hide-n-(sensory)-seeking

Massage, Aromatherapy, Organizing, Breathing, Exercise, Real food. What do all of these things have in common? They are ways to help us relax. Something that we moms aren't always very good at. I'm not sure which chromosome or hormone is responsible for giving men the ability to tune out all the surrounding chaos and just chill, but they definitely have it in higher amounts in general than mamas. Not that they don't have their stresses. They just seem to be able to flip the switch a whole lot easier than we can. By the way, I'm not currently doing any of the above suggestions to relax. So of course I'm all out of whack. Thank goodness that today is the last Friday of the month. Each month, when possible, a group of us get together for a Mommy Meet-up. We all live a good distance from each other, so we try to meet in a somewhat centralized locale, usually at a playground, so that we can just catch up. We vent, we laugh, we've cried. We bring whatever

Welcome to Wordy Wednesday!   Today's subject:   TACTILE PLAY     adjective 1. of, pertaining to, endowed with, or affecting the sense of touch. 2. perceptible to the touch; tangible. (dictionary.com) Getting started young.   Our first sensory experience takes place in the womb, and do you know which sense it involves? Yes, our sense of touch. This sense plays an enormous roll in our lives everyday, an essential roll. Not only is this an external sense, but we have receptors inside our bodies as well. It's these receptors that alert us when we are hungry or full. That let us know that our bladder needs emptying, that our throat hurts because of illness, or allows us to feel pain because our appendix is about to burst! It's how an expectant mother can feel the fluttering kicks (or stabs and pile drives) of her precious baby before it's born.   All of these receptors are part of the greater  somatosensory system which can be divided into four

Well, maybe not as exciting as the title led you to believe, but we kept busy yesterday anyway. Here is the surprise I walked in on. Kit was sitting right in the middle of it when I found her. Feeding herself fistfuls of course. Half of a giant bag of Rice Krispies dumped out on the bench. Miraculously, there was relatively little on the floor. Grace's animals seem happy to have a snack! To put in perspective how much cereal this is, here it is in my 13x9 inch baking dish. This was what we were able to salvage for future consumption. Hope your Sunday afternoon was far more relaxing!  Here's what else she's been up to. She has a new sleep oddity to add to her ever growing list. In the past we've occasionally laid a pillow over her legs and hips to provide pressure when she sleeps. Sometimes it works and others not so much. Lately though, as in for the last five days, she has been wanting a pillow on her. She has actually pulled one on top o

Today's post was written from Kitty Bitty's point of view as she flew solo for the afternoon. Ahhhh, the house is so quiet when the big kids are hanging out elsewhere! Big Brother and Sister are off with friends today. What's a little sister to do? Plenty. I can climb onto their desks and write on their drawings. I can wear their shoes around. I can nap with Daddy. I can eat dog food. Or steal Grandpa's newspaper. Pretty much all the same stuff I do when they are here. But going outside is not nearly as fun as when they are there to play too. They pretend that I am going to get them while I swing, or play that I am the monster at the bottom of the slide and they can't let go or I will eat them. I growl and gnash my teeth in true monster fashion. They blow bubbles from the fort so that I have lots of time to try and catch them as they float down. They dig with me in the sandbox, or let me chase them while we run squealing through the yard like a bunch of

There has been an awful lot of sneezing, coughing, headaches and general blah around this house for the last few weeks. We aren't suffering from another round of winter colds. No, we have full blown, raging spring allergies. Now I, unfortunately am plagued by allergies on and off all year, but usually I suffer alone. Perhaps because when you sneeze twenty times in a row, you blow everyone else out of the room! But this year is different. This year we are all in allergy misery. I have finally given in to taking my Zyrtec daily again for a while, yet also needing the extra Benadryl for those especially awful days. The kids aren't as bad. But there have been a lot of headaches, "rubbery eyes", and coughs that only happen at night. They get a particular look about them that shows such confused distress. They mope, and whine, and act as though their bodies are under much more gravitational pull than usual because they collapse into the furniture and me much mor

