High School as a Rite of Passage

I have been talking to several fairly intelligent individuals about homeschooling in the last couple of weeks. I had to convince baby daddy man that homeschooling isn't totally stressing me out already. I honestly think he is afraid that the curriculum is too difficult for my delicate little brain. Silly rabbit, we aren't even doing real math yet! Ask me again when we get to algebra!
I also spoke to a middle aged father of 4 high school students about the trials of having children in high school. He told me a story about his daughter getting invited to a "rainbow party". A rainbow party is a festive gala in which girls are given different color tubes of lipstick to adorn their beautiful faces. When the festivities are over the boys get together and have a friendly competition to see how many different colors of lipstick they have on their dicks. Ok take a minute to digest this.

Ok now digest this: the girl invited to this party was 12 years old. 

12

I had never even kissed a boy when I was 12. I thought holding hands was terrifying. 

These kinds "events" are becoming the new normal. The man I was speaking with stated that "all he could do was to try to maintain an open dialogue with his children to try and make sure they are telling him the things they are getting into."  Basically he is stating that he is powerless control the situations that his teenage kids get into to. 

I have been told numerous times that at some point when raising children you just have to give up control and let them make their own choices. Even if these choices include things like rainbow parties?

How many times have you heard things like "well I survived high school but just barely," or "I hated high school but I turned out ok." I wonder why we think it is ok to put our kids through something most of us barely survived. I truly think I spent most of my early 20s trying to recover from high school. I never even got bullied, or struggled with grades. High school is HARD regardless of who you are and it seems that the pressure, drugs, and irresponsible sex is beginning younger and younger with every generation. High school is seen as a rite of passage and this makes the trials faced somehow ok.  However we are appalled when we hear about other rites of passages such as; female circumcision, breast ironing, (look it up, it is some awful shit) boys ingesting semen of the tribes elders (Mati Tribe), and the Hamar woman beating ceremony (which precedes the Hamar man cow jumping.)

Most of these rites of passages occur over less than a 24 hour period, high school is a solid 4 years of psychological ravaging and emotional depletion. It doesn't need to be this way, why are we content to lose our children to their peers the second they enter kindergarten and pray that they don't get chewed up and spit by the end of high school (or if they do, that they recover from it?) 

I for one, am not going to close my eyes and hope for the best. And maybe nothing I do will prevent my kids from suffering torture in their teen years but I can tell you I won't go down without a fight. Bring it puberty. 

Raising kids is hard fucking work part 1

The last few days have been hellacious. I have been in emotional purgatory which is soooo not like me. I am stoic, I am a hard ass. I don't cry. I drown my pain in vodka. (only some of the time, really). Tonight I had chips & salsa for dinner with cake batter for dessert. Emotional eating at its finest. What is the deal, you ask, what could be causing the coolest person alive to cry while shopping for christmas presents (emotional shopping much?)
Raising 2 kids is hard shit. The last few months I have pretty much come to the stark realization that if anyone wants their life to be easy peasy squeasy then they should never have more than 1 child. This is what it looks like to have 1 child:

Every day is a day on the beach filled with sunshine and laughter and sleep. You frolic by the ocean teaching your 1 child about the origins of shells and sand. You laugh gaily with your spouse and 1 child about how amazing your life is, wouldn't it be a grand idea to add 1 more soul to this amazing family. Double the love! The more the merrier! Fast forward 18 months later and you are this:

YOU HAVE MOM JEANS ON!! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?!!!!!!! I will tell you: you have 2 children. I do not know what changes when that second little human is born. Your intentions are the same, you fully expect for this little being to blend right in and make your family complete, you can't wait to frolic on the beach learning about shells and sand. 

Then shit gets real.

