Against the Grain

Birth Story of Linus Augustine

I spent the days after my 41 week, 2 day prenatal doing internet searches on induction by AROM. Since my midwife seemed to think it would go well, I figured I could hear opposition on mothering.com, where indeed, people warned about how it starts the clock. I'd never gone for interventions of any sort for my labors (including watching Peter's bag of water go in and out for an hour and not breaking it) and it felt weird making such a blatant choice to start labor this time. But by Thursday morning July 3rd at 41 weeks 5 days, after waking up not in labor AGAIN, I was ready. I'd gone on a long walk Wednesday night and thought maybe my bag of water was leaking, but there wasn't any further evidence and I was so discouraged. I did see something that might have been mucus plug on Thursday morning. It wasn't the bloody gooey mess I've seen with my other kids, but it was better than the no signs of anything I'd been having so far.

So on Thursday, my parents came in the morning with their suitcases, we all hugged, and they brought the kids to swimming while we went to the birth center ready to AROM. We left the house early to eat lunch at the nearby Midtown Global Market (where I mentally dared everyone to ask when I was having the baby but only got scared looks) and then I walked the quarter mile through the hospital's passageways to the birth center. I got there at 12:50 for my 1:00 appointment and the midwife K was leading a tour. I told them I didn't mind waiting and it was 1:15 before I was set up in the recliner for the non-stress test. My birth center was established two years ago by a perinatologist tired of low-risk women having high-risk care by OBs. It's pretty easy to risk out - no gestational diabetes, multiples, high BMI, grand multiparas, or breech births. But for those who make the cut, it's covered by all major insurance carriers and encourages waterbirth, which recently was denied by a chain of local hospitals. For my early prenatals, it felt more clinical than even my hospital CNM experience with Tim, but I only saw one CNM then, so it was easy to connect with her. The birth center has 4 CNMs and after my first appointment, they kept to the 30 minute max length and relied on me to bring up questions and concerns. Nothing beats homebirth prenatals for feeling like the midwife cares about your whole life and is looking out for every possible issue. So it took until my third trimester before I'd met all the midwives and prenatals were only once a month until 36 weeks. But then I went every week for 6 Mondays in a row and I was feeling more comfortable there.

I settled in for the non-stress test and K sat down to talk to us about what would happen now that I was closing in on 42 weeks. Unlike Monday's CNM, she didn't mention AROM until I brought it up. She seemed to be more in favor of stripping my membranes that day and seeing if that would be enough. I felt weird pushing it because part of me didn't want to push AROM, especially if the CNM didn't think it was a good idea. But after some hemming and hawing, I finally said yes, if my cervical check indicated that I was a good candidate, I wanted to go ahead with AROM. K was the clinic CNM that day but M was the midwife on call, so at that point, K called M to tell her that she should be ready to come in. Meanwhile, the baby must have decided to take a nap and was not reacting much for the non-stress test. 30 minutes went by and there was only one long acceleration, so K kept waiting to see if there would be another one. Eventually we gave up and she said Monday's test was great and there were a couple shorter accelerations she could count if necessary.

So we went down to the exam room to do the cervical check. I was 3 cm dilated (and she could stretch to 4 cm), soft, 60% effaced, and pretty low, at -1 station. She said those numbers were safe to AROM at the birth center (if he was higher, they'd have to do it at the hospital in case of prolapse), and did we want to go ahead? Yes, yes we did. Then we moved into one of the birthing suites and waited for the on-call midwife M to arrive. It was now just after 2pm and we essentially spent the hour fiddling with my phone and the iPad, trying to get the wi-fi to work. At 3pm, M and the student midwife J arrived and set up for the amniotomy while K returned to clinic appointments. The amniotomy hook was less pointy than I expected. First J tried to do it but they weren't sure if it had worked. His head was low enough that they said it probably wouldn't be a big gush of fluid, but they wanted to see some so we weren't all wasting our time. M got a new hook and was able to get more fluid and be sure the bag was broken. They both were impressed by how strong my bag was. I felt like claiming it was due to my finally getting around to making a pitcher of red raspberry leaf tea the day before, ha ha. Since Peter and Leo were both born in the caul, I wasn't surprised.

We had a discussion about what to expect next. Since it was now 3:15pm, I had no interest in going home unless rush hour finished without labor starting. The 20-25 min drive would take at least 40 min, and I didn't even like having 2 contractions on the 6 minute drive to the hospital with Tim. The midwives required us to stay at the birth center until 4pm so they could check the baby's heart tones twice before we left the building. We decided that we'd drive a couple miles to Lake of the Isles, walk around there for awhile, and if nothing happened, we'd have supper in Uptown before deciding whether it was time to go home to rest. The midwives said that if contractions didn't start by morning, they'd want me to come in for another non-stress test. If that was fine, by lunchtime, it would be time to go to the hospital for Pitocin. But they stressed that they fully expected me to be back at the birth center within a couple hours.

That waiting hour was weird. I wanted contractions to start, but wasn't worried yet. To not even be uncomfortable, just hanging around knowing labor was imminent, was confusing. The baby's heart sounded great, so at 4pm, we headed out.

It was a pretty warm day at the lake. We walked along the path, checking out the paddleboarders, bikers, and canoers along with the mansions on our other side. We must have walked about 15 minutes before turning around back towards the car. By now we both had to pee and we realized we didn't see any public bathrooms on our side of the lake. Just as we got into the car, I realized that the pressure in my pelvis was actually a contraction. We decided to drive around the lake until we found a bathroom and if there weren't any, we knew nearby Lake Calhoun had port-a-potties along its beaches. As Dan drive around the curves, I had another contraction or two and although I still called them mild, experiencing them while moving was not much fun.

It took us awhile to figure out where to park nearest the port-a-potties and my contractions kept coming. By the time I used the bathroom, Dan called Kara to tell her to meet us there and then called the midwife. She had said that if I felt regular contractions at any interval, or if I felt strong pressure, we should call. Essentially, the contractions were 3-6 minutes apart and lasting a minute right from the start. I didn't really want to talk through them and I slowly walked through shady areas and realized I didn't want to be stuck out there surrounded by people in a parking lot. Meanwhile, Dan talked to the midwife who asked if I wanted to stay there or come back to the birth center. Dan looked at me and correctly figured it was time to go back. He also called Kara, who immediately guessed that she should go directly to the birth center instead of the lake.

It was 5:15 by now and we only had to drive a few miles, but it was through Uptown and its stoplights. I couldn't believe I somehow had managed to get stuck in the car for so many contractions. I talked to Dan a little between them but spent most of my energy willing the car to get there sooner and trying to relax despite the seatbelt and constant stopping and starting.

M and J, the midwives, met us back at the birth center and we returned to the birth room where we'd waited before the amniotomy. They asked if I wanted to be checked and I must have given them a strange look and asked them if it was necessary since I'd guessed we would minimize cervical exams now that my membranes were ruptured. It turns out, they just offered since most people want to know how far along they are when they arrive to make sure they're in active labor before settling in. It was clear pretty quickly that I was in active labor and I didn't feel any need to know if I was 5 cm or 7. I had no idea if I would be there all night and didn't want to introduce chances for infection unnecessarily. As it turns out, I was never checked after the amniotomy.

I wasn't sure if I would feel cooped up in the room and tried lying down on the bed for a couple contractions. That didn't feel all that good. I was calling out "Button!" to Dan to tell him when to indicate the start and end of a contraction on the iPad. He told me we could stop tracking them but there was something comforting to me about knowing they were ending and not just going on and on. 

At 5:45, Kara arrived. It felt like she was setting up a buffet in the corner and although she was just trying to make sure I knew there were snacks if I wanted them, I didn't want them and in hind sight, I'd definitely hit that irrational time when things bugged me without good reason. 

