An update as we pack for Europe- or should be...

I think I have typed up an update at least three times and none have posted…so here goes…my last attempt.  I am typing quickly while the boys are outside playing King Arthur and Bronwyn and Aynsleigh are both napping.  I have had several wonderful emails asking for some updates and hope I have time to finish this. There is so much to share!!!!

In four weeks from today we are heading to Europe for a month…we’re taking all of the kiddos with a slight schedule that has changed often based on what we are studying and what seizes the boy’s interest. We are hitting beautiful Bruges, North France, Normandy and  Claude Monet’s home, St. Mont Michel and then onto  Paris before we head down to the South of France. From there we are spending most of our time in Italy…Venice, Rome and I hope Florence. In Italy in Turin there is a big Egyptian Museum that the boys really want to see so I hope we can do that as we head North. We will be stopping to meet up with friends in Geneva and to visit a few castles on the Romantic Road of Germany before heading home. There is no doubt the trip will leave us exhausted and I hope it will be as fun in real life as I imagine it to be.  I might not blog there but I do hope to blog our trip with the intention of trying to convince families that traveling can be done with children and some ideas on how to financially pull off such a trip in Europe.  I have worked real hard to educate the children on what they will be seeing…I lived in Europe as a child for 7 years and was fortunate that my parents took us everywhere!!!!  But I stood in front of many things not really knowing anything about them which is normal I have no doubt.  We have studied artist and Empires taking constant breaks for the children to absorb what they can so they understand ahead of time what these wonderful adventures are.  As we drive thru the Alps they will know that Hannibal took his elephants over those mountains. As we look at the Sistine Chapel they will have painted upside down under the table to know that that is how Michelangelo painted.  Even Tristan knows he is going to see “the big naked David” while in Italy.

A lot has happened in the past six months of our life…big changes a lot of smiles and sadly some tears. As most know we have four dogs and two cats…over the past four years some of my  pups have had a lump of some sort that left me running to the vet in tears only to find out that it was just fatty lumps, then they roll their eyes at me wondering why I am not rushing off to the Dr to address my own fatty lumps that have developed over the years. So in the Spring when I felt one on Sandy I waited the ten days or so until she was getting her summer haircut to have it checked. The results came back instantly that she has spindle cell sarcoma, I was not expecting this and will never forget my vet, who I adore, walking thru the examining room door very calmly saying, “cancer”. A rapid growing malignant cancer. The vet knew when he removed it to send to pathology that it was spindle cell and therefore he removed a lot of tissue around it and was pretty aggressive in what he took out. Anyone who knows me knows my last penny would be spent on my animals (and has at many times in my life) and when I was having to make the decision to pursue chemo etc… my vet really sat me down and made me think about it. He made me remember that Sandy LOVES being outdoors, she loves to bark at squirrels and white cars/trucks, she loves “working” and relaxing under trees. He made me really stop and think that to treat her with chemo or radiation would involve loading her in the car with five children, waiting at the State Vet School in lobbies…treating her skin for possible burns…keeping her from all that she loves. He also pointed out that statistically most if not all of my dogs will die of cancer and that all are in their final few years and where would I stop.  He reminded me that I am a pet lover who is sure to have pets in my life at all times and  when would I stop …and would the expense of $6,000 a cancer treatment actually prevent me from opening my home up to other animals. It was a hard decision and one that I made with many tears but we have decided to give Sandy comfort and to spoil her rotten and to let her live out her life the way she would want. She is such a special pup…a former homeless man’s dog that literally stood in front of my car I am convinced to this day in order to stop me so that I could help her with the puppies that she had birthed off in the woods.   I have dreams of writing a children’s book about her she is so special.  Then in the past few weeks Spinnaker (my oldest and literally tied to my heart) has had to be picked up off of the floor whenever she lies down. She is filled with fatty lumps and while I see no sign of pain it is obvious that she is having trouble getting up and sometimes holding her pee. It was Spinnaker and me long before Steve entered my life...she was a young pup swimming in Echo Ally in downtown Annapolis, tied up outside of brunch restaurants while we drank bloody Marys in downtown.  She has had a wonderful Chesapeake Bay Retriever life.   Three nights ago she fell and I screamed so loud and ran from her…I don’t know why I selfishly couldn’t watch or see to help her. I can’t explain it and certainly am not proud of it…I just ran from her it hurt me so much to see her. Steve literally yelled at me to come and be with her and told me she needed me. I am disappointed in myself for my actions and of course quickly ran to her and comforted her but my fear what is in me that made me run from my precious pup when she needed me most. I honestly don’t think I can handle the passing of my pets…my brain just can’t get around it. We watched ‘Rocket Gibraltar’ last night and it found me reminding everyone that if I die make certain that I am cremated and that the cremated ashes of all of my critters in my life are combined with mine and that we are set out into the Ocean. My old poetic soul Reichen said he wanted his ashes in there too and I told the boys they will have wives one day and that that is where they would want to be. Little Karsh in his angelic voice said, “I am not going to get married I am going to stay with you mama”…all three curled up around me and we sat in a huge cuddle for several minutes. I definitely have mama’s boys!!!!!  I don’t know what the next months or the year has in store for me in dealing with a pets loss of life, I found out Sandy had cancer two days after booking our trip to Europe and would not have booked it had I known. She does seem very well though they have told me this could happen quickly I am not seeing any signs of it yet I don’t think.

