Thursday morning we had quite a scare.  My oldest son woke up with abdominal pain…..  not the normal ate to much Halloween candy pain. But lower right sided pain. Both my husband and I have medical backgrounds and that screamed appendix to us.  Needless to say we took him straight to the Dr.   Next thing that we knew he was being wheeled back to surgery.  Thursday and Friday were a blurr.  He is home now and recovering fine. It was funny, he wanted to keep his appendix but the Dr. said that he could only give him pictures.  He wanted to show it to his friends…he said that it was “good science.”   I must say that we are all relieved and praising God that he is ok!!! 

Another blessing through this whole thing is that while I was with him at  Dr.’s the girls were still able to get school done with T4L.  I did not worry that  they would miss something.  I was able to focus on him.  Thanks T4L.  They said that he would be sore for a little while and that he could go back to school whenever we said so…he told the Dr. that he homeschooled and the Dr. said…..”well then you can go back Monday”  I may give him another day  ???  He smiled and said that one thing he missed about “regular” school was that when you were sick you did not have to do work anyway……  :o)  

I knew it would happen.  I predicted it back in August.  I said that Zachary would burn through any English that I threw at him.  Thankfully because of Time4Learning it came without pressures and without stress.  He set his own goals and this morning he read the line to me that he was so excited about “You have completed all the lessons in the second grade, please hit your back button and start in level three” or something like that.

Inside I was bursting with pride.  Scott is home today and asked what that means.  When I explained that he finished the second grade work in LA extensions  he said “Oh really?  Well that figures, should we start looking into colleges now?” and laughed.  We had a little celebratory family “dance” and Zachary in his nonchalant way about him said “Can I finish my school work now?”

YAY for us!  Now it is time to “push” the older one a bit more….  I was the older sibling to a younger one that surpassed me, the age difference between my brother and I and my two boys is about the same.  I hated when my little brother was  compared to me but I don’t know what to do about what is going to happen between my oldest and my youngest when that time comes.  Any suggestions would be great.  I know all the normal stuff, “everyone is different, everyone learns differently, etc etc…  blabla…”  What do you really say to an older sibling when the younger one is passing them by?  Of course then you have the little one trying to “pump up the older one” with comments like “Your really good at reading Q..”  Yea, I loved that when my brother would say something to me like that…….

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions you might have.

Well, like many of you, we have had one of those very strange weeks.  I am the last person to get sick in my house so when I do, you know things are getting ugly.  My husband injured his ankle with an axe- that meant a few hours in the ER–once he got passed the pain, we laughed it off and the ER was totally empty.  It was a complete housekeeping accident, he’ll be fine once his stiches are heeled. Both my older kids have had a perpetual cold due to the seasonal allergies, my dad is visiting from the Dominican Republic, he’s a diabetic so I have to be careful what I feed him–you know I can’t get away with pizza and Mac N Cheese, plus I totally expected him to get sick as well.  He did not so far–Thank God!  He did however get a small stomach virus which lasted a day.  He’s also fine.  The baby did not get sick but he’s teething, which means I’m not sleeping.  Natalie has a bad cold which caused her to stay home from school today.  She’s better now but was up three times last night with either a headache, a fever or needing water.

OK so basically, I did not sleep last night and kids for some reason, get better during the day, while mom’s are still trying to recover from lack of sleep.  I asked Natalie to go online and do her lessons so that I could rest while the baby takes his nap.  She was so sweet. She said, “if I do all my lessons, can I have an extra halloween treat?”  I said, “I will give it to you in advance if you let me take a 1/2 h our nap.”  Negotiation at work here.

Natalie did a few lessons, read some of her stories, practiced her words and was so, so good for me today.  I did not nap, but I was able to have a mental break.  Once the time was up, because she was not about to forget when time was up, she showed me all the work she had done.  She’s very excited working on the first grade material now.  She is looking forward to doing the same in math, however, she has a little bit of work to do there first.

So after all this chaos in my house, it was not only my positive attitude that kept me from cracking under pressure, but having time4learning to keep my little Natalie busy while I took a recovery break.  You guys are the best…I agree with that!!

Thanks.

Terie

You know that moment?  That one single second when your child gets so animated about something and you just know that the excitement he is feeling that very second is the best feeling of the world?  As I parent I love to see that animation and excitement, knowing that as they grow they happen less and less.  My husband and I are always in awe of watching our children at those times where we plan and the boys just “let it go” and we surprise them with something.  It does not happen very often because both boys are “need to know” children and it is sometimes easier to tell them what is going on than deal with the constant questions over and over……

The Boys God Father gave them a stack of little books called “Pocket Classics”.  He read them as a young boy and it helped open the door to the truly great classics in reading.  My boys have been burning through them as most of them are around 70-100 pages and have pictures as well as an abbreviated story.

Quentin just had that animated moment and it had nothing to do with a video game, a field trip, a new toy or game…  It had to do with the lesson that he was doing!  I wish that I had gotten the moment on film.  It went something like this:

“MOM!!!  Oh my Gosh!!! ” (today of all days..being Halloween, he turned in his chair and about fell on the floor…) He proceeded to read to me about what happened in 1938 when Orson Welles read about the Alien invasion.  Then he said… “Mom!  it was out of the book War of the Worlds!  I read that!!!”  Arms flinging, smile from ear to ear, READING everything on the page!

Ok, two points here….  No more than 9 months ago we were giving up everything to get him reading the way he should.  The only word that he pronounced incorrectly on the whole lesson was “Hoax”  which I corrected and he then read correctly.  Second point was that he actually was excited about school work.  (of course it helps that the lesson was on aliens and something he had read but still)

Seriously, Never did I think that we would have this in schoolwork.  How could I describe my household to make you understand how much different our world is now than last June when we were trying our best to get through a page at a time of boring, mundane school work.  No matter what I did to make it interesting and exciting we were all stressed out and not having fun.  The conversations now flow easy and are fun!  The world has opened up to us and learning is now so easy!

As for the Odd part?  How odd that the lesson of that Orson Welles book fell today????  Spooky…..

Man.  Wasn’t it just May or something??  :o)  Time is really flying for us and it just seems to keep picking up speed. :o)  I can’t believe we are completing our second month of 3rd grade already!  Everything is still going great.  Time4Learning has just been amazing.

I know I keep going on and on about this…I feel like a walking ad, but I am truly being sincere.  I can’t begin to express how this program has affected our lives.  Especially with the busy schedule and the weather changing and the holidays coming up.  Example…we went on a cub scout camping trip this past weekend.  We had a great time but it was VERY cold at night.  Naturally most of us got sick. (feel better Tracy and family!!)  Me and my 3 year old are both sick, but Bailey is fine.  So the past two mornings he has just gotten up and logged on and started school.  I’m still here for him if he needs me, but he is plugging through and I’m able to stay curled up in my chair with a kleenex attached to my nose. :o)  I remember the last time I was sick and his curriculum was different.  We were both miserable because I was sick but had to sit right there with the teacher’s manual.

He has really enjoyed the program this year, it’s so different than last year.  He loves the science and social studies, just loves them!  And he loves to tell us about them, which my husband and I both enjoy.  We are struggling a little with the math.  Not the lessons, but the resources sheets.  He conveniently “forgets” to do them during the lessons and then we have to spend a good portion of the afternoon going back and doing them, but we are working on that with him.

We are looking forward to the holidays.  I’m one of those holiday freaks, where my official start to the holiday season is November 1st, haha. :o)  The last 2 years we always took very long breaks from school during the holidays because everything was so chaotic, but this year we are planning to keep our schedule as normal as possible.  Yay Time4Learning! :o)