A cool registry website

I'm loving My Registry. With the help of the website you are able to make one registry that pulls from many different websites. I've added the button to my toolbar so I can easily add things when I see them. You can even add things from Etsy which is really great. I'm using it to keep track of the things I want to buy for Husband, the kids, and myself. I'll probably pass the link out to interested parties (a.k.a. my mom, sister, and brother who are forever buying my children gifts) this Christmas which should probably help cut down on the "whatever shall I get them that is an approved toy" (no lead, no MIC, etc.) dance that starts November 1^st and lasts through the holidays. I especially like the tags option so that you can put the person's name down. I often forget if something that I bookmark is supposed to be for my kids or for other random people which the tags option should help cut out.

 

Belle can speak!

Did you know about the risks of BPA in your canned foods, including canned baby food and formula?

Belle did the cutest thing yesterday. She said "mama"! Ok, so it wasn't actually "mama", it sounded more like "Mom" but she was trying to crawl to me (she's doing a scoot/crawl/roll thing to get around these days) and she started crying because it was too much work for her and she looked at me and said "Mam". Of course I picked her up immediately and started celebrating (and maybe rubbing it in the Husband's face a little as well!) She's not yet four months old so it is really cool. She's got a weird little thing going on with her hair though. The sides of her head have these patches of almost baldness where she sleeps on them. Hopefully that'll grow in soon.

Tomorrow we'll be doing origami dinosaurs!

You Tube Videos Made Easy

With my beautiful new app, YouPlayer, I'm able to watch things in a sidebar while I'm surfing the internet. I've added a few German clips to my playlist and now the kids are able to watch that while I'm typing away at what. Very, very cool.

Playing with my Add-Ons

I just tried the clip mark add-on that I downloaded for Firefox. I don't think that it even posted to my blog which is odd. However, right now I'm typing this in a ScribeFire add-on and watching Janet Jackson's "Feedback" video in a sidebar through my YouPlayer add-on. Both are really cool. I love add-ons. I love Firefox!

Christmas List in the Making

Though it is only June, I'm working on the Christmas lists for the kids. Most of the patterns that I'm getting are through Ravelry but some are from Crochet Pattern Central. So far…

… I'm going to crochet:

1. Pikachu (Pokemon)
   
2. Mew (Pokemon)
   
3. Jigglypuff (Pokemon)
   
4. Hello Kitty
   
5. S'mores
   
6. Bowl of Ramen noodles
   
7. Mushroom house
   
8. Hot dog
   
9. Turtle
   
10. Owl
    
11. Dog
    
12. Strawberries
    
13. Bat
    
14. Butterfly
    
15. Fish
    
16. Lots of balls (different textures)
    
17. Kitten
    
18. Teddy bear
    
19. Cactus
    
20. Frog
    
21. Banana
    
22. DNA Model
    
23. Rocket ship
    
24. Penguin
    
25. Celestine
    
26. Traffic light
    
27. Pig
    
28. Cherry pie
    
29. Tartlets
    
30. Lemon meringue pie
    
31. Super Mario star
    
32. Elephant
    
33. Octopus
    
34. Gnome home
    
35. Gnomes
    
36. Eggs
    
37. Various dinosaurs
    
38. Bunny
    
39. Hot cocoa in mugs
    
40. Cookies
    
41. Ducks
    
42. Shark
    
43. Ice cream cones
    
44. Dragonfly
    
45. Cow
    
46. Hippo
    
47. Dragon
    
48. Manta ray
    
49. Alien
    
50. Caterpillar
    
51. Panda
    
52. Birthday cake
    
53. Popcorn
    
54. Lion
    
55. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    
56. Crowns
    
57. Dolphin
    
58. Jellyfish
    
59. Pygmy Puffs
    
60. Apples
    
61. Rattle
    
62. Cupcake
    
63. Sun
    
64. Lamb
    
65. Pear
    
66. Squirrel
    
67. Meercat
    
68. Airplanes
    
69. Horse
    
70. Pac-man characters
    
71. Finger puppets
    
72. Totoro
    
73. Flamingo
    
74. Golden snitch
    
75. Crab
    
76. Lobster
    
77. Alligator
    
78. Fried egg
    
79. Dodo
    
80. Snake
    
81. Fortune cookie
    

…I'm going to (try to) knit:

