You know that you are a veteran mom when...

Your 15 month old is methodically throwing the three bears counters all over the dining room floor. In all different directions. Yet your first reaction isn't "I wonder if he could choke on one of those bears.".

It isn't even "Someone is going to have to pick up those 96 little bears, scattered in all directions. And by someone, I mean me.".

No, the thought that immediately sprung to my mind was one of relief. "Oh thank goodness!" I thought. "That should entertain him long enough for me to get dinner finished.".

And it did! Veteran motherhood means discovering happiness in the simple pleasures of life!

Why I must get the laundry into drawers...

I happened to leave the laundry in the dryer last night. I just didn't have the energy to mess with it.

Brennan told me that he needed shorts - there weren't any left in his drawer. I told him that there were clean clothes in the dryer and to go see if he could find any in there. He later came back with pants on, so I didn't give it another thought.

Until lunch. After closer inspection, I realized that his shorts looked just a little funny. In fact, they looked like coolots. I suspected something was amiss. I asked him to come there to examine them further.

Yep. They were not Brennan's size 6 shorts. They were Philip's size 2 dress slacks. And apparently they fit Brennan around the waist just fine.

Tonight, I will get around to folding those clothes...

Afternoon Art

when your two year old decides that paper is just, well, a BORING medium!

Our Newest Hacker

Yes, this is apparently photo Monday. I cannot write anything at the moment that will come out coherently. Hopefully this evening, after watching the Heroes season premier with my DH, my brain will be sufficiently defragmented back into the land of the living.

The Singing (Shouting) Bee

Brennan and Nicholas have hit that male competitive steak. Full stride. Lately it has manifested itself as a singing bee of sorts. Here's how it generally goes:

-One boy starts singing a song.
-The next boy says "No, lets sing this song."
-First boy says "No, I want to sing my song."
-Both plead for me to intervene. I offer "You cannot make other people sing what you want them to.".
-Both boys then proceed to each sing his own song simultaneously. One gets louder, then the other gets even louder, and bingo! Competition ensues.
-Mom gets immediate migraine. Tells both boys to just stop.
-Boys both look at each other and grin broadly. Game over! Winner - boys. Loser - Mom!

Grandma's Little Helper

Back Seat Critic

We were driving around town running errands with my parents yesterday afternoon. My Dad shared the back bench of our van with Brennan and Nicholas. I overheard this:

My Dad to Brennan: "Your Mom is such a good driver."

Brennan, back to my Dad: "No she's not."

Thanks, dear son!

Breaking out of cabin fever

I think I know how moms who live up north must feel each spring. "WE can get out of the house!" I hear them cry each March with the anticipation of a child at Christmas! And each time, I think to myself "Wow, am I glad we don't have those winters. I would hate to be cooped in like that."

But I realized something these past months. Down here in Houston, we may not have the winters, but we have the summers. Our summers where it is either downpouring rain, hot and humid to the point of misery, and mosquitoes that seem to think they own the place (Wait a minute, they do!). We spend the vast part of June, July, and August trying to figure out the best time to let the kiddos get a little fresh air. Early morning, would you believe that is usually the muggiest time! Afternoon, hot, Hot, HOT! Evening, finally, oh! Hello mosquitoes! And just as you feel a change in the air, here comes the rain! Our only saving feature is the abundance of swimming pools!

But September hits. A cool front pushes in dry weather that zaps the humidity out of the air. The mornings have a very fall-esque breeze to them. And the afternoons only top out at 90 (or even 88, if we are lucky!).

Yep, I love these fall days. It's finally time to break out of our own cabin fever. It is finally time to go out and play!

Peaceful Mornings

Today was the second morning in a row that I have been up at 5 AM. It started yesterday with an early rise due to an early crash the night before. This morning it is due to a croupy little boy who is sleeping, but with that cough I like to be on alert (we have had one bad outbreak of croup in the past which landed dear Nicholas in the hospital - scary! I don't know how mothers of kids with asthma do it - my child was turning blue and I freaked out!). Anyhow, Philip's case last night wasn't that bad, but I am still awake and ready.

