War Between the States

Emperor and Elf are proudly displaying their battle flags. We marched down to the park, singing "Dixie" and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." We passed many friendly people admiring the boys in the blue and the gray. The boys shot marshmallows at each other and I think Elf got quite good at staking out vantage points. Emperor kept trying to hug the toddlers at the playground, and this resulted in his being pelted by many marshmallows. :] We ate day-old biscuits and beef jerky and drank from our canteens (aka, small plastic water bottles). Elf ran out of ammo midway during the second battle. We talked of how that felt, to have an enemy with plenty of ammo and your being cornered. We called it his Appomattox Courthouse moment. While they were fighting, the ants discovered the marshmallows on the ground, as well as all of our biscuits. I tried to convince the boys that it would be a more authentic Civil War experience if they ate the biscuits with the live bugs in them, but they didn't feel like participating in precise historical re-enactment in that regard. Some of the marshmallows had been helpfully removed from the battlefield by hungry toddlers, but we still had a bit of work to do. We packed up, cleaned up the rest of marshmallows around the park, and threw away the buggy biscuits, and started home. We passed by the same ladies we saw on our way to battle. Elf had his head down, sad that he had lost the war. He was so disappointed (um, even though he knew we would pretend the South lost at the end. I guess it doesn't make losing easier). "The South lost," I explained to the ladies as we passed. "Don't you worry! The South will rise again!" they encouraged, waving, as we marched on our way home.

Prepare for War!

The Blues and the Greys are getting their uniforms together, preparing biscuits, and decorating their flags. The South only gets about two biscuits in this war, but the North will distribute its extra rations after the South surrenders. It's going to be brother against brother, but we'll be sharing some good times and some bad food.

The South Shall Rise Again!

Well, silly me was trolling around the internet looking to find cute Confederate and Union caps for the boys so that they could have a marshmallow battle on Saturday. Elf will be the South, because the South has the best generals (he dislikes McClellan). He'll win the first battle, tie in the second, and he says that by the third, he will get hungry and have to surrender... LOL. Well, I guess he's been listening.

But look what I found while looking about! The Confederate States of America has its own website, and YOU could apply for citizenship! See, Lee surrendered... not the CSA Government! Southerners are just in occupied territory. All kinds of grand ideas about how the CSA will generously allow Northern business interests to continue to operate in the South after the government takes its rightful place are outlined.

A Day at Home.

Elf and Emperor are working on their maths, their English, their Treasure Island worksheets, and Social Studies and Bible today. Emperor is working on how many bells would ring each half hour. Elf designed a coin for his own country. It's worth eight cents. This way, if you get two coins, you'd have sixteen cents. (? Ok... And you can be at peace or die in this land? Apparently.) Rose is laughing at the television. (Yes, I'm a bad mom. I put Bear in the Big Blue House on DVD. Hey, I got it free in some cereal once. And it's doggone cute.) I've gotten out the kitchen play items and Woodjie is having some fun trying to extract our "onion ring" from the gate. We alternate between play with Mom and "Mom is teaching; here are some Cheerios and a half-hour TV show" downstairs. The boys have some independent work upstairs, and when I have a minute, I teach the stuff that is not independently do-able. Tomorrow is Vroot & Vroom Marathon Day, which basically means we'll take a couple hours and play on the computer. :]

Our Book!

Isn't it awesome? Our First Steps speech therapist made it for us to use with Woodjie. She took a book we had been using for some time, cut it up, bound it with a backboard for PECS, and made some sweet little velcro things to go with the story. This was starting to fall apart at the binding, so it was a perfect way to save the book and give it new usefulness. Thanks to Bronwyn for the idea! She has plenty of others, and if you have an autistic child (or two, or three...) you might want to pop over and check in.

Girl Stuff for Winter

I took an "Elmo playing baseball blanket" I bought for Elf years ago for his toddler bed and have re-covered it with polarfleece flowers. I'm also showing you what Rose's jeans look like midway through their transformation into "girl" jeans. Sewing the little cuff at the bottom turns regular Levi's into something that will prevent D from treating Girlie like one of the boys. It is about that time to look at what I have ready for the coming winter and alter a few things to my liking. I take a very long time on each project as I get involved in other things often like changing diapers, homeschooling and blogging. :]

The Sleep N Eat Restaurant

Preferred by only 2 out of 5 unconscious diners, this place allows you to watch Loony Tunes cartoons so that you miss your afternoon nap and zonk at the table around 5:30 p.m. Then you scream at the wait staff when they wake you up and give your leftovers to your brother! Those were MY chips! Think they're getting a tip for this?

Woodjie's New Shirt

From Printfection.com! I spend my money on cute stuff like this instead of "proper high chairs." Don't look at the duct tape repair, ok? :]

Elf Ears!

Some pictures of genuine elf-ears. Elf's ear is the top picture and Emperor's is the bottom picture. You'll notice a slight crumpling on Elf's ear and a little point on Emperor's. Natural elf-ears do that. Now. Ready to see someone who wants to be an elf really, really badly? And will go to surgical lengths to do it? Yowie. Elf told me after viewing the photographs that his ears are "elfie enough," and he's happy with his ears the way they are now.

