Battling Cold Season

Cold season peaks in September, and it has been kicking our butt since July (well, maybe even as far back as May). When we last visited Dr. R in May, Big Monkey showed up at the office with a cold and raging ear infection. Thankfully, we were still able to increase our dose at least a little. I could have never predicted it was the start to a somewhat challenging summer in the sickness department, especially since summer is usually our healthiest time.

Picnic lunch during our first week of school

June went well, but July brought around cold season in full force. Big Monkey started with some GI (gastrointestinal) issue. It settled in just a few days after a dose increase, so we thought it may have been related. Dr. R had us cut our dose in half for a few days (3 days? 5 days? I can't remember now). It seemed to solve the problem, then Little Monkey (we are now referring to him as Little Monkey instead of Baby Monkey out of respect for the fact that he really dislikes being called a baby anymore) came down with the same GI issues about a week after Big Monkey. Well, thank goodness it didn't set us back any on dosing. We increased back up to our normal dose after the few days at a half dose with zero issue. As soon as Little Monkey was well again, Big Monkey got hit with a sore throat and snotty nose. Really? No fever was involved so we held steady at our current dose and just delayed any increases until he was well. That passed around the house, but was gone in about a week.

I think I managed to keep the boys well for 2, maybe 3 weeks (it is all a blur at this point), and then Little Monkey threw up and spiked a fever. Great, the dreaded fever. I bleached, did my best to keep the boys separated for a few days, and attempted everything to hopefully keep Big Monkey from getting this one. Well, attempts didn't work. Four days later Big Monkey threw up. Thankfully, this was a very mild and very short GI bug. Also, thankfully, Big Monkey got sick at 11pm. So we skipped his dose the next morning and went right back to a normal dose the next day. Unfortunately, this bug hit the week before we were scheduled to visit Dr. R again. So we had to reschedule for 3 weeks later. This was our first delay since starting in December 2013. I think that is a really good track record.

Creativity was practiced while we were contagious and stuck at home. Little Monkey's helmet, shield, chest plate, and sword made from zoobs

Trip to the circus

Dr. R was squeezing us in during the lunch break just to make sure we could get in sooner rather than later, so I became hypervigilant the week before our rescheduled visit to Dr. R's office (can you blame me after having sick kids off and on for practically 2 months straight?). We pretty much isolated ourselves to the house for a week and my poor husband got sent to work with hand sanitizers and lectures about good hand hygiene (he got lectured despite having fairly good hand hygiene). I was determined that we were going to make it to this next appointment and be well when we got there. And you know what? I was successful. Even with a trip to the circus just days before.

Little Monkey at the circus

When Dr. R walked into the room at our appointment, his first words were, so are you guys all well today with a little chuckle (I have to email him EVERY time Big Monkey gets sick so he can advise us on how to proceed safely). I assured him we were well, and even he asked if I had any idea why we had suddenly gotten sick so often. I wish I had the answer for that, but I don't. I partially blame daily swim lessons all summer, but I think that's not the whole answer.

I'd love to say that our office visit was uneventful, but it wasn't. It was a successful visit, but it was a bit challenging. We have hit an amount of peanut flour now where it would be advantageous and a lot easier if we could switch to dosing with whole peanuts (that's right, actual peanuts!). Now remember, Dr. R offered Big Monkey a peanut back in May and he was too afraid to eat it. So I've been talking with Big Monkey about eating a peanut since May. We've talked about what a peanut tastes like (he eats other nuts) and how a the number of peanuts Dr. R would give him is the exact same as the flour he is eating everyday just not all ground up. I truthfully think the peanuts would taste better as the flour has sort of a weird taste. It has a peanut flavor, but with a sort of floury taste along with it. We even set up some bribery (I am so not against bribery in cases like these - this is not an easy task for Big Monkey). A trip to a local natural history museum to see the dinosaur bones as well as a trip to a local ice cream parlor (a first for Big Monkey) was offered. All he had to do was eat the peanuts that Dr. R gave him. Better yet, all he had to do was TRY the peanuts (so put them in his mouth). So even if he spit them out and switched to peanut flour, he would have earned his reward.

