Ready to Home School!

We have always done our schooling at the kitchen table (or on the couch or a table by the fireplace on rare occasions).  With the addition of children it became more necessary to stay at the table...and after having 5 at the table last school year I decided that was not working anymore.  I wish I had a school room but I do not, given that all of the rooms are inhabited by children:)  So, during my "thinking time" this summer while I was recovering from surgery I had time to step back and think about how we are doing life rather than just plunging ahead day to day.  I came to the conclusion that if my priority was going to be parenting and home schooling that I would have to sacrifice yet another "fun" part of my life.  Yes...my scrapbooking table.  As you can see here it is not like my scrapbooking table was useful any more - for other than collecting those odds and ends that "someday" would be put into some one's album.

I went through every piece on that table and organized it or threw it away.  I stored my scrap booking items away in a cupboard thinking that maybe, when the grand kids come, I will have time for these kinds of projects.  But for now I need to focus on educating the kids.

Here is the old space...

 Here is the new space...

I am very pleased with this area and hope that it will be as functional as I want it to be!  For the first time in 8 years I have all of my supplies and things in one area!  I was shocked by the number of duplicates that I have.  I won't have to buy supplies for a very long time lol!  I left a space that you cannot see well for us to do a long visual timeline of history to help my more visual learning children.  Beautiful was given her own personal, private, and quiet school area in another room that we hope will help her to be less distracted and thus able to focus on her studies uninterrupted by little ones (and the other things that she finds to distract herself!)

This year we have continued to use My Father's World.  I have tweaked some of the subjects using Shurley English for Language Arts and ALEKS Math for the older two.  I am totally loving ALEKS math.  It is an online program that teaches them at their own pace, gives and corrects all of their assessments, and will not let them progress until they prove mastery in a subject.  The best part is that I don't have to do ANYTHING!  Perfect!  They can complain to the computer about having to do math and I don't have to hear it lol! 

I have the schedules made, the lessons plans written, the dry run done, and now we are just waiting for 8/27:)  But for our family the nuts and bolts of the books and space are the least of my preparation needs.

When we got the 3 Middles I was excited that I would be able to teach "1" lesson, 1 time as if to 1 student.  God was really laughing about that one!  He blessed us with 3 very, very unique kids who learn totally differently with very different learning "abilities."  Last year kindergarten was really an experimental year for me to try to figure out how this was going to work.  I have not talked about these things much as I am still so overwhelmed with their various levels that I don't really know what to say about it.

Each of my kids struggle in a different way to learn information.  I have to constantly keep the Main Thing the Main Thing and not be focused on the expectations I have contrived in my own mind or the World has placed on me/them.  I am so thankful for many of my fellow adoptive and/or home schooling mom friends who help keep me focused when I fall into discouragement and frustration.

I have to keep in my the kid's Love Languages - each child has a different angle on how to be motivated to work diligently when it is hard to learn.  Most of the time I feel more like a cheerleader than a teacher.   I used to read about home school students who were "independent" where you could hand them their lesson plan and they would hand it in completed at the end of the day, week, or even month!  Ha!  I am blessed with with "hand holders" who need me to be within eye or arms reach to be sure due diligence is pursued;)

I am choosing to share here about some specific issues that we deal with, not to embarrass any of my children but to give hope to anyone else who is struggling with these issues out there that they are not alone!  I have been so blessed by the vulnerability of others who share their struggles on their blogs and want to be a blessing to others if possible. Let me say though that while you are not alone...I do not profess to know all (or any!) of the answers:)

Superman has difficulty with processing auditory information.  He is fully capable of hearing - he just has a very, very, very difficult time processing what all of that verbal stuff means.  I used to be convinced he had dyslexia.  However, he is making strides that suggest to me that he does not.  This summer we worked on math all summer.  I discovered this summer if I work with him in a room totally quiet (yes...any time you can stop laughing here) with no other people in the room but us, and we first do his Brain Integration exercises along with deep breathing, that I could get successful work out of him that he actually retained!  This was a HUGE breakthrough for us after 4 years of him struggling with not learning the information, then if he actually did learn it he would not retain it.  This boosted his confidence and made me more confident going into this school year.  He is a very visual learner.  When we read him stories he "thinks" in "pictures."  Thus he will get the general understanding of something (retained as a picture) but he will not remember specifics.  That, obviously, can be problematic.

