Dyslexia Sucks but my son does not....

Dyslexia is hard for me to understand. I want so much for my son to enjoy books like I do. I want him to get lost in the stories of other places, other people, other ways and come out with other thoughts, other feelings, other ideas. I want his head filled with language that he wouldn't hear on a day to day basis.

I have felt like without the ability to read he would not get to experience this. I was wrong.

We are re-reading the Kane Chronicles so we can then finish the series. He commented that a song he was listening to on his iPod was kind of Sadie Kane's theme song, something about being a classy rebel or something. I couldn't hear the lyrics nor do I know the song that well. I was just so excited to hear him make a connection like that. It means, to me, that the characters are living in his head all the time, not just when we read at night.

I was just reading a book, Kushiel's Dart, that I am giving up on. It took me awhile to figure out why I wasn't connecting and during that we had some conversations that The Boy joined in on. I talked about how while I was reading the book the world was alive for me but when I put it down there was nothing calling me back. There was no one character that stayed with me calling me back to read one more line or find out what was going to happen next. The Boy commented how the Kane's kept calling him back and wanting to continue to hear their story.

So what I need to remember is that right now I am how he is getting the stories, he doesn't want to listen to audio books, he wants me to read to him, partly because we can then have conversations about the books and partly because he really doesn't like change.

I'm pretty sure he is on the cusp of wanting to listen to audio books though because he can then take control of when he can enter the story again.

Life is good.

Whirlwind Weekend

On May 10th I received a text message from DH saying: "Full solar eclipse soon. In USA" This sent me online looking for information. Finding that it was going to be a full annular eclipse in Albuquerque, NM. This is 7 hours from our home. We thought we might be able to do this. We started looking and the 2 of us decided we wanted to do this. So we did.

I am a planner. I plan dream vacation, trips that we never take but I know how long we will stay at each location how much it will cost us to get to each place. We don't take quick trips. This time we did. 

The joy in it is we had enough time before it that my slow to warm to an idea boy had enough time to while not embracing the trip he did decide that he would rather be with us than stay with his grandparents and his dog. I let him know in no uncertain terms that we were going and we would welcome him with us but there was a safe and loving place that he could stay at if he would rather do that.  I'm so glad he came with us. 

We had a wonderful time. We started in Santa Fe, but left and ended up in Bandelier National Monument, partly because I had read that they were having a ranger talk about the eclipse. We got up there and they had sold out of all the tickets to the ranger talk, apparently weeks ago. I'm glad I didn't know because it was a beautiful place to watch and we found a community of others who had hoped to go to the ranger talk but found each other instead. 

I had bought the solar glasses from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (I told you I'm a planner) I figured even if the rangers had some we could still have our own. There weren't any available and we shared with others around us. It made for a fun evening.  

So how about some pictures?

He was very talkative and lectured anyone who would listen.

I wish with all my heart I had thought to use the tripod we brought with us. Sigh. There is much movement but I think you can get an okay idea of what we saw. It was AMAZING!!!!!

We have such a fun time as a family and The Boy LOVED seeing the pueblo dwellings in the valley at Bandelier. We are already planning our trip back down and plan to include trips to Canyon de Chelly, Mesa Verde, and Sand Dunes(no ancient people but still fun) for later this summer. 

READING!!!!!!

My boy who will sit and complain that it is too hard, that he can't learn to read, over and over again while we are sitting to lessons. That boy read today and yesterday. He did not just read the material in his lesson he read something he was interested in and worked hard at it and did it.

There is this game, a fun game, an educational(kinda) game, this game is called CellCraft I may have mentioned it before. You are creating a cell, and learning about the organelles in a cell and what they do. He is reading the narration mostly by himself and figuring out 2 syllable words.

GUYS! this is HUGE!

I'm not sure how to describe my joy. It is making me think that I'm not wasting my time completely. That maybe this is something I can do. That if I put my mind to it I could do ANYTHING!!!! Oh wait this is his accomplishment isn't it. Ok, change all those I's to he's and yeah that sounds better. ;)

It was so cool to watch him jump for joy that he was reading, and recognize that he was able to decipher the words and the meaning. It helps so much that the content is something he wants to learn about. The technical terms he needed me to read but he memorized the way the words looked quickly and didn't need me to continue to help with those either.

To add to the happiness my son wrote me a birthday card, he wrote words by himself with only asking how to spell day. Look...

Proud Mama with her card.

 He has never written something this long before. I am so proud of him!