The contractions felt different than those I'd felt with the other babies. I worried that I might be having back labor and a posterior baby because it reminded me more of Peter's birth than the others', but it wasn't exactly the same. I didn't get whole-uterus-squeezing contractions. Mostly my pelvis felt a lot of pressure and as time went on, my low back bothered me more and more. The best way to cope with contractions was to lean on something sturdy, ideally while someone provided counter-pressure on my back and hips. Kara was great for finding the best spots to squeeze and rub but Dan was always nearby and willing to step in, too. Every couple contractions, I tried to find a better way to deal with them, but nothing seemed to work. At 6:30, someone suggested I try the shower, where at least I'd be able to focus the spray on my lower back. I finally stopped tracking contractions because the back pain didn't really go away between contractions and I wasn't sure when to say they began or ended. I'd tried sitting on the toilet, but it felt like I might inadvertently push if I stayed there and that seemed like a bad idea. While I was in the bathroom and feeling overwhelmed by how nothing was helping me cope much, I asked Kara if it would be much longer. She responded with something non-committal like "you're doing exactly what you need to do right now, everything's going perfectly," and I wanted to force her to give me a real answer, even though I knew she'd say something like that before I said it. Kara later said that I was probably entering transition around that time in the bathroom. 


At 6:45, I tried getting into the tub and laboring there but the edges felt slippery and it felt like there wasn't a good way to steady myself. Maybe my push-against-something-sturdy preference didn't work there. After a couple contractions, I got out. Kara reminded me at one point that it takes half an hour for hormone levels to catch up and when labor's going quickly, that's tough. It just seemed like keeping on top of the contractions and not getting overwhelmed was more difficult than in my other labors. I couldn't tell if it was because I skipped right into active labor instead of slowly leading up to it over 12 hours or if my active labor really was harder. I thought about how it was going to keep feeling worse until I pushed out a baby and I didn’t even know how long that would take.

When I got out of the tub, Kara was trying to get me to put on a robe, I started vocalizing and bearing down, and I noticed the midwives around me for the first time. J had come every 30 minutes to check the baby's heart tones (which was a welcome way I recognized the passing of time) but I was otherwise unaware of the midwives' presence. I had to ask Dan and Kara later whether they were in the room much (their answer: not often). As I fought off the robe, the midwives asked if I wanted to deliver the baby in the tub or not and I realized that I was starting to push and was not going to be in labor much longer. Hurrah!

With the midwives’ encouragement, I got up on the bed on hands and knees, leaning over a birth ball (sitting on it earlier had been another abandoned coping mechanism). It was 7 pm. I guess my baby would not be sharing a 4th of July birthday with my grandfather. It felt good to push. During Tim's labor, the urge to push came slowly and I worried about pushing prematurely. This time, it was more obvious and encouraged. The pain in my back was finally gone and between contractions, I was able to really rest. Dan stayed up by my head and I joked with everyone during the rests. I wondered how long I would push - I had maybe 6 pushes total with Leo, most of which were before I'd climbed onto the bed. I pushed for 15 minutes with Tim and knew I was making progress. This time, I wasn't as sure that I was getting closer to getting him out. Not to put too fine a point on it, but at this point, I could understand why some people choose to have enemas before going into labor. I may have told everyone that I was just going to have a poop baby, not a human. As soon as I felt like I was never going to get anywhere, I had a longer, stronger push and the midwives behind me told me to stop pushing and wait for the next contraction. I couldn't tell if I was in the midst of crowning or if I'd pushed the baby's head out. It had hurt, a lot, but not ring-of-fire level hurt. For the next three minutes, I talked to Dan and waited for the urge to push. When it came, I quickly felt his body sliding out (such an odd feeling, body parts going all directions!) and heard him crying out. Yay, a breather! And I was done! No more contractions, no more pushing! Knowing the hardest part was over was such a relief. It turns out, his head was out for those three minutes but the midwives patiently waited for my body to be ready to do the rest. The time was 7:22pm and I’d been pushing since 7pm.


Kara and the midwives helped me roll over and lie back on the bed as they rubbed him and covered us up. His one and five minute APGARs were 9’s, I think, since his color was great and he kept yelling. His cord was fairly short, so I couldn’t hold him up very high on my chest until they cut it after five minutes when it was mostly done pulsing. I sort of felt like pushing again about ten minutes later and my placenta came out easily. I ended up with two stitches for two small first-degree lacerations. It was my first time having stitches. After recovering so slowly with Peter and Leo, I was glad to be stitched up instead of hoping it would heal easily on its own. He latched on to nurse pretty easily and mostly stayed there for the rest of our time at the birth center. 

After about an hour, the midwives took him across the room to weigh him and do his newborn exam. 8 lbs 8 oz, 21 inches, 14.25” head. Finally, a baby between 7 and 9 lbs! His head was perfectly rounded without any molding. While he was there, they had me get out of bed and back into the tub (which felt quite nice without contractions coming every few minutes). Once the baby’s exam was done, he joined me in the tub (he liked it too).  While we were in the tub, Kara mentioned that she had seen M point something out to J when I’d gotten out of the tub during labor. In fair-skinned women, when they are fully dilated, a dark line shows up at the top of their butt crack (http://birthwithoutfearblog.com/2013/06/06/alternative-methods-of-checking-dilation-the-purple-line-and-more/). M had seen this and it let her know I was ready to push without doing a cervical exam (the way I was starting to bear down and vocalize made it more obvious). Neither the student midwife nor the nurse who’d been practicing for 20 years had ever heard of it. It was fun being a teaching moment (although I’m glad they waited until later to chat about it.) The midwives showed all of us his placenta. It was large, probably close to two pounds, and had come out all at once with the bag of water still intact except for where they’d cut it and he’d come out. They were impressed by how strong it still looked. The placenta was calcifying a bit at the edges but was otherwise in good shape.

The midwives left after two hours, leaving us with the nurse A-M. I finally agreed to finalize his name – Linus Augustine, a name we’d just agreed on the week before. If he’d waited until midnight, we were considering naming him Edmund to honor my grandpa Eddie, whose birthday was that day. I stayed in bed and Linus nursed and A-M went over everything we needed to know to bring home a 4 hour old baby. I got to eat the lasagna we’d brought with us along with fresh bread that had been made in a bread machine while I was laboring (a great birth center perk!). Kara’s food was more appealing now that I wasn’t laboring, too.

Eventually Kara left to run home before heading back to our house and Linus and I got dressed and ready to leave. The last hour there, we mostly were just getting our vitals checked and waiting to go. I started yawning around 11 and the midwives were right – the 4 hour postpartum stay was well-timed for the parents to go home and rest in their own bed. I was worried that Linus would cry for the whole car ride, but he did well. He looked so little in the car seat.

When we got home, the older boys were really excited to see us. They’d thought that they’d go to bed before the baby was born and when they heard we’d be home before midnight, we told my parents they could stay up until we arrived.

The first night went okay. I find it tricky to nurse in bed sitting up but side-lying to nurse wasn’t working yet, so we had to arrange a giant pile of pillows every time. We did get to sleep for some decent chunks of time. We had to wake up enough at 3am to take Linus’s and my vitals, and then it was hard for me to fall back asleep. Within a day or two, I moved myself primarily to the couch during the day to make nursing easier. By day 5, I was nursing lying down.

Although Linus’ labor and birth was definitely the shortest of my four, I’m not sure if it was the easiest. I felt a lack of control that I don’t remember from Leo’s or Tim’s. Actually, that goes for late pregnancy and the first couple weeks, too. The unknown of when he would arrive was much harder this time and Linus has had much more trouble nursing than either of the middle boys. I’m grateful that each boy has breathed more easily than the last – it’s going to be hard to beat a screaming, not-yet-fully-born baby. I do wonder what would have happened if the midwives hadn’t broken my water. I had seen some mucus plug that morning and my babies have always been born the next day. Maybe I would have labored all day on the 4^th of July. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone into labor before risking out of the birth center on Saturday. Maybe he would have had breathing problems and been born in the caul like Peter and Leo. I don’t regret any decisions we made and I’m certainly not going to complain about my short labor. It’s hard not to be curious about the what ifs.

