The Best Thing About Homeschooling

My 2 favorite things about homeschooling:

1.  It works--the kid can learn a LOT, fast.

2.  I have a lot more time to spend with my kid.

Sam's favorite 2 things about homeschooling:

 

1.  Recess between every subject, and

 

2.  There is no penalty for excessive celebration. 

He likes to do a happy dance every time he gets 100%.

It Happens...

What is this lovely hardware doing on the floor of our bathroom?

Just ask Adam.
"How come TOWELS get to hang on these, and I don't?"

Someday I will tease him about this.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Danielle and I have a lot in common...

Blue eyes...

Double chins/chubby cheeks AND


We are in love with the guy behind the camera.

P.S. I hope she doesn't get my konk.

"Awesome"

I just love the way Adam says "awesome" like he is a teenage surfer dude instead of a 4 year-old kid. You have to listen carefully because he was feeling camera shy.

By the way, I think he got all the information about these guys from a book.

We don't watch this show.

With the killing...and the violence...and being a preschooler and all.

Let's Put This One in the "Tragedy" Column...

Here's the thing. I can sing. I mean, I've got a decent set of pipes and my parents forked out dough for four years of private voice instruction. I've even sung in LDS General Conference and the General Relief Society meeting and everything. And MAN, you should hear me in the shower...just like Gloria Gaynor, almost. So surely, SURELY it should be no big deal to sing in front of a few ladies for a Relief Society board meeting. Cake, right? WRONG. Depite all my preparation and prayers, I avoid singing solos at all cost. Scares the dickens out of me and alters my voice beyond recognition. Duets baby! Or better yet, a double quartet.

So why did I say 'yes' when they asked me?

I am 32. That 's old enough to leave basically all my inhibitions behind me (and I didn't have very many to start with). I thought I was old enough to move past this ridiculous fear of solo singing, and what could be less threatening than a relief society meeting? What's the worst that could happen, right? Well I'll tell you...

You could be standing there starting to sing and have a noise like a migrating Canadian Goose come out of your throat. Your normally pleasing, gentle vibrato could morph into the affectations of an extremely old woman--who is being ELECTROCUTED. At times your voice might actually resemble the plaintive calls of a newly born GOAT. And even then it could get worse...

You could start blubbering.

You could start squeaking as tears come out and grimaces seize the muscles of your face.

You could start staring at the ceiling and try to think of anything other than singing about Jesus Christ, and then start seeing spots.

The entire piece could be recreated using only the words "honk, and blubber" and have it not sound very different from the original.

And then, when the public humilation phase of the horribleness was over, and you were in the bathroom, crying in earnest this time because you feel so ashamed, and everyone, EVERYONE who heard you "sing" might come and tell you what a fabulous job you did.

And in their over-eagerness to make you feel a little better about it all, they might stumble over themselves and ask you to sing the same piece on Thursday at the Relief Society meeting formerly known as "Enrichment."

And in your eagerness to end the conversation, you might accidentally say "yes."

Bubbly

I am a Mormon. We don't drink alcoholic stuff...

But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a little bubbly now and then.

P.S. This is what happens when a 4 year-old starts learning to pour his own shampoo. Gotta love it.

Sneaky

Notice anything unusual about my freezer?

Possibly the 80 superdoughnuts plus, & the 80 breakfast bars?
*****

Remember that I have a super skinny child, Joseph. Said child likes these doughnuts & breakfast bars that are part of public school breakfasts. They are chock full of vitamins, made with whole wheat flour, and infused with protein and fiber... all my favorite things. They are fattening, but in this case, that's a plus. The only problem is that they are not sold in stores! You can't get 'em, so don't even try! They are only made for the schools. So I went to a school and bought a case of each. (Did you know you can do that?) It was like my own personal Costco, and parking was a dream! No lines! Now I feel so darn sneaky...and today Joey weighed 41.2 pounds. That's the first time he's cracked 40. Life is good.

