Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Grandpa

Carroll Ray D____

2/23/23 - 10/11/11

 

If I were to point to any human person as a hero to me personally, I would have to choose my grandpa. I remember spending summers at Grandma and Grandpa’s house and the fun we used to have. We did plenty of playing in the house, but we also had great fun outside with Grandpa. He had a terrific garden, a barn full of all sorts of “treasures,” and their close proximity to a lake inlet only added to the charm of their house. I remember him taking my brother and I fishing on the lake or exploring one of the small islands in the bay. Sometimes we would go hiking in the woods, other times we’d help him in his garden or help get the firewood stacked in the basement through the small basement window. On summer evenings we would sit on their front porch and Grandpa would play his guitar or saw (Grandma would play her accordion) and we’d sing while watching the sun set over the lake or the lightning play tag with itself. Once when we were visiting, a small tornado came quite close to their house while we stood watching from the barn door. The transformer across the house blew from the force, but because Grandpa was there with us, we weren’t afraid.

Grandpa had such an upbeat personality, loved everyone, and had a great sense of humor. He would often remark at mealtimes, “My stomach’s beginning to think my throat’s been cut” and at the end of the meal he’d comment,“It’s a good thing I ate when I did because now I’m not hungry.” He also claimed he would never retire, only retread.

He was a hard worker and in his later years (after many years as a colporteur), he did a lot with his hands (carpentry, plumbing, etc.). Sometimes his hammer would miss the intended target and he’d smash his thumb or finger. Every time, after the pain had subsided some, he would say something to the effect that he was glad he had a thumb to hit. He tried to find the positive in everything, definitely a “glass is half full” kinda guy.

In the autumn of his life he and Grandma (and my great grandma who was living with them) went to live near my folks. It wasn’t too long after moving there that Great Grandma and then Grandma closed their eyes for the last time (till the resurrection). Not too long after that Grandpa started showing signs of Alzheimer's, becoming more and more forgetful. During one winter ice storm he forgot that Mom had told him to stay inside and went out on the porch to take his little dog potty. He slipped and broke his collar bone. The bone jutted out into his skin and never healed together and he seemed a bit subconscious about it. Unfortunately there was nothing that the docs could do about it in its location. Finally my parents moved him into their house to provide better supervision.

It’s been so hard to seem him slide into decrepit  old age. He was always so strong, but his last few years he’s been getting weaker and more feeble. Recently my parents made the decision to place him in a nursing home so he could be monitored 24/7. Ironically, less than two full days after he was admitted, he fell and broke his hip (or broke his hip and fell, not sure which). He went through surgery for that (replacing the ball part of his femur), but he had some complications after the surgery (aspiration pneumonia, food from feeding tube not assimilating…). He was in much pain and weakening. My mom and sister finally decided that it was time for hospice care. He was kept on morphine most of the time to handle the pain.

This morning around 1:00 a.m., he stopped breathing and fell asleep in Jesus. I’m sad that such a great man is no longer in this world, but I am glad that he’s not in any more pain or discomfort and the next conscious thought that he has will be Jesus coming to wake him up and take us all home. “Grandpa, it’s not ‘good-bye’, it’s ‘see you soon!’”

Pattern Sale!

I bought a bunch of McCall's patterns the last time they went on sale for $0.99 each and have been waiting what seems like eons for Simplicity patterns to follow suit. Well, it appears my wait is over! :) Joann Fabric is running a $0.99 sale on Simplicity patterns this coming weekend (Friday, Oct. 7 – Monday, Oct 10) so I have made out my list and am checking it twice. I’m mainly going to get costume patterns (historical type outfits which might come in handy for homeschool situations) with a few doll clothes patterns thrown in for fun. Now for some time to sew…

PDFTK4ALL

In searching for a program that could join and split pdfs easily, I stumbled upon PDFTKhttp://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ (stands for PDF ToolKit). I am sure it is very functional and a power workhorse of a program since is runs from the command prompt, but wishing for something a little user friendly, I was very happy to find PDFTK4ALL. This program offers a GUI which makes the tasks of splitting, joining, extracting, rotating, etc., a lot simpler. So if you need a free solution for these tasks, I recommend you give PDFTK4ALL a try.

Flying Again

I tried FlyLady when I was a mom of 1 little and did ok until I was a mom of 1 slightly bigger little and morning sick with little #2. Then things started falling apart. I guess I fell off the wagon and took about 9 years to find my way back on. Now, I wouldn’t say I’m fully flying yet, but I’m taking some steps in that direction, I guess I’m in flight training :).

I’m kind of doing it all wrong by not starting with her babysteps, so maybe I’ll have to check in and make sure I’m not getting off track any. But I think I have the main bits together.

I made Control Journals for me and the rest of the littles (including the 2 yo). Sticking with our kid colors, Gigi, miss pink, chose 2 cute fairies (cleaning fairies) on a pink background, the boys wanted something more guyish so we went with the firefighter theme (putting out “hot spots”) on blue and green backgrounds. I found another cute fairy princess for Missy’s journal (against orange) , and of course, mom’s had to be FlyLady on a purple background, lol. I figured it would be a tiny bit harder to lose them if they were brightly colored.  Some have still somehow managed to go missing since I made them a couple of days ago.

The insides are 1/2 sheets encased in plastic report covers folded in half. This keeps the pages safe from tearing or being spilled on and also makes the pages easy to turn. The very first page is the Morning Routines, then Evening Routines, then Daily Routines, then Zones.

Geo and Gigi have school control journals in the very back part of their control journals. Our school schedule pretty much recycles each week so that part is in plastic with one sheet with specific assignments out of plastic so they can check things off as done.

Everything else can be checked off with dry erase markers or grease pencils (haven’t tried these yet, but I think I might). They seem to have a problem losing their pens so I might have to put a pencil case in each journal for the pens to live so they won’t wander away as easily.

The numbers in the boxes are estimates on how long I think it should take them to do each chore. It can give them a goal to beat with a timer.

My morning and evening routines are probably too long for right now, but I’ve highlighted the ones that I want to make habits at first (5 each) and will build from there (so I don’t feel bad if I don’t get to my whole list just yet). I don’t want to crash and burn like I am so prone to do.

Encyclopedia Interactica

I’ve always been a fan of the French children’s site Poisson Rouge and was happy to see that they are trying to find ways to illustrate educational concepts as well as their mainly entertainment oriented content. I do see more room for growth, but I’m so far pleased with what I see. There are math, science, and music applications along with a few other ideas.

