Good Nights

Bath time is my very favorite part of the evening. After baths there's spiky hair, lotion for the rough eczema spots, and picking out favorite jammies followed by running to Mama and Daddy's bed to cuddle and read. We read as many picture books as Ezra has patience for and the boys switch back and forth between us, sometimes mid-book. In case you didn't know, some books are "Daddy books" and some are "Mama books" (nothing to do with who is reading) and you have to sit with the right parent for the right book- this is Ender's rule, at least. Ezra is happy to have which ever parent is left with an empty lap.


After reading it's on to Ezra's room for a family singing of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (Ez's favorite) then kisses, noses and squeezes from everyone. I stay and rock with Ezra for a few minutes before he goes to bed; Ender and Daddy go on to read Ender's chapter book.


I kiss Ezra and sing a bit more to him before he points to his crib. He sleeps with a special Mickey Mouse pillow and blanket my mom made for him, as well as his silky blankie and a veritable zoo's worth of stuffed animals. Ezra barks at me- he wants me to ask if he's a doggy or a baby, so I do and he smiles and says, "Bay-beee" (his newest word). He waves to me and cuddles into his blankets. I leave the room and go to visit my other boy.


Daddy and Ender are done reading and hiding in wait under the blankets. I pretend that I can't find them anywhere and search all over- behind the dresser? Inside the piggy bank? By then Ender can't stand it any longer and he bursts out from under the blankets. "I was here the whole time!"


I kiss him goodnight and he asks if Daddy can sleep with him "for just one minute. And then I'll send him back to you." I agree and tuck him in a little tighter. We sing the blessing song and I kiss Bear-bear good night too. As I close his bedroom door I hear him tell Brian, "I told Mama I'd send you back to her in just a minute." True to his word, Ender sends his daddy out just a few minutes later.


Good night, my sweet boys.

A Few Notes

** I updated the About Us page for my own clarity. I needed to re-define what this blog's purpose is so that I use it the way I need to without unnecessary guilt.

** If you're interested in a new educational blog, Check out Amongst Lovely Things. I like her term "Relaxed Homeschooling". That's totally my intent.

** If you're hunting for Kara at Rockin' Granola she can no longer use her typepad account and has moved to blogger. You can find her new place here.

** If you're wondering where all the Montessori stuff went from this blog, I'll be honest with you. There's been very little "formal" education here. The grown-ups have been very stressed out busy with the end of the school year (Superman=finals, violingirl=scheduling for summer lessons) so the children have been busy digging in the dirt, visiting the zoo, creating "the longest train track EVER" and reading lots of books. Mama will be back to more organized things soon. Only two more weeks of school year lessons and then we're into a much lighter summer schedule!

Don't call- I'm busy for the next 6 years.

I kind of had a crafty weekend. Two of my sisters came over Friday night for a crafty evening- I finished up the elastic on pajama pants for the boys and then worked a little on the socks that have been merely a cuff for weeks and weeks. One sister cranked out over an inch on her crocheted afghan, and the other sister is learning to embroider and gave us all a mini lesson on what she's learned so far.

 

I realized while cleaning up my crafting area for our little get together that I have about a million half-finished projects. I generally finish what I start, but I work on everything in phases. I absolutely hate cutting pieces, so when I'm in the mood to cut pieces I cut out pieces for a few different projects and then I don't have to cut anything for another month. It's awesome. However, I occasionally get a little nuts and have too much going on at once. I'm down to quilting the last few blocks on Reed's Quilt, I'm halfway through a beautiful purple sock, I have the pieces cut for an apron going to my future sister-in-law, I'm finally down to embellishments on this odd project I'm calling "bloomers", and I'm working on some curtains for the kitchen.

 

Those are just the projects I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's something lurking in the bottom of one of the project baskets.

 

So I thought it would be smart to go through my fabric and yarn stash during Ezra's nap on Saturday and write down the projects I had planned. I don't really stash fabric just because I like it- I generally have an idea of how I'm going to use it. So I have all this fabric earmarked for projects, and when it's written down on paper and I consider how much time I actually have, I discovered that I have enough projects lined up to last me until 2012.

