Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Ah Cleaning

Sometimes I feel like I never stop cleaning, pretty much literally! With a 2 year old boy, a 4 year old girl, an 9 year old girl, and 11 year old girl, and a 13 year old step-daughter, there is much laundry to do, many dishes to do, many spills to clean up, and nothing stays in its place for long. I've been working very hard to try and stay on top of it. I finally made it out to the garage today to sort clothes. My husband has a rule for me that I must catalog all the items I am going to give away to charity, even if they were given to me, so that we can take the tax deduction. How I long to just load up stuff in the back of the car and drop it off without the cataloging, but my husband does a lot for me, so I suppose I can honor his effort to try and save us a little money in taxes.

My girls really help with the cleaning. In particular, I appreciate my 11 year old. She really takes more than her share. She does the dishes, she takes care of the small outside animals, and she cleans and vacuums the main room floors.

My motto is slowly becoming more "less is more". And I've become a toy nazzi. That is I really limit the toys they have out. Most toys have their own box (cars in one box, potato head in one box, trains in one box, legos in one box). And they can't get out another set of toys till they put that one away. Somehow, onesies and twosies of different sets always seem to get left out somewhere; so that is a challenge.

The hardest thing I find about cleaning is finishing a given area. It's really like I have a block. It's just the hardest thing to do. The thing I do with myself (which I teach my kids to do for themselves) when it comes to cleaning, is "just do the next thing". That works for me. Or the 10 minute dash. Pick up this room really quick without worrying about perfection. Then, move onto something new.

Dad and son

My little son has asthma. Each time he gets a cold (well almost every time) he get asthma symptoms and has to be nebulized extra (he gets some preventative medication every day whether he has a cold or not). Being a two year old, he doesn't like sitting still to be nebulized for long. Luckily Daddy spells me and takes care of it a lot.
dad_and_son

It's been a rough two weeks. I think the combination of my son being two and him beginning to be able to talk about what he wants and doesn't want, made for a very grumpy boy. Here is a sweet shot though...just regular every day life. I love my family (even on the hard days).

pumpkin

Monday, October 15, 2012

Writing

We started our new writing curriculum today. My kids didn't get "which" clauses and how the clause needs to be connected with the first part of the sentence. They also didn't get how their sentences are supposed to make sense, or how to change the sentences to make sense, and I didn't get how to teach them without getting frustrated. I hope it gets better. My middle daughter usually has trouble writing things that make sense (she's great orally), which is one reason why we're doing Writing In Excellence. But, they are supposed to write from an outline and at least today, this actually made it harder for them, and I found myself completely exasperated as to how to explain to them what to do without telling them what to write. Writing is definitely the hardest subject for me to teach.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Four Year Old Ism

Four Year Old - "Mom, my tummy hurts."
Me - "maybe you should lie down if your tummy hurts."
Four Year Old - "No, I think I should go outside and play.
Maybe my tummy hurts because I have tight fitting garden shoes on one toe."
Me - "that makes your tummy hurt?"
Four Year Old - "Yeah, sometimes."