Quote of the day

Chocolate milk. That's MY espresso.

-- Spyder, age 10

"I'm imagining."

That's always Spyder's answer when I find him doing something odd. Not necessarily something that he shouldn't do, but just . . . odd.

Last night he was taking a bit too long with his shower, so I knocked on the bathroom door to hurry him a bit. Immediately after my knock, I heard a *thud* "OW!" I opened the door to find out what was going on.

Skeeter's sink was filled with shaving cream. Spyder was standing in front with shaving cream all over his feet. We had the usual Mom Inquisition.

ME: What were you doing?

SPYDER: Oh, I needed to wash my feet.

ME: You didn't do that in the shower?

SPYDER: Uh. Yes?

ME: So then what were you really doing?

SPYDER: I was imagining that I was making this really cool acid paste that would blow up the door.

Life is never dull around here.

Learning, today's epiphany

Spyder has been reading since he turned 3 years old. Reading, not just sounding out words and such. At age 9, his reading level is that of a high school junior's, although his comprehension isn't quite that high.

Sass, on the other hand, isn't reading yet. Oh, she can sound out small words, but she's not really reading yet. Being the voracious reader I am, that's driving me crazy. BUT I had an epiphany this afternoon. Sass hasn't had the same experiences that Spyder had.

Our city is pretty big, and Spyder and I spent quite a lot of time in the car driving when he was little -- driving around town, going to see his grandparents (1.5 hrs away), that sort of thing. He would always look at books while we were driving around, and I'd have him spell out the words so that I could "read" to him while we were driving. I never even thought about it until today. We were out for a bit today (Target, airport, etc), and Sass had her Can You See What I See? book. Spyder was engrossed in his own book, so I had her spell out the words so I could tell her what to find next. That's when it hit me. I'd be willing to bet that the backseat spelling and reading that Spyder did is at least part of what led him to be a reader before he "should" have.

Sass has never had that because Spyder reads to her! I think I'm going to encourage him to take his headphones when we're in the car so she and I can do more of this. Being in the car is the best because I can't read for her while I'm driving, which is what she would want if I could.

I'm glad that I realized all of this, but I feel as if I should have an "IDIOT" sticker on my forehead for not picking up on it sooner.

That Spyder cracks me up!

Sass and Spyder watched part of The Aristocats tonight. Sass, who is fascinated with all animals, decided that she wanted to be one of the cats. Considering that she draws kitty whiskers on herself just about every day, she thought it wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

Spyder tells her, "[Sass], I don't think you'd want to be a cat. Not for real. That life isn't as glamorous as it looks."

Children are for making you feel good about yourself

SPYDER: Mama! Your hair is sticking up all over! You look like a mad scientist whose latest experiment went horribly wrong.

Sound bites

"I'm just gettin' out my inner swing."

-- Spyder, while listening to his MP3 player and dancing in the back seat of the car

"Oh, Mama. Hug me and we'll think of happier times."

-- Sass, while watching me have watery eyes and sniffles during a sad part of the latest Harry Potter book

The Dangerous Book for Boys

Today, Spyder and I were wandering in the book section of Sam's Club when I found The Dangerous Book for Boys. I had heard about it a while ago, but I was never able to find a copy in the bookstore to see if it was really something I wanted to buy.

I thumbed through it there at the store, and it didn't take me long to figure out that it was a must-buy. Definitely.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Spyder is (as my mom would say) "All Boy." He likes anything that has to do with weaponry, mess-making, building . . . . The list could go on for hours.

Spyder noticed the book in the cart, and he picked it up immediately. (I think the "dangerous" part had him intrigued.) He started reading it there in the store, and he didn't put it down for the rest of the day.


It covers a range of topics, from history lessons to how to build the perfect paper airplane to talking to girls. (At age 9, Spyder is both intrigued and disgusted by the idea of talking to girls "that way," although the list of dos and don'ts are really just common sense.)

