being a third child

Sat, 5 Jun 2010 20:01:59 -0600

Again, since we are expecting our third child ... this pregnancy and experience have been very different from our first two. Whereas there seemed much time to consider the first two pregnancies, to plan and reflect and dream, it just doesn’t happen with this one. One, there is absolutely NO time to think about this pregnancy besides fleeting moments of peace and quiet in the bathroom as I get ready for bed, or in the quiet moments before everyone is awake, or a quick moment when she kicks against my belly. It is no indication of how much we love her, we love her as much as each of our other children, it is just the nature of our days. We have a five year old and a three year old who are at home all day with me. I stay very busy. The other disadvantage to being the third child is that he/she isn’t likely to have much that is “new.” We feel it is irresponsible to spend our money on things that she doesn’t need and it is difficult to find anything that she needs that we don’t already own (or at least that my sister doesn’t own). However, there IS one thing that I very much want for this baby that I didn’t have for my other two ... a specific baby carrier. With eM, we had the Baby Bjorn carrier. She loved it ... we loved it ... but it hurt my back when she got to be about 20 lbs and my husband couldn’t really wear her comfortably at all. With Beamer, I bought a sling, thinking it might be different. People raved about “Hotslings” - so we decided to try one. Sadly, it was worse on my back than the bjorn, although I did love it when he was a fresh newborn, feeling like it provided more natural support and provided a “bonding” experience that we had not had with the Bjorn. I also purchased the Playtex hip carrier about this time because I was going to be traveling with my toddler while 6 months pregnant and needed a way to carry her through the airport and security checkpoints while still keeping my arms and hands free. I also hoped it would be more comfortable than the Bjorn.
Now it seems that there is a product that not only supports children comfortably until they are 40 pounds, but it can also convert from a front carrier, to a back carrier, to a hip carrier. What versatility! Anyone who has used the Ergobaby Carrier raves about how comfortable it is and the makers provide scientific data and research to support their claims that you will not find a more comfortable baby carrier. “A Mom’s Balancing Act” is giving one away on her blog. I hope to win it!

nesting or spring cleaning

Wed, 19 May 2010 08:00:35 -0600

Since we are on our third child, the little booger gets very little attention - being that there are already two screaming preschoolers running around. We also just realized that all the “preparation” was unnecessary. I mean, she will be in a bassinet in our room until she is about three months old. Beyond that, she is likely to share a room with her older sister. AND we will likely move from this house before she ever arrives. So, I would say that we have ignored the whole “nesting” thing. Well, except that I have cleared, organized, cleaned, and tossed so many other things in my house. I guess I could get away with calling it “spring cleaning” but I just have a sneaky suspicion that it is more “nesting” than “spring cleaning.” I have also gone along with the desperate urge that I have had to plan our homeschool year for next year (by the way, I have been a little more consistent with uploading and updating our school pages than these ... check them out for some great ideas!). As a result, I have scoured the internet for planners, forms, and documents that will enable me to document our kids’ year but also save my sanity. I usually put together a binder with all the necessary forms and documentation pages so I have them all together in one place each day. I can speak more on this when I have mine completed, but for now I thought I’d share some of the sites and forms I found that I think we will be using to document our year.

The site that had a copy of just about every form you can imagine is DonnaYoung.org . Here you can find planning sheets, household forms, handwriting sheets, calendars, journal sheets, timeline forms, schedules for certain texts, and math pages like graphing paper. Best of all, it is all free!!!
Highland Heritage Forms has a wide variety of great forms. They have forms for most subjects and if you use Tapestry of Grace, they have forms that coincide with that curriculum.
Eclectic Homeschool Online has planning pages, chore charts, and graphic organizers.
The Homeschool Mom also has free planning forms including an Unschooling log and a Unit Study planning guide. At the bottom of the page you can find their list of links to other free planning forms.
Chart Jungle has nearly every form you can imagine.
Cindy Downes’ Oklahoma Homeschool has many free materials including lesson plans and unit study forms.
NotebookingPages.com has some nice free planning charts and good advice about schedules and planning.
I am also considering using a web-based planner (since so many of those that are downloaded are for PCs and we own a MAC) from Homeschool Inc. It is free. I’ll let you know if this is a good match for us, with pros and cons.