Time to get bigger

Despite everyone's telling me I should put away the scale and use other means of checking on my baby's well-being, I weighed him again 3 days after he was 7 lbs 15 oz and got 7 lbs 12 oz. I also called the nurseline on day 8 to get her opinion on him going 3 days without pooping. The lack of poop (according to the nurse, our pediatrician, and the whole internet) by itself doesn't mean anything. We were still glad when he finally pooped on Saturday night (and Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday lunch). I guess he's now at 2 poopless days again. The bigger concern is his lack of weight gain. On Monday (day 11), I called the pediatrician's office about coming in for a weight check and the ped had an opening for Tuesday morning, so it seemed worth it to talk to him too and not just see the nurse to weigh him. Our ped is great and was very reassuring (he said he was only a little bit concerned). While there, Linus weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and went up an ounce when I nursed him. The ped recommended that I pump once or twice a day and feed Linus the pumped milk in addition to nursing him as much as normal.

It felt weird sending Dan out to buy bottles for the first time in 10 years of parenting, but it didn't feel like a defeat like I think it would have with Peter. I was so determined not to introduce bottles to him. We used the SNS, we finger fed, you name it, for the two weeks until he figured out how to latch with breast shields. My sister and SIL gave suggestions for which kinds of bottles would be best to try and she loaned me her double electric pump. I remembered that I'd gotten a strange voice mail from a medical supply company about ordering a pump, so we went back to figure that out. I think the birth center must have alerted them that I had a new baby. Dan called them and a Medela Pump in Style was delivered the next day. Hopefully, insurance really will pay for it because I signed on the dotted line and didn't read my insurance benefits' fine print first.

After 2 days of pumping twice (getting about 3 ounces each time), I saw a lactation consultant today. He weighed 7 lbs 10 oz when I got there, gained 4cc after nursing on one side, 4 more cc after the 2nd side, and 12 more cc when I later went back to the first side. Since that's under an ounce total, that's not going to cut it. We talked about his erratic nursing - sometimes he swallows well, but never for very long. Sometimes it takes him a long time to latch. Sometimes he nurses on and off for hours. I really liked the LC. She respected the fact that I've successfully nursed 3 babies for a total of 7 of the past 10 years. She thinks that although my supply is probably less than it needs to be due to his low demand, my body will remember how this works even though we're already 2 weeks in and past the best supply/demand time. She agreed that his tongue tie might be an issue and it's worth seeing an ENT because he doesn't have the full range of motion, although she made it clear that clipping his frenulum probably won't be an instant fix. She suggested a plan, asking if it would work for me, and if it didn't, we'd adjust it, but it sounded doable to me. Until Linus gets back to his birth weight, I'll take go lacta (3 capsules, 3x daily), drink nursing tea, and take the following approach to feeding Linus:
Nurse on one side, so long as he is nursing productively (swallowing well). When he stops, switch sides
Nurse on the second side in the same way
Keep switching sides so long as he's swallowing (possibly twice on each side)
Give the baby to someone, who should bottle feed him 2 oz, while I pump for 10 min
At that point, he's likely to sleep because he's really full.
Repeat every 2-3 hours, day and night (although I can skip pumping overnight, which should work because most of the time I'm pumping more than 2 oz).
If, after the weekend, I am not able to pump an average of 2 oz, I'll need to consider donor milk or formula, but I'm not too worried about reaching that point.
On Monday or Tuesday, I need to get his weight checked again at the ped's office and he should be going up 1-2 oz a day. That would get him back to his birth weight in 1-2 weeks. The idea is that he's only gulping the milk when it's easy and I let down. If the herbal stuff and all the pumping increase my milk supply, he'll gulp down more milk at the breast. But until then, we'll give him 2 oz per feeding by bottle because that's the minimum he should be getting per feed at this point. Eventually, he'll realize that it feels good to be full and be willing to work harder to feel that way. Maybe clipping his frenulum will make it easier too.

Bottle feeding is going pretty well. He got the hang of it before too long. And I'm pumping enough. So we just need to get the milk from me to him. I was glad the lactation consultant didn't think we'd need to pump indefinitely and didn't use any scare tactics. I can work with a short term plan. Dan will work mornings again next week, so he's home by 1pm, which is a lot easier than him leaving at 11am and coming home at 5:30pm. So I'll only have a couple morning feedings to deal with alone.

Immediately after the LC visit, I went to my 2 week postpartum check with the midwives. It was mostly a mental health check. I told them how my bleeding was down to spotting after a week, but came back after I was out and about more on Wednesday and hasn't stopped yet (boo. I'm back parked on the couch whenever I'm not at these appointments). I told them I felt a sort of heaviness sometimes and wanted them to tell me if my uterus was falling out (way to jump to the scariest scenario, Amy) and it appears that it's cystocele (slightly prolapsed bladder) which sounds pretty terrible, but they said that I'm only 2 weeks postpartum and healing and if it's still there or worse at 6 weeks, they'd refer me to an OB to deal with it. The phrase "you've pushed out 4 babies" came up way too many times for my liking in the conversation. It was an interesting contrast from the LC, for whom my four babies' experience is a good thing. It's hard not to think that my body's falling apart, and ick. I'm tired of sitting on the couch.

Not the birth story, but everything in the week since

Just because Linus is baby boy #4 for me doesn't mean I actually feel confident that I'm doing anything right. Maybe that's putting it too strongly. For his first four days, he barely hit the one-pee-per-day-of-age minimums, but he pooped plenty. Then Tuesday (day 5), he stopped pooping entirely but began peeing a lot. Now three days later, the lack of poop makes me question whether his not-that-vigorous nursing is getting him enough food and is there something horribly wrong with his latch? I thought maybe I could blame tongue-tie, but his tongue reaches past his lips so that's not it (at least according to what the ENT told us when we brought in newborn Tim). He almost always nurses for 30-45 minutes and I often have to unlatch him at that point to save my nipples from getting chewed up. It seems like twice a day he cluster feeds and I pretty much switch sides back and forth for 2-3 hours. Lately I've been trying to keep him off a little more between sides to see if anything else will make him happy but it usually doesn't. But after the cluster feeding, he does sleep for 3-4 hours, so he must be filling up. I'm just surprised how much I'm second guessing myself.

Nursing Linus has been harder than I remember from Leo or Tim. Still easier than Peter, but almost anything would be easier than that. He latched on really well immediately after birth and pretty much nursed non-stop until we left the birth center 4 hours later. But the next few days, I had to fight to get him to have a deep enough latch. By days 3 and 4, I was somewhat engorged and hurting from that and a bad latch meant that my nipples hurt and the whole process was making me cringe. Now I think my supply has balanced out but I often still have to work to get him to latch well. C'mon kid, figure this out!

The boys adore him. Peter began reading to him from a Children's Encyclopedia. Leo asks constantly to hold him. Tim tells him that he is his big brother and the other boys are his big, big brothers. Then he tells me to put him in the rock n play so I can play a game with him. He hasn't quite understood that I'm essentially planted to the couch for the time being.

I did figure out how to nurse him side-lying around day 5. My back hurts in the morning, so I'm probably not doing it well, but it's better than moving to the couch at 3am.

I had a first degree tear with two stitches and I'd guess that it's mostly healed now, although I have a history of recuperating slowly so I'm still afraid to sit on hard chairs or assume that I'm okay. Too many people I know are developing hemorrhoids up to a week postpartum or dealing with prolapses and I'm doing my darndest not to join them. Today, walking around the house has felt pretty decent (although my 3 hr nap around noon might also be helping everything).

We've been using more devices than we did with the other boys. If Linus has been nursing for hours, Dan gives him a pacifier. My sister loaned us her rock n play and it's nice to have somewhere to put him off the ground both when we go to bed and when we dare do things like eat or take something out of the oven. More often than not, I just want to hold him when he's sleeping. I know the tininess won't last long.

