Goooooaaaaaal!!! and Chicken Update

I finally got to watch Alex ref a game for more than a few minutes today. Here he is, doing his job. Somebody just scored a goal. All the kids had games today, with no scheduling conflicts. This is good because I get to watch (and coach) them all, but it also makes for a very long morning. I was at the field from 8 am til about 2 pm. I'm beat, but now I have to go buy Bekah a birthday present. We're going to try to squeeze in a small birthday celebration between chicks and baby and soccer and softball, and, oh yeah, the Ravens game (that's our football team around here).

The baby chicks are now out of their rocker and ready for hatching. We have 17 eggs that are potential chickens. We tossed 4 or 5 that were obviously not going to hatch. I'm curious to see if the two white eggs hatch into white chickens. Monday we should start seeing some hatching action. We might as well forget school for a while. It just seems to be getting in the way of all the other neat things going on right now.

Ready for the New Arrival(s)

After all the excitement over the past few days, we've been spurred into action. We are now ready for the arrival of all our babies. The bassinet's in the bedroom, all cleaned up and awaiting the new arrival. The chick bins are in the classroom, hopefully cat-proof, awaiting the other new arrivals. I wonder if I should make the bassinet cat-proof. We found the cat in there with Bekah all the time.

Who's Watching the Girl?

Ok, I'm making an early dinner: Kenzie has to get to softball practice and, if you remember, that's good trek down the road. Vicki is trying to get some work done from home. The kids are on their own, mostly they're playing Nintendo in the playroom. All except Bekah, who decided to have some alone time with a tube diaper rash medicine. At least she didn't eat it. And she did show remorse.

First Corinthians 10:13

I know God is faithful. He will not allow me to be pushed beyond my ability to resist. And then, even when I believe things are getting too difficult, he sends support from unexpected places to keep me going. I have a network of fellow homeschoolers on whom I can rely for support, and I know we all have "those days". I thank all of you for your responses to my last post. I should have expected such kind words from people my wife calls friends.

This is my fourth year homeschooling, and I still occasionally reach that limit of resistance. I've been through the whole range, from complete satisfaction at seeing my kids independently do something that I taught them, to...well, to yesterday.

1 Cor 10:13 is one of the most important verses in the Bible to me. "No test has been sent you that does not come to all men. Besides, God keeps His promise. He will not let you be tested beyond your strength. Along with the test he will give you a way out of it so that you may be able to endure it." --NAB

I Hate Tuesdays

Today, Tuesday, started like most days. I did a load of laundry and hung it out to dry. First load was hung by 7:00 am. One thing about using the line to dry clothes is that I have to wash clothes every day, a load at a time, instead of a bunch of loads all in one day, with the dryer burning up my wallet all day long. But, no big deal.

Then, Tuesday hit. Lots of stuff to do today so we might have started a bit rushed in order to squeeze it all in. Mistake #1. So, adrenaline was flowing to begin with. Then Tyler happened. Ugh, can he push the buttons. When we got to Language Arts, I gave the twins a brief lesson/review, I don't even remember what it was on, now. Then I asked them to answer a few questions on a worksheet. Neither of them seemed to make an attempt. Then, I asked them very leading questions, essentially giving them the answer, using the worksheet to re-teach them what I just taught them. I can always give them more exercises to show proficiency, later. Tay began to make an effort; Ty just started crying and refused to tell me what was wrong, or even that he didn't understand. He gets very stubborn, and at this point I should've just walked out the room. Mistake #2 (I stayed). I am also very stubborn, and I refuse to let a 6 year dictate my schedule. I yelled instead. He cried more, so I yelled more, thinking, stupidly, that if I gave him the answer LOUDER, he would write it down. Mistake #3. It ended in an ugly scene of him sobbing, me giving up, and nothing getting accomplished.

At this point (10:00 am), I had to take Tay to his singing class. This was fortunate as it broke up the day and allowed Ty and me time to calm down. So, I left everyone with Alex, except Ty, who wanted to ride along (I guess this means my outburst didn't leave any emotional scars: he still wanted to hang with Dad), and dropped Tay off.

