Arabic ramblings

We frequently bring up and laugh about the fact that one of the first words introduced in the Arabic curriculum Al-Kitaab is United Nations (الأمم المتحدة). Granted, the curriculum was developed somewhat specifically to train foreign service officers of varying capacity—to read the news, to act in diplomatic capacity, and so forth. So it makes sense. It really does. 

But it's also hilarious. 

You learn things like "hello" and "my name is" and "how are you?" and..."United Nations"...in like the first week! It's...hilarious. 

We aren't into Al-Kitaab at our house yet. We're still slowly chipping our way through the alphabet in Alif-Baa. But we're encountering some of these seeming incongruences. 

Today we worked on "faa" and "qaf." 

The kids were saying words that they knew, like elephant (فيل), that begin with "faa." Butterfly also begins with "faa" (فراشة) and we actually know all the letters for that word! But the book suggested with just write the name Farid. 

Here's a little "faa"-shaped elephant (فيل) that Zoë made (the dot is the sun above its head):

DOI

I submitted our "declaration of intent to homeschool" (DOI) the other day and was surprised—as I was filing it away—to realize there's a long list of DOIs in my DOI folder...

Strangely I seem to have moved from being a homeschooling newbie to being somewhat of a veteran homeschool educator. I'm not quite sure how that happened because I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing and am just figuring things out one day at a time.

But, I mean, I didn't hesitate or cry or get all queasy when I pushed the submit button (which was not the case in 2019) so I must be making progress (or at least gaining confidence) as a homeschool educator. 

And Rachel graduated and is starting college...so we didn't mess her plans up too badly.

I went from two homeschooled students in 2019 (Benjamin and Miriam) to four homeschooled students in 2020 (Rachel, Miriam, Benjamin, and Zoë). In 2023 we officially had five homeschooled students when Alexander joined everyone as a kindergarten student. Now we're back down to four students and that's the most I'll ever have at one time from here on out, which is probably plenty.

Technically Phoebe is doing pre-K stuff this year, but she's not "on the record" yet (and won't be until after Miriam graduates).

(Submitting an annual DOI is one of few requirements for homeschooling in Georgia, and it is necessary for certain things—like for a child to get a driver's license, and so forth.)

Lunar eclipse at home and star-gazing on the beach

I know I just said that I was ultimately happy leaving the beach when we did because that gave us the weekend to recover, but last night when we were observing the lunar eclipse Andrew mentioned how amazing it would have been to watch the eclipse on the beach and suddenly I found myself wishing we'd consulted an astronomer before we booked our trip.

Oh, well. Watching it from our cul-de-sac was fine.

The girls watched "A Quiet Place 2" at Grandpa's house last night and came home late and rather jittery (it's a suspense movie), so we let them stay up late to watch the eclipse with us. We put the younger four to bed, but woke Benjamin up shortly before midnight so he could take a look at the moon as well. He was pretty out of it for a while

The moon is behind you, dude...

Andrew shared some beautiful poetic words by author Manu Saadia:

An eclipse is when you experience the movement of the spheres, orbital mechanics, gravity and all—the truth that we do live in space.

This week...

I registered for jury duty. I mentioned a bad mail day a while back and, well, finally dealt with some of that bad mail (because I had to...within ten days...or else). Filling out the form was rather comical for me; it felt like filling out my medical history. Like, when I first started filling out my medical history forms it was short and sweet—literally nothing to report. But nowadays I have a few more boxes to check. Very similarly, the first few times I was called for jury duty, the paperwork was very straightforward for me—literally nothing to report. Now, however, I'm like, "Pull up a chair. This could take a while..." Anyway, I could have gotten a deferral or something, on account of being a homeschooling mom, but unfortunately (or fortunately) we're hitting our 180 mandated days on May 5. We literally have three days left of school, so I have no valid excuse to bow out. Jury duty isn't ever something I've been eager to do.

