School days, school days....

Another school year has begun, but this year is quite different. After homeschooling for the past 9 years, my youngest child (the only one who is still school age) is off to public school for the first time! It's hard to let go, no matter what age your child is.

Here's a picture of him I snapped this morning before he left.


He's in the 10th grade this year. This is what he wanted to do...ya know just to see what school is all about. I'm excited for him...but a little sad for me.

We went to new student orientation last night and met his first semester teachers. This school operates on a block schedule. They take 4 90 min classes the first semester and then 4 different 90 min. classes the second semester. This gives you a total of 8 classes or 32 credits by the time you graduate.

The first semester he is taking Auto Tech, Chemistry, Wellnes, and World History. The second semester he is taking Honors English, Accounting, Spanish I and Algebra II.

School starts at 7:15 and ends at 2:15. He was up at 6:15 this morning...the earliest he's been up in a LONG time. He didn't get much sleep last night..nerves and all. I'm sure he will do great today and will be ready to get to bed early tonight.

I will be sitting on pins and needles all day today waiting for him to get home so I can hear how it went.

As for me, I am looking to do childcare and tutoring again. I have some leads that I'm hoping will come thru. I might be keeping a 19mth old 3 days a week and maybe do some tutoring the other two. I'm also going to be keeping 5 yr old twins every other weekend. I met them yesterday, a little girl and little boy. They are so cute! The extra money will really help out as well.

Well, gotta go. Hubby will be home soon and today is his birthday!!

Have a blessed Wednesday!

Children and Lying

My stepkids are here for two weeks, so we have a full house and it has been quite busy. It will be interesting to see how it goes since I will be starting my new job tomorrow. I am looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time. My anxiety level is extremely high right now.

How do you teach a child that lying is just plain wrong? It is something that we struggle with my stepkids. In the past, this is what we have done. I made a "lying" bag out of a ziploc baggie. In the baggie, I included 5 blank index cards along with a pencil. On a separate index card, I wrote down 4 questions:

1. Is lying wrong?
2. Why is lying wrong?
3. Have you ever lied?
4. Is there ever a time when lying is acceptable?

I will usually "ground" this person form T.V. and video games until this assignment is complete.

The child is instructed that he must interview 5 adults. The child will ask the adult to sign his/her name at the top of the blank index card along with the date. The child will ask the adult the questions and will write the answers down on the card. The child is NOT required to tell the adult why he/she has this assignment.

Once all cards have been completed, the bag is returned and the assignment is completed and the child can be "ungrounded".

The child is put in control of how long he/she is grounded.

The next time the child lies, give him/her the assignment bag again. This time tell the child that he/she has to interview 10 adults and 5 of them MUST be from the previous interview.

It has worked for us in the past.

Prayers Please, My Son is in the Hospital

Another crisis has reared its ugly head today. My 18 yr old son, who is currently living with his dad a 100 miles away, was taken to the emergency room this morning with a racing heart.

He has a condition (I hope this is right) called Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome or WPW. He was diagnosed in October of last year and had heart surgery to correct the problem. When he was brought into the ER last year, it was so severe, that they had to shock him twice to try and get his heart rate down. The nurse and the doctor plainly told us if he had waited even 30 mins longer to get to the hospital, he would have died. They said if it had happened to someone older, it would have killed that person instantly.

So, I feel very blessed that my son arrived at the hospital in time. We were told that the surgery would take care of the problem, but as you know, nothing is 100% for sure.

In November, he felt that his was was racing - not as before, but enough for him to panic. He also was very dizzy and of course any strenuous activity just completely wore him out. He was put on a heart monitor that was linked to the cardiologist...this was done for a month. Nothing happened during the time he had the monitor..we hoped it was all behind him.

Now, six months after the first episode and heart surgery, he is back in the hospital. I have not been able to make it to the hospital today, but if they keep him tomorrow, I will be driving there. His dad is with him and will be with him all day. Fortunately, he is NOT in the Cardiac ICU as before and is in a regular room.

I am waiting to hear from his dad to see how his ECG (electrocardiogram)turns out and if they found anything. He did say that the doctor was optimistic that surgery would not be needed and that hopefully they would be able to control his condition with medication.

The medication (beta blockers) will be something he will probably have to take for the rest of his life.

If you could please keep us in your prayers, I would be grateful. It is difficult for me, as a mom, to be so far away from my child.

Thank you.

Enjoy Your Children

We have a tendency when our children are small of being in the "I can't wait" mode.
What I mean is I remember when my children were babies, first it was, "I can't wait until he's old enough to hold his own bottle", then it was "I can't wait until he can crawl", then..."I can't wait until he can walk"; " I can't wait until he can talk".