Gimposition PDF Booklet Creator

I rarely pay for software if I can find free ways around all the features of the pricier versions. One example is .pdf booklet creation. Adobe Reader is supposed to handle it just fine, but for some reason, it kept messing up a document I was trying to print yesterday. The pages were all mixed up, 17 on one side of the page 53 on the other. It was just not working. So, after trying everything I could think of doing, I went hunting for a free booklet creation solution and happened upon Gimposition. It is so intuitive, it’s not funny. You just load in the .pdf document you want to bookletize, tell it where you want the output file saved, and in about a second or two, the brand new booklet is waiting to be printed. It gets my vote!

My “This Can’t Be Sourdough Bread” Recipe

Since I started my sourdough journey on March 12 when a friend of mine showed up at a church social with a jar of starter for me (not something I had asked for, but I’m so glad she did!), it’s been a bumpy ride. At first it just sat in my fridge waiting for its weekly feed. One week I thought for sure I’d killed it because I let it go longer than a week between feeds, but I started feeding it again and it came right back to life. I’ve since learned that wild yeast isn’t that easy to kill and I could have neglected it for a few weeks and it probably, with some coaxing, would still have returned to its former glory.

I finally got brave enough to attempt a loaf of sourdough and used the recipe from S. John Ross’ Sourdough Baking – The Basics website. I actually did make some fairly decent bread to begin with and then the urge for more sourdough experimentation took over and I started trying other recipes and techniques (like baking inside my deep cast iron skillet with a lid on to trap steam), but either the taste (too sour), or the crust/crumb (too tough) weren’t just right and I started to feel downright deflated. My kids were pining for the fleshpots of commercial yeast bread . Also, my starter started to look a little peaked and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. It wasn’t doubling in 4 hours like I thought it should, it was starting to separate which didn’t look like the Google pictures that I had seen of lovely, vital sourdough starter.

But, I’m not one to give up a fight easily. I had read some interesting reports on the nutritional value of sourdough bread over commercial yeasted breads and I wasn’t wanting to throw in the towel yet. I tried adding a little pineapple juice to my starter which did help some, I also ordered a food scale which, as soon as I started using it, seemed to have an amazing effect on my starter. I realized that I hadn’t been keeping my starter at 100% hydration like I thought, more like 120% or more. When I mixed equal weights of water and flour, the result was more like a wet dough, much less like a thick batter. It was almost hard to stir.

Finally my starter was doing better and I was now on the search for a non-sour (or mildly sour), soft, thin/light crusted sourdough. I tweaked John’s recipe to include an egg (lecithin), milk (dough conditioner), and baking soda (acid neutralization). I also took his advice of lower temps as I’d been baking at much higher temps and the crusts were always so crusty.

I’ve made this recipe a few times now and my kids have stopped wishing for the “old” bread and are quite happy with Mommy’s new wild yeast bread. Geo even got so into things that he’s started his own starter (we’re calling it a science experiment, lol). So, without further ado, here’s my 50%+ WW TCBS bread recipe:

2 c. (500 g.) 100% hydration starter (mine is almost 100% white)

3 c. (400 g.) whole wheat flour

1/4 c. (80 g.) honey (or molasses)

1 egg + milk = 2/3 c. (1 egg + milk = 160 g.)

Autolyze (rest dough) for 30 minutes, then add:

1-1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 Tbsp. oil

Add more bread flour if needed.

Mix in bread mixer for 5-8 minutes or knead by hand for 8-10 minutes (ok, guessing here, lol).

Place in a greased bowl, coat both sides, cover with plastic wrap (or a plastic shower cap) and let it rest in a warm place (i.e. in the oven with the light on) for 30 minutes to an hour. Punch dough down, knead in bowl till dough firms up a bit. Cover and let rest again. Aim for 3 or 4 punch ‘n’ kneads (or stretch and folds) during the first 4-5 hours. Then turn dough out onto greased surface. Cut dough into half. Place one half back into bowl, take other half, cut side down, on your work surface. Roll out with rolling pin into a long, semi-rectangular shape. Flip bread over so cut side is now facing up. Begin rolling bread at top, rolling toward you all the way to the bottom. Pinch seams. Place seam side down into greased bread pan. Repeat with other 1/2 of dough. Place shower cap (or plastic wrap) on top of each bread pan. Let them rise in a warm place for 2-3 hours, till top of dough is at least 1 inch above top of pan. With a sharp knife or razor blade, slash top of bread in whatever designs you would like. Heat oven to 350°F and bake for 20 minutes. Let bread cool before slicing. Store any bread that’s left in plastic bags like these to keep the bread moist for a few days (if it lasts that long). If you don’t like heels and no one else wants them, they make great breadcrumbs after they’ve been dried.

Note: I aim to have my bread in a pre-cooked dough state for at least 7 hours to give the phytates in the wheat time to neutralize. I personally don’t like my bread to go much longer than 12 hours before baking as that increases the sour taste and we’re not fans of that at this point. I generally aim for 7 hours total dough time, but lately, with the weather being as unseasonably cool as it has been, my bread has inched up closer to the 12 hour mark. Unfortunately for me, the light in my oven is blown. Lately I’ve been mixing the dough first thing in the morning (around 8 a.m.) and then into the loaf pans around 12 or 1 and bake around 3 or 4. It would also work to mix it up before going to bed in the evening, then shaping into loaves in the morning and bake 2-3 hours later, but you’d have to do without any punching down of the dough which I think helps develop the gluten strands.

Keeping dictation shorter

I have the hardest time keeping my children on task during our Riggs dictation. They can turn a 10 minute spelling or phonogram test into an hour if I let them. I admit that I’m easily distracted by the youngers and can tend to lose track of time so I’ve been on the hunt for a free timer program that would help keep us on track, but the ones I had used would always restart at zero and I wanted one that would let me restart back to 30 seconds after each phonogram or word as the case may be. I finally found what I was looking for! :) It’s called TimeLeft and its basic version is free.

I chose to keep it down to its bare bones and do without the title, headers, play/pause and restart buttons. This allows me to have a very small timer which remains on top of all windows, but which can easily hide in less used parts of my screen. There are easy to remember keyboard shortcuts for start (ctrl+s), pause (ctrl+p), and reset (ctrl+r).

Here’s how I use it. I get the timer window active, press ctrl+s to start it, then say the phonogram or word that is being tested on and press ctrl+r to reset it back to 30 seconds (or however much time I’m allowing for each item). Then if they beat the timer, I say the next thing and press ctrl+r again. If they don’t beat the timer and it dings, they leave that space blank (and subsequently get it wrong) and we move on to the next phonogram/word. They really don’t like having to skip one so they try real hard to beat the timer.

Is it a D or a B?

I’ve seen several other helps to remember the difference between a lowercase b and d. Here’s my own take on the ol’ “D vs. B” beginner reader quandary. Click here to download.

