Week 3 Quarantine: The Rainy Days

It's been raining for awhile and our walks been thwarted many days.  The children have taken to screening people as they go up and down the stairs in our house, "Have you had any flu-like symptoms?  Have you been out of the country in the past two weeks?" as a game.  Quarantined Kids' Games...

Making Tents in the Living Room

The decrease in walks have brought about a bit more fighting amongst the younger ones.  We had to bring back our "Tummy Time" again.

In case, you missed this technique of mine for resolving fights between littles, I make them touch tummies until they are laughing and have forgiven each other.  I started this when the girls were little.  It had been a while since I needed it.

Grocery stores are actually getting better.  They're not stocked with toilet paper and dried beans, but they also don't have lines waiting outside just to get in.

The schools continued to send home packets, but since they are going to be closed at least until May 4th, they are now moving towards using Goggle Classroom, despite trying desperately to avoid screens, being a Classical, technology-free school.  They can not sustain the printing costs of the packets.  Next week will be the last week of printed packets.

Some of the children, mainly Hannah, are sick of games.  I found a new Christian book series for her that are re-tellings of fairy tales that the library had on ebooks.  Melanie Dickerson writes them.  She read five of them this week and as I write this a week later, she has read fifteen of her books.  She's a little hooked.

I have been remiss to mention that our churches have been closed.  Our priest has been sending out ways to fulfill our Sunday obligation from home since we are prohibited from attending Mass.  Another benefit of having no outside activities, we have been able to do our nightly read alouds every night again like we used to when we were a fully homeschooled family.  And we are able to pray together more often than just bedtime prayers.  We say the Divine Mercy Chaplet together often at 3pm, and our decade has turned into a full rosary again.  Our dinners and, therefore, our bedtimes have been later and more relaxed.  SO nice not to worry about the clock all the time!

We started the carrots in soda bottles and the Marigolds a while back in my Botany class, but we added a bunch of vegetable seeds when I was able to talk Brian into making me a couple of wooden planters to put them in.  I bought a pack of vegetable seeds that grow well together in a two foot planter.  So we are going to try it this summer since it wouldn't hurt to have some fresh veggies growing in our own backyard the way things are going.

I have been working on a few different projects in the evenings.  I am making myself a light spring crocheted sweater, but unfortunately Hobby Lobby closed down before I finished it and I am stuck without any yarn to finish it up because online they are "Out of stock" of the color I need.  I am so close to finishing.  I then started making five sets of nativity scenes like I made for my nephew out of wooden peg people for gifts next year at Christmas time.  I also ran out of peg men though and was temporarily paused on this project as well, but Amazon came through and I now have new ones to complete the sets.  Then I was suddenly inspired by a tapestry to draw this.

I am also working on a saint doll for a new baby boy, but again ran out of thread in one spot.  Grrr.


I've had a few "get togethers" via various video conferencing methods this week.  I had a harder week, but it was just because I can't be alone here easily.  I took a walk by myself one day and made a few extraneous trips to drop things off on my siblings' doorsteps and to Sonic just to get out alone.  The rain induced bickering was the main cause I think.

Our Family Mission Statement

Love: Reading to brother

While I was in the mode of making a vision statement for our homeschool, I thought maybe I could finally decide on one for our family, much less specific, of course.  I had always had a hard time with this in the past because I am always tempted to have "all the things" in it.  Isn't it all important?  Well, in the Bible it is very clear that one over-arching, all-encompassing virtue is above them all.  One virtue flows into all others.  The Greatest Commandment.  Love.

I have a common thing I say to the children as well which needed to be taken into account.  I say it so frequently that it deserves attention when coming up with this mission statement.  It is important and falls under the the virtue of all virtues.  "People before things."

Being that I have such a great love of St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta and she has said so many profound things about love and charity so succinctly.  I turned to her for inspiration here.

After thinking about all those things, this is what I came up with.  My words are in bold and then they are followed by a bunch of citations that inspired me in the writing of this statement.

In our family, we love and serve God by loving and serving the person in front of us. We love that person by treating them the way we want to be treated, by accepting them just the way they are, and by putting their needs ahead of our own.

"The school of Christ is the school of love. In the last day, when the general examination
takes place ... Love will be the whole syllabus." - St. Robert Bellarmine

“Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home. Give love to your children, 

to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor . . . Let no one ever come to you without
leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face,
kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.”
-St. Mother Teresa

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love

Beauty and the Beast and the Yellow Cheese

The yellow cheese in the picture was an attempt to stop a fit from Bobby.  He wanted a yellow cheese on his plate and all I had in the fridge was white cheese.  He started to cry and so I drew him this picture and brought him a yellow crayon to color it and keep by his plate.  It worked like a charm and peace reigned at dinner once again.

