A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

Soooooo . . . this kid is crazy smart. A friend once said to me, "Don't worry about really smart or gifted kids; leave them alone, and they'll educate themselves." That's true. But not always wise. Mister Man is perfectly capable of educating himself.  He reads voraciously at a late 5th/early 6th grade level.  He loves both fiction and nonfiction, so he gathers a wonderful variety of information all on his own.  His favorite books of the year have been The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (he read it 5 times) and Jenny and the Cat Club (he read it twice).  He recently discovered The Boxcar Children mystery series, and he's reasonably fond of those stories, though some are beloved, and some he won't finish.  He read and loved as many (a dozen?) of the Thornton Burgess animal books as we've been able to procure.  He's devoured Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Indian in the Cupboard, Charlotte's Web , and other childhood classics in...

This was Brother's Kindergarten year.  Social/Emotional Growth: Brother is both growing and struggling in many ways. He is intolerant of correction. But he's also very humble and willing to take correction. He's a study in extremes. He is bossy with younger siblings, talks back to older siblings, and tells Sir Walter Scott and me that we're doing our jobs as parents all wrong. Oddly, though, it is clear he means no harm . . . because he's also compassionate, ready to help, and prays the most caring prayers I've ever heard from a child his age. It's that extreme swing again. His challenging behaviors are not endearing, and most of the family walks around with clenched fists and clenched jaws trying not to take out their anger on Brother.  We often counsel in small groups about working to love Brother in spite of his behaviors.  We often fail. But, oh, how we're trying! His tantrums are of shorter duration and more rare than the...

Something happened overnight on Thursday night . . . I don't know what . . . all I do know is that I went to bed perfectly happily and woke up on Friday morning completely unable to cope.  Everyone and everything annoyed me, poked at my brain, left me antsy and angtsy.  I stood at the kitchen sink whispering our family calming mantra over and over again, opened my mouth to call everyone to breakfast, and then snapped. Really snapped. I hollered, scolded, berated, stomped, and generally made everyone in the house feel bad before I had enough sense to put myself on time out in my room for half an hour. Sir Walter Scott and the teens handled breakfast and Morning Meeting while I was crying into my pillow. I emerged still unready to cope, but at least calm enough to control my voice and words. Today is Saturday, and I still feel tremulous and ugly in spirit. Sir Walter Scott isn't home; the teens have a lot of outings; we're babysitting our usual two extra kids....

Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Hurrah!  Beowulf is potty-trained!!!!!!! Day-time, night-time, all the time! This is such a huge deal for us . . . I'm not sure why because we kept deciding not to make it an issue and just let him use pull-ups as long as he needed to, but after almost 2 full weeks of being dry day and night and wearing underwear successfully for 5 days  and 3 nights straight, we're just whooping it up as his best accomplishment of the year! He must have just grown into it when he was good and ready, because 2 weeks ago, he was not, but now he is! Hurrah for Beowulf! Last fall I wrote the following: " He cannot grip a pencil or crayon with even a vaguely appropriate grip (and I've learned to not be fussy about how kids grip their pencils!).  He grabs writing implements from the top with his whole fist, and even if I help him position his hand in a reasonable grip, if he puts that crayon or pencil down, he cannot pick it back up the same way....