Leaving the birth center after 4 hours was a pretty scary concept, even after our Early Discharge class. But in practice, it made sense. We had lots of time with the nurse during that four hours when she reminded us of what we needed to do and answered questions. I was just starting to yawn when it was time to go. Thankfully, the baby didn't cry during the 25 min drive home and we were able to go to sleep in our own bed that night. Taking vitals (every 4 hours on day 1, 8 hours on day 2, twice on day 3, and once on day 4) did more to reassure us that he and I were healthy. Dan took the baby's temp and counted a minute of respirations, then he took my temp and counted out my heart rate. We counted and marked pees, poops, and nursing sessions until his pediatrician visit on day 5. A midwife came to check us both out around the 40 hour mark and did his hearing test and the newborn screening test. She showed me an effective way to hand express milk and told us he wasn't as jaundiced as we thought. He weighed 8 lbs 8 oz at birth, 7 lbs 15 oz at the home visit, and 8 lbs 5 oz at the pediatrician. I weighed him today, day 8, and got 7 lbs 15 oz again (adding to my fears) but I suppose that might be at least partially due to the change in scales. He won't go back to the pediatrician until 2 months unless something's wrong. I'll be checked at the birth center at 2 weeks and 6 weeks and I assume we'll weigh him then too.

Dan had to start his summer job on Monday and that was rough. This week, he was gone from about 11-6 Mon-Thurs. He took 3 weeks off and we figured the baby would come sometime during the first two weeks (1 week early to 1 week late). Ha ha. So we made do with a team of family and friends driving the boys around. Peter and Leo have a park program from 1-4 Mon and Wed, Tim has a similar program from 9:45-11:15 Mon/Wed, and all of them had swimming Tues and Thurs 11:30-12, but a 15 min drive away. Dan was able to drop Tim off at 9:45, but I needed someone every day to do the other shuttling. By Thursday, I think we were all getting stressed out and the boys were awful for my mom going to swimming. Meanwhile, I needed to be up getting people lunch and it didn't feel that great. On Monday, I was screaming at the kids by 4:30. Tuesday I made it until evening before I started crying over something minor. I felt like I could handle the baby during the day but adding the other kids put me over the edge. By Thursday afternoon, the kids realized it was best to stay out of my way and they played for hours in the basement knowing that I'm not taking stairs yet. It worked out. I'm grateful for Dan's three day weekend.

Now Peter left tonight for Grandpa Camp and it's going to be a weird week. I just managed to teach him how to rotate the laundry and when he hasn't been sneaking screen time, he's been really helpful. I suspect Leo's going to complain a lot more of boredom without Peter here. Then in a week, Leo and Peter will both go to YMCA camp for 2 weeks and it's really going to be strange having only a 4 year old and newborn. At least I should feel more comfortable driving by then.

Waiting for Lando

June has been a very long month. I've always been grateful that Leo was born sooner than Peter and Tim sooner than Leo. I expected Peter to be late and only got antsy when I hit 41 weeks. My labor with him started at 41w5d and then dragged on until 42w2d. I've been curious since Tim's 37 week birth whether my second trimester bleeding caused him to be born earlier than his brothers. I didn't experience any similar issues with this fourth pregnancy, but as I hit 36 weeks, I wondered whether my history of ever-shorter labors would continue. So we tried to be ready early. I didn't get around to freezer meals until 37 weeks but we had a car seat and a place for baby stuff to go. Dan was teaching until 38 weeks and cleaning up his school year the following week. By 39 weeks, June 14th, we were ready. Apparently Lando was not. I asked the CNMs for a cervical exam at 36 weeks so I could have a clue whether to expect him soon and I was 1 cm dilated. So, probably not that week. Same at 38 weeks. By 39 weeks I was 2 cm. At 40 weeks, I was still 2 cm, but effacing and getting lower. It felt like maybe the following weekend would be promising. But no, I hit 41 weeks on Saturday and just kept going. Yesterday - Monday - I was 41 weeks and 2 days and I hit the point where the birth center starts doing ultrasounds and non-stress tests. Okey-dokey, I'm starting to have paranoid times where the baby doesn't move for 45 minutes and I poke him repeatedly. I like the testing plan.

The non-stress test was sort of fun, with all the numbers to watch. I wanted to see the Monty Python sketch with the machine that goes ping after that. I HATED the monitors when I got to the hospital with Tim, so I was amused how different it was to experience when not in labor. Lando would kick and his heartrate would go from the 130s to the 160s. Yay! I had a long Braxton Hicks contraction in the middle too, which is probably useful for them to see. 

Then the CNM did a quick ultrasound to look at fluid levels. She didn't attempt to estimate his weight or do anything else. I've never had a 3rd trimester ultrasound and it was weird to see his head take up the whole screen. She said she wanted to see a minimum fluid level of 8 in the four quadrants put together. The first two places she checked added to 9, so that test was easily passed too. 

I was dilated to 3 cm, soft and 50% effaced, with the baby's head fairly low. She explained that as of 41w1d, she could offer an elective induction by breaking my water if I wanted, and as of 41w3d, it would be called a medical induction but be otherwise the same. My 3 cm dilation meant that it could be done at the birth center - if his head was higher, it would have needed to be across the street at the hospital. She also offered to strip my membranes. I decided to do neither, although I need to return on Thursday to repeat the tests and might be ready by then. The midwives, even knowing my long-labored history, seem to believe that a fast labor is the most likely, especially once my water breaks, either on its own or with help. I want to believe them but am trying not to count on it. 

Every night, I go to bed wondering if contractions will start overnight. I wish the kids good night and tell them maybe there will be a baby in the morning. I wake every 60-90 minutes, flip over, and sometimes pee. It takes my hips longer each day to feel right after I get up from bed or from chairs, but I'm not swollen, not hurting, just plagued with the mind game of more than a month of wondering when the baby will arrive. 

If Tim had not come at 37 weeks, I would have assumed I'd go postdate. Dan would likely have signed up to work his summer job for a week or two in June rather than stay home with us for the past three weeks. He's now scheduled to go half-days starting on Monday instead of having a week or two home with us fulltime postpartum. My sister-in-law didn't spend a weekend up north with friends because she's waiting on call to be my doula. My brother-in-law took a day off work because the logistics of my mom driving an hour to their house to babysit got too complicated. I feel like everyone around me's life has been on hold the whole month of June, waiting for this baby. And now it's July! I told people for months that the baby would come between Memorial Day and Independence Day but I never really contemplated the idea that he might wait until July. 

The midwives don't think he's that big. Probably an eight pounder, everyone says. And if he's 9 1/2, well, I've done it before and I'll do it again. No one's pulling the "ack, get the big baby out!" card. I can turn down the AROM option if I want, but if I don't go into labor by Saturday, I risk out of the birth center and the midwives will keep seeing me every 3 days and then I'll give birth with them in the hospital. With previous births, I might have felt more strongly about letting things happen on their own. This time, I think by Thursday I'll be ready to give him a nudge. If it doesn't mean IV's and pitocin and belts stuck on a hospital bed, I think I'm okay with it by the 41 week, 5 day mark. Certainly by 42 weeks. If I wasn't dilating, that would be one thing, but all signs indicate that he's ready to come out (without being desperate to do so). Yeah, if they break my water Thursday afternoon and contractions don't start shortly thereafter, I've started the clock and something will need to be done. But no one thinks that will happen for a dilating 4th time mom. My SIL has to work Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, so if we wait until Saturday, she won't be able to be there. Hence, Thursday is more appealing. 

There's a comfort to the fact that I can now come up with all possible timelines for this birth. I wrote out our schedule for the week for whoever is with the kids. He WILL arrive this week, I can match potential birthdays with fun number schemes and others who would share his day (my grandpa on Friday, my BIL on Sunday, today is a first of the month like my niece and I). It's kind of neat realizing that I'm going to have a pair of March kids and a pair of July kids. Even though my four due dates have been February, March, June, and August. We have to keep telling Tim that no, the baby won't wait all the way until his birthday. Tim and Lando's due dates were 7.5 weeks apart, but their birthdays will only be separated by 3ish weeks. 