I took the girls to see Beauty and the Beast performed at the Woodlawn Theater in San Antonio with their uncle.   Our piano teacher was playing one of Gaston's silly girls and so we made a special effort to go.  It was outstanding!  It was funny and so well done.  The singers were very good.  After the production, we snapped this picture of the girls with her in her wig and costume.

A Fun Punishment

Isaac is always telling me I have the worst punishments ever, as if they are supposed to be wonderful.  Finally, he got one he liked.  Daddy came up with this idea, and I implemented it one evening while cooking dinner and getting fed up with the mutual pestering.

It may be hard to tell, but they are both inside one of daddy's shirts.

This is similar to the old "tummy touch" punishment I used on the girls in the past, but Hannah seemed to enjoy this one so much more.  It worked like a charm.  No more pestering the rest of the day.  I'll be bringing this out again for sure.

My favorite mom books

Babywise by Gary Ezzo:
Although I do not follow them to a T, the schedules and possible solutions for sleep troubles have been so helpful to me. Teaching a child to self sooth to sleep is such a valuable skill, especially when you have lots of little ones and you can't spend the whole day rocking your baby. I have referenced this book more times than I can count with each child.

Babywise II by Gary Ezzo:
I have not refreshed myself on this one with Drew yet since we still have a few month until it is relevent, but I know there are many per-discipline ideas that were very helpful to me. I especially loved the idea of Blanket Time and it was very helpful with Isaac.

Childwise by Gary Ezzo:
I love this book and is is always inspiring to me to reread sections of it. Although I find it lacks in actual specific and tangible consequences in some areas and it presupposes that certain techniques eliminate all future problems, the founding of moral character utilizing the Socratic method makes it a very inspiring book. I think sometimes we busy moms get caught up in the Don't do that's, the Stop it's, and the Leave your brother alone's that we forget that teaching them why we don't do that or should stop it is what actually teaches them not to do it again and again and again. The author says it all comes down to the Golden Rule, but even more specifically I think it all comes down to two verses in the Bible:

Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self seeking, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13 something)

Children obey your parents in all things for this is well pleasing to the Lord.

Sorry I don't know the exact references and am too lazy to look them up on Google right now. But you get the point, nearly every child's offense boils down to one or both of these verses. So my kids (obviously, not Drew) have these memorized and I try to have them tell me which of these verses (and which parts) they did not follow when they are in trouble. It takes a lot of time. It is not easy, but it is so worth it.

Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron:
I got this book with Genna because Hannah had such a hard time moving away from baby food and eating food with the family. It takes time to prepare these foods and I do not do 100% natural stuff like the author does. But there is a lot to be taken from this book. I did the cereals from scratch with Genna, but not with Isaac. I still haven't decided about how much I will make from scratch for Drew.

Signing Smart with Babies and Toddlers by Michelle Anthony:
Love, love, love this method of introducing sign language to your baby. I read several book son baby sign language before finding this one and it is so much more practical. This book tells you how to get your baby to look at you when you are signing and speaking. It tells you when the best times are to sign with your baby and even gives different ways to sign when your hands are somewhat full and when your child is looking at the book you are reading to him.

Your Baby's Health:
This book has calmed my fear time after time and kept me from wanting to run to the ER when I could wait until the next day to see a doctor. It has practical guides that tell you how soon you should see a doctor when your baby has a certain list of symptoms.

La Leche League's The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding:
This book doesn't need any explanation. If you breastfeed at all, it is a must read.

If you are considering homeschooling and thinking you can't do it, I recommend A Mother's Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot. This book gave me the courage to try homeschooling and got me excited about it when it wasn't what I had always pictured us doing. The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to a Classical Education by Susan Wise Bauer is also a wonderful read.

Books I just ordered for my birthday and am looking forward to reading:

Shepherding a Child's Heart by Ted Tripp

Large Family Logistics by Kim Brennemen

After Miscarriage: A Catholic Woman's Companion to Healing and Hope by Karen Edmisten

Homeschool: Problem Solving

The pictures above are from a pajama day we had last week. All those parties wore me out, and I did 8 loads of laundry last week. No wonder we needed a pajama day so badly! On to the problem solving...

Problem #1: Genna could not and would not hold her pencil correctly. The minute I turned my head she slid her fingers back into the wrong position again. She is slow and I just can't stand over her the whole time.

Our Solution: Pencil grippers, or whatever they are called! I forgot all about these inventions until one day it just hit me. My mom bought her some and once she got used to it the problem was solved.

