Update on Options

Thursday was Sierra's third week of Public school, and things are going well. Almost as soon as I pulled up, she came bounding over to the car with news about her day. They had made "flubber" (a putty like substance that was supposed to bounce when I dried out completely) in science. They had made "gack" as well. It was "Topsy Turvie Day", so she also told me about some of the weird outfits the kids had been wearing. Sierra had put her own hair up into three ponytails and had her shirt on backwards. Some of the other kids had worn their shoes on the wrong feet, had their clothes inside out, and had their hair up in goofy styles. One girl had even colored her hair blue.

I had agreed to help with take down for the next six weeks, so we headed inside. (The kids have school at a church, so they needed help putting things back in order for the Sunday services.) We helped Mrs. Ford, the science/writing teacher, put away all of her chairs and tables and moved the couches back in place. She talked happily the whole time about the science projects the kids were doing and how the day had gone. Then we moved onto the other classrooms where the teachers had already left, and arranged the room according to instructions. Another mom and grandmother were helping while their little ones were running about. It was fun to socialize for a but, but then we were done, and it was time to head home.

On the drive home, Sierra happily munched on her leftover lunch and chattered away. I think she's going to have a great school year.

Our System is Down

A number of days ago, I went to use my iBook laptop, opened it up, and it flashed blank, never to turn on again. The poor thing was getting close to four years old, which is a good long life for a heavily used laptop, and luckily, nothing of great importance was lost. But still... I never knew how much I used it! I've had to revert back to our six year old desk top PC, re-learn Windows, and re-find most of the web pages I had bookmarked (this one included). And really, I can get over the desktop's slowness, but I hate not being able to carry it around with me. I was so spoiled! And my husband, Seth, used to take it to his court hearings (he's an attorney) instead of lugging all of the printed out paperwork. Poor thing. He had to use paper like everyone else last week.

In any case, Seth, has been eying a new MacBook Pro for his home office because his PC laptop is getting ready to call it quits as well. What's nice is that all the new Macs can run Windows and Windows programs using its Intel chip and one of two software programs (Parallels or Fusion). Eventually we'll replace our old PC desktop with an iMac as well.

So, we went to the Mac store last week and were blown away at how big the screens have become. The smallest laptop has a screen the size of my PC monitor's, and the smallest desktop is four inches larger then Seth's 2 year old iMac! Geesh! Oh, and the Memory and Hard drive space on the lowest end computers were much larger then my old beefed up laptop. Go figgure.

We could upgrade major time! But for now, we're going to settle with getting a lower end MacBook Pro for Seth's office that I can snag every now and again.

Maybe next year we can get that iMac for the family room. . .

Fashion Show

My girls got into my fabric yesterday and made their own gowns all by themselves. I was surprised at how well they turned out, so I decided to do their hair and take pictures. Sierra looked like someone from Ancient Greece, and Bailey was a princess. I told Bailey she looked like a Roman Princess though that wasn't really the case. It pleased her though because the Romans conquered the Greeks.

So, Bailey proceeded to pretend a war with Sierra and started telling her what to do, because she conquered her and all. Sierra didn't like that at all, and told me what was going on. I had to remind Bailey that the Romans were good conquerors and not bad ones (Especially for those days), so she needed to be nice. If she wasn't, she'd be a bad conqueror. Well, she didn't want that, so she started being nice to her sister instead, asking Sierra what she would like to do, etc.

I just knew all of those lessons on history would come in handy some day.

First Day Drama

Poor Sierra. She was so excited about going to "real" school for her first time today. So excited, in fact, that she was bouncing up and down in her seat at the short assembly before the kids were to go off to their classes. When I left her, after seeing her to her first class, she seemed eager, shy, uncertain, and still excited.

Fast forward seven hours. When I came to pick her up, I had no idea where to find her. Was I supposed to wait for her to come find me, or go find her myself? After a few minutes, I decided to go find her. When I did, she was with Mrs. Gresham, the music/drama/math teacher, who was trying to calm her down. Then Sierra turned around and saw me, threw herself into my arms, and, burying her face, tried to hold back tears.

Mrs. Gresham explained what had happened, and soon Mrs. Ford, her science/writing teacher, came out and explained the rest. They could tell she'd never been to school before and promised to keep special watch on her next week. They were very nice about it really.

Turns out, Sierra had gone to the wrong class, twice. She mixed up her music and PE classes as well as her writing and science classes. It was also a lot longer of a day then she has ever experienced (her longest school day to date being a total of 2 1/2 hours). And to add insult to injury, she got hit in the head twice with a ball. Sierra had had enough. School hadn't turned out at all as perfect as she'd expected.

