It's Time For a Bath

Does anyone else go through this?

I send Elf and Emperor off for a bath. It's just time! On the tub wall just under the faucet handle, I've taped a laminated sheet with instructions on "how to take a bath." They include gems of advice such as "get clothes ready" and "use soap." Really.

After bathtime, Elf is the first to pop downstairs. But something juuuust doesn't seem right.

*sniff sniff* Did you really have a bath?

"Oh, yes!" Elf assures me. "See my shirt?" As in, I've even changed my clothes! Well, that's good, I guess. But something still doesn't seem right. Deodorant? Elf nods his head and gives the necessary mmm-hmm and angelic chubby face smile.

*sniff sniff* Did you wash your face? Your bottom? Your feet? Of course he did!

How about your hair?

"My hair?" he cocks his head sideways as if I asked him whether he bathed with five eels and a robotic pig. What a notion! I had to direct him back to the laminated paper that clearly states that shampoo ought be used... you know, like... on your hair?

Ohh. You mean my haiiir.

Sigh. His mom had to scrub his head in the kitchen sink with dish soap because Emperor needed the tub just then. Good enough. You can just smell the JOY in our house, which is better than "musty stinky foot" and whatever else he was smelling like before.

Emperor comes trampling down the stairs. He, too, still smells.

"Did you wash your hair?" Yes! Mrs. C is down to the chase now. Since Elf forgot this, I'm reasoning Emperor did, too.

Emperor washed his hair. His feet. His bottom. Yes, he put deodorant on. But Sherlock Holmes here discovered he's doing me a favour by saving money on my laundry bill . He has changed into the same clothes he had on before his bath! Isn't that helpful? I should be thanking him, especially since I didn't specify that he needed DIFFERENT clothes after his bath. I started the laminated sheet out with "get clothes ready" and "get towel ready," and ended it with "change into clothes." I never specified that he couldn't wear the SAME clothes he had on before.

Why aren't I grateful?

Ut Ohhh

Rose is perfectly content if you respond to all of her requests. If she's displeased, she can say "no, uh-uuuuuuh, stopit (one word!), nn-NNN," and of course "mine" and "ee-back!" She also has several different ways to ask for things. When these don't work, she resorts to folding her arms, frowning and looking away to let you know just how unjust you're being.

What We've Been Doing

Here at the Happy Elf Homeschool, we've been following a "schedule" since Monday. It's had mixed results. It sure isn't nearly so strict as the schedules you'd find in a larger school, but I am learning just a little bit about WHY those big-bad factory institutions schedule things so strictly in the first place (hint: it's called "getting the stuff you planned to do ... done").

I am discovering that there are small time-wasters during the day, little rabbit trails we keep hopping down, and that sort of thing. And that was wonderful and good while the children were little and needed to learn so much about the world; however, it's not necessary now to interrupt our studies for further investigation on a topic that pops up quite so frequently. This week I scheduled an entire day for cooking, chess games and assorted "fun" or elective subjects after our math was done. When I did that, I found out that the children really need a bit more direction than your average third and fourth graders would. I think doing the math first thing in the morning is a good idea, but I also think one other subject thrown in later in the day might balance out the mostly unstructured "fun" stuff. It would also give me an opportunity to play catch-up with whatever we might have been lagging behind in that week.

I'm posting a few pictures of what I do with the younger children while the older ones are doing a more self-directed activity. I can get all kinds of little boxes full of blocks or baby things (spoon, bowl, bottle, blanket, etc.) and let them play with each thing for a bit. Then I will switch the children's activities so that each has a turn doing a puzzle or matching bears or whathaveyou.

The Possum Socks

My husband is wearing socks made of possums and merino wool. Yup. Bonnie sent 'em to us, along with a ton of other stuff, from New Zealand (postage = yowie). There were gifts for EVERYONE in the family, including D. He just LOVES them, and has been telling anyone who will listen (and probably a few people who won't) about how he has possums on his feet. It's true! Wikipedia tells us that possums are Australian native animals, imported to New Zealand and devastating to the local ecosystem. So they kill 'em and make clothes out of them. These are not the same 'possums you're used to seeing around here, though. Those are opossums, and nicknamed 'possums. But they're not possums. Now you know. D will be wearing these socks to work tomorrow and showing them (and the packaging) to everybody. Seriously, these socks are the best and most unique gift he has received from anyone - myself included - in years. Thanks, Bonnie!

The Boxer Fracture.

A little lower, and he'd be in surgery getting pins and metal bits inserted into his hand. WHEN will this boy learn to stop punching cement walls and/or banging his head when he's mad/ upset/ excited/ happy/ whatever? "Yay," G said, "My first broken bone!" Yep, none of the other children has gotten one of these before, so he gets to be the *first.* Kewl. More kewl still? We need to see an orthopaedic surgeon to look over the x-rays and perhaps recast/ recommend surgery. Hopefully not the latter. I'm sure I'll have a lot of fun bringing all the younger children with him to this appointment. Well... here he's striking a pose for the blog. In response to my question, it is NOT supposed to resemble Mussolini.

The *NEW* Schedule

Oh, yayyy. I've realized that I've been frantically trying to get *everything* done at once... and while we have tons of stuff started, we have trouble getting anything actually FINISHED. Or I'd realize suddenly that we hadn't studied the Bible in two weeks. (Really! If this sort of thing hasn't happened to you yet, you either have a schedule, are perfect, or you just haven't been homeschooling very long.) I sorta copied the idea for a schedule from this link (pdf) I found after browsing Luke's blog. Woodjie doesn't have school on Wednesdays, so now I will schedule trips to the grocery store, art or other fun things on this day. We've also moved cooking to Wednesdays. I have left bunches of ideas in the "Wednesday" column and I will probably let the children pick what they want to do after their math is done. Did you notice there is no science to be done this week? We've just finished a science LIFEPAC today, so we'll begin a social studies LIFEPAC next week. When that's done, I'll probably get two science packs done and then concentrate on China for a while as Patrick is travelling there in June with the high school orchestra.

Informal Poll

Would you bother trademarking this image? I just pulled it out of its dusty storage place and had to go "eeew" once again. And I wasn't "eeewing" over the dust this time. Am I the only one who finds this potty-man... disturbing?