The Ants Go Marching One by One, Hurrah, Hurrah

What I HAVE accomplished today: 2 loads of laundry, dishes, meals, school, trying on the girls' summer clothes to see what fits.

What I have NOT accomplished today: getting dressed.

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. I DID get dressed today.

Somewhere around 1:00 pm.

But my clothes drove me nuts, so I put my jammies back on around 3:00.

And trust me when I say that the two hour time window I just described was really, really sort of exaggerated.

Sometimes I feel like my hormones or something are all out of whack and I can't stand the way my clothes feel! The waist line, the hems, the seams... ALL of it!! So yeah, I'm wearing my fuzzy Christmas jammies and in complete denial trying not to think about where my little Emmy's clothing issues might have come from.

But Emmy's issues are a complete, individual, unique blog post that I will get to some other time. I promise. You don't want to miss it.

Meanwhile, life has been insanely busy here. We are thisclose to being done with school, if I can somewhere find the motivation to get those last few days organized and on my to-do-list radar which seems to be totally malfunctioning on a regular basis now that the sun is shining and the grass is green. 'Give me a good book and send the kids out to play' is my new motto.

Er, well, it will be anyway. Just as soon as school is done.

Oh, and in case you were wondering how that whole application process went with the homeschooling blogger stuff, I made the cut! Woot! Okay, more about that later!

So the other day we were out cleaning the yard after winter and spring storms had thrown lots of little branches around the place. We went from tree to tree, hauled enough branches to make an impressive bonfire and grew bored of the constant bending over and straightening the crick out of our backs. Or maybe that was just me. The kids got bored of the whole work part of it and started throwing old walnuts across the road into the field. Most of them made it *almost* to the yellow dotted line.

Someone squealed with delight as she picked up a rotten walnut with a colony of ants scurrying around inside, and like a flash of lightening, I remembered something that had been sitting in my office for over a year:

The Ant Farm!

available at Amazon, of course!

I bought it for Emmy's *ahem* 4th birthday and promptly lost the ticket that you have to send in to get ANTS to populate the thing.

Yep. I know. Lame-O Mommie-O.

Even better? It sat in my office ON ITS SIDE until that day we found the ants in the walnut. What difference does that make? Well, let me tell you!

Inside this clear plastic thingy is a big solid blob of...green gel. It's supposed to go from one wall to the other and from the bottom most of the way to the top. Without any gaps. When it lays on its side for 18 months, however, it settles to one side. And when you're in a huge hurry to get the thing set up and get the little bitty ants into it, you might not notice that there's a big bubble on the side so you take the little wand and stick it down in the gel and do nothing but make a path straight from the top to the middle of the bubble for the ants to FALL into.

Strike one.

In my hurry, I naturally didn't stop to read the directions until I was completely failing at transferring the ants from the walnut to the habitat. No, no, that didn't come until I had shaken a bunch of nasty rotten walnut bits into the nice clean habitat, had a dozen or so crawling up my arm and had children jumping up and down around me screaming, "They're getting out! They're getting OUT!!!" because they're quick little critters and don't CHOOSE to stay in the gel when the lid is OFF.

Strike two.

So I frantically shoved the lid on ("Momma!!! You cut an ant in HALF!!!") with one hand, grabbed the rice cooker (???) with the other, threw the ants (walnut and all) in, closed the lid, and shoved the whole thing in the fridge.

Yep, the fridge. What can I say? That's what the instructions TOLD me to do.

The kids stood there by the fridge with blank expressions and looked at me like I'd completely shorted a fuse.

"What?! They needed to cool off, they were getting WAY too riled up.", I said, and brushed an ant from my cheek.

Half an hour later I took them back out and shook the rest from the walnut before transferring as many as I could to the gel. The others were quite active and they busily hauled around the handful of eggs that had come with them. They were a bit disoriented and the eggs made several circuits around the gel, but I figured they would get it figured out eventually.

The kids were fascinated. The ant farm went from the counter to the table, to the bookshelf, to the windowsill, to the laundry room, to the... hmm. I'm not sure where all they went.

And then they were dropped. About 48 hours into the experiment someone picked a fight over who got to look at the ants. Nevermind the two clear sides that each could have had all to themselves, apparently the viewing of the ants could only be done by one child at a time.

As if it were in slow motion, I watched the corner of the ant farm bounce off the kitchen floor, bounce off the island, and eventually settle on its side on the floor. It was like an avalanche of jello, overtaking the ants where they stood, surrounding them with gel that they couldn't escape!! The horror!

