MOPS, Wal-mart, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

This morning the kids and I went to the MOPS meeting (Mothers of Preschoolers). During MOPS, the children go to a little program, Moppets, in the church nursery. Joshua gets pretty bored, since the toys in the nursery are geared for small kids. The moppets also use the room adjoining to the nursery - which is used on Mon, Wed, Fri for 3 year old preschool. Ironically, this would have been where Megan would have attended preschool had we decided to send the kids outside of the home. There are very few toys in that room designated for the 3 year olds. So today, Joshua and I decided to pack his backpack full of some things he might enjoy doing. He brought his Leapster L-Max and a few math and reading games, a snack, and some paper and pencils. We picked a quiet room and Joshua enjoyed his time away from the smaller kids (while being checked on very frequently).

Today's MOPS had a group of Wise Older Women come in and answer a bunch of different questions for all of us moms with younger kids. It's really interesting to listen to everyone's different thoughts. One of the ladies mentioned that guilt is a tool that Satan uses on all mothers all the time. As mothers, we'll never survive unless we let go of it. I can absolutely see what she was saying. I feel guilty doing the dishes after dinner because I should be spending time with the kids, but I feel guilty spending time with the kids because Keith's on his way home and the dishes need to get done. :) Other great topics were: dealing with Mommy-peer-pressure (trying to keep up with other moms not only with trying to have the best stroller, best dressed kid, first walker, first back to pre-pregnant size, and the list goes on), high energy children, chores for toddlers/preschoolers, allowance, and basic survival with more than one child.

It was a really fun morning, and I'm glad I went. I added a few suggested books to my list of books I'd like to find the time to read. I've been wanting to read The Strong-Willed Child by James Dobson for a while now, I just haven't gotten around to it. I'll add it to my never-ending to-do list.

After MOPS, we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. While there, we stopped and had lunch at Subway. We must have ran into about 5 different families that we know during our trip. And we got a state quarter that we needed for our collection, so Joshua was thrilled.

Joshua picked out a pack of colored pencils today. Joshua told me last week that he really misses the colored pencils from Mrs. Wallace's class (he preschool teacher last year). So I let him pick whichever ones he wanted - and he picked out a huge pack and a zippered pouch to put them in. He was pleased with himself.

While Joshua used his colored pencils, I was able to get some planning out of the way. The rest of his curriculum through the first week of February is planned. The homeschool curriculum we are using, Calvert, doesn't include very many history or geography lessons. It is very story and phonics oriented though, and I really like that. So, for the next 5 or 6 weeks, we will be studying a different president each week. This week, we started with George Washington. Here is a picture of Joshua using his finger to stamp some cherries on the cherry tree.

Joshua's reading is really coming along. He's been struggling with his sight words, so I've been looking for a good list to give him to review. I ran across Jan Brett's sight (http://www.janbrett.com/activities_pages.htm) and loved the free sight word lists she has available on her site. I printed them out so that they are about the size of kindergarten flash cards. There are 11 cards, each with 20 words on it, and a beautiful picture from different children's stories. I laminated them and tossed them in the diaper bag for something he can work on when we are out and about.

Knowing how much Joshua loves to invent things out of his tinker toys, I knew he'd love the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We watched the first half of it tonight since it's a long movie at about 2 1/2 hours. Joshua loved all the inventions that the dad had made. I realized I probably haven't seen that movie in about 20 years. How can that be? Am I that old? But sure enough, when I hear the music in the movie, I am reminded of watching it in our big old house just outside of Boston. I can remember watching The Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights sitting on a brown plaid couch in a room with burgundy carpet and wood paneling on the walls, so it must be that house.