Yeah, none of that happened. Instead, there was a fight and a tantrum. This is an emotional journey for us and is difficult for Big Monkey to endure at times. He was all geared up and ready to eat the peanut until he saw it. Then he refused. He also refused the peanut flour in the applesauce and attempted to refuse the peanut flour in melted chocolate. Dr. R was willing to just not updose and give me instructions for later, but considering we drive 7 hours to get there and had already rescheduled, I insisted we work with Big Monkey to accomplish an increase. Afterall, peanut flour in applesauce or melted chocolate is nothing new for him. I was a little surprised that he responded like that at the appointment. Thankfully, Dr. R is a doctor with more patience than I think any other doctor on this planet has (he truly is a remarkable and unique individual). We managed to get Big Monkey to take his dose in melted chocolate. He consumed the equivalent of 2.5 peanuts. He developed a very faint and small rash around his mouth (probably from getting all worked up right before his dose), but it faded within 15 minutes without any medication. He was also exhausted the rest of the day, but otherwise did very well. Success.

We did still go get ice cream as I recognize that this process is not easy for Big Monkey and he needs something positive associated with it. Although, he did not get his natural history museum reward.

We also went home with an updated plan. A very exciting updated plan. We challenged at the office with 1.8 grams. Graduation from the program is 9 grams. Seems like a long ways to go, right? Well, Dr. R thinks that we can reach graduation over the next 3 visits. Amazing news! Of course, it is all dependent on how Big Monkey tolerates the larger doses. My understanding is that 4 grams and/or 6 grams can sometimes cause some issues. I am praying that we paid our dues during those first 2 weeks of this process and that we are now done with "issues." If all goes well, then we will updose to 4grams in early December. Then 6 grams at the next visit and 9 grams at the third visit. Since our visits are usually about 9-12 weeks apart, we have the real possibility of graduating by the end of next spring.

Little Monkey with his ice cream sundae

Of course, this also all depends on how many setbacks we have due to illness this year! I fear that this cold and flu seasons (flu season peaks in January usually) may be a bit brutal considering our summer. Hopefully I will be proven wrong, but Big Monkey cannot get the flu vaccine this year (we have been advised to avoid all vaccines until 4-5 months after completing the OIT program), so who knows what is going to happen. The rest of us will be vaccinated, so hopefully herd immunity will protect Big Monkey this year. Good hand hygiene and avoiding people who know are actually sick will also be in practice here. In fact, we may just avoid crowded places for this cold/flu season to ensure that we have a better chance of completing this program.

So far we do not have a good track record. We were due for another small increase today, but instead Big Monkey woke with a sore throat. Little Monkey has had some terrible congestion for 2 days, so I think it's safe to say that we have been hit by yet another cold this season. I'll take that any day over vomiting though.

First day of school!

PE at our house!

In other news, Big Monkey and Little Monkey started school on August 20! Big Monkey is officially a kindergartener! We homeschool, so it doesn't make a huge difference, but we are enrolled in a homeschool charter program through our state, so there are still things Big Monkey must accomplish. So far he is rocking his studies and enjoying most of it. Little Monkey is technically a preschooler, but often insists on doing the same work as Big Monkey. So he's a little between grades. He's too advanced for the pre-K curriculum that Big Monkey did at his age, but not quite advanced enough for all of Big Monkey's work (he is doing some of it right along side us). So I think I am going to switch him to the K4 program that Big Monkey completed last year along with whatever work he wants to do with us. It will be interesting to see what level Little Monkey is at when it's his turn to enter into the charter school in 2 years.

Enjoying the last bit of summer

First updose and other developments

This week Big Monkey had his first updose of sorts. It was very nerve wrecking, but also a very exciting moment. I felt like it was the first moment when we would see if this process was working or not. Just three and a half weeks ago Big Monkey's body could barely tolerate the amount of peanut flour we were on. We spent a week battling minor hives before his body decided to tolerate that dose. So, of course, I was nervous about giving him even more. We approached this updose a little differently than I've heard about before by taking our normal dose and then adding a second dose later in the day. I have no idea how this changes things or makes it easier, but it was doc's orders, so it's the new schedule for awhile. The drawback is that each dose is followed by a two hour "calm period" as we call it where Big Monkey has to stay very calm. It's a challenge to keep an active little guy calm for that many hours out of our day! The good news though? So far Big Monkey is tolerating his new dose very well. So something is working!

Calm outdoor activities that the boys have come up with - brushing rocks

With all the time we need to spend calm we've been trying to focus on school again; however, Big Monkey has had very little interest in school and very little ability to pay attention. I believe everything going on has him distracted and is currently wearing him out. He's been more interested in coloring and building and re-building all his new lego sets, so that is what we have been doing.

Even Baby Monkey has his set of Legos (that we're trying to keep organized!)

