Homeschooling After the Honeymoon

Unfortunately, the honeymoon is over. For the first few weeks Aidan was so willing, so obedient. I was a well of patience and good will. Those were good days. There came to an abrupt end last week. The show goes on, however, with Aidan yelling and banging on the other side of the locked door or not.

Last week Jayson made some excellent play dough bug

s and I wanted to preserve them so I put them in the oven. They became sort of melty so I took them out. They're still melty almost a week later. I guess one should not attempt to cook play dough.

Another failed attempt at impressing my boys with a bottle rocket.

Milk planets are very impressive, though!

First of many road races for Jayson and Aidan. The video is soo funny! Just before the director said "go!" I yelled to Jays "stay with Aidan and help him!" As you can see from the video Jayson did his best for about 4 seconds. Then he seems to have lost his wits with all of the excitement and left us all in the dust. Jay and I had decided that I would keep my eye on Aidan, he being the slower runner and I was carrying Charlie (he got many cheers for being in the race in a backpack) but Jay had the camera and was so involved in filming Aidan that Jayson got away from both of us...all of us, actually. He ran right past the turn off at the end of the r

ace until he got to a lone stream of bright yellow balloons which he assumed must be the finish. He told us later that he was so excited and thought to himself "I won. I won the race!" and he raised his hands above his heads and started jumping up and down (according to his demonstration later). Then he realized that no one else was around and by this time Jay and I were panicking and Aidan was crying because we were at the end of the race. Somebody spotted him though, and due to his slightly unusual choice of running hat, we were able to pick him out in the crowd. After the race we went to Silver Diner to hail our conquering young heroes. With milkshakes.

For the week in school we learned about Europe...especially the food. Crepes with Nutella, Belgian Waffles with strawberry preserves, Swedish rye bread, pasta, Italian style pizza. Yum.

We've got caterpillars! They came in the mail. I had no idea they were so gross. The whole process...they grow everyday and make webs all over. Then one day after about a week of eating they hang upside down and their heads fall off and their skin pops open to reveal a chrysalis sort of gleaming underneath. There they sit for now. It's all so "Aliens".

Garbage day!

Aidan came down with a little virus for a day or so, so while he snuggled with Tiger and watched Team Umizoomi Jayson and I carried on. Charlie was there...either eating or sleeping or ogling one of his brothers.

Dino week: Dinosaur identification books and a Dino Diorama

Science project: cornstarch SLIME. Very slimy. A non-Newtonian liquid. Jayson's hands were blue for 48 hours. He was disappointed when the food coloring faded.

On Thursday morning Jayson woke up early with me to make sticky buns! I ate far too many and felt extremely sick but managed to save a few for others..like Auntie Crystal. She came to babysit for us while we went to Cirque du Soleil at National Harbor.

We couldn't take pictures inside the tent so this is as much as you get to see...

On Friday the kids and I took a trip to the E.R after I unsuccessfully attempted to cut my finger tip off to serve along with the apple slices I brought along for the kids. 5 very Frankenstein looking stitches. Just in time for October.

This week we went to the cupcake store before Jayson's soccer practice. Yum.

We got to the soccer field early, just in time for Aidan to become covered in mud. Then they announced that practice was being moved inside so I rummaged through the lost and found so Aidan didn't drop mud clods all over the shiny racquetball courts.

I found Charlie panicking a bit after his nap today when he got one arm out of his shirt.

This week: pumpkins! Pumpkin pudding, roasted pumpkin seeds (that we counted and graphed) and pumpkin cookies that my friend Stacy dropped off for us! How did she know? We also planted pumpkin seeds (more for the fun of it than anything else). Notice how Aidan seems to spend a lot more time eating than helping. We also studied leaves, Australia, and fire safety.

There they are. Creepy.