I printed off some multiplication and cursive worksheets from abcteach today and when my seven-year-old came home from school and was whining for something to do, I pulled them out and said he could teach himself how to write cursive and do some multiplication if he wanted to... he jumped at the chance. When he would struggle, I would remind him that he didn't have to do them, they were just for fun, but he continued. Now he's doing his homework (on his own) and said he's going to work on the worksheets (which he calls his third grade homework) again after he's done with his first grade homework. :o)

My nine-year-old can't stop coughing... definately need some cough syrup here; I bought tylenol when I ran to the store and he hasn't had to take anymore of that because his fever and headache seem to be gone - should of bought cough syrup. My youngest has sickness envy again this morning and asked me why I don't care when he coughs. It didn't seem to bother him yesterday when he was allowed to play with his friends while his brother had to stay inside.

The kids played hard today (friday)... then this evening my oldest got a headache... then a fever - 102.9 yikes!

My youngest doesn't like to sleep alone, so he's been sleeping in his brother's room since I can remember. Since they both have their own rooms, the one was basically going unused.. it's the biggest bedroom to boot. So a couple weeks ago, I transformed the unused room into a playroom of sorts. A place to just hang out or jump around... we got a couple old mattresses for jumping/reading/napping and removed the bunkbed that was there... threw in a tv, vcr, old couch... the toys and books stayed and a few were added and now it's the fun room! I even like hanging out there. It's more cozy now with everything closer to the floor. I must say the mattresses were the biggest selling point for the kids... we all need to jump around more, I think. Of course, the kids wouldn't be satisfied just jumping on the mattresses; they need more air, so they climb on the couch for a good leap. At least I hear "I'm bored" a little less often now ;o)

Had conferences for the kids today; the concerns of their teachers mirror my own. It's always nice to be on the same page. My nine-year-old, I was told, has greatly improved on his spelling. :o) His strongest area is math; needs to read more, however. His behavior is good aside from over-reacting - but we're working on that. My seven-year-old just has to follow directions instead of doodling all over his work... otherwise, he's doing excellent. I told her that he's still acting up before school and not wanting to go. She finds this strange because he's fine once he's there; she gets a big kick out of him.

They didn't have school today, so they're busy splashing their energy all over the place. Tomorrow is another day off... Although these two days are for conferences, I always find it curious that we don't share the same vacations. The days they get off for vacation never seem to match the ones I get off except for the major holidays such as Christmas, Easter and the like. I don't understand how we can live in the same town/residence and have completely different minor holidays... It would be nice if they matched up better because finding daycare for 10 days (or less, but I'm not in the mood to count) a semester isn't always as easy as it sounds, especially when many others have the same problem. It's like trying to find a pair of snowpants in a clothing store in the middle of winter... next to impossible, believe me, I have tried. I'm so tired, am I even making sense?

Today was much better... no tears. With his basketball in his backpack, he was happy to go to school. Somehow I knew if I actually broke down and blogged about it, things would be better today. :o)

Truth be known, I am lacking inspiration to blog lately. My youngest hasn't been very chipper in the a.m. for a while now and has pleaded (unconvincing) cases of illness or just having a bad day in order to try to stay home from school. I am fairly confident that this isn't because he's struggling with his subjects because he always does well on the assignments I see and he has never seemed to be lacking in the friend department. I believe he just wants to play. Sometimes his work comes home with doodling in the corner as the page is unfinished (he's very artistic). And other times he will answer the questions in balloon letters or some other way to make the letters look more interesting. Once on a spelling test, he decided to spell the words in his own order and originally put another person's name at the top... this was erased and replaced with his own. His teacher was perplexed; when I asked him about it, he said it was just a joke or something like that. Is he bored? I really don't know what to do about this... and I wish he enjoyed going to school ... he may be fine once he gets there. I would gladly consider any suggestions.

On the other hand, his older brother is dressed, coat and all, by the time I crawl out of bed to wake them up. He's always been very concerned about getting his homework done on time and doing what was expected of him in school (this isn't always the case at home ;o). He does rush through his homework a bit quickly just to be done with it, but at least he's doing it.

After school they want to rush off and play with their friends/neighbors, so I am left behind with my homework and not having enough time spent with them. For the last two weekends, they have left to go visiting and this seems to be happening more and more lately. I can't protest because of how far behind I am in some of my classes lately and I need the time to work on them, but the end result is I am left with little quality time with them and often little to blog about.

