Long Day

What a day. Yesterday seems like weeks ago. We did our usual chores this morning, decorated cookies, started to clean out a closet, pulled out some bad sewing stitches to redo, did some errands, and then went to the County Fair.

This evening, right before heading to Child #2’s tumbling lesson, Child #3 comes up to me in tears because of a hurt knee. The quarter-size, black-and-blue knob on this child’s knee immediately gets my complete attention. A quick call to a neighbor for a second opinion yields not only the opinion that we should go to the emergency room immediately but also that said neighbor would take care of taking Child #2 to tumbling.

Here's what it looked like on Day 2

We didn’t have an x-ray and the triage nurse thinks it is a ’soft tissue’ bruise. We were instructed to apply ice periodically (ever try that with a two-year-old?) and give children’s Motrin for the next 24-48 hours. I usually have buckets of Children’s Motrin, but I have none in the house currently.

CALGON!!!

Politics . . . Again

In general, I’m not a person to stereotype, but this situation screamed for me to point out how people made them fit! Here are some pictures from our vantage point on the sidelines of the local County Fair parade. Guess the political party to which each candidate belongs.

A local (write-in) candidate for the state legislature – on his feet and walking.

Incumbent running for state legislature – this is literally all we saw of him.

Candidate for U.S. Senate – This is how close he was to us – shaking hands & kissing babes & everything. Okay, maybe not kissing babes or babies. But definitely shaking hands.

The first & third pictures are of one political party & the middle one is of the other major one.

Speaking of political parties. Don’t forget to check out Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party!

Haystack Full of Needles: Still Waiting!

Awhile back, I posted that I’d ordered a book and would let you know what I thought after I read it. I pre-ordered a couple extra for some homeschool mom friends of mine and I was hoping to get them in time to pass them out at a get-together scheduled for Thursday night, July 31st.

This weekend, instead of the book (that was due to be shipped August 19th), I received a nice little note from the company I ordered from that Haystack Full of Needles has been delayed by the printer. The new ship date was supposed to be July 29th. I haven’t received notice that they shipped it, and a blog entry dated July 20th states it might be as much as two weeks late. I’m disappointed.

I’ll still let you know what I think after I receive the book and have read it. But don’t hold your breath!

County Fair = Parade Time!

Got Me Some Candy!

It is County Fair time in our neck of the woods. For the kids, that means a parade and CANDY! Here are some of the things we saw go by.

Can you tell we live in a rural area?

I will leave you with a picture of the winning commercial float.

Buzz Off: Buzzing Flies!

What makes flies buzz? Is it people inside a house trying to sleep?

Most summers, we have our share of flies sneak into the house. With three kids and two adults cycling the exterior doors and window screens that don’t fit all that tightly into the window frames, a few manage to invade our abode. This summer, however, has been horrid. I can go on a fly-killing spree and end the day with a kill total of 10+ and still find a few buzzing around in the living room the next morning or worse, dive bombing me during the night.

I finally decided to shut up the house and go completely on air conditioning. My rationale was that even though we would still have the same number of people opening the doors, they might shut them quicker so the cold air wouldn’t escape the house. Plus, there wouldn’t be gaps between the edges of the screens and the window frames for the flies to gain entrance that way!

I’m only killing 5-10 flies each day, but there are still 1-2 in the living room in the mornings and one that I have to lure into the bathroom to swat at before I can try to get to sleep at night. BZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZ. I wondered last night if I was imagining the noise because I had heard it all day or if it was real. (I’m still not sure, but I’m leaning toward the insanity plea.)

And, just to add insult to injury, I broke the fly swatter this afternoon . . . Just snapped the handle right off. I’ve had to resort to rolled up newspapers and books to clear the noisy things out of my way tonight.

Strabismus: Accommodative Esotropia & Progressive Lenses?

About three years ago, an observant neighbor noticed our eldest child’s eyes were both turning inward. I dismissed it to the neighbor, but passed along the mention to my husband. I hadn’t known that he had problems with his eyes when he was younger. He immediately jumped into the situation. Our pediatrician immediately referred us to a pediatric ophthalmologist in a big city about 1 1/2 hours away. The experience there was horrific and I am reduced to tears remembering the impatience of the doctor, how he didn’t listen to a word I said, the screaming of our child as she had to be held down to get drops in her eyes, the fifteen minutes in the waiting room calming her down, and the screaming when she realized she had to go back into the back office again. We came away scarred – with a prescription for glasses in our hands.

