Like strawberry milk through the sippy cup of our son...so are the days of our lives.
A lot has happened in two years; therefore, I don't care to write the novel to describe it. :-) Still working on the house renovations. Some trim, a little paint, a couple of shelves and we're close to finishing the interior. One day, I'll have the pleasure of posting before and after pictures. A lot of backerboard, spackling, and tears (and a little blood from where Dad smashed his finger in the laundry room) have gone into this place!
Lately, we've started dabbling in the homeschool arena. I say dabbling because I still feel like we're in limbo. Not sure whether to call E a kindergartener or a first grader. I've caught a lot of grief from different people over the homeschooling decision, but it just seems to make sense for us. Why homeschool? Well thank you for asking. The main reason we've decided to start homeschooling is because of all the junk that kids are exposed to these days in public school. We could send the children to private school, but let's face it, I'm too cheap for that. After paying for a K-8 Education degree, we may as well use it! In addition, homeschooling allows us to move along at our own pace, slowing down when necessary and skipping the lessons we know the kids already have a handle on. It's hard to beat a 1:1 student to teacher ratio!
We started by just learning letter sounds and reading simple books, but then I figured it would be nice to have some kind of actual curriculum to provide a more structured framework on which to build our own curriculum. Right now, we're using the Sing, Spell, Read, and Write first grade program. E seems to be catching on very easily. I'm trying to stress fluency at this point with reading. I find the little controlled phonics books VERY boring, and I think E does also. I plan on sticking with their plan for a while to see how it goes.
To make the learning experience a little more fun, we're going to start a unit of study on birds. Tomorrow I plan on taking E to the library to pick out bird-related books. Shane thought we were going to be feeding the little stinkers that like to roost (and defecate) on our back porch. He breathed a sigh of relief when I told him I had looked up what those flying pests eat and bought seed without it. Sorry, no cracked corn, millet, or milo here! Three types of feeders will go up and we'll try to document in a journal what kind of birds come to eat. I bought thistle seeds and a sunflower seed mix today. We also have some hummingbird feeders we will put up. I'm hoping we didn't miss our little dive bombing friends!
Little A-girl is rolling over now. She rolls in no particular direction at this point, but it's obvious that the little blob stage is now coming to an end. The last couple of weeks, she's been crying when strangers or someone she hasn't seen in a while make faces at her or try to pick her up. She could sleep a little better at night, but does better than J did when he was her age. She's a pretty happy baby overall and loves when E and J give her attention. Emily loves to do her silly tongue waggling, and J makes goofy faces and likes to dangle toys for her to grab. He's been known to make her cry then try to shove the paci in to get her to stop before I notice.
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