45 is definitely looking good.

We all get older

In a week, 1 short week, I will turn 45. I have no idea how that has happened. I'm decidedly middle age and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I'm seriously considering going back to school, but I don't know for what. Teaching? At one point I thought I'd like being a teacher Math or Science in middle school or high school. I'm pretty good at bookkeeping, and finishing my degree in accounting might work. Hmmm. I feel like I need to know what I'm going to do next. Teaching almost makes the most sense. I could get my degree while still homeschooling my boy then using the things I learned in school and to teach my so to teach others.

Anyway I'm getting old and the numbers are starting to show it more.

This wasn't suppose to be a post about that, about me getting older and not knowing what the hell I want to do with my life. It is suppose to be about how my son is getting older and growing up and becoming a loving, caring human being. So let me write that post now.

He has for almost a year now been asking me what I like and want to do, first it was claimed to be a Christmas list and then was ignored for Christmas, but as my birthday has loomed on the horizon he has started talking about the list again. I asked if he wanted my help with anything and he said no, then he said he would talk to his dad, and he did. He is bursting with excitement of what they have planned. He came up to me this morning and was bouncing around saying "We have the BEST birthday celebration planned for you!" When I said "Will you tell me?" His reply was to cover his eyes and start saying "don't look in the eyes they will make you blurt it out!"

So he is now upstairs making me a card that will go with the celebration (and avoiding doing his school work) but he is writing and drawing.

Well my 'writing time' is gone and we are off to do school work.

A vent then a bunch of things that make me happy...

I am the kind of person who wants to hear the bad news first, I eat my least favorite thing on my plate first, I like to chase yucky medicine with a spoonful of sugar. So while I am not always Pollyanna and "Oh everything is always lovely" I do like to end with positive, if I can I want to move on with some hope of sweetness after having faced the negative of bitterness. With that in mind I'm going to vent about my insurance maze and then give you links to fun YouTube goodness. Things that make me happy, and have nothing to do with health insurance.

So the insurance debacle is 6 months on and officially no closer to being done than it was when I first brought it up to them 6 months ago (6 months and 4 days ago if one were counting, not that I'm counting) I have called them 10 times in those 6 months, I'm not calling week or even every 2 weeks but I have been trying to keep in touch, get my name back in front of someone, and seeing if there was anything new to tell me. Well this week we received a bill for services that happened last year and I pulled all the paper work out and found that one of the things we received last month was actually a credit. So I had hope that the audit was done. Officially no it is not, but they did pay for services to a 3rd party from the middle of last year that we had already paid. So now I need them to give me credit for an overpayment to them and I have to contact the 3rd party and get a refund for the 'overpayment' I made to them and they are still billing me for things that happened the end of last year after we supposedly met our (very high) deductible. When I found out they paid a 3rd party I kind of lost it on the poor customer service person. I kept saying I know this is not your fault but I am VERY ANGRY and you should probably get a supervisor so I can yell at them rather than yell at you. She did get the supervisor, and that is when the supervisor told me that all these people who over the last 6 months who told me that they were escalating my audit, were actually doing nothing of the sort, they were giving me a number that they wrote a note that I had called and pointed to the audit that was started in October. She then said that she would escalate it to her oversight committee and that she would call me to let me know what was going on. I told her straight up that I didn't trust that since it is exactly what all the other people I had talked to said but I have her name and will ask to talk to her in 2 weeks when I call them back, because so not trusting that she will actually get back to me, ever. GRRRRR.

I did call the 3rd party and they had already found that my account shows an overpayment and they have issued a request for payment and I should see the refund in a month, or so. You know whenever they have enough payments to run a check run.

So now doing research on how to get a hold of the state insurance commission and file a complaint. They are messed up and while I can see the change over of billing software caused this problem in the first place 6 months to work it out is unacceptable.

Ok, happy things now.....

Have you seen all the cool shows on YouTube? They started doing a bunch of original content shows and I have found some that we LOVE!

First up Geek & Sundry  it is produced by Felicia Day & Kim Evey the duo who brought us The Guild. So far our 2 favorite shows are The Flog, Felicia's video blog she does different things she want to try like blacksmithing, and Table Top a show hosted by Wil Wheaton where he plays a board game with some friends and the video it. Good times. There is probably language and innuendo that you may not want your younger kids to see, but since I'm clueless we let the boy watch them with us, and he LOVES them.