Once back at home, I called a local optometrist who attends our church. He assured me that he could treat our child locally and she did not need to go back to that doctor’s office again. Our local doctor is patient, understanding, and very hands-on. He answers all our questions about our daughter’s accomodative esotropia (intermittant turning in of the eyes). Admittedly, my husband is much more educated about her condition. I’m the one who doesn’t think of the tough questions or question any decisions. I just know when she wears her glasses, her eyes don’t turn inward much anymore.

We used to go every few months for an eye check and new prescription. Due to a slip of my memory, what was supposed to be a six-month interval became a 10+ month interval between appointments. On Wednesday, I dutifully brought the four children for her latest appointment. Her far vision has been corrected as much as it can be, but the doctor found that her close vision was blurry.

In the midst of trying to keep the toddler and crawler busy, my ears perked up. He held some lenses in front of her glasses and she reread the close eye chart. This time, it appeared, she didn’t have nearly the trouble as last time and got many more correct. The light bulb went off in my head.

You see, our eldest child’s reading took off in the middle of last year and I couldn’t keep her from reading books late into the night with her reading lamp in her room. Then, after about three months, I would check on her to find her asleep almost immediately – no book in sight. She preferred to go straight to bed to reading. I thought perhaps she was just tired. Instead, was she starting to have trouble focusing on the words and it was now too much trouble to read her precious books?

The doctor prescribed progressive lenses – something neither my husband nor I have any experience with. My husband had ten or more questions that I had not thought to ask. I have been told she will not have any trouble after the first few days adjusting to them. I am apprehensive, but hopeful.

When I was looking up some links for this blog article, I ran across several “success stories” about Vision Therapy. I know my husband has asked about therapy before, but I don’t remember much about the answer. I plan on bringing the subject back up when we go to pick up her new progressive lenses.

I want what is best for my child. Doesn’t every parent?

Road Trip! Germanfest

When I just had one child, we went everywhere together. I wasn’t fearless, but we set off on many a trek and road trip that would daunt weaker souls. Once there were two, I can only think of once that I did something crazy with them alone (five hour road trip to a Pampered Chef party at the home of a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile, stayed overnight, then back home). Then, there were three kids. We ventured out, but only when there were two adults to herd the children.

Now, with four under the age of seven, I find that I am not nearly as daunted by the thought of taking them out alone as I used to be. Take, for example, an annual festival in a town less than an hour away. We have lived here for five years, but have never been. Some years it was the weather. Others, it was that I would have to take the kids by myself because of my spouse’s work schedule. This year, it was another one of those years where my spouse had to work.

Did that mean we wouldn’t go? NO! By golly, this year we were going!

The local businesses had signs in their windows welcoming the crowd. It wasn’t a big crowd. It was a very hot day. We came armed with an ice-cold one-liter bottle of water, a stroller for the baby, and small change in the pocket just in case. I brought the camera and an activities list.

First stop? The free watermelon, of course! Sponsored by the local chamber of commerce, they had several slices of watermelon on each plate. It was sweet, seedless, and only slightly messy. It definitely hit the spot on a hot summer day. And who could beat the price?

The free watermelon stand happened to be in the beer garden area. We had a good view of the keg tapping that happened while we were cleaning up after the watermelon. Apparently, they have this one free keg of beer. Once it is gone, you have to pay once again for your beverages. As I was the sole guardian in charge of four children and going to be driving home, I did not have any. (Besides, I have to admit not liking the taste or smell of beer.)

We were soon on our way to see the firefighters water fight. I haven’t seen one of these since I was a small child. The kids weren’t too sure when we got there that they were interested. We had passed the “bouncy house” and hadn’t stopped. That looked like a lot more fun than watching guys put on fire fighting gear.

 

Once the water started, though, they were much more interested. We watched at least six or seven match-ups between area volunteer fire departments. One set was even made up of women. (They tied with the all-male team they were up against.)  

