Learning By The Way

If you have been meaning to go make a guess on the Little Engine Natal Day Guessing Game, this is your last opportunity. I will be closing the game down to guesses after this weekend. Then it will just be time to wait for the baby to come so we can declare a winner. Want to vote? CLICK HERE.

Speaking of the baby coming, there is little new on that front. The midwife came yesterday, and says I am about 1.5 cm dilated, which is not really worth mentioning. Especially for a grand multipara such as myself. No interesting contractions for the last week. I did get the cradle painted (it is now Mountain Trail colored, same as our bedroom ceiling), James assembled it, and will be moving it upstairs tomorrow. But baby comes when baby is good and ready…

The chapter we completed in our Periodic Table book this week was mostly about the experiments of Johann Baptista Van Helmont. The children drew pictures with comments about his experiments, and pasted them in their lapbooks.

Samuel was charmed with how Van Helmont named ‘gas’, but both big boys thought he was pretty dumb. Despite his landmark experiments, he still held fast to many of the misconceptions of his predecessors.

Next chapter covers Phlogiston. Ooooh, I can’t wait!

Toby saved up some money, using the helpful method of Daddy forgetting to hand out allowance for 8 weeks (WARNING: Do not try this method of saving if you have actual expenses you are responsible for). He bought a couple of Bionicles from the Sales section of Lego.com.

Everyone was eagerly awaiting their arrival. I relayed information about the package’s estimated arrival, using the handy dandy UPS tracking number.

“Where’s the Lego factory?” Samuel asked.
“Denmark.” I reply.
“Where’s that?”
I send him to get the globe. Everyone shouts encouragement as he starts looking for Denmark.
“Hey! Don’t give me any hints!” Samuel remonstrates.
“It’s in Europe.” I say.
“OK.” He starts looking again, not pausing his search even as he shouts. “I said don’t give me any hints! Where did Europe go?”

After several spins of the globe, and lots of helpful advice from Moriah and Toby about Europe’s recent whereabouts, he finally let Toby help. I tell them about how Grandpa Jens came over from Denmark to the United States when he was just a teenager.

“There it is!” Toby points.
“That’s not it. It’s not big enough.” Samuel is certain.
“It says Denmark, see?” Toby lays out this scrap of proof, and Samuel finally agrees it must be so. He traces a line from Denmark to Illinois, and says in further disbelief “So Toby’s Bionicles have to come here on a ship?”

“Well, kind of. The Bionicles are made at the factory, and thousands are sent by ship or plane to a warehouse in Connecticut. And when we make an order, they get it from the warehouse and send it.”

Samuel looks at me accusingly, as if the factory in Denmark was my red herring and not his. Truly though, I am glad for this bit of learning along the way. How much easier to remember Denmark as the land of Legos and Grandpa Jens, than as a country picked at random to study. My kind of teaching moment!

Toby’s box arrived, the Bionicles assembled with glee and admired greatly. Now I just have to wait for someone to publish a book such as “The Mother’s Guide to Semi-Intelligent Conversation About Bionicles”. Until then, the children patiently correct my pronunciation (repeatedly) and any misconceptions I might have about Zamor Spheres (sp?)….

I had one baby related project slotted for this week- clear everything from the desk in our room and have it removed, then set up the cradle. Didn’t happen. I guess that means that it will be next week’s project, and I’m not going to get to setting up a basement playroom with a place for all the teeny-tiny choking hazard big kids toys. Or maybe the baby will be really late and I will have time to do everything on my list.

Wednesday and Thursday brought quite a few painful, crampy contractions. They say every baby and labor is different, and they must be right, whoever they are. I was suprised and uncertain of the meaning of sharply intense contractions that would come out of nowhere and require concentration, breathing, and in one case some deep moaning to handle well. And then there would be nothing. No more contractions. I proceed with my regularly scheduled programming. I was expecting lots of contractions, but in an ebb and flow kind of way, finally building up to the “guess I’d better call the midwife” moment.

