Playing School

We're quickly closing in on only 1 month left before school starts. School supplies are already out in the seasonal section at the local WalMart, don't ya know?

I'm both excited and worried about Wiley starting 1st grade. He had a ton of trouble when we tried transferring him in during the last month or so of Kindergarten. They weren't really concerned about his academic skills, mostly it was behavior related. As in he didn't want to do anything the rest of the class was doing. Plus he said it was boring. Lovely. However in order for me to try to reinforce better learning behaviors, I'm going to try my hardest to "play school" and review some basic academics with both Wiley and Cyrus at least once a day before school starts. Poor Cyrus was born two months too late to start Kindergarten this year. I hope to get him back into some kind of preschool again this fall as well.

Plus "playing school" will give us something new to do. We all know how I scramble to find things to do with the kids that doesn't involve staring at screens. At this point I've totally done almost all of the 10 of the things I joked about NOT doing with your kids. Twice.

But where to start? I'm pretty good with getting them to do artsy type stuff, but haven't really tried the three Rs. Sing the ABCs? Count to 100? That's baby stuff mom! While it would be cool to whip up my own lesson plans, who has the time? I've been meaning to stop by a bookstore to look for workbooks but never got a chance. Instead I did what I do best and googled something along the lines of "learn to read printables" and was happy to find just what I was looking for come up as the first link.

Starfall.com started in 2002 as "a program that would be available online across the world to all children who are learning to read in English." I found their Download Center and printed out the Level 1 Reading & Writing Journal for Wiley and the Kindergarten level ABC Printouts for Cyrus.

We started this afternoon once Milo went down for a nap. I used "watching some Cartoon Network videos when we're done" as an incentive and sat them down at the table with pencils, scissors, markers and a stapler. I got a little bit of attitude from both of them, but we worked our way through several worksheets each and then read a little book that Wiley had cut out and stapled together. It took about 35 mins, and I think that is about the limit, as Cyrus was starting to sass & squirm and Wiley was under the table at one point (until I reminded him if we didn't finish there would be NO VIDEOS).

The true test will be to see if I can keep it up AND keep them interested. What might help is that I noticed that these printouts also match up to an interactive web site. So maybe once they are done watching an online video of "Flapjack" (what the hell IS that show about? talk about killing brain cells) I'll have them review the "Zac the Rat" story at starfall.com. Maybe reviewing on the computer will be overkill? Guess I'll find out. If anything, these kids are going are going to be pros (read:geeks) with computers!

The first step is to admit you have a problem

unemployment, originally uploaded by recovering lazyholic.

To several of you, this illustration by Erin of Recovering Lazyholic, is probably kind of confusing. Am I right?

To me, I can easily recognize the 7 elements in this "circle of no life" as (CW from top): RSS feeds; flickr; facebook; Gmail; tumblr (this is the only one I had trouble with); Blogger and Twitter.

If I'm not pressed for time (when am I lately?), and have the luxury of enjoying a mug of coffee while the boys might play a Yo Gabba Gabba game on nickjr.com, then I can usually make it 'round this circle in about 30 - 40 min. A majority of the time it is just reading or "checking" what might be new since the night before. Sometimes I'll take a moment to leave a comment on a photo or blog post or to update my "status."

Sure 30 - 40 min is bit much, but wouldn't it take that long to page through a morning newspaper? Where I feel the problem starts for me is when I've gone full circle, and then start right back 'round again, as if transfixed by the glowing screen. Or when you step away only to come back "check" in again less than an hour later. I mean really. This is when it moves into procrastination and wasted time and "no life" territory. Not to mention the fact that in the meantime my children have now burned through close to an hour of their recommended maximum screen time (two hours daily of TV and/or computer games combined).

Time management is something I'm working on. This week I've been testing out a daily schedule, with the main goal being planning a routine of things to do during the day in between allotted times for staring at screens. It is kind of hard. But I'm trying.

So I'm stepping away now. Time to unplug again. I'm not promising I won't "check in" later, but for now I'm going outside with the kids.

Have a good weekend!

PS - It took me about half a day to put away all that laundry.

Laundry Strike

Should you not hear from me for a while it might be due to this massive pile of clean laundry falling and trapping me while I lounge on the bed reading a smut novel... maybe when the boys get hungry they'll come dig me out.

So really I'll probably only be buried for a few minutes.

Eight months from today I'll turn 35. I think it is starting to mess with my head.

Have good weekend, y'all.

10 things NOT to do with your kids this summer

Preface: Almost a year ago, when I was trying to come up for a reason to start this blog, I came up with a lofty list of things I could write about. One of those was "kid/mom things." I hope the handful of "style" fans I might have attracted from wardrobe_remix will bear with me. Or bare with me, as I undress my stress. I mean, you very well might be mothers yourself, or fathers, guardians, older siblings, aunts/uncles, grandparents or babysitters. Or maybe you despise all children and just want to make fun of breeders. Whatever, I'm kind of making fun of myself again anyway, so everyone is welcome.

Either way, at some point you might be as desperate as I've been lately (it isn't even summer yet!) and have googled "things to do kids summer." Were you as underwhelmed as I was? I thought so. No one has the answers.