When the wind was just right, we got misted with the water and it felt GREAT. The crowd would roar appreciatively at the slight wetness, irrespective of how the actual water battle was going. There was a small group of children who sat on the ground, pretty close to the action. They were soaked before the end of the first match. But my kids weren’t quite sure they wanted to be that wet. And I wasn’t sure I wanted them to be that wet – so far from home and with an emergency change of clothes only for the two younger ones.

 

Soon, however, even the water fights had stopped being able to hold their interest. They were asking to go back to the jump house we passed. We only had to wait a few minutes for our turn. Soon, however, #3 child was stepped on by another child and #1 child let #3 out to rejoin #4 and mother on the outside.

After this little bit of fun, we ambled over to watch the children’s pedal tractor pull. My kids had not expressed interest in entering, so we watched other children pedal the box up the ramp. I had never seen one of these and still don’t know quite how it works.

After a few more less-exciting activities, we headed back to the vehicle to drive home. Our water was now almost gone and had that hot plastic-y taste to it. The fireworks weren’t going to be until dusk and there wasn’t much else to keep the children’s (or my) interest until then. We had missed the children’s and regular parade along with bed races, the run/walk, and the poker run.

We did stop at a Baskin-Robbins for a few of their 31 flavors to help cool us down on the long ride home. (We had pink bubblegum, chocolate Oreo, jamoca Oreo, and chocolate chip cookie dough.) We finally made it to Germanfest and perhaps next year, there will be some free beer imbibing and one of the children will want to take part in the pedal tractor pull.

Another Update on Fall Planning

Another update on my previous one on how planning for the fall is going. We are in the midst of swim lessons and I have some single-parenting weeks coming up, so I’m trying to get almost everything done before then.

Reading – My History & Science book lists contain many books that will be at-or-above reading level and I plan on assigning about one or two a week for this subject. The “free reading time” books will be picked out by each child.

History – I finished my list of extras books from the library and sorted them by week/chapter. I made my list of items I need to buy for some of the activities. I have a few more loose ends to tie up with some of the extra activity books I have for the Greek & Egyptian time periods.

Science – I finished typing up my lesson plans for my ‘free styling’ Earth Science curriculum using a spine I bought and many books from the library. This is going to push our 15-books-at-a-time-for-the-whole-house limit pretty hard for a few weeks, but I’m pretty excited.

Art- We received our ArtPac I (Art With A Purpose) the other day. It is exactly what I thought it would be and I’m excited. My K’er is excited, too. Should be easy for me and just what the ‘artistic’ child is looking for at this stage.

Poetry – I’ve got quite a stack of poems ready to be memorized. Call this done!

Sewing- Took a look at two books that I ordered and I really like them. It looks like I will be learning something, too! Still need to make a trip to the local fabric/quilting store to pick up some materials/fabric for some of the early projects. I’ll take pictures as we finish things to show you guys what we are up to.

Cooking- Haven’t done anything else on this since my last post.

Overall, I would say I’m 85% there. Pretty good progress in the last 10 days, but I had more free time to complete it than usual.

Study of the Saints

I finished my list of saints to study for this year. I really don’t know how quickly we will get through them, so there might be too many or too few. I can always pick more. For now, though, here is the list of the saints we plan to study:

St. Patrick, St. Tarcisius, Blessed Imelda, St. Pius X, St. Maria Goretti, St. Anne, St. Gemma, St. John Nepomucene, St. Joseph, St. Paul, St. Dominic Savio, and St. Rose of Lima.

I have thirteen books that we will be using.  The ones where I have multiple books for a particular saint, I plan on reading the main (longest) story once, then reading another one (shorter) story several weeks later or on their feast days. I hope for a sort of “spiral” review of them. I have only one version of the story for two saints (Blessed Imelda & St. John Nepomucene), but I can always look up a story on the internet to fill in as a review for those two.

I also typed up my list of extra books for our Charlotte Mason-type “real book” additions for history. I think I’ve started to fill in my “literature” reading list for evenings. There is no way we’ll get through this list otherwise.

On Order

I ran across this book yesterday and read many of the reviews. I follow the blog of one of the author’s friends. I put one order in for myself and two for Catholic homeschool mom friends of mine. I’ll write a review once it arrives & I get it read.