He spent the first part of the day folding that perfect paper airplane, and I have to admit, it's a pretty good design. He was able to get it to fly almost to the end of the yard -- much, much further than he has ever done before.


Last night he told me about the Battle of Waterloo. Today he taught himself how to tie three or four different types of knots. Both subjects came from this book.

The list price is $24.95 (kind of high) but we paid $15 at Sam's, and Amazon currently has it for that price. It's well worth it. The design is perfect for my boy, a stiff cloth hardcover with no dusjacket. It's illustrated throughout, occasionally with color drawings, sometimes with simple sketches.

I almost fussed at him for taking it outside and putting it on the damp grass. But really, it's the type of book that I want him to carry around, to use enough to get fingerprints on the pages and wear the corners of the cover. So instead of fussing, I just picked it up, wiped it off, and moved it to a dry spot.

The Dangerous Book for Boys gets my highest recommendation.

Spyder's aspiration

The adventure weekend

Remember that grand adventure? It was . . . Space Camp!


Skeeter and Spyder went to Huntsville, AL for the Parent/Child Space Camp! They spent the weekend building rockets, training on the moon walk simulators, going on a space shuttle mission, and learning about NASA.


The US Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville hosts the Space Camp, but it also is a museum that shows the history of the US space program. We didn't realize it at the time, but Sass and I could have gone with them (staying in a hotel rather than at the camp) and toured the grounds and museum. Ah well! Perhaps another time.


Since they did the Parent/Child camp, it was only a weekend. But it was a pretty intensive weekend! They were scheduled from breakfast to bedtime, and they were exhausted by the time they got back home.

Both Skeeter and Spyder thoroughly enjoyed it though, and they're already talking about returning for the Aviation Challenge weekend in a couple of years.

The program gets highest marks from both of them, which truly says a lot about it. Considering their excitement, which continued for days after they got back, I would highly recommend the program!

A few tips for anyone considering the program:

• Spend the extra money and buy your camper the jumpsuit. It sounds a bit silly, but Skeeter said that Spyder felt more like he was really "in training" once he started wearing the jumpsuit. I didn't buy it in advance, and in retrospect, I would.
  
• Plan to eat at least two meals not included in your camp. Lunch is not provided on the first day or the last day. I would have packed them a lunch for the first day, at least, if we had realized that. As it was, they had to eat lunch in the snack bar, which was grossly overpriced (as in all touristy areas). If I had known to plan ahead for it, it would have saved us $35 to $40 on those two meals.
  
• Bring a bottle for water. Or buy one bottle and save it to refill. Water from the machines was $1.50 (pricey!), but you can refill the bottle from the water fountain.
• Pack light. The rooms are designed exactly as a space station would have them (think bunkhouse in Star Trek). The beds are actually set into the wall, so you have a very limited amount of room. I sent my campers with two bags, one large bag for clothing and one smaller bag for toiletries. Skeeter said it was crowded to have two, so he ended up repacking in the back of the car.
• Use travel sized toiletries. We have quite a collection of trial toiletries, some from hotels, some that I've gotten in the mail . . . . I sent these with my campers -- everything from mouthwash to toothpaste to shampoo. Skeeter said that these were absolutely fantastic. Between the two of them, they used a bottle of shampoo per shower, and he could just throw the container away. They used the shampoo as body wash as well, so they didn't have to bother with a bar of soap OR an extra bottle of body wash.
• With the way that the days were scheduled, it was best to shower at night. Skeeter is accustomed to taking his showers in the morning, and he didn't realize that the schedule didn't permit that until he was too late. He had to squeeze in time for a quick shower sometime mid-day on Saturday, since he didn't have time in the morning.
  

The total cost for whole trip (including travel, food, and souvenirs) was right at $1000, which is exactly what we had planned. That sounds like a lot (and it is), but it took us about a year and a half to save enough for it. Saving $30 per paycheck for 17 months is infinitely more do-able than $1000 all at once. :)

The Shakespeare Stealer

The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood is the story of Widge, an orphan in the late 16th century. Widge is taken in by a rector, who teaches Widge a version of shorthand. The rector uses Widge's learned skill by sending him to listen to sermons and have him transcribe them word by word.

