7 Quick Takes Friday

1.

We are excited about our home team going to the Super Bowl this year! The children colored Panthers helmets to celebrate the news. Margaret felt very clever remembering and writing down "A Christmas Story" quote to her drawing: "P.S. Yl soot yr i ot"!

Margaret just loves coloring and writing these days. I often stumble upon her coloring quietly in the Colorama book--where she'll stay for an hour!

2.

The cough and fever slowly made its way through the kids, John first, Joseph and Thomas second, and then the girls. I took the boys to the doctor and, happily, they had no infections (e.g., ear).

So sick, he fell asleep while I was reading aloud

I always think it remarkable that kids with coughs can seem to be getting better during the daytimes, but the nighttime reveals the truth of their hacking, wretched misery, depriving Mama of sleep. I made a prudent choice for my own sleep-deprived mental health and to avoid excessive loss of temper to do half-time school all week.

Sick, red eyes at the doctor's office

3.

Lots of baby cuteness this week . . .

Thomas has now tried about one scant teaspoon each of sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots, and avocado--the latter of which is his top favorite, causing him to learn forward and open his baby bird mouth for each bite.

Thomas can't pull up to standing, but if I lean him against something, like the crib rail, he can hold himself. (Safety note: He never gets laid in the crib while awake, and he can't pull up, which is why the crib mattress isn't yet lowered.)

You know your six-month-old is a big ol' baby when one easily makes the mistake of putting the three-year-old's shirt on him, and it fits pretty good. Also, I learned this week that he's no small three-year-old: we went for Joseph's well-child visit, and he is in the 94th percentile for height and 84th percentile for weight. (I looked at my past records to learn that our first three kids were pretty consistently in the 40th to 50th percentiles.)

This baby is so close to proper crawling!

My books, organized so neatly by genre, are already in danger, as we are all too soon about to enter the stage in which the baby crawls to bookshelves and pulls all the books off the shelves repeatedly. Look what this boy is doing already this week!

4.

Sleeping boys are so precious!

5.

As I've said, I love the aspect of homeschooling that one can speed up or slow down per subject, per kid, as needed.

Last year, I determined to teach John cursive because he was in second grade and that's when one "should" learn. His fine motor skills were not ready, it was a crash-and-burn situation, and I gave up. Somehow, over the summer--and, frankly, we'd entirely dropped penmanship as a subject for about a year during our survival months--his fine motor skills made a big leap in ability and his script handwriting became much better. A couple of weeks ago, he's the one who picked up his cursive penmanship book and began writing and it was so much better! (No photo of his work.)

In the meanwhile, Mary (first grade) has taught herself cursive from John's copybook and Margaret (4) is desperately trying to copy her big sister.

So, John was "behind" on cursive and two kids are "ahead" on cursive, so I'm going to start teaching cursive to all now. I love that flexibility. My first step is to start writing all their daily assignments in cursive to accustom them to reading it. They scoffed at me, informed me that they could read it just fine, and proved it to me. Who knew? Not me.

Mama writing in cursive

And then we'll launch into cursive penmanship lessons!

6.

I will tolerate much in an effort to keep the three-year-old happy and calm during school. On Friday morning (home sick from CCE), he was sitting on my lap--of course, not happy elsewhere--putting star stickers on his face while I taught math.

Cute boy with star sticks on his face,
John doing spelling on the floor in the background

So focused on teaching math to Mary and dictating spelling to John was I that only after school, after teaching lessons, after scolding with solemn face at times, was I in the bathroom and notice that the boy had put star stickers all over my face as well! I must have looked pretty silly while I doled out discipline at times, but the big kids never said a word!

That's some disciplinarian!

7.

Bonus reading: two articles on technology and children that crossed my computer screen this week . . .

"A Thought-Provoking Experiment Showed What Happens When Children Don't Have the Internet for a Whole Day" (and really, would this be much different with us adults?)

"Ten Reasons Why Handheld Devices Should Be Banned"


Check out more 7 Quick Takes Friday at This Ain't the Lyceum.