Upon our return, I got out Ty's math book. We have had a stretch of good lessons in this subject. He has had no problems in Math since I made that adjustment in teaching him. Until today. My blood pressure was already pretty high, so when he turned on the tears, I began to dread math as much as he did. We were doing something that he has been doing for a week. There was no reason for him to not understand the exercise. We managed to do a few problems together without either of us getting too upset, but the peace wasn't going to last much longer. I decided to take down some dry clothes and add some wet ones to the line. This was the first smart thing I did today. When I returned, Ty had completed the exercise without me. He's such a brat :o)

I teach five kids. They are all mine. I know them each better than any teacher can know her classroom. I think I've figured out most of them, but I still have to figure out how to adjust to teach Tyler. Each of my kids requires a different approach. It totally amazes me how different each person is! I don't have any idea how a teacher teaches a classroom full of kids that aren't even from the same gene pool.

Back to my day. After lunch, we went back to the classroom. I sat down with Kenzie to review the work she'd done all morning. She is pretty independent. There a few things that I need to read to her or teach her, which I do while the twins are coloring or answering worksheet questions. But, generally, she pops over to my desk here and there for short lessons or clarifications or questions throughout the morning, as I'm working with the twins. And then we sit down at the end and go over everything she did that day and we discuss, and fix, problems and errors. By the time Kenzie and I finished, I had to pack Kenzie, Connor, and Tyler up for their piano lessons (2:00 pm). Since I didn't quite finish up with Ty, and since Tay missed some stuff during his singing, I also brought along that stuff (and Tay) to work on all that during piano lessons. Alex and Connor stayed home while Bekah took her nap.

Got home from piano around 4:00. I didn't mention that at some point earlier in the day I had reviewed Connor's work in the same fashion as Kenzie's. Connor is slightly more independent than Kenzie and, thankfully, like McKenzie, he his very bright and needs relatively few corrections when he takes his time. Connor finished everything but History today. Now it was Alex's turn. Same story. Mostly independent. Review work with me. Fix mistakes. Alex is also very bright, but he is also a teenager and does require a little more of my time. He has the biggest work load and tends to rush through his work because he sees his siblings getting finished before he does. Therefore, he tends to have a higher rate of errors and requires more teaching/reinforcement/instruction.

Now it's after 5:00 and I haven't started dinner. Somehow, I got four loads of laundry washed and hung, the kids through school, except History for Alex and Connor. We blew that off today. Just not enough time. Alex was happy about that. He had a test. Now he'll have an extra night to study for it. Somehow, I got dinner on the table by 6:00, and it wasn't a frozen job; it was a real dinner. The only saving grace for the day was that we had no soccer games tonight. If we had, there would've been no dinner until 8:00. AS it was, though, I had all the clothes folded by 7:30, Bekah in bed by 8:00, an hour or two to chill, and blogging before bed.

And by the way, about half an hour ago, Vicki went to the hospital to have her contractions checked out. I told her I had my army knife and basket ready, but she declined again. She doesn't think anything's really happening yet; she just wants to err on the side of caution. I guess I should feel a little guilty about letting her go to the hospital alone, but all the kids are in bed and it's a little late to call her mother to watch them if it's, as expected, a false alarm. The hospital's only twenty minutes away. If I'm needed, Ill get there in less than that.

Candled Egg

Here's a picture of one of our baby chicks, inside its egg. The dark blob up top is the chicken. The light area below is the yolk. You can see blood vessels going from the the yolk to the bird. Pretty neat, huh?

Halfway to Chicks

Well, we're about halfway to new chickies. I haven't mentioned the eggs for a while because, as either Connor or Kenzie mentioned in their blog, I was a little disappointed at the first candling. It appeared we didn't have too many viable eggs and I was expecting a few more chickens on October 2. I re-candled a few random eggs, including some from the "questionable" group. It looks like we might have more good eggs than I first expected. Of course, I still don't really know what I'm looking for, so it's still wait-and-see. That's one reason we separated the eggs: so we can learn what to look for in future incubations. I think it might just be easier to let the hens do the work next time, but sometimes even the hens get it wrong. Some friends of ours tried letting their hens set on their eggs, and they only got three to hatch. Hopefully my numbers will be higher than that.