Next is The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is apparently a retelling of Pride & Prejudice and I only figured that out because there is a character called Darcy in it and oh yeah I kind of remember hearing about that name and some 19th century book. yeah, not a book I've read but I'm really enjoying this. So go, look, enjoy.

Now for Crash Course! I just found this in the last 2 days and we love it. One is biology and the other is world history. This one even I get the fact that there are references that some people do not want their kids to see so preview before you let your kiddos watch, that said the boy spent an hour yesterday watching the biology videos.

Then for pure girly fun I am really enjoying Fawn where there are makeup tutorials and a travel show and well other fun things. Michelle Phan is one of the people who started it and I love her makeup tutorials. I feel like I can put on makeup without looking like a clown because of what she has shown me, and so what if she is 20 years younger than me. ;)

And here is a bunch more I love CGPGrey's Channel, The Spangler Effect, Vi Hart, and Simon's Cat 

There, happiness spread. Go enjoy and stuff.

I am so bad at this parenting thing

Oh I am a bad mother, a bad teacher and overall a bad woman. Or at least that was how I was feeling this morning.

I posted this to FB this morning:

Because let me tell you, yesterday SUCKED. I was ready to send the child to the nearest military school, I was certain he was NEVER going to learn to read, or at least never learn to read from me, and I said out loud that I didn't think I was a very good teacher for him. Which with my child is the same as saying I no longer wanted to be his Mommy, or at least that is how he heard it, with a little bit of if he was just a better child I would still love him. (I am of course guessing all this because while the child will never, ever, ever shut up he will also never, ever, ever talk about his feelings.)

Today I started it with that wish, sadly a bloody mary did not appear and we tried to do school again, and ended up in the same damn argument we have in some form or another. I say do A he says can't I do X? I say no we are doing A. He says well there was that one time you let me do X before doing A why can't we do that now. I say because you then melted down when we had to do A we are not doing X first, then there is crying, usually on both parts. I love that argument, I tried to get my BF to tell me I would miss this argument in 10 years (her boy is 10 years older than mine) She laughed and said, sure, of course you will, then laughed some more, then offered to go get  a pedicure with me (hooray something to look forward to), but not go to LA for the weekend (boo).

We get past that argument and then we have the.same.damn.argument but this time I say write X here, but you may look at what you wrote previously, he says can't I write it below what I wrote previously? I say no and start to lose my shit because damn it I have already had this fucking argument with you once today and I am so.........

breathe ami.........

Oh wait, it is totally fine if you write there, it saves paper, gives you more confidence and yes, you may, but of course it does not come out like that, instead it comes out like "Fine" "Write it there" and the boy, thinking we are still in the middle of our normal fight starts to shut down.

I then get us both to breathe and I explain to him that I am the kind of person that likes things done according to the rules, if you tell me where to write I will write there and nowhere else. He is the kind of person who will look at what you tell him and he will look right back at you and say, but what about (insert a million different options or just one that is completely at odds with what was just said)..... and I went on to explain that this is a good thing, this is something that is going to be important as he grows up. I want him questioning why someone tells him to do something. I want him to look at someone and say "Why the hell do you want me to try that drug/drink/donkey" I am raising a boy to become a man in a world where it is all too easy to follow the leader and the leader isn't always right.

So we breathed and we made it through the day without the help of bloody mary or any of her friends, although her cousin beer is calling my name right now. And I think maybe I'm not the worst mother, teacher, woman on the face of the planet. Breathing.


And as a footnote to this, later in the day I was looking at FB and there was one of those side ads for something called Hot Shots and he read it. He read it out loud with no hesitation and with utter confidence. You guys this is HUGE!!!!! he is starting to read, I am helping him learn to fucking read! OMG!!!!!!!! Now, of course he will one day be able to read over my shoulder and I will have to be careful about when I post but for right now HE IS STARTING TO READ!!!!!!!!!

Breathing

How often do I talk of breathing, it is such an important yet often ignored part of continuing to exist on this planet. I think having asthma and not getting to take breath for granted makes me more aware of it and how it affects my emotions and physical well being.

Right now I'm trying to remember that how I hold my body changes the way I breath, and changes my reactions to things in my life.

In my remembering to breath I'm trying to also remember that while we like life to be sweet, a diet of only sweet is uninteresting. I like some salt and some bitterness and so I need to remember to breath and enjoy both those parts of life as well.

I've started an April Photo of the Day challenge to help me remember to take a photo each day and see the beauty around me. Breathing and controlling your breath is important to taking a picture. I remember learning that with my camera when I was 11.

