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Diary of a Reluctant Homeschooler: Our First Day!

By: Stephanie4 Comments

My big guy is in kindergarten!

This year we are participating in one of our state’s online charter schools. Basically, it’s a combination of public school and homeschool. The public school sends the materials and plans the curriculum and I teach him here at home along with some help from teachers over the computer.

First Day of Homeschooling

The days leading up to this morning have been stressful. Poor Nick has been really stressed too, not knowing what to expect. He cried himself to sleep last night saying, “I don’t want to be in kindergarten! I don’t want to be anything when I grow up, so I don’t have to learn!”  The school didn’t send the information about his classes until after 9 pm last night and he was required to be in an online class at 9 am this morning. Eddie and I were up until after midnight gathering the materials for the lessons that appeared on his calendar on the school’s website.

Then this morning the computer that the school sent for Nicholas wouldn’t connect to the internet, even though we had double and triple-checked everything last night. Luckily I got the Blackboard session to work on my laptop with two minutes to spare. It was chaotic talking to Eddie on the phone about how to solve the internet issue, Penny screaming, Nick chasing the dog, and Abby playing. I was not feeling so good about this decision.

In the Blackboard session, the teachers introduced themselves and read a book to the students, then they dismissed the kids and I let Nick watch a movie with Abby while I sat through the rest of the orientation. The teachers told us not to worry about any lessons this week. So…we were up all night for nothing. Awesome.

I didn’t want all that work to go to waste, so we did our Math and Language Arts lessons anyway. The teachers said the calendar was flexible, but I’d like to stick to it as much as possible on days when Nick is being cooperative because I’m sure there will be plenty of days when we slack off a little.

I put Penny in her crib and let her cry for a few minutes while I did the math lesson with Nick. He really seemed to thrive with the one-on-one attention and we finished the entire lesson (pulling shapes out of a bag, identifying them, finding shapes around us, completing 3 workbook pages, and an online portion) in under 15 minutes. When I marked the lesson complete on the computer it gave us credit for 45 minutes. I could get used to that.

Altogether, it took us less than an hour and a half to do our online orientation, math, language arts (although I skipped Handwriting because he completed those lessons over the summer), and a calendar session that I’ve added on my own, but when I checked “lessons complete” on the computer, he got credit for 3 hours of school. I feel like that’s cheating, but he did the work and he did it correctly, so I guess that’s just one of the perks. Hopefully, no truancy officers read my blog. 🙂

I like seeing areas of strength I didn’t know he had. For example, I was pleasantly surprised when he reached into the bag of shapes and said, correctly, “That’s a cylinder.” (They were only looking for circle as an answer.) And I also like seeing areas of weakness. He is having trouble distinguishing a rectangle from a square, but other than that he was able to identify all of the shapes and their colors correctly. Go, little dude!

The hardest part so far is writing his name, but as I’ve been working with him I’ve noticed some things I hadn’t seen before. I had not realized that a lot of his slowness comes from perfectionist tendencies (which came as a great surprise to me because of the state of his room!). He will start to write a letter, not like the way it looks, then keep writing the same letter over and over, all over the page until he writes one he likes. I always thought he was distracted because of the way his papers would look when they came home from preschool (incomplete with random letters all over them) but it’s actually the opposite. He is concentrating so hard on writing the letters of his name correctly that he never had time to do any of the other work on the page.

I’m thinking about getting a stamp with his name on it so that he has time to concentrate on other work, then we will focus on his name separately until he has mastered it.

We still have one phonics worksheet to do, but I’m letting him take a break right now. We started at 8:30 and were finished by 10 am. Now I feel a little better about this cyber school thing. 🙂

UPDATE: Here are all the posts I’ve written on our homeschooling experience.

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler

How to Set up a Homeschool Nook

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler, A is for A-ha moment!

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler, Weird and Overwhelming

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler, The Supplies Are Here!

