Birdius Maximus

We have a 3 year old Java sparrow named Max. Max is possibly the coolest pet that I have ever had... and I have had a lot of pets. I found him at a pet store when he was a baby. He sang at me every time I walked by, and he had such a pretty song, I had to get him. I had no idea that a little finch would be so animated and interactive. He loves us, especially the kids.

We let him fly free in the house sometimes, and he usually flitters from one of our heads to another or from shoulder to shoulder. He also likes to sleep on top of the DVD rack, which is about the highest point in the apartment that he could easily sit on.

He's such a little lover, but he doesn't like hands. He will hop around on the floor and nearly get flattened because he has no healthy fear of feet, but bring your hand within a couple feet of him and he flies away, squawking in protest. This is probably because I have to periodically catch him to trim his toe nails.

His favorite place to sit is on Jace's shoulder when he's doing school work. I have included a picture for your enjoyment. He also likes to sleep on my shoulder while I knit. I guess he likes the repetitive motion.

Homeschooler Speech Therapy Goldmine!

Jace has moderate to moderately-severe sensory-neuro hearing loss in both ears, and wasn't diagnosed until he was 4, so he has only had his hearing aids for about a year and a half. His speech and language were delayed (about a year behind) when we started speech and language therapy at the local hospital on a grant from their charitable foundation.

Jace has made huge advances in his speech and language since then, but we knew from the start that we had a very limited number of visits, after which our insurance will not cover his therapy. Because of this limitation, the pathologist has worked with me, spacing out his sessions to every 2 weeks and giving me lots of instruction and homework to practice with Jace to get the most bang for our buck.

We're over half way through with our free sessions, and while Jace has made awesome progress, he still needs a lot of fine-tuning and there are some sounds we haven't gotten to yet. He started out omitting a lot of sounds and substituting for many of the sounds he did attempt to say. I sit in on all of his therapy sessions and we practice at home, daily. I feel confident that we will be able to continue at home with no problem once his sessions are used up at the hospital. He's a smart kid and he wants to do well with his speech.

I woke up, again, at about 4:50 am today and couldn't get back to sleep because of the congestion from this endless cold. I had something in my inbox from The Old Schoolhouse magazine that was about speech and language therapy options for homeschoolers. This got me started on one of my Google bunny trails, and I happened upon a web site that is just FULL of resources!

If you are looking for home speech and language therapy resources, free on the web, you have to check this site out. Be warned: there are a ton of links to sift through, but I have found some incredibly useful information on their list, already. I haven't even scratched the surface.

This one is really helpful for training specific sounds:
http://speech-language-therapy.com/tx-facts-and-tricks.html
This looks promising, some useful ideas:
http://www.speechpathology.com/schoolBased/toolTips.asp
And some more freebies:
http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/freebies.htm
Another site with some creative ideas for building speech:
http://www.speechtx.com/language.htm

I'm so happy to have found this goldmine of resources! Praise God! I felt confident enough about continuing before, but now I feel equipped for the job. I found a worksheet for eliciting the "ch" sound, which is awesome because as of yet, Jace has always used "sh" instead. I can't wait to try it out with him! They explained that "ch" is basically "t" plus "sh" so you can sometimes get a kid to say it by putting a word ending in "t" before a word starting with "sh" (ie wet shoes = choose) <3 the internet

If I hadn't been a mother

I can't sleep, so I thought I would try to blog some of the thoughts that are bouncing around in my head instead of lying awake coughing in bed.

If I hadn't been a mother, I might have been an anthropologist, or an archeologist or some other type of -ologist. I have a thirst for learning. I love to study new things, learn new skills, and fill my head with mostly-useless knowledge.

I think I get that from my dad. He spent most of my childhood and adolescence dragging me around to various historical sites in California and surrounding areas, and sharing a wealth of mostly-useless, however interesting factoids about the world around us. My dad has a love for learning.

My mom inherited a propensity for research from her mother; I inherited it from her. Combine the love of mostly-useless facts with a natural tendency to obsessively research, and you get someone like me. I am fascinated with the world around me, the people around me, the nature of things on a whole.

Any time I plan to make a major purchase, I research obsessively until I have narrowed it down to the "best" apparent choice, settle on that and then research until I find the best possible place to buy it, considering price, time, distance, customer service, return policy, warranties, etc. I can't imagine how anyone buys a camera or clothes dryer or (God forbid) car, without going through this process. Seriously.

So I probably would have eventually settled into a career in which on-going research and discovery were required... if I hadn't been a mother.

I grew up not wanting children. I loved animals and had planned on just having lots of pets, but I married the world's most allergic man, so anything with fur is out of the question. A year and a half later I had my son, and then 11 months after that, my daughter. I went to school for a year and even went back to work as an intern for a short time, but I couldn't leave my children. We can survive on Tim's income alone, and nothing I can buy is more important to me than being here to raise my children, myself.

