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Showing posts from 2014

Choice vs Obligation

I have been thinking a lot about this lately.  My husband and I go back and forth about choice and obligation.  It's a fine line, sometimes.  What do you choose to do willingly versus what must you do whether you like it or not?  What is an obligation?  Is an obligation willful?  Here's my take... In my life I choose to homeschool.  This is clearly a choice, as my son could easily go to public or private school.  Having made that choice, however, I am morally and personally obligated to give him the best education I know how.  I watch my granddaughters during the day.  This too is a choice.  I have two granddaughters and a third is on the way in three months.  I choose to watch them and I choose to watch the new baby when she arrives.  I am not obligated to my daughter to do so, because I it was not my choice, she could stay home or put them in daycare.  So it's my choice to watch them because if their mother cannot be there for them, I want to be the one to get their hug

Turkey Feathers and Making Rocks

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Today was a bit chaotic since my husband was home from work, my daughter had an unexpected fall and had to take herself and her unborn baby over to the ER to be monitored AND it was pouring down rain so we couldn't get outside. I let the preschoolers watch Handy Manny this morning, which is something we have moved away from.  I do not usually put on the television for them in the morning anymore.  They come in and get started with playing or reading.  I only had one of the babies and she was playing in the nursery.  My homeschooled son got to sleep in a bit and have a slower morning, since a rainy, gray Monday is not very conducive to high energy and an early start.  By 9am there were french toast sticks for all and then a morning activity for the preschoolers while my son did some independent writing on his computer.  The girls learned about Pilgrims and Indians, although I don't think they really understood.  We read a book called My First Thanksgiving, which was a counting

Harder Than It Was

Every year, sometimes every day, I say "that's all I can handle!  I can't add any more!" and then I go right ahead and add some more.  I am sure most of us are like that.  We say we have filled every hour of our day, then we add another group, another chore, another job.  You know how it is.  Last year I managed to add to my blog almost every day after our homeschool day had ended and it was very enjoyable for me.  When I look back, I was a busy momma and I didn't have a spare minute.  Now, a year later, I am managing my homeschooling, watching my 3 1/2 year old and 14 month old granddaughters and doing daycare for another child, almost 3 and another baby, 17 months.  There is no "end to my day"!!  It quite chaotic most days, balancing caring for the babies, doing preK activities with the three year olds and doing fourth grade with my homeschooler.  My mother in law has also needed much care and family involvement lately and I have three grown children a

Dance Party

Today was definitely a good homeschooling/daycare day.  When Dakota got up, he immediately got dressed and started cleaning out things in his room by choice!  All the kids got dropped off, we had warm chocolate chip muffins for breakfast and then we went out to the deck to enjoy the morning before the predicted rain started a bit later. The girls wanted me to read to them, so while Dakota read his chapter book, I read fall books, Halloween books and fun books to the preschoolers.  The babies played well for awhile, toddling around us, but when they became a bother I popped them both in for their morning naps. Inside, the girls made leaf placemats using contact paper and fresh, beautifully colored leaves from the deck.  They loved this and it was super easy!  Next, Dakota supervised Skittles color sorting....a very popular and tasty activity!  Somehow, after that, we ended up having a dance party.  The livingroom was rocking to tunes like Happy and You Know It, Do Your Ears Hang Low

Happy First Birthday, Rebecca Leigh!

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Today my littlest granddaughter (so far!) turned one!  She is a wonderfully sweet little girl, full of giggles and smiles, who adores her mommy and who just started walking a few weeks ago.  She is the spitting image of her mom and a joy to everyone who knows her and she is the light in this Nana's eyes, along with her big sister. On September 30, 2013 we spent the day in labor and delivery with my daughter and son in law, hoping for a natural birth, but by evening we realized Rebecca was wedged up against my daughter's pelvic bone and was not coming down.  The started the prep for a c-section and one of the OR nurses happened to be a girl I went to school with.  As it was late and there wasn't too much going on, she allowed me to go down to the area just outside the operating room so I could be as close as possible without being IN there.  My daughter and my son in law disappeared behind the doors and I could see in the room, but only the doctor's heads.  At 10:01 I