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler, Week 1

Diary of a Reluctant Homeschooler: Weird & Overwhelming

By: Stephanie3 Comments

Yesterday would have been Nicholas’ first day of kindergarten if he was attending our local public school.

I wasn’t expecting it to be hard for me to see pictures on Facebook of my friends’ kids getting on the school bus with their little backpacks or entering their classrooms for the first time, so it took me by surprise that those pictures made me really sad.

My son won’t ever have that First Day of Kindergarten rite of passage experience. He won’t ever get to ride the big yellow bus, not even if we send him to public school after we build our new house since our land is just across the street from the elementary school.

Homeschool Life_ Feeling Sadness Over the Life of My Kid's First Day of Public School

He won’t know the nervous excitement of meeting a whole class full of new friends or teachers who are even more excited about his learning than he is.

I know that a lot of homeschoolers think public schools are the devil’s playground, but I spent a great deal of time teaching in some amazing public schools with men, women, and a lot of children who I would LOVE to have shared in the experience of raising my son.

Yesterday was also a day of tragedy in our hometown. You probably heard about the shooting of a special needs student at Perry Hall High School in Baltimore. It was national news that hit very close to home for us. We grew up in that area and have several friends who are alumni of that school. Several other friends live in the neighborhood and have children who attend the elementary school.

It was scary and sad. Our hearts ache for the victim and all of the other students, teachers, and parents.

It also brought on a lot of “I told you so’s” from home school organizations in this area. Talk about giving some ammunition to that “devil’s playground” philosophy.

At the same time, I have been very frustrated trying to figure out the school schedule for the online charter school we will be using this year. They have been very unclear about how the process of taking online classes will work on the kindergarten level and it is overwhelming to me as a new home educator to not know our schedule for next week, whether or not we have to take certain classes, and if we do what time those classes will be. School is supposed to start one week from today and no one has any idea what is going on. I have sent emails, made phone calls, and gone to face-to-face meetings, but I still don’t have any answers.

I’m getting very close to wanting to pull out from the online school.

Also, having Nicholas on vacation with my mom last week gave me a glimpse of what life would be like with just my girls in the house if he went to school outside the home. If I’m being honest, it was very appealing. Without my lovable little tornado, my house stayed clean, it was calm and quiet, and I had time to concentrate on my girls and doing things they enjoy, like sitting and reading four or five books in a row. I was much more patient and kind and, with the extra time and attention, Abby is now potty trained!

It stings a little to know that that lifestyle could be a possibility every day if he was at school. Part of me feels like I am cheating two kids for the sake of helping one.

However, I know that this year homeschooling is still the best option for us. It is the best choice for Nick and his academic success. Not to mention that between selling this house, moving in with Eddie’s parents while our new house is built, and eventually moving into the new home, he would be in three different public schools this year if we went with that option.

Private schools are out of our budget right now, plus it would mean an hour and a half commute each way once we move in with my in-laws. That’s too much for a five-year-old.

However, if the online school doesn’t get its act together within the next few days, I’m going to have no choice but to withdraw and go the traditional homeschooling route. I really, really don’t want to do that.

I’m plenty overwhelmed right now as it is between getting this house sold, moving, building the new house, and starting our first (and the way it looks right now, probably only) year as homeschoolers. And, oh, yeah, I still have a nursing infant and a potty training preschooler to take care of.

The last option would be to decide to wait another year and have him start kindergarten next year, but I really hate that idea.

It feels like saying, “Hey, I know you’re supposed to be starting your education and building the foundation for literacy and your entire academic career, but it’s really not a great time for me, so… let’s just put your life on pause for a minute while I get my s**t together, k? You don’t mind being a year behind in everything for the rest of your life so I can take a breather, right?”

I know that there is a very real possibility that he will have to repeat kindergarten regardless of what we do this year, but I want to give him a chance to succeed at the very least. I feel like sitting around and waiting another year assumes that he isn’t good enough, and I don’t want to accept that possibility without giving him the opportunity to at least try.

