Well, The Good News Is...

We did start on time. *bowing*  Thank you, thank you.

The bad news is, I didn't sleep at all the night before.  And woke Wolf up at midnight, rummaging through our closet.  Normally, the man sleeps like the dead.  Or, if he seems to be awake, even talking, has no memory of it what-so-ever the next am.

Yeah.  Not so much this time.  Man, did I get in trouble.  Whoopsie.  Apparently *counting* on him to sleep through wasn't considerate of me.  I didn't even get into the, "Well, normally you don't remember anything the next morning." train of thought...Just didn't seem very pc of me.  Normally I don't care about pc unless its my desktop, but marriage does need a certain handling to keep it from imploding...or your spouse's head, which I think amounts to pretty much the same thing.

So, we did our first day, Wolf came home, kids showed him their accomplishments proudly, and I staggered off to bed.

The rest of the week went pretty well.  Tazzie is using Singapore math, and that's going great, and we're doing Handwriting Without Tears with both the Littles, as well as assorted odds and sods.

I picked up Magnets and Mudpies (or is it Mudpies and Magnets?  Whatever).  I've heard great things, but thumbing through, it seems to need a lot of supplies I don't have readily at hand.  *sigh*  I'll dig deeper in it, bounce around and gradually get things as needed.

One thing I've discovered...When formally homeschooling, life is soooooooo much nicer around here!  No squabbling, fighting, blah, blah, blah.  They're all intent on their own things.  Loving it!!!

Is That An EYEBALL On Your Table?!

Yes. Yes it was. And an ear too, if you must know.

One of the top things I love about homeschooling (other than shopping for the curriculum, and I'll have an article later about that, because lawsy, that is FUN!) is the ability to bridge the gap between the Diva and the Littles (aka Tazzie and The Princess). In this particular case, Wolf had taken Princess out for a little Daddy and Daughter time, leaving me with Diva and Tazzie. What to do, what to do. Haul out an eye ball and ear of course.

Yes, we're talking models, folks. This is 'The Non Stepford Style' not 'The Frankenstein Style', remember?

So, here we have the Eyeball in The Box.

Fancy, no?


If you're able to read the somewhat blurry, small print, you'll notice that the eyeball is made out of 'durable soft foam!'. Soft, yup, and as for durable...well...it survived round #1 with Tazzie. I'll need more rounds to really assess the 'durable' claim though.

So here goes, hands on exploration with the eyeball...

Tazzie gets his half (oh, did I mention its in halves? Yeah, I'll get back to that in a second, cause its really cool the way they did it...)and examines it, then attempts to use it as a spinning top. *sigh*

Of course, Diva is much more studious. At least when there's a camera around. *snort*


Homeschooling gives you the opportunity to say things that would otherwise never be uttered, such as, "You didn't wash your hands! There are dirty finger prints on my white eyeball!" and "Quit squeezing the eyeball! These have to last til The Princess is done high school!" amongst others.

The cool thing about the eyeball model, (ha! Thought I forgot, didn't you? Neener neener, neener!) is that on one half of the model, its perfectly labeled. On the other half, its labeled with only letters, so if you wanted to test your child, you could hand them the letter only half and have them write out the name to each corresponding letter. Clever no? Diva wasn't so enthused.

Moving on to the ear.

Obviously, these things are a wee bit larger than life. Van Goh, where art thou? Yes, I find that funny. Nobody around here gets my humour.

Tazzie thought that if he only yelled loud enough, something would happen. I know that feeling. Its called Motherhood.

Diva, checking out the ear. She made some pretty neat observations, including that the cochlea looked like a snail shell.

All in all, a great success, even if there was some fighting over the ear.