However, when we did manage to accomplish a little schooling, we all learned a little. Big Monkey is slowly making progress on learning to read. He surprises me on what words he can sound out now that he has learned the basics. We're using the book "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" as recommended by a friend. What an amazing book that gives real results and is not hard! We love it and Big Monkey even writes me letters by sounding out words. Yes, they are often spelled terribly wrong, but phonetically, he is almost spot on in those letters.

I decided this week that Baby Monkey is ready for more formal schooling. Before the holidays I was allowing him to do more free form activities like building blocks, drawing on papers, and cutting with scissors. He was content with that back then. I was also focusing on basic recognition of numbers (1-5) and letters. He mastered number recognition up to 10 very quickly, but did not appear to be able to recognize more than 2-3 letters. That was fine. Then one day last week he was working on a giraffe puzzle that is put together by putting letters in order. I realized then that he can recognize most letters of the alphabet. He is also demanding "work" in his work boxes and he wants real work like his brother's, not blank papers and blocks. So I pulled out the letter of the week curriculum that Big Monkey used last year and let him start on that. So far, he's enjoying it. He will probably do this curriculum again next year unless he manages to master all the skills before summer.

Baby Monkey also showed me that he can almost write his name! I wrote it for him and he "copied" my letters. Others may not be able to read it, but I see the similarities to the letters (oops! I took a cute photo of this one, but realized it would then show Baby Monkey's name, which is something I will not post publicly on my site).

His coloring also improved 100% overnight. He went from scribbles to this very orderly, color along the lines first and then fill in the insides method. It's quite interesting to watch.

Coloring by outlining first

This past year Big Monkey was diagnosed with a red-green color deficiency (a form of color blindness). I knew I was a carrier, so I had him tested. Basically, Big Monkey can see most colors; however, there are certain shades of green and red that he does not see as green and red. Any color made up of those particular shades of green and red will also look different to him. For example, if a purple color is made from a wavelength (shade) of red that Big Monkey cannot see, then he only sees the blue shade and thinks the color is blue not purple. We had a good chuckle this week when Big Monkey was coloring an apple tree and he looked at me and said, "did I color this green?" I told him no, that it was brown. He laughed and said, "ahh, I thought it was green. Oh well." Needless to say, I help him find the green crayons often.

Big Monkey's "green" apple tree

Hopefully not much will change for a few weeks. I'm hoping no excitement and thus nothing much to post about. Until next time stay warm, stay well, and stay happy friends! 

Big Homeschool Changes and Plans

The new year has brought in a lot of big changes for the Monkey family. We have changes in the food allergy journey (more on that next month!), changes in the homeschool project, and just changes all around! Everything is for the good though. Today I'll tell you about the changes going on in the homeschool project.

Our biggest change in the homeschool project is that we have decided to homeschool the monkey boys beyond the preschool years. For now, we are thinking through elementary school, and then we will re-evaluate. Of course, we will take everything one day at a time. If we at any point feel that the boys are not thriving, enjoying themselves, learning at the proper level, or are not connecting with others the way they should, then we will re-evaluate traditional school options. However, so far Big Monkey has thrived beyond my expectations in his home preschooling journey.

Once that decision was made, then it was time to re-model the "school room." It was a complete mess to be honest. It was working for us for preschool, but if I plan to homeschool two kids for several years, I am going to need to be a lot more organized! It has been a several month process, but I can finally say that the school room is done (minus the worktable that we will be getting soon).

Here are the before pictures of the office/school room/workout room.

I had a desk, but it lacked drawers and cabinets. What little storage I had was stuffed with my stuff leftover from college and grad school that I just never purged. My organizational system was piles on the desk.

That's my sewing cabinet next to our work boxes.

So where did I store everything? The closet, of course! Half is material and scrapbook supplies. The other half was school supplies, art supplies, and games. It was so full that it was permanently spewing from the closet and forever on the floor. It was easier to get to the totes on the bottom if half of them were already out on the floor. Oh, and yes, I think that is a bag of something sitting on my office chair. 

Several pieces of furniture and hours of organization later, I have this:

Everything is stored in the two main cabinets and hutches and there is plenty of room for adding more material there.

The bookcases also aren't full, which will be great for adding reading material over the years.

Much, much cleaner, although I'm not sure it looks much different in the photos, it feels worlds different when you walk into the room. 

So we are now working on selecting our curriculum for future years. We have 2 more weeks of our letter of the week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Then we will move on and start learning to read over the summer (pending Big Monkey's interest once we start, of course). Next school year, we are currently planning on starting a kindergarten curriculum (probably using the K4 curriculum  also from Confessions of a Homeschooler). Exciting stuff!

