Uggghhh, more SICKNESS.

Man alive! We just can't shake the miscellaneous colds and viruses that keep occurring here at the James household! How totally frustrating! I'm SICK of SICK - I wanna have fuuuuunnnn...whahahaaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaa. Okay, enough whining.

Sam is home today with a fever of 102+ and absolutely coughing his head right off.
*sigh*

Ronnie just called and said he and Dave are stuck on the side of the road with a trailerload of cattle. I don't know what that means exactly - if its the truck or the trailer that broke down - but surely the two cattle barons will get it figured out. *shaking head*

Boring couple of days...

It looks like the family cold is on its way out the door, but it sure has been boring around here lately...hence the lack of postings.

So basically, I'll write about nothing, just to keep up the habit. LOL.

Yesterday was laundry and housecleaning day. It was actually HOT outside...enough to turn on the air conditioner - IN FEBRUARY! Wild. So, Charlie and I spent a good deal of time outside - between laundry loads - colored chalking, fetching numerous kinds of balls out of the ball bin in the garage and rolling them around the driveway, trying to ride Sam's old toddler bike, jumping on the tramp, mastering the backyard slides, and whatever else appeared to peak Charlie's interest.

What's peaking my interest lately when we're outside, is the annual buildup of winter leaves, stray grasses and weeds that have tumbled into the garage and require some major sweeping away efforts, and the accumulation of just "all kinds of crap" that needs to be sorted through and organized or trashed.

Charlie has developed a major interest in helping me water the one living plant that just won't die in my house. Seriously, I've had the thing since before Ronnie & I were married - so its at least 11 years old! What's the typical lifespan of a Peace Lily anyway...???

We're in the middle of another pretty cold snap starting tonight - but after the weather stabilizes a bit, I'm going to take Charlie to Lowe's and grab some pansies or something to brighten up our back porch a bit.

The poor kid just DELIGHTS over the lone dandelion that festers in the yard - unfortunately, it is the only thing thriving in this yard at the moment. I figured arming him with his own little spraybottle and a pot of pansies would be good fun for him. :)

Today we've done nothing but more housecleaning and more outside time. Charlie was up numerous times for some reason during the night last night, so I'm looking forward to a nap in about 10 minutes! Ahhh, I hope he has a nice long naptime...

This afternoon, we're going to a friend's house. Before I go, I'm putting on these ribs to simmer in the oven while we're gone - they are DELISH! Serve them with buttered rice and mixed veggies or lima beans. Mm-mmm-good.

Cinnamon's Extra-Good BBQ Spare Ribs

4 lbs country style ribs (boneless)
1 c sliced onions (I just dump in a few slices of onion, I have no idea how much)
1/4 c vinegar
1/4 c brown sugar
2 tsp. dry mustard
2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 c ketchup
1 c water
2 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika

Cut ribs into serving pieces. Brown over surface heat. Place in baking pan. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over ribs. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 45 minutes.

Spoon sauce over ribs 2 or 3 times during baking. Bake uncovered, fifteen minutes more.

Ew, sickness.

Yuk, we've all had colds here. Not fun.

Sam just informed me this morning that he'd like to do baseball this season, even if it interferes with karate! I'm shocked!

Lovely fun...another springtime slogging around to the superhot, nonshady baseball fields...this time WITH a rambunctious toddler in tow. Looking forward to that.

Good home-math stuff and a not-so-great Rachel Ray dinner

What a great book - who doesn't like to do projects with FOOD anyway...???!!!...
http://www.creativeteaching.com/p-2702-gobble-up-math.aspx

Also, these are neato pre-algebra tools (plus they're *pretty* and I like *pretty*!)
http://catalog.teachingsupplystore.com/connecting_cuisenaire_rods_introductory_set-p-48103.html?osCsid=c93eac1a08d21b4098e49bd0fed3bd81

Also, I like this site for multiplication tips and help
http://www.mathcats.com/grownupcats/ideabankmultiplication.html

I made Sam and Jake a blog today, and Sam doinked around in it for a while, then we sat and explored the Cuisenaire rods a bit - it was fun. Sam lined them up and we figured the value of each color and he made a chart for future reference. Then Charlie got unruly, so we had to stop for the day.

Later in the afternoon Sam was at the table writing "chapter 2" of his Star Wars book (which just totally traces the same exact happenings from the movie, heeheehee) so I decided to get Charlie working at the little Fisher Price toddler table at the same time. Thinking he would be interested in the contrasting colors, I tracked down some colored chalk and black construction paper for him to go to town on. Instead, he seemed happy just taking the chalks out of the plastic baggie and putting them back in. Over and over. I was the only one drawing, LOL.

