Chickee cuddles

There is chicken poop on my kitchen floor. I mention this to the sizzler and he says he dropped it there, by accident. So I say "well, if you dropped it there, why didn't you clean it up?"
His response: "I didn't know I dropped it there."
Really?!
Now, before you go judging me and my unclean house you must know that we have a new batch of baby chickens. Yep. We do. Five lovely little cheepers who eat and poop, a lot.

The fun part about getting our new babies is naming them. Our chickens are not for eating so they have to have a name! There's five in our family so we each got to name one. My sweet son named his little Araucana, Rosalina. I think that is a spectacular name for a chicken, don't you? El named hers Alice, Big Bubba named his Jed Dowell (after his friend, weird, I know, but it's better than the last time he named his Burnt Fries), the Skipper couldn't make up his mind but I think he's settled on Mr. Winkles. I named my precious baby, Lucille.
So, the other morning the sizzler and I were cuddling on the couch with our fuzzy friends and he had a great suggestion. He says "let's read some chicken stories!" Now those are lovely words to a bibliophile mama!
Yes! Go look for Chicken Sisters. Off he goes. Then I had a real proud mama moment. He brought back several stories along the theme of chickens, farms, etc. Oh, how I love it when things are thematic! And here's my boy picking out stories from our library on a theme. Sigh. Grin.

We took turns reading our chicken themed stories to our babies. The chicks were cuddled up in towels as we pet their heads. The sizzler and I snuggled under a cozy blanket. Pure bliss.

So how did the chicken poop get on my kitchen floor? Well, after this mornings chickee cuddle the sizzler went to dump the turd in the towel into the trash. I guess he missed.

Fish are friends

In the sizzler's world every living creature is a potential friend. A moth that slipped inside at night becomes his friend "mothy". The earthworm stuck on the sidewalk in a rainstorm becomes "wormy" and gets saved by the sizzler. I know they have become friends because the critter has a name. If it has a name then it's "somebody". Just like Dory in Finding Nemo when she finds her new "friend", squishy. Well, until it stings her, then it becomes "bad squishy".
I find it quite amusing that kids love to name things with the ending "ee". And usually the name describes who they are or what they look like. A brown dog becomes "browny" and a white rat becomes "Snowball".
So, I would like to introduce our two new fish friends, Rainbow and Redface.

I'm totally shocked that one of them is not named fishey. I guess it's a sign of maturity. I'll take it!
However, their names totally describe how they look. Rainbow is black, orange and white (not quite the colors of the rainbow, but...) and Redface has a big orange splotch on his head (awesome! I love redheads ;)
Now the thought that pops into my silly brain right now is "I'm so glad our parents don't use this naming process when we are born!" My girl would have been named "cone head", big bubba would have been "bruiser" (he seriously looked like he just came out of the boxing ring) and the sizzler, well, maybe "bloody mess" or "hungry"! I'm sure my mother would have named me "peaceful" or "angel face" ;)
Back to our fish friends, or, should I say, fish family members. I blame it all on homeschooling. In our Zoology book we are learning about swimming creatures and just finished the chapter on fish. At the end of each chapter there is an experiment. This one called for a goldfish. Goody. Another mouth to feed. So we got two! Hey, they were only 10 cents each. Except they needed a bowl, colored pebbles, decorations, food, drops for the water........ So 20 cents worth of fish cost me about 10 bucks. Not too bad.
Guess how long it took the sizzler to name 'em?
Yep, about 10 seconds. He looked at them pronounced them Rainbow (because he has lots of colors) and Redface, well, you know. I love that he has to give the justification for the names.
As soon as they had names he begins the conversation. That's what you do when you have a new friend, right? He talks to them all the way home from the feed store (that's about 30 minutes). He's telling them all about life at Appleby Farm. He thinks they will like it. These fish sure got lucky!
I did warn him that goldfish don't always live that long. Then he told me where we would bury them. Poor kid. He has said goodbye to a few animal friends. He suggested we bury them next to Penelope the rat. I told him we need 't make burial arrangements yet. He obviously hasn't heard about burial at sea.
Yesterday we let them settle into their new home and waited until today to perform the experiment. The sizzler loved watching them swim around. "Mom, look, they're by the finger sponges!" "Look, now they're pooping." Who needs TV!
The experiment was to hypothesize (yes, we use that word, we are scientists after all!) about how the behavior of the fish might change if the water temperature was warmer or colder. Poor Rainbow got selected to be in the experiment. We had learned that there is less oxygen in warm water so the little guy had to resort to some serious breathing in order to get enough oxygen in 80 degree water.

Writing his hypothesis

Reading to Redface while Rainbow is under the heat lamp

Taking the temperature reading

Then we had to plunge the water temperature down to 50 degrees. Now our little friend could breathe easier! It was quite a difference. In the warm water his respiration was about 210/minute then when the temperature dropped he was breathing about 108/ minute. It's pretty tricky counting the breaths of a goldfish!

