We are still here. Promise.

To the few of you who read this blog but don't see us everyday (or a few times a year, or are friends with us, particularly Papa, on Facebook), relief is finally yours: we are still here! No kidnappings, computer stealings, phone snafus, etc. Just plain old summer craziness.

In the midst of three summer trips since late May, two conferences in July, roughly three thousand miles of travel (I don't actually know how far we went, but with all of the flights and driving, that's probably pretty close), vacation recovery--including fixing an interior water leak from an exterior hose, which is almost almost ALMOST totally cleaned up!--hitting homeschooling hard (we're into Week Four), and my insane nesting drive of this month (rummage coming up in September! Oh, and six weeks out from Baby's due date!), we've been,er, busy. And, obviously, unplugged. But hopefully this is a sign that we're replugged. At least on this our blog. Thanks for hanging with us!

If only I could slip a newborn baby pic in here somewhere...

No Stress Chess

P loves puzzles. Loves them. He's done one-hundred-piece ones by himself since he was three, and lately he's wanted to tackle a one-hundred-fifty-piece irregular puzzle (with a little help). Awhile back someone made the comment to me that kids who like puzzles tend to like chess. Well, Papa and I don't know how to play, so I wondered how we could gift him a chess board and not be able to explain the rules.

Enter No Stress Chess. I found the game on Amazon, with all the requisite instructions and all-important reviews. We gambled on it and gave it to P for Christmas. And we found that this really is a no stress chess game!

Hmmmm...

Basically, the first level of the game involves drawing cards that explain what the pieces are and where they can move. The chess game largely becomes, in effect, a game of luck--you move a specific piece based on the card you draw for each move. And over time, you learn what each piece can do. Bishops can move diagonally as far as you want to take them. Kings can move one space in any direction. Knights can jump two any direction and one space down (or up). I have actually learned this from playing with P this month.

Well, P quickly caught on, and now he loves chess. Loves it. He asks us at least three times a day, "Can you play chess with me?" He enjoys playing so much that S started sitting on our laps and learning, too, because that's P's game of choice any given day, and that's the way S could be involved. Yesterday, S started identifying the pieces before I could touch them: "Here's the Queen." Today, I caught P playing by himself. He was only playing the black pieces, but still.

We--especially Papa--have really enjoyed bonding with P over this game. P's learning good sportsmanship, strategy, and the thrills of learning something unfamiliar. And it's really relaxing to play: slow, thoughtful, methodical. (Papa and I like to do it as a break, so P usually doesn't have to beg too hard.) And educational! What's not to love? So kiss your stress goodbye--play some chess!

Hmmmm...

"How about this one, Daddy?"

"I think I'll move here."

Daddy explaining chess board consequences.

P: "Mom! Why don't you play?" Papa: I think I can checkmate...

Number Math and Photography

In our lesson time, P and I recently started tackling simple addition, or as he put it at first, number math. Recently I had the camera out, and I snapped some shots of him working and thinking. Then he said, "Can I take some pictures, Mommy?" So here's a compilation of our views.

Hmmmm.

"...five..."

"Nine! But I wrote a 'P'!" We both laughed ourselves silly.

My makeshift lesson record. P doesn't sticker it up so much anymore, but he's sure moving along.

"I want to take pictures of my monster trucks!"

"I've gotta get the SIDE, Mama."

"Now I have to get THIS one."

Realizing the last one was too close, P carefully moved it back and tried again.

Aaaaa!

And our self-portrait. Mama and Son. Good times.

Micellaneous Milestones

Since my last post, we've had some busy times! Here's a brief update.

Papa attended a Doxology seminar in Nebraska, where he learned about the devil and his wily ways from Dr. John Kleinig. He, and several pastors from our circuit, greatly enjoyed their time together (scrumptious food enhanced their experience, I've heard) learning about how to beat down the Evil One. The boys are into superheroes and "getting bad guys," so I'm still stewing about how to make a connection for them with this.

We celebrated my birthday with my lovely mother here (who also enormously helped out with the kids while Papa was away)! Turning 31 feels great, in a very achieving gravitas kind of way (especially when you leave sentences like this dangling for a week on your blog. I am FULL OF GRAVITAS. :)) And thanks for the "Happy '29th' Birthday" card from my brother, who's unofficially moved me into the "older person" stage. :) The boys spontaneously sang me "Happy Birthday," which brought me to tears. Little C shrieked and grinned, which brought me joy. Papa bought me a beautiful card and some pretty earrings--and the boys helped with both! I'm very thankful for all the wishes and cards and gifts; truly, my cup overfloweth.