What the hell you are supposed to do with your kids for month after month?

I don't think anyone survives to blog about it. Therefore I will supply you with the ten things I've tried that are probably the reason no one survives.

Note: these are all things that do NOT include sitting in front of the computer or DVD player. We've got that one covered, duh. What do you think my kids are doing as I write this? :)

1. playing tag in the back yard = OMG, wanna quick way to gauge your fitness level? I've learned my lesson, don't go any faster than your 2 yr old. Plus, just take a closer look at the photo to the right, no dignified thirtysomething wants to admit they look like that while running.
   
   
2. hide-n-seek = This is fun for like the count of 100. If your kids are like mine, they hide in the same place one time after another... the whole 'Oh my gosh I'm just gonna give up and sit on this lumpy covered couch' gag is only funny to you once, to a 4 year old it is endless entertainment.
   
   
3. coloring = if I have to pick up another half ton of crayons scattered about the floor I'll seal somebody in wax.
   
   
4. water guns = Dude, the 50 cent ones don't work for shit and/or don't last long enough. No wonder they sell things like the super soaker.
   
   Tip: Should you give up after 10 mins, leave the cheapie guns floating (plugs out) in a big tub when you go inside. When you come back out, most of them will be filled.
   
   
   
5. cooking = sure it is fun to let the bigger kids stir a bowl of boxed muffin mix, until it is splattered all over the ceiling because they start fighting over the spatula.
   
   
6. sidewalk chalk graffiti = Stew was right, sidewalk chalk stains brick walls. Hey kids, want to help me spray and scrub this stuff off? They sprayed, but I had to scrub.
   
   
7. PlayDoh = this one keeps the kids happy for like 5.8 mins, then all hell breaks loose.
   
   
8. paper airplanes = see above.
   
   
9. riding bikes = see above, plus add the first-aid kit.
   
   
10. I haven't gotten this far. I give up. Want to watch a DVD?
    

Anyway, as you can see, even the most innocent activities can be dangerous for your sanity. But it is worth trying them once, or twice or every friggin' day until you are pulling your hair out and crying for Calgon to take you away.

Otherwise, here are a few things some esteemed bloggers before me have recommended, with my only slightly serious comments.

1. attend a baseball game = Are you kidding? With a 6 yr old, 4 yr old and a 2 yr old? Even with 2 adults on the ready, this sounds like no fun at all. Aren't baseball games just for drinking and hotdogs?
2. go fishing = um, ok, as long as each child has his own rod and reel and a case of never ending worms with little elves to bait the hook and make everything perfect and then take a picture before battling about taking the fish off the hook.
3. go to the zoo = sure, this is fun, until your 2 yr old decides he has enough of the stroller and instead wants to run like the wind, darting ahead between other families and kung fu floating up trees at the concession stand.
4. go hiking = this one is fun until your neurotic 6 yr old starts throwing a fit about the amount of insects that are hovering about his body at any given second. Are there spiders on this tree? Is there a tick on my leg? Is there a man-eating colony of ants down that path?
5. ride bikes to the ice cream shop = Are you kidding me? Where do you live, in cookie-cutter candyland? Obviously you don't have redneck teenagers/twenty-year-olds-off-from-work flooring pumped up 4x4s by your house twice a day with 10+ miles between you and the only ice cream place.
   
6. have a treasure hunt = This idea is good on paper. Your kids draws out the plans. It looks awesome, you are impressed and fuel their fire. You let them pick out what treasures to hide. They start yelling about why we aren't hiding the treasures yet. They freak out at the store when you are buying the treasures. They hide in their room because you are hiding the treasures in the wrong places. They throw a fit when it is time to start. And. Then. They cry when somebody else finds the friggin' treasure first.
7. go to the public library = anyplace where "inside voices" are required is generally NOT a good idea
8. co-op with your neighbors = your neighbors have a trampoline but you don't? or maybe a pool? time to build that fence! I'm sorry, but now that we actually have a neighbor, let alone one with a kid, I've found out that most of the time that means that kid arrives in your backyard (unsupervised of course) exactly at the minute you start having fun and then doesn't leave until you FORCE HER TO.
9. backyard camping trip = this only works if your tent didn't get blown across the yard by a tornado the last time you camped in your backyard (and then let it sit out there neglected for several weeks)... sure we still have the tent, but all the doodads that fasten it down?
10. take the kids to work= are you serious? like you'd get anything done! ... hey wait, this one actually sounds like a good idea, Stew you up for it? ha ha

All joking aside, PLEASE HELP ME! Ha ha. No really.

Actually, once you take a deep breath, step back and realize that you no longer have a life, then facing the endless summer is not all that daunting. I will survive! Hey yeah!

If only there were more parks w/ playgrounds around here. Tell me again why I said we shouldn't have the movers haul our playset down? I've recently signed up at KaBOOM!, a site that has a "playspace finder," only to find that no one there knows where the local parks are around here either. So I guess that will be my "act of kindness" mission this summer... to add and rate any parks I find to their database. You should do it too, for the sanity of all kid herders out there.