Happy New Year

It is 1:15 am on the first day of 2009.

After dealing with droopy eyes all evening to stay awake for the ball drop for my kids and their friends, I am now wide awake. Perfect time to begin a blog.

I am a mom of 3 pumpkins who I will call Rutabaga, Butternut, and Sprout.

Rutabaga is an 8 year old 3rd grader. She is a voracious reader. She just cannot read enough. Anything and everything she must READ! She claims that math is her weak subject. As much as I have tried to explain that she does not possess an academic weakness in this area, she still enjoys claiming she is just terrible at it.

Science is her favorite subject. It is not mine. Nope. Not even close. You can tell me all about the science experiments and discoveries in the world. My response: That's very nice. But math--I could spend everyday for the rest of my life with math problems of most any kind. Though, advanced math and calculus has left my brain completely since the last I dealt with a COS was in 1993.



Butternut is my 6 year old Kindergartner. She loves to : write, produce, direct, choreograph, costume, act, dance, sing, and otherwise perform in any performance she can imagine to any audience willing or unwilling. She is a diva in training. I have tried to cancel training. But yet it continues. She contends she will be a star someday.

All I want to do is teach her how to read. I did it with Rutabaga. After a shaky concept start, she took off--easy peasy compared to Butternut. Butternut is...well...how do I put it? I can't tell if she is having trouble or faking her abilities or lack thereof. She's a stinker sometimes. She picked up math like noone's business. Reading? Well, I suppose she will get there eventually. It is priority one this coming semester. Sound out a three letter word at random. I would be quite thrilled for this to click. In the meantime, butternut is happy being taught sight words and is enjoying her new Tag Reading system. Maybe the magic pen will help this phonics thing...click. Perhaps if I started her reading lessons with Macbeth or Death of a Salesman...

Alfalfa Sprout is my little boy. He's 1, but not for much longer. He spends his time playing and nursing. He loves his mama. He loves his dada. He loves to say maaaaaaaaaa maaaaaaaaa and dada and shhhhhhhh. And that is it. Little Sprout is in speech therapy. This is not my doing. This is the doing of a well meaning pediatrician. Okie dokey fine. He can do lots of things--talking is not one of them. But he began his therapy in December and after 3 sessions--he is babbling a bit more....we've got some lalalalalala's out of him. Too bad we are trying for p's and k's. Oh well. In his own time like his sisters.

His sisters were slower to speak. And no big surprise, once they started talking--they just don't...not talk. I predict the same for Alfalfa Sprout. He does some signing. Some ASL and some made up. I don't know which is which as the therapist does them both. His "please" and "more" are ASL. He now nods his head for "yes" and "no". Warning! He wanted something once and I asked him "Can you say please?" Instead of doing the sign--he shakes his head in the affirmative. A genius and possibly a developing smarty pants. So now we just tell him to say please, at which time he circles his open hand over his heart. "Open" is a knocking motion and I forget what else we are supposed to do.

My goal with Alfalfa Sprout in January--please babble in therapy. I'm beginning to think the Speech therapist thinks you’re mute.


We use the classical model to educate our kids. I can explain more of that later. I have to look it up. I am not great at quoting from memory. When I got it, I got it. When I have to get other people to get it, I freeze.

I use the Mother of Divine Grace syllabi as our "skeleton". I substitute Math-U-See for their suggested math. (I don't recall what they suggest, I just happen to adore M-U-S and choose no other). And we do some other things.

Our goals for this coming semester:

Rutabaga: More science and less of Mama avoiding the subject. Complete Gamma Math. Get diligent with our spelling.

Butternut: Read, read, read, and did I mention read?

Alfalfa Sprout: Talking would be good so that the pediatrician will quit wondering about you. All his other tests appear normal so at this point we don't believe we have to worry about a disability or disorder.

More in the New Year! Blessings to all and may your 2009 be better than 2008 in all ways possible.