

Lilah’s getting too big.

I did a few games with some words this afternoon with Lilah and then we did a small spelling test that used four of the eighteen words we were reading.

I think she did rather well, especially since she got all four correct.

The purpose is so they learn spelling in a fun way and it’s not as tedious as a normal spelling test that a child would have in school. It’s suppose to be short and if we do it two to three times a week she should be learning how to spell eight to twelve words, more if we decide to do six or eight words in one ‘test’. It’s also to instill confidence in her spelling abilities.

She checks the words herself and once a problem arises we discuss what she did wrong and how to correct it.

I think she’s doing pretty well for no formal schooling.

On Friday our home school meet up group made plans for the group to attend Bonnie Springs. We were able to attend on school prices. It was $2 per adult and $1 per child, compared to the normal rate of $20 a car.

I’ve never been to Bonnie Springs so the thought of wearing shoes, over sandals which I wear as much as possible, never crossed my mind. So here’s a warning if you go to the petting zoo at Bonnie Springs wear shoes. We were able to avoid any messes, but man are you aware of the free roaming animals which leave their poop around when you’re in sandals.

The girls loved the animals. At first I thought all the animals were in cages but as we ventured farther we saw a free roaming rooster, and then the donkey, a couple deer and then we saw a llama and some goats. I think the friendlier animals were free roaming, but their was a very feisty goat that was head butting and chasing the other goats. That was a little scary when you have a front row seat.

I forgot to call my friend Beth about canceling the dress fitting for her daughter. So she called me and while I was talking to her I looked over to see one of the deer eating Lilah’s shirt! I was unable to get a picture but she was so happy and just giggling away at this deer eating her shirt. I did get a picture of the deer while another little girl was feeding him.

While we were just beginning our exploration we walked into a small area but a llama apparently wanted out, so he kinda forced us to move out of the small walkway. Lilah thought it was hilarious, as you’ll see in the video, but Eden was freaked out by it and could not get away from the large llama fast enough. I think that made her very weary of all the animals and she only touched a ferret that a worker held for the girls to pet.

We saw lots of interesting animals and the girls loved seeing each of them.

After the petting zoo we wandered around the old town Bonnie Springs and then watched a melodrama that two ‘actors’, I use the term loosely, put on. They then had a very cheesy shooting and hanging skit.

We wandered around some more and then ate our lunch in the car off of Charleston, or a pull-off to some hike. It was a beautiful day and perfect for being outside. We watched two monarch butterflies go by our car. I think it’s migration time for them.

Here are the pictures of our adventure. The song is by Jim Gill and is called The Sound Effects Song. I only used the first half, since I’m only showing 20 pictures and the first half goes with where we were, kinda.

In my homeschooling quest I’ve joined two online groups that have regular meet ups. One group, Life Learners, got back to me right away and have regular meet ups at parks every Wednesday. They take more of the learn what you want how you want and just live life. The other group I’ve joined is a little more of the traditional homeschooling, with parents using curriculum to teach their children.

The second group, or the Las Vegas homeschool meetup group, just got back to me about signing up this week. It turns out they were having a local weatherperson do a small assembly this week.  A station in town does these assemblies regularly around the valley’s school’s. I thought it would be fun for the girls since Lilah has a fascination with television and I would be able to meet some of the other parents and families in the group.

Wrong. It turns out it was a number of homeschooling groups, which lead to no good way to find out who was in the group I had joined. The girls still had fun and there’s a chance they’ll be on the news Saturday or Sunday morning, though they were kinda behind some bigger boys for the short tapping.

So I’m not sure if this was useful or useless, though I think it was a little of both.

The next two errands I ran came about this morning. Before we left I received two separate phone calls telling me my contacts had come in and my glasses were ready to be picked up also. I thought score, I get to run all the necessary Henderson errands in one day.

I went to my doctor’s office first. I picked up the contacts and the prescription and got the girls right back into the car. I headed towards Costco and at the first light I had the thought that I should check the prescription. It turned out to be -4.75, but I need -5.00. The doctor had tried the lesser strength but after wearing -5.00 for a year or two, my eyes were not handling it when I drove and that’s when I need my contacts the most. So, I turned around to correct the mistake. The doctor wasn’t there so I just left and had the receptionist call me since I knew I was correct. So they’re ordering more contacts which will be ready to be picked up next week sometime.

Useful or useless? I think useless.

I then headed to Carolyn’s work. I saw her car wasn’t there but decided to go in anyways. She was gone. So that was definitely useless.

I then packed the girls into the car for the fourth time in twenty minutes and headed to Costco. I got there and a woman adjusted the glasses to fit my face. While she was cleaning them she noticed some streaks. The anti glare had been put on improperly. Ugh. So those too will be ordered again.
Also useless.