Trouble with My Tween

Ah, the years of tweendom and teendom are upon us and I am not happy about it.  My Dakota can be so sweet and loving one minute and mean and dangerously angry the next.  He has always had a swagger and an attitude, but the older he gets, the more I am concerned for the next ten years here in our home.  I want so much for us to maintain a close and loving relationship, but days like today have me fearful of what his teen years may bring. Today started out as a typical Monday.  He doesn't want to get up.  He doesn't want to get dressed.  He doesn't want to start his schoolwork.  He yawns and mopes, complains and carries on.  Lately, he has begun to talk back, repeatedly speaking on top of me, yelling, stomping, being rude and vindictive.  This has been going on for several weeks and when I keep my composure and ask him to be quiet he simply cannot.  He can not be completely quiet.  He must make a comment, get the last word.  He doesn't hear what I say because he can'

Star Spangled Kick Off

I have been waiting all summer for the start of the Star Spangled Sailabration in downtown Baltimore to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the War of 1812 and the writing of the Star Spangled Banner.  Today my daughter and I took the kids to Federal Hill for a picnic lunch and to hopefully catch a few of the tall ships coming in to the harbor to celebrate.  Though we only saw one ship and it wasn't terribly impressive, it was a gorgeous day and the kids had a great time playing with friends on the playground, in the grassy fields and looking out over the harbor at all the activity.  The vantage point from up there is breathtaking. Around 1:00, we packed up and headed to the Science Center across the street.  My friend, Kelly and I took the 5 older kids to the IMAX theater to see Star Spangled Banner on the big screen while my daughter let the little ones play at the dinosaur exhibit.  The IMAX movie was only twenty minutes long, but so well done and very powerful.  The kids were

Happy Birthday, Dakota!

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This is Dakota, my "baby", holding my baby granddaughter, Becca.  Today was his tenth birthday.  I can't believe he's so big!  Let me tell you a little about my boy....he is a tough guy with a tender heart.  Dakota has a quick temper and a smart mouth, but a passion for children and for those he loves.  He is close to his family and loves sports, video games and his nieces.  His love right now is Minecraft and he and I are going to be redoing his room in that theme in the coming weeks. Today we invited our dearest friends, the Webers, to help us celerate.  Tyler, Evan and Zachary came by at ten and we all went to Shadowland, a great laser tag venue in Columbia, MD, where we met three more families and all eight kids played two rounds of laser tag.  They were loud, excited and sweaty! After laser tag, two of the families joined the Webers and Dakota and I at Pizza Hut.  The kids had a blast together, talking and eating, while the moms enjoyed some chatting

Too Hot for Fall

This year Baltimore experienced the "summer that wasn't" and I couldn't have been happier.  Cool temperatures and low humidity meant coffee on the deck in the morning and Thursday we got to spend the entire school day out there working.  It was gorgeous.  Labor Day weekend came and now we are stifling.  It's going to be 95 and humid, meaning the kids can't play outside, the dogs can't be outside for more than a minute and my house will heat up quickly if we open and close the doors too often or even keep the blinds open too much.  Looks like sandwiches for lunch and a late dinner. Today is the last day my youngest will be nine.  We had a party for him Sunday night, complete with Minecraft inspired food items.  He got his own laptop, which really opens up schooling for us.  Currently he has done his morning work and finished his reading assignment.  He is now typing away, doing a book report, and loving his freedom.  He is testing out in Math to see where

Welcome to 4th Grade

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Yesterday and today, August 26 and 27, 2014, we did our first back to school activities, although today was deemed the "first day of 4th grade".  Yesterday my son made his back to school bulletin board, creating a Minecraft creeper and a cool saying.  I love letting him design his own board because it reflects who he is at this time in his life.  We also had already finished Who Is Roald Dahl? and he had started working on High Time for Heroes, a Magic Tree House book.  Both of these books are way too easy for him to read, but he enjoys reading them, so they were a nice starting point.  We also made up the agar for his Bacteria and Fungus chemistry unit.  He is really looking forward to doing lots of experiments. Today, after our traditional chocolate chip muffins hot from the oven tradition, he started off with his morning work, which encompasses a lot of language arts.  There is reading comprehension, writing and grammar included.  He is starting a new year long project a

Summer Winds Down

Today is the beginning of the end of summer around here.  Two more weeks of summer camp left  here at our house and then back to school for the bigger kids and daycare routine for the younger kids.  I have been getting Dakota's 4th grade work ready to go for the past few months, but I have made serious progress in the last week as the pressure to get it all organized sets in.  He is doing A History of Us this year and I am very excited about it.  I have gone through book one and there is an activity there for every day that I think he will enjoy.  He will start health with recognizing behavior patterns and how to control his behavior, something he desperately needs.  Claude Monet will be our artist to study.  Math is all set with the Abeka curriculum and there is the latest Magic Tree House book to read, although it's too easy for him at this point.  He loves those stories and there is a fact book with this one that we can use to build on it. Today he and his friend that is h