Grow, Joey grow!

P.S. 4 Year-old Adam weighs 42 pounds.

Dolled Up

I never played with dolls as a child. Too girly. But I'm making up for it all now! I feel the need to dress up Danielle over and over and find matching accessories etc. etc. Poor thing. Here are some of my favorite outfits:

4 Days old in her birthday suit. Sweet!

One month old in the bathtub. Okay, so it's not an outfit, but I like to see how she changed over time. Look at that lil' belly!

Six weeks old and looking pretty.

Seven weeks old and hangin' out.

3 Months old and getting glitter everywhere from this little number.

Today I thought she looked especially fetching. Salmon instead of pink, what a relief!

I made matching bracelets for us. You see what she has to put up with?!

But she doesn't seem to mind.

Happy Halloween!

Are you wondering how our Halloween went?

***

Pumpkin seeds were baked and eaten....

Jack 'o Lanterns were carved...

Jengo Fet and Bobo Fet "shared" a baby (they both wanted to hold her, so I said one could hold her and the other one read to her)

Costumes were worn...

(He is a clone who can't find his helmet)

Han Solo made an appearance...

Another holiday was successfully executed!

Game Face

I see this face every single day. This is Sam's game face.

The game, of course, is chess.

The following is an actual transcript of...well, every single day.

*****

Sam: Can we play chess now, Mom? I'm all done with my school work.

Me: Uhhhhh...

Sam: You promised!

Me: Okay, but just so you know, I am going to win! You're going down!

Sam: [Game Face]

Then, as often as not, he proceeds to beat me at chess.

Unquiet

Danielle hardly ever cries, but that doesn't mean she's quiet.

Warning, there are about 10 seconds of fussiness. Don't let them deter you.

She loves to make these sounds when I take her shopping. Then people throughout the whole store think that Mariah Carey is somewhere close by...and being jabbed with a red-hot poker.

Talented...

Adam is talented. He is a lego master.

He makes very complicated "creations." They are always perfectly symmentrical.

He explains the function of each of the parts: shooters, jets, and machinery nonsense words like "the motranator." He looks at me as if I have a very tiny brain.


He has been making these humongous things since he was very little. He was three when he made this one. Symmetrical...and bigger than him. Just the way a battleship should be.

Trouble

I am in trouble. I have received threatening calls, guilts trips, bad karma, and severe looks...

All because it took me so long to post this:

...so cute in pink and brown...

and this:

Danielle was blessed in this vintage blessing dress that was hand-stitched by Bubby (maternal grandmother). I wanted to do a big photo shoot with her in it, but her little arms were so deliciously plump that the dress almost didn't fit. I had to take it off right after the blessing because I thought it might cut off the circulation to her hands.

More atoning to follow. I am much too tired to fight the computer just now by adding new images, which violates some intergalactic cyber code...apparently.

Lovely Little Girl

We had these pictures taken when Danielle was just six days old...seems like a long time ago already. She's changing so fast.

Look at those little baby wrinkles on her back! She looks like a little sharpei puppy!

It takes many kisses to raise a child...

James' hand is on the bottom, mine on the top. This is probably my favorite.


She's posing so well, no?

This is the one that shows what she looks like the best, I think.
The funny thing about this picture is how pink she looks compared to my skin, and how tan she looks next to James' skin. Is it an optical illusion?

I made these bracelets for us the night before I went into the hospital to have her. Everyone who saw it was sure that the one for Danielle was going to be too small. It's about the right size for my thumb! But it fit her perfectly.

Danielle's Exciting Birth!

Just barely born, and already beautiful.

Danielle Elizabeth Winzenz

Born July 3rd at 12:12 am

7 lbs. 8 oz.

She's got that "newborn smell."

Plus she has this ultrasoft peach fuzz that is really fun to kiss.

She's here! All the waiting, the grumping, the swelling, and stretching is over. I am no longer a pregnant woman. Now I am just a blissful, but slightly dazed mommy of a precious little girl.

