If you are sick, please stay home.

I did not make it through mass this AM.
At first I was really excited because the church wasn't packed and it was 1030! However, even with a lot of space around me and not having to be crammed next to people in a pew I started having a lot of anxiety over what seemed like an alarming number of people coughing and sniffling. I know the priests have been really on the ball lately reminding wayward parents to get the super noisy crying children to the cry room, but you know what is worse? Adults who have hacking gross wet coughs who just keep coughing. If you can't contain yourself to not coughing through a mass perhaps you should still be home? And if your kid is also hacking up a storm you can completely stay home and take care of them and miss mass and it's not a sin!
I ended up leaving and standing in the back by fresh air until herds of children (mostly tweens) started coming through like a parade for the bathrooms during the homily-- a homily where I might add Father began by implying how ridiculous it was that children in the 7am were running in and out to the bathroom like it was the latest thing.
So yeah please stay away from me if you are sick. I'm not doing well with handling all of your sicknesses in public.

School

We've had a really nice week of school. I'm impressed with Xander's math abilities. I feel like I practically don't have to teach him. He just smoothly moved from doing the multiplication to division =) He is a dream!
Molly is working hard on her spelling and word recognition. She reads a little but can get hung up on unfamiliar words. Right now I've decided to use the spelling lists to reinforce vocabulary. It seems like the big list we were working on with flash cards is too overwhelming so we are memorizing 10 a week and we will get there =)
My mom bought the kids some activity books so the little 2 were really excited about school. Even Max asks to do 'school' so the book really made him feel important!!
We start school during breakfast by listening and talking about our history on CD and move on to our books once the table is cleared =)






Oh and here is a picture of the cool 'simple' shoes I was able to score for $12 at the new saxxon shoe store in f'burg


and one more of Molly

Columbus Week

This week has been all about Columbus. I know he is getting the shaft in regular society, but you know, we have Catholic and European roots and he did DISCOVER America in as much as Europe had no clue it existed. I can't believe I read about school systems having classes put Columbus on trial and finding him guilty. I'm wondering what evidence they were considering! Yes, there are sour notes, but is it really productive to make him into a full fledged villan? It might be more educational to look at how exploration is different today- or imagine if Europe only this century had 'discovered' America- or what would have happened if America had discovered Europe instead =)

Thursday

A list of things we did today

Snow White
Division
Laundry
Experiments
Forts
chicken nuggets
pbj

Another sickee

So around 3am last night there's a knock on the door and Dan handles it... "Xander is having neck pain", Dan explains as he comes back to bed.
To which I reply..." Are you sure he doesn't mean that he feels like he's going to throw up?"
Dan is certain that it's a neck pain.
Maybe 2 minutes later there is a lot of running, a knock on the door and a frantic " I'M THROWING UP!!!"

So, we've been quarantined again. I just hate possibly spreading anything to my friends and neighbors! Thankfully a sickness like this is much better with an older child! No serious clean up needed. I was lysoling and wiping down things with Clorox wipes. He was definitely feeling better by this evening and we all got ice cream when the ice cream truck came =)

Naughty Nathan

Today Nathan got up at ohh... 5am and even though Dan told him (and the 2 other boys that also got up) to go back to bed until the sun came up, the minute Dan was out the door they were really all back up.
The result? Poor Nathan was really ready for bed at around 3pm!!! We did not let him go to bed early even though he kept asking! I am hoping he will sleep until 7am tomorrow. We shall see!

I finally delivered some long overdue pampered chef to one of my friends that I really don't see enough. Sure, it's like you need to leave a trail of breadcrumbs when you are finding her house but it's not impossible to get there. The GPS needs a workout every now and then.

We made a quick run to Ikea where I was hoping to find a dresser in the As-is. No such luck! I did however find one of the CD racks for a decent price. I have been wanting one of these for little kid shoes for years ever since I read about it in some magazine. I think it's probably been 5 years ago. Anyway at the time of the article the price was $20 for this cd thing... immediately after the article the new cd racks went way up- more than I wanted to pay and today they are around $50! Maybe I wouldn't have been so hung up on the price if I didn't know what the old price was. At any rate I now own one and I have one pair of shoes on it.
I'm thinking of switching around some other organization too. Shoes are a big problem and I like the thin hideaway faux dresser look of some of the shoe organizers so I will measure and think about it. If I get them then I need to relocate jackets... or maybe I can just find another spot for the shoes? I'm thinking about it.

We ran in very quickly to Pmills where the kids checked out one of the stands that sells puppets and those little battery operated creatures. Max definitely wants a hamster. We had seen the hamsters in the newly renovated and reopened library in spotsylvania last spring. That would be a big hit as a christmas present. hint hint and they are only $10 or some such.

