Trish’s Blog

Seth and Zack are fascinated by poop. I attribute their love of toilet humor to their being boys. It’s just funny to them.

After I decreed that Captain Underpants, Pokemon and other manga books were no longer acceptable forms of reading, Seth came home from the library with this book, Jurassic Poop. He thought it was hilarious and tried to explain to me about the dinosaur that made a huge poop in the water and– I had to stop him. I was fighting my gag reflex. I mean, I can’t handle poop. I’m the chick who will jump in her car and track down a runner with a dog to make sure that he will come back and pick up the dump the doggie did on my lawn (true story) because I can’t stand to look at it, and I’m even more fearful of stepping in it. UGH!

I came across the book again while cleaning and I kept a firm hold on my stomach contents to brave turning the pages to find out what exactly Jacob Berkowitz has to say about ancient poop. It’s filled with pictures, graphics (Illustrator Steve Mack must have had fun with this one), and interesting facts about coprolites, cololites and the people who study them. I learned some amazing things about all kinds of crap. Particularly noteworthy is how volcanic ash and water can transform poop into gemstones known as agates. They have beautiful streaks and swirls of color that when polished turn from “turd to treasure”. (Go Pele!) I was also grossed out by the eight thousand years worth of caribou poop in Yukon Territory–like I needed another reason to fear global warming–discovered when some of the patches of ice melted. I had to stop reading when we came to human poop and the wonderfully preserved finds that ancient outhouses are. That’s a little too close to home for me. Before I shut the book, I did chance to read that Romans had peach pits in their latrines which signifies someone sent them a care package because peaches weren’t grown in the region, but DANG. They ate the peach pits? What is up with that?

I must stop now. My will to keep from vomiting is wearing thin. Still, I see the value in the knowledge and wisdom my boys can gain from reading Jurassic Poop. I just don’t want to hear about it. If they must narrate their wisdom, I will direct them to their Daddy who has no problems with the potty talk. It must be because he’s a boy.

Posted on November 15th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Homeschool, In My Opinion | 1 Comment »

I bought a jar of Nutella in the international aisle of HEB early last week. I made a double batch of rolls and I figured we could go European and eat chocolate for breakfast. The kids were out of their minds with happiness, dying and going to heaven every morning. And now the jar is almost gone. It’s times like these that I have to concede that our family is big. I told the kids that bigger jars of Nutella exist. I know because I saw it in Lance Armstrong’s photo book. Now all I need is to get my hands on it. Anybody know where to buy obscenely huge jars of Nutella in America?

Posted on October 24th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Family, grocery, Haley Kids | Comments Off

Two of my friends are dyslexic. I just found out today after having known both of them for at least three years. We had lunch and the conversation turned to their children’s experiences with dyslexia–being tested, their grades or being held back a grade, and how they are exceptional in every subject except reading and writing. And my friends could relate because they were held back a grade or almost held back, too. I had to interrupt with, “Wait. You’re dyslexic?”

I was shocked because both of these friends are avid readers and I didn’t notice anything weird about their handwriting. It was funny because I just kept looking at them with my mouth open. It was like I was expecting there to be some kind of outward appearance to single them out. I pictured a neon, blinking arrow pointing to their heads with “dyslexic” in cursive writing labeling them before I laughed at myself. Of course, there is nothing to point them out. I guess I was just taken by surprise finding that I did not know these two friends as well as I thought.

There seems to be an acute fear of reading aloud associated with dyslexia. One friend overcame it by practicing reading her scriptures aloud while pregnant with her first child. She said it took almost the whole nine months to be able to do it without fear, but she wanted so badly to be able to read to her child. Now, she loves reading to all of her children (she has six of them!). I was in awe listening to their stories and what they go through whenever they are asked to read aloud in church or in other public settings.

I, on the other hand, am the read aloud hog. When we read scriptures together at home, I have to calm myself when it’s someone else’s turn, but if someone is showing signs of illness (like excessive coughing) I jump in and take their verses–as if I were doing them a kindness. In Sunday School settings, I have to stop myself from raising my hand every time the teacher calls for a reader–especially if I have already had a chance to read. I have to say to myself, “Let the other kids have a turn!”

