All Things Supercinski

It has been a long time since I posted anything on the blog. Sorry, grandparents!

Annalise is mostly potty trained now. She still wears a diaper during naptime and bedtime, which makes teaching her how to get #2s in the potty more difficult, but she has only had one accident in two weeks. I am so impressed with how quickly she caught on to it. She gave us a lot of signs that she was ready, and it was pretty much smooth sailing. She even used a big potty in public for the first time last week! That same day, she was so brave that she got her first mini-adjustment at the chiropractor. She climbed up on the table all on her own, motivated by seeing Josiah get his adjustment first.

Josiah has been plugging through his Explode the Code workbooks and is reading up a storm. We are getting ready to start homeschooling more formally this fall, and we are all very excited. We are taking it slow and not rushing or pushing too hard, but he is very interested in doing his phonics lessons and workbooks together for 10-30 minutes a day, so I won’t make him stop, and will just kick it up a notch. A post on what we plan to do is coming soon.

The kids love going to the pool. Annalise, in true Annalise form, is quite a little fish, dunking her head under water, actually swimming about 10 feet at a time with a noodle tied around her chest, and jumping into my arms (dunking in half the time), over and over again.

I have been neglecting the blog the past few weeks as I have been making a little website for my Bradley class. I needed a place to post resources for my students (so I would stop flooding their inboxes), and a place to post birth stories. If any of my past students are reading this and want to share their birth story, send me an email and I will put it up. I have also been working on a website for our local chapter of La Leche League, but it is not up and ready yet. Who knew making simple (and I stress simple) websites would be so much fun? Maybe because Thomas does the hard parts.

This post is about a week late, but that’s what happens when I pick up a good novel and the carpets need steam cleaned, all in one week.

My little brother and sister-in-law welcomed their daughter, Maris Kate into the world about 10 days ago, and I got to meet her when she was just a wee three days old. Isn’t she precious?

We happened to be in my hometown right around her birth for my ten year reunion, which was a lot of fun. I had a great time catching up with friends and challenging my mind to try and place names with long forgotten faces. Here’s a shout out to all my old classmates who told me they followed my blog. Freaky, but I was encouraged to know that someone besides our parents reads this thing. Maybe I will try to resume blogging that isn’t so much about the kids and garden.

Another big milestone of that weekend was my first night away from Annalise. She and Josiah stayed with my mom and Woody and my grandparents, who were visiting all the way from Arizona. They thoroughly enjoyed their time with them, and we enjoyed getting to spend time with everyone as well. And we all survived!

24. The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer – I hesitate to add this to the list because I did not complete this book, just about a quarter of the 864 pages, but I spent quite a bit of time going through the parts applicable to me soon. If anyone is considering homeschooling using the classical method, this book would be so helpful to have around. I plan on purchasing it for our home use. I was highly encouraged and excited to begin more formal homeschooling after reading this.

25. The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin – This was a good book, and while I don’t agree with some of the things in it (who always agrees with everything in a book though?), I learned a lot. I would love to start attending births more someday in a supportive role, and I found portions of this book to be quite helpful in that aspect. I especially appreciated the section on laboring positions and plan to refer to it again the future.

26. The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michelle Young-Stone – I found this book on a reading blog that I stumbled upon, assuming it was a Christian blog and checked it out based on their review. While the story was quite captivating and the character development was very good, it is not my type of book and I’m not sure if I would recommend it.

27. There Is No Me Without You: One Woman’s Odyssey to Rescue Her Country’s Children by Melissa Fay Greene – I have had this book on my amazon wishlist for about four years now and I finally bought it. I could not put it down! This is an account of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa, specifically following a normal, middle-class Ethiopian woman who began caring for her country’s AIDS orphans during a time when they were highly stigmatized and left to the streets. The author follows some of the children through adoptions in the States. It was a wonderful book and I highly recommend it.

One of our friends from college got married last weekend here in College Station. It was a great time of visiting with friends we hadn’t seen, some in several years, some in just weeks. The wedding was a blast–one of the best dancing receptions in some time–though did anyone expect less from Jared?

We had some friends and their kids over for lunch on Saturday.

All of the kids posed for a picture. The baby that Josiah and Annalise are holding together is only three months old, can you believe it? He is huge! (Way to grow him, Erin!)

These are a few random pictures from last week that I find to be rather hilarious. First, Josiah can make a huge food baby I’m so proud! I have some awful pictures of myself making food babies on the beach in college, yikes.