1. Toy boat
   
2. Ring
   
3. Screwdriver
   
4. Tooth fairy pillows
   
5. Elmo
   
6. Cookie monster
   
7. Doughnut
   
8. Bee
   
9. Hot cross buns
   
10. Cherries
    
11. Various dinosaurs
    
12. Olives
    
13. Felted alphabet blocks
    
14. Goat
    
15. Giraffe
    
16. Torus (rings for grabbing)
    
17. Nativity scene
    
18. Celery
    
19. Slapstick pie
    
20. Jelly doughnut
    
21. Corn
    
22. Doll
    
23. Balls (lots)
    
24. Lemon/lime
    
25. Kiwi bird
    
26. Grass
    
27. Sushi
    
28. Toy block
    

In addition to these things (which are all for my kids!), I want to:

Crochet:

1. Mitten or gloves and hat sets for my kids, the Husband, my mom, my dad, my sister, my brother, and my in-laws.
   
2. Afghans for my kids, the Husband, my mom, my dad, my sister, and my brother.
   
3. A purse/bag for my mom, my sister, and my nieces.
   
4. A wine holder (in which I'll put a bottle of nice wine) for my in-laws and my parents.
   
5. A scarf for my brother and my sister.
   
6. 20 preemie hats in acrylic and 20 preemie hats in cotton for a local hospital or charity.
   
7. A few things for an online charity I keep meaning to join each year.
   

So obviously, some of this stuff isn't going to get done. I'm going to try and narrow down this list a bit as the year goes on. I'm trying to decide what I'm going to get started on first. I'm going to do the toys in either acrylic or cotton. I have some green (various shades), blue, pink, and purple acrylic right now. I'm thinking that I can make some of the balls and/or blocks right now. I want to make blocks in various sizes and make a lot of them. I remember that my cousin had these big foam blocks that looked like bricks when we were kids and I loved pulling those out and playing with them when I went to her house. I'd love to make some of those for my kids. Maybe like twenty blocks, even more if I could do it.

We’ll Have Some Spanish With Our Letter of the Week, Please!

The baby will be three months in just a few days which means I'll be starting The Letter of the Week Nursery Program in the next week or so with her.

I've decided to officially add Spanish to our languages. I wasn't going to do it but we have so much access to Spanish materials and there is such a huge part of our population that speaks Spanish that it is just senseless to ignore it. Money is tight right now so I haven't been able to order books/music/dvds in German like I was planning on and there is no where that I've found, even in bordering cities, where I can buy materials in German other than the same old, dry textbooks. I'm still going to keep at German but it just makes sense to introduce Spanish as I can find a ton of stuff for that easily and free. So for each Letter of the Week book that I order from the library, I'll also order the Spanish version (easily done as the books are filled with popular hits).

We're studying dinosaurs right now. Each week or so we check out ten to fifteen books on the subject that we're studying. This week I've ordered:

1. Dinosaurs All Around by Caroline Arnold
   
2. The Visual Dictionary of Dinosaurs
   
3. Dinosaur Valley by Mitsuhiro Kurokawa
   
4. Where to Look for a Dinosaur by Bernard Most
   
5. Dinosaurs, dinosaurs by Byron Barton
   
6. Dinosaurs, Asteroids, and Superstars by Franklyn Mansfield Branley
   
7. The Way to Draw and Color Dinosaurs by Don Bolognese
   
8. I Wonder Why Triceratops Had Horns and Other Questions About Dinosaurs by Rod Theodorou
   
9. Creatures of Long Ago: Dinosaurs by John Sibbick
   
10. Origami dinosaurs by Yoshihide Momotami
    
11. Drawing Dinosaurs by Jerome Goyallon
    
12. If Dinosaurs Came to Town by Dom Mansell
    

So hopefully those will all come in soon and we can get started. The book that Fin and I are working on this week is Little Dinosaur by David Kinefield. I'm writing out the words on note cards for him and will also work with him on them each day. My goal is to work through a small book each week so that by the end of the week, he can read it with ease.