The last year has been a constant struggle to give both boys somewhat equal attention and time. At first H got all of my attention because he was nursing every 34 seconds and puking all over the place.  I felt like a terrible mom to L because I barely had the time or energy to read 1 book much less the 376 we used to read every day to expand his mind. Well now that H only nurses every 59 seconds I feel that he is getting the short stick because I am so busy attending to the needs of a 4 year old that I barely have time, you know, play with him. I am pretty sure L was speaking 3 languages by 13 months and doing complicated algebra problems. L was my little side kick, I enjoyed taking him everywhere with me and I scoffed at other moms when they left their kids at home when they went to the store? "Don't you enjoy spending time with your children." I would think to myself pushing my 1 child around in the shopping cart, buying organic vegetables to puree into baby food later. 

Now shopping alone is a vacation, I will often spend double my budget just because the longer I am in the store buying things, the longer time I get without 2 little perfect beings NEEDING ME SO DAMN MUCH. We did baby led weaning, partly because I firmly believed in nursing exclusively longer than 6 months and partly because I was too damn lazy to puree baby food again. 

Why is it, that 2 children is not double the work? It is 2,304,320 times the amount of work that 1 child is?  The word children is only 3 freaking letters more than child. That shit is deceiving!
I keep trying to tell myself that I am not setting H up to be a drug addict by the age of 12 because he is the second born child. It all balances out because he has a loving brother to play with. RIGHT?!!  I keep trying to tell myself that L won't resent H for taking the spotlight off of him at the tender age of 3 and that he will delight in being a big brother for all the rest of his days. RIGHT?!!
We all end up a little bit fucked up right? Do you know anyone that doesn't have issues? Do you know anyone that wouldn't benefit from therapy? Cause I don't. So is it just the simple act of making it through a family unit that fucks us all up? Why does life persist if we are all so damn bad at raising kids? Have I totally stressed you out? Are you looking at your 2 children in tears, wondering if you are the reason they will be in therapy later?  Well sister, grab a bottle of wine, a box of cake batter, and let's commiserate.

Kids are so much cooler than adults

We have had a great start to our week. Yesterday we went to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History and  learned they have a great home school program that involves doing simple reports on pretty much anything you want in exchange for points that you can trade in for things like; fossils, crystals, bones, and shells. We did a scavenger hunt (and by "we" I totally mean I obsessed about finding the answers while my 4 year old looked at the cool stuff) and then L traded it in for a deer spine. Cooooooooooooll.
Then we went to Ikea where I spent my entire paycheck on things we desperately needed. Uh huh.

Today the boys and I went to a local park to enjoy the day. H fell asleep in the car so I told L I would watch him through the window while he played so his brother could sleep. He immediately found a small group of kids to play with. He is obviously completely socially inept.

Once H woke up we went to join his brother but he was way too busy playing to be bothered by his mom and bro *sob*. So I listened quietly to their play as I follow H around as he tried to break his neck on the play ground equipment. This is what I heard: Kid "I started kindergarten yesterday." L:" Oh was it fun or scary?" Kid: "It was both, do you go to school?" L:" I do homeschool, it is like school but at home." Kid: "Lucky."

Had this conversation occurred between 2 adults there would have been a thousand or more questions about "how will he be socialized, how will you teach upper level math, what about sports, band, and theater, how will he go to college if he can't learn from anyone but you, are you trying to just control everything about his upbringing, do you want him to live with you forever?!!!!???!!!"

(L in 25 years) 

Kids are so much cooler than that, the kid on the playground today didn't see anything wrong with L being schooled at home, he didn't find him lacking in any way socially, he wasn't worried about L living in my basement in 20 years. He was just living in the moment and enjoying a new friend. 

When did we start fucking everything up and making it so complicated?

She works hard for the money...

As much as I would love to be a kept woman and laze around the house all day eating bon bons (isn't that what stay at home moms do? ;) I do have a part- time job. If you read my profile, you would already know that. Slackers.

