Binkies and Briefcases • Page 177 of 268 •

This Day Is In the Toilet

July 11, 2012 By: Stephanie1 Comment

Literally.

Actually, it would be lovely if something would get in the toilet.

This is mostly the story of me being a volunteer sanitation worker. You’re welcome to not read it.

I love being a stay at home mom. I really, truly do. I love that we got to spend an hour at the park this morning an come home for icecream cones. I love that my kids can play in the back yard in the middle of the day. I love being around for every first step, first word, and so on.

I just never realized there was going to be so much poop. Soooooo. Much. Poop. And floor scrubbing.

This all happened within the past 24 hours….

We came home from school supply shopping to discover there was doggie diarrhea in not just one, but several areas of our house. Yuck! So of course I cleaned the floors.

Penny had a diaper incident that included major on the clothes leakage.

Nicholas pooped on the potty! (Yay! this is always a big deal, still, because little dude has major GI issues)

Said bowel movement clogged toilet.

The toilet then proceeded to overflow all over the bathroom floor. So I cleaned the floor again.

After I cleaned that up, I brought Abby into the bathroom to go potty before nap time. I pulled down her Pull-up and guess what dropped right out onto the freshly cleaned bathroom floor? Yes. More poop.

So I cleaned the floor again.

After nap time Abby wanted to go outside to play, so we went to get a new Pull-UP and she peed all over the living room floor. Then she stepped in it. Then she started walking. Then I had a bunch of tiny pee footprints to clean up. So I cleaned the floor AGAIN.

It was worth it for moments like these

(Let that be a lesson to anyone who makes me scrub their bodily fluid off my floors twice in one day, I will post your cutest/most embarrassing naked baby pictures on the internet. And it might even be worth it.)

How To Set Up a Homeschool Nook

July 10, 2012 By: Stephanie4 Comments

I taught elementary school for several years before leaving the classroom to stay home with my kids. Now that we have decided to homeschool I’m excited to break out some of my supplies.

Once we move into the new house, there will be a dedicated office/homeschool room, but for now I need to work with a nook in the dining room. That means bare essentials.

These are what I would consider to be the bare essentials for a primary classroom. (We are about to start kindergarten.)

Each child needs a dedicated work space. I also think they need their own supply boxes because it gives them a sense of ownership.

An alphabet chart, number chart (or hundreds chart for older kids) and a calendar. I also need to add a number line under that alphabet chart.

Keeping a portfolio for each child to assess their progress is really important as well.

A word wall is essential. It’s also a good idea to label stuff around the house, the word “door” over the door for example.

I like to color code my word walls by letter for young kids and by subject area for older ones. It’s also really important to provide easy access to tons of books.

If your children are reading and you would like an easy way to teach them how to select an appropriate book for their level, tell them to open to a page in the middle of the book. Hold up five fingers. Read the page. Every time you come to a word you don’t know put down a finger. If all of your fingers are down at the end of the page, the book is too hard. If none are down it might be too easy.

Calendar math is important for early math concepts like number identification and counting as well as learning days and months and concepts of time like yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I also like to add a straw to a basket for each day of school. Once you get past day ten, you can start grouping the straws with a rubber band in groups of ten, then, as the year goes on, by hundreds. It makes a good visual representation of ones, tens, and hundreds for them.

A great tip is to use a cheap clothing rack as a chart hanger. Commercial chart hangers are essentially the same thing, just a little larger and heavier. You can get a clothing rack at Ikea for $10 or maybe even cheaper at a yard sale, but a real chart hanger will set you back at least $50.

This week (mid July) is a great time to stock up on school supplies because Staples is having their 1 cent sale, which is by far my favorite sale of all time. Crayons, pencils, paper, notebooks folders, etc. all on sale for between $0.01 and $1.00.