Back to School

Before Christmas we had decided that it was time to put Emma back into school. Emotionally she is doing so much better, still behind a bit but more secure.  Attachment is so much better. Her mumbling has stopped. The things that we wanted to accomplish have been accomplished. I think that it has been a very good thing for Emma to have spent that time home. She will be starting back next Tuesday when the new semester begins.

Today we had a meeting to determine placement.  Last year I had requested that she be retained because of her emotional age. They fought me on it telling me that she was reading so well and would be bored. Before we started this year I gave her one of those reading tests.  Yes, she reads very fast and tests high on them. However, she is speed reading, no inflection, no breaks, just a string of words read very fast. We have hundreds of books in our house of all grade levels.  If given the opportunity to chose on her own she goes for K-1st grade level books. After working with her this year she is currently at the upper 2nd grade level. If she was in the 3rd grade she would not be on grade level.

Math is my concern. She failed math last year. I started with 2nd grade math and assumed that we could work through it quickly and get to the 3rd grade.  However, we have not progressed quickly. Math is a huge challenge for her. I have asked that she get tested in math. We were getting to the point where math was becoming a fighting ground.  That is not what we wanted with homeschooling. She was cheating and doing everything in her power to get out of math. With our advances in attachment is did not want the home to turn into fighting grounds over school.

We talked and Emma was initially against going back to school. However, after talking about things going on at school she is ready to go back.  She was mad at me when I told her that she needed to go to 2nd grade.  We have talked about it quite a bit.  This is not a punishment, it is to help her to be successful. She should have an advantage since she has completed 2nd grade. She has come to accept that as well.

At our meeting today I was ready to fight the fight to have her retained.  However, the school counselor had a 2nd grade teacher there for the meeting.  We have been talking all year and she knew my intent and felt that they should follow my wishes. Strange, this time around her testing showed her to be immature and not working at grade level.  Seems to me like they could produce whatever paperwork they wanted to achieve whatever goal they had.  Regardless, I was happy with the outcome.  She will be going into a smaller classroom with some other kids who are struggling. They also have an aide in the classroom. The teacher and I talked about some of her struggles and have already got some things in place to offer her a successful year.

Emma is excited about her teacher and now wants to go shopping for school supplies.

In other news, I got the call that Kassi is heading to the hospital to have her baby. Grandson Noah will be here soon.  As soon as my husband gets home I will be off to pick up Sarah and head to the hospital.

Chores

The other day I was reading an article that talked about the benefits of chores for children. Our children do have assigned chores. I think that it is important that they contribute. I don't think tha they have a lot of chores although they disagree. Our chores are divided into four areas and rotate weekly. One person takes out trash and picks up and cleans the family room.  One person cleans the kitchen table and sweeps the dining room floor (because they always wipe everything onto the floor), another one empties the dishwasher and sweeps the kitchen floor and the last one loads the dishwasher.  Individually they are responsible for their bedrooms, putting away their laundry and cleaning their bathroom.

I don't think that they have too many chores.  However, they must.  Getting them to do their chores well is a challenge.  They want me to point out everything that they have missed.  By time I do that numerous times it would have been easier to do it myself. Lately I have told them that if I have to keep checking then they can head to bed and I will finish, chore time is after dinner. I have only had Emma test that once.

I also have extra chores.  I can see that my stairs need cleaning so I will either offer it for a treat or leave it for someone to do who comes home with a yellow.

Benjamin has his chores too.  He was trying to drag his load a laundry up the stairs before dad offered to help him.

He loves to help the dishwasher person, to the point of becoming a hindrance.  He likes to get in the dishwasher to help. So his chore at choretime is to feed Charlie. He takes his job seriously!

He feeds him then sits there and tells Charlie to eat. Pointing out the food helps Charlie to find it.

How are chores at your house? Do you have chores? Am I the only one who struggles with kids who underachieve in the chore area?

Down Time

As the weather suddenly turned cold, our house has been dealing with the common cold. I don't have much gumption when I spend half my nights trying to cough up a lung. So we have been having a lot of down time. Homeschooling has been happening but we are about to have a change in that area so we are wrapping some stuff up.

Sarah heads back to college next week so we have been having some family time.

For Christmas Joselin had wanted some clothing and I purchased her some but also gave her a shopping trip ticket. She has decided that she wants some conservative clothing because she says that people judge you by what you wear.  Of course I gave her the look because I have told her that many times.  She gave me "yes, I know you told me so" look back.

Tasha and Vaida were able to join us as well. 

