A Week, Briefly (December 12, 2022)

 We made graham cracker houses on Sunday afternoon. 

Only 9 kids home for that this year . . .

I love Belle's tiny string of lights.

Nature Angel opted to make an extra tiny village.

Something about Lola's snowy yard makes me smile.

Monday

Our week started like this:

And it continued through the week.  This is Li'l K's work on poor Sugar Bear through a long-sleeved shirt and a puffy winter coat.  He's strong and biting intentionally, and he's proud of himself for doing it.

His parents are awesome, and they're working so hard with me to get this biting to stop.  We're trying to be very boring about it when it does happen, separating him quietly, and giving him nothing to play with or do for a long time for a 3-year-old--15 or more minutes.  We welcome him back to group activities with zero fanfare, and we make sure he sits or plays with either a distance between him and the rest of the kids or with an older kid between him and the other littles.

But he's fast.

And he managed to bite 1-3 times a day every day of the week.

He says with a smile, "I bite people."

I say casually, "You don't bite people."

He says, "I did bite people."

"Yes, you did, but you don't now."

"I don't bite people?"

"Nope."

"Oh.  I don't bite people."

"Good."

And then he bites someone.

It kept us in a state of emergency all week, which kept us from doing several planned activities.

But we did do some good stuff.

We started with writing letters to residents of Barrow, Alaska, encouraging them through their 66 days of winter darkness.

I bought preschool books for The Munchkin.  He might head to pre-K next year, and at the very least, he'll be in kindergarten in a year and a half, and I feel the responsibility to teach him classroom and workbook skills that he wouldn't need at this age if he were to be homeschooled by me. :)

I love watching him concentrate!

Our afternoon was hijacked by biting stuff, but in the evening, I sat the kids down with some videos, and we all folded origami stars.  It was really hard because even though I tried to buy paper weight decorative paper, cardstock was delivered.

It was a bad product description.

We persevered, and our hands all got stronger for it.

Lola is a natural at origami!

Tuesday

These two cuties had such a fun conversation as they drew pictures in the early morning.

After breakfast and our morning walk, we set up balance beams with two-by-four scraps from the garage.

Almost all of the pictures are of the babies, even though my kids played and played on them!  

Nugget's physical therapist was delighted to see him doing this with us.

Ladybug and Lola were able to do cartwheels along the balance beams!

In the afternoon, we finished listening to The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.  I had the kids get coloring supplies out to keep their hands busy, and I played the story through the TV so the sound would be comfortable.

These two wanted to draw, too.  They mostly punched holes in their paper with their pencil points.

He's biting people so badly, but look at his cute self so intently drawing!

We watched Christmas Oranges

And we got out the playdough.

Wednesday

On our walk, the kids ran to check on our nature Christmas tree.

The animals had eaten everything but the cranberries.  Later I found a Facebook post in the nature group I follow and found out that other people said the wildlife preferred the cranberries loose on the ground.  We'll do that next year.

The picture didn't come out well, but Mister Man found what he calls "a carnivorous dandelion" attached to ice.  We all thought it was a pretty ornament.

We got out the beans, keeping Li'l K slightly separated from the others, and we had a delightful morning.

The Munchkin loved, loved, loved matching and naming numbers.

In the afternoon, the kids convinced me to let them watch Klaus.

Thursday

On our walk, we collected teeny snowflakes and studied them through the macro lens on my phone camera.

Every one was different!

Then it was Library Day.

Lola made a bird in a nest. :)

Eek!  She's so cute!

We did an Art Hub for Kids lesson in the afternoon.

This is still Nature Angel, every hour of the day and night.

Friday

Geoboards were lots of fun, and then Li'l K bit his little brother, and their daddy came over, and everyone was traumatized, and I couldn't think clearly, and we kind of just spent the day surviving.

The kids played games and did puzzles.

They read a lot, too.

Lola and Ladybug had giant tantrums, and their bedroom door was pulled from its hinges, and I had to mend it myself because Sir Walter Scott was in Utah to visit his mom and pick up Pixie from school to bring her home.

I saved the day in the end by asking Belle to pick up pizzas while I organized the kids into doing lots of chores, and we ate pizza and watched The Santa Clause 2.

In General

In addition to finishing the Santa Claus audiobook, we listened to another little audiobook called Why the Chimes Rang.  

We read a Christmas picture book a day.

We finished The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.

We read a couple of chapters of The Forest People.

We shopped for presents, wrapped them, and lifted kittens out of the tree.

And now, Pixie is home!!!

I think I'm dropping all pretenses of school activities next week, and we're going to clean the house for Christmas.  

Merry Christmas to all!!!