Car Geniuses We are Not

We have a garage.  It's awesome.  

What is not awesome is that sometimes, the boys sneak into my car and push buttons.  


One day a few months ago, I packed all the boys into the Pilot, hopped in, turned the key and...nothing.  Not one sound.  Ugh.  I called Dave and thankfully, he was able to swing by the house and attempt to jump start the battery.  Neither of us has ever done this.  Consequently, we had to pull out the car manual and go through it step-by-step.  It didn't work.  Ok, we thought, it must be something worse than the battery.  So we called the tow company to haul it to the dealership.  When he arrived, he asked us if we had tried to jump it, we replied in the affirmative.  Apparently, we must have appeared clueless because he decided he was going to pull out his trusty transportable battery and try to jump it.  It worked.  $30 later, he was on his way.  


Fast forward to last night.  


The car was working just fine in the morning when I backed it out of the driveway so that a dump truck could dump a pile of dirt and a pile of rocks there for the patio expansion project.  At 6pm, I went out there to go to a hair appointment, hopped in, turned the key, and all sorts of bizarre things happened.  It was like something from E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  All the dashboard lights lit up and flashed and when I turned the key, it emitted alien-like clicking and chirping.  What in the world?  


Dave and I determined that it must be the starter because the battery is only 18 months old, no kids had had access to leave doors open or lights on and because there was actually noise coming from the car.  So, at 9:25 last night, we called the tow truck.  Guess who showed up?  Yep, the same guy from a few months ago.  Guess what he did?  Yep, he pulled out his trusty transportable battery jumper and jumped it.  Guess what happened?  Yep, it worked.  


Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing.  What makes it more embarrassing is that yes, he remembered us.  In fact, he got out of the tow truck and said, "Didn't I just come here a while ago?"  "Yes....," Dave answered.  The guy shook his head, "You guys are killing me."  


Dude.  We need a serious lesson on how to jump a car.  It really can't be that hard.  And it would absolutely save us from yet another non-tragic-but-mortifying-car-situation.  Ridiculous.

Guinea Pig Parenting

Oh my poor firstborn child...born with the curse of being the guinea pig in parenting.

He's the one who gets to experience all our trial and error the majority of the time.

We've had sort of a weird dilemma for a few weeks now.  Ethan, at age 4.5 is obviously potty trained.  He's been potty trained since he was 3.  But randomly, he's been peeing in his pants a few times a day.  I *think* it's because he doesn't want to stop what he's doing to go potty.  I started out just having very serious conversations with him about it and reminding him to go throughout the day.  Still happening.  So then I moved on to actually disciplining him for it.  I figured he needs to know that this is an important responsibility.  Not working.  And the disciplining is actually creating more problems.  Now he's lying about peeing in his pants and hiding his clothes if they're wet.  Whereas before he was just careless, now I feel like I'm actually causing him to stumble in other ways...dishonesty, deceit, shame.  So we're done with the disciplining.  I'm going to end up disciplining him for three things instead of one, which isn't really solving anything.  I made a sticker chart today; if he's dry all day and remembers to go, he gets a sticker.  If he's wet at all, he gets no sticker.  When he gets 10 stickers, we will go to the store and pick out any car he wants.  I honestly have no idea what to do.  I'm assuming this is just a phase, but I feel like he doesn't really get that it's important to not wet your pants.  

Any other suggestions?  Anyone else had this happen?

6 Months Old

In all the busyness of starting up a marriage blog (which, by the way, is like having a part time job), I forgot to mention that Isaac turned 6 months old.  

Apparently, he can sit. 

He's feeding himself a bit. We're only nursing 3 times a day and he sleeps 12 hours at night with two naps during the day.

He's a VERY busy boy and will be crawling here any day.  Trouble.  Yesterday at my inlaws' house, he scooted himself over to where Ethan and Noah were playing and started grabbing toys.  They were not too pleased with this new development. 

So stinkin' cute I can't even stand it.

Schoolbooks!!

After we had Isaac, I kind of lost my mind for a while.  If you read my marriage blog, you'll know that I was blessed with full blown postpartum depression.  Horrible stuff.  I'm thankful for God and that God allowed people to invent medication.  Anyway, not my point.  In the middle of that insanity, Dave and I decided that we *needed* to send Ethan and Noah to preschool so that I could catch my breath with three kids.  


Now that things have settled down and I'm a pro at this three kid thing (HA!), I've been able to logically process what kind of education I want for our boys.  (And by the way, when I say "I", I mean "we" because Dave is fine with anything, although slightly more in favor or homeschooling.) The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that homeschooling is the right starting choice for us.  Here's why:


1) I want to individualize their education to suit their learning styles and their needs.  Having taught in a public school for several years, I know that it is almost impossible to teach every single child in a way that is uniquely created for them.  But I can do this with my boys.


2) I cannot for the life of me understand WHY children must spend 6 hours of their day - plus homework - doing school.  When do they get to be kids?  When do they get to be BOYS and roam free and get dirty and get out that crazy energy?  I want them to learn what they need to learn and then just PLAY while they have the chance.  Your childhood is over so quickly.  


So we're still sending them to preschool next year for the pure socializing fun of it, but I also purchased a curriculum to use informally in the meantime so that when they aren't in preschool the next year, it will hopefully be a natural transition back to the home.  I fell in love with Sonlight as soon as I saw it.  Although there are worksheets where necessary, the majority of it is literature based.  It's just an enormous package of BOOKS!!!  My boys love to read so it seems like it will be a natural flow right into schoolwork.  The books are so solid, so interesting, so rich.  

Today the box of school books arrived and it was awesome.  Memories from my homeschooling years came flooding back.  Memories of boxes of aBeka books that I used to grab and page through and smell (I love the smell of new books).  It make me excited to start a new school year with a fresh new book.  When the FedEx lady handed me the package, I seriously almost cried.  Happy tears, don't worry.  

The boys were just as excited as I used to be and immediately sat down to look through everything.  This is going to be great.