No offense to you of that was the choice that you made for your own child, I’m sure you had your own reasons that were perfectly valid for your family. I’m just really having a hard time stomaching the idea of making that decision after fighting so hard for him (and pushing him to fight for himself) for the past four years.

Who knows? Maybe it would be the right choice. I don’t even know if I could pull him out of school right now even if I wanted to, now that he is already registered and in the system.

Why doesn’t anybody tell you that being a mom is so freaking hard? It’s just kindergarten, for crying out loud.

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler

How to Set up a Homeschool Nook

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler, A is for A-ha moment!

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler, The Supplies Are Here!

Diary of a Reluctant Home Schooler, Week 1

How to Paint Paneling

By: Stephanie5 Comments

 

One of the things we are doing to prepare to put our house on the market is to update the very dated wall paneling in our lower level.

This stuff is nasty. It’s not even real wood. It’s a shiny, plasticy, fake version of wood that has seen better days since it was first installed sometime in the late 60’s.

Here is a before picture, mid-remodel and pretty messy. Sorry.

This is that same corner after I painted the paneling and cleaned up a little. (I built that shelf all by myself, aren’t you proud of me?)

I did this section of our basement about a year ago and it has held up very well, despite daily use. There hasn’t been any peeling or chipping.

I will tell you that it is a giant pain in the you-know-where.

There are many ways you can go about painting over paneling, but a lot of them involve pretty nasty chemicals and strippers. I was pregnant and I had two toddlers in the house when I started this project, so those methods were quickly crossed off my list. This is the method I used.

Step 1: Wipe down the walls with a damp rag to remove any dust or residue.

Step 2: Use a high quality zero VOC adhesion primer. I used the Olympic brand from Lowes. Unfortunately, I found that I had to use a paint brush for this entire process because, no matter what kind of roller I tried, it either splattered or wouldn’t get into the spaces in between the panels. Don’t be scared because the first coat looks terrible. The most important thing is to get the cracks between the walls completely covered. Some people caulk the cracks and sand them for the look of a flat wall, but I actually like the texture of the paneled look. (Plus, I’m lazy.)


The Olympic primer worked great but I found that I had to wait at least 24 hours in between coats or else it would start to clump and peel off the wall while I was applying the second coat.

Step 3: After 24 hours, apply the second coat



Step 4: Wait another day and apply the 3rd coat

Step 5: Paint. It took me three coats of primer and 3 coats of paint until I was satisfied.

I’ve been working all weekend on the paneling in the rest of our lower level. I hope whoever buys this house appreciates all of this work. I wish I would have sucked it up and done this 3 years ago so that our own family could have enjoyed a prettier space.

C’est la vie.

I think it’s 100% prettier than it was before.

Window Shopping: Mom’s Wish List

By: Stephaniecomment

Nick is on vacation with my mom and Eddie is playing in a golf tournament today and a volleyball tounament tomorrow. I, on the other hand, am deep in the throes of potty training a certain little diva and dealing with a baby who has a hairy conniption if I am out of her sight for more than two nanoseconds or if she isn’t being held by me and only me. Ah, the separation anxiety phase.

So, basically I’m confined to my house and need to come to terms with the fact that the next few days are going to be spent balancing a baby on my hip while I wipe warm urine off my dining room chairs.

Needless to say, my mind is elsewhere.

Let’s go shopping, shall we? (But not in real life, k? Because I’m a little broke right now.) 

Besides, Momma has a birthday coming up and I can dream. Maybe my husband will take a not-so-subtle hint and get me that loaf pan?

A Kindle Fire:

My awesome husband bought me a regular Kindle for Christmas and I love it, but that was before we decided to cyber school & I think having the Fire would be a great resource for accessing our online school from anywhere, as well as a bunch of free books and educational games. Plus, it’s way cheaper than an IPad.  

Temp-tations loaf pan

You know you’re getting old when you start fantasizing about a loaf pan. But seriously, I’ve never had a loaf pan and that’s just dumb because I cook and bake a lot. (I usually use two miniature ones that came as part of another set.) I collect Tempt-tations dishes and this one is under $20 and it comes with a pretty cool drip pan insert.