I work from home about 15 hours a week and out of the house 10-15 hours per week. I have been asked a few times from some awesome working moms how I manage my time between homeschooling, working, and looking so fabulous. Let me tell you this: I have no organizational skills and I have a hard time completing projects and I manage to do it so you can totally do it too! I will attempt to keep my mind focused long enough to break down my routine for you. Wish me luck.

I typically do a structured school time 3 days a week. I utilize every opportunity I can to teach in context but actually sit and do lessons 3 days. I rarely do it the same day each week. The cool thing about homeschooling a preschooler is that you can do school on Saturdays and they have no clue that it is unusual. I love 4 year olds.

CIRCLE TIME

We do "calendar time" 1st each day. I bought a Melissa and Doug magnetic calendar at the thrift store that looks like this:

It is pretty awesome. Everyday we go over:

1. Month, day, #, and year we are on

2. All of the months

3. Yesterday and tomorrow

4. What holidays are coming up

5. The weather

6. We count all the days in the month. I swear before we started doing this he could barely count to 10, now he can count further than I can (not saying much)

After Calendar we do some sight words, currently we are working on: Who, What, You, Where, When, and Two. I just use them like flash cards and run through them a few times. 

We learn our fun topic of the day, right now it is spiders, last week it was space. I let him pick so we do a lot of weather related stuff and animals. This varies, some days we read about it, some days we watch a video, or talk about it. 

Writing follows (his least favorite). I have tried to make this fun, really I have. We have tried writing in shaving cream, with chalk, upside down, and with his pee (joking) but the kid just doesn't love writing. So we do your basic worksheet and just try to get it done. I found all my workbooks at the Dollar Store, he seems to hate them just as much as the expensive ones. Some people don't agree with me using worksheets, they might say I am stifling him, or reining in his spirit or some shit. Really, I am just lazy and learning to write is hard without a ton of practice. So we practice. He will probably be in therapy for years because of it.

Math follows writing. Right now we are learning about money which has been super fun. We play store often and sometimes we play gambling go-fish.  I know I know, I setting him up to be this guy:

A gambling addict that is in therapy with repressed memories of being forced to write "Gs" over and over and over while his mother chain smoked and guzzled wine in the background.

I digress

Often times in math we practice simple addition and subtraction, 1:1 correspondence, patterns or sequence. 

We do science experiments often or a craft (usually some glitter and glue is involved, I suck at crafts) or just make some sort of mess to end circle time.

We rock out to different styles of music daily and discuss art. We read simple books together at nap time. He has worked his way through 12 books so far nearly by himself. The pride he feels when he reads a page by himself makes me feel all warm inside. 

The entire "circle time" takes about 1/2 and hour. 

I know it will take longer as he gets older but I feel confident that I will be able to stumble blindly through it. As far as the social aspect that everyone is so worried about he is enrolled in dance class, and swimming class. Sometimes I even take him to the store to see what other people look like. ;) I feel confident he will be out of my basement by the time he is 35. 

I would love to hear what your routine looks like.

I just have to add that his brother spends most of his time destroying the preschool room or nursing. He is learning a lot too.

Why 2012 kicks ass

Shit I already suck at this blog writing business. In typical Raegan form I got all gung ho about having the best blog in the world, wrote 11 entries in 9 days (cause I have soooooooo much important shit to say) and then forgot all about it. Well my loyal followers, do not fret, I'm baaaacckkk.

Everyone complains about the present, saying it is too technological, too out of touch, too perverse...blah blah blah. But I think it pretty much rules. Here is why:
Today L and I went to the Clintonville Farmers Market to get the veggies and fruit that I don't grow in the garden. Walking around the throng of folks I felt a rush of pride in the diversity surrounding me. In the space of 20 minutes I saw such a variety of people. I truly feel our sense of community is growing these days. Public venues where like minded (or maybe not) people gather are growing rapidly. Although technology can be a curse if it becomes more important or a substitute for social interaction, it is also an amazing tool to bring people together.  I even saw a support group online for adult lactation fetishes. I am not kidding.