Sarah was with us but somehow avoided getting in any pictures!

Tasha claims that this is a pig.  

Benjamin and Vaida got their first Build a Bears.

His Chewy might have more than one heart.

Grooming Chewy.

Vaida Putting in the heart to her Chewy.

A quiet moment with his Chewy.

These two have such different personalities.  Vaida is quiet and Benjamin is loud and rambunctious. Sometimes Benjamin scares Vaida with his boisterousness.  

Sometimes they get along great and share.

He shopped til he dropped!

Dress Shoes

Guess who got new dress shoes.  Guess who left them in the kitchen! I didn't do anything with them. My husband saw them, picked them up and said he wasn't playing this game.  He put them in the trash! (I saw a kid rescue them from the trash can, bet I don't see them in the kitchen again.)

Will they ever learn?

30 Seconds

30 seconds, that is how long there was quiet at our house. Benjamin found a bottle of acrylic paint my husband had sat on the countertop. He is getting taller and wiser so not much is safe. No chemicals are stored in the cabinets. Doors are no longer safe.  He has figured out how to unlock them. I am trying to decide what type of lock I want to add higher up. Should I do a chain type lock or one that slides over (those were very effective with my father in law with Alzheimer's). Those will be purchased tomorrow for the back and front doors. I do worry about the windows in his bedroom.

He didn't try to drink the paint, it is nontoxic. He just did some finger painting. I will say he is a budding artist.

He was quite happy when I said this would require a bath, he loves bath time.

I decided that it was hair cutting time. With great sadness many of his baby curls are gone.  While cutting his hair he gained an interest in the scissors.  Hmmm, I expect a shorter haircut in his future. It is so hard to control curtain things with the older kids around.  He is forever covered in markers because they leave them laying around everywhere.

He cleaned up nicely.

First hair cut, I left a few curls in the back.

His sibling is due in April and I have been told he will be a boy.  I wonder if he will have the same level of intensity as Benjamin.  I tell everyone that Benjamin is a child with high intensity.  He plays, loves, tantrums with high intensity. By far he has been our most active, inquisitive, intelligent, willful child. Keeping him safe is a full time job!

At our request our home is closed (although we did receive a call to take a teenager, we said no).  We will not take his sibling.  Part of me is sad about this but I know that we are not able to take on more children. Our plate is full! I am so blessed to be able to stay home, we could not manage this number of children and have both of us working. I don't think that they would get their needs met. I am sure that there are some large families out there that do just fine with both parents working, but they must be exhausted!

If anyone has suggestions for door locks let me know. He watches people do things and figures out how to do whatever they are doing.  I am sure that he will figure out whatever lock I buy! Regardless, I need something to keep him in the house.

Love Note

Love note from Larissa. I love getting love notes.  I find that most of the time they are written by my girls.  If I get one from a son it is for a very special occasion. Yes, I have a box of crayon written love notes. Anyone else have one?

The Couch Project

Our poor pitiful couch. We love that couch. it is nice and wide and can sleep several people at once. However, it has gotten a bit stinky and slouchy. Stinky as in dog!  I tell him he is not allowed on the couch and he doesn't listen!  I made him a doggy sleep areas with old comforters and he seems to like that so hopefully I can keep the dog off for a bit.

I started with two cushions (bottom and back). I took the cushions off and washed the covers. I was surprised to see that the bottom had a cover of down feathers.  Problem is the feathers were all gathered at the sides.  I fluffed and shiften a lot of feathers but haven't decided how to proceed with the bottoms. I may need to remove the feather layer because of bunching and get something else.

The back was easy, opened a box of poly-fil and stuffed them.

We enjoyed watching the poly-fil expand out of the box, cheap entertainment.

I had the kids get to work with cleaning under the couch.  Most of the stuff is theirs.

They said that they were finished until I picked up a piece of sectional.....

Our take for the day.

I decided to take the carpet out. It smelled like dog. I bought a new carpet cleaner but felt that it was futile to clean at this time.  All this rain means wet dog.  Wet dog means my carpet smells like a wet dog. It took 5 kids to move the carpet to the garage for storage.

Stuffed back.  A huge improvement.

Stuffed back and fluffed bottom with some stuffing in the corners.

I only show this side because this the only part that got finished.  I think that this is going to be a slow process. I had a friend ask me why my walls in here are beige.  No color! I tried several different colors but none of them looked good against the red brick. I do need to repaint in here, I might try some color again. I also need to do something with the blinds.  They needs cleaning but there are so many of them!  How do you clean your blinds?