Good sale on Dr. Christopher stuff

All of Dr. Christopher's formulas are on sale right now at Life Balm... 45%. We're stocking up on the kid stuff and possibly some cayenne tincture. We'll see.

These formulas and Dr. Christopher's general view toward health have really helped my family quite a bit. In fact, I think Rachel and Sarah wouldn't have made nearly the progress they have if it weren't for the information from Dr. Christopher regarding the importance of living foods, even from grain.

Anyway, just thought I'd pass along the info to friends and family. That kind of discount is a great reason to try the stuff out.

Freecycle and a new blog?

This is kind of about Rachel and Sarah's journey and kind of not. This ties into the goals I was discussing back in June.

I've been thinking a lot about setting up another blog, one that I'm going to try to use to generate money. Not sure if it will work but hey, it's worth a try, right? I've looked over Crystal Paine's series (there's more than one in that previous link but I'm sure y'all will be able to find it) at Money Saving Mom and I've read a really good article at Frugal Hacks about finding your niche... I think I've figured out mine. Not telling anyone until I'm ready to set it up, though.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think I should set up two with two separate niches (one more money oriented than the other). Not sure though. One may be all I can handle.

Of course, the reason I'm thinking about all this is because I've been looking over our future needs as a family. I don't feel right asking Rob to do any more than he already is. He works very, very hard for this family and if blogging an hour or two three times a week helps him out I'm more than willing to do it... because those of you who know me know how much I hate writing. ;)

Oh, and I also want to spread the word about Freecycle. I've used it this past weekend to get rid of stuff as well as get some stuff and they've really thought through the rules for this idea. I like it. A lot. Check it out.

got the curriculum

Well, another school year is almost upon us. I'm phasing in school gradually so that we don't have a sudden change in schedule. I'm using the leftover math lessons (i.e. the ones we didn't get to finish because of various reasons... there aren't that many so it's a good review) and the science reader. I'm also going to start reading aloud at least once a day since the kids seem to really like that (visiting the library is about to become an every other week possibly even weekly event).

Rachel's focus this fall semester in her IEP is going to be on social and domestic skills for several reasons, a few of which I'll describe here. On domestics, first, no matter what else she does in life or how far she progresses, she will always have a body and a room to take care of. If she gets into a routine now, her life will be much easier. Second, this gives me opportunities to do informal speech therapy as well as work on social skills, though that will be focused on more intensely during the weekly playroom sessions we're going to have during the weekend. And third, the more she knows about cooking, cleaning and basic home care, the more likely she'll lead an independent life. And the more independence I can give her, the happier I'll be as well as the community at large.

As for social skills, that's pretty obvious. Right now, she's going through a phase where she talks back and puts her foot down, but I can't really get angry or worried about it. The only thing that worries me is that she'll completely refuse to work with me on any of this. But if nothing else there's always food as a motivator (she absolutely loves snacks) so if worse comes to worse we'll end up using ABA techniques to teach her what she needs to know.

I don't want to do that. I mean I really don't. I want her to be motivated to do this for the sake of doing it. But maybe that's too much to ask.

Anyway, as for Sarah, her IEP is pretty much the same except with a greater focus on academics. She's in Saxon Math 2 this year, and I'm introducing a real language arts course since she's doing so well reading and has started writing her own stories and letters. Add in a civics course I purchased (I Love America, pt. 1) and we've completely covered, with lovely materials, the entire required course load the state of Texas demands (math, reading, spelling, and good citizenship).

And just in case any of you are wondering, Rachel's covers all that as well, but at a preschool/kingergarten level. Social skills encompass character and character is the basis of good citizenship. Not only that, but I'll be involving her in the I Love America course where appropriate. We will go over the alphabet (spelling) as well as phonics (reading) and I'll be using the Saxon Math K curriculum for math. According to the book put out by NATTHAN, Christian Homes and Special Kids, she's not at a point where she's ready to learn to read, so our formal reading curriculum is going to have to wait.

Add in a really nice science curriculum (we're using Christian Liberty Nature Reader, books 1 and 2 as well as Sharing Nature with Children by Joseph Cornell), a fall garden for the more hands on stuff, a health curriculum especially designed for kids with autism (Taking Care of Myself by Mary Wrobel which covers basic care all the way up through puberty), singing and piano for music and assorted art supplies for arts and crafts and the therapy stuff already mentioned in previous posts and I think we'll have a very busy school year on our hands.