Also, we have a black president. 40 years ago the thought was laughable. Gay people are getting married and having children with other gay people! Amazing! Who would have thought. Of course if Mitt Romney gets elected, black people and gays probably won't even be allowed to vote. Along with women that have abortions. Or maybe just women in general.

Being an attachment parent can leave a lady feeling pretty isolated. Having your boob in a babies mouth all day can make it difficult to find time for play dates after all. Luckily I have found an AMAZING community of women through mothering.com. They all have babes the same age as H and I am pretty much in love with all of them. Having a community of women that share my parenting philosophies, my general adoration for all things tie dye, and utter distaste for exercise has been so crucial this first year of having 2 children. How on earth did moms do it before the internet? Who did they talk to at 3AM when up nursing AGAIN? Who could they confess desires to get pregnant 23 days after giving birth? I love my internet friends, I only wish I could get totally drunk with them like I do with my IRL friends. (For those that are not as cool as me, that means: In Real Life.)

My last super awesome 2012 thing is pictures. Dude I take sooooo many pictures with my camera phone it is re-dick. Everyone told me that I wouldn't take as many pictures of my 2nd baby but I think I take more of H then I did of L simply because I have a better camera! Check out the cuteness I captured:

Are you just peeing yourself with warm fuzzies?  Chuckling heartily at my funny kid?  Say thanks to my knock-off Iphone.


Reading through this post, I realize that it is incredibly ADD. Sorry.

Tomorrow I will be on my way to looking like a super model

I am lying in bed nursing Harrison like I do 1000 times a day. Really, 1000. I counted.  This is pretty much what we look 456 of those times.....

What does this have to do with being skinny by the end of this week? Well, plenty. See in those 10 minutes every couple of hours I lay there and think about how incredibly thin I will be soon because tomorrow I am starting a real diet. A skinny by the end of the week diet....
 Oh shit (I think to myself) we are going out to El Portal for lunch (my favorite Mexican restaurant) how am I ever going to diet there?
 It's ok I can just eat 1 enchilada and split my beans with Harrison. That is practically diet food right there. I can feel the pounds melting away. Soon, I will look like this:







Shit, wrong picture, this is how I feel when I have 3 glasses of wine instead of the 2 I usually consume on a Saturday night. I literally see this face when I look in the mirror.

I will look like this:

   Einstein shirt and all..........


After a light lunch I will enjoy a refreshing salad for dinner and finish it off with a slice of watermelon. I will do this every day for the rest of my life and never struggle to button my jeans again. I will never poke my muffin top and then try to tuck it INTO the top of my jeans again. I will be skinny and it will all start tomorrow when I make good choices at El Portal. "1 enchilada and share the beans, 1 enchilada and share the beans" I repeat to myself over and over as I fall asleep.

The morning arrives (after being woken up 6000 times, seriously with all the night nursing I do I should be 100 pounds) and as I drink my coffee I repeat my mantra "1 enchilada and share the beans..." I confidently walk into El Portal, sit down with my fam and BAM. I black out...............

When I come to this is in front me:



7 empty plates of deep-friend mexican food. Damn it. My diet is ruined, I will never lose 13 pounds in one day after eating all that crap! My waistband is tight, I am feeling nauseous. I just want to lie down and take a nap. Wait.......
 I can totally eat those brownies at home. I will sooooo start my diet tomorrow.  I will be skinny by Friday. Everything is going to be ok!!!!

Shit, we are going out for sushi. It's ok I will just eat one roll, that is super healthy it is practically diet food. I got this!!!  String bikini here I come!!

