Despite the title of my post, it is actually a Friday morning. That seems the best time to collect my thoughts. The kids don't bother me as they know I will have them start school. John is busy with his marble works and I've had my cup of coffee.
Let me first air a frustration. Last week, for the first time, I was able to download pictures from my phone quite easily. I even found them immediately on the computer and uploaded them to this, at the time, future post. Hurrah! I had mastered the technology. Then this morning, I got to upload some additional pictures and the computer won't even recognize my phone exists. Which leads me to believe those people a hundred years ago that maybe got one picture of their kids were really living the dream. They didn't spend hours trying to get two unliving devices to talk to each other. They probably spent that time actually talking to living devices...stupid technology.
But, when I'm not trying to earn a degree in computer science, I spend quite a bit of time with this guy. This past week it occurred to me to stagger the start times of the kids with their schoolwork. This has worked very well. I can spend a little time with each child, and the ones who are not working play with John. It only took me three weeks to come up with this system. So far, John has played football with Dom, veterinarian with Molly, and wizard's duel with Will. Dom also spends a little time each morning tutoring John on various college logos. As he pointed it out, it is also a nice way for John to practice his letters. Which he loves. He has a couple of letter puzzles that he plays with regularly. He refers to them as "My Letters". He will randomly point out letters in parking lots and in books. "Is that a P?". You know it is, John...
The lady who lived in our house before us had the prettiest yard on the block. This is not necessarily the case, but we do try (we do have lovely children, though). One thing I knew I could not take care of was roses. I watched my mom baby hers over the years. She had special clippers for them that we were not to use on any other plant. I have too may kids to also be concerned about my flowers (granted, she had the same amount of kids...but, whatever...you get my point). So, last spring I cut back the rose in the front garden. It ended up coming back anyway and bloomed on the anniversary of my Grandpa's death. He had loved roses and had several in his garden. Mom always asked his advice on growing them and would talk about his rose garden. It was a lovely coincidence or maybe he had a hand in bringing this one back. Because it was definitely not me.
In other outdoor activities, we have spent many hours at parks over the last few weeks. I had some guilt that John wasn't getting to the park nearly as often as the boys and Molly had when they were his age. But, between weekly visits to the library with a visit to the park and three hours of soccer practice that takes place right next to a park, he is getting ample time. So is everyone else. He loves the slides. So much that despite having hurt his ankle last night, he continued to hobble up the stairs to take many rides down the slides. His ankle seems much better this morning, so it seems the extra activity didn't hurt it too much. By the way, watching a two year old limp is a pretty sad sight. He would limp to the slide, cry a little, go down the slide and laugh and smile and get back up and do the whole thing over again. Sometimes Molly or Will or I would carry him around to minimize his walking, but he did not want to stop.
A few weeks ago, the curse of technology on my life continued as a tablet we purchased for a road trip refused to let me download any apps. The nice gentleman at the store tried to help, but eventually even he conceded it was no use. John was with me at the time and he gave me a couple of display phones for him to play with. John was not fooled, but the older kids had a really good time pretending they had actual phones. I'm trying to teach them that they aren't all that they are cracked up to be...but, that is a lesson they will have to learn in their own time.
School is going really well. All of my children continue to be above average just like in Lake Wobegon. Molly prefers I treat all of her lessons like a task in The Great British Baking Show. There are days I have the energy to do this and her giggle is totally worth the extra effort. And there are days I do not have the energy to do this and the guilt is enormous. Luckily, the boys are more than happy to step in...but, then their work does not get done. So the dilemma is great.
When they are not working on school they are playing with Legos, reading (Dom recently finished The Hobbit and Will isn't far behind. Will through Molly for a loop the other day when they were doing a wizard's duel and he said his name was 'Gandalf'), playing soccer, listening to the Hamilton soundtrack and reenacting duels or The Battle of Yorktown with water guns, or running races with anyone they can convince to do them. Or watching Lego themed cartoons. Now that we have finished the recent season of The Great British Baking Show we are ending our evenings with some superhero cartoon they have discovered. And they are pretty entertaining. Much more so because of the laughter from the kids.
Now it is time to get someone started on their lessons and continue to try and get my phone and computer to talk to each other.
1 comment:
Spelling word: Rochambeau!
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