Repeat After Me: I Do Not Have Schoolwork. I Am the Mom.

Do you take on the stress of your child's work load too? If you are behind schedule or one certain subject is stacking up on you, is your child concerned about it or only you? If there is a big project due this week, like us, does the stress to complete it fall on you or them?

I'm kind of bad about this. Some mornings I remember to tell myself, "Hey! I've already been to 7th grade! This isn't my problem!" Other mornings I feel like I'm the student and I have a huge workload ahead of me that day!

Forgetting, of course, that it is my child who has the school work to complete. I am the mom. I have a house to keep and a baby to care for. I have to read to them, yes. And directly teach them at times.

But I am not the student!

I must remember this daily.

But the big projects are complete now and the presentations are today. It's voluntary, you know. We don't have to participate in our homeschool group's project fair. But we love it. The girls have done it nearly every year. Last year Mama said NO because Mama was very, very pregnant.

This is our first year to not do a science-related project. That would be because not a terrible lot of science has gone on this year. We are about half-way through our book, but not nearly as far as I'd like to be. There's still time.

I'm excited about their presentations today and I can't wait to share them with you afterward.

But first, I must go and be a MOM NOT a STUDENT.

Repeat to self.

P.S. Little Bit slept in her room last night sans marsupials. It was lovely. I rearranged her room and we turned all the wooden cubes that her dollhouse sit on towards the wall so there are no more openings for possums to cuddle up in. I dreamed about possums last night.

In Which We Have a Visitor

So I was getting dressed this morning after my shower and suddenly Little Bit burst into my room. She knows she's supposed to knock but she said later, "I wasn't wasting time on knocking!" She was screaming and crying.

"There's a snake in my room!!"

I calmed her down and Bee reached over to hug her. So sweet. I closed her door and put some towels under the gap. Told the girls to let me finish getting dressed and then I'd deal with it.

By "deal with it" I meant "call my dad."
He wasn't home. Shoot.

I figured it was a grass snake. I started to her room and she said, "NO MOMMY! Don't go in there!!!" I told her I needed to see what it was. She answered, "Ok. but watch out for the claw."

Wait. WHAT??? Now I'm the one jumping up and down. SNAKES DON'T HAVE CLAWS. WHAT DID YOU SEE??

So I calmed back down and figured it was a tree lizard. I went into her room armed with a broom. I moved a sack out of the way. I used the broom to move the blue dress out of the way she told me it was under.

And I saw a face. With eyes. And fur.

NO!!!!! I was out of there folks!!! I came screaming into the living room, "IT'S A MAMMAL!!"

The girls were in the driveway in a split second. I made some more phone calls. No one was available. My dad said he'd be home soon. I convinced the girls to come back in the living room and we got some school done. Then my dad showed up with work gloves and a box. He emerged with this

Yes folks, that is a possum. In our house. In Little Bit's bedroom. Ew. Ew. Ew. When I saw the face, my first thought was possum. And I was greatly hoping it was not a rat.

Turns out Little Bit had heard something and went to see what it was. She caught sight of the long tail unfurling--thus, the snake. Double ew.

The girls are spending the night at their grandparent's house. I've got to figure out a way to make it ok for Little Bit to sleep in that room again. I've been jumpy all day.

Triple ew.

In Which We Make Our House Work For Us Again

OK--no more whining. S and I put our heads together and finally came up with a solution for making this house work for us AND a place to put all the furniture. We were actually so perplexed I was praying about it last week. Then, the other day I was visiting with my mom and telling her the problem and BOOM...an epiphany! An answer to prayer: how to rearrange to meet all our current needs.

So now, instead of this:

Homeschool cabinet in corner of living room.

We have this:


An office for S!!! (That's some CHEAP Wal-Mart furniture there. Nobody sneeze or slam the door too hard!)
 

And instead of this:

One side of the front room.

We have this:

Wow! A place to hang our map! And you can't see it but our spelling board is hung up too!

 

And instead of this:

and this:

We have this:

Here's the middle of that front room with our new table:

Yes folks, we have a homeschool room again. And it feels good!!! The table is tall, with bar stool-like chairs so Baby Bee won't be able to reach it for a while. And now we don't have to set up the card table in the living room every day.

And S has an office to work in! It's so wonderful!

And that little extra room that used to once upon a time be my sewing room but more recently looked like this:

Now looks like this:

The girls' rooms are clean too. There only remains our room. One day, I'll get all that laundry put away. But for now we are just so excited to make these changes and USE our house the way we need to!

We've got 7 more weeks or so of school. How about you?

My Most Devoted Reader

Good ol' Anonymous Spam. He assures me I am a most excellent writer and always has a kind word to say about my blog, plus a little happy link for me to visit.