So in my attempt to remember to breath and control my breath I've taken up a photography challenge for April

April 1 My Reflection, yes it is a cheat, I don't care. Look at the pretty flower.

April 2 Color, muted colors and another cheat since I took it on the 1st but it is just so pretty.

April 3 Mail, I actually did go to the post office here in town. 

April 4 Something that makes me happy.

April 4 Something that makes me happy part 2

April 5 Tiny, feels like another cheat but it is pretty and much smaller than me.

April 6 Lunch, my lunch with Mickey. 

Fun day in disguise

I did not expect yesterday to go the way it did. My sister asked to come over so I could help her with a project and I said yes but I'll need to do school with the boy first.

The project was much, much bigger than I had thought it would be and the boy had to fend for himself. I'm sure he was broken up that he didn't have to do his Barton lesson that day. ;)

What he did do was create a quiver and ballista type thing from left over tubes and rubber bands. He had so much fun, his only unfun part was that I didn't get up and help him use the drill. I was happy he actually waited until his father got home since he knew he shouldn't be using the drill by himself, yeah cub scouts! He was firing it last night to try to calibrate it and see how far it would go. He used his Stomp Rockets as the ammo and I will say that the rubber band does not send it as far as the air booster but he is learning. Learning to make weaponry but learning.

I wonder what today will bring?

Growing Up

My child has never, ever said he was a half age. When people would come up to him and ask if he was 6 and a half he would look at them as though they were crazy and should shut up. Then he would inform them he was 6, he does not turn 7 until his birthday. If it was near his birthday and some unfortunate soul, like say his mother, would say "You are almost 8" he would lose his ever loving mind and explain emphatically that he was 7 he does not turn 8 until Tuesday, even if Tuesday was the next day.

My child has opinions on age and responsibility. Preparing food to eat was not his responsibility, it did not matter if it was a sandwich, a bean and cheese burrito, or a 5 course meal, it was Mom's responsibility and in the last 6 months he has come to recognize that Dad can also make food worth eating, but was still not his responsibility to prepare his own food. It did not matter how much his mother told him he could make it, that he had made it before. No, he was being abandon to adult life much too soon in his way of thinking.

My child yesterday, he not only prepared his breakfast, granted a reheated leftover burger, he also prepared his own lunch, a turkey cheese and mayo sandwich with a glass of milk he poured himself, and let me know that he was wearing his last pair of clean underwear, and shirt would I do the laundry please. Then helped fold and put away all the clean clothes.

It was as though a young man sprouted before my eyes. At the end of the evening he was, justifiably, proud of what he had done and how he had carried himself through the day (we are ignoring the testing portion of the day) and said, "Well I'm 9 and a half now. Right?" we agreed "I need to be more responsible, I will be 10 this year"

So I guess nearly 10 is his thresh hold for responsibility. Please let puberty wait a couple more years. I'm enjoying this stage so much.

Torn

We live in Colorado, in Colorado the homeschool law states that every odd numbered year starting in 3rd grade you must administer a nationally normed standardized test and turn the results into a school district in the state, or you can get an educational expert with a masters in education to evaluate the child and turn in the evaluation to the school board.

We choose the test route. First because it makes my husband feel better to have a test result that is given by someone other than the loving mother of his child. Second because while I know some people with the requisite masters degree in education they are all very busy people with jobs and things and I don't like to impose, and I'm cheap. I know how much their time is worth and it is cheaper to pay for a test and administer it myself than pay for someone who knows what the hell they are doing.


We just finished the testing. This was such a painful experience for him. Even the parts that were easy. This is so very different from my experience with testing. I LOVED testing. It is the place I felt comfortable in competing. I was nearly always the first one finished with a test, even in college. I likely could have tested better if I wasn't so damn cocky about finishing first but I never did poorly in fact I always tested as a smarty pants so there was no learning experience from taking it quickly, heh. I understand how to study, take, and do well on a test. Standardized test are a breeze, for me. Watching my child struggle is really hard. I want to put the part of my brain that just 'gets' testing into his and let him have it.

The thing is I really do know where he is at in his schooling. I know what his reading level is(low), I know how proficient he is at writing(not), how well he understands words(wow!) and the use of words (subject/predicate, easy). I know where he is in mathematics(hello pre-algebra I've missed you). These tests are nothing more than a hoop to jump through to appease the state. I get that, but the part of me that wants to test well and finish quickly wants my son to do the same.

