Life

These are the pictures that didn't post last week. There was no big change over the weekend. We did discover that the cabinet run in the lower picture is too long for the electrical setup so we have to return a 30" cabinet and get a 24" cabinet instead. I think we may remeasure though one more time just in case because it would suck to be one inch off and not pass electrical inspection. We'll change out the upper cabinet also. This is what happens without planning.




Cora likes to climb on the bike outside and be pushed around. Both Bohdin and Nyla have done this. I know she has fallen off at least once when the bike toppled over during a turn. Cora doesn't care and gets back on. She gets very angry when the ride is over.





Cora isn't a big fan of solids yet. She generally does not like food that is small and will refuse food that has been cut. So she will eat a whole apple but turn her head at an apple slice. Although she is offered a variety of things, she mostly pushes it around on her plate. Last week she did find an old bagel on the floor and gnawed on that for a few minutes. Eventually she went to the low cabinet with the kid plates in them and took out a bowl for her bagel. It made me chuckle to see her put her food in the same dish that Bohdin and Nyla use.

Last week I bought some greek yogurt and offered some to Cora. She loved it. I'm not certain how much she is actually eating but she is having a fun time using the spoon and making a mess.



Nyla likes to draw in notebooks and I have a huge stack of them just for her. Lately she has been drawing a lot of people. I've already forgotten who this is a drawing of and what the accompanying text is supposed to say.



Since the camera was out I took some pictures of Bohdin's recent art work. The first one is from his art class and the rest are just free art.





I took the kids to the fabric store so I could get a pattern for Nyla's fairy/princess dress along with some fabric. On the way back home I asked Bohdin what he wanted to be for Halloween. We all started throwing around some ideas. Nyla mentioned a grass costume which Bohdin thought sounded difficult. Nyla disagreed and said that all you have to do is get some grass and some glue and glue it on. It didn't sound hard to me especially compared to the costume idea that Bohdin settled on. He wants to be a woolly mammoth for Halloween.

Lumps and Bumps

We made some progress with the cabinets over the weekend.





Nyla has been talking about fairies for the past several weeks. They are going to visit us. We are going to visit them. We need to clean up before the fairies come. We need to get dressed up for the fairies. Monday we stopped at a store and Nyla wanted me to buy her a princess costume so she could dress up for the fairies. I refused. It was overpriced for a piece of junk. I told her I would make her one instead. She cried and cried. While she was crying, Cora was crying because I wouldn't let her run around the store pulling things off the shelves. Two crying girls was more than I could handle at the moment so we compromised on a cheaper piece of junk which was a dress up accessory kit. It had shoes, purse, necklace, earrings and a tiara. Our next stop was the bookstore where again Cora cried because I wouldn't let her wander off and pull books off shelves. Nyla cried because I refused to buy a book for the fairies.

When we arrived home Nyla discovered that the accessories were junk. The only thing she liked was the shoes which had a slight heel. When Buddy saw them he hated them. He does not want Nyla to wear heels yet. I had to break the bad news to Nyla that they would be going into the trash. She didn't take it well. I told her we could get a different pair of "princess shoes". She agreed but wanted them to also have a bump. So that conversation didn't go well. Later when she was complaining about her lack of princess shoes she said without them the fairies would think she was a lump. I don't know what that means but I banned the fairies from visiting the house. Imaginary fairies should not be judging our appearance and making us feel bad. That didn't go over well. I don't know where she is getting this from.

Lasers

Nyla woke up early Wednesday morning terrified of lasers.  She wasn't able to go back to sleep until it was light out I think.  She was hiding under the covers almost trembling because the lasers were going to cut her.  She talked about lasers on Wednesday alternating between being terrified and singing about them playfully.  That night she was scared as well but not as much.  Even today, Saturday, she is still talking about lasers.  She refuses to be anywhere by herself because there might be lasers. 

