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I am psyched.
Sep. 4th, 2008 12:33 amWe have all school materials purchased and either ordered or here, for this year. I've never really spent a bunch of money on school materials before, because it was simple not to when they were a little younger; there were less academic demands, I used to have more time and energy to devote to coming up with their curriculum myself, and also of course it would have been harder to front the cash. I'm a little taken aback that I spent like $700 on homeschool supplies...but when you consider that private school for the year for the two of them would have been more like 6 grand you see that it's a bargain for a quality education ;) I suppose I haven't factored in the costs of things like PATH membership and field trips, their magazine subscriptions...still and all I doubt it would top $850 total, so. There you go.
Anyway I am EXCITED about all the stuff we're getting. Tons of Abeka language, grammar, spelling, etc. The whole RightStart Math program. History of the World, with the activity book for all kinds of neato project ideas. I got a cd, some books and a dvd of spanish stuff, as well as some REALLY COOL supplemental materials, like:
-a big book of poetry that also features an audio cd of the actual poets reading their original stuff. Like, ROBERT FROST and Langston Hughes and it's just incredible.
-This in depth historical fiction picture book that teaches all about Tibet, through the eyes of a little girl discovering the country through her father's letters, pictures, etc.
-some very cool black history month stuff, to add to things I already had
-a book called "The Anti-Coloring Book" - and isn't that hilarious, if you've been reading for any length of time, I considered taking a picture of the cover just to stir up some laughs - that is full of activities. A and A are already eagerly waiting for the other to get done so they can have turns - like a blank rectangle and under it, "You've just landed on a new planet. Design it's flag!" or a big sea scene that's blank in the middle, "A new fish has been discovered - what does it look like and what is it called?" One is a frame with a single squiggle in it, it says, "This artist started to draw and then injured his hand. Can you finish the picture for him?" I love it.
-chapter books for Ananda and I to read "together" - taking turns reading to each other - and then her do reports on. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle; Sarah, Plain and Tall; and How to Eat Fried Worms...these of course are separate from us continuing to read this 5th HP book and then probably something else like the next Narnia, at night before bed, and the beginning readers they read on their own and to me.
We still have all the making of a Neurology unit study that we never got around to last year. And we have G here 5 hours a day, 3 days a week, to make it possible for me to get some really good quality one on one school time with Ananda and Aaron.
Her first soccer practice is tomorrow. And she's decided she definitely wants to do Saturday ballet classes at Dance Empire, the sign up is basically immediate. And Aaron also wants to play soccer, and we're down to the wire for that too. I just registered them for the new year of AWANA, with fees and dues and contact forms and all that, tonight.
*gulp*
Really though I am so happy for them, they have real social lives at this point that involve playing outside with neighbors' kids daily, talking on the phone to friends, writing to pen pals, going to the bookstore and hanging out with the wide array of kids there once a week, people at AWANA who want to get together outside of AWANA, old neighbors from our old street who we're setting up playdates with - and PATH meetings starting soon, at the park.
And, they love G (the nanny) and eagerly anticipate her coming.
G is making me happy. It really seems as though she just got truly very very ill, like visit to the hospital and multiple prescriptions including codeine ill, and I am obviously a little bit on guard, but assuming September goes by without a hitch...I am going to relax and just be grateful. That's sort of the earmark I've set for myself, that if she misses any more days for weird unforseen reasons in September, I'll have to re-evaluate, but if not, I'm going to believe that she really just had some extenuating circumstances. I mean she was sniffling and glassy eyed with a BreatheRight strip on the last day before she called in, and still has a lingering cough now, so it is a fairly believable situation and I don't really have a reason to doubt her.
Funny lot of bs: I realized today that all those times I thought she was like 15 minutes late? It's because I was looking at the clock Grant has set 15 minutes ahead, in the tv room where we're temporarily sleeping O_O Yeah, I'm a jackass. Doesn't excuse all the absences or the one really late day, just saying, that's dumb :p To my credit, it's the alarm clock by the window where I would see her car, and I didn't know he had it set fast.
