Rambling again

You know, other people's homeschooling blogs always seem to be so . . . together. Their posts have themes even. Mine just ramble most of the time. So if there's anyone actually reading this, sorry for the disjointed rambling again ;-D I just feel like blogging today, I don't know why. It wasn't eventful, we stayed home all day and there was some yelling, but it was over all a fun day.

First order of business is that Bridget became a vegetarian Monday after my mom made a disturbing (to an 8 year old at least) comment about meat. I don't know if she's serious or if she'll cave and ask for hotdogs by the weekend, but I'll do my best to help her. If she decides to be an omnivore again it will be because that's what she wants and not because of anyone else. Meanwhile, maybe it will get the kid to eat more vegetables. My baby/toddler who would eat this *huge* variety of fruits and veggies has grown into a very picky 8 year old who will only eat from a small menu. What happened? It must be the universe punishing me for being so smug about my (then) toddler girl's fantastic and well varied diet ;-P

Math seems to be of interest suddenly. Bridget's been spending a lot of time calculating how long it will take her to save up her allowance to $100 or how much change she'll have when she buys XYZ toys or how much she'd have if she saved this many weeks, etc. Money is always fun to figure :-D There's also computer game scores to be counted and patterns to be found and the past few days she's often seen with a pencil and paper or a calculator near by. Owen walks around entering random numbers into the calculator and asking me to cut his sandwiches into a certain number of slices. Five is a big one suddenly.

Today we ran around to our running music and even though I was still exhausted, I wasn't so close to the point of death at the end this time. It's progress :-)

Bridget decided to teach Owen to read today. Again. In a British accent this time. Weird. He thought it was fun for awhile and dutifully copied his alphabet letters through K but then he started goofing off because he's four and he was bored. Of course Bridget got pissed off and I had to step in. She's a total unschooler for herself but loves to tell others what to do and doesn't quite get why everyone else isn't thrilled with this idea.

We also had a little blip involving Bridget writing on Owen's toys. Bridget was playing around with magnets and a compass. She started writing 'N' or 'S' on the magnet pieces after seeing which way it made the compass turn. I was about to tell her not to write on the magnet pieces (parts of a magnetic building kit) but I stopped myself. I decided it wasn't a big deal and I didn't want to get in the way of her creative exploration. Unfortunately, I forgot the magnet set is actually Owen's. Oops. His little eyes teared up when he saw what she was doing but luckily, even "permanant marker" doesn't stay on plastic and I got it off easily. Amazingly enough, Bridget didn't get angry either.

We rented Kiki's Delivery Service from the library yesterday. We watched it in English but watched the trailers in Japanese with subtitles. I'd like to see if the DVD has a Japanese option for the main movie. Not that we'd get through all of it (Owen would be annoyed) but I think it would be fun to watch at least a little bit. We don't have that option in any of the other Japanese videos we have because none of them are DVD. I think I'd like to get at least My Neighbor Totoro in DVD though, now that I know how much the kids like it. Though actually, I'd really love to find a Pokemon episode in Japanese. Now how cool would that be :-D

A group of friends has been organzing a "mom's day out" sort of thing. I haven't taken part yet but this month the idea was to go to a stage production of Pride and Prejudice. It would be hard to exaggerate how excited I got when I heard that. Then yesterday I got the email that the final day has been chosen and it's a time that just won't work for me. I'm pretty bummed about it now. I'm half wondering if it would be worth it to go by myself but I probably won't. It's a lot of money to spend just to go to a play alone.

But that's ok, tomorrow is a playdate with two very awesome friends who I am looking forward to hanging out and chatting with! Oh, and our kids will be there of course. I guess it's a playdate for them too ;-)