*****

I administered standardized "end of year" tests for Benjamin and Miriam. Technically Benjamin still has two sections left to take. He's need the hands-on management of his time that he has required of me since we began homeschooling, so I've sat beside him and said things like, "Okay, now...next question." And, "Read the whole thing first." And, "Make sure you actually click in the circle." And, "I know you think you're finished but let's go back through to make sure you answered all the questions. Oh, look. You somehow missed one. Go ahead and answer it now." At times this was a painful process for me (like when I knew he was selecting the wrong answer), but he's done surprisingly well. Today he took one of his language tests and was repeating aloud spelling rules like, "Drop the E and add -ing! Duh! Obviously "makeing" is spelled wrong! It should be m-a-k-i-n-g!" And I would just sit there in shock because, friends, he does not think about spelling rules in real life. Like, at all. Ever. He just doesn't ever consider how words should be spelled. 

Black-and-white TV...on the island of Alaska

We're on the final stretch. It's the end of the school year (we have 11 school days before we hit our 180 mandated days). It's been a good year, I think. Time will tell. Literally. 

I have to do some nationally-normed testing for Miriam and Benjamin this year, so we'll see how they do.

Anyway, we've read a lot of good books and have had a lot of good discussions together. Currently, we're reading The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread by Kate DiCamillo. My cousin Shannon heartily recommended it. I thought it would be a nice, light read after we'd finished up our Shakespeare unit (which, I believe, ended on a tragedy...but now I can't remember). Anyway, as it turns out, the book is not all that light. It began with a poor little mouse being sentence to death by his own family and community. Miriam was like, "Ah, yes. A nice, light read. Good job, Mom."

So it hasn't always been light, but it is very good (as DiCamillo's books tend to be) and we've had some good discussions while reading it. 

One of the questions I asked the kids (on our first day of reading, I believe), was, "So, the mouse community didn't want Despereaux fraternizing with the humans and the king didn't want his daughter fraternizing with a mouse. Can anyone think of any examples from our own human realm where we forbid certain communities from associating with each other?"

Benjamin surprised me by speaking up first.

"Yes! I can!" he said. "Like, back in the 19-somethings they only had black-and-white TV."

"Black-and-white TV?" I wondered. 'How does..."

Waffelles, the quarantine kitty

The children have been begging for a pet for quite some time but it's never really been an option before since we've never quite been in a place of our own. Ever since the pandemic began we started looking into pets a little more seriously. The only problem is Andrew and I haven't ever gotten a pet before. We both grew up with cats, but we've been pet-free ever since we got married/left home. Getting a pet seemed like an awfully big thing to do. 

I mean, we have five kids. Taking care of yet another living, breathing creature seemed like a lot. 

So in the end I convinced the kids we should get some Madagascar hissing cockroaches (which, incidentally, I still think would make an interesting pet) but we'd have to wait until the fall to order them because it's too hot to mail them right now. 

But then a friend of mine posted about a kitten in need of a home. My friend's manager had hopped in her car to go somewhere and she started hearing a whining noise in the engine so she pulled into a gas station, popped her hood, and found a kitten! She knew she wouldn't be able to keep her so my friend (who just loves animals, but has too many cats herself at the moment) started asking around to find a home for her. She even said she'd have her rescue group spade and vaccinate her in the next few weeks!

I asked Andrew about it and he was immediately on board (like even more excited about it than I was (because I think I've been more nervous about it than excited)) so we claimed the kitten and the next thing we knew it was Sunday morning and the kids were colouring at the table together after "home church" when the doorbell rang. 

Zoë was very excited to see who it was because this friend was her Sunbeams teacher last year (and so Zoë still thinks she's her teacher this year since no one really remembers who their teachers are this year, do they?). We opened the door and our friend put down the carrier and said that she had a little friend who needed a loving home and was hoping that the kids might be willing to take her in.

They were.

Some fun stories about my cool kids

I don't know many Halloween songs, but when I was in nursery with Alexander last Sunday (because he still won't stay in there by himself; I actually tried leaving him but his leaders soon called me back in because they couldn't handle his...passionate...expression of separation anxiety) his music leader sang a Halloween song with the kids, so I recorded her singing it with them so that I could learn it.

It's just a short little song, but both Zoë and Alexander love it.

Here they are singing it before bed tonight (the tune is a little more...melodic...in real life, but I think Zoë did a pretty good job carrying it on her own):



Zoë sang it for Andrew the other night and when she did her big "BOO!" at the end he pretended like she'd really scared him and she started cackling. "Hahaha!" she squealed. "I scared you...with fear!"

