Spring 2011

Well, spring has sprung! I can tell, not so much from the beautiful flowers and verdant hills, but from the yellow coat of pollen on everything and the fact that wondering into the great outdoors without a respirator brings on the mother of all allergy attacks. There is nothing subtle about Mother Nature.

So, since per the usual I am way behind on the blog, I'm going to lump all of "Spring 2011" (to date!) in this one. First things first, I turned the big 3-0. It was definately weird. Not so much because of the number itself. Or the fact that several females (lovingly) assured me that 30 hit them a lot harder than 40. But just because it got here so fast. Sometimes I look around me and say to myself, "I am thirty years old. I have two kids. I am married. Heck, I am a grown up!" Anyway, we had a pretty low key celebration. Dinner at my moms one evening with a chocolate cheesecake for dessert (after all, lets take full advantage of my swiftly declining metabolism. Thanks, mom. Especially since you are most often the one to point out the effects of said metabolism) Then the hubby took me out another evening. The gang at work threw me a little surprise luncheon of Italian food, which is one of my faves! Why does everyone insist on feeding me! Can't they see I need lettuce, water, and several hours with a personal trainer?! It was very nice.

I didn't take any pics of my birthday, so I just threw this one in. This is (thirty year old) me and my Memmie, Lola Jean. This woman is the poster child for graceful ageing. She looks exactly the same as she has my whole life, with the exception of hair color. I love her a whole, whole lot.


Next in our busy Spring was Easter. Some genius in retail marketing decided we should celebrate the birth of our Saviour by buying new dresses for our kids. Obviously he had a relative in chicken farming who threw in the egg dying and there you have it. I'm not complaining, I go along with it too. Although I did make a point to read Bella the real Easter story and stress to her why we celebrate it.

So here are Bella Reece and Baby Precious in their dresses, which my mother bought.

Next on the agenda: Bella turns four! Sheesh, now THIS was hard for me. She is four. Thats one more than three and right behind five. Where did that come from? Shouldn't I get time to prepare? Can't we ease into this or something? That worst part is, this year she KNOWS she is older. She's already making comments like, "I can do such and such, 'cause I'm four now."

Since instead of crying over it, like I kind of wanted to do, we had a party at the park. Cinderella, Prince Charming, Castle in the Clouds, and all that. Here she is, blowing out her candles.

And here is the amazing cake, made by Mr. Tracy Hoilman of Erwin. (www.tracystreats.info) It tasted even better than it looked, if that is at all possible!

Preschool Update

I am still very excited about my decision to homeschool Bella, and later Abbigail. I began doing some preschool work with her in the fall and she did really well with it. This spring we have been a lot less structured, mostly because I have been very busy! I practice dental hygiene Mon-Wed in a general dentistry office, and I am an adjunct faculty in the ETSU Dental Hygiene Clinic on Thursdays for the Spring semester. On Friday mornins we do attend our Homeschool Co-op, which we both enjoy very much.

Despite the fact that we are a little more unstructured at this time, Bella is learning by leaps and bounds, as all children do at this age. My mother and I have both been working with her on math skills and pre-reading. She has preschool workbooks that she really enjoys, and in the past couple of days she has started doing simple addition problems! I can ask her to tell me what five and four is, and she will count it out on her fingers and tell me nine! I am super proud of her, especially since math is definately NOT a strong point for me.

She has also learned to recognize all the upper case and most of the lower case alphabet, and we are working on some of the sounds. I'm not pushing it, she isn't even four yet. She is also practicing her handwriting, and can write her name. My goal for the summer is to have her learn all her lower case alphabet, and do lots of reading aloud. She loves to be read to, and right now she is very interested in volcanoes, thanks to a Discovery channel program she watched with her daddy. We have checked out several books on volcanoes from the library and now she can tell you all about them! We are also working hard on obedience and manners.

My plans for fall ("Man plans. God laughs!") are to begin Saxon MathK and also a reading program. I am still looking into reading programs and talking to other homeschool moms.

Now, I'm sure some people are wondering (because I didn't know much about it until I became interested!) about homeschooling, if it is legal, how expensive it is, etc. Homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, with varying degrees of regulation. For example, Pennslyvania is one of the strictest states to homeschool in, with lots of accountability and documentation required. Other states just require you to notify your local school district. For more information and to see the homeschooling laws for every state, you can visit http://hslda.org/ .

As far as expense, homeschooling is about like anything else in life: you can get the cadillac or the used Honda! Both will get you where you are going! There are many, many resources available for free online and in local libraries. You can buy used curriculum on ebay or craigslist. Just google "homeschool curriculum" and you'll see just how many products there are to choose from. You can choose a "boxed" curriculum, which is pretty much everything your child would need for a particular grade, or you can pick and choose different subjects from different publishers.