I have yet to find a homeschool planner that I've found meets my standards. I have three kids and I want to look at all three's work for the week in one blow. I did find one site with some cool planner pages but it isn't exactly what I want. So I think I might be drafting my own in Word when I can find the time.

The Ridiculous Things People Say

"How will they ever learn to get along with people?" So many things are wrong with this statement. Schools are designed to separate children into odd little groups of people of all the same age and, in some schools, the same abilities. When else in life will one be surrounded by only their age mates, even spending "breaks" with only people of the same age? This doesn't teach children to get along in society, it contributes to society's ills. When people ask this question of me I always want to question whether they've read "Lord of the Flies".

"They'll be behind all the other children!" Right now, my four year old is reading. Not everything, he wouldn't be able to read this blog for instance, but he'd be able to pick out many of the words in it. His birthday is in the winter which means that he wouldn't be entering kindergarten this year, he'd have to wait until next year. When I was a kid, kindergarten consisted of review of the basics and then basic reading. I learned to read in an experimental preschool program when I was two so I was bored out of my mind and my birthday is late in the school year so I was one of the young kids in the class. I can only imagine the utter tedium that my almost six year old would face in a setting such as this with the level he is at now when he's four. So they most certainly won't be behind.

Add to LibraryThing

Well, now I don't know what to think. Apparently you can add to LibraryThing from Amazon. That's cool (better than nothing) but I'd really like it to add from any source. Unfortunately, it doesn't. And just as I was getting happy because I saw that there was an option to highlight and click, I read the page and that option is old and doesn't work for the updated version of the browser. However, I did pay good money for LibraryThing so I'm going to find a way to make this work for me! I'll update should there be any changes.

Wow, almost a month!

Almost a month has passed since I last posted! Not cool, I know.

Anyway, we went to the zoo as we do a few times a year. Once again, I was reminded why we go so randomly. The gorillas looked so sad. If you didn't hear about it when it happened, read about why the gorillas aren't happy. While the zoo now claims that the gorillas have recovered from that incident, I don't think so. They always seem distant and sad, a few times one or two have been angry.

Maybe it is just me but I don't feel right about keeping animals that act so like humans locked up. They can speak to us, they can actually use a language and talk to us. Not like dogs or horses or any other animal, gorillas can learn sign language and carry on conversations with humans. Yet we keep them locked away like criminals.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned Shelfari before but it is a great option to LibraryThing which I am becoming less enchanted with. I like some features of LibraryThing but it isn't as pretty a set-up as Shelfari and it is a lot easier to add books that you don't know about (the groups have group shelves!) than LibraryThing. Though maybe I'm not utilizing LibraryThing to it's full potential. I've already paid for a lifetime membership to LibraryThing (though Shelfari lets you add unlimited books for free) so I'll keep at it and maybe (hopefully?) it'll get more user friendly.

Been A Long Time

I believe I'm finally in the groove of working and spending time with the children. I had to take a break from everything for awhile and just concentrate on relearning to balance work and home life. I'm just making a quick update to say that I'm back, I'll actually make a new post tomorrow.

Do You Speak English?

All we've been speaking lately is English. It has just been easier. I decided to raise my children bilingually because I wanted them to have the advantages that brings and also so that I'd have someone to talk to in my select languages as I like to study foreign languages as a hobby. But raising a child bilingually when you aren't a native to the language is harder than I'd anticipated. I don't have the ingrained "baby language" that I would if I'd been raised speaking German. I don't know how to call a toilet anything but it's proper name (and a few names that I can't use with a baby!) and I don't know if a baby has an "owie" or "boo boo".

In a way this might be good. Everyone has read the numerous studies and articles about baby talk holding children back. The new trend is to speak to a child as if they are your forty-five year old colleague instead of a new soul trying to figure out a strange world. So the fact that I can't babble baby talk to my children is actually a plus in this department. But it holds me back when I want to coo sweet nothings into my baby's ear or softly soothe my toddler in "mommy" words.

