IXL.com: Online Math Program My Kids Love!

1. I don't love math. Since everything builds on something else, if you master something and then space out for a class, you are behind and getting Ds all of a sudden. That's my school career in a nutshell.
2. Many math teachers are a snore. I had ONE decent math teacher from kindergarten through 2 years of college. She was a redhead who replaced a guy we couldn't even understand in 10th grade geometry. We still all flunked that year, which isn't really fair. The school hired a moron and we suffer!? Then this chick comes in and ROCKED IT! She didn't move forward until every single person understood. And she had a whole YEAR to teach in half a year.
3. I can teach elementary math just okay. But I have to admit that Joel was doing fine until I started breeding again (Eva and Samuel) and my attentions were elsewhere. Michael is just "good at math" ... he just gets it. So he and Joel right now are basically at the same level, with holes to fill in by me.
4. On my very own blog there was an ad for IXL.com and I clicked on it and signed up! For 3 kids it's only $14.95 per month. I didn't get the year membership because I wasn't sure it was for us. It's so  hard to find something perfect for your homeschooling family when there is so much out there to choose from.
5. I love IXL.com because I'm a relaxed homeschooler. The kids can do as much or as little as they want each day (even weekends, holidays, summer), you can pick and choose the grade level and the skill you want to see if they know. If they are rocking it, they keep going. They can do it at 8 a.m. or 8 p.m.
6. There are like over 200 skills for each grade level (not kindergarten or pre-K), and if your 8-year-old doesn't know odds/evens for 3rd grade, no worries! He can try out the 2nd grade stuff for odds/evens and even go back to 1st grade if needed.
7. I feel like I'm doing SOMETHING instead of just avoiding math. Of course I'll have to teach some of the holes, but this seems to be a much more peaceful way of doing things. I sit at the table next to the kid who is working and am able to work on other things but be available. I can change a diaper or wash dishes if I need to, as well. The kids don't have to get 100% in every skill, but they WANT to ... and as they master skills, put time in and answer questions, they get "award" ... on a grid they flip over cards to find prizes on them like animals and farm stuff and other fun things.
8. I highly recommend this program! As one kid is on the laptop doing math, I have the others doing a Story Starter or art or just independent play.

I'm looking for your online homeschool recommendations. I'm thinking of trying out abcmouse.com for Eva, for example. And I have a friend over at Virtually Yours who is making me want to check out virtual school options, except for I don't want to have 10 computers all over the house!

Updated 4/11/12 to add: We still love this program! And it looks like they'll be getting language arts stuff sometime, too. For only $14 per month 3 of my kids can do math, AND my 4-year-old can work on the PreK stuff (free) on one of the other kids' accounts. Sometimes I can leave them alone and sometimes I sit next to them and sometimes I have to help them through it. Comment if you have any questions.

Updated 5/18/12 to add: Still enjoy it. I love getting the emailed reports that say, "John has demonstrated 50% proficiency in 1st Grade." You know you and your child are really getting somewhere!

Boy Scout Campouts and Ninny Babies

I try really hard to stay on top of things around here. I have a huge wall calendar that I have to look at every day. I have a huge planner that I try to keep important things in. I have a nice file cabinet for all the house and kid and homeschooling and writing stuff I need. Sometimes I miss stuff. I hate when I do that. I berate myself in my head and then try to physically kick my own butt.

So when the Scout leader (we're in the big leagues now, you know ... BOY Scouts instead of CUB Scouts) called to say there was a weekend campout coming up in a few days, I scrambled to check out the stack of Scout paperwork it was taking me forever to go through. I saw a little note about the campout, but apparently I need phone call reminders, and email reminders and a mailed, engraved, calligraphied invitation or I just don't get it through my head!

I told the guy probably not since Aron has been out of town and is catching up on all sorts of house things and Aron would want to go with Joel. He said the other 2 new boys don't have a parent going with THEM. I said WE are more comfortable sending his dad along with him. I felt like an overprotective shrew, so I checked in with Aron and Joel, and I was right. Joel doesn't really want to go with people he doesn't know very well for an entire weekend, and his dad can't go right now. Here are some of my reasons for doing what I did:

1. He's only 10. Aron says the point of Scouts is to get the boys off the ninny (boob), but I want to know what the freaking rush is? He has years to get to that coveted Eagle Scout award, and can I please just GRADUALLY let him head into manhood?
2. He doesn't go to school with these kids so he doesn't know them well. He has YEARS to get to know them. I'm sure by this time next year he'll be just fine going alone if he has to.
3. I homeschool, so I'm overprotective by nature. I don't drop him off daily somewhere alone, so why would I send him away for a weekend alone with someone he doesn't know?
4. I know THIS is controversial, but we don't really do sleepovers anymore unless it's with a grandparent. Isn't this akin to a sleepover, only AGAIN, with people we know even less well than the parents of a sleepover kid?
5. He just recently got over his falling asleep issues.
6. I understand that the adults are trained. I myself was a Cub Scout leader and did all the training, including the Catholic Church's VIRTUS training. Call me cynical, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
7. This probably doesn't apply to his very first campout, but I've heard from an older Eagle Scout about quasi-hazing that goes on during camp. Other people tell me that's no accurate, but I trust this person very much. He acts like it's just something boys have to go through. I think it's bullshit.
8. I know too many people who were messed with as kids or whose kids were messed with.

