Monday, Monday

Why are Mondays so hard? This particular Monday went out in a blaze of glory. I am exhausted.

It started with the food. Food is always an issue in our house. Between Josh's allergies and finickiness (which are related, according to our allergist), we have a limited menu for him to eat. The allergist told us not to fight him to get him to eat new foods, but I have no problem doing the meal showdown over foods he has already proven he can and will eat. Periodically, he tries to cut at food out of his repertoire and I nip that behavior in the bud pretty quickly. We cannot go back to a 3 food diet.

Our other issue is that as far as any given food goes, he is very particular about it being a specific recipe or brand. For instance, pancakes - Bisquick is best, homemade with white flour and white sugar is good, homemade with white flour and brown sugar is okay, homemade with wheat flour and any sugar is bad and Aunt Jemima is unacceptable. Seriously. I kid you not. And the child can tell before he even tastes the pancake.

It had to do with the rule. The rule for our kids is that they have to finish the food in a meal before they can eat the next meal or any other food.

Breakfast yesterday was oatmeal. Half the packet variety they like and half instant oatmeal because that is all we had left. Josh has eaten both in the past, but he was bound and determined that he was not going to eat this oatmeal. Michael followed suit. I had two extraordinarily grumpy children yesterday. We had homeschool and had a friend come over in the afternoon to do our science lesson with us and that entire time my kids hadn't eaten.

How it all came out in the end:

Michael - just before 5 pm, Michael finished his oatmeal. He then asked for (and got) 3 slices of cheese, half a mini loaf of pumpkin bread, a yogurt and macaroni and cheese.

And then he threw up.

Yea.

Josh - sometime after 6 pm, he finally finished his oatmeal. This meant it took him almost 10 hours. TEN. HOURS. And it wasn't pretty getting to that point. Tantrums, crying, begging and finally hitting me (that did not go well for him) - he spent a looooong time in his bedroom waiting for Daddy to come home, because Mommy was done. But, he ate it and woke up this morning starving and promising to eat 10 pancakes (yes, of the white wheat and white sugar variety - I can only do that fight one day at a time).

So, now it is Tuesday and I am ready for it to be Saturday any minute now.

Lessons Learned

Tomorrow is the first day of our second week of homeschooling. Week one went by quickly and I think it went well, but I definitely learned a few things and will make some changes. I figured that our first week would be a "throw away" week - my expectations were low and I just wanted to get some routines started before worrying about the content. Josh did beautifully and I think he enjoyed showing off how much he knows. Michael had a play companion and participated in about half of the schooling. Ben got on a better nap schedule (whether he wanted to or not). And we all spent far less time on the computer and TV. I think I got lucky with homeschooling Josh though, because he is so eager to learn and loves to do worksheets and bookwork. That definitely makes my job easier.

What works for us:

Routine - in fact, the days that I had alternate plans, Josh would ask later when we would do more homeschool. He wanted the daily work on reading and math. Our daily routine consists of calendar time, alphabet song, weather, poem, handwriting, spelling, reading, and math in the morning. Once a week, in the afternoon, we do science, history, library, gym (like soccer or swim classes), music and art.

4 day week - I was really happy with arrangement - an idea I copied from a friend who homeschools. I really hope to be very consistent with our school hours Monday through Thursday, so leaving Friday open lets us go to playgroup and put the boys in sports classes that are at the same time as our school.

What I need to change:

More socialization - the first day of homeschool, we went to the basement to start the day. Josh looked around and asked where everyone else was. Poor guy. Starting this week, we have a homeschool group we will meet with on Wednesdays, library storytime is on Thursdays, soccer class and playgroup are on Fridays and I will try to have an extra child join us for our science time on Mondays. Hopefully this schedule will satisfy Josh's need for other kids.

BrainQuest - I had bought the book for Kindergarten only to discover this week that Josh would be bored out of his mind. So, I had to exchange it for the 1st grade book and I think that will work better for us.

Reading - I got a book that is supposed to help parents teach their kids how to read; now I just have to figure out how much this kid knows. I thought we would start at the beginning to just to be sure of the basics, but that was far too basic and the only thing we did all week that he didn't enjoy. I just need to sit down with the book and figure out where he should be and start there.

