It appears I need to lower the co-sleeper a little early for this one. The co-sleeper is basically a pack-n-play, except one long side folds down a few inches and you connect it to the side of your bed. A breastfeeding momma's life saver! Well, I'm now glad I have the large one (that can be lowered) and not the mini that I had with Ivey (which I sold, of course, for surely I was finished having babies). Yesterday, Olive had managed to pull herself up the ledge on was halfway on my bed. Today, she has been scooting around the floor. I feel that time is short... I will have a full blown, full speed ahead crawler very soon. How this will work with a full blown, full speed ahead pre-two-year-old in the house, I have no idea. Perhaps Olive needs a helmet.
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In other news, Addison is reading up a storm. It appears that he takes after his Grandmomma and loves reading like nobody's business! He is going through the chapter books "Stink" in an hour or two. We've read all that we have... looks like I need to hit Ebay!
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Ivey has decided to start calling me Holly. That's right... I have a 21 month old screaming "Holly!" from her crib. Oh, she hasn't stopped there. I heard her call Asa "Boy". She told me to "sit down" tonight. Any worry that I had about her speech is completely out the window. This girl can talk, and does talk... all day long. She know her colors... pink, blue, red, yellow, green at least. She counts to four, although she often gets stuck on a 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 loop. Ivey is putting together three words often, and says four word strings daily. Tonight, she told Jeff to "draw thunder". She's still into dressing herself and loves to accessorize, even if the accessories are wrist guards and Olive's hat. The girl is a mess.
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Asa caught a caterpillar (which I spotted crawling across the deck as I was sitting at the dining room table... I've got a great eye for caterpillars) and temporarily contained the fuzzy guy on a piece of white paper under a clear plastic cup. Within 12 hours, Fuzzy had encased himself in a caccoon... right there on our kitchen counter. As long as I don't set a jug of orange juice on top of him, we may have some wings in our future.
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As for Jeff, he began a cheese making endeavor. As I type, he is in the kitchen concocting what we hope to be cheddar cheese in a couple months. As it turns out, the discarded whey can be turned into ricotta. So, although I have to wait two months to see how the cheddar turned out, the ricotta will be made into some yummy Italian dish in the next week.
Cheese making supplies can be pricy. The cheese presses sell for about $100. If they sell for that, then people must buy them. Jeff, however, did not. He went out to the shop and created his own press out of PVC he had on hand and some leftover wood from our cabinets. He had to buy the metal rods and bolts, so it came to about $5. I'm guessing our cheese won't taste any cheaper than if we'd had an expensive model.
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Now that Olive is developing a more manageable temperament, I thought it was time to begin our Lego Curriculum. I pulled out the kit, installed the software, read over the curriculum and taught the first few lessons today. I'm sure it would be a slower go if the kids didn't already have lots of hands on experience with motors, gears, gearing up and down, making pulley systems, etc. For us, the only real lesson to teach (besides how to slow the heck down and learn and follow instructions when it comes to Legos) is how to program the computer to make the motors or sensors do what you want them to do. This is so incredibly cool. Both boys are having a great time, and momma is too. As we learned how to make simple "if/then" commands with the software's "boxes", Asa's imagination was running hog wild. He is mentally creating machines that use each of the features we have learned so far. The kid is his daddy's boy, for sure.
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Cracking the Lego Curriculum has set my brain in gear about our second grade plans. I haven't done any actual lesson planning yet, but I had at least figured out what subjects we will do on which day. I am hoping to be able to get the boys enrolled in a couple classes at the new Summit Academy homeschool classes that are going to be held about 4 minutes away from our house. They loved doing science classes at UGA, but this will be right here near us. I just hope we can swing it... we may be doing a fundraiser or something here in the upcoming months.
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As for me, I have been doing a fairly descent job of keeping up with Jillian Michaels lately. It seems that, although the 20 minute workout is incredibly intense, the hardest move of all is pushing 'play' on the DVD player. With that said, I've lost almost 3lbs in 2 weeks. I think I've made it past my little plateau. I give a little credit to my magical breakfast smoothies. I swear those things helped me lose the baby weight with Ivey. Now, just 7 more lbs to go! If I can make it through Workout Level 1 fairly easily for the next couple days, I will go on to Level 2... and no doubt to whining and hobbling around once again.
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