She and I have had a couple of very candid heart to hearts about committment that were reassuring. And also talked more about personal stuff in a way that makes me feel like I like her.
Because of her and regardless of her I'm feeling a little better about a couple of aspects of my life:
-Writing. This is because Grant wrote me an email from an old computer saying how we have to find a way for me to write if for no other reason than he's dying to read more of my stuff, with some unfinished documents of mine attached <3 And then I had dreams of writing that I woke up from, struggling to find the ideas in again, that inspired me. Basically between kids going to bed earlier and G coming for slightly longer periods than we'd planned on before, I think maybe I can really start to try to swing it. Which is...well...invigorating. To say the least. I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS!#@$!%&*!!!!!111!!!1!
-Excercise. I cannot control my eating right now: that is crappy but it's true. I'm just not there yet and trying to get there is just driving me to self loathing anytime I fail. I have hopes for working on this in therapy, but we're not at that point yet. Anyway, I've been thinking of how incredibly sedentary I am. Since my month long bout with depilitating near-death followed by 2nd major surgery in a year and ICU stay followed by 6 week recovery, all culminating in major ab problems...well, I've been slow to ease back into anything too physically grueling, let's say. I have this huge diastasis that makes all kinds of different movements - not to mention even EXISTING without a support garment - uncomfortable and potentially harmful. I have misaligned hips that hurt, sometimes not much, sometimes A LOT. I have two toddlers who expect me to sit still and nurse them for a few hours out of every day, broken up over many hours and big kids who expect me to sit still and read aloud to them for at least an hour or more out of every day. It's just nuts how much I don't move my body around anymore. I mean cleaning and sex are basically the only excercise I get. Ha. True, though. At least I do plenty of both? Changing the subject. So, I've committed to trying to take a long walk with the double stroller or swim for a good long time, every day. By a long time, I mean like 45 minutes. There is only one day out of the week that neither Grant nor G is here at all to help with this, and on that day it's possible I could recruit Laura, more likely I can just make the kids walk too that day - they do fairly well with that. This was day 2 and I tell you, I feel a lot better. It's SICK the degree to which I sweat all over the place and have to force my posture to be better and all, walking briskly with the stroller for 45 minutes. I mean I'm 26, you know? But it just reinforces how important it is to stick with it lest I find myself a debilitated, dangerously obese person at some ridiculously inappropriate age like 30. Extreme fatal obesity and diabetes both run in my family, I definitely have those genes. It's nice to be starting something that feels good and could potentially help me get back in some smaller pants. Have you guys seen those icons that say, "Food has replaced sex in my life - now I can't even get into my own pants!" Yeah, I don't want to be that person :x
DAMA IS COMING DAMA IS COMING DAMA IS COMING!!!!!!
I am so over the moon thrilled about this. This is what REALLY has me using this icon. She's coming the last week of September which is, like, basically right now. We have a date and a time for picking them up at the airport! Aaron spent awhile on the phone with Zoe tonight. He can't wait to show her his rabbit, and the frog that lives on our front porch, and the fairy doors, and all the lizards we have down here. Ananda is also excited, although not so much as Isaac, who could more accurately be described as "frenzied" about Loo-chee being here ;) We are definitely posting a countdown on the wall.
I'm going to have to come up with some kind of detailed agenda, and then go back over it and remove half the stuff so I can make sure there are plenty of large blocks of time for free play and adult conversation.
Some political stuff:
This whole long page about Sarah Palin? I LOVE IT. I don't love some of the kind of horrible phrasing ("Here's Sarah Palin, working without neglecting her children") - but the overall message is really, really awesome.
http://parentingfreedom.com/2008/09/03/sarah-palin-mother-and-first-female-vice-president-pictures-children-parenting/
Again, this is not a statement on her stance on issues or whatever, it's just her, and I can dig it.
This is also not a bash or an endorsement, it's just awesome: The Barack Roll. You have to watch the whole thing.
