Seven Quick Takes (Vol. 4)

ONE
I spent money (gasp) on the kitten. She's just a farm cat, but she was under the tractor last time daddy started it up to mow the lawn and she got hurt. All I could see was a kitten dragging a leg around and mewing in pain when we picked her up. So - for $8 I got some reassurance from the vet that she only has torn and damaged ligaments in her knee and hip that will heal on their own in 6 weeks. I think the vet helped get things back in place a bit, too, because she's already using her leg more than she did before. Now Catherine wants her to be a house cat...


TWO
School continues to go well - as long as we get started right away in the morning. We can be "done" by 10 if I get up by 7, have my outside chores done and breakfast ready so the kids can eat breakfast and start school by 8. We do lots of little "enrichment" activities in the afternoon, which includes reading a lot of picture books and going off on little "rabbit trails" from there. We had a "field trip" to the dentist recently while we were learning about teeth in Science and found out that Anthony has a little cavity that needs to be filled. Yikes! Our first cavity! We have another "field trip" scheduled at the optometrist when I am getting my eyes checked for new glasses in a few weeks.

Catherine is getting some extra practice with her numbers and number words 0-12 with some Montessori-ish 3-part cards I made for her and it looks like that is helping a lot. Teresa continues to read...read...read and I'm trying to decide how to help Catherine in that regard. The other day, when she was being stubborn about sounding out some words, I left her for a few minutes and when I came back, she had written: "I Dot no haw tw reb" at the top of the page. I decided to let her start the "Learn to Read" section at Starfall and she's really enjoying it - and doing well! I'm thinking of paying the $35 annual fee for "MORE Starfall", which opened earlier this year. All the kids (including Stephen) love this site. Stephen always wants to play "/a/, /a/, /a/", which is the first step: "ABCs" He knows a lot of letters and can use the computer mouse really well. Adam was impressed.


THREE
Stephen finally had his 2nd doctor's appointment with our family doctor...third in his life. He's closing in on 27 lbs (10th %), is 36 inches tall (25th %), with a head circumference in the 50th %. He got his 2nd shot (we have a very laid back approach to the recommended "vaccination schedule") and he handled it well, but he's having growing pains in his legs (he's been very restless at night) and the shot didn't help much. It also didn't help him get over a tiny cold he had - it's worse. Daddy asked him, "What's that coming out of your nose?" Stephen felt around his nose and replied, "Concrete?"



Another cute Stephen conversation:
mom: Can I give you kisses?
stephen: On my cheek.
mom: (kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss-kiss)
stephen: That's enough, now.

FOUR
Moving books and bookshelves has me in a nostalgic mood where I want to sit down with all my "friends" and read away. I love the "I Can Read" books by Arnold Lobel. Frog and Toad are my favorites. We have two, the library has one - I've been on the lookout for the fourth. Uncle Elephant is sweet. Owl at Home is funny. I would love to find Mouse Tales, Mouse Soup, Small Pig and Grasshopper On the Road, being the collector of books that I am...and speaking of collecting books, I picked up two new ones at a garage sale: Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary (which I also read over the weekend and loved it - Emily is such a real girl!) and Charlie's Raven by Jean Craighead George.

FIVE
We finally got the manganese and iron out of our water. I enjoyed working with Jack, again. He helped me understand a lot about water treatment when I was at the University and working on a report that addressed the water quality at the CK Motherhouse. When we bought our house, our options were extremely expensive or involved a lot of chemical intervention, so we've lived with the problem. A reasonably affordable and easily maintainable solution came out a few years ago, so we bit the bullet and finally fixed our water problem. Our water is not extraordinarily delicious, but it does taste much better and I can have whites again! I'm also hoping that this will make laundering cloth diapers less complicated.

NOTE: Jack was very impressed with the excellent job Adam did with the plumbing / installation of the unit. He is used to having to fix things that homeowners screw up. Kudos to Adam!

SIX

Teresa asked if she could have a chore to do in order to get to get a toy back from the bucket under my bed. (She had her eye on a little stuffed Pooh bear). She unloaded and sorted the laundry from the dryer. Before she picked out her toy she changed her mind, though: "I don't want a toy back, mom. I decided just to do it for love." Wow!

SEVEN
The Applejack Festival was not worth it. We aren't into spending a lot of money and were disappointed that there weren't more free demonstrations, tours, etc. The only differences we noticed between going to Nebraska City for the "Applejack Festival" and going a week earlier or later was: 1)a lot more people / less parking and 2)more things to spend money on. We decided that we'd go back in a few weeks when the trees are changing colors and it's not quite so crowded to take the kids on the Arbor Day Farm Tree Adventure.

A PICTURE THOUGHT I AM SHARING:

We did some re-arranging. This is the new family room. The new living room and dining room/school room are in progress...(i.e. right now they're a mess).