Be in prayer…

…for Glenda Ruth, a cousin of Clay’s, as she buries her husband today.
…for Beth, Annette, Michelle, and Daniel as they say goodbye to their daddy.
…for Clay and me and other family members as we travel through iffy weather to be with them.
…for Kasey as she graciously and bravely came to Salem to stay with our girls.
…for our girls as they spend the day without Mommy and Daddy.

Leroy was well-loved, a loving husband, father, and grandfather, a joy to be around, the life of the party every Labor Day. We will miss him, but rejoice that he is in the presence of his Lord. We will see him again.

Here we go…

I realize that by putting this out here before I see how it’s going to work out, I’m opening myself up for a potential public failure, but here goes anyway:  we started our new “chore charts” this week.  I finally achieved my goal of developing a weekly system for doing housework and coming up with ways the two older girls can help me.   I made a chart for each week, and they have the different tasks for each day listed on them.  They put a check in the box for each task they complete, and if they get all their boxes checked they get a sticker at the end.  The tasks start from the moment they wake up (the first one is “potty”) and go until the work part of the day is over.  Some days, they just have to do the normal wake up and get ready stuff, checking off each one.  Every day but Sunday has picking up toys added to the getting ready routine.  Monday and Friday have them cleaning their room.  Tuesday is playgroup and gymnastics so there are no extra chores that day, besides just picking up the toys they’ve played with.  Wednesday and Thursday are going to be our big working days, and Abigail’s chore is to dust while Catherine’s is to help sort and fold and put away laundry, which she absolutely loves to do anyway.  I split the dusting up into two days, but she got done really fast today so I might put dusting all on Wednesday and give her something else to do on Thursdays.  Anyway today was the first day, and they did decently well.  We were done before lunch, which was a relief because we don’t really have any other working time after lunch on Wednesdays because of school, nap, and church.  They worked well without too much complaining, and they really loved putting their check marks in the boxes and the stickers on the chart.  We haven’t attached any kind of reward to it yet, and I don’t know if we will or not.  They do get extra stickers when I catch them being kind or obeying right away with a happy heart or being unselfish, but unfortunately none of that happened today.

I have high hopes and am trying to have realistic expectations.  I didn’t realize how long it would take to teach a 6 year old how to dust; she just was excited to have the spray bottle and was spraying right and left without ever moving anything, then she would move on and never put anything back in place when she was done.  And a 3 year old doesn’t move the laundry quite quickly enough to save it from Elisabeth’s clutches and several piles had to be folded more than once.  (Frankly, I even have trouble moving the laundry quickly enough to be safe from Elisabeth!)  But we’ll get there.

So now it’s out there, and feel free to ask me how it’s going.  Or just stop by and see for yourself–give it the white glove test or something.    Hopefully this is the start of a beautiful new relationship with a housework schedule.

Things you wish your kids didn’t figure out so soon…

…how to remove clothing from their bodies.

…going along with that, how to remove diapers from their bodies, especially when said diapers are not clean.

…that Mommy and Daddy stay awake and watch TV or do other fun and exciting things after the children go to bed.

…that sometimes, while Mommy and Daddy are still awake after the children are in bed, they pull out ice cream or other fun treats that the children did not even know were in the house.

…how to climb up onto the toilet seat and reach things they shouldn’t be reaching.

…how to climb up onto the bed to “play” with baby when baby is (or was) sleeping.

…how to climb out of strollers, high chairs, carseats, etc.

…how to climb. Period.

…where the candy is kept.

…that candy tastes good, come to think of it.

…that chocolate exists.

…where the lotion, shampoo, makeup, diaper cream, toothpaste–anything that can be squeezed–is kept.

…that Mommy and Daddy don’t know everything.

…that older sisters get to stay awake and do fun things, like homeschool, during naptime.

…that pushing the right combination of buttons on aforementioned older sister results in fireworks to rival the fourth of July.

…that stepstools allow them to reach all kinds of neat, forbidden things.

Now, tell me this: how can they figure all of these things out by the age of 2 or 3, and yet still not be able to figure out…

…that whining for something after being told no will not help them get whatever it is.

…that yes, they do need to go to the potty every morning when they wake up.

…not to lay down face first on the driveway to eat the snow that is barely covering the ground.

…that their coat does not belong in the middle of the living room floor.

…that if the van is still moving, then no, we are not there yet.

…that we do not take toys to church.

