I have to tell you guys about these CDs I listened to today. I went to Wichita to sign books and get to tell the Wilsons thanks for being awesome in person, and also so my daughter could hand out bookmarks. It seemed like maybe not enough reasons to drive six hours, but I still wanted to go.

However, God totally brought the right information my way, and I’m so thankful! I’ve really been praying about my son, trying to figure out how to help him and understand him better. He just seems to have such a hard time with LIFE. He’s very bright, but often frustrated or upset. If you’ve read my book, you’ll see that mentioned a bit, but I didn’t really want to dwell on it because it was only a piece of the picture and I didn’t feel like enough of an expert about it to write too much about it.

But I got the CDs from the other keynote speaker (other than Todd) at the Kansas convention today because they were about attention issues. Actually, she talks about four ‘gates’ to learning that can be blocked. Her name is Diane Craft and she’s in private practice, has done training with college students and teacher in-services, so she really knows what she’s talking about.

She mentions four “learning gates” that can be blocked:

• 1. Visual Processing (reading/eye tracking)
• 2. Writing (hand/eye)
• 3. Auditory Processing
• 4. Attention/ Focus

Oh, and she’s a nutritionist! Which is so awesome that she’s approaching things from having worked with 3,000 kids and how to help them through supplements and therapy to get them off medication where possible. Love that.

So, I thought my son showed several of the symptoms, but his main issues are the Writing one, and then the Attention/Focus one big time. It was like she was describing everything about my son, even things I didn’t know were related: Symptoms Sensory issues (socks drive us nuts, tags in clothes, etc.), attention and focus issues, takes a long time to do his work, easily distracted, LIKE EEYORE, depressed/mood swings, sugar causes foggy brain/spacyness, forgets three step directions, anger issues and I think there were some more.

Anyway, I just kept nodding my head as she went through the list.

Causes / Treatments I would like to do

• 1. Weak myleanation in brain –> DHA fats, so fish 1/week and cod liver oil daily? (need to read her diet plan about how to get this in all my kids. Orange juice?)
• 2. Weak connections between hemispheres –> brain integration / midline exercises (need to read over these on her site & print out) [I think this is like that Brain Balance program.]
• 3. Low serotonin (this is what Ritalin corrects) –> supplements ( Magnesium +?)
• 4. Gut issues (yeast/fungus overgrowth) –> anti fungal (grapefruit seed extract in capsules) and probiotic 3x/day (mixed in with food) for 3 months. (related to moodiness/depression) She gives the details of brands and protocol; I haven’t gotten that far yet.

Basically, I hope to work this summer on a good diet plan for our family (not weight loss, just healthy diet), and this confirmed to me that the whole family might benefit from a GAPS or gluten-free diet, not just me. I still need to research and finish listening to the CDs to figure out my exact plan, but I’m so encouraged to finally know that there is actually something wrong and with some nutritional work and exercises I am confident we’ll see improvements.

I already knew what a huge problem sugar was for my son, I just didn’t understand the chemical reason behind it or know what to do about it other than avoid sugar.

I am going to a Classical Conversations Practicum next week, but I know that for a while, I don’t actually care about the academics right now. I want to help my son get healthier and get a firmer foundation laid for his sweet little brain and body so he can focus better. He tries so hard, and does a good job, but it’s an awful lot of work for him. I’m hopeful some of these things will help.

But, the reason I’m telling you this is, if you are a parent of a child in elementary school that’s struggling or you think they might have some attention/ADHD/visual tracking/anger issues/etc. this is a fantastic CD to get. It’s only $7. Then, you can get one of her other talks (there are 5 more) to see what to do about your child’s specific issues.

http://stores.diannecraft.org/Detail.bok?no=59  This is ordering from her web site, not the exact CD I heard, but it looks like pretty much the same thing, only not crammed into 45 minutes, so probably even better.

Here’s her web site: http://www.dianecraft.org .

Final Review: 2 out of 5 stars (the kids liked it more than I did)

I sort of hated this book. I tried to like it. Other people like the Boxcar Children. I liked the first book.

