Sunday, August 31, 2008

Baseball Scrimmage

Michael's travel baseball team had an intra-squad scrimmage today. They've had quite a few practices and done a lot of "hitting and running" kind of scrimmaging, but hadn't been through like it was a game.

Michael had a pretty good day. He pitched two innings, which is the most he's ever done in a single game. The first inning was pretty good. He seems to either throw the ball right over the plate or way off - not a lot of inbetween. The second inning wasn't as good - a lot more wild pitches. I think just because he hasn't had to pitch two innings in a row, that was a lot for him.

I'm going to start counting pitches for him - because by playing on two different teams (one travel, one little league), with two different coaches, he could certainly be throwing too much.

I read an article today about kids throwing their arms out younger and younger. This has been a concern of mine since Michael starting pitching - so I got him some lessons so at least he would be throwing it correctly. But one of the most interesting things I read in the article today is that sometimes the pitchers throw their arms out because in addition to being a pitcher, they are a catcher or a third baseman. Positions that require a lot of throwing (catcher) or hard throwing (3rd base). The two innings Michael didn't pitch today, he played 3rd base. I think its because he is one of the stronger throwers, so the coach has him at 3rd (at least that's the explanation we've come up with because its very strange to have a left-handed 3rd baseman - he can't cover the gap because his glove is on the other hand). At least I got the coach to NOT have him catch.

But it was a good scrimmage and the boys played well together. We look forward to his first real game

Monday, August 25, 2008

First Day of School!

So, as I hoped - we had our first day of school today.

We covered about half of our subjects today and we'll cover the other half tomorrow and then dive in full.

We talked about what we were going to study for history and we read a little bit about how you learn history and about archeology, since we'll be talking about that a lot when we talk about Ancient History. I showed them a little of the books we are going to look at, and the maps we are going to study, etc.

We also talked about science. For some reason, I have trouble getting up the motivation for science. I don't know why. This year we are trying a book called "Critical Thinking Through Science". Its a lot about observations and drawing conclusions and forming opinions (like my kids don't have enough of those already). Today we talked about those aspects of science and talked about how we would have a science notebook where we would document our activities and observations. I'm going to bounce around a little and even throw in a unit from My World Science, like we've used in previous years, but I'm off to a better start than the past two years

Then we did some math. I had each of them do some review problems for things they learned last year - we'll see how much they remember. I'll probably do that for a couple of days before we dive into new material for either of them.

And we had McDonalds for lunch! Because you can't have McDonalds for lunch if you go to regular school! :)

1 day, 179 to go!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

School Starts Tomorrow!

For us, at least!

We've got almost all of our books in house and I'm ready to start. I like to try and start before the regular school starts around here and ease in a little.

I spent a lot of time last night getting my History lesson plan together - I'm combining some things together so I needed to get all the plans together so I saw what to do when.

I have some new Grammar books for both of the kids - they are taking a writing workshop with another homeschooling mom, because I've realized that while I'm actually a pretty good editor, my feeble attempts to teach them in this area just weren't very good. I've seen some wonderful results from other kids who have taken the workshop, so I'm pretty excited about that.

I've also already compiled my list of supplies I need for the first few science experiments. I'm a little more likely to actually do the experiments with the kids if I don't have to spend a lot of time trying to find supplies. Definitely a step in the right direction.

Both kids will be continuing their math that they did last year - Michael is half-way through his 3rd grade math already and Samantha will be going through pre-algebra again. There are so many concepts in that curriculum that are foundational for algebra that I believe she really needs to get them down - and we are ahead of the game with math, so we have a good opportunity for that.

Art and Writing classes don't start up for a couple of weeks, so we have some good time to just get into the groove with our own work and see how it works out.

Tomorrow is Day 1!

Saturday, August 23, 2008

And the hits keep on coming

Last night's funny - Emma has named her Bitty Baby "Alva". Why Alva?

Because Vanessa (her pooh animal) told her that was her name!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Emma Funny

We laugh a lot at the things that Emma says day in and day out, but we had a couple of really funny ones yesterday.

Mike came home from work early so I could go to a meeting, but that didn't happen because of a migraine. Mike was helping me with my migraine and we asked Samantha to check Emma's blood sugar, because it hadn't been checked when she got up from her nap.

Samantha checked it and we didn't hear her tell us what the reading was. Finally, Emma told us that her reading was 81. That's at the lowest end of her range and I knew that she was going to be active later, so we wanted to give her a little juice to keep her up. We yelled down for Samantha to give her 2 ounces of juice.

And Emma yells back upstairs "But I was 81! I don't need juice".

So, we had to reason with a 3 year old as to why she had to have juice when she was "in range". Too Funny!