I'm glad that we don't have to face this again for 2 years. I'm wondering if I shouldn't look for the 'qualified person' to evaluate him at that point rather than giving him sleepless nights and headaches from the stress and worry of testing. Yes if he wants to go to college he will most likely have to take a standardized test to get in, if he goes back to public school he will have to take standardized tests and I get that. College is a long way off (it is too!) and well, public school who knows where that is.

I'm glad we are done for now. Now to spring break, what should we do with the lovely weather? Watch the wild fires that are sprouting up all over the state because we have had no rain or snow? Maybe.

The emotion of the season

7 years at one time seemed like a very long time. Now it seems like I took a breath and between the inhalation and the exhalation 7 years has past. The photo is the bush I planted 7 years ago, to remember the life that never came to be. I bought this bush because it blooms in March and gives berries in October, March when I had the miscarriage and October when the baby would have been born. Then the silly thing never bloomed, for 7 long years. Then this spring there are blooms. They are small and unassuming. Little balls of pink.

I try not to live in the past, it is easy for thoughts to slip back and relive experiences, or try to 'fix' them to the way I want them to have happened, and I really to work on not letting that become what I do. That said this spring has been harder, while I no longer look at 6 and 7 year olds and feel pain, I am feeling this longing that will not be filled. We are done having children, I will be 45 in 2 months,  and I really don't want to have another 3 year old in my house. (Let's ignore the fact that I have heard many accounts of how teenagers are very much like 3 year olds only able to drive) But none of that is a salve to my heart that is still a little fractured from that loss.

Maybe in another 7 years, you know when I'm dealing with a 16 year old boy, this anniversary won't hurt at all. It doesn't hurt that much now I'm more bruised than fractured, 6 years ago was a very different story.

Decisions and things

We have reached the part of the year where we have started to slump. This is when I'm starting the searches on the web to take us somewhere, anywhere but here. (aka Disney)

This is also when the summer camp listings come out in the local paper. There I found, thanks in large part to my Mom(Hi Mom!), a listing for a camp for dyslexic kids. It is 5 weeks long, it is intense. They work half a day on reading using Orton-Gillingham methods. They have hour long individual tutoring. Then in the afternoons they ride horses, learn about edible & medicinal plants in the mountains, mountain bike, do technical climbing. You know fun camp stuff. 

The thing is this camp is the price of 2 vacations, maybe 3, but I can see him getting so much from it. The kind of intense work they would be doing would have him progressing so quickly. The interaction with other kids who have dyslexia would be empowering. To see he isn't the only one. The freedom from the fear of being asked to read the instructions for something, or to figure something out that is presented in written form only would be a breath of fresh air. 

Now that he is in 3rd grade and doing things with 3rd-5th graders they expect them to be able to read. I get that. I get that it is age appropriate but damn it hurts to see the look of panic that crosses his face when he is in a group setting and he is told he has to read the instructions to complete a task. He will advocate for himself in all situations now and explain that he can't read many things because of his dyslexia but the other night I saw the panic on his face as he looked over at me and it ripped my heart. I went to sit next to him in case he needed me to read anything. He didn't, the instructions were mostly pictures and a few words, but he was able to read them with no problem and did not need the help of Mom, thank you very much. That shows while he will panic and feel the anxiety that comes with the words "You will need to read this" he is able to take care of things and find a way to be in the situation. 

When I first looked at the cost of camp and the application process I was shocked that they wanted a $100 application processing fee. That the cost was so very high. What the hell do they think they are offering? Then I thought about what the hell they are offering. They are offering a private school with certified instructors 5 days a week for 4 hours a day, plus recreational activities like horseback riding and technical climbing that are not inexpensive to provide. They are offering the chance to learn to read in 5 weeks of crazy, intense tutoring. They are processing applications like they are accepting students into a school program and so need to see if the applicant will fit with the program.

So I get the cost, I do. I know the afternoon stuff would be fun, I also know the morning stuff would be hard, and he would consider it torturous.  I just don't know, is it worth it? I know by the end of 2 years he will be reading at or above grade level just doing what we're doing. Is it worth it to send him to the very expensive camp when he doesn't have to show progress next fall to a new teacher? If we were going to put him in a public or private school next year I could see spending the money so he would be on grade level starting in the fall, but he doesn't, and next year isn't a testing year for homeschooling purposes so I don't see that as a reason to do it.

