AP moment of Oh what a day.

For reasons I refuse to discuss we have acquired a cat it seems. This poor critter has a bum leg, possibly a disclocated shoulder, but that didn't stop her from belting off from me when we took her to the vets, 30 minutes away in the country. I had to climb into ditches, over railway tracks and through barbed wire to get her back and I look as though someone has taken a knife to my chest thanks to her VERY SHARP claws. Sigh!! :D Still, there were some bright spots to the day!

1) the vet, once I had re captured the cat, came over to chat with us. The cat was now ensconsed under Jack's car seat and there was no way anyone was going to be getting her our, so we chatted a little before we drove back home again. Jessie began to regale him with the tale of how we found the cat... she's chattering on , as she does, when he suddenly blurts out "How old ARE you!?!!" We explained she is 8 and homeschooled... he said he was amazed at how mature she sounds when she talks!! ;D ( I bow, inwardly!! )

2) Once we had the cat under the car seat I took the kids to Petco. Jack LOVES to go to Petco as he loves to watch the fish. You know we are going to end up getting fish too... right??! It's just a matter of time!! Anyway, he also loves to go apeshit and run away from me, usually resulting in my abandonment of cart and purse and chasing him around the store. Ha HAH. Not this time buster. Thanks to Parents Please Don't Sit On Your Kids I decided to ignore him. He ran off, Jessie and I walked towards the checkout. Presently we heard "Mummy!!" and here he comes looking all worried and accompanied by a friendly Petco assistant. Moments later he ran off again, announcing as he fled "Bye Mommy!!" ( a clear invitation to chase which I ignored again. ) I tried to explain to the bemused check out girl that I had lost my son but I wasn't worried about it ... and again, after only a minute or two he comes running up to me. "Hello Jack! " I calmly said as I took his hand and we left the store!!! Honestly the BEST trip to Petco we've had in years!! :D Yeahy! and Go Me!! ;D

3rd and final) On the way home Jack was talking and Jessie and I were trying to figure out what he was trying to say. Many of his words are very clear now, but once in a while we are stumped. Jessie said "I could write a Jack dictionary!" and I said what a great idea that was...
" but I CAN'T !! " she said. why not?! "Because he won't stand still to give me all the words!!" LOL!!! For some reason I thought that was really funny!! He'd have to stand still and give her all the words at once!!! ;D

Maybe it's just me!?!? :D

AP Moment of the day ~ I'm open to a little experimentation!

My smallest child loves Curious George ( or, "Norge" ) and likes to play on the George website on PBS kids. One of the things they show is a clip of children in a classroom doing an experiment to see what dissolves. Jack watches this clip over and over again. Today he obviously decided he had the gist of what they were doing and I spotted him hurrying into the kitchen muttering "Ditholves? ditholves?" ... he started tearing through the pantry, hauling out spice jars and filling large glasses with water...!!

" WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?!?! " I quietly enquired! (!ahem!) then, remembering my recent readings, tried again. "Are you hungry?!" I asked.

"No!" he said and carried on scouring the pantry.

I had no idea what he was doing!! :D Suddenly I flashed back a couple of weeks to where Jack was found floating bags of herbs, packages of pasta and other such items in glasses of water. It hit me with a rush... "DISSOLVES!!!" Hah!

"So, you want to see what will dissolve?!"

"Yes, ditholves! .... thalt " !!!

(thalt?! thalt?) "OH!! Salt!! You want to see if salt dissolves?!?! " ...

and so it went on!!! He would procure the necessary ingredient, find a glass and fill it with water then conduct his experiment!! When he'd satisfied his curiosity with one condiment, he would run back to the computer, play the clip again and find the other things the class had used!!! He tried salt, sugar and pepper, and one or two of his own making, including cinnamon, cold tea and some cold left over oatmeal!! ;}

He was happy for about an hour but what thrilled me the most is he did it all himself!!! I got down the items requested if he couldn't reach them and I poured a small dish of sugar out for him rather than give him the entire bowl ( I'm flexible, I'm not stupid!! ) but other than that, it was all his gig!!! He certainly had a ball and I figure he learned a few valuable lessons if nothing other than old oatmeal will not dissolve in cold tea and if you try and eat it it's pretty darn nasty!! :}

LOL!!