I would have to say Rainbow has earned a new name, "good sport". Even though he didn't really have a choice in the matter he did perform like a trooper.

Now we just have to introduce sissy to our fish friends. She comes home for spring break today. I think she will love her new "brothers".

You don't have to want to

My wise friend Craig gave me this line to use with the sizzler. I've been using it everyday since he shared this amazing bit of parenting advice at our Valentine's dinner.
When it's time for his "must do's" I often hear "I don't want to!" And now I have the perfect response:
"You don't have to want to!" I say as I smile my most loving, patient smile. "You just need to do it" as I continue to gaze at my awesome sizzler.
He doesn't usually respond with the same loving, patient smile and a resounding "ok mom!"
I get one of the following responses:

• "Nooooooo!" As he flops on the floor
• "Can I play angry birds?" Uh, no
• "I have to go to the bathroom" as he grabs he Lego ideas book and heads to the toilet and spends forever in there
• "What's your favorite deep sea creature?" Trying to distract me
• Or my favorite, "huggie" as he runs at me and gives me a super duper bear bug (kinda hard to resist)

Sizzlers are experts at avoiding work, especially if they have to write. Oh how my sizzler hates to write. He has convinced himself that he can't, that it's too hard, that something really bad will happen. But, he is getting better.

I have to remind myself that he is not torturing me on purpose, although sometimes it certainly feels like that.

There is hope though. Here and there I am getting the "ok" response and he gets going on what I asked him to do. When he first starting doing it I was a bit in shock. I had to hide my dropped jaw and surprised look. Oh, so he can do it! I was told not to fall into the trap of thinking that just because he did it once he can do it again.

Sizzlers are regularly irregular. You can't bank on anything. Every day is new and exciting, heck, from moment to moment I hardly know what to expect. Things can be going so well and then bam! He's upset and convinced he can't do something. It is a bit of a roller coaster ride. Weeeeee.......

On the flip side, my sizzler is the most loving and sensitive boy. As we were reading our Zoology book about pinnipeds this morning he got really upset. He was reading about the fur trade and how many seals were killed for their pelts. He could not finish the paragraph. He was angry. He was feeling very deeply about this so I finished the paragraph for him and told him how I see so much empathy in him for animals. That someday he will do great work and I wouldn't be surprised it if involved helping animals. His response:

"I'm going to be an ocean policeman!"

Awesome. Can't wait.

Wing dinger days

Some days are wing dingers when you're homeschooling a sizzler
Before I go on I must give credit to Carol Barnier for the term "sizzler". She came up with this title for her son after he spit on a hot lightbulb and it exploded. When she asked him why he spit on the lightbulb he replied "I like the sizzle". Oh can I relate!
Carol decided to homeschool this child with ADHD. She wrote some excellent books about homeschooling these amazing kids. My favorite is "How to Get Your Child Off the Refrigerator and on to Learning". In her books you will find ideas that work with these kiddos. They learn differently. They need to move. Many of them are visual spatial learners. My sizzler loves to do math her way. Tossing the bean bag back and forth or jumping on his mini trampoline while reciting his math facts are top picks for him!
Carol also has an awesome website called Sizzle Bop. I have referred to it many a time. She reminds me to enjoy this child and keep a sense of humor. To remember that these kids are extra special and we need to handle them in positive, creative ways. To not expect them to be "normal", whatever that is.

Some days it's hard to enjoy the sizzle. Like when mama's tired or low on patience and admiration for the Darlin'. Yesterday was one of those days.
Usually I can tell from the get go if it's going to be one of those days. Not This time. He was happily playing with Legos when I came out to greet him. But then he didn't want to eat breakfast. Or get dressed. Then he started bouncing off the walls, literally. Along with that there is this verbal nonsense that comes spewing forth with uncontrollable force. Oh dear, fasten your seatbelts ladies and gentlemen we're in for a bumpy ride. It's like trying to control a tornado or a vapor. It just keeps slipping through your fingers. Now, I'm an experienced mom and classroom teacher, but they don't train teachers to control elusive things like vapors!
The scary thing is they know when you can't control them and it adds more fuel to the fire. At that point I have to go make a cup of tea or visit grandma next door or schedule a retreat at a day spa. But when he comes to give me a "huggie" (a run and grab you very tight bear hug), I soften and see the wonderfulness in my boy again.
Now, wing dinger days are not all horrible. There was a bright spot when it was time to give our pet rats a bath. Oh how he loves the rattie tatties! He can be so sweet with the little critters. He was the dryer after I bathed them.

He did, eventually, read his book, do his math and work on his train lapbook. But each one of those took a lot of convincing, cajoling and general frustration (for both of us!)
I guess he was not in his element today.