Our Workbinders distilled down from Workfolders which are a spinoff of Workboxes…

Ok, I could not think of a decent title, but the point is that my Workbinders are inspired by Jolanthe’s Workfolders which are derivative of Sue Patrick’s ubiquitous Workbox system.

I tried traditional workboxes a couple of years ago with Geo and they went well with the downside of taking too long to load each night. I always felt like I was forgetting something. It was enough to make me go slightly batty. I took a year off from workboxes and this year decided to give them another try after reading about Jolanthe’s workbox twist and revision. It seemed like it would work so well with the Gs so I set off to imitate it (please feel flattered, Jolanthe).

I saw the folders that Jolanthe said she got from Wal-Mart, but they were a bit more expensive than these tabbed pocked folders by Avery.

My math failed me and I bought 3 packs not realizing till later that I’d only need 6 dividers per kid if I wanted them to have 12 pockets. I ended up with a bunch extra but it didn’t turn out to be a bad thing after all as you’ll see.

I decided not to do a separate weekly grid for all the tabs, my kids would just lose them anyway.

Instead I put 12 velcro dots on the inside cover of the flexible poly 3-ring binders that I have the workpockets in. I put one tabbed divider (from a pack of these, again from Avery) in front of the pockets and I put more velcro dots on both sides. The front side is for their completed activity/subject cards and the back is for extras or activities/subjects that aren’t assigned on that given day. On the right tabbed divider you’ll see a smaller (older) card which says, “I’m ready to work!” I made (and had laminated) a lovely school clock-in / clock-out setup , and they just don’t use it :( So this way it hopefully will still give them the idea that before they get started on the other stuff they should “clock-in” in their workbinders at the very least.

I had originally thought I would use all 3 dots on each pocket for the subject, a place for them to match up the subject card from the front cover of the binder and an extra one for a “with mom” card. But since it’s easier for them to just move them from the binder cover to the tabbed divider, we’ve just been doing that. It also makes it easier for me not to have to hunt down the cards on several different pockets.

Like Jolanthe, I have a week’s worth of assignments for each subject that gets assigned, then in the evening, all I have to do is to reload the front cover with the cards for the next day and we’re good to go. I only put papers or very small/thin books in their workfolders and the rest of their books are in their “workboxes” (I love our Trofast setup by the way!). 

I put workboxes in quotes because I’m not using them in a typical workbox way in that the boxes aren’t numbered, but have labels for their category. So, for instance, I have Geo’s reading books in one box, Gigi’s in another. Geo’s reading comp. and grammar books share a box. Their workbinders share a box and my teacher’s books get their own box. It’s nice because the kids know where to go to get the things they need, they know exactly what’s expected of them from their workbinders and my job of refreshing them each evening is a breeze.

Oh, and the extra pockets? I made my own workfolder and in it I put my daily routines, weekly schedules, monthly calendars, my little notebook for jotting down things I don’t want to forget, our Keys for Kids devotional, reward stickers, a knitting pattern, memory verses, and whatever else I want to put in there. It has helped me get a lot more organized too and that’s always a good thing.

Printing PDF books in booklet format

(for binding your own books)

 

Spurred on with my daughter flying through her first grade reader and needing something else to assign for reading (and also because of an old reader which my husbands grandmother had given him, which we found to be superior to most, if not all, modern readers), I went on a search for some good, old school readers. I found a slew on Google Books and a few others at Memorial University of Newfoundland’s book archive site.

Then I got to wondering if there was a simple way to print them as “booklets” so that I could bind them with my spiral binder. Well, Adobe Reader’s help page on printing booklets was helpful, it got me started, but it took me a few tries to find what actually works.

Go to File > Print

1. Under Print Range, select your page range

2. Click on “Reverse pages”

3. Under Paper Handling > Page Scaling, select “Booklet Printing.”

4. Choose “Back side only” for Booklet subset.

5. Print.

6. Repeat process with same print range, but this time:

7. Uncheck “Reverse pages”

8. Choose “Front side only” for Booklet subset.

9. Put your 1/2 printed pages in your printer (for my printer, they go in without being rotated and face down), print.

 

Then all I have to do is cut the sheets down the middle, don’t get the pages mixed up, punch them and bind my book. I was afraid I might forget this process so am sharing it for your edification and my personal future reference.

KISS Grammar ♥

Our New Grammar Program

I found this lovely and free grammar program while searching for something else and at first was quite turned off by the user unfriendliness of the website. But, I decided to download everything and take a gander, and I’m so glad I did.

It comes with complete, printable workbooks through at least the first few levels, and the rest are available online. I decided to print the first level out along with the teacher’s manual and answer keys and spent several days just reading about the method. It seems a bit different from what I remember from school, but I think it makes so much sense. It starts out slow and gradually builds from there, adding things slowly in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the student. There are about 10 problems to do every day it is scheduled (it is suggested that it not be done more than 2-3 days a week*). Because the lessons are so short, this fits in well with Charlotte Mason’s and Ruth Beechick’s schools of thought.

I intro’ed Geo (9) to it last week and … HE LOVES IT! He can’t get enough of it. *I can’t get him to just do 10 problems a day, he wants to do 2 or 3 pages a day, lol. I think at first that’s fine, and I’m sure he’ll be happy to slow down eventually, but it’s fun to see him finding this so enjoyable.  

I highly recommend it in spite of the less-than-terrific website layout; the program itself is awesome!

That’s the Ticket!

I got around to reading my That’s the Ticket! book last Monday night, late, finished it in one sitting (it’s a big book but not a long book) and started trying to implement it the next evening (well, at least I introduced it to the kids to mixed reviews). I decided that since I had kids on different levels of abilities, likes/dislikes… I’d make my own “playing boards” or lists of “Ways to Win” and “Rewards” in Excel so each child has their own. Geo and Gigi’s boards are pretty similar with a few more things on his as he has a few more things to work on that aren’t issues for her. Here’s a sampling of some of our Ways to Win:

SCHOOL / HOMEWORK	+	-
Finish school within time limits	3	3
Use good handwriting on your spelling test	1	1
Have a good-attitude school day	5	5
EVERYDAY HABITS
Be ready for School on time or early	2	2
Say, "Yes Mom" or "Yes Dad" when we call you	1	1
Practice Piano for 30 minutes	10	10
BEHAVIOR / ATTITUDE
Be kind and considerate to your family No bossing, bullying, pestering, taking things, hitting, pinching, kicking, being rude, being mean, annoying, taunting, stealing, arguing, throwing…	3	3
Include youngers in activities	4	4
Obey cheerfully and promptly and long-term      (don't disobey, whine or argue)	2	2
To resolve a conflict, use kind words, then get help if you need it.	5	5
Be respectful to Mom and Dad	5	5
Respect each other's privacy	5	5
CLEANING UP AFTER YOURSELF
Rinse your plates after meals	2	2
Clear your place at the table after meals	2	2
Clean up any messes you make	3	3
HELPING OUT / CHORES
Do a chore cheerfully when asked	10	10
Fold a load of laundry	5	-
Put a load of laundry away	5	-
Empty or load the dishwasher	5	-

 

Our actual list is quite a bit longer, but it’s stuff our kids have heard for years so now it’s just a matter of putting it into practice.