The biggest news is the birth of Aynsleigh!!!!! I have three children with birthdays within a five day span. Party central in this home for the last few days of February and the beginning of March. I was in such a panic my last few months of pregnancy. Steve was traveling Monday as early as 6:00am and returning as late as 8:00pm on Friday and after Bronwyn’s birth in 22 minutes I just feared what kind of situation I would be in. Every scenario passed thru my mind, overwhelmed me and made me very anxious.  We got our hands on “Emergency Childbirth” assuming she would be born at home with no time to get anyone here…thoughts of Steve not even being here filled my head.  I wanted a healthy baby and the whole family to be there…that was very important to me. We interviewed two midwives to do a home delivery…one didn’t show up at the original appt (though she did come to my house for a second chance)  and the second I loved but she was a good hour plus drive away. The cost was $3,500 and I was very surprised when I found out our insurance (which is wonderful) didn’t cover that and of course we would be expected to pay it even if they didn’t make it in time. My gut feelings are so strong on things…almost in a scary way…and I had two feelings tugging at me strongly. Not feelings for how I wanted things, but more feelings of what I thought would happen. I really thought a midwife would not make it here in time and I think I was fine with that but I wasn’t fine with an out of pocket expense of $3,500 if that was the case. More importantly I was not fine with any hired help having to bring their child here while I was in labor. I think that made me more uneasy than anything. While I wanted all of my children right there in the room with me I didn’t want to have to worry about someone else’s child  being in my home at such a time, I really could not be guaranteed of that. My gut started thinking I was going to be home by myself when I went into labor…it was a strong gut feeling and I prepped myself for an unassisted birth not because I wanted it as much as I really just thought I would be kidding myself if I didn’t let my mind grasp that. That is when Steve read Emergency Childbirth and started getting real nervous about things. He started to think I should have an induction which I never entertained for my gut wasn’t leading me there…and even all but one of my midwives was steering me in that direction due to Bronwyn’s birth and Steve’s travels.   Others had some concerns of how all 4 of my children would handle the birth and on a scale of 1-100 that didn’t register as a concern of mine at all. I KNEW they could not only handle it but that they all had shown an incredible desire and wish to be there when Aynsleigh entered the world. I was not going to budge on that, if I knew anything it was that my children would be there in the room with me and would witness Aynsleigh’s arrival.  Sono after sono showed the cord around Aynsleigh’s neck …thinking the chances were high she’d come at home I had them do one more sono a few weeks before her due date and it too clearly showed the cord around her neck. That didn’t seem to concern anyone too much for statistically many babies are born with the cord around their neck (neither T or B had it around it theirs) but it was scaring me on a level that was so strong I couldn’t get past it.  I kept thinking something was going to go wrong. I have never found myself to be a parent that worries too much…but this worry was so strong and powerful that I really got worked up into a stress. My dearest friends kept reminding me of my worry and they casually reminded me that I kept having a feeling that something was not right…that something was going to happen wrong. I so feared that I was going to be having a non assisted birth not by choice at this point…until seconds before labor I couldn’t have told anyone what I felt was going to happen and I had no plan for I didn’t feel I had the luxury to have one… I was left with no real plan as to what to do. My hopes then were that I would have time to get to the hospital. My wishes were that Steve would be in town, the children would be there and that she would not be born on Karsh’s birthday or Bronwyn’s. It was way more important to me that she was not born on Karsh’s birthday. Karsh and Reichen spent their first 3 and 6 years not having a birthday celebrated and I certainly did not want them to ever have to share their day with anyone else in their immediate family.  Several midwives had said that their experience was the 3^rd baby was not as fast in coming as the 2^nd…I found some huge peace in that. My desires were now to make it to the hospital. The week of my due date we read a story about Dream catchers for a newborn baby and we all took that sweet thought and each made a dream catcher to put up for Aynsleigh’s birth. We made little Indian Outfits our of tan pillow cases and decorated them and got a tee pee from the toy library for the kids to sleep in while I was in labor…the whole time not knowing where the dream catchers would be hanging or where the tee pee would be set up. At this time I was really hoping to make it to the hospital and have my midwives (who do not do home delivery) deliver Aynsleigh.

