Addison has not attended co-op, namely, because she is 1. Also becuase she naps during co-op every week so she stays home with Daddy. But we both wanted to attend the last day festivities this past week so we took her along this time. Suffice it to say Addison LOVED co-op, despite being very sleepy.

The teacher in Noah’s yoga class did a sort of sample class for all the families to watch. It was adorable:

(triangle pose)

I was busy taking pictures when I glanced over and noticed Addison doing all the poses right along with the class:

(triangle pose)

She was so intent and adorable. Suddenly she burst into the class and grabbed Noah for this huge hug:

She hung out and tried to join in. She was transfixed on the instructor:

We pulled her off because she was getting in Noah’s way but she kept on trying to join in:

(butterfly pose)

(butterfly pose)

And after awhile she just couldn’t resist:

Later that night we went to see the Houston Rockets kick the butts of the San Antonio Spurs. Addison LOVED the game, she clapped so hard I’m surprised she doesn’t have bruises! She screamed, she yelled, she cheered. She was absolutely hilarious and adorable, her love for basketball. It was only out-measured by her love for the dancers that came out on commercial breaks. She watched every second with the awe and exuberance only shared by the drunkest of fans! haha.

She also enjoyed her first taste of popcorn (which she stared down some poor strangers for! How embarrassing!) and her first taste of cotton candy (which she was SURE was really polyfil at first but the look in her eyes when she realized it tasted good was priceless - she did a very excited sign for “candy” when it all made sense! Very cute).

But unfortunately Addison is a Spurs fan, so she was not happy with the loss:

But Noah was there to cheer her up:

Really Addison and Noah are the best of friends. This past week Addison perfected her pronunciation of “Noah”. I’m hoping to get it on video. She is VERY proud so she says his name incessantly. They have also been playing together a *lot*. This makes me very happy because he always wanted a sibling that he could be “best friends” with because Dalton & Teegan have always been very close and sort of exclusive. He lets her torment him but they also play together too now which is really awesome. Sibling love, especially when it is mutual, is the best thing ever!

I don’t claim to be a very good educator. There are some things I’m good at but a lot of things I’m not.  One of the things I’m good at is finding resources to help my children learn the things I’m not good at teaching them. One thing I’m not good at is teaching my kids to read.  I’ve always been really mystified at how other parents do it without any effort or thought, seemingly. To me, the learning-to-read process boggles the mind.

When Dalton was “of age”, he was in public school so I didn’t have the shoulder that particular burden. I still felt pretty obligated, though, to prepare him for public school by cramming reading skills down this throat. It wasn’t fun or pleasant for either of us. And it was particularly successful.

Teegan was a self-taught learner which is a good thing because I was still burnt out from my bad experience with Dalton.

But Noah is a different character.  This fall we started homeschool kindergarten and I thought I’d give it a stab one more time. I found a great curriculum I thought would work really well with Noah’s personality. After the first week I was pretty sure it just would not work out. He has no attention span, I have no patience. He seemed to be retaining nothing, I hated the program. He was asking for math and asking to skip reading.

But at some point we turned a corner and things got easier and easier. I tweaked the program to make it faster and rearranged the lessons so they made more sense to me (and Noah) and suddenly he started asking for reading lessons instead of math. I started seeing signs of success outside our little lessons and Noah’s writing (small motor) skills also took off.

Yesterday, weekend and all, he asked to do his final lessons. He finished learning the last of the alphabet letters. At the beginning of September he could not recognize any of them on site, he knew none of their sounds and he could not even draw a very good circle. Now, just two months later, he knows them all on sight, he can draw each one and he knows all of their noises, even the vowels. His penmanship is amazing. He’s finished the kindergarten curriculum for reading. If you would have asked me what the likelihood was that we’d get this far by Halloween I would have said it was impossible.

To say that he is proud would be an understatement. He got a certificate yesterday for finishing that he proudly carried around all day. He called his grandparents to brag and his Grandma S~ told him that she thought if he puts his certificate under his pillow that the Reading Fairy will come. Boy she has all the good ideas, huh?

So last night the Reading Fairy DID come by with some new books. Who knew?!

I’m so proud of his success and mine. For some kids this stuff just comes naturally but Noah’s not that kind of kid. To see him thriving makes me feel so good about our homeschooling.

Next week we move on to the *real* reading lessons. Let’s hope they are as easy and fun as things have been so far.

Last night Addison woke up within a few minutes of going to sleep….hysterical. Rinse and repeat. Then she woke up on and off all night.

An hour after Addison went to sleep, Noah woke up hysterical. Or rather he was hysterical but asleep. He comes strolling in at 5am all mad because he had been screaming for us and we didn’t hear. Shit. He says he was up all night with wacky dreams and weirdness. Then he started talking about the “racket” in his head like some little Landmark Forums graduate or something and I told him he could get up for the day (alone) if he promised to take a nap (a little issue I have only just remembered now at 5pm - too late for said nap) and Tony got up for the day and let me sleep - bless him.

When I finally stumbled out of bed at 9am all headachey and wishing I was still asleep (normal for me but whatever) Tony broke the news: Addy is sick. Again. We all JUST got over a round of colds and I still have the lingering cough. But here we go again. Verdict is still out on Noah who will likely be sick by morning.

I was getting a little freaked out at where she would pick up another virus so quickly when she really hasn’t been out much when my friend D~ called to say her kids are all sick too. Apparently the Herp Expo shared more than just information on snakes, lizards and turtles. Dammit. September in Houston is like January in Michigan. No one goes outside, school starts, everyone shares germs and suddenly it’s freakin flu season! I can’t wait until it cools a bit and we can open up our house and spend more time outside.

Tony’s pretty sure I’m getting sick too because, get this, he says I’m being all illogically crabby. Me?!! Whatever. Just becuase I called him home from work when Addy only took a 15 minute nap because I was freaking out that I would never properly educate my children based on this disruption alone is no cause for name calling, right? I mean, that’s logical I think.

Addy apparently has to be propped upright to sleep becuase when she lays down she is too stuffy to suck her thumb so tonight’s sleep is going to be wonderful for all parties, I’m sure. I just can’t handle another round of illness here so soon. Ugh. Wah wah wah.

Ok, the police story……sorry it won’t be more exciting! I was in charge of reserving the pavilion for our party, which I did just fine thankyouverymuch. However when the parks folk asked what we would use the pavilion for and I relayed that it would be for a back to school homeschool party/picnic, they never asked some important questions. Like “Will you  have vendors?” or “Will you be promoting, selling, fundraising or exchanging money in any way?” becuase the answer would have been “yes”. So imagine my surprise when I showed up in the morning of the event to learn that the parks people had stopped by to make sure we knew that we could sell nothing. Apparently the big Pampered Chef table was a give-away and alerted them to stop. We made some calls, freaked out, learned it was a city law and there was no way around it despite the fact that we had vendors set up EVERYWHERE and more on the way. Eventually the police came at which point I took my friend M~ and her adorable tiny baby and  just appealed to them with something that sounded like “Please, we are just homeschoolers, we aren’t trouble I swear! No money will exchange hands, just please let us have our little picnic” and that was that. It was probably a bummer for our vendors but at least they got to share their wares and take contact info and orders - just no fulfillment on the spot. And the rest of us still had fun. No arrests this time