Isn't she beautiful? To me she seems to be the most lovely thing in the entire world.

Her debut into this world was an exciting one. Would you like to hear the story? Warning, it is graphic:

It started off as a very boooooring day. I'd been waiting and waiting to go into labor for the last couple weeks. Several times I had felt like I WAS in labor, only to have it all stop and go back to waiting. But July 2nd I checked myself into the hospital with the firm resolve that I was NOT leaving without this baby! The Doctors' plan was to flip her, if she was still breech (she moved around a LOT), and then induce me right away so she wouldn't have a chance to flip into the wrong position again. But, as luck would have it she was already in the right position so we got to skip right to the induction.

I wanted as a natural a birth as possible. I asked them to just break my water and I promised I'd get her outta there in just a few hours. I pleaded. I persuaded. But what actually happened was that they put me on a slow pitocin drip for what felt like eternity--14 hours. The contractions never got all that hard or uncomfortable. James and I just laid around in the hospital room watching TV and reading books. I wanted things to get going! Something had to happen! I kept thinking that if only my water would just break...I KNOW things would get moving then. So when I felt a rush of fluid that soaked my bed to my knees, my first reaction was joy. Hooray! My water finally broke--let's get this show on the road! But when I looked under the covers, all I saw was a sea of bright red blood. Oh gross.

I knew from the amount of blood that I saw that it was a dangerous situation, especially for Danielle. So I took the little button to call the nurse and *doink, doink, doink* hit it continuously until the nurse came in. Luckily she was close by and came right in.

"There's a lot of blood coming out." I said calmly. I am always so dead-pan when faced with emergency. She started to explain about bloody show until I threw back the covers. She stopped mid-sentence and gasped. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but suddenly there were about 8 medical personel in the room. The doctor, who I KNEW was not available, because another lady she was treating was practically crowning, came in and told me that I was going to have a C section...right NOW! All the people in there had a job to do, and they were all asking me questions about allergies and drug reactions etc. etc. but the only one I really paid attention to was my nurse, who was having a hard time finding the baby's heart beat. That was the most frightening moment for me.

Within a minute or two of the appearance of the magically apparating medical personel, I was wisked in my bed down the hall towards the Operating Room. Every time I squirmed or moved in any way, I felt another disconcerting gush of fluid from between my legs. Yeag, I'm getting nauseated from reading my own entry. Sorry people.

I started to pray. I prayed for Danielle over and over until the moment I heard her first cry. Then I started to pray that, if possible, I would like to not die too. :) How dramatic of me.

I was given 2 shots in the back to numb me up. It was much faster than an epidural, and strange too, because it didn't keep me from feeling anything, I just couldn't feel pain. The doctor poked me twice and asked if it hurt. I said it just felt like she touched me. "Okay, let's go."

The next 3 min. were very strange. It felt like the doctors were tugging, pulling, pushing, and overall just arm-wrestling on my tummy over who got to make the first incision. And then she was out! Danielle announced her healthy, strapping presence with a hearty, high-pitched squall. How DARE we pull her out like that with no warning whatever?! I've never heard anything so beautiful in my life. And she was gorgeous, too. Even covered all over with the waxy stuff and blood, I couldn't take my eyes off her. What a lovely round head and perfect features!

The doctors spent the next hour or so finishing up with the procedure--making a little Lybi barbeque by the smell of it. And then it was over. Within an hour I could move my legs. So what can I say about this delivery? I was LUCKY! I had a pretty serious placental abruption (placenta pulled away from the wall of the uterus), and I just happened to be just meters from an O.R. when it happened. If I HAD gone into labor on my own at home 9as I had been fervently praying to do) and had this problem, I would have had a 15 min. drive to the hospital, during which I probably would have bled within inches of my own life, not to mention Danielle's. As it is, I lost 3 pints of blood in about 10 min. (most people have about 7 total). My hematocrit count before labor was 37, afterwards it was 21. My hemoglobin count before was 13, now it is 7. But since I have felt pretty good and haven't fainted at all or anything, I didn't even need a blood transfusion. Yea...