The value in seeing the game boards (to me) were the ideas that they gave me that I hadn’t thought of before to add to my Ways to Win list. So, the book alone is not sufficient if you are looking for ideas in this area like I was. The book has ways to play the game, but not a list of all Ways to Win or Privileges, that’s on the game boards.

In the fashion of PocketMod, I created little books for the kids with all their Ways to Win along with their Privileges to chose from so they have easy access to them. I also have them posted on the side of the refrigerator and on the wall beside my desk, plus they get reminded of what is expected of them each time they win points or have to relinquish them.

The book suggests giving them a couple of days head start before you start taking any of their tickets and only reminding them of what is to come, but I wanted to jump right in so I gave them 300 points up front for doing nothing and we got started.

At first I printed out some tickets, 1 point tickets on white paper, 5 point tickets on green paper, but it got so hard to figure out how many points each kid had that I decided to come up with another way.

I had some colored paperclips in 6 different colors so I made yellow = 50 points, orange = 20 points, white = 10 points and Geo’s 1 points are blue, Gigi’s are red and Eli’s are/were green (he’s out of the game until he decides he’s a big enough boy to start earning more points than he’s losing; he’s only 4 and I’m thinking the game is best started at 6 or 7, we’ll see when he seems ready).

Since I started using the paperclips (which get tangled up easily), I came across these plastic links from Oriental Trading and I think they’ll work even better (though the 1 point links will all have to be the same color). This method makes it very easy to figure out how many points each child has and to carry out transactions. I can also wear several around my neck for easy access so I don’t miss an opportunity to reward good behavior. Also if the kids wear theirs, their points won’t get lost and I’ll know where to go to collect “tickets” if necessary.

Part of our day includes chore time (I’ve moved it to the morning and school to the afternoon because I just didn’t have the energy needed for zipping around the house cleaning in the afternoon. I’m usually feeling like a siesta come 2 p.m. so doing our chores in the a.m. has helped a lot.) and I made some nice little chore charts with rotating chores so that the kids won’t get too bored with the same ones week after week. They do have the same chores for 1 week, then I’ll print up another, different list. (Let me know if you’d like a copy of my chore list system and I’ll e-mail it to you).

There’s a place at the bottom of their list where I add up the # of chores they did, properly and on time, and figure how many points they’ll get. They get an extra 5 points if they finish all of their chores correctly and on time, plus they get 2 points each for each correctly done/on time chore. But… if they aren’t all done on time, they lose 5 points, and lose 2 points for each chore not done correctly/on time. So, yesterday Geo got 33 points because he did them all on time and decently. But, today he only got 19 because he said he did a couple, but didn’t really do them at all (should have got him for lying too I guess).

I suppose it’s a little more work on my part, trying to keep track of points and every little things they’re supposed to be doing (and catching them if they don’t), but the difference in attitudes alone would make it worth the money and I’m starting to see a change in the house and how the kids relate to each other too (and this is only the first week). So far I’m very happy with this program and can’t say enough good things about it :) It’s truly been a God-send to me!

SonLight Education Ministry Homeschool Curriculum

As I mentioned, this is our homeschool curriculum for the next 15 or so years (if the world lasts that long). Recently I received a letter from them stating that they are closing up shop due to personal and financial reasons. However, because they believe in their curriculum and have put so much time and effort into it, they will be offering any of their self-published products for free starting December 31 of this year. I’m not positive because I haven’t checked with them yet, but I’m pretty sure this would include their Bible/Worship/Nature/Character Development curriculum they call Family Bible Lessons as well as their 2nd-8th grade unit study based SonLight program.

It is a conservative Seventh-Day Adventist curriculum and the Bible is woven into every aspect of study (including math!).

We haven’t used the 2-8 program yet, but will hopefully be starting that in January. I can speak to the Family Bible Lesson, though, as we’ve been using them for almost a year. I really like them, they have memory verses that you learn along with the lesson, character traits which are emphasized in each lesson (a different one each week), Bible selections to read for each lesson, then an overview with comprehension questions and finally a nature nugget which ties into the story and character trait with some ideas at the very end of each lesson on how to make what you learned practical in real life.

There is also a companion book of stories, poems and activities that go along with the lessons. There are activities for several levels of development plus applicable poems and interesting character building stories. There’s a wealth of information in each lesson, it’s not a wimpy Bible curriculum by any means. So check them out, the website is a bit basic and even the curriculum is black & white only (laser printer friendly), but my kids haven’t seemed to mind.

Homeschool 2010-2011 - Unabridged

This year has been interesting. I started eclectic homeschooling (i.e. doing my own thing based on Ambleside Online and then oldfashionededucation.com) in 2007 mainly because we didn’t have much money to pour into a curriculum.

I researched a bunch and was at one point drawn toward KONOS, but what I really wanted was SonLight Education Ministry’s unit-study-based curriculum (not to be confused with the ubiquitous and well-known Sonlight). It’s an Seventh-day Adventist Homeschool curriculum that weaves Biblical themes and character traits throughout every topic you’re studying at any given time. From 2nd grade on, you can school your upper grade children together as there are different levels of questions/activities at the end of each lesson for them to complete. Anyway, to get everything I’d need for 8 grades of school, it was going to cost a pretty penny (which we didn’t have) so I just let it go.

But joy of joys, this last Christmas, my parents decided to bless me by buying it for us. As soon as it came (mid January), we started with the Riggs Institute’s Writing and Spelling Road to Reading and Thinking (which they recommend for 1st Grade) since I hadn’t done an official LA program with Geo and I felt he had some things to learn.

We’ve been plugging away at it all year and will probably finish it some time around the new year. It’s a great program (very thorough, lays a strong foundation in spelling, grammar, composition, phonics, reading…) and I don’t regret getting it, but it doesn’t seem to be melding with Geo’s personality (or maybe it’s his age). Whatever the case, this year hasn’t been my most fun or rewarding. I can’t wait till we’re done with Riggs and can start the actual SonLight program. We are already using the Family Bible Lessons (the Bible part of the curriculum) for worship and nature study and that’s going well.

