Mr. Inventor

Make a Smilebox slideshow

It's just the day after Christmas and it hasn't slowed down Holland. He was out inventing early this morning. My mom came by for breakfast (Egypt invited her) and snapped these pictures of him. I don't even know where he got that hand truck. Do we even own a hand truck? Mom said that she asked what the extension cord was for. He said it was his brake. He tied it to a tree.

Seriously. Discovery Channel hasn't found us yet? Forget balloon boy. Forget the White House crashers. Come find us. We're honest. We're hardworking. We don't try to fool the media. I need a budget for his experiments. He just came downstairs and showed me a boat he made for Egypt's little horses. I gave him a glue gun and some craft sticks for Christmas and he's built a bird house for gramma and now this boat.

Thank You Shriners

I took Egypt to her Shriners appointment last week. Super Hero had the day off (I really need to find another way to say that. He was home, unpaid....). So he stayed home with Holland while I drove up to OHSU. I've been up there so many times, you'd think it would be no big deal. Have you SEEN this place? It's huge. It should have its own zip code. I had directions for where to turn into the parking structure. They are actually not part of OHSU and if you park on their property, big trouble. I missed the parking garage the first time. It didn't even look like it was somewhere you could turn. The garage itself was something to behold. My van isn't long and obnoxious, but I could barely make the turns and there were cars parked alongside the ramp the way up.

But we were on time and filled out some more paperwork and waited with our beeper to be called. Everyone was so nice and after being seen by the pediatric rheumatologist, physical therapist and occupational therapist, they said anytime we need any services to just call! They didn't think she needed another injection at this point and to just watch for any stiffness or sore joints. The physical therapist gave us some pencil grips to help her hold her pencil correctly. And some ideas for exercises at home.

We're so thankful that God has given us access to these services for free until she's an adult.

Mmmm, Bread

If Holland hadn't stolen my camera, I could have taken a picture of the beautiful loaves of bread I've been slaving over for the past two days. Slaving, as in watching them rise, transferring to a clean bowl, putting in the refrigerator, letting rise again, kneading a bit, putting in two bread pans and baking. Whew. And they tasted pretty darn good to boot!

I bought this great book recommended by a friend. Her husband is a cooking fool (well, she is too, looking at all her Facebook status updates) and he's always making bread. I bought it on Amazon. It's called Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers. The title alone should have scared the socks off me. I'm not a serious bread baker. I'm not even a serious baker. But I'm a serious eater, so I figured that I qualified in some way to buy this book. I read through some of the techniques in the front of the book, just to familiarize myself with the vocabulary. I had experience with bread making before - and not just throwing flour and yeast and water in a bread machine and flipping a switch. I actually learned to hand knead. Doesn't seem a like a big deal, but when your Kitchen Aid mixer starts to levitate on your counter, you'd better know how to knead or you'll be buying a new machine. I think it actually growled at me.

The recipe calls for a starter. Not too hard. A little hand kneading and throw it in a bowl for 5 hours. Then I even got to refrigerate it and forget about it until today. I realized that I should have cooked the brown rice before taking the starter out of the fridge to come to room temp. Oh well. Make a mental note of that for next time. The recipe calls for two different types of starters. My friend recommended doubling the recipe and using all of the same starter. Good thing. I think one starter is enough for a novice. The only thing I wasn't completely familiar with was testing to make sure the dough was ready for the final rise. There's a technique called a "windowpane" test. To make sure that the dough is the right consistency. If you've over-kneaded the dough, there's no way to add water or flour to fix it. Luckily, I never reached the point of no return - which the author recommends you throwing it out if you've achieved this feat. It actually stretched the right way. I even gave a bit to the kids to play with. They were fascinated by it. Punching it, kneading it, rolling it and Holland even snuck a bite.

