First day back to school!

Today was our first day back for the 2010-2011 school year (how did *that* happen??) We had a few tears spilled, one timeout, some arguing, and several apprehensive moments playing, "Who will mommy get to next?" but in all it went really well! This is Coral's first year really participating and even though she's 3 1/2 she is so ready. If anything I need to find additional activities for her to work on during the school day. I have lots of pictures from our day! I always start the first day of school with photographs of all the kids; in addition to going in the family photo album, I print them out and glue them onto the first page of their school portfolios. It's fun to see how much they change in a year!

Our favorite activity from today was the creation of name plaques for the school wall. I'm excited to have these up in our new school room in just a few weeks! Each kid got their own to paint, color, or draw on however they wanted. This was Coral's first time using paint and she was so excited! I thought they turned out cute :)

Alexei, my handsome 4th grader

Ibis, my pretty 2nd grader

Coral, my cutie preschooler

Hobie, wondering what on earth this whole thing is about

all four at the school table, working on lessons

Coral working on her name plaque

Hobie playing school under the table

Ibis painting her name plaque

Alexei adding his personal touch to his name plaque

the new artwork for our school wall

This is my best friend and his name is caffeine...

and without him I would be lost. Yes, I admit I am a total Coke addict. Hey, at least it's the legal kind! My best friend S got me hooked on canned Coke early this year and it's all I drink now when it comes to sodas. I try to limit myself but thus far my big "limit" is 3 cans a day. That's probably terrible, mostly because that's a lot of sugar, but quite frankly I don't care! One of the few benefits of being an adult is that I can eat and drink what I want, when I want, and nobody can stop me. Rebelling from my youth much?

What's really funny is that we don't let our kids have caffeine (except on very rare occasions like a party) - with the exception of Coral. I let her have little sips of my soda all the time and don't think much of it, and yet I'd never let Alexei and Ibis do that. Mark and I were discussing this yesterday and we're both guilty of it; we finally decided that since she came home after six weeks in the NICU on prescription caffeine, it just doesn't bother us. When a four pound infant is on 16mg of caffeine a day (the equivalent of 1/3 of a can of Coke), what harm can it do after that? She'd have to drink about 3 cans of soda now to equal the same body weight percentage of caffeine as she was getting as an infant. I guess a sip now and then, or whatever passes through my breastmilk to Hobie, just isn't a big deal anymore. Amazing how experience can put things into perspective.

Coral at a month old, about 3 pounds and still in the NICU

Why do I need caffeine anyway, you ask? After being awake all night long with an almost-eight-month-old who nursed FOURTEEN times in one night - yes, you read that right! - I'm not going to make it through the day any other way. And we have so much to accomplish; packing, packing, more packing, and then there's packing. Did I mention packing? So far I have packed up maybe 25 boxes, and Mark managed to roll up our living room rug and fold it and park it in front of the door to the front porch (our new box storage zone). Now you have to drag the rug to the side to open the door. But good thing we got that off the floor! :P And it's yucky and rainy outside. That's not helping our cooperative spirits or our pep.

Oh, and school starts tomorrow! You won't want to miss our first day! I'm still pretty excited about it. I think 2 out of 3 of my students are also excited; the other one is busy grumbling about today being his last day of summer. I have a feeling I may need to exceed my Coke limit tomorrow!

It's so quiet!!

It's so quiet I can hear myself think - scary! We dropped Alexei and Ibis off this morning at my mom's house while the rest of us went to my photo shoot, and they are still out on the town and haven't called me back. So this is what life is like with two kids....hmmm....:D Actually I miss them, I like having the whole family present and accounted for. But, it was nice for Coral to have some alone time with mommy and daddy this morning (well, plus Hobie) and I admit it was nice not having those two along for the shoot.

The photo shoot went pretty well, we went to Gaylord Palms which is a gigantic hotel over near Disney. When they started construction several years ago it was supposed to be an Opryland hotel, but I guess Gaylord bought them out and that's what it is instead. It's neat, outside the hotel and around the convention center there are lots of nicely landscaped areas and fountains, and the entire inside is a huge glass-roofed atrium with waterfalls and a big Key West-themed boat and even a swamp area with alligators. We've been there a couple of times but it's been awhile; Coral was just a baby the last time we were there. I took lots of photos for my clients, and am thinking we need to go back there to take some photos of our kids. They'll love that - not! Hobie is about the only one anymore who can't run away from me and my camera. Not for much longer!

