Jessica

Imagine this was your pet; and here Mr. Clean will not consent to another cat!

Thanks Mom for sharing this!

Why Now That's Purdy!

It seems to be the week for contests and I could not, would not, pass up on this one! So go to Domestic Diva's site and enter for yourself. Or wait... don't, it will ruin my chances. Oh, okay, go ahead, but if you win I will be coming over for visitation once a week. Maybe you can sucker me into vacuuming your carpets. But just once. I cannot be unfaithful too often to my own floors.

Type A's and Such...

Remember the old Bing Crosby tune...

Would you like to swing on a star
carry moonbeams home in a jar
and be better off than you are
or would you rather be a mule?

A mule is an animal with long funny ears
he kicks up at anything he hears
His back is brawny but his brain is weak
he's just plain stupid with a stubborn streak
and by the way if you hate to go to school
You may grow up to be a mule

I was humming that today and thinking just how stubborn my little "mule" can be some days. Now, K.Z. is nowhere near stupid or with a weak brain, but he can be as stubborn as that mule sometimes. It made me stop and think today about his personality.

K.Z. is a typical first born child. He is a perfectionist and no way will he get anything wrong or embarrass himself by looking dumb. His entire life I have been trying to get him to relax a bit and understand that I don't care if he messes up as long as he is trying his hardest and while he really tries to maintain that attitude, I think he is doing it just to please me, not because he really believes it himself.

This was demonstrated today. I wanted him to write a letter. Just a two liner or so, something to get the feel of freestyle writing. To date the boy has never written anything that was not assigned as copy work or was not in a workbook. Knowing his regimented brain, I thought it may implode if I told him to "just write".

So we sat down to write a letter. I did not care about spelling nor punctuation, I just wanted him to write so I could see what he might do and so he could start learning about proper form in correspondence. I knew he would not let me go far, so I sat next to him to encourage him. I could see the agony of trying to come up with something to say in his letter all across his face, even as I prompted him with some short opening lines. This child is bound to be an accountant or an engineer (with a respectful nod to my father-in-law), did I mention that the boy is a whiz at Legos and his math workbook?

He wrote his letter, but asked me every 20 seconds if something he had spelled was correct. I was not falling into that trap and never really answered, "yes" or "no", I just kept saying things like, "looks great, let's do your next word."

All I wanted was for the boy to think it through and not stress over misspellings and the like (which he would majorly stress over and then give up). Afterward he reread it three times and found a mistake on his own anyway.

It made me think about how much I love the "type A's" in my life (I would classify myself as a "type A-"). K.Z. is as perfectly and wonderfully made as the rest of them and I love him for every aspect of his personality. I just have to stay clear when that mule starts kicking!

Oops!

I pulled out the kids' math workbooks today and flipped through to see what lesson we had left off with. K.Z.'s still had a pencil in the book making it easy to find. Xena's however, left me a bit befuddled. There was nothing written in it and I know we had been working in it for a while.

Both kids are using Singapore Math, but different levels. Xena is working on Earlybird Kindergarten, which she loves and in which, is doing very well. The thing that throws me about the Kindergarten Singapore math workbooks are that there are 4 of them for the year. Singapore Math breaks the higher grades up by 1A and 1B, 2A and 2B, corresponding to the grade level. You get the picture. Not Kindergarten. There are books 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B.

This makes perfect sense since some Kindergarteners do not need to start with the most basic book and can start in a later workbook, but I wanted Xena to start from square one and bought all four books. She zoomed through the first one and we were on to the second fairly quickly and had gotten half way through it already. Yet, nothing was written in it. It was like the Twilight Zone.

Then I had a "DOH" moment and looked for the other workbooks. Apparently I had completely goofed up and skipped the second book (1B) and started her right in on the third book (2A). The cool part is that she is doing so well in math that neither one of us noticed the hiccup in the lessons.

I guess she will be done with math either very early in the year or I will start the 1st grade workbook with her a bit sooner than I had planned (like in 1st grade!). Perhaps I should slow her down a bit!

Because Grandparents Just Eat This Stuff Up...

