It was an odd place to meet, I mean seriously who wants to sit in a bathroom having a conversation with someone in such close proximity to the toilet? But for this I was very thankful. You see it was my almost 6 year old boy that I sat with. For the past 5 years he has been a daddies boy but lately he seems to be clinging to be a bit more which I am totally loving. It's especially nice when after you've had a moment where you've had to scold him that you look at him and tell him that you love him so much and then he melts into your arms with a big hug. Tonight this is what happened. I had just finished speaking to both my boys about fighting over the toys and whining and I told him "IF you keep fighting and whining then you are going to bed right away" (It was almost bed time anyway). Well sure enough not even 1 minute later they were at it again so Momma Bear had to follow through with what she said and believe me the argument that came from this child was nasty, he wasn't going to bed AT ALL! Well of course daddy heard him speak to Momma in such a way that he came running and that sweet boy sure did listen. I met him in the hall a few minutes later as he headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed and I told him I loved him and he melted then we went into the bathroom to work on the whole nighttime routine and he melted into my arms again and we sank to the floor and sat there chatting for the next fifteen minutes. We talked of consequences and how Momma has to follow through with her actions and I'm thinking it sank in...well...I'm hoping it did. When we finished he asked to stay longer and continue the conversation I'm not quite sure if it was him trying to prolong his bedtime or if he truly wanted Mommy time but I told him we could do it again when he replied "Can we do it tomorrow morning and just pretend that it's dark out?". Of course I said yes.
Here's to following through with the consequences and more of my boys melting into my arms and long chats on the bathroom floor.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
From YAHOO to Blah
I cannot understand how a person can go from feeling amazing one minute to feeling cruddy the next. Our family had four glorious days off together over new years and even last week as we headed back to work wasn't so bad then yesterday...well...yesterday was one of those days but I will say I ended it on a great note. I went to bible study at a friends church then I came home and found out I had won a prize in a giveaway...what could be more exciting than that? Then today yes today has been another one of those days. I feel like I'm starting to come down with something as much as I have been fighting it I don't feel 100% and it has shown greatly in how I have reacted today. I have yelled, I have spanked, I have threatened, I have dragged, pulled and nagged non stop all day. I kept trying to tell myself that they boys didn't look like they felt that great...the looked tired and cranky themselves so why I didn't stop myself from reacting to their nasty ways I don't know. We headed home this afternoon from work with my mind set on them both heading straight to bed (of course it doesn't help that we didn't get to leave work till after 3:00) and me sitting down with a cup of tea and some books to read. On the stand next to me sits Shes Gonna Blow by Julie Ann Barnhill on my kindle is Hope for the Weary Mom by Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin and in my mind to buy is Desperate: Hope for the Mom who needs to breathe by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson. Oh how I need to read all of these but will I get to them? Knowing me probably not. I hear the oldest monkey asking me nonstop if he can get up. I know he needs to nap but is it worth it at this point to have him down there trying to sleep at this late hour when bedtime is so close? I guess I will sit here and breathe for five more minutes then make a decision. Praying for peace!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Ups and Downs
So after today I've decided to start reading the book Hope For The Weary Mom yet again. I have so many issues. One is with anger which I guess can also be worded as frustration or stress. I think overall I am just burnt out from life, from trying to do too much. I keep thinking that I'm supermom and that I can do it all and I even say the verse "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens" over and over in my head thinking that indeed I CAN do all things but I can't. I am weak, I am empty, I am lost. I keep trying to push on with homeschooling and when we have a good day I want to scream "OKAY I CAN DO THIS" then a bad day comes and I'm ready to throw in the towel. The thing is I know I'm not alone. It's hard because some homeschoolers say to keep it simple which is what I want to do but on the home front hubby thinks we need to have STRUCTURE and things need to be run just like he was in public school but I DON'T WANT THAT. Can I scream it out loud? I DON'T WANT THAT! There I said it.
So what is my struggle with homeschooling? It's my son, while he is very bright and seems to be learning things quickly and easily he is very easily distracted. I have tried moving from doing school at the kitchen table to the office but he still finds things to fidget with or focus on other than the task at hand. He can't sit still in his chair (which I understand, he is only 5 and 5 year old boys really do have ants in their pants), he can't look at one word and sound it out without becoming interested in a poster on the wall or feeling he has to look back in his book for where we might have read that word before or even looking forward to see how much more work we have to do. Part of the problem with me (up until today) was that I was so busy focusing on what had to be done be it dinner or laundry or shopping that I wasn't focusing on the task at hand which was school I just wanted to get school done and be able to do what I wanted to do. But today I made sure dinner was planned and there was nothing on the schedule that could take me from homeschooling. I thought for sure school would go better now. But NO...I was wrong. Math was fine, a breeze really but phonics? It took us about 2 hours to get through 5 pages of work. I had to walk away twice before I blew a gasket. Thankfully I did stay calm but I did air my frustration with Ethan. How do you make a 5 year old realize that if they would just focus that the school work could be done and he could be off playing instead?
