October 2nd to October 10th: Urgent Care, Robbery, Zoos, and More

Let's see if I can get back in the note taking habit! 

Saturday kicked off with an unexpected run to the urgent care near us with Mason. He woke up with a swollen area the size of my palm on his knee. It was hot to the touch, tight, and you could feel fluid under it. I always hesitate to take him to the local urgent care because he is so complex medically, but I was pretty confident in what needed checked and done temporarily to get us through to Monday when we could check in with his surgeon. 

As any mama with a medically complex child will tell you, you have to be your child's advocate. This held true once again, as the doctor came in, looked (without touching at all) at Mason's knee, and said, "Oh, he probably was walking and fell down and it will be fine in a day or two." To my child who was sitting in his wheelchair, and who we had already explained has no movement or sense of touch/pain from the hips down. I reminded him that it was impossible. He said, "Well, maybe it's just patellar bursitis. Give it a few days." Sigh. 

I informed him that the area feels like it is filling with fluid, and that we needed an x-ray to check for anything unexpected, and a course of antibiotics to address what was most likely an infection until we could see his orthopedic surgeon on Monday. He felt Mason's knee - finally - and ordered the x-ray and antibiotics, because I was right, it did feel like fluid. I told the xray tech what views of the knee to do, and that I wanted to see them on her screen. I'm pretty familiar with Mason's knee/leg xrays. You could see former broken bones that have healed, and a fluid area on the knee, with no unexpected things I could see.  

Two days of antibiotics later, things were looking much better, and our orthopedic surgeon checked the xrays and our report of progress since starting the antibiotics and said to keep doing what we were doing, everything else looked fine. We will check in again after the course of meds is done.

Back to Saturday, we got home from the urgent care and started making cinnamon rolls and setting up the living room for General Conference. It was a wonderful day of music and encouragement! While it sometimes is a bit noisy surrounded by kids of all ages, everyone participated in their own way, listening, watching, drawing, and spinning in circles on the floor until they fell over laughing and listened some more.

Sunday we had two more sessions of Conference. Knowing the kids had already gone through six hours of Conference the day before, we pulled out a surprise to keep hands busy - clay in a rainbow of colors. They molded and cut, twisted and crafted all sorts of little things with that clay, and generally when little hands are busy, little minds are listening. 

Monday was recovery day, catching up on chores, doing projects around the house, and adding papers from the last six weeks of school to each child's portfolio.

Tuesday morning we were getting ready to head out for the day when we realized our detached garage was broken into and things were stolen, as well as damaged. We called the police, filed a report, and then took the kids to the zoo for the day. We saw old favorites like the stingrays (we pet and fed those) and the reptile house. We saw new favorites like the baby elephant. We walked a lot and came home ready for some rest.

Wednesday was more small projects and then Primary and Youth activities in the evening.

Thursday a visit to the wheelchair vendor for new parts, adjustments, and leaving after hours with a few unresolved issues still. Sigh. Going to have to consult with the physical medicine doctor about the best of two not great options equipment-wise. We did more projects today in the afternoon, and Emma had play practice. 

Friday we spent a lot of time playing games together. We also challenged the kids to pull together Birthday/Christmas idea lists for us. Between this week and the end of February we have birthdays for 8 of the kids, as well as Christmas. It is always interesting to read their lists. Some are quick to come up with ideas, while others struggle to put more than two things on the page. 

Saturday my husband was gone for most of the day on a dad's trip to the Air and Space Museum in Dayton. The kids and I played games, I prepared some seminary lessons, Grandma came to visit twice, and the older four kids also had a stake youth bowling activity in the afternoon. 

Sunday we split between church at home and at church, as one child dealt with some medication side effects. We watched the broadcast of church, made grilled cheese and soup for lunch, and have mostly rested and spent time talking together since. It's closing in on bedtime and we'll be back to the work (daddy) and homeschool (everyone else) routine. 

Looking ahead this week, we will be studying the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune), begin the history of astronomy, learn about the Massai people of Tanzania and Kenya in geography, make paper beads, and lots of other things. 

September Homeschool Notes: Life as usual

Monday's seminary lesson focused on temples. After that it was breakfast with the kids, then all sorts of math lessons. From radicals in Algebra 2 and angles in Geometry to mental math with a focus on different strategies to do two digit subtraction problems in your head, to equivalent fractions, we covered a lot of math. The kids all agree their favorite subject today was science. The younger boys experimented with mirrors and illusions. The older kids built working wooden cranes with several pulley options. 