But this one just went on and on at a snail’s pace with tiny words, boring sentences, no depth or realism to the characters, random stories (a little boy drowning! Rescue him! Now, let’s
play catch!), and odd bits of information that held no relevance to the plot (Make a pie by adding the sugar at the end!).

We had to keep reading it because it’s way overdue at the library and we can’t NOT finish a book, but oh my. And the characters, plot, and situation are totally
unbelievable, even for a children’s book. Charlotte’s Web was about a talking pig and spider, and I totally believed it, you know? The characters rang true, I was in that story world. This one, nope.

I kept feeling like the author was just telling me random information. Even simple words can be deep, beautiful, and meaningful, as evidenced by the brilliant Arnold Lobel. I just felt like this author was not a good writer. She had some good ideas, and the independence of the children appeals to child readers I guess, but the ideas weren’t worked into a story in any cohesive way. I wanted to gouge my eyes out and skip over as much as I could without my kids noticing.

I think I’ll let my kids read the rest of the series on their own. Maybe this was enough to interest them, and the books are clean, sweet little books for kids (other than the whole living on an island all by themselves surrounded by strange grown men issue), but I don’t think I can stomach another one.

There have to be well-written books for kids at this level. Where are they? I’m going to try some in that list recommended by the commenter on this post.

We’ll see.

Sunday and Monday were the kids’ rooms.

Boys’ room: (time = 10 hours, including planning, cleaning, and 2 trips to Target. My husband spent 3 hours putting dresser together with my son’s help.)

I list the problem I needed to solve –> solution

• Not enough storage, clothes crammed into dresser –> Added dresser from Target for more clothes storage since toddler’s outgrowing sharing a dresser with big brother
• Blanket serving as curtain ever since old blinds fell down –> Replaced broken blind; Hung curtain rod and dug curtain out of closet; rehung curtain.
• Random messy papers and drawings taped to walls –>Took down random papers, saved a few but most were trash. Rehung cute cow picture that brought in colors of room (blue, yellow, red).
• Clutter taking over room –> Moved all Legos into closet (Lego workshop area), cleaned up bookcases and “building area”
• Needed reading area –> added beanbag and canvas bin for books from Target
•  Had my son pick up most of the Legos in closet to at least show some floor.

Girl’s room: (time = 1 hour. It wasn’t bad because I just did hers a few months ago and she’s neater.)

• Straightened up, moved toy shelf to make room for beanbag.
• Added beanbag because she wanted one like brother. Will try to have them do reading time in beanbags during rest time. I want them to get in the habit of independent reading.
• Ignored disaster of a closet for now.

Tuesday (today) was kids’ bath and linen closet.

Kids’ bathroom – total time 4 hours

Okay, I wanted to post about how I go about this because I thought it might be interesting to some. Not sure if everyone does this or not. It might be that random degree in environmental design, but I really like to think about the environment of each space. What is the purpose?

Form (or, stuff) follows function. So, for me to know what needs to go into a space I have to think about what we’ll be doing there.

And just so you know, I wasn’t at all in the mood for doing this today, but it had to be done. It’s next. So, I made myself sit down during lunch and think about the kids’ bathroom.

1. What are the purposes of the room? Seems obvious, but I jotted them down in my notebook anyway.

a. Brushing teeth
b. Baths
c. Fixing hair
(d. potty training & potty – this summer)
e. medicine/cleaning supplies storage

So that tells me what needs to be in the room.  Stuff to make those functions as easy as possible.

I had a revelation here, and that was that maybe the reason my daughter’s hair is only fixed about half of the time is we’ve never had a place for her hair stuff to be, it just floats around from room to room and gets lost. So, I realized there’s a whole extra drawer in the kids’ bathroom just holding pens, pencils, and random bits of junk. I decided to make that the hair fixing drawer. It ended up holding brushes, clippies, detangler, etc.

2. Give each drawer, shelf, etc. a purpose. I drew boxes on my notebook paper and jotted down the main function for each space. (I took a picture and hope to go back and add pictures someday to give you a better idea, but I don’t have time to do it today.)