Before bed we were treated to a "show" from the girls as they sang various songs from the "ABC song" to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Mr. Clean grabbed his camera and recorded some of the show and I thought I would post a bit here. I will refrain from posting the parts where they sang and danced, since watching two little whirling dervishes is enough to make the strongest stomach sea sick.

This song they made up on the spot. Notice C'sa is trying to sing along to a song she has never heard before. Not quite American Idol material, but a fun glimpse at the girls nonetheless. Maybe they should have been singing, "The Hairbrush Song"?

Afterward K.Z. wanted to tickle the ivories a bit. His newest assignment is "Away in a Manger", but he was too nervous to play it. So, back to the beginning of "Ode to Joy". Mr. Clean had the camera running long before I realized it and boy do I sound like some crazy stage mom. Ugh! I swear that is the farthest from my personality you can get. Besides, you don't actually see me on camera so maybe I could just say it wasn't me... Yeah, that's the ticket. It was that other lady, you know, the one who looks like me...

Sittin' On the Fence

I had to take K.Z. to the pediatrician today for... brace yourself, I am not making this up... an infected belly button. How in the world you can get a cut or abrasion in your belly button is beyond me. The infection part? That's easy, he is seven, and a boy, and thinks showers are for making shampoo mohawks and singing goofy songs.

So we pop in for a 12 second visit which wound up costing me a $15.00 co-pay and then $25.00 for "anti-belly button funk" creme. And she popped the dreaded question, "While you are here should I give him a flu shot?"

Now for many of you this may not be so dreaded and I am not bringing up this topic to ruffle any feathers, but lately I have had a heavy heart when it comes to the influenza immunization. I just don't know. I have no trouble inoculating my kids once against polio, lockjaw, cooties, whatever; but to shoot 'em up again and again, year after year just makes my stomach knot. I have reasons that make me want to stay far far away, but I am not going to go into them since I am a layman when it comes to medical science. I am, however, an expert when it comes to the Mr. Clean family offspring and my keen "momma instinct". Most days anyway.

The dilemma I face however is saying "no thanks" when the doctor wants to give my kids the shot. Last winter I avoided the problem and just did not take Xena and K.Z to the doctor, as they never had a need and by the time their annual check ups came around, it was spring and I was in the clear. My baby, however is another subject. She was born smack dab in the middle of flu season and has her annual check-up; say it with me now... "smack dab in the middle of flu season". What's a gal to do?

I caved and let them do it last year for C'sa, even after I told them we were using a homeopathic influenza serum and they told me that would do pretty much the same thing (just without the mercury). I still had that "oh so guilty, bad mom" shame at questioning the doctor, even though I am the mom and have the right to refuse the shot and question the doctor (for the record, I really like the doc that gave C'sa the flu shot last year, so this has no bearing on him whatsoever).

So back to today's excursion. I politely said (lied), "that's okay, I will make an appointment for all of them together."

The doctor K.Z. saw today looked at me as if I had three heads. "Does he have asthma?" she asked. "Because if not, he can have the spray", more than likely assuming my objection was to the needle.

"Nope", I assured her. More blank stares from the doctor as I gathered up my purse and energetically said, "Okay K.Z., lets go and fill your prescription!"

I never looked back. I can only assume that she was still sitting there dumb-founded at the fact that a mom with such amazing fashion sense (I wore the jeans without stains and frayed hems) and such a killer vehicle (the soccer-mom goober mobile) could be such an idiot.

So where do you fall on the "flu shot topic"? I am sitting up on the fence and would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Christmas in October?

Thanks to Jamie, I have found out that Kim at "Life in a Shoe" is having a contest that could bring me $150.00 worth of merchandise from one of my all time favorite catalogs, Vision Forum! Thankfully my catalog arrived earlier this week and I have already pined my way through it.

So here is my wish list:

Passionate Housewives: Desperate for God $16
Ten Peas in a Pod $20
Wise Woman's Guide $16
Bible Lesson's For Manhood $25
Raising Maidens of Virtue $20
Teach Them To Your Children $17
How To Think Like a Christian $10
Homemaking $20

Any or all of these resources to glean from: PRICELESS!

I am not holding my breath, but boy would I whoop and holler if I were to win! Check it out!

