Mariposa Academy Homeschool

I swear, I don’t think my first two pregnancies were this bad. I am so completely wiped out. It’s a struggle to get through each day, and I’m not really doing much. If I get a burst if energy, I put in a load of laundry. That’s about it as far as housekeeping. Thank God for Adrian. I don’t know how he manages to do so much, but he is really holding this household together lately.

The kids have been reading, drawing, writing, and playing computer games. Llani writes out little things for Zeke to copy or trace, like the alphabet or our names. She loves teaching him stuff. She is also working on Spanish a lot, since we’re going to Spain in two weeks. I’ve been putting together a mini-unit on Spain, but she’s not interested in studying the map or facts about Spain as much as learning Spanish words. I bought Miquon Math and so far it seems to be working great for us. We only worked on it one day so far, but Llani did a lot. She really loves it. I like the way it explains things and encourages kids to think about math. It uses Cuisenaire Rods as manipulatives, and that seems to help a lot in building understanding of the concepts. My only problem is that I simply have not had the energy to work on math with Llani since Saturday.

I can’t wait till I am past the first trimester!

The morning sickness and fatigue have caught up with me, and it’s a struggle for me to just get through the day. We haven’t really been “doing anything” for school lately. By that, I mean that I haven’t been actively thinking about school much. The kids are managing just fine. Yesterday Llani asked me to print out some handwriting practice sheets for her and Zeke, so I did that. She’s been writing more and more, creating menus for their restaurant games or creating word search and matching games for me. She’s been coming up with lots of ideas. As she writes, she asks me “Which letter makes the ____ sound?” and spells things as well as she can, phonetically.

I’ve been reading Eragon aloud to the kids, and they’ve seen the movie two or three times in the past couple of days (bringing the grand total up to about 14 bazillion times). They’ve been drawing and cutting out all sorts of little things. Everything from paper dolls to letters of the alphabet to tiny glasses of ice water. Super cute but also super messy. Llani has been helping Zeke learn the alphabet, writing it out for him to copy. they’ve been making up songs about every little thing. And of course, they have been playing with Barbies and animals and cars and Legos.

Guess what I saw last Wednesday?

Yep. I’m pregnant. I have a midwife appointment Friday to confirm that everything is as it should be, but I’m really not worried that anything’s amiss. I feel terrific. Very tired and a bit more irritable than usual, but healthy. Slightly nauseous every now and then– just enough to remind me (as if I’d forget) that yes, I am pregnant, but not enough to be troubling. Wouldn’t it be nice if that’s as bad as it got this pregnancy?

poem: Summer by Walter Dean Myers
root: photo– light (Gr.)
Spanish word: el jardín– garden