Happy Birthday Kaleb!

On December 11th, this little punk turned 9 years old. It's hard to imagine that he can be that old. Where does the time go.

My Christmas Story

I have been a slow motion circus this year getting our Christmas tree up. We usually put up our Nativity scene Thanksgiving weekend, but we didn't even think about it this year. Then we went on vacation from December 1-6. We came home and had a zillion things going on. Finally, on Sunday the 13th Kalen and I braved the 2 degree weather and picked a tree up at Home Depot. We quickly went thru the store half frozen and got two boxes of lights and came home. Mark was working and I refused to go outside and saw the end of the tree so on Monday night Kaleb and Mark manned up and cut the bottom off the tree and put it in the stand. On Tuesday, after school work was done the kids and we went to decorated it. I pulled the lights out of the box and I knew something wasn't right with them. I took a good look at the box and realized I had bought the 'net lights' that go over a bush. That was the end of the tree decorating. So yesterday, we headed back to Home Depot to exchange the lights. Of course they didn't have anymore lights for trees, so we ended up going to Kmart to get lights. Finally..............we decorated the tree and this is the beginning of 'my Christmas story'.
I put the lights and ribbon on the tree and the kids were putting ornaments on it. I quietly listened as they rummaged through the box of ornaments and talked about when they made this ornament or that ornament or where an ornament came from. It was pretty cool. It was a good feeling to know that these ornaments mean something to them and that they aren't just something to put on the tree. In the discussion about this ornament and that ornament the kids started arguing over a "First Christmas" ornament that had a baby picture in it. Kaleb thought it was him, Kalen thought it was her and so on. I settled the argument by explaining that it was Kalen. Kaleb asked "how come I don't have an ornament that says 'First Christmas' on it?"
I told him that since he was born two weeks before Christmas and was a total surprise to us and everyone that no one bought him one. He wanted to know what I meant by him being a 'surprise'. He knows his birth story to some extent but hasn't ever thought much about it. So now was a good time to tell the story all over again. This is the story I told him................
On December 12, I had taken Kalen to town for her 'KinderMuzic' class. We had come home about 1:00 p.m and there was a message on our answering machine from Ellen at Wyoming Childrens Society she wanted us to call her ASAP. I called Ellen and she told me that there was a baby boy that had been born the night before in Sheridan. His birth family had not made an adoption plan prior to his birth and they wanted to put him up for adoption. She explained that he had been born an emergency c-section and had not been breathing when he was born. He had been checked out thoroughly and everything looked good. The family did not want to pick the adoptive family, they had asked the agency to place him with a family. Ellen said they had been through their family profiles and we had been waiting the longest (20 months) and they wanted to know if we were interested in him. YES!!!!
Ellen wanted us to wait to go to Sheridan until the papers were signed by the birth parents terminating their rights. It would be the next morning before their case worker from Buffalo could get to Sheridan and talk with the family and get the papers signed. We talked back and forth thru the evening and the next morning with the ladies from WCS. Finally about noon they called us and told us that the papers were not signed, they were waiting on a notary, but there was no doubt the birth parents were going to sign. It was time for us to get on the road. So off we went to Sheridan and the rest is history.
Kaleb asked a few questions about things and then he said "why did Wyoming Children Society pick you to be my parents?" I told him again that they looked through all their profiles of families and we had been waiting the longest and thought we would be a good match. This was his response "well, it's sure worked out good for me." I didn't cry, but there were tears in my eyes.
What a wonderful experience I shared with my children over our Christmas tree. I'm only sad that Mark had to work late and didn't get to share the time with us. Christmas cannot get any better than that for me.

Multiplication

A couple weeks ago, it was time for Kaleb to start multiplication in math. We finished up a unit on Friday and come Monday morning we started on 'times'. As I was getting things ready for the lesson I decided I would take Kalen along with us.
Kalen has basically been at the same place in math since her 4th grade year. Repetition is good for a child with learning disabilities, but at what point is she just not going to get it? For instance, telling time on a clock with hands is not going to happen at this point in Kalens life. It has to do with her visual spacial issues so why keep pushing it. Kalen knows her base 10 addition and subtract and anything passed that she knows how to use her calculator to figure it out. She understands money, but telling nickels, dimes and quarters apart is difficult for her. Once again, the visual spacial problems. At what point should you move on? I guess that's up to whoever is teaching.
I decided that my teaching had to be hands on for Kalen. So I cut up a bunch of 2" squares of fabric in different colors that we could put on my flannel board. Amazingly, Kalen caught on fairly well. The hands on approach was very good for her. We are up to facts of 5 and are doing a lot of repetition. Kalen has done very well.
The second day of multiplication Kalen said to me "mom, I was really tired of doing the same stuff in math." Hmmmmm!!!!!
So I thought about how I would feel if I was being taught the same thing day after day and I didn't get it? How much effort would I put into it? Not much. I don't know where we are going with Math and Kalen, but I look at it one day at a time. I hope to get her to know her math facts to 10. If she gets there, it will be time to celebrate. We will probably go back and review some of the stuff she hasn't gotten at this point from time to time and see if any of it clicks. However, I don't have a problem saying 'she doesn't get it'.
As for Kaleb, he has taken to multiplication like a duck to water. He has great reasoning skills and can figure out a lot of things out on his own. I end every math session with the bonus question. He is getting pretty good at that. It takes a lot to stump him.

