In the pink

First Grade Homework Fail

Those of you on Facebook probably already saw this, but here is Olivia's homework from last week.

Sugar and sleep

This is what the kids had for dinner on Friday, to celebrate Jack's near-perfect report card. It looks yummy, especially to someone who has eliminated sugar and processed food from her diet. But, I'm not above putting this garbage into my kids' bodies, as you can clearly see. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the positive reward system worked. Yesterday, Jack came home, took out his homework, and said, "woops". He had forgotten to turn in his test in Algebra. It was an open book test, which is hilarious, because when the teacher emailed him back, he told Jack he could retake it after school. The hilarious part is that I am looking at the book right now, sitting right where Jack left it before going to school. It's next to his lunch. Sigh.

Olivia has been having a very had time going to sleep lately. I consider myself somewhat of a sleep Nazi when it comes to the kids. By that, I mean they go to bed at the same time every night after books, and that is the last time I see or hear from them until morning, unless vomiting is involved, or the occasional nightmare. But even then, after I console them or attend to their needs, I hustle them back to their own beds. So, this thing with Olivia has me pretty stressed out. She cries and carries on (stomachache! too scared! Grace is snoring! I can hear Seamus scratching downstairs!) until about 10 or 11. Her bedtime is 7:30. This morning we had a long talk, and she said she was scared to be separated from us. This is a valid concern, since I've been with her nearly every waking moment that she has been alive, apart from school. We talked about ways she can cope at night, and we're going to try yoga before bed. About this point, I'm feeling pretty cocky, like a good mom, because she was all excited to try these new tricks.

She asked if she could get some gloves out of the closet under the stairs, and then I told the kids to get into the car for school. I had to go shut the gate on the chicken coop and noticed that Olivia had left the closet door open. I shut it and went out to the coop, and around to the front of the house. Henry and Grace were at the car, but no Olivia. That's when I heard her wails from inside the house. I had shut her in the closet and she thought we'd left without her! Yep, I pretty much solved those abandonment fears today.

Absent

Hello? Is this thing on? So, my last post was over a month ago, and I promise I haven't quit, I've just been busy. The kids' school cut their art funding in half, so me and a few other moms started an after school art program, culminating in a big art show. I was so busy with it that my own kids didn't get any time to work on their projects, but we do art all the time at home, and they were happy enough with what they churned out in the 40 minutes I gave them. Here's Olivia at the art show with her painting of a horse. Surprise! And Grace with her painting of a unicorn with a princess on it riding a rainbow. Surprise again!

Henry entered in the photography category, and I really loved the picture he chose to display. It's a little stream of ice on the concrete and pretty cool looking.

Now that the art show is over, I am somehow organizing an all-island chicken coop tour. I threw the idea out at one of Jack's 4H meetings, and the next thing I knew, I was in charge of it. Beyond that, everyone is cruising along pretty peacefully here in Coupeville. Jack just finished finals, and will get to keep his xbox. I may have mentioned before that we don't let the kids have screen time on school days (video games, tv, computer), but Jack has the freedom to self-monitor in that department, as long as he maintains a 3.75 GPA. It was a little hairy at the end, but he did very well, as usual, despite his cries that we were the cruelest parents of all his friends.

Henry is doing a Young Authors program at school that he's really excited about. Only one kid from each class gets to do it, so he thinks he's super cool. At the end he will have a published book! Henry's allergies have virtually disappeared since the cats have been relocated, and Seamus has never been happier.

Grace is into the first grade drama of who "loves" who in the class. Ugh. Olivia could care less. We went to the school sock hop the other night and Olivia said she didn't want to go. I told her to try it and if she didn't like it, Daddy would come pick her up. She didn't like it. But! Grace won a cake in the cake walk and since the Dj was our next door neighbor, he played ABBA for her, so she had the time of her life (a side note, Grace has won every cake walk she's ever been in).

Both girls are reading like crazy, but Olivia is struggling a little bit with math. It comes so easily to Grace, who tells Olivia "the numbers just pop up in your head, just write them down, silly!" Unfortunately, the numbers don't just pop up in Olivia's head. Nor mine, sadly. Also, Olivia has a phobia of losing teeth. These two were barely hanging on when I finally flossed them out. She was relieved, but had nightmares of dying for two nights after that. So that's been fun!

This gap in her teeth has increased her spitting skills exponentially. See what I did there? Exponentially is a math term. I am excellent with math vocabulary. At least.