Space shit

Get my hilarious play on words? Space ship= space shit. I know I know, you are jealous of my wit and creativity.
It is space week in this house, now I am not exactly an expert on all these space. Neither is Chels, she just found out that Pluto is now just a lonely little planetoid and I have no real clue what a planetoid is. So...... who better to teach our 4 year old about space?! We can learn together!! I will be a planet expert by Friday!! More coffee! This is where I go totally spastic and come with 1000 different ideas to teach L about every Planet, moon, and Planetoid...... I have pretty much decided I am going to make a child sized plantetarium in his room. It is going to be epic. Think gallons of paper mache and glitter..........
When searching "glitter planetarium" I found..wait for it......... glitter porn..................are you ready for this?

Turned on yet?

I digress


Space....Here are few cool crafts I found to try out this week.

1. http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/Chalk-Solar-System.html

Here's how you make it...

1. From your construction paper cut different sized circles to trace. 

2. Place a circle on top of your black paper and trace the circle with chalk. 

3. Smudge the chalk outwards and repeat with different sized circles and different colors of chalk.

If you want to put little stars in your solar system try brushing on glitter glue or stick on little star stickers.

If you doing this craft with young children it may be easier to trace if you secure the circles with masking tape and then remove them after they have smeared the chalk. 

Easy peasy squeezy. Even I can't screw this one up.  Although I am thinking of just doing it outside on our sidewalk. 

How about this little diddy.......

Supplies

A nylon sock or a foot from tights or a stocking.
Grass seed
Sawdust                                                       
Elastic band
Old yogurt pot
Googly eyes
Paper, buttons, ribbon etc to decorate

Click here for printables, patterns and Templates 

Instructions

Fill the toe of your sock with grass seed. Top up with sawdust until you have a ball shape. Fasten tightly with the elastic band.

Decorate the yogurt pot as the body using, paper, ribbon, and whatever else you can find in your craft box!

Stand the stocking ball in the pot with the grass seed at the top. Add some eyes and any other decorative bits you like.

Keep the yogurt pot topped up with water. After a few weeks your head should grow hair!

This craft reprinted courtesy of ActivityVillage.co.uk.

Tell me this isn't super cute? Maybe a little creepy but still super cute.

Annnnnnd..... just to leave you with something good.....

GLITTER PORN!!!!

A little background

I have a follower! I have a follower! This means I am popular and people like me. Well at least one person likes me. Sold! I will so take it, and Liz. I love you too. :)
Today has been a rough day, the kind of day that drinking wine while the kids take a nap sounds like a grand idea. My friend Jeanne and I were talking about how amazing it will be when we can send all 4 boys down in the basement to play while we enjoy some adult time. Basically we will look like this:


I digress.

I am a self- proclaimed "attached parent". Attachment parenting is EVERYWHERE these days, partly because it is awesome and partly because it freaks everybody out. I am sure my AP story is familiar to a lot of you reading (cause I have soooo many followers) but I feel the need to share the beginning part of my story with you. Consider this our 3rd date, I have had a bit too much to drink and I am just feeling so close to you right now. I want you to know EVERYTHING about me because I like you that much.

When I first learned about the different attachment styles of parenting it was in a Developmental Psychology Class in college. I was studying psychology and childhood development to further myself in the field of ABA. The thought of having children was definitely not in the forefront of my mind and I remember thinking that I couldn’t imagine why people wouldn’t naturally parent the “attached way”. Why wouldn’t you want your child to be secure, loving, and well..normal?! Little did I know how CONFUSING it is when you are actually pregnant and you crack open What to Expect When You Are Expecting, read the entire thing in 2 nights and find out that not only should your baby be sleeping through the night by week 6, but self soothing by 3 months, and eating every 3 hours from birth on. I read probably 12 different pregnancy and parenting book within the first 6 months of my pregnancy, all touting ways to not let your baby take over your life when they are born. It honestly made perfect sense to me, why should I let this baby change who I am? I bought a fancy crib, set up a sweet little nursery all for him, bought the most expensive swing on the market, and fully planned to breastfeed for 6 months and switch to formula. I had it all worked out. My water broke at 39 weeks and 23 hours later my first born entered the world.  That $300 crib quickly became a laundry basket.

