Top Ten

Have I mentioned I am enjoying homeschooling Nadia? Well I really am! Sometimes when I am sitting in a comfy chair reading a book with Nadia and Ian on my lap during a time of day she would have been in school if we weren't homeschooling our kids, I stop and reflect on how grateful I am. Here are ten things I love about homeschooling (in no particular order).

1. Nadia gets to spend 42.5 more hours a week (or 1,530 hours a year) with her mom and brothers than she would if she was going to school. This means far more hugs, kisses, and snuggles each week for one thing! Priceless.

2. She can take a nap, if she so desires (like she did today), and most days she gets to sleep in later than she would if she was catching the bus as she'd need to be out the door at 7:20am. I let her get up when she wants to get up. No alarm clocks are involved.

3. We spend a much shorter amount of time doing "schoolwork" each day than she would if she was attending a school, which means she has far more time to play (which is VERY important for young children!). Part of the reason we don't need as much time is because we don't take a 3 month break in the summer, and many times we do schoolwork on Saturdays also. When she's older I will assign her some "homework," but for now I am also enjoying the fact we don't have to deal with any homework in the evenings.

4. Instruction is 100% individualized. We go at her pace and can adapt to her learning styles and interests. I really, really hope my children's curiosity, love of learning, and love of reading will continue to grow over the years to come.

5. She'll be going on far more field trips over the next few years than she would have taken if she had attended a public or private school. I plan on taking the kids to many museums, aquariums, historical sites, theatre productions, etc.

6. We are able to enjoy chapter books during lunch. Presently we're in the middle of The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle. I enjoy this time as much as Nadia and Ian, as I get to reread books that I loved when I was a child. Nadia has been wearing her Dorothy costume a lot lately as the last book we read was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

7. All of her instruction is in agreement with our world view (ex. spiritual, financial, and political matters). This probably would also have been true if we had sent her to a Christian school. Character development is of upmost importance. I pray that my children will grow to love the Lord with all their hearts, souls, minds, and bodies and love their neighbors as well.

8. She still has plenty of interaction with other children, and in most of these instances it isn't just with five-year-olds. I am a strong advocate of mixed age groups. I don't think that spending a large portion of time each week with kids only your own age is the best way to achieve socialization. She attends a Sunday School class for grades K-2, and the Sparks (AWANA) program on Wednesday nights is also for grades K-2 although for part of that time she is just with Kindergarteners. Her gymnastics class is a mixed age group, and her soccer team has kids from a two year age span. I've signed her up for two different homeschooling co-op groups this fall, and I purposefully selected co-ops that had mixed age groups (such as K-2). There were co-ops available where she would have only been with other Kindergarteners.

9. Once the kids are a little older, I will have her help her brothers some. My doctoral dissertation was on cross-age tutoring. :) This has been shown to have many prosocial and academic benefits for both the tutor and tutee.

10. We can incorporate a wide variety of "subjects" into our curriculum that aren't often included such as sign language, Spanish, piano lessons, etc.

*I always feel the need to add this disclaimer. I am not saying everyone should homeschool their children. Parents need to decide what is best for each of their children. That might be homeschooling or it might be a private or a public school.

Bells and Breakfast

Last night I played handbells for the first time in almost five years. Of the 16 other people there last night, 11 of them were in the bell choir five years ago. I knew two of the folks who had joined the choir since I left as one is the Pastor's wife and another was a student of mine at Bloomsburg University. A few others that used to be in the choir are no longer in the choir. It was so wonderful to be reunited with dear friends, many I hadn't seen in a few years. There was always a tight knit bond amongst those in the bell choir. They fervently prayed for us as we tried to adopt and tried to conceive. I remember how Nadia used to kick within my womb when I was playing certain songs with the handbells. Paul met me at the gym where the kids were in the middle of their gymnastics classes at 6pm, and I drove from there straight to the handbell rehearsal (30 minute drive). I was very exhausted when I got home around 9pm last night, but I am very grateful I'll be able to play the handbells for four months.

