Learning By The Way

This past week has been a last minute scramble to order things for the upcoming trip to California. Moriah and Elsie needed new swimsuits, we needed to get activities for those long hours in the car, and of course snacks, drinks, and disposable diapers. Oh, and Legoland tickets and coupons, and batteries. Yesterday, before our unplanned trip to Jeff City, we discovered that Toby forgot to mention that his shoes don’t fit anymore. And then Samuel realized HIS shoes don’t fit anymore (they’ve been wearing snow boots most of the month). But Toby fits into Samuel’s old shoes, and only Samuel will need a last minute trip to Stride Rite.

About that unplanned trip to Jeff City (only our second trip, but somehow I feel confident referring to the capital of Missouri in this familiar way)… James found out Sunday about a bill before a committee, and knew he had to go talk to some people. So we left Monday evening, and were back Tuesday evening. This was our first trip with James’ new personal assistant, John, and I think I could get used to it. John does the driving, carries luggage, holds doors, clears the breakfast table, and still finds time to do the stuff James needs him to do.

It was a successful lobbying trip, and the children and I had a great time snagging deals at the amazing sale at Hobby Lobby (including a beginner rocket for the boys to build with Daddy). Samuel found a rocket that uses hydrogen fuel that it makes from water, and thinks that will be the next thing he saves up for. We went to a nice little cafe attached to a bookstore, and the children had Steamers (flavored steamed milk) or an Italian Soda. Then we read books in the children’s section, and went to pick up James and John at the capitol. On the way home we stopped at Porky’s in Mexico, MO for some good home cooking. Moriah now declares Porky’s to be her favorite restaurant in the whole world.

The children got to try out the new learning gizmo that I got for the CA trip. It’s an electronic thingy that drills math problems as well as has spelling, and history and social studies questions It’s the Leapfrog Turbo Extreme, and I think they are liking it. I anticipate we will return from the trip with the children having increased their mental math speed. Note that it has a headphone jack, so the adult types in the car will not be going insane. At least, not from the noise of the Turbo Extreme.

Moriah is working angles in her math book, and will be starting her new book (Singapore Math 4a) soon. We have completed 2 more chapters of the Mystery of the Periodic Table. I a was particularly excited with a serendipitous concurrence related to those chapters. We watched The Scarlet Pimpernel together as a family, which was the first that the children had learned about the French Revolution. We discussed that tumultuous time in France, explaining different parts related to the plot of the movie. When I went to teach the next part in the Periodic Table book, I realized that it was about Lavoisier, “Father of Modern Chemistry’, who was killed by guillotine in the French Revolution. The children were able to understand that better because of watching the movie together.

I’m attaching a picture of the baby, because everyone wants to see how cute the baby is, and a couple picture of the children at the capitol building in Jefferson City. Notice the colorful blobs at the base of Jefferson’s statue- that’s them.

I am still alive. In fact, I am gloriously, joyfully alive! I’ve just been dreading writing a blog post. You know how when you get so far behind that the task seems monumental? I can’t just post blithely about something that happened yesterday as if I haven’t had great amounts of Life which have gone undocumented. Writing a blog post worthy of our amazing lives these past weeks is a monumental task. Which is why I am not going to do it. A monumental post might never be written. So I will write an unworthy post and get it over with so I can start making regular updates again.

The baby has certainly rearranged our lives. The question foremost on everyone’s mind is apparently “Is she sleeping well?” So I will tell you that it almost doesn’t matter. With my first 4 children, when they woke up in the night, I would get up, sit in a chair and nurse them. Then I would oh, so carefully lower them back into the cradle or crib, hoping they would not wake up. If they did, I would feed them some more or walk them to sleep- try anything that might induce them back to sleep. I was a walking zombie, perpetually short on sleep, and with a short temper to match. Then with Peter, we started what we should have been doing all along- he slept in bed with us. Margary does the same. When she starts moving around, I wake up and offer to feed her. She never declines. I then fall back to sleep while she happily nurses away until she falls back to sleep. She usually wakes up twice in the night, but if it ends up being three or four, it really doesn’t cut back on my sleep much. Studies have shown that babies sleep better when they are snuggled up to something warm, with a heartbeat and breathing sounds. This should not surprise us! Margary’s sleep patterns have aligned very easily with ours, and we all awake happy and well rested. A couple times when she has fallen asleep in my arms, I have laid her in her cradle at night. She always wakes up sooner, and has to cry before I know she is awake. I like sharing the bed much better, even if it does get a little crowded at times! So Margary is sleeping as you would expect a growing baby to, and I am getting all the sleep I need.

Through all of the new baby turmoil, the children have been learning like they were made for it. And so they were! Math work is faithfully done every day, though it the only learning activity that has been predictable. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are Singapore Math days, Tuesday is online math games day (always excitedly greeted), and Thursday is “other Math”, usually printable workbook pages.

There have been many opportunities for the real life learning that I love:

–At supper, Daddy tells about a quip that he made at the office as they alphabetize news articles for their legislative and lobbying wiki (oh, yes, the children learned about wiki’s, and so did I!). “Ignore the articles when alphabetizing the articles.” So they learned about articles (the grammar kind)!

–We made a trip to Jefferson City, MO and wandered the capital building while James was talking with a Senator. Our children and two extras climbed the impressive number of steps to the front door, toured the men’s or the woman’s bathroom as was appropriate to their gender, admired the busts of great Missourians (hey, it’s Stan the Man!), scrutinized the photos of all the Representatives from the 60’s and 70’s, and peeked in the very room where Missouri laws are made. It would have been an even more educational trip if those blasted Missourians had the sense to post maps at the main entrance showing how to get to the information desk which they hide in the blooming basement, for crying out loud!

–We hosted a lobbyist for dinner after James was done interviewing him (he got the job, BTW.) Samuel later was grasping for the word describing the gentleman’s occupation and came up with “lobbinator”. I like that. We talked about lobbying, good and bad, and got sidetracked on quite a bit of geography.

–Speaking of geography, it almost goes without saying that the children are learning the state capitols because of the lobbying effort which is taking up so much of their Daddy’s time right now. And they may get to visit quite a few of the capitals before all this is over!

–Moriah has particular enjoyment of browsing through the atlas, trying to stump me on country capitals. This past week she also added sketches of flags to the game, and I floundered on seemingly easy ones such as Hungary.

–The four older children read, read, read. They are always expanding their vocabulary and coming up with interesting tidbits of information. One of those tidbits led to another dinner table discussion about whether you can have a cold meteorite from Pluto, as was mentioned in a book (starring Mickey Mouse of all things!) they had read. So they learned the difference between meteors, meteorites, and asteroids (from their Daddy of course, who remembers this type of thing).

–Moriah wrote a letter to one of her favorite authors, Bruce Coville, and got a letter in return. She was very excited, and has it hanging on her wall.

We have also had some scheduled learning (so to speak). We have completed 2 more chapters in our Periodic Table book. Moriah is slowly but surely slogging through her Spelling book. And I assigned them a writing project on what they use their hands for. I will try to post those writings later.

And interwoven with all of this has been cuddling the baby, rejoicing in her smiles and giggles and chortles, and standing amazed at all that God has given us!

There. Worthy or not, this post is DONE.

Shalom, friends.