I also think this set is awesome (and it swivels) but I’m not sure where I would store it.

Tastefully Simple Rhubarb Strawberry Fruit Spread 

This sounds stupid, but I went to a Tastefully Simple party last week at my friend’s house and, even though I bought a bunch of other stuff, I didn’t shell out for this fruit spread. We tried it and it was really good, but $8 just seemed like too much for what is essentially a jar of jelly. I’ve been regretting that decision ever since. I’m having my own party next month, so hopefully I can earn a  free one for myself. 🙂

Fitzwell Boots

Even in high school, when I was a size 2, my calves were always too big for tall boots. I’ve heard very good things about these boots from other ladies who are similarly well-endowed in the lower leg area. I would love to have a pair for fall, but I’m not comfortable forking over that much cash for shoes I can’t even try on in person.

A Silhouette Cameo 

 It’s a digital craft cutter that you can hook up to your computer. It will cut vinyl, paper, or even fabric into any shape or font that you could possibly imagine. It’s also super expensive. (But no matter what, don’t pay full price because there are ALWAYS discount codes on popular blogs that take off a pretty significant chunk of change.) My plan is to continue entering every giveaway in blogland until I finally win and get my hands on one. So far…no dice.

What’s on your wish list these days? 

Building The Dream: The One Where We Lose Tons of Money (again)

By: Stephanie2 Comments

I promised I would blog every part of our home-building journey for our own records and for other people thinking of starting this process. In case you are wondering where we stand in the whole house-building situation right now…we’ve hit a pretty major roadblock. 

So…we happen to be a young family in a time when the economy is horrible. Especially the housing market.

building our dream house

Some background:
When we got married and bought our first house in 2006 everything was honky dory and we got a great deal on our first house as a married couple. We read a bunch of books and listened to the advice of several professionals. Buying real estate is a great investment, blah blah blah. That house appraised for almost $40,000 more than we paid. Plus we had a large down payment from selling the house I owned when I was single. Our mortgage was MUCH less than the appraised value of our house. We totally thought we were being smart and responsible.

CRASH! Did you hear that? That was the sound of the housing market hitting rock bottom.

We lived in Florida, one of the states that were hit the fastest and the hardest.

In two years the value of our home dropped by over $100,000.

In those two years, we had also adopted Nicholas and gotten pregnant with Abby. We were 1,000 miles away from family and the company that Eddie was working for at the time offered us an opportunity to move back home.

We knew it was going to mean losing a lot of money, but we felt like (and still feel like) it was the right decision.

Thankfully, my dad owns an asset management company and we were able to get our second mortgage for our Pennsylvania house through his company and he helped us eat most of the loss on our Florida home.

We bought our current home with the mindset that at least it was probably the bottom of the market and we could fix it up and get some equity. 

Nope. 

Since then, the market in PA has only gone down. We bought this house knowing it was not our forever home and also knowing that my dad planned to retire in a few years and liquidate his assets and that, when he did, we would either need to refinance or move because his company would no longer be available to hold our mortgage.  We figured there would be equity for a remodel or a refinance or a down payment.

That time has come, but, nope. There isn’t.

We met with a realtor recently and we are going to need to be prepared to lose tens of thousands of dollars (again). Selling and moving is still the best option because when you refinance they only want to give you 80% of the appraised value of the house, and the current appraised value is much less than what we paid. That would mean losing even more money just to stay in our current house, the house we always had the intention of selling anyway. 

Also, the banks have changed their policies about building and construction loans. Until recently, they let you borrow while you still lived in your current home, under the assumption you would sell when your house was built. They also used to let you defer your payments until construction was complete and everything converted into a regular mortgage.

Nope. They don’t do those things anymore.

We are in a good position, though, unlike so many other families our age. We are fortunate that we come from generous families and we are also fortunate that, despite some circumstances beyond our control, we have been as responsible as possible with our money.