Well, tomorrow is a new day with new Consonant Digraphs to work on. Thankfully there are two less pages to do than we had today. I continue to breathe and pray. When trouble surrounds me, chaos abounding my hope will rest in YOU. (Lyrics from one of my favorite songs, ALWAYS) My hope will rest in You Lord.
Praying for more UPS than downs.
So what is my struggle with homeschooling? It's my son, while he is very bright and seems to be learning things quickly and easily he is very easily distracted. I have tried moving from doing school at the kitchen table to the office but he still finds things to fidget with or focus on other than the task at hand. He can't sit still in his chair (which I understand, he is only 5 and 5 year old boys really do have ants in their pants), he can't look at one word and sound it out without becoming interested in a poster on the wall or feeling he has to look back in his book for where we might have read that word before or even looking forward to see how much more work we have to do. Part of the problem with me (up until today) was that I was so busy focusing on what had to be done be it dinner or laundry or shopping that I wasn't focusing on the task at hand which was school I just wanted to get school done and be able to do what I wanted to do. But today I made sure dinner was planned and there was nothing on the schedule that could take me from homeschooling. I thought for sure school would go better now. But NO...I was wrong. Math was fine, a breeze really but phonics? It took us about 2 hours to get through 5 pages of work. I had to walk away twice before I blew a gasket. Thankfully I did stay calm but I did air my frustration with Ethan. How do you make a 5 year old realize that if they would just focus that the school work could be done and he could be off playing instead?
Well, tomorrow is a new day with new Consonant Digraphs to work on. Thankfully there are two less pages to do than we had today. I continue to breathe and pray. When trouble surrounds me, chaos abounding my hope will rest in YOU. (Lyrics from one of my favorite songs, ALWAYS) My hope will rest in You Lord.
Praying for more UPS than downs.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Something's gotta give!
Well after many ups and downs over the past few weeks of homeschool I think I am going to try something new tomorrow. I had read recently from another homeschooler that she had set up a system where the child got to choose which lesson he/she wanted to do. They had placed everything on shelves and labeled it clearly then the child would go to it and decide whether he/she wanted to do math, reading, art or whatever else filled the shelves that day. The only rule was that they had to finish everything on the shelves. I'm sure I'm not explaining this exactly right but in my mind I know what I mean. You can check out something similar here: http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2009/11/workbox-system.html. Now I think Erica does a bit differently than I originally saw but either way I LOVE the idea. I've been watching the price of the work boxes fluctuate on amazon so for now I'm going to try to find some kind of shelving system to do the trick (something cheap). I'm hoping this will alleviate the arguments. My only downfall that I know I will run into is with my 1 1/2 year old, he LOVES to tear things apart and I'm afraid he will be pulling everything off the shelves. We shall see.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
A Fly On The Wall
Wouldn't you just like to be a fly on the wall sometimes? I know I would, especially when it comes to this new homeschooling adventure. You see all of these amazing blogs from mom's who seem to have it together and I would just LOVE to be that fly watching in spying on what their doing. Now I know I've read their emails you know the ones that describe how they DON'T have it all together the ones where everything seems to fall apart in their day but when you see those pictures of their cozy homeschool rooms, their amazing curriculum their seemingly VERY bright children who look like their having fun learning you wonder "WHAT ON EARTH AM I DOING WRONG?" I know I know, it's early in the game I mean it's just like baseball they don't declare a winner in the first inning the game is far from over and this game of homeschool is far from over, we are only 3 weeks into it I need to learn to stop declaring the game over and lost when it's just begun. I hope to continually be inspired by all of these other amazing homeschooling mom's (and dad's) and to try to not to feel like I have to do things exactly as they do. As long as I am being led by God on this adventure all will be good.
Romans 8:5
New International Version (NIV)
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Teaching to be taught!
I always hated school, well there was a time when I liked it but that soon faded once we moved to a new school and my grades started to drop and continued to drop until I hit grade 11 (I have my husband to thank for helping me to achieve better grades in both 11 and 12 grade).
When we decided to homeschool I wondered how it would work with me being the primary teacher and feeling like I wasn't the smartest one in the bunch. Well as we finish up week three I can say it's not so bad. Yes there have been ups and downs I've had to be taught a few lessons myself so far (and this is only kindergarten) but it's been fun. My husband continues to laugh at me at my lack of knowledge on some things but I laugh right along with him. The biggest thing that I am learning is that indeed all kids do learn at a different pace and some things come naturally and others not so much. One thing that I found most exciting this week was when my son finally understood something that I was teaching him and his entire face lit up and that same thing happened again today. I am sure there will be many more of those moments but that first one just melted my heart.
Starting today I introduced a reward chart because we were having some struggles getting through our phonics and reading, the math seems to be a breeze but maybe it's because it's only 2 pages and the phonics/reading is between 4 and 6 pages (even though 1 is me reading to him). It started out with him being interested in everything around him instead of the work we had to do so we moved from the dining room into the office so he wouldn't be distracted by stuff but now in the office he just complains non stop of being tired non stop (but yet he won't have a nap although I have had him sit for a quite time only to hear him every 3 minutes "Is it time to get up yet"). So in comes the reward, if he sits without complaining and finishes his work with a good attitude he gets a sticker and at the end of the week he gets a quarter for every sticker he's received and when he's earned enough money he gets to buy a toy he's had his eyes on. I can happily say that today IT WORKED! I was amazed at how well we got through it and he actually seemed to enjoy it a bit. Lets see how next week goes.