Now my oldest is 21 , middle is 18 and my youngest is 15 and I wonder..where has all the time gone?

Each day is precious with your child...yes, even when he throws the remote or your cell phone in the toilet, or when he sticks a peanut butter sandwhich in the dvd player. Actually, these are the times that when you look back, you remember with laughter..."Can you believe that he did this?"

I can remember when my middle son talked my youngest into drawing all over his closet door with crayon and chalk. Yes, he did this just to get his little brother in trouble...and poor little brother's excuse was - "He TOLD me to do it". Wow, what teachable moments these are if we can just get past our anger.

I remember when my oldest got a gash in his forehead because his buddies thought is would be fun to play frisbe with a shingle that had fallen off the house during the storm....(yeah....it was fun to get those stitches!)

Or when my middle son was at school and during P.E. he ran into a wall and knocked a tooth out. (hey, he was in a race!)

And how could I forget when my youngest at the age of two decided to lock himself in the car and refused to unlock the door!

Of course, there were sweet moments too....my youngest two boys would have "brother day"....this was a special day where they would just spend all day together playing games, etc.

I love my boys and as I look back there are times when I wish I could have enjoyed "Today" instead of always looking towards "Tomorrow"...do you know what I mean?

Enjoy everyday with your children...because once that day is gone, you can't get it back. Your child will NEVER be the age again that they are today.

I hope everyone has a blessed Thursday.

The Dreaded "L" word.....

No silly, not Love. LICE

If you have never had to deal with the disastrously little bugs, pray that you never have to.

And if you have, you know what I'm talking about.

When my three boys were much younger (one was in grade school, one was in preschool, and the other was in daycare) those horrid little creatures decided to come and visit. And they liked at our house so much that they decided to extend their vacation at our house for many months.

It was very stressful for me...I felt like such a bad mom. How could this happen to MY children. They clean their rooms, I wash their clothes, they take baths, etc etc.

Usually, if your kids are in school or daycare, they are susceptible to picking lice up from other kids and it will have nothing to do with how clean your house is or your child.

After months of combing and picking and trying different brands of lice remedies, I was finally able to get rid of these things by doing the following:

--- wash ALL bed linens
--- throw away any brushes that the child has used
--- spray cloth furniture and mattresses (I had to use an over the counter spray)
--- I used mayonaise on each childs' head and then wrapped it in plastic overnight.
Rinsed it out the next day and combed the hair thoroughly. You need to check
your child's head every day to get rid of these little buggers.

O.K., you're probably wondering why I am posting about lice. Let me say, it wasn't what I had intended to originally post.

My stepdaughter was here over the weekend until yesterday. I had noticed that she had been scratching her head...ALOT. I asked her about it and she said that it had been itching for over a week now. Uh Oh!

Sure enough, I took her over to a sunny window where I could see better. At first I didn't see anything because she has such thick hair. When I checked around her hair line and behind the ears - BINGO...there they were.

I found out that there had been a math night at school involving various games, one of which involved wearing different hats that the teacher had for the game. I think she probably got it that way, because there were several children taking turns wearing the hats.

Anyway, I have thrown away the brushes that she used and am in the process of washing all the linens in hot water (I usually wash in cold).

The only thing that worries me is that I was using the same brush that she was, so I need to keep a close eye on my own hair, Ugh!

Busy Saturday

I won't be able to get to the computer for the rest of the day...

My wonderful husband woke up early this morning and made a big breakfast for us all - eggs, sausage, biscuits and milk gravy - YUMMM!! I love him so much!

Busy, busy day. Blake has a soccer game this morning and then I have to drive about an hour to drop him off at his dad's. Then its back and try and get a quick shower.

My hubby and I are going up around Reelfoot Lake to meet some friends for dinner.

Here's the latest picture of my granddaughter....I miss her so much.

Remedy

I don't get a chance to post pictures that often because I don't yet have a digital camera.

This is a picture of my granddaughter Remedy. Ain't she just sooooo sweet!!

I miss her very much. We just moved about 100 miles away and I don't get to see her as much as I used to. When I lived closer, I used to babysit her 1 or 2 days a week along with a few weekends.

My beautiful granddaughter Remedy Grace

My 14 yr old son made this video of my granddaughter Remedy. She was 18 mos in the video - she is now two years old. We recently moved and I don't get to see her as much as in the past ---really missing her.



I think Blake did a great job with the video.