The house smelled wonderful. Romania thought I was cooking pizza. Nah. That was probably just the provolone chicken I was baking while they were playing racquetball with Super Hero. My, my. What's with all this cooking and baking? I'll analyze that after I eat some more of the homemade almond roca sitting in my kitchen. Talk about cooking skills. Try bringing butter and brown sugar to a hard crack without a candy thermometer. Now that's some skills. Thanks, gramma for all those lessons on Little Grandma's Christmas suckers or I'd have no idea what that even meant.

Something's Missin'

Somethin's missin' alright. How about my digital camera, half a dozen rechargeable batteries, two night light chargers, and the phone cord. I have no idea what he did with this stuff. The other day, Holland opened a brand new package of No. 2 pencils and used packing tape and some printer paper to make a sail boat for his bath. It's hard not to be irritated. Sure. To you it's probably "fun" and "inventive". To me, it's just annoying to find projects assembled all over the house that use items that I need or destroy things that are still working. My house has become a science lab. Where's Bill Nye the Science Guy when you need him? Why isn't the Discovery Channel knocking on my door to document this? Maybe someday we'll harness his power for the greater good of mankind.

I'm So Flexible

That title makes me want to laugh out loud. This is just life now: Be flexible or go crazy. Super Hero's hours have been cut at work. We are finally feeling the effects of the bad economy. Just when you hear that things are picking up, his company is taking a hit. He lost 3 days of work last week and two this week. So I'm flexible. I work around him. Which isn't all that easy when you're trying to homeschool, clean house, do laundry, cook dinner, drive and drop off kids, deal with doctor appointments. I was hoping he'd see how busy I am and give me some slack. He has helped, but sometimes (and moms everywhere know this), it's more work to have them home, even if you think you'll get some help. It's too much 'splainin' (in the words of Ricky Ricardo).

Yesterday Super Hero took Holland to his OT appointment. That was such a big help, because it gave me time to work on sewing projects for this bazaar I'm doing tomorrow at Romania's school. But when they got home, I had to pop him back in the car, get Egypt, get schoolwork together, drive to my sister's, drop off Egypt, pick up my nephews, drive to their charter school for fencing and Holland's speech class. Then work on school work in a noisy room with a bunch of teenagers playing guitar. Then take my nephews home, come back home with Egypt and Holland for lunch and more homeschooling. Which, I have to say, is pretty much a lost cause after all that. Talk about being flexible. I was getting ready to do more school with Holland when Super Hero, who had been perusing Craigslist found some free stuff. Of course Holland wanted to tag along. (That's actually what's fun about homeschooling - being able to do things at a moment's notice). They drove up to Kelso, WA in hopes of getting a table and 4 chairs, a snowboard, snowboots, a new bike, a new tv and some other things. Of course, it being free, I didn't get my hopes up. So when they came home around dinner and Holland bounds in the house "look what we got!" I was ready for some big ticket item. It was a digital TV antenna. "Just like grandma's!". Seriously. That's what thrilled him. Oh. And a big bag of potting soil. Yup. Not kidding. They drove to Kelso from Oregon City for a tv antenna and a bag of potting soil. But it got them out of the house, let me do more sewing and spend some time with Egypt before retrieving Romania from the bus stop.

So, while we're on the topic of flexibility, here we are on Wednesday and I feel like we've done no school at all this week. I know that's not true, but sometimes it feels like we move at the speed of a snail going backwards. Super Hero had a dentist appointment this morning. So he offered to take Romania to the bus (third time this week!!). I didn't even shower until 10.30. Woohoo! And Holland didn't get out of bed until 9.45. We had a leisurely morning of spelling games online, reading and mopping the floor. This idea is all Holland. He decided (my inner skeptic came up with this) that it would be a lovely idea to mop the floor for mom. How do you discourage a 10 year-old that wants to mop your kitchen floor? "Oh shoot, honey. Don't mop the floor, we need to do school". This is his way of getting out of work.

And now that it's 12.30, I'd better eat lunch and get him back to work. Mariel of Redwall is waiting.