My overall take on the delivery is that it was absolutely optimal given the obstacle of the abruption. I am fine (although I am pale and weak) Danielle is great--life is good. I feel like I was prepared for this unusual delivery by some promptings that things were not going to go smoothly during delivery. In fact, this is why I made James significantly increase my life insurance at the beginning of the pregnancy. Did I almost die? Nah. But this COULD have been the end of Lybi if I hadn't been in exactly the right place at the right time. Do you belive in miracles? I do.

Milestones

We have had some pretty big steps taken by young men in our household recently!

(Anything in the last 2 months is recently to me.)

Sam got braces.

It is not that we are freaking out about the aesthetics of his merely 8 year-old smile, it is that he had a pretty bad cross bite that needed braces, in addition to a palate expander. He's been very stalwart about the braces. They're no prob! The palate expander, on the other hand, has us all longing for ear plugs at the dinner stable...er, table. *Ssssshllurp!*

Joey lost his first regularly-scheduled tooth.

He is eating gingerly these days, with 2 more wiggly teeth getting ready to launch.

Adam learned to pee into an empty water-bottle.

It was an emergency...a DIRE emergency. We were STUCK in a traffic jam, surrounding by witnesses, and the pitch of his whimpering warned me that we only had about 30 more seconds to disaster. What was a mommy to do? He didn't spill one drop--what a champ!

No mommy could be more proud.

Be sure to expand this picture, because it's a great one.

Check out the massive cuteness:

We got new suits for the boys, and I thought they were sooo GQ!

These guys are my personal armed bodyguards.

"Lybi's Angels"

How could any woman not feel like a princess walking into church with so many dashing excorts?

The Glow

Just for the sake of posterity, check out how weird this is....

From the front I don't really look pregnant.

But WHOA! When I turn sideways a big ol' tummy appears like magic.
I am adjusting to my new size and shape. No more turning sideways to fit through small spaces. Front entry only! Unless I want to back in...beep...beep...beep!

I am always looking for an opportunity to lay down. Even in a photo shoot. Must...conserve...energy. How much do I really want that small item that just dropped to the floor? Usually, not enough to actually bend over and get it.
But lounging can be lovely, can't it? A time and a place for everything.

Thanks, Catherine, for taking these lovely pictures! You are amazing!

Star Girl--Saturday Salute to Grandma Farnsworth

This is my Grandma Farnsworth--my father's mother. Isn't she beautiful? I'm proud to say that 25% of my genetic make-up comes from this woman.

Of course, she looked somewhat different from this picture when I met her--curly gray-white hair, horn rimmed glasses, soft wrinkles around the eyes and jawline. But she was always beautiful and fascinating to me. When I was a little girl, I loved to feel her super soft skin and the smattering of very light peach fuzz on her neck. (She didn't like it when I did that!) But it wasn't just her skin that was soft. She was soft, and harmless as a butterfly--but less gaudy. She had the quiet beauty of a star--nothing too garish. Subtle, quiet, easy to miss even, if you aren't looking. Prone to be taken for granted, probably.

Thelma Ruth Sexton (Farnsworth) joined the Church of Jesus Christ when she was a teenager. She said it "felt like coming home." That is where she had the opportunity to meet my grandfather--an affectionate man prone to talking your ear off. (Love you, Grandpa!)

Grandpa was immediately taken with her deep blue eyes. He said he had always liked blue eyes best, and hers were the bluest he'd ever seen. (She was generous enough to share her blue eyes with me. Of my 4 grandparents, she was the only one with blue eyes. She gave them to my father, and he gave them to just 2 of his 7 children--Laura and me.)