H is for Hippo and K is for Kite

Today is a two for one post - you get two weeks smooshed into one post. 

Two weeks ago we did H is for hippo. I didn't take very many photos, so this first week will be short. I had hoped to take the boys to the zoo where the hippo is, but it rained on the day we had planned to go. We've been before, so they've seen the hippo. He mostly sleeps in the water by the fence. That's about it. Instead of the zoo, we opted to watch hippo UTube videos on the iPad. Strangely, the boys enjoyed the video of the hippo chasing a reserve ranger in Africa the most. Sigh, boys... 

While Big Monkey practiced cutting, Baby Monkey tried cutting an old gumball craft from last week. He wants to do everything big brother does, which gets interesting when it involves scissors, glue, paint, or push pins.  

 

We fed the hippos! Each hippo got fed the number of beads that corresponded to the number on his belly. We had a good time with this. Best counting activity we have done in a long time.

We moved on to some fine motor skills practice by lacing beads onto pipe cleaners. Baby Monkey went from beads to trying to stick the measuring cup to his face.

Which then turned in to putting the bead container on his head...

 And of course, Big Monkey had to join in. They actually ran around the room with these on their heads for quite awhile.

Color puzzles this week involved words. Big Monkey had to match the colored hippos to the right word, which were also colored the same color. He really matched color to color, but it allowed him to see what the words look like as well.

Last week we did K is for kite. I had hoped for a breezy week in November when I scheduled this, but alas, we had rain on the day it was windy and calm weather the rest of the week. So we couldn't fly kites. We'll have to do that again soon.

It's tough to get photos where both boys look excited. Here Big Monkey looks happy and Baby Monkey looks a little less than happy, but not upset at least.

 

We practiced some size sorting with our triangle stand. The boys love that thing, although you can see that Baby Monkey has bent it from trying to use the triangle as a tunnel, step stool, and who knows what else. Mama Monkey says "don't do that..." a lot. 

It seems that we always have at least one rough day each week where Baby Monkey just does not want to cooperate. He'll want all my attention and likes to sit and pout. 

Big Monkey did prewriting practice with the dry erase markers.

And of course Baby Monkey had to do the same thing. I tried to pick a dry erase marker close to the color of his pajamas since he almost always ends up with at least one mark on his clothes somewhere. Dry erase markers may wipe off dry erase boards easily, but they do not easily wash out of clothes. 

Big Monkey practiced some fine motor control with the giant push pin.

Yup, so did Baby Monkey. This was his first experience using the big push pin. Usually I tell him, "ouchie, it will poke you." So when I gave him the pin he kept saying "ouchie" as he poked the paper. He did a really good job. He poked along the letter K three times before he decided to go postal and just start randomly poking everywhere on the page. No blood was shed though! 

 We read Curious George Flies a Kite. My boys love Curious George, but the original stories often make me chuckle or even cringe sometimes. I'll have to be sure to share the things I see as we read the stories. Flies a Kite has a part in it (the original 8 stories are long and often have 3-4 sub stories in them) where George sees a man with a fishing pole. George refers to him as "the fat man" twice. Needless to say, this has prompted conversations of how people come in all shapes and sizes and that typically we shouldn't refer to someone just by the way they look on the outside.

We tried using clothes pins on yarn for counting this week. Big Monkey was not as in to it as feeding the hippos last week.

I broke down and let Baby Monkey play some preschool apps on the iPad one day because he kept throwing everything Big Monkey was doing on the floor. This allowed Big Monkey and I to quietly work together, but of course it was also a bit of a distraction.

Yup, that is a red dot sticker on my kid's forehead. He stuck one to each of our foreheads that morning. Not sure why. We had fun with this project. It was color matching. Big Monkey had to match the same colored pipe cleaners to the kite. I thread them through a hole I punched in the bottom of the kite. Then he had to gather all the same color bows for the tail. I wrapped the pipe cleaner around each bow for him. He tried the wrapping part, but ended up bending the bows and getting frustrated. So now I have about 8 kites of different colors in my office on the floor as the boys wanted to play with them.

We are taking the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school. It's nice to have the break and allow us free mornings to play, explore, cook, and just be. So there probably won't be another post for about 2 weeks! 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Be safe and enjoy the time with family and friends.

P is for Pumpkin!

