Fahrenheit 110

That’s how hot it’s supposed to get in town during this weekend. Help! So glad it’s about 20 degrees cooller up at this altitude.

In the car today on the way back from the homeschool group meeting, Clare told me about High Noon which they watched earlier in the week. She and Sean both reacted strongly to the film and despised the do-nothing townspeople. We had an interesting discussion about the different facets of pacifism and justice.

It was SO hot down in the foothills. Clare got to play the piano in the church down there. She brought the Phantom sheet music and the SEnse and Sensibility one. It is funny to glance in at her every few minutes. Every time, she has a different pair of kids sitting with her. First it was the little girls, then R and A (quarrelling) and then Paddy and Aidan. Cute.
The moms talked about when/if kids get organized and start keeping their rooms tidy, and how much help to expect around the house. It actually sounds like I have more household help from the kids than the others do, which makes me feel rather weird. But then, I have by far the most kids and so probably need the help. We all found that our kids were fairly willing to be helpful but weren’t exactly consistent. So I guess this is sort of the norm at least in this tiny sample

Aidan had a complete meltdown when we got home. He was all right during the meeting and then at the grocery store but flipped out and wanted me to keep Paddy in his car seat in the car. Paddy said rather pathetically, “Aidan wants me to stay outside. I’ll go outside, Aidan!” Paddy is usually the more aggressive of the two in the relationship but this time Aidan was being the unreasonable one. I put him in our bed with his Pika (and Kevin gave him a talking-to, which rarely happens) and he calmed down. He said he was sad about the bird getting angry — Oh-kay! I find it is very difficult, well-nigh impossible to know what is bothering him if I don’t already know what it is about. I am putting it down to fatigue since after all, he is still only 4 days out of surgery.

I thought of something else I want to try to do more of. Playing music. Now that the kids are a bit older, maybe I can squeeze in a few minutes here and there. Liam has been trying to be more consistent about the classical guitar playing so maybe we will have a lesson this week.

Kieron has finished several Narnia books and is now reading Robin Hood.

Sean has been playing Jedi Academy and Warcraft. I showed him the local newspaper where some of the kids he knows from seasonal sports are graduating from 8th grade and were photoed on a visit to Washington DC.

Kevin is still playing Rome: Total War off and on.

I actually got to read a storybook to Paddy — Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which Aidan got for his birthday. As I mentioned before they have been lodged in the board book/toddler story stage. It’s nice to go up a level, and Aidan was listening in a bit too.

Aidan is trying to learn to spell. He has his V-tech phonics board and has been focusing on the section where he is asked to spell words like Ink and Jet, etc. I tried to show him how to find the word on the board and then use it as a model but he is not there yet. However, he can consistently (about 60% of the time) find the vowel in a word, in another one of the game options. It helps that they are marked in red and there are only five of them. Also that the word is displayed on the little screen. But being able to glance at the word and correlate the letters with the choices on the board — that’s a fairly complex readiness skill. So can a developmentally delayed child benefit from unschooling? I would say yes from sample of n=1.

I wrote a little more of my story and saw Kieron typing away on his too. Every once in a while he asks me to spell a word: “prey” and “around” are two recent examples. Can’t wait to see it. Brendan is on page 80 of his new book and Liam tells me he is having some trouble keeping going on his.

We played outside for quite a while. Aidan got to be in charge of the hose so the older boys could practice duck and run. I only got sprayed about three times trying to read behind a post on the front porch.