Catching Up

Yesterday, my dh thought I was a paranoid lunatic-I was all charged up about the CPSIA law that everyone's been in an uproar about since we don't know for sure how the poorly written law is going to be interpreted or enforced.

Anyway, he saw me furiously typing up comments to representatives & the CPSIA. Let me see if I can paint a word picture for you. I've been sick & my nose was on fire. So, I'm at the computer in pajamas with a rabid look on my face & Vaseline all over my nose & lips. My dh said I looked like a maniacal homeschool mom w/ snot smeared all over my face muttering, "they can take my books from me when they can pry them out of my cold dead hands." LOL

Anyway, I'm feeling better today. I'm still in pajamas-but minus Vaseline. And, there's been an update at CSPIA about exemptions, which is encouraging. But, I'd like to see it even more clarified as I don't particularly trust the government.

In other news-we've gotten quite a lot of schoolwork done-and we've had fun with it, which is my goal.

I'm come to the conclusion that with my son (10) who is in 5th grade, we need to concentrate on some fine-tuning with his times tables, his spelling, his handwriting and also with his reading-aloud. He's my late bloomer-didn't read well until he was 8 yrs old & I haven't pushed him, which I don't regret.

But the time has come for him to get more serious. He's reading a lot, but doesn't enjoy reading out loud. I'm making him do a little every day now, though, because he's not pausing at commas or periods and he's inserting words that aren't there & not pronouncing things correctly. Or, if he doesn't know the word, he makes one up that makes sense in the context of the sentence. LOL

He is a hard worker with a good attitude most of the time & aims to please. Here's a pic of him doing his seatwork. He looks so studious, doesn't he? Well, right before I took the pic, he said, "I'd rather be doing anything than math right now." LOL

He's really made a lot of progress just this week, so I think it's just a little fine-tuning that he needs. His biggest difficulty is spelling-it just does not come natural for him. But, now that we've got wireless computer, we're using spellingcity.com and it is wonderful!! He loves it, has fun with it and is spelling better already!

I've been encouraged thru the sickness we've all had recently. Jonah had it first & was done with it first, so he's been the one helping the rest of us. The night that Hannah coughed a lot (she's 13), he was sleeping in the top bunch and kept asking her each time she coughed if she was alright. This is more important to me than good spelling!

And, Susanna (4) took very good care of me the day I was the worst. She insisted on tucking blankets around me on the couch repeatedly. It was so cute. Hannah, as usual, was my right arm helping all the time-except for one day when she was at her worst. Thankfully, the baby was sick for only 1 day & had it very mildly.

Today I have been doing a lot of catching up-I made yogurt & bread & did a lot of tidying up. It's amazing how quickly a house turns to chaos when you miss even one day of the usual picking up.

This morning I made yogurt parfaits for us all with our home-made yogurt (from raw milk) and the last of our strawberries. I pureed those, and added in frozen blueberries from the store:

It's great to feel better again & be able to function normally. Well, the baby is fussing & need to finish up things in the kitchen.