Where Have All the Updates Gone

Um, well, we've been swamped. Mark's classes are going very well, we survived his first on-call and will get better at actually doing things while he is away. We had wonderful company, John's godparents and their children came and I actually have a few pictures but well, I'll get to those pretty soon. We had a wonderful visit and John had a great time playing with all the kids even though learning to share kinda stinks and his belly was hurting through much of the visit. New meds are started and we will see how that goes. I'm still struggling with how to keep track of school but we are now doing some school just about every day, but by the time I've read aloud to him from 7 or more different books each day I'm just out of words and so blog posts will come again, but it might have to wait until I get used to the reading regimen. It's being so worth it though because John has started to sign to me about what we are reading and in the middle of the night the other night he was signing to me about Stuart Little's spy glass. So if you've wondered where we've wandered off to, we're here, just swamped and in a mostly good way. John has appointments in St. Louis on the 21st where we are looking forward to getting to meet some old friends, and meet some friends we've only known online in person and then he is in Omaha on the 26th and getting to see our friends there is always worth the trip. I'm checking email and facebook a few times a day, and will post some new pictures and fun stuff as I am able. Meanwhile, know we're smiling or even out right giggling at the most amazing boy ever who is still running on mischief juice ;)

Learning Notes::Wk 3::2010

This week was horrible for John's belly, it hurt so bad that he actually threw up for the first time in a long long time. It did get better as the week went on, thanks to new medicine and a change in meds. School was pretty much on the back burner, somewhat because John just hurt so much, but also because he had the opportunity to play with friends, that doesn't happen nearly enough, and Mark had his first on-call this week, which is going to happen more frequently but we should also adjust to it after a while.

Learning Our Faith:

• We continued to learn the catechism by heart with the 1st through 6th commandments.
  
• We read aloud Abraham and the Angels and The Offering of Isaac from A Child's Garden of Bible Stories.

Language Arts:

• We finished the third Magic Tree House book Mummies in the Morning, continued Stuart Little, Favorite Poems Old and New, Aesop's Fables, Ben Hur (Illustrated Children's Edition) and had a delightful time sharing Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig with our friends.
  

Music

• We continued reading Bach by Wheeler and Deucher and listening to Bach's music.
  

Learning Notes::Wk 2::2010

Learning Our Faith:

• Actually started morning devotions again this week. We use Morning Prayer from the Lutheran Service Book and read through the Bible readings for next Sunday and sing one verse of whichever hymn I can manage to carry the tune on by myself. The Word is always efficacious but I sometimes wonder how much John gets from these things and this week was treated to several times when he signed to us about what was being read. We are still working on signing The Lord's Prayers, but it will come.
  
• We continued to learn the catechism by heart. The 6th is finally starting to stick, if he can't get 'commit' right he is sure to get 'adultery' right each time, somehow that figures.
  
• We read aloud The Promised Savior, The Children of Adam and Eve, The Flood, and Abraham's Faith in God from A Child's Garden of Bible Stories.

Learning to Read

• Phonics from Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading we added M, N, and P.
• Phonemic Awareness - we are reading Rhyming books and while working on the poem Twinkle Twinkle Little Star we are emphasizing the rhyming words.
• Dolch List - John is working on the green list and was able to actually read 11 words this week.
• Teaching Reading with Children's Books - we have been rereading Here Comes the Cat and John has been working on spelling out 'here', 'comes' and 'cat' with his magnetic letters. This week John was delighted to read Hug to me all by himself, this is the second book that he can read all the words (hug, mommy, Bobo) to without help and in contexts other than just the book. The first was Tall, also by Jez Asborough, and it has tall, small and fall, along with mommy and Bobo. Learning that words that are capitalized have to be fingerspelled is nearly as big of a deal as learning a new word, but he is handling it well.
  

Language Arts:

• We did the lessons 3 & 4 in First Language Lessons and John did great with all the new signs and the concepts, well there is plenty of time to work on them. This continued work on the new poem The Caterpillar and also specification of common and proper nouns. Again the hardest part of this was remembering the signs for 'common' and 'proper', this is going to take time for the mommy brain but I might finally understand it learning it at John's pace.
  
• John continues to enjoy doing a page in his Handwriting Without Tears workbook and also likes to trace a few words on lined paper. He is especially proud of these pages and loves to get them to show dad the moment he comes in the house.
  
• Poetry Memorization, we continue with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, BINGO, and have enjoyed adding The Caterpillar from John's grammar book.
  
