This has been a busy yet productive week. The girls are really looking forward to another Kitchen Table Monday but I find that it adds to my planning process. Coming up will be taking a large old fish tank and getting it cleaned up so we can make a Rain Forest. Just one more item I came across from the enchantedlearning.com site. I still need to get the plant for it which do not seem available to me locally so we will make a trip toward Belleville but probably end up at the Missouri Botanical Garden shop in St. Louis. It should be a fun project for them complete.

Friday was our second enrichment day and it went very well. My class sizes are not too large and it seems we get a lot accomplished. Additionally, I have only one distracter in each class which is so much better than last year. My helpers are indeed helpful and I think I am doing too little to help out some times. The children think I am a bit weird as I try to get them to act out the story but they cannot seem to do so without feeling uncomfortable. One boy even told me that I was too crazy and he just cannot do that.

G is enjoying her class in tumbling probably more than ballet and loves her other classes of scrapbooking and read a book make a craft.  I have to find other pictures as she will have her first project completed nest week.  F tells me "I just love Five In A Row".  She was very proud to mark the location of Ohio on the large map in the room this week as well.  She first found Illinois then point and said Indiana, Ohio.  "There it is, just to the East of  Indiana that is next to our state Illinois."  (show off).  She enjoys the social aspect that goes along with tumbling, as there is wait time while each child does their trick.  This year the tumbling class has a mother who is also a tumbling instructor so they are double blessed.  The last class of the day is Solar System and K stays in that room to help. F is first grade but young which means she barely makes it as a class participant, for that reason K thought she would be present.  She is glad she did, yes F needs a bit more help with some things and we learned that just because she was doing well cutting we need to be better about adding that into her class plan as it is apparently a lost skill.  That class is large, it is at the end of the day so for a home school student who does not spend a long day at home we find this is a stressor at the end of the day. G does well although she had five class times all together and has to wake at 0645 and hit the road with me by 0730, then she is several class times until 1430 with a 30 minute lunch break.  There are likely a few others who are in the same boat but begin at 0830. Well my point is that this class has many girls who are disrupters.  During the first week that was bad for the room but this week G ended up sitting next to one who had brought toys to class. So now K will be choosing G's seat in the future.  I plan to send an email to the leadership crew and discussing the toy issue in the classroom. 

This week began our second year in the 4H Cloverbud program. I expect it to be a great experience as long as G can hold on that long. It meets once per month at the end of a Lyceum day so it is an extra long day for G. The group is small with only three youths meeting the age requirement.  Then there are three children who are tag-a-longs that for now will participate as well. Our leader Mrs. F. headed up the group last year but her girl went onto 4H, still next year her youngest will be a Cloverbud so she has decided to stay on with the program. Thus the third tag a long. As for G, well she was all giggles and squirmy and a bit disruptive. I can say in her defense that it had been a long day but most of all the group was so wild and out of control last year that she sort of learned that it was part of the process.  I think she will do fine now that she has had it revealed to her that no one else was wild in the room.  I say that like she ran and screamed but she was just a bit --center of attention- mode I guess.  We likely put a halt to it as well as I did have her go tell Mrs. F that she was sorry for being disruptive.  Overall, we know where we are headed to this season and have some project books ordered for G to complete.  I think she will really enjoy it and I expect her daddy to help with this, not for it to be part of what we do in class time. 

Coming up this week is a field trip to THE CITY MUSEUM in St. Louis.  This is a place unlike any other museum. This creative man takes items from Old St. Louis and creates, recycles, it to a fun center surrounded by art with tunnels and caverns and slides. Climbing all around the center even on suspended tunnels made of metal bars all vibrant in color. I will be sure top post pictures of this. IF you ever travel to St. Louis and stay it would be a great day of fun to take your family too.  It is not a museum in the sense of displays and tablets to read but it is indeed a tribute to much old architecture. 

It is Sunday and I am not at work. I had an anaphylatic reaction to something I ate in the cafeteria yesterday and at 0100 today I was still in need of steroids and Benadryl. So now I am at the point of feeling good enough to get a few things done and pace my day.  Head if foggy so it is possible that some of the event yesterday was related to my APS.  The doctor tells me that my chest and face were beet read when I arrived and we both know that means I could have tossed another pulmonary embolism.  A little Epi, respiratory treatment, and IV Solumedrol to the rescue.  I use to do this a lot until I got fully anticoagulated.  Often events show like an allergic reaction and the treatment for symptom relieve is the same anyway.  I checked my INR and I am therapeutic  so nothing more would be done either way.  Our ER doctors are so kind to not drag me into a million tests as well;  they have come to know me over the many years and have seen some pretty odd manifestations.  Oh well, here I am today to tell about it once again.

At the end of the week K will have a 3D ultrasound completed. Should be interesting to see if baby O looks anything like his pictures. 

Well, I think I will head to get some charcoal and plants for out rain forest.  "till next time