So after I had the new baby and I was so tired I couldn't even bother dressing myself each day, it didn't seem like such a big issue to let German slide for awhile. I figured that it would be easy enough to pick back up once I could remember how to spell my own name. Now over a month has passed and a recent conversation with my oldest made me realize that we've hit a low point.

Fin: Mama, what are you doing?
Me: Feeding the baby. What are you doing?
Fin: I'm playing with my toys. (fidgets around) Can.... MAY I have a glass of water, please?
Me: Sure.

Now, this would normally be a nice conversation. He self-corrected to say "may" instead of "can" and he even said "please". However, after I handed him the glass of water and he thanked me, I realized that not one word of German passed his lips. I tried to think over our recent conversations and couldn't remember when we'd last spoken in German. All of our recent books and songs have been communicated in English. We haven't even watched any German DVDs.

I'm now having to expend more energy trying to get back into the groove of speaking German. I often forget to speak it myself, when I'm in a hurry English is just at the tip of my tongue while German is slower to surface.

Back to School Shopping

Last year I hit up the back to school sales. I'm not sure how much I bought but I know that every time I ran errands I picked up at least $5 of crayons (when they were at the most twenty cents per twenty-four pack) and a few packs of paper (on sale for thirty cents per pack). I ran out of money before I felt even near stocked up. My mom and husband laughed at me when I expressed dismay at not getting enough supplies for the year. They saw the overfilled shelves in my storage closet and thought that there was no way I'd run out of supplies before the next sale in July.

I ran out of paper in two months. A week ago I pulled out the last box of crayons.

So this year I'm making a plan and budget. So far I'm thinking of this:

• $30 of crayons. They usually go on sale for twenty cents for a 24 pack, with some places going into the teens. This will give me two packs a week with a little wiggle room.
• $30 of paper. Lined, college-ruled paper was on sale for thirty cents per pack last year. I'm probably going to have to spend more than this, closer to $50, as I'll need to get blank drawing paper and kindergarten ruled paper as well.
  
• $50 art supplies. Glue, paint, scissors, and other miscellaneous items fall into this category.

I get many of our books from the library or the discount bookstore. I have to spend full price on German books unless I can get my cousin to send some to me. I'm really liking ABC Kinderladen right now. Their prices are high but their shipping is low. I recently priced a DVD I want to get the boys from them and I'll spend about $26 including taxes and shipping. Pretty good for a German DVD.

One of the other things I need to budget in is year passes to things for the children. The zoo, the children's museum, science museum, and a couple others. In a perfect world I'd buy a membership to the two major zoos in our area as one is wonderful and huge but it is further away and is harder to reach by public transportation and the other is smaller and not nearly as great but it is easy to reach without having to use a car.

At the suggestion of a fellow homeschooling parent I tried asking for these as Christmas presents for the boys but my family loves to spoil them so we got more toys instead. So this year I'm going to ask if they'll just go in on one of the memberships (zoo probably) and then they can spend the rest of the money that they usually spend on toys.

They really are lovely toys anyway. My family makes sure to go out of their way to get toys that I approve of, not made in China (I have neither the will nor the want to haunt the recall website waiting for the next hammer to drop) toys that will spark imagination, not kill it. Last year I even went shopping with them, at their request, so that I could give my opinion on toys that weren't so clear in the bad/good category.

Well, I hope that this entry makes sense as I'm operating on about an hour of sleep and I'm getting sick so everything is a sort of haze. Which reminds me, is there any feeling that matches the dreadful weight in one's stomach when one wakes up to a child vomiting where he stands?

Two Library Comics

Having worked in the library system for years, I find things hilarious that others just don't get. If you've ever worked in a library or even just spent a good amount of time there (on the internet doesn't count!) you'll find joy in these comics as I have.

Unshelved I found this comic awhile ago and have been cracking up over it ever since.

Shelf Check Just found this comic but it looks funny so far!

Helpful Links

Books:

Booksense Find independent bookstores near you.

Booksfree The Netflix of books.


Toys and more:

Nova Natural Lots of nice toys. Kind of expensive.

Toys Made in America A list of toys that are made in America.

Three Sisters Toys A work at home mama's website.

Rainbow Turtle Family owned and operated Waldorf store.

Jomamaco Natural parenting site. Lots of cool stuff.

