A Comedy of Errors

You know those days? I mean those days. At the end of the day you're so exhausted and you just stare at the ceiling and hope tomorrow takes a long, long time to get here.

Yesterday, Timothy played in his sandbox. We recently bought new sand for it but not enough, so he asked if we get more sand. Not right now. I put him into the bath (he was filfthy) and then I smelled something terrible. I mean knock-your-socks-off bad. I was close to being sick to my stomach. What is that?

Well, here's a lesson for all you parents out there. The more your child uses the urinal, the more you have to change it. Timothy's been wearing underwear everyday and it completely slipped my mind to empty the urinal. Of course, the smell of super-concentrated toddler pee and the bright yellow liquid all over the bathroom floor reminded me of my maternal duties.

So I take the nasty urinal outside planning to hose it down later. I work on mopping up the pee and ridding the bathroom of the horrible stench. Somewhere in there, it must have started to rain, because when I went to hose down the urinal I found a lake in our front yard.

Timothy, of course, came straight from the tub to investigate what had me in a frenzy. The water was several inches deep on our front porch. Was it leaking into our house? I run and feel. Yep, it is. It's in our playroom. We spent some time hysterically using Timothy's sand bucket and a broom to try to "magically" sweep the water away. That didn't work. And all this time Timothy's running around with glee, begging for his swimsuit.

Long story short, we had to go get sandbags (don't even ask about the windshield wiper flying off on our way). We loaded them all in the pouring rain and put them along the playroom wall. It kept most of the water out. We had to move things around in the playroom so they wouldn't get wet. Again, Timothy didn't "get it" and he thought we were just doing a little interior decorating. He saw us moving things and started moving his toys around. He decided his train table looked better flipped upside down. He ripped a few of his posters off the wall. Yeah, fun times.

We cleaned up the water as best we could and this morning we've got the windows opened and lots of fans on. The carpet doesn't even feel damp and we used the wet vac to get up what we could (to Timothy's delight).

The great news is that Timothy now has more sand for his sandbox--600lbs, to be exact.

Magic School Bus

Timothy LOVES the Magic School Bus books--does anyone know if the show is still on? When we had Netflix I used to rent the DVDs to go with our units. They had a really nice variety. We don't do Netflix anymore, so how else can we watch the show?

School Time

Here are some pictures from school time!

It's been so much fun doing the 5 senses -- that's my favorite unit yet!! To be honest, the turtle unit was really boring, but the senses have redeemed My Father's World!!

For the sense of touch, we put some different objects into a bowl (actually a Halloween pumpkin!) and had Timothy pick out the thing we asked for by touch alone. He loved it!!

We did this big giant cut-out where we traced his body, and it's been really fun to label the different parts of his body. (On a side note, when I went to get a drink in the middle of the night I was terrified of the "shadow" I saw on our wall. I had forgotten about our project!)

Of course, our drama queen also used his new knowledge to his advantage. Last night when it was time for bed, he couldn't go to sleep because "His kidney and his liver and his heart and his foot hurt..." Ridiculously funny the first time you hear it, not so funny the tenth time you hear it and it's seriously time for bed. (If you know Timothy, you know when he says his foot hurts he's sleepy)

Timothy's great a memorizing scripture!! I know moms who memorize entire chapters with their children, but we're just not there yet... I'm thrilled with this curriculum, though, because I'm learning (and memorizing) a lot that I didn't know before. Plus we have lots of fun!!

We've been saving his art projects that he brings home from Mother's Day Out and tomorrow we're going to take them to the shut-ins at church. David and I have visited once before, but this will be the first time taking Timothy. When they learned we had a toddler, they all demanded we bring the "baby" next time.

Friends

We had a fellow homeschooling family over today. Get this--they have five well-behaved, intelligent children including a set of 2 year old twins!!

It was a lot of fun, and it was awesome to see the older children and the way they got along. The parents are the main influence in the kids' lives, not some random kids at school. You could tell the older ones really looked up to mom.

We'll most certainly have to have them over again. They're "like us" and very, very fun. Plus their kids are super cute and Timothy had a BALL!!

Chinese

Today, I made Timothy's day by promising the coveted trip to McDonald's "park." He was thrilled. "I love McDonalds! And I can play, and I can eat chicken nuggets, and I can speak Chinese...." And then when we pulled into McDonalds, he was all giddy and said "I'll just speak Chinese!"

Now, I don't have a Chinese-speaking child by any means. I've heard Timothy say maybe 10-20 words in Chinese (minus the little Chinese songs he can sing). So I don't know why he keeps talking about speaking Chinese!!

Then, I was cooking dinner tonight and Timothy and Jimmy were outside. Timothy was digging in his sandbox, Jimmy was on the phone talking to his friend (in Chinese). I got to thinking. Timothy does hear a lot of Chinese. When we were on our trip, he heard it for hours and hours. Jimmy speaks it on the phone all the time. Jimmy speaks to Timothy in Chinese sometimes. Not to mention all of our Chinese videos. So maybe he can speak more Chinese than I've heard him speak.