The children assumed the ants would scurry around with the same level of excited energy they did at first, fixing all the shifted gel to the right places and opening up their tiny little tunnels, but I knew better*.

Ants don't recover when they look like this:



Oh yes. I'm doing a great job farming my ants, here, I thought as I carefully placed the ants on a high shelf where they obviously wouldn't might recover from their unfortunate fall.

It was no use. The instructions CLEARLY stated that the ants should not be bumped, jostled, or moved too quickly. Personally, I think the instructions should have also clearly stated that the thing should not be laid on its side for more than 2 hours or the gel will settle! CLEARLY the two maybe-not-as-coincidental-as-they-seem-at-first circumstances are a fatal combination! And with today's penchant for having warning labels on our warning labels, something MUST be in the works for this very disturbing sort of situation:

"Ant Farms for Dummies". Write it down. Gonna be a best seller.

Poor ants.

Strike three.

*At some point, maybe during the midnight hour, those ants (and their farm) may or may not have made their acquaintance with a tall black plastic bag and the leftover oatmeal. But *I* would like to plead the 5th on that.

The Dung Beetle Project

Let me start this off by saying: I am VERY new to the whole homeschooling thing!

I wasn't homeschooled myself except for one year (8th grade), we just began homeschooling our children about a month ago, and lately I have spent countless hours reading, researching, and flipping through curriculum catalogs trying to choose what might work best for us.

So when I came across an application to join This Old Schoolhouse's 2011-2012 Homeschool Crew (where I get to try out and review various homeschooling materials here on my blog) I thought it would be a great opportunity to gather up some hands-on information on what kinds of materials my children (and I) would like to do and find most useful for our family!

I made it to the second step of the try-out process, which included being provided with a unit study to do with the children.

Our unit study was called "The Curiosity Files: Dung Beetle" put out by This Old Schoolhouse and available as a downloadable e-unit study at their online store here for $6.95, currently on sale for $1.00!

According to the website info for the Curiosity Files unit studies, these are aimed at the 8-13 year old crew, but I didn't know this when I started out the project with the kids!

For my advanced-reader first grade boy and my bug-enthusiast kindergarten girl, we managed to wade through most of the new vocabulary, abbreviated the workbook pages and drew a lot of pictures of the things we "observed".

The unit study begins with a lesson about dung beetles which held the attention of the children very well, especially when supplemented with a big hand-drawn dung beetle visual thanks to the drawing I transposed onto the white board.

Aww, look at Mr. Dung Beetle!

Following the lesson are several pages of fill-in-the-blank type handouts, blank pages for observations, copywork of relevant Bible passages, and several pages of suggested activities. Most of the activities include some sort of supplemental information, activity, or video you can look up online, which we did several times! Also included are activities or suggestions designed specifically for children with certain learning disabilities or varying learning styles. While I didn't use any of those suggestions myself, I could certainly appreciate the abundance of possibilities for all types of learners!

Although the unit was aimed at an older group of students, there were several activities that could easily be modified for the younger crowd, making this a great unit study for those of us who are teaching several children of different grade levels or abilities. I think this would ideally be used for kids in the 4th-6th grade levels, adding in a student or two above or below that range for bigger homeschooling families. Finding things that I can use to teach all three of my older kids at the same time is very important to me as is finding things that teach science with a biblical worldview, both of which were integral in this unit study.

For me, it would have been helpful to have had the activities grouped together by age or grade level and to have that specifically stated somewhere at the top of each page for easy reference. I'm terribly unorganized at this point in my homeschool career and I can't say exactly when that's going to drastically change! I kept having to flip back and forth, jumping around to find the (sort of) age appropriate things in the packet.

Joshua forming his dragonfly (which is a "beneficial insect" like the dung beetle) on a stick!

My Preschooler Elayna enjoying the modeling clay and coming along for the Dung Beetle ride!

proudly showing off their dragonfly models!

Even so, we had SO much fun doing this study! I am always wary of mess-inducing art projects and this thoroughly broke me out of my shell! We had dung-beetle drawings everywhere, made models of dragonflies from modeling clay and dowels, and even made a model of a compound eye out of egg cartons and paper-maché! Talk about potential for mess! I thought I was going to have half the newspaper stuck to the table top by the time we were done! We had a blast, and I have to admit I did particularly enjoy using my new hot-glue gun.