I have to make special mention of Coral - she was SO good! Mark came along with Coral and Hobie because Hobie can only be away from his boobs for so long ;D and with the drive there and back and the photo shoot, I knew Hobie would be here frantic and hungry if I had left him with Mark. So they came along and we decided to keep Coral with us. She's almost three and a half and you'd think she'd be a total nightmare at a big hotel, but she was perfect! So well behaved, and quiet, and she had a good time seeing all the waterfalls and alligators but could keep her composure and listen. We took her to McDonald's for lunch after the shoot for a Happy Meal and an ice cream. She told us, "Alexei and Ibis can't come because they don't have good behavior." Hahaha! It's sad but that's the truth!

a couple shots of Coral while I was checking out the camera settings and waiting for the clients to arrive

There's no place like home

I wanted to share some photos of our current school room with you! Well, by "school room" I really mean dining area/coloring zone/school table/neighborhood hangout, as we currently don't have an actual room dedicated to school. That's all going to change in three weeks but for now, it is what it is!

This will be our fifth year either homeschooling or virtual schooling; Alexei did virtual school for 1st and 2nd grade. I have come a long way in learning what works for us - and what doesn't - and am feeling so relaxed this year. We aren't especially religious so we don't use any of the typical religious curriculums like Abeka. My husband actually works for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the textbook publisher, and we purchase the very best HMH has to offer and have been nothing but happy with our books. In fact I've turned quite a few diehard Abeka fans into HMH followers!

Here is our main school shelf. We have another big bookcase on our front porch that holds a TON of kids' books for pleasure reading, but I just packed most of that up for the impending move so you'll have to wait for photos of our new school room for that.

Here's the view of our little school corner in our dining area. I am SO looking forward to an actual dedicated room! It would be nice not to have syrup all over the backs of all the schoolbooks ;)

This is Alexei's 4th grade shelf, with Coral's pre-K stuff to the right. I'm still waiting on our workbook order for reading but in the meantime he'll "enjoy" an English textbook. From left to right we have: HSP Math, Harcourt Science 2006, Harcourt Social Studies: States and Regions and two workbooks for it, Harcourt's Storytown Winning Catch (waiting on the 4 workbooks for this), and Houghton Mifflin English as our temporary workbook fill-in. To the right of the blue supply box is Coral's Mead Preschool Workbook and some folders for her Alphabuddies crafts.

This is Ibis' 2nd grade shelf. From l to r we have: Harcourt Social Studies - People We Know, Harcourt Science 2006, HSP Math, Harcourt's Storytown workbooks (phonics, practice, spelling, grammar, writing) and 2 textbooks, and to the right of the supply bin, Harcourt's Art Everywhere. All three kids do art together.

Here's a look inside Ibis' daily planner. I like to plan out 6 weeks at a time in pencil and write down the pages we're covering and project ideas for that day. I have some review times blocked out on Fridays in case we have a sick day or a day where we decide to do something outside of the house. I like to have it all laid out in front of me so it's easy to know what we need to do for the day (especially with 3 kids now doing lessons and a baby underfoot) but we're pretty flexible with it. You'll notice if you click for the full-size photo that I don't date this, it's simply labeled with Week 1, Week 2, and so on. I don't ever know when we'll wind up needing time off, so it's nice to not be tied in with the calendar. We're required to school 180 days a year (be it bookwork, field trips, or whatever we consider educational) and I set the lesson plans up for 30 weeks. Reading will run a full 30 weeks but the other subjects will end a bit sooner. We work through all of the lessons in all of the books - this is one of my favorite aspects of homeschooling, that we have the time to do this. Public school teachers typically get through 60% of a textbook in a year (or so I've been told).

I'm hoping we can finish up all three weeks of school here before we move. Even though we're going to be busy packing, I think it will give us all something to focus on that isn't packing and moving. I want to at least get *two* weeks out of the way even if we take the last week in August off. We will for sure take the first week of September off to unpack and arrange our new house. I can't wait to set that up! 

How did August get so busy??

Did I mention I'm bad at juggling several different things at once? It's amazing, I have no problem handling four kids and all their stuff and noise and a bunch of pets and schoolwork and laundry and everything else that happens every day, but start throwing in a bunch of stuff where I have to socialize with other people and I get the urge to go sit in a corner and start talking to myself. When I was younger I seriously considered a career as a hermit. I would love to go live out my days off in a cabin in the woods somewhere!

A couple of months ago I heard that a relative (I still don't know who although I have narrowed down my list of suspects to a few) accused me of being a control freak. This was after Mark and I got frustrated by my mom - a frequent occurrence - and her absolute lack of planning and total jellyfish mentality and at the last minute wound up hosting her wedding reception at our house. I was actually pretty hurt by this. I am a really quiet, outwardly laid-back, and I hope thoughtful-appearing individual and I do really try to be kind and caring and understanding. I have been fretting over this name-calling for quite awhile and have come to the disturbing conclusion that it has a certain ring of truth to it. I DO like to be in control. I'm not a raving maniac about it and if you knew me casually you probably wouldn't get that vibe from me, but I don't like doing things where I don't know what's going to happen. I am an endless planner - I make lists, I map out routes, I hyperventilate. I read read read everything I can get my hands on before I enter into a new situation. I fear being out of control. I guess someone found me out!