The horse world......

A boy and his horse.

On Sunday Mark and Kaleb went to a horsemanship clinic that the WRCHA (Wyoming Reined Cow Horse Assn.) was having. The WRCHA is basically a group of people that live here in Gillette. There are several of them that put on clinics in the fall as a fund raiser for their organization it also gets more people interested in the WRCHA. Mark thought it would be good for Kaleb to get instruction from someone else. Which is true. Mark said that Kaleb was pretty shy there. Which isn't surprising, he tends to be shy when he is around people he doesn't know. Anyway, one of the clinicians is a lady. Kaleb told me that she said she liked his horse. He thought she was all right.

This is Mike and Annie scratching each others backs. Annie has been on hiatus since early August. She turned up lame right before Mark was going to show her at the state fair. Reining in hard on the joints and especially the hocks. Annie is 6 years old. At this point in her career, for her to go on she is going to have to be on joint therapy meds. We have resisted doing that. We had an equine vet check her out and her hocks are sore along with the suspensory (not sure how it spelled ) tendon in her left front leg. We put her on rest and have thought through the options. Annie is one point away from earning her Register of Merit in Open Reining. So the question is whether we want to put her back in the show pen knowing it could make her lame for the one point. It would be cool if she got her ROM, but definitely not the end of the world if she doesn't get it.

Annie seems to be sound again and we have decided to put her on meds for her joints to help aid in wellness. We also decided that I would start riding her to exercise her. I rode her for the first time the other day. She is totally awesome and fun to ride. Mark may not get her back.

This is Mark's latest project Will. Or Wilbur or Wilford, just depends on the day. When he first came here I thought we should change his name to Wild Eye. He would stand across the pen from you and he had a huge eye like he was scared of you. Mark spent a lot of time taking the spook out of him and earning his trust. Now Will reminds me of a puppy dog. He follows us around like a big goofy puppy. He gets in my personal space. Will has his days when he has 'spook' issues, he will probably always be like that, but he is definitely a different horse than when he came here.

It has been two years since we had a vacation and that was to Florida to Disney. Last year Mark's vacation was painting and laying flooring on the main level of the house. We took some long weekends for horse shows but other than that we haven't been anywhere. The thought of going away seemed to be a good idea. The budget is tight though. We have talked off and on about going to the NRHA (National Reining Horse Assn.) Futurity (its like the super bowl in reining) in Oklahoma City and driving it. I knew we had points on our credit card that could go to plane tickets so I looked into it and found we had enough points to get cheap tickets from Gillette to OKC. We will leave here on December 1 and come home on the 7th. We will be there to see the finals on the night of the 6th.
We are all looking forward to the trip, but especially Mark. Mark has only had 10 days off since August 1. On the weekends he didn't actually have to be in the field unless there was a problem, but he is on call which means he is on the phone and blackberry and sending reports. They have had a lot of projects going on and the hours and stress are starting to wear him down. He had worked his vacation so he won't have to go to the office from Thanksgiving until December 8. He has to fly to southeast Texas next week for work. They are moving a piece of equipment that goes on a gas well from here to one of their fields in Sweeney Texas. This is new territory for the Texans so Mark gets to go down and help with the installation and show them how it runs.

Abraham Lincoln

This picture was taken last summer in Keystone, SD outside of Mount Rushmore.

Last night the kids and Mark (I actually think he was asleep) were watching a documentary on the assassin of Abraham Lincoln before supper. We sat down to supper and Kaleb started talking about Lincoln and asking questions. This was a teaching moment. Several weeks ago Kaleb read a book about Lincoln for language arts. So, I brought up what we had learned about him. Kaleb remembered that Lincoln was the president professed that slavery was wrong and put a stop to it and that started the Civil War.

Kalen is studying the colonization of America in history. In the last week she has learned about how the settlers discovered they could make big money off of tobacco (which Kaleb has confused with Tabasco) and how they didn't like doing all the work themselves. So they brought ships of slaves from Africa to work on their large plantations. So the conversation went on about slavery and Lincoln.