 

Seriously.

 

And the bigger problem? I have 29 links in my "Future Projects" folder. TWENTY-NINE. Four of them are quilts. So that takes me through 2014 at least.

Changing

I’ve been thinking ahead about things I’d like to do with Ender in the next year, specifically since he will be old enough to attend preschool. This past fall we started our experiment of sorts. Brian and I knew we wanted to educate our children at home, but we were unsure of what exactly that would look like. As I read more and more about different philosophies of education (and gave Brian the condensed version), Montessori is mostly where we landed. I suppose technically we would be considered eclectic, since there is a lot that I appreciate about other philosophies, specifically Charlotte Mason.


In the last 6 months I have:

1. Worked on providing a learning environment in our home

2. Tried to have a definite work period in the mornings

3. Learned to observe the boys in order to know where to take them next.



Lesson planning is one of my very favorite things. I get to take my observations from the previous week or two and decide where the boys should go next. Some work stays on the shelves as-is, sometimes someone is ready for the next stage or an extension on a work, sometimes they are ready to move on to new work. The difficult part is that I sometimes get so excited about planning lessons for the boys that I get so far into planning to the point that we would be having sit-down school all day! Hardly the thing for a peschooler, much less a toddler!


So I think I’ve found a system that is working for all of us and I thought I’d share our slightly new direction.



1. Montessori Time Daily. This is usually 45 minutes, and I’ve been doing a lot of presenting (and re-presenting) of math works lately. Ender is working with our own version of the teen board and a lot of counting work. Ezra is keeping busy with practical life and farm play. He is in love with his animals!


2. Table Time. This time is often art, but includes working with dough, making books, specific crafts (like our butterflies from the other day) and other structured activities. We’ve been having a lot of collages lately now that Ezra can dip a q-tip in white glue without licking the end.


3. Books. We’ve always included a lot of books in our lives. We read several times a day and Ender is starting to enjoy listening to longer books. One of the changes we’re making for summer is to add themed book baskets to our learning area. We are blessed with an excellent library system and I take advantage!


4. Outside. As we head into summer this is where you’ll most likely find us.


Another idea I’d like to experiment with over the summer is to have a special center set up that will be changed as the boys lose interest. My starting ideas are to be job centric- postal worker, veterinarian, doctor, farmer, firefighter, etc. I’m curious to see what they think about that.

Weekend Redux

Wow- I'm glad the weekend is over! Our grand plans to clean out the basement were kind of thwarted- we only got about half way through. Our dear friend Sarah gave birth to her first child Friday evening so after I got out of the recording session Saturday morning (that ran over by an hour!) we went straight to the hospital to visit Sarah and her new daughter Juniper.

 

 

My parents were also moving over the weekend and they called us because they discovered a few things of ours that we needed to take back (they are moving into a small duplex from their big 5 bedroom house). So we went to pick up several boxes and moved them into storage, then back to the house to finally start on the basement storage room. We managed to get about half way through- about 25 boxes went to storage (mostly books and baby items) and about 10 boxes to donate. Superman finally parted with some very old software, and we both were able to get rid of some of our childhood stuff that wasn't worth keeping. We're going to try to finish up over the next two weekends, but it's going to be tricky since Superman is working both Saturdays.

 

 

The excellent things that came out of this? My parents needed to get rid of their bigger freezer so that came to us! I'm so glad to be able to take advantage of some sales now that I don't have to worry as much about space.

 

 

Also I'm going to be putting in shelving in the basement storage room for all of the extra baskets, work and other activities for the boys that I don't have room for while it's not in use. I'm most excited about this extra storage space. The only things staying in basement storage are our Christmas boxes, my teaching materials for the studio (bulletin borders and things like that), and the clothes that Ezra has yet to grow into. I'm so glad to have this project started so I'll have the extra room!