John McCain's Wiki page is kind of incredible. I never really feel a kinship with anyone in the armed forces, it's just very far removed from my way of thinking and personal set of ideologies, but you have to be amazed at someone who's nearly died that many different ways, had that much of a CRAZY interesting intense life, and now to top it all off at 72 is still running for president. I also have to wonder if someone who was tortured and/or held in solitary confinement for 5 years as a POW can still be sane enough to run - especially, erm, at 72 - but he really does seem like a respectable and intriguing person, politics aside. I mean he crashed 3 airplanes, was shot down in one, was on an aircraft carrier that caught fire - this is all before the POW stuff O_o It's also kind of awe-inspiring that the man was in the House of Representatives in 1982. I mean. I turned 1 in 1982.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain
It is very much my style to be far more interested in these people as people than as candidates.
As soon as we get a candidate who is for small government and against guns, who is anti-war and pro-life and pro-birth freedom, and strongly for the environment, who grants homosexuals all the rights everybody else has and is not trying to gun down immigrants, kill criminals or torture hostages - that's when I'll get all excited like some of you guys are. Unfortunately my political beliefs are not just impossible in the context of our nation's system but in the context of reality, as many of them contradict each other. As it is I'm gonna be really excited but kind of scared regardless of who wins this one, to varying degrees.
Trepidation:
-My mother may be getting a divorce, and temporarily living with us, along with my brother and her dog. I am happy to be able to help, and Grant is totally on board with that too (and the kids are loving the idea), but I can't pretend it won't feel a little crowded and complicate some of the stuff I'm dealing with in counseling. It is a mixed bag featuring very welcome cleaning and child care help, more adult company, particularly of the laughing and board game variety, bad teenage attitude, very stinky boots, cigarettes outside on my deck, plenty of competition for computer time, a depressed person in menopause who is going through a divorce, and who knows how many other factors. My mother is not someone to live with anyone else for long, though, so I imagine it will only be a 1-3 month thing. She will probably be working 2 jobs by the end of the first week. Now if we can just motivate Bob to find some direction it could be a great thing...
-Hurricane Ike is forecasted to be a 3/4 in the next 12 hours and it's headed for us so far, with a landfall somewhere scheduled for around next Tuesday. I AM SO TIRED OF THIS HURRICANE SEASON ALREADY. Geez. I'd like a break, but Hannah is still skirting us and Josephine is right behind Ike. My dad (who drives a cab in Key West and is financially screwed anytime they evacuate) must be having a really, really hard time right about now. I think I'll call him. Even without direct evacuation orders, nobody goes to the island when the News is showing this stuff nonstop, you know?
Anyway I am EXCITED about all the stuff we're getting. Tons of Abeka language, grammar, spelling, etc. The whole RightStart Math program. History of the World, with the activity book for all kinds of neato project ideas. I got a cd, some books and a dvd of spanish stuff, as well as some REALLY COOL supplemental materials, like:
-a big book of poetry that also features an audio cd of the actual poets reading their original stuff. Like, ROBERT FROST and Langston Hughes and it's just incredible.
-This in depth historical fiction picture book that teaches all about Tibet, through the eyes of a little girl discovering the country through her father's letters, pictures, etc.
-some very cool black history month stuff, to add to things I already had
-a book called "The Anti-Coloring Book" - and isn't that hilarious, if you've been reading for any length of time, I considered taking a picture of the cover just to stir up some laughs - that is full of activities. A and A are already eagerly waiting for the other to get done so they can have turns - like a blank rectangle and under it, "You've just landed on a new planet. Design it's flag!" or a big sea scene that's blank in the middle, "A new fish has been discovered - what does it look like and what is it called?" One is a frame with a single squiggle in it, it says, "This artist started to draw and then injured his hand. Can you finish the picture for him?" I love it.
-chapter books for Ananda and I to read "together" - taking turns reading to each other - and then her do reports on. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle; Sarah, Plain and Tall; and How to Eat Fried Worms...these of course are separate from us continuing to read this 5th HP book and then probably something else like the next Narnia, at night before bed, and the beginning readers they read on their own and to me.
We still have all the making of a Neurology unit study that we never got around to last year. And we have G here 5 hours a day, 3 days a week, to make it possible for me to get some really good quality one on one school time with Ananda and Aaron.
