Laggardly

All right.

I've been shirking my responsibilities around here. There has been nothing interesting or humorous in my life lately I guess (unless you count last night's Mom's Night Out and the discussion about shaving...but I don't think I need to document that on the internet).

News in the household includes Chris flying to St Croix yesterday! There were a few potential glitches that did not materialize, for which I am exceedingly grateful. I am assuming that no news is good news, and that Opa and Chris are now gearing up (literally) for their first scuba dive of the week!

After Hannah's camera went into mystery seclusion a few months ago, and my Nikon D40 drowned, I was camera-less for a bit. So I rationalized the purchase of another digital camera, thinking I'd get my Nikon fixed at some point (just to get it looked at is $250). I told Chris it was technically his camera, that he could take to college in the fall. Of course, I never let him touch it. Until yesterday. So now he has "his" camera to document the beautiful Caribbean. And I don't.

But.

The amazing thing is that Hannah found her camera! Apparently she put it in her Christmas purse (shiny black patent leather clutch) to keep it safe. And it was. And is.

This is generally my approach when I lose something in the house. I lose it, and assume it will find it's way to to surface at some point. Usually, I do give a cursory search. But if it isn't where I look, I just give up. It shows up on its own, or I end up replacing it. Of course, as soon as I replace it, it reappears and makes me feel foolish.

Case in point: Remember how Hannah was working on all those Girl Scout Badges? Well, we had made great progress, and I kept all her work and documentation in the large 237 page spiral bound Badge Book, which has all the badge requirements listed. She had completed about 75% of five badges. And then I cleaned the kitchen. Or, more likely, I shuffled the kitchen. And the book went missing. I had a theory that the book (and the work) went into the recycling. It didn't surface. And it didn't surface. And I secretly was suspicious that The-One-Who-Is-Tidy (certainly that's not me) might have "cleaned" it. After a month with no book, and no progress on the badges (yay! another reason to procrastinate!), I decided to buy a new book, figuring that the old one would definitely materialize promptly, and I could return the new one.

But it didn't.

I have this desk in my kitchen (but in black):

(and now, coincidentally, I can't find Hannah's camera, so here's a Pottery Barn stock photo)

I keep all of Hannah's homeschool stuff in the bottom cabinets, and my cookbooks and current library books on the shelves above. In the middle, where I can hide everything, I have piles of junk. Phone books, my expired coupon collection, loose recipes, catalogues, seed packets, mail that I want to save (for no apparent reason), odds and ends, piles of post-it notes that no longer stick, balloons, and tons of other stuff. I don't even know what's there, because I keep it closed. I peek, once in a while. And I shuffle things into it. We've been in this house for 18 months and I have never really removed anything from it. I just add to it. And it's pretty much full. (Understatement font.)

I decided I'd search for the old book. And I looked. Honest I did. I looked in the desk. And my other desk. And all the bookshelves. And other places too. And so did Chris and James. But we didn't find it.

So I started to recreate Hannah's work. And started writing in the new book. And I didn't like it one bit. So I quit. And we were in stasis. Me, Hannah, and the Girl Scout Badges. And the end of the Girl Scout year is fast approaching, and I have no documentation.

And then, three days ago, Voila! I open the desk, and there, sitting on top of the phone books, was the original badge book!

"No way!", you say.

And I reply, "Way."

The lesson that I take from this is that I am rewarded when I procrastinate.

And now we have to cram the rest of those badge requirements in to the next 6 days. And I saved the really difficult ones for the last. Because I'm smart like that.

I hope this dispells that vicious internet rumor that I am an organized person.

The good news is that soon you will likely be treated to more of Hannah's random photographic endeavors. If we find the camera again. And buy new batteries.

P.S. Lookie there--I have a new widget about the Bone Marrow Registry. Please register--it is so easy and would normally cost about $100, but now it's FREE for the next 10 days!

First Day of School

Tuesday was the Doctor, then Wednesday we went to the Not Back to School Picnic. Really! There was one at a local park (40 minute drive). The turnout was huge! I don't think I've ever seen a playground so packed with kids. So our first day of 4th grade was Thursday.

Forgive me. This will be WAY too much detail for most of you. I promised several people that I'd write about homeschooling a child with Down syndrome, so I sorta hafta 'splain some things thoroughly. I'll try to spread it out, maybe just tackling one subject per post, and throw in some regular Bananigan posts along the way.

This year we are trying something new. In the past I have tortured Hannah by keeping her on task to finish a lesson, so by the time she finished her language arts lesson we both were exhausted and grumpy. Slogging through the rest of the subjects was excruciating. Many days we would just never finish our work. (I was the quitter, not she!) So this year I have made time-out cards for each subject.



She gets to pick which card she'd like to work on first (I have other cards for other subjects, this was just what we did on Day 1). She sets the timer, and we begin. When the timer goes off, she finishes the immediate item on which she is working, and down goes the pencil. Then she picks a sticker to go on the back of the card showing that she's completed that work for the day. Normally I would never do the "sticker" thing but I found some around the house, so we're using them. At least until they are gone. No guarantees that I'll get more.

I already know that I have to adjust the times on some of the subjects--those were just guesses. And yes, the cards add up to 2 hours and 15 minutes. Each day will be different, depending on what we have on the curricular menu. But I'm aiming for a little over 2 hours. Since I'm trying to get piano practice in during the day, instead of after dinner, that's building in more time.



This is how Hannah learns her US geography. Fortunately, we had a neighbor in Newport News who used thousands of homemade flash cards with her son (a la Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential...can you believe she did it 8 hours a day for 15 years??? What a labor of love. ). She gave me as many as I wanted. I should probably go back and snatch some more. They range from simple colors all the way through breeds of dogs. Hannah knows more states than her brother and sister combined. She also likes learning to read maps and figure out spatial problems.

We are reviewing penmanship (always, forever, it seems):



We use Handwriting Without Tears. I am not going to teach Hannah cursive until her printing is completely solid. She has relatively good printing, but we are working on getting down to regular notebook-sized lines. Part of the problem is her farsightedness. That also interferes with her ability to read compact text in chapter books. At least, that's my theory.

Hannah used to detest scissors. Occupational therapists would see The Dark Side of Hannah.



But she likes them now, if she has a genuine reason to use them. Once I found the Kumon books for cutting and pasting, she will happily use scissors. It takes quite a bit of fine grading of those finger muscles to coordinate cutting on lines. It is not one of Hannah's strengths, but at least she doesn't fight about it anymore.

We made it through Friday as well, but don't have school at home until Tuesday, since Hannah has her enrichment classes on Monday mornings for the next 8 weeks. She's taking Art in Nature and Beginner Ballet. Quite pleased with herself in both classes. Artistic, yes. Graceful, not. But excellent effort.

I finally got a call from the school system today (Monday). I submitted all the relevant information about 3 weeks ago. They want to meet in two weeks to discuss speech services. We'll see what happens!