The compound eye model before we broke out the paper-maché

I have to admit, though, every single one of my kids thought the goop was horrid! They had the most fun putting on the egg carton pieces and cutting the strips of newspaper with their scissors. They were VERY serious about cutting those strips! Goop, however, is right where the girls drew the line. Josh stuck with it for about 10 minutes before the gooeyness suddenly overwhelmed him and he started gagging. Weird kid. Shhh!!! Don't tell anyone, but I had flashbacks to 5th grade and totally enjoyed finishing it all by myself! Considering I'd have never thought of doing anything like this on my own, we all had fun AND learned some new things, I'd say the Dung Beetle Project was a success!

Whether or not I land a spot on the Homeschool Crew this year, I am very glad I was able to have the chance to participate in the process and have access to a new unit study full of new information and fun ideas.

*TOS also offers several other topics in the Curiosity Files ebook format, including Platypus, MRSA, Quicksand, and the very intriguing Zombie Fire Ants!. These titles and more are also available for purchase in a bundle of 9 unit studies for a discounted price!

**If you are interested in checking out this unit study or other products for homeschoolers, head on over to This Old Schoolhouse Store! They offer a wide variety of products from ebooks to dvds, planners, art supplies, new homeschooler bundles, and even a dollar spot!

***For reference, my children are 7, 5, 3, and 7 months! Grade levels 1, K, and Pre.

****Just ONE more thing! If you haven't "liked" This Old Schoolhouse on facebook and you are a homeschooler go do it now! They not only keep you up-to-date on their latest sales, they also pose various reader questions on their wall for wider feedback from other homeschoolers.

Parenting: A Full-Contact Sport

As demonstrated by this picture of me, taken immediately after giving my kicking, laughing, splashing, shrieking, desperately-trying-to-escape-from-Momma's-hands-oh-my-goodness-going-to-drown-herself seven-month-old daughter a bath.



Yep, don't kid yourself, parenting is a full-contact sport. If you've ever tried to put a diaper on a 10 month old baby you know exactly what I mean. At that age you've given up on trying to use the changing table, the bed, the couch, or anything else more than 6 inches off the ground because you've caught the little bugger by the heel one too many times as they roll like an alligator killing their prey the moment air hits their little butt!

I'm sure you know what I mean if you've ever been caught between two toddlers, four hands, two feet, 28 teeth, and the only Dora phone in the entire world.

Or if you've ever thrown yourself in the way of a tipping shopping cart before it fell on the littlest member of the family because someone thought would make a good step ladder.

Or if you've ever been tackled on the floor of the living room by several sets of knees, elbows, feet, and tickling little hands.

Or if you've ever been 9 months pregnant, making your first of 6 trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night, stumbled over a few matchbox cars, stepped on a lego creation, and fallen into the toilet because your son didn't put the seat down.

Of course, if you've EVER been pregnant, gave birth, or breastfed a baby you already know how physically involved you get to be as a parent.

In some ways in the beginning of all this I thought it would be more closely related to going on a long, steep hike. Physically tiring, demanding, a little bit more than you thought you could handle, but at the top of the mountain there is this overwhelming sense of accomplishment and the exhilaration of standing at the top of the world.

When my son was born I fully expected that one day the tiring demands would slow down, maybe even stop completely, and that I'd be able to sit down, enjoy the feeling of "Hey, I made it up the hill and to the top of the mountain!".

Yeah.

Ignorance. Denial. Idealism. All that good stuff. Realizing and accepting that there would not be a "peak" to stop and check out the view from was hard. Or at least there wouldn't be any time SOON. I wanted to soak in the feeling of accomplishment that I made it through the various stages of pregnancy, babyhood, toddler trials, and all that. No time, though. In each completion of a stage there is nothing to do but walk through the door into the next stage, with all of its new challenges and trials.

And I have this sense that the minute the peak is reached I will realize exactly what's on that downhill slope: the Good-Bye stage. The Letting Go stage. The Heart Break stage.

The Empty Nest stage.

I guess for now I'll keep climbing this hill, taking my bright little moments of wonder and beauty as they fleetingly come and go, and thank God that I'm still on this exhausting, trying, patience-building side of the mountain.

Some day I'll look back and know I'd take these simple trials any day over the ones to be found over there. Some day I'll miss the mess, I'll miss the noise, and I'll even miss the fingerprints on the windows.

(emmy and elayna tackling mommy a few years ago)

Curriculum, Snacks, and Mastitis

It is Saturday evening and the house is quiet.

Well, not really quiet, quiet, just sort of quiet. It can't really be quiet with a teething baby in the house, now can it?

But it's the quietest it's been in three weeks, so relatively speaking, it's quiet.

It's been three weeks now since we made the switch over to homeschooling, so I have been surrounded by 4 noisy little bundles of energy nearly nonstop for just long enough to make me think a single crying baby is actually quite peaceful and quiet. Either that or I'm just losing my mind hearing.

