This funny little thing called school got started about six weeks ago . . . and this year the academy has grown to three students! (With a little hopeful added to the mix :)
Brennen is keeping busy reading his My Father's World words, illustrating pictures for his Animal Tales book, and zooming through Math (he likes to do 5 or 6 lessons a day instead of just one :) He's intuitive about his lessons, even reading the directions aloud without my assistance (there are so many days when I wonder why I even hang around, they are so grand on auto-pilot!). "Circle the blue cat. Put an X on the green square." Color me impressed!
GabberDoodles is loving the Thomas Kinkade Art program we sprung for this year. Dad is their art instructor (while I'm at Bible study), but I've watched a few of the DVD sessions and Mr. K is a very good teacher. Of course, he can say, "Draw this line here, this line here," and boom, he's got a realistic-looking lighthouse with live seagulls fighting to get through the window to land on it! I've still just got this line here and this line here :) Oh how quickly my children are surpassing my talents in the arts (don't even get me started on violin . . .) :o)
Caelan is finding that her 4th grade books are a bit more intimdating than the skip easily through 3rd grade material she zipped through last year. She's having to do outlines and highlight information, and it is actually making her think and draw her own conclusions instead of filling the blank in a sentance that was taken directly from the reading material. She is enjoying the Bible CD Roms we threw into the mix, and most of the time likes the Spanish Rosetta Stone program we are working through (Brennen again is instinctive. He just picks up the lessons like he was born in Spain--I wasn't even going to have him start til next year, but kid flies through!)
Graysen, although not officially in school, is majoring in comedy nonetheless . . . I've been saving up a list of all his straight up goofiness. No time like the present to share, right?
1. He is really growing up, and becoming more verbal. He came in the back door today after being tattled on for putting the downspouts up to his elbows to form robot arms (again). As the door slammed behind him, he balled up two little fists at his sides, squnched up his nose, stomped his foot, and said angrily, "I am so far-us-ter-ated!" Sometimes it is soo difficult to keep a straight face and be a good parent :)
2. My brother, CJ, was telling a story about two neighbor kids who were out cruising in their little battery powered Jeep. Somehow the driver hit the gas and ran CJ over! CJ described being pinned beneath the toy car as it high centered on his back (waiting for mom to come to the rescue). Graysen was absorbing the story with wide eyes. Then he asked CJ--who, remember, was telling the story-- "Did you die?" Hee-hee :)
3. He calls the wet & stick tatoos . . . "tick-tack-toos." :)
4. For months, Graysen has struggled with staph infections that pretty much leave his little eyes swollen and sometimes even bleeding. (This has gotten soooo much better since a lady at church wrapped his bleeding fingers with bandaids, which G insisted on wearing every day for the next six weeks! Finally the skin healed, the entry point of all the infection was eliminated, and he kicked the habit he's had since the ultrasound pictures showed his little fingers in his mouth, whoohoo!) So anyway, we were watching So You Think You Can Dance (can you tell how long I've been away from the blog? :) and G saw a girl with dark stage makeup all around her eyes. He looked at her sympathetically and said, "She has red eyes like me."
5. We got this dog . . . oh how Graysen loves this dog. Now does the dog love Grayen? Ehhhh . . . G will either drive this dog crazy or the dog is just going to eat him for a snack one day. So far, puppy nibbles are all he's experienced, but Buck saw Graysen literally grab the dog by the tail to keep him from running outside, like that's the stop handle, oh boy! Well, about three weeks ago, we took the puppy in to the vet. He climbed up on the scale, got down, and Graysen climbed up on the scale...it was a tie! 4 month old puppy and almost 4 year old boy--both 44 pounds! We've joked about how this dog could grow "as big as a horse." Graysen apparently misunderstood. He told me one day, "Mommy, I can't wait til our puppy grows up to be a pony!" He thought the dog would actually become a horse when it grew up :) Another day, he threw his arms around Chauncey and declared, "You are the best dog in the whole, wide . . . town." Didn't want the dog to get an even bigger head, I guess :)
I have to throw a dog one in for Brennen too . . . I was explaining to the kids that Chauncey was going to the vet for a few days to have a surgery. My hope was that blending this into a conversation about my mom having her knee surgery at the same time would distract the kids from asking too many questions about what Chauncey would be having "fixed" at the vet. Yeah, didn't quite work out that way.
"So Chauncey needs to get his knee fixed too?"
"No."
"Then why does he have to be gone for three days? I will miss him, what is his surgery for?"
"Well, you know how at the end of The Price is Right, Drew Carey says, 'Have your pets spayed or neutered?' Well, we are being good listeners."
Blank stares.
"Okay, umm, well we want to make sure that Chauncey doesn't have any puppies."
Brennen in amazement: "Boy dogs can have PUPPIES!!?" Oh dear.
"No . . ." (we haven't had "the talk" with our kids yet, and this was not how I wanted to launch it :) "We don't want a mommy dog to show up at our doorstep with a box full of puppies that look like Chauncey someday, who wants to go outside and play?"
"I want a box of puppies!"
"That would be awesome!"
"Let's go outside and play!" :) Aughh!! Suffice it to say, there will be no puppies that look like Chauncey, and the birds & the bees will have to wait for another opportunity (when mom and dad are both prepared and present :)
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