So, I held Sierra's hand as we walked to the car. She didn't want to talk. In the car, I babbled a bit, then asked her what she did in PE. No response. I asked again.

"We ran around the room," was all she said.

"Anything else?"

"We played with a bean bag."

Her sniffling was easing up, and she was starting to look a little better. Good. "What did you do in art?" I asked.

"I drew a picture."

"What did you draw?"

"I don't know." Her lip started to tremble again. OK, steer away from that subject. (I later found out she'd simply forgotten what she'd drawn).

"Did you make any new friends? It's OK if you don't remember their names."

"Yes."

"Did you have fun?'

No answer.

"Did you eat lunch with all of the kids or just the younger ones?"

"They were all my age," she replied. Then, she finally started offering information. "They have lots of rules at lunch. Don't hit anybody. And I'm glad I didn't bring any peanuts. One kid forgot and had a peanut butter sandwich". There is a family who is VERY allergic to peanuts, so we were asked not to bring any.

"Do you remeber any more?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

"No. They were just mostly about being nice to people." I nodded my head. She continued, "it's OK the first time, but if you do it twice, the call your mom. And if you do it three times, they have to sit with someone".

"Like having a time out", I commented.

"Mm hm. And there was this girl my age who had a little brother. He was mean. He threw the ball at my head on purpose".

"Are you sure it was on purpose. It could have been an accident".

"No. He tried to do it a second time, but he missed".

"I thought you got hit twice," I said.

"Yah. A older boy hit me. It was an accident. He didn't really mean to".

We were getting close to home at this point, so I just reminded her that next week would be much better because she would know what she was doing, and I wasn't going to let her stop going until she'd tried it out for a good couple months at least. She complained that she had never had a hard time in preschool, and I reminded her that yes, she had. On her first day she'd been scared stiff, even though Teacher Wilson is one of the nicest ladies I know. She didn't believe me, so I told her all about her first day of preschool. I think I was able to finally convince her.

When we got home, I pulled out her schedule and room map showing her where she's supposed to go when and for what. That seemed to reassure her. I think she'll be fine next week, and if it doesn't, then maybe the week after that. She'll eventually get the hang of it, and when she does, she'll really start enjoying it.



P.S. For those of you who are not aware, Sierra is going to a publicly funded Options school designed specifically for homeschoolers. They meet once a week and have things like group activities, arts, drama, PE, and so forth. The rest of the week she is still at home with me as her teacher. I like it because it gives her that social aspect of school in smaller doses, gives her the extracurriculars I don't teach, leaves me in charge of her main education, and has small class sizes (there are only about 13 second graders). And because it's through the school district, I don't have to pay for it.

Back to the Land of the Living

August was one heck of a month. I think I did my darndest to hide from it. Stress, anxiety, depression, sickness, more neuropathy (thought that's getting much better, almost unnoticeable), an over busy and stresses/sleep deprived husband, and a trip to Utah spell out what August was to me.

Why all of the stress, anxiety, and depression, you ask? Turns out, I have way too many "pre conditions" to get better medical insurance. We got to pay all of those lovely medical bills from my trip to the emergency room. I've had to pick up the slack around the house because my husband has been going nuts with all of the work he has to do. The brakes on our car need to be fixed. The only vacations from school I had all summer were spent in Utah for weddings (nice and all, but not relaxing, meaning I was burnt out). I've come down with another sinus infection. . . I could go on, but I think you get the gist.

So what did I do to cope with everything? I started obsessively reading book after book. I think I read over 20 this last month. Some were good, a lot only OK, and even more I'm almost embarrassed to mention. The better ones were: Ella Enchanted, Princess Academy, the Percy Jackson series (Lightning Thief and all), Enna Burning, and two of my favorite repeats, the Witch of Blackbird Pond and Mara, Daughter of the Nile.

But, yesterday I had to teach a class on cupcake decorating for the women in my ward, so three days ago I had to pull my nose out of my books. It's almost a relief, I'd been obsessed so long. I cried the first day because all of the pent up emotions I'd been suppressing came flooding back, and I had to finally face them. Luckily, I'd actually been subconsciously processing them all along, so it wasn't as bad as I would have been if they were still raw. I'd also taken last week off of school, so burnout was at bay.

And today, I'm feeling fine. A little harassed from my kids, but that's normal-I really hate taking all three of them to the store now days.

