At 5:12 this morning, we finally pulled out to start the trip we've been planning, to one extent or another, for about a decade.


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Packing for any family vacation is always a chore. Packing for an extended vacation for a family of 6 makes it moreso. And when you add camping on top of that, it gets even worse.

Packing started two weeks ago with spreading our tent out in the basement and applying seam sealer to all the seams in the floor. Then we hauled it outside, set it up ( Read more... )

Effects of a war game obsession in a 6yo were studied anecdotally in a home environment over the course of two months. Study is still ongoing at time of publication. Effects to date include:
- Increased geographical knowledge, especially as pertains to Europe.
- Odd inaccuracies introduced to geographical knowledge thanks to oversimplification in ( Read more... )

When D doesn't feel good, everyone knows about it, immediately. To hear her tell it, she's on her deathbed, completely unable to do anything. In actual fact, she generally has the equivalent of a mild cold and is still perfectly capable of carrying out a slightly reduced list of responsibilities, including decoding that "confusing" math chapter ( Read more... )

On Friday, J finished the last page in the last chapter of Beast Academy 3rd grade math. We're still switching back and forth between Beast Academy and Life of Fred to make sure that he gets a good solid foundation and truly understands what he's doing, so he knew that Life of Fred: Jellybeans would be next. No sooner had we shut the Beast ( Read more... )

For various reasons, T has been told that there is a Thing He Must Do every morning when he wakes up. In the hopes of instilling this habit, we have informed him that anything he plays with, reads, etc., before doing the Thing He Must Do, will be taken away from him for 24 hours. We put this to the test for the first time this morning. "We heard ( Read more... )

This is what D's daily regimen has looked like since she got home from the hospital:


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After some confusion and mixed-up communication, we got a clearer picture of the path ahead by last Friday afternoon. Catching up enough to tell people about it, however, has been harder; mentally, I'm still playing catch-up on processing everything, and it doesn't help any that the house is still in disarray as well.

So, our current understanding ( Read more... )

It turns out that D has a really impressively strong immune system.

Her immune system is so strong that it almost succeeded in dealing with an infected appendix on its own, thus masking the symptoms of appendicitis until the appendix had already ruptured.

Even after her appendix ruptured, her amazing immune system kept her from getting terribly sick ( Read more... )

J's pre-reading curriculum has had him do a sound-blending exercise twice this week. In this exercise, I am supposed to say the first sound in a word, pause, and then say the rest of the word. J is then supposed to put them together to say the word. J's responses were so off-the-wall and typical of the problems we are facing that I took notes on ( Read more... )