This morning I played my flute at the Country Cupboard (a restaurant with an amazing buffet) for the Christian Women's Club. About 100 women attend their breakfast each month. The food was delicious. I only ate half a banana for lunch to try to compensate for the extra calories I consumed this morning, although I did show restraint at the buffet.

I will not be feeding Oliver oatmeal for breakfast any longer. A couple of weeks ago he had the runs, and at first I thought it was from oatmeal because Ian has the same reaction to it, but with Ian it would clear up pretty quickly after I stopped giving him any oatmeal. Since Oliver's took much longer to clear up, I thought maybe he had a bug instead. It turns out it's definitely the oatmeal. I can't wait until he stops having the runs, especially because it's been giving him a bad case of diaper rash, which up until a couple of weeks ago he hadn't had since he was in the NICU. He's not been a huge fan of cream of wheat lately so hopefully I can find other things that he'll enjoy for breakfast. This morning Paul got him to eat half of a bagel.

This evening I took the kids to a small circus about 10 minutes from our house. It only cost $15 for all four of us to attend this 90 minute program. Ian said his favorite act was the jugglers. Oliver did really well! There were dogs, horses, camels, llamas, a clown, a woman who spun many hula hoops at the same time, jugglers, a trapeze artist, etc. The weather turned really hot today (it hadn't been this hot since early in July) so I splurged and bought us a large fresh squeezed lemonade as we were all sweating profusely. The kids also wanted popcorn, but we waited until we got home. I popped a bag in the microwave and the four of us shared it.

Branches and Bikes

Yesterday morning Nadia had her first soccer game for the fall season. Her team had five practices prior to the first game, and she participated in four of those. I am not sure if it was those practices or the fact that it was her second season playing soccer, but wow had she improved a lot since the spring season that ended 3 months ago! They don't keep score in U6 games, but Nadia's team definitely scored far more goals. If both kids want to play next fall, Ian would be on a U6 team and Nadia would be on a U8 team. I worked in the concession stand from 8:30-9:00 before her game. She didn't score any goals, but she actually did help her team score a few of them. Her foot came in contact with the ball far more than it did last season. Unfortunately unless something changes, she won't be attending any more soccer practices because they'll be in AWANA on Wednesday nights starting this week.

On Friday I started the process of picking apples from our two apple trees. The last time we had a big apple harvest was in August 2010. I gave a friend from church a couple of bags of apples on Friday, and she used some of them to make two apple crumb pies, and she gave us one of the pies. Yummy! We finished picking the tree with the red apples yesterday. A lot of the apples weren't in great shape so Paul disposed of several large boxes of apples this morning. We finished picking the tree with green apples today. The animals definitely prefer the red apples as far more of them had chunks taken out (bites). Some of the red apples were absolutely gorgeous - just as big and pretty as ones you see at the grocery store. Yesterday I made one big batch of applesauce, and this afternoon I made another big batch of applesauce. All three kids and I had some today. I also plan to make some apple crisp later this week. I took three large boxes of apples to church today to share with others. Those that weren't claimed were taken to a low income area of town where they were claimed.

I am not sure how women who do lots of canning find the time and energy for such a task. I just don't have it in me. I am not sure I'll make it through the apples I did keep, which is a tiny percentage of the total crop. I have to say I don't mind if we don't ever have another apple tree. Apples aren't very expensive so I'd rather just buy some at the store than be deluged with an insane amount of them once a year. I definitely want to plant blueberry bushes and strawberry plants in the future though because those fruits are far more expensive, and they don't grow to be 20+ feet tall. My back is so sore! Our next door neighbor has three fruit trees - one apple, one pear, and one peach. I was at one time jealous. I'm not any longer.