A Toy Garden Natural toys and more!


Funny Stuff:

I Has a Sweet Potato This is hilarious!


Do Your Best to Help:

Click to Give Hunger, breast cancer, children's health care, literacy, the rainforest, and animal rescue are all featured here. All you have to do is click a button and support is given to these things (different button for each issue). Do this daily.

Starches Only, Please!

I can't force Fin to eat. I have to accept that fact. Today I made stuffing, chicken breasts, cornbread, and carrots (boiled, yuck, but Dul likes them that way and anything that keeps me from pulling out my steamer/rice cooker combo if sushi isn't in the making keeps me happy) for lunch. I thought that at least Fin would eat the stuffing since it has a bread base but no such luck. He likes his starches simple and in a form that he can easily shovel into his mouth hence his love of cornbread.

I'm not keeping up with Library Thing very well. I've been so busy just trying to keep up with reading the books, much less cataloging them. Just realize that our book list is a couple weeks behind. I'm attempting to tag them as best I can for ease of use. So when I enter new books and I don't have time to tag, I just enter unread. Some of those books are unread and some we've read but either way they'll get new tags as soon as I get around to it or, for the ones that are truly unread, once we've read them. I'm going to slowly add reviews also probably starting with the ones we've loved and the ones we've hated.

I've taken my books out of the Library Thing account and I've started a Shelfari account for the books I read for myself. Shelfari is completely free, no need to buy a membership after 200 books added. It is also prettier and the search function seems to go faster on my pathetic dial-up connection. I usually get the book that I put in also instead of having to wade through other books that aren't even titled what I put in or just breaking down and using the ISBN to find the book. (By the way, PSA: It is not ISBN number. The "N" in ISBN stands for number. Thank you and have a nice day.)

One Child Policy Homeschool is a blog by a mom living in China and homeschooling her daughter. Be forewarned, it is hosted by the evil Homeschool Blogger site (if you don't know, they support the Pearls and their abusive parenting techniques) however, don't think less of the blog for it, she is in China afterall which bans most of the other blogging sites. Anyway I've been reading it a lot lately and it has turned me on to lapbooking. I'd read about it before but this blog really put the idea into action for me.

"Your head is beautiful!"

Dul loves his Mega Bloks. We have the big ones made for toddlers and also some smaller ones that are made for older kids. He spends hours every day playing with the blocks, designing different things. A few days ago he made a helicopter with no help from anyone and just from his imagination. You could tell what it was by looking at it and it even had a non-working propeller. The boy loves to build.

So today he was building while I was nursing the baby and came in with a couple pieces.

"Mama, look!"
"Oh, that's nice!"
"Yeah." He looked at the pieces with pride and stroked them lovingly.
"I really like those, Dul"
"Yeah, Mama. I made this myself!"
"You made that yourself? That is great!"
"Yeah, Mama."
"That is really nice, Dul. That is beautiful."
"Yeah, Mama, it is beautiful! And your head is beautiful!"

Got to love that little boy!

Making Some Worksheets, Perhaps for My "Display Line"?

The week is half over! I hate kindergarten workbooks. The directions are idiotic and yet written out as if the child should be reading the one reading them. Circle this, underline this, write that, count those... Blah blah blah WASTE OF TIME blah. I believe I'm going to start making some worksheets online and just printing them out rather than continue wasting time on this refuse.

The Math Worksheet Site is where you can make individualized worksheets. You can also make answer keys if you like.

Tracer Pages from Kidzone makes tracer pages for you which is great for improving handwriting. You can make blank pages or include a theme which is a great time saver so you don't have to go digging through your clip art to decorate a holiday themed word list.

Handwriting Worksheets is another tracer page. This one has no themes included and really isn't that outstanding but it is just another option. I like having alternatives to my most useful sites in case the site I've chosen is taken down for one reason or another.

Worksheets form Homeschooling Adventures is a big list of links to worksheet pages, many ready made. Each link is given a small explanation to save you clicks.