I'm so glad I've been getting back into FLYing. :)

a scripture discussion last night

Every night we read a little from the scriptures. Because we're Mormon, we have four canonical works, but the ones we focus on mostly with our kids are the Bible and the Book of Mormon. For the Bible, I use simple readers for now but I've found that with the Book of Mormon it's best to just read the scripture itself and explain the passages as best I can.

Last night, while I was talking about a guy named Ammon (a missionary) and the servants of the king Ammon has chosen to serve and how they had to protect the king's flocks from some bad men who wanted to scatter them, Sarah asked a question.

First off, it's the first time she's asked a question during scripture reading... at least, as far as I can remember.

Second, it was a "why" question. "Why did the bad men want to scatter the flocks?"

After I got over my brief moment of shock that Sarah was asking a question, let alone a question regarding motivation, I gave her the best answer I could think of ("I think they wanted to steal them. Let's keep reading and find out."). I'm just thrilled. Between this and the "what if" question the other day, I'm really excited to see what happens next.

I'm definitely putting that Floortime book on my list of things to get for the school year.

Another breakthrough

Sarah and I have been working on "what if" questions for the past month or two. I ask her a question, sometimes answer it myself, sometimes prompt her to answer it.

For the first time yesterday, she asked me "What if we didn't eat dinner?"

No prompting, and she was actually interested in the answer. :) Her first "what if" question. Too awesome.

colds

So, we've all been taking turns being sick for the past week. Today is my turn it seems, though as any mother knows, being a mommy means you aren't sick. At least, you can't be sick if you want the house to stay halfway organized instead of looking like a hungry pack of little monsters ravaged through your house with nothing more than hungry stomachs and an intense need to color walls.

Thank goodness for garlic and my husband's homemade Supertonic (and thanks to Dr. Schulze for giving us such an awesome formula in the first place).

Almost time for school to start

That's right. Summer's just about over. I know it's over when I see the lists of supplies at my local Wal-Mart for each school district.

That's one of the nice things about homeschooling: you don't have to buy all your supplies at once. It's nice (and can really save a chick some money), but next to impossible to gauge how much coloring, cutting, etc. you'll be doing during the year. So, the biggest outlay for our family each school year is resources, like textbooks, readers, and curriculi. I've purchased the basics and now I just have to get the house decluttered enough to move out last year's texts (the ones that won't carry over) so there will be room for this year's.

Part of me groans because I haven't finished my sewing projects yet, and my mostly-completed novel is still waiting for an ending. I think I have time, though. Maybe.

Mad Libs the card game

I bought Mad Libs, the card game version, a long time ago as a possible "date night" idea for my husband and I. (You know, the kind of "date" where you put the kids to bed early and just talk or goof off for an hour or two before you finally crash from exhaustion.)

Well, in our church we have a family event that occurs (mostly) every Monday night called Family Home Evening. When the kids were younger, I planned most of the activities and often that meant coloring something. Now that the kids are older we've been using games more often, so our activities have been more like a game night kind of thing. The favorite -- and easiest to set up, play, regulate, and dismantle -- is a memory/matching game that, unlike the trademarked game put out by a popular manufacturer, uses photographs. But there's only so many times we can play that game before the kids and the parents want something more. So, we tried Mad Libs last Monday night.

Since most of our kids are either early readers or don't read at all, the large words in the deck were a little intimidating. However, our two readers (Sarah and Becky) loved the challenge, and the others thought the cards were very pretty and loved to just hold them.

About that, the cards are color-coded so that grammar can easily become a matter of finding the right color pattern. Blue noun cards are preceded by orange adjective cards and green verb cards come after the blue cards unless you're asking a question, etc., etc., etc. I can easily see this turning into a great way to have fun with grammar this school year. However, "true" play will be next to impossible until the kids are older and/or acquire longer attention spans. Last night, for the sake of speed, we allowed trading so that people with five nouns could get a verb or two instead of taking several rounds to get the card they needed.

Point? It's a fun game and I highly recommend it, especially if you have older kids (7 and up) who already have a decent grasp of grammar basics.

Where we are now

This past weekend, my husband watched a BBC DVD the Autism Treatment Center puts out called "I Want My Little Boy Back" and he was struck my how much things have changed. When we first got involved with the SR program two years ago, Rachel and Sarah threw fits much like the boy in the documentary. Just like the boy, it was impossible to take them anywhere because of the meltdowns that would inevitably occur.

Now?