The kids helped a little while we were picking apples, but what Nadia really wanted to do was climb the tree. It was the first time she had any interest. When I tried to help her up in a tree in the past, she was completely terrified. She was very proud of herself. We also worked on their biking skills this afternoon. Paul took the training wheels off of Nadia's bike, and Paul and I took turns helping her ride the bike without training wheels. She is definitely not ready to ride without our help yet, but we'll keep working on it. I was thrilled that she finally had the desire to give it a try. I also worked with Ian with pedaling his tricycle, and he came a long way. He's been wanting a big boy bike (with training wheels), and I told him he couldn't have one until he could use the pedals on the tricycle. That was just the motivation he needed it seems! As I type this, Paul is sitting on the couch beside me grading papers. I am still adjusting to this role reversal! Since Nadia is only five years old, I'm not grading any of her work yet. I am very pleased with the progress she's made lately with sounding words out!

13 Months Old!

Over the past month Oliver has:

1. Learned to put himself to sleep at bedtime and prior to both naps. Most of the time he doesn't cry. He also greatly increased the length of time he sleeps at night as now he often sleeps from 8pm to 7am and occasionally sleeps all the way until 7:30am! The earliest he gets up these days is 6:30am. His morning nap lasts on average 30 minutes, and his afternoon nap lasts on average 60 minutes. He sometimes takes a third nap in his car seat or the stroller. Today he only had one nap due to the soccer game, and it was about 45 minutes long. I do miss the good old days when he used to nap for an average of 4 hours a day.

2. Gained 1 pound, as he now weighs a little more than 20 pounds (8th percentile). A couple of weeks ago we switched his car seat around so that he is now facing forward. I also am just about to switch him to size 4 diapers. His favorite foods are pretzels, oatmeal, any pasta, pizza, animal crackers, hot dogs, Froot Loops, and yogurt. Having him sit beside me is a great diet plan because he ends up eating a lot of the food off of my plate!

3. Started wearing shoes. If I put sandals on him, he tends to take them off (like just about every baby does). He was wanting to stand and cruise more when we were outside, which is why I started having him wear shoes. He also has begun to stand a little without holding on to anything, and if he's holding on to something he can push around (such as a small chair when he's on the wood floor), he will walk around the room while holding on to something.

4. Learned to climb up the stairs. He still needs to learn how to go backwards down the stairs, but it was at the playground that I first saw him climb a few steps, and he's since climbed our flight of stairs at home as well.

5. Started crying when I leave him in the church nursery. Thankfully he doesn't cry for very long, but it tugs on my heart strings to walk out of the nursery while he's crying for me.

6. Learned to roll the ball back and forth. If you roll it to him, he will roll it back to you. He does this when sitting on the floor and also did it in the swimming pool. I think he's more advanced with this than his siblings were at this age.

Foto Friday

Thankful Thursday

1. Nadia, Ian, and I are very thankful for the iPad! Ian absolutely adores "Endless Alphabet." He laughs hysterically, and it's a good app for reviewing letters and the sounds the letters make plus teaches some vocabulary. I am impressed with "Reading Raven" that Nadia is working on, and "Blob Chorus" is great for ear training. I am enjoying using youversion for my daily Bible reading. I picked a read through the Bible in a year chronologically option. Once our iTunes gift card arrives in the mail (courtesy of credit card points), I'm going to purchase Chore Pad for the kids and Motivated Moms for me. For the last few years I've been bringing my laptop into the kitchen whenever I've needed to look at a recipe while cooking. It's much easier to use the iPad for that purpose!

2. I'm so thankful Paul isn't teaching any night classes or labs in the spring semester. Although he's technically at home on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, he stays in our bedroom with the door closed. The kids saw him about 15 minutes total over the past 2 days. This means that aside from the 45 minute break I get around 1pm due to naps/quiet time, I am with the kids non-stop from about 6:30am to 8:30pm. I love them dearly, but that is exhausting. Also, it means I can rejoin my church's choir in January. YAY!

3. We had a great time at Lake Tobias on Monday. I am thankful for Labor Day as we got to see more of Paul that day due to the holiday.