I am happy that the doctors office and Costco happened on a day I was already heading out to Henderson and I hadn’t gone out there specifically to pick up the contacts or glasses.

The day started so well. Now I’m just blogging to keep awake and avoid doing dishes.

Wednesday we had Lilah’s class. Lilah knows so much that I sometimes have a hard time reading each day with her and having learning time.
Since Beth’s my mentor, and I can call her that since she called herself my mentor, we had a talk and my goal was to set a time to have “school time”. This is kinda against unschooling, but I’m not going for complete unschooling. The thought is if we have a routine we can guarantee some learning everyday or a time to stimulate learning. I have a box of special school things that I’m taking out at our “school time” and I let the girls do what they want.

Beth also gave me lots of cool things so the girls have loved it. One thing Lilah discovered was there are four ways to add six. Beth gave us a set of domino’s. Lilah was counting the dots and drawing pictures and she brought me some domino’s and asked how they could all have six dots when they where so different. So we had a lesson on adding six and the different ways you could add it. I thought it was fun.

So my school time is after lunch. We’re usually running around and doing things in the morning but home by lunch. So after lunch is our school time. It also goes with my reading a story or two before putting Eden down for her nap but I haven’t read to them in days. We go through cycles. All I do is read, read, read and then we go weeks with just reading once or twice. I should be better about that.

I figure we might be gone some days after lunch, but those are usually days we go to the park for the unschooling group, so that can count as “school time” too.

After lunch we went to the park for the unschooling group, or Life learners which I will now refer to them as. On the discussion board our coordinator, or Tara, was sick and a few others said they would still be there, but when I showed up at the park only one other person was there, and this was her first time. She has a daughter who is 6, so that makes me happy, and her daughter, Sarahphina which I’m guessing how to spell, played really well with Lilah and Eden. The mom was really easy to talk to and we had a good discussion which just got better when one other mom showed up. This mom has a teen aged son, he actually stayed home, and had just returned from living in Hollywood while her son was pursuing an acting career.
We left the park around 4 o’clock, and had a regular night.

Thursday was my busy doctor’s appointment day. Sam was kind enough to watch the girls all morning for me. She had them from 8:40 am till 12:45 pm so I could attend my dermatologist appointment and eye appointment.
I had a mole removed on my arm in July, and it too was precancerous, but does not need suturing. This makes 4 moles precancerous, one normal, for the five I’ve had removed. She removed another mole in my right shoulder, so if she doesn’t call sooner to say it needs suturing we’ll find out in six months if it too is precancerous.

My eyes are the same. They haven’t changed since before I had Eden. It seems amazing to me to keep the same prescription. For so much of my youth my eyes changed drastically each year. I was so relieved to learn that your eyes come to a plateau and stay the same. If we didn’t have so many other things to worry about I would so do laser eye surgery, but atlas we do.

I went to a new doctor and he seemed perplexed that I only wear my contacts part time and my glasses most of the time. I don’t think he understood that glasses are a necessity and contacts are a luxury in my life. He mentioned my children pulling on my glasses, but since they’re older they’re obviously past that stage, plus they learned fairly quickly not to pull on glasses since Jon and I both wore them. My doctor is all about contacts and being to the most “natural state”. I guess glasses don’t bother me, though I like the way I look with contacts.
I am getting new frames this year. My current frames are getting too old and breaking in different places, plus I’m looking forward to getting something a little more up to date.

Friday we stayed home. I sewed a blanket for a baby shower I went to today. I didn’t take any pictures though. (If you could Emilie it would be appreciated and just e-mail me one.)
Today we got a leotard for Eden and Lilah and Jon’s date was to the dollar store to choose gifts for Eden and me. Last week Lilah was obsessed with giving me a gift but she had to wait till her date with Daddy.

I had a baby shower this afternoon and then tonight I took the girls to a carnival that was at Anna’s church. They had a small ferris wheel, which the girls loved, a “train”, and a couple jumper things. One was a regular bouncy thing for kinds to jump in and the other was an obstacle course type thing.
Lilah loved it and Eden had fun watching her, since she was just a little to little for the obstacle course. It was a fun night.

Now it’s time for bed, and if you read all of this you must have nothing else to do.

I think I’ve used this tittle before. Now I’m talking about Lilah not going to school ’cause she’s at home with me and I guess I will never have a moments of peace away from her.  No, she ain’t really that bad. And depending on what year around track she’d be on she might not have started school till September, like my niece and nephew this year.

There is a slight loss that I feel. I’m not experiencing the tug of heartache of my child growing up and going out on her own. I’m not feeling the emptying of my wallet as I would have needed to buy her new clothes. I’m not waiting for her to come home to tell me what she learned or who her new friends are or who hurt her feelings.