So what do I want to do with this peaceful, quiet evening?

SNACK!!!!

Bring on the chips, chocolate, granola bars, peeps, yogurt cups, cheez-its, and while I'm at it I may just grab a spoon and dig out a big blob of peanut butter. It's not like I need my tongue in order to write a blog post, now is it?

*sigh*

No really, I don't even have most of those things in the house right now, but it sounds good! Er, well, maybe not all at once. But I'd settle for one or two.

Why the sudden rush on junk food, you ask? Seriously, if you're a mom you probably already completely understand this. But in case you are NOT a mother and are actually reading my blog anyway, I'll lay out the timeline for you:

First: Cute little bundle of new baby is born. Meals are a little less regular than previously, since baby ALWAYS senses the impending meal and feels the need to be fed during the dinner hour. Since Mommy's got the equipment, Mommy misses dinner.

Fast forward a year: Toddler now needs food cut up, food spooned in, food cleaned up from face, hair, floor, walls, etc. and Mommy once again misses meals or eats cold food. (For those of us with a few MORE children, Mommy starts eating leftovers from toddler plate)

Included in the fast forward: Mommy is now pregnant, ravenously hungry at ALL times, and feels pukey if she doesn't eat every two hours.

Fast forward a bit more: By the time the fourth child is born, Mommy has become extremely adept at hiding the mid-morning granola bar that she invariably eats at 10 o'clock because she was so busy feeding the munchkins that her own breakfast was completely forgotten.

Which makes her not hungry when lunch time comes around, but a few bites of leftover kid food will hold her till dinner. Or so she thinks.

Until about 3 o'clock, when she grabs an apple.

And so the vicious cycle goes.

It's not that we intend to be snackers, it's just that it sort of sneaks up on a mom and the next thing she knows she's quietly chewing in the front seat of the car and surreptitiously taking bites out of the corner of her mouth that's hidden by the seatbelt strap so the backseat doesn't erupt in a chorus of "MOM!!! I'm HUNGRY!!" "Can I have a granola bar?!" "Can I have a bite?!" "Waaahhh!!!" ... that would be the baby.

Of course I know that whole scenario is less than ideal. But denial is a lovely thing, and it has gotten me through many things in life!

So I've been working on correcting some bad habits here and attempting to set a better example on the mealtime front. Mostly because not having a strict mealtime plan leads to absolute chaos and an exponentially increasing level of whine starting at 10 am and crescendoing about 30 seconds before lunch is on the table and .5 seconds before I lose it.

Besides wanting to set a better example, I have found that snacking is no longer an option simply because my older children have this sense of radar that invariably sounds the alarm whenever I reach into the cupboard. It doesn't matter if they are outside, on the swingset, in full swing mode. When their snack radar goes off, they can be at my side, half way up the whineo'meter in a flash. It's amazing.

It seems the mealtime prep, eating, and cleanup with everyone home takes up an insane amount of my day, but besides that, I've been doing all of this research online about homeschool curriculum options. Let me tell you - this is no easy task. There are MILLIONS of options out there and wading through them when you don't know what you're doing is CRAZY! Mind boggling!!

Trying to sort through it all has led me to several great resources, though, and in the meantime we are finishing up the workbooks we received from their school and supplementing with stuff I've picked up here and there. It will be enough to finish out the school year so I still have time to decide what package I want for next year.

Oh, and about the Mastitis (aka the Boob Flu)? Well, I'll spare you all the gory details! Let's just say that combined with a terrible allergic reaction to the antibiotics I was given made for an EXTREMELY fun week! I wasn't sure if I were more thankful that I didn't have to get up early and get children off to school or if I were more chagrined that I had all 4 children home with me to take care of while I was so sick!

At the end of it all, though, I found that I was more at peace with having them at home with me than I was the week before. Somewhere in that miserable week I found joy and anticipation in the prospect of homeschooling and let go of the expectation that I needed to have everything put together perfectly at all times. So in it all there was a blessing for me to find. Now if I could just hold on to that blessing 'cause I'm going to need it for the future!

And while I'm at it... if I could just hold on to a thought process long enough to develop it into an actual blog post more than once a month that would be nice, too!

The Way He Studies

There is nothing more inspiring to me than watching my husband study. He reads quietly, with pen in hand, and shares the highlights with me as we sit together in the early morning. Sometimes he can't settle for just sharing highlights, and soon he's reading whole chapters to me, talking with animation as he learns new things and gains new knowledge. His enthusiasm is infectious, and I not only gain information, I find myself gaining respect for this man that God gave me, and in both I am blessed.