4. Nadia has gotten into drinking water! It just shows that being a good role model does help. Water is the only thing I drink. She told me recently she wanted to drink water like Mommy. Now if only all my habits were ones that I'd like to see the kids imitate. Ian had a really bad vomiting episode on Tuesday morning, which might have had nothing to do with drinking milk, but it made me nervous. Because of that I've been having him drink juice (grape, orange, or apple) or water instead of milk. Ian and Nadia never drank juice from a sippy cup, but I already have Oliver drinking apple juice as I don't want him to be so obsessive with milk like his siblings have been.

5. The weather this week has been heavenly. It's perfect weather now that we're done with swimming for the year. Yesterday Ian complained a little that it was too cold as we were going to the playground in the morning, so today we went in the afternoon instead, and we'll probably make that our norm for as long as the weather is warm enough that we still enjoy that walk.

6. I'm thankful that banana bread is yummy even without eggs. I went through a lot of eggs the last few days making butterscotch cookies, brownies, and French toast. I had been planning to make banana bread today, and then I discovered we didn't have any eggs. The recipe I like calls for 2 eggs. I decided to just try it without the eggs. I already use applesauce instead of butter when I make that recipe. It turned out just fine. I honestly can't tell that it's missing anything so I don't think I'll ever use eggs or butter in banana bread again!

7. I love listening to the kids play and finding out they're acting out a story I've been reading to them. I heard Ian acting out James and the Giant Peach in the swimming pool on several occasions. This morning they were acting out parts of  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which is what I am reading them right now. These books aren't exactly geared for a three year old. I picked them with Nadia in mind, but Ian is definitely listening as well!

8. Paul will be home this evening!!! He can be in charge of getting Ian to eat the chicken and dumplings, and I can get caught up on cleaning around the house while he plays with the kids after dinner. Yahoo!

Wordless Wednesday

Nadia took this picture!

Screen Time

I have been really pleased with the limited amount of time the kids have spent staring at a screen the past few months. It was hard at first just because watching some tv (either a DVD or something on Amazon Prime via the Roku) one to two times a day had become habit. It surely is very easy to take care of the kids when they're just watching tv. That doesn't include Oliver yet, thankfully. The only time he'll turn his head toward a screen is if a song is playing, and even then his attention span is less than one minute. Once I broke them of the habit, we haven't really missed it, especially since we've been doing things like playing at the playground and swimming most days. The swimming pool closed yesterday. During the time we usually would have been at the pool I was coloring with Nadia and then all of us were playing outside (riding bikes and such).

This morning a guy from the cable company came and hooked us back up to cable. If we didn't live in such a rural area, we'd be content just watching the local channels, but we get ZERO channels without paying for either cable or satellite tv. We haven't watched live tv for the past 9 months, but now we have access to it once again because Paul and I both love to watch our football games. Depending on how our teams do will determine how many months we have cable. Last year neither of our teams made it to the playoffs (boo hoo) so we turned off our cable the end of December. If at least one of our teams does better this year, then we'll likely still have cable in January. Tuesday evening is one of the times I have decided I will let the kids watch tv because Paul doesn't come home until after their bedtime. After we got home from their last t-ball class, the kids were thrilled to be able to watch a little Disney Jr. before heading to bed as they hadn't seen shows like Sofia or Doc McStuffins in quite awhile.

This afternoon the FedEx guy delivered our iPad. I was surprised because Apple had said we'd receive it on Friday. It came three days early! The kids haven't used it yet, but I have just installed 3 apps for them so far - Endless Alphabet, Reading Raven, and Blob Chorus. I will let Ian and Nadia give it a whirl tomorrow (but then I will not allow them to watch any tv tomorrow). I am excited about delving into the world of apps. I'm using the "lite" (free) version of Motivated Moms until they have the 2014 app available for purchase. Now that we have cable tv again (for a few months anyhow) and have our first tablet (we don't have smartphones yet), it's going to be more of a challenge to limit their screen time (meaning Nadia and Ian at this point), but I am determined to keep it in check although I am sure during the winter months when we aren't outside much I'll let them use it a little more than I will during the months when we can be outside more. The neat thing about educational apps is that the kids will just view them as fun, whereas they will actually be learning! I am NOT planning to install things like Angry Birds on the iPad. If any of you have any recommendations for apps for chore charts for the kids, educational apps, or anything that you really like for yourself, please let me know! I am definitely a novice when it comes to apps!