Good Report from the Rheumatologist

I took Egypt to see the rheumatologist on Thursday. It had only been a month since her last appointment, but we thought she might need another injection after only three months. We've been going to the physical therapist once a month and it seems to have helped stave off the need for another injection. There is no change in her range of motion for her knee and the thumb and jaw look the same too. That's such good news. I wasn't looking forward to taking her in again.

Next week is a full schedule - including going back to the orthotist. I misplaced Egypt's insert for her shoe. The problem is we keep switching it depending on which shoes or boots she wears. It's probably somewhere lost in a basket of clean laundry. But instead of trying to find the proverbial needle, I'm just going to have another one made. Too bad that insurance views this as a cosmetic thing or I'd get 3 or 4 of them.

Now I'm off to madly sew for a few hours. Super Hero took all three kids to the health club. Every Sunday there is a free racquetball class that the boys have been taking and love it. Then Egypt will swim with daddy and I'll get some more work done for Thursday's bazaar at school. Yesterday I got 10 child aprons sewn and 1 adult.

Cooking School

Today Holland wanted to make homemade french fries. And of course, I was all for that. He got the bag of potatoes from the garage and asked if he could peel them. Of course - I assumed it would be his job. I told him to put them in cold water after peeling so they wouldn't turn brown. I left the kitchen to do something else and when I came back, this is what I found. Of course before I got mad at him, I took a picture. He peeled 20 potatoes! Hey -now we can put him to work on those Thanksgiving potatoes. It took several hours to actually cook them all. I'm crazy and cook them twice. They're nice and soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Potato perfection.

Speech Therapy. Finally.

Yesterday I met with Holland's IEP team. A meeting was called when I told them I wanted to drop speech services. Too complicated, but basically it was scheduling conflict and too many activities (meaning doctor appointments!) for Holland. Last year we had the speech person come to our house and it worked out great. This year the speech person gave me times she was available, but they conflicted with our school schedule and the fact that I don't want to leave the house everyday.

After having a private speech therapist evaluate him, I decided 20 minutes a week was not worth the hassle and there were many other things I couldn't drop.

I was all ready for disagreements to this, so I came prepared with the report from the private speech therapist and also my monthly schedule for the last two months. The open times were again presented (nothing had changed from our last conversation. I still couldn't do it). I explained that I was caring for two children with heavy medical needs and could not be leaving the house any more or drag all three with me to some grade school just because she serviced other students there. Finally, the director of the school suggested dropping Fencing. I haven't wanted to do this. I want him to follow through with something. He really is not liking it, but if we stopped everything just because he was frustrated, he wouldn't learn anything. The speech lady had an open time during his class. Since he's not enjoying fencing, I'm pulling him out and he'll do speech for the first 20-25 minutes. Then I'll find something for us to do while we wait for my nephews to finish the fencing class.

So, it's a pretty good compromise. I won't have to drive anywhere else and he can get free services (although I don't know how much good they'll do).

The Mother of All Inventions

When I'm not being irritated by Holland's inventions, I am impressed by his creativity. I don't know how he comes up with the contraptions he does. He usually takes things apart to make new things. His recent projects have included a motor of a fan hooked up to be a weed eater. He's built a luge out of a giant box and a couple of skateboards. He's used his sister's outdoor car, a large golf umbrella a skateboard and some other odds and ends from the garage and built something to ride on that he could actually steer. It's hard not to get annoyed by all this building, especially when he takes things apart that are not broken. I give him lots of opportunities to build (I let him take apart a washing machine for pete's sake!). Finally last night, he built something that I think is my favorite invention so far.

I was getting ready for bed and as is my routine went in to check on all the kids. You know, making sure no one was hanging off a bed or had fallen asleep with a gameboy stuck to their face. I walked into Holland's room and ran into a piece of string tied to his doorknob and was immediately hit with a foam dart. This ingenious inventor had rigged some of my sewing thread to his doorknob and attached it to his dresser and when it was tripped, it fired this foam dart. He asked me in the morning if I liked his trap. I told him I thought it was brilliant. That's when he told me it was actually for his sister!

Now if we could just harness this power for good.....