And a cat bed.

The moment he was born, all my intentions of conventional parenting went flying out of the hospital room. Attachment parenting just happened. I didn’t do it on purpose, it wasn’t a choice I made, I just couldn’t help myself. I was embarrassed that I slept with him from day 1, when people asked I would promise furtively that by 6 months he would be sleeping in a crib but that right now he was “just so little and helpless, I want him near me.” That 6 months turned into 12 and then 18 and now my 4 year old sleeps with me every 3^rd night. They are my favorite nights.  I read several parenting books the first 6 months and although I could see the value in “training” your child to sleep through the night at 3 months (I was exhausted!) I just couldn’t imagine denying my little angel comfort just because I was tired.  Most of my friends made fun of the way I never wanted to leave him, wouldn’t put him down even when he was asleep, and always had a boob in his mouth but it just felt right to me. And that is what attachment parenting is to me, a feeling of closeness to your child, a connection to their needs.

At some point in the first couple of months I went to my local Half Price Books and picked up an old (clearance rack) copy of Dr. William Sears “The Baby Book”. I wasn’t expecting much, I had already read several parenting books and all they did was make me feel a little stupid for not feeling ok with putting my babe in a crib with a binky in his mouth to “self soothe”. Within the first 20 pages I was hooked. I stayed up late reading and learning the name for the parenting that came so naturally to me. As I read I realized that it all referred back to the secure attachment parenting styles that I had learned years ago in my developemental psychology class.  Ding Ding Ding. $40,000 dollars I paid for that stupid degree and I got the same information in a $1 clearance rack book from the 70s!

If you haven't read it, get it. Dr. Sears knows his shit.

I tell you all of this because being an attachment parent to my 2nd child is draining the life out of me. He nurses all night long, every single night. He is literally attached to my body almost every waking second. Sometimes when he cries and starts coming towards me I just want to run and hide. I am the cleanest I have ever been because showering is the only alone time I have. I don't even like to bathe! I am a hippie remember?! We are supposed to stink!

But just when I am at my wits end, ready to stick a bottle in his mouth, kick him out of my bed, and throw him out of a moving vehicle (kidding....ish) I remember that one day I will be begging him to call me more, crying over pictures of him in my arms, and stalking him on the internet to see how he is doing in his life. These days are short, he will need me less and less with every passing day, and I will yearn for the days of him only wanting his mama to soothe him.

Why you never let a 9 year old put sunscreen on your kid

L's pristine baby 4 year old skin is sunburnt! I feel  so terrible, bad mom of the year award goes to this lady right here. Frick.
I decided to turn this lemon into a learning opportunity so we learned about the sun today. We sang "Mr. Sun", talked about solar and lunar eclipses, and even how people's skin colors vary based on how much sun their region receives. L thought it was pretty cool that the sun is "SO POWERFUL."
We were supposed to make this super cute craft today but we ran out of time. We will totally make it tomorrow. If I am not too busy roasting his baby skin out in the sun.
 I am never leaving the house again.

http://spoonful.com/crafts/pierced-sun-catcher

A protest filled weekend

Normally my weekends consist of working a few hours, eating out too much, and pretending that I am NOT going to delve into a bottle of wine as soon as the kids are asleep. (Hilarious)
Not this weekend. This weekend, I am going to dive deep into my crunchiness, find my inner hippie and attend 2, not 1, but 2 protests. "Shut up" you say, "You are my hippie idol" you are totally thinking in your head.

 This is totally what the protests look like in my head:

So cool right?

Here is what they will probably really be like:

That is right, me and my bored kids.

What are you protesting you might ask? Well I will tell you. 2 of the things I feel the most strongly about. Gay rights and breastfeeding rights. 

Tomorrow begins The Big Latch On which is basically women all over the world (23 countries are in on this shit!) joining together to breastfeed at the same time. Makes you non lactating women a little jealous right? Sounds super cool huh? 