I thought writing this all out would help me make a decision. It didn't it brought up more questions and made me question why we are thinking about it in the first place. Hmmmm. More to think about.

Anyone have some thoughts on this? 

Thankful Thursdays....

This is my first, and likely last, foray into the Thankful Thursdays blog thing. Mainly because I am never going to remember to do this every Thursday, but hey I might and it might happen again, but don't hold your breath, I would hate to be responsible for you fainting and causing undue stress on your family and friends. (I don't always like to use periods you might notice (I also don't like to have periods but that my friends is a different post))

I am thankful for my friends. I don't have many IRL and I like it that way. I occasionally wish I had friends that lived here in my neighborhood so I could hang out with them, but I'm such an odd duck (every time I scan those two words I read "dork", still works) the times I've tried to make friends near me I've messed it up so I stick with my old friends and happily they stick with me.

My Dad is retiring after nearly 50 years in the printing industry and as part of getting ready for the party we are going to throw him we have been going through family pictures, I found the pictures of my 16th birthday party. We are all in the basement and my BFF is in them. We had met the first day of 10th grade, and by that afternoon were forced to sit on opposite sides of the Ancient History classroom for being disruptive. Most people at the school thought we had know each other forever, and I admit it felt like we did. Now 29.5 years later it still does, the difference now is we have know each other forever and not just since 1st period.

Here is one of the pictures, that would be me in the purple top. I liked rainbows, a lot and what else can you see, a Unicorn.

Now you can know who is who and where the unicorn is. I leave it up to you to find the rainbow.

Oh yeah, this is why I homeschool...

Homeschool has its ups and downs, when it is down I question every moment, why I'm doing this, am I going to fail in a huge, huge way on this 'project', this project that happens to be a human, a human I love more than any other in the universe. Shouldn't I just trust the local school district to teach my child so I can have a life other than this one I'm living? (I get kind of pessimistic when we are having a bad day)

Most days are not that down, most days are just kind of chugging along we get through the lessons, we don't really have discussions but we do the work that has to be done and we move on.

Then we have the up days, the days were I am reminded, this, THIS right here is why we homeschool. A day where he hits the ground running and all I can do is try to keep up. Where everything he touches becomes new insights into the world. Where he can't get enough of the new information. Where learning is a fun game and can we just do a bit more. Where learning to read is understood to be the gateway to more information. Oh, those days make my heart soar. They fill my psyche with happiness and joy and allow me to face the down days with some resilience.

We had such a day recently. One where he woke up and was ready to take on the world, and he did. It started with him playing with the dog and me. Some freeish information came in on the Lunar New Year celebration (freeish as in it was from Panda Express and so it ended up costing me lunch at Panda) and he dove right in, found the DVD, watched it while I finished making breakfast and my coffee. We talked about it, we talked about the Chinese zodiac and what the meaning of the different animals was. We moved on to computer programming and worked on that for a bit. We went searching for fortune cookies at World Market (they didn't disappoint) We came home and worked on the reading and he is just getting so much more fluent in his reading, the halting and struggle over every single word is gone. The beating himself up over reading a word is, while not gone, diminished. He jumped into the new math program and we had discussions about why the designers of the program would choose certain settings for the lessons. We talked, we discussed, we learned. It was wonderful and chaotic and exhausting. What it wasn't was draining. While I was ready for bed I did not feel the overwhelming need to have a beer or mental down

I'm back again...

So how many blog posts are out in the world that say that same thing? How many have I personally put up?

What has happened in the month that I've been ignoring my blog? Let's see shall we?..

• The holidays happened and were lovely (I got a new coffee maker and a new coffee mug) 
• We had a very quiet week between Christmas & New Year. DH took off much time from work then we all had to adjust to him leaving the house 5 days a week rather than the 3 it had been for most of December. 
• We went to Behind the Myths to watch Adam Savage & Jamie Hyneman explain science and why they do what they do. It was the best science class we've had yet.  
• The boy built his pinewood derby car for this years race
• DH got the track ready for said race.
• The boy & I have gotten back into the swing of the school thing. (He is starting to read on his own!)
• We found a new math program that he loves and I think helps me get the ideas across better. We had kind of out grown Singapore math. So for now it is Elevated Math (it will get its own blog post soon)
• I've drank lots of coffee, I ate lots of food, and decided to try to get in better shape (again).
• I did not make any resolutions at the new year.

So yeah, there you have it. Life happened and I didn't stop to blog about it. I did take some pictures and maybe I'll post some of them.