She was an efficient little lady. Grandpa always said she could clean the whole house from top to bottom by 10 am, and then set about her other business. She spent years and years of her life researching her geneology and preparing names for temple work. She also did the most difficult puzzles I've ever seen! 1,500 pieces of a black and white photo of zebras. Aaaaah! How did she have the patience? (I honestly don't know. She was not generous enough to pass on this particular trait to me...) She was sweet, modest, and unassuming, but you'd better believe she'd get the job done if it was within the realm of her percieved duty.

Grandma Farnsworth died of cancer when I was just 18 years old. We were actually en route to her house in Arizona to see her one last time when she passed. I felt awful that I didn't get to see her...didn't get to say goodbye. And I had spent the previous summer in Washington state when the rest of my siblings went down to see her. I lamented it for a long time.

When I got married, I was presented with this beautiful quilt:

See how the light goes through it? It is a very light, Arizona appropriate quilt, in a beautiful star pattern. Grandma Farnsworth made it for my wedding before she passed away. Isn't it wonderful?

This quilt is one of my favorite possessions of all time. I get it out for special company, and especially when my dad comes to visit. I figure he'd like to sleep with his mother's handiwork comforting him. And sometimes I wrap it around me just to feel close to Grandma.

I like to think about how her nimble fingers touched this quilt in every possible place. See the tiny handstitching?

Sometimes I flatter myself that she was thinking about me when she was working on it. Blue eyes AND a wonderful quilt besides? Thanks so much Grandma! I love you.

My Favorite

My mother always told me that you love all your kids equally--they each get all the love you possibly can hold. But if you press her, she will admit to having "favorites." It is always whichever of her children is sick, or struggling, or suffering. Basically whoever is most in need of love.

Joey after eating his Christmas pomegranate 3 years ago.

Well, today my favorite is Joey. This scruffy little guy just had oral surgery today. What? you say...Surely he is too young for oral surgery! Yes, he is young--only 6, and small for his age at a minimal 38 pounds. But he is no stranger to surgery. Actually, today was his 5th surgery. None of them have been serious surgeries--2 eye muscle surgeries for strabismus (crossed-eyes), and 3 oral surgeries.

*****

It is all my fault, of course. I consciously choose a path that would ruin 4 of his baby molars forever. But let me 'splain!

When Joey was first born, I noticed that he tended to choke a little bit every time he nursed. He always had to cough a lot and nursing was a slow going process. Still, he gained weight and seemed to be doing fine. Look how cute he was at 6 months:

He has "Bambi Eyes."

Sometime around 6-8 months we started having real problems feeding Joey. He didn't seem to want to eat--solid or liquid food. He would pull off while nursing a lot, like he was too excited or wiggly to eat. I started to loose my milk. He stopped gaining weight. I had to transfer him to formula around 7 months. It was SO hard to get him to drink even just 3-4 oz. at a time. When I took him to his 9 month appointment, I told the doctor about the problems we were having with him. The pediatrician said not to worry and that he was just a skinny little guy--and too interested in everything else to eat much.

Joey began to have chronic diarrhea and continued to refuse to eat. When I took him back to the pediatrician at around 12 months, his pediatrician was hysterical. She said he was in the "failure to thrive" category. I still remember how traumatic that visit was. We had him tested for allergies, for parasites, for lactose intolerance, for genetic diseases that might cause his ongoing diarrhea. I tried different formulas, I took him to "natural" doctors, I tried hokey alternative treatments, such as fancy oils, homeopathic medicine, chiropractice (the weird kind), difficult diets. Nothing produced results.

By the time he was 18 months, we had enlisted the services of a feeding therapist as well as a physical therapist and an occupational therapist. It was discovered that the "choking" problem was due to poor muscle tone in the esophagus.

Here is the part where I ruin his teeth--I started feeding Joey almost nothing but pediasure every day. He liked it and would drink almost the full 8 oz. But he would only drink it on one condition. He had to be completely alone--with no distractions, laying in his crib.

