So much to blog...

...so little time!! I don't even know where to start. Jonathan's schoolwork is getting harder. I'm thinking regular adults generally function at around a 7th grade level because most of the stuff that he is doing is not anything I (or anyone I know) uses on a daily (or even yearly) basis. Last night Mike had no idea about Jonathan's math, and although I picked up on it (and was kind of enjoying it) I know I've not done any of this since high school. It involved solving inequalities with combined operations, graphing linear equations, and finding the slope (remember that...change in y over change in x--no, I didn't remember it either!) As I watch Jonathan grow taller everyday, and am surprised by the man voice that is starting to come out of him, I can't help but wonder why society decided that the hardest schoolwork should be done at a time when everything else is changing too. Jonathan needs 10 hours of community service as part of his Confirmation class this year. He already does this by volunteering with homeschool PE, so he's already got 2 hours done...he'll actually end up with about 60 hours by the time he is confirmed. Jonathan is also a volunteer at AWANA in Jake's class, he wasn't thrilled with doing this intially, but he's enjoying it now.


Madi's work is taking less time than Jonathan's so she is frequently the one I turn to when I need something done..."Madi go get my wallet", "Madi answer the phone," "Madi please hang the clothes on the line," etc... She is Ti Moune in Once on this Island...which is very exciting! Mike's mother (whose surgery went well on Wednesday...will be coming down for the play). Madi is continuing with AWANA the same way she left off...flying through it. The teacher tries to challenge herself to learn the verses of a different girl every week (the girl's name is picked out of a hat)...she got Madi's name for this week and was telling us how she was hoping it wasn't Madi because Madi learns so many verses at once. She does this all on her own. Madi started church choir this week. It wasn't really her idea, but it is a good ministry for the church (not to mention a way to get free voice lessons). I told her it was the least she could do since I have volunteered (or more acurately was dragged kicking and screaming) to be the CCD teacher for her 6th grade class. Actually, the class went really well, and I enjoyed it...I'm confident she'll like choir as well.

Jake's ministry for church this year is that once he turns 7 (in about 5 weeks) he can no longer lay down on the kneeler, ask "how many more minutes" etc... during Mass. So for the next 5 weeks he can act like a two year old in church and I won't even complain, but once his birthday hits...the party's over!! I don't know where he came from sometimes! Today he read an entire story from an old fashioned, yardsale, first grade 'reader' in a dramatic British accent! I wonder if this is what it was like for Robin Williams's mother. He had a little chaffing kind of boo boo on his private part yesterday. When the kids came home from PE yesterday (where they had swimming) he showed me how he had put a bandaid on it. "Tell me how this happened," I said. "It's the same boo boo," he replied. Me: "I know, but how did you end up with a bandaid on it?" Well apparently he told the teacher that he had a boo boo "under his bathing suit", so she gave him a bandaid and he put it on in the bathroom....phew! In case you're wondering how the bandaid was going to be removed, he just showed up at my computer with the bandaid dangling from his hand...so all is well. (then he tossed it onto the coffee table, so I had to yell..."YUCK...throw it away!!") Jake has been watching Ratatouille lately and has decided he's going to be a chef (for this conversation he uses a French accent). I was trying to finish my book last night (the new Nicholas Sparks...I didn't like it so much in the beginning, but eventually it was really good), but he dragged me into the kitchen to teach him to cook because as he said, once he learns to cook, he can do all of the cooking and I can read all I want!

Jake has had this plan to have what he calls a "Jake age kids activity" at our house. I said we could do this once a month, so he had a few friends over here the other day for crafts, stories, snacks, and games. One boy who isn't fond of crafts told me, "If I knew this was what we were going to do, I wouldn't've come", but overall it was a pretty fun time. I was afraid in the morning that most kids weren't going to be able to come, and was worried for Jake (even though he can have such an attitude sometimes, if I were 6, I might not have wanted to come either...this is a sensitive area because when we were growing up, my brother went to a birthday party--he didn't want to go, but my mother made him...and he was the only kid that showed up...the boy was Sean Peckham...I'll never forget it!) Anyway, in the end almost everyone was able to come.