24 ½ hours before Karsh’s birthday at 11:30 at night  I felt a sensation that I was possibly willing to entertain as a contraction. I called my midwives (mind you was in total denial for Bronwyn’s birth) and they urged me to come in. We had just turned off the TV and said good-night to Jon Stewart and all of the kiddos were asleep. We woke up everyone grabbed the tee pee,  all of our fort blankets and the dream catchers .  We  packed the children nothing else for I wanted to “have the baby and come home”, so Pjs were all we had,  I  had packed the children nothing…we all headed to the hospital and rolled into labor delivery to a staff that took one look at the mama in labor and the four kiddos and hubby with her and I think were wondering, “hmmm how is this going to work out”. I was settled at about 1:30AM with thoughts that Karsh’s birthday was the next day!!!!! The nurses told me I was in labor but my denial still did not have me convinced…

We were put in their biggest room with no tub (I really wanted a tub if I was going to be in the hospital) and no room for our tee pee…but we made the best of it and made a fort for the children using the sofa in the room and tons of blankets, sleeping bags and pillows that we had brought from home for just that purpose and they were picture perfect. There was a lot of excitement…but not much in the way of contractions where I just felt things were not going to happen. I really started doing the math in my head and really thought Aynsleigh was going to arrive on Karsh’s birthday. I prayed not…but as I laid there not really feeling things going into full gear I just started thinking that. The nurses would not let me go home because they knew of Bronwyn’s fast birth…and I felt like I was laying there with little happening. Things started to pick up in early morning.   At about 4:30AM –5:00AM I was till awake and everyone but Tristan and me had just drifted off to sleep. Tristan curled up in the bed with me…Steve and all of the others were asleep, the kiddos in the fort and Steve in a chair. Tristan and I had the most precious moments…tender, sweet unforgettable cuddling and loving. Those 2 ½  hours will probably be some of my most precious moments to remember…it meant the world to me.  Tristan is such the mama’s boy…has always just melted into my arms and belly and chest…holds my hand often, grabs my hand as he falls off to sleep and takes my hands and brings them to his cheeks all of the time. He is extremely sentimental and loving.  At about 7:30AM Tristan fell to sleep…everyone else was asleep but Steve kept coming in and out of it to check on me…