And The Gang's All Here

This week we have all 5 of our "big kid" summer campers. Four of them are "tweens" now and it's interesting to have watched the dynamics change between them. I have had them almost every summer since they were 5 or so.  Now they are turning 10 and 12 this year and everything is changing.  They aren't as in to crafts, but seem more in to "school work".  They can go to classes alone while I walk around and shop or choose books at the library.  They want, above all else, to be on their electronic devices, whether it be a Kindle Fire, an Ipod, an Iphone or a video game.  The have images to protect...and that image is far different for each one. Dakota, my son, is the cool dude.  He is cautious about things that might make him look "stupid".  He feels the need to complain even when he doesn't really mean it.  Wyatt, he's the one to stir the pot.  He likes to test the others to see if they are on their toes.  Mariah, she's the lit

Let the Summer Fun Begin!

Whew!  What a fun week we had!  Dakota and I took a mother/son daytrip to Kings Dominion in Virginia on Monday.  We watched the BMX show, rode some rides, played some games and went to the water park.  Koda got a Bulls basketball and won a Mario stuffed doll.  We had another great mom/son experience and I loved the talking in the van on the ride down. He is his most wonderful self when it's just the two of us and I really enjoy him! Tuesday we both needed a do nothing day.  I had the daycare kids, but we planned little and spend the day relaxing.  I let Dakota hang out in his room watching TV and playing video games all day and then we hung out together Tuesday night having dinner and watching baseball. Wednesday we did normal daycamp things like playing board games, drawing and hanging outside.  We also dyed popcorn kernals for our craft on Friday and he went over his friends house to play basketball. Thursday we took a daytrip to Nottingham, Pennsylvania with all the kids a

All's Quiet

Today I just didn't have it in me after such a hectic start to the week to do much, so the three daycare kids I had, along with my son, did a whole lot of nothing.  The older two hung out, played on their tablets and played a game.  The younger two just played with toys in the playroom.  This all gave my older son and I time for a heart to heart and then it was nuggets and macaroni for everyone and naps for the littles. When the younger ones went off to sleep, Dakota and Mariah and I sat around talking about Mother Goose rhymes and I recited many of them for the kids.  They then went out to the table and we did a written scavenger hunt that asked questions about the rhymes such as "what did the dish do in Hickory, Dickory, Dock?"  When they were finished, we went over poetic rhyme schemes for quatrains, reviewing for Dakota and teaching the concept to Mariah.  When they had it down and we did a practice few together, I turned them loose to come up with their own poem an

Wacky Wednesday

We continued our busy first week of summer with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese with all the kids today.  We had two babies, 3 preschoolers and 2 almost ten year olds.  We thought that they opened at 10am, but when we got there, we found that they now open at 11.  So we improvised and took a group field trip to Petco next door and spend 45 minutes looking at the cats, guinea pigs and mice.  We even got to pet a very large iguana that a man brought in.  The last fifteen minutes were spent singing the Ants Go Marching and playing London Bridge until the employee finally took mercy on us and let us in.  We ordered pizza and tokens with our gift cards and spent the next 90 minutes having fun and not spending a dime of our own money.  Excellent!  The kids even got to parade behind Chuck E. Cheese himself and got a group picture with him. After getting home and getting the little ones in for a nap, I took the older two to the Arbutus Library and got them into their Nanoscience class.  They did s

Unexpected Time Off

Today I thought that we would have a full house, but for one reason or another, I only had my son here and one baby boy.  We met my daughter and her friend and their 4 kids for a free movie in Arbutus, where my little granddaughter told me for the very first time that she loved me without me saying it first.  Usually I say "I love you, Natalie!" and she answers with a hug and "I wuf you , Nana!", but today when she got to the movie she snuggled into my lap and hugged me and told me first.  That little girl melts my heart!  She only made it through an hour of the movie before she got antsy, so we walked and talked and then went and cooled down the van for the others.  I am so lucky to be able to see her almost every day and to be able to watch her grow. Now the house is quiet.  No preschoolers waking from naps or gradeschoolers doing packets.  There won't be the shriek of kids splashing in the slip and slide, but only the sound of the swing rocking the baby boy

