Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Multiply It!
Fuss watering our roses.
FUSS
Letters? Boom! Sight words? Boom! Colors? Boom! Potty trained? A very long ago boom! Not shoving random children at parks and Pottery Barn Kids? Yeah … not so much. Fuss is all of two. Not just the cute, puppy-eyed, soft-skinned, lingering traces of baby smell two. She’s tantruming two, and screaming two, and ranting about how it’s “Mine. Mine! Mine!” two. January and February were rough. I often wished I was on “Who Wants to Be a Mommy,” so I could use a lifeline and ‘phone a friend’ to have them come rescue me until she’s eighteen.
I can’t complain, though. She’s gotten a lot better. She’s more compassionate. She listens (as long as she’s well-fed, well-rested, the sun is in a specific position and the stars align correctly), and she uses her words often. When she’s frustrated, however, her attempts to get her point across can be likened to that of a customer cheated out of their money during a Macy’s transaction. We’re working on it.
Her new sleep schedule is based on a forty-eight hour slot instead of a twenty-four hour day. Don’t Google it. I made it up. I studied her behavior in conjunction with her ability to fall asleep easily at night and realized that a nap every single day was too much for her. What I do is have her nap every other day, with the daytime sleep being from 12-2pm. On days when she naps, her bedtime is 7:30pm. When she doesn’t nap, her bedtime is 6:45pm. Don’t ask me why this works. It just does. She puts herself to sleep at naptime and bedtime with ease by singing or chatting quietly with her doll.
To learn more about the homeschooling that I do with Fuss, please visit Teaching Fuss.
MOOCH
My eldest is reading Hugo Cabret. Actually, by the time you finish reading this blog, she will have finished all 532 pages of it. This morning she was on page five hundred. I never read books that size at her age. Even in college, I stuck to excerpts. Her patience with stories amazes me. She loves stories so much, that I found a story method to teach her the multiplication tables. I’m so excited about it, that I have to share it with you. I found it on Amazon after researching different ways to help children retain the times tables. I knew this way would work for Mooch.
Mooch learning her times tables
The book assigns a word for each number. For example, three is represented by “tree” and four is represented by “door.” Stories are then told on the left page with a corresponding picture (for memory) on the right page. The “tree” and “door” story talks about a tree with a little door in it. Inside the door lives an “elf.” At the bottom of the page, it reads, “Tree x Door = Elf,” which translates, of course, to “3×4=12.” She learned her threes through nines in one day! This book is amazing. We’re working on twelves this weekend. She already knew 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, and 11s, because those have easy tricks. After this week, it’ll just be drilling from here on out to get them into her long-term memory. What fun!
Here is a link to the book: Multiplication in a Flash
Mooch cheesing at homeschool
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Co-ops and Performances
With coarse pigtails flying into the wind and airplane arms spanning about three feet, Fuss took off from her comfortable spot near my arm today. We visited a pre-school for her, because after drop-in daycare during Mooch’s commercial shoot Monday, she didn’t want to return to homeschool. I want to do what is best for her, and if that’s allowing her to hug other children until they fall on the floor together, then so be it. Mooch thrived at home. Fuss thrives at home — but only academically. She’ll likely start going two to three days per week in July, so she’ll still be homeschooled part-time. I may choose a co-op, or I may resume schooling a couple of extra kids at my home. That would give her what she needs, and also earn me some more cheese. 
That’s not all. The past couple of weeks, she has emerged from her stranger danger shy shell. If you remember November through February, she would scream bloody murder at anyone who said hello or even looked at her. Now she serves up the salutations and even walks away with certain people. Hopefully the tantrum phase ends as quickly as the bashful one did.
Mooch is all Shakespearean in preparation for her show this Saturday. She’ll be singing “All Africa” by Abbey Lincoln, and she’ll be performing excerpts from various plays. This is a video of her practicing:
Marital Mondays: Sick and Joyful
This daily blog hangs over my head like an antique chandelier — pretty, but heavy enough to fall and knock the words right out of me. I was sick as hell last week, so I rested for two days like a normal person and didn’t write at all. I actually didn’t miss it. It gave me time to focus on curriculum building for Fuss and other household administrative tasks.
Hannibal made many sacrifices last week, including coming home from work early Tuesday (like leaving right after he got there), because Fuss was throwing all brands of tantrum and I was too weak to deal with it. He did all of my normal driving that day, with the exception of driving Mooch to school. I have no idea how I got her there that morning, but we’re all still alive.
So, this week’s “Marital Mondays” blog is a simple shout out to the man who supports me even when it throws his whole day completely off the rails. I think he even tried to cook a little that day. He hustles so that I can customize my lifestyle, and I can’t thank him enough for the impact it is having on our girls to have me molding them all day everyday. Thanks, honey!
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss: Pita Pizzas Schoolhouse Rocks Nokia
Last Saturday, the girls and I made pita pizzas. It was really simple, because I didn’t make the sauce from scratch this time around. We just used pita bread, spaghetti sauce, fresh spinach, and Daiya (soyless vegan cheese). It’s such a simple recipe that even Fuss could participate fully. In fact, she made her own. They were really yummy.
You basically preheat the oven to 425 degrees, spread the sauce on sprinkle spinach (or whatever toppings you want) and cheese, and then bake it for 10-12 minutes.
This past Friday, Mooch starred as the conductor in her class’ Schoolhouse Rocks play. She sang Conjunction Junction with the class singing background. It was awesome! She’ll be shooting a Nokia commercial this coming Monday and a web series in April and May. She’s on avail for Capitol One, but I’ll keep you posted.
To read or see more about homeschooling Fuss, please visit Teaching Fuss.
Tuesdays With Mooch & Fuss:
Mooch misses her brother, but “not (her) dad.” I’m not really sure how to address that or make arrangements for her to see him. I have no idea where his mother is. He must be like ten years old now. They were very close. She wonders if “it would be awkward now, though.”
Side note: I used to love that shirt Mooch is wearing, but I think she’s having a Janet Jackson moment in this picture.
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