Papa presented on "Family Matters" at an LWML Fall Rally at our church, which I was able to attend (thanks, Mom!). It was great visiting with many women, singing for the group, and even participating in a skit without knowing what I'd have to say or do ahead of time. Let me just say that Mrs. L.E. is hilarious and utterly trustworthy! Papa's presentation was fantastic, too--as he's prepared for this, he's helped me prioritize our children's spiritual care (more on this in another post). That's always a "win, win, win," as I teasingly tell the kids.

P's reading. I mean really reading. While he phonetically sounds out words sometimes, many times he just looks at them now and just says 'em. No help. Just the other day, he brought me a baseball thing and said, "Does this say, 'Get in the game'?" Yep. You read that right, buddy. So his "Letter Lessons" have been really fun! We just started Section Eight of The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, so we're about halfway through that book. He's been practicing holding a pencil correctly with the help of a gripper, and we'll start a formal writing program soon, mostly because he keeps bugging me about learning how to write more than just his name. Hey--I'm not complaining!

P and I have also been doing "Math" (or what he sometimes calls "Number Math"), where he practices counting to 100 on the abacus or I write simple addition on our white board and he figures them out by counting dots. The first time we tried this a week or so ago, he literally quivered with excitement. "Mom, I just love this!" he said at least three times. I had to quell thoughts of him, at nine, performing complicated equations with a dry-erase pen on a window (I saw some news segment on a young math whiz years ago who'd do that). So far, I'm just glad he thinks it's all fun. We'll be starting weekly science and history lessons in the next month, too.

S has developed into a tackling machine. Not out of any desire to hurt stems his sudden pouncing; he's just a really physical kid. He's been giving hugs a lot, which is fantastic! I just find myself bruised more frequently. We're working on his gentleness around C, because while she laughs and grins every time he "hugs" (see: pushes, sits on, drags) her, we don't want any trips to the ER. He also is still our little singer. Last week, while he and P played in the leaves, we caught him yelling--YELLING--the Stephen Starke version of the Lord's Prayer. He also randomly bursts into song, sometimes mid-sentence. He also regales us with random comments, like the one just recently when I was helping him in the bathroom: "Mommy, I won't poop on you." I was so relieved to hear that! :) Yesterday we heard him walk into the living room and see something P had done, and he goes, "WOW! A-MAAAAAZ-ING!" His enthusiasm is contagious!

C is testing the waters with walking! She'll pull herself up by a chair or something and then let go--and stand for a second or two by herself. She's definitely thinking about letting go and taking steps (believe us, we can see that look on her face). She's also starting this cheesy-grin/grimace thing. It's so big, it looks like it hurts her face, and we can't help smiling every time she does it! She's a happy little girl. She's eating table food all the time now, and in a month or so we'll start introducing whole milk already. *Sigh.* My baby's not really a baby anymore! P will play with her by himself, and he just loves her, and she him. It's great to see their sibling relationship develop. S and C are still at the "NO, C! That's MINE!" or the sitting-on-her stage. S loves her; he just doesn't want her in his stuff. I admit I dream that someday S and C will have a Jackson/Johannah relationship (that's a Duggar reference, for those of you who don't know).

We've enjoyed jumping in the leaves! And tracking them inside. :)

And a decluttering update: I've cleaned out the laundry room (!!!) and gone through about five bins of micellany besides. I've still got about ten to go, but it's all consolidated, and I've just been plugging away at it whenever we're watching something at night, like the St. Louis Cardinals play during this postseason. Between a clean and not-cluttered laundry room and the Cards, life is good right there.

A New Coat for Anna

Sometimes our library visits unearth surprising gems.

Awhile back, in an effort to stem the tide of Cars and cars and other tricked-out-merchandising paper collections otherwise labeled as "children's books" (I can't pretend to call them children's literature) that our sons our oldest son inevitably gravitates toward, I grabbed A New Coat for Anna, written by Harriet Ziefert and illustrated by Anita Lobel, from the Winter bin. It contained a few more words than the average books I read to them, but I thought--on the drive-by snag--that it "looked good." Well. I had no idea. P ended up loving this book, and because he loved it, so did S. In the two weeks we had it checked out, P practically memorized it, and even S knew all the steps.

The book is based on a true story about a little girl living with her mother in post-World War II Europe who needs a winter coat. There's no money or supplies, so Mom gets really creative and tenacious and they end up figuring out how to get a new coat in stages using barter to provide payment. A farmer's sheep provides the wool, and he gets Grandfather's watch. A spinner who spins the wool with an old spinning wheel gets a lamp. They dye the wool red themselves with lingonberries they pick in the depth of summer, and then a weaver weaves the red wool into cloth and gets a garnet necklace. Then Anna and her mother visit the tailor, who measures her for her coat, works his magic, and produces a lovely red coat in exchange for a teapot. Then Anna and her mother invite the farmer, spinner, weaver, and tailor over for a Christmas party--the happiest one they've had in years. And at the end, Anna goes to visit the sheep to thank them for their wool.