I Am Turning Into My Mother... Only a Little

Although my mother is a great lady and anyone would be honored to be like her, I reserve the right to retain my own identity. However, glimpses of my mom have been peeking through lately and they manifested last night in one fell swoop as I, "just could not take it anymore!"

Recently my house has smelled "dusty" to me. You know the smell, I assume (please tell me you know the smell or I just may have to jump off the roof!)? The not so clean, just needs a good scrubbing, kind of smell? All of my friends kindly assured me that I was crazy and my house did not smell, but I knew. And then it happened. I asked Mr. Clean.

This is a man who can only really smell "man style" smells. An electrical fire, a wood fire, bacon, cookies or a Miami Dolphins player anywhere within a 30 mile radius. His olfactory system is simply overloaded with testosterone. Regardless of knowing this fact about my beloved, I asked him if he thought the house smelled dusty. He said yes! Yikes! It was time to sell the house and move away from the problem.

My first reaction (after selling) was to bring in the hose and spray down everything. Then I came back to reality and pulled out the next best thing. My trusty carpet cleaner that probably sees action once every 2.3 years. After all, if the dust is not on the visible surfaces, it must be hiding in the funky fibers we call a carpet. And since I have been walking around for two weeks now sniffing various places in my house, I know that it cannot be any other culprit.

My house is only 6 years old. When we bought it almost 4 years ago, the carpeting in our family room was not in the best of shape thanks to the previous owner, but was not that bad. Three kids and two dogs later, it is, shall we say, a petri dish? I have cleaned it before but it just did not seem to satisfy my need for clean. Mr. Clean and I have discussed ripping up the carpeting in that room and running the Pergo that adorns the kitchen floor into the room, but time, cash and a general desire to be lazy in the evenings have prevented this project from happening. So back to the carpet cleaner.

I found a bottle of Hoover carpet spray a.k.a. "Miracle in a Bottle" (no, not Excedrin) and went to town pre-treating every stain I could find before I started. An hour and a half later (I am a little anal about the way I steam clean and go really slow), I was done and went to bed.

This morning, I do believe I heard the hallelujah chorus from the heavens as I walked into my family room. The carpet looks almost brand new. I had to resist the urge to lay down on it and make "carpet angels". I was that excited. I am my mother.

The One True God

I grew up in a Southern Baptist family (my grandparents) and although I do not attend a SB church now (I attend an Evangelical Free church), I love reading articles by and about SB members. It gives me that "old home week" feeling.

I ran across an excellent article while catching up on some of my favorite blogs today (thanks Jamie!) and thought I would share it. Here is a glimpse...

"Today, similar debate has revolved around the two largest faiths in the world, Islam and Christianity, and whether the god of the Koran is the God of the Bible. Simply put, the god of Muhammad is not the Father of Jesus. The subject in its essence is not a linguistic issue, but a theological matter with eternal ramifications. To say that since Allah is Arabic for God and YHWH is Hebrew for God, Christians and Muslims worship the same God is beyond naïve –- it is blasphemous."

Read the article in it's entirety here.

HT: Princess Ruby

An Update

As of last night we finished our final training in this foster parent journey of ours. We now have to wait for our FBI clearance and finalize our home study and then we will be all set for placements!

Yesterday I had to get a TB test done to be read on Wednesday. Chatting with the nurse I reminisced about the stick tests they preformed when I was a kid. Remember the old tests that were four quadrants? The nurse didn't. She was too young to remember. I am only 33 for goodness sake!

The things I do for children...

Ode To Boy

K.Z. started piano lessons about a month ago and like a typical boy has, so far, ranged in emotion of loving it to never wanting to go to another lesson ever and starting guitar.

Despite the range of emotion, he still seems to be doing quite well with his lessons and this morning asked me if I would listen to something. Assuming it would be yet another rendition of "The Imperial March", which he figured out how to play on his own one day, I stopped to listen with half an ear.

Then I heard him pound out a small part of, "Ode to Joy". And it was good! I was floored. This was the next lesson in his book and I had not heard him practice it at all. I had tried it myself last night and kept goofing it up (I am a vocalist, not a pianist by any stretch, although I can play "Mary Had a Little Lamb"...). Always a real confidence booster when your 7 year old shows you up.

So I thought I would just share my proud momma moment! So if your 4 year old can compose his own music and play Bach seamlessly, please do not tell me, I am happy in my bliss over here.