It was pretty cool that since I know what the kids are learning in school that we could have a discussion about it in our everyday life. It's just another advantage of homeschooling. When the kids were in public school I never knew that much about what they were learning. I would ask everyday what they learned, but by the time the got home they were done for the day.

The Ghost of Halloween Past

We did our usual Halloween thing and went to Grandma house. We had pizza and Mark took the kids down the street to Trick or Treat. The weather was beautiful. It was 50 degrees.

Kalen is growing up. She did not have a costume this year. She opted for a shirt that had 'angel' written on it with wings painted on the back and it came with a halo that she wore.

Kaleb is totally into 'army', cops, military......... He wanted an 'army' costume this year. Knowing him and his history with costumes, I decided that it would be best to buy him the real 'camo' vs. a costume. I ended up having to go back and buy another camo shirt and pants because he loves them so much.

Kalen always liked to wear her costumes after Halloween as dress up. For many years she was a 'bride' or some kind of Disney princess. So they were always worth the money. Now Kaleb, he 'did' his Halloween costumes. When he was two he was Bob the Builder. He wear his Bob the Builder everywhere, including bed. Then he 'did' the red Power Ranger two years in a row and he lived in those costumes day and night. Kalen and I were telling him this and he just laughed and didn't believe us. I pretty sure he went a couple years that he couldn't watch Power Rangers with out being dressed in his costume. I finally had to hide them because they were getting to small for him.

The end of the first quarter

I remember when Mark and I had been married about eight years and we were having one of those 'someday when we have kids conversations', I said to him "why do we say 'when we have kids', we are never going to have kids." I had no interested in kids. A year later we were filling out adoption forms. And Mark said "I always knew we would adopt children."

Then it came time for Kalen to start school and off and on over the years the subject of 'homeschooling' would come up. Mark was always interested in it. I would say I could never homeschool our kids. I have learned that when I say 'I'm never going to do something' I better prepare myself because "I will" be doing it.

Anyway, today was the end of the first quarter of school. We did it!!! I can't believe we are a quarter of the way through the school year. It's been a ride. It's been frustrating, it's been exciting and it's been exhausting. It was a good decision.

I have learned so much about my children. I have watched awesome things happen. I have come to realize some important things I want my kids to learn and some things I don't think they need to learn. Homeschooling may not be for everyone, but every parent should try it for just one year, they'll never regret it.

I have watched Kalen blossom. She has become more confident and more mature. I have watched the anxiety that she lived with going to school disappear. I have watched her enjoy learning. I have come to realize more of who she real is and who she can be.

Kaleb........the kid can figure out amazing math facts laying over a the top of a bean bag flopping like a fish. His reading was low and his spelling stunk when we started the school year. I have watched him gain in reading and I have watched his spelling get better and better. It's cool!

The history in the k12 curriculum for third grade stinks. It is about the Middle Ages/Greek/Rome. It's hard for me to teach because it's BORING and Kaleb has ZERO interest in it. The light bulb went on about two weeks ago. My third grader needs to learn American History and he needs to read. So I went to the library and got him books that he could read about American Explorers. He loves them. When he is done with silent reading he will say 'mom, did you know..........' and off he goes telling me what he learned. He is excited about it. We will force our way through the k12 curriculum, but it's not for us.

The Campbell County Virtual School has been under scrutiny this year because of low PAWS (standardize testing) scores last year in writing. (That's a whole other story). So the VS is putting the pressure on the parents and kids about writing. Every other week the teacher that monitors Kaleb has an online 'writers workshop' with her students. It is done live with her and probably 9 other kids.

As I listened yesterday to the 'writers workshop', I realized what was going on was not what I wanted for my child. To start with Mrs. B lectures about how they are going to be doing 'tons and tons' of writing this year to prepare for PAWS. She wants the kids to be more creative with their words. She was giving them words like 'good', 'really', 'happy'......and wanted them to come up with different words for them. At one point she got down right mean about how they over use words like 'good' and 'really' and they need to be more 'creative'. In the previous session Mrs. B had taught the kids how to write a 'friendly letter' and had given this strict format on how it should be written. Sure, there needs to be some basics for the 'friendly letter' but a strict format? Get real. Mrs. B put a 'friendly letter' form up on the white board and started ragging on them about how they were not doing them right (they had to write her one). So she goes over how it's to be done and it how it has to be done blah blah blah blah and then she says "this is the way it is on the PAWS test and you need to learn it."

Let me sum that up.............The kids need to be creative thinkers but they can only do it 'one way.' Is the PAWS test the absolutely know all on how a 'friendly letter' is to be written? NO!!!

I do not want my kids to be educated on info that is only important to pass a standardize test. I do not want a teacher ragging on my kids like that. And you know what, I can make that choice. More to come on that....................