Eclectic Parent

After days at grandma and papa’s house, the kids are home today. We’re going to see if we can get grandma to write something up about what everyone got up to while they were there. Everyone got right into their toys they’d missed while they were gone.

Right now we’re watching So You Think You Can Dance. We’ve never seen it before but since the kids love Dancing With The Stars, I decided to tivo it. C is playing with his Nintendo DS while D lays on the floor to wach the dancing and B alternates between watching and getting up to leap about.

We spent yesterday finally, extremely belated trying to get some 6 and 4 yo photos of C and B. Cause, you know, they have birthdays coming up again soon. Their birthdays were right when daddy started going to work six days a week and it just through us off. Just never got around to it on our one day a week we had.  So we took a few, very few photos. B loved it. C, on the other hand, hates getting his photo taken. He doesn’t want to look at the camera, grimaces, squints, and is generally miserable. I’d love to do another shoot with him but may just take what I got. In between the kids all piled onto daddy.

Then we went for ice cream. Because it’s Arizona, it’s hot, it’s summer and cause it’s ice cream - you don’t really need a reason. Then daddy and his guys got into some Dr Who and Star Trek.What more do you need?

The kids had a busy day. Just little projects they go themselves into all day. C started asking me to spell words while he wrote. When I got the gist of where it was going I couldn’t decide whether or not to object: “D has stinky feet”. I decided as long as they were both having fun to let it go. Well it became an insult war - poster boards, paper airplanes covered in insults (”C smells like manure”, which D then verbal defined for his brother as ‘cow poop’ in case he didn’t know just how insulted he’d been), and a small illustrated book. It’s the most writing they’ve done in a while!

C made submarines out of small drink bottles. After decorating them and tying the lids on with string, he filled them with various amounts of water and took a bath to see which would float best. While he was doing that, D started playing with the magnets on our fridge. He spent quite a while trying to force to strong magnet to gether, chasing one with the other and making it flip and fly together. hen he tried to seal the fridge and freezer doors with large magnet stuck to both.

We had started the day bowling and boxing on the wii. They all hopped on and off the computer today. All of them play Club Penguin and the boys frequent the lego website. I don’t mind the computing, I just love seeing it mixed in with other stuff throughout the day. You know, mix up playing on the lego site with actually playing with legos - they did that too today. And bionicles. And B put makeup on one of her dolls.

Today was friday night pizza night. Then B helped me make apricot-plum crisp. She loves to measure and stir. She loves to help cook period. We had tons of apricots from our food co-op. I was going to make a fresh cherry crisp as well but we finished our oats. Have to go to Sprout’s bulk bins soon.

So no overall big moments today. We never left the house. We never did anything big. But they kept busier than they have in a while just going from project to project all day.

Ms. B is our Wii bowling queen. Her high score today was 197. The best part was that her brother quit half way through so she bowled for him - with one remote in her left hand and one in her right she set two records. One for herself (the 197) and one for D (144 bowled with her left hand).

So after a day that started with a few rounds of Jenga, which takes longer to stack then to actually play with this crew, and Payday, we moved on to wiggling with the Wii. From Wii to returning books to the library and from the library to the used bookstore looking for Wii games. Why? Well we have over $100 in credit there. Somehow it seem just wrong to trade books in for video games but I’m actually trying to get rid of some books so they actually fit on our bookshelves. No new games but we headed home with a Star Wars book and, after reading it, started Wii’ing again. That to dinner to Mario Kart and it’ll be bed time soon.

She’s still our bowling reigning champ!

So this is a way old post - told I have all these pre-wrtten but not yet published old thing lying around. Here’s one from early November. Big trip around the four corners area. Have tons of pictures to post as soon as we find. It was half a year ago, after all. Today was spent doing some computer phonics for both boys, watching tv, obsessing over lego.com (D said that site should count as reading since he has to read to get tthrough all the screens), all four of us wii bowling, playing star wars (poor C wanted to be Bobo Fet while D and B were Jedi so basically intergalactic cops and robbers with lightsabers and he was always the bad guy) and playing dolls (she actually talked her brothers into playing dolls with her and they morphed it into bad babies having to go to jail - yikes!). So a real mish mash day. They are all taking turns helping daddy paint while I type this. Well one is helping paint and the other two are pattern boxing.

OLD POST: Haven’t posted anything for Halloween yet because as soon as trick or treating was over we hopped in the car an started driving. Kids in pajamas, we headed one hundred miles north to grandma and papas. In the morning we kept on driving until we reached the Navajo Nation that covers northeastern Arizona, parts of Utah and Colorado. We were going to visit a friend who’s living in Ganado.

The first day was spent driving. The afternoon was spent playing on the playground and riding scooters. After dinner everyone watched a movie and then turned in for an early night - since we’d left the night before at 10:30 and got up at 6:30, an early night was needed.