We have excellent credit and a decent amount of savings. We have all of the necessary approvals, the only change is that now they want us to sell our current home before construction begins.

My mom had the idea to invest in the land with us so that she can build her own house on it eventually and gave us a large early inheritance, knowing that building our forever home will be an invaluable gift to her grandchildren. She wants to see them grow up surrounded by land and space to breathe and be secure in knowing we don’t have to go through this tumultuous process anymore almost as much as we do.

My dad and step-mom have offered to take whatever our loss from our current home will be and deduct it from our inheritance from them so that we don’t need to eat that money upfront.

Eddie’s parents have offered us a place to stay after this house is sold while construction happens on the new home. It will mean he will be commuting almost two hours to work every day, but it will be temporary. 

So now, even though it has been almost a year since we first found our lot…we wait.

We wait until this house sells and we lose a whole bunch of money (again), but we know that just like the last time, in the end, it will be worth it.

If we had it to do over again, we would have rented homes up until this point in our lives, but we had no way to predict what would happen. We didn’t know that we would need to be writing checks equivalent to a year’s salary or two years of college tuition just to be able to move. We certainly didn’t know we would have to do it twice.

Although it is extremely stressful to be going through this process again, it is a necessary evil. We are building the new house as a place to stay forever. A place to stay at least until the mortgage is paid in full and the only reason to sell is that the kids are grown and we want to down-size to a nice maintenance-free condo in a retirement community. A place where there will be enough space for our children to one day build their own houses on the same property if they chose so that they don’t need to go through this b.s.

Unfortunately, there is no time to sit around and wait for the market to pick back up, and, as we have learned the hard way already, there is no guarantee that it will. My dad is preparing for his retirement now and our children are growing and starting school.

So here we go again.

Bleck.

Update: I wrote a ton of posts on the entire process of building our dream home. Here’s everything I wrote in my “Building the Dream” series.

I cover how to budget, floor plans, the kitchen, choices I’m glad we made, things I wish we would have done and so much more! If you are currently building or hope to build in the future, you’ll definitely want to start at the beginning of my series and read through!

Ten MORE things that these homeowners are glad they did while building a new home. Great suggestions for anyone interested in building their own dream home eventually!

That Time My Grandfather Climbed In Bed With Another Woman (By Accident)

By: Stephanie3 Comments

What better way to follow up my most embarrassing stories then with another family classic? This one is about my grandfather. I’m running out of my own stories since I can only publicly humiliate myself so many times.

This is one of my absolute favorite family stories:

My grandfather

My grandfather was a pretty awesome dude. He was an Army veteran, a professional baseball player, and a police officer.  He never liked to talk about his service in World War II, but he was a war hero. He stormed the beaches at Normandy (June 6, D-Day, happened to be on his birthday) and received a battlefield commission at Remagen Bridge. He played an important role in liberating Germany. When he came home he was a baseball player for a few years before becoming a police officer who busted illegal bootlegging operations. How many cool careers can one guy have in a lifetime? Seriously, if they made a movie about it, people would think the coolness of his character was too far-fetched.

He passed away when I was 14. He never talked about the war or his time as a drug and alcohol buster-upper with me, as those topics were not appropriate for little girls. What he did like talking about was his baseball stories. He had tons of stories, but this one was my favorite:

For a few summers he was playing for the minor league team in Elmira, New York. My grandmother and their two young girls (my aunts, my dad wasn’t born yet) would stay in Elmira with him during the playing season and they would rent an upstairs apartment from an elderly woman in town. The elderly woman lived downstairs. During the off season they lived in Baltimore to be close to family.

The year my Aunt Cathi was a newborn, my grandfather had an away game and while he was gone the elderly lady offered to switch apartments with my grandma. These were the days before air conditioning and the downstairs apartment was cooler for the baby, plus then the young mom wouldn’t have to worry about getting two small kids up and down all the steps.