At 7:58 my water broke…the nurses kept telling me that when it did things would go fast and they were not kidding.  My precious Aynsleigh arrived in 12 minutes…having no pain meds on board I can say it was Bronwyn’s and Tristan’s birth x1,000. She not only had the cord  around her neck the midwife appeared to almost be panicking and I did not know why. Her arm was over her head!  While I didn’t have the most warm and fuzzy midwife in the practice delivering I am 100% convinced I had the perfect one for this birth, I will always think this along with the cord around the neck was the gut feeling fear that had seized me so.  Though Aynsleigh was born very fast I can  remember the panic in the midwife’s voice, the sweat that she had worked up and the absolute exhaustion that I was feeling. We woke up the children right when my water broke and could not stir Tristan…Karsh, Reichen and Bronwyn were all there…right there…and saw their sister come into the world. They were troopers and so excited and always say how happy they were that they were there. Tristan slept about three feet away  and woke up about 20 minutes after the birth.  For the first few months he really took it hard that he slept…I have really had to remind him of how important his role was to me in the hours before Aynsleigh’s birth.  I have pictures of him in the bed with me and show them to him often so he doesn’t feel like he missed anything. So baby Aynsleigh arrived at 8:10AM three days after Bronwyn’s birthday and one day before Karsh’s…and ten days before I turned 40.

When Tristan was born I begged to be discharged at the eight hour mark…maybe it is because I worked in a hospital for 15 years…but I find not comfort in being in one and within minutes and I do mean minutes I was calculating the eight hour mark of when I could go home with the whole family and baby Aynsleigh. The staff told me things have changed in the past few years…that now they don’t allow people to go home so quickly for they had found many had to turn around and come right back. I was determined to go home…I felt I couldn’t rest until I got home and wanted so much for my whole family to cuddle up in our home, with our music, our food. Thank goodness a crane was out our window and a huge construction project for that kept the kids entertained and they were  perfect troopers. Aynsleigh was 7 pounds and 15 ounces and 19 ½ inches. There was some concern over her jaundice and the young Peds on duty really told me that they wanted her to stay for 48 hours and I was asked to stay as a patient for at least 24 hours more.  I can not express how much that I was just not feeling the need to do that. They were very kind to me and even said that they trusted my judgment knowing I had five children now and that all were with me…they never made me feel like I was jeopardizing Aynsleigh’s health they just made me feel like they had to legally advice me to stay and that that was protocol. Mostly Karsh’s birthday and images of it the next day were hanging in my head and of course my strong desires to take us all home.  My wishes were to go home, to stop on our way to see our Ped (who I adore and trust more than any DR I have ever met)…to have him give us an “all clear” and to head home and sleep for our grand day the next day with baby Aynsleigh in attendance.  The staff had to present me an “AMA” form to sign if I chose to leave. It is a form I am very familiar with from my hospital days that just covers them…it is a form that I was leaving and discharging ourselves Against Medical Advice. I did know from my schpiels to patients in the past that insurance might not cover a visit if you sign one so I called my insurance company who said they would cover the visit even if we signed the form. Without hesitation and actually with the staff’s blessings I signed the form and we loaded up the family of seven and headed to our Ped’s office for what we thought would be a quick blessing and then homeward bound.  Slightly less than eighth hours had passed since Aynsleigh’s birth when I entered his office. I had that enormous high of carrying my new precious arrival but was moments away from just needing to collapse from not having slept one minute in almost two days.  I was so proud of my bundle of joy but knew I was on the edge of needing to sleep and crash!!!!! As we arrived all four of the older kiddos were sound asleep in their car seats and Steve stayed in the car with them knowing they too had barely slept.  I really thought I was going to just have my DR eyeball Aynsleigh and be on our way so I thought Steve and the children would be in the car waiting just a few minutes while I went in to have Aynsleigh evaluated (our Ped didn’t have privileges where we birthed or obviously would have rounded there to see her).

As I held Aynsleigh I heard the DR approaching our door to enter and speaking with a medical student…my friends and I still giggle over the conversation that I heard…but he obviously was prepping the young med student on me as he approached with chart in hand and I heard him say, “this next patient is a force of nature”…..I never questioned him as to what that really meant but I do get a chuckle out of it.  I’m not certain I want to hear the answer I guess J