What would you do?

People With Only One Kid Have It Soooo Easy

The other day I was at a homeschool park day with some friends. I was running off at the mouth like I do, this time about how hard it would be to have another kid now. I don't think it's particularly my age, although I am more wiped out than usual, but I think that has more to do with the fact that I'm caring for FIVE little people AND homeschooling them and and and ... (and it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that I'm about 20-30 pounds overweight currently).

So I'm griping with a couple of other pals with 5 kids (and one with 10!) about how hard it would be to have another kid and try to get out of the house with just me as the responsible adult. My friend with 10 kids had a good point about how as you have more, the others get older and can help out here and there with going places, Duggar-style ... like not having 100% responsibility for one of your children, but just help schlep stuff and hold hands across the street and things like that.

Then I realized I'm doing all this griping and my friend who *only* has one kid is just listening, not judging or anything, just listening. So I shut up. Only later did I realize that sometimes that ONE kid can be quite a handful, like that one kid can equal 4 of someone else's kids. Like not everybody with an only child should be felt sorry for, as in "oh, she probably couldn't have more kids." No, many of these parents choose to have ONE kid based on all sorts of smart reasons (for example, like they enjoy going on expensive family vacations and being able to pay for their kid's college education while they look at me like I'm insane for not being able to do those things for my children ... we all have different opinions, perspectives and priorities). And my friend should have said, "Shut the hell up, griper, and count yo blessings [typo intended so as to sound like a sassy chick!]."

I'm sure you know by now that I'm an only child. My parents wanted it that way. My mom says she might have had another if things had been a little different in certain areas of her life. Maybe my dad would have been happy with another if it had "just happened" (read: birth control failure).

I don't judge people with only children as if they are all selfish jerks who don't want the work of a big family. Some only children have special needs. Some are just a handful. Some are so wonderful the parents can't imagine having another. Some start older and only can physically have one. Some think people like me are the selfish ones, hogging all the kids.

I think we all have issues nobody even knows about that makes us choose things the way we do. Sometimes maybe it's God choosing for us and we have to trust.

So my blog title is kidding, I'm sure you've figured out by now. So put down the tomatoes and get away from my front door, kay?

Accidental Post: Stuff Versus People: Priorities

Aron’s parents wanted to get rid of a coffee table that Aron’s brother had made, and we took it because it was big and sturdy and similar to our other one. I’d had this old coffee table since 1996.

I LOVED this table. It was long and you could stand on it and it had 2 doors you could open and stash a bunch of blankets or chocolate in. But the reason I’m sad that we put FREE on it and drag it to the front yard is this …

The table had these ends that were open and big enough to put a basket o’ crap under, and all the kids used to climb through the ends when they were small enough.

The other night I watched Eva try to crawl through the ends of the new table, but the ends are too small for storing anything and too small for a baby to crawl through. This made me sad.

Yeah, I get why people love their stuff. It’s because MEMORIES are attached to their stuff. I know I’ll cry like a baby when we move from this house because it’s the house where I brought all my kids after they were born. Joel got upset when he was about 3 because we got rid of our Pontiac Grand Prix and bought a minivan. He was really attached to that car and the memories we’d made in it.

The fact remains that we can’t take any of it with us when we die. Maybe I’ll haunt this house I live in where so many good memories have been made, but it won’t be the same as when I lived the life here. Move on.

Your dead grandma won’t care that you broke her favorite costume jewelry, so quit crying over it. I’m willing to bet she’d much prefer you kiss your kids when you think of her instead of get all upset over something material.

Bottom line and bossy order of the day: Use your stuff, but enjoy the PEOPLE. Put down your cell phone for a minute and stare at someone you love or at a tree. Stop thinking your paperwork or shaving your legs is so detrimental and try to just live a little more for a few minutes a day!

I’m turning into a hippie! Peace out, homeez.

**Crap, I didn't mean to post this. I was re-labeling things to make the blog more simple to navigate and this was OLD and I accidentally published it.

Suing for Wrong Genetic Testing Results

1. Do I really want a nurse taking care of me who got her degree online?
2. Do we still need the Roman numeral system?
3. How come "virtual school" is an online school system? Shouldn't that be what you call Unschooling?
4. Why are DUI checkpoints announced on the radio? Isn't the point to CATCH drunks, not tell them to avoid the checkpoint?
5. I went to a La Leche League meeting once and a mother said she was still nursing her son, who was 47-months old. My mom, who was with me at the time, says to me something along the lines of, "Last time I checked that was 4 years. Just SAY 4 years. You aren't fooling anyone."
6. Isn't suing for bad genetic testing results like suing because you got pregnant while on a birth control pill or while using a condom? Let's all sue Trojan, kay?

This has been deep thoughts with Kerrie, who is here to make you think and to annoy you in general with her poorly formed arguments and "jokes".