The primary enigma with Superman is how much is Auditory Processing and how much is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?  Children who have suffered trauma tend to be extremely hypervigilant and watchful of their surroundings.  This means that they are also attending to insignificant details (worried that they are dangerous) and thus are not focusing on actual relevant stimuli (e.g. teaching) at hand. So, for example when we go to the zoo we are convinced that Superman never even sees an animal because he is so fearful of all of the people around him and watching to be sure that Faith is safe and near him.  These kids will also answer questions based on what they "perceive" (based on facial expressions, voice inflections, etc) what they think is the "right" answer for the situation rather than actually learning that there is a "right" answer that is always "right" if that makes any sense.  Thus, they don't retain information over the long haul as they believe that all things change depending on other people's mood.  This is quite adaptive for a kid who is growing up in abuse to keep physically safe...but obviously maladaptive when they are placed in situations where things stay the same and are not dependent on people's mood.  It is all quite mind boggling.  If you are interested in more of this you can check out Jim Wilder and his brain research.  I have one of his videos that has been so helpful in my understanding brain trauma.  It is called Joy Bonds.

As for teaching an ADHD child...realistic expectations, short lessons given at the "peak" time of medication, lots of activity, etc.  We have decided to schedule our day around Grace.  We will keep her schedule flowing and moving one on one as long as we have her attention and will flex the other two around her work with more independent work (loving the IPad, Math Shark, and computer!) until we have her subjects completed.  Then we will set her up with a lot of teachable game options to keep her in one spot while we work with the others:) 

Faith is doing great in school.  Our biggest problem with her is keeping up with her!  Again I am thankful for the IPad apps with math and spelling that can self-correct her and keep moving at her pace.

Dysgraphia is a problem that I never knew existed until I heard Dianne Craft speak about it at a conference.  Wow!  I just thought it was laziness.  We have been pleased with the results of her Brain Integration materials and are so thankful for computers with spell check! 

Two of our kids are having PT and OT evaluations done this week with one of those children also having a full academic assessment done this month.

We just keep moving along, doing what we can within our power and leaving the rest to God:)

Grace Update

Grace is a very creative child.  She sees the world from a unique perspective that I cannot begin to understand.  Today she brought me this beaded string.  She put together various patterns, took them apart, and made more.  Yesterday Faith had put together the beads and just put them on randomly.  Grace wanted it prettier:)

We continue to work on tweaking her nutritional needs.  We had a really bad day last week and could only attribute it to her getting into some candy the day before.  Kids with her specific issues (various genetic issues, spiritual issues, prenatal issues, etc) tend to have strong cravings for sugars and starches which break down in the body "improperly" leaving them with what look like the effects of intoxication.  She runs into walls and other objects, she is highly impulsive, she gets belligerent, and she is very careless and seemingly totally unaware of where her body is or how it is affecting other people.

When Grace is not like this she is so sweet and maternal.  She genuinely wants to love on others (wanting them to accept her expressions of love regardless of what their actual wants are lol), she wants to impress others and is always looking for a smile or word of encouragement, she is very quick to hug and give physical affection (much to JJ's dislike lol!), and she is the first one to come up with an alternative use for an object or ask if a request/command can be "tweaked." ;) (OK, admittedly the latter one is not always a positive!)

Grace loves to carry her baby doll around (who gets a new name every few days - who wants the same name forever?!?!).  She will be very sure it is cared for.  This morning I sent her to her room right before church (we were in a hurry of course) to change a piece of clothing.  She took a long time and when she came up she matter of factly stated that she had to change her baby dolls dress because she could not go to church in pajamas!