I presented my dear Aynsleigh all proud and he looked at her and ordered a blood count and had her temperature checked. There was some slight commotion going on and he clearly became concerned. They brought out warming blankets tucked her into my shirt and she had a hematocrit that made him say was on the line of what could cause a stroke. I lost it…so tired…and still feeling like she’d be fine just let me take her home and once we were all rested she’d be fine…I really felt she would be fine…that she was fine!!!! My strong gut instincts told me she’d be fine just let us go home, please just let us go home.   I love our DR… as the office started closing he stayed with me, staff had left and he stayed with me knowing that I really wanted to get home…to be in my space…to wake in the morning to Karsh’s birthday and our new complete family, he knew this was important to me and he tried to make it happen. He finally came in the room and told me he trusted my mother instincts as much as anyone he had ever met…and that if he ever sent anyone home like this it would be me…that he felt I could handle many things…he also said she was on the low side of what he takes stroke precautions for …but none the less she was in the range.  He had a heart to heart with me and said she really needed to be in the hospital. It hit me like a ton of bricks that of course she had to go back into the hospital. He made some calls and we were admitted to “his” hospital…not the one we had just left a good 30 minutes away. I felt better being at the neighborhood hospital vs. the teaching one at this point. Steve and the kids had now been out of the car and were awake and were in the small examining room with me. I knew we had to go back in…I trusted our Ped more than anyone in the World…and I knew he would not steer me to do this if he didn’t think it was a must. At this point it was probably about 7:00PM…Steve took me across the street and he and the kids got us settled and Aynsleigh was put under heating lights with her dear dream catchers  hanging overhead  and I was at the point where I was too tired to even think.  I kept telling Karsh that I promised I would make up his birthday to him…our plans were a zoo trip and I promised him if he would let us celebrate the day after that I would go all out. What a special little fella he took the news so well and didn’t even show an ounce of disappointment.  There was a lot of problems with getting us readmitted…seems once a newborn leaves a hospital they are considered “contaminated” and not welcomed back to the newborn area. So a newborn nurse was sent down to the Peds floor to take us.  That probably would have been good news to many, one on one care…but she parked herself in our room to watch Aynsleigh and I just really needed the rest and in my typical fashion I felt like I had to entertain her…I just wanted it to be me and Aynsleigh and if I needed her to press a button…but no I had her in the room…the three of us.  At 10:00PM a neuro DR came around on a consult and was really pleased with the way Aynsleigh was looking. Her concerns were minimal yet I do know that Aynsleigh had gotten better and that we did the right thing admitting her back in.  She said her opinion was we could leave bright and early in the morning after our Ped rounded.

At 8:30AM, on Karsh’s birthday we were  discharged…the troops came up to get us…and we tucked in to celebrate Karsh’s birthday while I had minimal sleep. I spoiled him rotten for days…celebrated “his day” for days…and my little guy was a champ!!!!!!

Any concerns for Aynsleigh’s health were immediately washed away…what an easy going baby she was…two days later my two dearest friends came to town and three days later Aynsleigh, with brothers and sister in tow was in her sling and we were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in downtown Raleigh. They block off the square and we had the best time. My friends stayed for the weekend…wine was a flowing and just special moments having two of my bridesmaids with me in my home. We all use to talk about parties, men and traveling and I laughed as I found our conversations more about the aches and pains of getting older…where has time gone????  It was such a women’s weekend…even Bronwyn stayed awake with “the girls” as we watched the Dixie Chick’s movie twice in one night after everyone else was in bed. 

So that is the story of Miss A and her arrival…she honestly as corny as it sounds, “completes us”…Steve can’t put her down…from a man who literally laughed out loud when I told him we were pregnant (honestly he laughed as if he was doomed to never experience retirement)…he could not imagine , we could not imagine life without her. She is days away from being 5 months old…she is the most easy going baby…chunky little monkey who just watches her brothers and sister with such a desire to be right there in the middle of them. They love her dearly!!!!!!  She sports the same cloth diapers that Tristan wore four years ago, the same cloth diapers that have been washed every 48 hours for 4 years…now in tatters but lovingly put on her with reminders of Tristan and Bronwyn wearing the same diapers with each snap.