Another thing we have been doing every day is watching some of the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. We loved the Olympics, and for our family the Paralympics are every bit as interesting. There have been so many discussions about ability, skill, talent, hard work, and disabilities. Mason, my 9 year old who uses a wheelchair, is especially enthralled by the wheelchair races, both sprint and distance. He has decided wheelchair rugby looked way too rough, but that wheelchair basketball was pretty cool.

Tuesday was a fun school morning because Tobias was so enthusiastic about doing school. We've been using a couple different resources for him loosely. First is The Good and the Beautiful PreK course. We have the older edition, and a new one released on Monday, which I've ordered. In the older edition they do a mix of things, from learning uppercase and lowercase letters, letter sounds, a dash of handwriting, counting, shapes, colors, etc. There are a fair amount of hands on activities. For example, today I hid a mouse behind one of 9 houses. Each house has an uppercase or lowercase letter he's working on learning. He would choose a house, tell me what that letter says, and then check to see if that house had the mouse. Tobias also uses The Good and the Beautiful Math K, the older edition. We do not plan to change to the new edition of math because we love this one. It has an entire box full of manipulatives and games, lots of stories, and all the math-y fun. Today's math lesson covered counting, days of the week, months of the year, ordinal numbers, patterning, and mental math using a mix of games, manipulatives, songs (with videos), coloring, drawing, etc. This week I also decided to add in All About Reading 1 for Tobias. While TGTB will teach him to read as he goes through the levels, I really love the solid phonics instruction of All About Reading, and the hands on activities woven throughout. Tobias is all about playing games right now, so he's happy to have one more source for games. The jury is still out on how ready he is for blending sounds, but we're going to play around with it and see. 

For geography this week we're finishing up our study of the Middle East. The older 3 learned about Turkey today, Gallipoli, and other interesting things. The rest of the kids learned about Muslim beliefs and how that is reflected for many in their clothing choices. We had a great discussion about how our beliefs can and should be reflected in how we live our life: the things we do, the way we speak to others, and so on. One sweet book we read today was The Proudest Blue: A Story of Hijab and Family by Ibtihaj Muhammad, and Olympic medalist. Muhammad is a fencer, and the first Muslim American in hijab to compete for the United States in the Olympic Games. (She won bronze in her event in the 2016 Olympics.)

This week I had no energy for planning fun extras. Wednesday the kids decided that fun must be had, as it was September 1st, Hogwarts Day. In the Harry Potter books Sept. 1 is the day the students all take the train back to school. The kids did a little planning, placed a quick grocery delivery order for ingredients they were missing, and in the afternoon we watched the very first Harry Potter movie with the snacks they had made: butterbeer, chocolate dipped wands (pretzel rods), and as they had plenty of chocolate they also dipped strawberries and apple slices. In the evening seven of the 9 kids at home headed to the church for youth activities. 

Thursday School was slow. We are loving the chilly weather in the mornings! 

Friday I tried to take the van to get some things looked at, but the shop is closed until next Tuesday for the Labor Day weekend. Oh well! Came home and got through the homeschooling, spent lots of time playing games together, and had long discussions about favorite characters in books.

Saturday I made a Costco trip, a WalMart trip, and even took a short nap. The kids and Daddy did some house chores, played games together, and worked on a few projects together.

Sunday was rest and church. Kids also each picked a recipe to cook in the next two weeks.

Monday was Labor Day. Caleb was the first up for cooking and he made yakisoba noodles for lunch. 

Well, as things sometimes go, this month I stopped taking notes. In general, it was a good month. We had a lot of happy moments. The kids all took turns cooking several times each this month. We also have one teen dealing with pneumonia, that has hung around all month. There have been extended family get togethers for fun Fridays and for birthdays. My husband is transitioning to a new position at work, one that he is excited about. I have struggled to get through to medical providers and medical suppliers for Mason, which is frustrating. Emma auditioned for a play at the local high school and got the part she hope for, so she is now doing drama practices regularly. School has gone great for everyone. The kids are all learning and making progress in their courses. We have been enjoying all things space for science this month, and all things Africa in world geography. More books have been read than I could possibly keep track of, by kids and on my own. I have also studied all the talks from the last General Conference again, because tomorrow it is already time for General Conference again!