I try to go to bed at reasonable hours every night. I rest when I'm tired. I never know if I'll wake up to contractions at 2am and I try to be ready. Until a few days ago, labor was an intimidating prospect. I know how contractions feel, and worse, pushing and crowning, and I WILL be experiencing them again. Very soon. But I think I've gone past the fear of them and now attempt to will and pray my body into starting the process. I am the only woman left on my 36 member Due in June forum who isn't at least in labor yet. There were 9 June days after my due date - how can I be last? For Dan, it's more and more like Peter's pregnancy, and that's not a reminder anyone wants. But this baby is positioned well, has every reason to birth smoothly. So why hasn't it happened yet?

Homeschool Plans 2013-14

It's Sunday night and I managed to have the week's school plans ironed out before midnight! I'm ignoring the 30 lbs of ripe tomatoes on the counter in favor of getting enough sleep, but everything else necessary got done today. 

I started school 3 weeks ago, although we've only had 12 days between them (started on a Wednesday, then had Labor Day off), but I think we're settling in. I was worried for a bit that Leo had forgotten most of last year's math, but now I can see why most math books spend a long first chapter with review. He finished June one chapter shy of the end of Singapore 2B and my initial plans to review over the summer using Singapore Math Sprint workbooks didn't really happen. But the multiplication facts and subtraction regrouping seem to be coming back to him.

My curriculum plan for 2013-14:
Both boys:

Science: Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding volume 1 (second half) plus monthly classes with co-ops at two nature centers.

History: Connecting with History volume 2 (unit 7) and the first part of volume 3, plus Story of the World volume 2 with tons of library books (year 800AD to maybe 1400AD)

Art: Atelier level 4 plus monthly co-op classes (last year the co-op studied Romare Bearden one month and made illuminated manuscripts another month)

Religion: Faith and Life (year 4 for Peter, year 2 for Leo) plus extra Sacrament prep for Leo

Writing: Writing with Ease (level 3 for Peter, level 2 for Leo, but this get shelved if there is extra writing in other subjects). It's narration, dictation, and copywork.

Geography: Beautiful Feet's Geography program using Holling C Holling books.

Phy Ed: last year I figured I'd let them run around outside and I could call that enough. This year, I wanted to be more formal about it. Leo is signed up for archery once a week at the Y (after loving it at sleep-away camp). When I prepped for a 5k over the summer, Peter asked if he could too. I said why not, and now he goes running with me once or twice a week. I'm hoping for family bike rides at least once a week too. Essentially, any day without outside commitments, I declare it to be Phy Ed time after our other school work is done. Sometimes that's running through the sprinkler or playing with the neighbor kids. Once it's cold outside, I'm going to sign them up for Homeschool gym and swim at the Y (once a week, an hour of each). They'll probably do wrestling again this winter. I'm debating whether to put Leo into expensive swim lessons to help him finally start to float and propel himself. Peter passed his camp swim test - it's isn't pretty, but he can do it.

Individually:

Peter:

Math: Singapore 4A/4B Mon-Thurs and Beast Academy on Fridays. He didn't quite finish BA 3A when he did it last fall. I'm not going to rush him through it because the last 4th grade book won't be done until late 2014.

Spelling: Scripps Spelling Bee preparation using their Word Club and in bi-weekly meetings over the winter with our co-op.

Language Arts: Michael Clay Thompson's Island Level. Eventually there will be a fair amount of writing and I won't bother with WWE, but for now it's all grammar. We'll start incorporating the poetry book soon. He did First Language Lessons 3 last spring and enjoyed diagramming but got bored with the definition repetition and so far MCT has been fun for both of us.

Reading: There are a ton of great historical fiction books from the Middle Ages, most with plenty of swordplay, so those will be his primary reading. I'll throw in other books sometimes. He read "Holes" to start the school year.

Poetry: IEW's Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization

Leo:

Math: He'll finish Singapore 2B this week, then start 3A. I expect he'll move slower through it than Peter did last year. Maybe he'll get through half of 3B by spring. I'll add Beast Academy on Fridays for him after he finishes Singapore 3A.

Spelling: He's finishing All About Spelling 3 during September. A lot of spelling rules were forgotten along with the multiplication table over the summer, so I've slowed down the lessons a lot to put more time into review. After AAS3, I plan to switch him to Phonetic Zoo level A.

Grammar/Poetry: First Language Lessons 2

Reading: He's now willing to read chapter books without pictures if I choose carefully. I'm trying to find ones with fairly large text. Since Peter read Holes in 3 days, I gave that to Leo next and he went through it almost as fast. Next I'm giving him Trumpet of the Swan. He started the year with Beverly Cleary's Socks.

Tim:

My littlest "big boy" went through most of letteroftheweek.com's Preparatory level in the 2nd half of last year. These days, he knows his colors, most shapes, numbers to 10, all capital letters (except sometimes V), most lower case letters, and some sounds. He can finally put his own pants on, although he usually doesn't want to. He is bound and determined to do everything Peter and Leo do and since he's been holding markers and pencils for what seems like years already, I got him All About Reading's pre-reading level, Handwriting without Tears' Get Set for School book (along with roll-a-dough and homemade foam letters), and MEP's reception level math. AAR's pre-reading has 78 steps (capitals, lower case, and sounds) and we're doing the capitals in the HWT letter order. I'm taking a 3 day rotation. On day 1, he does the AAR letter craft and ideally, plays with the foam letter and roll-a-dough. On day 2, Peter does the language readiness portion of that letter with him. On day 3, I go over a math lesson with him. When he asks for it, he gets out the HWT book and colors it. I'm keeping him in the first section for now, which is mostly about coloring certain colors in given places and learning to follow lines. He's getting antsy to color the letter pages but I don't think he's ready yet to make straight lines quite up to recognizable letter level. He can write his name though, which I didn't formally teach him, so that's fun to see. For now, I want him to focus on knowing what the letters look like and not how to force a pencil or crayon to make that shape. We might take 2 years to go through these books and since he will be a young kindergartner in two years, this would be fine for preschool. Reading seems to come early to our house so I wanted to do AAR pre-reading while he could still use it. Mostly during school hours, he plays with math manipulatives, drives trains, and jumps on the couch. His Tim School time is officially maybe 15 minutes a day, more if he wants to keep coloring his HWT book.

Probably more than academics, my goals for the fall are to get the boys doing more chores around the house and to create more opportunities for them to be with friends. I'm feeling optimistic about both. I instituted chore time as another school subject and they've accepted that pretty easily. Peter can empty or fill the dishwasher now and both boys sort and put away their own laundry. I save cleaning the basement for screen days (Fri-Sun) because they do a decent job when they know there's no Minecraft until it's done. If we're home all day, I assign each of them two chores, one for morning and one for later. That's generally enough to keep the house in reasonable shape.

As for social time, we hit March last year before the boys fell apart and said they missed their school friends. I felt like 6 months of homeschooling (and 4 months stranded inside during a long winter) was a remarkably long time to go before having that meltdown. We found a couple boys they got along well with, but haven't done a great job finding times to get together. Tomorrow we're going to the local Cub Scout open house and a year of Boy's Life magazine has been enough for Peter to say he'd like to join. Leo will decide after tomorrow. I think knowing fellow scouts who all live nearby will be a great way to meet boys their age. We're involved in two co-ops, one secular and mostly set up to provide field trips for the kids, the other Catholic and primarily a moms' support network. Last year, my boys didn't see the Catholic group's kids more than a couple times but this year, Peter will see some of those kids at his spelling bee meetings and both boys will see the same kids at monthly nature center classes, so those kids will become more familiar. The secular group gets together almost every Thursday (nature center, art, outdoor recreation school) plus some Mondays and my boys finally seem like they consider those kids their friends. It's not to the point where we're asking them over to play, but after field trips, they all run around together and they're seeing a lot of each other. Last year, they didn't have a kids' birthday party because no one knew who to invite. The kids they hadn't seen for 9 months from school? It was awkward. By next March, there will be a clear group of boys to invite.