Her first soccer practice is tomorrow. And she's decided she definitely wants to do Saturday ballet classes at Dance Empire, the sign up is basically immediate. And Aaron also wants to play soccer, and we're down to the wire for that too. I just registered them for the new year of AWANA, with fees and dues and contact forms and all that, tonight.
*gulp*
Really though I am so happy for them, they have real social lives at this point that involve playing outside with neighbors' kids daily, talking on the phone to friends, writing to pen pals, going to the bookstore and hanging out with the wide array of kids there once a week, people at AWANA who want to get together outside of AWANA, old neighbors from our old street who we're setting up playdates with - and PATH meetings starting soon, at the park.
And, they love G (the nanny) and eagerly anticipate her coming.
G is making me happy. It really seems as though she just got truly very very ill, like visit to the hospital and multiple prescriptions including codeine ill, and I am obviously a little bit on guard, but assuming September goes by without a hitch...I am going to relax and just be grateful. That's sort of the earmark I've set for myself, that if she misses any more days for weird unforseen reasons in September, I'll have to re-evaluate, but if not, I'm going to believe that she really just had some extenuating circumstances. I mean she was sniffling and glassy eyed with a BreatheRight strip on the last day before she called in, and still has a lingering cough now, so it is a fairly believable situation and I don't really have a reason to doubt her.
Funny lot of bs: I realized today that all those times I thought she was like 15 minutes late? It's because I was looking at the clock Grant has set 15 minutes ahead, in the tv room where we're temporarily sleeping O_O Yeah, I'm a jackass. Doesn't excuse all the absences or the one really late day, just saying, that's dumb :p To my credit, it's the alarm clock by the window where I would see her car, and I didn't know he had it set fast.
She and I have had a couple of very candid heart to hearts about committment that were reassuring. And also talked more about personal stuff in a way that makes me feel like I like her.
Because of her and regardless of her I'm feeling a little better about a couple of aspects of my life:
-Writing. This is because Grant wrote me an email from an old computer saying how we have to find a way for me to write if for no other reason than he's dying to read more of my stuff, with some unfinished documents of mine attached <3 And then I had dreams of writing that I woke up from, struggling to find the ideas in again, that inspired me. Basically between kids going to bed earlier and G coming for slightly longer periods than we'd planned on before, I think maybe I can really start to try to swing it. Which is...well...invigorating. To say the least. I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS!#@$!%&*!!!!!111!!!1!
-Excercise. I cannot control my eating right now: that is crappy but it's true. I'm just not there yet and trying to get there is just driving me to self loathing anytime I fail. I have hopes for working on this in therapy, but we're not at that point yet. Anyway, I've been thinking of how incredibly sedentary I am. Since my month long bout with depilitating near-death followed by 2nd major surgery in a year and ICU stay followed by 6 week recovery, all culminating in major ab problems...well, I've been slow to ease back into anything too physically grueling, let's say. I have this huge diastasis that makes all kinds of different movements - not to mention even EXISTING without a support garment - uncomfortable and potentially harmful. I have misaligned hips that hurt, sometimes not much, sometimes A LOT. I have two toddlers who expect me to sit still and nurse them for a few hours out of every day, broken up over many hours and big kids who expect me to sit still and read aloud to them for at least an hour or more out of every day. It's just nuts how much I don't move my body around anymore. I mean cleaning and sex are basically the only excercise I get. Ha. True, though. At least I do plenty of both? Changing the subject. So, I've committed to trying to take a long walk with the double stroller or swim for a good long time, every day. By a long time, I mean like 45 minutes. There is only one day out of the week that neither Grant nor G is here at all to help with this, and on that day it's possible I could recruit Laura, more likely I can just make the kids walk too that day - they do fairly well with that. This was day 2 and I tell you, I feel a lot better. It's SICK the degree to which I sweat all over the place and have to force my posture to be better and all, walking briskly with the stroller for 45 minutes. I mean I'm 26, you know? But it just reinforces how important it is to stick with it lest I find myself a debilitated, dangerously obese person at some ridiculously inappropriate age like 30. Extreme fatal obesity and diabetes both run in my family, I definitely have those genes. It's nice to be starting something that feels good and could potentially help me get back in some smaller pants. Have you guys seen those icons that say, "Food has replaced sex in my life - now I can't even get into my own pants!" Yeah, I don't want to be that person :x
DAMA IS COMING DAMA IS COMING DAMA IS COMING!!!!!!
