He Who Began a Good Work

I thought I'd start today by giving each of my kids screen names. I'm choosing Winnie the Pooh characters. My daughter will be known as Rabbit. My twin sons will be Pooh and Tigger. If you knew my kids, you'd know why I picked each of those . In this photo, Tigger is on the left, Pooh center, and Rabbit is on the right.

Each of my kids has had health issues. Rabbit had allergies and food sensitivities, and had bladder reflux. Tigger has a heart murmur. And Pooh was diagnosed with fluid on his left kidney before he was born. Rabbit still has food sensitivities, but everything else seems better. Tigger's heart murmur is actually getting better. But, Pooh, on the other hand, still has fluid on his left kidney, and now has fluid on his right kidney. Today he had a Renal Scan at Children's Hospital. He was sedated, and all went well. We won't get results back for a few days. The scan will show the rate at which his kidneys are emptying, which essentially tells us how well they are functioning. He really seems healthy, otherwise. It's hard to think that there is anything wrong.

One of the reasons my husband and I chose to home school was Rabbit's food allergies and sensitivities. It just seemed easiest to keep her at home and make home made meals that I know won't affect her adversely. But, then I think, what if Pooh needs more tests or surgery or other things that will interrupt home school. I have to remind myself, the reason we chose this path was so we could be more flexible; so we could meet the individual needs of our children. It's not that I'm concerned about the outcome of the tests - Pooh is in God's hands. It's me wanting my way in the day to day operations of things here.

I want to start the middle of August, and finish by the end of May. I want my time and my way. I know this is selfish and wrong. I need to let God lead. I'll get there. A work in progress... Philippians 1:6 says, "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." Amen.

The Lazy Days of Summer

This summer we're doing "school light" - reading, math and art. For reading we're using the 3rd grade level Pathway readers. I really enjoy these. I'm not sure how much my daughter does, but she is liking it better than All Things Even Frisky - Abeka's summer reader. My daughter has trouble with relationship conflict in a story, and All Things Even Frisky starts out with relationship conflict.

Math is just continuing Math-U-See's Beta book. We're on lesson 23 now. I think my daughter is getting the concepts just fine. Sometimes I wish my daughter would work faster, but that's okay. I think we're even going to bring math with us on vacation, so we can get done before we start this fall.

For art we are going through Drawing With Children, by Mona Brooks. It has been good so far. I like the way she teaches us to look for the shapes of things. I found some lesson plans on the MFWFamilies yahoo group, and have been using those. We shoot for 3 days a week, but that doesn't always happen.

It has been hard to come up with a schedule for the summer. I have lots of little projects (and some big projects) I want to get done. And, I want the kids to have plenty of free time to play. But, I'm having a real hard time sticking to any schedule. Plus, we've not been doing much in the way of fun things. I think I'm kind of a home body, and unless someone invites us, I often don't take the initiative for a fun thing. The other thing I'm seeing, though, is the kids do so much better with some structure as far as not arguing and fighting as much.

Some of my summer projects: put my Exploring Countries and Cultures lesson plans into Home School Tracker Plus (HST+); make triangle math fact cards for multiplication and division; teach my daughter how to clean her room; work on chore training with all the children. I'm about half-way through the first one. But, beyond that I've been stuck in trying to help the kids get along when they play. I get interrupted so much some days, that I don't even feel like trying to get anything done. Just doing laundry, keeping the house clean, and the small amount of school we do each day is taking so much time because I have to keep stopping to work on things with the kids.

Maybe someday I'll find a way to get it all done! But, I don't think it's going to be this summer.