The nose knows

Levi's really going to appreciate having Jacob for a big brother. Who else can be counted on to continually point out every part of his body to him?

At least he's not poking him in the eyes anymore.

New technology

We borrowed an iPad to see if perhaps it could be of some benefit to our family. (I know, I know. We're a little behind on this fad. Luddites, remember?) I had big dreams of downloading lots of cool educational apps and adding a new level of technology to our homeschooling.

Instead, my kids have figured out how to turn the thing on and fire up a game of Angry Birds by themselves. They even take turns with the touch screen, cheering each other on as they heave birds high into the air. It's cute, but this is not the quite the educational use I had in mind.

When I made them put it away, they retreated to their rooms. Moments later I heard crashing and cacophonous laughter coming from Caleb's room. Turns out, if they can't play Angry Birds, they'll be angry birds. They had constructed their very own tower of books and stuffed animals, and were taking turns heaving their own bodies at it and laughing hysterically when it all came tumbling down.

I gave them my "What in the world are you doing?" look.

"We're angry Mommy! We're angry birds!" Caleb explained.

"We're going to explode all these animals!" added Abby.

I turned to leave while my two furious fowl commenced reconstructing their tower of books and animals.

Maybe the iPad can be educational for us after all. This totally counts as P.E.

Big promotion

She's been able to swim the length of the pool independently for a while. But her teacher was pretty clear that she was not going to move Abby up to the next level until she could do it without complaining. (I like this teacher a lot.)

Today she did it, and just like that, my Seahorse is officially and Angelfish.

Her swim school gives away bracelets to mark each level completed, so today we added the angelfish level one to her wrist. She's pretty proud of her new accomplishment. I'm pretty sure these bracelets aren't coming off her arm for a while.

My littlest littles

It didn't take long for Jacob to lose his seat in the baby swing.

Levi's loving the cool fall breeze on his face, and Jacob's loving being pushed too high on the big boy swings.

This new arrangement seems to suit both my of littlest littles very well.

It never gets old

Same blanket, same baby. This kid is very easy to please.

Jacob (6 months old)
June 2011

Pleasure reading

 Her language arts reading books are boring for both of us. Honestly, I think if I have to hear one more story about Pat the Fat Rat, I will scream. And I'm pretty sure Abby feels the same about having to read them to me.

So instead, I let her host family story time. She picks the book, and we all attempt to sit around and listen to her read. Caleb and Jacob usually build something in the background or pester one another while the story unfolds, and I peek over her shoulder to make sure she's pronouncing things properly while trying to keep Jacob from stepping on the baby. Levi is a pretty captive audience, only because he can't roll away yet, and the fact that he smiles whenever he hears Abby's voice is  a pretty big encouragement to our budding reader.

When she's done, if Caleb's been a good listener she'll let him pick out a book for her to read to him. (Abby gets to make the call, and I'm pretty sure this is determined solely based on how many times he didn't interrupt her.)

They've started on Little House in the Big Woods, and when she finishes it, we'll celebrate the completion of her first chapter book that she read all by herself. 

That beats Pat the Rat any day.

April Fools

Naptime at our house begins promptly at 1 p.m. Actual napping may or may not follow soon after, but in all honesty, I care very little as long as my primary naptime rules (be quiet, stay in your bed, only get up to go potty) are followed.

Today, in lieu of sleep, Caleb spent the first two hours of his nap quietly removing all of his socks and underwear from his dresser, stuffing the underwear inside the socks, then replacing them in his sock drawer.

I had to ask why.

He smiled. I could tell a very good joke was coming.

"So it looks like I have double socks, and zero underpants," he replied sheepishly. "And when you looked in my drawer, you'd think all my underpants were lost."

I kind of always knew he'd be the practical jokester. I just didn't see it coming this early.

That's my girl

Abby: "Me and spiders don't get along so well."

Me: "Why not, Abby?"

Abby: "'Cause I'm allergic to them."

Me: "So what happens if you see one?"

Abby: "Caleb's a gentleman. He kills them for me."

Creative writing

Jacob's starting to get the hang of our homeschool routine.

"Let's do language arts on the porch," I announced.

Caleb grabbed his seat at the picnic table, armed with his lowercase letter workbook and some crayons.

Abby inspected her pencil to be sure it was properly sharpened in preparation for her spelling test.

And Jacob dumped out all our letter magnets and proceeded to make a train out of them

There's something for everyone at the Fisher Preparatory Academy for Excellence in Learning.

Three smiling, one snoozing

September 2012
Caleb (3), Abby (5), Jacob (1), Levi (2 months)

We headed out for our first day of Community Bible Study today. It's our sixth year, and I'm pleased to say that getting them to smile is finally getting easier. (Marshmallow bribery works wonders.)

Getting them out the door is another story. I really need them to learn to tie their own shoes.

September 2011
Abby (4), Jacob (10 months), Caleb (2)

September 2010
Abby (3), Caleb (1)

September 2009
Abby (2), Caleb (7 months)

September 2008
Abby (1)

Things I wish they wouldn't pick up

Dear Abby and Caleb,

I don't care that you thought it needed to be rescued.

I don't care that you had the perfect box to put it in.

I don't care that you really, really wanted me to see it.

We do not pick up snakes, and we definitely don't bring them inside to show me. Period.