Dinner was a nightmare - I attempted a Rachel Ray 30 minute meal idea (which, incidentally, NEVER turn out in 30 minutes at my house - I guess it would help if I had an assistant to chop up and prep each and every item and then and only then could I expect to complete a whole meal in 30 minutes).

It was "knife and fork burgers with provolone cheese sauce (to dip the burger in) on the side, with arugula salad". The burgers took freaking FOREVER to cook on my new grill pan, so they were the last things to be ready. AND they were burned on the outside, yet still pretty pink on the inside...sheesh. Sam totally gagged on the cheese sauce, while Charlie dipped everything on his plate - including fruit and butternut squash chunks - into it. Blech!
No one liked the arugula salad. *sigh*

Ugh, it was a thumbsdowner because, unfortunately, the amount of icky cleanup did NOT justify the meal. Oh well...

DAY ONE of my promise to myself to "Augment Sam's Education"

My ears - and mostly my heart - has grown weary of the following daily reports from Sam, third grade:

"We only got SIX MINUTES of recess today because our area wasn't clean/so-and-so was talking/we didn't line up straight enough." (mass classroom punishment due to a few offenders...grrrrrrr....)

"All we do is the same old stuff." (yeah, typical...)

and worst of all,
"I hate school." (I understand. Not a too terribly uncommon sentiment...)

Not that anyone I ever knew *loved* school either. And I tell him that. And not that I think school should be a *good source of entertainment for kids* either. But in Sam's case, he's always been a child with just a natural love of learning. Unfortunately the past two years has sucked it right out of him for the above reasons, I guess.

Last year at Sam's school daily worksheet-type homework was officially supplanted by the (unfulfilled) promise of several "big projects" to be assigned during the various six week grading periods.

Required weekly reading and math "minutes" (100 reading minutes and 50 math minutes) are still in effect, however...guess what...only one or two homework projects were assigned last year - and NONE to date (the year is half-over) this year!

Thankfully, Sam gets a lot of "time management" practice on various stuff at home, as I give him an objective to complete, ask him to consider a reasonable timeframe in which to get it done, then hold him to his word.

But I can imagine that some kids - for whatever miscellaneous reasons - don't have parents with a similar mindset. So I sometimes wonder...how the heck do they get practice with time management? One of life's most important skills...! ...Okay, I'm about to skid off topic here...anyway...

This year I've resolved to do various "fun" activities with Sam to reinforce topics he's learning in school. "Fun" is in quotes because my "fun" and his "fun" are distinct. Sam's brand of fun is better characterized by either a.) running wild outside with friends...or b.) the contrary, sitting completely inert for hours, glued to the tv. He's an extreme kinda guy.

Nothing against his teacher - I love her - but this year I realize that a majority of classtime is devoted to preparing them for the onslaught of standardized testing that will make up a huge chunk of their remaining elementary years.

So I'm seeking out activities such as cooking, creating "concoctions", building, current event/news awareness, and other such subjects to tie "the real world" into what he is learning in school.

I wish I could create (and get paid for, HAH!) an "afterschool club" or something like that, in which we do the activities together...I'd have to figure out what to do with Charlie though...maybe I'll figure that out one day! Surely parents would pay for SOMEBODY ELSE to do sit down with their kids and do school-related projects...doncha think...???

So, yesterday we did our first thing. Sam was absolutely GIDDY WITH ENTHUSIASM when I pulled out the newspaper article I lovingly searched out and cut out, just for him, to assist in our exciting writing assignment...NOT.

If you, too, want to fan the burgeoning flame of your kids' (non)interest in current events AND watch the excitement for penmanship practice practically bubble over, try this...

NEWSPAPER NARRATIVE

Go fetch that free, weekly, usually-wet newspaper that sometimes makes it to the end of your driveway - and sometimes not - and put it to good use.

Lovingly search for and cut out a local, regional or national current events article that might be of interest to your child. The article I chose for Sam was recent "UFO sightings" that have been happening in Stephenville, Texas.

By the way...go grab that O magazine that's been sitting on your bedside table for two months, and scout out an article for yourself - and do the exercise WITH your child, if you want. Then you can switch the final products, and have "fun" (uh, remember that would be my brand of fun) reading each other's work.

Ask your child to read the article, then find a good handful of nouns, adjectives, verbs...whatever grammatical part of speech you want...and highlight them with a highlighter.