Thursday was a beautiful day.  After weeks of oppressive humidity and high temperatures we had a not humid day with lower than average temperatures.  It seemed like a perfect day to stop at a nearby park.  The kids didn't care for the playground so Bohdin asked if we could check out the trail.  The park has the best biking paths in the area and I thought it would be okay to walk on them.  I looked at the map and thought the playground loop would be perfect.  It was a really nice path and looked perfect for biking.  We did see a few and stepped out of the way in time.  After going for quite some time I stopped a biker and asked him how much further it was.  He told me I could get off on the road up ahead.  I was really confused by the directions.  Since we were on a  loop we shouldn't come out on a road.  We should come out at the playground.  We came out on the road and I didn't know which way to go.  I flagged down a car and he pointed me to the right way but told me it was pretty far.  He was right.  I checked the mileage on the way out and from that point it was 7/10 of a mile.  The path we took to get there had numerous switchbacks so we hiked about 2 miles.  As we were walking through the forest Nyla pretended we were going to visit fairyland.  Toward the end she became tired of walking and said "I'm tired of walking but I know we need to keep going.".  It was a surprisingly mature thing for her to say.  When we arrived back at the playground Bohdin said he never wanted to do that again.  I don't think it was that bad and I thought we should actually do it more often.  Then I came home and found a giant tick crawling on me.  Today Buddy found a tick behind Cora's ear.  There is no telling how long that tick has been there.  Now I remember why we don't do stuff like that more often. 

Bohdin was excited to do his Playmobil setup of the history lesson on Friday.  He made one scene with a cave and showed the food sources nearby and then he did the first farmers with their mud brick house.  I reread the history lesson and then had him narrate a few sentences about it.  I plan to print out the pictures and put his sentences underneath to make a history book he can look over any time he wants.  He is having so much fun with it and is eagerly anticipating getting new toys for it.  I'll pick up some people next week with the Three Wise Kings and maybe Nativity set.  I bought a Roman the other day at the store but won't give it to him until it is needed.  He is so antsy he begged to do history today.  I couldn't say no so we did a history lesson.  He then went downstairs and set up the scene.  He wanted to do the battle between the Upper Egypt King (white hat) and Lower Egypt King (red hat) but Playmobil only has the hat for the Upper Egypt King after he conquered the Lower Egypt King (red and white).   

Nyla was tasked with keeping Cora occupied while Bohdin set up his scene.  Cora was laughing hysterically until I took the picture and ended the fun.

Bohdin's cave people

Bohdin's early farmers.  It doesn't show up well in the picture but he set up every person to be gathering food in a different way.  One is picking wheat, one is fishing, one is picking apples, and one is feeding the sheep.

Nyla makes herself chocolate peanut butter sandwiches but often leaves the jar open on the floor.  It is one of the few foods that Cora likes to eat.  I never offer it to her so she takes full advantage of Nyla not putting it away.

The Upper Egyptian King after he has conquered the Lower Egyptians.  The Nile river is to the right with crops growing beside it.  The guy on top of the building is watching the Nile river for flooding.

Nyla wanted me to take a picture of her scene as well.  Those are sheep sleeping in beds and one baby.  I don't know what the back story is but wish I had asked. 

Hating photograhps

Cora doesn't like having her picture taken. There is no faster way to break up a good time than pulling the camera out. She and Nyla were playing together happily in a box the other day until I had to pull the camera out. I put her back in the box to try to get a shot but she just cried and climbed out. I wanted to try again today when she was having fun with Bohdin and the chair. He was spinning her around on it. I was able to get some pictures taken before she noticed. Once she did though the fun ended.



Once Bohdin and Nyla were having fun with it she went back over. I like how she was going to use Nyla's neck as a stepping stool. She was stopped before it happened. She seemed in a fine mood even with the camera around so I thought I could get some pictures of the three of them. I never did get a good one and there wasn't much opportunity. That was the last straw and she walked around fussy the rest of the time.





Bohdin and Nyla were more cooperative and I have several shots of them being silly until something happened to make Nyla mad. I don't remember what it was. Her anger didn't compare to Cora's anger at me not giving her the camera. She wanted it and did not want to take no for an answer. Her crying face was my last shot before I stopped.











Here is the kitchen cabinet layout so far. The cabinets are the light birch color on the inside but darker on the outside. The cabinet next to the pantry unit has a bit of drawer front peeking out. The kids immediately took the empty cabinets over for a house. Those blankets are the roof.



After Cora climbed over the bag of insulation at the top of the stairs we doubled up to make it taller. It is more than three feet tall now so there is no way she can climb over. She realized that so she just pulled it out of the way instead. I caught her climbing down the stairs. The insulation buys us time but I don't know what we'll do. With our stair and hallway configuration, a gate doesn't really work.