I did go through a time when public speaking caused me to stutter severely and shake uncontrollably, so I can understand a little of the anxiety that comes with reading aloud in public, but I know that it’s nothing compared to what it would be like trying to train your brain to recognize letters long enough to learn how to read the word and then be asked to do that process in front of other people without making mistakes.

I now love my friends better knowing how much of their bravery and determination has played a part in building their characters, education, and guidance of their own children. I learn a lot from them and I’m glad to be associated with them. I will endeavor to have more patience with others who do not read aloud as quickly or as readily as I do, and I will be on the look out for more opportunities to learn more about my friends.

Posted on October 12th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Friends, Life | 2 Comments »

It’s our second year of homeschooling and the picture above is from our second day. The boys are getting a spelling test and Zoe is just happy to have her own pencil, paper and clipboard. Sarah is at band, so we have an hour to do a bit of spelling and then play at the park for some exercise. I’m finding that this fits our schedule nicely since Sarah is not doing Sequential Spelling with the boys, so she’s not missing a lesson. The park nearby the school keeps me from having to go all the way back home. It’s a nice way to get out of the house, get the baby tired, and burn some calories.

Not only are we hitting the park daily, we are taking walks in the morning. I’ve downloaded a pedometer to my phone to keep track of our progress. The first day, we walked for twenty minutes and almost a mile. The second day, we walked for a mile and it took twenty-two minutes. We’ll build up slowly as the weeks progress. Seth wants to get up to 3 miles and Zack is shooting for 5 miles. (I haven’t asked Sarah for her goal yet.) We’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to walk all day. We’ll have to cut it to 45 minutes, tops. I’ve found the perfect place to walk, but we have to jump in the car to get there. It’s worth it if we can walk in perpetual shade and keep out of the way of cars. We’re walking on a bridge. We have a friend who lives near there who has extended an open invitation for a glass of ice water after our walks. This does wonders for my motivation!

There’s more new stuff we’re doing this year that we didn’t do last year. Like writing to pen pals, a drawing class using the book, Drawing With Children, copy work, and notebooking. Seth is learning cursive. I’m still getting situated–the whole year isn’t planned out yet. I needed to see how our schedule would pan out with two kids in middle school part time for electives. I was grateful for the week and a half when public school started before homeschool to get a better handle on how to map out the day. Things are just falling into place as I tackle them.

Even Zoe has started formal reading lessons using the book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I had not planned on starting her in formal lessons, but she seemed to wake up to books this past summer. She never wanted me to read books to her before, so I’m jumping on it. We are skipping the writing tasks given with each lesson because she’s not ready to write, but she does the sounds well so far. She pretty much knows her alphabet in sign language and we sign them together while singing the Alphabet Song, so we’ll see how this translates into reading. If she’s anything like her older sister, she’ll be reading by this time next year.

I’ll try to keep the blog updated as the year progresses, but I still have a day job and I’m trying to up my hours so that means less blog time. I’ll find a way. I could just give up sleep. That would work.

Posted on September 5th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Homeschool | 3 Comments »

I Googled “jello toast” for recipes, but could only find one. I figure I can forgive myself for never having heard of it until last month on a friend’s blog. It seemed pretty straight forward… buttered bread with jello on it, bake it, and eat. Right? I was dubious, “So… just put pour the powder on? How much is too much? A thick layer, she says. How thick is thick?” I decided to go with the flow and let Arwen correct me in the comments.

Need: Sliced Bread

Now that we’re back from Grandma and Grandpa’s house where we were spoiled with fresh bread daily, the kids have been running the bread machine ragged. We have the same bread machine that they do, thanks to our Zojirushi connection in the family, but there are two differences between them and us. 1.) We are lazy, and 2.) We lack counter space to keep it out and ready to rock.