I thought keeping records on paper was fine last year until this summer when I gathered everything together and had to figure out what to purge. I signed up for Homeschool Tracker Online for a combination of lesson planning and record keeping software. The thing that sold me was its ability to print out a list of all the books they use over the course of the year (they've already used 52). It also makes it easy to make a schedule one year, then use it again (completely or adjusted) for future kids.  I'm trying to stay ahead and not need to do everything on Sunday nights. I need to start working on my next history unit and Singapore 3A for Leo. 

For now, I have this week ironed out and if I go to bed now, I won't start Monday exhaused. Good enough.

2012 in Photos

January: We tore out the ceiling and the terrible carpet of our basement on New Year's Eve and let the professionals do most of the rest. It was ready to paint by the end of the month. This is my new office, newly framed.

February: We did the painting ourselves (and by we, I mostly mean Dan), which took the better part of 2 months. 700 sq feet plus ceiling is A LOT.

March: Disney World with my parents!

April: The carpet gets installed and the boys start rolling.

May (well, I cheated, this was April 29th): Peter's first communion

June: Planting the garden

July: Hot days in the yard

August: Annual trip to the cabin and Lake Itasca

September: A visit from old friends 

October: Digging for fossils at the Lilydale Brickyards with fellow homeschoolers

November: Tim's love affair with puzzles begins

December: Holidazzle Parade: Peter and Leo as Pinocchios, with my sister and I ahead pushing the first banner

Thanks to Dwija for the inspiration and link-up.

The Puzzler

Out of nowhere Tim has become a puzzle-solving machine. He still doesn't understand concepts such as edge pieces always going along the edge, but he makes up for it with tenacity. We have a handful of wooden puzzles with cutouts and he got so fast at those that I had to dump three puzzles out together to confuse him long enough to get something done while he was working. Next I got a couple puzzles back that we'd lent to my SIL. One is a box of 16 pieces that turn into 4 groups of mother-baby animal pairs. The second is a 48 piece zoo counting puzzle that has 12 groups of four pieces that all connect into a seven-foot long puzzle. I'd give him one of the mother-baby 4 piece puzzles and once those were easy, I gave him all 16 pieces at the same time and he needed to sort them.  This week he has begged to do the zoo puzzle all day long. He's done it at least 3 or 4 times a day and would prefer more. What's worked best is if we put little piles of each set per number in order -- then he connects the four 1-elephant pieces, attaches the 2-giraffes, and so on. Then he can attach them independent from us.  If we spread all 48 pieces on the floor face up, he'll get quite a few of them but begs us for help that he only sort of needs. Today I got tired of tripping on the zoo puzzle and got out a 25 piece bunny puzzle. The first time, I sorted the pieces into 3 groups and guided him as he guessed at it. The second time I sorted them again and only had to help him once or twice. It is so fun at this age to see him catching on so quickly!  

He's also begun putting more words together. My favorite was when I asked him where Leo sat in the car and he said "Leo sit next me." Comprehension and 4 words! He's using his own name much more often -- he usually calls himself Bimmy/Mimmy. He recognizes the capital letter T as the start to his name. He understands the numbers 1 and 2 and also says the numbers 3, 8, 9, and 0 but doesn't associate them with their numerals or concepts. He hums "Twinkle Twinkle" and throws an end word in here and there but doesn't seem to know the Alphabet Song yet.

Homeschooling Report - Week 8

We’re on week 8 of school and it wasn’t until I read my last entry that I realized how much I’ve adjusted since we started.

 

Math: Last week I ditched Saxon 5/4 and began a combination of Beast Academy 3A and Singapore Primary Mathematics 3A for Peter. He was dreading math and it was depressing me because math is the last thing I find boring and the problem was that it was mind-numbingly dull for him and rarely challenging. Looking ahead, the problems were going to cover more new material but it never looked interesting. Last week he went through half of Beast Academy’s first chapter on polynomials while I waited for the Singapore materials to be shipped. Since BA won’t be released quickly enough for him to use that indefinitely, my plan is for Singapore to be his spine math program and we’ll do Beast off and on to break it up. So far this week, Peter’s finished the Singapore pages I assigned long before Leo finished his math, so Peter’s gone over to Beast and done a few pages there too both Monday and Tuesday. Today his Singapore problems took longer so he stopped with that. Saxon has made me feel that it’s important to really know math facts so I’ve been giving Peter three options daily – he can do the Singapore mental math sheet from the Home Instructor’s Guide (there aren’t enough to do this daily), he can do Xtramath online, or he can go over x3, x4, and x5 flashcards with me. So far, he’s chosen flashcards twice and the mental math once. Since the first two Singapore chapters cover most of the same stuff he’s been doing in Saxon so far, I’m having him just do the Intensive Practice book for those 2 chapters, all this week. Next week he’ll start chapter three, with multiplication and division up to x5 and we’ll slow down and use the textbook and workbook too. I was excited to realize that he’ll be doing long division before Thanksgiving. Cool! Leo will be sticking with Saxon 2 until it’s done in February. I’m letting him choose between his fact sheet and Xtramath. Although Xtramath takes much longer, he’s chosen that over his fact sheet. Screen time vs. writing, I suppose. He almost has all the addition facts memorized.

 

Science: Nature study wasn’t working for us. It’s depressing when your kids whine about going outside to look at bugs. I switched to using “Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding”, which is a very wordy book geared towards teaching K-2^nd grade but can be adjusted for older kids.  It covers biology, chemistry, physics, and earth & space science in a fundamental way without cheesy experiments. Lack of cheesiness was a requirement at our house. Thanks to Pinterest to help me find them, the wordy book has been summarized, fleshed out, and explained in various blogs. There’s a lot of flexibility in what “thread” of science to study, so long as they balance out eventually because they all build on each other to an extent. The intention is to cover the 41 topics over three years. We’ll probably do it in two since the kids are older, but I like knowing that however long the material takes, we can take. There’s a 3^rd-5^th grade volume that incorporates more writing but this one is mostly talking to the kids, getting them asking questions, and doing demonstrations. We end up covering science once or twice a week depending on whether we go to a nature center or other field trip instead some weeks. It works wonderfully to have science toward the end of the day when the boys are getting squirrely. I’m hoping to write out what exactly we’ve done so I have a good record of it when Tim’s old enough and I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Today we were all whiny and tired so I introduced gravity by showing them a 20 minute “Magic School Bus” video and then having them drop balls of different weights off the couch. I don’t plan to do that often, but on a sleepy day, I was glad for the option.

 

Writing: It took one day of Leo writing out his key word outline retelling for me to realize IEW wasn’t going to work for him this year. He just flipped out over writing four sentences at once and it wasn’t worth the fight to force that multiple times a week. I’m sticking with it for Peter but with Leo, I’m doing two days of narration (I’ve been reading him about a chapter of “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” and stopping to have him tell it back to me every 2 or 3 pages) and two days of copywork. So far for copywork, I’ve given him a long sentence to write with things like capitalized names to make note of. Last week we talked about nouns and I started having him underline the nouns. I’m realizing now that the long sentences tend to be trickier to pick nouns out so I think I’ll switch over to a couple short, easy sentences. I’d like to work him up to about four sentences in a sitting by the end of the year. I won’t do a formal grammar program with him, but we’ll do some basic parts of speech within the copywork.

 

Music: Piano lessons have been more sporadic than we intended because the boys don’t want to play what Dan assigns to them, but they’ve been playing random other things. Not ideal, but we’ll have to figure out whether we want to force them to do it right or let them just mess around on their own. They’ve been learning about various composers and really getting interested in them. They ask me to turn on the classical station in the car and at bedtime. We went to a kids’ concert about Beethoven, so now they’ve been reading about him. I got a wonderful book called “How They Croaked” that explains in wonderfully-gory ways how a bunch of famous people died and we’ve all learned a ton from that one. Yay for soap and antibiotics. So my formal read-about-a-composer-each-month and listen to their music plan isn’t happening exactly, but whatever is happening is better.