Don't worry, pick a random kid and stick a boob in their mouth, that isn't creepy at all. Anyone seen "The Hand that Rocked the Cradle"- horribly cheesy 90s movie that convinced me that I would never breastfeed because it is some creepy shit. 

I digress. 

Basically it is less of a protest and more of a community of bad ass breastfeeders supporting other bad ass breast feeders and coming together  to lactate AT THE SAME TIME. Is your mind blown?

Saturday (after work) I am lugging my kids down to good ole Chik-Fil-A to show off my gayness and watch people eat chicken. My poor son is going to be PISSED that he is missing out on those waffle fries.  I know all of you with an internet connection is up and running on the wretched groups that Chik-fil-a supports so I won't rant on here. But do you research if you haven't. The hate saddens me and I love a good protest. So I will be attending my local "rally for queers at Chik-fil-a."

I think Gandhi said it best when he stated "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

True that Yo.

Top 5 Wednesday

I am going to attempt to be organized enough to make a top 5 list every Wednesday. Today's list comes from L. I asked him the top 5 things we likes to look at with his eyes (we are learning about different body parts this week, can you guess what we talked about today?)
Here is the list:
1. Dinosaurs
2. Diggers
3. Cranes
4. My mama (tear)
5. Fingerprints

I am going to also include a list of top 5 things I would like to do in "circle time" next week.
1. This just looks like fun, perhaps I can add sand and observe what water does to sediment as it rushes down the "river"

 http://pinterest.com/pin/55591376619978665/

2. Super cool science experiment/art project. Think we can use the leftovers to clean the counters, or you do you think the food coloring will stain? Can you tell I don't clean much?
http://pinterest.com/pin/89579480058949472/

3. Our preschool room really needs organized. This would help separate craft crap so L could locate it without me having to detach H from the boob to find it.

http://pinterest.com/pin/23784704252680467/

4. An even COOLER science experiment, I so need to get E (L's dad) in on this one!


http://pinterest.com/pin/250231323016662371/

5. I think I will make this next weekend. Dude, just joking but can you imagine??!!! You could drink wine WHILE YOUR KIDS WERE AWAKE if you had one of these beauties!

http://pinterest.com/pin/258464466084576196/

You too can push gender stereotypes on your children!

I spend too much time on facebook. I check in every morning while drinking my cup o joe to see what exciting things happened while I was sleeping (and by sleeping I mean nursing my 1 year old non-stop all night). I also check in to see what exciting things happen when I am working or playing with my kids. Clearly, I have no life outside of my computer and my children. I am sure you facebook addicts ( you know who you are) have noticed the ads on the side of facebook ( I know some of you are opening a new tab to go to facebook to see if I am speaking the truth).
As I am clearly obsessing about homeschooling more than is probably healthy, there are a couple of ads on the side for homeschooling sites. I clicked on clever-dragons.com today and it blew my gender neutral mind.

As you can see from this picture I took on Chels's phone at the very top it states " Clever dragons, smart fun for boys".  The page is covered in pictures of dragons and knights and all sorts of fun things. Cute you say? In the top right-hand corner there is a button that says "not a boy? Click here"
I clicked, yes I did. And this is the horror that greeted me:

Always icecream??? A scoop of laughter, a scoop of learning? Are you freaking kidding me? So let me get this straight, if you are a boy you are clever, smart, and it is perfectly acceptable to wield a sword (probably to kill those sweet looking dragons).
If you are a girl you pretty much get shit. Scoops of fucking ice cream. Which we all know will just make you fat.  What the hell does ice cream have to do with anything?
This is supposed to be a homeschooling site? Am I the only one that is desperately trying to avoid these negative gender stereotypes by not sending my boys to school?

