The New Whimsy Way

This blog has officially moved.

http://whimsyway.wordpress.com/

Whimsy Way Moves On

I've been feeling a bit bored and limited by Blogger lately and have been hankering for a change. Following a little discussion on one of my homeschooling groups, I decided to have a little peek at Wordpress. I'd heard that Wordpress was difficult to use and not as flexible as Blogger, but I've found it to be a breeze. I love all the features and flexibility of it...and it has a much more grown-up look. I particularly like the file sharing widget and 'pages' feature which allows you to create pages within the blog which are accessible via tabs at the top.

The only thing I don't like is that you can't create a post template.

I'm thinking instead of having all of my links in the sidebar, I'll create a page with all of the homeschooling links; this blog just looks too messy. I won't delete this blog until I've got everything moved. But they do have 3-column templates if I need more space.

I've already imported this blog and all the comments to the new blog. I'm still playing around with the features, so I may not post for a little while (plus it's Ramadan now, so I should be concentrating on less worldly things...ahem).

This post will be up at the new blog, too, so if you want to comment, please comment there because I won't be doing anymore importing and I want to make sure I've got all my comments on the new blog.

http://whimsyway.wordpress.com/

An Attention-Seeking Cat, A Boy Who Wants to Do History Every Day...and a little about my health...oh, and a bit of Einaudi thrown in for good measure

The cat is going through a jealous phase. You wouldn't know it by his tranquil expression, but every time I come close to Stiggy, MeMe pushes between us and demands to be petted. Ok, maybe it's more of a 'me, too!' phase because he clearly loves Stiggy as well. During our phonics lesson, he was so fed up with how Stiggy was hoarding all of my time, that he got up and perched himself on Stiggy's workbook. And he refused to budge until he'd been stroked for an appropriate amount of time. Fortunately, the page he sat on was one Stiggy had already done, so he managed to work around the cat. Even Stiggy's dancing pencil wasn't enough to tempt MeMe to abandon his statue-like pose.






















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You know you're a homeschooler when...

...you ask your child what he enjoyed most from his lessons today and he says: 'Nothing.'

'What?' You ask, surprised. 'You didn't like any of it?'

'No! We didn't do history today and I wanted to do history!'

Right. Time to pull out the history pockets.
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My blood tests were all normal; even my haemoglobin is normal.

I saw the ENT consultant. He asked me a few questions, looked in my throat and ears, then threaded a camera through my nose and into my throat. I was really dreading this, but really, the worst part was the anaesthetic spray. For one thing, it hadn't taken effect when he inserted the camera, so there was little point. As the camera went down my throat, some of the spray came with it, and oh, the taste! Eck! And it lasted for a good half-hour, despite drinking copious amounts of water. The sensation of the camera going down was strange, and it made me want to swallow, but it wasn't gaggy or horrible.

It wasn't until I was waiting for my husband to pick me up that my nose and throat went numb; Stiggy could have driven a train of Lego down my nose and I wouldn't have felt a thing.

The consultant said my larynx is a bit red and prescribed some Gaviscon Advance and lansoprazole. I'm to see him again in about 6 weeks.

I'm not sure where things go from here. I'm to see my GP in less than 2 weeks. I'm really relieved the blood tests were normal, but I've still not got an answer to what's causing my problems. I have managed to relax and many of my symptoms have lessened or subsided altogether...maybe it is all down to stress. Time will tell. I need to get exercising now.

I've been listening to a lot of Ludovico Einaudi on YouTube whilst online, which has really helped me to relax.

I've Always Wanted to See Someone Famous...

Too bad she was dead. And mummified. (Sigh). Oh well, it was still exciting to see Cleopatra and the real Rosetta Stone all in one day. (The photos of the Rosetta Stone didn't really turn out; all you can really see is a reflection of me taking a photo.)

We decided to scoot down to London for a little get-away. We stayed with my husband's cousin and his wife and baby in their little flat. We had a great few days. We hit the British Museum...AMAZING. It's enormous. If you ever get the chance to go, don't plan on seeing it all in one day; I'm not even sure if that's possible unless you literally run through it. We spent over 2 hours just seeing the ancient Egypt display, which is spread out over 2 floors.

The circular entrance hall took my breath away- all that white marble...and that ceiling...photos don't do it justice.

The next day Stiggy went off with hubby to see some of the sights while I went to some shops with cousin's wife.

Stiggy's favourite bit of the whole trip? Travelling on the Underground. :)

What We've Been Up To

The cat flap has worked a treat; I don't know why we didn't put one in sooner. It took about a week for MeMe to get it, but it was worth the hard work. What really helped him was removing the magnetic strip from the flap. If you've got a Staywell cat flap, the magnetic strip along the flap can be carefully worked off and easily put back on; it's not held on by glue. We left it off for a few days while he got used to going in and out. When I knew he'd be the most motivated to get in (first thing in the morning), I replaced the magnet. It took him a few more days to feel comfortable pushing the flap open, but he's done it. The funny thing is, if one of us is in the kitchen, he expects help. He'll stand there at the flap and keep looking over his shoulder at us, hoping someone will open it for him. If no one is around (or he thinks no one is around), he goes through without hesitation. What a lazy cat. :)

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History, the one subject I didn't think Stiggy was ready for, has been such a great addition. I was worried, since the grammar stage is the 'fact-finding' stage, that history lessons would be filled with dates and facts to memorise and would be horribly boring. It's not. It's amazing. Stiggy loves Story of the World, and has settled into narration quite well. We go through the review questions from the activity book without pressure. If he doesn't know the answer, I tell him and ask him to repeat it back to me. He loves his map work and really enjoys pulling his notebook down and putting the pages in. We paid a little visit to our local museum's Ancient Egypt display and I bought Stiggy some ancient Egypt stickers and a little scroll of papyrus. He likes using the stickers to decorate his narration pages.

Two books that we've really enjoyed:
You Wouldn't Want to Be an Egyptian Mummy!
You Wouldn't Want to Be a Pyramid Builder!

These books are full of great facts and are so much fun and well-organised; these are definite favourites for our Egyptian study.

Stiggy also enjoyed playing the Mummy Maker online game.

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I recently took the plunge and purchased the Start Write software. I did make a mistake, though. I thought it had the New American Cursive font, but it doesn't. That one is an extra $10. I can upgrade mine for an extra $20, but I don't really plan to use it, at least not for Stiggy. He'll be learning italic handwriting, which Start Write has (regular and cursive).

This software is great. It's not perfect, but it's quite versatile, once you get used to it. I was a bit annoyed at first because I wanted to change from solid lines to dotted, but when you click the button, it changes all of the letters, not just the ones you type next. The way around this is to open a new text box; it's almost like opening a new sheet. You can customise each textbox separately. You can also set it so that the first letter of each word or line is solid.

I'm planning to use it to create handwriting supplement sheets, and have already made a copywork sheet. Being able to create copywork sheets using the italic font will help reinforce stiggy's handwriting lessons. I'm sure it will come in handy in many, many ways.

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S, the doctor family friend I mentioned in my last post, also homeschools her two children. She's talked me out of Spelling Workout. She used two levels of it and said it was ok, but her kids didn't really retain it. I've heard that from a few people. And actually, I've decided to hold off on spelling altogether. We do so much with language arts already that I don't feel it's necessary right now; Stiggy's learning lots of spelling as we go.

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The weather has just been awful; it's been raining every day. The slugs and snails are ruining my plants.

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Stiggy's got a penpal; he's so excited. He'll be writing to a young man across the pond. His mum has a great blog.

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Stiggy's latest funny inventive spelling:

FORORE =
Ferrari

Now We're Getting Somewhere: My Health Part III

I haven't posted in quite a while. I wanted to blog about my doctor's visit. I wrote the post, saved it, sat on it...I thought about waiting until I found out for sure what's going on...I don't want this blog to turn into an account of my health woes. But hopefully this will all be over soon, one way or another. This is a big part of my life now and I feel the need to talk about it.

I had an appointment scheduled for Thursday, the 23rd of July, but 2 days prior, I received a letter cancelling it. I'd been waiting 3 weeks for this appointment. Well, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I'd been thinking about switching to another GP, Dr. C, in the practice anyway, and this cancellation forced me to do just that. Fortunately, I was able to get in on Monday.

I started with my ears: I told him that my ears were still hurting and I could feel and hear fluid crackling in one of them. He had a peek and said there isn't an infection, but there is fluid, which is putting pressure on the ear drums. He told me to take my corticosteroid nasal spray.

I briefly ran through the story of my pelvic pain, and told him that it's getting worse and changing. Then I started firing symptoms at him. I don't think I was thinking clearly; I was so desperate to get it all out, to get him updated on what's been happening, and I'd hung so much hope on that visit. He listened patiently with an amused and interested smile.

To make a very long story short, he feels most of this stuff is linked to one problem. He doesn't want to speculate on the separate symptoms at this point. He said it's still too early to decide whether the pelvic pain is endometriosis or not, but it doesn't sound as though it is. He's referred me to an ear, nose, and throat specialist for my hoarse throat, and he's ordered some blood tests. Different blood tests. He feels my problem is muscular/skeletal in nature. I asked him what these blood tests were for. He said they're check for specific types of inflammation, Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren's syndrome, and a few other things (all of these are auto-immune disorders). Of all of them, my symptoms most closely match those of Sjogren's. Actually, all of my symptoms are in this list.

But I've learned a lot throughout this whole thing. And one of those gems is that you can look at the symptom list for an illness, have nearly every one of the symptoms, but not have that illness. You may be convinced you do, sure you've finally found what's ailing you...but it's not the one. I've looked at about 30 different illnesses over the past few months, and matched up perfectly with about 3 or 4 of them...but I don't have any of those illnesses.

Usually Sjogren's doesn't cause many problems for people; many people are walking around with it and don't even realise it. They have a bit of dry eyes and mouth, and nothing else. But for some, it's not a nice disease to have, and people with Sjogren's have an 18 times higher risk of developing lymphoma (what a coincidence; lymphoma was one of the diseases I was worried about...and my father has it).

I wish I had gone to Dr. C from the beginning. He was amazing. He asked me some really poignant questions such as 'what if we can't find anything?' and 'What do you think it might be?' and 'Are you fed up?' and 'Are you depressed?' These were not asked in doctor-speak with a poker face. They were asked with such sensitivity and such caring, I had to fight back my tears. He then asked me the one question which choked me up the most: 'What is it you're looking for?' I said: 'Answers. I don't want pain medication, I don't want symptom relief. I want to know what's wrong and fix it.' And he said, 'in other words, you want a cure.' Exactly.

But my outlook on all of this has changed drastically. Prior to a few days ago, I was desperate to find out what's wrong. I knew something was wrong and that it was just a matter of finding it. But after speaking to a family friend, who's a doctor, that's all changed. She's assured me that as long as these tests are normal, coupled with my normal CRP, there isn't anything sinister going on...and everything can be attributed to stress and anxiety.

So, now I don't want to find anything. I'm praying all my results will be normal. Then I just need to try to relax. But not too much. One of the things I need to do is exercise and keep busy and active; I need to stop acting like a sick person and get on with my life (which I'm trying to do, but some days are hard).

My appointment was at 5:40. It was a double appointment and the last one of the day for Dr.C. He spent an hour with me, and not once did he rush me. He let me babble on and on and then asked me more questions. He even chatted with me about things not directly related to why I was there. For the first time since this whole ordeal began, I actually felt properly looked after by a doctor in that surgery.

I get the results of my blood tests on August 10th. I may not find a cure for whatever this is; I may not even find an illness. But at least I've found a doctor that cares.

Meme II

I saw this meme a while back on a blog, and I thought I'd play. I tag anyone else who wants to play.

Accent: Strange. I'm from Ohio, but have been living in the UK for 7 years. I'm always asked about my accent here. But when I'm in Ohio, people tell me what a 'lovely British accent' I have.

Breakfast or no breakfast: Definitely breakfast. I can't function until I've had cereal, yogurt, and orange juice.

Chore I don’t care for: Cooking

Dog or Cat: Cat. I love cats.

Essential Electronics: Computer, digital camera, and mixer. I also have a little chopper I use for onions that I love.

Favorite Cologne: Tresor sheer. I like CK One on hubby, but for some reason he's been wearing Britney Speares. Don't ask.

Gold or Silver: Platinum. Love it.

Handbag I carry most often: I got a nice Fossil shoulder bag for my birthday. I always have shoulder bags, that I wear crossed over, so I can be hands-free.

Insomnia: From time to time. I had it chronically for about ten years, but have discovered a few tricks and a herbal remedy that really help.

Job Title: House slave. (chuckle)

Kids: Yes

Living Arrangements: Eentsy-weentsy 2-bedroom semi in a it-looks-nice-but-we-have-criminals-living-here neighbourhood. Three people, a cat, and a few spiders (wild, not pets).

Most Admirable Trait: Enthusiasm. This also falls into the category of most annoying trait. When I get interested in something, I Do It Big. I remember when I first decided to homeschool, my sister-in-law was telling me about homeschooling yahoo groups. I laughed and said, 'I don't think I want to go that far.' Hah. At one point, I had nearly 20 groups. I've started one of my own, took over ownership of one, I have a blog, and I spend a huge amount of my day either doing homeschooling, reading about it, talking about it, blogging about it, or researching it. Fortunately, I've calmed down a bit. I haven't lost my enthusiasm, I've just found more useful outlets. I've cut back to about 6 or 8 groups, I've left the group I started, and I've stepped down as owner on my other group. I'm like this with everything I get interested in.

Naughtiest Childhood Behaviour: I was kind of a goody-two-shoes, but when I was about 8 I went through a phase of not getting good grades, so I used to throw the damning evidence away in the trash before I got home.

Overnight hospital stays:

Giving birth
A few months ago before my miscarriage

Phobias: Heights, drowning, insects

Quote: 'It's ridiculous' and 'Oh, for Pete's sake.' I say these a lot. But a more dignified quote that I like is: "Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, contentment, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know." -Charles Kingsley

Reason to smile: Many

Siblings: I have a half sister that I've only met about 2 times.

Time I wake up: Between 6:30 and 7:30. If I've stayed up late, 8:00.

Unusual Talent or Skill: It's not unusal, per se, but I'm good at baking. I'm also good at just figuring things out on my own. I'm pretty good at assembling things.

Vegetable I Refuse to Eat: Okra

Worst Habit: My temper, I can be a bit obsessive/compulsive/perfectionist, and a hypochondriac.

Yummy Stuff: Chocolate, apple pie, ice cream, marshmallows.

Zoo Animal I Like Most: Aquatic life

An Ideal Day at Whimsy Way: Kindergarten

I thought I would share what a typical kindergarten day is like at our house. This is a day without any interruptions, appointments, illnesses, etc. We don't manage everything everyday, but this is how we like, in general, for our days to go (I also have a need for change, but this is the basic outline):

I'm usually up by 7:00, but I would like to be up by 6:00. I find, though, when I get up that early for several days in a row, I begin to feel really drained, so 7:00 is ideal for me. I like to go online for a little while while I eat breakfast. I check my hotmail accounts, my Yahoo mail, log in to blogger and read my internet friends' blogs, check the weather, and have a look at a book or website or whatever.

Stiggy is usually up between 7:30 and 9:00. I get him some warm milk and cereal. I read to him while he eats, which usually takes 30-45 minutes as he's a very slow eater, especially in the morning.

We then get dressed, brush teeth, wash faces, and do a few chores. We make beds (I like to have the beds turned down as this allows a good airing of the sheets which cuts back on allergens since I have hayfever [I suspect Stiggy does, too] and my husband has asthma). I spray the orchid, tidy up a bit, and wash dishes. Stiggy makes his bed and puts his pajamas away. I begin a load of laundry and we hit the books. (See here for our Kindergarten year 1 curricula)

We will usually do a reading lesson with some dictation using a movable alphabet. Stiggy will do a phonics workbook page, too. We will do some handwriting, sometimes a page from Handwriting Without Tears, practice on the slate, or tracing sandpaper letter cards. On Friday I like for Stiggy to write out all his numbers and letters that we've covered so we can compare his progress each week.

We may have a break here. I will get Stiggy a fruit snack and while he eats I will read him some poetry or a story of my choice (he chooses all the other read alouds). We then move on to math. We do not have a formal curriculum just yet; we prefer to use the living math approach, so math is different every day. It may just happen incidentally, or I may have something planned such as counting practice using manipulatives such as marbles or an abacus. We may toss a bean bag back and forth while Stiggy counts to 100, or counts by 10's. We also like to tie math to literature and will read poems about math, or stories that have a math theme. We also play lots of games involving math and make up little math senarios. Or, we may do an activity from one of our books.

We're also working on skills such as safety. Stiggy has learned his address and phone number, so we will often review a previous skill before working on something new. Stiggy loves memorising.

At least one day a week, we do yoga. Stiggy is very active, so I don't have to worry about him not getting enough exercise.

Art is usually done a few days a week, if not every day. It is quite unstructured and delight-driven. We were doing some more structured lessons with colour, which has really piqued Stiggy's interest in art; he was pretty uninterested prior to that. He now loves to mix colours. We will often listen to classical music while doing art. Stiggy has access to lots of art supplies including temperas, water colours (palette and tubes), pastels, markers, coloured pencils, stamps, crayons, glitter, glue, stickers, finger paints, and others. He also attends a pottery painting session once a month.

For nature study, we may have a look at our plants, work on our gardening journals, read a nature story, take a nature walk, or some other activity. This is usually done 3 to 5 times a week (not counting weekends)

At noon, we usually stop. That's tea time for us, so I'll usually brew us a pot of mint tea in a pot and cup set I painted during our pottery painting classes. Stiggy is then free to play while I get a few things done (I used to go online, but I've managed to cut back on that).

One o'clock is lunch time. During lunch, we put on an audio story. He loves Roald Dahl stories and we have many of them on CD. I like to read during lunch.

After lunch I like to have some quiet time. I'll get Stiggy some warm milk and read him a story or 2. He can then either look at some books, listen to an audio story, or sleep (which is what he often ends up doing) upstairs. I like to sit down and read, knit, or go online (ahem). Since the weather has warmed up, we usually go outside.

After about an hour and a half, Stiggy gets up and is free to play. I will usually cook and do a bit of housework. In the evenings, we sometimes go out, if need be, or go into the garden. Some evenings we will put the tv on for a while, and Stiggy will watch a bit of Top Gear while we have dinner (I will read). My husband will often take Stiggy upstairs to work on Arabic and learning about Islam. He may read him an Islamic story. He also often takes him to the mosque to pray. Other times they play (trains, wrestling, cars, a game)

Between 7 or 8 I take Stiggy upstairs for a bath (if he needs one) and to prepare for bed. I'll read to him for a while, then we sit and chat. We talk about our day, I'll ask him questions, and we just have a nice chat and cuddle.

I then go downstairs to tidy up the kitchen, have a shower, go online again, and read until bed. I'm usually in bed by 10:30.

On Fridays, after lessons, I log what we did for the week. I check off each thing on my lesson plans sheet, so this is an easy job. I also make some comments about how the week went, improvements Stiggy has made, or things we need to work on. I then print out a blank lesson plan sheet I created on Excel, and fill it in for the week. This takes quite a while for certain subjects because I don't have a set curriculum for some. Math, for example. I need to check several books, websites, games, etc, to draw up a plan for the week (I'm not very good at just choosing something on the day). I have an general idea of a concept I want to work on with him, such as 'double' or counting to 100, and I go from there. I also like to work in a little review. I also do any printing for the week.

On the weekends, we often go out to do a bit of shopping. If the weather is nice, we'll go out into the garden, go to a park, or maybe even the Lake District. On Sundays, we clean the whole house and then usually go to my Father-in-Law's to visit with my husband's family. There are a few other women my age with children (and one spinster ;) ), and it's a nice time to catch up on things and have a good gossip while the children play. We don't do any formal lessons, but I still read to Stiggy quite a bit.

Some of this has changed since I first wrote this out a few months ago, but I've left it since this is how our year pretty much went. I'll write a new one each year.