Yea for the OT

Another busy day. Today we had Holland's OT appointment after fencing. We did this last week and it was a disaster. He was literally bouncing off the walls by the time we got to the OT. He could not pay attention and his body was bumping into everything. He is really not wanting to do fencing. It's hard to know how far to push him. He refuses everything we offer. On Mondays I pick up Romania from the bus stop and we drive up to meet Super Hero in Portland. Holland goes with him and I take Romania to handbell practice. He kept crying saying he didn't want to go and wanted me to page dad and tell him I said it was okay not to go play at the club. I told him that Mondays were his night with dad and I didn't care what they did, but I was still dropping him off. I emailed dad and told him this. He needed to figure out what to do - I didn't care if they sat in the parking lot - just don't involve me. So getting him to do fencing has not been fun. He has working memory deficits that make it difficult for him to remember a sequence of things. He is also not very aware of what his body is doing and as a result got yelled at two weeks ago in fencing class for being a bit out of control. He did not want to go today, but I said we were still picking up his cousins and he needed to at least try. The first 30 minutes of the class are spent warming up. The kids play games and today the instructor asked which parents wanted to play against the kids. Everyone just sat there, so I jumped down off the stage and joined for a game of dodgeball with 20 kids. Eventually some other parents joined and it was fun. My legs still hurt from that. I consider it my exercise for the week.

After returning my nephews to their house and picking up Egypt, we drove straight up to Portland for the OT session. I was worried that it would be a repeat of last week. He fell asleep in the car ride up. Never a good sign. But he seemed alert when we went in and had many things to share with Camille. I sat in for the first 20 minutes and he did an awesome job listening and trying out the exercises. Some of them are very difficult for him because they require some upper body strength. He didn't complain once and each time Camille asked him to do it again, he did. I left for a bit to talk to the speech path about possible services and to ask her opinion of how to deal with this school situation. She has never worked in the school system but we talked with a PT who has been in public school and told me that I needed to lay out the reasons why it wouldn't work and them tell them "these are the circumstances that I will accept your services." I loved that. I want her to come with me! They keep saying ' oh you're in charge. Whatever the parent wants, it's your decision.' That's a bunch of hooey. What happens when you disagree with them is they bring in a table full of people all on their side and you show up bombarded with reasons why you need to listen to them. The wording she gave me was perfect for retaining control of Holland's education. If they're not going to provide speech by coming to our house, then I'm not going to accept their services. I would love to not have to pay for something, but it doesn't look like we'll make any improvements because the school speech path is only looking at the incorrect way he's making the words and not the underlying problem.

So say a little prayer on Thursday when I go in to face all the big wigs of the school district. After all, I'm just a mom who has no idea what the best thing for her son is (insert sarcasm if you didn't already).

3 Month Eye Check

I took Egypt to her 3 month eye check today. There was no real noticeable vision change (in my estimation, she missed about half of the pictures/letters). Doctor said we could wait three months or get glasses right now. Egypt was so excited and of course wanted to go pick out pink frames! I told her we would look, but probably not buy. When I got up to the window to schedule the next appointment, the woman says "that will be $44 please." I told her I already paid the co-pay. She told me that my insurance viewed the need for glasses as a 'medical' condition. Um. Hello? How is needing glasses not a vision reason? They are billing the need for glasses from the JRA, which in their eyes is a medical condition. I doubt that the JRA caused the near-sightedness, so it's not right that they bill it under medical instead of vision. She went back and asked the doctor if they could change it and he dropped the fee.

Then, since I only had Egypt with me, we drove to Costco and picked out two frames, which was cheaper than the FRAMES ONLY at the eye clinic! Crazy. She was a little sad leaving without the glasses. She was expecting to be able to walk out of there with new glasses. She informed me two weeks was way too long to wait.

I also had a bit of good news arrive in the mail the other day. About a month ago I applied for care through the local Shriner's Hospital. They do orthopedic care, burn care, spinal cord rehab and cleft lip/palate care. I got a letter saying that my application had been approved and our appointment is scheduled for mid-December. I really hope that they will be able to help us out. Holland's care is costing so much and Egypt's physical therapy, cortisone injections and shoe lifts are getting costly as well. Now I just have to call all her caregivers and ask that they send over her records.