Problem #2: The kids were getting off track when they had to wait on me to help them with something. Suddenly, I had kids bouncing off the walls just because Isaac needed me to help him with something.

Our Solution: A list of independent work to complete everyday for each of the girls. Hannah still has trouble switching gears when I need her to stop her independent work to do our group lessons once I get Isaac busy with something. She likes to finish all of her stuff before going onto the group lessons. She especially doesn't like to stop midway through a particular assignment.

Problem #3: Complaining, no explanation needed. Hannah struggled with this last year at the beginning of the year, and Genna is currently struggling with it.

Our Solution: A reward awaiting them at the end of the day that they lose if they complain. I give one reminder/warning about the reward when complaining starts and beyond that there is a zero tolerance policy. This is not a quick fix. It takes some longer than others to figure out what they are missing out on. Even the quickest child will still lose the reward multiple times before correcting their behavior, and all will backslide occasionally. Our reward is 30 minutes of TV. The children that earn it watch their TV in my bedroom while the child who does not stays with me downstairs.

Problem #4: Interrupting me when I am teaching or talking to someone else. Interrupting is becoming a real problem in our house right now.

Our Solution: Our solution, in general, is to have the children put their hand on my arm/leg and wait until I can stop and talk to them. This solution came from my cousin, Melinda, who has 4 of her own children. Genna is the only one that remembers to do it right now and so I need to crack down on enforcing it again. A solution specifically for the schooling that we haven't tried yet to this problem, but want to, is on this blog. I just have to find time to set the system up.

I am happy to say that baby Drew has been a champ and so far not added any new problems to our homeschool other than making me tired by getting up to nurse in the middle of the night. Time will fix that one, I hope. Even when he is awake, he hangs out on the floor happily most of the time while we work.

I am having to step up the teaching for Isaac because he is less likely these days to work on his activities on his own. So we are continuing on with his Five in a Row book and starting to move ahead in The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading. It still is only about 30 minutes of work for him on the days that we can fit it in, but it seems to keep him happy if he gets that one-on-one time with me.

Attention Span

I think developing an attention span in children starts from the time you bring them home from the hospital. I usually start reading to my babies by the time they are two weeks old before every nap and bed time (which is a lot of times during the day since they take so many naps at first.) They can't focus their eyes yet, but they can hear. I usually read poems and other things that have rhythm and rhyme. Habits form easily with newborns and they will come to expect and anticipate as they grow that story time always precedes sleeping. I have rarely had a time when my kids, at any age, wouldn't sit still for a book...pretty much any book. Story times at libraries or book stores over the years have shown me that not all children will sit still and listen to a book. I think this is why my children do sit in the middle of the chaos that is present at most story times I have been to.

The next thing I think is important to do from infancy is blanket time/pack-n-play time/room time. Babies who are constantly being entertained or held have a harder time with independent play as they get older. I know this because I made this mistake with my firstborn. Hannah took much longer to be capable of playing independently for an extended period of time because I held her a lot when she first came home from the hospital and responded to her every peep instead of helping her to learn to self sooth. Many first time moms make this same mistake which is why I think the first baby is usually the hardest. I realized my mistake around 2 months old and began to try to teach her to be alone. It is harder to undo a habit even as young as 2 months old than to develop good habits from the beginning. All of my kids have time each day to entertain themselves. Yes, most of their time is spent together, but I find this time apart is vital to developing their attention span and keeping the peace among siblings.

Another vital aspect of creating attention span is making sure your child is well rested. So many kids are overly tired these days. I can tell a difference in how my kids act when they have had a busy weekend and are overly tired. They can not focus as well, not to mention all the other discipline problems that arise when this happens.

The fourth thing that I have felt very strongly about since before my kids were born is the limiting of TV and video games. My general rule is no more than 30 minutes of TV a day. However, that is our maximum (with the exception of the occasional movie) and certainly not a quota. Often many days pass without the TV coming on while the children are awake, especially when there is good weather. My kids LOVE TV and movies, don't get me wrong, but there are plenty of things to fill our day with besides mindless TV. And as for video games, I am putting off introducing these as long as possible which is easier for me since my oldest are girls (I find boys have more of a natural affinity for video games,) and they are not exposed to it via friends at school since they are homeschooled. I think this also improves imagination in kids. Brian did not agree with me when Hannah was born on this issue, but he is now more of a proponent for it than I am. He is the first one to tell the kids they should go outside or read if they ask to watch TV.

The fifth thing that helps are having structured activities and crafts for them to do. The more often they complete activities and crafts the more they learn how to stay focused and pay attention until an activity is over.