Treasure Island!

We're reading Treasure Island because I found a hardback copy with large print and some sea-going vocabulary explained in the margins for $1. And for free? I found this little gem of a pdf file. You'll like it.
@

Our first lesson instructs us to make up our own pirate name and make a pirate flag. Emperor made a "no odious French people" flag because of a reference in one of the early chapters. His pirate name is John.
@

Elf didn't want a pirate name! He wanted to just be his real name. No, no, no! he didn't want to choose from the list of pirate names, which include Salty, Scurvy and other choices. Can he just be called Elf? (But, there are no elf-pirates, kid. Besides, the whole point was to expand our horizons just a little bit and play along and be silly.)

No. And besides, his foot hurts. After much arguing and my telling him that if things go just wrong and he got a terrible infection, his entire leg would have to be cut off and I don't think our insurance covers prosthetics if it's your fault your leg came off... (Yes, I was being outrageously overworried about things, and he knew it.) He consented to getting a little peroxide on the cut finally after I told him I would take a picture for the blog and we'd call him "Red-Toe the Pirate."
*

So, here he is.

Our Classroom.

Hey! I'm participating in Darcy's Not Back to School blog hop and posting my "school room." There it is. Of course, it rarely looks like this. Usually during the school day, it has Elf and Emperor's papers and Woodjie's therapy workboxes and special weighted vest. I store Elf and Emperor's school supplies in a handy bookshelf near my desk. The bottom picture is a peek behind a curtain at our storage shelf in the basement. All our curriculum not currently in use is packed away here, mostly in Huggies boxes. They are nice, sturdy boxes with handles. And since I buy a lot of 'em, they're in uniform sizes. If you zoom in, you'll see that I TRY to group things by a rough grade estimate.

Used Underwear!??

We'd been telling Emperor he'd be getting nothing but used underwear for his birthday, just to be funny. Well, of course he wouldn't believe us. He saw the Pokemon tin Nana and Grandpa got him (thanks!) and knew what it was, even though it was wrapped up in brown paper. He left the room for a minute and D and I orchestrated this joke with a Pop-Tart box and a paper bag. It's a good thing he has a sense of humour. He was laughing about the "gift" just as we were. Happy #8, Emperor!

Another Doodle Pic

*sniff* Isn't this the cutest?? I am spending $25 to have it printed on a shirt for Woodjie. He is a great artist. He's been pretty excited that Mom and Dad have been taking pictures of him and his DoodleBoard lately.

Woodjie's Art

His very first person picture. He did this all by himself and was very happy with all the praise he got. We even took his picture!

A Camera!

Oh, I was ignoring you before, but I've just knocked my sister out of the way so I could pose! Am I cute? Look at me smile! I'm waving! Wait. Why are you turning off the camera and picking up that other kid?

Out With Elf and Emperor.

Who's this "Michael Jackson" guy on the magazine? I asked Elf and Emperor one day at Wal-Mart.

"I dunno," Elf said, disinterested.

"Ok, how about this lady?" I asked, pointing to Oprah.

"Why are you asking us this?" Emperor wanted to know. "I've never met her before. How am I supposed to know who she is?"

"O-kay. Probably just as well. But who is THIS?"

"That's Paris Hilton."

"You KNEW that?" Guess the youth marketing culture has gotten to him, after all.

"Yes. See? It says so here. I can read, you know."

I'm aware that my children are pretty culture-clueless. I picked some secular Evan-Moor stuff and a Spectrum vocabulary book for Elf and Emperor to use this year to help in that regard for English class. They have to be coached through these assignments. There are questions such as, how are Baby Ruth, Milky Way and Almond Joy similar?

"They are all Proper Nouns," was written neatly on the line.

Why do I have to explain that Elmer's glue has nothing to do with cartoons? Aren't children supposed to be born "just knowing" these things?I'm telling you, we do get out sometimes. But when we're in a restaurant and Emperor asks who "Bud-way-zur" is, and I explain that it's a beer, I shouldn't see Elf pulling on his imaginary beard and thinking about ordering one so he can see what it looks like on him. Then the *GASP* and look of shock and HORROR that they serve ALCOHOL AT A RESTAURANT!!! Sigh. I halfway wonder if I should just not tell them these things until we get to the car and are on our way home. But then I wonder why the kid is thinking they serve "beards" in a restaurant.

I could almost count it as a class if I were to take these boys outside and explain things like, the grass can also be called the lawn and "the front yard." Pebbles and gravel are kind of the same thing, and please don't demand a half hour explanation about howcome.

The person on line in front of you talking of someone "living in Boulder" does NOT mean it like you think she does. And she didn't want to hear about Fred Flintstone and that thing Dino did last week on TV. Really. It wasn't related.

And maybe it isn't a good idea to tell the nice lady trying to help you find a fun book that you don't appreciate the "baby" books, and then rattle on that you have already read Dracula and don't need the kid's version, you would like the UNabridged version of Oliver Twist and OOOOOH! THEY HAVE TELETUBBIES HERE!!! Yay!

It kinda makes it look like Mom is raising you funny.