Mailbox

Well... I asked Cameron to get me the mail and...

... he explained that the package was stuck so he needed to wiggle the box and it was still stuck when he used two hands and... at least I stopped him before he brought the whole post and mailbox into the house!

Sea Ranch

I love this place!  I've been visiting since I was a little kid and just speaks to a place of deep happiness within me :)  So, some pictures of our latest family vacation along with the latest cute antics!

• "You seem to be doing that through a fit of oomphs."  (Andrew kept hugging me while I was talking.)

• after my birthday breakfast in bed, "Want a Lego carrot? Remember this is my only Lego carrot.  It's a memory of me."

• singing the birthday song with a formal, "dear mother"

• providing an hour-long running stream of reading the road signs including pronouncing MPH as "mufup"

• commenting on the restaurant soup, "They made it just right for my standards! If I had twenty bowls of it, I'd eat it all!"

• picking up my use of "dear" for Andrew and using it complete with an exasperated tone whenever his dad is doing something silly, "Deeeeeear, stop tickling me!"

• informing me, "I think taxes should be a dollar and there are a lot of people so that should be enough."

• responding to his dad's metaphor that a good essay was like the ceiling in that you can't see the seems with, "You can't just make it all endless sentence with ands and stuff!"  (Guess he got the teaching about run on sentences and he did, eventually, get the point about transitions too!)

And a joke that Andrew found that had me really laughing:

Descartes walks into bar
The bar tender says, "Want a beer?"
Descartes says, "I think not."
Poof.  He vanishes! 

Family meeting: Latest Application

So, what's the latest challenge we've tackled with our family meetings?  I'm sure we're the only ones who have ever found a child's attention wandering during teaching!  Ya, so all of you that always keep your children's undivided attention can just skip this post, but for the remainder who have joined me in this challenge, this may be of some interest!

My husband is helping our son with writing and with the more complex math problems that come home.  I'm the helper for everything else.  (My son has learned how to tackle the first round of homework independently, so he only needs me for checking and when he gets stuck.)  So, we're both sitting down to help him with a thinking challenge and finding... 
he's looking at a hang nail
he's toppling off the stool
he's repeating what we say without understanding
he's taking every action to avoid thinking possible.
Naturally, this fills his parents with patience and warm fuzzies as they try to help him learn and spend 3/4 of their time in focus-assistance.

Family Meeting!

My husband and I faced the same challenge, we wanted to help him learn but we didn't want to waste our time.  Our son heard our problem and shared his need to move but also not be distracted.  We both presented the issues as problems for us to fix together without name calling or accusatory tones.  We came up with different ideas for each of us.  I was willing to allow one minute breaks per ten minutes, because that wouldn't take too much of my time. However, my kiddo's work with his dad requires at least a half hour of focus.  So, we came up with our plan.

Before my husband starts teaching, our son will use the bathroom, eat, and make sure that he's ready to focus for 30-40 minutes.
Before my kiddo calls me for help, he'll make sure he's ready to focus.  I'll wait for one minute while he takes a break every ten minutes and he'll take longer breaks after finishing any given task.

Success?

We've been at it for a week and there's a definite improvement.  He's still been known to wander over to a couch or roll off a shelf, but he responds to a quick reminder and we knew this would be a process!  

Our family during a recent family vacation... notice my kiddo's foot sticking out, but there was no way he'd bring his face forward into the light!  Oh well, we pick our battles :)