Every day for at least 6 months, probably closer to a year, he drank 4 pediasures a day in his crib. Often he would fall asleep with the bottle still in his mouth. I knew it was bad for his teeth. I KNEW it. I had read all about it in my child developement classes, but I didn't care. I was too worried about his brain and the rest of his body. He had started to seriously lag behind in physical and even cognitive developement. (He didn't walk until 18-19 months.) Drinking the pediasure was good for him in lots of ways. He started to gain weight again. He got back his adorable chubby cheeks.

*****

Around his 2 year mark we had a breakthrough as to what was causing a lot of his problems. Joey had never really slept well at night. He woke up coughing almost every single night--croupy, often. I had to put him in a steamy bathroom during the night about 4 times a week, so he could start breathing easily again. I attributed this to his tendancy towards asthma. And there was always a large drool spot on his pillow in the morning. Always. The doctor finally put all this together. Coughing at night, spots on pillows, refusal to eat=really bad acid reflux.

*****

Remember the low muscle tone in his esophagus? The acid from his stomach was coming up and burning his esophagus and throat. This made it hurt to swallow food. He had learned that eating was a painful thing. It had also caused inflammation of his airways so that it was very easy for him to catch every illness on the planet, and get croupy at the drop of a hat. I'm not sure, but I think that the inflamation in his throat was somehow related to the inflamatory response in his intestines that was leading to the unending diarrhea. All I know is that everything fell together when we started treating his reflux. The diarrhea stopped, he started responding to the feeding therapy, he gained weight and he looked this adorable by the time he was 2 1/2:

Perfectly healthy, right? Well, almost...

He caught up to all the regular developemental milestones quickly, running, jumping, talking, counting. The one casualty in this whole process (besides my mental health, possibly) was his teeth. Those months and months of drinking in his crib led to really bad decay on his first molars. All four had pulpotomies (root canals) and had to be capped (surgery #1). I felt a little guilty, but I still think it was a fair trade. Teeth or brain? So he had 4 silver little teeth in the back of his mouth. We got used to it. This is Joey at 3 1/2. He has 4 silver teeth, but who can tell?

Then one day about a a year and a half ago, one of the bottom silver teeth just popped out. I freaked, I shreiked, I cried... The dentist told me that he had never seen anything like it in his whole career. Sometimes, he told me, the teeth don't like the fillings from the pulpotomy, and the roots start to dissolve a little in protest. He had seen this VERY occasionally in his practice, but he said he had NEVER seen the entire root dissolve, until Joey. (Of course HE would be the exception!) So surgery #2 was placing a spacer to hold the spot for when his adult tooth finally comes in (around 11, I think).

Then last week Joey bit into a raw baby carrot and said ow! He indicated that his bottom silver tooth on the other side was hurting. I touched it, and it wiggled precariously. Ug. Here we go again. It fell out, but THIS time, the root was not completely dissolved. 2 shards of root remained embedded in his mouth below the gum line.

Sooooo, today I took my little sweetheart to the dentist for his 3rd oral surgery. He had to drink something nasty, and breathe in a funny gas until he was quite loopy. The dentist removed the 2 pieces of root (which was difficult, he told me later--he ended up having to remove some bone tissue to get them out) and placed another spacer. Now my poor little Joey is in my bed, with bloody drool coming out the corners of his mouth. But he was such a little champ. He did not fight the dentist at all.

So it's been a little bit of a bumpy ride for Joey, growing and eating and all. I still stress a little bit about his eating. I always wish he would eat a little more. But all's well that ends well, right? He is a healthy, active little guy. He is at the tip-top of his class at school, and his permanent teeth will eventually grow in and replace his spacers. So all is good in the long run.

*****

But for today, he is my very favorite-ist of all little kids. Ever. I am going to sing to him and spoon feed him apple juice until he is lucid enough to hold his own popsicle. And sometime tonight we might be brave enough to venture a cracker or two.