kids will always surprise you

Fri, 7 May 2010 08:21:25 -0600

Just as mine did last night, when I served them steamed cauliflower. Basically, I followed a “mock mashed potatoes” recipe and they loved it. The hubs ... not so much. He had to mix his in with the pot roast just to stomach it. I think there are things that I could have done to make it better and will try that next time. Last night, we were too pressed for time before swim lessons to spend a lot of time “tweaking” it.

meal plan for week of may 2

Sat, 1 May 2010 17:18:28 -0600

So, I’ve been meal planning for a while, but I’d like to really try to shave some money off our grocery budget. We never have to be too careful in our planning, and I think if we added a few steps (like using the grocery flyers to plan our meals), we’d probably save some money. My main motivation for wanting to save some money is not actually to save money. It is for us to eat more organic foods without noticing it in our grocery bill. Right now, my family spends about $400 a month on groceries, but this usually includes most of our personal items (cleaning, laundry, hair care, etc.), as well since we usually buy those at the grocery and/or commissary. Needless to say, I doubt anyone is interested in this little piece of my brain - but I’d like to use a small space to document it so that I can try to track where our spending is and which changes make a difference.

So, this week’s meal plan is:
Breakfast Choices
• oatmeal with fruit
• breakfast burritos
• pancakes/waffles with egg
• yogurt with granola (I’m gonna attempt Amy Ellen’s recipe for granola)
• toast with egg

Lunches
• leftovers 2 days
• quesadilla with black beans and rice
• sandwich
• fish stix and fruit (bought on sale last visit to grocery)

Dinners
• Pot Roast with mock mashed potatoes (cauliflower) and fruit
• Eggplant parmesan with salad
• Veggie kabobs with baked beans
• Champagne chicken with lemon carrots
• Veggie spaghetti with salad
• Homemade pizza with fruit salad
• Beef stir fry with veggies

Interestingly enough, none of the items (except chicken at $0.98/lb) for these meals were on sale this week at the grocery. Part of my difficulty is that two weeks ago I adopted a plan to try to incorporate more meatless main dishes into our family meals. As a result, I haven’t worked with it long enough to easily merge the two goals. Thus, one of the main reasons for documenting our plans and grocery deals.

hmmm ... so it has been a while

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:11:59 -0600

Four months to be exact, I guess. Needless to say, I am not so great at updating our blog lately. But that isn’t to say we haven’t been busy the last few months. We’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, two birthdays, the “I learned to ride my bike” day, and the “finding out the gender” day. We’ve continued school, with only a 2-week break for Spring Break. I’ll post some of the things we’ve been doing in the “school” section for those of you who believe that we don’t take our homeschooling seriously. And actually, our Spring Break became two weeks when we had to leave town immediately following our scheduled Spring Break. We, unfortunately, had a funeral to attend. However, we enjoyed spending time with family members we haven’t seen in a while - despite the difficult circumstances surrounding the visit. It made us all the more eager for an extended trip this summer, assuming we aren’t moving (more later in this post).

So, now for some details that I’ve alluded to already ...
1. eM learned to ride her bike all by herself ... meaning she can start and stop independently and she doesn’t even need anyone to watch her in order to be successful.

This is eM on Beamer’s bike before she learned to ride hers confidently. She insisted on riding
his because it still had training wheels.

1. We found out the gender of the baby last week (April 21st). We are excited that we are having a girl. eM is eager to share her room and help take care of the baby.

1. Yes, it is possible that we are moving yet again. We will find out within the next month or two whether Joseph will be discharged from the Army. If so, he will start a job hunt as a civilian in the Army. Best case scenario, we’d like a job at the new HRC at Fort Knox, Kentucky. For now, our trip to the South is on hold - as is the rest of our plans and life - as we wait to hear our status.

eM is still doing well in gymnastics. She has gotten over her fear of the beam and bars, although she isn’t eager to do a forward roll on the beam or pull over the bars. We haven’t decided yet whether we will continue classes this summer or not.