Today we drove to Canyon de Chelly. We drove the southern loop getting out to see different parts of the canyon. At White House Ruins overlook we all started the hike down. It said it was 3 miles round trip and would take 2 hours. We couldn’t figure out how 3 miles could take so long until we saw the 600 ft drop of switchbacks. The top of the canyon was windy and cold but as we marched down the trail it got warmer and warmer.  The sweatshirts and sweaters that had been so welcome up top had to come off and be wrapped around waists.

Last night was spent running back and forth from the bathroom with a little puker. Luckily nothing gets them down too long.

Today was spent rearranging rooms, furniture and concepts. We have few rooms, one of which is large. So it has to serve several purposes. In the 4.5 years we’ve lived in this house we’ve tried rearranging the toy area, tv area, sitting area, at one point we had an area just for books. While a lot of people may not have toy rooms, I’ve found tha most homeschoolers do. Our kids aren’t gone 8 hours a day. We have bookshelves of books and puzzles and board games and maps and globes and art supplies in addition to legos and dolls.

Two weeks ago gandma got us a Wii. I’ve always been resistant to video game systems. Didn’t want them to disappear into it by the hour and most the games I’ve ever seen have been pretty violent. Besides, they can play video games on the computer andboth boys bought themselves Ninendo DSs. So why get a video game system? Silly me. Wii’s are amazing. Grandma’s answer was that for the summer, when it’s 100+ degrees here and no one goes outside, it would be some exercise. It wasn’t until I really saw the Wii in action that I got how one could get exercise while playing video games.

Hence the rearranging. The old set up had a wall of bookshelves, couch, coffee table, walking space and then TV. Just wasn’t going to cut it for the wiggling and leaping space needed. But that meant we had to rearrange the toys, computer, art space. So we’ve been dragging couches, tvs, bookshelves, from room to room. Since we had all the destruction going on anyway, we decided to paint all the living spaces a new color. So rearrange, see what fits, drag it away from the walls and start painting.

So we took books off shelves, moved shelves, put books back on shelves. They helped, they played, they hoola hooped, the played on the computer, the helped so more. One wall down. Only about 7 walls and one hall way left.

I know, I know. We disappeared. Gone. Vanished. At least all traces of us being out and about stopped appearing in cyberspace. We didn’t do it on purpose. Promise.

Can I blame the economy? Of course I can. Everything today can be blamed on the economy. Actually though, in this case, it kind of true. Our photograph business was slowing and daddy went to get a job. You know, working for other people. Egads and all that. So after five years of both of us at home, trading off parenting and housework and breaks, he was out of the house. And not a little out of the house. The job he found was evenings six days a week. And that would be when the postings disappeared. Because I used to sit on the couch in the evenings, after the kids went to bed and edit photos and then type of a little blurb to go with them.

But instead all turned to chaos. The kids are 4, 6, and 8 and he’s been home for 5 years so you can imagine the craziness this threw them into. Well, and threw me into.  Full time kids missing daddy and house and eeee? By the time he’d come home at 10ish PM, I’d be rocking in the corner making sounds like a motorboat. Yeah blog kinda got diserted. I’ve thought multiple times that I should post but it honestly had been so long thatI could even remember my password to get in.

So last Monday daddy started a day job with the same company.  Hopefully things will get back on track. This is the first time I’ve even brough this up since vacation in Mexico in January (see? Vacation. I had time.) and I have 14 posts I evedently have started and never posted. So - no promises - but gonna try to be good.

The gangs all here! So when we say family vacation, we mean everyone. Kid are having a blast playing with all their cousins. The days slowly revolve around the pool, the beach and meals. Last night we walked along the beach into town to go to dinner. Over the water, with no light pollution the sky was amazing. The kids looked for constellations they know.

So happy, happy new year to all. We’ll be back in the states in a few more days. See you then!

Haven’t posted in a while. Our domain was set to expire, had to transfer and had trouble getting it released, etc, etc. We’re back in Akumal, Mexico now. Third year in a row. Gorgeous, relaxed, mellow. It’s about 90 minutes south of Cancun. The first year we went to see the Mayan ruins at Tulum; last year we swam with the dolphins. Thi year we’re all haning by the pool and the white sandy beaches. The kids are playing with their cousins - when you have 18 grandkids get together there is alway someone to play with.

This is the first year the hotel has had wi-fi so we’ll be able to post . . . but honesty, every post looks like it’ll say ‘hanging out, watching the clouds roll by’. There are worse ways to spend a week.

Yup, I’m about a week behind posting. But just had to hop on to say that it’s cracking me up that my children have been glued to CNN for about 2 hours. In a yelling, leaping, chanting type way usually reserved for sporting events. Wohoo! Does going to rallies and learning about the electoral college count as social studies? Hell yes. Hey my 4 yo can tell you the names of both candidates, how can adults still not know what’s going on?

I’ve got kids protesting bedtime. Not for any of the usual reasons. But they don’t want to go to bed until they are sure Obama is president