Not that I am complaining. I love these early mornings. Ones in which I can have my coffee, sit and reflect, pray. Get laundry started, dishes unloaded and loaded, sweep and mop floors. Complete those little tasks which seem so calming and routinely simple to do in the morning without little ones who knock over the newly folded stack of clothes, run onto the damp tile floor (with a crash-amazing how physics works!), and begin to pull out brand new cups or get into the refrigerator because, well, Mom is in the kitchen!

I am not a morning person. At all! Yet that is why I love these mornings the best. I can be fully awake and greet my children with a "good morning" and a genuine smile. And their smile in return gets our day off to a great start. The boys really feed off of that cheerful "good morning".

And I am so happy that I am the one to be here this morning to deliver it to them.

Motivation

How do you get your 5 year old, with new tubes in his ears to wear his ear plugs in the shower? This is the kid that doesn't like anything he feels might be slightly intrusive!

Me, to Nicholas: "Hey, why don't you put on these super suction ears. You can look just like LarryBoy!"

Mission accomplished!

Those Darn Magnets!

Brennan has a magentic dartboard that he and Nicholas love to play with. It is hanging in their room, supposedly out of range of a certain little one's reach.

I have caught Jonathan with these darts hanging out of his mouth five times in the last few days. I threatened Brennan with the removal of the dartboard if he did not keep them in his room. He promised that he had been.

Poor guy. He was right. I just caught Jonathan, pushing over a bucket so that he could stand on it to reach his new favorite chew thing.

I owe Brennan an apology. Time to keep his room door closed, me thinks.

P.S. - Why oh why, with all of the toys in this house, does that seem to be Jonathan's teether of choice?

Our Weekly Nature Walk

As a part of our new Charlotte Mason program, we have been having a weekly nature walk (on Thursday) and Tea Time (on Tuesday). I hope to eventually make these more frequent, but for now this works well.

This week, we switched days for our tea and walk, and so today was nature time. We did this because my parents are here until tomorrow morning. And with the extra hands we could have even more fun than usual. So after our morning core studies, we took today's beautiful weather to our nearby beach!





Our favorite parts of the outing were:
- feeling the undercurrents pull under our feet
- watching how far the tide could take us away from our towels on the beach
- finding many cool shells
- watching a pelican scoop a fish out of the water
- the collecting of much disgusting (but ultra cool to little boys) seaweed. We even made seaweed sculptures

And of course the crashing in the waves! Our one regret

Brennan, as we were leaving: "But I was so busy, I forgot to build a sandcastle!"

Maybe next time, honey!

Man after my own heart

My parents made a last minute visit this weekend. They brought with them lots and lots of Russell Stover chocolates from the outlet on the way here.

This morning, Jonathan came towards me with something in his hand. He was holding a pecan cluster, and holding it out for me. "Oh, thank you!" I stated as I took it from his hand.

The immediate cry from my 15 month old let me know in no uncertain terms that it was not his intention to give it to me. He plainly meant for me to open it for him. After all, a pecan cluster does make a good breakfast, no doubt.

Poor, deprived child. I probably shouldn't let him know that indeed, it was good. Very good.

When Narration Just Might Be Taken Too Far

Brennan and I read "The Tailor of Gloucester" by Beatrix Potter today for our story. Either because he was tired (he could not seem to sleep last night) or because the story was a bit more complicated in terms of language, I had to help pull the narration out of him.

But I think that he finally got it. Because now Brennan is running room to room slamming doors and squealing happily. Philip is close behind him.

"Stop running in the house!". I shout.

"But Mom", Brennan protested, "I am the mouse and Philip is the cat. I am out of the cup, and I have to run away so that I can sew the coat for the tailor."

Come to think of it, maybe I better check and make sure he doesn't have any REAL needles and thread!

Our Charlotte Masony Week

I love it Celeste - Charlotte Masony! And since you asked below in the comments, "just what are we doing?", here it is:

I have taken much verbatim from Elizabeth Foss's wonderful, fabulous book. It integrates the learning with the living, which is exactly what I want. I want them to live and learn simultaneously, and ideally love every minute of it. I want the boys to explore creative outlets and not get bogged down in workbooks.

