We’re all Sick

But we’re on the way better.

On top of the general yuckiness we all feel, Melody seems to be in that rough transitional stage between keeping naps and leaving them behind.

This morning Melody desolved over something and wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.  I found her bubbling in her room and scooped her up, pretending she was my doll and crawled into her bed with her protesting all the way.

I snuggled us both under the blankets and made all the silly comments about my squeeky doll (it’s a game we play reletively frequently) until she was giggly then calm, and we just lay together getting warm before she looked at me, all bright-eyed and cheerful again and we could just talk.

It’s interesting to me how much warmth, touch (and food, to complete the Comfort Trinity) work near-magic with these kiddos.  So sweet.

Schooling Continues

I have a passel of pictures to upload once pictures are working again, but for now I wanted to say our approach to Kindergarten has morphed a few times now.

I’m glad I haven’t been saying each thing as we were doing it, but to recap, we began with the intent of hammering out the “3 Rs” during Nap-time so that it would be just me and Natasha, and got over with quickly so we could return to “regular life.”

The difficulty with that was we were neither of us in our best mental state during nap-time, and making school just the school work was too stark for Natasha.

So we’ve shifted to doing school in the morning, and we’re doing games during “school time.”

The kids have to be dressed before 9 a.m., but can play however they like until 9, when “Performance Today” starts on NPR.  I don’t usually have the radio going during the day (I like better the control the iPod offers) but so far I like the classical music (with the commentary/introductions) for the backdrop of our working time.

I have the younger two go off and play by themselves (all my children are *very* good at this) and we alternate the reluctant writer with games and other elements of learning that I’ve been given or am collecting from my reading.