Next I would say to help create a better attention span, there should be a limited amount of toys available in one space. I have noticed that in "play rooms" that are packed with toys, kids tend to run from one toy to another like crazy little people. As soon as they get one thing out and ready to play, they see something else that looks better and on they move. This kind of set up turns a room into a tornado really fast. When kids have to pick toys up before starting something new, they tend to finish what they started so that they do not have to clean something up before they even played with it.

I think Montessori activities promote attention spans and creativity as well.

My final suggestion would be having them sit in church without any toys or books. This discipline absolutely has been invaluable to my children.

All of these suggestions have multiple benefits and have truly helped our growing family.

Blanket Time

I have tried blanket time out many times before only to quit because, well basically, I wasn't up for it. Blanket time , quickly summarized, is where you put your toddler on a blanket with a limited amount of toys and set a timer. The toddler has to stay on the blanket until the timer buzzes, increasing the time gradually. This is to teach boundaries and obedience, and the ultimate goal is to move to room time. I didn't do blanket time with the girls because I somehow skipped over it in the book Toddlerwise. I have friends that have had great success with this, and since Isaac is having trouble with naps I thought we would try this again to see if learning clearer boundaries and obedience in this particular way would help him in his crib during nap time. I started with 8 minutes and he did great this time. Other times he has thrown fits or had to be placed back on the blanket too many times to count. All I had to do today was explain the "game" and show him the timer. I asked if he understood, and he replied, "Ding!" So I took that as a "Yes." When he rolled his car off the blanket, I said, "Uh oh, you can't get that toy because you can't get off the blanket." Then he rolled another toy off (but not as far), and he looked at me and laid down on his belly to reach for the toy so he was still on the blanket. Yea! He started to get off one time, but listened when I told him "No." I hope I am not jumping the gun by thinking this is going to be easy now. Since we are snowed in with no place to go a lot these days, I think we shall dedicate some time to this on an almost daily basis.

Patient Hands

I just really don't like grabbing, whining, and begging, so I instituted what we call patient hands. When they start doing one of those aforementioned dreaded actions, I simply remind them to have patient hands and the girls are very good at showing me their patient hands which looks just like the top picture. I started this a long time ago when Hannah was a toddler. I thought teaching her to say Please would help stop the grabbing, etc. However, she would say Please and sign Please over and over frantically, and it drove me nuts while I was in the process of getting whatever it was she wanted. So I thought of this to control her hands and to begin teaching her the impossible lesson of patience.

I started just a week ago trying to teach Isaac this and he picked it up so fast! Here is his slight variation on our patient hands.

Recently I read somewhere about self control hands and I started trying this out with the girls. When they start to get out of control, whether it is their temper or just getting too excited and rambunctious for a certain occasion. It has worked well for us so far.

Cool Down Corner

I set up this Cool Down Corner, not as a replacement for the Time Out Corner as one discipline book recommended, but as a tool to help avoid needing the Time Out Corner. I had the girls help me a bit with setting it up at the beginning of the summer. We put books, stuffed animals, and a blankie in a box next to this chair in my bedroom by the window. It worked much better at first until the novelty of it wore off. However, in general, it works better for Genna than for Hannah. Genna seems to just need to cool off in a comfortable spot that seems enjoyable to her, whereas, Hannah usually refuses to go, feeling like it is already a punishment, when she is starting to loose her temper and ends up cooling off in her bedroom where I put her. On the other hand, Isaac thinks it is a super cool place to chill when I am cleaning up my room.

"Because I broke rule #2."

I have followed the lead of the Super Nanny, and we have 4 main house rules that we posted on the fridge last week. (These will be amended when Dad comes home to include him as well.)

#1 Obey mom.
#2 Be respectful to mom.
#3 Be kind and loving to everyone, especially brother and sister.
#4 Use words, not tears or hands.

The girls have already memorized the rules and their corresponding number. When I ask why they were put in time out, they will say,"Because I broke rule #2. Then they can tell me what rule #2 is. It is very handy because it takes out a lot of the emotion out of the discipline and it removes a lot of misunderstanding as well. Everyone knows what is expected of them from the get go.

After Mass we were in the car, and I was having a talk with Genna about something she did during Mass that was disrespectful to me (i.e. breaking rule #2). Hannah interrupts, "Mom, I didn't even see her do that because I was so busy praying to God!" I smile and think, "If only that were really true!"

Later on today, the girls were having an interesting conversation in the backseat of the car and I was listening in.

Hannah: Genna, you see those red berries on that bush we cannot eat them. Some berries we can eat, but we have to ask mom or dad first. Some berries will make us DIE even!

Genna: Yeah, they'll make us DIE, but not on the cross like Jesus.

Hannah: No, but they'll still make us DIE!