Safari!

 

Today we made our second trip to Lake Tobias. Our first visit there was almost exactly two years ago. I think as long as we live within a reasonable distance of Halifax, PA, we will be making an annual trip there. It's a really nice place to take kids! There are some animals in enclosures (tigers, lions, bears, monkeys, parrots, etc.), but most of the animals are roaming about and can be seen while taking a Safari ride. The buses they use were school buses, and the top part of the bus has been removed. The animals are well trained to come right up to the bus. If you'd like, you can pet a watusi, bison, antelope, water buffalo, alpaca, emu, Texas longhorn, llama, etc. They also have a petting zoo area where the children fed goats, camels, etc. In the reptile building they were able to pet an alligator and a snake.

As we were about to leave this morning, I snapped a photo of Oliver in his car seat because I wanted to compare his picture today to that taken on 9/2/12 when he was in a car bed for the first time as he was discharged from the NICU that day. One of the things that has me a bit nervous about the prospect of possibly being pregnant again is that I'm terrified of having a fourth child be in a NICU. The truth is that it's now a distant memory now that Oliver has been home for a year. Yes, it's difficult to go through at the time, but it doesn't last too long (although it might feel that way when you're going through it). He was absolutely worth all we went through during the pregnancy and the first 10 weeks of his life when he was on oxygen and such. I am so thankful that he has been so healthy over the past year. Aside from the two eye appointments to make sure he didn't have ROP and the two appointments involved with getting him off the oxygen, he has only had well baby visits over the past year. Thank you, Lord! He should have had urology surgery some time over the past year, but we were waiting until we were on Blue Shield insurance so we could have the surgery at CHOP rather than at our local hospital. Hopefully we'll get our ID number this week so I can finally schedule his first urology appointment.

 

 

One shot down

I had bloodwork this morning at 9:30am. It was a blessing that the doctor wanted it done on a Sunday because the outpatient lab isn't technically open on Sundays so I was in and out of there in about 10 minutes. We weren't able to attend Sunday School because of this appointment, but I got home just in time to get the kids in the van and get to church for the worship service. Oliver was in the nursery, and the other two stayed with me for the whole service. Nadia did very well. She earned her sticker. She just needs to earn two more stickers (both for blowing her nose) and then she'll earn a special treat. She had to earn 25 stickers to fill in her whole chart. Ian has to earn 15 stickers to earn a reward. It was special to take communion with Nadia. Ian was awake during the first part of the service, but then he fell asleep in my arms as soon as the sermon began. He had a quiet time in his room after lunch since he had already taken his nap. Oliver's morning nap (while I was at the hospital) was an hour long! It's been a long time since that happened. His morning nap is usually 20-30 minutes long. His afternoon nap was a bit longer than one hour. Woohoo! I would love for that to be the norm.

On the way home from church the IVF nurse (Denise) called and said I should start the Lupron today. Surprise, surprise the pregnancy test today was negative. I could have told them that! This was the first time a RE required I have one of those before starting the shots. We never conceived on our own over the past 12 years of marriage. My progesterone level indicated that I had already ovulated (thank you, Lord, for answering that prayer request!). It wasn't at the level one would expect for 7 days past ovulation (where I should be on day 21), but it was high enough to show I had ovulated recently. Even though I've given myself hundreds of shots over the past 10 years (my first INJ cycle was in 2003), it still feels strange to stick a needle in my belly. I am very thankful the Lord has used IVF to grow our family, but I'm also very glad that this is the last time I'll be doing all of this. I've had enough. I'm praying fervently that if this results in a pregnancy that the placenta will be in the right place this time.