Eventually Widge is sold to another man who charges him to transcribe Shakespeare's Hamlet while standing in the audience. Widge succeeds, but loses his transcription. Caught behind the stage, he pretends to be interested in learning to be one of the players.

Widge makes friends with the other apprentices -- the first real friends of his life -- and the players become his family in a way that he has never had before. Eventually Widge has to choose between loyalty to his purchaser and his new-found friends.

Spyder and I both really enjoyed this book, and we had an excellent discussion on it afterward.

Many of the people in the book play a role to conceal his true character, just as a player does on the stage. Widge pretends to have the acting bug so that he can steal the play, although he learns how difficult that is. The rector pretends to be an upright and honest man, but he uses Widge to steal ideas and words from others. There are other examples, but they would be spoilers, and I wouldn't do that to anyone. But at any rate, Widge finds that the people who show their true selves to him are the players themselves.

Additionally, Widge finds himself in a situation where he has to find his own morals. His world has been filled with adults who display amoral behavior in one way or another. Widge has been shown this type of behavior, but he finds that he is dissatisfied with it and decides to make his own way.

This is exactly the kind of book I hope to find when I'm browsing, one that is both exciting and thoughtful.

Very highly recommended for both boys and girls (and adults)!

Adventures

And so it goes that when you have animals and children, there is always an adventure.

The children and I were playing outside at my parents' house. Dad had run to the store, and I was there with the children and the dog. Sass was digging in the dirt, and Spyder and I were throwing a ball when I realized that Molly, Dad's hound dog, was missing.

I started calling her, but no response. The neighbors two doors down called over that Molly had headed to another neighbor's house. Sure enough, I could see her waggy tail peeking out from the bush in front of the yard three houses down and across the street.

I called to Spyder for him to get the leash and follow me. I told Sass to stay where she was, then I took off after Molly. By this time, she was in front of the neighbor's fence, barking at their three dogs -- two Pit Bulls and a German Shepherd mix. And they're big. And not so friendly.

I was almost to Molly when I heard Sass scream and start to cry. I abandoned the dog, and ran over to Sass. She had tried to follow, and halfway through the yard next door, she stepped barefoot into a patch of stickers. She was scared to sit down on the ground, but she couldn't walk back to the driveway. I picked her up and carried her to next door's porch. She was still crying hysterically, and she wouldn't let me help pull the stickers out. And she had a lot of stickers in her foot. I let her get the stickers out, then I carried her back to my parents' driveway, again telling her to stay put.

Spyder had found the leash by then, and I grabbed it and took off -- again -- after Molly. By this time, Molly was darting in and out of the fence, alternately attempting to play with and not get eaten by the bigger dogs. Luckily, the dog owners came out and rounded up their dogs, so I was able to get Molly.

Molly and I walked back to the house, and my dad passed by in his truck. I couldn't see Sass or Spyder anywhere, and I had a panicky moment thinking, "What ELSE?" then I realized that Sass had situated herself on the couch. In true Princess style, she had gotten Spyder to fetch a wet washcloth for her foot, and as I walked in the door she was asking him to get her a cold drink.

Twenty minutes. In a span of twenty minutes, I had located and rescued a dog. Sass had run into a spot of trouble and been rescued. Spyder had been turned in a servant boy, and Sass had declared herself worthy of service.

All in a day's work.

Um, yeah, like that

I was in the back yard at my parents' house watching Sass and Spyder playing with a variety of bugs when I overheard the following conversation.

Spyder: Make sure that you're gentle with the bugs. They're smaller creatures. Since we're bigger, it's our responsibility to treat them gently. You don't want to squoosh them. Treat them like you would treat a friend.

(Mom smiles proudly and puffs out her chest.)

Sass: A friend?

