Mothers' Day Project

I was waiting to post this until I had taken the 'after' picture. We used cement, a heart-shaped mold and some shaped pieces that I bought for this purpose, as well as broken up terrcotta pot from the backyard, stones we found and colored glass. We gave one to Zach's mom (pictured in the 'maling of' picutres) and one for my mom (the finished product). Jacob loved this, of course, and I think it will be a project that we do again.

Two Favorites

I was just working on a list of books that concern homeschooling in one way (how they influenced the development of my philosophy) or another (that they are actual homeschooling books) but the list was growing far too long to finish all the explanations that have to go with each of them. So real quick, here are two of my favorites that don't really apply to the other list.

I love this puzzle! They've got one for a girl, boy, frog, duck, butterfly, what appears to be various ages and stages of human development, and apparently since I last visited the site pizza, cheese, honey, chocolate (have got to get that one!) wool, and the 4 seasons. They're layer puzzles, five layers each, and I just think it's the most ingenious thing. It's interactive learning because the puzzle tells a story, but to get the story you have to actually do the puzzle...I'm sure there's a much more intellectual way of putting that! We have the boy puzzle, and it's very anatomically correct, complete with all the inner-workings of one's body. This is one of the few things I have purchased full-price. I think it was $25 dollars but it is European made and a very high quality so it was well worth it.

I love this book! So much so that, like the puzzle, it is one of the very few books I paid full-price for. It's called Diary of a Worm, by Doreen Cronin. I first saw this book in Marisa's pre-school when Jacob and I were visiting there one day and I was just tickled by it. I'm all about different perspectives and surrounding Jacob with materials that are going to help him to become a fully-conscious, open-minded person and this books fits the bill. I was at the library yesterday, trying to do a search for books on foxes and books on dragons because that's what Jacob was asking to learn about. All I could come up with was stupid fiction books with a fox as the title character who goes to a party or flies a plane or some completely unrealistic plot line that has nothing to do with what a fox is. I get so sick of anthropomorphism in children's books, but this book is a refreshing change. Sure, the characters sometimes don baseball caps, hair bows or glasses, as well as writing in English, but they live in appropriate places, eat appropriate things and the story has just enough human in it so that we can we relate to the worms but not too much that you lose the perspective of the worm.

Top Ten

I started writing this over a month ago and it's been in draft form ever since, so some of this stuff might be outdated, or disjointed...but you get the idea.

Top ten all things Jacob:

10) Talking about when he grows up. Recently he said, "When I grow up I want to be a grocery store man. Everybody will know Jacob is a grocery store man." I wondered where the heck that came from, then I realized it resembled a Busytown plot.

9) Playing doctor. I actually don't mind this pretend game because it's the one where I get to expend the least amount of energy. I just have to lay there and tell Jacob what's wrong and then pretend it hurts when he gives me a shot. I can even get him to fetch me things, as long as I say, "Oh can you get me such-and-such, since I have to stay on the doctor's table?"

8) Playing pretend with Emma. This just means that he's pretending Emma is here. Emma is a friend of his, but one that Jacob has mixed feelings about because I think he's a little afraid of her. She in these pretend games Jacob gets to be the boss and tells me about all the bad things Emma does. But he also reads her books and stuff, so I think it's nice he can display compassion too. I think it's cool that Jacob has learned to resolve his feelings about Emma in this way.

7) Running away from us and saying "You can't catch me!" When we're on walks, in public, at home; whether you want him to or not.

6) Diggin for worms in the backyard. Jacob is nice to them and makes them new homes, brings them back to their 'mommies' when he's done. He's obsessed with them now anytime we're in the backyard - at least he's gentle with them.

5) pretending he's a baby animal. This is another way I can get him to do whatever I want him to. I just have to use a funny momma lion voice, or whatever animal it is that day.

4) Talking about his birthday. There was an incident at Jacob's third birthday where he couldn't get the candles blown out, so I tried to help without him knowing it. This ended up backfiring and one of the kids next to Jacob got the blame (from Jacob) for blowing out the candles. So Jacob tells me at his next birthday he doesn't want any kids there. He also tells me he wants a carrot cake and it must be at our house. This has been going on since the last birthday - and we've still got five months to go.

3) Folding laundry. Yes, Jacob loves to fold laundry. He does a pretty good job too. We sort the laundry according to whom it belongs (he is excellent at this part) and Jacob's laundry goes into his little shopping cart. Then he wheels it to his room and I hang stuff while he folds the stuff that has to be folded. He absolutely loves this because it's helping out, and what kid doesn't like to 'help'?

2) "Where are my thumbs?" This is probably the most boring of all the pretend games. And the most obvious. C'mon, you actually think I really can't figure out where your thumb is? This is mostly played in the car when there is nothing else to do and Jacob can't really move, so I've got to give him credit for improvising.

1) Working. Working anything. And I mean like construction work. He's so into this addition that we've got going, and he's really good at certain stuff too. He'll work for hours on end with Zach - won't eat, or drink, take the time to pee until it happens in his pants, and then he won't even tell me because that would mean he'd have to stop working to change his clothes. There's a picture of him hammering (properly) up above. I don't believe he's ever banged his hand.