Grace also likes to see just how firmly the line is drawn in the ground.  She will push and break and bend every rule we have.  One of her famous lines are when being disciplined is "what _____?.  For example, if I say "go sit on the steps" she will respond with "what steps?"  The steps will be the only steps within any visual sight and only a few feet away from her.  If I hold out a glass and say, "drink this water" she will respond "what water?"  This list goes on and on and is unique of our children to our Grace.

One of the things that we have discovered with the medication, supplements, and allergy desensitization interventions that we have tried is that they help with the hyperactivity issues but we still really struggled with the focus and concentration.  About a month ago we asked our physician to try a different medication to help more with concentration.  He also did blood work which came back mostly normal.  The medication's lowest recommended dose is 30 mg, but it comes in 20 mg capsules...whaaaa???    So, we asked if we could just do the 20 mg.  One thing we had found with the Ritalin over the course of the other interventions is we could 1/2 the dose and get the same results.  We found that when the hyperactivity/impulsivity was better managed we became aware of just how bad the concentration/focus issues were. We would get days or hours when it was better...but it was not consistent.  That is another hallmark symptom of kids with issues like Grace - people often say that their learning/behavior is like "swiss cheese."  Sometimes you have it...sometimes you don't.

Anyway, over the course of the past month we seen significant improvement - although not to perfection.  The "swiss cheese" moments we most of the time can find the trigger for whether it be lack of structured time (she needs to be kept closely monitored and her activity closely structured), or she is hungry, or she is tired, or she ate something she should not have (absolutely NO meat or candy!).

Grace desperately needs external boundaries.  She has not mastered internal restraint at all and is highly impulsive (except for those first few hours on her medication - thankfully that is school and church time when we need her to be the best behaved and focused lol!)  If she is in trouble she will say "you left the spray bottle on the table where I could get it," or "Faith told me to do it so I did it."  Despite our many discussions about being responsible for our own sin she doesn't "get it."  We trust that in time she will...with the guiding of the Holy Spirit in her life.  At times she does display genuine remorse, but again it seems to depend on where she is at in being able to think calmly and focused.  This issue of "logic" is also absent in school making for quite the conundrum for me as I attempt to figure out how to educate her.  She doesn't understand the simplest of concepts such as "what is 1 more than 2?"  She does not have the perseverance to push through not understanding in math and reading, then becomes very frustrated when Superman and Faith are academically further than her.  But, it will come.  Grace is created for a purpose by God and if it is not in academics then so be it:)

Normally she is quite the tattle tale.  Our other kids will certainly come and confess someone else's sin to us, but with Grace it is a 20x an hour event.  I try to send them outside as much as possible but it always always always results in someone getting hurt and/or Grace coming into the house to tattle.  I can tell who comes in the house from the other room by the quickness of the door being opened and before even the door can shut or a breath of air being inhaled I am hearing "Mom!  Superman looked across the street!!" or "Mom!  Faith won't let me ride her bike!"  Or...well...you get the picture.  If she was the sinner in the situation she is also the first one in the door making sure that she has fully explained why it was someone else's fault.  This may actually be one of the hardest parts of daily life with Grace.  There is no relaxation.  Every moment some kind of yelling, tattling, accident, etc is occurring.  The other kids cannot get 1:1 undivided attention because she is always needing redirection or prevention from some type of wrong she is attempting.  But, admittedly the hardest problem issue with her is probably the screaming.  Grace cannot modulate - modulate her mood, her body temperature, her wants, her hunger, her thirst, her focus on a particular want...or her frustration when told "no."  We have so many, many hours of listening to her screaming inconsolably until she just tires out.  Yes, those are the two most difficult character issues with Grace.  But, hey, are they unique to the human condition?  Aren't they essentially the Genesis 3 issues of "it was her fault don't blame me" and the Exodus issues of "no, I don't like this...grumble...grumble....temper tantrum....."  So, alas, while frustrating they are a constant reminder to me of my own Genesis 3 and Exodus issues and I attempt to focus on my own "plank" while dealing with Grace's "splinter." 