 

Reading: I began assigning daily literature for them to read. They have to fill out the “did I like this?” form afterward, but otherwise they don’t narrate them or do any sort of report. Peter generally gets a chapter a day from a Newbery award winning novel. Leo I give mostly picture books of various levels of difficulty. I try to remind them about their books while I attempt to get Tim to nap and most of the time, they read their selections then. Peter tends to read more at a sitting but less often. Usually about halfway through his books, he speeds through the last half while in bed instead of waiting to read it over a second week.

 

The biggest hurdle so far has been getting through all the subjects I feel we should cover on days when we aren’t home the whole time. I didn’t sign them up for too much but I neglected to realize how many things come up and need to be worked around. I’m on the board of my MOMS Club, so I have to go to the monthly business meetings. Some months our board meetings can only be scheduled during the day, too. Peter started speech therapy at the neighborhood school, which is currently 25 minutes once a week, but it ends up eating an hour in the best part of the morning. Thankfully, his speech improved a lot over the summer (with no help from us) and he’ll be graduating out of therapy this fall. Some doctor/dentist/orthodontist appointments need to be during the day. It’s just tricky to avoid everything. One extracurricular that’s going much better than I expected is swimming. Swimming runs 10 Tuesdays from 4:35-5:05 and if we get there early, they can have free swim. There is only one other kid in Peter’s class and 2 others in Leo’s. They’re getting tons of attention and the locker rooms are nearly empty. It’s much less chaotic than going on Saturday and it’s late enough to finish school time and let Tim nap. Tim seems to be phasing out naps and then at least I’ll be able to schedule things at 2pm without worrying about messing up naptime. I signed them up for wrestling late November – early February. I know nothing about wrestling but it’s once a week, low key, at the same time for both boys,  cheap, local, and an appropriate time to climb all over people. Sounds perfect. We’ll probably return to swimming in the spring. We’ve gone to Homeschool Day at the indoor climbing wall both months and they LOVE it. They have a homeschool team for kids 8+ and a not-just-homeschool team for 6-7 year olds and if it didn’t cost a fortune, I’d probably sign them up. They can both get to the top of the 4 story walls no problem. 

What's Working and What Isn't

Our two-short-week warm-up to the school year will be done tomorrow and it feels
like we’re getting the hang of the new routine. Here are some highlights and lowlights.

Earlier this summer, I bought Motiventure’s
Summer Olympics program, then was too overwhelmed to implement it. I finally
got over that and made a list of all the chores I want the kids to do every day
plus another list of bonus point options. It’s basically a fun way to make them
do stuff – all carrots, no sticks. Instead of negotiating extra screen time or
allowance, they get points and competition. We’re only 3 days into it and I’m
worried that Leo’s going to quit trying if Peter beats him by a lot this week,
but they have been far more motivated than they ever have been before.
Everybody’s bringing dishes to the sink and carting laundry around the house.
They each brought garbage and recycling out to the alley enthusiastically
today. I’ll take it!

I’m speeding through ancient times to give
them backstory on how Rome got to where it was by 63BC when our history volume
begins. At first, I tried to get through a few pages, multiple times a day.
Both today and yesterday, they kept asking for more at once. I think I read 25
pages in one sitting today. I was going to wait until after a couple other
subjects, but they insisted we read first thing as we did in previous days. I’ve
been giving them blackline maps of the areas being discussed. Today they designed
their own Punic Wars on top of the map of the actual ones while I read about
them. So long as they can tell me what’s happening, I mostly let them do
things. I usually insist on sitting fairly still and they can’t read other
stuff. After all of today’s reading, we’re finished with ancient times and will
wait to start the new unit until Monday.

I think doing math with them is fun but I
doubt they agree. Peter gets through his math lesson but he treats it as
something to trudge through. Leo’s math has been wonky because I’ve had him
take an assessment every day (except when he forgot what even/odd was and I
spent a day going back over that) until we reach the point where things aren’t
obvious anymore. We hit the test for lesson 40 today and I’m going to stop my
accelerated approach now. I think he’d do fine at the next assessment (the one
that would cover lessons 35-40 and be taken with lesson 45) but starting with
lesson 41, the material looks like concepts he could benefit from that aren’t
as fluffy. The math facts are still ones he knows but he isn’t always able to
write all 25 in under a minute at this point. The book has 132 lessons, so we’ve
skipped almost the first third of the year and I think we’ll finish in
mid-February. My current plan is to switch him to Singapore and stick with that
through 2B. Then I might switch again to Beast Academy, which currently begins
with third grade. Hopefully the timing will work and the 4^th and 5^th
grade materials will be ready when he is. I will probably switch Peter to
Singapore next year, assuming using it for Leo is a good experience. Then
eventually, I’d move him to the Art of Problem Solving’s curriculum, which I
think starts with pre-algebra. Saxon (our current program) is just so bleh, I
can’t blame the kids for thinking math is dull. Both Saxon and Beast Academy
seem to make kids think more deeply about the concepts and avoid endless
drills. If they’re light on math facts, we could add in XtraMath or flashcards
or something.

My detailed plan for having baskets of
literature available has mostly flopped. Peter began reading a couple of them.
Leo has mostly ignored them. Neither usually reads much fiction and it’s harder
to insist that daytime reading be from the baskets than I thought. I might have
to schedule in literature time one afternoon a week or something where that’s
the only thing to do.

Art and Music have gone over very well.
Music is pretty bare-bones – we read about a new composer once a month and
listen to his/her works for an hour once a week. But the book of composers is
written well and fun. Art is a combination of art appreciation using
Child-Sized Masterpieces and projects from two books that give ideas on
recreating styles from famous artists. The boys enjoyed making watercolor bath
paintings today and got into mixing colors and trying different techniques. We’ll
do this once a week.

Spelling isn’t a favorite although I really
like the programs they’re each using. Leo’s is way too easy for him at this
point, but we’re moving quickly through this part and should reach things more
at his level by spring at the latest. I’m not sure why he isn’t loving it – it’s
certainly not because it’s too hard. All About Spelling does a great job making
it multi-sensory so it’s not like he’s stuck there writing endlessly. Peter’s
program has him self-correct and he’s come upstairs every day saying he has the
words all right even when he doesn’t. Yesterday he actually had 13/15 and today
was 14/15. I’ll just keep double-checking his work and hope that eventually he
gets better at correcting. It does seem like this level might work for him
after all. He might reach the end before the end of the school year, but that
would be fine.

I decided to dump Pictures in Cursive and
get Handwriting without Tears books for both boys (grade 3 cursive for Peter
and the 1^st grade one for Leo). That cursive isn’t pretty, but it’s
taught in a sensible way and that will get the job done. Leo’s handwriting
could use work and I don’t want to constantly focus on it so his own handwriting
book will give a place for that.

I think I’ll sell the Life of Fred book I
bought because I’m not sure where it would fit in and the little I showed the
boys they weren’t impressed.

The Institute for Excellence in Writing’s
TWSS program has gone over well. Peter totally gets it and makes key word
outlines super-fast after 3 days. Leo thinks through it a bit more and then
comes up with probably better word choices. I’m doing the writing for Leo at
this point – when they start having to write out their version, I’ll have Leo
do the final draft as copywork. They haven’t complained about the writing and
that was a big hangup for each of them in the past, so yay!

Timing and transitions are getting smoother
but we still need to work on that. We’ve started fairly close to 9am (except
yesterday when we went to 8am Mass and ran a bunch of errands along our walk
home and started at 10:30) and we’re always done by 4. We end up taking
probably a 90 minute break in the middle when we make lunch, eat it, and I
nurse Tim to sleep. Any work still remaining in the afternoon gets done in fits
and starts. I want to consistently get the core things done before lunch. I’m
trying to figure out what the best order for subjects is to minimize crankiness
and whining. I do think that having a big protein-filled breakfast helps both
for their moods and the chance that they don’t beg for snacks all day. We’re
doing okay on that front – I plan for late afternoon teatime and try to keep
any other eating to fruits and veggies if they’re desperate.