AP Moment of the day ~ No comparison!

Or, don't read other homeschooling blogs if you don't want to feel like an inefficient,- deficient, something else ~fishent- homeschooling- layabout -slacker Mom!! ;D
or words to that effect!! :D

Today I thought I'd peruse some of my favorite Homeschooling blogs. I love to read what everyone else is up to, always of course, in the vain hope that I will be able to say "PAH! We do SOOO much more than that!!!" .... Hmph. I'm clearly reading the wrong blogs!! :D I won't name names... you know who you are, but some of my FRIENDS * sideways glance * are I'm sure conspiring to make me feel like a nonce!!! :D Yeah! That's it!! They work together to come up with fanciful schemes and then write blog posts about them JUST TO MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A SLACKER!!!! ;D LOL!!! Well... I'll show them! We do all SORTS of school at our place!! ;D .....

Today Jessie decided she wanted to work more on her new passion... Wizardry. Yep. She wants to be a Wizard. Or she did, until some smarty pants told her that a Wizard is a boy. So she now wants to be an Enchantress. She asked if I was happy that she would be the first Enchantress in the family since she couldn't be the first artist. Of course I was well into my third scotch and soda by then so my reply was less than coherant. I hope. She wore purple Wizard robes all day long, walked around wearing an amulet of sorts, carrying her small dead owl and her books. Apparently they are spell books. Uh huh. She spent some time online searching for spells ( computer studies? Right?!?! ) and then carefully and of her own accord, wrote them into her spell book. ( handwriting!) She then practiced the spells until she could say them with her eyes closed ( memorization! ) and recited them carefully ( public speaking !) When the wished for Unicorn failed to materialize ( comprehension!!) she did not give up ( perseverance! ) but headed back to the computer to try again!! LOL!!! This counts, right!?!!? I mean, she plans on trying to make Gold next week, so that will be Chemistry covered!!! And perhaps we'll be able to weave in Social Studies as she discusses her plans with the fire marshal! ;D LOL!!

I suppose I need to stop reading other people's blogs and focus more on our life together. No one has a perfect life, despite outward appearances, and although from the outside I'm sure our life looks a little Kooky to say the least, inside it's all heart!!! :D

( with a little bit of Magic thrown in!!)

AP Moment of the day~Poop Happens!! ;D

Well... it finally happened!! :D

Jessie and I were in the front room together working on something or other this morning when suddenly from the living room we heard "HURRY!!! HURRY" and Jack ran into the bathroom in a mad panic!! He slammed the door behind him and I jumped up and ran to assist!! :D I opened the bathroom door only to have him shove it closed again yelling "NO!! Go 'way!!"

"Don't you need help?" I asked? ( Pleaded, begged...!!)
"No!" he calls back.

I decide that this is his big moment and I walk back to the front room and Jessie and I sit and wait to see what will happen next. Suddenly a half naked Jack BURSTS into the room with a flourish and spreads his arms wide "TAH DAH!!!" LOL!! He had taken himself to the bathroom, removed his pants and pooped ALL BY HIMSELF!!!!! ;D YEAHY!!!! Jessie and I gave much cheers and kudos to him and he beamed with pride!!!!! A moment later I realised that he would NOT have wiped...... so we quickly headed back to the bathroom........ 'D

However! It's a milestone people!!!! It's a HUGE milestone!! :D

AP Moment of the day ~ Puddle Jumping!

