I am spending the weekend at a Lactation Education Training through CAPPA.  I am down in Oceanside in a hotel enjoying the quiet and taking the time to update my blog.  For 3 days I am learning about breastfeeding.  My first day was great.  The instructor is very engaging and we are doing a lot of interactive things and I have learned a lot already.

My favorite thing is that we are not nesters.  Some mammals leave their babies places, go off and find food and then come back.  These are animals that tend to need big muscles, think dogs, deer, cows.  So their breastmilk has a LOT of protein and fat to build muscles.  Deer will leave their babies 5-15 hours at a time, but one momma deer stays behind to wet nurse any baby deer that gets hungry.  Dogs will leave for up to 4 hours.

We are primates and are meant to have our babies on us and feed them frequently.  Our main thing we are growing when we are babies is our brains.  So our breastmilk is high in lactose, which helps build up brain matter.  We don’t have as much fat and protein so our babies need to eat more often.   Hence we shouldn’t be nesters, leaving our babies in a “nest” (swing, car seat, crib) we should be carrying our babies more.

Earlier in the week I was talking to Devon and Carson about my upcoming weekend and breastfeeding.  They wondered why they use cow milk for formula.  Devon wanted to know why they don’t use chimpanzee milk to make baby formula as we are more similar to them than cows.  I thought it was a great idea, but then we talked about how hard it would be to milk Chimps and they are too smart for that.  Again, brains versus muscle.

I am enjoying the conference.  Thanks to Jenn and Jenny for watching my boys today!

Devon got Mr. Shipma, who I was hoping he would get.  At first he was mad, because he wasn’t in Kyle’s class.  But now he is happy to have him again.   I am thrilled, because I know that Mr. Shipma is understanding about Devon’s spelling issues.

Carson got into the GATE program and got Mrs. Stone.  Who is supposed to be wonderful.  I really am hoping it will be a challenging and fun year for him.   I got to meet her on Tuesday and I really like her.

Bryson started preschool at Miss Jessie’s house with Jack.  It was where Jack went last year and he keeps calling it Jack’s school.  He loves it so far.

I have been getting a lot of things done while everyone is at school.  The kitchen is clean every day, at least until the boys get home from school.

Carson started off in Mrs. Fix’s class.  It was hard for the teachers because they were sharing classes, 3 teachers for 2 classes and it was weird.  Anyway I pulled him out in December to Home School him which he loved!

It was fun for me too, it was nice to have just time with Carson.  Sometimes he was bored, but he did a lot of creative things, like when we learned about Archimedes, he went and build Archimedes water screw out of Legos.

He loves history!  Who would have thought it?

Devon had a fun year.  Ms. Andersen was his teacher and Kyle was in his class. 

Treasure Island was the play.

Panning for Gold with ______

Kyle Panning for Gold

It is fun to play games during homeschool. There is a lot to learn that way.  Monopoly is our newest favorite. 

Here are Carson and Bryson playing Chess.  Carson is pretty much moving for Bryson.  But they are both having fun.

I read this great article that my friend Brianna’s husband linked to on his blog, entitled, The Problem with Ethics. 

It was very inspiring, reminding me of the importance of having Faith and how it is through faith man is able to overcome his innate weaknesses.  It talked a lot about the importance of faith for a society, how a lot of the problems we have today come from the people’s lack of faith.

So what can I do?  I guess I need to be more willing to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with those around me.  Part of the problem is most of my friends already have faith.  (Not that that is a “problem” but I just don’t have lots of friends to share it with)  Though I can be a good friend and support them in their faith. 

I have a friend, Jen, who was actually one of my Mission companions in France,  who blogs about her faith.  That is such a great idea.  I should do that too. 

Another thing I can do is raise my boys in faith and encourage them to be leaders in their community!  We need faithful leaders who have a strong moral compass to help guide the country.    I like the ideas in Thomas Jefferson Education about being leaders. 

Random thoughts, read the article mentioned first, very inspirational and much better put then what I am saying.

Devon has to do a biography in school.  He was VERY upset that the list had a lot of sports people, but not Thomas Edison.  That is wrong.