I have been researching homeschooling for over a year now, and am still learning a lot! I am out of time for now, but maybe in another post I will list some books / websites / resources that have been helpful to me.

Hodge Podge

As usual, I am woefully behind on my blog posting. However, I am happy to report that my laundry is (mostly) caught up, the house is clean, the children have been fed and watered, and in general things are pretty quiet!

As some of you may recall, we went through a difficult period with Bella when Abby was born. (I've taken to referring to it privately as The Slough of Despond) Anyhoo, we have recently had a recurrence of "the uglies". We had several bad episodes and a couple of very diffucult bedtimes. One meltdown occured smack in the middle of the Johnson City Mall. I had never experienced the uglies in public before and let me tell you, I never want to again! We got a lot of stares, some sympathetic and some not, as I pulled a screeching daughter through the mall by her hand. I found the best thing to do was just smile at everyone like nothing was wrong. It was so bad a one point, a sweet little grandmother saw fit to intervene on my behalf. Now, normally this would annoy me to no end, but at the time I thought, "Lady, if you can do something with her, be my guest!" She walked up to Bella and said something to the effect of, "You're an awfully pretty little girl to be acting like that. I'd take you home with me, but I don't let little girls who act ugly come to my house." It actually worked for about 3.5 minutes, then the uglies reared their heads again.

I'm happy to report that the past few days have been much, much better. We have learned to intervene when we see the uglies coming, and steer her attention in a different direction. We went to visit friends with a new baby just yesterday, and the new baby's grandma actually complimented Bella for being so polite. I just smiled sweetly and thought, "Lady, if you coulda seen her ten days ago...

As for Abbigail, she is 15 months old now, which I can hardly believe. She is not incredibly verbose at this time, but she definately gets her point across nonetheless. She says " mama", "dada", "Bye bye", and "bite". She also can point to her hair, tummy, toes, nose, etc. She also screeches ,"neeneeneenee" whenever I am doing something she doesn't like, such as washing her face. She started walking at just over 10 months, so by now she has graduated to bigger and better things, like climbing on top of the kitchen table. I'm so proud.

I really love this age, because her personality is really coming out. But she is still my baby. My favorite time of day is after bath time. I lay her on her changing table and smother her in baby lotion, then the games begin. She has learned how to unfasten her diaper, so as soon as i get one side on she will start giggling and wiggling and kicking and trying to take her diaper back off. This game ends only when I have managed to corral her into her jammies.

Is there anything better?

Isn't it romantic...

This weekend me and K celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary! Our wedding anniversary is my favorite holiday (except maybe Christmas) because it means we have successfully put up with each other for 365 more days....I'm just kidding. But it is really important to me.

This year I decided we should have an anniversary getaway, so (as he usually does) K went along with it and booked us a cabin in Pigeon Forge called "Eagles View". So we drove down on Thursday as soon as I got off work at ETSU.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, no we did not take Punkin and Precious with us.

Our cabin was definately well named. What a beautiful view from our front deck! It was sooo nice to go out in the chilly mountain air and jump into a luke-warm hot tub. (That dripping sound you hear is my sarcasm). Let me rephrase: Once we called the maintenance people to come adjust the hidden thermostat in the hot tub, it was sooo nice to go out in the chilly mountain air and jump in to a hot tub! The cabin also had a small sauna room that was lots of fun.

We did some shopping, too. I had been saving up my spending money for quite a while, and of course spent the majority of it on the girls. We had a wonderful time, but in the end decided that two nights was just too long to be away from our girls. At least twice an hour one of us said, "Bella would love that", or "Abby would have so much fun doing that".

I think "grown up" time alone is very important, though, so you can reconnect. But our children are an important part of what connects us! One of my very favorite things about being married to K and having children is when they do/say something funny and we just look at each other and smile.

Happy Fifth Anniversary, Sweetheart.

Turning Off the Tube: Part 2

I am happy to say that Bella (and mommy!) survived Day 1 of "Turning off the Tube!" I am trying not to be over-the-top about it, so when she got up this morning and wanted to drink chocolate milk and finish the last 5 or 10 minutes of Sleeping Beauty, I didn't count that against her. But when it was over, I told her, "Mommy will look at the tv schedule on the computer and you can pick one show (30 min) to watch. After that is over, we are turning the t.v. off until after bath time."