I can now announce that I know of at least one of my own friends that have visited this blog, not just one of my wife's friends. Don't get me wrong! I love having visitors, but if I have to rely on Vicki for all my web traffic, that doesn't say much of my ability to make my own friends :o) Laura is a good friend of mine from when Connor was still going to public school. About the only good thing that came out of public school was some of the people my kids met, and the ones I met through them. Laura's son and Connor are still pretty good friends, even after all these years of not going to school together. They can go months without seeing each other, then pick right up where they left off the next time one calls the other.

That lighthouse is still for sale. I'm still waiting for a partner with a lot of money to join in the venture. They lowered the starting bid to $5,000 instead of the original $30,000. The current high bid is only $10,000, so it's still a steal, if you just happen to have 15 or 20 thousand dollars laying around the house. They've scheduled a trip to inspect the lighthouse, in person, on October 17. I'd love to go look at it, but I think you have to be serious bidder to be considered for the trip. Besides, October 17 is my predicted delivery date for Kearsyn. It'd be my luck to be stuck on a lighthouse when Vicki's ready to go to the hospital.

Speaking of which, I think we've been through this birthing thing enough times to just go ahead and do it ourselves, right here at the house. Vicki doesn't quite agree, but I've gotten her to change her mind on things before. I have a big basket and a sharp Swiss Army knife. I don't really understand her concerns about having to go all the way to the hospital just to do something we're experienced at, and will happen naturally anyway, whether we go to the hospital, or not. And, we're only a '911' away from help if anything really weird happens.

Bekah's been entertaining us in the classroom recently. She's just so cute I couldn't help posting a few pictures of her here.










And, finally, Alex and I went for long bike ride a few days ago. We came to spot with a wonderful view of our Bay Bridge. We've been there before, but I never took a picture. This time I did.

Kenzie's Friend

Kenzie discovered that her new friend likes her new home in our front yard. Luckily for it, I'm not big on landscaping, unless you count weeds, so there's plentty of good spider-places around my house.

No Rest For The Weary

Some people just have no consideration for those of us who can sleep until 6:30 am. On most mornings I can tolerate a few lights on at 5:30 am, the shower running, etc. After all, I understand that Vicki has to get up and go to work and all that stuff. She does a pretty good job at allowing me to have my beauty rest, even though she thinks it's a huge luxury to be able to sleep so late.

But, with the addition of those chickens, Kenzie, as I've said before, loyally gets up at 6:00 am to tend to them. She makes some noise, but usually it's not enough to get me out of bed before my alarm goes off.

Today...she had the twins with her...at 5:39 am! Vicki hadn't even gotten out of the shower, and there's three little people already stomping through the house and screaming and carrying on in the back yard. I can't believe it took chickens to do what I've always considered to be impossible. Most kids around here just do NOT get up that early.

I guess this means I'll have a new, earlier, schedule as long as they don't lose interest in the chickens. And it may get even earlier once those roosters get mature enough to start crowing. One nice thing, I guess, about the kids waking up the neighborhood at 5:30 in the morning is that it'll get them all used to hearing noises coming from our back yard at all times of the day. Maybe the neighbors won't notice the cock-a-doodle-doodling, but I doubt it.

Vicki mentioned in her blog that we candled the eggs. Even after seeing through the eggs with a bright light, I have no idea what I was looking at. We just removed a couple obviously dead eggs, and kept the rest incubating, for now. I only hope that if any are rotten, they don't wind up exploding inside the incubator. That would be gross. I'd rather play with one of Kenzie's spiders than clean that up.

By the way, in case you haven't heard, Kenzie started her own blog. I've added her link to my LINKS section here. After she and Connor got started, I saw that Blogger has an age limit for those who want to blog on this site. I don't have the heart to tell then they can't do it anymore, so I hope nobody minds if we bend the rules. Vicki and I are keeping a close eye on what they post. We are not allowing anonymous comments, and they are not allowed to publish anything before one of us reads it, and they know if they break our rules, they lose internet priveleges: this has happened before.

Kenzie's At It Again

Yesterday, Tyler and Kenzie brought home a new pet. Kenzie was very excited. She came running into the house, looking for an appropriate container to take back to the location of her newest rescue-ee. She found one, raced back out, and after getting Alex to help her capture this new house guest of ours, brought it home. If you're squeamish or arachnophobic, lean back, away from your screen. Click on SURPRISE! for a picture of our new friend. It is kinda pretty, in an entomological sense.