On a side note, I called Holland's case manager for his IEP. I told her I needed to drop the speech goals. The times the speech person has available either don't work, or use up too much time (2 1/2 hours for a 20 minute appointment. Drive time, plus waiting until Romania gets out of school to drive him home). The case manager is calling a meeting to discuss the "inconvenient scheduling times". I told her that I do plenty of inconvenient things, but it's not just about the scheduling issue. There are too many transitions in Holland's school days. He has weekly doctor appointments, monthly doctor appointments, two outside the home classes, Egypt's doctor appointments, and oh yeah, actual school! We have to meet with our Educational Specialist once a week and then the added speech on top of that. Not only am I feeling overwhelmed with the schedule we're on, but I'm dealing with so many behavior issues right now. I think I'm going to type up my schedule for the next three months so this case manager can see that it's not just about me saying this is too much trouble. If she could only walk in my shoes for a week, I'm sure she'd sing a different tune. Maybe I'll just tell her to read my blog.

We Have Lift-Off

It was another busy Monday here. I feel like we're on a moving treadmill all day long. After dropping Romania at the bus stop and hurrying home to get ready for our weekly ES meeting, I got a call from Holland's school OT. She wanted to stop by to install some software for us. If you know anything about this software, you know that it took me about 8 months to actually track it down and get the school OT last year to install it on our computer. She always had an excuse of why it wasn't going to work out. Then the hard drive on our computer gave out and we lost all our CD installed software. So, gone was the Clicker 5. I mentioned at the annual IEP review that I would like to have it again and this morning she called wanting to come over. She knew we had our weekly meeting. She even changed the day she was working because Tuesdays and Wednesdays didn't work for us (how's that for accommodating?).

While we met with our ES, Ming Ming installed Clicker 5 and then showed me quickly how to navigate around to get started. She even offered to come over any time I needed help or wanted help with Holland's work. Such a change from last year's non-helpful OT.

After doing a bit of school, we left for Egypt's appointment with the orthotist. We barely got away with a shoe insert. She could have done a 1/2" insert, but then we would have to get an insert actually in the sole. They sand down the shoe and add the needed height. It starts at $90 a shoe and it would only be in one of her shoes. Plus she would grow out of them so fast. Insurance doesn't pay for this. They consider it cosmetic. Holland's inserts were covered because they are for his flat feet. I'm not sure how an uneven leg is considered cosmetic, but for now, we don't have to get the more expensive insert. Plus, now I have to get rid of all her cute shoes. Some of them are too shallow and she'll just walk out of the shoe.

We came home and did another paltry 30 minutes of school and then it was off to pick up Romania from the bus stop. We came home, I finished getting dinner ready, but we didn't have time to eat it (tired yet?) because I had to drop Romania off for handbell practice. Then I huffed on over to Bi-Mart to gets some Rx's and cat food. Egypt and Holland were just bouncing off the walls. Sometimes I just want to tie them together and string 'em along. It's just exhausting having kids with you while you're trying to run errands. I was hoping to pop into Goodwill and look for some jeans for the boys, but there was no way I was going anywhere else. Thankfully, Super Hero was home and he went to pick up Romania from handbells.

Tuesday looks to be even more tiring. Holland has his OT appointment in Portland; we have fencing class and I'm debating on whether I'll show up for speech or not. I'm going to have a speech evaluation for him at the same place where we do OT. I just don't think 20 minutes a week is enough and since we're already up there, might as well.

It's 6.52 and I feel like going to bed right now. Maybe nobody will miss me if I sneak off and lock my door. Yeah, right.