• Reading Aloud Literature: Magic Tree House book Mummies in the Morning, continued Stuart Little, and continued reading poems from Favorite Poems Old and New along with other books that John enjoys picking from his shelves. We also started Aesop's Fables this week with the intention of reading 1 or 2 a day until we finish the book. We also started reading the Illustrated Children's Edition of Ben Hur. I actually tried to talk John out of this book once, but nothing doing, he was intent on us reading it to him.
  

Math:

• We are still working on counting and this week worked especially on 1 through 5 with a new game, a Toy Story 3 version of Yahtzee Jr., John loves it and it's one the adults like too.
  

Music

• This week we continued reading Bach by Wheeler and Deucher and listening to Bach's music.
  

Art

• In addition to trying the art test again, we played with thumbprint people together one day and John played with them off and on through the rest of the week.
  

Therapy At Home

• John worked on cutting some things with his scissors, things he was allowed to cut, and he continued to work on his walking. He also likes to play on his little trampoline and see how much stuff he can reach.
  

Little Conductor

John props music on the stand, turns on the automatic settings for the keyboard and conducts, it's fun to watch, even if not always fun to listen too.

Not Exactly How Dad Wears It

Diligence

Each morning when John gets in his chair he heads out to find his handwriting page on the table. He enjoys doing it and is so very proud to show it to dad when he gets home. Today I found some coaching for right handers trying to teach lefties how to right without hooking their wrist so next week I will work more closely with him, but still his diligence is admirable.

Apple Trees

I've heard the saying 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' all my life. As a parent I am beginning to really understand the weight of that statement.

I want to start this by thanking both Mark's and my apple trees, each of them moved a good deal from the weaknesses and frailties of their own trees. No parent is without sin, no parent is without mistake or failure, it is the duty of the children to move away from the mistakes of the parents, ours did marvelously, and left us with both less room to move and much more shelter under their branches.

There is another quote about apple trees that I just love, I've heard a few variations on it, this one is the one I came across tonight "Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." Martin Luther. As I think about my role as a parent I think more and more about this quote and that this is my job, indeed a better word for it is my vocation, but sadly that word is less understood these days.

Around me the world seems to be falling apart, politics are horrid, freedoms are being wasted, false security is being sought after, people seem more interested in self than others and all manner of things worldly seem to be spiraling downhill, just as they have since the fall of man. No matter what it is my job to plant this apple tree, to make sure that as a parent I am giving my child the best that I can. I don't mean money, surely there is a place for that, but in the end a child is better off to have been truly loved in poverty than ignored or worshiped in riches. As a parent intent on homeschooling my son, it is easy to be caught up in the worries of academics, will I provide enough that he can have a chance at a good college, job, etc., am I doing it the right way, could I be doing it better.

Sometimes I find that it is so easy to be wrapped up in those things that I forget the one thing that my son truly needs each and every day, the one thing that only his dad and I can give him and that is a real living picture of what it means to love and to be loved. This extends to every part of life, because John is homeschooled he sees us all the time, through each and every thing. He has watched us through joy and sorrow, he has seen us be scared to death that we were losing him and thrilled to pieces that he was doing well, he has seen us excited because we found out I was pregnant and mourning the loss of yet another baby we will not hold here, he has seen us struggle financially and rejoice over an unexpected gift, he has seen our life inside and out, good and bad, with nothing but the most intimate things hidden from him.

As I think through the things that I want our beloved son to learn, I remember my dad saying (as all dad's have I'm sure) 'do what I say and not what I do' and I can remember doing (in this case driving) exactly as I had seen him do (to the best of my teenage abilities) and not like he had told me too. From this I know that no matter what I tell John it is my actions that are his greatest teachers, and so when I am tempted to give into sorrow, to lash out in anger, to give up on projects that become difficult, to shirk my duties to go have fun first, or to never have fun because I feel like I always have more work to do, that it is what he watches me do that will teach him the things that will make or break life. For a child can always learn a little more math, science or English, but at some point they seemed closed off to lessons about mercy, patience, kindness, compassion, persistence, respect of self and others, honesty, love and faithfulness. As John grows and we progress through school hopefully he will reach his full potential in all the realms of academia, he is one smart little boy, but if he grows into a man who has all those important qualities, mercy, patience, kindness, compassion, persistence, respect of self and others, honesty, love and faithfulness then Mark and I will have done our job, fulfilled our vocations as parents. Certainly not through our own strength because we too are sinful broken human beings, but through Christ who is in us and Who through us plants that apple tree fresh and new each morning.