Connor's Blog

Just a quick note to let you know that Connor has started his own Blog. His first entry can be found at Connor's Thoughts (that's a hyperlink, in case it doesn't show up that way) . Remember, he's only ten. He's not allowed to post anything without my approval, but if you see anything weird or too personal get through, let me know so I can remove or fix it. This is an experiment that I'm not all that enthusiatic about, but I don't want to discourage his interest in computers or the internet. It'll also get him to write and type. Maybe we'll get one of his famous stories that he's always making up, but never writing down.

Meet Snappy

Kenzie rescued 'Snappy' today. He was found crossing the road, and now he is in the safe confines of a cardboard box. I suggested he join the other snapping turtle already in residence in our little pond out back. He moved in two years ago, even without Mckenzie "rescuing" him. I think that one's name is 'Snappy', too. My kids love animals. They're just not very creative in naming them. They have a black chicken that they call 'Blackie', and a brown one called 'Brownie'. 'Brownie' is okay; at least you can eat a brownie. I told them to change Blackie's name 'Blackberry Pie'. I won't feel bad eating a Brownie or Blackberry Pie for dinner, even if they have a few bones.

The eggs are still cookin'; Day 5. You're supposed to be able to "candle" them at 7 to 9 days, so maybe I'll try that next week, just to see if I can tell which ones are developing into chicks. Candling is just holding each egg up against a bright light, so the light shines through it, and you can see what's happening inside the egg. You can tell if there's something growing inside, or if you have a dud.

Had a good day of soccer today. All our kids did exceptionally well, as expected. Everyone else's kids did very well, too. It must have been the rainy, gloomy day. They all had to run around a lot in order to stay warm. And most of them actually ran around in areas they were supposed to.

Kenzie is a Chicken Girl

Kenzie has been up at the crack of dawn every day since we've gotten those chickens. Today, she spent an hour just watching them, "keeping them company", she said. She also took a picture of them this morning, which I told her I'd post.

Kenzie's Roost

After we finished building the coop, Kenzie and Tyler took the scrap wood to build the chickens this outdoor, portable roost. I never thought the chickens would actually use it, but what do I know? It tickles Kenzie, no end, to see her chickens using it. Here they are, keeping their feet out of the wet grass on this rainy day we had, today.

There's nothing to report re:the eggs. They're doing fine on this third day of incubation. I did learn that my friend, whose chickens we are watching, may not be able to keep any chickens at her house because of daycare restrictions. She does daycare at her house and she's taking classes to get some kind of special certification which is much stricter than regular daycare, regarding the keeping of poultry on the premises. Anyway, if she can't keep any, we may be able to keep some of her hens if she decides not to butcher them all.

Kenzie had her first travel fastpitch softball practice today. It took us 50 minutes to get there (commuter traffic), and 40 minutes to get home (no traffic), with 90 minutes of practice. What a pain, but she loves it, and she's my little girl. And when she decides to comletely give up her beloved soccer for something, it must be very important to her. She even decided that she'll buy her own, new cleats, since the softball thing will cost a lot more than her normal baseball in the Spring. This is going be weird for me because I've always been her coach in soccer and baseball, and now I won't be coaching her at all. Well, there's always the next kid in line... Keep'em comin' honey.

Going Once, Going Twice...

This is on auction right off the island we live on, in Chesapeake Bay. Cool, huh? We could own our very own lighthouse. I don't know where I'd keep the chickens, though. Even less for the goats. There's not much back yard. Hey, if your interested in a partnership, send money, and if we win the auction, I'll share it with you. Here's more information about this lighthouse, if your interested (not in buying it, but in general) that kind of thing.

BLOODY POINT BAR LIGHT
Location: Off the southern tip of Kent Island, MD, Chesapeake BayDate Built: Commissioned 1882Type of Structure: Caisson with iron dwelling / tower (spark plug caisson)Height: 54 feet above mean high waterCharacteristics: Flashing white, with 2 red sectorsFoghorn: Yes – horn backed up by a bellAppropriation: $25,000Range: white – 9 miles, red – 7 milesStatus: Standing and Active

Historical Information:

A light was requested for this location as early as 1868 to mark both the bar and the northern entrance to the Eastern Bay. It was also felt that it could also serve as a backup should the Thomas Point screw-pile light ever succumb to ice. However, Congress did not approve the funds until 1881. At that time $25,000 was appropriated for a caisson light similar to the one then under construction at Sharps Island. Construction began in June 1882 and was relatively uneventful. The light was commissioned October 1 of the same year. A fourth order Fresnel lens was exhibited.

