A Week, Briefly (Mar 7, 2022)

 Our new toddler friend started spending his days at our house this week, and it took about 5 minutes for him to feel like he'd been part of the family forever.  

I've decided to call him The Duke here on the blog.  

Don't know why . . . it just feels right.

He's 20 months old, articulate, sweet, and delightful.  He arrives at 5:30 am M-Th, and gets to spend Fridays with his mom who is expecting a baby girl this summer.  (I might have already recorded that--we're so excited to meet and love on this baby girl!)

Lola's early rising  (poor sleeping) habits are now a blessing as she gets up to play with The Duke while the other kids are sleeping, and that gives me a chance to do my usual scripture study and fold some laundry each morning.  He gets so excited when Lola emerges from her room!

His mama and daddy are young, young parents, and they are Such. Good. Parents.  I am impressed with their intuitive loving and teaching skills.  

I was holding Sugar Bear at breakfast one morning when I realized that Nature Angel and Little Princess were managing the other 6 babies.

I couldn't help pausing to take a picture. :)

It has been a week of much finishing.

Lola's done with this program (I wasn't impressed) and has started TGTB level 1 to give her time to improve her fluency and writing skills.

Beowulf finished this one.  I have not given him a new handwriting book, and I don't plan to for this season.  We're concentrating on just getting him through math and language arts each day.  No extras!

Ladybug finished reading/narrating this book.  This is the book that pushed her from 2 sentence narrations to paragraph narrations.  She did it with panache!  We'll stick with paragraphs for the next while, and the book she's working on next is Trumpet of the Swan.

And Ladybug pushed herself over the finish line for this language arts program.  We skipped the targeted spelling words and some of the journal assignments (but not all of them).  I felt that working on the regular spelling and dictation was enough of a challenge for her (and it was), and since she was narrating every single day already, I didn't feel it was necessary to have her do all of the writing assignments.  Instead she did some of them, and we had conversations about the others.  She loves the art, the projects, and the general flavor of this program.  I'm giving her a break from language arts as a whole for now, and she's going to focus on reading/narrating and completing Explode the Code 5 1/2.

Beowulf had a terrible school week because he's been stealing and eating foods that cause behavior problems for him.  I provide lots and lots of food for my kids!  The stealing is entirely unnecessary, but something in his brain compels him to do it, and he's been almost feral in his behaviors as a result.  

We're facing 30+ days of detox if we can watch him closely enough and guard the food supply enough to keep him on the diet that is best for his brain.

(And, yes, there are treats and fun foods in his diet--it is not a boring or confining diet.)

Toby-the-dog has allergies and an ear infection.  He's perking right up with antibiotic eardrops, and it's been a good learning experience for the kids to be a part of his treatment and to learn how to read his non-verbal cues about not feeling well.

I purchased TGTB Maturation and Sexual Reproduction a few weeks ago, and we used it as a loose guide for 1 week of daily lessons as a family.  We had the most excellent facial expressions during some of the more detailed explanations, and I got great questions that led to great discussions.  I added in the two books from the God's Design for Sex series that we have (Note to self:  Get the remaining two) and selected clips from Nova's The Miracle of Life video.  Overall, I feel that we had candid, productive lessons that helped all of the kids 12-and-under.  

I've filed the lessons away for review in a year or two.

Pixie's dance showcase was on Friday evening.  It was so fun!

Pixie is the dancer just left of center in the front (as you're looking at the screen), and this is from the Bollywood number.  She was also in the Afro-Caribbean number and the finale.  (The quality of the pic is horrible because it is a photo of the live-streamed event played on my computer. :))

She applied for and won a $1,000+ scholarship from the dance department for fall semester this year!  I'm so proud of her!!

Belle has been diligently applying for scholarships so that she can go to school this fall.  No word yet from any of them, but the notification period hasn't arrived, so we're not worrying yet.

Baymax wasn't feeling well one day, so I said, "Make a little bed on the couch and read for a while."  I love the look on his face as he's reading.  Clearly, something important is happening in this story!  He and a few of the other young ones have been entranced with The Lighthouse Family series by Cynthia Rylant.

We received a couple of "toy" ukeleles in a hand-me-down bag from a friend this week.  The kids have played them non-stop, and with Little Princess able to keep the ukeleles tuned, they've picked out recognizable songs all on their own.  In this photo, Ladybug planted herself next to Little Princess to get help making chords and learning to strum, which Little Princess did in-between literature comprehension questions.

Our dance performance was postponed due to a snow storm, so we hunkered down happily at home with only a few of the babies and a lot more free time than usual.  

Nature Angel has worked hours on pencil sketches of faces.  She trying to fine tune her skills at showing emotion and character . . . and she's begun a project of a Medusa, as well.

This one's only in rough, early stages, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks when it's done.

Sir Walter Scott and I did manage to take our little vacation/rest this weekend--from Friday evening to Sunday morning.  The older girls managed the kids with style, and everyone was happy and healthy when we got home.  I spent the time in a half-waking, half-sleeping, dreamy sort of state that was lovely to be in while not ill.  Sir Walter Scott left me only long enough to take a walk, and I kind-of-read-kind-of-slept while he was gone and then woke up enough to have a snack with him before drifting off again.  When we weren't reading/sleeping/snacking, we watched Dry Bar comedy shows and laughed until we cried.  I considered asking him to play a board game with me, but the only one I found was Scrabble, and we learned early in our marriage that that is not a game we can play well together. :)

My favorite story about the weekend was that Belle told the kids to play outside on Saturday afternoon and informed them that however long they played outside was the exact amount of time they would get to watch a movie that night.  If they came in after 10 minutes, that's all the movie they'd see.  

They played outside for 2 full hours.

(And got to watch Big Hero 6 in its entirety)

The girls also set up a kid dance party, took the kids (and dogs) on a long walk, cleaned the kitchen, kept everyone fed, and correctly administered all meds.

They're champions.

We've got ideal spring-time weather every day of the 10 day forecast . . . and hopefully beyond.  I'm starting to have gardening thoughts.