List 5 of the most interesting nouns (adjectives, whatever - we used nouns) on a sheet of paper.

Tell your child what a "narrative" is (a type of writing that "tells a story") and tell him that you will be writing a narrative using the 5 most interesting nouns you chose.

Shown is Sam's work...
I won't show you mine!

Over the hump?

Could Charlie be over the hitting hump...??? I sure hope so...I hate to type it, lest regression set in, but the past two days have been punctuated by some noticeable strides in speech, as well as those elusive "gentle-hands" ...well...make that "gentLER - hands". Could it possibly be true???!!!

Also, Charlie got his first official haircut yesterday - so so cute!

He was minorly disturbed about it, but did pretty well overall - luckily, big brother was getting his haircut as well, in the chair across the room, so we could reference Sam when things started to get too hairy.

Here's a picture of him obsessively stacking blocks in the playroom after tubbie time last night...

"Post-tubbie time" is always a highpoint in Charlie's day. Its always a race to get the bathroom presentable after bath, find and wrangle the boy into a dipey, before he runs into some random corner of a random room and sprays.

Hitting. I've About Had It Up To Here.

I don't know why I create little baby "hitters".
I certainly am not a "hitter" myself - and certainly not with little ones, for pete's sake!

And, with Sam, it wasn't in an aggressive way - starting at the tender age of 10 months - for several months after that - it appeared to me that he was whacking me because my face just happened to be there when he'd get excited.
Finally it occurred to me: remove face from whack-range = problem solved, pretty much.

Charlie, now, is another story.
At fifteen months, he's tantruming (throwing himself down on the floor crying and kicking feet) and whacking me in the face for fun, and for spite. I can even see the gleam in his eye as the wicked idea formulates, bubbles around and solidifies in his brain.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I've scanned good ole Dr. Sears' website for reasons and solutions behind toddler-hitting.
Discouragingly, the articles I find seem to read as if the hitting is an endearing little toddlerhood trait which will soon pass. Surely it will, I know that from previous experience. But endearing it is not.

Even still, I tried ignoring the hitting.
I downplayed the hitting, as I'd block a blow, then issue a quick, non-emotional, non-involved verbal reprimand.
I tried showing him my sad-face after he'd hit it.
I actively seek out opportunities during the day to point out to him, and praise him, when he uses his "gentle hands".
I point out every instance when I use mine.

And yet the problem persists.
Yesterday, he scratched the crap out of my open eyeball, somehow, when whacking me in the face...while I was just sitting there, kindly reading books to his *sorry ass.

As long as I'm complaining...It also makes me frustrated - and yes, a bit resentful - when (on the rare occasion) Ronnie simply raises his voice an octave or two and issues a very simple, very unsweet, manly "NO." And Charlie heeds it.

Last night, Charlie was doing one of his favorite things - putting his foot up on the stereo buttons and turning various modes of surround sound on and off with his toe.
At Ronnie's crisp, concise, verbal man-correction, Charlie LISTENED, as always, with Ronnie. With absolutely no hesitation. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!?!
What IS the man-secret there?!

I think this is a good time for one of my favorite mantras, whose words Charlie will probably make his life-objective to spoon feed me:
I WILL NEVER BE THE MOTHER WHO'S ONLY RECOURSE TO A NON-LISTENING CHILD IS WHEN THE FATHER GETS HOME.
I repeat. NEVER.

So anyway, later that same evening, was when my eyeball and Charlie's fingernail somehow connected. OUUUCH!

I dug down deep into my wellspring of way-overboiling annoyance, and grabbed the lowest, most gutteral, nonhumanoid "NO" I could muster and practically yelled it in Charlie's not-stunned-enough-for-my-satisfaction face, grabbing his little toddler hitting-hands and clenching them together in his lap. More than once.

Mistake on my part. He was so hysterically tired, he was literally writhing around in hysterical possessed-man laughter, then crossed that line and finally squeezed out a few obligatory tears, but just a few.

Ugh, it was awful. No lesson was learned - absolutely none. Except maybe for me, to not to do that again. I felt bad - for losing it, for handing my self-control over to him, and for shouting in my 15 month old's face...what a loser!

So the next day at nap, I clicked on Supernanny, which I Tivo faithfully for positive reinforcement, and channeled Jo Frost for the whole rest of the day. It worked, too!

Charlie still gave me my daily pummeling - in a crowded aisle at Walmart, of course - but I was a heck of a lot more under control. I was SuperMommy all afternoon yesterday!
I wish Supernanny came on every night, so I could be SuperMommy all the next day.



*I say this lovingly, of course...