The Cluttered Pantry

We are working our way through some of the Pre-school basics to see where Z got off track, and to help E get used to Dorchester prep. On the one hand, Z can explain in great detail the different habitats of the many animals she is fascinated by, and on the other, she stops at [...]

The Wee Kahunas are starting their mixed preschool/kindergarten curriculum this coming week. This is a self paced set of skill building and learning through play that we’ve curled together from two different online sources and a dozen books. I’m sure this program will evolve as we actually use it, but if the girls reaction to [...]

Each season change I’ve been trying to find new ways to get the girls to see beyond just noticing the temperature difference and to start anticipating the changes that will come. We have really large windows in the front of our house on each floor so I’ve taken to letting the girls use them [...]

E started out tiny, then spent the first two years of her life getting the minimum of nutrition that a baby can have and still thrive. Her body did that miraculous thing that nature knows to do and it conserved those calories for the importing things like brain cells and heart muscle but kept [...]

Each week we pick a theme that we reinforce with the art projects, “field trips”, cooking and play we do with the girls. This week is transportation. I asked the girls to go through their toy boxes and bring me toys that help us get where we we want to go.
My favorite of [...]

When we first got home, from Siberia, with the girls most of our focus was on trying to communicate, figuring out basic parenting and life skills, and getting calories -lots and lots and lots- of calories into the Wee Kahunas.
Once we got past the shock and awwwwww ( as in oh my goodness they [...]

Ok, so we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here….but at this point we are planning on a combination of montessouri pre-school and homeschool for the girls, at least for the first couple of years if possible.
There are lots of ways to do this, but regardless of the “school of thought” [...]

We’re starting the new year with both girls finally healthy again. It seems like we were passing out cough medicine and motrin by the bucket for a while there.
Life is hectic, not more than I guess you’d expect for a family with two toddlers, two dogs, and a small corporation to run. But hectic, [...]

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. We were just hoping it would be later.
First it was a small thud, then the pitter-patter of tiny feet. We raced up stairs and opened the nursery door and there she was. Zhanna had flung herself out of her crib. The hilarious part is that when [...]