Since the throw-up November 2, 2009

Everyone is feeling much better.

Akiva really started turning around for the better yesterday morning and was well enough for a very early and very, very short Trick-or-Treating.  He got the swing of it after two houses.  The boys had a great time and Lev is just so nice mostly to Akiva.  Akiva had the big pumpkin costume on and with his equilibrium still a bit off I think he was pretty funny walking around.  On one driveway with a pretty steep incline he put his arms out in front of him and he really looked like he should have had a Frankenstein costume on.

The Halloween Fairy came in the night and converted Lev’s candy haul into a Clone Wars game “laptop”.  You know, for being trained in the Jedi arts.  OMG, you should have seen Lev.  Steve said he was pumping his little arm and told Steve “This is JUST what I’ve wanted for my WHOLE life!”  Steve asked him if he ever knew that it even existed and Lev said “NO!”  Still totally thrilled.  He brought it into my bed and played it for about 20 minutes before Akiva woke up and saw it.  “Buttnens!”  Then when he heard the sounds it made, he was even more thrilled.  Lev was such a sport letting him play with it.  Akiva got a giant bright green set of plastic, googly-eyed, battery operated, annoyingly sounding cleaning supplies – a broom, wastebasket, iron, dustbuster and dust pan.  “FOG!”  (Frog!)  Press, press, press, press, press those buttnens.

A few other random items:

Lev showed me a way he can correct his “miscolorations” when he draws.

Akiva is really interested in his puzzles and the Scholastic First Discovery Books.  The ones with the clear pages that change the pictures on the following page.  LOVES them.  The atlas of people and the atlas of animals are collectively called “Amils, peeple”.  He’s totally into reading now so we’ve done our indoctrination well.  He is officially one of us.   He also really loves his “mook cass”  (music class – aka Music Together).  We have to listen to the CD all the time and he talks about his teacher “Heder” (Heather).  “Ike mook cass” he said after last time. He does the cutest little dances and sings too.

The boys together are enjoying the Mr. Potato Head which Akiva calls “piple” because of the purple mustache, I guess.

Last night Akiva decided to have a fit about something but he was so tired he kept forgetting why he was laying on the ground.  He would remember momentarily and put his hand up at me and say “NOOOOOOOOO” and then get distracted again by a little piece of paper or dust bunny on the floor.  Lev is much more focused about his fits.  Last week when Akiva was sick (which was really hard on him) he fell off of his chair and as he lay prostrate he was screaming over and over that he would “NEVER MOVE AGAIN, NEVER BE ABLE TO MOVE AGAIN, NEVER WANT TO MOVE AGAIN.”  A small piece of chocolate prevented a call for an ambulance.  I didn’t laugh at all.

We studied the Exodus this last week and next week we will be on Phoenicians.  Our bug study is going well in that we like studying about them and Lev is doing a lot of work on his own with it, but not so good in that we still don’t actually like bugs.  We screamed and screamed about a spider that fell on me today while we were having breakfast.

We have a busy week this week and need to get ready for our travel to Monterey next week so I might not update again for awhile.

this week, so far October 28, 2009

Last weekend was nice.  I had been mostly ahead, a lot of laundry done, decent meal planning, etc.  Sunday we had SoulCollage which was really nice.  Steve took the kids to the zoo and they had a blast – really enjoyed the new Elephant exhibit.  I’m always emotionally wiped out after SC so Steve suggested we go out to use our free pizza at Sammy’s Woodfire and while we were out, swing by Off 5th so he could continue his quest for a nice conservative gray interview suit and they were having that additional sale off their already good prices.  I still need some updates and at least one of my new pairs of shoes isn’t going to work (of course, it’s not the really, really expensive ones- those work fine) so I agreed.