I realized today that we haven’t had the
horrible outbursts from them that we typically have, especially at the
beginning of the school year. They don’t skip off happily to bedtime, but they
don’t scream about it either. Mornings are calm and that’s definitely new. It’s
really, really nice that evenings are for fun things and not homework. I loved
letting them run through the sprinkler until 8pm last night instead of worrying
that they’d be exhausted and miserable if I didn’t drag them in. They’re going
to bed a bit later than they used to and I have to wake them up at 8am (but Dan
used to get them up at 6:30).

I went to the Y with Tim at 6pm tonight
while Dan brought the older boys to the dentist and I think that’s going to
have to be more the standard than my former 10am classes. It’ll be harder to
hit my 12 visits per month, but if I go once each weekend, I think I’ll be able
to do it with some effort. I should be able to get away with bringing all the
boys once a week and maybe still bring Tim (who likes it there!) the other
times.

My work schedule has been almost
non-existent since we went on vacation at the end of July. Dan’s summer job
made that possible but I need to start back up again. Fall is always tricky
because it’s the peak of canning season. One of my two clients cut back a lot
so I haven’t had as much to do, but I haven’t done the project I do have.
Somehow it’ll work itself out.

This definitely wouldn’t be the case for
all children, but my kids have been happy as clams never leaving the
neighborhood. Leo’s going to appreciate the field trips, as the most extroverted
person in the house, but I think Peter could stay here indefinitely without
complaint. For that reason, it’s probably important that we do drag him away,
but staying home is not a struggle with either of them. Next week we start
field trips – I think we have a 2 hour nature center cidering class on Friday.
The following week I might bring them to the homeschool day at the indoor
climbing center and the co-op has a park playdate on Friday. I’m trying not to
go overboard with outside-the-house stuff until we get our feet under us at
home.

Now that I better understand how much math
we’ll get through, I went through the calendar and counted out holidays and
weeks and whatnot and realized that we’re going to have more school weeks than
chapters in a few subjects. We have 36 weeks (5 are 4 days and 2 are 3 days,
plus a 37^th week is 2 days and I’m counting this week and last week
as a single week) in the year. Our religion program is 30 chapters, music and
art are 32. Peter’s math will take the whole year if we do 9 lessons every 10
school days. History has 7 units and suggests about 4 weeks each, but it’s
flexible. Everything else is fuzzy and goes as long as I want. Knowing that, we
might stop a couple things during December and focus more on Advent and
Christmas stuff. In addition to the obvious religion options, maybe we could
look at customs throughout the world or something. It’s nice to know there’s
some leeway. I haven’t figured out how things will work on days where we’ll be
gone most of the morning. Science classes obviously take the place of some
science classes for the week. Fun days are a little trickier, but if they’re
with other homeschoolers I won’t feel guilty about counting them. Once a month
I have MOMS Club business meetings I’ll need to attend and other things like
that will come up. I can probably flip the day and do the core subjects while
Tim’s napping but I’ll need to decide whether to cover other subjects in the
evening or skip them.

Leo has always been a child of extremes.
When he was four, he studied maps. For hours, he laid on the floor, tracing
roads and adding features. He kept that up the entire fall that Tim was a baby.
It was really handy with a newborn. He can still tell people how to get places
all over the Twin Cities. This past winter into summer, it’s been electronics
and rockets. He has done everything with his snap circuits set and now reads
Dan’s college electronics book for fun. Dan ordered parts and the three of them
plan to build an altimeter they can put in one of their model rockets. A month
ago, he began composing music. Sometimes he copies notes from other pieces.
Usually he looks at other music to see what it looks like and learn about
crescendos and key signatures and everything else. It took a few weeks before
he knew about measures and how many beats they should have and now it’s
considerably easier for Dan to play the pieces the boys write. Peter has gotten
into the same things this year, but with Leo it’s more of a constant obsession.
If we were unschooling, we would be doing music theory and electronics all day.
The music writing has led to piano playing – Dan is now giving them lessons because
they finally see the value in being able to create the sounds they have in
their heads. Making them practice the beginner pieces and not random other
things is the challenge. It feels really weird telling them to stop composing
music so we can have our spelling lessons, but really, Leo at least would sit
at the table surrounded by sheet music all day. This definitely falls into the
category of weird but not too bad hobby. It’s cheaper than building rockets.

So far, I haven’t felt twitchy to get out
of the house either. Running errands is harder – so far it’s been easier to
wait for Dan to come home than to try to work it into the day when no one wants
to join me at the grocery store anyway. But the days are busy enough that I don’t
feel stuck here. With the boys helping more on chores, I’m doing better at
keeping up with what’s left. We usually finish around the time I need to figure
out dinner, so that hasn’t become any more of a problem than it used to be. I
like not interrupting Tim’s nap to pick the boys up from school 2+ times a
week. It looks like Peter’s speech therapy is going to be switched over to our
neighborhood elementary school without too many hiccups. I have spent less time
online during the day than I used to. Tim seems fine with everything. He plays,
he gets into our materials sometimes. He helps me cook. He has taken over the
fireplace mini-broom and steals the dustpan so he can sweep on his own. We
sometimes put him in underwear to leave the house and haven’t had a horrible
disaster of that (yet) but I still put diapers on him if I can’t hover over him
out of the house.

So my day 5 opinion is that this is going
to be the right move for our family. I’m enjoying it more than not and I like
the extra time I have with my big boys. No one has asked to go back to school.
So far so good!

A Doozy of a Week

In hindsight, I should have waited until after Labor Day to start
school. This week has been a choppy bunch of craziness and our school days were
the only part of that I had much control over. But when I decided to start
August 29^th, I didn’t know that my mom’s surgery would be on the 27^th.
I didn’t know when our friends would come to town. I didn’t know when all the
peaches and pears would be ready to can. Then I didn’t want to start waffling
and make the kids think they could talk me into shifting things around. I had
thought I’d be going to the cabin next weekend and wanted to make sure we got
some school days in before that. But after all that’s happened this week, I can’t
imagine getting the kids packed up, fitting in a partial school day on
Thursday, driving 200 miles, sleeping somewhere unusual without Dan for bedtime
backup, then driving 200 miles home three days later. It’s just not in any of
our best interests. So we’ll go back to school for a four day week on Tuesday
and should be calm enough to catch up on the things we dropped when our friends
were able to come a few hours earlier than expected.

 

This afternoon after they left, all the stress of everything that’s
happened whacked me and I felt like I could have slept the rest of the day.
Instead, I ran a bunch of errands without any children and at least crossed a
bunch of stuff off my mental to-do list. I got free cocoa for my birthday too!

 

I haven’t talked much about my mom’s hospital stay. In early
August, she went to the doctor to have a lump checked out. Shortly thereafter,
she had a biopsy and found out it was definitely breast cancer. She waited
until after a visit from out-of-state cousins and had a double mastectomy on
Monday. I was frustrated that I couldn’t find a way to be at the hospital with
her during that day, but my dad, sister, BIL, and uncles were all there and she
didn’t get out of surgery until evening when I was able to visit anyway. Tuesday
my MIL and SIL could watch the boys so I was able to stay most of the day. My
dad has had some health issues over the years but my mom has always been really
healthy. It’s become very clear that she’s the one who holds the family
together since my dad isn’t nearly as good at keeping us informed as to what’s
going on. The ups and downs over the past couple weeks have been pretty scary
as first there was loads of bad news, then more reports would come and negate
the previous thoughts. I’ve been grateful to have my sister to freak out with
and it’s been wonderful to see how many people came to visit and let all of us
know they are praying and thinking of her.