In a fit of frugality I decided that I would start line drying all my clothing. The only problem with this is the fact that I live in an apartment. I quickly decided that I could put a line up in my "dining room" (no actual dining table resides there, basically it is the kids' playroom) and dry my clothes there. I rationalized that there is a ceiling fan in that room which would hasten the drying process. One load and many execrations later I concluded that my decision was one founded in pure stupidity and gave up the idea. I'd screwed the line into the wall and as I was angry I didn't take it down that day. When my husband came home and saw the line I didn't want to admit my mistake so I quickly proclaimed it my new "display line". I told him that I'd hand the children's paintings to dry and display on the line. He looked at me dubiously but didn't contest the idea and so the line has remained. He did find out the line's original purpose as I couldn't admit defeat after just one try and once again attempted to hang a load of clothing up and enlisted his help. The load took three days to dry.

The line does serve a lovely purpose now. I've hung up the boys' learning posters on the line and it will serve nicely when I gather the courage to allow the boys to paint.

Beginning a Formal Education

I forgot my password to Library Thing so I had to start a new account. Lesson learned: Always add an email address even if you don't want to so that you can retrieve your forgotten passwords when needed. Or at least let Firefox remember your passwords for ease of use.

Making a new account reminded me that I hadn't updated to a lifetime account yet. If this were just something for myself I wouldn't have done it but because I'm using it to keep track of information for home schooling I went ahead and upgraded. Now I can add as many books as I like. That's great because we've already reached the limit of 200 books that the free accounts get. I've been keeping track on my computer and haven't gotten around to adding the books to Library Thing but I'll do that in the next few days.

I'm debating buying Singapore Math for Fin and Dul to begin a math program. Singapore is cheap and I've heard great things about it.

This Monday Fin and I are beginning kindergarten. We've done some warm up but I've gathered enough of my basic curriculum to go ahead and get serious. It will still be very relaxed, I'm just adding a little sit down work in English and math. Right now we're using various math workbooks that I've bought over the years for the math. For English we're using Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading . Dul and I will be starting at the beginning, Fin is beginning to read so we'll skip the first few lessons that would surely bore him and we'll get started with the lessons that start teaching words.

With the rate that Fin is progressing right now I'll take a guess and say that we'll start the first grade materials this winter when he turns five. Of course, everything will be entirely at his pace so it may be earlier or later than that. I've chosen to take an eclectic Classical approach. Traditionally that would mean that I'd teach a classic language (Latin or Greek are the most popular) as the kids' foreign language. That presents itself as a problem as I've already made the decision to help my children be bilingual at the least. Because of that I've decided to put off the classic language until later years. I'm teaching the kids to read and write in English first. First grade will bring German reading/writing and after that will be Spanish. I also think that Mandarin or Japanese (I'll let each child choose between the two) writing should come before the classic language so we're looking at introducing it closer to middle school than elementary. I may just skip it entirely but I'm not going to make a formal decision on that now.

More Language Shopping Sites

Here's a couple more sites where you might find language materials.

Alphabet Garten

Language Lizard

To Do Today

I'm going to post today's "To Do" list here. I'll update at the end of the day with what I actually accomplished.

1. Read the 30 books to the kids. (Sounds like a lot but isn't that much when you consider we can go through five at each nursing session.)
2. Make Fin's learning poster and review.
   
3. Review Dul's learning poster.
4. Write meal list for the week.
5. Clean boys' room.
6. Do four loads of laundry. (I wish the washer would clean more than one blanket and towel per load!)
7. Clean kitchen.
8. Clean bedroom.
9. Clean bathrooms.
10. Clean dining room.
11. Sew five diapers.

So, that's the list. Not too much to do but still quite a bit if you consider that Belle won't let me put her down very much during the day without crying.

*Update* It is 10:27 a.m. and I haven't been to sleep all night. So far I've only made two diapers and neither of those are very good. One I sewed the soaker in wrong, it is still usable but it is ugly. I messed up the elastic on both. Again, they are still usable but ugly. The diapers also seem kind of big so I'm holding off on making anymore. I've got to find my measuring tape and then I'll measure the baby when she wakes up. Then I'll cut the pattern down to be a better fit. I want it to have room but this looks like way too much. I'm going to try and nap with the baby (which means that she'll be up soon and I won't get any sleep.)