Whoa...

So, my oldest child is now four. FOUR. That means I have to really start thinking about the reality of teaching my child to read. I actually look forward to homeschooling my children and am not daunted by huge book lists or the magnitude of material that needs to be learned. I am slightly daunted by teaching my child to read. The main reason for my anxiety is my current indecision on which method to follow in teaching him. I have read Charlotte Mason's method, and I know that method would not fly in our house, if for no other reason than Evan's strong belief in phonics. :-) I am now reading The Well-Trained Mind by Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise and wondering how their method would work in our house. Of course, I can never just leave the decision at face value; I must try to find a reason why one of them should work and the other not work (although I know that both have worked with children). I have reduced the decision down to this question: Should one teach children phonics rules from the beginning or just teach children words and let them make their own generalizations about phonics rules? If I spoke German, I would have no difficulty making this decision; but I do not. ha
So this is where the rubber meets the road. Can someone come and clean my house while I'm trying to make these decisions and implement my plan of action??

Today

I spent $22 at garage sales today. This is what it got me:
-coat for Nathan
-2 pairs of pajamas for Nathan
-6 or so girl dresses
-one set of illustrated animal encyclopedias (18 books)
-a 2-foot stack of quilt squares
-five random books
-"When We Were Young" by A. A. Milne and an organic gardening book
-two nature videos
-one pillowcase (hmmmm, I really want to try a pillowcase dress like this)
-one Robin Hood hat.
I think that's all. :-) The quilt squares are in really great colors and prints, so I'm looking forward to playing around with those. Hannah and I are going to make quilt-type wall hangings, but we may have to add in some of these new colors that we found.
In reading news, I am currently reading Charlotte Mason's Formation of Character, and I really enjoy the problem/solution setup. It's amazing how I read a book about character and find myself thinking of myself and my own character flaws more than about my kiddos. I am also reading Don Quixote, but I don't think I'm going to have time to finish it before I have to turn it back in to the library. :-) It's much lighter reading than what I have been reading (Wild Swans and There's No Me Without You).

Vacation

Okay, so I'd really rather a vacation include my husband, BUT that does not always happen. I'm at my parents' house with my kiddos and cousin, and it's rather amazing how much sleep I'm getting. I think being away from my house where I am constantly seeing things that need to be done is especially helpful. This is the first time that I've actually been away from home and gotten more sleep instead of less. Noelle is actually sleeping here (a first), so that is very helpful. :-)
The Charlotte Mason seminar was interesting. I think my biggest interest is how a Charlotte Mason education looks in the first few years. I want to know how other moms do things, especially moms with younger children. Two things I want to implement as soon as possible are habit training and Scripture memorization. Susan Shafer has a very interesting method of memorizing and keeping the Scriptures fresh in your memory. The habit training idea was not new, but it gave me the extra push to get started. I just have to pick one and begin.
I need to go now. Someone needs to be put in bed!

Life

Today, as I was pulling away from a local farm, I stopped and said to Hannah, "Did I really just buy goat milk?" Yes, I did. Would you like to know why? Sure you would. If not, go read someone else's blog. ;-)
My daughter had her 9-month appointment last Friday. It seems that we are starting a trend of my children falling off growth charts after they start crawling. Of course, Noelle started out more toward the bottom of the growth chart than did Nathan, so she fell off quicker. ha She's in the third percentile. Not technically off I suppose. But close. My doctor was not pushy, but he wants to see her gain weight. Do I know how much milk she is getting?? No, God must not have been thinking when he created female bodies. They don't have milkometers on them. For shame. What about pumping? Yeah, when am I supposed to get some time to hide in a room away from my almost four year old to pump? So he suggested adding a formula feed in to her diet or trying to get something extra in her. I'm going with the something. I've been letting her go at her own pace with veggies and stuff; you know, letting her enjoy her food. But no more! Purees rule the roost from now on! Beef with liver! Peas! Beans! An egg yolk a day! And to top it all off, I'm going to try to add in a goat milk feed a day. I'm not sure how that will go, but I'll at least try. The problem at the moment is that, if I am nearby, she doesn't want the stupid goat milk. I mean, she'd much rather have me. (Sounds like a starving baby, huh?) Anyway. There's the rant. I would bemoan the fact that I have skinny children, but we're skinny people! What do they expect?!
I think the fact that I spent most of the post talking about my problem and not the goat milk shows how "normal" my weirdness has become. So I'll answer your questions.
Why goat milk? It's much closer to human milk than is cow milk.
Why not formula? Evan read on one of the cans' list of ingredients "corn syrup solids." Nope, not going there. Or, not until I try everything else! (I'm really going to try not to go on a rant about formula, really, because I could go on and on for days.)
What am I thinking? Well, at the moment, I'm thinking babies who are breastfed past six months should have their own chart made with statistics only from breatsfed babies. ;-)

Okay, on to a new topic.

We went to a farm this morning and picked blueberries with a couple of families from the Charlotte Mason group. The trip was almost called of on account of rain and several families didn't go because of the mud, but we went! And it was wonderful! It sprinkled on us a bit, but it was cloudy, cool (for this area), and great! Then, to top it all off, I got my four pounds of berries for free! Yay! (Plus, one of the ladies said that her baby had been in the negative on the growth chart, and he was just fine. That made me feel a little better.)
I'm also going to a Charlotte Mason seminar this weekend (Friday night and Saturday morning), and I'm getting so excited! Yay! Yay! Yay! ha ha