Hitting the Ground Running

Today was an incredibly busy Monday.  I got my usual daycare baby at 7am and then got the house ready for the other daycare kids and the things ready for my summer campers.  We did breakfast at 9:15 and I left the house with the oldest two at 9:40 to take them to the craft class at Michaels Craft Store.  They were the only two since school is still in around that area, but they worked on the layers of the Earth, dinosaur fossils and fossils with clay.  Afterward, we stopped by the library to pick up a few books and then got a soda and headed home. When we got home I put more water in the water table for the preschoolers and the babies were being fed.  The older two watched a show and then everyone had lunch.  We got the preschoolers and babies down for a nap and then it was time to start our weekly unit with the older kids.  We started a unit from History's Mysteries about Mother Goose.  We had a discussion about who Mother Goose actually was and I told them about the theories pe

I'm Back!

I am not sure how three months have passed me by without adding a new post, but I'm back and going to try to keep things going again.  Life is very, very busy.  Dakota has finished grade 3 and had a week's break before "summer camp" begins tomorrow.  Summer camp here is when his cousin and a few friends come during the week for me to watch and we have a schedule with a weekly theme, fun classes and field trips, a daily schedule, educational packets, free movies at the theater, library trips galore, daily board games, daily outdoor time and whatever else we can squeeze in.  All this while running a daycare here at the house with my daughter that includes a 12 months old, an 8 month old, a two year old, three three year olds and two four year olds.  We are a busy, loving, chaotic mess, but we have fun and we work hard to keep the kids happy and busy. Last week we did the letter M with the daycare kids.  They were monkeys jumping on the bed, singing their favorite rhym

Wet and Wild Saturday

Well, for once, it was pouring down rain, but not snowing.  It's been a long, wet, cold winter here in the Mid Atlantic.  Saturday was a day for doing nothing but laying around in your pj's, but that we had to save for Sunday.  Up and moving, my husband went to work and the boys and I had a short period of down time before we went to lunch together at Pizza Hut and then went over to Terrance West's signing at Mancave Memorabilia in Glen Burnie.  We got our tickets, did a little shopping and precisely at 2pm, Towson University's star running back came in and starting signing autographs and talking to the fans.  He is going into the NFL draft this year and he is expected to do very well. My husband had gone to "crunch some numbers" on a new vehicle we are going to purchase.  We are torn between the sporty Ford Explorer and the super efficient, mom friendly Honda Odyssey.  When he came to pick us up, it was still pouring!  We headed over the Chesapeake Bay Brid

Dr. Seuss Fun

 I am a huge Dr. Seuss fan and I love to have fun with all the craziness that his books present to us.  Yesterday I read The Cat in the Hat to the two year olds in my life and we made adorable paper plate masks.  Today I taught Dr. Seuss at my co-op for the 5-9 year olds.  I talked to them about who Dr. Seuss was and the process he used to write his books.  We read Green Eggs and Ham, with the kids shouting out the rhymes, and talked about how Dr. Seuss only used 50 words to write the whole book.  We read There's A Wocket In My Pocket and created our own creatures using our imagination.  We tried to do all kinds of silly things like rolling our tongue, wiggling our ears, barking like a dog etc and then we tried to do them all with a book balanced on our head.  Then we tried to say the alphabet backwards...a much tougher task than I originally imagined.  After we settled back down, we talked about character traits and wrote a short blurb as a reflection of ourselves before putting

Just When I Thought .....

Just when I thought things couldn't get any busier, once again they did!  We are officially finished with our "lazy" months of winter and I believe (and hope) that we just had our last official snow day of this cold, wet winter.  Schedules have been way off and schools have been closed for at least a day almost every week since Christmas.  Monday started out another snowy week and I only had one baby for daycare, a new little nine month old boy.  It was nice that my husband and I got to hang out in the livingroom working and watching him, all of us getting to know one another in a relatively quiet house.  I gave my homeschooler his snow day off and told him to be prepared for a busy Tuesday. Tuesday dawned extremely icy and once again, schools were closed.  I did have the 9 month old, but he came late.  My own son was up and dressed and ready for school by 9am.  We did his morning work, took his spelling pre-test and got math out of the way.  Then we worked on letter

Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia

My family has been having a lot of fun with the winter Olympics.  We are using a unit study by Amanda Bennett and it has day by day activities that let us include language arts, vocabulary, research, history and more.  Today we watched a video from the viewpoint of a train passenger going through Siberia then learned about Freestyle Skiing and some of the competitors in that sport.  We found out that this was first introduced in 1988.  After watching the videos and answering some questions, we looked up the four daily vocabulary words in the dictionary and my son also wrote down the quote of the day.  We found some more articles and pictures in magazines and newspapers and cut them out and put them in our Winter Games 2014 notebook too.  Then for art, my son made a huge wall chart with 8 different countries, drawing and coloring their flags, and making columns for gold, silver and bronze medals.  We added the tally marks for how many medals those countries have won so far and will add

Making the Most of a Friday

Today my alarm did not go off, but thankfully I woke up on my own at 7:15.  I got in the shower and made coffee, put in the laundry and welcomed my daycare baby.  From 8-9:30 I proofread my work for my company and made corrections, did more laundry and then my son, daycare baby and I met my daughter and granddaughter for a morning at Disney on Ice in the city.  We rode the train and got there in plenty of time to get the girls a fun light and find our seats, which were fantastic and only two rows off the ice. The kids all enjoyed the show, which I agree was good, but not their best.  The fall productions are always better.  We got to see my niece and great nephew there and a few friends.  When the program was over, the little ones even got to go close to the ice and see the characters, wave and high five. We cut it close getting home and heading right back out to our class at Chelonia Ecoadventures.  We were ten minutes late, but they hadn't started yet, so Dakota didn't mi

Waiting on the Night

Yesterday was so crazy busy, right up until the time that I closed my eyes at 10pm, that I could only get through today by looking ahead to 5pm when I would have a few blessed hours of down time.  I had to get up very early to get my daycare baby in at 6:30, then drank my coffee, stripped my bed, saw my son off to college, took a shower, got things ready for the day in the girls' room, made chocolate chip muffins then took my M/T daycare child to school, drop off my younger daughter at work, come back and meet my older daughter with my granddaughters, feed everyone then get school work started!  All before 9:30!! The girls were playing very well today and Dakota and I started our day watching Olympic short videos on Comcast about some of the athletes and sports.  He is getting very interested in the upcoming events!  Then he went into the diningroom and pulled up the writings he is working on at his computer and when he was finished two of them and ready to save the third, we pro

I Really AM Busy

Being an at home mom and home educator, not to mention a grandmom/daycare provider, doesn't leave you much time during the day to relax.....and I also hold a "real" job that I do at home for a psychology company.  Family and friends, especially family, don't seem to remember that being "at home" is not synonymous for "doing nothing".  My phone rings off the hook and I hesitate to turn it on silent with a college age son driving his commute and two daughters and my husband out in the world who may need help.  My younger daughter stops in during the morning some time for coffee.  That's fine.  I have a daycare child before and after school on Monday/Tuesday and she is hoping for a ride to work on those days so she doesn't have to take the bus.  It's not the best way to start a productive school week, but I can live with it.  My 2 year old daycare baby usually arrives around 8.  Mom is good about dropping her off quickly and being on her w

Sick, Sick, Sick

We have had quite the week/ten days with deviations from routine around here.  Snow kept the kids home (my granddaughters and daycare baby) for a few days and then illness kept my granddaughters home the rest of the week.  This weekend it was my turn, something that rarely happens.  I started with regular cold symptoms and by Sunday had a fever, chills and an upset stomach.  I didn't want to spread the germs so I cancelled daycare today, but my oldest granddaughter is still sick, back to the doctors and now diagnosed with pneumonia.  By tomorrow I am thinking I should be fine and her antibiotic is changing so hopefully she will be improving too. We are schooling today by watching Gladiator for history and beginning a family unit on the Winter Olympics.  Everyone is still in their comfy clothes and the house is quiet as we relax together.  I sincerely hope that neither of my sons nor my husband comes down with this next.  I am ready to get back to school and work and play in norma

Snow, Snow and More Snow

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Here in Maryland we had a double blizzard, back to back, around 4 years ago and ever since then, we have had pretty dry winters.  We always have these cycles here, so we knew we were due for another snowy season. It started with lots of little storms in December.  We don't usually get much then.  It had snowed enough by mid January that we weren't surprised to see it, but we had been told over and over that we would get "a lot" and never did.  So as recently as Sunday of this week there was mention of flurries, but nothing else.  When I put the news on Monday morning, however, we were getting a "significant winter weather event" on Tuesday!  Where did that come from?  Sure enough, as the day went on, we were told to expect 6-8" of snow.  I am not sure anyone really believed them, but when the flakes started on time Tuesday morning at 10am, that was one point for the weather forecasters. As the day wore on, the flakes stayed small, the wind blew and

