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?