I asked Sarah to make bread. The recipe for white bread is right on the side of the machine for convenience and she has done it before so I had complete faith in her. (I did, however, remind her to put the paddles in the bottom of the pan before throwing in the ingredients. She has forgotten to do that in the past, and I don’t recommend it. Notice I didn’t say that we threw away the deformed, unmixed rock that came out. We ate it. Oh, yes, we did.) The next day, I asked her to show Zack how to do it. And then the next day, I asked her to let him do it, but shadow him to make sure he didn’t forget anything. I asked her to do the same thing with Seth.

Now every Haley kid save Zoe knows how to make bread in the machine. They are having their way with it! Seth has made bread for several days in a row. His first loaf was so beautiful that we all went nuts. It was enough positive reinforcement for him to keep me in bread indefinitely… or until the 102 pounds of free flour runs out. That’s going to be a sad, sad day, but let’s not go there. Moving right along…

Need: Butter

I’m pretty sure that any ol’ butter or margarine will do. Not sure about the vegetable spreads, but that’s an experiment that one of you readers will have to undertake.

Need: Jello

Any ol’ flavor of Jello will do. I used strawberry. Big surprise, right?

Don’t Need: Sugar

That one recipe that I found said to add sugar. Jello is all sugar, so I just trusted my friend’s version and did not add sugar.

Bake

When in doubt, I always use 350 degrees fahrenheit. I was in doubt. I didn’t time it either, so I’m not sure how long it took for the Jello to get crispy.

Eat

I tasted this when I had a sinus infection. I couldn’t taste my meals at the time, but I did taste this. For the taste to have broken through to my deadened taste buds just shows that you really don’t need sugar. The crispy parts are the best, and I would venture to say that there is no such thing as too thick when layering on the powder. In fact, don’t miss a spot on the bread.

Josh was not a fan. He said it was too sweet. (See?) The kids loved them and devoured them up and wanted me to make more on the spot. I didn’t, but I have made Jello Toast two times since. The snack reminds me of when I was seven or eight, a latchkey kid, coming home from school to an empty house, and scrounging up something to eat. I used to eat things like Swiss Miss hot chocolate powder, Kool-Aid powder, and Non-Dairy Creamer out of paper cup with a spoon. I’m fairly certain that Jello Toast was created by a latchkey kid who was allowed to turn on the oven.

What do you think? Wouldn’t it be great if someone would step forward with proof and tell how they created this simple and delicious snack? That’s a story I think I’d like to hear. Until then, I’ll just thank Arwen and give her credit for her brilliance. Thank you, Friend!

Posted on September 5th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Recipe | 2 Comments »

Going to Grandma’s house is almost a given every summer. At least, in the kids’ eyes. It’s not a matter of “if,” but “when”. A definite highlight is going to the beach. Another highlight is getting to go to the beach again.

I forgot to bring my camera the first time we went on an extremely sunny day, but remembered to bring it today and it was overcast. In fact, it was raining on us by the time we left. We were out in the water when it started to rain and Grandma said to the boys, “Oh, no, we might get wet!” They just laughed. She’s a funny gal.

One of my favorite things to do at Grandma’s beach is make dribble castles. The sand is so fine that you can dig a hole, fill it with water (or let the waves do it for you), grab a handful of wet sand, and dribble it in a pile. I like to make bridges between two spires and make a bunch so the king and queen have plenty of places to cross. What can I say? It sparks my imagination and I’m a kid again.

I was way too excited about my creation and took pictures of it before it could get destroyed (either by natural disaster or the toddler).

Hope y’all are having a great summer!

Posted on July 21st, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Artsy Fartsy, Family, Haley Kids | 4 Comments »

Last night we played the telephone game. You know that game where someone starts by whispering something into someone’s ear. That person gets only one listen and then must repeat it as accurately as possible to the next person in line. And it continues down the line until the last person says aloud what was whispered into his/her ear. I have always hated this game because of my hearing disability, but I have never played it with hearing aids, and it wasn’t bad. Everyone took turns starting and we had some good laughs. Especially when we let Zoe start or when I was last in line and said aloud what Josh had just whispered to me, “Help me, a unicorn is trying to kill me.” The kids all burst out laughing.