In addition, this year, we’ve been going through Book A of McCall-Crabbs Standard Test Lessons in Reading (will finish tomorrow!), he’s in his 2nd year of piano lessons, he earned a Bible from Kid’s Time Kids Club by reading a year’s worth of Bible lessons and passing all the tests in less than 1/2 a year, and we’ve been trying to keep up with the kids’ Sabbath School Lessons (My Bible Stories, My Bible Lessons and My Bible First).

SonLight adheres to the “Better Late than Early” school of thought so they don’t suggest starting school till at least age 8. They also believe in waiting on math until at least grade 2 (they have many studies showing how beneficial it is to hold off on math till middle school) to let the right side of the brain develop more fully and better allow faith in God to develop during the early formative years.

Not knowing this, we’d started math in first grade, first using MEP (challenging, free, British math curriculum), then Math on the Level (which I will use again to supplement SonLight’s math next year). MEP was good, but there were so many problems to be solved every day and Geo was balking at the amount. When I came across MOTL, I was intrigued by the 5 problems a day method and Geo took to it right away too. I love the record- keeping and the math problems to chose from. All this to say that as soon as we read their reasons for delaying math, I stopped it to focus on Riggs.

Gigi started doing a little bit of homeschool last year (reading, math, writing, Bible, nature study…), but after I got the SonLight curriculum, I have backed her off to light reading, her recorder lessons, early phonics (in anticipation of Riggs which she will start as soon as Geo finishes), and Bible/nature study. We will let her start Riggs a little early (when she’s 7 1/2) because she is really anxious to start it. I will probably take it a little slower though and aim to complete the program in a year and 1/2 so she’ll join Geo in SonLight for 2nd grade.

I’ve had a bit of a hard time figuring where to place Geo as far as grades. The way we were going before, he would be entering 4th grade this year (August). But since he’s 9 and we’re just doing the first grade level of SonLight with him (catch-up), I’m not sure whether to say he’s 2nd since he would be if we’d waited to start him at age 8 and that’s how the new program goes, say he’s in 1st because he’s doing the first grade year of the SonLight program, or to say he’s in 4th this year (doing 1st grade catch-up work?). For now I’m saying that, because we got started on Riggs at an odd part of his 3rd grade year, that his 4th grade year won’t start until January. I figure since it’s a unit study curriculum, that he’ll easily be able to jump to the right grade level once we start the SonLight program. I also am not sure if it would be discouraging to him to be told that he’s not in 4th grade like he thought he was, that he’s really only in 2nd grade (at least according to the new system). Boy, things can get confusing. With Gigi, it won’t be such a big trouble, she’ll start first grade when she starts Riggs and since she doesn’t have a firm grasp of time and how long it should take to complete a grade, likely won’t catch that she should be going into 2nd this year instead of staying in first.

Oh happy day :)

Well, for the most part it’s been a frankly crummy day. Attitudes have been in the gutter (no mine, although I was somewhat effected), energy has been pent-up (definitely not mine), dog has been pestered (poor Lucy), school dragged on. So I’m so very glad that this day is almost to an end.

But… all wasn’t lost :) One more wall in our school/office/play… room got painted and it’s starting to look really good.

 

Also, the other thing that I’m rather excited about is this new game I found online called “That’s The Ticket.” It’s normally $44.95, but is currently on sale for $29.95. However, I found the complete game on Amazon for $4.99 (+s&h) and I’m doing a happy dance :)

It’s supposedly “teaches your kids how to empower their lives” in “a fun, interactive, motivational game” that helps to empower “parents to inspire their kids to WANT to:

Set clear goals

Complete specific tasks

Build positive habits

EARN the things they crave.”

All in a hopefully fun game disguise. We shall see, but for that price, I didn’t figure there was much to lose and the reviews that I’ve seen have been really positive. Even my child-rearing mentor, Kevin Leman, promotes it.

So… after a day like today, there’s a lot riding on this working because nothing I’ve tried so far has been terribly successful. Tonight I was SO fed up by everything that had happened today that I sent the kids to bed early. I just needed some quiet, decompression time, sans kids. Now, don’t get me wrong, I totally love my kids and can’t imagine my life without any of them, but sometimes… sometimes I just want to run and hide somewhere. So a quiet evening will hopefully be just the thing for this frazzled soul.

They once were lost, but now are FOUND!!

The keys, that is. We searched and searched inside the house (everywhere the kids had been playing, under beds, under and behind couches…) and quite a bit outside yesterday, but with no luck. This morning I sent the kids outside for recess and to get their wiggles out and told them to keep an eye out for the keys. A little while later I heard excited pounding on the carport door, which was locked, and saw 2 little heads jumping up and down outside the window, rattling a set of keys!! :) Yay, got my thumb drive back, van key, house key, fire safe key… Thank you Lord!

Lucy lives!

Our doggy is going to get the “life-saving” surgery (as in she probably would have been put to sleep if not for this surgery because of finances) she needs to live a hopefully long, hopefully happy, hopefully healthy life. At least she has a chance now. All because 2 very dear, generous, benevolent, caring individuals who have a certain close grandparently tie to 4 certain little kids and who also probably didn’t like knowing how torn up I was getting… decided to pay for the whole kit and kaboodle and get the surgery to fix her foot, complete with pins for proper alignment of the bones. God is good! (Thank you Mom and Dad ;)

Oh where…

are the van keys?

Oh where are the van keys?

Oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where, oh where,

     oh where, oh where, oh where….

are the van keys?

 

Eli was playing with them or took them out when he went to play yesterday and he can’t remember what he did with them… they haven’t been seen since. I’ve checked in the tree house, under the tree house, by the swings, by the picnic tables, around the yard, on the back porch, down the stairwell, in all the bedrooms, behind the couch, under the couch… everywhere I can imagine I would put keys if I was 4. We we were supposed to go to Nina’s homeschool music class today but it doesn’t look like that will happen. :(

Could this be good-bye?

Our little dog Lucy broke all 4 of her metatarsals in her front right foot this morning. She was chasing a swinging child (yeah, one of ours) and somehow her foot collided with the swing (wooden porch swing type). I saw the x-rays, they don’t look good.

Our choices are: 1) splinting the foot and hoping for the best ($200+ for all care), 2) amputating the leg ($500+), 3) “doing it right” and having surgery to put pins in the bones so they will grow together the right way and hopefully insure years of pain-free dog life (~$900), or 4) euthanasia ($13). We’ve already spent $130 just to have her checked out and x-rayed. Aye!

DH and I are NOT leaning toward just splinting the leg, but there’s no way we can afford surgery either. So it’s a difficult choice. Do you put a dog down because she broke 4 bones or do you become indentured servants to pay for surgery? I really don’t know what to do. She is spending the night there so we can pray about it and try to figure out what to do. It was a sad day for me :( I didn’t think it would hit me so hard, but whenever I had to talk about her, I had to fight hard, let me tell you.