Alexander simply sings, "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah TREE! Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah ME! *silence, silence, silence* Ooo-oo! Ooo-oo! Ooo-oo! BOO!" because he's really big on syllables but not so big on enunciating sometimes, even though he can say "skeleton" and "pumpkin" and "werewolf" and all sorts of Halloween words.

Anyway, I love that we have this little song to sing with each other in October now so I'm glad Alexander's teacher was able to pass it on to us. I'm hoping he'll go into nursery easier eventually (we've only been trying for six months now). I pulled out Llama Llama Misses Mama and we've been reading it daily this week and talking a lot about how sometimes babies go to their own classes and mommas go to their own classes but that mommas always, always, always come back to pick up their babies.

We'll see how tomorrow goes.

*****

Easter baskets and egg hunting

The kids were excited to find their baskets on Easter morning, though they were good little children and waited to get into them until I came downstairs (the very last person of all). 

Here's Zoë, thrilled with her little chocolate bunny:

Benjamin with his America-approved (ie. meh compared to the original) Kinder Surprise Egg:

Faster than slow

Zoë came running when she heard the *zthoop*zthoop*zthoop* of the tape dispenser.

"Why are you taping that book?" she demanded.

I rolled my eyes a little and said, "Who are you—the book repair police?"

I know taping books isn't good for them but little fingers, likewise, aren't good for books and we have a lot of little fingers around this place. Taping books makes my book repairing brother shake his head but the last time I asked him what I should do instead of taping a book up he said, "Honestly, I would just buy a new copy. The book isn't worth the cost of the materials or time it would take to repair it."

And so I tape my books. Because I'm not buying new copies of everything that gets destroyed.

I'd rather not have to tape my books up, but we have a book monster living with us. He is faster than fast and is drawn to books like flies to honey. They were the one thing that could convince him to try to crawl. His main method of locomotion was squawking his head off until a big person came to pick him up and I'm not sure why we felt the need to motivate him to be independent but we did. He learned to crawl and now he's constantly attacking books (also he refuses to walk and when he gets bored of crawling with squawk his head off until a big person comes to pick him up; we keep coaxing him to walk on his own (I'm sure we'll come to rue the day he does)).

One of his more annoying habits (aside from ripping full pages out of books) is taking a board book, opening it to the middle of the book, and then trying to close it against the spine, inside out. He has snapped a handful of board books completely in half this way and it drives. me. nuts.

Zoë was still waiting for a proper answer so I sighed and said, "I'm taping this book because Alexander destroys books faster than..."

"Slow?" she asked.

Yes, my dear. Alexander destroys books faster than slow. 

Hey, Everybody! It's Family Night!

Yesterday morning I asked Benjamin to help unload the dishwasher and though he moaned and groaned about it he agreed that he'd unload the top rack. But then we got to chatting as we worked together (I put away the glass and other up-high stuff) and he ended up unloading the bottom rack as well, leaving only the silverware for his sisters. 

I told him what a nice thing that was for him to do and then told him about going the "second mile." And then I started making mental plans for a family night lesson on that topic, just to really drive the message home. 

But while we were walking home from church Miriam told me that she had a family night lesson all planned out and that it was about baptism and the sacrament and that she had photocopies from her primary class and was completely 100% prepared to deliver a stellar family night lesson the following night. 

So...she taught the family night lesson tonight because who can argue with that? 

We'll touch on going the second mile later. 

Miriam's lesson was so sweet. She first had us fill in the blanks on a message that said,

When I partake of the sacrament, I renew my covenants with Heavenly Father. I promise to ________ __________ _______ _______ and to ___________ ______ ___________.

We had to draw a slip of paper and glue it onto the right spot and for some reason she decided we'd take turns oldest to youngest, which was a challenging exercise in patience for the youngest among us.

Or maybe you'll need an actual umbrella

In their defense...it was really coming down for a while. So, naturally, my kids decided this would be the perfect day to ride their bikes. They wanted to go on a family bike ride around the neighbourhood but I nixed that idea—since Miriam hasn't quite mastered her bike and I'd end up having to pull around Benjamin and Zoë. Ha!

Instead they rode up and down the street together.

Thanksgiving Eve

This morning the girls went out to play in the rain. They got soaking wet and impeccably dirty.