I Almost Forgot Why I Homeschool... Almost

Is California's state motto, "The Land of Fruits and Nuts", or is that just the moniker adopted by every other state in the Union that can reason somewhat on a normal level, for California?

Governor Ahhhnold "The Terminator" Schwarzenegger has done it again with the newest bill he has signed into law. I will give you the headline of the article I read about it in and you can decide if you need to know more...

'Mom' and 'Dad' banished by California
Schwarzenegger signs law outlawing terms perceived as negative to 'gays'

I guess it is good that the governor's own children attend Brentwood School, an exclusive private school, so they can at least still refer to the governor as "Dad" during their school day. **

Hold your children tightly folks, home schooled or not.

HT: Princess Ruby


**Apparently I am wrong about this and I would have simply deleted it, but a comment has been posted about it and it would not make sense if I took this part out, so I will leave it here although it seems to be incorrect.

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not...

C'sa was engaged in a story today telling me about the various things she used to do when she was a momma.

"When were you a momma?", I asked amused.

"When I had a big mouth", she replied.

"Birds! Birds!"

I saw this earlier this morning on TMZ (please don't tell anyone, I swear I was just channel surfing to find some news....) and then got it in an e-mail from Susie, so I felt it was just necessary to post!

Besides, it is hysterical! If you find yourself mesmorized and start to dance along in your seat, I assure you it is completely normal. I hope.

It Never Ever Ever Fails

I have been trying for weeks now to update the picture on my blog's header and side bar. There is one little problem. C'sa.

The leaves are a changin', The settings are picture perfect and my darling baby keeps delaying my plans. The first delay was when she and her sister decided to swing on swings sideways, "kamikaze style" and they wound up smacking into each other right in the forehead. Xena had a small bump on her hairline that healed quickly while C'sa sported a golf ball sized (I am not exaggerating) goose egg that lasted three weeks. Did I mention she also sported two black eyes from the event as well? I am just thankful that she was at a friend's house at the time with several witnesses because the poor child looked like she had been in a boxing ring!

Just about the time that war wound was healing she and Xena once again collided, this time in the hallway (they kind of tripped over one another while heading different directions; the Stooges would be proud), causing C'sa to fall and smack the bathroom door jam. Guess what happened? Goose egg number two, except not as big and with a nice big scrape on her forehead to distinguish the two events one from another.

Boy does this post sound eerily familiar. I think it just may be a conspiracy.

Sing It Sister!

"Martin Luther said, "The time will come when a man will take more than one wife." [Katharina] responded, "Let the devil believe that!" The doctor said, "The reason, Katie, is that a woman can bear a child only once a year while her husband can beget many." Katie responded, "Paul said that each man should have his own wife." To this the doctor replied, "Yes, 'his own wife' and not 'only one wife,' for the latter isn't what Paul wrote." The doctor kidded for a long time and finally the doctor's wife said, "Before I put up with this, I'd rather go back to the convent and leave you and all our children."

Amen Katie.

I have admired Katharina von Bora for a while and recently heard a radio show host mention her as he toured Germany. This woman was the ultimate Proverbs 31 wife.

Having the courage to escape a convent with other young nuns in a pickled fish wagon (other accounts say she was smuggled out in a pickled fish barrel), after becoming dissatisfied with convent life and getting interested in the reform movement she married Martin Luther at age 26. They proceeded to have 6 natural children and also raised 4 orphans.

While raising this brood she also ran a brewery, bred and sold cattle, managed the household funds and entertained visitors quite a bit as they lived in an old monastery given to the couple to use as their home. On top of it all she ran an on-site hospital and helped tend to the sick!

The best part? Her husband adored her and often referred to her as "My lord Katie" and "morning star of Wittenberg" (she rose at 4 am).

It certainly puts things into perspective every time I sigh about my kids waking me before 7 am and spilling juice on the table or floor. As a matter of fact I am feeling so guilty, I best go raise a barn or something in the back yard and immediately stop blogging. I bet Katie would have been an amazing homeschool blogger as well. In between selling cattle and making beer of course.

I Could Not Wait

Truth be told, I would have forgotten to post this if I had waited until the 31st. I saw a similar one on Stepping Heavenward's blog and loved it. Once I saw this one I knew I had struck gold.