At Saks, the kids went a little wild which was mostly ok because it was late on a Sunday and no one was there and they weren’t touching anything except each other.  By the time we got home, Akiva still hadn’t cooled down from his activity (they were both in a lather) and I started thinking he was sick.  By the morning, he was burning hot all over and when I got the thermometer going, he was at least 102.  He was mostly ok though, still a little lively, just more tired and cranky than usual.  He slept more and nursed a ton.  Now it’s Wednesday and he finally broke his fever, which I think got up to 104 but for the most part hovered around 101.  He’s eating a little, but twice when he’s eaten “too much” (which would still be less than he normally would eat) he’s thrown up.  Today was the best though.  He was finally feeling quite a bit better, but at lunch wouldn’t really eat.  I finally got him to eat a good amount of yogurt.  Took him to put him down for a nap and he nursed one side, then whined a little and I thought he just wanted the other side so I lifted him up on my chest to roll over.  He was crying a little and I knew he was really tired so I didn’t think much.  Then he said “Go-een” which is what he tells Steve when he wants him to walk him (Going – and he kicks him like you do a horse to giddy-up.)  so I sat up with him and he coughed a little and then Whoosh!  The vomitorium.  All over me, my hair, each article of clothing including the new $100 jeans, all over each article of bed clothes – the sheets, the comforter cover, the down comforter, the mattress pad, the pillow cases, the pillows (each of them!) the quilt, all over himself.  “Spill” he says, rather nonchalantly.  Spill indeed.  So there goes nap.  Everything has to come off.  The sheets have to come off fast due to Very Expensive Latex Bed, then Akiva who is by this time fingerpainting in it, telling his Bubba “choke, spill” and Lev is covering his nose and yelling into the phone for Daddy to come home, except the phone is not working and I’m wiping vomit all over it to get it to work.  By this point I’ve taken off all my clothes and am wandering around the house naked (curtains open) looking for why the phone doesn’t work.  So, we wipe off Akiva and clean him up, separate all the piles of vomited shit, and I tell Lev “I have to get in the shower and clean up so you play QUIETLY with Akiva – he’s tired and doesn’t feel good.  Pick up everything off the floor that you don’t want thrown up on and read him some books.  Come get me right away ONLY if he starts crying, choking and coughing or something else SERIOUS or QUESTIONABLE.  You’d think that the sight of me dripping puke would have driven home the point that this was Important.  So, I’m in the shower and I hear Lev calling excitedly.  I open the door and can’t hear what he’s saying, I yell “Come here, I can’t hear you!”  Enter Lev: Wearing armor, carrying a toy rake and yelling “I have THREE big skunks!”  Yes.  Yes.  Breathe.

I think Akiva is fine.  Daddy got home and walked him to sleep and is napping with him now while I do tons of laundry.  I think he’s just got some weird bug.  I hope.  Of course, you always go there as a parent.  So far, in my mind this time he’s had H1N1, cancer, and meningitis.  He’s pooped and worn out and that is exactly what used to happen with me (and still does, come to think of it).  We get so run down that we can’t digest food and it just sits there until we throw it up.  Hopefully.

BTW, Steve did find a good grey suit so he’s got his two suits for interviews ready.  We also each got nice black loafers.  Lovely Cole Haan.  I also got black pants.  He decided (on my advice) to keep the other gray suit that wasn’t conservative enough for interviews, but was so nice and such a great price.