In February 1883 a room was added to house a fog bell and striker.
The winter of 1882 – 3 included several severe storms and the resulting scour caused the light to tilt noticeably just one year after its construction. Riprap stone was immediately set around the base to halt further scour. In 1884 more permanent fixes were made – Sand was dredged from one side to bring the tower to a more upright position, then an apron of over 750 tons of stone was laid at the caisson base. The repair was successful, though a slight list still exists.

In 1960 a fire, which began in the equipment room, rapidly engulfed the light. The two Coast Guard attendants initially fought the blaze, then barely escaped with their lives before the large fuel tanks exploded. The structure was completely gutted and is now just an iron shell with a steel ladder inside for access to the lantern.

Researched and written by Matthew B. Jenkins, a volunteer through the Chesapeake Chapter of the U.S. Light House Society.

Click here to access the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Bloody Point Bar Light Station.

Photographs (click on light name below to access image):
BLOODY POINT BAR LIGHT; no photo number; "Bloody Point Bar Lighthouse, Maryland"; 3 July 1885; photo by Major Jared A. Smith.
BLOODY POINT BAR LIGHT; no photo number/caption; date/photographer unknown.

And if you're really really interested, here's the auction info: http://www.auctionrp.com/auctions2/default.cfm?action=itemInfo&id=606

20 Days to Go

The humidity was a little high this morning, so I thought it was safe to take a little peak under the lid. I figured I'd bring you with me. Here's some of our new babies sitting at 91% humidity and 99.8^o F.

We Have a New Due Date

The old EDD was October 25, 2006, but that's just for when we expect one more kid. Been there, done that. The new EDD is now October 2, when we could potentially add up to 24 new members to our household, albeit temporary members; at least until they encounter the dinner table. They arrived last night by express egg carton, direct from the nice lady who's been collecting them from her flock of chickens for the past week. Twenty one days to go until hopefully a bunch of these will hatch. They say the hatch-rate is low this time of year so I don't have any idea how many chickens to expect on Oct. 2; let's keep our fingers crossed! Julie, the generous lady with the chickens, also said she liked my coop. I appreciate that, since she has the chicken experience, and this is my first coop. She also said we may have some foster hens -- not all roosters like we thought at first. I can't tell the difference yet. It doesn't really matter since all the foster fowl will be heading back home by November 13, when these new chicks will take over the coop. We won't have home-grown chicken (rooster) for Christmas dinner, but Easter is looking pretty good. We might even start getting a few eggs by Easter, too.

On a another note, I just happened to find some pics of my other babies while I was downsizing the egg incubator picture. Meet Betty and Wilma. They're my Beardies (Bearded Dragons) who will be celebrating their one year anniversary with us soon. You all can have the dogs and cats. These critters are the best. I don't even pretend these are the kids' pets. They're mine, and the kids can't have them.

Oh, and don't tell Vicki, but if these chickens work out, I think a couple goats might be in our future. I say a 'couple' because I hear they get lonely if you only get one. We can't have lonely goats on our hands, can we? I'll need to fence the yard in, but that's something the kids and I can work on next Summer. The kids fell in love with some goats our friends have, and I've been looking for way to cut back on using gasoline. No need for a lawn mower if we have goats, right?

A Homeschool Breakthrough

Tyler is going to be a very high maintenance student. He has very little tolerance for his inability to immediately grasp something new, especially since his twin brother is usually the exact opposite, and understands things seemingly before I even introduce them. And when Ty gets frustrated, the whole world needs to know about it. He's very good at acting out his frustration. I have found that, for most exercises, I need to teach one of them at a time. By separating them, there is no pressure for anyone (especially me) to "keep up", and that seems to immediately end any tension.