Crawling out from under my log

I admit I’m not much of a blogger, life gets so much in the way sometimes and just takes over. But I’ve been feeling the pull to express myself lately so here goes again. This time I’m messing around with Windows Live Writer since I have a sort of mental block about having to log in to Blogger to post to my blog each time. Maybe this way it’ll mentally not seem like such a chore (not that it’s really that difficult, but I’m that way with webmail too [I use Thunderbird] and if I could get onto Facebook without logging on to the website, I probably would). Ok, so anyway, I’m baaack! (at least for awhile ;o)

How to get most of your kids to stay in bed at night.

Not too long ago I was pulling out my hair because my kids wouldn't stay in bed when I tucked them in. They were like super rubber bouncy balls, I'd tuck them in and ... booooiiiinnnnnggggg, they'd bounce right back. All evening long I was listening to "Mooooommmmmmm, Geo came in my room" or "I can't sleep, Eli is bothering me." Multiply that by a hundred or more creative variations of reasons not to stay in bed and you can see why I was starting to get a little stressed.

Out of desperation I went searching on the net and found something I thought might work. It suggested giving your child 3 tickets that they can use for coming to see you, if they want water (and didn't get it before going to bed), they can use one ticket, if they're afraid of the dark, they can use one and come see you, if they just feel like getting up, they can use one more, but then after that, they have no more get-out-of-bed-free coupons. If they get up any more times after that, they don't get any tickets the next night (I was SO hoping my kids didn't just say "so what?").

To sweeten the deal I decided to throw a reward into the mix so I told them that they had 3 tickets to use how they wanted, but IF they didn't use any of their tickets, they would get a sticker on a chart the next morning and when they filled up the whole line (10 stickers) they could have an ice cream cone after lunch, (if they were sick, they would get an ice cream rain check to be used as soon as they were sufficiently well).

Well, that really motivated them! My older 2 said "Mom, this is easy, it's easy to stay in bed." I wondered to myself why, if it was so easy, hadn't they done it before? Anyway, they haven't been down one night since I started it about 20 days ago, we're still working on Eli, he only 1/2 gets the concept that if he even uses one of his tickets, he forfeits his sticker, but he really is getting better.

My evenings are more peaceful, I'm less stressed, much happier; they stay in bed, go to sleep sooner, get more rest. ♥☺ Of course your mileage may vary, but I just had to share what's working for me.

My Thanks For The Day

The last two days has had me fighting with my computer, trying to get my new OS to play nice with my old(ish) Epson printer. I got the HP online, no problem, but I really wanted to get the Epson up and running because it takes cheaper ink. (When I finally run out of ink, I'm going to try a continuous ink system, but for now I have some cheap ink I've had for several years that is still good).

I spent the equivalent of about a day on the computer chatting with 3 different tech support guys. The first guy was quite helpful and got it working for awhile, but then it stopped printing again. The second guy was hopeless, basically told me "hopefully Epson will come out with a driver soon, ... I was happy to help you." Ha! He was no help!

Then I connected with just about the best tech support person ever. He tried every trick in his play book. We installed, uninstalled, restarted more times than I can count, he took control of my computer for awhile to try to figure it out, finally (I think as a last ditch effort), he had me reinstall the OS over the existing OS installation to try to repair anything that might be damaged and ... drumroll ... my printer still wouldn't print.

So then I went online and started searching for reasons why documents would go into the printer queue and not go any further and definitely not print. I tried restarting the print spooling, read a little further and read that if the printer is out of ink, it won't print. It also said that if the light on the front is solid red, that means the printer is out of ink and won't print. Um, yeah, you guessed it, the light was on and yep, it was solid red. I had known that my ink was low, but I was expecting the printer software to tell me that it was time to put in a new cartridge (I think my other printer does that), but it never did. So I put in a new cartridge. I clicked print... it started printing and I just started laughing. What else could I do? I felt so foolish and so relieved at the same time. I needed my printer and it was finally back and for that I was so glad, but it was also pitiful how much time I spent trying everything but the actual solution. But, it's finally back up and running and I am SO thankful to have my printer back. And that's my thanks of the day; and the moral of the story is, if your printer ever quits working, check the obvious, is it plugged in, is it connected to the computer, does it have enough ink? 'nough said.

MOTH to the rescue

No, not a flapping-winged fluttery thing, MOTH stands for "Managers of Their Homes" and is a "duh" sort of common sense approach to managing all the little details in a homeschooling-mom-of-more-than-a-couple-kids' life. I have always balked at the idea of a rigid, by-the-clock kind of schedule, but a dear friend of mine suggested I try it for a month or so and just see what it might do for me. Well, I'm always one to try a new challenge so I opened up my friendly Excel, made a bunch of tables and started populating all the little cells. I have a column and so do each of my kids. The schedule starts when we get up in the morning and ends when I go to bed at night. It has actually helped our days to flow much smoother, the kids seem happier knowing what to expect, they are pretty much guaranteed a nice bit of free time in the afternoon, the house stays neater because I have something planned for them one way or the other all day. Either it's meals or chores or school or playing/free time, ... and having something to do keeps them out of trouble and keeps the messes to something like a minimum. I don't have the book, but as soon as I can, I'm going to get my own copy, I've heard great things about it. But till then I'm implementing it as best I can imagine how with a few pointers from my friend. It's going well, really well and now I can truly say I love my strict, line by line, 1/2 hour by 1/2 hour schedule! I'll get a sample of my schedule up asap.

My Busy Life

I feel too busy to blog, but I DON'T like to see "inactive account" wallpaper on my page so I'm going to post to get rid of it. I've been meaning and meaning to post on here, maybe this is the feet-wet-again that I need. In the last year I've had a baby, added a new student to our homeschool and those two things have been enough to make everything else slide a bit. SO, now that Ana is almost a year old, I have started to get more organized and get a handle on things. Thanks to a friend who challenged me to try out a MOTH (Manager's of Their Homes) schedule, I went way overboard and now have one for every day of the week (and they are constantly changing, though I hope that eventually we'll settle into a nice routine and they'll stay put for awhile). I'll post more about MOTH in a separate post. Basically I'm making baby steps in the right direction so follow along, hopefully I'll have interesting things to say real soon.

A Frog Story...

Geo just brought me the next installment and since I know you'll all be dying to read it, here it is...

Once a pon a thme ther lived a frog He was so ciwet. He lived in a log. He in vidid his frends to come over to his hose. One day wen his frinds wer playing he sed dos eney of you want to wath a movy Thay sed yes so thay sat down to wach it the video. It was polor express, now the part wen the track went into the warder came up the kids wer scard thay tride to stop it but thay wer happy.

becomes...

