Since coming from public school to home learning, Samuel's reading has been our priority and it's paying off. He has zoomed through 'Frog and Toad" and told me he knows why it's called a 'Treasury" - cause it's like a special book and it has good stories in it. When this little guy came to visit for the day, Samuel offered to read to him to make him happy. I know I'm thrilled!
Our rainy spring day project was planting wheat seeds in these brown egg shells we've been saving. We'll be waiting patiently for some sprouts. Our classroom needs some outside in.
I don't know if you have America's newest pest in your neck of the neighborhood, but here in mine, the Stink Bug is invasive. They were around last summer but apparently spent the winter renewing their vow to take over the world and have come out strong already this spring.
At first glance, they're not that bad. They don't sting or carry malaria or eat the wood boards holding up your house. Unlike ticks they don't cohort with deer and burrow under your skin and make your joints ache nor are they rude enough to steal your food or leave their excrement on the walls.
They do have an odor - hence their name. But truthfully the smell isn't really all that "stink". It's not like a "your kid stepped in a pile of dog poop" smell. It's more like a strange mixture of mint toothpaste, hair dye and toilet bowel cleaner and they only employ their stink weapon when threatened, which unfortunately around here is often.
They seem to have an extremely strong exoskeleton as evidenced by the fact that when you flick them as hard as you can and their body makes that satisfying crack when it hits the wall, they pause only a moment before they brush it off and walk away. And they're so stupid/docile that they don't have the sense to run from you.
So what is it that makes people hate them so intensely? Could it be that horrific prehistoric body? If you enlarged them by about 1,000 percent you could easily superimpose them into a Jurassic Park scene and have people screaming and running from them as they advanced and devoured everything in their path. But could ugliness alone make them detestable?
Maybe it's their sheer number. Apparently the only social networking the stink bug engages in is not on facebook but in the bedroom. If you have one today, you will have 100 tomorrow.
I really don't know what I hate so much about this bug but I do. Really. Do you?
One of my children is in the nymph stage of hoarding. Although he is young now, he is well on the way to collecting the kind of debris that will earn him a segment on "Hoarders-Buried Alive". This is a teensy portion of the broken, useless stuff that was cleaned out of his room. I hauled out three large garbage bags of this kind of junk stored in boxes and bags and cases. And it hasn't been so long since I did this once before.
Even before uncovering this crazy mess I had been thinking about the toys in our home. After a zillion years and a half a zillion kids there were a lot of them. More than half the toys were missing pieces and weren't played with. Some of them were just stupid - no real value.
Time to pare down. Throwing/giving away most of them. The only toys we will keep have to be sturdy, not from a
happy meal and will promote creative play. Legos and Playmobil will stay and the Connects get the nod. All the sports equipment are keepers along with the white erase/magnetic board with the paints and markers. I'm feeling some trips to Goodwill coming on!
Sunday afternoons were made for relaxing - literally.
But my busy weeks want to ooze out and run all over the weekend.
My family needs to do nothing at least once a week.
No visiting.
No cleaning.
No meetings - especially no meetings.
No accomplishing anything.
Just swinging and thinking and wasting time.
Perfect rest and I'm guarding it.
On the left of this picture is Elijah James, my grandson, in the Christmas pajamas my daughter picked for him. On the right is Elijah James, my son, in the Christmas pajamas that I picked for him. Tonight they're having a sleepover like they do pretty much every weekend. They're names were chosen seven years before I adopted my Elijah and we didn't pick the pajamas to match and we didn't plan it so that this uncle and nephew would be best of friends. It was all just God arranged. - well maybe not the pajamas unless God has a deal going with the buyer for Kmart.
Some of my kids have a hard time making it through the day without falling apart. Anger and attachment stuff spill out of them, starting first thing in the morning over their choice of cereal. Afternoons are often a series of fights with siblings, rage over being disciplined and thinking the whole world hates them.
Jeremiah had one of those days today and I was relieved to see it was almost bedtime. When I went in to tuck him he was sitting with his favorite Curious George book, waiting for me to read to him. I was tired and not delighted with him at the moment, but I had promised.
Amazing how a story and some snuggling in bed together can poke little holes in our hearts and let all the hardness out-his and mine.
And I can't help but love a child that looks like Curious George.
Our rainy spring day project was planting wheat seeds in these brown egg shells we've been saving. We'll be waiting patiently for some sprouts. Our classroom needs some outside in.
I don't know if you have America's newest pest in your neck of the neighborhood, but here in mine, the Stink Bug is invasive. They were around last summer but apparently spent the winter renewing their vow to take over the world and have come out strong already this spring.
Some of my kids have a hard time making it through the day without falling apart. Anger and attachment stuff spill out of them, starting first thing in the morning over their choice of cereal. Afternoons are often a series of fights with siblings, rage over being disciplined and thinking the whole world hates them.