He asked if he could do Nikola Tesla.  He got permission and he read 2 biographies and is now reading his autobiography too.  He has read 2 books on Tesla and now is reading an autobiography by Tesla.  He also is SO excited about the presentation and has already done at least an hours work on that, gathering information and ideas.

Devon LOVES to work on things that interest him, so I am so glad he was able to do his report on Tesla.  If he had to do his report on someone he didn’t like, I would have had to force him to write 2 paragraphs about him.  Instead he had fun doing this report.

The crazy thing is, I think he has a photgraphic memory.  I was in the office working while he was doing his report.  He would sometimes look at the book, to find a name of a person or a date, but he rememebered almost all of this information on his own.  The freaky thing was the quote by the midwife and mom about when he was born.  He remembered that word for word without looking at the book.

Without further ado — Devon’s book report about Nikola Tesla

So I think we had a math break through for Carson yesterday.  He is so funny about math.  When we first started homeschooling he said he hated math.   I was forcing him to learn his multiplication tables, because he knew all the other 3rd grade standards.  But this was just making him hate it more.

So I mixed it up, we still kept on with a little multiplication almost every day.  But we added fun math, like probability, statistics, geometry, fractions, math history.  He loves the book Mathmaticians are People too.  We read a story from there every week.   He loves Archimedes and we spent a day or two just researching him and what he discovered.  He started to like math again!

Then yesterday we were moving onto multiple digit multiplication.  The day before we had done things like 24 x 3 and he LOVED it and got the concept and did some sheets on it.  All was well.

This day we did 24×22.  When he realized he would have to ADD to find out the answer he FREAKED out.

I HATE this!

Math is stupid!

Why isn’t there a different way?

My first reaction was to respond negatively – What is your problem?  Why are you overreacting?

But I have been reading this book Raising Our Children, Rasing Ourselves by Naomi Aldort.  One of the first things you learn is SALVE

S- Separate yourself from the behavior

A- Attention back to the child

L-Listen

V-Validate

E-Empower child

Another thing I had just read from the book that really struck me was “Stopping a child from expressing his feelings, does not stop the child from having those feelings.”  I realize I do that a LOT , especially with Devon who is so vehement with his feelings sometimes.  So I just STOP him from expressing them.  But he obviously still has them and doesn’t have a way of expressing them then and certainly doesn’t feel understood.

So looking at the situation with these eyes I stepped back and really just tried to understand where Carson was coming from.

Me:  It sounds like you are really upset because you have to add.

Carson: I HATE adding!

Me:  Wow, I didn’t know you hated it so much.

Then Carson broke down crying and shared the humiliation he has felt since first grade, how he struggled with passing his timed tests and how horrible it was.  I just listened and pretty much realized that so much of his dislike of math came from these experiences with failing the timed tests in 1st, 2nd and then 3rd grade.

Now frankly, I may be partly at fault, because to me the timed tests were stupid.  Devon could never pass them and he didn’t care at all.  So when Carson struggled instead of doing flashcards and making him study every day, I just was half hearted at it.  He did fine in everything else, including math and teachers kept saying the timed tests don’t really matter (which they dont’ grade wise, but apparantly to Carson self esteem wise it really did)

So Carson and I decided maybe we would go back and review his addition facts – with NO timed tests.  To see which ones he knows and which ones we should work on.

We got out our handy Math U See Alpha DVD and book and have realized he KNOWS

+0, +1, +2 and +9  That has made him feel really good about himself and we have been practicing those yesterday and today.  Tomorrow we will move onto +8, that may be a bit more challenging, but hopefully with his positive attitude he will move forward and learn his addition facts and feel good about it!

Not so much.

This kid loves to read.  I love that.  At night he reads when he goes to bed.  I find if I don’t remove the book from his hands and bedroom, I will go up an hour later so I can go to bed and he is STILL reading.

Also, he has wanted to be in a book club for awhile now. 

I have no idea where he got THAT idea (I am only in 3 book clubs myself)

So I finally pulled together some boys and he will be hosting his first book club on May 9th.  He is already coming up with some good questions.

Really I have some great boys!