So I cooked breakfast for K when he got home from third shift, then the girls and I went downstairs to the playroom while he went to bed. We played a few minutes, then Bella watched her 30 minutes of t.v. Unfortunately, there is no Dora the Explorer on Saturday so Spongebob it was. Anyway. When the half our was up, the t.v. went off.

And it stayed off all day, except for when K turned it on. Oh well. I'm not about to tell the man of the house his thirty minutes of t.v. time are up in the middle of a Wisconsin Badgers basketball game...

So after bath Bella watched some more Sleeping Beauty (we have it memorized now) and then went to bed. Yay!

We can so do this.

Turning Off the Tube

My sister and I were raised in what most people would consider a very strict household. We had limitations on music, movies, and extracurricular activities. And- a biggie for most people- we did not have a television. When I was a kid I never really understood the reaction I got from people when I told them that. Now it's kind of like someone telling you they don't have a cell phone or a landline.

Quite obviously I survived to adulthood.

My husband was raised (like most people!) in a home with a television. So when we got married and I moved into his house, we had one. For the first couple of years we didn't have cable. Then we just got basic cable. Then we got the bundle with internet and 75 channels.

Do you see where this is going?

So my children are being raised in a home with a television. Don't get me wrong, I do not believe their watching Dora the Explorer is leading to the early exploration of narcotics. I do not believe the Mickey Mouse Club is warping their little minds. Spongebob Squarepants, on the other hand...

And I'm guilty as well. I don't watch a lot of t.v. And when I do it's usually HGTV. And I do really enjoy "19 Kids and Counting" on TLC. Is this making me a horrible person? Probably not.

But for my kids it comes down to standards. When they outgrow Dora, do I really want them watching Hannah Montana or iCarly? Absolutely not. Do I want them seeing commercials with sexual innuendo? (even shampoo commercials, for crying out loud!) No thanks. Do I need to hear "Mommy, can I get that?" every time a toy commercial is on? I'll pass.

They could be looking at books. Drawing. Painting. Pretending.

For me it comes down to time. I've come to realize the past few days that I am wasting so much of it. I waste time that I could spend doing productive things around the house. Or with my kids. Reading them books. Watching them draw. Helping them paint. Pretending. Or I could be reading my Bible or praying.

I'm not saying the televisons are going in the trash. Although, to be perfectly honest that's exactly where about 98% of the stuff they show belongs. For one thing, my husband would go into major withdrawals without his ESPN. And I believe some of the childrens programs are good, sound, educational viewing. (like PBS!)

What I have in mind is more of a strict limit on viewing. For instance, allowing half an hour during the morning when a childrens program is on, and then half an hour of a DVD in the evening to wind down. Right now Bella is watching more that that, even though she is by no means a couch potato. So making the change may be a bit difficult. But I believe in the end it will be worth it.

And the winner is....the F350!

So, obviously there's a story behind this one.

About a week and a half ago I was washing dishes when I heard (and felt!) a big ruckus. My first thought was that a large piece of furniture had spontaneouly tipped over of its own accord. But all the chests of drawers (didn't you always think they were called chester drawers? I did!) were still standing. Then I thought maybe the clothes rod in one of the girls' closets had collapsed under the weight of their considerable wardrobe...nope.

My next I idea was that there had been a bad wreck out in front of my house. I quickly walked to the window, doing a quick mental review of CPR. Airway, Breathing, Circulation...look, listen, and feel for breathing...etc.

No wreck.

Then I heard that voice in the back of my head. You know, that little nagging one that is usually pretty accurate and almost always the bearer of bad news:

"Someone ran their car into my house."

So I went downstairs and opened the door into my basement. Sure enough. My garage door was hanging by a thread, or rather a cable, and the wall beside it was kaput. There was an F350 flatbed truck in my driveway and a very sheepish guy standing beside it. He had wheeled into my driveway with the intention of turning around. Unfortunately my drive was covered in black ice. And the rest is history. (The really ironic part is my husband bought a big bag of Ice Melt the day before but hadn't had a chance to put it out yet. I didn't bring that up.)

The driver was extremely embarassed and apologetic. I told him not to worry, it could happen to anyone. I called the police to get a police report. NOTE: if you need a cop, call 911, it does NOT matter if no one is hurt! It does NOT matter if it isn't a real emergency. Or so I was informed by a very snippy lady at the police department.

Then what happens is, even though you said repeatedly ,"No one is hurt, I just need an officer to come do a report," an EMT will show up at your front door and ask if everyone is ok.

So I spent the rest of the afternoon (in addition to chasing my girls around!) talking to the police officer, my insurance company, the drivers insurance company, etc. And now, almost three weeks later, the gaping hole in our house is boarded up with plywood, and insurance adjusters are the bane of our existence.