Snow Hours

We woke to an inch of snow on Saturday. The sun was shining so I knew to kick the kids out sooner rather than later if they were going to get to play. Four hours later, it was gone. Generally speaking, this is the way snow showers go around here.

Ty watched a movie at the neighbor's house. He came home keyed up and excited. He really liked the movie and couldn't get his words out fast enough as he described scenes. He kept repeating, "there were white guys with guns" over and over. Erin, who is known for quick whit and sarcasm asked him if he'd been watching CNN. Ahem. As it turns out, Star Wars was the movie and storm troopers were the white guys. Ty is quite interested in light saber fights and now needs some new costumes.

Lauren, who has caught every single illness that has passed near her since she battled mono last summer was sick again this week. She had pleurisy. Fluid gathered in her lungs and it was extremely painful. It's viral and there's nothing to be done for it except ibuprofen every six to eight hours. It has literally been one thing after another for her this school year. She was finally on the mend on Saturday and spent it catching up on school work. She will be on an extended campus plan starting in February and is eager to complete some final projects at school to see that plan into fruition. Sister has Senior-itis too.

Lauren's best buddy kept her company all day Friday while she slept. He hasn't been able to get up onto furniture in a long time so Daddy gave him a lift to comfort Lauren. Brutus was in doggy heaven.

Ty and I had a break-through during school this week. You see, I have always naively believed one should start at the beginning when teaching new concepts. This approach bored my son to tears. One of our language lessons this week introduced the idea of finger stretching to teach how to put letter sounds together to sound out words. The concept worked well for his sisters before him. Ty smirked at me and easily read several three letter words. I was jumping out of my skin excitedly exclaiming, "Ty! You are reading!" He just stared at me for a minute before telling me he thought I was being weird. Apparently the basic phonic lessons I have been focusing on this month were not needed.. Furthermore, I moved ahead a few weeks in his math curriculum once he explained to me that he didn't need to count blocks because we always work with groups of ten and when three of the blocks aren't colored, that means there are seven. So, he is building large numbers in groups of hundreds, tens and units without hesitation. All of this time could have been more fruitful had my son been willing to tell me what he knew in the first place. 

My good friend Cherie brought her family over for dinner last night after her twins played hockey in Louisville. It was so good to see them as it has been way too long since we were last together. I lamented later I never grabbed the camera but quickly noted that blurry children would have been all I could have photographed because there was no way they were going to stop moving long enough to take photos. The adults relaxed while the kids played. It was perfect. We hope hockey brings them into the area again soon.

Sunrise on Friday. You have to get up early if you crave a colorful outdoor scene these days. January is just so brown. I am ready for spring.

A family I am no longer watching reached out this week to see if a play date could be arranged for Kate and her biggest fan. Five year old Gleason adores Kate. Sunday was spent knee deep in dress-up clothes, nail polish and crafts.

Tonight I filed taxes for one teen and ate ice cream in honor of another teen's first broken heart. She was too sad for chocolate or ice cream so it was pretty serious. Since I was not the one she wanted to confide in, I needed the ice cream. This mothering of teens gig is not for the weak of heart or the lactose intolerant.