Enjoy!

Catching Up

It has been a few days since I have posted and they have been a whirlwind. I know that you have been wondering and anxiously waiting with baited breath for word that I am okay. Let me reassure all 3 of you faithful readers that yes, I am still here. Life is good.

Okay, now that I am over that delusion of grandeur, I will catch you up with the goings ons in the Mr. Clean household...

Paperwork.

That's it. You are caught up. Have a great day.

Alright, so that is not all the happenings, but boy has that taken a major chunk out of my life lately. It seems that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a little funny about letting a foster child live with you without at least knowing your name. So I have been filling them in on all the pertinent information about Mr. Clean and I in the form of masses amount of paperwork.

We also started foster parent training. Many, many hours of training. I will say however that the case workers have found a way of making 11 hours (so far, with more to come) of training classes in the past three days very entertaining and informative. I'll bet you have never played Jeopardy where every category had to do with illegal drugs. I can now add that to my resume.

After more training this Saturday and then next Monday night we will be done with that portion of the journey. Now we are waiting for our State and Federal clearances and then the rest of our three part home study to be completed. It has been quite rewarding to talk to other couples that are embarking on this quest at the same time. Some are experienced in fostering and are doing it again and others are as green as us. Quite a few are considering adoption as a course of action just as we are.

So now I am off to get back to my normal world, to continue educating my offspring and try and start the major clean out of the house. Every couple of months I get the urge to purge all of the dead weight in the house (expired lotions, unmatched socks, a kid not pulling their weight, etc.) and this time I am resolved to carry through with that urge, as usually I laugh at said urge and continue my normal course of hoarding expired lotions and kids not pulling their weight.

Wish me luck!

What a Guy...

If you can get through this without feeling a little verklempt then you must be a man or some serious biker chick. Then again, I don't think even men or biker chicks can read this without getting a slight lump in their throat.

What an amazing tribute. Happy Birthday Mrs. Phillips.

Step 1 DONE!

This morning we completed step one of three thousand eight hundred ninety two steps in becoming an approved foster family in our county, of which we would be one of only 80 families for the over 800 children in the "system" here.

Our case worker came to chat and complete one of the three visits needed for a home study this morning and gave us a lot of great information along with the mountain of paperwork we need to start. I am guessing however that they would not appreciate me using their paperwork to have K.Z. and Xena practice copy work? I certainly could use their help filling it all out and it would count as school!

Saturday I will go to an all day training session to kick start the hours required per year of training. Then Mr. Clean and I will have to follow that up on the three following Monday nights. The more I learn the more I really am excited about this prospect. And the more I realize that this is not in my control. Which is definitely a good thing.

Semantics

C'sa is obsessed with lip gloss. I have a tube that is very light and makes my girls think they are simply princesses.

My little one came to me a minute ago and asked if she could have lip gloss. Quite annoyed with this frequent request, I allowed it but warned her, "this is not something you get all the time you know".

"I know", she replied. "I don't wear it at night".

How Nice is This?

I got this in an e-mail recently and was really surprised and pleased. Thank you so much to Renae for thinking of me.

"This award will be awarded to those that are just nice people, good blog friends and those that inspire good feelings and inspiration! Those that care about others that are there to lend support or those that are just a positive influence in our blogging world!"

I think I know quite a few people who fit in this category!
I will pass this along to Susie, Laura, Carolyn, Jamie, Mrs. Sam, Heather & Mamma D.

Sixty Years in an Envelope

My grandmother died in April and her estate auction was this past Saturday. After a LOT of hard work from three of her four children and with the help of a professional auctioneer, it is officially over. I was privileged, due to having an amazing, fantastic, killer husband who waved good-bye while I got to drive of into the sunset sans kids to Virginia for the auction, to go.

At first it was overwhelming. My beloved grandmother's entire life was out on display for anyone and everyone to come and touch, look at, rifle through and bid on. The family took out a lot of the more precious things (most of the things from when she was a child in Africa, her piano, etc.), but there was still tables and tables of treasure from multiple generations of family members. The woman saved everything.