Music, roly polys, and butts

We are learning about the body this week in preschool. Yesterday Chelsie tackled bones and I decided to work on ears and fingers today. How are they related? I have no idea, I just came up with easy craft ideas for each. If there is one thing I dislike about homeschooling it is totally having to think up crafts all by myself. I am craft stupid and tend to just give L some glue and some trash and tell him to "think of something to make out of this". Probably won't win any awards with that one.  Not today, today my crafts were so epic, so amazing, he actually took a picture of them. Well one of them anyway. Prepare to be amazed.......

Yep, we used stamps to show how we each have different finger prints. GENIUS? I know, I accept the award for most creative homeschooling art project.
L then proceeded to ask me if we could learn about butts next. You know like "what kind of music we can make with them." He is sooooo my child.

Why I am a cooler mom than you

The above picture is my boys at the Summer Concert Series at Goodale Park. This alone makes me a cooler mom than  you because Goodale Park is DOWNTOWN where all the COOL kids hang out. And I drove there, on a Sunday, instead of putting them down for naps. Yes, I skipped naps VOLUNTARILY to take my kids to listen to a very hip band at a park downtown on a Sunday. I was also totally hung over and pretty much made Chelsie take care of them the whole time while I ate crepes and laid on the blanket drinking gatorade. So maybe I am just a drunk.

Lazy day

L is at his dad's house this weekend and while I miss his sweet spirit and hilarious mouth the calm is nice. Spending time with my little is nice. I am realizing that baby H isn't as difficult as I thought and perhaps he is just competing with his older brother for attention. He has been so laid back all day and I can bet he realizes that he has my undivided attention so he doesn't feel the desire to nurse every 20 seconds and scream when not being looked at. I wonder how different he would be if he were an only child or a first born. Damn birth order drama.
Ed and I talked a tiny bit last night and agreed to write out our disagreement about homeschooling. I do much better staying calm, and cool when I am writing. I tend to be a bit of a hot-head (a sexy hot-head of course).
So as today is a lazy day I have been doing a little research on homeschooling stats. Being an ABA geek, I LOVE stats. I found this on Collegeathome.com and I LOVE how it lays it all out.
I really enjoy the socialization factor although I wonder how on earth that is scored. Check out the differences in standardized test taking......why would I want my child to be average when they can be far above average?  I wish this had a stat for parental relationship. I can't wait to see what will happen to our relationship as my boys get older without their peers telling them that they are supposed to hate their parents.

Fighting mad

I have been on this home school adventure for maybe 6 months now. L is 4 going on 37 and I am already seeing the benefits of not sending him to preschool. I wish everyone saw what I do. My ex (his dad) and I are great friends and we both work hard on keeping it that way.  Today I lost my cool with him.  The conversation started well enough, he asked when a local home school curriculum fair was and promptly said he couldn't make it. He then started in on a diatribe that I have heard so many times already (how have you long term home schoolers not killed anyone by now)? How is he going to be socialized? He needs to be exposed to diversity, he needs to toughen up, how can you possibly keep up with his education? Blah blah blah. Ok first of all he is 4! 4! I am not real worried about teaching him that J says "juh" and that if you have 1 cookie and I give you another cookie, you have 2 cookies. I think I got this.
Toughen up? What are we raising the next Ultimate Fighter?
And I don't spend MY day in a classroom of 30 kids and yet somehow I manage to socialize with fellow humans. Perhaps he can socialize at the YMCA during swim lessons, perhaps at paly time at Firefly cafe, perhaps at the homeschooling group we recently joined, or maybe at the library we go to.
I do not handle  confrontation well in fact I turn into an angry frat boy so I apologize for my readiness to throw down while folding laundry today E.
Why is the misconception that all homeschoolers are locked in their room reading all day so prevalent? I need a better come back. I need a go-to response for when idiots (ahem well meaning individuals) barrage me with questions on why I don't trust out OBVIOUSLY superb education system to turn my child into a free-thinking, creative, intelligent, caring, healthy young man. Any good ones?