Nyla continues to love school. I am so surprised at how much she has learned since Zippy has arrived. I hope I can survive an entire year of him. Bohdin' schooling is going fine. He likes Zippy as well so whenever I'm doing school with Nyla he comes over and tells Zippy random things or asks questions or answers the things I ask Nyla. I thought he would appreciate a bit more fun in his school so I'm going to get a few Playmobil figures and we'll recreate history. He seemed pretty excited about the idea. They just came out with the three Wise Men figures and those costumes do well for that ancient history. I think one of them could definitely pass as a Sumerian King. We already have Egyptian and Roman stuff so that will be fairly easy. Playmobil doesn't make ancient Greeks so the Romans may have to do double duty. Since we discussed archaeology last week he thinks I ought to get him the dinosaur eggs he's been eying for years.

Long day

We went to Ikea yesterday to pick up the remaining cabinets.  It sucks that we had to do it on a weekend because they are crazy busy on those days.  We wanted to be there when they first opened to make it a little better.  Us and hundreds of other people had the same idea.  We didn't have to wait to put in our order because there were plenty of employees milling around the kitchen area.  Every single one of them looked incompetent.  I had Buddy choose one since he is better at that and we were off.  He chose a nice person but she didn't know what she was doing and we were soon handed off to the rude girl who didn't know much more.  It took a long time to get the order placed and I had to rush down to pick up Bohdin and Nyla from the play land after the one hour limit.  Buddy paid for the cabinets and then we ate.  He was told it would be about 45 minutes.  It was actually much much longer.  When everything finally came out, and to their credit it was completely correct, Buddy loaded up the truck and minivan.  We had been at Ikea for about 5 hours at that point. 

I stopped and bought Bohdin and Nyla some food and drinks for the ride home.  Cora was sleeping and the kids were quietly eating.  With all of that wonderful silence I was able to think and I realized we were missing a vital component to our order.  Our Ikean should have mentioned it but for whatever reason did not.  I had to turn around.  We were not that far away but it still sucked.  When I arrived back at Ikea I had to wake up three sleeping kids.  I was mad.  Our original nice Ikean helped me out and it went fast.  It turns out that there was something else that was missing but it wasn't vital like the other thing was.  As I was paying I saw that they did indeed carry the rollout shelves that Buddy wanted for the laundry room but I was too tired to put in another order.  Maybe we'll switch it out later. 

We had to stop for a bathroom and play break at McDonalds.  Cora was able to play as well and she had fun.  There was a loud tv playing Nick Jr there and at one point a video came on.  The kids were familiar with the song since it was one of their favorites but they had never seen the video.  Bohdin and Nyla stopped playing to watch.  Cora and I were next to Bohdin and we turned around and watched as well.  For some reason when this song comes on in the car, Bohdin likes to pretend he is conducting.  It is the only song he does it to.  Nyla has started to copy him again on this song only.  While we were watching the video, Cora started moving her hands around as if she were conducting.  Bohdin was not.  Perhaps it was coincidence but I wonder if Cora recognized the song and was copying the arm movements she had seen Nyla and Bohdin perform. 

In the quiet of the morning I have time to think about our order again and I realized there is another mistake.  I modified a pantry unit which was the cause of all the fuss at ordering time.  I forgot some key shelves.  There is another trip to Ikea in my future.  This time I'll go on a weekday and we'll stop at the Cleopatra exhibit while we are in town.  Or I hope so anyway.  I despise Ikea on a weekend and don't want to go through the horror of that again. 

Last weekend I think Bohdin was playing with a magnet and placing it on several objects including the tv and external hard drive.  The tv now has a large discolored spot.  We were disappointed with Bohdin because he knew that would happen since he was already done this once before.  We didn't yell at him but he feels that we did.  He has been sad and crying all week about it.  He can be really hard on himself.  On the drive up yesterday while Nyla and Cora slept I told him some of the many mistakes I have made.  He really enjoyed hearing it and I think it made him feel better. 

We keep large bags of insulation at the top of the stairs to keep Cora from going down.  Friday night I found Cora crawling down the stairs.  The insulation was in place so she must have climbed over the insulation to get to the stairs.  Now we have a taller barrier.  

Nyla has really been enjoying school since Zippy the Zebra came.  She begs and cries to do school.  Last night when we came home she was a crying emotional mess.  She told me there were only two things that would make her feel better - nursing or school - and I had to pick one.  I told her I needed more time to decide.  This week she has been asking to nurse a lot and I don't know why.  I'm never going to say yes. 