Back to the matter at hand - August! It's crazy! For an anti-socialite I have a lot of social activities on my plate. Today our best friends are coming over for dinner. That would be a green on the anxi-o-meter. Maybe a yellow depending on how clean I can get the house and how my from-scratch biscuits turn out. :p On Saturday I have a photo shoot, I know the family and feel confident of my skills, but the location (a big hotel) has me nervous. That's a bright orange. Luckily Mark is going with me or I would be full-on code red! On Monday school starts (no big deal) but we are attending a 4-H meeting in the evening with a brand new group; not too terrible since we're familiar with 4-H. Next Friday we have the 4-H awards ceremony, also not too terrible for me since the kids are the ones who have to receive awards in front of a crowd (whew!) That Saturday we are supposed to have a yard sale; I'm good with those as long as no one haggles on a price! :eek: I'm also supposed to go shoot photos at a birthday party, I don't feel too bad about that but the lady won't get back with me on a time and that is really frustrating. Then the 17th we have a playdate with our old homeschool group - no pressure there - and on the 27th we have a kickoff party with the new homeschool group. I'm excited about that but a little nervous. And of course we're moving the last weekend in August.

My problem is I can't seem to focus on more than one thing at a time. I can only see what's right in front of me, and all of the other events are just so overwhelming in their duplicity that I can't process them. I'm pretty sure that disorder has a name! LOL Wish me luck!

Coral and I at my mom's wedding last October (I was 7 months pregnant with Hobie)

Schedule schmedule!

So I admit I'm not a big rules kind of gal; we tend more often than not to go with the flow. I actually really don't care most nights if the kids don't go to bed until 10pm, so long as they aren't driving me crazy! Mark has recently decided (as in a couple of nights ago, bless his little heart but he gets on these, "I'm going to make my family perfect" kicks every once in awhile) that the kids should be IN bed at 8:30. This includes all of the kids except the baby. His theory is they should be in bed earlier now that we're gearing up for school. Personally I think he spends entirely too much time conversing with his coworkers about their public-schooled kids. *My* theory is that I don't really want everyone (including me!) getting up at the crack of dawn. Maybe in a perfect world this would be great; little Henry and Suzy brush their teeth, say their prayers, and snuggle down into their beds at 8:30 while Ma and Pa dawn their pj's and have a little nightcap, and climb into their bed at 9pm as they blow out the old oil lamp. Everyone wakes at 6am to a big hearty breakfast and the kids are off to school, Pa is off to work, and Ma starts the washing.

The reality of it is that the kids may be getting to bed earlier, but I am not! Regardless of when everyone else goes to bed, I'm not getting there until Hobie is off to dreamland. Here lately that's been around midnight. Even when he miraculously falls asleep for the night at around 10pm, I'm up until midnight trying to get everything done that I didn't get to during the day. And then he's up anywhere from two to five times a night to nurse - it's the only time he doesn't seem to spit everything right back up - and he's started to protest the close confines of co-sleeping in our bed so he starts squirming and digging his toes in my c-section scar. I wind up having to get back up and put him back in his crib, only to re-start the process in two hours. I am not a heavy sleeper and it takes me awhile to wind down once I'm in bed, so by the time 6am rolls around and all of the other kids are awake and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I've had about 3 hours of fractured sleep and am ready to eat whatever little squirrel decides to come ask me some nutty question as I'm desperately wishing the sun would go away and those stupid birds outside would drop dead.

Why oh why did I marry a morning person??

Your Preschooler and Moving

There needs to be a book or movie or website or something that can realistically explain to a three-year-old what it means to move! Poor Coral is oh so confused. She's exceptionally bright for her age and I think she gets the whole idea that we're taking our belongings and moving them into another house, but at the same time she doesn't quite believe that all of her things will arrive safely at their new destination or that we won't be living here anymore. To make matters worse, our new house has been occupied by the owner both times we've been to see it (they are moving out in the next 2 weeks), and Coral met the owners' two-year-old daughter and played with all of her toys there. I think Coral may be thinking the new house comes equipped with a playmate and toys! Oops!

I've also been pulling out all of our old junk for a yard sale as I pack, which I know isn't helping. How can I tell Coral in my best happy sing-song voice, "Don't worry, ALL of our things are being packed up and will go to the new house!" when at the same time I'm pulling junk out to pile up on our front porch for a yard sale? If I were her I'd be confused too! Plus she will soon be sharing a bedroom with Ibis and I'm not so sure she's excited about it. Right now our bed is in her little room (along with Hobie's crib, loooong story!) and I think she'd much prefer to keep the arrangement just like that. I actually am not bothered by it, but at the same time it would be nice to have a bedroom that hasn't been taken over by pink toys and isn't decorated with Pooh bear decals. This is going to be a big change for all of us!

our current crowded little room, probably the biggest reason we're moving!