I am a little behind this week, although I'm really not sure why. Some weeks I'm not sure what sucks up my time. Probably the kitchen sink... Anyway, last week we did P is for Pumpkin in celebration of Halloween. We had a lot of pumpkin themed things that we did during the week. Of course there was our regular school work, but we also spent a lot of time in the kitchen. The Monkeys had a good time, although doing anything in a kitchen with two monkeys is never an efficient process. So here is our week in a quick review!

Also don't forget that today is the last day to enter the Tiny Prints giveaway on my blog. I will randomly choose a winner tomorrow (Friday) morning to receive a $50 Tiny Prints credit! You can find that blog post here.

Well, as I went to upload photos for the post just now, I realized why I might have been procrastinating this post. Other than the following three photos, I have zero photos of us doing schoolwork for this week! Ooops, wonder what happened there. I was obviously in some other place in my head considering it's hard to believe this was all just last week!

Prior to Halloween we carved pumpkins, roasted up pumpkin seeds (the monkeys tried them, but promptly spit them out due to texture), baked the 4 pumpkins from our garden (Big and Baby Monkeys each carved one pumpkin from the garden as well), made pumpkin puree from the pumpkins (sooo much better than the canned variety and sooo easy), made homemade veggie filled pizza dough, and baked pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies (which were not so great), rice krispy treats, and brownies. Whew, I'm tired just thinking about that all happening in one week.

Then we were the pirate family on Halloween. Here are the two little pirates practicing their sword fighting.

We had a day or two of rain after Halloween (might have been only a day, but remember I can't remember last week for some reason). So we spent some time indoors playing with legos and coloring. Baby Monkey thinks this is the best way to play with legos.

We attempted a new activity this week - tanagrams. Big Monkey didn't do too bad. He had a hard time getting the pieces to all line up once he got multiple pieces on his card, but he figured it out and completed his kite. Baby Monkey just thought throwing the pieces around the room was a better idea.

 
 So I guess that's it for the week! Might not have been worth the post even, but hey, at least I got to remind everyone about the giveaway tomorrow!

This week I hope to share a few easy and fun breakfast and lunch recipes that we've been trying out as well as our adventures with H is for Hippo. 

G is for Gumball and Goodness Grief

Goodness grief is what I kept repeating off and on all week. We struggled a bit getting through the week, but all is well now that it is the weekend. Other than the fact that Mama Monkey has a bit of a cold.

This week we did G is for gumball. I thought as a field trip we would go to the Jelly Belly factory. So we did, but we were only there maybe a half hour. We tasted a few jelly beans and then waited in line for the factory tour. We made it upstairs and got our little paper hats. Then just as we were about to go through the doors for the tour, Big Monkey decided he was too scared and didn't want to go. I asked several times and he insisted that he wanted to go home. Poor Baby Monkey was in my arms crying "No, jelly bean me, jelly bean me, no go home!" He was very sad, but I couldn't imagine having a terrified preschooler in the factory. So we left. Good thing too as my friends reported that the factory was decorated all spooky and scary for Halloween. Whew, I narrowly missed that disaster. Unfortunately, I didn't even snap a photo out front because Big Monkey just didn't want to.

We had a few more cranky days between the boys, but we managed to fit in some school. Friday was by far the hardest day with Baby Monkey. He was just looking for trouble the entire time. I'd get him set up with an activity like beads and as soon as I'd turn to help Big Monkey, Baby Monkey would leave his activity and go destroy something else. Sigh, it was a long day. In retrospect, I believe Baby Monkey was fighting this mild cold as well.

We counted gumballs and added them to our gumball "boxes" as Big Monkey called the gumball machine printouts. He actually liked this counting activity. We often do "graphing" versions of counting where he has to count the number of something on the paper and then place the same number of cheerios, beads, or magnets. He's not crazy about that for the numbers larger than about 6, but he counted gumballs very willingly here. 

Baby Monkey showed me that he could trace the letter C. He actually traced both letters completely on his own before scribbling all over the paper.

Big Monkey attempted a color by number sheet and did a great job! He worked hard to color in the lines as best he could (which is a big deal for him as he'll usually just say that he can't because "it's too hard").

Baby Monkey practicing his cuteness skills.

We attempted to take some photos of all 3 of us, which is quite hard when lying on the floor with both kids on top of you and no pillow behind your head! I think we did pretty good though.

This was Friday. Yup, Baby Monkey attended school half naked that day. He had a blast gluing gumballs onto his machine. I did all the cutting for him, but Big Monkey did all his cutting and gluing solo.

