Blue Castle

He's A Real Boy

When I had Izzy, I remember reading all sorts of books to help me know how to raise a boy. 
I had only a sister, and boys were an alien species to me.

In most of the books I read, there was mention of how boys are very much given to using sound effects in their play and even everyday conversation.  If you're in a room full of little girls, you'll hear girlish chatter, but a room full of boys will be very much full of action punctuated with self-made sound effects.

Evidently, this also carries over into written conversations with God.
 

Still Learning

Just last week, I was playing with my brown-eyed baby boy. 

An adorable chunk of laughter, he was my buddy, my little shadow.  He'd dance with me in the kitchen, and then perch on my hip or the counter while I cooked. 

We had such fun together.

It was just last week, I tell you. 

Just last week.

This week, that brown-eyed baby is suddenly an 8 year-old boy who is ready to tackle the world.  He knows everything there is to know about everything there is worth knowing. He smells funny and doesn't let me kiss him anymore. He thinks I'm crazy. I'm finding myself at a loss at times on how to be his mother. 

While I've never claimed eligibility for the Mother of The Year award, I thought I had a pretty good grasp on mothering. 

Now, I've found myself struggling, floundering through this new territory. 

He's not my baby now - despite last week.  Cuddling and soft words don't feed him like they used to.  No, he would much rather run through the house - back and forth, back and forth all.day.long - than sit down and figure out that 35-12=13, not 24. 

This mothering of boys has never been more of a struggle for me than it is right now. 

When this boy was almost 2, my wise cousin introduced me to some books that really revolutionized our parenting.  As the boys have gotten older, we've sadly slacked in this area and I've felt the need to re-visit one of the ideas presented in these books - the idea of "tying strings" with your children.  Tying strings means to involve them in your life, to tie little strings of fellowship that bind your child to you, so that your smiling face is what they see and desire. To be in good fellowship with you becomes your child's aim. This involves time and energy - something I've neglected to give him. 

Yesterday, I decided to rectify this.  "Let's make bagels." I said.

He stopped in his tracks, lifted his face to me and glowed.  "Can I help?  I love to bake!"

When I nodded my head, he went on, "Oh! I love cooking!-Could you make me an apron?-That would be really great!-It would help a lot!-I just love cooking!"

I stood there and listened to him.  His eyes were lit up and excited at the prospect before us. 

Soon, we were measuring flour and discussing how much 4 1/2 cups minus 1 1/2 cups was, and while this took a little while for him to grasp the fact that the answer was 3 instead of 1, he was having fun. 

I was having fun. 

We were having a moment.  One of those moments in time where you wish you could freeze it and hold it close to your heart forever.

I learned something yesterday.

I learned to stop and listen.

I learned that making bagels helped him learn more than an hour of math at the dining room table.

I learned that that just might be what homeschooling is all about, after all.

Timeline, Homeschooling Style

 

We have been working on a timeline for homeschool. 

The timeline is pretty small - from the time of Benjamin Franklin until Thomas Edison, but my boys have sure managed to fill it up with their renditions of each hero's birthplace, portrait and other items of interest.

A very muscular George Washington,

and his house of many windows. 

Here's honest Abe, his beard,

and his log cabin birthplace.

This one cracks me up.
JWes' spelling may need some attention.

Math: My Murderer

I hate math.  Passionately, madly, truly, hate it. 

I've managed to do just fine without dealing too much with math.  Marrying a man who does numbers for a living sure worked good for me.  Unless I'm at the grocery store, alone, trying to figure out the whole ounces/cents thing.  It's not pretty.

But, like I said, things have been going well for me in the math department.  I leave it alone, it leaves me alone, and everything's fine.
I should've known that sometime my perfect little bubble would have to get busted up. Who would've known an eight-year old boy could do that much damage?
See, since I started to homeschool my boys, I've become the only math teacher my boys may ever know. I thought I was doing a pretty good job with it so far.  Good curriculum helps, and I just take it one day at a time.  

After doing his Bible reading this morning, my son came to me asking "Mom, what's four score mean?".  I paused from my blog surfing work to take this moment to re-enforce the math principles we've been working on.

