A New Tradition

"...you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name." Psalm 61:5b

(Sorry about the picture quality. This was all I had close to my computer, and I didn't want to take up a lot of time hunting for a better.)

I am late in posting this. Yesterday would have been my Grandma Mayme’s 101st birthday. I got to thinking about this the day before, and I wondered if there was anything I could do to mark the day. Peanut remembers her, Junior doesn’t really.

At bedtime, I got out a little booklet that my cousin Nancy copied off for us. It is a little handwritten booklet that my grandmother wrote for her telling some of her memories of her growing up years. I went in Peanut’s room and told her what day it was, and I read her just a few paragraphs from the book. Peanut just loved it. She kept asking me to read her more and more. I finally had to stop because I still wanted to read to Junior, and they were already getting to bed late.

Junior had the same reaction. He kept saying, “Turn the page, read me more.” I also shared some of my memories with them. Somebody in my family will have to help me with something. There was some stuffed item at her house that was stuffed with pantyhose. I can’t remember if it was a pillow or what. But there was a little hole in it, and I remember pulling out the pantyhose and stuffing them back in.

Here is one of the exerpts I read to them:

Gertie and I found a lot to play with. We used our imagination in those days. We could make dolls from corn cobs and even sticks. We had stick people, glass people (from broken dishes,) and an out of date Sears or Ward’s catalogue was special. We had families and they went to church. We made towns from flat rocks, the rocks were their houses. We marked rooms. Christmas was the only time we’d see toys in the stores. I remember how thrilled we were to get to go see the toys.

Junior couldn’t quite imagine that part about toys not being in the stores all year.

So we’ve decided to start doing this on each of the great-grandma’s birthdays, just share memories. Todd reminded me that we actually did this on Gram’s (his grandmother's) birthday back in November. It was right after baby Bubby was born, and his folks were all here. They remembered that the day was her birthday, so everyone was just naturally talking about the things they remembered about her.

Junior helps with spelling

Today I let Junior help when Peanut and I did spelling. I always give her the word and then a sentence using the word. Junior wanted to read out the words, and Peanut begged me to let him give her the sentences also. I was glad I did, though I wouldn't do it every day. It turned out pretty funny, and there was too much laughing on Peanut's part. Here are a few of his sentences he came up with:

ruts:  "The pumpkin ruts."
putts: "I splashed in the putts."
bids: "I watched a Bids cartoon on TV." (I don't think there is such a thing!)
forbids: "There are forbids cartoons on TV." (Think about that one!)

I am not sure how many of those he meant to be funny, and how many were just innocent mistakes. Hmmm.

Math Video

This is very interesting. It takes about 15 minutes, but if you have time, watch it. I was not surprised, as I have been reading about this, but I’ve never actually seen what they are talking about. It kind of makes your head hurt.

I was pleasantly surprised that she mentioned Singapore Math at the end of the video. That is what we use. It is different than what I was used to, but I can see where they are going with it. They also teach “alternative methods” for problem solving, but their methods often are directed at the goal of being more able to do math in one’s head. (Example: You can figure out 49 – 24 because you know 50 – 25.)

Last night

I'm just now getting around to putting this up, it's been over 24 hours, though.

Last night we had a bit of excitement. Someone in our family ( I will just let you guess who) put a Hot Wheels® wheel up their nose and it got stuck. It was quite a frightening few minutes for Mama, but Daddy kept his head and figured out a solution. The person could not figure out how to blow their nose, and ended up sniffing instead of blowing out. Not good.  Tweezers were just pushing it up farther. So Daddy twisted up the corner of a tissue into kind of a stick. He stuck it up the other nostril until it made the child sneeze. This child managed to sneeze twice through the mouth, so the third time I slapped my hand over said mouth and out came the wheel. So keep this in the back of your mind in case something like this ever happens to you. With the bad roads, it would have been a difficult night to be driving to the ER. I'm thankful for a hubby who can think under pressure, that's for sure!

I asked the child today what they would be putting in their nose. The child did not think this was very funny and said, "Nuthin'."

Junior's lapbook

Here is our first attempt at a lapbook. Junior's kindergarten this week is about cows, so we made a little file folder book about what we had learned about cows. Junior loves stuff like this, so we just jumped in and tried it. It was fun. We used some stuff from got-milk.com, and from The Coloring Spot. For the words, they were just typed in Word in different colors and fonts. We cut each one out and talked about what it had to do with cows. He really had fun doing this, and we also realized that he had forgotten how to use a glue stick. That kind of bothers me because I know they use glue sticks a lot at Sunday School. I hope he hasn't been making a huge mess there like he tried to do here. But once I showed him the way to use it, he was like, "Oh!" and he did it the right way from then on. Here is what he came up with:

Maybe we will do some more of these. I quizzed him the next day and he remembered everything we had talked about, so I think it helped with retention.

Good thought

Yesterday was kind of odd because I woke up earlier than Junior. He usually comes and wakes me up about 7:30, but for some reason he decided to sleep late. I got up and was enjoying a cup of coffee, watching Today because I hardly ever get to do that anymore. Then I heard Junior in his room, talking. I figured he was getting dressed. Most mornings he will get up, dress himself, leave his pajamas on the floor, leave his bed in a mess, and come get me up so I can turn on one of his "shows." Later, I come in and make him straighten up his room and make his bed.

In a few minutes, I saw him streak, undressed, down the hall, then back again. More talking in his room. I had expected him to come in the living room in a few minutes, but he had been up for a while and I didn't see him. Finally, I got up to check on him. He was making his bed...without being told! (or fussed at!) I said good morning to him. He was all excited because I had caught him being good. "DON'T help me!"

I told him I wasn't going to help him, but I was proud of him for making his bed. Then I said, "This morning I saw a little naked boy running down the hall. Do you know anything about that?"

He said, "Oh, that was me. I was just putting my clothes in the hamper."

"Your pajamas? Why are you doing all this stuff so early, and without being told?"

"I just didn't want to have all that work to do today. You know, and you telling me, 'Now go do this, go do this, this, this, this!' Aaaaagh!"

Wow! That is a pretty good idea for me, too.

Our week

This week Todd has had some kind of cold/sinus thing, and baby Bubby has it now. I feel so bad for him. Mornings are the worst for him. It is hard for him to eat and breathe at the same time...so he just gets mad instead. The baby...not Todd!

We are gearing up to start school back next week. We did a little this week, just to get back into things. Peanut is studying about Elizabethan England. I found a neat article called "Young Will" that we will use to talk about Shakespeare. I don't think we'll delve too deep here. There is a biography written for kids that I put on reserve at the library, and a book called Tales From Shakespeare, which has summaries of some of his plays.

Tomorrow is errand day. I haven't been out of the house since Sunday afternoon, so I'm looking forward to it. We will go to the library and dance class, then a fast food lunch. There is now a Chik-fil-a just down the street from dance, and it shouldn't be too hard to talk the big kids into that. Yum! They might get to go visit Grandma and Grandpa for the weekend.

Peanut has been playing with clay today. This is a mermaid, an eel, a fish, and an oyster.