Homeschool Fun Days

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One of the many perks of being a homeschooler here in Maryland is that local businesses have embraced us for the most part and have offered many types of deals and special days for us to enjoy. The Maryland Science Center in downtown Baltimore has three weeks in September devoted to Homeschool Days with quality classes for all ages and opportunities to see the IMAX and Davis Planetarium shows for a discounted rate.  All homeschoolers are free to tour the museum and enjoy the regular exhibits in addition to taking the classes. This year, the Science Center also opened up two weeks in January for us to attend classes and see the exhibits.  This was a great opportunity to liven up an otherwise blah, cold, dreary month. Wednesday I took my son and granddaughter and our daycare baby into the city and while Dakota attended two classes, one on robots and other on circuits and electricity, the girls and I went up to the kids room and played with all the wonderful hands on exhibits there.  It

Just Another Day

There wasn't too much today to make it special, but it was an average, ordinary Monday.  I got my granddaughters and both daycare girls, took one to school and got the other three girls and my son fed breakfast and settled.  Dakota got started with a story he wanted to create on the computer.   It's a Mine Craft story and he spent almost an hour typing it and I would go over and help him edit it occasionally, correcting his punctuation and grammar. After doing his morning work folder and daily prep book, he helped me by making a sample snowman puppet for the girls' craft and then got his math started while I read them their story and we created their craft.  They were in a good mood and willing to do a bit more, so Dakota and I took turns singing with them and doing fingerplays. While the girls had lunch, Dakota took his spelling pre-test and then headed off for his own lunch break, which lasted quite some time.  By the time I pulled him back, he had been "at lunch

Winter Weather Advisory

This week has been a crazy week for weather and it has thrown everything off.  On Monday night and all day on Tuesday, many schools were closed due to the intense cold and no one wanted to venture very far from home.  We had the blinds closed and a blanket over our leaky back door to keep the winds outside and not inside!  We were under covers and watching movies, enjoying our time as a family.  I didn't have my daycare baby on Tuesday and then W/Th/F I haven't had my granddaughters.  Wednesday and Thursday weren't bad out, but today we woke to a covering of ice on everything that caused even more school delays and my son in law is just keeping the girls so my daughter has less of a commute in slick conditions. I am not a winter weather hater....mainly because I am a homeschooler and telecommuter with my job so usually if the weather is bad, I don't have to go anywhere.  I worry about my son commuting to college, but not this month, and my husband and daughters commut

Going With the Flow

Today was a record cold day here in Maryland and while some schools closed in the northern and southern part of the state, the ones near us all opened and some of them opened two hours late, which was the case for the little girl I take to school on Mondays and Tuesdays.   Why two hours late?  I don't get it.  It didn't get any warmer.  It was 3 degrees at 8:30 and 6 degrees at 10:30 when she had to leave. Thankfully my older son was home to watch my granddaughters and younger son so I didn't have to take them out. Since we had another child here this morning, I allowed Dakota to watch a movie with her and then they played Disney Infinity.  After she left, Dakota got dressed, made his bed and got his spelling done.  I was hoping for more, but somehow we never got it together and I was making lunch.  My sons decided to play a video game together so we didn't even get back to work until 1:30.  We snuggled up in the chair under a blanket and read together.  We read a kid

Once a Mother, Always a Mother

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On Friday, my twenty year old college sophomore son was driven to Towson's campus on snowy, icy roads by his dad so that he could board one of seven buses that would take over 600 Towson Tiger students to Frisco, Texas to support their football team in their quest to win the FCS Championship game.  I tried to get him to follow a few common sense precautions and tried to get him to take more food than he did, a blanket, medicines.....  My son, however, was nonplussed.  No worries, Mom.  This bus ride won't be that bad. They departed at 7am and at around 1pm they were in southern Virginia, at a mall, to get something to eat.  He called and was in a good mood, but already tired of riding on the bus.  I have never gone 1300 miles on a bus ONE WAY, but I knew it wasn't going to be too much fun.  Later that evening he was miserable and hungry....not wanting to wait in line to get real food, he opted for a cinnamon roll.  Okay.  Now I know he won't die from a poor nutrit