Adventures in La La Land

As defined by Wikipedia (a most reliable source), arkoudaphobia is "the fear of bears." Profound, I know. If you've frequented this blog for any length of time, you're well aware that I have arkoudaphobic tendencies. I have a great deal of trouble enjoying the wilderness in any capacity for fear that a large and angry bear is lurking ahead, just waiting to devour me. This is especially troublesome the one time a year that we go camping as a family. In the past, I have avoided camping like the plague. But the older my kids get, the more enjoyment they find in it, and the more I'm forced outside of my comfort zone . . . straight into bear zone. Let me be clear. We are not camping in the wilds of Montana or Alaska. We are camping in a modern campground on the busiest camping weekend of the year in lower Michigan where bears, while not unheard of, are largely uncommon. Objectively, I realize that my fear of bears is irrational. And I can laugh at myself most of th

1. We did it! We survived our first week of homeschool! It actually went really well. The girls were over the moon excited and cooperated very well. And I enjoyed it more than I expected to. We were done by noon every day, which concerns me that we're not doing enough, but I really think we covered all our bases. And a lot of the math and english we did this week was review/super easy. Levi did about as I expected. There were times that he played by himself, but there were also many times that he climbed on me whining for me to play with him. And he watched way too much TV. He was not interested in any of the busy boxes I set out for him, so I'm going to have to get creative. The girls' old school is starting on Monday and it's going to be hard for me to see everyone's first day pictures. I'm sad that the girls are missing out on time with their friends and I'm mourning the time I would've had alone with Levi. Instead of the one on one time he would'

I'm going to attempt to crank this out before midnight. If you're not reading it until Sunday, it's your own fault for not staying up late enough for me to finish. :-D 1. We are starting school on Monday - as in, like 2 days from now. Oy. We spent much of the week re-organizing the school "room", printing worksheets, double checking my lists, etc. People keep asking me if I'm ready and I keep saying, "I'm as ready as I'll ever be!" Haha. We just have to jump in and do it. I need to see how it goes and then tweak it to fit us. I created a bunch of bins for Levi and made a whole list of ideas for me to bring out when he's getting disruptive. By this time next week, I'll have an official update for you! 2. On Tuesday, I took Levi to get his haircut. He's had his haircut a few times before, and while he doesn't love it, he usually tolerates it. At least until this week. He was a terror, screaming and crying and trying to get a

1. This week I attempted to potty train Levi. He's almost 2.5 so I figured it was time, even though I'm still scarred from training my last child. I bought him some cool Thomas the Train undies and a new ring for the toilet. He was mildly interested the first day. He refused  to wear the undies, so we went outside and I let him run around naked and sit on the potty chair every few minutes. He peed twice, just a tiny bit, and got a sucker. Once he figured out there was candy, he was much more interested. The problem is I don't want to sit at home all day hounding him to pee. I have places to go and things to do. So I'm probably not being nearly consistent enough. By the end of the week, he didn't want anything to do with potty training. At least until Justin and I left for the weekend. He was obsessed with my mom taking him to the bathroom. When she started texting me about how much he was sitting on the potty chair trying to go, I told her to have him trained by