It was 64 degrees today!!! SIXTY FOUR!!! That's just crazy! All the snow is melting but for a tiny bit on the North side of the house. We went for a wonderful walk wearing short sleeves and little else!! The warmth of the sun on our faces and the smell of the warm earth was such a simple but deep pleasure. Ahhhhh. I could feel my blood pressure falling...!! :D

Jack thought it would be wonderful to stomp in every single puddle he could manage and I decided I wasn't going to stop him! It's just water after all! :D Jessie was careful to walk AROUND the puddles as she was wearing a pretty skirt and didn't want it getting wet. We'd walked quite a long way when we discovered we would have to walk through a very deep and large puddle... there didn't seem to be anyway around it!! Jack was so excited and Jessie asked if she could take off her shoes! SURE!! Why not!?!? It's not every day you can go bare footin' in the middle of winter for heaven's sakes! We stopped alongside the puddle. The dog lay down to rest and the kids had at it!! :D The stomped, splashed, sperlooshed and essentially played like they hadn't played in a long while. Curious as to the effect, I casually mentioned that as long as we were playing in the water, we would miss Cyberchase on TV if we didn't hurry and head home!

"ACCCKK!!! We must hurry and GOOOO!!" yelled Jessie.

"Hmm... " I asked her..."What's more important? TV? or Real Life?"

Jessie thought for a moment....."TV!!" she yelled.... laughing!! Then she said "Just kidding!! Real life of course!! Besides, who knows WHEN we'll be able to jump in a puddle this big again!?!"



Simple pleasures, folks!

AP Moment of the day ~ If I ignore you, maybe you'll go away?!

Or at least you might stop throwing a fit and tearing around the room blowing raspberries?!?? No?!? :D

Hot on the tail of the fabulous advice I've been sharing from the Parents Don't Sit On Your Kids book comes this little gem.... Ignore your children's terrible behaviour!! S'right!! Ignore 'em!! Now it does seem to go against the parenting grain, to "let them get away" with bad behaviour but any parenting philosophy that actually suggests I do LESS than before is a winner with me!! ;D Kid goes crazy?! IGNORE!! Child beats up sister?! IGNORE!!! Child stands in front of TV with arms akimbo in order to block as much of the TV screen as is physically possible?? IGNORE!!!!!! Sounds kooky, eh!? :D So naturally I thought I'd give it a whirl!! I'd asked Jack to go the bathroom before watching a movie and he took that as his cue to run, whooping, from the room. Normally this would result in a little noise as I would delicately skip after him in joyous fashion quietly calling out his name in little pixie whispers whilst fairy dust shot out my ass..... ( or something not at all like that...!) but this time... IGNORE. "OK Jack! " I said. And I turned and walked away. Momentarily Jack tears into the kitchen and goes "Nya nya ny Nya Nya!!" wiggling his tongue and fingers at me in a clear attempt to provoke me into a chase. I look at him.. "Are you ready to go to the bathroom, Jack?" He runs off, giggling. "Ok Jack," I said and I turned and walked away. He ran in and blew raspberries at me. He tugged on my jeans' pockets..... to no avail. I simply would ask if he was ready to go the bathroom and without an appropriate response I would turn and ignore. This went on for about 5 minutes when suddenly he decided he was ready to go pee so I could help him with his movie. He went straight into the bathroom, I helped him with his pants and then helped him with his movie, not once mentioning his acting out. It worked like a charm!!!! He's realizing I mean business. I'm giving him one shot to do something then I will help him with it. He is learning that acting up will not get him the attention he is seeking, but he will get positive attention if he does as he is asked! :D

We'll see if I can keep it up! :D

AP Moment of the day ~ We're having a heat wave!

It was 54 degrees today!!! Whoo HOOO!! The sky was blue, the sun was shining... the snow was MELTING!!! The kids and Daddy went outside and had snowball fights, played on the sled and generally made merry in the remains of the white stuff! It was a glorious time for them all!

Meanwhile my internet connection has been shady at most lately and if you know me well you know how happy that makes me.... * please note sarcasm and eye rolling here * so I am posting this quick now and will hopefully post a better post later today....!