Annalise had her first (and hopefully last) ride in the back of a police car at the Big Rigs event at the library.

She received a lot of accessories for her birthday. This is just a sampling of the ones that I didn’t pull out immediately for Operation Christmas Child.

• ShowArticle – Institute for Responsible Technology – Surov's hamsters are just the latest animals to suffer from reproductive disorders after consuming GMOs. In 2005, Irina Ermakova, also with the Russian National Academy of Sciences, reported that more than half the babies from mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks. This was also five times higher than the 10% death rate of the non-GMO soy group. The babies in the GM group were also smaller (see photo) and could not reproduce.
• Is Christianity Biased Toward Book Lovers? :: Desiring God –
• Warning, Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous To Your Health: Gear + Gadgets: GQ –
• If It Were Done When ‘Tis Done, Then ‘Twere Well It Were Done Quickly – Mark Steyn – The Corner on National Review Online – It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone.

  Right now, they can trade anything — abortion, death panels, whatever. The trick is to plant the seed and let the ratchet effect of Big Government take care of the rest.

I leave two kids coloring in the kitchen while I go in another room for just two minutes, and this is what came to find me…

The post-discipline washing:

And then we dressed up for a tea party.

This morning, we went to pick blueberries at a family’s home that grows an amazing amount of blueberries for people to come and pick and purchase. I was amazed at how many they had, and their garden was huge! My sweet neighbor came with me to pick and be an extra set of grown-up hands for the kids.

Annalise and Avery picking blueberries. Turns out, Annalise did not need much help. She was quite the little picker!

We picked for about 30-45 minutes and got all of these. I love the colors in this picture.

We had so much fun and might have to go back and do this again sometime!

Better late than never!

21. What I Thought I Knew by Alice Eve Cohen – I saw this book on some reading list somewhere (I forget), and the description intrigued me. The author wrote this memoir after her experience with infertility, adoption and finding out she was 6 months pregnant at the age of 44 (after being misdiagnosed with bladder disorders, cancer, etc.) Facing an unexpected and high risk pregnancy, she explores her options and shares honestly her experiences. It was an interesting read, but her values are totally opposite from mine, making it very difficult to relate to her and not as enjoyable of a book as I expected.

22. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman – I have intended to read this book for a couple years–ever since Thomas read it and told me all about it. (He wrote a few unpublished blog posts based on this book, I wonder if we can persuade him to post them?) The theme of this book is the replacement of the printed word with television, where everything–politics, religion, news, etc.–is presented as entertainment and the repercussions are a decline in society. There is much more, but I think everyone should read this book. It will change the way you view entertainment. From the author:

When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.

23. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls – Another memoir, but this one about a woman who was raised by vagrant parents who neglected their children in favor of gambling and drinking (her father) and artistic pursuits (her mother). This book was fascinating, and one of my favorite aspects of it was that the author was not complaining as she shared her amazing story. I feel that many memoirs tend to have a whining tone (see #21), but though the author was neglected by her parents, forced to eat out of trashcans as a little girl, and live in a falling down shack without electricity, she does not complain. Rather, her love for her parents and her respect for their ability to make their life seem like an adventure is what shines through.

We had a little birthday party for Annalise on Saturday. All three sets of grandparents attended along with one aunt and our next door neighbors (minus their dog). We did a monkey-themed birthday since Annalise is quite the little monkey–always climbing on things, and I thought it was appropriate for a two-year old. There is plenty of time for the princess stuff later.

On her actual birthday, Josiah was so sweet and wrapped up four of his cars in paper and scotch tape and gave them to her, along with one of his favorite stuffed animals. I was blown away by his generosity with her! He got frustrated when she kept giving everything back to him. :)

Annalise got a lot of dress-up accessories–the high heels are a favorite.

For her cake, I did Martha Stewart’s monkey cake. I tried a different chocolate icing, but it was so runny, I should have stuck with regular old buttercream. The monkey looks a little scary, but she was tasty.

We had a mini-banana hunt around the living room and played pin-the-tail on the monkey. Annalise successfully roped in all but two grandparents to participate in the blindfolded game. She was a sweetie and led many of them by their hands to the monkey.

She even had a cute monkey outfit to wear.

The afternoon ended without naps and a lot of bouncing and splashing around outside. Thomas’ parents brought this trash-to-treasure find for us that they acquired. It is a little sun-bleached, but it works great. The kids had a blast!

Both kids were asleep by 7:30 that night; it was a nice end to a great day!