Some moments have totally broken our hearts in the past month and while they are new to her growing older...I know they will only become more heartbreaking.  As she is able to think a bit more focused and long term she seems to be thinking about why things are happening to her, and this is usually during moments at bedtime (always the worst part of the day for her) when she is sobbing and asking "why did that girl run away from me at the pool?  We were playing and then she just took off running?  Doesn't she like me?"  In the past month we are seeing her developing an awareness of how others experience her...and that it is not always as positive as she would like.  It would seem like she has such a hard shell...yet these moments of insecurity, sensitivity, worry, doubt, and feeling "not enough" hit her with full force.

Grace...she provides a constant reminder of how much we are to extend grace and the beautiful blessing of having received it...and her;)

Celebrating 17 years of marriage:)

17 years ago tomorrow  my husband and I were married.  What an adventure this has been!  We have lived in three states, had two biological children, were matched to adopt 8 children...bringing 4 of them home.  Most importantly we have learned that this is not our home, our citizenship is in heaven.  My husband and I marvel in the love that Christ has shown us and how he continues to prod us,  never giving up in molding us (at times painfully) into who He has called us to be.  We did not know Him 17 years ago...but thankfully He knew us:)

Memorial weekend I attended a precious wedding.  The bride and groom both had grown in Christ before marriage.  They both kept themselves pure for one another.  They took their courtship seriously and the wedding was a beautiful ceremony of their lives becoming one.  I cried a lot during the wedding.  As I contemplated why it was so emotional for me I thought about how I have known the bride for several years and have loved getting to know her heart through the Bible study that we did together.  I also thought about how as a mother of 6 children, one being a teenage daughter, I long for each of our children to wait for marriage and to be equally yoked with a spouse who will live life with them to the nth degree of what Christ wants for their lives (and that our children would be spiritually mature to even be equally yoked!!)...that they would faithfully serve Christ and one another daily.  Finally, I'll admit that I grieved.  My husband and I were not saved when we were married and I consider now and again of what our marriage would have looked like if foundationally we started at a different place.  Praise the Lord that He drew us to him 4 years later.  I think that a part of us is stronger having come to Christ together...but that is not how I would write my children's love stories...  We have thought of renewing our vows.  Perhaps someday we will:)

Tomorrow we will celebrate by... Going to church and listening to our oldest daughter sing on the worship team.  We will eat lunch at the Potato Bar (always a favorite - my husband is excited he doesn't have to come up with a lunch plan!).  We get to come home and pack up the children to drop 4 of them off at camp.  It will be Superman, Grace, and Ellie's first time at over night camp.  They will only be gone 42 hours and I work all day Monday and Tuesday so it won't be much of a "break" for us.  I hope they do well and wonder if I should be more concerned about them...or the camp leaders lol!  I am thankful that Beautiful will be there with them if anything is amiss:)  We get to eat supper with them (again, my husband is thrilled that we don't have to cook either meal lol!).  We will come home and go to the church to listen to a team that recently returned from the other side of the world report on their missions trip.  It will be a full day and typical of where our lives are at at this point in our adventure of marriage.

I love Gary Chapman's book The Five Love Languages.  I use his concepts daily to think of how to better fill the "love tank" of my husband and children (not always successfully...but I am thinking about it!!!).  My husband's love language is the total, complete, and utter opposite of mine.  He is all about gifts.  I find gifts to be a waste of money and non-functional (can you tell mine is acts of service lol!)  Anyway, I have been thinking about all of the birthdays, Christmas', Anniversary's, and Father's Days that I have not given him much more than a token gift (if I gave him any at all).  So, this year I decided to make up for it.  He has been asking for a particular purchase for awhile.  I have found it frivolous and purposeless (other than for fun).  I don't do well with purposeless or frivolous (I can't even make myself play a game with the kids if it isn't educational lol!).  So...I decided to show him how much I love him by just...buying him an ATV.  It is used (makes myself feel better) and it can be used to move snow (also my justification for making it have purpose) ...but most of all my husband is having a blast on his new toy...maybe after 17 years I am learning something!