Then, last night she told Mike that she didn't have a good nap yesterday. When asked why, she said she was taking care of Dora, who was sick (her stuffed animal). I asked her last night why Dora was sick. I finally got the entire story. Dora was "sick of Pluto bugging her" (another stuffed animal). Pluto was evidently licking Dora and she didn't like it. So, I made Pluto leave the room for the night and told her that she should sleep fine now that Pluto is not in a position to make Dora sick!

I swear I think she needs to become a writer or something because the things that she comes up with are just hilarious!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Letting kids be kids

This is probably a debate that has been going on in parenting circles for a long time - letting kids be kids.

The debate takes a different twist when you have a child with Diabetes. Its figuring out how to have your child live a normal life, eat normal foods, and do normal activities without having them (or you) become neurotically obsessed with how the diabetes is affecting that life, or that food.

This has sparked a spirited debate on the diabetes message board I read. Another member posted a great list of "Here's how I know I'm not letting diabetes take over our lives" and I wanted to share it - because I've done almost all of these things too:

We have seen the meter read HI (over 600)
We have forget to dose for a meal
We scratch our heads and say what the heck
We've tweeked the dosing too much, and we've tweeked not enough
We do not restrict food (except what I do for all my kids)
We've slept through the 3am check
We do see numbers in the 200 & 300's
We WAG the carb content of foods pretty regularly
We've blown off a post or pre check
We've over dosed and had a severe low
We've left the house without the meter (and debated even going back for it)

I realized that diabetes had just become a normal part of our lives last week when I was taking Emma to a sitter (who is an RN) and forgot her meter. I actually did debate with myself whether I should go back for it, since I was pretty confident she wasn't going to be low and I was sure she wouldn't need to test, and of course its a pain to turn around and go back the TWO BLOCKS to get it from my house. But, reason prevailed and I went back to get it (honestly, because I had the "what if I get in an accident and she has to keep her longer" thought)

So, I feel pretty good that we are letting Emma enjoy her childhood as much as she can, and diabetes has just been integrated into it just like any uniqueness that any of our children have.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The dirtiest room in the house!

Well, maybe not the dirtiest, but certainly close

Our laundry room also serves as the way out of the house. 95% of the time - we go in and out through the laundry room into the garage. We have baskets for the shoes so we aren't walking around with shoes on the carpets.

Its a good thing!

I can't imagine trying to vacuum out the amount of dirt I just swept out of the laundry room. I pulled the baskets out from their cubbies in the bench that hold shoes to sweep under them as well - Michael's actually had piles of SAND under the basket.

I almost completely filled the dustpan with dirt, dust, and sand from sweeping the laundry room - a room that we spend the least amount of time in, but experiences the most traffic.

And now its clean!

Monday, August 18, 2008

Change

After 8 years, we have decided to change dance studios. Its difficult after you've been at the same place for so long, but my frustration with the studio has grown year after year and I had finally had enough.

The director just didn't have any respect for the families - this was her life and she expected the world to revolve around her for us too. Never mind that we have other sports and music and family lives to manage. We can't drop everything to do an event, run all over town to find shoes or accessories at the last minute, and drop lots of money on a whim.

Our new studio is a bit further away (since, of course, the last one was here in our neighborhood) but I'm very impressed with it. All of their instructors were formerly professional dancers or have degrees in dance or dance instruction (our former one danced in high school and was a Redskins Cheerleader wannabe). The kids who are younger than Samantha with fewer years of instruction are already quite impressive. Their approach is really nice AND we won't be having to do competitions anymore - and we will have fewer hours a week at the studio.

Sounds like a win-win to me! Just wish I had changed sooner

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Travel Baseball

Michael tried out and was selected for the 8 and under travel baseball team. We're pretty happy. I think this is going to be a good experience for him.

The good news is that travel doesn't really mean so much "Travel". It basically means that you play in a league with other teams from the region, as opposed to just within your own little league. The might be one tournament in the Spring, but mostly it will be playing teams in the surrounding area.

And a lot of good training and drills. Some with professionals.

Congratulations Michael!

Thursday, August 07, 2008

The family sharing really needs to stop!

I blogged after Christmas how my sister-in-law broke the "no gifts" rule and gave me a Christmas gift - her cold.

Well, now my mother has done the same thing.

We went down to visit my parents while my sister and her kids were visiting last week. Early on in the week, my mother complained that her throat was scratchy and perhaps her glands were swollen.

It didn't really materialize beyond that.

A couple of days later, my dad had the same complaint.

As far as I know, it didn't really materialize beyond that.

Near the end of Monday, my throat started feeling scratchy. I figured it was the same as Mom and Dad, and it would be scratchy for a little and then be over.

3 days later, I'm still suffering from this head cold.

I wake up with earaches and a sore throat from all the draining. My nose is running all the time, despite the Claritin and Sudafed that I've been taking. And of course I'm sleeping horribly as a result.

We really need to stop sharing these germs!