I Need a Personal Assistant

My life has become so complicated that I am now taking resumes for a personal assistant. The pay is what you'd expect - nothing! I'm having a hard time figuring out what I have to drop in order to continue being a sane person. I did not start out the school year thinking that having Holland take two classes would put such a snag in everyday life. But now I have to add a weekly occupational therapy appointment for him and a weekly physical therapy appointment for Egypt. She will need another cortisone injection and she has trouble gripping a pencil because of her affected thumb. She needs some intervention so her joints don't freeze up. Luckily I can do these two appointments at the same time. But it means driving into Portland and that sucks time from the already limited schooling time.

Tuesdays Holland takes Fencing class and I drop Egypt at my sister's house and take her two oldest boys to the class. I got a call from the Speech Path and we are trying to figure out when she will do the 20 minutes of speech that's on his IEP. Sheesh. Really? Only 20 minutes? Why bother? I'm trying to decide if I want to drag Egypt with me to another school building and sit in the office while Holland has his speech. And this could happen when Romania has no school on Fridays. I am thinking about driving out to Springwater, letting Holland have his speech session and work in Romania's class. But in order to make it to Egypt's new handchimes class (did you see the video? She just LOVES it!), I would have to leave Springwater before school is out.

I'm running out of daylight hours to do everything. None of this scheduling dilemma takes into consideration all the trouble I'm having keeping Holland on task. He argues about absolutely everything. Keeping him focused is near impossible. You'd think I was asking him to walk on hot coals when I ask him to write something. All he wants to do is sit and listen to me read. We are reading "Mattimeo" out loud. It's the third book in the Redwall series. We read history out loud and he draws while I read. I read all his science out loud. Do you see a pattern? I'm exhausted and feel like I accomplish nada on a daily basis. How's that for feeling motivated? I'm beginning to think that someone else can do a better job. Romania complains almost daily that he doesn't like school and wants to come home. I ignore Egypt all day long. I do NOTHING with her. People are freaking out that I don't have her in preschool. That's just what I need. One more place to drive to. I just shoo her out of the school room and once in a while let her sit on the floor and try to attend to two kids. Holland gets so distracted and can't do anything on his own. If I try to help Egypt, he walks off or sits and complains that I'm not helping him.

If you want to feel real good about yourself, homeschool a kid with special needs. That'll put you in your place.

Handchimes class

Romania did a handbells camp this summer. He loved it so much, we are now doing a Monday night class. The instructor asked how old Egypt was. I said she'd be 5 in a few weeks. She invited her to join a hand chimes class for younger kids. Here she is (Holland decided to try it too - he's in the green shirt)

A Busy Bee and the Rheumatologist

Today is a very hectic day. After I dropped Romania at the bus stop, I came home to drop Holland with my mom and take Egypt to her rheumatology appointment. Holland has a ceramics class on Thursdays, so my mom took him there and I drove to Emanuel for Egypt's appointment. After lunch, I have Holland's annual review IEP meeting, pick up Romania, then drive up to Portland for another doctor's appointment at 5. I'm tired just typing that all!

Egypt's rheumatologist said that she has two more joints affected. He checks the affected joint each appointment, but also checks non-affected, because it can happen fairly quickly. He noticed a slight deviation in her jaw. He measured how far she can open her mouth - which was good - but her jaw deviates to the left. There is no swelling so far, but we have to come back in 2 months (instead of 3) to check it again. I went to an information meeting one time and saw the horrible things that arthritis in the jaw could do to a person's face. I'm totally freaked out by that. She also has a thumb affected. He actually thinks it may have been affected before and he didn't see it. But the way it moves makes him think that it's not a recently affected joint. So we are now looking at the possibility of polyarticular JRA because of the smaller joints involved. She was diagnosed with pauciarticular JRA because of the larger joint and only being one. If a child has bigger joints involved, it's more likely that it will stay pauciarticular. But now that she has smaller joints affected, the diagnoses has changed.

We also have to look into getting lifts for her shoes. Her right leg is growing faster and each time we go in, there is a bigger discrepancy in the difference of length. Now there is over a centimeter. He's afraid if we don't address this, she will continue to keep her right leg bent to compensate for the length difference.