I asked Bernice what she thought at the midwife appointment. She thinks perhaps it has to do with round ligament pain with more nerve involvement. She reminded me that I did have funky nerve problems at the very end of the labor with Peter. My leg suddenly quit working, and didn’t start acting like it was attached to my body until a couple weeks after the birth. At any rate, since I talked to her Thursday, I haven’t had any more really interesting contractions, just normal old Braxton-Hicks labor prep type ones.

But enough about labor and birth, I’ll try to talk about something else for a few moments. We had somewhat shortened learning time this week, with no extra projects. Just math and language. We took off Friday to go to the Trinity Lutheran garage sale, and it was a lot of fun. The children and I all found treasures. The ladies at the pricing table were very generous whenever the children asked the price of something. “Oh, I’d say 5 cents.” was a common answer. Moriah got knitting needles for 10 cents, and good prices on some potpourri and a painting kit. Samuel’s big find was a reallio-trulio working typewriter (with case) for 5 dollars. The children have been wanting one since they tried them out at the Wheels of Time Museum this summmer. It makes me smile to hear the distinctive clickety smack of the typewriter in the next room as the children delight in this mechanical marvel, discovering margins and tabs and shift keys. My finds were two Horatio Alger books, a beautiful speckled porcelain enamel basin, and a huge robin’s egg blue porcelain enamel roaster that will never fit in our cozy little oven.

After the garage sale, we headed over to the big sale at Joann Fabrics. It was quite an event- we saw three other families we knew there, taking advantage of the great deals. Then after lunch and little cleanup at home, we went to the library. Our favorite children’s librarian was not there, to Moriah’s great sorrow. We still managed to have good time, and the checkout librarian let Peter ‘help’ stamp the books. Then it was home again to whip up 9 pounds of fruit salad, our contribution to game night fare. Crystal brought pretzels and Chicken Enchilada Casserole. Several couples (including the one with the table sitting baby in tow) and several singles came and we played lots of games. I learned to play Tower of Babel. The children stayed up way too late, and had a grand time.

Saturday, I woke up to discover that I had 20 minutes to get ready to go to the Day of Encouragement for Homeschool Mothers. I managed to start laundry and breakfast, and be clothed and in my right mind in time for my ride there. I had a great time, and ate lots of chocolate. There were good devotionals and testimonies, and it was very nice to see some friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time.

Whew! Then it was home again to crash after a couple of crazy days. Thank You, God, that the Sabbath comes next. May yours be peaceful and full of rejoicing in the God of our salvation, dear brothers and sisters!

If you have met my oldest daughter, and seen her launch herself into the air repeatedly over discovering some happy thing, such as a friend sharing the same favorite color as she, you know that her life is full of drama. I now have a theory that this is why she has trouble with capitalization. What better way to acknowledge Importance and Joy than with a Capital Letter? So when she wrote the sentence “Jesus Saved us by Dying for our Sins on the Cross,” she was confused when I told her there were Too Many Capital Letters. I have tried to explain that Capitals belong to Proper Nouns, but still confusion reigns. So on her spelling test yesterday, she thought long and hard before capitalizing Passover and February. She ended up properly demoting Education to lowercase. The one that tripped her up? The word ‘Beehive’. Let me know if you figure that one out.

We finished the Shape Up book yesterday, learning about quadrilaterals and other polygons with up to 12 sides, using only graph paper, bread, pretzel sticks and our brains. The raspberry preserves had no educational value, just made the bread that much more pleasant to ingest (after we turned it into an octagon, of course).