At one point I had to stop and just cry and get it all out; fortunately there were enough of my mother's friends there for support and my stepfather offered his shoulder for me to blubber on like a five year old. It was all too much. Then I decided to get into the game and get a couple of things that I had not even known existed, but would be neat mementos to have.

The first was a flat steamer trunk that still had the stickers with my great grandfather's name and address on it from when he and his young family traveled to Sierra Leone to live as missionaries. It has been well used, so was not worth a lot monetarily, but was worth a lot to me.

The last was a twin of a necklace that my mother gave me to wear on my wedding day from Jerusalem. My Grandmother had bought them and had hers tucked away in her jewelry box. Now I have one to pass along to each of my daughters.

In between the two items were a couple other things, but the real treasure came later. Early in the day, I noticed a bunch of old envelopes being eyed by a couple people. Since nothing of that nature was supposed to be sold (pictures or anything with addresses on it), I grabbed them up and stuck them in my mother's car before they were bid on.

Being deemed the family historian years ago due to my love of history and genealogy, I was given the box to look through. Mostly it contained old greeting cards and the like saved by my great grandmother. One envelope however immediately caught my eye. It was postmarked 1948 from Sierra Leone, Africa addressed to my great grandmother. Inside there was a two page letter from the head nurse at the mission where was my great grandfather was the pastor.

My great grandfather was an avid photographer as well as a pastor who was killed by lightening in Sierra Leone in the early 30's. Several years ago I had been given a ton of the copies of the shots he had taken in Africa and I sat down with my grandmother to get the scoop on each picture. A few of them included Norma, the previously mentioned head nurse at the mission and author of the letter.

I had taken all the pictures and information gathered from my grandmother and made them into an album for Christmas for her one year. In this letter it talked about several of the people in the album and what had become of their lives (including my grandmother's best little African girlfriend). It was a thrilling find, especially since I have pictures of almost all the people mentioned in the letter.

Overall it was a good day and some of the rare finds she had saved brought in a pretty penny for the estate, but it was a tough one I certainly would not want to repeat anytime soon.

When Does September Start?

In June I could not wait for September. In July I could not wait for September. In August I could not wait for September.

September is going to be the month that life will settle down and we will study in the morning with lots of lazy, uneventful afternoons and weekends.

It's October and I am still waiting for September.

"What the French, Toast?"

I have heard my entire life that it is not what you say, but how you say it. So in general I try to use a respectful tone, yet still avoid talking like a sailor at all costs and if salty words unintentionally slip out of my mouth I am usually quite embarrassed before the word even hits the floor.

But what if that word has no impact behind it? Is it still a "bad" word? What is worse, the word or the emotion carrying it?

In the 7th grade I had the world's coolest gym teacher, Mr. Lang. At the time he was old, probably 35 or something ancient like that and a father. Looking back I think he may have even been a believer, but you can never tell your students that piece of controversial info.

Mr. Lang was assigned the lovely task of teaching a bunch of giggly 13 and 14 year olds about the human body and puberty, which most of us had passed with flying colors already. One way he avoided having to embarrass us by making us ask questions out loud, was by having each student anonymously write down questions which he would read and answer aloud the next day.

Seeing that this was a co-ed class, some dumb boy (I have to assume) dared to go there. He asked what the meaning was of the granddaddy of bad words. You know the one. If it looks like a duck and rhymes with duck...

Mr. Lang did not destroy the question nor ignore it as someone else may have, he read it and proceeded to answer it. His answer I have sadly just looked up on Wikipedia and found out it is more than likely false, but Mr. Lang did not have the benefit of the internet, just gym teacher folklore to fall back on. His point being that in its original use the word was not something vulgar. Just an acronym, used in legal proceedings in England and Ireland. Did I mention that Mr. Lang was Irish?

Regardless of the real meaning of the word, that explanation certainly helped take the bang out of the word for me. Culturally it is still an ugly word when used in anger and one I do not use nor like hearing, but it really has no meaning as just a word. And I would respect cultural norm in another country and not use the word "bananaclip", if it would reasonably offend another person.

Please note that I am not talking about people using the Lord's name out of context. I cringe at that in any way it is used besides in reverence, holiness or in awe. What I am referring to are all those other words we have culturally deemed, "bad".