Simple story, this; not so simple lessons (beyond the hypnotic step process that seems to enthrall all young children). Lobel's frontispiece illustration is of a war-torn city. P wondered why it looked the way it looked, and I had to explain to a three-year-old, in the simplest way I could, what war is and what happens during war. I think I told him that wars happen when groups of people fight over places or people or things and ideas, and lots of people get hurt and places get destroyed. It's ugly. Sometimes it's necessary, but always it's ugly. And this is why I found myself loving this story--because even though war is ugly, and the aftermath can be brutally difficult--not that we Americans generally know anything about this, but I digress--people can band together for simple  moments of joy and thanks for life even after losing practically everything, including loved ones. A wool coat, and the people who help make it for a little girl, can inspire hope.

When Anna's first waiting for the sheep to grow their wool so it can be sheared in the springtime, she and her mother go to visit them almost every Sunday. At that first Christmas, she adorns their simple heads with paper chains and sings carols to them. At the end of the book, when she's wearing her red coat and visiting the sheep again, P started saying that Anna must have sung "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" to them. He was more right than he knew. "Peace on Earth and Mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled." What a fitting reminder.

Quiet Thursday Happenings

So as C sleeps this early afternoon on this frigid, frigid Thursday (looks like winter's finally arrived in Minnesota!), I took a picture of her. Because who can resist this?

"And the Packers score their seventh touchdown!" Yes, Honey, only in your dreams.

Then P saw me taking a picture of her, and he said, "Take a picture of ME, Mommy!" So I took several because he had to practice not moving and actually looking at the camera.

 

Notice the sparkly white teeth here! P visited the dentist this morning with Papa, who also got his teeth cleaned. No cavities for the Olson's! Even more impressively, P sat and had his teeth cleaned without Mommy or Daddy sitting next to him, and when he was finished before Papa, upon being asked by the lovely dentist office staff if he wanted to watch a movie, he said, "No, thank you. I'll just play with the blocks." Sigh. Awesome kid moment.

Then,as if he hadn't already made his parents really, really proud, he floored us in what we call Letter Lessons (you can read about the beginning of this process here).  We started double consonants at the ends of words last week, so I wrote a few words on the whiteboard as part of his review. The first one was "mess." I didn't 1) remind him to look at the letters from left to right, 2) prompt him to sound out each letter one at a time, or 3) repeat the sounds of those letters to help him blend them all together, and P read the word all by himself! "Mmm--eeeehhh--sssss. Mess. MESS!" It was MIND-BLOWING! He can recognize letters and identify them and figure out what they say together. He can make meaning by himself! Suffice it to say this was one of those moments that make me want to home-school FOREVER!

Anyway, then P read a number of other words--today we started "ck" at the end of words--one of them being "rock." And as soon as he read it, he looked at me and said, "Like Little Rock, Arkansas?" Great-Grandma Elsea, who was born there, would be very proud.

And not to be unfair here, I thought I should take a picture of S, too. Here he was as I found him.

I love our little guy! He's talking like crazy and running and getting into things (like dumping two 100-piece puzzles all over the kitchen floor this morning) and telling me lots of things like, "Nice to meet you, Mommy." "What's that?"--that one constantly, sounding like a foghorn "Wat's DAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"-- "No cry, Clara. Pacifier, Mommy"--even when Clara is sleeping or not crying. I like to think he's just very protective and comforting to his baby sister. And at times in the afternoon like this, I am really glad that, like when S plays, he plays hard, when our big little S sleeps, he sleeps hard. I did move the blanket to get this shot of his face.

Life. Is. Good.

Now I've got to go switch out my Christmas dishes from the hutch, just in time for another holiday coming soon! See future posts for details.

Some Uses for Tools Require No Words

P's Puzzles

Much cleaner than painting, markers, or practically any other art project. The only risk factor involves not letting Little Brother eat the pieces.

 P loves puzzles. I think it started with the alphabet puzzle he received for his second birthday. But no, that's not true: before that he received a wood, twelve-piece puzzle of four big boy machines (bulldozers and stuff) from his Grandma O that he LOVED. And three cardboard, four-piece animal puzzles that had interested him before that (also from Grandma O). And then it just exploded when he opened the cardboard, twenty-four-piece Mater puzzle at Christmas (ALSO from Grandma and Grandpa O)! We knew it was serious when he woke up the next morning and spent the first forty-five minutes of his day putting it together. By himself. While Papa and I dozed (we thought he had fallen back asleep). We should have taken a picture of that! Alas, we did not. But have no fear--here's a montage of P putting together puzzles over the last few months. He's a beast!

