This is going to be a fast run of things on my mind. I'm doing this because of love.
1. Dyslexia, difficulty with learning to write....
Alice is learning multiplication. Michael is way behind on 'writing'. So Michael gets a 1:1 reward on electronics for writing a :1 page of writing. I made these sheets in a 'excel' spread sheet style so that I could make squares for upper, lower, and make it look similar to how regular school paper works.
Am I doing it right? What should we do better? It doesn't matter! We're trying. There's nothing more that one can do. Today, I compete with yesterdays Richard. Just a little better. I'm beating yesterdays Richard today.
How adorable is it how Alice titled her page "multiplication". Adorable.
While working on Alices' multiplication, we were doing that at Artas basement. There's a light that you can turn off and on with a touch switch. So the photos are of alice getting to choose light off or on with her foot. I wouldn't allow it, but somehow she over-ruled my rules....
2. Elk meat. I made "Kelvin's Burgers"
I took out meat to use up. 2lbs of elk ground. Also a 1lb of deer ground to mix in and hide the flavor but still use it up. That pound of deer ended up being cuts so I just threw it away.
Then mixing up the burger, and planning to put it on the george forman. What I did.
1. Oats.
2. Eggs
3. package of Onion Soup Mix
4. Ketchup
5. Oil, olive I think
6. Worcestershire.
So I smash all of that together, ask Miranda if she has any other suggestions for what goes in a home made burger.... and then I just started burning them down on the george forman. I've slowly but surely eaten at least three burgers. More realistically I'll be eating 5 patties.
It might only be for me, these burgers that is. Michael and Alice just got picked up for a sleepover with Kalina. Kalinas sister Teresa just went to a friends house for a sleepover and Lurene asked if my two olders would be interested. p.s. I love Lurene. Not for this, for many specific other reasons.
I shared a bite of the elk burgers with Miranda. I'll eat the rest probably.
3. Who recognizes this? Who needs a pencil sharpener....
While over trying to get the cold water of Artas upstairs kitchen working.... Mati asked me if he knew what this was. Do any of you know what this is? How many hours did you have your hands in this area sharpening....
4. Cinderella
I took My nuclear family, (5 of us) plus Mirandas two parents to Cinderella the musical. The parts of merit to talk about were a) the prince was acted and sung by a woman, a canadian. D'Angelo. I want to say Emily D'Angelo? b) the evil step mother was played by Stephanie Blythe. She was identified to me by Lurene before we went. There is a bit of fat shaming humor in the show and Lurene prepared me for it. I love her for that. c) There was a quick moment where Cinderellas father kicked out the step mother and daughters... but he had a chair above his head and he was swinging it to scare them away. I had to talk about that at dinner with the kids. I needed to deconstruct how the character I loved, but that act I could not accept and it was hard for me to understand why they wrote the story like that... because it was so unacceptable for me that a man would do that. Just interesting to talk these things through at dinner.
5. Dad... How do you fall asleep when you can't?
Yesterday evening, I fell asleep with Alice. She seems like the one that is in most need of help. Her emotional regulation is a challenge and so I work more closely and thoughtfully with her these days. While we were falling asleep she said "Dad, how do you fall asleep because sometimes I can't". I proceeded to tell her my process that I made up when I was in grade 3.
You see, Alice, I close my eyes, and I imagine snoopy. He has a dog house that flies. So I do a movie in my head. I have him walk up to the dog house and then he begins to fly. I get to choose where he flies to. If I get bored of that, I bring him back and land him. Then I walk him over to the unicycle, in my mind, and I have him do a unicycle ride around the area.
That seemed to be enough of an idea that she found a way to fall asleep. Miranda, I, and probably all three children will always have racing minds that cannot be self contained. Be normal brain!! Be normal! Why can't you just do brain things like everyone else's brains.
6. Backwards reading
I told Rebecca that I couldn't yet read backwards in this blog. I am holding together quite well, but I'm not yet ready to wrap myself in that voice and in that love without the cracks forming and beginning to cry. But I did look back yesterday while Alice was doing her Multiplicaion. I read one with Mary's children doing pumpkin carving, and another where Mary had a dress on and there was some caption like... wanna dance? So I share that photo because it made my smile.