update October 25, 2009

I’ve been having a serious lack of interest in blogging.  Part of me is frustrated with the time it takes, and it is considerable.  It’s not really considerable the way I do it, but it’s the way I do it that is frustrating to me.  Because, you know, I’ve got that perfectionist thing going and lovely pictures, links to everything and exciting, perfect English is what I would like to see.  I follow a lot (A LOT) of blogs on my google reader (love it!!!) and I get so much out of them.  I so appreciate the info and the amazing people out there and the work they put into it.  I’m just not there.  I am often left thinking things like “WTF do they do with their laundry? dishes? sex-life?  JOBS?!”  I mean, seriously, unless they have a blog that IS their job (and most of those I follow are not that type) I am just totally WTF?  Especially the homeschool blogs.  I wonder about that.  Like, do they actually homeschool their kids?  On top of all that?  Or the ones that have like 8 million pictures of every single step of every single project?  Do they actually know what their kids look like on the other side of the camera lens?  I wonder.  Still, I feel a lack and I must remind myself that 1) I’m right.  (Of course.) 2) I don’t have this blog for others to necessarily READ (outside of the very few people who don’t live near us but wish they could know a lot of the little more boring details of our lives).  This blog is for me.  To keep track of myself, to remember something, to record something that might be interesting to my family and that we might otherwise forget.  Because we do forget so much.  SO much.  The things you think you will never forget are seldom what you remember.  Somehow I remember all this crappy shit that I can’t even for the life of me figure out why I have THAT lodged in my brain.  Mostly embarrassing moments.  Mine or someone else’s.  I especially can not figure out why I bother to remember (or can’t seem to forget) someone ELSE’S most embarrassing moment.  I mean, COME ON brain.  The fuck?!

Anyway — I did intend to give a quick update lest you all think I’ve stopped homeschooling.  Heh.

Lev is jumping leaps and bounds.  He’s in a mostly easy phase right now.  This time of year has traditionally been hard for him – leading up to his birthday and Channukah, but it’s not so bad this time.  At least not yet.  He’s doing a lot of his schoolwork himself, without a lot of help or encouragement.  He’s encouraged by his abilities increasing especially with handwriting and just writing in general.  He does his math for fun, especially money stuff.  He played a big game with Lala when she was here and she told me how well she thought he got the concept behind numbers, not just an abstract use of them.  This is of course what we’re going for with the living math and the living math really makes the basic practice books make sense.  Although by *basic* practice I am speaking of Singapore Math, which is not very basic compared to what is the American standard.

He’s still Mr. Connection Maker.  Today he was listening to a bluegrass version of the song “Sunny Side of Life” and he told Steve it was just like “Don’t Worry” “except it’s not, you know, Reggae”.  Also tonight we were reading from our Bible stories and it was the Binding of Isaac.  Yuck.  We had a big discussion about how unsavory this story is and what we all think of  how petulant God seems in it and why we think it’s good to think for yourself and how Moses was different than Abraham and all sorts of good stuff and then I mentioned that we were going to be studying the Jews leaving Egypt and Lev was saying that the plagues should have finished off the pharaoh as well.  Not because he was bad and deserved it, but because “he was first born too”.  Well, I tell you, it took me a minute.  Dang.  That’s quite a connection I think.  I mean, he’s six.  OK?  Speaking of connections, when we were talking about God, Lev was saying how we are all Gods and Goddesses (even dumb people LOL).  Kiki says “GODZILLA!”

Now I need to figure out our calendar and plan for the next several weeks.

A week? October 9, 2009

Has it been a week?  Or more?  I don’t even know…

Just taking it a little easier here, although that doesn’t actually amount to a lot less work, just relaxing on the “extras” and this blog is (sadly) included in that designation.

Akiva is talking up a storm.  He’s still so interested in painting – wants to every day.  He is climbing a lot now – up on two step stools and anything else he thinks he can do “self”.  He wants all his “fiends” around and boy is he in prime mess making mode.  We’ve all had to completely stop cussing, b/c unlike Lev, he just uses these words for fun and while it;s a little funny, he’s not safe for public.  The other day, Lev was crying over learning to tie his pants (Steve was supposed to teach him this and he totally dropped the ball for his own convenience — remember the multiple times I had him potty trained until Steve came home and caved?) and Akiva was hugging and kissing Lev and finally said “fut ooo cying!”  I don’t think I need to translate that for you, do I?  At least this was in context.  “Gaad Dommitt!” is just randomly thrown out there.  Not sure how long this will take to correct, but I’m guessing it’ll be AFTER my in-laws visit, heh?

So yes, Lev has mostly succeeded in the tying department.  He is enjoying ballet and writing a lot more – today he sent Sneaky a postcard from Ancient China which included a made-up “Chinese” address – 47570777 Mt. Kuing-Fo, Haos 78.  He’s also still having fun with the money study and learning how to make change and what-not.