     Once upon a time there lived a frog; he was so cute. He lived in a log. He invited his friends to come over to his house.
     One day when his friends were playing he said,"Do any of you want to watch a movie?"
     They said "Yes," so they sat down to watch the video.
     It was Polar Express. Now the part when the track went into the water came up. The kids were scared, they tried to stop it but they were happy.

A Cat Story...

Geo (my second grader) wrote a story and I just had to post it...

Oncea pon a time in the woods ther lived a cat named Chesey[.] She was so small and so cewt. She oftin sed "Mew mew, I sed to her Here cidy cidy cidy, now a snake herd me say Her cidy cidy cidy and the snake was hungrey He sed Mmm cat wood be good to eat The cat herd the sawnd and mewd so long she made the snake deth He codent here at all the cat tot the snake a lesen and you better be good and not to try a lisson and if you her a cat don't eat it.

Grammatically correct translation:

     Once upon a time in the woods, there lived a cat named Chesey. She was so small and so cute. She often said, "Mew mew."
     I said to her, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty."
     Now a snake heard me say "Here kitty kitty kitty," and the snake was hungry.
     He said, "Mmm, cat would be good to eat."
     The cat heard the sound and meowed so long she killed the snake.
     He couldn't hear at all. The cat taught the snake a lesson.

     And [the moral is:] you'd better be good and ... ? ... if you hear a cat, don't eat it!

Fancy feet

I'm so jazzed by my new shoes! I found them at a quaint little thrift store on top of a mountain in the middle of a freak snowstorm. Thankfully the snowstorm only lasted a few minutes and I got my shoes (3 pairs of Clarks leather clogs [or maybe they're called mules(?), I'm not really up on shoe terminology]). I looked them up when I got home and depending on the site they ranged anywhere from $30-$60 a pair, so I got anywhere from $90-$180 worth of shoes for $11. Yeehaw, that's the way to do it! I love these shoes because they are really comfy, easy on/off, and will go nicely with the skirts I've been wearing more of lately. I had been wondering what kind of shoes to wear with skirts as my ratty tennis shoes just wouldn't do and I didn't want to wear my church shoes out; these will do quite nicely!

Diapers from flannel shirts

Here's how I recycle a flannel shirt (this one was 50 cents from a local thrift store) and turn it into a cloth diaper (Rita's Rump Pocket in this tutorial).

1) Cut sleeves off of shirt.






2) Cut collar off and cut along seam between neck and shoulder.






3) Cut front panels off from back section.






4) Sew front halves together where they were cut from back piece (to make outside piece). Or (in the case of this shirt which happened to be huge, I was able to align and sew one of the front panels on to the back after I carefully lined up the stripes. I 3-step zig-zagged them together, then zig-zagged the seam flat to the back of the diaper.

Cut out pieces; If there is a wrong and a right side, make sure that the prints are facing the right way.






5) Sew up diaper.






I'll be placing the seam on the outside of Missy so as to minimize chance of irritation.

Fleece Mittens tutorial

My kids needed some mittens and I figured I could make them some from some fleece scraps I had "lying around." I found another tutorial online for fleece mittens and I really liked them. But I looked at a pair of store bought fleece mittens that I had and I liked the way they were constructed a little better so I altered their pattern to work the way the store bought mittens did and I really like the results.

You don't have to use this pattern, but it will give you an idea of what it's supposed to look like. I actually made patterns for my 3 older ones by tracing their hands, drawing an upside-down U about 1/2" all the way around their hand (fingers together, not spread out), marked where their wrist was (for the elastic placing), and finished the pattern using this as a guide.

The original tutorial said to enlarge the patterns till the grid was 1 inch square (for adult size), maybe 3/4 inch square for a child's hand. Play around with the sizing, find what works for you.

I trace the hand 1/2 inch in from the fold (on a piece of paper folded lenghtwise), make the upside-down U, fold it in half again and cut the rounded part off the top (to make sure it's nice and even on both sides). Then I fold the thumb side in half to the middle fold to get the thumb width. Fold the paper in half from top to bottom to find out how far the cutting line for the thumb should go. Then about 1/2-way from the top of the thumb cutting line to the bottom of the mittens, start drawing the curve for the thumb-tip. Fold the paper in half again from edge to thumb cutting line and cut the curve for the rounded thumb-tip. Fold the thumb part up and make the pattern piece for the thumb. Make it a little longer than it calls for, then cut down if need be. I discovered that the thumb pattern piece runs a bit short.

To cut out the pieces, fold over a piece of fleece, line the pattern up on the fold, and cut the rest out. Then open the fleece, lay the opened pattern on top of it and cut out the thumb flap. If there is a right side and a wrong side to the fleece, make sure to flip the pattern over when cutting out the other thumb flap.

To sew, line up the thumb pattern piece with the thumb flap, sew from the notch around to the other side of the thumb. Stop. Line up the long edge of the thumb piece with the long part of the main mitten piece, and sew together. Sew some elastic to the wrong side where the pattern indicates (or where you noted the location of the wrist). Place right sides of mitten together and sew mitten together. Hem the edge. Turn inside out, enjoy :)

CDing again

I had planned to cloth diaper Missy, but really wasn't looking forward to having to do an extra load of laundry ever 3 or so days. I used 'sposies for the first few weeks to get me back in the groove again and still use them for overnight (till I get my courage up, lol). But getting back in the CDing saddle again wasn't as hard as I anticipated. It's really rather fun to cloth diaper and you get to be so much more creative than you can be with "go 'n throw" dipes (which really have zero room for creativity). And while babies are 100% breastfed, you don't have to "scoop-the-poop" as there are no solids, everything gets nicely washed away, so it's really no trouble. I wash about every 3 days, and have an ever revolving supply of soft, fluffy non-landfill-clogging diapers. And as far as the creativity side of things, here's what I've gotten to do so far:

The diapers are made from a large, soft sheet using the Rita's Rump Pocket pattern (I managed to get 10 from one large, flat sheet; queen or kin size, not sure). They were so fun to make and super easy too. This tutorial helped immensely when it came to adding the elastic. I can't wait to get a hold of some more flannel to make some more! I'd like another couple of sheets' worth at least. I stuff them with a trifolded small prefold (I have used premium diapers as stuffers too, but they're kinda big!, might be good for overnight) and they aren't too too bulky, easy to get on and off (just use one pin), I love 'em!

Update, here are a few more:















The pink (acrylic) diaper cover is my rendition of a Flapper Bottom soaker which turned out nice, but I still don't like it as well as the Warm Heart Woolies plain wrap that I made from recycled red wool. It's so pretty and so easy to get on and off, also is a good fit (this pic is so far from doing this soaker justice it isn't funny. It's a much deeper, darker red in real life and the color is nice and even, not faded looking like in this sub-par photo).








