Week 5: Week of Appointments!

 Monday started, as usual, with Forest School. The boys got to meet several of the farm animals whom they will be helping care for and play with this year. The have resident goats and a bunny. They also made sailboats out of logs, sticks, and pieces of bark as a challenge to see if they could create a floatable boat. It sounded like nobodies boat could float, ha ha, but they had a lot of fun anyways.

After Forest School we had eye exams we had been putting off for over a year. Luckily us two glasses wearers, Michael and I, only had slight changes in prescriptions. However, it was time for us both to get new glasses so we did. The other two kids will have an appointment sometime in the near future, but I didn't want to juggle that many appointments in one day! We saved that for Tuesday when all five of us had back to back to back to back to...you get the idea, preventative cleanings. But oh no, two kiddos have cavities!! Avery had to have a filling on his two teeth that are fused, and lucky Michael has cavities in molars that are about to fall out anyways. Emmet was the winner with perfect teeth this time!

Tuesday afternoon we did some library book reading to compliment our last Story of the World chapter and explored about Powhatan's and Pocahontas some more.

Wednesday we tried to get as much schooling in as possible, as I knew it would be our only day this week to focus just on schoolwork. We did our next chapter of Story of the World, reading about Champlain and France's discoveries of the new land. We did a little supplemental reading in library books as well. Our next science lesson was on molecules and how they come in different sizes. We filled four balloons with various substances: water, air, air+vanila, air+peppermint oil. Then we smelled the balloons to see if the scent molecules were smaller than the balloon molecules, i.e. allowing us to smell them through the balloon. The boys enjoyed it and we learned a fun fact that citrus essentail oils eat through balloons very quickly, as we were supposed to have FIVE balloons, one with lemon or orange, however our essential oils would make the balloon pop when we went to blow it up!

The boys did math sheets almost every day, trying to finish the from the last lesson. We reviewed sign language and Spanish foods and saying our favortie foods for one more week. We also played bored games including a new science game called Ion's, where you create chemical compounds, carcassone, shadows, and walk the dog. The last two were games we played while camping this weekend with the co-op. It rained BUCKETS on us while we camped! I do not think I have ever purposefully gone camping in the rain before; it was quite the experience! The boys have full rain gear now for forest school, so they biked, explored, and ran amuck like crazy animals with the co-op friends, hardly noticing the rain. We took our enclosed trailer to sleep in, so it wasn't cold or wet, but boy was it loud when it rains hard on a metal roof all night! Everyone else was in tents and managed to stay dry with an elaborate tarp system in place, ha ha. Overall a great weekend and pretty special way to ring in Michael's 10th birthday, which was Friday!

I skipped Thursday, which was explore day at Champoeg. We enjoyed a hike, the kids put on a few plays at the camp amphitheater, and we played at the nature playground a little. Because Friday was Michael's birthday we skipped school and instead had extra Minecraft and Terraria playing time and then packed for camping. 

The first child 10th birthday is ringing a little loudly in my ears this week as I contemplate a whole decade of motherhood, and more than halfway through childhood. We were discussing our plans for highschool, and how it is only four years away yesterday!! Michael's face was so proud, expectant, and excited for all that is to come, and although I feel the same way, especially reflecting to John how camping now vs. camping when we had toddlers is so different, I am feeling pretty nostalgic and happy/sad over how quickly childhood seems to fleet. In only four more years my baby will be 10, and then I am sure I feel this way much more strongly!! Ahhh motherhood, can't wait until they are older, but miss their chubby toddler cheeks so much!

Cheers,

The Dillmans