Skewl

We're really ramping up for school here at Casa De Swindler. It's on everyone's minds, but I think more mine than anyone else's. LOL I'm really getting excited about it, and sort of melancholy. It's the end of an era. The days of spending the whole day with my kids is nearly at an end. They aren't babies anymore, and I can say with some certainty that those days are gone forever for me. The house is going to feel lonely this year, and even lonelier next year when Brooke is going to school full-time.

I've been working hard with the kids on their homeschooling, and they've been doing really well. Brooke is starting to sound some words out with my help and encouragement, and Corbin is reading everything. It's sad for me that I'm not going to be a part of that life anymore for Corbin. He's going to get all of the education that he needs from school, and I won't be there to see that light bulb go off when he finally "gets it" about something; like when he realized the other day that any number minus itself is always zero. I'm going to have to give that up. I know it's selfish of me to make it all about myself. I just am going to really miss that part of his life.

Having said that, I'm really mostly looking forward to school. It's an exciting time for both of the kids. They are both pretty social little people, and Corbin will really enjoy spending time at Kindergarten with the other kids. Brooke will have fun at PreK, I'm sure, and since she hasn't really formed any real friendships yet, I'm looking forward to that aspect of it. I'm excited about field trips, and hearing about what they did new and fun at school. It will challenge them and give them something fun to do during the day. Not like at home, where we pretty much do nothing once homeschooling is done, other than cleaning or going to the store.

Along the same lines of growing up, last year, I had the kids draw pictures for me. I didn't specify what they should draw at that time, because I didn't think it would matter for Brooke, and to be honest I think Corbin had already started drawing his when I got the idea. (once again, click on any picture to see a larger view).

So this was Corbin's picture from last year:

It's a picture of Optimus Prime. I know, you're shocked that Corbin would draw a picture of Optimus Prime. It was drawn 10/7/09. As you can see, Optimus is driving on the green grass, with the blue sky overhead and the sun is shining down on him. The two yellow circles on the front are his eyes, and the circular rectangle thing in the back of the truck is the engine. I was pretty impressed with the picture, considering that he was only 4 1/2 at the time.

This is Brooke's picture from last year:

You can see that it doesn't have a lot of "true" detail, but the picture is supposed to be of Brooke and Princess Ariel. If you look at it carefully, you can kind of make out that some of the scribbles could be body parts (look to the bottom right where the green scribbles are, and you can see that it could be a person), but to be honest, I'm not certain that was intentional. She was almost 3 at the time she drew this.

This year (and hopefully from now on) I had both kids draw a picture of our house and our family. Here is Corbin's picture from this year (yesterday).

You can see pretty obviously what is what, but I'll explain it. That little Flinstone house :n) is our house. I'm not sure if one of the squares is supposed to be a door or windows. The first person he drew was Daddy, bottom right. the piece sticking out of the chin is his beard. Above that is Mom, with the crazy hair. To the left of Mom is Corbin, and to the left of him is Brooke, and to her left is LeeLoo with her big doggie nose. And, of course, his name is at the top.

This is Brooke's picture from this year, yesterday. She did much better this year, but it still needs a lot of explaining, so I circled each individual part to explain. First, this is the picture in its entirety:

I know, looking straight on at it, it doesn't look like much, but all of the elements are there. I sat with her when she was drawing, and she narrated the entire thing as she drew, so this is all from her; not "interpreted" by me. Here we go:

This part is our house. A shows the "roof" of the house. B shows the door to the house. C shows the "color" (outside walls) of the house.

This is Daddy. I find it interesting that both kids drew House, Dad, Mom, Themself, Sibling and then dog. :n) Anyway, Daddy doesn't have a nose, as it might appear in this picture. He actually has his mouth open in an O shape, which Brooke thought was HILARIOUS. "He's saying, 'Ahhhhhh!' " She laughed about that for a long time. :n)

This is a picture of me. You can make out the circle of my head, and my two eyes. Right under that is my mouth, which isn't smiling, but I don't think it's frowning, either. I think it's a straight across mouth. My arms are sticking out to the sides, and my legs go down into Tim's face. lol

This part is the picture of Brooke. Try to look past the brown lines (that's the K from her name) and you can sort of make out that there was a circle for her head, and then she colored over it. Interestingly enough, the scribble right there is her blankie, because she "feels nice and cozy in it".

At this point, she was ready to draw Corbin. She decided to use yellow here. I'm not sure what that means exactly. :n) But Corbin is the yellow head and body. Being a different color, you can really make out where he is in this picture.

Finally she drew LeeLoo. I think she looks very much like a person in this picture, which I find cute. She often refers to LeeLoo as her "sister".

And, obviously, she wrote her name at the top of the picture. The improvement is pretty fun to see, compared to last year. :n)