Generous

Nyla had birthday money burning a hole in her pocket or as she put it a "pressure in her head" to spend it so we went to the toy store yesterday. She went with the intention of buying Bohdin the spy car he has been wanting and she never wavered. She looked at the fairy princess stuff and the modern house stuff but walked out with the spy car. She didn't realize she didn't use all of her money so now she wants to go back again today and get another spy vehicle. This ones comes as part of the big spy hideout and she doesn't have the money to cover that. Bohdin could kick in some of his funds but he says he is still saving. I'm not certain what he is saving for. I don't think we'll ever be able to get that Playmobil train. It took him so long to save up that the last few are gone from the US and German Amazon doesn't sell it anymore either. It has been discontinued there as well.

The spy car was not Nyla's only bit of generosity this week. She and I went to Target on Sunday and bought a magic wand from the dollar bin. Cora thought it was really neat and Nyla has done an excellent job sharing it. I told her we could buy Cora her own but she would rather share.

On the way home from the toy store yesterday Nyla was having a tough time. She cried for most of the ride home. She dropped a toy and couldn't reach it and then dropped another toy she couldn't reach. As we entered our neighborhood I saw a package truck and said maybe we had a package waiting for us. We all said what we wished the package would be. Nyla wanted something Playmobil which I found ironic. As we pulled up there was a package there but it wasn't Playmobil. It was the curriculum I had ordered recently. One of the programs I bought for Nyla has a zebra puppet to learn along with her. It seemed like a good approach for her. We tried it this morning and she loved it. She begged to do more and cried when I told her that Cora needed to sleep. She was able to make the shape of the letter A after the lesson so in addition to being fun it may even be working. I'm not certain that Nyla is ready to remember her letters but if nothing else she is having a lot of fun doing school.

Having Nyla doing school at the same time as Bohdin is too distracting for him. Surprisingly it's easier for him to concentrate if she is playing instead. It works out better all around because then Cora stays with Nyla mostly out of the way and I can focus on Bohdin.



Yesterday I was measuring the space in the new kitchen so we can finalize the cabinet plan. Nyla and Cora were in the other room playing. Bohdin came up from the basement and started playing with Nyla. After a few minutes I went to check on Cora and couldn't find her. Bohdin and Nyla ran upstairs and I was looking around the main level calling her name. I looked down the basement stairs because Bohdin had accidentally left the basement door open. Cora walks around the corner to the bottom of the basement steps and smiles her big smile. She has been wanting to go down the basement steps for a long time now. I'm glad she didn't fall down. I don't care how careful she is she is not allowed to go down the steps by herself yet. Apparently I forgot to tell Cora that rule.

First Day of School

About ten days ago I thought today would be a great day to start the school year. I know I'm not the only person in the city doing our history curriculum and I thought starting soon would make it more library that library books would be available. As the time drew near I wasn't ready. If I didn't have those library books in hand I would have postponed. Since I'll be losing time every day that I had previously used for cleaning, I wanted to clean the house thoroughly and get to the long neglected areas. I wanted to reorganize the basement since that will be the schoolroom and playroom. I also wanted a schedule. I tried really hard but I didn't finish any of those tasks. I'm exhausted and the house is a little bit cleaner.

I was surprised at how helpful Nyla has been with the cleaning. Wednesday afternoon, an apricot pit from out trip became wedged under the front door. It was extremely difficult to remove and it gouged the floor. I was hungry and frustrated and told the kids I was tired of living in a dirty house. Since then they've been helpful. Nyla put new toilet paper in the bathroom without being asked. She cleaned up a spill Cora made. She's been picking up toys and making sure her dirty clothes go in the laundry basket. The basement is much less of a mess. The kids like it too. Having a clean space inspires new play.

To make things even more challenging for the first day, Bohdin had a cold this weekend which Cora developed last night. She was not in the best spirits this morning and was quite tired so we had to rush a little. Bohdin had five subjects to cover before he or Nyla could play. It went quickly since nothing was really challenging. He had math which was just a continuation of the math lesson from last week, spelling, history, handwriting, and reading comprehension. Later he will be required to read silently for 30 minutes. I don't have a plan for tomorrow yet. I'm thinking we will do one unit of history per week which should take two or three days, one day of science, one day of art instruction, five days of reading, math, and handwriting, and one spelling lesson per week with the other four days as review. At some point I would also like to add music, nature study, and a handcraft but we need to get in our groove first. I am awaiting shipment of Nyla's stuff. Today she made three thank you notes and played with pattern blocks. I have no clue what I will do with her tomorrow or Cora Destructo.