I wrote the above paragraph this morning. Since then, we have finished all our lessons. By keeping Tay and Ty separate, we seem to have removed all obstacles to Ty's performance, at least temporarily. He performed equally as well as Tay did, even on that dreaded Math. Although I'll be essentially doubling my hands on time with the twins, I think I've discovered the way to teach them. In the past years of homeschooling, I've been fairly successful at grouping kids together, even those who are in different ages, to save on time required by all of us to get our work done. It is very ironic that, with the twins, I need to work separately, when logic would dictate that they could work together. Well, we still finished up by 1:00 (the twins finished up by 10:45), but this is Friday, and I tend to to lighten up on Friday, especially in the first week of school. But, hopefully, we've started something wonderful here.

Foster Chickens

WE HAVE CHICKENS!!

We are now the proud foster parents of three roosters, temporary residents of our brand new chicken coop. We'll probably get 3 more tomorrow. They actually belong to our friends who have 15 chickens and enough room to house about 6, at least until they get their own coop and run built. I jumped the gun, as usual, and built our coop even before we had the eggs. Now we know the answer to that age old question of which came first. For us, the chickens. Right now, a couple families we know are gathering eggs from their flocks for us. Once there's enough to fill the incubator, we'll begin the process from eggs. If all goes as planned, the guys you see here will be just old enough for the dinner table when our new birds are ready to take over the coop sometime in early to mid December.

I was at the grocery store today, and the kids and I were in line, talking about getting chickens. The cashier overheard and I told her we were getting chickens. She got the strangest look on her face (well, not strange for me, I get them all the time from people; they don't expect the kinds of things I tell them about me and my family). The cashier asked where we'd put them, and I told her in the back yard, and her look got stranger (but, where else would you put chickens, I ask you). I went on to tell her that they'd be in a chicken coop, and that seemed to make it all okay. I'm really glad I built a coop. I wouldn't people to think I'm strange, or anything.

Anyway, after the cramped quarters those chickens were in at their old residence, they took right to their new home. They didn't have an open run before; now they have all kinds of open space, and lots of new bugs to eat. I couldn't get them inside without the kids' help. We have a fox and stray cats out there and I didn't want to kill my friends' chickens the first night I had them.

The kids are overjoyed that we have chickens now. Bekah can't leave them alone, and keeps chasing them around, trying to pet them. Taylor, Mr. shy himself, thinks nothing of walking around with a chicken in his hands. And Kenzie, of course, loves anything that moves. Alex and Kenzie say they're going to be up at 6:30 tomorrow morning to feed, water, and let the chickens outside. I bet they'll do it, too, the first day.

A lot of this is a repeat of Vicki's Blog, so you read more there.

Faith Is Worse Than A Foreign Language

At least you can explain, describe, and teach a foreign language. It is impossible to teach Faith. Even to your parents. My mother has been trying, for many years and several kids, to convince me that the size of my family is my responsibility; and that if I decide not to have any more kids, I have it in my power to alter my body to make it so. God created my body for His Purpose. I don't know if it is His purpose for me to have my mother's ideal-sized family, which of course we passed a long time ago. And, as I don't have an inside track on the Plan, I've come to the conclusion that the One Who has the Plan should be in charge of such things. Mom says I need to take responsibility, stop having kids, thus stop taking risks that come along with having kids past age 40. I know she's only concerned about me. But she just doesn't understand that God is in control. Whenever He is in control, the Plan is always followed, even when we humans mess things up. Under His control, in a marriage created by Him, I believe I can only mess up if I try to take control away from Him (which, of course, nobody can really do since, as the Bible teaches us, He can take the most reticent opposition and turn it around to work for Him, but that's another Theological discussion entirely). Thus, I haven't altered the arrangement He created 17 years ago. I refuse to tell God that I won't have the family He has in mind for me.

That last sentence, above, usually ends the conversation with Mom. And that is what's so upsetting. She doesn't get it. I want to teach her the Faith that she raised me in. That's very ironic, isn't it? I was raised Catholic, but I wasn't taught my Faith. I was taught how to act Catholic. I became a Catholic, not by learning all the Catholic stuff we Catholics do, which I will defend to the end because it all got me to where I am now, but by being given the gift of Faith in the LORD. My mother, who did her duty, raised her kids in the Catholic Church, without, obviously, believing a word of it. I hope this doesn't come across as bitter toward my mother. I pray every day that she allows the Holy Spirit to teach her and change her, especially after spending 10 days in the hospital for a condition nobody has yet to clearly explain. She, herself, believes she had a near-death experience, and yet she will not seek out Jesus, and gets angry when I try to explain to her what obviously cannot be explained to someone who does not have the ears to hear or the eyes to see...yet. I keep praying, and I guess that's all I'm supposed to do.