For the record, this one isn't venemous. But seeing as you don't know the difference in safe and unsafe snakes, we're going to assume all snakes are dangerous and stay far, far away from now on.

Yes, you may still pick up worms and snails. But not snakes. Never, ever snakes.

Understood?

Sincerely,
Your mom

62 days and counting

I must be doing something right. He's starting to outgrow this basket.

At two months, Levi is a lot longer and a lot heavier than he was at birth. How much longer and heavier is a mystery, and solving it would depend on me being able to find the paperwork from his doctor's appointment. But alas, while I have become pretty adept at managing four young children over the past few weeks, my housekeeping skills are suffering tremendously. I have no idea where anything is, except the children. And even then, sometimes it takes me a while to find one of them when they get too quiet.

But I wouldn't trade it for anything, and I can say that joyfully now that Levi is sleeping through the night. (Someone must have told him he's a BabyWise baby. My kids sleep through the night early, and I'm pleased to be able to keep up my reputation with baby #4.) We're enjoying a blissful 11 hours of sleep a night from our littlest guy, and are ever so slowly easing him toward my 12 hour goal. We talked about putting him through baby boot camp when he hit the ten-pound mark, and he must have overheard us, because that was the night he choose to sleep until breakfast. And he's been a champ about it ever since.

He was starting to burst at the seams again, so we retired the size ones and ordered a box of size 2 diapers. This apparently was his cue to start hitting some milestones, so he added cooing, smiling and laughing to repertoire this week. All my boys have looked like little old men as babies (cute little old men, but little old men just the same). Levi, I'm proud to say, looks particularly little-old-mannish when he grins. And if his cuteness wasn't so distracting, I might be able to get a picture of that little smile.

Maybe before he turns one. I can't believe that's only 10 months away.

Something fishy

We took an unplanned field trip today. Or rather, we took a "My child threw up last night but he doesn't seem the least bit sick but I still probably shouldn't take him to Bible study" trip.

I went to bed thinking I was going to leave the house right after breakfast to spend the morning away from the house with my kids in their own classes and not come home until it was time for naps. So when I woke up and realized that was no longer my reality, I had to shift into emergency Entertain The Kids mode.

We opted for a morning at the aquarium. It was Levi's first time there outside the womb. He slept through it, and the other kids were none too thrilled at my suggestion of a family picture to commemorate the event. To be fair, it's hard to look at the camera when there are penguins swimming around behind you.

Caleb, as usual, was only interested in standing in front of the shark tank. It would have a been a tranquil scene were it not for his need to yell out the names of everything that swam by. "It's a saw shark! Look, a manta ray! Here comes a black tip reef shark! Whale sharks! Whale sharks! They're bigger than a bus!" (You get the idea.)

Abby insisted we explore the frog exhibit again, and was more than a little excited to find a goliath frog skeleton on display, just like the one she read about last week in her Tadpoles and Frogs book for science. The other visitors to the aquarium enjoyed the mini-lecture she gave. "Did you know this is the biggest frog in the world?" she asked the adults standing nearby. They didn't. "It can be as big as a cat," she went on. This was news to them. We dismissed her students, took her picture next to the skeleton and I promised her she could tell Daddy all about it later.

This membership to the aquarium has been worth every penny.

Get it in writing

I finally figured out what we're doing for preschool this year.

Besides helping Caleb perfect his signature and learn to write his lower case letters, we're not doing much. He's learning so much alongside Abby as we work on her science and history and math that I'm finding there's really not much need to spend the time on preschool that I did before. Which is great, because most of us would rather be playing outside or building with blocks anyway.

Abby, meanwhile, would be happy if we did math all day long I think. We're into our third week of school and already on day 18 of our kindergarten math curriculum. Addition and subtraction are sneaking up on us soon, and I'm going to have to slow it down when we get there, but for now Abby is insisting on way more math than I would like to do in a day.

Even when I insist she take a break, she finds a way to keep working on the most recent math concept she's learned. When I took her school work away and told her she could have some free time, she pulled out all the crayons. Great, I thought, assuming she was going to color for a while and give her brain a rest.

When I came back to check on her a while later, she was busy counting and recounting 100 crayons by fives. This again, is proof she is her father's daughter. Maybe I should just give up and let him teach her calculus like he wants to.

I suspect this tendency to overdo math might have a little to do with the fact that she really doesn't love language arts. And the more time we spend on math, the less time we have left for copywork and spelling. This is fine with me. She's doing great with first grade language arts, and as far as I'm concerned, she has until the end of her first grade year to finish it. And that's 20 months away.

Like father, like sons

We get ready for church in stages.

Get dressed too early, and we risk having to get dressed again after breakfast spills all over the children (or is rubbed all over our freshly ironed shirts, depending on which munchkin we're sitting next to).

So on Sundays, we take particular care with the order in which we do things so as not to spend too long in our pajamas (causing the kids to dawdle and make us late) or too long in our church clothes (which just invites them to do things like drink milk out of their cereal bowls or crawl under the couch and collect year-old dust bunnies in their hair and clothing).

I call this part of the getting-ready process the "Don't put your shirt on until it's time to go" stage. At some point on Sunday morning, every male in my house (save the littlest one, who has yet to wear pants) will be traipsing around in khakis and a white undershirt.

I have a strong aversion to having members of my family dressed alike. This is as matchy-matchy as we'll ever get.