Power magnets.

So I've tried clip cards with Big Monkey before. The idea is for him to clip clothespins or paper clips to the card based on the number printed on the card. Well, we've had some major problems with his ability to clip either a normal clothespin or paperclip, and thus, a lack of interest in the counting clip cards. So I bought some of those tiny baby shower clothespins. He seems to have an easier time clipping these, although on this particular day he was having a hard time paying attention to how many pins he had on his card. At one point when I was dealing with Baby Monkey's destruction, he had 19 paperclips on the card for 9. Some days are not our best. :)

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Next week we move on to P is for pumpkin to celebrate the week of Halloween.

F is for Fish and Fun!

This week we focused on F is for fish and had quite a bit of fun along the way. After several weeks of traveling and squishing school into days, we finally had a regular week with three full days of school. Ok, so full day means about 2 hours each day, but still that's what is normal for us.

We started our week with a trip to the local aquarium with Big Monkey's friend Ladybug. We haven't seen them in awhile, and when we pulled up to park, Ladybug screamed out her car window "you are my best friend!" It was very cute. We had a fun time, but I was surprised by how wild and crazy Big Monkey and Baby Monkey acted while we were out. We had a rough night the night before, so I think that was the reason. At least we got to see some cool fish.

Then we used the next three days for school at home. I've noticed a lot of improvement in both boys this past week. It amazes me how suddenly they master certain skills. For example, we got these great power magnets (even I think they're fun) to use with magnet sheets. The boys take the magnets apart (they come stuck together) and then place them in the little circles on the picture. The papers are on top of cookie sheets so that the magnets stick (yup, I lost two of my good cookie sheets to the school room). Big Monkey has always been good at these and has fun using either a single color, a pattern of colors, or just random colors. Baby Monkey used to just take the magnets and stick them all over the page, to each other, and to other random places on the cookie sheet. Then he'd put his pieces back in the box and steal his brother's magnets. Well, this week I looked over (yeah, he got a sheet from a previous week) and there Baby Monkey had 2 magnets neatly placed in the circles on his sheet. He only put down a total of 3 magnets, but that's a major step for him!

Big Monkeys cutting skills have improved greatly. He's now able to carefully cut along a line of almost any shape.

We've also improved on patterns. Big Monkey seems to really get the concept of patterns now. Although I am a bit concerned about some of our color recognition. I'm noticing he often calls red, green, and a few other colors something else. If I call him out on it, he corrects himself. So I'm not sure if he's just not paying close attention or if it's something else. I'm not concerned that he doesn't know colors, he does. I'm concerned about color blindness. Ready for a quick genetics lesson? The genes for color blindness are located on the X chromosome. My dad is shade blind, and I'm a carrier for the gene (it's recessive, so have 2 X chromosomes means I have one good gene that compensates for the defective one). That means each of the monkey boys has a 50% chance of having some sort of color blindness (they each inherited their X chromosome from me and each had a 50% chance of getting the one with the defective gene). I believe that I read somewhere that kids are usually tested around age 5. I might pursue that topic with the pediatrician a little sooner.

He can at least matched the same colors together though.

Another item I've been working on is trying to teach Big Monkey that we read things from left to right. He really likes to read and write from right to left. So I figure we should start now. I point out words as I read books to him. I show him how I write. I've tried to instruct him on which direction he should write and read. None of these things had a very big impact. Then one day I watched him doing 2 activities. The first was counting the numbers of the calendar in the background of the above picture. I had to help him go from 6 to 7 instead of from 6 to 13. He's starting to get a handle on that. Then I watched him singing the ABCs as he pointed along to the letters in the back of the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom book. This has been the biggest helper in teaching him to read from left to right!

We do more than paper work during the week. I just don't often snap photos because I'm usually helping or enjoying. This week Baby Monkey played with the beads and an old (cleaned) milk jug. He had a great time dropping them in the jug and then dumping them back out into the container (yup, a cleaned yogurt container).

We also did lacing blocks, which for some reason, the boys think make good "lassos" once the blocks are on the strings. Oye...

We also found a nice little surprise on our front porch this week. We got a boo basket from one of our neighbors. This person went all out and had the boys in mind when they built the basket - there were even 2 pairs of Cars socks! As well as crayons (2 boxes), color and number flashcards, a pumpkin carver and other goodies. I have a few ideas of the sender and we are so greatful!

 Next week we are expecting some rain. This mama might have to get creative on keeping the boys entertained!