Carrot Cake, Stepping Stones and an East Coast Excursion

Here's what we've done, or I've planned in so far this week in the 'homeschooling' department:

~ Yesterday we baked a carrot cake because for as long as I can remember after his 3rd birthday party, Jacob has been talking about his next birthday. He tells me he wants it to be at our house (since none of our parties ever have been - if we could get this addition done already then we might actually have room for more than five people at once), he wants carrot cake, and he doesn't want kids there. This last stipulation I think is due to my attempting to be the hero at his last party when he couldn't blow the candles out. I did the parental thing where you kind of blow on 'em over the kid's head so he thinks he did it himself. Well it backfired when Jacob turned his head to the right for some reason, and then turned back to see the candles had been blow out. I can still see the look of shock, the disappointment, then the crumpled face and the tears. Really. I have it on video. It's actually pretty funny. But anyway, Emma was just to his left so she got the blame. Thus, he wants no kids at his party because they will steal his fire. I am a bad mom.

~ I've been all over creation looking for this special glaze I think exists. I want to do a sort of mosaic project thing on old plates I have. I think it will be a neat project for me and Jacob. He'd totally love it and it will encompass certain values I hold dear: One or more of the 3R's, creativity, making gifts instead of spending money on them, etc. I can't find the crap and I don't have a kiln so while I was at JoAnn Fabrics today giving up on finding what I was really looking for, I settled on a kit to do mosaic garden stones. Mothers' Day is coming up so that's good timing for the grands.

Let me pause here to confess that I now know the real reason I have chosen to homeschool. It is an unconscious desire to have an unlimited need for all things crafty from JoAnn's. I'm not the generic scrapbooking, pattern-following, crocheting suburban mom (nothing against those of you though, I'm in awe of your ability to create something worthy of selling or displaying)...I feel more like an artsy, free-forming, go-crazy-with-color free-spirit type. I don't really identify with a place like JoAnn's, but I definitely do love wandering around there in a sleepy-like dreamland haze. Um...I think you can tell the way it makes me feel by my over-descriptiveness.

I've always been like this..I want those things just to have them; to surround myself in beads and glitter paint, colorful fabric and unpainted trunks. It's not that I'm a girly girl, I find excitement in these things on an energetic level. I have all these creative urges, but no channels from which they can emerge. I want to learn how to sew so badly. I don't think I need to be able to make clothes, but I want to be able to alter them, to make them unique. And I've turned it into myself again...but Jacob, I know he'll love all those projects too.

~ Lastly, I took Jacob and his cousin Marisa for a walk at my mom's today. It was beautiful out so I couldn't resist being in a good mood and eager to play pretend with them. We began our walk with the idea in mind that we were going to Disney World so I decided a fun way to introduce the east coast geography would be to pretend that we were going through each state one-by-one. As we passed through each state I talked all about them and the capitals, things like that. I don't know, maybe it sounds silly, but I thought it was a creative way to implement learning. A part of my 'vision', I suppose, is that I want a lot of Jacob's learning to take place through interaction with nature. I want him to appreciate it and respect it, and be part of the generation that will finally make up the critical mass of people who will save the world from ourselves.

To nap or not to nap.

That is the million dollar question in our house these days. And I'm too tired to even write about it in full sentences...there's the tantrums surrounding bedtime, naptime. Jacob's horseness because he screams so much about going to sleep. I tell him his body is tired because at this point I'm thinking he must not know what it means to be tired. He tells me his body is not tired. We fight it out and two hours later he is asleep. Then maybe two hours later he finally wakes up, and there you have four prime hours mid-day that have been lost to this damn nap that I can tell he still needs because the state of the skin around his eyes report to me that he is not rested. He is never rested. Yesterday he was so tired at naptime that he actually slipped and said, "I don't want to sleep!" Yes, thank you. I knew that much, but I have never heard you admit it.

I don't know what to do. It wouldn't have been an issue a year ago or any other time before that because he was so portable. I could put him in the car, the stroller, and he could sleep. I could do anything with him sleeping and it was exhilarating. Yesterday I looked like a fool at the ATM trying to make a deposit with a 3 1/2 year old slung over my shoulder. Ever heard of a drive-up ATM people? And the library, that pisses me off. You can't ever put movies or audio books into the drop slot. I did on Sunday though because I just had to return this movie that was already so late, but I paid for it, a one dollar fee for every movie, etc that you drop in the outdoor slot. As if I don't pay the library enough. When I was there the next day, I shelled out $6.20. I am keeping the library in business by my late fees alone! And then if the library is open, the drop slot is locked. WHY? This pisses me off so much. Is it to punish you? That means that if you just want to return something, you have to take your sleeping child out of the car and schlep him all the way inside, rather than just leave him in the car while you drive by and drop your stuff off. I chalk it up to disgruntled librarians on a power trip.

Anyway, what does this all have to do with homeschooling? I guess that I'm saying if Jacob didn't waste four hours every day on fighting the nap and then sleeping off the fight, we would have more time to start the actual 'homeschooling' that I'm always talking about. Plus I think this is too boring a subject to write about on my normal blog? Who wants to hear about the survival of this little family?

Well, I either already made my point, or I forgot what it was going to be...I'm too tired to remember. Either way, I hope this came out coherent enough.