Shoe Addiction

Okay, look, here's the deal. I think it's time for me to make a confession here.

I have... a shoe addiction.

I have tried to change my ways, be more moderate in this area, but I just can't seem to break this addiction!

Maybe with some help, some group therapy, some peer-pressure incentive, I'll be able to get out of this habitual foot-wear offense.

You see, in my cedar-lined walk-in closet tossed under my bed and in the boot box by the front door, I have exactly 8 pairs of shoes. I know, right?! What kind of woman AM I?

EIGHT pairs? Yes, eight pairs.

Pair #1:

The boots. These boots were given to me 6 years ago for Christmas. ALL winter long, whenever I leave the house (except for church) I wear these boots. I wear them to the store, I wear them to school, to the gas station, to get the mail, and to hang up diapers on the line. They stay on the rug next to the door and I slip them on and off every. single. time. I come and go as long as there is snow on the ground, which happens to be nearly six months of the year.

Pair #2:

The black church boots. Bought on final clearance late spring a couple of years ago. I pretty much wear these to church all winter long. They're black. They go with virtually everything in my winter closet. I used to wear them sometimes to go shopping, but not since having to cart a baby around with me everywhere I go. I just don't see any sort of practicality in wearing high-heeled boots with jeans and a baby in the ergo clomping around in icy parking lots.

Pair #3:

The brown boots. Bought at a yard sale for less than $1. These only come out in the fall, really. They have absolutely no traction on the bottom at all, so I'd have to be stupid to wear them in any sort of inclement weather.

Pair #4:

The (phantom)black booties. Goodwill special! I'd wear these more often with jeans, but I can never find them. They're around here somewhere...

Pair #5:
The tennis shoes. These were given to me by someone who found them at the goodwill! Everyone must have a good pair of gym shoes for that in-between weather when the snow is melting and you realize just how heavy those winter boots that you've been wearing absolutely everywhere are. Of course, I also wear these to the actual gym, carrying them in a bag so I can pretend they are "indoor-only" shoes 'cause that's what the sign says I'm supposed to have for gym use. I'm pretty sure that is just so no one walks in off the streets with muddy, wet shoes and gets the equipment all wet, so I make sure they're dry and (mostly) clean before I hit the elliptical. I promise.

Pairs #6 & 7:

The black heels and the snakeskin stilletos. These should be totally self-explanatory to every woman out there. At least I have these two gems to pick me up when I realize how bad my addiction has gotten. And when I just need to feel like a girl.

Pair #8:

Okay. This is where it gets painful. I really don't want to admit ownership of these "shoes". But the first step in any recovery process is admitting that you have a problem.

My friends. I have a problem.

They're called Crocs.

I love my Crocs.

My Crocs go with everything. I wear my Crocs with jeans. I wear them with skirts. I wear them with shorts, and what's worse than all of that? I wear my Crocs... with socks.

That's right. With SOCKS!!!

*sigh*

I used to think Crocs were silly, and then when I was 9 months pregnant with baby #3 someone bought me my very first pair of Crocs. It took me about 10 seconds to fall in love, and about 10 minutes to start an obsession. It has now been nearly four years and a second pair of Crocs later and I have shunned nearly all else for footwear.

And where, might I ask, have all of you been? My dear friends who should have staged an intervention LONG ago?!

Because this, this is what the world thinks when I step out of my door and into the public eye:



Not only am I the proverbial (and probably deserving) butt of all the Croc jokes out there for wearing these in public, but they have other issues, let me tell you.

For instance, Crocs may have all the necessary equipment for maximum foot comfort, but they have zero traction. In fact, they have negative traction. You think I'm kidding? I tell you, I have hydroplaned on some amazingly miniscule droplets of water on my kitchen floor, flinging and flailing and wondering what in the world has gotten a hold of my feet and shot them in varying directions.

Not fun.

Hazardous, in fact.

It's just one of those things you have to watch out for when you're, say, carrying a baby or rushing to help a kid clean up a spilled glass of water.

So.

Now that I've made my confession, I'm hoping y'all will help me get back on the right track here. I need some better options for comfy, slip on footwear that is conducive to my fanatical-sock-wearing-ocd-self, are comfy, and completely unmickeymousish, thankyouverymuch. Did I mention comfy?

Okay, then.

Now, moving on with the rest of my resolutions to break free of my post-traumatic-winter-sydrome. Like plucking my eyebrows and pumicing those weird callouses on the tops of my Croc-wearing toes.

Yep, eww. There. I said it for you.