They still have meltdowns on occasion, though for the past few months they've been more like true tantrums. We can take all the kids to friend's houses, the library, church, and the store (haven't tried the mall yet and we've only had them in the children's portion of our service... we're going to be working on the actual all-ages service next week). And the best part is that when Sarah gets upset, she tells you. She uses words to describe what she's feeling and, most of the time, why. Rachel has become better at using words as well but mostly she's just calmed down a lot.

Now, we haven't been perfect in our application, especially when it comes to calming down during meltdowns. And maybe this is just our girls growing up. Still, I'm happy with the progress.

And I don't think I would have seen the difference so clearly if my husband hadn't taken the time yesterday to watch that DVD, and then taken the time afterward to remind me of the differences.

So, my point is that I'm very grateful for my girls and my husband. :)

A bit about blogging for fun and profit

There's a really great series going on right now at Money Saving Mom about blogging. I'm considering blogging as a possible way to bring in some money. It won't be much. Money, I mean. But it would be nice to bring in some extra.

The beauty of this series is that Mrs. Paine makes it clear that you can't just set up a blog and expect money in a few days. It takes time to link, advertise, spread the word, not to mention that the blog has to have some actual content. ;) I thought about making more of this blog but decided against it. I want to keep this one free of ads and other nonsense as long as I can. It feels better that way.

One of the reasons I've decided on blogging is because, after spending some time looking around on the Internet, I feel there should be more blogs dealing specifically with the problems of raising a large family on a single income, especially someone like me in the suburban Sunbelt. Techniques that work great for smaller families don't work so well, sometimes not at all, for larger families, like clipping coupons, for example. I rarely, if ever, use coupons because the amounts we buy would force me to create several transactions in order to take advantage of coupon savings. I've found it works better if we buy in bulk, buy from non-traditional sources, and make just about everything (including deodorant) at home (I'm even considering making our own laundry soap though I'm not sure if we'll see any savings). I know there are blogs out there about that, but I think the problems unique to living in Texas -- where homemade bread isn't an option in the summer if you want to save on your electricity bill -- and raising a large family might be something people would like to read.

Also, I think I can spend a half hour three times a week on it. Yeah, I think that's doable.

So, what do y'all think?

On a side note: dog food

So, we have a dog now (I think I mentioned this) and we weren't sure for a while there if we were going to keep him. That has recently changed. Why?

Dog food.

I kid you not. We originally had him on Purina Puppy Chow and he was one hyperactive, crazy little pup. Now that he's not so little anymore, we got worried. Well, I took a good look at the ingredients, compared brands, got Iams Puppy Chow instead and he's a completely different dog. I kid you not. The first time we fed him the new kibble, he wolfed down twice what he usually does, then he slept a good portion of the day, and now he's incredibly alert and calm. Rachel and Sarah feel comfortable enough around him to walk around and even try petting him. This morning, Rachel even sat down on the floor and let the pup lick her face! :)

I'm not pushing Iams by the way. The point is that the previous brand had sugar, preservatives, and next to no meat-oriented stuff in it. We've since learned that dogs do best on a carnivore diet and the brand we got is one of many that list meat as the first ingredient. Point: any dog food that has meat (chicken, beef, lamb, etc.) not meat by-products as the first or second ingredient is a good choice. And the less sugar the better. It seems our dog, just like our kids, gets too hyperactive off the stuff.

Curriculum

Well, I've finished with the curriculum/IEPs for my kids: lots of life skills stuff, not as much academic right now. We'll see where we are in December.

I'm a bit torn right now. Half of my books are going to come directly from the publisher, but another half can be found much, MUCH cheaper on a particular homeschool discount site.

Here's the problem: when people order things through a discount site (like Amazon), the authors/publishers take a pretty stiff hit in their paycheck (they may see 10-20% of the book price at most). For larger publishers, this really isn't that big a deal. But for small publishers who know they aren't going to see a lot of sales in the first place, this becomes a terrible business model. Unfortunately, a lot of homeschool books fall into the small publisher category. Since I know people in the writing industry, and I know a bit of how publishing works and what's involved, I don't like seeing authors lose their ability to support themselves in a system that should be able to support them. Already it's clear that a writer can't really support him/herself without becoming huge and those involved in small presses have an even worse time because of all the money/time spent promoting the product.

On the other hand, I have a budget. And the amount I spend needs to be as small as possible.

I'm pretty sure I already know what I'm going to do, but any and all comments would be appreciated.