First Full Day Together

My daugter and I (yes, her on her broken foot and boot/cast, me with my walker) have been cleaning and organizing the school room today. Somehow, it looks much worse now than when we started, but we have sorted through a chest (that we moved to our son's room), removed 3 drawers fulls of stuff and 4 boxes of toys and books, mostly that our kids have outgrown and someone else might now enjoy, so I tell myself we must be making some form of progress! I had to take a break because my leg were shaking too badly to stay safe, so she is cleaning her room now. 

 Our oldest son is 360+ pages (since yesterday afternoon) engrossed in a 500+ page book. (I don't think I have ever read a book that long and I'm well over 12!) Our little guy spent several hours happily playing with long-lost friends in the back yard this afternoon and is now out riding his bike. 

We had fish for dinner tonight, fish that the kids caught yesterday on a fishing trip to celebrate the end of the school year with their grandparents. :) Thank you, Rick, for frying it up for us. Yummy! 

In case you hadn't heard yet, I am thrilled to tell you that the kids are finally back at home! It is great to have everyone under the same roof even when we go different directions! ♥

Plans for Next School Year & Chickens

Yesterday I posted to Facebook,

Exploring home school programs today. Who can recommend a math or English grammar program you love (and why)?? Don't care for Saxon or Singapore.

Looking to teach our kids about (or more) than what they would learn in equivalent grades in public school. Looked at Shurley English but their scope and sequence for 4th grade includes many things we covered in K.

Love My Father's World, but also want our kids ready for the classroom should the need ever arise again (not way ahead in some areas and behind in other because they haven't covered material yet).

This morning I updated with,

After checking out hours worth of websites and exploring enough curriculum choices to make your head spin, we ultimately decided to stay pretty much right where we are this year.

Math was an easy decision. Our kids have done so well with Math-U-See and we are totally loving it.

It was harder to settle on Language Arts, but we like the approach we were already using with My Father's World, just need to step it up a little to get kids ready for a comparable classroom setting if ever needed, so we are buying the formal grammar workbook that is normally held for 7th grade on adding it to the rest of the natural language integration our daughter has already been experiencing and will also have in 4th grade.

P.S. We learned today that one of our chicken (they went into foster care when I was in the hospital and are still there) died last night. :( Kids should be coming home for good, finally, on Friday (Yippie!), but after we bring them home we will only be bringing home four chickens, not five now.

They Say 3rd Time's the Charm?

 

We are home from the orthopedic surgeon's office. After nearly a week and a half (9 days) of thinking it was just a bad sprain or bruise, our 9-year-old has a confirmed break in her right foot, right through the growth plate connecting the base of her big toe to her foot.

She is now sporting a lovely (hot and heavy, according to her) black boot that looks like a smaller version of the one I wore for 10 weeks a few years back. Hopefully she will not have to wear hers so long! We go back in a month for a new round of x-rays.

I teased my mom that my parents are not allowed to leave town again, as 2 of the last 4 times they have been planning an extended trip out of state, my daughter or I have broken a foot.

This is R.'s 3rd break, having previously broken both arms. I am telling her that she only has one limb left to go. I hope she doesn't take me up on that challenge!

Of course her "graceful" mother never broke anything until adulthood then made up for it by breaking bones in both feet, one of which need surgery and now carries two pins. Her father broken his arm seven times in childhood (to the point of being told that if he broke it again, he would never be able to use it). My brother and uncle both sport crooked elbows (like R.'s, below) from childhood breaks. I guess it runs in the family, though I'm glad neither of our boys has ever gotten in on the act.

This girl was asking the other day if she could take a bath. We told her it wouldn't be the best idea, because of her foot, so suggested she take a shower, using my shower seat, instead. She was pretty sad about that answer, so, to try to encourage her, I explained that I have not been able to get in or out of our bathtub for over seven moths now (since the first strokes). She didn't understand that now I have to shower instead, so she told me, "You smell pretty good." Nice to know. ;)


On a different topic, one of my posts here on this blog was selected for the "Patients For A Moment" blogging carnival. :) Please feel free to join me at http://infertilitymom.blogspot.com/2012/05/starting-fresh.html to read the selected post or visit http://www.chronicbabe.com/articles/981
to read all the articles in the carnival.Thank you ChronicBabe!