Moving on to less is more...

We had our city wide garage sales here this weekend.  I found a couple of great deals - including a roll top desk.  I have graduated from a plank of plywood on two file cabinets to a corner desk a friend gave us a few years ago.  Now I have a roll top desk.  The kids like to mess on the keyboard and now I can lock it all up lol!  I can also put the top down and not deal with seeing the unfinished paperwork I have.  My 'office' is a corner of our family room.  Having anyone over is embarrassing when they see my mess.  Now they won't see it!  Oh, of course I have gone through all of the piles in the switch over and organized everything very nice.  I just need to keep it that way:)

This really got me moving in terms of the deep cleaning that I wanted to do this summer.  By moving the desk and needing to figure out what to with it, then what to do with what was there, etc, etc...I dream up big plans.   We have had the crib set up in Superman's bedroom for 2 years...NEVER used.  That got dismantled.  Then I sorted through all of the totes of hand me down clothes for the boys and got them wonderfully organized - I eliminated 5 totes!!  That freed up space and I got the boys' dressers all organized.   We then decided we might as well get rid of the matching changing table to the crib - also never used except to put JJ's clothes on since we have him in our bedroom and it was easier than dealing with the dresser in the other room.  Finally, we decided that the rocker needs to go.  We were blessed this week with two gently used lazy boy rocker recliners so no longer have a need for the one in our room that I rocked many a nights with with my babe who does not like to sleep.  I have 4 boxes of clothes and toys to go.  We are moving on a roll!

JJ sleeps in a port a crib in our room (the same one that all of our babies have slept in:)  Who knows how long it will be before he is out of our room.  Part of our dilemma is that Faith and Grace share a room.  As you may imagine there are plenty of nights where we need to remove Faith from that room for safety and also just so she can actually get some sleep, so she has slept on a cot in Superman's room.  We removed the cot today and put the trundle bed together.  So, while it is "officially" JJ's bed whenever he transitions out of the port a crib, Faith will get to sleep there as needed until we are able to better control the bedtime issues with the girls.  Until that happens, we cannot really transition JJ out of our room as it will be inconsistent depending on Grace's moods.  So...

We are moving on in the areas in which we have (the illusion of) control...and praying for those for which we do not:)  I am having a blast organizing and deep cleaning and purging stuff out.  With 8 of us in this house we are bursting at the seams and need to live better by the philosophy the less is more!

Oh, the other great deal was a glider patio rocker...just a two seater for my hubby and me;)

pictures

It has been a long time since the computer has allowed me to put up pictures so here are a few!  

JJ has loved playing at the pool.  It took him awhile, but he is really getting brave now!

 Remember that precious time when your baby actually hugs you back, pats your back, and hangs on tight:)

 Buddy is our resident chef - one of his specialties being cheese cake:)  Happy Father's day to my husband!

 Faith celebrated a birthday (as did the other 2 recently).  She wanted one of Buddy's cheesecakes too!

 Superman played t-ball this summer.  Here he is about to get a run!

Why I am thankful for the 4th of July

Last night our family enjoyed going to a fireworks celebration.  In the past, especially after the 9/11 event, it has been a patriotic event where music was played to the fireworks display that stirred up my spirit to appreciate this country of freedom, reminded me of the millions who have sacrificed to keep These United States free, and spurred me on to not take for granted our freedoms but rather to keep watch and fight against those who would seek to take our freedoms.  Last night...not so much.  A couple of patriotic songs...but more it felt like a celebration.  Why is that a problem?  The stands were packed.  Many people came to see the show.  They were all celebrating, right?  I wonder if they were there for fireworks...or to remember why there were fireworks (just like as a country we "celebrate" Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day, etc but many (most??) people are not honoring the reason why we have those holidays in the first place). Were they thinking about our forefathers and the struggle they went through prior 1776, the incredibly momentous decision it was to Declare Independence, and then the endurance it took to persevere victoriously through the Revolutionary War.  Did they consider what those men who stood on solid principles of considering the greater good went through as they agonized over finally choosing to write, and then the specific wording of the Declaration of Independence, and later the Constitution to insure the freedoms they were willing to die for so great was their conviction?  Was there an overwhelming sense of the grace of God that we even have this country and the freedoms that are foundationally of Him?  If so, it certainly was not the presentation or the music that would have brought those things to mind.