In other news, the diaper pins arrived yesterday!! It took them just 17 days to arrive here (priority mail, mind you) from Montana. But now at least they are here, stuck in a bar of soap (this makes them slide into the cloth diaper more easily). I learned a snazzy new ‘origami’ diaper fold that looks like it will work well for newborns. And today in the mail I got the countoured foam diaper changing pad to turn the top of the dryer into a changing table. Ta-da! And I made diaper wipe solution and poured it over the cloth wipes all lined up nicely in the diaper wipe warmer, ready to be plugged in when I call the midwife. And my diaper pail liners got here today, too! So I think I am all ready, diaperwise. On to the rest of the baby preparation list!

My aha! moment occured last night while I was knitting. I have greatly perplexed myself repeatedly while trying to figure out proper left handed knitting technique that won’t twist my stitches. I had felt several times as though I were really close to figuring it all out, and Raquel had tried several times to help me brainstorm through it. I could discuss leading and trailing edge of the knit stitch, front and back loops, and open omegas. And I was still confused. But last night while I was knitting, all of a sudden I SAW it. How my stitches were coming off the needle, and why my stitches were twisting when I knit around in a ribbing (and not other times). It was all perfectly clear. Brilliantly simple. It is nice to know that as fuzzy headed as I have been lately, understanding will still sneak up on me occasionally. AHA!

Okay, so I’m going to have a baby. This has been on my mind a lot lately as I try to take care of what seems like a thousand little details to prepare. I just about have the birth kit assembled, except for a few nonessentials, such as a heating pad (where in the world did I put that heating pad?). And I almost have everything worked out for the diaper changing area, which is going to be in the blessing (laundry) room. Diapers, diaper stacker, cloth wipies, wipe warmer, diaper pail. But no diaper pins. I ordered diaper pins, the kind I used with Peter, nice metal ones with locking heads. They were shipped from Montana 2 weeks ago, along with a few other baby items. They have not arrived. Are they lost? Stolen? What is wrong with y’all, USPS? I’m trying to get ready to have a BABY here! WHERE ARE MY DIAPER PINS??? Please just deliver them so I can go on to obsessing about something else every time I have a contraction.

Alright, so top of the news is that diaper pins did not arrive in the mail today. Besides that, there were a few other items of note. The children completed their workbook pages this morning. Math and spelling for Moriah, math for the middle munchkins, and colors and phonics for Peter. Note to self: next workbook I get for Peter has to be a LOT more challenging than what he has now.

Friday is library day, and the children all gathered their own books into their library bags without great fuss or bother today. I didn’t have to help anyone look under beds or radiators for a missing volume. Hurrah! We met another homeschool family at the library, and got their email address. They usually come to the library on Fridays, too, but later than our normal time. Moriah came home with her predictable stack of artsy craftsy books (we looked through the sewing book together and picked out some likely looking projects). Toby got several drawing books as per usual.

We got home and I emailed the Wonderworks Baby Store to find out if they know where my package with diaper pins is. (It didn’t come today, y’know. It’s been 2 WEEKS). And to distract myself from a house completely devoid of diaper pins, I set up The Little Engine Natal Day Guessing Game. You are all invited to come vote for when you think the baby will be born, and other essential statistics. Perhaps you will win a fabulous prize. I am hoping that the baby will be born sooner rather than later, but I guessed later so that if that is the case I can comfort myself with “At least I have a better chance of winning the Little Engine Natal Day Game.” The baby coming sooner is its own reward, of course. I am having lots of contractions, as is usual for a 6th baby. Some of them are quite attention getting. But this could go on for several weeks yet. Which gives more time for the diaper pins to arrive.

A couple hints to help with your guessing. All of our babies thus far have been between 8 and 10 pounds. Peter was the largest at 9 lb. 15 oz., Elsie the smallest at 8 lb. 3 oz. They have ranged from 19-22 inches. Now, go cast your vote.

This morning, after the children completed their math workbook page, we did some bonus geometry. I found a fun book at the library called Shape Up! and we did the interactive lesson on triangles.

The children used a cheese slice and pretzel sticks to learn about how triangles are classified by their line length (scalene, isosceles, equilateral) and by their angles (right, obtuse, and acute). And then they ate them.