Now I’m typing quickly…everyone is in, Steve is making dinner and Princess Bronwyn has awaken with demands that only Daddy could take her out of her crib…WOO WEEEE we  know who rules this house…

I can not think what could make Bronwyn or a child more spirited…Bronwyn really thinks she was born into royalty and I don’t know if we can ever tell her she was not. Her demands in hindsight are pretty funny…but she literally has me jumping thru hoops all day to meet her needs and wants. The second you met the 99^th need she’ll serve you up another. Getting into my make-up is a once a month occurrence and just this week she actually removed two huge screws out of her crib, crawled out from the base of it and replaced the screws into the crib. She put on a big show for all of us as she showed us how she removed the screws, placed them to the side and returned them. She is a hoot…but very tiring indeed.  Smart as a whip that little girl…I don’t remember her ever not talking…

Other news- BIG NEWS for us at least- Steve took  four weeks of paternity after Aynsleigh was born…during that time a manager at his current company called him and interviewed him for a non traveling position. The day he returned to work he was offered the position and now we have a hubby and daddy who is not traveling. I don’t know how I have done it without him Monday thru Friday for over two years…my first few weeks of having him home brought me to tears many times as I almost felt like I was debriefing from the constant true survival mode that I was in. I mean I have had root canals, OB appt, Ped appts,  sonograms everything in life with my four children right there as I went thru them. 

Steve is home now about 5:30 every evening with zero travel and a job he loves…it is so wonderful…we so needed this!!!!!

Other huge news and what I have had many questions about is our schooling and how it is going. I never in a million years would have known how fulfilling home schooling would be and how it fits into our life so well.  I really hoped to take the time to really share so much more about this for others who have asked. My hope in the near future is to actually do away with this blog since we are no longer “insearch of this family”…and to actually do a school specific one. Time just really prevents me from sharing so much of the excitement in the household over schooling and learning. I have had some wonderful mentors to learn from that is for certain…

We are using a Charlotte Mason approach and I have added things here and there that seem to suit the children the most.  As most know Reichen started Kindergarten when he was 6. Mainly because he joined our family at the age of 6 and I was not going to put him directly into school…he needed some mama time!!!!  That has had a domino affect  on when to start all of the others.  At first I felt it only fair to keep two years between the kiddos for Reichen’s sake and so not to ever make him feel he is the one behind. And while I always say Reichen is the oldest soul I have ever seen I really have always thought that Karsh is possibly the youngest soul I have ever met…which gave me reason to start him this Fall at age 6.  I guess my gut feelings are not too good in that I really have recognized Karsh for his Art thinking he might struggle some with academics. I did have a slight, one occasion reason for thinking this. Last June/July when my math curriculum arrived I sat him down for the first time to test the waters of him doing Math. I put five simple math problems in front of Karsh and explained addition to him (I had never done this before for I wanted him…like Reichen…to catch up on their being kids minus school that they had missed out on).  Karsh did the first two problems and honestly was glassy eyed at even attempting the third. I asked a few other home school mamas what they thought as I assumed “learning disability”, after all he was five. Each and everyone said , “NO” totally normal not to worry. I still thought there was going to be an issue, I didn’t know what…but something seemed different and maybe it was as simple as he loves to do art (he and Tristan will both sit for hours doing art, discussing it and carrying each others pencil boxes outside and set them up with paper to do art together under a tree).  I don’t know I just thought Karsh would struggle in school and so I never ever brought up the subject again to him and was going to reserve the teaching to start this Fall 07 when he entered Kindergarten officially (at the time not knowing if we would do public school or hs). So fast forward only 6 or 7 months to this past January…as I verbally quizzed Reichen on things Karsh kept answering the questions…before Reichen…and kind of under his breath. This went on about two more times when we handed Karsh the abacus to show him how numbers go from 10-20 etc… and there was nothing to show him he counted by 5’s, 10’s he could add numbers like 81 and 12 and used the abacus in a way that was amazing. He could “see” that to get 81 he had to hold back 19 beads and tilt the abacus to produce 81. He could “see” math on a level that was astonishing to me.  Reichen with a very advanced Math curriculum is working at 3 grades higher than he is…and tested in State test at the end of  4^th grade math while in 1^st grade…and while Reichen excels in Math I have had to teach him Math. Karsh needs minimal teaching, I can show him how to do something and he almost shrugs his shoulders like, “give it to me, I got it”.  I am just shocked that this was in Karsh and I had no idea…but then again it wasn’t in him obviously that last June or July or was it just not in him that day?  He will look over at what Reichen is doing and wants me to show him what we are working on…he loves Math!!!! Karsh is slated to start Kindergarten this Fall and in days learned 90% of his multiplication tables.  More so than thinking about when should my kids start Kindergarten I put the spin on it as to when do I want them to go off to college…and I want that when they are 19. So while Karsh is clearly doing Math way beyond the Kindergarten (and Math and Geography and History) years I still don’t want him to go to college until 19 so that is where I will keep him.  In our State you have to test your children once a year if home schooled, you are offered the chance to administer the test yourself but I never want it questioned and hired a company to test Reichen and Karsh (even though he was not officially in school yet) in May. Reichen tested in the 4^th grade math and would have tested higher I think except things like the way the test wrote fractions were different than the way I wrote them. Reichen has long tackled fractions but I write them with a diagonal line and these were written with a horizontal line and he just didn’t see them as the same. Same with Karsh he didn’t touch the fractions on the test yet has been doing fractions since the first few days of doing math in January. Karsh tested on a 2^nd grade level and the only thing he tested at a Kindergarten level for was quickness. Seemed they had a timed portion and I think he did three basic math problems of like 2+1 in three minutes time. I can’t stress how easy something like 2+1 is to him, this is a child who can regroup multi digit numbers to add and subtract.  Neither child had ever been timed on anything, I am certain that Karsh didn’t even really understand the instruction…and thus did three simple Math problems in three minutes while I am certain his mind was wondering with boredom.  He reads at about a 3^rd grade level but I have noticed if he reads over a word and it doesn’t make sense he doesn’t catch himself so I need to work on that with him.

