Checking In (21w6d)

It seems to be the unfortunate truth that the crummy part of pregnancy passes more slowly than a small eternity, while the better part is over in a flash - I cannot believe how quickly time is passing!!

Feeling good, just nauseated most of the time - nothing to complain about. Life is good.

As of today.... we are an official homeschooling family! Hurray!!

I know I started "homeschooling" a month ago with homemade curricula, but let me say, friends.... never again. I am not a homemade-curriculum kind o' gal. It was time-consuming, confusing, and didn't go down very well with our son. You ladies out there who delight in researching and constructing your homeschool materials from scratch - I really take my hat off to you! You are amazing! It's just something that's not for me.

How did today go?

Not too badly, considering. The reading lesson went fairly smoothly, except for the last task which involved.... horror of horrors..... writing. That is, our son's most hated and loathed activity, to be avoided at all costs (which he systematically has done for his entire childhood). I thought "100 Easy Lessons" was non-writing, but there is a wee bit of writing in it. Oh well, we'll see.

The Sonlight curriculum went really quickly - much more so than I expected! Their real books selection is truly excellent and includes a wide variety of the best literature.

Two quick criticisms:

One, there is a lot of page-flipping in the lesson plan notebook - a bit cumbersome.

Two, we had major trauma when we reached the end of the first chapter of "The Boxcar Children" and then told our son "No more till tomorrow!" I guess it's a good thing that he was upset about that! At first I held to that, but later I threw caution to the wind and we read three more chapters. I figured that since I actually have the first 20 or so book in the series, we could just keep reading through the series when we run out of chapters in the first book.

I also skipped the discussion questions (the typical kind, "What kinds of food did the children have with them?" etc. etc. etc.) Right now, those are still in the "pulling teeth" category with our guy. May add them in at a later date, but for now he has made his comprehension completely clear by the fact that he is now basically living out the book series in his own fantasy world. Good stuff.

All in all, everything took only about 45 minutes. Perfect for now!

In other news...

We are now almost through our third week of being gluten-free (as a couple; we haven't tried to impose it on the kidlets). It has been fairly easy, especially after the uber-difficult VLC diet! Not bad at all.

Within days of starting, DH had started losing weight and noticed the disappearance of an arthritic complaint in his shoulder. And, most importantly - and amazingly! - by the end of the first five days, he was almost completely rid of the chronic stomach troubles which have plagued him for his entire adult life (far longer than the 10 years I've known him). WOW! We were completely amazed!!

But then I realized..... Oh, crumbs! We started out on this as a bit of a lark..... but having now noticed such amazing effects with DH, we are now going to have to stay GF (gluten-free) by necessity. Hobbies are a dangerous thing!!! Be forewarned!

So now we are starting off on the adventure of becoming a gluten-free family! Nothing strenuous, nothing at the celiac-level (i.e. cleansing one's entire house of every speck of gluten), but wheat is definitely out for DH, and I'm doing it too (though I'll probably cheat every now and then). It's fun, though! And I made some grain-free muffins on Sunday (almond flour!) that were honestly some of the best muffins I've ever eaten. So it's an adventure!

I am also thinking of taking the plunge and going dairy-free too.... not because I want to.... I have an even bigger love affair with dairy than I do with wheat.... but because the only time I saw my problem with fatigue vanish was when I was doing the Paleo diet (which is grain-free, sugar-free, and.... *sigh*.... dairy-free). Bummer! But worth an experiment. I'm so tired of dealing with fatigue!! So I'm going to give it a go as of Wednesday. I'll report back in.

DH is losing weight, but as for me - I am still gaining at an alarming pace! My body really seems to cling to every last calorie when I'm pregnant. Not thrilled about it, but it is sooooo much better than losing weight rapidly due to active HG! So I'm not complaining!

However, I'm tired of stressing about it, so I finally emailed our midwife and asked if I could stop keeping track of my weight. She said sure! Actually, I think her actual words were more along the lines of, "This is YOUR baby, YOUR body, and YOUR birth, so make your decisions and stop asking for permission to do things!" LOL We have the most awesome midwives around here! I love it.

We've rescheduled our vacation for November - I am already guessing that we'll get sick AGAIN just in time to have to cancel (as I said, we really have an uncanny ability to get sick just in time for holidays and planned events), but I'm going to do my best! AND by cutting one night off of our stay and going during the week, we are going to be able to shave $110 off of our hotel bill! Awesome!

Okay, I would write more, but I'm just feeling too nauseated at the moment! Love to all! Have a great week!