The last one we did was from an actual poem that Sarah wrote last year. None of us have ever heard it before. She has it memorized and with our encouragement, she recited the whole thing for us. One of her friends from 6th grade used to share her poems between friends and Sarah said they were kind of depressing and emo, but one day this poem just came to her. She said I could blog it.

Drops of rain fall to my face.
I wipe them off to leave no trace.
People drive by thinking I have no fears,
But they can’t see
That the rain’s really tears.

Another flash of pain strikes through my chest.
I stumble back inside, thought I know
I can’t rest.
In this house I turn away from everyone I know
I hurry to my room to pack up everything and go.

“I don’t know where to flee”
Thinks the voice inside of me.
Then I find
That I can’t.
‘Cause the hatred’s pointed at
Not him,
But only me.

We were pretty impressed, and I made a mental note to read more poetry to my children. Zack and Seth became inspired and started rhyming about poop and stuff. They thought they were hilarious. I asked Sarah to write her poem down with the date so that I could have a record of it. The boys decided that they would write theirs down, too. Here’s Seth’s:

Poo fell on my face. I Die.
Chicken’s Die, too.
(this dosn’t Make Sence)
Chickens poo on my face
From this day on…

After that, he wrote another nonsense poem, crumpled up the page to make it look old, and then gave it to Josh to read aloud. It went like, “Ugaa Ugaa tuagar par ma. are tee pee po pa.” Silly kid. We thought it was funny that he tried to make it look old, but then the date he had written at the top was 4-25-10.

I thought Zack’s was going to be just as silly, but it wasn’t bad. Josh said, “What’s it about?” and he answered, “It’s about a guy who comes in the house and shoots everybody.” Josh said, “Ok, now read it again.”

I heard footsteps on the floor.
Then I heard it on the door.
It was at a bad time.
And it was no friend of mine.
I tried it slow at first,
but it ended with a big burst.
I can not write any more.
I just lay here on the floor.

After hearing it in context, there was a little silence after he read it, and then all at once we said things like, “Whoa” or “Wow” or “Holy cow”, and then, “Good job, Zack!” It didn’t have a title when he read it to us, but after typing it up, I noticed that he put a title on it, “Just a Man”.

Now there is just one thing I would like to know… where is he getting his inspiration? He wrote it in ten minutes and then drew a cartoon picture on the back that had nothing to do with the subject of the poem. As Zoe would say, “What heck?”

Posted on April 26th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Homeschool | 3 Comments »

We got our first non-fish pet today. I’ll let the videos tell the story and keep my written words to a minimum. Bottom line, we like the little fur ball a lot. Except Josh. He’s playing the tough guy, but I think he’ll warm up to the little buddy. Josh will actually be more witness to Kuzan’s antics since the kids have to go to sleep. So we’ll let Kuzan work his cuddly magic on Daddy and report back when Josh is a puddle of goo.

Posted on March 4th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Teddy Bear Hamster | 1 Comment »

Our Scouting Unit (both the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts) celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America tonight at the Blue and Gold Banquet. The boys were invited to make and decorate a dessert. The top three would win a prize. Guess which one won first place in the dessert contest? Yeah, you know the one… it’s amazing. I can’t even do that, let alone my boys. Guess which one my boys did? I’ll give you a hint… it has bananas in it.

You guessed it! The log cake won first place (big pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups). Second place (bag of M&Ms) was the miniature camp ground cake. Third place (Butterfinger candy bar) was the giant “100″ made up of brownies and blue & yellow icing. It didn’t matter who won because all of the boys were very proud of what they created. I talked to a few brothers who were more than willing to throw their little brothers under the bus with exclamations of, “He just measured the water, but I made the cake!”

I suggested making Banana Pudding since Josh has been craving it lately. He even got a recipe emailed from his dad which he forwarded to me, begging and pleading for it to be made. I’m all about killing two birds with one stone these days. I read the recipe and felt it was simple enough for the boys to do together. In the interest of full disclosure… They did spill the milk all over the counter while mixing the pudding. The cutting board did flip over off the table and on to the chair. A banana did jump from the peel and on to the floor. (They asked to eat that one — gross, huh?) It was very hard to take myself out of the picture so that they could do their thing. I helped them decide what to put on the finished dessert. I drew the fleur de lis on to thin cardboard, but while Zack was cutting it up, he confused the positive and negative spaces so when it came time for the sprinkles, the design was not as tight as it could have been, but I felt he did a great job. He used both yellow and blue sprinkles. (It’s the sixth picture from the bottom.)