I also made an Ottobre soaker (.pdf; the Ottobre is my favorite pull-on soaker, very quick and easy to make, easy on/off, contains wettness well...) out of some chunky recycled wool which is my bullet-proof diaper cover (the blue and green one above is an Ottobre soaker, but the one I made most recently is a cream color). That with a premium stuffed RRP might be the ticket for night time when I run out of disposables.

She's here!

Ok, admittedly I'm VERY very behind, but all truth be told, I've been just a tad busy lately :).

The 23rd was indeed the day; I had contractions almost all night (got an hour's sleep a couple of times) and they gradually got stronger and stronger toward morning. I got up at 3:30 to eat some breakfast and was still very able to manage the contractions as they came. I kept track of them in my Palm with a program specially for that. Finally around 5:15 I was so drowsy I thought I'd try lying down again so I went and lay down on the couch in the family room. Dh got up to use the restroom a little while later and came looking for me. So since he was up, I went back to bed. I got a little more rest (the 2nd hour's sleep I think) and woke up when Eli did just before 7. I got up and helped Eli get breakfast and dressed...

Then around 8 I went in to take a shower and suggest that Dh start inflating the pool (we set it up in the family room). I had a banana with p-nut butter to eat and a glass of milk. Then around 9 a.m. I was feeling tuckered out again so went to lie down on the couch. I had called my midwife at 7 a.m. after what I thought would have been at least 9 hours of sleep for her, but turns out she had to be at another birth the night before from 12 midnight to 6:30 a.m. so she had just gotten to sleep (I felt bad). So then I called the other midwife and she said she's be on her way. She and the apprentice got here around 10 and by then things had gotten more serious. I was quite uncomfortable during each contraction, but they were still not real long at this point. She checked the baby during a contraction and she was doing fine. I was dilated to 5cm and -2 station at that point.

I was given the green light to get in the pool if I wanted to and oooooh, it felt SO good to get in. The water was delightfully warm and my contractions did slow down a little bit and were much more tolerable. At least at first... Then around 11 the contractions started getting downright painful. I couldn't help but groan thru them (though I'm always very ladylike if I do say so myself, LOL; Dh says I make it look easy... whatever!). I kept thinking "I can see how women want epidurals"... and "I just wanted this to be OVER!" There weren't many positions that were comfortable for me. And then at one point I had to get up to empty my bladder and had several contractions on the trip to the bathroom and back, which was NO FUN. I finally managed and back to the pool I hobbled.

Sometime around noon, I started feeling like I was getting close to transition and/or pushing stage. I checked myself and could feel quite a bit of head, still in the sack. I couldn't tell if I felt cervix or not. I asked the midwife if I could start pushing and she said "listen to what your body is telling you." So I started trying little pushes for the next 3 or so contractions. Then I got serious and on the next contraction (about 12:15 p.m.) I gave one good long push and out popped her head. Dh said she was blinking her eyes under the water :) Then on the next contraction I pushed the rest of her out and Dh caught her and confirmed right away that she was a SHE :) (She was born at 12:17 p.m.) The kids got to witness her entrance into the world from the doorway of the next room (they didn't really see too many details tho!).

Missy (short/nick for "Miss Magoo", lol) was covered in vernix and looked little. I didn't think she was a 9 pounder like I had been expecting. She didn't have a lot of hair, but 5 fingers, 5 toes (per hand and foot that is, lol), 2 adorable little ears, 2 pretty eyes (which we still don't know what color they'll be; kind of a dark grey/brown/blue/green color right now, lol, could be anything but for now I'll put my $ on brown), chubby little chin and knees..., and a precious little face. She cried as soon as she was out of the water, but then settled down. I kept her warm in the water and tried to stimulate her a little just to hear her cry some more (and clear out any wetness that might be in her lungs...). She had passed some muconium at some point in the past, but she never appeared to be in any distress, though we watched her carefully. After just a few minutes she showed signs of being open to nursing so I helped her latch on and she did great. Because she was nursing so well, I stayed in for a while longer. Then Dh cut the cord and took her so I could get out and take a shower. After I got dressed I came back in and nursed her some more. Then the apprentice did the newborn exam and she checked out beautifully. I caught it all on tape.

Here are her stats:

20.5 inches long
8 pounds, 9 ounces
born at 12:17 p.m. on November 23 (her due date :)
after 10 1/2 hours or so of labor (but only 2 minutes of pushing and 2 pushes to get her out)

I was SO glad when she was out, let me tell you. I was NOT having fun the hour or 2 before she was born.

After she I was born I basically felt fine, though a bit tired and a little "peekid" feeling. The midwife estimated my blood loss at 4 cups so I made a point to eat iron-rich food the few days after she was born to help me feel a little more perky. I felt shaky right after getting out of the pool and was a little unnerved by that, but that didn't last long and went away after a few minutes. Dh had done well to keep me well hydrated with electrolyte drinks all during labor. I ate a good lunch after the midwife and apprentice left, then tried to take a nap as Missy was zonked out after her trip; however my brain was so hyped up that I couldn't drift off. But I guess I did get some rest. Gigi held the baby the whole time I was "napping" which was a little over an hour. She didn't want to get up until I got back and my mom started talking about going to Wal-Mart for a few things we needed ("Can I go, please?!?" lol).

We were so pleased with the outcome, another little girl (awwww) making our tribe an even Boy/Girl/Boy/Girl. We couldn't have planned it better if we'd tried (we did sorta try for Gigi, but the rest... no). I think everyone was secretly hoping we'd have a girl so that Gigi could have a sister. I was also very relieved to see that she was normal and in good health as I'd had that "irrational fear" all during pregnancy that something might be wrong. This was partly fueled by the knowledge that I had been exposed to x-rays when I was holding Eli for his arm x-rays (this was before I knew I was pregnant) and also because I'd used a heating pad on my back one night when I was newly pregnant (also before I knew). So I am very grateful and thankful that our little girl is fine.

Since then we've been battling thrush/yeast which has been no fun at all. I'm taking probiotics to help my body fight it. I thought that I was over it, but now am feeling shooting pains in my milk ducts (a sign of ductal yeast) that I'm hoping is not yeast. Also Missy's tongue does have white on it that won't wipe off which is a sign of thrush so I don't know for sure that it's over. I may have to start my grapefruit seed extract regimen again (groan!)

Missy started smiling around 3-3 1/2 weeks, and is developing really great head control, she doesn't like it when we try to put her head down on our shoulders, she wants to be looking around. She started making little cooing noises last week which is really too cute.