When we decided to homeschool I wondered how it would work with me being the primary teacher and feeling like I wasn't the smartest one in the bunch. Well as we finish up week three I can say it's not so bad. Yes there have been ups and downs I've had to be taught a few lessons myself so far (and this is only kindergarten) but it's been fun. My husband continues to laugh at me at my lack of knowledge on some things but I laugh right along with him. The biggest thing that I am learning is that indeed all kids do learn at a different pace and some things come naturally and others not so much. One thing that I found most exciting this week was when my son finally understood something that I was teaching him and his entire face lit up and that same thing happened again today. I am sure there will be many more of those moments but that first one just melted my heart.
Starting today I introduced a reward chart because we were having some struggles getting through our phonics and reading, the math seems to be a breeze but maybe it's because it's only 2 pages and the phonics/reading is between 4 and 6 pages (even though 1 is me reading to him). It started out with him being interested in everything around him instead of the work we had to do so we moved from the dining room into the office so he wouldn't be distracted by stuff but now in the office he just complains non stop of being tired non stop (but yet he won't have a nap although I have had him sit for a quite time only to hear him every 3 minutes "Is it time to get up yet"). So in comes the reward, if he sits without complaining and finishes his work with a good attitude he gets a sticker and at the end of the week he gets a quarter for every sticker he's received and when he's earned enough money he gets to buy a toy he's had his eyes on. I can happily say that today IT WORKED! I was amazed at how well we got through it and he actually seemed to enjoy it a bit. Lets see how next week goes.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Like a Volcano I Blew!
Oh wow, I just blew it big time. I was swearing and throwing stuff and my oh my did I ever repent and repent fast. But I can still feel my temper it's there ready to blow again. Thankfully it wasn't at the boys but I'm afraid it will be if I step foot out of this office.You see we have a little problem in our house, okay I admit it's a HUGE problem and it's called CLUTTER! Yup, clutter and it's everywhere. You see on this particular day as I was trying to throw a few extra things together to get started on school everything came crashing off my husbands desk. First it was just a small dish full of stuff which made me somewhat angry then when a stack of photo's and other stuff went flying everywhere well that's when the chair went flying and volcanic ash was going everywhere. I spewed my nasty stuff all over. Needless to say I grabbed a box and threw everything in it, I started to yell at Ethan that it was time for school and to stop goofing off but then I just looked at him and said "Go play for 20 minutes or so" and here I sit, writing and through this writing I can feel myself getting calm. Maybe this blog thing was a great idea after all. Just please I beg of you don't look at my grammar and correct all the times I should have used a different punctuation I will be learning all of these things over again as soon as I teach it to the boys.
As a breathe deep and feel the calm overtaking me I understand that I am just human and even though I want to be super mom I can't be. (At least not ALL the time!)
Okay so a little time has passed and I thought an update was in order. So I started out by doing some music today which went GREAT then we moved on to a coloring page which both Caleb and Ethan did GREAT but then it was time for our workbooks and holy cow...the monster showed up big time. He was having NO PART of school he was TIRED and going to bed and didn't want to do school. Well of course I stayed calm, really I did! At first I tightened the reigns a bit and made him sit and wasn't giving into his wining about NEEDING to go to bed but then I said "let's go outside" and I had him run a little relay race around the yard in hopes to get him to settle down but at the same time the thought of that poor little girl that the stop mom and grandmother made run outside for hours on end and she ended up dieing came to my mind so we ended our race and came back inside. Needless to say I think it helped to calm him down he still wanted to go to bed but we made it through our phonics (which I wish I understood better) and math as usual was a breeze. Why can't the math be 4 pages long and the phonics 2? And as always LIFE GOES ON! Till we meet again.
As a breathe deep and feel the calm overtaking me I understand that I am just human and even though I want to be super mom I can't be. (At least not ALL the time!)
Okay so a little time has passed and I thought an update was in order. So I started out by doing some music today which went GREAT then we moved on to a coloring page which both Caleb and Ethan did GREAT but then it was time for our workbooks and holy cow...the monster showed up big time. He was having NO PART of school he was TIRED and going to bed and didn't want to do school. Well of course I stayed calm, really I did! At first I tightened the reigns a bit and made him sit and wasn't giving into his wining about NEEDING to go to bed but then I said "let's go outside" and I had him run a little relay race around the yard in hopes to get him to settle down but at the same time the thought of that poor little girl that the stop mom and grandmother made run outside for hours on end and she ended up dieing came to my mind so we ended our race and came back inside. Needless to say I think it helped to calm him down he still wanted to go to bed but we made it through our phonics (which I wish I understood better) and math as usual was a breeze. Why can't the math be 4 pages long and the phonics 2? And as always LIFE GOES ON! Till we meet again.
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