He was pretty upset with himself after last campfire because he couldn’t control his anger towards his friends over what even he considered to be small things.  When we talked about it, he suggested praying so we’ve been doing that and it seems to be really helping.  Go figure.  LOL.

There’s more, but that’s enough for now.

Some other notes from the week October 3, 2009

Lev is really interested in the trading business and has made some papers with drawings of things and prices and plays a lot with Daddy and Sneaky games where they decide what to trade for what.

Also, the other day when he was reading/looking at one of the books from the library about Ancient China, he was making some fun connections that we were talking about while having a little popcorn snack in the afternoon.

Lev: China and Egypt were kind of the same with the dead

Me: how so?

Lev: While, they had an afterlife and they buried them with stuff they might need for then and people and stuff, and they covered them up with cloth

(Also, he counted the number of people that were buried with an Emperor in a very “smart math” grouping kind of way on his own -didn’t need to count one on each – he grouped them and then added the numbers together.)

Later—

Lev:  Hey, they used elephants too – like India did!

Me: what did they use elephants for?

Lev: they used them to build the Great Wall

Also –

Lev: They kept crickets as pets – - – you know -for farming

Me:  What do you mean -for farming?

Lev:  you know how you told me that you can use cricket chirps to predict the weather – well like that.

Me:  Does it say that in the book?

Lev:  no, it says that they kept them for pets and I’m putting those two pieces of information together for a hypothesis.  It’s a good one.

And I must agree – that IS a good one.  I was impressed with the whole conversation.  He’s making connections and putting things logically together.

Me:  Why did they make the pagodas like that?

Lev:  Because the evil spirits could only travel straight so they just went right through the bottom.

(I totally did not know that.)

Now on to Akiva:

He’s been practicing all his words.  He will start with a word or two that he knows and put them together and then blab on much the way he perceives all the blabbing that goes on in this house from the taller people.  He’s also really interested in colors (ello-geen, bu-geen, piple or poople are favorites to say and he will ask for paint or other things by naming a color) and numbers (fee, fike, sic, semem, oight, numba!).  Rarely if ever four.  Now, mind you, he doesn’t know what any of these things mean.  He knows that they are colors and knows what numbers are but he’s not actually counting or naming the right colors regularly.  And just FTR, we aren’t trying to get him there of course.

He’s also firmly in the NO stage.  EVERYthing is answered by NO.  Even things he wants.  Such a powerful word.  So is BullShit, apparently.

Friday October 3, 2009

We went to Campfire today – our first meeting of the year.  Karen and Bonnie have a great year planned for us and the first meeting was nice.  Karen made our sticker books for us that the kids keep track of what we are earning badges for in each “trail”.  Since our club tweeks the standard Campfire ways to suit our personal needs (which Campfire is totally ok with – one of the reasons we like them), the standard sticker book didn’t suit our club needs.  Karen did such a great job putting it all together with pages for the kids to draw pictures of and get autographs from all their fellow club members and photos of each kid in the front and all sorts of stuff.  So nice.

Otherwise we didn’t do much else because we are all exhausted from the cold and not sleeping.  We did manage shabbat and Lev read a lot of Halloween books that we just put out for the season.

Wednesday October 1, 2009

We did Silk Road study today.  We mapped the silk road and Lev included a compass rose and a legend on his map.  We made a chart of what main cities were on the silk road and what might have been bought, sold, and traded in each.  He also colored some cards that show the sequence of making silk from worm to cloth.

He did his HWT which was some words made from letters he has learned.  He obviously knows all the letters, but these are the ones he knows how to do perfectly that we’ve practiced with the HWT program.  He could see that these words looked a lot better than the ones he writes in his other work with letters that he does any which way.  So he was pleased.

I read Aesop over lunch and he narrated the the two goats on a bridge.  We also enjoyed the lion and the gnat which has a moral for each animal rather than only one being the “bad” guy.