I just spend 15 minutes deleting spam comments from this blog.

You other commenters really need to step up your game. Why don't you give me helpful web tips like him? :) Never have I had such a devoted reader.

In other news, I spent over an hour throwing away 2 1/2 bags of trash out of Sweetheart's room yesterday. It's ok--she asked me to! Actually, she bargained for me to! (She knows how to bargain with me pretty well. She knows all my weak spots. Mama will do just about anything for foot rubs, or to have my hair brushed, etc. Yesterday she REALLY wanted help on her room b/c she gave me the full spa treatment.)

I love you Sweetheart--even if you have 50 socks on your bedroom floor.

Anyway, in the course of sweeping out from under all her furniture, and behind everything and just generally getting everything off the floor--I found 50 socks. FIFTY SOCKS folks. And she was still wearing some yesterday! Today we are going to attack the closet and drawers. Time to get rid of what doesn't fit and pass along or throw away toys. Sniff. Sniff.

I've been in no hurry on the toys because once you grow up, you don't ever get to go back. She's been telling me she doesn't want them all and I keep saying, "they aren't taking up any room in your closet, just leave them on the shelf in case you want to play with them one day." But after seeing the state of her room yesterday, I've decided it's time to seriously pare down what's in her room. If you don't own much, you can't junk the room up. Right? Right?

And I must resist the urge to keep everything for Bee later. There is far too big of a gap in ages to store clothes or toys for her for later. Maybe a few sentimental items that all the girls have loved and played with. But really--I've got to let go of some things. EVEN IF they are "perfectly good." (That was my mom's voice there in quotes. She can't throw anything away. Must. Fight. Genetics.)

Baby Bee--conqueror of the homeschool cabinet.

In other news, Bee learned to open the homeschool cabinet yesterday so that is now sporting a child lock. Far too much money invested in homeschool curriculum to risk that. I don't lock everything up, just the one kitchen cabinet that has a gas connection inside it. I don't mind telling her "no." But boy if she ripped up our homeschool stuff while I was out of the room--I might have what they call a coniption. So that's another inconvient addition to our school day. I would really, really, really like to have a homeschool room again. One with a bunch of built-in would be nice. And a play area on the other side for Bee. So if you know of anyone giving a house away--give me a holler!

OK--let the vague, general compliments about my blogging style begin!

This Time It's Not About Rearranging

BUT...boy we sure have to change how we homeschool from month to month! We started the year working at the coffee table, mourning the loss of our homeschool room. Then, we graduated to setting up a card table in the living room each morning. That's where we stand now. But lately, Bee (who will be 10 months old tomorrow), has been more content to play and we've been able to get a bit more done.

Baby Bee's reaction to the new baby gate.

EXCEPT the tics. Little Bit's Tourette's has been making school work very difficult. She can only work for short periods of time. So we get school done in snatches and not every subject by any means. Tomorrow is the day after spring break and I intend to really hit some of the things we've been neglecting lately. I want to finish the school year with a lot under our belt.

Little Bit made a cake for my parent's anniversary. She's working on her Grandparents Badge in Keepers.

THAT will mean staying home more. And this week, with a dentist appointment, shopping trip, regular errands, piano, homeschool gym day, and Keeper's meeting...may not be the best week to say that.

Sweetheart and I used to look at the Sonlight catalog at all the older siblings holding babies while they did their school work. She's one of them now.

TRULY we used to get more done our first few years of homeschooling. I only had one student, we stayed home a lot because our homeschool social network was not very well established. Sigh. A middle schooler with a pretty substantial workload, a 3rd grader dealing with tics, and a cruising baby is definitely my most challenging equation yet. I mean, being pregnant was hard too but let's face it...I don't remember much of it because I was asleep.

Baby Bee is always willing to help. She helps a lot.

SPEAKING of tics. (Which, I was a few minutes ago) I had a thought the other day. I don't remember exactly what all things came together for this to occur to me, but I decided perhaps a weighted blanket might help Little Bit. Have you seen these? They are used mostly for children with autism to help calm them down. They are also for sensory processing disorders. It also occurred to me that Little Bit might have a little of that concern too. There are certain fabrics she cannot touch because they give her goose bumps. Napkins are difficult. I carried a cloth napkin in the diaper bag for a while. She's giving away a teddy bear because he feels wrong and bothers her. I spent 5 minutes researching sensory processing disorders but I didn't come to any conclusions.

We took a day off for a field trip to the zoo and art museum. L to R Matt with Bee, Emily, Sweetheart (top), Kate (bottom) and Little Bit.

AT ANY RATE, I'm going to try sewing her a weighted blanket. That's what I'll be doing this week.

In between errands.

And school.

Which will all work out really well as long as no one requires food.