Almost a Life-Changing Day

Every day I pick Romania up from the bus hub. It's actually my old high school building. I park the van and then Egypt and Holland and I get out and wait on the sidewalk. I parked the van on the opposite side of where the bus actually stops. When Romania got off the bus, I took Egypt's hand to cross the street and turned to Holland to tell him we were leaving. I assumed he was behind me on the right and I walked across with Egypt and Romania. When I was crossing, I saw a city bus half a block away and just continued on to the van. When I got there, I realized Holland had not come with us. He was talking to a boy in the doorway of another parked van. I decided not to call him, because I was afraid in doing that, he would run across the street. Just as the city bus is coming down the block we're in, Holland sees that we've crossed the street and starts to run toward us! I yelled and yelled for him to stop. I play it over and over in my head. If I had not seen him, he would have gotten run over. The bus driver barely had time to stop. I waved him to cross and he just yelled at me that I didn't yell "bus!". This just reinforces his inability to think before he acts. God was watching out for him yesterday for sure!

Some Great Websites

As a homeschooler, you're always on the lookout for good curriculum, fun and interesting websites and of course, good deals. I belong to a homeschooling co-op. It was free to sign up and they offer great discounts on curriculum, website memberships, field trip info, conference schedules and of course, freebies. My favorite.

Today I was going through their website because I wanted to find a deal on a membership for BrainPop. Romania's class has been using BrainPopJr. at school and I've been debating whether I should get it or not. I found a discount link and also found some great websites for free curriculum, games and interactive websites. Here are a few of the ones I bookmarked.

A Game A Day has brainteasers, word games, trivia and crosswords to challenge your knowledge, problem solving and critical thinking.

Story Online is a website that has people from the Screen Actors Guild reading books. There are activities and lesson ideas for each book. Holland and I listened to "Enemy Pie" read by Camryn Manheim. It was cute.

Xpeditions is from National Geographic. Lesson plans, maps, interactive fun, and xpedition hall - an interactive "museum".

Alder Plantetarium has great links to astronomy activities, showcases current exhibits, shows a current moon status and has a neat activity to chart the stars in your area and send in your results. They also have free podcasts to find out what celestial and man-made objects may be in your night sky and recent solar activity. These are only a few of the countless activities you can find on this website. One of my favorite so far and great since we are studying astronomy this year!

Parent Child Education gives tips, advice and activities for almost anything you could need. The very first page caught my attention because it shows how to teach a child to hold a pencil properly. I wish I had found this before Holland got used to his grip. They are mostly language based activities and videos to teach how to tie your shoes, put on a coat, letter-sound games and I saw a couple papier mache crafts.

Chess Kids is a website that - you guessed it - teaches kids to play chess! There is a beginner level that you can challenge a virtual opponent at the end of your lessons; there is an "Improvers" section that teaches famous moves and strategies. They say there are 3 years' worth of free lessons (refers to how long it would take in a school setting).

Have fun exploring all these great websites. And better yet - sign up for Homeschool Buyer's Co-Op and you can see for yourself all the great resources that are just a click away.

Busy Weekend

Do you ever feel like you've had a really busy weekend and then can't remember what you did that kept you busy? That's what I feel like this weekend. We did a lot, but I feel like we didn't DO anything. On Saturday while I was returning books to the library, I realized that the city was having a Fire/Safety Awareness day. So I came back home and got the kids and Super-Hero to come down so we could take a close-up look at some fire trucks. They got to ride a fire truck that Oregon City had used in 1947 and we also got a ride in the back of a police car. Those seats are not comfortable and I can't imagine anyone over 5'10" fitting in there! We bumped into some people from Romania's school and got some free ice cream.

On Sunday after church, Super-Hero took the boys to a birthday party and I packed up my serger that wasn't threading properly to have it looked at. After getting it fixed, I drove to a fabric store just to buy some good thread and $65 worth of fabric later, realized I hadn't even purchased the thread. I cannot just walk into a fabric store without buying something for a project.