Oh wait, I kinda like that I get to keep her home with me and watch her grow and become independent in a secure environment. I’m happy that I don’t have to buy her new clothes, though she already has a lot of clothes already so she may have gotten two outfits. I’m happy that I get to teach her and praise her and that I can be there the moment she’s hurt.

Homeschooling is not for everyone, I’m not sure I’m completely for homeschooling, but I am happy that I can keep her with me rather than wake up early and have to take her to school.

That’s my main concern, sleep. 😉

I am feeling sad that she’s getting older. I want them to stay small forever.

For the unschooling group last week, as in on Wednesday the 20th, there was a party to celebrate not going back to school. Everyone brought something for a potluck and there were bubbles for the kids. I brought some bubbles we had from home, but the big hit with Eden and Lilah was the home made bubble solution. Someone had brought fly swatters, which Lilah loved, and cookie cutters for blowing bubbles. The girls had tons of fun and Eden got covered in bubble solution. Luckily they weren’t scared of the water features at this park and I was able to rinse them off before getting in the car.

I forgot my camera, but one of the other moms, Tara, took the following pictures.

Additional thoughts: I knew there were water features at this park, but for the last two parks they had not gone into the water. The previous parks had water that would come from the ground and would squirt in different patterns and since the girls saw no predictability they did not want to play in them.  This water came from stationary statues of seals and once it was on they knew exactly where it would be, no surprises.

I didn’t go to this park prepared for water play since they had not played in the last two, but I did go with the mind set that if they got wet, oh well, I guess I’ll just be taking home wet girls. Lilah played in the water and was soaked, Eden played a little but mostly got soaked by the bubble solution. I rinsed them off, took them home and gave them a bath once in the door. I think going there with the mindset of “it’s okay if they get wet” helped me avoid any anger towards the girls getting wet. (I am a bit of a control freak about that sort of thing at times.) Also being around such laid back woman helped me to not be upset at Eden getting so soaked by the bubble solution. Of course it helped that there was water there to rinse her off with and that she wasn’t freaking out while I cleaned her off. I think I get a little tightly wound and this particular group of woman are not, so I’m able to relax and let the girls be kids. I think they have a calming influence over me as a mother.

Also, I’m getting a little more comfortable with some of the woman in the group. They all seem very nice, but it’s easier to talk a select few for me. I’m trying to open up a little more and find out what I have in common with them. The kids around 7-12 are more in their  own world and associate well with one another. There are kids around Lilah and Eden’s age so that makes me happy that as they get older hopefully they’ll have new peers to associate with because right now they mostly ignore kids their age since they have each other to play with.  I was really impressed with the teenagers in the group because the seem really nice and were very aware of the littler ones, i.e. they blew bubbles with my girls and tried to include Eden in a game of hide and seek.

With being away from my house so often I feel like I’m back in my college days. It’s always a mess and even if I “catch up” in one room, there’s always another mess waiting. I think it’s starting to take a small toll on me and my desire to clean. As in I only do the bare necessity. Dishes when we need something to eat off of, laundry when we need something to wear. Life is busy and when I’m home I’m lazy.

Monday was the dentist.
Tuesday I was home and I did cleaning in my kitchen and other areas.
Wednesday I had the reading/writing class I’m doing with Lilah with my friend Beth. I think I’ll have to write more about it later because I’ve only vaguely talked about it in my blog.
After the class I came home, made cookies and went to a local park for the unschooling group.
The girls had tons of fun, a post to come later with pictures.

Thursday I hung out at home for the morning. Doing more of the bare minimum house work or maybe I was reading blogs to avoid housework. The days become so blurry. That afternoon I went to my sister Kristi’s house to watch her kids while she had some doctor appointments.

Friday we went to Nancy Skinner’s house, a woman in our ward, for some water fun. She and her husband had a huge inflatable water slide for their grandchildren and she invited some of the moms to bring our kids over and have fun. My girls didn’t do the slide, but once the trampoline was free from bigger kids they jumped on that. Nancy had a sprinkler underneath it to keep it wet and the girls had fun bouncing each other.
I was home for the rest of the day washing laundry and doing other random things.

Today we had family pictures. We went to the JC Penny portrait studio at the Galleria Mall and really liked the photographer. In the past we’ve gone to the Penny’s at the Boulevard Mall, right after Jon’s gotten off of work, but the last two years portraits just weren’t very good. (Our original photographer went out on her own and it was just too expensive for us.) As long as this photographer stays there or an equally qualified one does the portraits I think we’ll continue to use Penny’s. We’re spending a high amount for the CD so we’ll have the rights and will be able to print out whatever portraits we want, and you want, possibly for a small fee if you want more than one ’cause this CD cost us a lot, but there won’t be any regrets that we didn’t buy a copy of this or that pose. Jon’s also a sucker for originals and I am just hoping we can find a nice but cheap place to print out the photo’s.