Spyder: Yeah, a friend. We need to show others that smaller things are special too.

(Mom smiles even bigger, thinking her talks have paid off.)

Spyder: And if they ever mutate and get monster-sized, they'll know you as the girl who was nice and didn't squoosh them. We'll be king and queen of the mutant monster insects.

The joys of being a boy

Flarp: Slimy goo that makes flatulence-like noises when squished, much to the delight of boys everywhere.

Yay.

A stellar substitute

Baking soda! Sass and Spyder played "sandbox" in the house today with baking soda. What started out as a simple magic trick (with a promise of "I won't get it on the floor!") ended in a mess. An expected mess, but still a mess.

They did have a blast though, and it wasn't cleanup wasn't too awful. Maybe I should let them do this more often. Sand would have been much more irritating!

Well, I'm glad to know that!

SPYDER: I can tell when people are in love. Mom and Dad are in love. I can tell.

SASS: Am I in love?

SPYDER: No, you're not in love with anyone. I'm not even in love with anyone. You have to be at least 13 to be in love.

Just another reminder that my little boy isn't so little any more

His shirts are now too big to fit on the children's hangers.

Since it seems that warm weather is upon us, I went through part of his closet, culling the "almost-too-small" and packing away the "should-be-okay-for-fall." That's when I noticed it. The "should-okay-for-fall" shirts were always the ones that I had trouble getting to stay on the hangers.

He's rushing headlong into those dreaded tween years, and I'm not ready for it. Not one bit.

Freckles

He's certainly a creative little boy

Today I came upon Spyder looking around his room singing this little ditty

Oh, where is the poem
That I wrote?
Oh, I despise
That I am broke.

over and over and over.

And in true Spyder fashion, he was cleaning his room so that he could find something that he'd misplaced. I've no idea what his lack of funds had to do with losing the poem though. Perhaps he wanted to hire someone (me? Sass?) to locate it for him. :o)

The Mad Libs game rocks!

Spyder and I spent part of the morning playing our new Mad Libs card game, found on clearance at Kohl's for $1. If I had known it was this much fun, I would have bought it when it was at 50% off! (You didn't actually think I was going to say "full price" did you?)

The winning sentence?

Massive evil squashed poodles always graciously entertain forbidden pickled vegetables.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Homeschool meme

Shamelessly lifted from Mary at Owlhaven

1) One homeschooling book you have enjoyed.

The Unschooling Handbook. It was one of the first that I read cover-to-cover. It was a good one to start with because it made me think, "I can do this!"

2) One resource you wouldn’t be without.
If I have to name only one, it would be the internet. But really, the internet and the library are tied for first place. The internet one-ups the library because I research what I want/need then head to the library to get it!

3) One resource you wish you had never bought.
Loads of things, but the biggest disappointment was the Abeka Kindergarten curriculum. It was an utter waste. We abandoned it after, oh, two weeks, and we've never looked back.

4) One resource you enjoyed last year.

Jim Weiss. Love him, love him, love him! I can't recommend his recordings highly enough. Both of my children are absolutely mesmerized when listening to him.

5) One resource you will be using next year.

Learning Through History Magazine. I had a subscription last year, and I let it lapse because . . . well, just because. I didn't have a reason. I ran across the magazines when I was cleaning the bookshelves this week, and I remembered how much we enjoyed it. I have it on my calendar to renew it next month.

6) One resource you would like to buy.

Rosetta Stone German. We downloaded the trial version, and Spyder and I have both enjoyed it. I'm saving to buy it for next year since it's kinda pricey.

7) One homeschooling catalog you enjoy reading.

Sonlight. I've always been very pleased with their reading recommendations, and I get load of great ideas.

8.) One homeschooling (educational) website you use regularly.
Does Google count? It's probably the one site that I use every single day, whether I'm looking up "preschool cutting activities" for Sass or "weapons in World War I" for Spyder.

9) Tag other home schoolers.

Well, Tara is tagged since she's the only homeschooling blogger I know!