These are the only pictures I took and I did with my iPhone, so they’re not spectacular. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture of the sign I did (with plenty of last minute help). I’m hoping that someone did and will email it to me. If I am so lucky, I’ll post it later.

For Grandpa Randy, Josh reports that the recipe is a very good one. Here it is below for those who are curious. The only thing we did differently is we had double the pudding and we were unable to let it set overnight. Sprinkles are not necessary either. In fact, they kind of just dissolved into a blurry mess, so I don’t recommend it.

BANANA PUDDING

1 box Nilla vanilla wafers
4 to 5 bananas
1 lg. Jello vanilla instant pudding
3 c. milk
8 oz. Cool Whip
8 oz. sour cream

Line bottom of 9 x 13 inch pan with vanilla wafers. Cover with slices of banana. Mix pudding mix with milk. Add Cool Whip and sour cream and mix. Pour wafers and bananas. Repeat layers. Set overnight.

Posted on February 25th, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Recipe, Scouts | 3 Comments »

We finished reading a chapter in our history book about Ancient Africa last week. Because Ancient Africans left few writings and artifacts, what we know of the time period is based mostly on oral history passed down. A favorite character in many stories is Anansi the Spider. We read a couple of stories, but the one that stood out is Anansi and the Make-Believe Food.

Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Anansi’s village has no food, so Anansi decides to leave in hopes of finding food for the village. He walks a very long way until he sees a pillar of smoke. When he finally arrives in the far-off village, the cassava are there asking him how he would like to eat them (roasted, boiled or fried). He tells them he’ll eat them however he wants them to, so they all yell, “Roasted!” and jump into the fire. Before he can eat them, he sees another pillar of smoke from another far-off village. The cassavas tell him that it’s the village of the plantains. Anansi decides that he likes plantains better and heads off before eating the cassava. The plantains in the plantain village are all the eager for Anansi to make a meal of them and decide to be, “Fried!” but, yes, he spots another pillar of smoke from a fire and is soon leaving for the village of rice without eating a plantain. When he gets to the rice village, they yell, “Boiled!” but Anansi leaves for yet another pillar of smoke from a far-off village. When he gets there, he is dead with exhaustion and finds that he has returned to his own village. They boil up a stew of fish bones for him since that’s all they have. No one ever finds the three villages again and the moral of the story is “Don’t be greedy, eat what you’re given.”

My moral would be to eat a bit from each village before going to the next one, but I can see how no one would really learn anything from that. Also, could there be anything more gross to eat than fish bone soup? I think they called it right when they chose something so universally disgusting to compare with the other three foods.

While reading the story, the kids laughed about the food coming to life and asking to be eaten, choosing how they would be prepared, and then preparing themselves to be eaten. When I pulled out the plantains I bought from the grocery store to surprise them, Seth said, “Wait. Plantains are real?” We all laughed and Zack yelled, “Fried!” We tasted them before frying them and they all agreed that they were kind of like a hard banana. After frying them, they decided they tasted more like potatoes. That explains why Seth didn’t eat more than one. He can’t stand potatoes.

Sarah decided that if you could fry a plantain, then why not a banana? I thought they might turn to soup, so it was a good experiment to see how they held together pretty well. I’ve had cooked bananas before, but they are usually in some kind of batter and turn hot liquid-like on the inside. The bananas cooked faster and got a little burned, but Sarah liked them better than the plantains. I really like plantains, so I got to eat a fair amount today.

Everyone was feeling pretty good after this object lesson, so I decided to give them their tests on this chapter. They cheerfully took them with their plates of plantains beside them and I thought, ‘This doesn’t happen in public school.’

Posted on February 22nd, 2010 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids, Homeschool | Comments Off