"Well, a score is 20 years.  So, what do you think 4 score would be?"
He gives me a blank stare. Maybe I'm going to fast.

"What is 4 times 20?"
Another blank stare.Okay, we've only just ventured into the world of multiples, so it's still early for him to know this. 

"What is 4 times 2?"
"8!" phew

Okay, then what would "4 times 20 be?" I pause for him to answer.

Then, I see it. 
Over his face dawns the sun of recognition. 
This is it. 
He's got it. 
The concept is being grasped by his little mind. 
I love these moments. 

I wait for it, leaning back in my chair to bask in the glory of yet another successful teaching moment.
"I know!"  He's grinning ear-to-ear now.

I'm smiling back, waiting eagerly, now leaning slightly forward to catch it.

"It's...." my little genius is so bright.

"36!!" he exclaims with all the joy-of right-answers plastered across his little being.

I bite my tongue.  "Ummm. No.  Let's try this again.  What is 4 times 10?" 

He's not deflated, now he's very sure he's got it right the second time around.

"13!"

By now I want to bang my head on the computer keyboard, but I hold back. I'm supposed to be patient and supportive and.......

"Let's try again.  Focus.  2 times 10 is.."

"20!"

"And so 4 times 10 is..."

"30!"

That's when it hit me. This was going to be a terribly long day. 

And maybe I should find a math tutor. 

Or a new brain.

Go check out Friday Funnies over at The Run-A-Muck!

He's Reading

When our first child was about 4 1/2, he started reading.  Since he was little, we had surrounded him with books, taught him his letters and their sounds, and regularly spelled and sounded out words in daily conversation with him. 

Then, one night, Daddy said "Get out Dick and Jane" - which we had never read before.  We sat down and he started to read.  To me.

Without prompting, on his own he sounded out each simple word. 

That started off his reading career.  Since then, it's been hard to pry a book out of his hands.  We can't plan anything after a trip to the library, as he's immersed in books and can't be distracted from them.

Having Izzy read from such a young age (we never pushed him into it, just gave him the tools to learn when he was ready) was quite a boost to our homeschooling plans.  Since before we married we had determined that we would homeschool our children. 

Opposition and doubt had been expressed on many fronts, but once our methods worked with Izzy learning to read so young and so well, we felt justified and sure of our decision.

Our second son is not like his brother in many ways.  At 5 1/2, he had yet to show he was ready to read. I was starting to worry a bit. But, we decided to leave him alone and not rush him either.  We took the same approach with him as with our older boy.  Izzy has been a big help as he's spent countless hours reading to JWes, patiently teaching him too. 

Finally we saw the results. 

Last night Daddy said, "Get out Dick and Jane" and so we did. 

JWes has been reading it to me ever since.  I woke up this morning to "Can I read to you some more, Mom?".  I made lunch and cleaned out the fridge to the background of Dick and Jane's antics as he read on through the afternoon.  

I made him take a break a little earlier, but now he's back, "Please, can I read to you?".  So we're off to read some more...........

 

The Great Pyramid - Revisited

He obviously views the world through rose colored glasses. 

Rose and blue and yellow and green and orange....

Anyone else see a "face" in his creation?

He Talks More Than A Girl

The teacher guide suggested that I have him tell me a story about a king. 

So, I did. 

I thought it might be a little hard for him, so I told him to just tell me a couple sentences about a King.  Any King.  Anything he could tell me in a story of his own making.

After 5 minutes, I realized this wasn't going to be a challenge for him. 

After 10, I was trying to think of a way to get out of this.  He was still talking, animatedly swinging his arms and swooshing with his sound affects.

After 15 minutes, there was a second king - a bad king in the story now, I tried to keep my eyes from glazing over. 

19 minutes into the story, just as the good king was finally getting rid of the bad king, but finding another villain to fight, the phone rang. 

He was showing no signs of stopping in his story-telling. 

I decided to break my rule and answer the phone during school, just this once, after I promised to hear the rest of his story later.

That was a week ago.