There is a Orbit gum commercial out now that cracks me up when I see it, but yet I paused it when viewing it on YouTube when Xena came into the room. There was no reason to pause it per se, since not one bad word came out of their mouths. Or did it? You be the judge. Is it what we say or how we say it? Maybe a combination of the two?

Gee, You Don't Say

While watching our usual Thursday night mind numbing telefest, a teaser for the 11 o'clock news came on talking about a "mystery disease" that attacks women at all directions and causes many of the symptoms that I have AND is commonly misdiagnosed. Well, my ears perked up on that one!

I anxiously waited for the news, just hoping against hope that they were not going to highlight the "mystery disease" of PCOS. I was wrong. Big sigh. Now I know that not everyone knows about this disease, but to see it hawked on the evening news as the newest thing since Britney Spears' custody battle (also on the news tonight) was annoying as I was diagnosed with it initially twelve years ago. Especially since they had nothing new to report. No cure, effects 10% of women, no cure, you are born with it, no cure, endocrine disease, no cure, yada, yada, yada...

Oh wait, one new thing. Research now shows that it can also be linked to familial diabetes, depression and one other medical disaster I did not hear because I was sniffling too loud. Fabulous. Call me when you find the cure. Maybe I am depressed, where is the chocolate?

Hey, do you think Ramen Noodles can cure it?

Birthday Bonanza!

It's a bit of a birthday week!
So Happy Birthday to...

Nanny, Gromit & Jack, Grandma & Granddad!

So Much for the Trickle Down Theory

I have had a great confidence in the "trickle down theory" of learning. I have seen it work amazingly with my daughter as she has listened to my son's lessons for the past two years before starting Kindergarten. She can spout off things that I never thought my son would ever "get" and I know it is from the repetition she heard with him.

Today however, my hopes in this amazing phenomenon have waned. We were talking about our address and phone number which K.Z. is fairly confident with. Xena is as well, with a bit of prompting.

C'sa though...

Xena and C'sa were playing a game which sort of resembled government bureaucracy at its best as Xena was sitting behind a clip board obtaining pertinent information from a "line" of people. One person, to be exact. C'sa.

When asked her phone number, C'sa replied, "0-9-28-11-12-13".

Later when asked her address; her response? "Here!"

Another Shameless Theft

Welcome back to "Parenting 101"!

I must say I do love my RSS reader, as it alerts me to the latest and greatest posts from other bloggers, allowing me to shamelessly steal funny videos from other bloggers.
"For shame, For shame!" (I am channeling my inner Gomer Pyle)

So enjoy and a big shout out to Mrs. Sam for providing the material for today's "lesson" in parenting.

Just When You Think All is Right With the World

This may seem like a minor inconvenience and in truth, it is. However, I was all geared up for a great day of school today when a child sized alarm clock woke me up at 06:15 with (loud) screams of, "MY TUMMY!!!!".

After cleaning up the mess on my bedroom carpet as the problem with C'sa's tummy presented itself, I spent the next couple hours with her and several towels as she threw up about 6 more times.

School will still march on, just pray that my pint sized projectile missile will stay calm and "complete".

I HAD to Steal This...

I try not to repost fun videos I have found on other blogs (at least not straight away), but I simply could NOT resist this considering the days I have had lately. The first thing I noticed that made my heart burst with glee was the state of the room behind this dad. For once, my family room is actually in better shape than someone else's.

This is great! Thanks to Susie for posting it and putting up with me stealing it.
It had to be shared! Besides, who doesn't like Johann Pachebel's Canon in D?

Even On the Hard Days...

Today has not been a stellar day. The girls' room is a mess (biiiggg shocker), K.Z. got into a funk this morning during school and I had promised to deliver Meals On Wheels today as a substitute driver leaving not as much morning time to get school completed.

All that being said, I still love homeschooling. I love that this afternoon I could lay on the floor with my son and a workbook and work on some pages that were not assigned, but still beneficial. I just love the flexibility of it all.

We will have to make up the missed work from today, but we will and we can. We are not stretched so thin that we cannot have fun and we are free from the typical "brick and mortar school" schedule. Education is an absolute top priority, but our family health and well being rides pretty high up there as well.

So even on the hard days I am still thankful and blessed to be homeschooling.