Tristan watches everything that Reichen and Karsh do…he has been reading since the Winter and I totally owe it to him watching Karsh and wanting to be right there with him. Back then I would have thought that they might be on the same level…but Karsh has taken off like a rocket and there clearly will be a huge difference in where they are at least in these first few years of Elementary age education, there is no comparison on a school level between the two at this point like there had been back in early January. Tristan does do the same math that Reichen came home with from his last days in kindergarten in public school…he counts by 10s and 100s…adds and subtracts multiple digit numbers (no regrouping)…but Karsh and Reichen clearly are Math gifted. Reichen due to learning…Karsh just naturally I think.

Reichen has read the first Harry Potter book on his own…and lately has been reading “Children’s Homer”…he loves the story of “Troy” and I think enjoys the travels of Odysseus even more. He has the map out of the journey of Odysseus and travels it with his finger and describes it with such passion.  He grasp things so well.

Studying History has set our home on fire!!!! It has helped to have Steve around in the evenings as we walk thru Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, India and China…the History Curriculum I have purchased is very rich. I am literally begged to teach History lessons by Reichen and Karsh.  Their interest in History is actually the major reason I have booked our trip to Europe so many of the artifacts we have studied will be at museums along the way. Reichen is disappointed we are not going to make it to Greece this year…but he sure is excited about Rome.  I’ve said it before and hope to say it forever that being the mother of this young boy is such a thrill!!!!! Reichen can go from Alexander the Great to Achilles to Leonidas, to King Arthur to Lancelot to Harold the King of the Vikings in minutes time…the latest kick is a Knight’s Templar, complete with castle building and costume making. 

Oh gosh I could go on and on…

I uploaded some pictures last week…this summer finds us doing no real traveling in preparation for our trip to Europe. I catch myself as I drive thru Chick Filet for my lemonade addiction and think about how that money could be spent in Europe on a drink…we have worked hard to pull this trip off.  I hoped to have us spend this years family day and Christmas on the road but not certain we can do that after this trip to Europe…we’ll see. My goal was every other Christmas to travel and every other one to be home…we are due this Christmas to be on the road but will be have it in us and will the money be there after this trip to do so.  We just find ourselves spending it at the bungalow in Wilmington instead….much will depend on the animals I guess too.

Hugs to all,

Neve