The book covers other shapes, too. We’ll do those lessons in the next few days if I can collect the proper foodstuffs.

The B-E’s and Kathey came over for their regular Wednesday night dinner. Raquel has taken over dinner duty for me so that I can concentrate more on doing getting ready for baby things. She planned a special “Upside down, inside out, backwards Day” dinner. She hung balloons from the ceiling in a bunch to resemble helium balloon set on the ‘floor’. Streamers decorated the floor. Moriah made “This Side Up” signs and then hung them up upside down, so that the arrow pointed to the floor. All our pictures were rehung upside down. The children really got into it, and wore their clothes inside out. On the menu was inside out tacos and pineapple upside down cake.

A lovely time was had by all (well, I think so, anyway). Though the three youngest Ben-Ezras (who will remain unamed) perhaps could have left a little sooner than they did. The two youngest were having tired meltdowns, and the third one up (who shares a name with one of my sons) managed to get a respectable gash in his head from a sudden meeting with a radiator during a pillow fight. OUCH! That cast iron doesn’t have much give to it. Thankfully, it stopped bleeding pretty quickly, and should heal fine.

Oh, and the after dinner chat was interrupted by the breaking news that water was coming through the bathroom ceiling upstairs. We were unsure as to whether this had to do with rain on a newly leaking roof or having turned on the boiler today. Neither option being particularly appealing and either possibly very expensive. James narrowed it down to having to do with the heating system, and called his dad for advice on what to do next. The leaking stopped with the pump turned off, which is good for our bathroom ceiling. James bled all the radiators (did you know that radiator blood is invisible?!), and they seem to be heating and functioning well. Still, a call to Meister Plumbing, Heating, and Electric is probably in our future.

Yep, just another day at the Lansberry house.

So here I sit, awake at this unreasonable hour of the morning, writing a blog post. I have a really yummy salad with garbanzo beans, parmesan cheese and Italian dressing. Perhaps I will be able to get to sleep after my tummy is full. I have been having contractions all day, which keep distracting me from relaxing thoughts to instead making mental notes of all the things I need to get done before the baby is born. Not conducive to sleep! (Note to self: stop planning all the pre-baby details in the wee hours of the morning).

Today was a good day. It was James’ last day in Atlanta at the Catalyst conference. I don’t sleep very well while he’s gone, so I got up late. We still managed to have a nice learning time, though. My friend Kathey, who is usually homebound for health reasons, was feeling well enough to walk to my house this morning! That was a pleasant surprise. She brushed Elsie’s hair while I folded laundry. Moriah made us all a pot of tea to share, and we chatted. When all the children were done with their math page (or phonics cards in Peter’s case), we started on a lesson from our book, The Mystery of the Periodic Table.

Kathey and I helped the children cut posterboard for the accompanying project. We finished chapter 4 today, which was about the alchemists. Kathey walked home, and I tidied up a bit before lunch. (Translated: bulldozed all the stuff on the dining room floor into a pile, had Moriah put away all the things we think we can’t live without, and threw the considerable remainder in the trash).

After lunch, we took our weekly trip to the library. This was a nice jaunt. Moriah got to talk to her favorite librarian, who let all the children pick out coloring or puzzle pages to take home. In a stunningly exciting development, I found on the shelves the book that Raquel thought she had returned to the library but the computer said she hadn’t. Somehow it got reshelved without being checked in, and now we can stop scouring the house for it. We couldn’t think of anywhere else to look, anyhow.

Evening brought regular updates from James on his progress home, and then finally his arrival a tad after midnight. Thank you, Lord, for a safe trip! But despite being very tired and having a nice husband to snuggle up to, I can’t get to sleep. At least I can write a blog post. That must count for something. But it doesn’t count for sleep, which is oh! so helpful to functioning in a sane and patient way. So mother, if you are reading this, I have finished my salad and am off to go to bed and sleep. Good night, dear hearts and gentle blog readers; good night.