This U.S. puzzle is a huge favorite, thanks to P's "Fifty Nifty" fixation. And yes, he can name every state. He also likes to inform us during meals what his bitten-into food looks like: "Hey! It's Michigan!"

Me: "Smile for the camera, Buddy!" P: This.

You can't lose with Cars puzzles! This is a forty-eight-piece puzzle. The numbers keep climbing...

We've reached the one-hundred-piece stage. This one he can almost complete by himself now. It took a lot of "collaboration" first. I honestly think he memorizes where the pieces go after he's put the things together enough.

"I did it!"

P received a new puzzle in the mail today from Grandma E. Grandmas, if P becomes some sort of puzzle prodigy, you get the credit! I did most of the work, but P watched me and "helped," and put in the last dozen or so pieces by himself. Oh, and as soon as he pulled out the box he had to line up his other puzzles to... keep us company? He's like a walking advertisement for Pixar.

Thanks, Buzz. You're a real pal.

How To Teach a Two-Year-Old to Read

Tangible Items Needed:

Wooden alphabet puzzle (or another tactile alphabet appealing to toddlers)

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading

Magnetic dry erase board with marker and eraser

Magnetic letters (capital and lower case)

Blank note cards (to make letter cards and word cards)

Markers

Bob Books, Set 1 (optional)

Intangible Items Needed:

10-15 minutes of daily lesson time

Patience

Enthusiasm

An excited, precocious* toddler**
 
*"Precocious" defined loosely. Definitive characteristics of a precocious child: he breathes, eats, sleeps, bathrooms without extensive adult assistance. He seems excited about life, i.e. running laps around the living room, jumping on the bed, watching leaves blow on trees, listening to stories.

**A toddler is, by definition, a tangible creation. Yet I didn't want to get into some existential discussion of the differences between body and soul, so the toddler falls here under intangible. Because--let's face it--he's a lot harder to define and explain than, say, a marker. 

Directions:

1. First, start reading to the child at birth (or shortly thereafter. Like within the first week). One story before bed. One story at naptime(s). One story at 10:37. One story at whenever-you-trip-over-the-stuffed-bear-due-to-sleep-deprivation. Etcetera. Optional, but highly recommended as you wade through the post-partum fog--it'll snap you out of it, I promise!: Read The Well-Trained Mind.  



2. Stock the child's room, living room, kitchen, bathroom with books. Lots of books. Quality books, preferably older ones. Caldecott medal winners, Mother Goose, Beatrix Potter, A Child's Garden Book of Verse, Dr. Seuss. Encourage the child to read all the time. It helps if you limit TV. To less than half an hour a day (preferably none). And stock up on tape. Enthusiasm can be destructive (purposeful or unintentional).

3. Around the child's second birthday, get an wooden alphabet puzzle or some other tactile alphabet for the child to explore. Our P learned the alphabet in three weeks--because he kept bugging us to do his "letter puzzle" twenty times a day (one thing a parent can never say "no" to!). All kids are different, yada, yada, yada--I know all kids are not like P. Just remember that brain synapses are about 1000 times more numerous in the first three years of life than at any other time, so memorization is not only a novelty (re: FUN!) for little kids, it's highly possible.

4. With markers and cards, make letter cards. We made two sets; the first was for fun, making sure P knew both capital and lower case letters. ...

5. The second letter card set followed the directions from The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading, which is an awesome resource for any parent to use. It contains phonetics lessons broken down in very small pieces, with dialogue for the parent/teacher. It also contains additional materials to use, like a dry-erase board and magnetic letters. With the letter lessons, we sometimes combined two at once; we sometimes now take three days for one lesson. We might stop for a month or two if P's not picking up on putting letters together to read words. But he's reading sat, bat, cat, hat, bed, Ted, Nan (words found in The Bob Books)... and he'll be three in June.

YOUR KID CAN DO IT, TOO.

How to Raise Boys That Read

J read me this Thomas Spence Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning. Terribly sad, because it's true and because it's avoidable. The last lines give us enough to ponder: "I offer a final piece of evidence that is perhaps unanswerable: There is no literacy gap between home-schooled boys and girls. How many of these families, do you suppose, have thrown grossology parties?" Other factors Mr. Spence doesn't directly address: the rise of mothers who work outside the home coupled with the increasing number of single moms (and the lack of male role models for boys). I have much more to say on this, but for now, enjoy pondering this instead. :)