Both the kids are taking a second session of swim lessons. eM is a “stingray” and Beamer is a “minnow.” eM probably belonged in a level lower than she is currently in, but she is doing a fantastic job - learning new skills at a rapid pace, coordinating her movements at a level higher than we would expect her to be capable of, and persisting through difficult tasks. She also overcame her fear enough to slide down the slide this week. Beamer is learning strokes, how to float unassisted for 5 seconds, and is developing better listening skills by participating in a group lesson. Our goal for both of them was to learn to swim well enough to be safe near water. At this point, it looks as if eM has some raw talent, though. Since she enjoys the water so much, we’ll continue lessons until she tires of it. She is asking for piano lessons, which we are open to - just after we drop something else (and can afford a practice keyboard). We would like to limit the kids to no more than two activities at a time. Since we consider swimming lessons a “non-negotiable” we allow them an additional activity. Beamer will likely participate in a gymnastics class this summer to see how well he likes it and he is already looking forward to baseball next spring (we told him he had to be 4).

The Princess and the Frog

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 12:55:56 -0700

After much hype, our family went to see Disney’s The Princess and the Frog last night. eM had already decided she wanted a Princess and the Frog birthday party, was eagerly awaiting some birthday money so she could buy The Princess and the Frog for our new Wii, and just HAD to have a tutu that resembled Tiana’s green dress for her gymnastics party. We had seen the commercials, but really didn’t know much else about the movie.

To start, let me say that I liked it. It is an animated movie with the classic rags-to-riches story. However, I had a few problems with it.
1) This was Disney’s first black princess. It is 2010 (ok, technically 2009 when the movie was released and 2006 when the movie began production). Still. It is the 21st century and we still have a black woman who works as a busy waitress, making minimal tips and whose mother was seamstress employed by a rich, fat, white guy who lives in a big house. The first scene of the story takes us to Tiana’s house, which is in “shantytown.” However - that said, the classic theme of rags-to-riches had to be portrayed somehow, but I just think Disney could have gotten a little more creative and told the story differently. That said, Tiana spends most of the movie as a green frog - where neither her skin color, income, social status, or ambitions matter. In addition, the movie supposedly takes place in Louisiana in the 1920s, which makes much of the above relevant to the time and culture. Again, maybe a little more creativity.
2) The “cajun” bug didn’t sound authentic to me. I mean, if you are going to go to lengths to make other parts of the movie authentic, why not make the cajun bug authentic. And did he HAVE to be missing so many teeth?!
3) Why not a black prince? I get that the prince whose ethnicity and race are a little obscure - his first name is clearly Indian, but he is Prince of a fictitious Maldonia (which could be anywhere on the map), and his accent isn’t Indian - avoids some stereotypes, but did they create additional ones by not just carrying through with the story? Why not a black prince? He could have just as easily come from a fictitious country with black skin and an Ethiopian accent. However, that said ... I can’t argue with the portrayal of tolerance and equity in the interracial relationship that Tiana and Naveen share.
4) I, personally, thought the reference to the occult was a little too much in this movie. Sleeping Beauty would receive the same criticism. However, Disney uses the occult or magic as a secondary theme in most of their princess movies (The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast ...) so it wasn’t unexpected. My question is why? Again, maybe a bit more creative after SO.MANY.PRINCESS.MOVIES? But, I also think I am more sensitive to it as a Christian than others may be. And as a Christian, I can’t deny the fact that Satan exists and has power over and among people of the earth. Evil does exist.

With those (sort of) negatives, I have to say that the soundtrack for this movie is the best so far (at least of the princess movies). it is authentic and you can’t help but tap your feet with the beat. I also love the portrayal of a strong black woman, with dreams and ambitions, who works hard to achieve her dreams. I love that Disney has captured the essence of “dreams come true” but highlighted the fact that they aren’t often handed to you on a silver platter. Hard work is often involved. I love the choice between “what is right” and what is good. I love that LOVE prevails over ambitions and long-awaited dreams. My favorite line, of course, was (and I paraphrase) My dream is nothing if you aren’t there to share it with me. *sigh* I like the conversations that the movie generated. We paralleled the evil aspects to Satan and his power. And (as usual) you can always parallel the prince to Christ and us to the princess. I liked that the Prince and the Princess overcame (as usual) and were victorious.

It is a good movie with few surprises. One that children will enjoy. Our three-year-old was a little frightened by the dark shadows and Shadowman, but nothing a little lap-time couldn’t cure. Overall, I would recommend this to others and give it four stars. Because, ultimately, that is all Disney cares about ... my opinion. :D