I miss my kids!! It is so silent without them that I have to keep the television on for some noise. I get lonely when they are gone and I'm left to stare at my assignments... my writing... ugh. Hurry home, I'm driving myself insane.

Yesterday, my seven year old explained to me that he is actually four and a half. At first, I didn't understand what he meant, but he counted on his fingers for me. One, one and a half, two, two and a half, three, three and a half, four, four and a half... Still doesn't make sense, you say? Well, he is almost seven and a half.... so the last half is the only one that is really a half, all the others are actually a year. I think... ohhh I'm confused again.

My kids are going visiting for the weekend without me... I guess I'm pretty lucky to be given some time alone. Hopefully I will be able to play catch-up this weekend. I've been having trouble finishing some essays for my non-fiction writing class; I have a bunch of beginnings, some middles and some that have endings, but I don't like em... ohhh yeah, what about fiction class??? Okay, busy weekend ahead... Too much to finish by Monday

Why not?

My morning... Those socks get caught on my toes. Can I bring my kitty (toy) to school? Where's Pikachu (another valuble toy)? Where did he get that coat? I want to wear my coat with the furry hat. I think I'm sick (along with explanation that involved a demonstration of his nose). I'm ready to go sell bunnies now (it's time to go to school!). Why can't I wear my hat in school? - That's no fun! Why do grown-ups interupt when I'm talking? Why does he get to stay home? I'm having a bad day (followed by several genuine tears)!

Just a sampling of a few things from this morning that I had a hard time keeping up with. There were many more that I can't remember. One ended up going off to school in tears and the other is sneezing his head off. Ahhh gotta love Mondays!

One thing many parents have to deal with is bullying. Whether it's your child being targeted or your child is bullying others; I don't know which feels worse. I've had quite a time in the past trying to deal with bullying when it comes to my kids; I want to tell one to use his words and the other one to sock em back... what is a parent to do when her children are opposites?

Obviously a parent shouldn't encourage violence from either one, although it's hard sometimes when you're child is in tears. So far there hasn't been any instances of severe or prolonged bullying on either side of the fence with my children, but I see a pattern in one of my kids that could encourage bullying from others in the future.

I guess I tend to fight some of their battles for them and that doesn't really help anything; I knew this, but it was reinforced when I was paging through The Parent's Book About Bullying: Changing the Course of Your Child's Life by William Voors. This book is for parents of those who bully and those being bullied, which was definately a selling point for me.

I tried to teach my son to show indifference or to ignore, but I honestly needed some guidelines and so far I think this book is going to be great. When I started reading it, I was impatient and paged further into the guts of it all to find some solid suggestions. I have gathered from the book and my child what type of bullying he could be a target of; and then I read some wonderful suggestions. The most important suggestion is showing your child how to be assertive; I now realize I have to be more consistent in practicing our role playing because you can be taught to be assertive (I wish someone would have taught me when I was young). You also need to guide them through which situations require which type of action. If a parent is dedicated enough, I think this book can really help. The book appears to be very thorough and I have just begun to go through it, so hopefully I will gain more insight later (I'll let ya know ;o)

Yay! I got 7 positive votes; thanks guys - I appreciate your opinions and I like the look better myself. I hope Rowanstaff's vision returns to normal by Monday :oþ

I thought I'd give Crystal's suggestion a chance; I was going for gentle colors at first, but if things go as planned it should look like a clown exploded on my blog.

I was at the end of my rope; down to my last nerve; I tried secluding myself to my bed as much as possible; I was sick of everyone! I don't mean to whine, BUT I have a hard time dealing with people who are less than honest and the same hard time dealing with manipulators and on top of that dealing with my OWN life (I'm normally not this bitter LOL). We all know people who are like this and honestly, I have had enough.

Soooooo, my kids and I took off for the weekend to be rid of every possible annoyance... I left with one of my sisters to my dad's cabin out in the middle of nowhere; my mom was there too, but she wasn't feeling very well. Aside from my kids at one point or another... it was Peace! The kids spent much of their time outdoors and voiced how much they would love to live there (sigh, me too). Nobody knew where we were, so naturally my answering machine ran out of tape while I was gone ;o)

It was nice to be able to talk to my dad at length and in person; he's an amazing individual and due to that fact he is busy much of the time. He has internet, so I was able to work on my "Studio Tour I" assignment while I was there (after updating his browser) and although it would have been nice to ignore the computer completely, I was glad I didn't have to delay my visit in order to complete my assignment. I was also able to chat with my sister without being interupted; that was sooo nice, it was almost like we were giggling kids again.