One of the jumping dogs really startled Nate and he had to come hide behind me. The lady working there tried to reassure him by putting the tiniest cutest most unscary lion you have ever seen on the floor. It started waddling towards us with his silly little mouth open and Nathan just started wailing! There were shouts of 'no! no! no!' along with your basic screeches of terror. It was funny for the rest of us and the two booth workers (one for the stuffed animals and one who was just selling those magic shoulder bean bags nearby) got a real kick out of the whole thing. It struck me at the time of how terrorizing babies seemed to bring us all such joy.

While we were in H&M Max really went after Molly after he misunderstood some movement by her as an attack oh him. There was once again loud screeching but this time accompanied by Nathan shouting, " YOU ARE A BAD BOY MOLLY."
Nathan will probably have some complex because of everyone always laughing at him.. we were just giggling over his fear of a lion and now we were giggling over his heartfelt anger. Can't anyone take him seriously?

When we walked by pretzels he started hitting *me* --let me say he was on my back in the ergo at the time so I was reeeaaally helpless-- and saying ' I WANT THAT!!!' over and over... It was like the worst baby manners ever.

At home Molly came over with her friend Chloe. One minute Chloe is standing by the door waiting for Molly to get something from her room and the next the door is closed and Nathan is just standing there. "Where is Chloe?" I ask.
Nate:"She gone. She was mad at me" (making the terrible monster face)
Me: "why is she mad at you?"
Nate: "I tell her to go away"
Now I have to retrieve Chloe from the end of the sidewalk and tell her to come back and that she should most definitely ignore rude babies!!!
AND
While Dan was at soccer with Xander I had to break up an assault on Max. Nathan was pummeling him on the head with the computer mouse!!!

It was definitely time for bed. (after the naughty stool of course!)

what I'm working on

because you don't know what I'm working on all the time.

on a roll

how can I possibly be posting so much? Maybe if I can keep this window open I will remember to post more often.
Last night we were up pretty much constantly with poor Nathan vomiting. We can't really remember ever being up in the night with a kid like this. The whole fiasco continues into today. The real challenge was dealing with the carpet upstairs... I am really so not a carpet person. I finally had an epiphany this morning that we should set up the toddler bed downstairs so the hurling is contained to hard surfaces and an easy wipe down mattress. Its pretty nice to be able to go about our downstairs business and be able to keep an eye on him. His temp is 100.2 last I checked and he is at least able to keep things down for the stretches he is snoozing. Poor baby!!!
We have run out of PJs for him and there will be no progress on the mountain of laundry while we keep washing pjs and bedsheets...
Everyone else is quarantined and questioning why I won't let them go out into the neighborhood. I feel really stupid because Nathan was actually acting a little funny yesterday... just grumpy. I was attributing it to not wanting to hang out at co-op but in hindsight... he was probably spreading germs to all those kids. SORRY EVERYONE!

Normal stuff

I can't post something off the wall and not post something normal =)

We are in full gear around here with homeschooling, soccer, co-op and field trips.
On tuesday we went to see the disney train tour for Scrooge. Not exactly that interesting for kids I have to say but it was a big adventure.







Nathan told Dan when he got home.. "(mumble mumble mumble...) and then BOOM!!! Mcdonalds!"
that pretty much sums up his experience. He was asking to go home the whole time and was only happy when we went to mcdonalds for chocolate milk after the train.
Usually when we go to DC riding the metro is a big deal and everyone loves it. That didn't happen this time because the trains were sooo crowded since it was a weekday, I'm not even sure the little ones really realized they were on a real train.
We did survive our solo trip to DC which is an accomplishment sort of on the same lines as those people who do things like climb mountains or trek somewhere... we did it!

Co-op is going well. I'm teaching art and I have a great assistant who is actually running the show for at least the next 2 weeks. I was sort of a floater today and got to help out in a few places.

This weekend we have a couple soccer games and an unbelievable amount of laundry to do!!

horrible missionaries

I just have to post this so I can come back and remember when this happened. Occasionally we have LDS missionaries who come to our door. We always invite them in or at least manage to chat and be hospitable! Yesterday however we had THE RUDEST lds missionary ever. I think he said he was a convert which sort of explains his attitude problem... or maybe I am under a false assumption that lds are generally nice or at least appear nice. For the record this guy was a first class jerk. Mocking us and talking over us when we tried to share our viewpoints. Unbelievable. I should have taken a picture or at least written down their names. They needed a first class spanking by their missionary stake leader. Bottom line: pray for the doogie howser lookalike lds missionary and his sidekick.