Bowling birthday

My oldest is turning twelve! My self imposed rule is that kid parties should be at home until they turn 10. We did it up big with his 10th birthday at the local amusement park and I did a In The Goode Olde Summertime theme with ice cream sundaes. Last year I took a step back and let Mr. W plan it with him; I assumed it would be paintball or arcade games or something. Instead my little sweet heart picked a bunny theme and wanted to have it at home and play with his bunnies as an activity. So cute! The two of them did all the treats and games themselves, I just made the cake.

This year was almost as easy for me; he picked a bowling alley so all I had to do was reserve the lanes and send out an evite. Crazy! Turns out I ought to have reserved a couple months in advance though because all the cosmic bowling times were booked up already. This party was so easy for me that I didn't do anything for it day of; I took my Daisy troop on a picnic in a park and showed up at the party at the same time as the guests! Mr. W and T-Bone went to St. Cupcake and picked out cupcakes and I rooted through my drawer of used/saved birthday candles. Everything else was included, even a bowling pin that everyone could sign as a souvenir.

Life leads us in directions we don't always anticipate

Life leads us in directions we don't always anticipate. This has been a rough year for us school wise. The children were all at a new school as a result of Deuce being asked to leave the parochial school they were all attending when he was a couple months into first grade. He has some special needs and although we had been doing our best to communicate every new thing we were learning about him as it manifested, that school's administration had made a career of letting go of children with specials needs or behavioral problems. As a Catholic it was heartbreaking. But it never occurred to me to blame the church, I believed that God would still take care of our family even if that parish would not. So after a school year of 2 at one school and 1 at a second parochial school, which is beyond difficult and was a hardship on our family, we moved them all to the second school. It was very sad for T-Bone who had been at that first school for six years. We hoped that with activities like soccer and basketball he would have a bridge to his old friends. But he wasn't fitting in at the new school as we had hoped. He felt like he was the class punching bag. And while the new school was much more accommodating of Deuce's special needs he was still getting himself into trouble on occasion. I swear I have like PTSD or something from him being asked to leave the old school and so I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. How much would be too much before the new school would decide they didn't want him anymore either? I had been discerning since the spring whether or not homeschooling him would be the best option for us; one that would relieve us from the stress of calls that he was getting in trouble at school because he was doing the things that other students were daring him to do or that he was falling asleep in class as a side effect from his medications.

In the spring I began reaching out to people I know who home school, asking for recommendations for curricula, picking their brains on how it all works, and lurking on facebook home school groups. I also called in to the special ed person at the neighborhood public school to see what kinds of services they could provide for him if we chose to send him there. One benefit of public school is that at least they can't kick your kid out. Which brings up my position that public schools educate children with special needs because they have to because it is the law. Catholic parochial schools should be educating children with special needs because they want to because it is the right thing to do. It seems like the antithesis of being pro-life to do anything less. I hoped that we could keep them all at the same parochial school together.

But then it became clear that that was not to be our path. After months of discernment, and some heated conversations between the two of us, we decided that I would homeschool the boys. We made this decision so soon before school is scheduled to begin. Yikes! When I was at my friend's housewarming party last month I was speaking with her sister-in-law who had homeschooled her four children and now that the youngest is in high school, she offered me a ton of her textbooks and things that she will no longer need. What a gift!

So today I drove out to the town where she lives to pick up everything. Of course I always try to accomplish at least two things when I am driving somewhere so I decided that stopping for an outing at Hagg Lake would be fun and allow the children to burn off some energy.  I had never been there before, but now that we are boat owners it seems like good sense to check out all the canoeing spots that are close to home.  It was very hot and I soon regretted that I hadn't packed swim suits for them so wade into the lake. Instead they entertained themselves with chucking rocks in to see who could make the biggest splash.

And building a bridge.

I'm cautiously optimistic about home schooling the boys. We could have more opportunities like this. And I am forever grateful to the friends and who are sharing their knowledge and giving me free books. I have a lot to learn so I need to get busy.

Teddy Bear Picnic

One of the children asked if we could have another Teddy Bear Picnic and I was happy to oblige with that. They are getting to the point where they won't be interested in this sort of thing much longer so I definitely want to indulge any stuffed animal requests. Naturally it took me a few days to actually do it after I bought teddy grahams at the store, but they kept reminding me. :) We kept it pretty simple with bear shaped honey toast and teddy grahams. I ought to have added some fresh fruit since bears like berries.

We set up our picnic in front of our Marian Garden which is filling out so nicely, but needs to be weeded desperately.

I gathered up as many bear themed books as I could to read aloud. We had Corduroy by Don Freeman, Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson, The Three Bears illustrated by Frances Brundage, Bears by Ruth Krauss and Maurice Sendak, The Bear Who Shared by Catherine Rayner, and a bit from Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne.