Monday, September 22, 2008

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood...

OK, peeps.  It's been WAY too long.  I think with Meghan being gone, and my work load exponentially increased, that I have little energy and even less time to blog.  So I have parked my behind on the couch and vowed to not move until I have published a new post! (I guess it's a good thing I went to the gym earlier, huh?)  

So, for those readers not in the area, we NE Floridians are hosting a honey of a North-Easter right now.  It's not violent, thank goodness, but it is dumping quite a bit of rain on us.  This is great for keeping the temperature down and the grass green, but also great for forcing little peeps to stay inside.  That translates in to hyper, rambunctious, trouble seeking, LOUD munchkins!!!!!  Normally, when were having great Florida weather, everything is OK for the first part of the day.  Everyone is just waking up, so they are still groggy and quiet.  Next there's breakfast to be had, which means their stuffed mouths keep them quiet (with the exception of the occasional crunch, slurp, or belch.  Sorry!  What did you expect with 3 boys at the table? I do at least gripe at them about it! ;)  )   Then we head up to the school room to start the day's lessons.   By now they have had ample time to rise and shine.  The volume buttons are cranked up to MAX, and so are the smart remarks.   By the time snack break rolls around at 10:30 I am SO ready for that 15 minutes to regroup!   It would be at this ordained time that the people of short stature would be shooed outside to burn off some energy.  But can we do that when it's raining buckets outside?  Not if we don't want to be dealing runny noses and sneezing, whiney kids for the next week!  So they stay inside and when they return to the schoolroom it's every man, er- woman, for themselves!!  

My case in point.  Donna, my dream boss (NO she doesn't read my blog, so I am NOT kissing up!  She lives this stuff with me, she doesn't want to do so twice.  Ca you blame her?  :p ) ANYWAY, Donna thought it would be a great time to have the kids learn their States and Capitals.  We began last week.  They learn 5 a day, and I have found the most ANNOYING song, (it's Hip-Hop!) that they listen to it to help learn them.  I'll try to post a video of it.... anyway, we are learning the States and Capitals and using flash cards as well.  Friday I was going over the 25 we knew so far with Brian, and we came to Kentucky.  We have little clues to help us remember some of the States they have difficulty remembering, but we didn't have one for Kentucky.  Eight year old Brian says, "Isn't it Fartford?"  I was, not being prepared for this response, caught COMPLETELY off guard with this one.  When I asked him if he was serious he quite seriously replied, "Come on, Shannon.  The States and Capitals are NOT something you kid around about.  Was I right?"   I matched his sincerity with, "Um, Brian?  It's FRANKfort, not Fartford.  That's just wrong.  I can't imagine anyone wanting to live in a town named Fartford, can you?"  Well, it was at this time that all three boys erupted into a chorus of rude noises.  At one point, Grant began to mimic the sound not with his mouth, not even with his hands under his armpits, but he threw himself on the floor, rolled over onto his back, cupped his hand behind his knees and started pumping his legs up and down so that they would make "that" noise".  He is the only kid I have ever known that could do this, and while I hate to admit it, it was pretty funny.  Totally inappropriate, but funny!  He looked like a giant roach dying from terrible gas pains!    Here, it's easier just to show you...


It took a while, and me raising my voice more than once, but in the end- no pun intended, they were back to work and learning the States and Capitals once again.

To help cure the cooped up crazies, we went bowling- but I'll save that for another post!

Until next time-

Be Good and God bless!

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