So step one was I dropped all of our Phonics workbooks for the week. MCP Phonics, Beyond the Code, English for the Thoughtful Child (not because it was a workbook, but because it was really over Brennan's head - it is a second grade book after all!). For Phonics I have taken the "Name Game" word families from off of the back of the Little Stories for Little Folks readers and I use it to write three word families on the board. Brennan reads those each day, and then reads a easy reader of his choice. He has picked "Pizza Pat" this week. We "rabbit trailed" off of it this morning to make our own pizza crust for lunch. You should have seen Brennan flipping dough in the air. No, I don't have pictures (camera is still lost!). This means no more of the actual Little Stories Readers (Brennan never liked them). He prefers Dr. Seuss or Arnold Lobel books at the moment. I hope to introduce him to Syd Hoff on our next library visit.

Step 2 was to take the spelling lists and condense the activities. So each week we will practice one of the spelling games from the back of Spelling Power with the weekly words. We will not (for now) do all of the specific studying and testing of these words. The only main part of the program I am keeping is the idea of placing the words in a Spelling Dictionary (write them on a page with the starting letter at the top).

Step 3 was Math. And I kept the workbook here. I did drop all of the extra practice pages, and I have turned the flashcards into a game - if he knows the fact he can "keep" the card. After five minutes, we see how many cards he has kept. We record his score and try to beat it each day. This he loves, and he has not complained once about this workbook - his one and only!

Step 4, History, already was devised in the spirit of Charlotte Mason. So is Science. No problems here! They were already Brennan's favorite subjects (could it be the approach?).

Everything else: For rounding out Language Arts, I have him orally narrate the daily story to me. And Religion, well, he has loved the Mater Amabilis plan for Religion, so we are sticking to it! We have studying paintings by Raphael this week (that's what we did for tea time - discussed a painting. For 30 minutes! I was impressed). We have also sketched a copy of one painting, as well as done a lesson in Draw Write Now (Brennan's handwriting too). Tomorrow is the Art with a Purpose Lesson. Music has been Beethoven this week. And we have been listening to Lesson One of Learning Spanish with Grace. Brennan now greets his Dad each night with "Buenos Dias", all on his own will.

Speaking of tea time - the china was a hit! Even Philip, my dear two year old was ever so careful. We set a full table, which they also enjoyed immensely!

As for me, I have LOVED this week. And Brennan has not complained once about school. Even more noticeably, the TV has been off all week, and Brennan has not asked once for it to be on. We have most likely killed a small forest in paper, but the creativity has been such a blessing. Best of all is that my energetic (shall we say hyper) boys have done so well that we are all in great spirits.

As my trial week has been so successful, I want to keep this program in place. Yet I still have this nagging fear that Brennan will fall behind his peers if I do.

As for next week's plans, we will be having another Charlotte Masony week. One more won't hurt!

Oh, where's the camera when you need it!

For my after dinner entertainment this evening, my gentlemen decided to put on a fight for me. Usually this entails light sabers. But this time only my husband was brandishing this weapon of choice. As for the others:

Brennan had an axe. This one will require explanation. We watched "The Wizard of Oz" over the weekend and he became enamoured with the Tin Man. He had a black strap from an action figure case that did, admittedly, look like an axe.

Nicholas had a sword. He claimed to be Aragorn, of "Lord of the Rings" fame.

Philip had a Tinkertoy stick. When asked what it was, he responded "just my sword".

This was quite the battle. And just when you think it cannot get any better, here came little Jonathan into the mix, yelling his little warrior cry and swinging his arm wildly. In his hand, his weapon, was a .... crayon!

All of this, and I could not find the camera anywhere! It is probably buried in the van. But that cleaning job will be another day's battle!

Labor Day Labors

We had such a productive weekend. We should probably be thankful for the stormy weather that we were blessed with this past weekend. Otherwise, we most likely would have ended up outside and not gotten anything done!

But the boys' closets are cleaned out. Winter clothes have been inventoried and I have the list of what each boy needs (thankfully small). Mostly jeans and pajamas. Nicholas does need some long sleeve playshirts, as he is now the same size as Brennan. It will be nice for him to pick out his own things.

I have resolved to declutter my house for the month of September. Before things get really hectic with holidays and birthdays. I did the play room a few months back, and now both boys' rooms are done! Only 6 more rooms to go!

On a side note, we are instituting our first "Charlotte Mason" style week for our school. We will see how it goes. Hey, what can one (short) week hurt! And we could use the break! And with that, it is time for our first Tea Time. With four young boys and the good china! Wish us luck!