Math he did mostly by himself but we worked on the IP book together.  It really took me awhile to see what they were trying to do at the end.  And this is the first year math.  Phew.  LOL  But we kept it fun.

Lev enjoys playing “trade” with Sneaky or Steve.  He does this whenever we talk about people who trade or traded things.

When I was putting Akiva down Lev made a watercolor of a Van Gogh coloring page.

Oh, also we did some insect study.  I read from a biography of Charles Turner which was neat also because he was a child of freed slaves – he was born just after the Civil War ended and obviously had an uphill battle in terms of getting good schooling, etc.

Akiva is getting molars so he’s feeling a bit nervous and out of sorts.  Little noises make him “staid” (scared) and he needs a “hud” (hug).  He likes to play in the “shalow” (shower) which is actually my closet.  I know.  He peeks around the closet door and steps out and makes his little face.

Tuesday September 30, 2009

Math plus some money work and a base 10 discussion with Steve.  Spelling workbook and a chapter (3 parts) in SOTW.  He narrated about our chapter regarding the Silk Road and early chinese pictograms.  Tonight we read “Traveling on a Caravan” a Barefoot Book that we will do some geography with tomorrow.

Lev had Ballet again tonight and I am just so impressed with his dedication and drive to do well there.  AND I am really, really impressed with the teacher, Oscar.  We walked in and he was downstairs at the desk and he said hi to Lev by name and opened his arms for a hug.  He genuinely likes the boys and at the same time is so disciplined and just harsh enough with them.  The class is for 4-12 year olds and he does not dumb it down one bit for the little ones.  It is a real deal class – they are l-e-a-r-n-i-n-g.  Lev really has to use his brain and his body at the same time, which does not come easily to him.  I think he worked his legs enough to feel it tomorrow so we’ll see how he feels about that.  I see him liking it but there is some reluctance to it as well and I’m not sure if it’s because he knows he’s not *that good at it*.  So we’ll take it slow and see how it goes.

Monday September 29, 2009

Yom Kippur today.  We did our prayers and stories and what-not related stuff.

We also did regular math which was quite brain intensive at some points in the aptly named *Intensive Practice* book.  Singapore goes right into pre-algebraic thinking when introducing basic math.  It’s all lumped together.  Which is good, I think.  Things like: ?-5=6-?=4  and a scramble of numbers and signs and you have to put it into a sentence.  Anyway, he likes it although sometimes he has a (IMO) labor intensive way of getting to the answer.

We’ve also been playing Jr. Monopoly which is fun.  Except when he loses to Steve.  Then the fun is over.  Still working on that.  We did NOT play that today.  Can you say “inappropriate”?  LOL

We did some research together on Insects.  I had no idea that dragonflies lived in the water for like a year when they are born and they are bad-ass fisherbugs.  They eat fish that are as big as them.  Also tried not to totally gross out on some of the pictures.

Lev did some research on Ancient China, including his Encyclopedia, his new Binkerton’s Good Times Travel Agency, See Through Ancient China and See Into an Ancient China town (or something like that).  He also read The Great Race – a Barefoot Book about the Chinese Zodiac.

We looked at his art postcards Van Gogh prints and I read a book about Van Gogh (Smart About Art series).  He didn’t know about the cutting off the ear or the shooting himself to death part yet.

I can’t remember what else and Steve and Lev are fighting about bedtime now, so I’m off.

The Weekend September 28, 2009

We did a couple of things over the weekend since I’m sick and can’t kick-ass all over the house like I usually do, plus we had a tough week and didn’t hit all our goals.

The main thing we did was work on our Van Gogh deal.  Lev did a bunch of exercises in using texture and totally got how something flat could convey texture.  Then, when he was illustrating his India notebooking page, he drew an elephant (really well!  With the little back legs showing a bit behind the front legs and one tusk “closer” by being bigger) and he put a bunch of wrinkles on the elephant for texture.  Cool.  We did the starry night project today which uses oil pastels on black paper.  Really nice project.

We did other stuff too, but I can’t remember it now because of the thick head thing.