Oh, and the cupcake thing went really well. Thank you Sarah. I just needed something positive to plan.

Timpanogos Caves

While we were in Utah recently, we took the chance to tour the inside of a cave.

For those of you who have never been there, Mt. Timpanogos is located just north of Provo Utah. A 30 minute drive from Brigham Young University will get you to one of the starting points to hike the mountain, and another twenty minutes along the alpine loop (fee applies) will take you to the back or north side of the mountain where the caves are located.

If you want to tour the caves, there is a reasonable fee that you pay at the base before heading up the steep 1.5 mile trail. Believe me, it's worth it.

We got there later in the day then hoped and had to wait a while before we were aloud to make the accent. While we waited, we put sun screen on, went to the bathroom, checked our food supply (you'll want snacks if you go), and made sure we had enough water. (Turns out we just barely had enough with half a gallon for six people-three of which were kids. Need to bring more next time.)

About an hour and a half before our tour time we started on the trail. An hour and a half to hike one and a half miles! No problem. Turns out it took us a little over an hour. It was a really steep climb, and we had a toddler and four year old with us. Occasionally, my husband or I would hoist one of them on our shoulders adding an extra 36 pounds of weight. Oi! Needless to say, we stopped a number of times to rest, wait for the laggers to catch up, let people pass, and drink some water. Grandma also liked to stop and look at the flowers and plants. (She's a botanist, you know).

I had Blake on a leash, and he pretended to be a puppy. It made it a lot easier to keep track of him, keep him moving, and ease our worry about him walking near the edge of the trail where there was often a nasty drop off. He didn't mind it much, as I tried to give him plenty of slack. It helped out a lot in the caves too. Blake made the majority of the hike on his own two legs. That leash was wonderful!

Bailey did a lot of the hiking herself too, for which I was very impressed. She's only four, and her legs are so short. Daddy carried her a good chunk of the way down though because she was literally getting exhausted.

Sierra made the whole thing on her own, and loved to stop and read the map to find out where we were.

Close to the top was a rest room for anyone who needed it, and once we got to the top, there was a rest area carved from the side of the mountain to sit in out of the hot sun. We only had about twenty minutes to wait before our tour started. Just long enough to eat.

Once inside, we were put out sweaters on. It was close to 50 degrees, not freezing, but definitely cool after the heat on the trail. We were also told to wear our backpacks to the front and not to touch anything except for the floor, as the oils from our hands could ruin the rock formations. Good thing Blake was on the leash! I used it a number of times to keep him from touching things.

There was a lot to see. Stalactites and stalagmites were all over the place. There were small lakes, curly straw-like rock formations, and vivid colored rocks from the nickel and iron deposits. We got to see the famous Heart of Timpanogos (picture at top) and hear how the caves were discovered. They no longer have the "salt and pepper shakers"for people to touch though. That was sad.

Our tour lasted around 45 minutes, but it seemed much shorter. The kids really enjoyed it, even though they were getting tired. It took only about half an hour to get down the mountain, and by the end, Blake was ready to pass out. It took him less then three minutes to fall asleep in the car once the engine was turned on. Poor thing. It was past his nap time, and he's had a major workout. Oh well. It was worth it.

Child Comparisons

I know that you shouldn't judge one child against another, but sometimes it simply stares you in the face demanding an acknowledgment. Well, it would seem that my second child is MUCH easier to teach then my first, and it's not just because I've learned from my first.

I should have guessed it though. Bailey was also a MUCH easier baby. She's more laid back, logical, not prone to anxiety, definitely not a perfectionist, and loves to show up her sister whenever the opportunity presents itself. What's more, her brain works a lot like mine. So, as long as she wants to do school, she should be really easy. She already does her work in less then half the time that it used to take Sierra to do the same thing back in kindergarten, and there have been no blow-ups, yet.

Sierra, however, has decided that she knows better then I do how to do things. She will refuse to listen when I try to explain things, tell me I'm wrong, and throw a fit if I make her do something "unfamiliar". When I do explain "difficult concepts" to her (in her mind anyway-which is what matters, I know), she incorporates it only long enough to figure out her own method of solving the problems, then forgets it, thinking her method is superior, because it's "easier". For this reason, I have had to explain place value (one's, tens, hundreds, etc) a number of times, each time with a tantrum and struggle. It also makes me dread showing her anything new or unusual. Very annoying.

Sigh. It makes me wonder what my youngest is going to be like. He's shown signs of being more like his oldest sister, and that's not a happy thought as far as school goes. Oh well, at least I'll know better how to handle him.