Egg Drop Challenge

Audra and Claire did an egg drop challenge co-op today. It was so much fun! They got really creative and did really well. They both failed the first time, but Audra got it on her second attempt, and Claire on the third.

While they did the challenge, Camille got to to Chuck E. Cheese for a Birthday party:

It was a great day for everybody involved!

Future CEO

I have been reading a book called The Child Whisperer. It is actually really good. I have read about 2 gazillion parenting books, and this has to rank up there among the best. It has really helped me to understand Claire, in particular, quite a bit better. But it works for all the girls as I get to understand and know them better as well. But today I will focus on Claire.

Claire is a spitfire on fire. She is loud and in charge- she wants to be the leader, be in control, and get her way with everything. This feisty personality will, indeed, allow her to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company someday. But in a 7 year old it can be exhausting to parent. I don't want to stifle her natural uniqueness- her tenacity and grit and enthusiasm for life. But at the same time, she is still only 7 years old- she isn't in charge. And she has sisters and a family to work with. Balancing all of that has been a continual struggle.

The other day was a perfect Claire day.

While I was eating breakfast she told me she wanted Rapunzel hair. I needed to eat breakfast and shower- not deal with creating Rapunzel hair. Calmly I said, "Claire, you are brilliant and resourceful. If you want Rapunzel hair, I know that you will find a way to make it happen." Off she ran. After my shower, I came downstairs and Claire had about 20 feet of Rapunzel hair made out of tights, barrettes, and rubber bands. She wore it most of the rest of the day.

We had a literature circle that day. Claire was in charge of being the "Reporter." This means she comes up with questions to ask about the book for the group. All of the other kids wrote 2-3 questions, but not Claire. This 7 year old who hates writing said, "I want to fill up the entire page with questions" and completely on her own filled the entire page with questions just because she wanted to.

She titled it "Clown's Masterpiece." I have no idea why, but she didn't even need to think about it- it just came out.

After the lit circles, the girls were playing with their friends. Claire took marker and colored on blue eye shadow. Because, why not? When you're Claire and you want eye shadow but you know you can't get into mom's eye shadow, you figure out a way to make it happen.

Then, later, we were practicing piano. She has been working on a song that she hates. She whines and complains all the way through it constantly. Finally I said, "If you would just learn this song, you could move on and never have to play this song again!" She finished the song perfectly- even though she had never played 4 of the lines before.

With Claire, it seems to be all about motivation. When motivated, she can do anything. The trick is finding the motivation.

It has been an adventure to figure out this girl. I have learned a lot along the way, and there is still a lot to learn. I love this girl to pieces- I love her adventurous attitude, her willingness to dive into seemingly crazy tasks, and to take big risks. She is super special and she is going to do a lot of great things in life. She, not a clown, is the true masterpiece.

Camille's Birthday Dance

Camille's dance teacher is completely fabulous. For their Birthday, each child gets to do a "Birthday Dance." This is something all the kids look forward to all year long. Claire and Audra were sad that they had Cloverleaf and missed it. As always, it was super cute. We sure love Ms. Muffy!

I was going to post the video, but OH MY GOODNESS- what a pain in the you know what to convert a Google Photo to Google Drive to share on a blog. My skills aren't that good, so this cute picture will have to do.

Blankets

A friend of mine is taking a group of teenagers to India this summer to do humanitarian work. They needed some flannel blankets, so we made a couple for her to take. Both Audra and Claire each made a blanket, virtually completely on their own. This is such a simple project, but Claire in particular was really proud and happy that she was able to do it on her own without Mom's help.

Now they each want to make their own that they can keep. So it looks like we might be back to the fabric store- again. We seem to be going there a lot.

Spring Up the Creek

Last Saturday we headed to Castle Rock for Spring Up the Creek with our 4H group. Unlike on April Fool's Day, today they actually did get to scoop up dog poop- which is all that Claire wanted to do. She loved doing the pooper scooper.

The day was quite warm, but we actually had a lot of fun. And, we did pick up a lot of trash. People need to not litter!

Sigh Of Relief

I know it's hard to believe, but this little cutie patootie has been causing me a bit of anxiety lately.

You see, next year she enters kindergarten. In an ideal world, this would not matter since I homeschool and kindergarten would be at our kitchen table and I wouldn't even have to think about it. But, because she still needs some speech therapy, I am enrolling her in actual kindie, with the hope to pull her out before first grade.

I have had a couple of concerns however:

1. What if she still needs services in first grade? That would be awful because I don't want her on the school curriculum- I want her on my curriculum.

2. What if I can't get her into Cloverleaf in first grade if the class is full? I would be so miserable to finally have an ENTIRE day once a week to get things done, and have it ruined because Cloverleaf is full.

Thankfully, my #2 concern was laid to rest when I talked to the woman in charge of Cloverleaf. She said Camille would automatically be put to the top of the priority list because she has siblings in the program, and she pretty much guaranteed Camille a spot. Phew!

Then, today I had my #1 concern mostly put to rest.

Today was Camille's transition meeting for kindie. I met with her current speech therapist, and her speech therapist for next year.

Her current therapists went on and on in glowing terms about how wonderful Camille is doing- and she is. You can understand everything she says, even though some of her sounds are still not quite right. She was impressed with how quickly Camille is catching on, she's using full and descriptive sentences (she said Camille is advanced on narration skills, which is fitting because she really does like to tell tall tales). She said Camille is a rock star who is meeting all of her goals well ahead of schedule.

In fact, next year she will only qualify for 30 minutes of speech a week. Assuming she continues to improve, I imagine she would qualify for even less in 1st grade (or none at all), and there's NO WAY I am putting in her in full-time school so she can get speech for 15 minutes a week. That is TOTALLY not worth it- we will just pay for speech ourselves.

I realize it's silly, but knowing that Camille will not have to go into first grade is such a relief! I try really hard to not worry about things which I can't control- especially if they are far into the future- but this really was causing me anxiety. Now that we have embraced this homeschool lifestyle, I just can't see me sending one kid to school full time while the rest of us get to play and be together (and do homeschool, of course).

So in the end, things are lining up to work out perfectly. Hallelujah!

172 Days

We reached a milestone today: 172 school days!

Why does that matter? Because that is the requirement by the state as to how many days I have to teach my kids each year. Today, we met that mark.

That doesn't mean we are done with our school year, because we are not. We have three more weeks before we will finish our curriculum, and then we will continue into the summer with math and some other things we want to do. But, it's nice to officially be done with our required work. I'm a list checker, and I'm glad to check off the state requirement.

Yesterday we did a bridge building co-op. It was pretty cool. These building co-ops seem to be really paying off. At the Lockheed day last week Audra entered a timed building competition, but she started late. Nevertheless, she won the challenge because she knew she had to build a solid base, which she did.

Claire hates smiling for pictures, and she is in this new phase where she wants her hair to cover her face because she likes blowing her hair. Whatever works.

I love this picture of Camille because she gives me this face about 500 times a day. It is her mischievous, "I'm not going to do what you are saying I need to do" face.