…that Daddy will not leave without saying goodbye, and that he will come home again, so they don’t have to wail and cry everytime he leaves–especially since he’s just going to work, which he does every day and which is just two minutes away and he’ll be back in a few hours for lunch!

…that no, it’s not morning yet if it’s still completely dark.

…that there is a sink just perfect for putting their dishes in when they’re through with them.

…that being asked to pick up their toys is not a request worthy of wailing: “I’m just like Cinderella! I have to do all the chores in the whole house!”

…that “shirtsleeve” is not a synonym for “Kleenex.”

But I guess as long as they figure out pretty early that Mommy and Daddy are great snugglers and listeners and cheerleaders and teachers and tear-dry-ers, then all will be well. And I guess I shouldn’t worry about all these unlearned lessons–they’ll learn them pretty quickly– as soon as I become a grandmother.

School days

Just thought I’d give an update on how our school year is going.   Abigail is in the thick of kindergarten, and for the most part, loving it and doing very well.  We are memorizing a verse a week from the Susan Hunt book My ABC Bible Verses.  Each verse begins with the next letter of the alphabet and usually addresses a character issue, so they’ve been really useful throughout the week in behavior training as well.  We started this late, so we’re only on K, but she can remember almost all the ones we’ve done with very little help.

We’re moving right along in math as well.  She’s learned several addition facts and a few subtraction facts, as well as counting pennies and dimes, telling time to the hour, some limited measuring of weight, length, and volume, and making shapes with pattern blocks.  For the most part she enjoys all of this.  She has a minimum of two worksheets every day, with one being a drill of 25 problems of either addition or subtraction, and she sometimes has trouble staying on task, but when she pays attention she rarely makes a mistake.

Phonics continues to be nothing new for her as she is already reading way past the level of the worksheets,but she enjoys them anyway.  I still think it’s good for her to spend this time doing worksheets and focusing on concepts that she already knows just to continue to instill good working habits, not to mention that fact that repetition of concepts can never hurt.

The literature guide from Veritas Press has been really fun.  We’re reading Madeline this week, and there are several fun activities to do, as there are for each story we read.

She and Catherine both love the music curriculum because of the video lessons.  (Catherine has seen them on the days that she “passes her nap.)  They watch the videos-that are so incredibly dated-and get up and do what the kids are doing.  Then there is always a fun worksheet to do, and sometimes they get to try one of the instruments.

We’re actually way behind schedule–I built in three weeks off for when Samuel was born, which is why I started at the beginning of August.  But I did not foresee the other breaks that we ended up taking–we missed the last week  of November and the whole month of December because of the move, and then we missed two weeks in Jan/Feb because of the infamous ice storm.  So now our schedule goes up to June 12, which is perfect timing since we’ll be heading to Somerset right after that for wedding week.  So hopefully we won’t miss any more days.

I’ve already been poring over the catalog and making my list for next year, and as soon as we get our taxes done, I’m placing that order, buying for two this time around!  Yep, Catherine will be joining us in August.  I’m sure my posts will be more interesting when that time comes around.

Catherine days

Catherine, my three year old, has really been confused lately.  Well, maybe confused is not the right word.  You see, I suspect she thinks I’m the one who’s confused.  I don’t think that she thinks she’s confused at all.  Let me explain.

Catherine still takes naps.  Apparently she sleeps very deeply during her naps, because when she wakes up, she thinks it is a new day.  Some examples:

*  When she walks into the living room after waking up from her nap, she says cheerfully, “Good morning, Mom!”

*  She, of course, always eats breakfast after waking up in the morning.  After she wakes up from her nap I give her a snack.  She calls this breakfast as well, and if I forget to offer her a snack, she asks if she can have breakfast.

*  After naptime, she refers to anything that happened that morning as “yesterday.”

*  Occasionally she gets to “pass her nap” (her phrasing).  Then sometimes at bedtime at night, she’ll ask to “pass her bedtime” and she cannot understand the difference.

*  This afternoon, after her nap, she asked if we could go somewhere today.  I told her we already did, we went to the doctor this morning.  She stared at me for a moment with a “Mom’s an idiot” look on her face, and then slowly said, “Last night.”  I said, “What?”  She very slowly and deliberately said, “We went to the doctor last night, Mom.” She obviously thought I was losing my mind–of course we hadn’t been anywhere since she woke up.

The poor child is very confused, and no wonder she thinks it will take forever to finally get to her birthday.  She’s living two days to our one!