Now I just need to go over my church lesson before Jon and Eden come home from their date. She wanted to go to the Library, but her nap went to long, so she asked to go to the Springs Preserve, but it was also a little late, so he took her to the temple, ’cause she’s been asking to go. I think it’s funny that he took her to the temple to walk the grounds for their date. I guess it shows his support for the girls decisions. ( I love you honey.)

Update: Now that’s it’s past midnight I’m finally getting around to posting this and I still have to finish going over my lesson. I’m just not feeling it this week so hopefully it goes well tomorrow, I mean today.

I guess it’s time for bed.

Yesterday was a fun filled day. A very fun filled day in very hot weather.

We dropped off cinnamon rolls, returned something to JoAnn’s, had lunch with Anna and met up with a local unschooling group.

It was so hot outside.

The unschooling group met up at a local park to have fun and do the mentos experiment.
I felt a little odd at first. There was a woman with dreadlocks, a vegan and what appeared to be another very health conscious organic mom.

Even though the yahoo group description said they accepted everyone, I was worried that I might be too normal and not eccentric enough to fit in.

Plus all the kids seemed to be mostly boys and  at least seven years old and older.

They pointed me to another mom who had young kids later after I was there. Julia is her name, she has a five year old son and a 16 month old daughter. She also appeared to be more average, or not eccentric. We chatted a little and she lives on my side of town. She also had a homeschooling group that is dissolving so she was wanting to find another group for her son to hang out with.

We chatted a little then it was time for the mentos experiment. The girls liked it and the other kids had lots of fun too.

This is when I was really able to chat with all the moms. They were really nice and very open minded. They said I was the anomaly to have a husband supporting homeschooling, let alone the unschooling technique.

Side note: Unschooling is the least formal type of homeschooling. You basically live life and let your children learn all they want about a subject. It’s motivated by what the child wants to learn and not by what you want to teach them.  You can find definitions for different homeschooling techniques here.

It seems that most of the fathers worried about whether their children were actually learning enough. So telling them about Jon and his support, really homeschooling is the only option in his mind, made them like him before they’ve ever met him.

We also discussed Montessori schools in the valley. One of the mom’s, Rachel was her name I believe, two children have decided they wanted to go to school so they researched and Montessori is they path they’ve decided. It was interesting because Darlene, another mom mentioned how unschooling is about letting your child make the decisions and letting them go to school if they desire is also apart of unschooling.

Our differences seemed less as I got to know them and discuss.

I met only a handful of the group, but it was still fun. I do worry that Lilah may never formally interact too much with kids since they’re all just at the park playing and doing their own thing, but hopefully over time she’ll recognize the families and get to know the children better.

When I joined the yahoo group I mentioned my concern for how to teach Lilah reading and writing. Reading is a part of life, but writing, that takes practice so it’s not something you can just learn through life, I guess you can try to write letters to people or something.
The facilitator of the group mentioned how I could discuss that at the activities and get input from other moms. She also mentioned once she let go of the idea of having her son be the smartest five year old homeschooling got a lot easier. (Compared to fighting one another on what to learn and not having fun. )

So, I’m going to try to let go and let Lilah learn. I will still have some more traditional techniques, but she doesn’t need to be the smartest five year old. I know she won’t be learning the same things as as her peers in school but I know she’ll be learning, growing and having fun along the way.

I’m feeling a little more chipper today.
I’ve continued to organize my house, mostly our books. I played with Eden while Lilah sat on the toilet for like an hour and had a nice cup of iced chai green tea today after lunch. I’m feeling a little more myself.

Last night I gave Jon some alone time and took the girls to Britta’s dance recital. Britta wanted Lilah there when it was first announced and I knew that the Lee’s would also be in it so we went.

Lilah had fun. At times she was mimicking the dancers. I think she would like dance but I’m torn. I kinda like gymnastics but I also like dance, but with Eden approaching the age of being able to start classes we can’t afford $120 every 6 weeks to have them both in dance and gymnastics not to mention the cost of dance and tap shoes for Lilah and Eden once she turns five also.

In the fall Lilah can decide to do dance instead of gymnastics, Sam doesn’t teach during the summer, and we’ll see what Eden wants to do too.

I mentioned earlier that Lilah was on the toilet for like an hour this morning. I’m not exaggerating. I think she might have a UTI. She had to go to the bathroom 3 times during the one hour dance recital. Of course the second time nothing came out and the third time I made her go by herself so I’m not sure. Then during church on Sunday she went 4 times in the 3 hour block. I don’t know what’s going on with her.

I’m finally working with on Lilah writing her name properly. She can kinda right her name, but not properly.

She’s also read the first 4 Bob Books by herself. I’m making progress with her and even though I admit I’m not the most consistent, I think this homeschooling thing might work out OK for us.