These were also the days before cell phones and the team was traveling by bus, so there was no way for them to notify my grandfather. They couldn’t very well have a letter delivered to a traveling bus.

You know where this is going.

He came home late one night after everyone was asleep. They weren’t expecting him until the next day. He was trying to be as quiet as possible so he didn’t wake up the baby. He went upstairs, in the dark (again trying not to wake the kids) and undressed thinking he was climbing into bed with the wife he hadn’t seen for a while. Ahem.

Instead he was met with the screams of his elderly land lady.

When Poppop told he story he would always reenact the way he jumped out of bed, yelled, “PARDON ME, MADAM!” grabbed his clothes, and got out of there as fast as he could.

And that is why, to this day, I like to say “Pardon me, Madam!” to break the tension in awkward situations. 🙂

How To Get Your Man To Propose

By: Stephanie1 Comment

I am guest posting today over on My Life and Kids about the most embarrassing moment of my entire life.

The good news is that it eventually resulted in a marriage proposal.

If you click over and read it please do me a favor and NEVER mention it to me again, okay? Thanks.

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If you are clicking over from Anna’s blog, thanks for stopping by. You can read a few more stories about embarassing and awkward things happening to me here:

That Time I Showed Up in a Bridesmaid’s Dress

Sometimes a Priest Will See You Naked

Newborn Photo Shoot: Baby A

By: Stephanie1 Comment

My neighbors just had their first baby!

Aren’t they the cutest?

I think I might be almost as excited as they are to have a new mom right across the street who has young kids too.

I offered to do some newborn photos as a baby gift to them.

I then proceeded to gather approximately 8 million props and accessories and spend a ridiculous amount of time looking at newborn photos online. Luckily, my friend Satoko (the one who just took our family photos) & her boys stopped over for a playdate before I was too far gone.

She reminded me to keep it simple. Newborns and their families are adorable enough all on their own, regardless of the silly poses and fancy backdrops we see on Pinterest. I tried to take her advice and tone it down a bit.

Here are some of my favorite shots from my session with Baby A, Mom, Dad, and Grandma.

Note to self: Next time don’t put one of the letters upside down.


Family Photo Shoot

By: Stephaniecomment

My friend Satoko is awesome. (Check out her fabulous blog here) She is an amazingly talented  artist, seamstress, photographer and all-around good person. I want to be like her when I grow up. Even though her five-year-old was recovering from heart surgery, she took the time a few weeks ago to drive out to our empty building lot and take some family photos for us. She had heard me say that I wanted pictures done on the land before we started building and she offered to do them as a gift to our family.

It was the first time we had officially taken pictures as a family of 5. Even though 2 out of 3 kids weren’t very cooperative and it was almost 100 degrees outside, she still managed to get some great shots for us.

Thanks, Satoko!

Guest Post: Mommy School with Cheri

By: Stephanie1 Comment

Oh my gosh you guys, we have a celebrity with us today! I am beyond excited that Cheri has agreed to share some of her Mommy School secrets with us. I have been loving her ideas ever since I decided to take the plunge and homeschool Nicholas this year.

Take it away Cheri!

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Hello!  I’m Cheri from I Am Momma Hear Me Roar.  Stephanie asked me to write about how I handle Mommy School for my boys.

Here’s a little background.  My older son was having a hard time with a couple things in preschool, so I started working more with him and realized how important it was for me to take part in his education – even though I don’t home school him.  I started working with him while his little brother napped.

When summer came, I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t forget all the things he’d worked so hard to learn, so we officially started “Mommy School.”  I do an informal lesson with both boys (ages 3 and 5 now) Monday through Friday.  You can search through our ideas HERE.

I wanted the boys to learn, but I also didn’t want to overwhelm them.  I thought that if it felt like play, that they would be excited about it.  Well, Mommy School helped our summer a whole lot.  They loved the structure, the ideas and projects, and the learning – even though they barely realized that they were learning something.

So, here are 5 ideas I thought I’d share to help when teaching your kids.

