Rutabaga Dreams

Math drives me nuts.  Everything else is going quite well, but math…  it makes me want to tear my hair out!  She understand the concepts but she just can’t seem to memorize her basic math facts.  We did Math-U-See’s Alpha level last year and I noticed this problem then too.  We’ve held off starting Beta in order to try and review this material, but I don’t feel like we’re making any real headway.  Right now we’re focusing on +1 through +5 and depending on the day she may get all of them right off the bat or she may (seemingly) forget 10-12 of them.  Once I walk her through the series of questions (What kind of problem is it?  How do you break it down and do it that way?) she can always figure it out, but the retention just isn’t there.  It is so maddening!!

There was a suggestion in the Math-U-See newsletter over the summer to do review with cards and to focus on the ones that are wrong one at a time, having the child build it, write it, and say it.  This is all well and good if there’s some consistancy…  but what do you do if it isn’t always the same problem(s) that are the troublemakers?

And should I be holding back on starting the next level?  It seems like it makes further work a lot easier if you know your basics cold, but the constant drilling is driving both of us up the wall.  I’m glad she knows how to do it, but still I know from personal experience that this just isn’t enough.  Some things just need to be memorized!

I think for now I’ll continue with the drilling, but I’m going to make a few changes.  On Mondays and Wednesdays I’ll have her drill herself, and whatever she misses or doesn’t get to in a set period of time she’ll have to do as copy work instead of recess.  (Yes, recess, we’re very school-ish around here in some ways!) On Tuesdays and Thursdays when we do school in the afternoon because of morning Mass and errands we’ll do some sort of math game.  I tried math bingo yesterday and that went over pretty well.  On Fridays I’ll do the flash cards with her and evaluate how it is going.  

At some point this stuff has to stick in her brain, right?  

We’re supposed to be doing math right now, but Emma started reading Gregory and Nathan Bible stories while changed my baby spit-up covered shirt.  How could I interrupt this to do addition flashcards??

I love watching the sibling relationships develop, and I think homeschooling is so wonderful for helping this along! 

As you can probably guess, I’ve been rather busy recently.  But it’s a good sort of busy, so at least there’s that.

School is still going well, and we’ve decided to change our schedule somewhat.  We’re now going to Mass and a short religious instruction class on Thursday mornings with several other homeschooling families.  I’m trying to figure out if we should also try to go to Mass with them on Tuesday mornings as well.  There isn’t a class on Tuesday mornings, but still it would be nice to go to Mass more often and good for the kids to see each other more often as well.

Matt is working away at the house, and he’s started to blog about it again too.  I haven’t been doing nearly as much as I’d like or feel I should be doing, but I’m having a hard time finding the time and energy to do much.  Having three kids,  homeschooling, cooking, laundry, helping with the cleaning, taking care of the garden, etc, etc, doesn’t seem to leave much time for construction.  I’m not happy about it, but Matt seems to be understanding…  although I’m sure he’d like me to be doing more.

We’re getting the house painted in a couple weeks, and we’re trying to figure out a color.  We know what sort of color we want (warm tan-ish color with a cream-ish trim and a red-ish accent color and door) but we’re having a hard time with the paint chips.  We keep finding something that looks like it is what we want, but when we buy it and put it on the house, we find that it isn’t what we thought it was going to be.  It is a frustrating and expensive experience!  So far we’ve found a main color that is too mustardy, one that is too peachy, and another that was too light.  The light one will probably be the trim color, so at least that helps.  There are supposed to be computer programs that you can use to help with this, but if you can’t trust the paint chip, I’m not sure why I would trust the program to show me the accurate color.

Living with extended family is still going well - at least on our end.  I think we’re getting a little loud and obnoxious at times, but such is life with little ones.  I do sometimes find myself thinking about my first roommate experience, where everything seemed to be going along just great until I moved out…  at which point my roommates proceeded to tell me everything I’d done wrong for the entire summer.  Not that I think that would happen here - we’re all a lot more mature than that! - but still, there are times when I think that perhaps things are going a little too well.  *grin*

We’ll just keep plugging away at the house and hopefully we’ll be out of the way before too long.  It is very nice to not be solely responsible for all the cleaning, and to have an extra set of hands to help with the kids - Nathan especially.  It is much lovely to cook dinner while someone is holding him rather than having him fussing in the sling, backpack, bouncy seat etc.  I’ll definitely miss that once we’re in our house!

And those car carts at Safeway are germ-ridden, pestilence-spreading vehicles bent on infecting every child with every cold virus known to man.

Grr.  Now I have to figure out if I’m going to be mean mommy or not.  Maybe I’ll go to Savemart this week.

I’ve been starting to hear this niggling little voice that says “shouldn’t you be potty training Gregory?  After all, he’s going to be three in December…” to which the rest of me says, “NOO!!!!  Like I don’t have enough to do right now!  And he’s only barely starting to get interested!  And he only wants to wear underwear and doesn’t want to get anywhere near the toilet, which sounds like a disaster waiting to happen!”

I decided to do a little test last week and I bought some training underwear for him.  We put it on and he was all excited, but didn’t want to go anywhere near the bathroom.  The inevitable happened, and he was rather freaked out.  I had a hard time not laughing about it all, because it was just what I expected.  So, back to diapers (thank goodness!) and now that I’ve read what Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer has to say about potty training I don’t even have to feel guilty about it.  Yay!

Don’t you love it when things just fall together?

In our morning prayer (we pray part of Lauds together to start our school day) I noticed that today is the day the Church celebrates Mary’s birthday.  In our Bible study we read the section where Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth and proclaims the Magnificat.  In music, we talked about Bach, and when I looked at the Bach pieces we own, I found Bach’s Magnificat in D Major.  I quickly burned that to CD and we listened to it while Emma worked on a coloring activity.  I also found a fun piece on YouTube that showed an orchestra and choir performing part of the piece.  We enjoyed this a great deal, and it was exciting for Emma to see the various parts of the orchestra in action.

So, I’d like to say that I coordinated all this in honor of our Blessed Mother…  but I’m not that organized.  But it worked out well anyways, didn’t it!

The kids have had colds for almost a month now.  As soon as one seems to get better, they get hit with another one which has led to a seemingly endless succession of drippy noses, coughs, sneezes and the like.  I’ve been trying to figure out what changed (other than our move, which seems quite unlikely to cause this!) and I think it ties into the grocery carts with the little cars at Safeway.  I never used to use those, but a little over a month ago I relented and found them a nice way to keep track of Gregory now that he refuses to sit in the front part of the cart.  He now loves the little cars, and Emma eagerly joins him in it whenever we go grocery shopping.  If these germ-mobiles are what are causing the problem, I’m not sure how to proceed.  

Should I:

a) stop using them, and break my two year old’s heart?  

b)  wipe them down with anti-microbial wipes, contribute to the breeding of super-viruses, and hope for the best?

c) hope that the preschool effect kicks in soon and they stop catching these cold viruses quite so often

d) try to figure out a time when I could go grocery shopping without Emma and Gregory in tow?

We’re going to skip Safeway this week, and I’ll be curious to see if their colds clear up.  In the meantime, I think I’m finally coming down with one…  which helps explain why I was dragging so much this weekend.  

We got back our deposit for the apartment a couple days ago and found they deducted five dollars for two missing lightbulbs.  The lightbulbs weren’t there when we moved in, but since I didn’t notice it, I don’t have a leg to stand on to say anything.

At least we got the rest of it back, but still, $5 for two lightbulbs?  Sheesh.