I could go into depth of what was discussed, describe the cabin, mention the endless natural outdoor environment, but I'm just going to let it be - it was near perfect compared to what I'm use to. I was shoved back into reality when I got back, but I didn't let it take away from our experience - now I really have something to daydream about. I wish we could have spent the whole Spring Break there, but the kids have school this week.

Speaking of which, the paper count from last week:
18 full sheets of paper
4 half sheets
2 two-page newsletters
7 partially completed workbook pages
2 Scholastic book order forms (4 pages each)
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Total = about 39 pages - quite the drop from the week before :o)

My nine-year-old got 100% on his practice spelling test yesterday! I think I'll just stick with what works best - writing out each word three times every night. He seems to be getting used to doing this and it's working well; now we should focus on his reading a little more. This is all work to him and I wish I knew a way to help him appreciate reading because as it is, he times himself when he reads and doesn't seem to get into the story as much I wish he would. Maybe it has to be work for now and possibly the appreciation will come later....

I always wondered how I got so behind on filing and throwing away papers that come into this house. I realized that the kids brought home quite a bit, but I thought now would be a good time to get some specific numbers because this last week was incredible. I will start here, but most weeks are not this abundant. They bring a folder home every Friday that I am suppose to go through and initial that I have filtered through and read the contents. Between my two children's last Friday folders, I gained:

91 Random full sheets of paper (assignments, newsletters, etc)
8 half-sheets of paper (spelling tests and the like)
62 Completed (for the most part) Workbook pages (mostly math)
8 page Activity booklet
1 Snowman art project with a blue button nose
1 Big Dipper project (about one piece of paper)
1 Sliver of a voucher for a free ticket to the Science Center
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Total: Just short of 170 full pieces of paper

Maybe they did some housecleaning; we'll see next week.

As much as I wanted the Turbo Twist's to be a huge success on my nine year old's spelling tests, they just haven't. I think it just depends on whether the child gets into them or not. My seven year old likes them more than his brother. When I had my nine year old writing every spelling word three times a night for 2-3 weeks, the most he got wrong was 1. His spelling scores have dropped again since I have experimented with the turbo twist spelling. He got 3 (B) wrong one week and 5 (C) wrong last week. His teacher did send home a letter stating that the words were getting harder so the kids should be doing more practice at home (this is the reason his scores started dropping in the first place). Now, IF he would get into the turbo twist thing, they would probably work well for him, but as it is, he times himself and tries to be done with his practice as quick as possible... so it's not working. In addition, they have recently started writing cursive on their spelling tests and he isn't able to practice his writing on the twist, so I think all in all it would be better to go back to the original plan. I think I'll use the turbo twists for the activities that aren't personalized to what they are doing in school; maybe they'll forget they're learning then.

Obviously I have been on the computer much of the day. I, once again, changed my template. I am hoping this one will work better. I did stop long enough to go grocery shopping and buy a few Archie magazines. If I see one I haven't read (which is most often the case because I don't normally look for them), I have a really hard time passing it up. My mom use to buy them for us and she would always read them herself as well... I wonder what made her start reading them? My sisters and I would pass them around and we alll read them and even now I know that a couple of my sisters (If not all of them) would be glad to take them off my hands when I'm done. At my age I feel a little silly about it, but not enough to give them up completely. :o)

My 7 year old has an exceptionally curious mind; he's the type of person who makes you want to just poke around in their head for a while to see what's up. Some of his favorite movies are: Home Alone I, Home Alone II, Big, and more recently, Cast Away. I bought Cast Away and was watching it one night a few weeks ago. He started watching it with me and he is the sort who asks questions constantly and I found myself at first answering him and then telling him to "just watch and see". He fell in love with the movie and has since watched it at least five times always asking me more questions about what is going on and what "Chuck" is doing or feeling. Tonight, he put the movie in again and convinced his brother to watch the last part with him. Now it is his turn to tell his brother what is going on and he does it very well (he repeats almost word for word what I have told him) and then I heard him tell his brother to "just watch". Ha!
He doesn't like anyone to talk when he's concentrating. He loves slow songs; whenever a slow song comes on, he wants the music turned up and everyone to be silent so he can gaze off and think. Those are times I wish I knew what was going through his head.

One of my sisters just emailed me about Operation Christmas Child. I don't think I've heard of this before, but it looks like a nice way to get your children involved in helping others. Basically they fill a wrapped shoebox full of things for another child. Take a look and maybe keep it in mind for Christmas this year.

I don't know what it is about Shawshank Redemption that compels me to watch it every single time I know it's on.