Leaping From The Box

My note from The Universe this morning:

The greatest gift a parent can give a child, Karen, is the ability to become independently happy.

And the greatest gift a child can give a parent is exercising that ability.

This is a good note for me today. I think I have mentioned previously that our 2 year old granddaughter (2.5 in just a few more weeks) is living with us now, along with her mommy. Her mommy (our daughter) is going back to college for a degree, along with working part-time. So while Mommy is away from home and/or studying, Grandma (or rather Mum-Mum) gets the care of little Miss Munchkin. And it just so happens that Mum-Mum is in great demand even when Mommy is available. Most days, I don’t mind. Some days I do. I find it quite a different matter to have care of a toddler again at (close to) age 50 than I did at age 25. My patience level is not what it was and it seems that my hormones usually coincide with her bad days / teething days. Not a good combination, believe you me!

Miss Munchkin is normally pretty good at playing on her own, but she is only two and I have to continually remind myself of that as she pulls on my arm, wanting Mum-Mum to do this or that with her. Usually it’s just as I am attempting to click on something or do a cut-and-paste on the computer and the tug on my arm throws the mouse into some direction that I had no intention of taking it. Plus she is just beginning to string words together into full sentences and many words are still not decipherable without actually seeing what she wants or needs or having her give the ASL sign. But she’s gaining on the language ability and I will keep working on my patience level. I thought I had this patience thing down to an art with my own children, but I guess I need more practice in its application!

In the coming months I will be chronicling Miss Munchkin’s unschooling adventures here, since she is the next generation unschooler in our household. My focus for many years has been on unschooling high school (transcripts, resources, preparation for college), but our youngest finished his homeschooling this spring, at just about the same time that Miss Munchkin moved in. So now my focus has turned to toddlerhood and the preschooling years. So stay tuned — see how well Mum-Mum makes the mental and physical leap from high school to preschool – and what new insights on unschooling Miss Munchkin will give Mum-Mum!

How are you celebrating Learn Nothing Day?

So far we’ve mostly been cleaning up after a sick little toddler. Baths, showers, clothes … it’s been a long week and just when we think she’s on the mend, then she’s not.

We’ve also done some decluttering, moving extra stuff to the garage and hanging some posters. So far I am pretty sure I have learned nothing new … how about you?

My regular readers no doubt have been wondering about my blogging absence. My apologies for leaving you hanging on the Audacity of Hope review. I do hope to finish that up soon. Life intruded, as it often does. In late April our daughter and two-year-old granddaughter came to live with us. And just as suddenly, two weeks later, our youngest child decided to move back to Alabama. He had turned eighteen in March and decided his life was in Alabama. We wish him luck, miss him terribly, and hope he finds what he needs.

So, within a two-week time period from late April to early May, our household increased from four to six and then went down to five. Miss Munchkin, our granddaughter, is a very busy two-year-old and it is taking Grandma quite some time to adjust from having quiet peaceful days to busy toddler-chasing days while Miss Munchkin’s Mommy goes back to work fulltime. It has been a long time since I had a two-year-old in the household full time and there are days that I am sure I am much too old for it all! I think, though, that we are finally beginning to settle into a bit of a routine.

Beginning Again

So it appears that, instead of being done with homeschooling children, I am beginning all over again! Miss Munchkin is at that age where she soaks up everything, misses nothing, and repeats everything you say. Words are beginning to string together to create short sentences. She is getting taller and we have to keep pushing things further and further back on the counters. You can read about the fun we are having with the refrigerator on my Musings, Mischief and Mayhem blog, Refrigerator Fascination. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!

It has been a number of years since I had my toddlers, so I would love to hear ways in which to keep her brain working and her body out of trouble! She has been learning ASL for the last year from the Signing Time series and we just received Volume 11: My Neighborhood and Volume 12: Time to Eat in the mail this week. Her very favorite activity is playing with her wooden ABC puzzles. But we need something new and frankly, Grandma is feeling more tired than creative. Access to the public library is a once a week thing right now, as transportation is a bit of an issue. So we need simple things we can do inside an apartment, as it is now 97 degrees outside here in north Florida!

One great thing we did earlier this week was move Uncle Charles’s discarded mattress to the living room floor. Oh, that is great fun to jump on and dance on and tumble on and run around. Did I mention that Miss Munchkin is active? Grandma is certainly getting her workout these days!