Then around 5.30 I got a call from the gal who fixed our computer. She did an awesome job - getting rid of a virus, saving all my files to DVD's and CD's, installing new anti-spyware software and a virus protection program and even gave me a hard drive when I got scammed from someone on Craigslist. When she was leaving from working on it the first time, Holland showed her his setup in the garage with our old computer. I have no idea what was wrong with it, but he had somehow hooked it up and got the screen to come up. No working mouse, so he just clicked until he got what he wanted. He asked if she had any spare parts (luckily got a laugh from her on that one!) and she offered to take it home and tinker with it. Tonight she called and wanted to bring it by at 7. She said she couldn't fix it, so she was giving us an old Gateway she had! We also didn't have a working mouse, speakers and the DVD player was broken. She must have some fabulous stockpile of stuff! Holland was in complete heaven and I told her she would be his favorite person in the world now. You should have seen his eyes pop when she hooked up everything. She didn't even know if her speakers worked, but Holland even knew where some extra cords were in the garage. We got it to work and installed a couple games. I can't believe we have another working TV in the house. Now the kids will not bug me while I'm on the computer. She even told him if he ever wanted to take apart a computer that he needed to call her and she would help him. She didn't want him to do it by himself.

Right before she left, she said Holland asked if she wanted to trade something for the metal detector she had in her car. Never the shy one.

I'm In a Quotable Kind of Mood

So I've been pouring over websites all afternoon. I should be cleaning the schoolroom or doing laundry or reading to the kids. But I just can't get past this speech that Obama will be giving (and most schools viewing) on Tuesday when students return to school. I'm dumbfounded as to why the parents aren't even being given the choice to participate. Even more curious is why show it during the school day? Since when did Obama become School Superintendant? I emailed our school principal and asked if they were participating. If so, we'd like to opt out and if that was a problem, we'd be coming to school late. Not surprisingly, they are feeding this to the kids, complete with lesson plans from the government. Wow. Just wow. So here are some things to ponder as you send your kids back to school:

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." Thomas Jefferson

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” George Washington

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." Winston Churchill

“When governments fear the people there is liberty.

When the people fear the government there is tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson

A government powerful enough to do anything FOR you, is a government powerful enough to do anything TO you

"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." - Ronald Reagan

We Were Bound For Some Excitement

I guess things had been slowing down so we needed something to jump start our boredom. That boredom was interrupted by my sister calling to tell my our dad had had a stroke. On Tuesday afternoon, my mom had to call 911 when she realized my dad was experiencing a stroke right in front of her. She gave him aspirin while on the phone with 911. Paramedics came out and transported him to a hospital. I emailed super-hero and he came home as quickly as possible. I wanted to just drive over there, but I had all three kids and he told me to wait for him. So I sat in the car with all three kids strapped in and waited. Then when he got home, I didn't think I would be able to drive slower than 80 mph, so I asked him to drive. He can't win of course, because I complained the whole way there that he was driving too slow. Whenever I feel he's poking along at an unacceptable speed, I say "pretend we're on our way to an OSU football game". I always think that's going to work, but he doesn't find it funny.

They did an MRI and determined it was a stroke and the neurologist said there was a three hour window of opportunity for administering a certain medicine. There were risks involved (how can there not be?) and dad agreed to have the drug. They said his speech should improve, but we still haven't seen that. My cousin in CA is a speech therapist for stroke patients, so I called her up and got some great advice and heads-up on things we should be expecting from the SLP. By Tuesday night he was moved to the ICU and removed the oxygen tubes. He seemed very coherent, just unable to speak. He understood when you talked to him (of course, he's lost a lot of hearing from his years in a paper mill) just was unable to answer. We even tried letting him write something, but being without his glasses and his right hand so weak, it was illegible. When I saw him on Wednesday, he was sitting up and eating a bit of dinner.

He'll probably be there one more night and then we're off on another adventure and seeing how his speech comes back and physically what he's able to do. We're so thankful for God's protection that he wasn't driving at the time and that mom caught it so quick.