In Need of a Change

The past few weeks haven't been particularly easy for me. Molly has been sick with a little cold and cough. She wakes up coughing and then can't go back to sleep. This of course means I don't get to sleep either. She also has "walrus tusks," as I often refer to them, that need constant wiping and these keep me from leaving her at Kid's Corner at the YMCA. So I haven't been able to keep to my exercise routine either. I count on that hour each day to read while I do the stair climber or eliptical. Plus just the energy rush exercise gives me has been lacking. I could just sum up the last few weeks for me as tired. Tired from lack of sleep, tired from lack of exercise and tired from loud, busy kids that are cooped up to much. You would think, with all this time at home, we would get a lot of school work done. That has not be the case.

We have been pretty good about scripture reading each morning. And we have the first three Articles of Faith down pat and the kids really know the Primary song for January. We have even done great with Math. My kids love Math and don't really complain about doing one exercise a day. Sophie's math is getting harder and it requires me to sit and actually go through the textbook with her each day before she does the exercise. If she is calm enough and doesn't get herself worked up, she does great! She usually gets 20 min of Timez Attack after finishing her exercise. She is getting so much better at her multiplication facts, and that is really showing in her attitude toward her assignments. Ian is doing so great with his math. He is reading the directions himself now and the math concepts are coming so easily. I knew the reading was just slowing him down. That and the fact that he keeps writing his numbers backward. We are still working on that one.

As far as everything else goes.... it has been really hit and miss. My boys are having a hard time being pulled away from all their legos, Indiana Jones and Star wars play. They are usually off in their bedroom fighting some battle or rescuing "Indiana Marian" from some danger. They really don't want me to pull them from their fun to do school work. And in my tired state I haven't been as insistant.

Ian has been doing a few pages of his Explode the Code workbook. He is now on book 2 1/2 and he is reading really well. When he draws pictures throughout the day he often labels them now. Putting words on the paper is no longer something only Sophie does. I have tried to get Sophie to keep up with her copywork and language arts, but.... it is proving to be our battleground. She hates writing of any kind. She doesn't like having to copy poems or quotes. She doesn't like to write anything for science or history either so it isn't just the language arts she doesn't like it is the act of writing that she is fighting. I don't know exactly how to work through this but... we will need to try something different because the tantrums are getting worse. She is not just yelling at me about it, but she is throwing her pencils and ripping her papers. In my worn out state, my patience is thin, so she has been spending more and more time in her room so she can "cool off".

On a lighter note... Sophie has been learning to sew. I got a book at the library with patterns to make fleece animals. We have a bit of fleece left over from other projects so we broke out the sewing machine and made a few. This is the first time I have let her doing the sewing on the machine. She was a little scared but was so excited too. We started with this penguin. and have made a hedgehog for one of her friends, two snakes for the boys and a horse as a birthday present for her doll. (She got her doll last year for Valentines day. )

We have listened to a number of Audio books. We finished Kit's story book collection, The Light Princess, and have started King of the Wind.

The boys have made sure we read a lot of picture books each day. My rule is to read them at least three each, but often we get through many more. If they can get me in the story telling chair and Molly is asleep, then they keep me there with book after book. We have read Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs a few times and even picked up the sequel Pickles to Pittsburgh because they finally got to see the Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs movie.

I can't say we have done much History or Science. We have read through our Story of the World chapters but that is about it. We don't even get through the go along books I pick up at the library. And Science hasn't been happening either. Unless you count the many Magic School Bus books I have read recently. The kids love the Magic School bus!

I think I just need a good nights sleep and everything will look differently.