• a. Drawers: Teeth stuff, hair stuff.
• b. Cabinet on left side under sink: storage for extra supplies like toothpaste, soap, etc. Also cleaning supplies the kids use like baby wipes and vinegar spray and paper towels.
• c. Cabinet under sink (middle): trash can, “hamper” for clothes (a plastic box we use for a hamper in there)
• d. Cabinet on right side: diapers, pull-ups, wipes, extra tissues and toilet paper
• e. Above toilet: medicine in boxes with lids, bath supplies, washcloths

So, after I drew my little sketch which took all of 10 minutes, I was ready to go. I had an idea of what I was doing in there, where I was going. I threw away a big trash bag full of half-used sticky, old things, then wiped off the shelves, went for another Target run (it’s so nice to have my dad in town so I can leave during nap time) for organizing boxes, then finished up.

It felt like a lot of work, but I was shocked that it really only took about 4 hours. I spent about $50 on supplies at Target, but you could do it with less certainly. I just wanted organized boxes and we really needed the medicine less accessible. That cabinet was a poisoning waiting to happen.

So, my verdict is: totally worth the afternoon. Must do this every year. That bathroom is so much more functional now; I’m not fighting BandAids dropping from the shelves every time I open the cabinet door. Wonderful.

Linen Closet        Total time = 2 hours (NO trips to Target this time! Woohoo!)

Planned what I needed in there, sketched out a plan (10 minutes), cleaned it out. Labeled, put everything back.

My issue now is I have a big bagful of perfectly good (but old) sheets and towels and blankets. What do I do with them? Who can I give them to? (Or to whom can I give them?) Help! Please comment if you know where I can donate them where they will do the most good.

I think somewhere that helps people get started in apartments of their own could use them, they are very practical, but I doubt Goodwill accepts them. Help! Thanks!

Someone mentioned MEND Crisis Pregnancy. Any others in case they don’t need any right now or all of it?

from my guest post over at LaughWithUs blog

I went to the park with a friend of mine the other day and her five-year-old son was dressed as Superman. Cape, red underwear on the outside of his blue leggings, red socks with holes in them, belt made of duct tape.

“Does he dress like this every day?” I asked her. “Well, he alternates,” she said, “It’s between this and cowboys. Or knights.” And then I remembered we had run into them at Chick-fil-A a few months back and he had been wearing his fake suit of armor.
Read the whole post here >

5 out of 5 stars

We finally finished Little Town on the Prairie.  It was great.

I was especially impressed and inspired by the part where Laura has to say her part in front of the whole town for the school exhibition or whatever it was called. Then she went to take her teacher’s exam.

She had to recite the whole of American History from George Washington to Polk (I think). From memory, with only a picture of the president’s face on the wall to guide her. For her teacher’s exam, she had to do long division in her head. Then she “parsed sentences,” doing complex grammatical explanation of each word. I couldn’t have done any of those. Wow, what an education she had!

I want my children to be able to think like that. Yes, she had memorized it, but she really understood American History, and she understood long division enough to do it in her head. Somehow I just hadn’t noticed that before. It made me raise my standards.

Anyway, the rest of the book was great too. It’s nice that there’s a little romance in this one too, as she starts to spend time with Almanzo. I don’t mind a real romance story; it’s those made-up ones I don’t like.

Character Lessons: Hard work (she worked in town and hard at her lessons), Sacrifice (she gave all her money to help Mary go to college), Not speaking badly of others (shown through a poor choice Laura made).

NOTE: I was just looking up in the actual physical book who the president was that Laura ended with, and I found a part I don’t remember on the CD. It’s a whole part about a minstrel show that is in the chapter called Madcap Days. I was pretty shocked, just now, to see that in there. It’s blatantly racist. I don’t remember that even being on the CD. I wonder if that whole chapter was taken out or if somehow I missed it. Anyway, be aware that that’s in there and you’ll want to talk to your kids about it, just like Ma’s derrogatory comments about Indians. I explained that that’s how it was then, but that doesn’t make it right. And it might have been edited out (rightfully so) on the CD version.