 Today I plan to make a new home school area (it takes more space and prep for 5 kids instead of 2!), prepare home school materials for the next school year, and watch my son prepare his Raccoon for fair.  I started to think about how I need to be sure to not take these freedoms for granted.  We are blessed to have these freedoms and unfortunately it looks like we have to keep fighting for these freedoms.  Thankfully we have the right to fight for our freedoms!  I then reflected on our Constitution.

I - I am thankful for the freedom of religion.  I can worship God, study His Word, teach my children about Him in school, and openly worship him at church and other locations.

II - I am thankful for the right to bear arms.  While we do not use our "arms" to defend ourselves against people (hopefully we will not ever have to do that) we do appreciate the freedom we have to own guns and to hunt.  This provides our family with 80% of the meat we eat in a year.  It provides income for my husband, a taxidermist.  Today my son is mounting a raccoon for the fair - this being a purely delightful byproduct of the right to hunt.

III - I am thankful that the military cannot come into my house and require that I house them.  I never really understood the importance of this one until I was watching some educational movies with the kids re enacting what that was like in 1776.  A very important freedom.

IV - I am thankful that we cannot have unreasonable search and seizures.  I think about how people and missionaries in other countries do not have this right and the ramifications of it.

V and VI and VII and VIII and IX - I am thankful for due process in the legal system.  In working in prisons for 9 years I came to the conclusion that many times perpetrators seem to have more rights than the victims.  While the system is far from perfect, I am thankful for due process.


X and XI - while interstate compacts were a pain in adopting;) I am thankful for individual states rights.

XII and XV and XIX and XIV and XVII and XVIII and XX and XXIII and XXV and XXVI and XXVII and XXIV - I am very, very thankful for the right to vote for the president and other leadership.  I will continue to exercise that right.

XIII - I am thankful that slavery is prohibited in our country...although the long term effects of racial issues to continue to rage on :(

XVI - yes, I am even happy that there is tax...just really believe it needs to be done differently!

XVIII and XXI - Hmmmm, what would life look like today with no alcoholic beverages?

Today I have the right to prepare to home educate my children in a way that meets state educational requirements but also allows me to teach them about God and the importance of God in every corner of their lives.  I have the right to do this in the freedom of my own home without the fear of illegal searches.  I have the right to call as my own children those who have different colored skin than I and know they will not have to be slaves or considered to be 4/5th of a person.  I will be glad of the right that we have to bear arms.  I have the right to vote for leadership and laws that will preserve these rights provided for in the constitution.  I have the right to vote for leadership who BELIEVES in and will ADHERE to the constitution and the inalienable rights of these United States of America.

JJ is a Big Brother

JJ's Birth Mom had a baby boy today.  JJ will be 2 in August, his full bio sister will be 3 in September, and their baby brother was born today.


We have not heard from her for 3 months which is very unusual and speculate what that is about (we found out about the baby via private fb pages we have set up between JJ and her).  We pray for her and for JJ's siblings.

That gives me pause to consider my children's family trees.  Superman, Faith, Grace, and JJ all have 1 - 5 more siblings on their mother AND father's sides (and they thought they were in a large family being 1 of 6 kids lol!).  Some we get to know names of, some we get the blessing of knowing, and some we will never know.

Adoption:  Such Joy.  Such Heartache.  People need to consider the entire gamut of the realities of adoption prior to jumping in.  Adoption is not about saving a child.  It is much, much bigger and messier.  Anyone who gets into this process expecting it to be nice and neat...needs to think about it some more.  I am so thankful that there is one simple piece to all of this:  GOD.  He is BIG, SOVEREIGN, LOVING, ABUNDANT, and ENOUGH.