I never expected to be this way. I never thought I would be a stay-at-home mom, much less a homeschooling one. I hated staying home at first, and it has been hard over the years, especially because there were a couple years in which I didn't have a car while Tim was at work. God has richly blessed me with the ability to stay home and teach my children, and I take every day as a gift from His hands. I know that no career, for me, would ever be as important.

I will probably never become an anthropologist or archeologist. I am a mother, a wife, a keeper at home, and a teacher to my children. I hope I can pass on my love of learning to my children, and I pray that they use it to learn to hear and know the Lord's voice, and to go where He directs them.

walk walk walk walk walk... and stuff.

My friend, Beth and I spent most of last year walking about 2 miles a night, several nights a week... until it got too cold out. We stopped walking together over the winter but have just now picked back up.

We've decided to walk every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening (around her work and school schedule), which works out great for me since Tim goes into work later on Tuesday and Thursday, so I can walk in the morning those days before he leaves, while the kids are asleep, and it's still cool, but light out.

So far we walked Sunday and Monday, and I walked by myself Monday morning and this morning (Tuesday) so it's going well! I am not a morning person at all, so it's no small wonder that I have gotten up before I had to, 2 days in a row this week to do exercise. EXERCISE! Can you believe it?! ME! lol. I have been praying for God to help me get fit, lose the weight, ya know, and I think the fact that I've been sick and congested this week has helped get me out of bed and out the door. I can't sleep anyway, so might as well walk. So thank you, Lord, for the sniffles!

I'm trying to get past this plateau. Walking is the least torturous form of exercise I can think of, so that's what I'm doing. I also have a new step and step aerobics dvd that I can do when the weather sucks or when I feel like burning a lot of calories, quickly.

On another subject, entirely; I stumbled across a support group in my city for moms using the specific homeschool curriculum that we use! They meet at a local church (that I actually attended as a teenager) so I'm really psyched to hook up with them. In the Summer they only meet once a month, and this month it is today... and I can't make it, but I will make arrangements to go next month. It's so weirdly specific to my needs, I must go. The church also has a Wednesday night service that I am contemplating attending this week, since my church only has Sunday morning services and this church is close to my home. Oh and because I haven't actually shown up for church in a month. That too.

Anyway, I'm planning to go to my mom's today. My kids miss their uncles and grandparents and my dear step-dad generously changes my oil for nothing, and I desperately need an oil change.

I've been knitting the Central Park Hoodie but have slacked off the last several days. I usually knit when I watch TV but there is nothing on TV now. I went to a fabric store to look for buttons for it and they had crap, and it was expensive crap, too. $3 for a button? One button? Really? It's just a plain plastic circle with 2 holes in it. Soo... off to ebay and etsy in search of buttons. Man it's hard to choose buttons. So many possibilities. Good thing I have plenty of time before sweater weather arrives. I will keep looking until something catches my eye.

Anyway I'm off, so much to get done. And I'm hungry.

Sick.

Tim caught something at work and didn't realize he was actually sick since he's always stuffed up with his allergies. We all ended up drinking after him (he had a delicious frozen coffee drink, and we did not) and one by one we all came down with a yucky cold. The worst part is that this crud seems to want to stick around for WEEKS.

I had to take Rachel to the ER in the middle of the night/wee morning hours because she was all croupy. They gave her steroids since I had already given her a breathing treatment at home. She's doing much better now, but this junky cough just doesn't want to go away.

I hate going to sleep when I'm congested. This is why I am up at 4:30am. That and the Amp I had earlier. In case you're wondering, Amp vs. cough medicine: Amp wins.

I hate being sick. I guess I should try to get some sleep.

And this year...

Well, I'm almost done with Kindergarten with both kids, and I'm already looking forward to the wonders that next year will reveal! I haven't updated this blog in an entire year, but I plan to post a lot more this year.

I have so enjoyed teaching the kids to read and especially seeing them grasp concepts about God from the wonderful My Father's World curriculum we used this year! Jace was just telling me how God is bigger than Daddy and bigger than everyone, and that God is the "main boss". My kids have never been allowed to go to church, so MFW has been just amazing. We will be going back to them for 1st grade.

What a fantastic year we have had! 3 more weeks until we are done with this year, but we will be doing lots of fun, hands-on things this summer to enrich our learning.

I have been knitting a beautiful Central Park Hoodie for myself out of Avocado green Lion Brand Wool Ease and I'm loving and hating it at the same time. I decided to add pockets to it, which was kind of complicated (for a novice like myself) AND I altered the pattern, making the cables wider, which further muddies the water. I think (and hope) I will really like the finished product. I really hope I made the right size. We shall see, soon.