Day 2

Getting a late start. The kids decided to sleep in (until 7:15) while I was hanging laundry on the line. One load down (or up?), 4 or 5 more to go. The kids are upstairs now, eating breakfast and feeding Bekah, while I steal some moments alone, with my coffee and computer. How many 13 year old boys fight with their 8 year old sisters over who gets to take of the 2 year old toddler first thing in the morning? That's how I left Alex and Kenzie, not really fighting, just establishing that pecking order I guess. And NOBODY's gonna peck my oldest daughter! Not if she has anything to do about it. For the record, she is the one taking care of Bekah this morning :o)

Speaking of pecking order, we should be getting some chickens today. While we wait for, and eventually hatch, our new eggs, I've volunteered our coop to be used to house some friends' of ours roosters, as they mature for the chopping block. They have 15, six week old chickens (10 roosters), in a small 4x4 enclosure. Too crowded, so we'll hold some until December, when the axe comes out, and our new chicks will be mature enough to take over the coop for themselves. I'll just have to keep reminding the kids not to name them. They aren't pets, they're food. You don't name food, unless you use names like roast, stewed, or cordon blu (my favorite chicken dish).

The first child has just shown up. Alex. We now know for sure who won upstairs in the Battle of the Baby. I wonder who's going to get Kearsyn when she shows up? Ever see a 'dropped ball' in soccer? or a 'jump ball' in basketball? or raw meat in a school of sharks? I'm getting out of the way, let me tell you.

Well, two kids are here. Connor. My bet is the kitchen is getting noisy with the youngest four attempting to decide who's got what kitchen duties this morning. It's clear as day, on the chart, on the wall, but they all conveniently forget how to read, or where the wall is, when it comes time to do the chores.

The First Day

We started school today. Our fourth year as homeschoolers has begun. It was appropriately dreary and rainy, to suit the mood of the kids. Yes, even homeschoolers don't relish the thought of returning to the grind. Summer vacation, although not void of educational value, is much preferred among my crew.

We had several snags today, the primary being Math, for my six year-olds, the twins, Taylor and Tyler. Taylor is following in the footsteps of his older siblings, excelling, well beyond the average student, in his academic endeavors. Tyler is normal. Things come harder for him, as they should; he is only six. I tend to forget this sometimes, and my frustration becomes evident. While Tay will most likely continue in his second grade Math curriculum, I will be backing up a bit with Ty, perhaps as far as Kindergarten Math, at least until we figure out where we first hit the bump in the road. This is a fortunate by-product of homeschooling: the ability to switch gears when something does not work for a particular individual. This is one of the primary reasons we took our kids out of public school: the government school's lack of adaptability.

We took Alex out of the government school in the fifth grade. He was struggling in Math with a third grade level of comprehension. Three years later, he is half way through Algebra I, and he is chronologically in the eighth grade. That was the other snag today: Alex was sick, so he got to take most of the day off. He did, however, get some work done later in the day.

Kenzie and Connor (don't ask me what grades they're in; it varies by subject) had very good days today, considering we are all feeling our way into the new schedule. After a week or two, we'll all be running fairly smoothly, once we make necesary adjustments to our daily schedules.

Bekah, the two-year-old, was remarkably cooperative today. Normally she insists on being in the middle of everything. In fact, at least one of the kids, during our morning prayer, usually prays that Rebekah not be a distraction today. I don't like calling my daughter a distraction, but it can be an accurate description when she wants to play music while we are all trying to study History. But today, we hardly knew she was in the room with us, she was being so good. And to think, in a few weeks, the new baby will be here. Just exactly what we need to liven up the place a bit.

Well, there you go. In a round-about way you've met the crew. Alex, Connor, McKenzie, Taylor, Tyler, Rebekah, and Kearsyn. And me, of course. To meet my wife, you can visit her Blog at http://anabundanceofblessings.blogspot.com/. She actually inspired me to start my own Blog. She'll have more traffic because she has more friends, but I see how her blogging has been good therapy for those stressful days. I will have some of those coming up. In fact, I should have started this 9 years ago, when I quit my job to become a Happy SAHD.