1) Learning can be serious fun.  I think it’s easy to get this picture of kids in desks with no talking allowed when you think of school and learning.  I taught at a very free-thinking private school for a year before having my kids and it changed my views a bit.  The kids went on lots of field trips and planted gardens.  It was so cool.

Even when painting a cardboard doghouse, I feel my boys are learning something.  Creativity itself is an important skill.

2) Activities can be personalized to all age groups.  My boys are two years apart, but there are ways to involve them both.  You just have to think about what they are capable of.  For example, one day we laid out a city with painter’s tape on the floor.  For my oldest son, I gave him directions to follow with his car.

“Head up Main street.  Turn right on Rex street.  Turn right on Dog street and drop your kids off at school.  Turn left onto Rex street.  Turn right onto Baden street.  Turn left onto Green street and pick up some paint at the Home Depot.”  This helped him firm up his right and left.  It also helped him use his reading skills.

To keep things simpler for my younger son, I let him park the cars in the parking lot like this.
“Drive the yellow car to parking spot 1.  Drive the purple car to slot 3.”  You get the idea.  He’s already great with colors and this reminded him of them and pushed him a little with some of the bigger numbers. 

I find that personalizing things for them makes the activity more enjoyable and they like having their own “duties.”

3) Consistency.  I believe that all children thrive on regularity and schedules.  Mommy School works best for us when we do it right away in the morning, which means I need to do my planning for it the night before.  If I’m not ready or haven’t made a plan, they don’t get really excited about it.  When I have a good game plan, they are thrilled.  Generally, the boys are still in their jammies, but it makes me happy to see them anxious to participate.

4) Let them feel your love of the subject.  I think excitement is contagious.  If you are really excited about a subject, they will be too.  Teach them about the things you love and why you love them.  I love teaching my boys about music.  My husband enjoys teaching them about money and finances.  I think excitement will take you a lot further than nagging or pushing.

5) Mix it with the things they love.  When my oldest looses excitement for a subject, I try to involve superheroes, because he it absolutely obsessed with them.  He might get tired of trying to read, but if I plan a superhero scavenger hunt, he’s happy to try and read those clues.  It’s fun again.  I’m not saying that you have to put on a clown costume and entertain your kids, but I do think it’s helpful to apply the concepts to their interests.

Teaching my boys has become really fun to me.  It’s so fulfilling to watch them master a concept.  I love the idea of being their personal tour guide of life.  There is so much to show them and teach them.  I feel lucky to get the chance to do that.

Thanks for having me, Stephanie!  – Cheri

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Wow, Thanks Cheri! 
You have probably already seen Cheri’s blog, or heard her music, or seen her on the Martha Stewart Show…the list of her accomplishments is pretty intimating and awe-inspiring, but somehow she manages to stay down-to-earth and approachable. (Like graciously agreeing to do a guest post for lil’ ol’ me right here on this blog) You must check her out, especially if you are raising young boys. She has some of the most creative ideas I’ve ever seen. (You know that whole mustache trend? Pretty sure she started it.) Seriously. Click over there right now.

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ALL I Never Knowed: The Book Is Here!

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my Email Newsletter. Thanks for visiting! Welcome back! Be sure to check out my Email Newsletter. Thanks for visiting! It’s finally here, in my hands. It has been a loooong time in the making, but our book, All I Never Knowed: Mental Illness, a Mother’s […]

Save Money with Fetch

Hey everyone! This is Chelsea, Steph’s asistant, back with the simplest app for getting cash back on things you’re already buying! We’ve covered Ibotta, Shopkick, Coupons.com, Swagbucks and we’re all saving hundreds of dollars by now, right? RIGHT!? I’m really hoping you guys have jumped on the rebate app savings train because it’s just so […]

Splendid Spoon Review

I was excited to receive a box of products to try from Splendid Spoon this summer! They invited me to try their line of plant-based, ready-to-eat foods and delivered them right to my door. Check one in the pro column for convenience. I did receive these products free of charge in order to rate them […]

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