After an amazingly busy, jammed packed spring and summer, we made it to my favorite time of year, back to school time. Yes, I am that crazy person that gets excited over notebooks and planners. I get giddy over new highlighters and binders and desk organizers. It means that life should be settling down back into a routine and no major surprises. It also means that it is time for me and Conner, my oldest, to start putting school back into the day.
The great thing about homeschooling my kids right now is everyone is under five years old, which translates to a lot of playing and learning though playing. Also I haven't gotten to the point where I have to notify the school board of homeschooling intentions. In Mississippi, I have to give written notice that my kindergarten age children and up are to be home schooled and what curriculum I intend to use. Since we are still a young household, most of the day I am un-schooling my children. I mostly talk with them about our daily life and let it go from there.
Most of our learning comes from being outside. Conner's vocabulary is expanding exponentially right now, so as we talk, I correct him on his sentence structure and phrasing so he is more comprehensible. He gets really excited when he finds a new caterpillar or colored leaf, and begins stumbling over his words. I gently encourage him to slow down and think about what he is saying. It does get down right amusing when he memorizes songs that he hears. His dad is a big fan of Pit Bull and Robin Thicke, so I am always giggling about what lyrics he thinks he is hearing.
My second child, Miranda, is only 18 months, but even she is learning every day. She is very much in the middle of everything. Her favorite thing is to help in the kitchen. She has her stairs to get up to the counter and her rag for wiping messes up. She is also my go for girl. She is at that age where simple requests are finally understood and she preforms them fairly well. I can ask her to bring me diapers for her baby brother and she will for the most part.
This year, I am starting to add more structure into our day. In the past, before the third pregnancy, I had started a preschool curriculum with Conner called Letter a Week, it's a free online curriculum and even has baby and toddler curriculum on there as well. I left the web address at the bottom of this post. I hope to reinstate that curriculum, as Conner seemed to love it and I hope to incorporate the other programs offered with my younger ones to give them a head start if they show an interest.
Interest is the key to homeschooling, it is the keystone to if this will work or not. With all of my babies still being very young, I don't have a large window of opportunity for attention time for structured learning. If I spend too much time trying to get them to sit still and behave then they are learning what I put together for them. It took a lot for me to get to that revelation, even with everyone giving me advise on the subject.
http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preschool_age_3.html
Friday, August 30, 2013
The birth of baby three
July 15, 2013,
Well, this story comes a little late as everything has been a whirl wind of excitement since the birth of our third child, so here it is. I started having contractions that morning and monitored them with one of the many apps for contraction timing. It felt like false labor for most of the morning, but come that afternoon I was sure it was time to call my Midwife to get her on the way. It turns out to be true what they say about labor getting quicker with each baby. No sooner that finishing dinner, my contractions got more intense and frequent, luckily just as my midwife was pulling into the driveway.
I had planned on a water birth or just labor with this pregnancy but one very vital thing hadn't happened for me to be able to get into the tub until after the midwife showed up, my water hadn't broke on its own. I was left pacing my room and bracing on the wall while the debate of tub or no tub waged. We were also strapped for hot water since the kids had had their baths and the dishes had been washed, my mother in law began to warm water on the stove. Eventually, I was allowed to get in the water and it was a complete relief. The heat and weightlessness was a God sent and gave me the breather that I needed for what was to come.
After I was settled in the water the urge to push became very urgent. Humorously, every time the urge to push came I would yell, "Pushy feeling", which everyone got a kick out of. It was the only way I could think to communicate what was going on with my body. The midwife checked me and I was just shy of fully dilated and she said what seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to me at the time, "Don't push." Are you kidding me! I'm not trying to push, my body is. How do I stop something I'm not choosing to do? My midwife is also trained in hypnobirthing which I was unable to remember at the time, and she literally stared me down and forced me to breath through each contraction. My poor husband tried to comfort me but at that point I was in a to the death staring contest with the midwife and there was no breaking it. Oh, water still hadn't broken yet.
Finally, this crazy lady staring me down concedes and allows me to loose control and begin to push. Once, I felt my baby drop into the birth canal, it was a no holds bar, I was getting this human out of me ASAP. It took two, count them, two pushes to deliver my third child, our second son into this world. What I was later told was if my midwife hadn't ruptured the sac on my final push, my son would have been born without his water breaking. This rarely happens, mostly because rupturing the amniotic sac is a means of starting labor, so I was really amazed that my child almost did this. Once he was out and placed on my chest, I was amazed at how tiny he seemed. At seven pound four onces, he is my smallest birth so far. We named him Jasper Wyatt.
If you have any funny or quirky labor stories I would love to hear them.
Well, this story comes a little late as everything has been a whirl wind of excitement since the birth of our third child, so here it is. I started having contractions that morning and monitored them with one of the many apps for contraction timing. It felt like false labor for most of the morning, but come that afternoon I was sure it was time to call my Midwife to get her on the way. It turns out to be true what they say about labor getting quicker with each baby. No sooner that finishing dinner, my contractions got more intense and frequent, luckily just as my midwife was pulling into the driveway.
I had planned on a water birth or just labor with this pregnancy but one very vital thing hadn't happened for me to be able to get into the tub until after the midwife showed up, my water hadn't broke on its own. I was left pacing my room and bracing on the wall while the debate of tub or no tub waged. We were also strapped for hot water since the kids had had their baths and the dishes had been washed, my mother in law began to warm water on the stove. Eventually, I was allowed to get in the water and it was a complete relief. The heat and weightlessness was a God sent and gave me the breather that I needed for what was to come.
After I was settled in the water the urge to push became very urgent. Humorously, every time the urge to push came I would yell, "Pushy feeling", which everyone got a kick out of. It was the only way I could think to communicate what was going on with my body. The midwife checked me and I was just shy of fully dilated and she said what seemed like the stupidest thing in the world to me at the time, "Don't push." Are you kidding me! I'm not trying to push, my body is. How do I stop something I'm not choosing to do? My midwife is also trained in hypnobirthing which I was unable to remember at the time, and she literally stared me down and forced me to breath through each contraction. My poor husband tried to comfort me but at that point I was in a to the death staring contest with the midwife and there was no breaking it. Oh, water still hadn't broken yet.
Finally, this crazy lady staring me down concedes and allows me to loose control and begin to push. Once, I felt my baby drop into the birth canal, it was a no holds bar, I was getting this human out of me ASAP. It took two, count them, two pushes to deliver my third child, our second son into this world. What I was later told was if my midwife hadn't ruptured the sac on my final push, my son would have been born without his water breaking. This rarely happens, mostly because rupturing the amniotic sac is a means of starting labor, so I was really amazed that my child almost did this. Once he was out and placed on my chest, I was amazed at how tiny he seemed. At seven pound four onces, he is my smallest birth so far. We named him Jasper Wyatt.
If you have any funny or quirky labor stories I would love to hear them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)