Jeni is Completely Surrounded By Tissue

I think God is preparing me for the time Mark works on his graduate classes. God is showing me that I can handle the kids without Mark day and night, while he is away at work and graduations. He's showing me that I can do it sleep-deprived, and while I'm sick. Blah. Excuse me if I come across as being a bit Toady today--I'm feeling Toady.

Of course this is happening during May, which I deemed "NO VIDEO MONTH." We're so close to the end, I didn't want to give in now. Yesterday we went to the pool, but it took a two-hour nap to recover from that adventure so today we're just taking life easy. Bradford and Benjamin spent most of the morning working and playing games on their computers. Before you shout, "but computer games are just as bad as videos!" go look at their computers on my photo blog. They are so very, very creative when I don't allow them to fry their brains on video.

Now they're building houses in the living room and dining room. I think every moveable piece of furniture is part of the project, but as long as they are quiet, don't squabble, and clean up after themselves, I don't care. I'm only hoping I have enough energy to make dinner.

On to another subject. You know you're a home-schooler when you're standing on your porch in an electrical storm, bucket in hand, trying to catch a hailstone so your budding scientists can get a good look at it. You know you're a home-schooler when you quiz Greek phonograms at the lunch table. We're home-schoolers.

Now about those rats. I'm either killing them or something else, because 5 packets of rat bait have been taken and presumably consumed in the last two days. I called my neighbor whose yard they are living in and told her to be on the lookout for dead rats. She mildly freaked out at the thought of rats living in her shed. Yes, I assured her, they are there, at least three of them, but they should die soon, and in the meantime, make sure your dogs are not eating them. Which was very thoughtful of me, considering how much I dislike her dogs. She promised to get her exterminator out to take care of it, but I'm not holding my breath. I've got my new exterminator coming on Wednesday. I've never met him, but he was recommended to us by our previous exterminator who recently left the pest control business. This new guy calls back and asks if we were with J&L. Yes, but I had said as much in my message. Then he asked if my husband's name was Mark, if we were Christians, and if we homeschooled. WHOA, Nellie. Seems that Jim (my former pest control guy) had written a long letter to him about us, asking him to take care of us at the same rate. Wow. I was blown away. So this new guy, whose name may be Alfie (Ben answered the phone, and he's not terribly reliable with names) will come out on Wednesday to get us prepared for ant season. --Who said we don't have seasons in Florida?- there's ant season, spider season, mosquito season, roach season, and termite season.

Gracey is crawling now. She's still has no teeth, and she only weighs 14 lbs, but she's crawling. The boys think she's so cute, but they are not used to picking up every little tiny piece of paper so that she won't put it in her mouth. Two days ago she refused to nurse before her nap. Unusual for her, but I discovered the reason later when I swiped a foam letter from her mouth.

Side note...why are they using Scotch tape to keep the couch cushions attached to the dining room table?...end of side note.

Today each boy got to read a book of his choice into the computer (the real one!). Nater went first and "read" Are You My Mother, and Green Eggs and Ham. Bradford chose a book about Crickets that he has memorized, and Ben also chose Green Eggs and Ham. Ben read with amazing expression, considering it was the first time he had ever read it.

Tomorrow is Build-A-Castle Day. The boys dragged a load of scrap wood to the back yard that our neighbor was throwing out, and I've promised that daddy would help them build something with it. Should be interesting.

Now, if you have time, go check out the new pictures.