Quite frankly, I don't know.

Backseat Driver

Timothy is a really, really bad backseat driver. Seriously.

On a short trip, we'll hear the following:
Slow down! Don't go super fast!!
Don't go on the highway.
Watch out for that man!
I see a red light--stop.
DO NOT drive into that water.
DO NOT hit that car.
DO NOT drive in the grass.
Slow down! Slow down!
Did you go the wrong way?
You went the wrong way! (he learned that on vacation)

Yeah, it's always fun when a two year old tells you how to drive...

"School Time"

Well, we had a weird day today.

When it was time for school time, Timothy said he was really sad and he didn't want to sit at the picnic table. We could do school time and he'd just sit on the sofa.

So we sat down at the picnic table, daddy and I, and we proceeded to go through school time while Timothy sat with his sippy cup on the sofa. Timothy sang along with all the songs and shouted out all the answers.

Then, about halfway through, he walked over and sat down at his picnic table and said he wasn't sad anymore (pronounced an-no-more).

Two year olds!

Boiled Eggs

Tonight, we were eating dinner and we had some boiled Easter eggs. David peeled one for Timothy and Timothy said he was going to smell it.

David said, "They have a really distinct smell."

Timothy smelled it and nodded. "Yep. It's stinked."

Ahhhh!!

Okay, so I just called a "Learning Center" in our area to find out about their program.

My question was: Can you tell me a little about your program?

Her answer was: We don't have a schedule we go by everyday, ya know? It's just what we can do each day. I know she works with 'em, though. She has 'em counting and everything. They watch some TV but not all day or anything. Maybe just a couple shows a day. Not all day. Not all day. Like we don't do a curriculum or anything, but I know she's learning em their letters. They watch some TV but not all day. Not all day.

My response was: Thanks so much! I really appreciate it.

Click.

Speech Therapist

Timothy's speech therapist stopped by--it's been a full year since Timothy stopped getting speech therapy through ECI.

She was shocked how much he was talking, and he hammed it up by even singing her a song and telling her a story. She said he is doing absolutely great!! Way ahead of where he should be, and way ahead of where we were thinking he would be.

It was great to see her and great to hear that.

We are truly blessed to have such a verbal child (even when he's sitting there arguing with me and the thought crosses my mind "Am I arguing with a two year old??")

Sarah Plain and Tall

So we've been reading a chapter a night before bed (and oftentimes one at nap time). I don't know if he's been following it or how much he can comprehend--I just enjoy it and I thought he'd benefit from the shared reading experiences.

Tonight before he fell asleep, he said "Mommy, one day, when I get older, can I slide like Sarah?"

It took me awhile to remember that yesterday we read about Sarah sliding down the big stack of hay as if it were a dune. Yesterday.

We're still reading Dr. Seuss and The Little Engine that Could, but I'm glad we're getting into some larger, more interesting books.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Timothy will pick up a spoon, hold it to his mouth and say "Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls of all ages..." That's it. Nothing more about that. Yeah, I know...about as good as his story.

Timothy's new phrase is "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

When Timothy got into his new stroller for the first time, he exclaimed "My royal carriage!"

When Timothy woke up from his nap today, he said "I'm upset." When asked why, he said "Because I really, really want to go on vacation."

At Sonic the other day, Timothy was watching the mechanics across the street and said "When I get older I can work with those men. I can use daddy's tools. Right daddy?"

We had two days notice to bring Easter eggs to Mother's Day Out, so a quick trip to Walmart was necessary. I told Timothy that we had to get eggs for Mother's Day Out and he said "Yeah. That's neat. It's like a surprise for my friends."

Going on a "T" Hunt

Yesterday, we wrote lots of capital T's on index cards and hid them all around the playroom. Timothy counted to 27 (our number of the day) and then got to go hunt for them and put them in his basket. He loved it!! When he was finished, he counted all the T's he found.

Then we played Play-Doh and we made turtles and used a cookie cutter of the letter T (note - Mardel has a whole set of letter cookie cutters for $10). Play-Doh is really fun, plus it's great for fine-motor skills. He's getting better about being able to do different things with the Play-Doh (rather than just use cookie cutters and such).

It was really, really fun for him--he keeps asking if he can hunt for T's again pleeeease.

Not related to the letter T, we are reading Sarah Plain and Tall. We're about halfway through it. I'm not sure Timothy understands it (it's a chapter book) but he does at least understand parts of it. He was very upset that the mom was dead, and then he thought the cat was from the "C" (as in the letter, not the "sea" that the book was referring to). So that was funny. We bought this book at a garage sale and when we went to read it found it was signed by the author. That was cool!!