I am so over the moon thrilled about this. This is what REALLY has me using this icon. She's coming the last week of September which is, like, basically right now. We have a date and a time for picking them up at the airport! Aaron spent awhile on the phone with Zoe tonight. He can't wait to show her his rabbit, and the frog that lives on our front porch, and the fairy doors, and all the lizards we have down here. Ananda is also excited, although not so much as Isaac, who could more accurately be described as "frenzied" about Loo-chee being here ;) We are definitely posting a countdown on the wall.
I'm going to have to come up with some kind of detailed agenda, and then go back over it and remove half the stuff so I can make sure there are plenty of large blocks of time for free play and adult conversation.
Some political stuff:
This whole long page about Sarah Palin? I LOVE IT. I don't love some of the kind of horrible phrasing ("Here's Sarah Palin, working without neglecting her children") - but the overall message is really, really awesome.
http://parentingfreedom.com/2008/09/03/sarah-palin-mother-and-first-female-vice-president-pictures-children-parenting/
Again, this is not a statement on her stance on issues or whatever, it's just her, and I can dig it.
This is also not a bash or an endorsement, it's just awesome: The Barack Roll. You have to watch the whole thing.
John McCain's Wiki page is kind of incredible. I never really feel a kinship with anyone in the armed forces, it's just very far removed from my way of thinking and personal set of ideologies, but you have to be amazed at someone who's nearly died that many different ways, had that much of a CRAZY interesting intense life, and now to top it all off at 72 is still running for president. I also have to wonder if someone who was tortured and/or held in solitary confinement for 5 years as a POW can still be sane enough to run - especially, erm, at 72 - but he really does seem like a respectable and intriguing person, politics aside. I mean he crashed 3 airplanes, was shot down in one, was on an aircraft carrier that caught fire - this is all before the POW stuff O_o It's also kind of awe-inspiring that the man was in the House of Representatives in 1982. I mean. I turned 1 in 1982.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McCain
It is very much my style to be far more interested in these people as people than as candidates.
As soon as we get a candidate who is for small government and against guns, who is anti-war and pro-life and pro-birth freedom, and strongly for the environment, who grants homosexuals all the rights everybody else has and is not trying to gun down immigrants, kill criminals or torture hostages - that's when I'll get all excited like some of you guys are. Unfortunately my political beliefs are not just impossible in the context of our nation's system but in the context of reality, as many of them contradict each other. As it is I'm gonna be really excited but kind of scared regardless of who wins this one, to varying degrees.
Trepidation:
-My mother may be getting a divorce, and temporarily living with us, along with my brother and her dog. I am happy to be able to help, and Grant is totally on board with that too (and the kids are loving the idea), but I can't pretend it won't feel a little crowded and complicate some of the stuff I'm dealing with in counseling. It is a mixed bag featuring very welcome cleaning and child care help, more adult company, particularly of the laughing and board game variety, bad teenage attitude, very stinky boots, cigarettes outside on my deck, plenty of competition for computer time, a depressed person in menopause who is going through a divorce, and who knows how many other factors. My mother is not someone to live with anyone else for long, though, so I imagine it will only be a 1-3 month thing. She will probably be working 2 jobs by the end of the first week. Now if we can just motivate Bob to find some direction it could be a great thing...
-Hurricane Ike is forecasted to be a 3/4 in the next 12 hours and it's headed for us so far, with a landfall somewhere scheduled for around next Tuesday. I AM SO TIRED OF THIS HURRICANE SEASON ALREADY. Geez. I'd like a break, but Hannah is still skirting us and Josephine is right behind Ike. My dad (who drives a cab in Key West and is financially screwed anytime they evacuate) must be having a really, really hard time right about now. I think I'll call him. Even without direct evacuation orders, nobody goes to the island when the News is showing this stuff nonstop, you know?
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