Life Skills Week: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Life Skills Week:

The Ugly:

We just got through two loooong nights of babies crying with ear pain. It was the kind of inconsolable crying that has me afraid of what tonight holds.

We had a horrible Wednesday, but this was a pretty great Thursday. Do you know why I love Thursday? I love Thursday because it is COMMITMENT-FREE!!!!!!

Insert Hallelujah Chorus Video:

No church activities or sports events on these two days!! I know all fellow chauffeur parents understand me on this one. Thursday and Friday are currently our only free days.

The only place I made it to this week was the library and the CC program. We skipped golf on Monday, Alan took Dan to t-ball on Tuesday, the cold, wet air didn’t help Dan’s problems. We missed AWANA on Wednesday, and by Thursday I was actually ready to get out. I tried to take them all to the library.

That was the shortest library visit ever.

HA! That’s normally pretty uneventful, but it looks like my days of taking all 4 boys to quiet places are numbered until I can get JD trained to be quiet and always stay with Mama. The stroller is no longer controlling those things for me. First, it was raining. HUH? It never…oh well, just walk through it.. We walked into the library, and JD starts screaming at the top of his lungs. Thanks, JD. Thank you for making it a grand entrance. Joshua started talking to me about a book–totally ignoring the fact that JD was screaming to get out of the stroller. (It was already nap time. That was mistake #1. He was still getting over the ear thing. That was mistake #2.)

I-sort-of-whispered, “Joshua, pick whatever book you want. JD is being difficult.” It was clear that I would have to ……..dumdumdum…….let JD out of his stroller……wom wom wom….

I unbuckled him, and he joyfully took off like a rocket. I grabbed him and enticed him with the book drop. “Oooo, JD, this is just like unloading the dishwasher! (Toddlers love dishwashers) You just take the book and send it down this hole.”

Okay. So it’s not much like unloading the dishwasher. At least he was happy. This kept him busy. Book drop-off complete, we headed to the children’s reading area.

There was Caleb, reading. There was Joshua, reading. And there was Daniel. His eyes had red circles under them. He was not holding a book. He was staring straight ahead, and I just knew he was going to throw up all over the place any second.

“Daniel, what’s wrong??”

“Me just so sick.”

“I’m sorry, Daniel. Daniel, get in the stroller. We’re just going to leave now.”

So JD turned out to not be the story after all. I told the boys to meet me at the check-out counter. Caleb checked out all of our books for us, while I kept Daniel from escaping from the stroller. Sharing germs and incurring public shame wasn’t really something Daniel was worried about, apparently. Joshua kept JD out of trouble, and we got out of there at RECORD speed.

“But Mom! Me usually get wots of books.”

Daniel spent the rest of the day on the couch. Thankfully, he never did hurl. (Hallelujah again!)

It was just one of those weeks.

Great things happened here this week too! I took all of the regularly scheduled school work and pushed it off until next week. Instead, I declared this “LIFE SKILLS WEEK.” I had four primary objectives:

1. Teach 3 boys to tie their shoes.

2. Teach 2 boys to ride their bicycles.

3. Cook, clean, and do laundry with the boys.

4. Independent study in chosen academic area. I let each boy choose one subject to focus on. However, I only gave them 2 options: Language Arts or Math….because they are in 2nd and 3rd grade and there’s a lot of important stuff for them to learn in those areas.

No surprise. Caleb chose math. Joshua chose grammar, and I fought a lot less battles this week! That’s right. I have one stereotypical math/science/drawing boy and one reader/writer. They both think their respective subjects are “so easy” and the opposite subject is torture.

I was never like that. Every B I ever received (until Calculus and Driver’s Ed) was either in science because the teachers made it insanely boring or reading comprehension because –well, I don’t know why because. 🙂 I was a mixture of these two.

“Life skills” was a big hit with Caleb. He had the shoe tying down by day two and bike riding complete by day 4. Daniel needs a little extra time, but that’s fair. He’s four, plus he was sick.

One objective was a serious fail. I thought the boys and I could have this whole house cleaned up, if we were focusing on that. NOPE. There should be a job title of “Home school assistant” who does laundry, dishes, cooking, and cleaning. I would hire one of those in a heartbeat. Anyone care to apply?