All in all, it went well. I do sort of cringe every time I tell someone we homeschool. This really isn't a lifestyle we have chosen for the long term and it isn't really a statement on the public school system (well, other than wanting a half day for kindergarten), so I haven't invested the time and money into it that people who are hardcore do. We have every intention of putting Josh back in school next year. And we will be holding Michael back a year to prevent some of the problems we have encountered with Josh. But, in the meantime, it is working for us and making life much, much easier.

Another Soy Baby

Well, it is (semi) official - Ben is another soy baby. Two encounters with dairy at distinctly separate times produced a great deal of vomit and discomfort. This is what my pediatrician calls "highly suspicious" for a dairy allergy. Sadly, in order to test this theory we would have to expose him to dairy again (too traumatic) and then have blood drawn (also traumatic). The test, at this time, is moot because I will not be putting us or the steam cleaner through that again for about a year. The doc did point at that at some point it will be necessary for us to determine a real allergy, but since I don't intend to feed him dairy for a while there is no need now to do the test.

So, there it is. I really am not horribly upset about it - just old hat in the Miller house. The goal now is not to produce another picky eater. However, as my mom points out, we had Josh on dairy formula for a few months and he experienced a great deal of pain associated with food at a young age. Since Ben has only had that experience in two isolated events, hopefully he won't associate food with pain and won't be overly cautious with new foods the way Josh is. Let us deeply and sincerely hope.

Pirate Loot

This, my dear friends and family, is the latest scam, I mean scheme to get the boys to do their chores and watch less TV: Pirate Coins. We introduced it last night at Family Home Evening. The boys were very excited. After all, anything that involves pirates is exciting.

Here's the deal: Each boy has a jar (see below) and in that jar we put the coins that he earns. Eating and clearing his dishes; making his bed; setting the table; cleaning up toys and such will earn the boys a coin.
And what can they buy with these coins? Five minutes of TV/Computer/Wii/DVD time. We got pretty addicted to the various media over the break and needed a way to cut back that didn't seem arbitrary. We also needed to cut down on the arguing over getting basic chores done. Hopefully, this will help with both problems. The TV was on for a combined total of 25 minutes today. Not bad for the Miller house. And, they learned the value of saving up coins this morning as Michael could only watch 5 minutes of a Leap Frog video with his coins and Josh got cut off after 20 minutes of Lego Star Wars with his coins.
Now, if their parents can just be consistent....

Before, During and After

Today was the day. The day that has been 5 weeks in coming. The day they removed Michael's cast. WOOHOO!

So, in reality, we have been extraordinarily fortunate with his cast. He never did figure out/decide to use it as a WMD. Or at least, not that I have heard. It didn't really slow him down any. In fact, Jason and I were the ones who experienced the greatest inconveniences - trying to find clothes to fit over the cast, bathing him outside the tub and keeping him from breaking any other bones while he had the limited use of one of us his major landing appendages. We were decently successful on all accounts - we were just ready for the dang thing to be off.

In preschool today, some of his teachers signed the cast before it was removed. Sweet girls (and one guy).

One happy dude.

Showing off his bionic arm(s).

We have an awesome orthopedic office - the doctor and all the staff were great. This guy cut the cast off without making Michael cry. He (the nurse/tech) told us later he has cut casts off of grown men who were more difficult that Michael. Michael did great. He just sat and watched.

After sawing through the fiberglass and plaster layers, all that was left was the padding to be cut off. Thank goodness he did this in the winter - I can only imagine how gross and uncomfortable a cast would be in Virginia in the summer!

Back to normal again! Well, as normal as we get around here, anyway.

2010 Here We Come

For a good laugh come this December, here are my goals for 2010:

1. Join the ward choir. I like to sing. I like to think that I can sing. I just can't read music. Fortunately, I think our church choir is a charitable bunch and won't hold that against me.

2. Go to the temple 6 times. Ben will be weaned soon/any day now, so this should be feasible.

3. Read the Old Testament. This being the only one of our cannon I have not read in its entirety. I get lost in the begats. Or rather, my interest gets lost in the begats.

4. Exercise goal. I hesitate to mention it here since I have, in the past, set high goals and then never met them. So, I will keep it to myself and publish if I triumph and let it go in silence if not.

Discovery Museum Revisited