That is enough sharing. I love you. You know who you are.
Oh my gosh on that pencil sharpener. I have never met better! only surprised that we all didn't grind our fingers in it! thanks for this wonderful collection of (extra)ordinary moments and images.
ReplyDeleteI like that pencil sharpener stuck out for you. Like pottery... You never know what will resonate with people ...
ReplyDeleteIt is so interesting that what is so common for some people is the strangest object for others. Cultural sharing of not so common objects. Love that Mati asked and you were able to answer. These sharpeners are still all over old schools, toys on the wall that slowly fall apart from disuse and yes, many kids try to put their fingers in that whole to shred their finger. Thank goodness for 'pencil engineers' who knew the minds of children and made the holes too small. Thanks for sharing Richard!
DeleteHole not whole...Kelvin senior hangs his head in shame. ;)
DeleteI have so many things to say -- about each item above. Dyslexia is well known in my little family. I'd say Michael is definitely at the age where he should get to start typing when he is writing instead of doing it by hand. He should get to use WordQ too (or whatever the most recent iteration is of that). It is a word prediciton software, so as you are typing up letters it will guess what word your want and you can keep typing, or click on it. Sort of like autocorret in texting I guess? A chromebook is a great tool. It is like a mini laptop but doesn't support downloading games and stuff, etc. Very affordable. They often have them in schools to lend out to kids. It is a bit hard at first, learning to type, but it is worth it in the end.
ReplyDeleteThey are all already on 'chromebooks'. How can kids in grade 1/K already be using computers. Seems nuts to me. I'll consider some typing practice, it's not like it's an unreasonable step... he's got the vocabulary that the thing holding him back is the fine motor skills. He only got his three backwards on the last page that he did for me. But still, even if he gets really great with his dyslexia... it's still something that we shouldn't allow to slow him down.
DeleteYep, dyslexia won't slow him down in life. He's got this. He'll develop the tools that are right for him with support from his parents and teachers (and wonderful aunts, hahaha). The thing about writing by hand, is you end up putting all your energy into the mechanical work of trying to form those letters and it exhausts you so you don't have the energy to do the fun part of your brain imagining and learning.
DeleteI want to be eating elk/deer burgers with you too. For me, it is just ground beef burgers tonight -- some of us eating it in burger format and some of us eating it in sloppy joe format.
ReplyDeleteElk burgers cold, day after, were more interesting to everyone last night. Nobody wanted the turkey soup. Even when I called it stone soup, I still didn't trick them.
DeleteLove the photo of me "dancing" at Catherine's house. I am actually wearing a beautiful beaded "tree skirt" that Arta gave Catherine. It is satin, and lined so it lays nicely under the chritmas tree -- soooo heavy. At our Johnson 2021 Christmas zoom party that was the present for the person who said they didn't own a christmas decoration of Arta's -- Ceilidh I believe. I think when Cathy said it was a tree skirt, people didn't really understand it is actually a skirt for a tree, bwahahaha.
ReplyDeleteI loved that photo. And I love you.
DeleteAlso on the doing homework with kids thing Richard -- love that you are just trying to do a little better than the day before. We are all just winging it when it comes to parenting. I am at the stage with teenage kids when I have to do less than I want to. :-)
DeleteUgh, how do you try without doing things? I think so much about Arta finally telling me that she was scared when she was parenting in those final precious days. I use that as a sword against my personal worries. I use it and I say, even the best are scared. Go be scared Richard. Go be scared and don't be so overbearing, and see what being a great parent can look like. I would tattoo that on my heart. I am scared.
ReplyDeleteYep, terrified.
DeleteThis is a very young memory that I have. I must have been learning how to read. When we would drive down 14th street there was a garage with a sign saying, "3SSO". I knew it was "3SSO" and no one could change my mind no matter how hard they tried. In retrospect, the sign read "ESSO". But I knew it said Three, not E. So hurray for reversals!
ReplyDeleteLove this post. The pencil sharpener kills me. Love that it is still there. Hope you leave it in place until your family eventually moves into that space. I'm with Mary on getting word prediction and if you want to have fun with typing - Dance Mat Typing out of the U.K. is fun.
ReplyDelete