I've not taught either of my children their ABCs. This isn't because of negligence, quite the contrary in fact. They taught themselves. Or more realistically, picked them up on their own. But the way they each did it and when are as different as night and day. The Professor Zak absolutely loved every avenue of learning possible from a very young age. He attentively watched Baby Einstein, Sesame Street, and any other teaching media, and absolutely loved for us to read to him. He was two months shy of five when we started Kindergarten at home, but he already knew how to count to twenty, his shapes, colors, and most of the letters. He knew the ABC song very well, and thus the order of the letters. I don't remember learning how to read. Or learning the ABCs. So when it came time to teach my son how to read, I was intimidated, to say the least. It was during that first semester of our educational journey that I became aware of how deteriorated, redundant, and purely irrit

I didn't start out building houses for lunch. But as I cut off the crusts at an angle a roof emerged. Since I had already warmed the beans an they were sitting right there in the bowl, I thought, this would be cute. So, I cut off the side edges of the bread also. Shaped a door and window out of green beans. A door handle and chimney out of red beans. And smoke out of wax beans. (I had warmed up a can of three bean mix.) When Zak saw it he asked what it spelled. I said it was a picture. He said it looked like a monster with tuna drool coming out of it's mouth. What?!?! I called Grace over an asked her what she saw. She said, "A house!" Thank you!  I think Zak needs to clean his glasses.    

Welcome to Wordy Wednesday! Today's subject is: Sibling Revelry Yup, you read it correctly. We are celebrating the upside of being in a brood! There are many advantages to having siblings, not the least of which include having a partner in crime, and having someone else there when you're scared of the dark. Maybe it's because we homeschool and my kiddos do a lot of their activities together right now, like gymnastics, but I'm always amazed at how much my kids miss each other when they are apart. The big ones, that is. Kit doesn't yet realize that the kids are gone until they come home. But then she is super happy to greet them with arms wide and an energetic, "HIIIIIIIII!!" The big kids, of course, love to get individual attention, but they are always so happy to get back to their dynamic duo. They fight, and squabble, and tattle-tell on each other, but, they also giggle, and conquer, and empathize with each other. Adding Kit into their spe

On Saturday I braved up and invited the big kids to run errands with me. It was time to start gathering items for Grandpa's new room, and I had a tiny burst of energy that I could take advantage of before is disappeared. I usually prefer to do this alone, mostly because I get to be alone in the quiet bliss of no children chattering/fighting/begging etc. But the kids had been stuck around the house for a couple of days, so I knew they really needed a change of scenery. I also knew that this was not a grocery run, so it's more fun for them that way. All in all it worked out pretty good for most of us. They had fun at the flea markets that we visited. And in general were good while we took on Wal-Mart. Somewhere among the many shelves of household items and toys though lies a tiny little roll made up of six dollar bills held together by a red Flexie. Much to her dismay, Grace, without realizing it, set her precious currency down to examine something, and accidently forgo

Things are about to change around here again! This time definitely for the better. We are putting the finishing touches on Grandpa's new room, and if everything goes as hoped, he should be moved in by Wednesday at the latest. Here's hoping... That means we'll be back in ours ! Hooray!!   Yes, I do believe applause is in order!   It's been about 2 1/2 months since I last slept in MY bed. In MY room. It's been so long that I don't miss it any more. I've actually forgotten what my bed feels like. There is a long list of positives that will result from this new arrangement. But I will only mention four here today. First and foremost, everyone will have their own space again. This has been a large contributor to elevated stress levels around here, so I am more than relieved to have some designated private space again. A second and enormous benefit will be getting back the arrangement for putting everyone's clothes where they belong. No

Today was Grace's first violin lesson after a few months hiatus (my fault, I got tired and let it go). She's been asking me for a long time to start them again, and as I resolved in my post last week , today was the reinstitution of her lessons.   She's really quite a natural. Once she gets some more stamina, she won't have any trouble learning the rhythms or the notes and fingerings. She has a naturally good bow hold and curve of her fingers along the neck. Her biggest obstacle will be her stubbornness. She has a tendency to argue, and can get a bit mouthy sometimes. That was one reason I stopped her lessons before, she didn't want to listen to what I was trying to teach her, she thought she already knew it all.   She has been more cooperative lately in general, and today she didn't argue with my directions at all. So that is a big indicator to me that her interest is genuine. Big Brother Too     I asked Zak if he would like me to teach h