Another Day, Another Lesson

As a stay-at-home mom, I know that it is important to teach and train your child. To me that means getting them out into some fresh air to run around and let loose some energy, exploring leaves, sticks and bugs. I don't want my kids to be inside all the time, glued to the TV. But I've run into a problem with Dylan. He's starting to only want to be inside. Before we've even gotten to the end of the driveway, he's insisting on going home and I have to coax him to come down.
While we're walking up and down the street, he's looking all around him, looking for something that might be creeping up to him. I feel like part of his apprehension is my fault. The few times we've been out lately I've timed it wrong to where we are outside with very LOUD vehicles. He doesn't like this one bit. Yesterday we were out when the garbage truck came by. Talk about loud and talk about a little child stuck to my leg. Today we were out when this huge, loud school bus drove by. Now this isn't just the normal school bus. Somehow it is super loud and super fast. I'm sure it's just a normal bus and making normal noise, but to my little two and a half year old, all these things are freight trains coming right at him. What is this bus doing driving around anyway?! I guess it's practice or something, but give everyone in the neighborhood a break already!


In my attempts to get him to not be so scared, I try to have him wave at the drivers and to reassure him that everything is okay, but it falls on deaf ears. So maybe for the next few days, I should take note of when the bus and garbage trucks come through the neighborhood that way we can avoid these disturbances and enjoy some fresh air. Dylan used to bug us so much to go outside, but now he usually tells me "no" when I ask him if he wants to go outside. That's kind of sad. I hope this phase doesn't last too long.




But that's not the only loud noises he doesn't like. He's always telling me to turn my music down or whatever I'm watching on TV. I wonder if he's sensitive to loud noises, if he's just going through a phase, or if he's just doing it because I'm watching/listening to something that he doesn't want to watch/listen to, which I wouldn't put past him.


Since we are home, I want to use our time wisely by teaching them (well, mostly Dylan for now) some school lessons. He knows his ABC's, I'm trying to teach him to distinguish the upper and lower case letters, he can count confidently to 10, is working on counting to 20, and knows his shapes and colors pretty well. I don't have any plans on homeschooling our kids. My hearts desire is to send them to a Montessori type school or a Christian private school. Bart wants to send them to public school (that's a completely different argument that I don't want to go into now). But I have a few years to save and plan for their education. What can I do for them right now? That's what I'm working on. I'm looking for something that will get their minds going and will eventually give them a head start when they start school. I'm going to start suffering the Web for something that looks like it produces results and allows the kids to have fun at the same time. Hopefully by next week I'll have something lined up and can start implementing some new things to get their minds going.


Does anyone out there have any suggestions? Thanks